Mentor (April 2009)

I guy once tried to teach me how to eat pussy

Something about making a person just slightly uncomfortable,

…sweeping them off their feet, then diving right in

and I wonder,

Does this make him a mentor?

If I had been less embarrassed

and more able to pay attention

I am sure I would be a stronger person today.

Instead my red face died in laughter,

tried in laughter to say I’m young and unready

But I did learn from him.

A giant intimidating, man among men, bar fights and sexcapades

Yet an artist, a potter

his trade, his love distanced

Had I met a man so lonely and less able to express it? Yet when he told me, how much he missed me, in embarrassed undertones but direct, my heart sank.

Sexist jokes and other forms of willful ignorance and other forms of forced disrespect to show who was in and who was not

Don’t dare compare to lonely strangers embracing, regardless of your political correctness.

Putting trust in a strangers’ purchase of “fruit punch”

that turns out to be fruit punch,

because he wants you to tag along…

somehow turns creepy back alley bars, pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers

into shared possibilities to acknowledge

all people are worthy.

… Something about making a person just slightly uncomfortable,

sweeping them off their feet, then diving right in.

***************************************************************************

This will have spacing issues.

Half Written Things from 2009

Kt asked for an update... so here are some of the things I have written but will probably never finish.

To Be on the Radio

Yesterday we played, a new game that we had all created

We pretended to be our dads, So I was a baker, and he was a security guard

All day the sun, shined down us you can’t believe the fun.

I showed off your Badge, and we looked at all the differences they had.

Hey Papa, I heard your name on the radio today.

Hey Papa, will we live like the radio stars

They call out your name, people call in to tell them where we live

And I think they

Might want to bring us sweets and flowers

Oh the radio, always plays the best of music

The latest star, is mentioned so everyone knows who they are

Maybe one day, I could be a DJ too, and then all the people

Would hear my voice and ask about me too.

Hey Papa, I heard your name on the radio today.

Hey Papa, will we live like the radio stars

They call out your name, but the people sound angry, they don’t seem normal

And I think they,

Maybe shouldn’t tell these people where we live.

My teacher asked us what we wanted to do when we grew up.

But after I spoke, she said that “my people were greedy”

And I didn’t know what she meant, but I looked around and the kids made faces

So I just sat down without saying anything.

Hey Papa, I heard your name on the radio today.

Hey Papa, will we live like the radio stars

They call out your name, and I don’t like it, they freighted me,

And I think they

Are on their way here.


********During the Rwandan Genocide people announced the locations of families to be killed.I was trying to think about how a child would perceive this.

Shallow Diving

So far I only know you like a shallow diver

Barely scratched the surface and I’m wondering bout your purpose here

On this earth, please

can we take it deeper, these

conversations revolve around going to shows

and we both know how that goes,

but I’m wondering what moves you


Hey There

Hey there, have you peeled back your mask yet?

Spoken with your own voice

Projected anything you haven’t protested

or protected us from yet?

I wanna hear the real you, whats your name and where you been?

I asked your friends, they said you’re funny.

I asked your coworkers, they couldn’t spot you.

You answered Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent,

but without implying heroics on the other end.

I just wonder if the halved words and sentences you write

have anything to do with the sacrifice


Dive Bar Beauty

Standing at the bar bare shouldered,

smoldered in lines, blush and mascara

These drunken guys be yappin bout they’d love to hold her,

But I sometimes wonder if in the morning they can bear ya

No offense, it’s not the way you dress that sends a message

like ”please demean me”

More the way you hold yourself, half slunk over, hip stuck out and lips a poutin

Right now you’re saying “you don’t know me, you can’t judge me, haven’t seen me”

Drunken eyes scream “please help me out, I been hurt and now I‘m doubtin.”


Simple

I went through the light,

Passed Hephaestus with his hammer wailing

The big red doors, the sirens blaring

Nearing the video store where I once put my hand in another’s



To find love in another room. He snuck away from the funeral that day. Hoping to spy some fair lady, vulnerable and open. As vulnerable as he was. She didn’t have to be mourning; he was open to the possibilities, perhaps a caretaker. For caretaking too is a type of vulnerability. So wound up in the self, intent to spend effort , exhorting in all manners to help heal, well one intent on manipulating is quite open to manipulation, he was after all entitled to the part of crying fool.



