Echoing Places

It’s 9 ‘til 3, and you can reach out

And let the heartache roll past your fingertips.

The tears aren’t there, but you wish they were.

Everything terrible and beautiful scratches at the

Glass, wanting to seep beneath your windowpane,

Your hand is on the latch

Waiting to turn, to let in the night air

In like a flood, like a torrent in which

You so desperately want to drown.

Green eyes behind the rim of a glass, perfume and blue jeans.

The music begins, as your heartbeats approach.

The air is pulsating, throbbing

And it surrounds you, permeates you in every way imaginable.

You can rub it between your palms,

Under your tongue, between your lips,

Past every rosy corpse of words you never said.

In 13 jets, you suck it in between your teeth

And let it evaporate the very edges of moistened gums.

You can’t being to fathom, but then

You don’t really want to

Step, turn, release, step turn,

If only she would stop smiling, you could see straight.

The dark is luminescent against the shadows along the walls, dancing.

Each hair on the back of your neck stands in turn,

Attesting to the flittering phantom of half-time in your head,

And still, your hand remains on the latch.

Too tired to sleep, too aware to think, you’re

Caught up in these moments, a net of

Yesterdays and faces; Motions and glances.

You are not alone

You tell yourself in the echoing places,

You are not alone.

The Driftwood Wanderer

I sat on the beach

Convincing myself,

I’m finished with poetry.

For once in my life,

Honestly and candidly,

I speak my mind to the tide

            I hate her,

I said,

            She ravished my heart and watched as it bled.

I pause to listen, my soul exposed;

                        A crash,

                                    A wave,

                                                Wordless empathy.    

The blood flow slowed, but it never stopped,

In it, I may drown,

I don’t know, I’m crazy, I’m caught

In her sea and see-nots,

I can’t break her down, she’s a tower.

The wind whispers her name,

Cruelly reminding me of this,

This very spot where we first met,

Soaked now with tidal mist

And tears, fresh and warm.

            Damn it, I said I wouldn’t cry.

                        Breathe,

Just breathe.

I lay my head down,

Flecked with sand and painful thoughts,

My heart pounding

To the immutable rhythm of the waves.

I alone on this broken shoreline.

Brothers, I think with a grin,

We are brothers, you and I.

I clutch the sand beneath my fingers

In a gritty, crunching embrace.

The crumbled remains of a once sturdy life.

           

Time slips away

                        On the breeze of the night,

                                    Gazing at horizonless skies.

My upturned cheek betrays the lines

Streaked across their sides,

And a two-fold glint

Reflects the stars,

In a sea of unseen joys.

                                   

I’ll always say that grin washed upon my face

From the ocean that night,

Like a lonely driftwood wanderer.

And I don’t know if it’s what they say,

But I’m saying it now:

            There is healing in the tide,

                        The waves,

                                    The waves that never cease to break.

Ergo Sum

In the breath of this moment,

I have only time enough to breathe.

Like the ghost of a vapor,

Shipwrecked on the shores

Of the ephemeral sea.

This instant, this second,

This volatile sense of existence,

Is all I have to shelter me

From what was and is and what could be.

Yet for its fleeting,

It spans the unthinkable, yawning chasm,

Of innumerable frames of this;

And somehow links our destinies

In a barrage of comings and goings.

Its unseen tendrils hold us back

From that ledge of Hamlet’s sleep.

That edge of every thought and sight;

The privilege to which we all have a right.

In and out, my moments go,

To and from my lungs;

Apart from this, I only know,

Hic diem est 
Ergo sum.

The Race

          It took off with the speed and agility of an ancient Olympian runner, bursting forth at an unheard cue, as if there were some sudden and universal consensus that it was time for the race to begin. It did not look back as it soared at a blistering pace toward some unknown destination, some undisclosed finish line with adoring spectators and wealth and prestige no doubt in store. It began well. It began with a conviction, an immovable certainty of its beginning and its ending; it had most assuredly plotted out its course with the utmost care and consideration in order to ensure its destination was reached with all conceivable efficiency and expediency.

But, suddenly, hesitation.

Just as quickly as it had started, it stopped in midstride, hovering precariously between progression and inaction, frozen in time for an instant, inexplicably indecisive as to its next move. It drifted, slowly at first, but then quickening its pace downward as if it suddenly feared the heights to which it had climbed. Yet, before it touched the ground, a new gust of conviction seemed to fill its sails, and off it soared as if it had no memory of ever wanting to stop at all.

