A Lack Of Color...

Fact or Fiction?

We sit here.

We sit here,
the two of us,
planning
thinking
dreaming
hoping.

We love,
we cherish,
we find comfort
in the other.

Years pass-
we run,
far away
far away from the truth
ourselves
we work ourselves to death
to an unreachable dream.

But once in a while,
when we look up at the stars,
or takes a minute to play with our children,
we wonder.

We wonder what happened
to the two of us
planning
thinking
dreaming
hoping.

Seeing You.

Seeing you is like looking into a mirror for the very first time -
i look into your eyes only to find
my hopes
dreams
faults
passions
thrown back at me at the same pace
with the same fevour
no judgements, no frowns,

Seeing you see me like that
with a bashful smile
or flitting eyes
makes me want to do things i've never done before
seen before
felt before
or loved-quite-like-this before,

Seeing you makes me want to curl up in your arms
feel your love for me thump with mine
ever so softly,

Seeing you makes me want to bury my head
into the creases of your shirt
i want to smell and feel
that which has been refused to me
countless times before,

Seeing you,
makes me
smile.

a SPARK
- life.

liquid eyes murmur,
folding hands
envelop my finger.
raw fresh skin,
never letting go.

these tiny hands
these innocent,
tiny hands
keeping me here.
anchored.

hush. sleep.
do not let go of my hand.

Feist & Emily Haines,

Feist and Emily Haines?

Together?

Nuffsaid.

Torrential Cyclone

Get up rub my eyes blink away sleepy take a shower half asleep take the bus
people reek they lie they sneeze they read they walk they trip they shiver
get out of that godforsaken cesspit into prison walls all warm and nice
bright lights scrutiny furrowed eyebrows warm and nice scratches
of pencils talks with people about everything and nothing at all
get packed into the hellhole nearly unconscious nearly insane
pass out on my mattress eat drink read fight eat pass out
music mysteries literature love suffering insanity
running away from this torrential cyclone
but it seems to me that wherever i go
(scratching pencils frowning faces)
wherever I run or nap or hide
the road inexplicably
inevitably leads
to one thing:
you
.

Awkward pause.

Even In The Quietest Moments...

Music is what feeling sounds like.

A Poem on Procrastination.

...yeah

Loss

In the book Slaughterhouse 5... Billy-the main character, is taken away by Tralfamadorians to their planet, Tralfamadore. While he is there, they show him the way they live... and they share with him their many perspectives on life. One day, they have a discussion about death. On Earth, death is sad. It is a loss. On Tralfamadore death is not sad, it is just another chapter in life. The Tralfamadorians do not grieve. The ones who die, are believed to not really be dead. They believe that they are only dead at that moment- and there are many other moments that they are still alive. At any given time a Tralfamadorian can remember memories with their loved ones. Those special moments will never change. They were alive at the moment created, and they are alive through remembering. They spend their whole lives focusing on joy.

Beautiful.

What really is loss? Can it be defined? Is it a feeling- defined by emotions? Is it avoidable? Is it a part of life? Is it really as bad as we perceive it?

I would say that the usual definition for loss is something along the lines of....Being unable to find something- a misplacement. Being deprived or being without something you once had. Failure.
Then there is the intensity- to what extent is the loss? But who are we to say? It is completely subjective to the individual. It can not be defined. The emotional range can not be made into a graph- charting severity, or amount suffered. To walk a mile in someone else's shoes...I can only imagine.

Sometimes loss can't be avoided, or changed. You won't always be able to find what is lost. But it isn't always about the beginning and the end- sometimes it is about the journey in between.



Ps. Read Slaughterhouse 5

Styx.

black bubbles rose from broken lips
opened my mouth
let in purple liquid gold
sear my throat
come inside
swam in dark chasms
relishing the womb

overhead boat with chain
creaked back - forth
one way fare
except for me

liquid's dark tendrils
caressed
softly
wooed with luscious
bitter-sweetness

overhead boat with chain
creaked back-forth
back-forth

dove deeper
deeper


you held my heel

Juxtapositions

my tenderhater
undissolvedsweetener
gum on my heels
hole in my pocket
harsh lover
i want to love you
rip you apart
watch you cry while
i stab you
over and
over
want you to beg
love me till it
hurts you like you
hurt me
entranced me
captivated me disgusted
me
unintended lover
malicious tempter
these cruelironies
sleepless nights
sedative sunlight
pain pleasure
lust disgust
make love to me benjamin button
said to daisy
make love to me
hurt me
love
me
get offmy shoe
into my heart
see me

please

A sarcastic observation worth observing,

“Scheherazade” Richard Siken

Tell me about the dream where we pull the bodies out of the lake
and dress them in warm clothes again.
How it was late, and no one could sleep, the horses running
until they forgot they are horses.
It’s not like a tree where the roots have to end somewhere,
it’s more like a song on a policeman’s radio,
how we rolled up the carpet so we would dance, and the days
were bright red, and every time we kissed there was another apple
to slice into pieces.
Look at the light through the windowpane. That means it’s noon, that means
We’re inconsolable.
Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.
These, our bodies, possessed by light.
Tell me we’ll never get used to it.