It doesn’t matter

how many earrings ride your ears

It doesn’t matter

How loud the people are with the victory cheers

It doesn’t matter

How the crowd feels when the show is done

Cuz a losers still a loser man

Even when hes won

Confidence

I heard that pride fuels accomplishment

Confidence

I heard that accomplishment fuels pride

Confidence

I read that we are all the same man

Confidence

I learned that confidence is whats inside

Hold up

How can you say that the people don’t matter

Catch you playing for the crowd, with your paintings and poetic chatter

How you gonna say that your friends aint there

When they look you in the eye man and they say that they care?


If the ground is trembling due to a volcanic eruption

I’ll probably be there on vacation

I’ll die with A.I.D.S, though I aint a hemophiliac, heroin addict or Haitian.

I’m a fall down those stairs just because they’re wet

I aint a terrorist you know, but im sure I’ll be on the next Al-Qaeda jet

The bird flu, sars or some sort of monkey pox

Toxic fumes, radioactive waste, oops I forgot to get my malaria shots.

At the scene of the drive by, I’m the first to get sprayed by random uzi fire

Took 3 in the stomach and 2 just a little higher

I’m not saying I am praying for the end of the world,

But I’ll be the first one to die when the revelation’s pages unfurl

And I’m gonna sit right there when the zombies attack

Because my brain will get eaten regardless of the ammunition I stack

Cuz someone’s got to go first, and I’m that type of guy

The Random innocent who died that day

without getting to say goodbye

The Quick Way, Isn't Always the Best Way (Mar 2009)

You have been sending me messages in my dreams lately
I know it’s you,
for despite the look and charm spring grass and play
there is a whiff of dissonance in the air
its your brand and flavor
batting eyes and bite marks on every last word
coy and temperamental
over burdened, combustible
in the last one you were showing me your world,
a small house that reminded me of my childhood,
but you seemed taxed and ready to remove me on a whim, but not quite at that point, as if still testing the waters, as if we were tightening a string both knowing full well the line could soon break, and who’s line would set it off?
And who would be quick with a quip or jab?
I hadn’t been practicing. I don’t think you had either. So fumbling for words through missed cues we seemed to be mumbling out songs, in some sort of park or garden.
It reminded me of a summer camp field, the grass was shorn and the sun bright.
There are always people around us. They have no faces and no words of meaning, or rather they lose it in our tangle.
I’m eager to figure out the hidden meaning behind your mangled statements,
But in the meantime,
I’m enjoying the surface
happy to see your face again.

I wish that hadn’t spilled.

I had to wipe it up with the tissue,
with the number you gave me,
and a gentle note saying
“I wish you,
would call me”
now I think, I’ll miss you, forever.
What’s in a napkin?
Nothing but those dreams
I had
wrapped in, the
folds, the ink, the texture of the cloth
and now in this stain, everything seems lost.

On Love and Conversation

Oh baby I want you to ramble and ramble, talk to me
About your day, your dreams, your day dreams
Allow me a moment to sneak in a comment so that I don’t explode with excitement
Speak on that comment and keep motioning so
For every hand gesture, face gesture and any gesture at me
Fills me with glee
Fills me with happiness
as you roll your eyes in search of the next word
My heart sits on edge and indulges in the expanding universal sclera
Because the shine in your eyes only comes out when you are astounded and I want to see that brilliance,
because the dimples in your cheeks amaze, amazedly small, yet such grand and glorious canyons
The way you press those lips, b’s and m’s reminds me of your embraces
pursed at first, opening and then tightening again
A night spent in your warmth never seems long
Oh preach to me darling, let me hear your heavenly calls
Speak to me of angels or morals, Bodhisattva or jinn
Speak of the universal, the heavenly light found within
Rant and rumble over spilt milk, politics, the similarities between
Speak to me about the mundane and the marvelous things you have seen.
Ice cream, an orange cat, gray brick apartments, the smell of a certain rug
All things I’d cherish if they came from your mouth
Speak to me through tears, don’t turn your head,
Let your anger rip through me and fill me with dread
Let it inspire me to be better than I am
Let it anger me enough to change the world for you
For your tears are the world’s, your humanity it too
Please love continue while I fondly gaze on,
My ears are attuned and my attention always drawn.

