God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

The 11th century Jewish philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol wrote "And they said: At the head of all understanding – is realizing what is and what cannot be, and the consoling of what is not in our power to change."[14]

"One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night." -Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

Vessel

Consent

Your eyes widened
The vastness in the blue of your waters,
like a ship fighting a storm.
I stared at them,
Finally I knew
where I was-
On land
and needed to send you the signal,
to bring you back.

12/3/13

Night Still Comes

"My brain makes drugs to keep me slow,
A hilarious joke for some dead pharaoh.
But now, not even the masons know
What drug will keep night from coming." -Neko Case

Closer than a piece of paper could slip through.

Closer than the darkness that surrounds a fragment of light.

Closer than one can call comfortable.

Close enough to feel a heartbeat.

Close enough to hear the breath.

Close enough to smell the scent of skin.

Close enough to lose sleep.

Close enough to fall in.

10/15/13

You were just the last to know.

stresS

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over

thinker

Overthinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Over thinker

Critical Analysis

Why do I write? Why did I write it?
Better question...why do you read it?
I am the creator. You are the voyeur.
I bleed on the page.
Are you the razor?
Some people are razors.
Some people may be the coolest razors you'll ever meet.
Either way, you end up cut.

Greek

A thunderous banquet,
   before the great purge.
Electric
   and selfish,
for body
   and mind.
Rumbling with vessels engorged and alive,
   Can I be part of that fire...
      before it dies?

http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/10/can-we-be-lovers-not-have-sex/

Cancer (Jun 21 – Jul 22)

Thursday, Oct 3rd, 2013

• YESTERDAY
• TODAY
• TOMORROW

You have a sixth sense which enables you to tell when the tides are changing -- and you Crabs typically do this better than any other sign. You feel what's happening in your gut and can sense if something is wrong. Although your tendency now may be to say too much, rather than too little, there are some ideas which must be shared. Just do it as kindly and lovingly as possible. Making someone else feel guilty won't make the situation better. Use your superhero powers for the good of all.

What does it all mean?

Last night I dreamt that a black feather landed on my hand.
In the dream I was reclined somewhere outside, head back, eyes closed,
when the feather landed on my left hand it startled me; my eyes opened in the dream....
And then I woke up.

"Love is a blind whore with mental disease and no sense of humor." -Unknown

“A kiss is a secret which takes the lips for the ear.”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

“My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence.”
― Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac

My Fellow Stranger

I went to the ocean,

I went to the sea,

I went to fill the void,

That was becoming me.

I swam out into the waves,

Nighttime darkened it all,

I went under to be tossed,

I went under to feel small.

Instead of being swallowed,

Instead of being taken down,

I was met with peacefulness,

Peace strong enough for me to drown.

"I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best. " Frida Kahlo

Excerpt: "The Cooking Lesson"

"Instead, I was carried to the infirmary, where they fed me crushed ice for my ravaged tongue, and bland chicken-noodle soup with crackers that I could hardly get down. After this seizure, aside from from aching joints, aside from my burning, bitten tongue, I felt more ethereal, deeply frightening sensation, a shattering of an organ without a name. I lay there thinking of Irving swiveling his huge hips, of the flattened sandwich, of the way I'd lost my head, and I began contemplating a different path. But it is one thing to understand, and another to overcome.
In the crank-up hospital bed with its crib side panels, I sketched out a campaign of self-improvement. I made iron resolutions, swearing off the trance of flames and lies of shining convenience. I got high just thinking about hard work, climbing the corporate ladder, wearing the a blue suit in a city where no one knew who I was. But my inflamed tongue was a thick, foreign thing in my mouth, and I feared it would never be able to shape true words now that I wanted desperately to speak them." -Michael Blaine

https://thesunmagazine.org/issues/274

My first music moment for Monday

Some songs you just have to sit silent for.

“When the ax came into the forest the trees said the handle is one of us.”
― Alice Walker

It's like life...

It’s like playing hide and go seek with the

Things that make sense

There they are on the surface

Then the tide shifts

And everything goes to static

It’s like the Chinese food that burns my tongue

I eat it for the nostalgia not for the taste.

It’s like the worn out shoes that step on a dime

And can tell you if its heads up.

We stand on the corner

Traffic blowing by

Step off the curb

Waiting for the right turn

Blink-blink don’t walk

Don’t run. Don’t move.

