When I was a child, I spent a lot of time in the woods and bluffs in central Wisconsin. There was something, as a child, palpably magical about that area… a feeling born, perhaps, out of my awe for the indigenous cultures of the region. There was still a lot of wilderness out in that part of the state, then, and I believe there is a power in the unsettled land, a sort of natural magic that gets tamped down or suffocated wherever our mystically sterile civilization lays down its sewers and roads and power lines. In the middle of the woodlands, though, there was an energy not easily described, but simple to experience. It was an energy that filled your bones and muscles, lifted you above animal instinct and deposited you somewhere else entirely, a full step above the dirty ground we wander on for most of our lives. It was a realm of spirit, of nature beyond biology. I couldn’t put any of this into words, back then… but I knew it was different than where I came from. I knew that, while I was out amongst the wooded frontier, I was basically living in another world entirely.
I had my own small tent when we camped out, and it was a frightening and freeing experience, being unbound in the dark, wild nights. While my parents slept some distance away, I found myself freakishly attuned with the night, my senses heightened, my brain far more aware of my surroundings than I was necessarily comfortable with. I was listening for every cricket hiccup, every owl shriek, every twig snapping in our vicinity. I was on edge in a primal way, on guard, protecting something spiritually valuable from cruel and hungry flesh and blood. In this way, I would eventually fall into an approximation of sleep, a hypnosis or trance that rendered my five senses active and watchful even as an essential part of me drifted, no longer incarcerated in that base, bodily prison. Again, I didn’t know this at the time… but in retrospect, it’s clear that my soul walked free in those mystical woods. And when I would rise in the daytime, my arms and legs and lungs would be absolutely exhausted, but I would still feel refreshed in an entirely different manner. Even as the dark circles would form under my eyes, and I would be unable to stifle chest racking yawns, I would feel more alert, more cognizant, more alive than I ever felt after sleeping in my bed at home.
My travels, at night, were understandably remembered as dreams. They were, I suppose, a form of dream… the experiences I had, there, were not “real.” They never truly occurred in any physical way. And yet they happened, and I remembered them… in that way, those travels were no different than any other dream. But there was a much stronger clarity to them, a vividness that I do not come close to replicating in my normal dreaming. There was something intangible about them that, now, leads me to believe that these dreams were not manufactured by own imagination, but were, instead, moments that I lived. That delineation, I suppose, is moot. Either way, I have memories of my soul walks, and that’s all that matters.
By far, the most memorable of these events occurred when I was nine.
We had spent most of the day hiking through grassy, blunted hills under a gorgeous red rocky bluff. Eventually, we came to a river, a deep hewn ribbon of clear water that was wide and shallow and full of migrating schools of blackish fish. A golden eagle periodically dove into the water and retrieved one of the dark fish in its talons, its meal’s scales suddenly bursting with color and sparkle in the midday sunlight. There were, according to our guidebook, numerous Indian mounds nearby, and I would’ve sworn there was something almost holy about that place. It felt like a convergence of the magic I described earlier… as if it somehow pooled up and stagnated right there at the riverside. I felt strange being there, as if I were a trespasser or an interloper… as if I didn’t belong at all. But there was nothing unfriendly or unwelcoming about it. It was more, I suppose, that I was unworthy of being there. It felt, maybe, like I hadn’t earned the right to be in that sort of sanctuary. My parents may have felt the same way. None of us spoke for a long time. It wasn’t awkward or unpleasant… it was more reverential. I think my folks had similar experiences in these places, but we never talked about it. I’m sure we all felt a little bit crazy for feeling it.
We returned to our campsite, made dinner over the fire and watched as the dusk caressed the sky to sleep. There is a different sort of completeness to the day when you don’t have artificial light to eat into the nighttime. It feels as if living through the twilight is a sort of accomplishment, a notch to mark off or a box to check on your list of goals. The rhythm of night and day, in the wilderness, is more noticeable and more real than it is where I live. Our lives, in cities and towns, blur the definitions of the world in motion. We exert our control over darkness instead of letting it hold sway over us. And while it may make us feel as if we have a dominion over nature, there’s a different sort of satisfaction to be had by succumbing to the night and laying down to sleep when the fire burns out. Relinquishing that false authority we try to grab, here, has amazing effects. I may not have known, then, why it felt so good to sleep in the pitch black of those woods… but my guess, now, is that by falling back into our rightful place, into our role as subservient to the planet, we gain a measure of security and comfort that we lose when desperately clinging to power that isn’t ours. The anxiety that comes from feeling alone in a world of billions is all but erased when you remember you’re not isolated from the world in any way.