But what was this? It turned, did a spin of sorts and began its frenzied pursuit in the direction from which it had come. Had its fear turned to regret? Had it been a mistake to leave in the first place? Had the destination itself moved?

Regardless of the reason, it took off once more with all the passion and resolve it had possessed in the beginning, only pausing from time to time to enjoy a small spin of joy or maybe a quick, relaxing drift for a time. The confused parade continued in this way for some time, a conglomeration of processions and recessions, each close on the heels of the other, never convincingly promising consistency in direction, only motion.

At long last, it reached its destination, coming to rest by a stolid wall of blue, perhaps the sky itself, leaning against its side and rewarding itself with a much deserved rest. Its journey had been undulating, unpredictable, and uncertain at times, but here now, it finally felt it was precisely where it needed to be. If only to push just a little further…

It was just then that a bypassing person happened to glance down at it, and pausing from the tune they had just been humming, picked up the grocery bag, placed it in the recycling bin, and continued on their walk through the parking lot, humming happily once again.

Language Speaks

I am the writer of epithets, a living metaphor. Like a simile in motion or an allusion with his own cross to bear. Who can question my rhetoric? As I define the chiasmus, so the chiasmus defines me. I am the complementing antithesis and the soothsayer of sibilance. My words personify the inanimate and obliterate every hyperbole. I am the power of language.

Stories

           On every street corner there stands a story. Stories brush past you on a busy sidewalk. Stories hand you your groceries on a Saturday afternoon. Stories come knocking on your door, trying to sell you life insurance. We are surrounded by stories, yet how precious few do we ever really know? We may know our own story, we may even think we know the stories of those closest to us, but think of all the innumerable stories that we do not know and will never know. Which stories may be like our own? Which are complete contrasts? Which stories will the world remember?

With every day that we open our eyes, take in a new breath, and allow ourselves to be swept further along the current of life, we are effectively picking up our pens and etching another chapter in the narrative of our lives. Each action, word, glance, thought, emotion, reaction, attraction, repulsion, decision, indecision, and anything in between marks another addition to the ever-extending drama, comedy, melodrama, horror, and mystery that is us. It goes without saying that no two stories are alike. What might need to be said, however, is that even the same story is different depending on the audience. The beauty of our stories is that fact that they are not mere words on a page or typeface in a book, they are an infinitely complex assemblage of remembrances, feelings, emotions, and occurrences that come together in a uniquely definitive progression of what we have so simply named life. And while we may be tempted to believe our stories are immutable and unchangeable in the ways in which it is understood or ultimately viewed, I think we can all come to the realization that this is just not true.

The audience of our lives is not the audience of a book. They do not read the same words; they do not even see the same cover, title, or author. Our audiences and the part of our story that they experience is as varied as the very DNA of the human race. With each new pair of eyes, with each new set of ears, and with each new pair of hands, our story is seen, heard, and felt differently. Our audience rarely, if ever, gets the whole picture. Most often, they only get a glance, a fleeting picture of the long, rich storyline of our lives, and yet, this is all they will ever see. The members of our audience are not merely audience members either; they are authors themselves. In experiencing even a part of our story, our audience is compelled to add a few lines to their own work in progress; if not in exact detail, then in an impression, shade, or mood. In this way, even our most basic interactions represent an intermingling of two astonishingly intricate narratives, and the result is a breaking off, a sharing of one story to another. No two stories can come into contact without affecting the other.

This interaction is something like writing on a thin surface on an impressionable surface; whatever is written while on this surface will leave an imprint, even after the writing is finished and removed. In this way, we are all like a sea of impressionable sheets, constantly writing our own stories and imprinting them on others while simultaneously being imprinted. These imprints may not be perfectly legible, perfectly understood, but they are impressions nonetheless, with lasting, real effect.  