The next move

In the crosswalk

It’ll be the last one

That car

Blowing the light

Late for dinner

Late for life

Will cut you deep

Right there in the intersection

Cut you in half

Leaving the emblem of life

On your abdomen

Bleeding out

They don’t even turn on the siren.

"You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you." -Rwandan proverb

Flames in flames

In the embers flight,
Pasts float in the night.
Fire burns paper's pulp, ink is no more.
Words that were meant to scorn, and lust, none shall now mourn.
Even in the firey wake, our baptism is half-done.
Our sins are embedded further, than the flames can ever come.

7-29-08

Whitman for Wednesday

OUT of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot,
Down from the shower’d halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,
From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,
From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist,
From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease,
From the myriad thence-arous’d words,
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,
From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,
Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly,
A man—yet by these tears a little boy again,
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,
Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them,
A reminiscence sing.

What would you confess?

http://www.postsecret.com/

Every time I think...I think of this.

Today's muck

I. Faith

Feeling it burn

Opening up

It flickers

It dances

It moves when I breathe.

It comes close to burning my skin,

but I pull away before the lick.

The anticipation is enough to elevate my heart rate.

My pupils dilate.

My mouth is ready.

II. Gutter

I like the curve of it

How it nestles

Fits neatly in my hand

Responds well to my touch

I push

It pushes back.

Harder

Harder.

III. For the next one

I want to make out with the least available person on the planet.

I want to be ignored by her friends and sit annoyingly by at a party.

I want to wrestle with her demons and lose.

I want to wear the badges and bruises of defeat.

I want to hear her confess her sins in her sleep.

I want to wake up and question the lines of her face and her journal.

I want to watch her from a distance as she flirts with other mates.

I want to drunkenly argue about how much I care and how much she doesn’t.

I want to despise her family and avoid trips to see them with every excuse in the book.

I want to confess my sins in the night.

I want to ignore her.

I want to write lines.

I want the right lines.

IV.

Love

I want to drown by the power of a damn bursting open

Replenishing the valley it left dry.

In secret

Hidden in plain sight,

Like a stop sign late at night,

   headlights illuminate the possibilities

 run it

  stop it

   begin again

The smell of sweetness in the late summer air

  Dry grass longing for a drink

     Craving the heaviness of rain’s lonesome fall

Walking down the flight of stairs,

Feeling the hardwoods under foot,

Onto the porch

   To watch the shadows

      My familiars

        My friends

Air

Light

Night

The possibilities.

Post #187: A Cup of Tea

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!"

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"

http://deoxy.org/koan/1

My Type

My ideal

is covered in angles

bones that stretch out

   and force the flesh to hide them.

 My love

  a few scars

   especially on the myocardium.

At night

I can hear her breathe

                                                                                                                                

I can feel her warmth

I can taste the significance of all she is on my tongue.

Her personality

The complexity of a forgotten forest at the end of someone’s unfinished novel

Still stuck in the teeth of a typewriter

Stored in a dead relative's basement.

Her wit like Englishmen in a pub

Her sex like sailors ashore after lost for decades sending S-O-S, S-O-S, hoping that the sea would take them, and carry their voices home.

Her beauty like a painting you missed the first time at the museum

  It stops you on the way out

    As you fumble with your ticket stub and keys

      And finally see the work hanging on the wall

        Ready to explode off the canvas

          Ready to take you

            Ready to make paint chips of your being

              Ready to weave you into the very thing you desire.

My kind of poet

Poet Neil Hilborn

Such a great poem.

careless

I was fine

Till this morning

When I woke up

empty.

Worried about the alarm

But it’s my day off.

And tonight,

I will drink

Be filled

But the void remains

I will sit with another

Under the night’s sky

Last day of the meteor shower

Romance and hopeful kisses will be

And yet,

I still remain

Empty.

McDaniel always pierces me

“Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth,
like a mermaid of the soil, just to be next to your bones.”


I want that.


“I used to think love was two people sucking
on the same straw to see whose thirst was stronger,

but then I whiffed the crushed walnuts of your nape,
traced jackals in the snow-covered tombstones of your teeth.

