Break Up Song

Here is the sheet music to the tune I can’t hum. A composition of your
personality missed, sounding with mine. The traits that make our fates. I
sound this out not in sorrow, nor in hopeful revival, but as the recognition I want
to not fail at making again. Our harmony, which once existed.

I imagine your light fingers on my shoulder, at the ready.
Digits strumming reminders that I am the song.
I am its source. Guts attached from the neck, sinew strung across the belly.

Vibrations flooding my chest, carefully arranged with capacity for hearts.
All finished by glazed-over male hips and coarse-haired bowlegs that splay
into feet—with longish toes. Though not as long as yours.

The details in design are no longer this song. If we were to address the untended
to parts, they would appear to be just that: untended to. We own separate
kidneys and livers for sorting this out. Bendable skeletons house each of our vitals.
Each needing separate resting spots and separate vitamin bottles.

And yet, it's the tune of each other that can't play apart. Nor quite together.
A disparate sound. Driving the mind. And it needs attention.
Constant and careful. 

Our song could swell, or: admiration may not rehearse that day.
But it's just like they say—without pressure, there are no diamonds.

Late April

There was a plan to talk
Around It, over It, through It
And to savor a sympathetic ear.

Because whatever It was, boiled hot.
And you could hear its steam whistle,
even from a comfortable distance.

There was every reason to think
that there was a problem.
And so they walked to the creek to talk.

They did end up talking,
about water,
and he later gave some thought to it.

“Water that is clear and deep,
And can stay wtih you,
Is rare to find.

Water that dares not alter your path,
But can stay with you,
Strikes me as courageous.”

This water soothed the boiling, and quieted the whistle.
And this water sprouted a terrified, trembling seedling
That seemed in no condition to survive.

A seedling too fragile. Too exposed. Too unsure of its roots.
It sprung across the mouth of a man who insisted
That something he could say might make its longing go away.

But the water insisted back, just then.
And the seedling was met by her clear and deep glance,
which seemed to say, our plan to talk about that is not for today.

Only the bold can teach the bold, and only with ears.
And what he saw was her whole heart giving to listening.
And what she saw was his courage to tremble.

And what the water found was something rare:
Two people sitting in union with its master plan.

The medium's still the message. Duh Kony guy.

If you think about it, the short-form documentary has never enjoyed so much power and required less skill and credentials to achieve a wide audience. In that way, the format almost resembles a cruel dictator whose downfall is met by increased knowledge and power. A cruel dictator that would make a good subject for a short-form documentary. A documentary that seems really important and everyone feels morally empowered watching, but results in its "dehydrated" maker passed out naked in front of Sea World blaming all of the new-found Likes for his demise. Perhaps the form itself is what is becoming tiny, needy, emotionally manipulative, and unable to handle power. Perhaps we are led to wonder what the intentions behind a conversation of terrible suffering on the other side of the world, a probable cocaine and alcohol binge in San Diego, and a "click to share" with lots of back-patting comments of concern actually have in common.

Yes, I will answer my own question: attention, power, personal success disguised with human morality. Oh, and Facebook. At the end of the day, is the overriding morality of the Internet 2.0 about putting money in all the specific places ts most needed and not considering how it got there? Isn't that cynical way of thinking consistent with all the rich-people shit that liberal secular humanists hate. Trust me. In this day of doing right no matter what the reasons, and of asking for handouts to coincide your personal success with your ever-important charitable cause, if you can't handle fucking kickstarter money, you wouldn't be able to handle billions of dollars or weapons or power either. We all basically behave the same way in the grips of these things.

A title that suits

I have a new job title. Apprentice to Life. I have only learned one thing so far, and that is that being an expert sucks. Being blind to limitations hurts. Being unable to have the humility to understand the terms and boundaries of what it is you are getting into will quickly translate into a weakness. There are others that know better. I am getting into life, and I will listen and practice and not try to move up or on or sideways or out. I am an apprentice to life.

It's such a relief to finally have a career settled.

Fact-Facing

»The essential quality of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention, and "discovers" a new world within the known world. Man, and the animals, and the flowers, all live within a strange and forever surging chaos. ... But man cannot live in chaos. ... Man must wrap himself in a vision, make a house of apparent form and stability, fixity. In his terror of chaos he begins by putting up an umbrella between himself and the everlasting whirl. Then he paints the under-side of his umbrella like a firmament. Then he parades around, lives and dies under his umbrella. Bequeathed to his descendants, the umbrella becomes a dome, a vault, and men at last begin to feel that something is wrong.

