Posts Tagged ‘Life’

The results of dishonesty

The results of dishonesty

There is a hole in my heart, and I can’t contain the light that is pouring out. This is the brilliance of truth and the refraction of soul. This is the damage that is done to a human being when you are betrayed, blinded, backstabbed, and belittled for trying to be more understanding than is humanly possible to be. The Froggacuda has held his enormous, razor-sharp, whiplike tongue long enough, and the slings and arrows, the sticks and stones, having come from all quarters, determine that the defense of the 360 degrees is back by popular demand, and must be enforced with the unpredictable and uncanny gusto that is the Monster from Red Lake.

This site has been populated with what I once was and, apparently, what I still am made of: not snips and snails and puppy dogs tails, but fifteen years of poetry, ten years of making music, five years of DJ mixes, and one month of unemployment later, I am sitting all froggy on top of a pile of meaningless (to you) shit that perhaps someone will wander through and find a gem or two amidst this midden heap of detritus. Although the catharsis of inputting and then burning all of my available poetry journals is healing, it tears a lot of scabs off of present and historical wounds that should have been viciously expunged with a gallon of Bactine and a scalpel when the damage occurred in the first place. Except that I am a coward.

I don’t know why I am so creative; why I am able to pour my guts out on the kitchen table and read your fortune in them like some sort of Street Shaman or modern-day Gypsy — to help you, only to stuff my innards back into this ridiculously fat and out-of-shape barrel-like body of mine, smile, pat your head, tell you I am alright, and send you on your merry way with a little bit of Murdoch perspective to think about. It’s what I do.

I am so brave when it comes to telling the truth to other people. In my own private hellish closet where the real me lurks and shakes his fist at a world that I never asked to be a part of, I tell myself I am making the best of it. I live, I love, I breathe, I get up in the morning, I go to work (when I have it), I get shanked by friends, family members, acquaintances, business partners, bosses, co-workers, Sunday drivers, wives, fuck-buddies, Internet personalities, and the population at large, and it all it really makes me want to get this thing called life over with. That’s why I am trying to smoke and drink myself to death like a modern day Charles Bukowski. What is the point of all of this happiness and misery, anyways?

Seriously, what is a blog for besides spitting ridiculously self-centered screeds to an unsubscribed and uncaring Internet where my body of work will be lost as another couple of drops in the ocean of half-formed content scrabbling for purchase or publication like so many Lovecraftian half-formed nightmares populating the craptacular pages of the 21st Century’s equivalent of pulp fiction: WordPress.

I was going to wait until I had everything I had ever done (or at least kept and found again, only to be re-humiliated by rediscovering it) pumped into this overblown MySQL database before I started ranting again, but enough is enough, and the tongue must be let loose to rave in the dark as an orgy of one. It is terribly frustrating to understand that the highlight of my life is the eulogy I gave in a shadowy, barely filled cathedral for one of my best friends Bela Feher, who I miss like an arm or a testicle (he’d love that) even now, and I DAMN him for falling off of a big rock and leaving me here to struggle through this bullshit they call life while trying to console myself that I can’t die fast enough and that his wisdom, magic, and sarcasm is still contained within every ray of light from the hole in my heart.

[ original image courtesy of www.basehead.org ]

Like So

Posted: May 3, 2003 in Poetry
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Like so, breathed from a flute
Or struck from a drum
To hang in the air
And move slow or fast
Pitches as timbre would have it.
Sounded, whelmed, evoked
From skin or wood or brass
Shivers of torchlight drawn nigh by beat
Early evening mists rising
Called forth by the horns of hunters.
Resonation of hearts and minds
Against the thin foil of the ear’s membrane
One, then two, then a cascade
Of arpeggiating candle flames
Coax memories from elsewhere,
Common Akashic visions of yore.
Each strain frozen to fade,
Depicting the potential of now,
Then gone but for the susurrus of reverb
And that, too, away, replaced
By the next clear bells in the scheme
Or sawed bow over fraying, well-worn strings,
A clickety-clack of time on sticks,
The meter of midnight rain
Wet the senses then dries
With the voicelike sound of the rising sun.
Submarine bubbles sign seaward
The motion of all things growing up,
Roots digging deeper.
Life makes a cacophony of sound
But you can hear the symphony of always
And the contributing part you play.