I used to think love was a non-stop saxophone solo
in the lungs, till I hung with you like a pair of sneakers

from a phone line, and you promised to always smell
the rose in my kerosene. I used to think love was terminal

pelvic ballet, till you let me jog beside while you pedaled
all over hell on the menstrual bicycle, your tongue

ripping through my prairie like a tornado of paper cuts.
I used to think love was an old man smashing a mirror

over his knee, till you helped me carry the barbell
of my spirit back up the stairs after my car pirouetted

in the desert. You are my history book. I used to not believe
in fairy tales till I played the dunce in sheep’s clothing

and felt how perfectly your foot fit in the glass slipper
of my ass. But then duty wrapped its phone cord

around my ankle and yanked me across the continent.
And now there are three thousand miles between the u

and s in esophagus. And being without you is like standing
at a cement-filled wall with a roll of Yugoslavian nickels

and making a wish. Some days I miss you so much
I’d jump off the roof of your office building

just to catch a glimpse of you on the way down. I wish
we could trade left eyeballs, so we could always see

what the other sees. But you’re here, I’m there,
and we have only words, a nightly phone call - one chance

to mix feelings into syllables and pour into the receiver,
hope they don’t disassemble in that calculus of wire.

And lately - with this whole war thing - the language machine
supporting it - I feel betrayed by the alphabet, like they’re

injecting strychnine into my vowels, infecting my consonants,
naming attack helicopters after shattered Indian tribes:

Apache, Blackhawk; and West Bank colonizers are settlers,
so Sharon is Davey Crockett, and Arafat: Geronimo,

and it’s the Wild West all over again. And I imagine Picasso
looking in a mirror, decorating his face in war paint,

washing his brushes in venom. And I think of Jenin
in all that rubble, and I feel like a Cyclops with two eyes,

like an anorexic with three mouths, like a scuba diver
in quicksand, like a shark with plastic vampire teeth,

like I’m the executioner’s fingernail trying to reason
with the hand. And I don’t know how to speak love

when the heart is a busted cup filling with spit and paste,
and the only sexual fantasy I have is busting

into the Pentagon with a bazooka-sized pen and blowing
open the minds of generals. And I comfort myself

with the thought that we’ll name our first child Jenin,
and her middle name will be Terezin, and we’ll teach her

how to glow in the dark, and how to swallow firecrackers,
and to never neglect the first straw; because no one

ever talks about the first straw, it’s always the last straw
that gets all the attention, but by then it’s way too late.”


And that.


“Hey you, dragging the halo-
how about a holiday in the islands of grief?

Tongue is the word I wish to have with you.
Your eyes are so blue they leak.

Your legs are longer than a prisoner's
last night on death row.
I'm filthier than the coal miner's bathtub
and nastier than the breath of Charles Bukowski.

You're a dirty little windshield.

I'm standing behind you on the subway,
hard as calculus. My breath
be sticking to your neck like graffiti.

I'm sitting opposite you in the bar,
waiting for you to uncross your boundaries.

I want to rip off your logic
and make passionate sense to you.

I want to ride in the swing of your hips.

My fingers will dig in you like quotation marks,
blazing your limbs into parts of speech.

But with me for a lover, you won't need
catastrophes. What attracted me in the first place
will ultimately make me resent you.

I'll start telling you lies,
and my lies will sparkle,
become the bad stars you chart your life by.

I'll stare at other women so blatantly
you'll hear my eyes peeling,

because sex with you is like Great Britain:
cold, groggy, and a little uptight.

Your bed is a big, soft calculator
where my problems multiply.

Your brain is a garage
I park my bullshit in, for free.

You're not really my new girlfriend,
just another flop sequel of the first one,
who was based on the true story of my mother.

You're so ugly I forgot how to spell.

I'll cheat on you like a ninth grade math test,
break your heart just for the sound it makes.

You're the 'this' we need to put an end to.
The more you apologize, the less I forgive you.

So how about it?”
― Jeffrey McDaniel


Yes.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/73204.Jeffrey_McDaniel

Interesting interview

"We’re naturals. It makes sense. We all do this everyday: focus on a series of small and meaningless tasks to pass the time, try to preserve our memories without wallowing in grief, and hope our lives will add up to some kind of tribute. Of course we’re good at scrapbooking. Scraps are all we have."

http://therumpus.net/2013/08/the-rumpus-interview-with-justin-st-germain/

late nights

Because I can't stay so far from not knowing the truth. I'd rather have the loss than the not knowing.
I'm a slave to it.
Fuck.

I want to throw myself at it 
over and over
until I break.

http://inenglishpleaseblog.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/word-of-the-week-28/

Norman Mailer quotes

"It's a misperception of me that I am a wild man — I wish I still were. I'm 68 years old. The rage now is, oh, so deep it's almost comfortable. It has even approached the point where I can live with it philosophically. The world's not what I want it to be. But then no one ever said I had the right to design the world."

