Simultumulteously Never Content

why is it that I want to achieve
and retreat
simultaneously

hovering in the hallway of
fight or flight
like an indecisive ghost

that can’t figure out if it
wants to rattle some chains and 
flick candles off the shelf or
just hang out in the shadow of a hat rack
and hope some lonely sap 
twitches an eye 
in my direction.

i want to be accomplishing
everything on the list
while lying in the grass and watching
the bees cavort from 
color bucket to color bucket.

and if i spend too much energy pursuing one,
i pine for the other,
and if i spend too much time performing the other
i completely regret it

and if i split my time between the two
i feel so damned normal 
that i just
can’t
stand
myself.

The Ingenuity of a Boozehound

They’d pulled Terrence over
in his 1978 Lincoln Continental before.

He wore a necklace of old rat bones around his neck
that he falsely claimed were fingers he took in Vietnam.

His car, his jacket, his breath, and his hair
always smelled like donut market bourbon.

And every time, he rolled down the window,
his lips were reliably wet with booze.
A fog of fermented mash
would puff from the cab as
he barked out his defiant protests
of utter gibberish.

But they could never find a bottle on him.
They searched his car every time and dammit,
they never found a bottle.

“Where the hell is the damned bottle?” they’d say.
“It makes no sense,” they’d say.
“This guy is breakin’ the breathalyzer,” they’d say,
“there HAS to be a bottle in there.”

See if you blow on the breathalyzer
immediately after you’ve taken a swig of booze,
it’ll give you inaccurate readings.

So they knew Terrence was drinkin’ in that car.
They just didn’t know how he was doin’ it.

Well, after an obscene trilogy of offenses,
they finally impounded Terrence’s car.

And out of sheer curiosity they turned it
loose to the experts.

Turns out the booze
was in the engine compartment,
inside the windshield wiper reservoir.

Terrence had run a vinyl tube
through the dash and into the cab,
so he could discretely
blast a geyser of bourbon
straight down his gullet
while he cruised the
downtown strip.

Now every time I wash the windshield on my car
I can’t help but feel I’m missing out on
something.

music of the unexplored fields

There are wide open windows and miles of forgotten road,

Through unexplored riverbeds like powdered veins

fenceless and free


And they are 

all for you.


There are places you will never see, 

but you will touch

through my own broken hands,

my own hobbled gait,

And through my aimless wandering

as I stumble and cry and scour 

the desolate corners of the world

Defiant and desperate,

searching for a memory’s grain,

the sound of your voice in the wind,

the fragments, the weathered fence posts,

the buckshot signs, the leaning barns,

Searching for the last, fading breath

of my world 

with you.



you keep me present

It’s Sunday and I’m lying on the sofa
while you make macaroni and cheese in the kitchen.
The TV is making noise but I’m not paying attention to it.
I rarely do.
I’m listening to the sounds of your footsteps
and the clinking of the cookware.
I’m listening to you doing normal things
and breathing life into this house.
And it is such a beautiful ruckus.
Those are the sounds of love and contentment
that I’m so afraid to lose.
Those are the sounds that interrupt my terrible mind,
and save me from myself.
Those are the sounds that fill the empty space
and verify that yes, I am still present
yes, I am still loved,
and yes,
I am still here.



the rope

a large, manila rope
spins and unfolds and 
falls from the ceiling
like soft serve
onto your shoulders
endlessly
coiling into a spiral
piling up,
pushing you down,
and burying you.

every day 
it takes 
more strength to stand
upright
to fight the rope
to stand 
up straight
to look people in the eye
and walk with purpose
and carry the rope

but the rope keeps falling.

if you drop it,
more follows,
and it just keeps coming,
and if you trip over it,
it will block you in
so you have to try and carry it
and balance it
and pretend it’s not piling up,
all around you.

but the rope keeps falling.

you have to believe
that the rope
won’t crush you
you have to believe that it
won’t stop you
you have to believe that it won’t
be the last thing
you ever see
because the second you
stop and doubt yourself
or think about all that rope
that just keeps
falling 
and twirling
and spiraling down,
endlessly on top of you,
from that undying spool,
the second you stop to think about it,
the second you stop to look at it,
to consider it, to accept it,
is the second
that rope
becomes
real.

There are Flowers

There are flowers where your life used to be.
Meadows of lupine, poppies, lavender and clover.
Fed by the rolling storms of my tears.
They are thriving and they are in blossom.
And they are springing from all the cracks
you used to fill.
There are flowers where your life used to be.
And though they are colorful and nice to see,
they do not compare to you.
There isn’t a flower in this world that could.
Not the ice plants with their vibrant shimmer,
nor the sunflowers with their confident gaze.
I would trade them all,
all the flowers in the world,
for just one more day.
One more moment.
There are flowers where your life used to be
and I will watch them grow and fade
as I did with you.
And I will watch them blossom
as you did with me.
And as the seasons pass and the years
erode the shores of my memory
and your presence vanishes from these rooms
I will turn to the meadow inside me,
a vast prairie that unfolds into
an endless blue sky
where the flowers never wilt,
the wind is calm and cool
and the water is always clear.
Because that is where you now live.
Close to me.
Inside me.
In that perfect meadow
there on the very surface of my heart
where you are always safe
and you are never alone.