*********************************************************************

Somebody said something about being insecure about talking all night

so I wrote about it.

The "Yes We Can"

It’s tempting to be cynical,

knowing history can make you that way because history focuses mainly on the dramatic, the eventful. Not the positive steady growth but the incident, the assassination, the war, the corruption and oppression –and the downfall (praised by some as the beginning of a new chapter, a light, but for most suffering)

A new light:

Barack Hussein Obama told us not to be afraid, to loom forward with pride –and hope. To be the change you want to see. Are they just words?

A cynic would say “Of course.”

But aren’t they the words you want to hear? Aren’t they the words you want from the leader? Arent they what we all say we have been waiting for?

What more do we ask? (A leader who inspires hope)

Our cynicism, our skeptical brains should keep us challenging, using our anger to ensure the better –in ourselves, our friends and family, our society and our leaders.

IT SHOULD NOT

Keep us from being the change we believe in, or mocking the voice we want to hear, or sitting in doubt on the sidelines while at the very least marginal change occurs.

-Will anything be different?

I worry about climate change. The disruption of food and water, the medicine held back by patent laws and greed (though funded with our tax dollars).

I worry about the year of tax burden every single one of us owes on our deficit. The handouts to the rich who claim a single mother is a burden to our society while they waste a grand on shoes or a purse.

I worry about starvation –the ever present threat of war and the billion who see it in their day to day lives.

-but “Will anything be different?” (It’s about time we find out)

I mean if every cell phone at the mall has a camera and the capability to call that starving child a half a world away, then we should be able to ship him some food, or open our borders.

If every Sarah America can be the next best seller at the book store, then we will soon hear the voices of the disenfranchised, and then, when we recognize them as our neighbors, our family…

We wont fence them off or imprison them… we’ll sing together.

My satellite dish and cable TV sends me information about the customs of a people I never knew existed

-their history is now caught up in mine. How can I resist them?

Now even the poor can be educated – “will anything be different?.... oh man it already is.

Our voices stream together at high speeds on the internet and even though the Big Stone Coal Power Plant provides the energy the plans for 1000 homemade solar panels and wind turbines are its legacy.

Do we throw it all down on technology? NO

We invest in each other. We invest responsibly in ourselves, you and me, not Mr CEO of GM or GE

And then we raise our cyncical voices to oppose the injustice

And when we raise our songs for praise

What a world we’d realize we live in

What a world we’d be able to create.

Open Mics (fall 2008)

I see a gih-tar
A geetar
A guitar

A STARE,

I see people reaching out –asking for someone to care
I CARE!
About you
Waking up each morning wondering
“What’s the point?”

-wonder why the next step is reaching out for that joint
THIS JOINT
Offers inspiration
Colorful paintings
Black curtains
Old brick walls!

And just enough lighting

That you can Share or Stare
Hide or disrobe

Lets just all forget about the ethical codes
Lets embrace
Humanity
sharing a smile and a hug

like the baristas who greet you
tempting you to fall in love.
OH!
Isn’t an open mic at a coffee shop
Such a wonderful drug?

Musica

I absolutely love it when a piece of music moves me. tears at me, makes me shed a few, makes me convulse, makes my heart pulse, makes my knees shake, makes my shoulders ache, urges me to participate, stretched bare to the invisible sky, asking God why, in my mind's eye, I could be so blessed to experience bliss, for just one moment like this, how my blood surges how my spirit urges to connect forever this way, so bound and so free, solitary yet connected to thee, with color and spirit, with energy movement with compassion and passion, unsure what is real, what is dream, and if this is true it would seem that I'm in love again and wishing this song would never end.