Reasons Why to Date a Band Student.

- we are quick learners
- we work well under pressure
- we like to take it slow, but we are masters at speeding things up
- we'll teach you the right ombrachure
- by the time you're done, you'll be hitting all the high notes
- we've got our horns blowing the right notes, soon we'll be blowing yours
- you don't need to worry about right notes, only right rhythym
- we're master at sliding things into place
- we'll get your tonguing up to speed
- I'll let you enter MY practice room...
- I'll teach you all the modes of my scale ;)
- your tongue won't be the only thing fluttering
- we'll go up to a practice room so I can show off my horn
- we're great with group projects
- I've got a pencil for you
- we'll get you pushing all the right buttons in no time
- I'm great at improvising
- I'll lube your instrument for you
- MY reed isn't chipped
- Bass players have bigger equipment
- we are good with our hands
- we can give it everything we've got for an hour and then give you one more if you scream our name loud enough
- we are always up for the encore
- we're great with fingering
- we'll strike the right chord
- we can show you a real trill
- we don't stop till it's done
- we're used to pleasing an audience
- we're very accurate
- no objections to PERFORMING in front of an audience
- by the time we're done, you'll be cheering for more
- we can tongue and finger at the same time
- we practice our lip action daily
- And of course, we know how to blow, hard.

Clouds.

I wonder if they keep dreams in rain clouds. It's the last place anyone would look.

What I believe in.

Lost in Time.

Remembering....
Like an old photograph- lost in time.
To pull old memories...
where hurt and love collide.
Confusion like fog, clouding thoughts.
Endless moments.
Lost in time.

Can you hold on?

Take the time today
To remember great people
Just for a moment.

Next winter I retire.

I look at the world.
I see it in it's entirety.
I see mountains, oceans, streams.
I see cities, taxis, people.
Dirty clothes, ditry faces, dirty hearts.

I see the pain in the world.
Mothers hold their children and say it's going to be alright.
Everything is going to be alright.
All lies.
Yet - they still manage to
kiss them goodnight.
Move on.

I see cruel words
cruel people.
I see lovers entwined in an alley,
drugs dealt in daylight.
A little girl sips her lemonade.

What do I love, when I love life?

I love love.




I love you.

The Pursuit of Happyness.

Happiness. We all look for it. Whether it's through financial stability, friends, hobbies, a lot of us are on what seems to be the ultimate goal in our life. Happiness.
What defines happiness?
Why does it seem like such an important thing to be happy?
Do you have to be selfish in order to obtain happiness?
Is happiness only achieved at "the end"?
How do we create or find happiness in our lives?

This question has been running through my mind for a very long time, and like many controversial topics, this is one that is completely subjective to the individual. However, I myself have managed to narrow down my own parameters of what it means to be happy. And it all began to make sense when I came to this stunning conclusion this morning:

The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

We all look to see where the sense is in life - we all try to find some common ground. The truth is, the more we look to see where we can trust, we get hurt. Life's not fair, but neither is life unfair. Life is just the way it is. We live, we love. We're all just children standing in a white space. Nothing.
It seems that the best we can do is lie to each other, hold hands, and say that everything is going to be just fine. But we don't know that. What do we know, come to think of it?

What we do know, is that once in a while, there comes along a moment that feels a little different. It makes us want to cry, scream, make love until you pass out for the next twelve hours. It's what moves us to want to become something when we grow up, to represent a moment or a motivation that we all have in our lives. This term, this feeling of contentment - well, we call this happiness. That one moment where everything falls into place and feels just right, the way it's supposed to be.

But how do we go from feeling lost to feeling completely happy with ourselves? In some cases, I can agree that this is hard. For one thing, happiness seems very highly dependent on the situation that you are in. I'm sure that people who were deported to a concentration camp during the second world war were unhappy mainly because of circumstances that were beyond their grasp. But on the flip side as well,-when you try to control everything because things are within your grasp, are you happy? In the end, is the pursuit of your own individual happiness better than trying to help others become happy? It's your life, yes. But how important is it, really? And in the end, when we die, do we understand this? Personally, I think that since human faith and understanding is based completely upon human intellect, we will never know the answer.So now - what do you think? What does happiness mean to you? Does pursuing that which you believe in, really make you happier by the end of it all? Well here's my answer:

HAPPINESS DOESN'T EXIST.