What You Become

if you do something over and over enough,
a part of you changes into that very thing.

like a tree enveloped by vines
that eventually becomes a bush
we become our couch, we become our tools,
we become our spouse, we become our parents
and we become our jobs.

whether we like it or not.

we become our environment.

when we're driving on the freeway with the wind behind us
and the sun setting over the mountains
we become those mountains and we become that wind.

and that is why we feel so free when doing those things.
and so lifeless when we are not.

and then we die and we become
whatever box, canister or hole we're tossed into.

and then that's that.

so if you are trapped in a world that you don’t wish to become,
be sure to keep a pie in your window,
a song in your ear and a poem in your pocket.
for you may not be able to control your world
with your own desired precision...
but you can most certainly influence its direction,

with beauty and love and all the womderful things

you wish to become. 

How I Measure Time

i measure time with distant, winter memories
of freezing places and icy roads
and quiet nights alone in the snow.  

i measure time with the houses i’ve lived in
and the color of the carpets
in all the rooms i have slept.

i measure time by the friendships
that have passed
and the jackets that i’ve worn
and the songs i’ve stopped listening to 
and the drawers in the desk
that fill up so slowly
with unimportant things
that i can’t quite throw away.

i measure time through the faces i know
but haven’t seen in years  
or the calcium deposits on the drain
or the things that use to make me cry
but now barely draw a tear.

i measure time with no consistency at all
without uniformity or precision
or any form of structure
or a strict, reliable system.

i measure time by the days without rain
and the rust on my guitar strings
and the missing hairs on my head.

i measure time with seasons and holidays and
violent storms and national disasters.
and with every day that passes, 
and every year that sinks or floats,

i increasingly place value on the smallest
units of measurement,
the dog in my lap,
the salt on the table,   
the drink in my glass,
and do my best to love the process of keeping
my eye on the world, 

while i still can.  

there it goes

the dishwasher needs to be loaded.
the oil needs to be changed.
the floor needs to be mopped.
the clothes need to be washed.
the dog needs to go out.
your teeth need to be cleaned.
the fridge needs to be fixed.
the mail needs to be sorted.
the mail needs to be tossed.
the weeds need to be pulled.
the bills need to be lost.
the eyes need to be dried.
the legs need to be moved.
the arms need to be raised.
the muscles need to be worked.
the people need to be contacted.
the job needs to be done.
the clock needs to be smashed.
the screen needs to be smashed.
the phone needs to be smashed.
the rules need to be broken.
the laws need to be bent.
the bottle needs to be opened.
the day needs to be
spent.

A Posted Sign on Every Inch

How terrible the price has been for
relentless expansion.
Fields don't have rules until someone builds
a fence around them.
It used to be that the best roads didn't have gates
and the horizon could stretch uninterrupted
for a lifetime.
Now fences serve one of three purposes:
Keep some of us out,
keep the rest of us in,
or prevent the chosen few
from taking
every
last
bit
for themselves.

I am both thankful and saddened to be among
the last generation of human beings on Earth
that still have a little Earth
left to discover.
 

how to be an artist

first, get a #2 pencil and a piece of paper.
draw a vertical line, straight down the
middle of the paper.
now fold the paper on the line.
now draw a large circle
in the middle of the paper.
fill in the circle with the pencil.
now wad up the paper and break the pencil
and curse your loss of creativity.
now dramatically stare out the window
and think about past lovers.
now avoid going to the dentist.
now spend all of your money on
stuffed animals, substance abuse and tools.
now scoff at a guy in a Ferrari.
now save all your bottle caps for a year and
then forget why you were doing that.
now clean out the front part of the fridge,
but leave the things in the back,
now shove a bunch of shit under the bed.

now buy another “journal”,
fill up the first two pages
and then put it on a shelf for 20 years
so you will never be able to throw it away
because you filled out those two precious pages.

wear clothes that are simultaneously
too young for your age and too old for your age.
and keep a dusty guitar somewhere.
now shout really loud in your car or in
the shower, just to make the voices stop.
then learn to weld, get your certification,
and then never weld anything, ever.
now find that wadded up piece of paper in the trash,
pull it out and hold it up to the light
and reminisce about
how creative and productive

you used to be.
 