Eulogy for Uncle Chris (oct 2008)

Uncle,
At the news of death
women ought to be screaming and crying, rubbing your body for the traces of warmth that slip away... who cares about colors and funeral arrangements... who cares at all? The hero has moved on… Men, tightly holding themselves back, only to embrace in the strongest hugs that whisper "Please don't let go right now! My strength is gone, I have no will and no pride left..."
Words unsaid, the gleam off an eye, the strain of the voice, the voiceless. The senselessness.

As the arrangements are made
Even the timid should want the best. The gold and silver, the flowers and prayers. He shall be wrapped in silks and laid out on a hand carved wooden bed. The flame or dirt will take him as we sing of his glory. Sing how things won't ever be the same again, the clouds seem darker, the trees so rigid, the mountains so much more intimidating.

At the mourning
the dark should infiltrate the eyes and skin of those you leave behind, their sadness so deep and intense that no cheek is un-wet, their hair shed, their heart burst, they should fall all over themselves with despair.

At the celebration
they should speak in weeps loud and unfiltered of your beauty, with smiles that tremble, the emotions so thick with the warmth you have shed that the room of gathered still feel wrapped in your presence, the sheltered, the secured. They beam and sparkle having known you, having experienced your wild, your steadfastness, your strength, your strength, your strength that is now lost to them.
And the many who were touched should tell stories till the morning,
dance and drink like their movement alone, was the radiance of the moon.
They should leave still feeling the loss though with renewed -
with a spirit like yours, heartily joking, greeting the dawn with hope for the better.
Oh uncle,
where is your grand funeral march?

Might As Well Have Been A Dream He Thought (Sept 2008)

I don't even need the answers to the questions I pose
I find them in the prose you wrote in my dreams.

Each message not so clear and concise
but I dream through the night,

and then I think all day
to decode what you have said.

Is it any wonder I wake up depressed,
but in hearing from you, prefer my bed?

My day (RYW creative writing topic) unfinished sept 2008

When I wake up in the morning I am rarely thinking about the adventure and excitement of school, usually it’s more like “oh my god what is that damnable racket” even though it’s just some radio buzz or the beeping of an alarm. I hear demons screeching. Maybe the terrible noise is because just seconds before I was enjoying paradise, a good conversation, an adventure, a life that is not my own but feels so natural. Regardless, I soon come to my senses and wake to check e mails. The cat is impatient for food but I am rarely in line with her wanting. A shower seems to be the most important point on the agenda followed by teeth brushing and a scramble out the door with a handful of books and a mouth full of gum. My room is left in shambles for my return home. My car looks equally distraught with a dozen empty plastic bottles and trash on the floor. I zoom off in search of sustenance though I am not often hungry. Breuggers, Maccies the gas station, provide what my kitchen can’t , something relatively tasty. I am often the first person on the scene at school, so I blast punk, hip hop or bluegrass and rock out in my car. Bypassers must assume madness. Check in’s and greetings, copying packets and readings, cartoons and quotes to tantalize or more often bore the pants off young scholars. I overdo my enthusiasm because most bring none. I clown because school is fun and funny if you allow it to be. Classes are a dance, but a dance with improvised steps, so if your beat or rhythm is off you and the students are left wanting. I am a huge critic but I don’t know what they see and my forgiving nature makes them angels and mistakes and miscalculations my own fault.

"last school year" (RYW creative writing topic) sept 2008

A sudden jump into the professional
I confess
school last year meant hands up
a crowd of students wanting.
Not necessarily knowledge
but something satisfying
entertainment
(am I a comedian?)
reassurance
(a counselor?)
a connection
a conduit
through eyes I see a hundred voices ready to project but without verse
so they shout and curse
cuz the system feels corrupt
and they aint go the power yet,
yet I got ears that listen well,
yet I got hands that can give tools,
yet I got experience that defies years
I got the will to bring people together

"the teacher stands in front of the class with a lesson plan he can't recall"

but he knows not everything learned in youth is presented between school walls
-so he starts a conversation...