That night, again, my body stayed wide awake while my spirit fled.
And where I wandered, that night, was to the sanctuary at the riverside. I remember feeling called there, as if I heard someone summoning me to the grassy banks of the shallow water. It was serene, there, under the moonlight. Everything was white and deep blue, all washed in the color pallet of dreaming. My heart soared just being allowed there, again, and I sat amidst a thatch of cattails and reeds and dipped my bare, spirituous feet in the cold river.
I don’t know how long I sat there, breathing in the air of trees and flowers and rushes. It felt like mere minutes, but the moon’s movement overhead contradicted that assumption. Eventually I was joined by a chalk white man wearing the elaborate and beautiful costume of a medicine man. He sat next to me on the bank of the river, aged and gouged with kindly wrinkles. He was radiant and warm, and I was happy to see him, even without knowing who he was. He had a strong, weathered face, but he smiled with such sincerity that I had no choice but to feel at ease. He had a long staff, decorated with beads and feathers and tiny leather pouches, and he dipped it into the river water, rippling the reflection of the moon.
He spoke, then, in a language that seemed older than time, and although I shouldn’t have understood a word of it, it made perfect sense to me.
The shaman said, joyfully, that he had been called to that place, that night, to perform a wedding. He shook his staff as he spoke, letting loose a very primitive sounding rattle that reverberated through the river valley and was echoed in the throats of owls and raccoons and other nocturnal creatures. Soon, many of those animals had gathered themselves by the river, as guests, the shaman said, smiling, of the bride.
I asked, then, bolstered by the kind demeanor of the man, where the bride was.
And the old man looked at me with eyes darker than the sky and pointed upward. The Stars, he told me, were to be wed tonight.
And who is the groom, then, I wondered.
The old man closed his dark eyes and laughed. He told me that the groom had not shown himself, but would. He said that many suitors had been rivals for such an amazing lover, but only one would have the honor of making the Stars his bride. Those suitors, he told me, would arrive soon, and I, apparently, was there to greet them all.
It wasn’t long before the shaman's words proved true. A great bear, tall, regal and imposing and possessed of slick, black fur, made his way from the woods to the opposite side of the river.
“I am Bear,” he stated plainly, and in a strong and fearsome voice. “I have come to wed the Stars.”
From out of the tall grasses of the fields came bounding a dappled, brown stag. He stood next to Bear on the riverside, his coat and impressive rack of antlers gleaming in the moonlight.
“I am Deer,” the stag said, proud and arrogant in his beauty. “I have come to wed the Stars.”
Slinking from the rushes came a smaller figure, a gorgeous red fox with a thick tail and a sly, angled face. He stood between Bear and Deer, grinning with a cunning that sent a shiver down my vaporous spine.
“I am Fox,” he stated. “I have come to wed the Stars.”
Rising from the ground came a small whirl of bellowing breeze, strong enough to topple some of the long grasses and bend the stems of the wildflowers across the river. From it appeared a noble and cool looking warrior, blue and vaporous and impressive in his stature.
“I am Wind,” the man said with a ringing fury in his words. “I have come to wed the Stars.”
And finally, amassing like fog on the bank of the water, gray swirls of ether came together, clinging and heavy, eventually drizzling into the form of a young man, thin and sallow, and appearing very tired. He was far less than the other suitors in every respect. He carried himself with little power or confidence, and he certainly didn’t strike as startling of a figure as the great Bear or the beautiful Deer or the intelligent Fox or the stately Wind.
“I am Cloud,” he said, almost sadly. “I have come to wed the Stars.”
The shaman looked at the gathered suitors with a critical eye. "Only one among you," he said in his ancient language, "is worthy to make a bride of the Stars. Only one among you shall have such an honor to live with her in the sky." The old man punctuated his declaration with a rattle of his staff, and stretched his arms out toward the light spackled heavens. He stayed incredibly still for a moment, his beaten face beaming with a sort of barely contained joy. He was listening to something that none of the rest of us there seemed to hear. "The Stars," the old man said, finally, "demands a tribute of you! What would you offer for her hand in marriage?"
Bear spoke first. "I can offer my strength, dear Stars," Bear said loudly. "I am the strongest creature in the forest, bigger and bolder and braver than anything."
The shaman listened again. He shook his head, then. "The Stars has no need of a mate with strength," he said. "She is strong enough on her own. The Stars rejects you, Bear. I am sorry."
And Bear hung his great head low and sulked off back into the forest.
"And you, Deer?" the shaman asked. "What do you offer the Stars?"
Deer lifted his majestic head up with a definite arrogance. "I can offer my beauty, dear Stars," Deer said proudly. "You will be given the gift of my graceful form."