Man fixes some wonderful erection of his own between himself and the wild chaos, and gradually goes bleached and stifled under his parasol. Then comes a poet, enemy of convention, and makes a slit in the umbrella; and lo! the glimpse of chaos is a vision, a window to the sun. But after a while, getting used to the vision, and not liking the genuine draught from chaos, commonplace man daubs a simulacrum of the window that opens on to chaos, and patches the umbrella with the painted patch of the simulacrum. That is, he has got used to the vision; it is part of his house-decoration. So that the umbrella at last looks like a glowing open firmament, of many aspects. But alas! it is all simulacrum, in innumerable patches.«

--DH LAWRENCE

Jaws of Life

Sure, the minds don't do anything but fear. Still, you can see one impossible glint cutting through their fogged up eyes. You sense a presumptuous faith and so commit to their broke down lives. And they say, "All's about I am right now is here." And you tell them, "Perfect, it's all just heart from here." You tell them, "Don't be scared. I know a smile feels more than far." And you say that the laws of people behaving are bigger than they are.

You tell them it no longer concerns the particulars you may think of you, but that the laws apply to them too. And that it's safe and free, to only be here. And you let them know how much bigger everything ever was than that little mind they fear. Even while out there, battling life's laws with an appetite for anything near. Beyond me, beyond you, and beyond us lies this Great Fact, which ever will be.

And first you tell them the bad news--that they no longer get to be who stands before me. And then you say the good--that the entirety they never saw, the light sky beyond the dark tunnel they are struggling through, it loves you, see. I can show you the way out. And then the sky. And shocker it was to me, it will be to you: see, it loves you. And I truly mean that, broke-down friend.

I'll be the first to concede that this kind of love's tougher than any man could bear alone. But you will behave in small monthly payments--a new lease renting to own. And then, in carefully minded increments, you will own It. And then there's the matter of the sky...Well, some days it will just feel so goddamned close.

So look now, here's my outreached hand. You have ideas about cheer, slipshod fears, and enough regret to fuel a rocket eons away...In my most plain voice, hope is where we begin. Drink ice water. You can't smell nor taste it. Drink up. Touch your calloused hands together, and lift that swelled up tongue. Pray. It won't work, but do it anyway. Wiggle your ears. There's a frequency so near that there's no way you will hear. But put that mind on firm notice: "There shall be nothing today."

There's no such thing as a prowess that can Unmangle the mangled. Nor can just one illuminate a tunnel. We have clumsiness. We have flashlights. We have each other and salutation--and don't forget about that sky. A sharp-toothed glint, drawing shallow breaths beneath story-cracked skin, shines its way through--somewhat resembling a grin.

yes, and...

We don't give up on our dreams, no. but we've seen enough to see what's happened before, to those who un-tether their life lines and aim for the sky. they float away, gradually deflating into disappointment. they may have purchased a lie. Sold in every corner of their Mama and Papa's belief in them. In america and on the pictures, and in the schools. the lie of our own brilliance, not yours. they do it and float on and not know where they are, but maybe by a sound coming off a speaker or a phrase a teacher spoke. A teacher they now feel ambivalence for. Go and float to what you thought of you, yesterday. They float take some wounds, leaking out an essential air. Picking at well-intended scabs, thin-skin hardens, callous over "these times" so unfair. because faith's not there, healing not here. And I'll tell you why, it's because on this flight there is no fucking way to steer. So whimper out, sink in soft whines, but at too high a distance to touch back down--to reconsider. Some can touch again. Guilt can bring you back. Joy. Sin, resolve of goodness. Some other girl did it when you couldn't decide. Or simply, decimated pride. Nobody knows the how, nobody can re-sing the song that commences inside. Some get gifted the want to play along. To ante up and discover the value of responsibility. The lucky ones have babies. Or hurt too deep. The lucky ones get left with no choice in the matter. Get the anime, elan vital, the verve, with sparks and all. How's it come? All things considered, what makes Johnny run? Lips no longer serviceable. I mean, here we stand got two feet rough ground steady eyes, deep-focused. Limited for sure, but still can take us pretty far. Not knowing how far. Not knowing where to. But once we get there, we know we'll be able to see further. No longer sorting through used copies of the "Myth of the Straight Line." Here we stand, considering the vast burden of others. Here we wander, seeing the stars in the sky, and maybe sometimes feeling so close to them. Underneath this tasteful backdrop--not too dark, but never too hot. Just sufficiently bright. Warmed by the life those stars sent, and warmed by that same thing they gave our friends. We don't give up, no. we walk. we run. and we walk when we get tired again. we don't fly though, never no. because we don't wanna miss out like before. I mean, the dreams might even be close too, yet we don't feel like sleeping anymore. Many are good and we are not them by design.