 Time Magazine, Sep. 30, 1991

"We sail across dominions barely seen, washed by the swells of time. We plow through fields of magnetism. Past and future come together on thunderheads and our dead hearts live with lightning in the wounds of the Gods."

 Ancient Evenings

"There is nothing safe about sex. There never will be."

 The International Herald Tribune, Jan. 24, 1992

With the taste of fresh kisses still on my mouth,

I walked a few blocks towards home.

As I passed a school,

This sickening feeling came over me,

I grabbed the chain-link fence to brace myself.

It was a part of me breaking. It hurt like venom.

I walked a drunken line around the corner and sat.

I repeated words.

I took in some air, some life.

I let go,

As much as I could.

brief moment

Who was the first one to get inside?

Who made you hide in the safety of your solitude?

Don't be mute.

Contrasts

Contrasts

Between light and dark

Between pleasure and pain

Are blurred.

She is familiar

Like a part I left standing at a far off place

Somewhere in my travels

Who has stopped in again to say,

“I’m here. I’m here again.”

At the edge of that cliff

We parted ways,

And although I did not jump

My soul left something

And she found it

Fed it

And brought it back.

out of my

I'm not a passive person

Allowing life to wash over me

I feel the contrary

I wake

I eat

I drink.

Then I dive into the different manias that propel me in life.

School offers countless interactions with like-minded-drifters and unemployed-poets.

On my rides,

through the city,

Alone

like the wolf I am,

I make the neighborhood mine,

I know the shadows, trees, 

The cracks in the sidewalk,

I smoke in the hidden places.

I know who's home.

I observe.

I may be a stranger to these parts,

But I live among you,

looking passive,

heaving forward.

"It slipped my mind
And for a time
I felt completely free

Oh what a troubled,
Silent, poor boy
A pawn into a queen

I laugh now
But later's not so easy
I've gotta stop,
The will is strong, but the flesh is weak
Guess that's it
I've made my bed, I'm lying in it"

Cut

You’ll never find me there

In all the familiar places

Now I sit

Under the moon

Glistening

Like I never have

Before

With stardust

And clarity

Not under

Your dark clothe

Smothered

By hope

By the thoughts

Of a future

Of what could be.

Farther, further, forward. I cut through.

The Dual Nature of Being

• Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.  – E.L. Doctorow

[B]ut I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; . . . no, it was in my own person that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience. . . .
[However,] this brief condescension to my evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul. And yet I was not alarmed; the fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had made discovery. It was a fine . . . day. . . . I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed, promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin. After all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled, comparing myself with other men, comparing my active goodwill with the lazy cruelty of their neglect. And at the very moment of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid nausea and the most deadly shuddering. . . . I began to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of obligation. I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy. I was once more Edward Hyde.

-DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Wanton Soup

My horoscope said, “Nothing is gained by overstating your case today.” But how can I let my words not spill out of my mouth,

Held wide open by the universe flooding it with uncertainty and want.

“Endless rambling” like a car with a loose muffler; that’s me.

“Inflating your ego might backfire...” And three, two, one, “POP.”

These manifestations of the mind fulfill the pleasures of the night, but in the brightness of day all those images and moments of heart beats fall back into the cracks and remind us that we are unaware pawns

We are the unaware populous of destitute conditions. Seeking to capture a butterfly that will burst into fire in our closed hand.

We can’t find ourselves unless we stop looking.

We are like vapors touching a void.

We are like newts failing to evolve.

We are like Quasimodo ringing the bell for sanctuary just as the wrecking ball hits the tower.

So there I go,

overstating my case. Just like I do....

Just like they knew

I would.

After all, it is not the words that break us. It is the silence.

            

Summer

Hola companeros,

I am happy to be heading into summer. What it means for me; picnics in the park, long bike rides, camping, good times with good friends.
My vision of summer is skewed by my childhood nostalgia. I rode my bike, as an ambassador of the block. I took inventory of every sidewalk crack. I was the leader of the neighborhood kid-militia. The canal banks were to the south of my house -- that was an extension of our backyard. Our dogs would swim and chase sticks. The water would rush out of the city to the fields, we were a fleeting glance before the water gave life to the crops.
Nothing can come close to the summers of childhood. But we try.

Fire Steel

Today I tried out my new fire steel and made a good little fire in my hobo stove. I had hot chocolate in less than ten minutes.

This is a typical day in Portland, overcast, drizzly . . . but the element of fire and hot beverage made it quite pleasant.
I used Cedar bark I had collected from the neighborhood as my tinder. Fun fun.