The shaman listened to the Stars and shook his head. "The Stars has no need of a mate with beauty," he said. "She is beautiful enough on her own. The Stars rejects you, too, Deer. I am sorry."
Deer's brown eyes filled with tears and it bounded away, wounded and sad.
"And you, Fox?" the shaman asked. "What do you offer the Stars?"
Fox grinned slyly. "I can offer my intellect, dear Stars," Fox said. "I am the smartest creature there is, full of cunning and wit."
The shaman listened to the Stars again and shook his head. "The Stars has no need of a mate with intellect," he said. "She is cunning enough on her own. The Stars rejects you, friend Fox. I am sorry."
Fox scowled, angrily, and slunk into the woods, offended.
"And what of you, Wind?" the shaman asked. "What do you offer the Stars?"
Wind took a deep breath. "I can offer my power, dear Stars," Wind said. "I am the most powerful thing there is, able to bend trees to will and bring up waves from the deepest lakes and rivers."
The shaman frowned. "The Stars has no need of a mate with power," he said. "She is powerful enough on her own. I am sorry, Wind. The Stars rejects you."
The Wind was crestfallen. He moped and wandered back into the woods.
"So it is up to you, Cloud. What do you have to offer the Stars?"
Cloud looked up the Stars with his big, wet eyes and said, meekly, "Privacy is all I have to offer you, dear Stars."
The shaman looked intrigued. "Privacy?"
Cloud smiled. "When the Stars are shy, I can be there to cover her. When she is modest, I can hide her from the prying eyes of all you, here, below her. I can blanket her, keep her safe from your watchful gazes. And when she is proud and boisterous in her beauty, I can step away and I can let you all bask in her twinkling glow. When The Stars wants to be seen, I can open myself up like some great curtain, letting her luminescence spill out upon the earth. And when she becomes shy again, I can be there to block her from view. I can offer her privacy. I can offer her control."
The shaman grinned widely, his mouth a locked cavern of yellow stalagmites and crooked stalactites. He was pleased with Cloud's response. Out of all of her impressive suitors, the humble Cloud had the most to offer the strong, and beautiful, and brilliant and powerful Stars.
"You have much to give, friend Cloud," the shaman said, happily. The Stars accepts your hand. She shall be your mate.
Cloud was beaming with happiness. A cheer went up from the gathered animals at the river, and the shaman opened his hands in dutiful benediction. There was a tremendous gladness that settled on the holy place, and I couldn't help but be warmed by it. The old medicine man began to speak his ancient language, but its secrets were hidden from my ears, now. The beautiful, timeless words spilled from his papery lips and filled the night air with a resonant sound that blurred into a droning, cicada-buzz chant. Soon all the creatures joined in and the scene was staggering in its alien beauty. There was a rattle in the old man's hands, and a shaker of beads that signaled the union of Cloud and the Stars. And when it had commenced, and when the gentle cacophony of the shaman's chants were finally complete, Cloud ascended from the river up into the sky to take the hand of his new bride. Another cheer burst forth from the throng of animals, and they returned, then, to their woodland homes.
The shaman smiled at me, then, and thanked me for my attendance, once again speaking a tongue I knew. He had a tear of joy running down his battered, leathery cheek. He put his spindly arms around me, and hugged me tight. I didn't feel I had much choice but to hug him back.
He gave me one final nod and then made his way back into the wilderness, leaving me alone, ghostly and content at the sanctuary river. I looked up into the sky and saw Cloud joyfully embracing his new love.
My body, then, awoke and my spirit was ripped from that place and was plunked, unceremoniously, back into my squishy, fleshy form. And I struggled, then, as the sun approached on the eastern horizon, to make myself believe I had really been there and that it hadn't been some mental fabrication. In the end, of course, it didn't matter. Daylight took up its reign in the sky, and The Stars were sent away for the time being, while Cloud remained behind, like a gentleman, protecting his new bride as she made her exit. And I watched, and I thrilled for them, happy in their happiness, smiling in their completeness. I spent the days that followed whistling the wedding chants I'd heard in my dreams and wondering who'd make a husband, someday, of the Wind.
7.31.2009
7.29.2009
Creeping Dread
the creeping dread of
old thoughts made new, slink in like a slow crawl of grave-marching ants,
Heavy handed desire rips up the comforting down of a daylight slumber,
holds hostages
breathes like a rain of hot yellow sulfur
Scalds and writhes
partly cloudy, fits of backwards remainder, sort of drill into a skull full up with memory, or dream memory, the kind of memories built out of soot and ash and reconstituted,
rebuilt,
rekindled,
until fires start to dot the shoreline, and pitch
pitch black settles in over the coast.