And I

Posted: February 4, 2002 in Poetry
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A forest
Of opportunities
And I
Cannot restrain
From celebrating Venus
In every female form;
Although
In my heinous thoughts
The gloaming that you see
Is the embers
Of another
Life.

Once Upon a Time…A Story

Posted: September 29, 1996 in Poetry
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Once upon a time I wrote a story
Which caressed the face of the girl I love,
But the real life situation
Is untenable.
She has lost sight of what I once was
In my prime, in my heyday,
And this stubborn pride
Speeds my fall.
Once again, the impact will wake me
To a life in shambles;
Nothing gold can stay.

A Current Myopic Feud

Posted: May 15, 1995 in Poetry
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Isn’t it tragic to be so wise
And profess to know the answers,
Yet I help myself to my most delicious lies
And avoid mirrors like they were cancer.
Can’t get it right – I am still hollow
Inflated, life like sleight of hand,
No deserters; the blind still follow
This blind man across the sand.

Pine Tree

Posted: April 3, 1995 in Poetry
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I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older –
Hey, I thought it might have grown smaller
Like my free time, but
I’ll bet the wind still waves
The top of that tree back and forth
Enough to make a mother faint.
It seemed like yards, side to side,
The crow’s nest on a stormy ship
Clinging to the sparse branches,
Inadvertently gluing myself to the trunk
With pine sap and a boy’s luck,
Feeling the tickle of the ever-curious ants
That make freeways in the channels
Of such an old tree’s bark.
I think climbing tall things
Is conquering the world to a child.
I remember my parent’s roof,
Paved with pink pumice,
Once all stones,
Then weather beaten gravel,
Looking like a picnic blanket –
Something you could almost fall into
And just sink in,
Like a cat for a headrest.
From that altitude, the clouds were nearby:
I was pretty much one with the sky.
I wondered if I believed enough
On the way down,
Could I fly?

Perhaps my only true loves
Are those that are inanimate,
Or are animated soley by my
Magical imagination.
They love me like a god –
I give them life, they give me
Love without strings attached.
They could attach their strings
If they ate from that forbidden fruit
That Adam and Eve partook of.
But that is the difference
Between mankind and animals,
Plants, minerals, Elves, Dwarves, and Faeries.
We know we do wrong – we still do it.
Some barrier was broken and we keep on breaking,
We made god to subtly blame for our position.
(We call him Satan)
We told him to forgive us because
It wasn’t in our own power
To forgive ourselves for evolving.
We are now the chosen species of the planet
And, collectively, we all want to go home.
So these inanimate things I animate,
Infusing them with imagination and belief.
I can believe in them because it was I
Who made them real in the first place.
God didn’t make me; I made him
Just like I make a dream a reality,
A story my existence, and item alive
And bounding to and fro with innocent excitement.

Sleep Dustballs

Posted: December 19, 1994 in Poetry
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Home to yawns and
pillow-yarn;
sleep dustballs
and quiet
are my poems;
they’re end-of-the-day quirks,
beaten up by
living them through
in my lifetime:
each poem a seperate jewel,
a seperate study
in something.

