1.
I walked once for my father,
again for my mother.
I needed to ask them a question
I did not yet know
and had already asked.
The one about surviving the silence
The one asked and answered
with countless redefinitions
of the self
2.
A Japonese woman shakes
three sneezed into her fist.
A full second, like a flood
waiting for her eyes to adjust.
A grin shows off her victory over panic.
'Ahhh' the room sighs, looking away 'We don't need to help after all'
3.
Those who watched live should know: the levies held.
What you saw splashing over was expected.
We can handle this, we've had to
for as long as anyone can remember. We can handle this
we've had to for as long as aynone can remember.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Saturday, July 12, 2008
The Song
Everyday I broom balls of carpet
into a pile behind the tower-
speaker jiggling my earlobes.
The man who’s life I’m taking over
says this room has the most beautiful corner
he’s ever seen. In the future
this will eat me.
This cleaning. Until there is nothing
but disturbances to what is
mine. Like this old muttering man
who comes around while we’re all high,
claims to be a ninja through masked
gum covered nubs, pushes
over spent candles. Drags a needle
across our favorite vinyl.
We are afraid of him.
And so when the girl I’d just met said James
it was close enough.
I followed her over the alley
to her Beetle, which was older than both of us,
and we drove through the night, chewing our eyelids
open, to her parents’ cabin three states away.
Where the thoughts were born
that led me to this depraved state.
Up for days, unable to trust
the meal in front of me, my ears turn
this whole scene into a beat,
beg my eyes to lay a symphony
across the top of it, promising
a better understanding-
I give in. I allow myself
to project such a stillness
out from my person that it
shakes the air, affects
my every thought. Each invisible shudder
long, sticking to the next like DNA, strands
wrapping tendon tight, forming
me just below it all, dancing wildly with her parents’
refusal to make eye contact, clearly
jealous of my displays of funk movement.
And no one at the bar has a place
for me to sleep, and there are
no more good vibrations,
and I come apart.
into a pile behind the tower-
speaker jiggling my earlobes.
The man who’s life I’m taking over
says this room has the most beautiful corner
he’s ever seen. In the future
this will eat me.
This cleaning. Until there is nothing
but disturbances to what is
mine. Like this old muttering man
who comes around while we’re all high,
claims to be a ninja through masked
gum covered nubs, pushes
over spent candles. Drags a needle
across our favorite vinyl.
We are afraid of him.
And so when the girl I’d just met said James
it was close enough.
I followed her over the alley
to her Beetle, which was older than both of us,
and we drove through the night, chewing our eyelids
open, to her parents’ cabin three states away.
Where the thoughts were born
that led me to this depraved state.
Up for days, unable to trust
the meal in front of me, my ears turn
this whole scene into a beat,
beg my eyes to lay a symphony
across the top of it, promising
a better understanding-
I give in. I allow myself
to project such a stillness
out from my person that it
shakes the air, affects
my every thought. Each invisible shudder
long, sticking to the next like DNA, strands
wrapping tendon tight, forming
me just below it all, dancing wildly with her parents’
refusal to make eye contact, clearly
jealous of my displays of funk movement.
And no one at the bar has a place
for me to sleep, and there are
no more good vibrations,
and I come apart.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Madi’s Birthday
The last time I stayed in a cabin
there was no cabin.
There was though: a trailer
wrapped in fake Lincoln
Logs and set on cinder blocks, a hundred yards
of parking lot behind an amusement park.
And even though the 97 degrees had me
sleeping instead of standing in line. Sleeping
instead of hearing the tornado sirens
crying out slow across the flattened counties,
my family did hear them. They hurried back to take me
to the painted concrete walls of the wash house.
So we could follow the lightning and laugh
at the people streaming from the shuttle to their RV.
Screaming like it was ride.