            What are we then? Are we authors, protagonists, antagonists, or audience members? Are we the story or the medium on which the story is written? Are we the writers or the written? To the best of my knowledge, and to the fullest extent of my intellectual probing, I can only think to answer this question with: yes. We are all of these and so much more. We are the experience that makes a mystery intriguing or a comedy hilarious. We are the tears that make a tragedy sorrowful and the fear that makes a horror terrifying. We are the fire and tenderness that makes a love story infatuating, and we are the love and longing that makes a journey home worth every step of the way. We are stories, we are inseparable, and in the end, we are a part of something so much larger than our own story. Our stories are not isolated and self-sustaining; they are fueled by the stories of others and the experiences we share with them. Our story may only be one of many, but they are no less important or significant because of this; our story touches a myriad of others, whether we know it or not. What we are left with, then, is life. Life and all its nuances, peculiarities, and similarities, all bundled up into each of our stories, beautifully and sometimes unwittingly interwoven into a masterful tapestry of “good mornings,” “how do you do’s” and “I love you’s.”

            This is the story of all our stories.

Remember Well, Remember When

Remember well, remember when

The tone of Arcady rang in our hearts,

There was a time when we were men.

When we chanced the storms most brazen,

When we bent the lightning’s arc;

Remember well, remember when

The well of virtue knew no end,

From beauty we did not depart,

There was a time when we were men.

Whether on salty shore or shady glen,

We reveled in nature’s finest arts,

Remember well, remember when

No deceptive shadow could touch us then,

We fought them off with iron’s spark,

Yes, there was a time when we were men.

But a faded story can be told again,

With whispered words we softly start:

Remember well, remember when,

There was a time when we were men.

Seven

Hey ya'll, this is a short one and may seem insanely simple and straightforward, but there are a couple of subtleties that I found to be enjoyable myself. Anyways, just wanted to give you the heads up that there's more to this one than meets the eye, combining form, construct, and overall meaning. Enjoy!

Seven

Love

Descends

From above

To make amends,

To make right the wrong,

And heal the brokenness

Of the widow’s weary song.

And They Say

And they say she never got old,

Only younger at heart

And rejected the cold

Of nights of regret,

Her character bold,

If you saw this girl, you would never forget.

She’d dance and dance,

She’d whirl and whirl,

No age could touch

That lovely girl.

They say she never learned to hate,

But with open arms

She would always wait

For better days

And brighter years,

And found a way

To conquer fears.

She’d love and love

With no thought to self,

Her heart more precious

Than the finest wealth.

They say she trusted like a child,

With tender touch

And a manner mild;

Never short on a word of care,

And if pain was present,

She was there.

She’d laugh and laugh,

That spirit of mirth,

Her shouts could touch

Each corner of earth.

Beauty her name, joy her cloak,

Darkness she banished,

The impossible broke;

See her there, hear her now,

If only to hold her,

To keep her somehow.

And they say she never got old,

But waited in wait

For one fearless and bold

To run alongside in heart-beating stride,

If I don’t reach her now,

At least I’ll have tried.

Just to try for her grace,

That will satisfy me;

Just to try for her heart,

And let come what may be.

She’s beautiful, you see,

Brighter than the sun,

More elegant than the sea.

I’d give my life

To break on her shore,

To lay on her sands

And be weary no more.

But such things are too great for me,

I may never taste,

But perhaps I will see

Her smile, every once in a while,

And remember for a moment

That something good can be.

She’d dance and dance,

Her arms above,

I will always know,

That girl was love.

An Encounter With Conscience

And what shall we do with this world,

You and I?

Will we twirl it ‘round our fingers,

Watch the spectacles go by?

See the stars and shapes of

A thousand years

Pass on and out of sight.

What have they to do with us?

We coheirs of the lot,

Yes you and I are all that counts,

Oh yes, you and I.

But wait, there I see the legions

Of mighty warrior’s past,

They conquer and they slaughter,

With civility aghast.

No matter though,

We all ought know,

The bruteness of their strides.

Never again will we fall away

To those turbulent, roiling tides.

For what matters most

Is that I hold you close,

And forget the world of strife;

And in the end you and I,

Yes, we will have the life.

Pay no mind to those pestering cries,

They too will fade away.

Their distress is naught but heathen lies,

Intended to get their way.

Their sorrows are a sham,

Their tears a sick charade,

I won’t fulfill demands,

Nor myself degrade.

For you and I,

We rest above,

This rubbish and this mess.

Their sickly fingers

Stay far away,

And for this, I count us blest.

And see there the words of men,

Whose ideas define the laws,

Of width and weight and collagen,

Of rainfall and its cause.

See there how they change,

With the turn of every age,

Yet their truthfulness not doubted,

And even reckoned sage.