There is a paleness to it all, a slippery message falling from a chorus of pink lips, of breathy voices gone lost in the silence...
terra
flint hits, spark goes up, and the dry glass shatter stains rise up like clouds of dragonfire steam, of lashes rescued by
harrowing religion and dire circumstances given up
and then
comes
the
slow
slow
drift.
old thoughts made new, slink in like a slow crawl of grave-marching ants,
Heavy handed desire rips up the comforting down of a daylight slumber,
holds hostages
breathes like a rain of hot yellow sulfur
Scalds and writhes
partly cloudy, fits of backwards remainder, sort of drill into a skull full up with memory, or dream memory, the kind of memories built out of soot and ash and reconstituted,
rebuilt,
rekindled,
until fires start to dot the shoreline, and pitch
pitch black settles in over the coast.
There is a paleness to it all, a slippery message falling from a chorus of pink lips, of breathy voices gone lost in the silence...
terra
flint hits, spark goes up, and the dry glass shatter stains rise up like clouds of dragonfire steam, of lashes rescued by
harrowing religion and dire circumstances given up
and then
comes
the
slow
slow
drift.
Two Angels
The two Angels stood across from each other, over an oak table, each one, a fluttery mess of soft, gently swooning curls of hair and downy tufts of feathers.
They were angry, and storms seemed to flash around their eyes.
The one on the left, with wings of sapphire, was smaller, darker, and more treacherous looking. There were sullen little fangs jutting from the deep red breadth of her lips. She was more Devil than Angel, but she looked eerily serene nonetheless. Her face was gentle and unassuming, but her deep black eyes, abyss-soaked and drunk on some sort of imagined cruelty, gave her away.
The one on the right, with wings of ivory, seemed so much sweeter. She was all pale cotton candy and purring harp plucked notes. Her face was the pristine white of flawless snow, and her eyes were practically electric with brilliant blue shimmer. She was peerless in her beauty, but cancerous and sick beneath it. And she appeared so much kinder, so much more steeped in goodness than the sapphire winged Angel she stared down. But her facade was so deceptive as to almost be criminal. She hid what she was better than the little Devil across the table.
Their discord was ludicrously outsized... their mutual anger and dislike breaking the sky in two and filling the gap with crashes of thunder that were unearthly in their gargantuan cacophony. They were full of barely contained rage, shuddering under the voluminous and whispering folds of their gowns. Each was demanding a fall of the other. Each was demanding that the other was an impostor, a pale copy of the original, a lesser, weakened version of a primal force.
The sapphire winged Angel displayed her history on the table. She was Nature incarnate, lusty and loud and heavy handed in her dealings. She had been there since the first breath, watching as creation tore itself asunder in fumbling attempts at winning her over. She smiled a befanged smile, cold in its mirthless glee, and ran her long nails across time, shearing one lover from another, splitting life from the living, ripping hearts apart throughout the span of existence. She did this on a whim, as a show of who she was and how little the petty concerns of those beneath her meant. She folded up her history, like an antique roadmap and then set it ablaze without anything further to prove.
Her ivory winged challenger did the same, opening her life up like a yellow spined book from an otherworldly library. She had been there, too, in early waking moments of honey-tongued lies and eyes blaring out secrets from behind shuttered mouths. Her ambition was hidden and maybe worse, different to be sure, and larger in its potential for heartache. She didn't hold back a glossy lipped smile split with gleaming teeth as perfect as any other bit of her face. She was certain that she was the force, the thing sputtering in hearts and masquerading as love. She winked across time, luring weak hearts from their homes like a siren calling out to befuddled sailors. She snuck her shellacked nails into their eyes and harvested them, collected them and stole them from the faces they had so typically been beholden to. She licked her lips and blew a lilac kiss across the pages of her life, crumbling it to glitter and sparkle before dissipating in a swarm of rung silver bells.
And there was no clear victor. Their hatred didn't skip a beat. And the staring just continued.
They were angry, and storms seemed to flash around their eyes.
The one on the left, with wings of sapphire, was smaller, darker, and more treacherous looking. There were sullen little fangs jutting from the deep red breadth of her lips. She was more Devil than Angel, but she looked eerily serene nonetheless. Her face was gentle and unassuming, but her deep black eyes, abyss-soaked and drunk on some sort of imagined cruelty, gave her away.
The one on the right, with wings of ivory, seemed so much sweeter. She was all pale cotton candy and purring harp plucked notes. Her face was the pristine white of flawless snow, and her eyes were practically electric with brilliant blue shimmer. She was peerless in her beauty, but cancerous and sick beneath it. And she appeared so much kinder, so much more steeped in goodness than the sapphire winged Angel she stared down. But her facade was so deceptive as to almost be criminal. She hid what she was better than the little Devil across the table.