I’ve hated myself for so long
for other people
other opinions, other lives:
here goes my hair —
look in the mirror,
watch your steely blue eyes wink:
lighthouses to steer ships by.
Bring them home.
Home is the sailor,
home from the sea,
and the hunter,
home from the hill.
home to your heart.
Quit renting the space from yourself:
laugh and languish
with the rest of the apes called human beings.
Life is a dualism;
you are understanding
dum-dum balancing act of whatever.
Equilibrium is so nice.
So is the shift of the teeter-totter but
gain control,
remain under control;
O Captain, my Captain,
you are not yet cold and dead.
Breathe in and out,
live until the end.
It comes not from your hand;
it is not believed in your heart:
the sides of life and death
are one shot kamikaze missions:
one, then the other.
Enlighten the lighthouse.
Strengthen the beams of your winks.
Find meaning in living
to bank hard against the 100% house of death.
The Love comes:
a white ship,
a black frigate,
the swarthy faces of dream-lands sailors
set foot on the dry land
of your once-fertile imagination,
bearing gifts of gems and spices,
flowers silks and brocaded tapestries
unique to your mind and your magic —
so you trade them to the rest of the world.
These gifts are your giftedness;
these waves are your talents,
and when your life is lost,
you will trade no more in this heady marketplace.
Learn to be a good merchant of your wares,
a good businessperson,
a good man;
everyone barters and sings praise and stabs.
Be better: be the best
that your will and imagination can conceive,
then focus your lighthouse lantern
to illuminate,
to enlighten,
and to greater things to believe in.

The Flavor of My Fault

Posted: January 17, 1994 in Poetry
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Again on the wings of happiness,
Again from the one I love.
How much forcing, to and fro
Does it take to let it go?
And you’ll read this,
And you’ll roll your eyes,
Sigh and express your disgust
At my behavior.
Flavor it with examples;
Our life is rife with my fault.
Sometimes I can’t do enough.

I used to roll spare tires
down alleys in Point Loma
to see how many streets they’d cross
before stopping:
against a trash can or a moving car,
a cinderblock wall or a pile of dirt.
Stupid things is what I thought.
Why’d they stop there; it could have kept going
after that.
Steering.
I’m rolling and I steer myself short all of the time
and it’s coming; I can feel it singing and surging to life
in a tide, a god, an angel looking for a sharp sword
in his tongue,
fiery-eyed and furious,
smoking and snake-bitten.
But I can’t be touched by the fire I create –
burning myself won’t work anymore
– there is nothing left to burn but everything else
and it is to be smelted into my sword,
my pen, my tongue, my eyes,
my breath, my words,
my blood, my thoughts.

Inkslinger

Posted: January 20, 1993 in Poetry
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my ink gleams wetly
before it dries;
my love burns fiercely
before it dies
or so it seems,
disappears to surface in flying dreams.
love long corridors of paisley flowers
love perfect fires and books for hours
space and time,
meter and rhyme,
still my ink flows on and across
a purple crayon for my thoughts
to bring them to life, to tally my fright,
they hold me and make me, blindfolded, a Knight.

Little Raw Ideas

Posted: January 13, 1991 in Poetry
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Did you sense the urgency in the setting sun today
Did you hear the impatience of the wind this evening
Can you taste the excitement imported by the weather
Don’t the palms of your hands itch for solid steel
I’m hoping God will unleash the lightning riders
To rip my roots out of this ever composting life
And dump me on my ass in the middle of a thunderstorm
Soggy and brilliant and fiery and real!

Untitled Poem #11

Posted: June 24, 1987 in Poetry
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My life is with what everybody has toyed
Shuddering, quaking, my will is destroyed.
I fall to my knees with a heart-rending cry
That echoes around in an empty blue sky.
Now the tears come, they come like a flood
But it’s not saline moisture, it’s dark crimson blood
Coursing down my cheeks, staining the fair earth
While my life is waning, they giggle in mirth.
Pounding in my ears, pumping in my chest
Why is it that I’m cursed, never blessed?
I hurt so bad, I writhe in pain
Consciousness is so hard to maintain.
Nothing cools me or quenches my thirst.
The throbbing in my brain keeps getting worse
As I see my life spill out before me
The sand turns black with my misery
There’s nothing I can do, nothing I can say
To make the world shut up and go away.
Sorrow overwhelms me, with blood I cry
My last remaining wish is that I wish I could die.