Somewhere in the Future

a tiny, precision screw
that you removed from your watch
and then proceeded to drop,
is falling in slow motion,
turning and twisting in the air.
it strikes the hardwood floor,
and then bounces
with a TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK, TICK
and then  v a n i s h e s  into the air.

it is GONE.

that screw does not adhere to any established thread standard,
and therefore is an irreplaceable part for which its
absence renders your watch completely useless.

you'll look for it under the table
(because that's where you saw it fall)
but it will not be there.
it should be there.
it should be right there under the fucking table.
(because that's where you saw it fall)
and you'll say,
"why is it not there?"
"WHY IS IT NOT THERE???"
and you'll frantically begin sweeping the perimeter
and you'll examine every dot, scratch or potato chip crumb
or every speck of glitter, twinkle or notch in the floor
and eventually you'll exhaust all of your options and
turn to ridiculous places,
like looking inside the tongue of your shoe or the lip of your sleeve,
or under the stack of mail, in the dog bowl
and under chairs halfway across the room...

but it will not be there.

it will not be anywhere.

that screw simply does not exist anymore.

it was absorbed by the world
and is now deep inside the center of the earth,
melting into magma and churning under pressure,
waiting to be blown from an island mountain
halfway across the world,
thousands of years from now.

somewhere in the future
is the moment you drop that irreplaceable screw,
hurling towards you like a spear
and there's simply nothing you can do about it,
but live your life as if it isn't going to happen,
while at the same time,
acknowledging that deep inside,
you’ve always had a few screws loose
yourself.

music that represents the downfall of civilization

sometimes i am reminded of 4'33",
the 3 movement composition by John Cage
where musicians are instructed
to refrain from playing their instruments
during the entire duration of each movement,
creating nothing but silence.

and then other times
i am reminded of the hip-hop artist Sisqo
and his famous, chart-topping hit from 1999,
"Thong Song" where he reminds us all that,
"She had dumps like a truck truck truck.
Thighs like what what what.
Baby move your butt butt butt
Let me see that thong."

and when i listen
to these two pieces in succession of each other,
in the order as they are written here,
i can't help but pine for the silence of the former
throughout the noise of the latter
which eventually directs me to another song,
the 1933 piece "Gloomy Sunday" by Rezso Seress
also known as
"The Hungarian Suicide Song"
which i am forced to play on a loop
for as long as it takes
to eradicate the The Thong Song
from active memory.

 

 


 

drought

and once again, the hills of Southern California
go back to brown
and the dry brush piles up in the corner

this place is arid most of the time
and any vagaries in the weather
feel like a broken promise
or a delusion
like a man with $3 left to his name
ordering a brandy and a steak dinner in a brasserie.
with every savory bite he is transported away from his reality
until the strike of the bill
unseats his
fantasy.


i am like the green grass on these dry hills.

i do not belong here
in this desert.


 

weightgloss

someday i'll be gone and some poor soul
will have to deal with all the crap i leave behind
and they'll have to go through a
ton of boxes and drawers
and they'll hold up some dingus and
say, "what the hell is this thing,"
or, "why did he have this," or, 
"does it even turn on anymore?"
and then some of my stuff will go to Goodwill
and some will be sold
and some stuff will get tossed
and my email acccount will just sit there
and this blog will disappear
and all the letters in all the words i've ever written
will be recycled and used somewhere else like
in contracts or on checks or in
some strange lady's terrible
romantic letter to a French jet ski model
who doesn't care about anyone but himself
and just breaks hearts left and right.
this whole death and affairs thing will be
a damned shame
and a real HASSLE for everyone involved
because everything i've ever said, done,
been, made or ruined,
will have to be recycled, destroyed, buried,
dispersed and sold
and it is precisely for that reason that
i'm just going to sit down
right here on this spot
and drink this here delicious root beer
and not give a shit about how many calories are in it
or what happens next when it's done
or where i'm supposed to go later or
what i'm supposed to do today.

hung by the bed

though it is as familiar as my autumn coat,
like a sandbag on a weakened hook,
pulling screws out of the wall,
hung by the bed or by the door
ignored but always breathing there
in the coldest corner of the room
like a burned out bulb I never changed
cupping dirt and moths and old confetti
from a new year's party years ago
i know it better than my hands
or the frozen photos in my phone
deceptive comfort lying there
forced to cede another day
and take the space where clothes should lay
if misery is not a coat
nor a scarf or winter sleigh
why do I hang it on this rack
and leave it there to stay?

recipe for apathy

the quest for stability, consistency and security
often results in an attained level of comfort
that chips away at ambitions and dreams
until there is nothing left
but apathy and
fatigue.

where once stood solid brick,
now lies mortar crumbs.
where once stood wooden beams,
now lies sawdust and splinters.

what can I do anymore,
but pile up these crumbs
and light this dust
and watch
this
tiny
hill
burn.