And alongside them, the pondering ones,

Who squint and wonder, “Why the sun?

And why us now? And why he there?

And how does a circle fit a square?”

They point and state, “This is so.”

While another laughs a hearty, “No!”

But enough of that, let’s turn away,

The right and wrong is not to say.

Why do you look distraught, my love?

Why this troubled glance?

You seem as if these specters haunt

A realm where change has chance.

But what will you have us do?

To blast these bounds asunder,

To tear this world in two?

Why break these chains so taut,

Why question what is so?

We’re taught what’s ought and surely not,

Can this not suffice to know?

But I see you there,

Your stare austere,

In a fire moved to move;

To shake the mountains

And release the fountains

Of flowing fortitude.

Who am I to stop you now?

Your mind is set, your head is bowed.

Just know that I forewarned you here,

To seek not what is not sincere.

For every grapple of the world without

Will clutch and claw at every doubt,

But with heart assured, your cost to pay,

God save the fool who’s in your way.

Regardless

I saw you,

I met you,

I loved you,

I left you,

I asked you,

If you knew,

How it feels when something is just really out of place and doesn’t exactly fit,

And do you?

If you knew,

Then would you,

Remind me,

Why you do,

What you do,

And how you,

Remind me,

Of you through

All these little intruding thoughts and memories that really just throw off the flow of things on a day to day basis?

Yes you do,

Pervade through,

My mind and,

Manage to,

Remind me,

Of how you,

Wanted to

Rearrange the structure of my life and completely disrupt my nicely established patterns.

So if you,

Won’t mind to,

Back off and

Just try to,

Resort to,

A brand new,

Restructured,

Life’s worldview

Then maybe I won’t find it so difficult to get rid of your dissonant and non-conformist memories and simply be able to move on with my life.

But then again…

If you go,

And turn heel,

You won’t know,

How I feel.

I can’t say,

Anyway,

In my rhymes,

And strict times

How you so beautifully obliterated my preconceived notions of order and showed me something so much better, so much more.

So you knew,

All along,

It’s simple,

And never wrong,

To tell you,

My darling,

In verse or

In song,

Regardless

Of flow,

Regardless

Of tune,

So long as

You know that

I love you.

A Walk on the Beach

This one goes out to all you beautiful people waiting as anxiously as I am for Spring Break. Enjoy.

A wisp, a wave, a wave abashed

About my ankles dared to crash.

A cave, a grave, a grave brand new,

Opened up to swallow my shoe,

But death, a breath, a breath renewed,

By salt and sand and light anew.

What’s more, a shore, a shore of stars

Sprawled out in perfect silver bars.

A hope, a dawn, a dawn in sight,

Beauty of simple, daunting might.

I start, I step, I step away,

Out of my grave, and on my way.

An Experiment in Sibilance

Solitude sits by this street corner’s side,

Sipping on musing’s sweet serenade.

Silent and coy for the sake of the weak,

It sees what we hear, and says what we think.

Softly it composes its delicate sight,

Still but to breathe morning’s shared light.

Til then will the night shroud with star’s arms,

The world of wild and symphonic charms.

Beale Street

Hi. Once again, I am breaking my traditional form of simply posting a new work without any commentary for the purpose of explaining just a few things. I wanted to say a few words about this piece mainly because it is slightly unusual for a couple of reasons. The first thing to note is that this is, in fact, an excerpt of a story. Though no context is given or any characters' names given, I intended this piece to be understood as a small part of a larger narrative, whether that narrative was written or unwritten (in this case, it's unwritten). Although this is only a portion of a story, I meant it to serve as a kind of synecdoche or post-shadowing of what has occurred. The second thing to note is the point of view from which this piece is written. There is a blending of third person omnipotent and internal dialogue by the character that interweave with no real transitions. I wanted this style to reflect the state in which much of our thought life takes place: in a somewhat ethereal landscape of the physical setting around us and the sometimes tumultuous inner-workings of our mind. The two interact in any number of ways; one inspiring the other, one interrupting the other, or maybe one interpreting the other. In any case, the unique union of these two often results in a disjointed, almost haphazard transitioning between our thoughts and our observations. The man in the story muses and questions quite a bit, and perhaps this is my projection of myself and the weird conversations I have in my head sometimes. But even if it is, I wanted the questions and the struggles in this piece to reflect a larger intellectual and spiritual struggle that takes place as a result of being human. This is not to say that this man's thought process is somehow representative of the human experience, but it is a facet (once again, this is only a portion of a story). Anyway, I thought I would at least explain that much so you have a little bit of context in which to read the following piece. Thanks for your time, and enjoy.