So here we have two thoughts that completely counteract with the American definition of happiness - the thought that the pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness, and that happiness in itself doesn't exist. Relax. I'll explain.

If we, as human beings, should spend less time worrying about why we aren't happy; and instead focused on coping with the situation at hand; our society would work far more efficiently. Too much effort is spent in our heads, wondering, worrying. Trying to figure things out so they work for us. None of us can drive the car of life, so why the hell should I give you the keys? The point is, we don't know. So relax. Enjoy what you have, and what you don't. Celebrate the happy moments, grow from the sad ones. The sad ones in the end shape us to become the person that we are today.
I argue with the very notion of happiness' existence, and instead, replace it with other words. Contentment, passion, love. Happiness in itself doesn't exist. That's just some ridiculous notion we as people have developed over the years. In our strive for perfection, we ended up going three steps backwards. We look to pour our trust in something that will never happen. So begin to trust the imperfections as well, love them. It's our sadness that shapes who we are, it's our trust in the good in all that makes us human. Pain simply shows that we love - and love; well, that's really what it's all about.

The Multiple Uses Of Duct Tape!

"This problem would be solved if I just had some duct tape..."

How many times have we each said this? Haha Well, if you encounter strange random life events often- as I do, I am sure you have said this many times. So, I have decided to dedicate a whole post to the multiple uses of duck tape.

"Duct tape is like the force: It has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together." -Carl Zwanzig

In the book "Geeks Guide to World Domination" it says that a snowboarder was on his medal run, when his binding broke off. He then duct taped it back on, and finished 3rd- winning the bronze medal. Awesome. Also, in that book... it states that during the Apollo 13 mission, a hole was fixed in the shuttle with duct tape.

Who hasn't fixed their shoe with some duct tape?










Some other uses are...
-Hanging Posters
-Fix broken book binding
-Use as wallpaper
-Patch ripped clothing
-Twist a long piece into a rope
-Tape annoying people to walls, floor, ceiling, or bed
-Duct tape wallet!!!
-For use in the absence of staples
-Roofing shingles
-Effective for muting humans
-Home security system (tape windows and doors)
-Make a boat
And oh so many more...go to Google for more ideas.

Thanks for your time! And remember....use that duct tape!

Out of the way,

"I can't see the forest with all these goddamn trees in the way"

Corrupt or Broken?

Does evil exist? Is it inevitable? What is evil? Is it not just an absence of good? Hmmm Interesting hey? To see good in everyone- not an easy task. But is there evil? For the sake of interest... I grabbed the definition of evil off Dictionary.com

-Adjective 1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life. 2. harmful; injurious: evil laws. 3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days. 4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation. 5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition. (This is just the adjective. It is also listed as a noun, adverb, and idiom.)

Evil just maybe, is simply... the absence of good. Through circumstances, sadness, pain, and hate- we build walls. We block our hearts. Are we capable of being completely corrupt? Or is there an element of good in each of us? A part of us, that can't stop loving. That part of us, could be nearly undetected...but still remains. The sun shines through the clouds, and for just a moment... everything is right. So where does that leave this debate? Nowhere. We are broken people. Can we put the pieces back together? It is sort of like black vs. white. But we all live in the gray.

Simple intimacy

A mother sits with her child at the kitchen table. Eyes tired, bloodshot. Knees shaking, swollen. Hands at the mercy of arthritis. Her face folds in a manner that suggests it had smiled once, a long time ago.

The boy squirms on the chair, wearing a worn pair of blue pajamas. He is about four years old, wire thin. Tongue stuck out in concentration, he attempts to slather his name in crayon on a brown paper bag. He fusses when his mother smooths a strand of hair from his eyes, flushes when praised.

It gets late. The mother runs some hot water for the boy, bathes him even though he screams about shampoo getting into his eyes. Scowls when tucked under the covers. Squeals when kissed goodnight.

The mother returns to the kitchen, makes herself a cup of tea. Sits down and wraps a blanket around bony shoulders, shaky hands bringing the cup to her face. She sits there, leaden teardrops falling from tired eyes. She sits there, waiting. Waiting for someone - anyone - to kiss her, praise her, wish her goodnight.