Their discord was ludicrously outsized... their mutual anger and dislike breaking the sky in two and filling the gap with crashes of thunder that were unearthly in their gargantuan cacophony. They were full of barely contained rage, shuddering under the voluminous and whispering folds of their gowns. Each was demanding a fall of the other. Each was demanding that the other was an impostor, a pale copy of the original, a lesser, weakened version of a primal force.
The sapphire winged Angel displayed her history on the table. She was Nature incarnate, lusty and loud and heavy handed in her dealings. She had been there since the first breath, watching as creation tore itself asunder in fumbling attempts at winning her over. She smiled a befanged smile, cold in its mirthless glee, and ran her long nails across time, shearing one lover from another, splitting life from the living, ripping hearts apart throughout the span of existence. She did this on a whim, as a show of who she was and how little the petty concerns of those beneath her meant. She folded up her history, like an antique roadmap and then set it ablaze without anything further to prove.
Her ivory winged challenger did the same, opening her life up like a yellow spined book from an otherworldly library. She had been there, too, in early waking moments of honey-tongued lies and eyes blaring out secrets from behind shuttered mouths. Her ambition was hidden and maybe worse, different to be sure, and larger in its potential for heartache. She didn't hold back a glossy lipped smile split with gleaming teeth as perfect as any other bit of her face. She was certain that she was the force, the thing sputtering in hearts and masquerading as love. She winked across time, luring weak hearts from their homes like a siren calling out to befuddled sailors. She snuck her shellacked nails into their eyes and harvested them, collected them and stole them from the faces they had so typically been beholden to. She licked her lips and blew a lilac kiss across the pages of her life, crumbling it to glitter and sparkle before dissipating in a swarm of rung silver bells.
And there was no clear victor. Their hatred didn't skip a beat. And the staring just continued.
7.27.2009
Monday's Playlist: Lonely Ghosts
"Lonely Ghosts" is my soundtrack to an indie movie that doesn't exist. I've had variations on this, but this is the tracklist that I think fits the imaginary movie best. I always picture this fake film taking place in the spring, with a lot of lush twilight shots and, I don't know... a lot of decrepit strip malls with space age architecture. I'm not sure what the story is, exactly, but I'm sure it's melancholy and full of lots of mopey, psuedo-philosophical dialogue.
1. Song To Sing When I'm Lonely - John Frusciante (from Shadows Collide With People)
2. Coffee & TV - Blur (from 13)
3. The Movement Of A Hand - Bright Eyes (from Fevers And Mirrors)
4. Ghost Of His Smile - Sparklehorse (from Good Morning Spider)
5. Dear Mr. Supercomputer - Sufjan Stevens (from The Avalanche)
6. Proofs - Mates Of State (from My Solo Project)
7. Your Cover's Blown - Belle & Sebastian (from Books)
8. Dead Red Eyes - Archers Of Loaf (from White Trash Heroes)
9. Even Now - The Owls (from Our Hopes And Dreams)
10. Since K Got Over Me - The Clientele (from Strange Geometry)
11. Wedding Cake - Damien Jurado (from Waters Ave S.)
12. Ill Advised - +/- (from Self Titled Long Playing Debut Album)
13. Fashionably Uninvited - Mellowdrone (from A Demonstration Of Intellectual Property)
14. All The Photos - The Sea And Cake (from Oui)
15. Friendship Spelled Backwards Is Pihsdneirf - You Were Spiraling (from Delusions Of Grandeur)
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service (from Give Up)