And after we had smelled enough fresh water
from the thick-slatted whiteplastic chairs
that we carried way out past where the tide had come in
to the sand bar we climbed up to discuss the limits of photography,
and how the stars worked
that we spied through gaps
in sporadically blushing cloud cover,
after we were tired with collaging
our sandy footprints on the polished-sticker wooden floors,
me and my sister, Madison Rose, lay at a tiny window
in the trailer’s attic, just below the hammering metal
roof, and discussed the flirting techniques
of the 100 year old men she served food
at her first job, while we watched
the tallest rollercoaster in the world
get struck by lightning and go dark.
The wail of a fire engine just a tiny thing to the west.
there was no cabin.
There was though: a trailer
wrapped in fake Lincoln
Logs and set on cinder blocks, a hundred yards
of parking lot behind an amusement park.
And even though the 97 degrees had me
sleeping instead of standing in line. Sleeping
instead of hearing the tornado sirens
crying out slow across the flattened counties,
my family did hear them. They hurried back to take me
to the painted concrete walls of the wash house.
So we could follow the lightning and laugh
at the people streaming from the shuttle to their RV.
Screaming like it was ride.
And after we had smelled enough fresh water
from the thick-slatted whiteplastic chairs
that we carried way out past where the tide had come in
to the sand bar we climbed up to discuss the limits of photography,
and how the stars worked
that we spied through gaps
in sporadically blushing cloud cover,
after we were tired with collaging
our sandy footprints on the polished-sticker wooden floors,
me and my sister, Madison Rose, lay at a tiny window
in the trailer’s attic, just below the hammering metal
roof, and discussed the flirting techniques
of the 100 year old men she served food
at her first job, while we watched
the tallest rollercoaster in the world
get struck by lightning and go dark.
The wail of a fire engine just a tiny thing to the west.
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Self Portrait
1.
The people I have
met, we were all told.
Once you find what lets you forget,
the thing able to take you,
blooming to make all else gray,
do that thing
for the rest of your life.
You can be,
our parents repeated,
whatever you want to be.
2.
Spring, beaten
within an inch of its life,
is rescued.
The people
are out again.
Some dedicating their time,
their lives,
to the control
of a ball. To the study
of that most true
of symmetries,
born of man
and gravity:
as ravishing,
impartial.
Many more dedicate their time,
their lives,
to the act of watching
those remarkable few
(whose abilities must plateau
for loathing and mercy)
so they may imagine
what it must do to a man
to make such love,
to have such final say
in the way of things
man can never have say.
Still, the control
has become so great.
3.
Summertime.
My father blindfolds my mother,
tells her not yet… not yet…
finally the tired fabric falls,
three stories of red brick
climbing up from where it rests.
The sky, blue and fresh
as her last name
blinds her for no more
than a moment
and he’s unlocking
the door.
4.
Despite what they may say,
I can’t be far
from what my parents prayed for
those early screaming nights
The mornings they spent
breaking ice
from the toilets
while the rats slept late,
tucked beneath
the blankets of my crib.
I have no memory of them
chewing the nipples
off my bottle.
No,
I am close.
I dedicate my time,
my life,
to the study of the feeling instead.
The people I have
met, we were all told.
Once you find what lets you forget,
the thing able to take you,
blooming to make all else gray,
do that thing
for the rest of your life.
You can be,
our parents repeated,
whatever you want to be.
2.
Spring, beaten
within an inch of its life,
is rescued.
The people
are out again.
Some dedicating their time,
their lives,
to the control
of a ball. To the study
of that most true
of symmetries,
born of man
and gravity:
as ravishing,
impartial.
Many more dedicate their time,
their lives,
to the act of watching
those remarkable few
(whose abilities must plateau
for loathing and mercy)
so they may imagine
what it must do to a man
to make such love,
to have such final say
in the way of things
man can never have say.
Still, the control
has become so great.
3.
Summertime.
My father blindfolds my mother,
tells her not yet… not yet…
finally the tired fabric falls,
three stories of red brick
climbing up from where it rests.
The sky, blue and fresh
as her last name
blinds her for no more
than a moment
and he’s unlocking
the door.
4.
Despite what they may say,
I can’t be far
from what my parents prayed for
those early screaming nights
The mornings they spent
breaking ice
from the toilets
while the rats slept late,
tucked beneath
the blankets of my crib.