Beale Street

Coughing eyes glared at the glowing end of a cigarette. 

Burn. 

A resigned thought slowly floated up to heaven, but fell heavily back down to earth under the oppressive weight of the nearly opaque radiance of the orange streetlight. 

Doesn’t really matter at this point anyway, he thought with a slow exhale.

     The meager vapors of manufactured escape lingered before him in a tantalizing indifference. Smoke and air, one in the same really, or maybe only facets of one another. Who really knew?

 Ah light. So much light attempting to cover up so much darkness. Or was the darkness trying to cover the light? 

Doesn’t really matter I suppose.

 

Try to define light and darkness gets thrown in. The absence of light. Was the same true of light? Was light the absence of darkness? Which came first? But he was overthinking the situation. 

     All that really mattered right now was the cigarette in his mouth and the hole in his heart. Funny thing cigarettes; pleasure from destruction. Wasn’t his life just the same? A happy glow, merrily blazing a trail to a predetermined end, leaving a trail of ash in its wake? Didn’t the sulphurous fumes of his life portend of his fiery destination? 

Too many questions. Most people can just smoke. 

But then again, maybe it’s those times when one dares to venture beyond where most people go, what most people think, that he can find himself suspended above the chasm of uncertainty, free to find certainty, unrestrained in his efforts for truth. But then, the stakes are raised that much more. With all knowledge to gain, but all soul to lose, can a man afford that chance? 

Beautiful night though. If he didn’t know any better, he might actually mistake himself for being content.

A cloud of smoke hung in the air like a forgotten dream, waiting to be revived, motionless and dead in some insignificant and arbitrary form of space. Quiet, surreal. A streetcar passed, moving the dream to uncertainty, swirling, thrusting, contracting. Suddenly to rest where it had begun, only more of a memory, shaken by reality and banished to reside in the minds of those who had known it before. Were men more than this? Do faces mean anything more than what an acquaintance recalls in weeks after? 

He pressed his thumb against the bridge of his nose, furrowing his brow. Still too many questions.

He opened his eyes slowly, fearing some new metaphor for the mysteries of life. Barbeque and blues. Not so threatening. He allowed himself to relax a little more once again, taking a deep pull from his cigarette. Beginnings and endings are somewhat inseparable aren’t they? Nothing ever ends without something else beginning and vice versa. Was this really any different?

Whoever decided flashing neon signs were a good idea should be executed immediately. 

He sighed. One last pull from his cigarette told him his time was about through. He tossed the smoldering butt to the sidewalk and snuffed it out with his boot. With a final sigh and glancing circumspection, he turned and walked down Beale Street one last time.

Faithful

Remember me, that is all I ask,

When the world is faded

And the stars rolled back,

When the mountains fall,

And the sky dissolves,

Remember me and my final call.

The day will come when all seems black,

When your senses fail,

And your cunning lacks

The means or the might

To flee or to fight

The confines of that terrible night.

Fear not the winds of howling intent,

Their life and demise

Are already set,

But you of the light,

Are set on the stage

To witness the might of righteousness’ rage

When bleakest of bleak and soothsayer’s moan

Echo and reek of

The harbinger’s tone,

Lash to these words,

To sharpen and hone

Sight that can see and foresee the unknown.

The hearts all around may falter and fail,

They gasp for a glimpse,

They quiver and quail.

To you they will look

For guidance and light,

To lead them home through that terrible night.

So remember me, that is all I ask,

When the world is faded

And the stars rolled back.

When the mountains fall,

And the sky dissolves,

Remember me and my final call.

Unafraid

Electrify my mind

If only to light my eyes

To better see

Your wondrous grace

And probe the depths

Of the swirling masses

Of unknowns and certainties

Let me fall into that fray

So that I might feel

And feel deeply

Of a passion and a fire

Tinged with the world

And all its ambiguities

Then, at least, I might get lost

In a beauty

Transcending the most despicable ugliness,

Seeing beyond the smoke and mirrors,

Squinting into the blinding darkness

Of the rising night,

Unafraid.

This my prayer,

This my lament,

This my indescribable joy,

So let it be.