17. Distortions - Clinic (from Internal Wrangler)
18. Left And Leaving - The Weakerthans (from Left And Leaving)
19. Pen And Notebook - Camera Obscura (from Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi)
20. Heartless Romantic - The Dears (from End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story)
1. Song To Sing When I'm Lonely - John Frusciante (from Shadows Collide With People)
2. Coffee & TV - Blur (from 13)
3. The Movement Of A Hand - Bright Eyes (from Fevers And Mirrors)
4. Ghost Of His Smile - Sparklehorse (from Good Morning Spider)
5. Dear Mr. Supercomputer - Sufjan Stevens (from The Avalanche)
6. Proofs - Mates Of State (from My Solo Project)
7. Your Cover's Blown - Belle & Sebastian (from Books)
8. Dead Red Eyes - Archers Of Loaf (from White Trash Heroes)
9. Even Now - The Owls (from Our Hopes And Dreams)
10. Since K Got Over Me - The Clientele (from Strange Geometry)
11. Wedding Cake - Damien Jurado (from Waters Ave S.)
12. Ill Advised - +/- (from Self Titled Long Playing Debut Album)
13. Fashionably Uninvited - Mellowdrone (from A Demonstration Of Intellectual Property)
14. All The Photos - The Sea And Cake (from Oui)
15. Friendship Spelled Backwards Is Pihsdneirf - You Were Spiraling (from Delusions Of Grandeur)
16. The District Sleeps Alone Tonight - The Postal Service (from Give Up)
17. Distortions - Clinic (from Internal Wrangler)
18. Left And Leaving - The Weakerthans (from Left And Leaving)
19. Pen And Notebook - Camera Obscura (from Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi)
20. Heartless Romantic - The Dears (from End Of A Hollywood Bedtime Story)
A Farewell Address
Well, hey there, ladies and gentlemen. It’s me, your favorite lady-governor, here, and I guess it’s time to say my goodbyes. I know, it’s real sad, isn’t it? But don’tcha fret… I’m not really leavin’ ya. I’m just quittin’ my job, kids. I know, I know… you hired me to do a job and then I just up and quit on account of I didn’t really love how things were goin’, what with how dishwater dull it is up here and on account of most o’ my time now bein’ filled with lookin’ up “President of the United States” on the Wikipedia. So I thought, “How can I really best serve you, the folks that elected me?” And I figured it out: by quittin’ and maybe writin’ a book about the “politics of sass” or somethin’ like that. Whaddya think? Or, y’know, I thought maybe I could hook up with that Elizabeth Hasselback and that Carrie Prejean and we could have our own li’l version of “The View” on Fox News! That sounds fun, don’t it? Either way, it’s gotta be better than runnin’ this backwater state. Oops. I mean, “better,” as in, that’s how I can serve you better… by doin’ somethin’ on the national stage for Alaska. “Drill baby drill” and all that. And, hey, if helpin’ you all out means becomin’ the first lady-leader of the free world, well, ok then. Not that I’m necessarily gonna run for president. I might do it, of course, if the book doesn’t sell or they give my time slot to “Hannity’s Fear Factor” or somethin’. And to be honest, I probably will either way, I guess… But only because you deserve the best darned president ever! And who better to run the whole darned country than me? I’ve got patented in your face attitude to spare. It’s a shame that the liberal media can’t see that. They’ve been a pack of sourpusses, lately, huh? Always talkin’ ‘bout me like I’m some sort of circus sideshow. Is it my fault that unless I say something crazy or moronic, they don’t even mention me on the news? Remember when it used to be all-Sarah all the time? Anyways, those horrid, subhuman vultures in the media elite only seem to want to say nasty things about me! I don’t understand it… what did I ever do to those no talent, thumb-suckin’, puke-faced, illiterate asswads? Did they take offense just because I accused them of makin’ up stories about me and my family? Are they angry that I point out, daily, that they are the sole reason for the collapse of decency in our society? I love America! And soldiers! And babies with special needs! It seems to me that the venomous cretins who seem to “report” the “news” without so much as a gosh darned thought about how it affects me must, if they dislike me so much, also hate America, soldiers and babies with special needs. And that’s just wrong. And, yes, ok, I shoot animals from helicopters. So what? If these mollycoddled, whimpering li’l milk-babies can’t stand to see a real American woman do real American things like kill real American animals from real American helicopters, then maybe they oughtta just move back to the bad Korea, am I right? And sure, you can betcha that the liberal media will trot out their pretty starlets, and they’ll tell ya that I’m just some malicious gun nut blowin’ the heads off anything that freaking moves in my general vicinity, but that’s not the whole truth, my friends. No. What they won’t tell you is that I personally field dress and skin every one of my victims. Yeah. I’m not squeamish. I’m a red blooded American, not like those Gucci-wearin’ phonies! Soldiers! Apple pie! So, these darned intellectual liberals in the media with their crazy agendas will probably try to tell ya, on their “websites” and “iPhones” that I’m some sort of anti-intellectual, anti-media, egotist supermodel genius. And they’re right. Because I’m standin’ up for you, middle class America. I shop at Wal-Mart too! I won’t budge an inch to these educated hucksters and their need for logic, or reason or fancy-schmancy sense-makin’. You wouldn’t want me to! I can tell you love me just the way I am! And for that, I’m eternally grateful. It’s been a pleasure sort of half-heartedly serving you for the past however many years I’ve been stuck here in this freezing hell. Sure, I spent a good part of that time tryin’ to become the vice-president. And then I spent a lot more time givin’ interviews to conservative bootlicks who were so impressed with my bearskin rugs and snow machines that they forgot to ask me anything ‘cept how proud I am of my soldier kids. And, yes, then I spent even more time sendin’ my daughter on a whirlwind press junket just so I could chastise the media for talkin’ about her and that adorable li’l baby that made her into a worldwide celebrity by givin’ her an excuse to tell other teenage gals why havin’ a baby would be the worst thing they could possibly do. And, ok, after all that I just up and decided to quit because, let’s be fair, I’ve got WAY more interesting things to do. But it’s been a real treat. Now, I’m sure I can count on all yer votes if I do happen to run for the presidency of this great country in 2012. Which I’m not sayin’ I’m gonna do. But I am gonna do it. And I promise I won’t get bored with that job. Unless somethin’ way better comes along. God bless Alaska, God bless special needs babies, and God bless America!