I have no memory of them
chewing the nipples
off my bottle.
No,
I am close.
I dedicate my time,
my life,
to the study of the feeling instead.
Friday, May 9, 2008
The Body Looks Farther Away Than Most Stones
Based on the quickness with which
the subdivision appeared
since I last passed,
the bedroom looked especially lived in. I stood
wondering how many nights she’d spent there,
how many I would spend alone
justified by this one. I didn’t blink as she pushed
a fist full of pills into her belly,
but they must’ve had a different effect on her:
Working in frenzied bursts of unison
that would shame even the most agile
clouds of plankton, schools of mayflies try to escape
from the skin on my neck. Her chin planted
just below my collar,
she does a modern day
rain dance. Her pajama pants covered
in raised polka dots: I have no choice
but to skim over
Accelerated Breathing, The Sparknotes: Brail Edition.
Then the energy turns: Hands move like the moment
a drain overflows: You recognize panic
before the water dips to the low
spots on the painted concrete floor, while its still
just a bowl filling
and filling. She puffs
across the frenzied darkness ‘I’m too medicated.’
My pills tell me the same thing, the pills
that have me poured into the dents of her mattress,
that I crowded down from a similar bottle
giving lousy directions under a stranger’s name,
next to the slippery dream of every alcoholic:
that the effect can be intensified.
And so for a while then it was enough
just to be next to something so similar.
Even though
I couldn’t exactly make her
out,
through that clutter of dark.
the subdivision appeared
since I last passed,
the bedroom looked especially lived in. I stood
wondering how many nights she’d spent there,
how many I would spend alone
justified by this one. I didn’t blink as she pushed
a fist full of pills into her belly,
but they must’ve had a different effect on her:
Working in frenzied bursts of unison
that would shame even the most agile
clouds of plankton, schools of mayflies try to escape
from the skin on my neck. Her chin planted
just below my collar,
she does a modern day
rain dance. Her pajama pants covered
in raised polka dots: I have no choice
but to skim over
Accelerated Breathing, The Sparknotes: Brail Edition.
Then the energy turns: Hands move like the moment
a drain overflows: You recognize panic
before the water dips to the low
spots on the painted concrete floor, while its still
just a bowl filling
and filling. She puffs
across the frenzied darkness ‘I’m too medicated.’
My pills tell me the same thing, the pills
that have me poured into the dents of her mattress,
that I crowded down from a similar bottle
giving lousy directions under a stranger’s name,
next to the slippery dream of every alcoholic:
that the effect can be intensified.
And so for a while then it was enough
just to be next to something so similar.
Even though
I couldn’t exactly make her
out,
through that clutter of dark.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A Link to a Song and the Story Behind It
Along with the excitement, fear, pressures and responsibilities of becoming president of the student body I was faced this weekend with the realization that I could not accomplish in time all the work that I had built up. I thought about choosing a class to fail, deciding to ditch all of its work and focus on the rest. But with next year marking the first cut loose from the mamma ship, I couldn’t stomach the feelings of anger towards myself as I sat in the class again, due to my semester long nap. So I decided to take it all on ’You knew you’d have to, made the choice.’
And so here I sit, just about beyond the last minute.
Trying to wring the sweat that is now consistently seeping from my body into the success of a semester. I hit four days without sleep before my body shut down. After hallucinating a mouse in my shower, barely avoiding several car crashes due to a lack of trust in my peripheral vision, and being forced to take a twenty minute break to sit in the silent dark listening to a symphony my mind created- new instruments and rhythms coming in like the build of an airliner set out from Singapore gradually making its way right above, and then beyond, taking its payload to somewhere I cannot try to imagine. At one point, when the vocals first came in, backed in full psychedelia, (“You didn‘t knowwwww we could- 00000make- 000000this kind of music”) I let myself into it, refusing to acknowledge its existence so to appreciate its beauty. When I closed my eyes it was as if a strobe light hung in front of them, so I kept them open, in the darkness seeing what I heard.