avocado/sports (RYW creative writing topic) sept 2008

Sports/Avocados
No one had ever seen anything so ridiculous. The enormous football players armored with shoulder and chest pads. Having trained for 14/15 weeks of summer, doing arm curls, leg curls, side curls, neck curls and that one guy with the long hair doing hair curls, sprints, killers, bow flex, arm wrestling, swimming, cross country, skiing (on feet) hell they were doing bench pressed with old ladies on a park bench- these guys were tough as tough could be and now –so angrily they were charging at each other with the fury, lines of them faced off on either side with a glare in their eyes, with teeth clenched, with muscles flexed, they charged like rams, like bulls, like furry goateed mountain goats, these bison, these elephants, braced to run right through each other. But they didn’t.
They met like the big bang that caused the universe, they met like wrecking balls against a mountain, they met with such explosive force that the avocados taped to their chests smashed together without remorse and when the ridiculous spectacle was done, the behemoths fell to the ground now covered in green delicious goo, and the crowd rushed to the field with bags of chips and each person took a scoop.

Avocado
A voc ado (doo)
I say to you
Stay silly and true
Don’t ask for the face lift.

A vo ca do (dough)
So rare to hear no
When adults are so
Petty and straight laced.

A voca do (dow)
So embraced by the now
That even footballers say wow
As they crush to make chip dip.

Avocados

California is where Avocados come from. But soon it will be desert again. Will the locals plant dates in the oasis and add spices? Will spiritual couch surfers add cayenne to apples grown in Canada? Will young writers question all the youth who have never tasted such fruit? Ambrosia, the food of the Gods will be green and rare and this time it won’t cause hallucinations.

"The Ultimate Showdown/Satan" (RYW creative writing topic) sept 2008

One could argue that Satan would be part of the Ultimate Showdown and perhaps his influence is felt, but I lay out for thee a hypothesis that the Ultimate Showdown would be between God and Itself.
Perhaps they be partners split into halves like some sort of cantaloupe, one gutted then trashed, and she gets no praise anymore, though all adore her. Forgotten is her name thus people call her partner lord. And if they had a son, whether his name was Jesus or not, did his father forsake him and leave him to rot? Did he spend time honoring his duties then suddenly forget the promises he had made to let us come to him?
There’s a battle in my mind between goodness and doubt and somewhere in-between lies humility and beyond that pride and control and I’d like to be absolved of all this commotion, but the argument is the same for Gods with devotion, -Am I honest with myself? Let you come to me, faithful and blessed, through me God’s caress. Or am I faithful to you, proud and true, let you fall and be taken,
Ripped, beaten,
Shred dignity , allow the path to
Be repeated,
You cry and crawl further
Bleed shiver,
Doubt overtaken,
Split back to the beginning still trashed like that half fruit,
Calling him back to you, submerged in humility,
I’d learn realistically that you been tapping
My shoulder
For all of history, trying to remind me that you have been here the whole time.
I’d turned and you’d waited,
Like a mother, watching me learning
A lover, quietly yearning to be,
To be embraced again.

Life Right Now (RYW journal) Sept 2008

Life?
Life is beuno though I,
Spend time tired and still
wanting, and I,
spend days preparing
and visiting, I
wish to connect and see
further with eyes that
can tell tired from bored
hurt from frustration
intentions from what happens
reflections that increase learning.
My love life, now that is the biggest source of disappointment
and that,
says a lot about the blessings.

Paths We've Taken (August 2008)

You spent the night at home sinking deeper into despair,
where soon the hospital would meet you.
While me and Collin strolled in the moonlit night
along the Vistula
I remember admiring the expanse, the far bank
seemed a harbor distant.
And we joked about dogs being carried away in those rushing waters
Never to be heard of
-and silently wondered about our own sad and solitary existence.

In this city (rebuilt to withstand another storming army).
Thousands had perished
And you thought you’d join them
But me and Mr. Sleeper
Sat discussing the definition of cheating and whether or not it included kissing (his own indiscretion)
Polish Girls, Catholic
and beautiful,
He ate baklava and surrendered to its sweetness.
While I tried to imagine a world in which Kissing, came so easily.

It was that night, I
Saw a street performer send forth flames like a dragon,
Admired the spectacle
of glowing faces in the crowd.
Around that time you were probably growing weaker, slowly fading
Puking the color from your skin strength from your bones,
the life from your breath,
-if only we’d known then the importance of fire breaths,
we might have sparked those flames for life.