7.23.2009
Curio Number One: The Tempest Shell
Happened upon in a shallow, fetid tide pool on a small, nameless island off of the western coast of Iceland, the Tempest Shell is an incredible natural wonder, unique to this collection and absolutely priceless.
It was discovered in 1891 by a Captain Arnar Fjalarson, an Icelandic privateer and ex-missionary who used the nameless island as a supply hold for his ship, the Sigur. Captain Fjalarson routinely walked the beaches of his tiny island, amassing quite a large personal collection of shells, starfish and other marine curiosities. (Amongst the other items in his possession were the now lost Twin Trumpeter Oysters and Arnold Richter's famed Black Glass Sand Dollar.) Fjalarson originally housed the pieces in a small shanty museum in the tiny seaside of community of Reykhólar. After reportedly running afoul of a mysterious Norwegian expatriate, Fjalarson sold the Sigur and the bulk of his collection to an American collector named Harold Regis Price. Fjalarson took that money and relocated his family (his wife and two mute sons) to Oxford, England, where they all tragically perished in a nighttime house fire some months later. The Tempest Shell, the crown jewel of Fjalarson's museum was not one of the items the Captain had sold to Price, although Price did manage to acquire it through an agent that had purchased it at the Fjalarson estate sale.
Although Fjalarson's thoughts on the Shell are lost, Price's notes upon its acquisition are still intact. In 1899 he wrote of it, "This object, above all else, is what I had longed for in the Icelander's possessions. My disappointment in noting its absence, a fault of translation (but mostly my own ignorance) was nothing short of devastation. Still, in the demise of the good Captain and his family, a beacon of luck has shone upon me. And while I feel obliged to mourn his loss, and never wished the man a whit of ill fortune, I cannot help but take note of what blessing has been bestowed upon me. This item is of rare beauty, to be sure, but the quality of it rests not in that glorious, glassy pink and blue variegation of the conch, but instead in the power that resides in this nautical wonder. I have seen it work, time and time again, and there is no doubt that, however imbued with the power, it does in fact operate like a damned magical device."
Sadly, Price was never again able to write further about the Shell, and it is never further mentioned in his journals. Whatever magical properties the Shell seemed to be possessed of, Price never got around to articulate them. He suffered a severe stroke shortly after acquiring the Tempest Shell. He lingered for years as a virtual vegetable, although his nurse, Miss Cloris Ostram reported that he seemed to "perk up, or be agitated, in the presence of his beloved and overly expensive seashell." Miss Ostram inherited the Shell when Price passed away in 1906 but quickly sold it to Herschel Hart's Traveling Museum of Wonders based in Ohio.
The Tempest Shell, an iridescent pink and electric blue nautilus shell, emits a faint hum, only audible when its protective bell jar casing is removed. Many viewers have complained of muscle aches, blurred vision and migraines after seeing the Shell. Nearly everyone who encounters the Tempest Shell relates having a vague memory of a sort of music box chiming melody for weeks afterward. There is undoubtedly a strange aura surrounding the thing, but its particular powers are only visited upon a portion of those who come across it.
Herschel Hart and his wife, Eliza, were two of the unlucky ones affected by the Tempest Shell. Upon the Traveling Museum of Wonders' acquisition of the Shell, Eliza Hart was overtaken with waking dreams and hallucinations of horrible storms of thunder and lightning, especially when near her husband. Herschel had similar visions of tsunamis and hurricanes of increasing intensity when around his wife. These visions, initially recognizable to the Harts as fabrications, slowly began to seem more real to the couple. Herschel Hart, in a frantic, scratched handwriting says (in a letter postmarked December 3, 1906, approximately six weeks after he acquired the Shell), "I can't begin to decipher the truth of these damned storms. It continues, with the forest now fallen to the winds and the whole of the town ripped to its anchors... but I'm assured by my kin and my friends that the losses are all in my mind. But what are they trusting but their eyes? Are my eyes somehow more easily deceived? How can any of us be sure that it isn't I seeing the truth while the others turn blindly away from the deadly grip of blasted nature?" Eliza expresses similar frustrations in a letter to her mother sent that very same week. It was quite brief. "Mother, this lightning shall kill me," was all it said.