Then I broke. Somewhere in the middle of last night, sitting where I sit now and have throughout, I lost it all. I was twitching madly, arms legs and chest, my hands were shades of intensity. I couldn’t ignore my short breath or the pulse in my ankles any longer. I began to panic. Muscles taught, veins proud, I couldn’t get in one word of thought against it, so I sat.
I woke up 14 hours later. Starving. With a mindset I barely recognized I realized I had eaten only 3 times throughout and stuffed myself.
And so here I sit, just about beyond the last minute. I am doing my best to ignore the guilt so I can get through this thing, scrounge what I can of it all. Its something, looking in the eyes of what you have avoided for so long, realizing there is nothing that is going to fix it all. I feel like I have failed a good number of people, some family, many friends, many new.
Listening to the Beirut station on Pandora.com (an online radio that randomly picks songs they thing related to a band you name) at top decibels, just a few bits from falling apart, this song came on. I have never heard the song before or of its existence. I have never heard of the singer, who is from the UK.
I hesitate to resemble the people making requests on the local radio, the ’I was going through a bad time ect.’ but it is safe to say this song affected me just now. In ways that will take a bit longer, distort, and probably be lost among the other scraps in the forever growing pile that guides my actions.
To listen go here, its the the second song from the top, the one titled Mr. Blue.
Back to work.
And so here I sit, just about beyond the last minute.
Trying to wring the sweat that is now consistently seeping from my body into the success of a semester. I hit four days without sleep before my body shut down. After hallucinating a mouse in my shower, barely avoiding several car crashes due to a lack of trust in my peripheral vision, and being forced to take a twenty minute break to sit in the silent dark listening to a symphony my mind created- new instruments and rhythms coming in like the build of an airliner set out from Singapore gradually making its way right above, and then beyond, taking its payload to somewhere I cannot try to imagine. At one point, when the vocals first came in, backed in full psychedelia, (“You didn‘t knowwwww we could- 00000make- 000000this kind of music”) I let myself into it, refusing to acknowledge its existence so to appreciate its beauty. When I closed my eyes it was as if a strobe light hung in front of them, so I kept them open, in the darkness seeing what I heard.
Then I broke. Somewhere in the middle of last night, sitting where I sit now and have throughout, I lost it all. I was twitching madly, arms legs and chest, my hands were shades of intensity. I couldn’t ignore my short breath or the pulse in my ankles any longer. I began to panic. Muscles taught, veins proud, I couldn’t get in one word of thought against it, so I sat.
I woke up 14 hours later. Starving. With a mindset I barely recognized I realized I had eaten only 3 times throughout and stuffed myself.
And so here I sit, just about beyond the last minute. I am doing my best to ignore the guilt so I can get through this thing, scrounge what I can of it all. Its something, looking in the eyes of what you have avoided for so long, realizing there is nothing that is going to fix it all. I feel like I have failed a good number of people, some family, many friends, many new.
Listening to the Beirut station on Pandora.com (an online radio that randomly picks songs they thing related to a band you name) at top decibels, just a few bits from falling apart, this song came on. I have never heard the song before or of its existence. I have never heard of the singer, who is from the UK.
I hesitate to resemble the people making requests on the local radio, the ’I was going through a bad time ect.’ but it is safe to say this song affected me just now. In ways that will take a bit longer, distort, and probably be lost among the other scraps in the forever growing pile that guides my actions.
To listen go here, its the the second song from the top, the one titled Mr. Blue.
Back to work.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Pretending Press 2
Decided to take a break
from doing journals
to add some pictures
that are getting old.
Similar story as the Obama pics,
Me, Chad, last minute calls,
press badges, and cameras.
This time at Purdue.
A few of my shots
of a concert starring
The Legendary Roots Crew:
from doing journals
to add some pictures
that are getting old.
Similar story as the Obama pics,
Me, Chad, last minute calls,
press badges, and cameras.
This time at Purdue.
A few of my shots
of a concert starring
The Legendary Roots Crew:
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