But I Missed

Posted: June 23, 1987 in Poetry
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I’ll cry for her
I’ll die for her
Yet she sits there, deep in thought.
How dear she is
How near she is
But it’s all…it’s all for naught.
I can see the rain
Streak the windowpane
Like the tears glistening in her eyes
Anything I say
Makes her turn away
As she stolidly, silently cries.

But I love her so much that it hurts sometimes
For within my life she’s like a jewel that shines
And feel so useless when I see her this way
I wish there was something that I could say

Against the wall
Doing nothing at all
Thinking of her, alone in her chair
Never ending stints
Of vigilance
How much about us does she care?
What twist of fate
Does she contemplate
At times like this, that course is so easy
It must be hell
Locked up in that cell
Lost in the dark in such misery.

I’m awake all night because I love her so much
But now she cringes from the slightest touch
Oh let me guide her through these stormy seas
Let me help her, hold her, please

I will always love her
And I shall cover
My face so she can’t see my pain
She is so grim
Filled to the brim
With agony that drives her insane
She’s taken abuse
That’s much too profuse
For anybody in this world to take
And I’m not reassured
That it’s now up to her
‘Cause she has a decision to make

Won’t someone help her, don’t pass her by
This wonderful girl with the gleam in her eye
I would give up my life if hers I could save
But it’s no use putting lilies on her grave

She’s going, going, away on the sea
And I’ll never know if she ever loved me
That laughter I loved, those lips that I kissed
I tried to catch her fall
…but I missed.

Getting Down to Business

Posted: June 21, 1987 in Poetry
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Alright Mike, write some poetry
You’ve been trying to get a little sun
Consequently not getting anything done
Ah, but it’s nice to be free.
To laze and dawdle and procrastinate
Up in Idyllwild where you can hear the breeze
Rustling languidly through the trees
And you’re allowed to hibernate.
To get up whenever you feel
Waking up to mountain fresh air
With nothing to do you’re without a care
Sometimes I wonder if it’s real.
Don’t do anything – that’s the key
Pause in life to admire a flower
Because all I have done in the past hour
Is this dreamy little bit of poetry.

Untitled Poem #2

Posted: April 17, 1987 in Poetry
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Death is a lonely business
Bearing an hourglass
As the tide shall sweep the shore.
Shall I be no more?
Like a drop of precious wine
Life can pass you by.
Smell the flowers by the wayside
Happiness stays sublime.
Reaper with his just sickle
Doest thou be fickle
Within your reckoning
About your victim?

Dawn

Posted: April 7, 1987 in Poetry
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The first misty light of dawn
Caresses the edge of the world
And turns grey clouds to pearl
It wakens a peaceful fawn.

Rosy pink shafts of sun
Curve around a sleeping earth
Dancing in their endless mirth
Frolicking and having fun.

Dodging between blades of grass
Hues and colors, shades and tints
Sage, tulip, sequoia, and mint
Pine, oak, sassafras.

The deer stands on shaky legs
Lacking her mother’s natural grace
Yet having the same innocent face
Life can be filled with sweetened dregs.

The sun peeks out in its smiling way
As living creatures begin to wake
Even though another siesta they’ll take
Later on in the day.

Upon the dusty linoleum floor
Lies a discarded coffee stirrer.
Weak and useless with a hollow core
Its memories only a blur.

It lies in wait for something new
Stepped on is a way of life.
A bottle cap with stripes of blue
Joins it in its strife.

Upon the ground, unnoticed by us
They stay without complaining.
Surrounded by motes of dirt and dust
Dents are all they’re gaining.

Lost and lonely, sad and forlorn
A plastic tube is all
What respect it ever had is shorn
In a world where all else is tall.

A bottle cap, just useless trash
Carelessly thrown away
It still feels humility’s lash
It’s chrome is dulled to grey.

Cap and straw, sitting together
Upon an unforgiving ground.
Hoping to love each other forever
Without ever making a sound.

But wind and nature will have their way
No matter what you can try.
The hollow straw was blown away
And a kid let the bottle cap fly.

So now among the piles of refuse
Present in all the world
A bottle cap’s silent tears break loose
And a straw is broken and curled.