Not what you think (august 2007)

Not what you think

Its not always the big things:

Impatience and frustration builds as my 8 year old son helps the waitress clean up the mess I spilled when the pain suddenly shot through the numbness –and I sit here helpless, while those seated at near by tables give sympathetic but not understanding looks in our direction.

And when I meet their eyes like a man, they turn away.

Its not always the obvious things:

Its not the lack of ramp that’s the trouble, it’s the sticky uneven floor. Its being confined to one floor of my own house when the master bedroom is upstairs. Its trying to dance at a wedding with my wife who sits there patiently eying the other husbands

-leaves me shaken, wondering why she stayed.

Its not the visible things:

Its hour after hour of rehabilitation never sure if it will amount to anything, trying to keep up hope that one day… waiting for insurance and VA checks to come through while I’m nervous about the house payment, oh hell –the kids fall school clothes. Spending an hour in the shower, only to slip on a steel rail, unable to help myself up again. Sometimes my prescriptions don’t show up on time, sometimes they don’t work anyway.

Its not always the easy sacrifice:

When you can’t stand during the ovation at your kid’s play, or show him how to slide in to home. –model, how patriots stand for the flag, or why he should believe in service to this nation. He sees the sacrifice he already gave, questions why, and fills with rage when he sees his daddy ain’t got legs.

*******I wrote this a long time ago, I'm pretty sure I posted it on the other blog... Here is a picture that goes with it.**********

A Walk to Remember (august 2008)

Remember that time through the rich man’s lands, the fresh grass of night, the birds squawking. We were so sure about that spirit of vengeance. That was ages ago but the moon glow on your face still looks the same. If I reminded you of our shared secrets… would you remind me your name?

ryw freewrite (July 2008)

Sometimes I write out the lyrics to songs, the lines of a poem so that can see their rhythmic structure. That underlying skeleton, and maybe when I read and listen at the same time… I can see what’s in the crawlspace what braces the embraces of the words and their meaning.

I wish I could do that with this heart song, pounding behind my chest plate, whispers in the alleyway of my decaying brain. These are rumors in the hallway,
but what exactly does that song say?

It speaks in poetics for a time about the sense of communion between two lovers turned best friends, shared thoughts unspoken, eased fears with meaningful glances, cut tension in the air with a hug or a handshake.

Sometimes the feelings go unmentioned because the heart aches, but mistakes don’t create earthquakes so fear was not in the driver’s seat, just steady percussive heart beats. Partnership, companions, composed to fill in the gaps when one of us didn’t feel complete, because the other would never abandon.

It’s not just about the words, but the melody and unlike some cheesy pop song that loses its meaning this song, sends me screaming out the choruses.
A hook that you hope repeats again and again.

But there is a B verse, No fuck that a Z verse. Its ride sounds chaotic, lyrics are fast and unintelligible, distorted yelling in curse words, no caring, hoarse voice and screaming and that part leaves you terrified, for lack of something better. Leaves me heartbroken and beaten. Makes me question if God is listening and if so HOW DARE HE….
treat us so.
This is the sound of Battle, No glory.
This is the sound of parents crying for their baby soldiers to come home,
long nights anxiously thinking.
This is the sound of momentary eviction.
This is the sound of not having life saving prescriptions.
This is the sound of one man, too scared to scream, too hurt to hug, too betrayed
to BE anything.
This is NOT the song’s end.

Dissonance gives way to breathing, like a heart monitor beeping, steady beats start repeating.
This is the bottom but wait for the buildup, here comes the rhythm that forces your feet up.
Tapping toes, tired but they know how it goes,
legs start shaking and that’s where the pros hit you hard with a new verse unsaid yet, like maybe the cold rain brought in a new day, like maybe the mushy ripeness is really the sweet part, maybe the rainbow is heightened by gray, and maybe the dry wind prepares you to sing, so maybe it’s time we do up that chorus again.



***********this is the second draft so I would say its possibly unfinished but knowing me I wont return to it*********