The constant howl of these hallucinatory winds and the ever-present threat of imaginary lightning was, understandably, very maddening. Herschel, eventually realizing that the storms were worse in the presence of his wife, sequestered himself in a small toolshed on the back of his property. Still, even diminished, the storms seemed to continue. He took to writing his thoughts in black paint on the walls of his new quarters. The toolshed, on the Harts' old property in Brook Park Ohio, is owned, now, by a young man named Edward Morris. Mister Morris took photographs of the black painted scrawl on the walls of the shed, but painted over the writing because it made him uneasy. The words in the Polaroid snapshots are not always clear, but much of it can be deciphered.
"Even moved I still am afraid the howl Far away has been [?] better but still afraid I must go but to [indecipherable] This worry anguish and loss of Eliza She worries and we just [unsure of word, but usually transcribed as "need" or "know"] time IS crawled... to KILL us. Where I must go but to hide cowards!!! to hide In it OH ELIZA, love, you knew all along."
Eliza Hart eventually starved to death in her own home. She ceased writing in her diary weeks before she passed away, but the indication is clear. She was so terrified of the "storms" outside that she was afraid to leave her home. When she was found, every scrap of food, every can, every jar had been consumed. Herschel Hart disappeared without a trace. The property and his Museum were both considered abandoned. Hart's items, including the Tempest Shell, was assumed by Hart's cousin, Glenn Myers, who sold it, piece by piece at a Chicago auction house, where it was purchased, for a large sum, for this collection.
Further research into the Tempest Shell's history revealed that the Harts were not alone in their hallucinated storms or their growing terror. A trip to Reykhólar revealed, through the kindness of the villagers, several near identical tales, involving, over the course of seven years, seven distinct couples falling under the spell of the same malady. The locals understandably assumed something in their environs had driven the couples insane, but nobody could pinpoint a cause. The names of all seven couples were, however, found in the guest book of Arnar Fjalarson's museum.
Nurse Ostram, too, makes passing references in her diaries to a Mister and Missus Ebenezer Dolan, who, after visiting Harold Regis Price (while in the possession of the Tempest Shell), complained of similar frightening visions. Records show that Ebenezer Dolan took his own life approximately a year after his encounter with the Tempest Shell. His wife, Clarissa Dolan, was admitted to the Whispering Woods Asylum in New York State in 1902, her complaints matching those of the Harts and the Icelandic couples' perfectly.
There may be more unrevealed victims of the Shell, and it is, in fact, recommended that couples do not view the piece. The specifics of how the Tempest Shell works are under investigation, but the circumstantial evidence is too voluminous to deny. The Shell obviously has a power to it, some sort of radiation that affects only particular people. Still, in that aspect, it is a much coveted curio, and a valued piece of the collection.
It was discovered in 1891 by a Captain Arnar Fjalarson, an Icelandic privateer and ex-missionary who used the nameless island as a supply hold for his ship, the Sigur. Captain Fjalarson routinely walked the beaches of his tiny island, amassing quite a large personal collection of shells, starfish and other marine curiosities. (Amongst the other items in his possession were the now lost Twin Trumpeter Oysters and Arnold Richter's famed Black Glass Sand Dollar.) Fjalarson originally housed the pieces in a small shanty museum in the tiny seaside of community of Reykhólar. After reportedly running afoul of a mysterious Norwegian expatriate, Fjalarson sold the Sigur and the bulk of his collection to an American collector named Harold Regis Price. Fjalarson took that money and relocated his family (his wife and two mute sons) to Oxford, England, where they all tragically perished in a nighttime house fire some months later. The Tempest Shell, the crown jewel of Fjalarson's museum was not one of the items the Captain had sold to Price, although Price did manage to acquire it through an agent that had purchased it at the Fjalarson estate sale.
Although Fjalarson's thoughts on the Shell are lost, Price's notes upon its acquisition are still intact. In 1899 he wrote of it, "This object, above all else, is what I had longed for in the Icelander's possessions. My disappointment in noting its absence, a fault of translation (but mostly my own ignorance) was nothing short of devastation. Still, in the demise of the good Captain and his family, a beacon of luck has shone upon me. And while I feel obliged to mourn his loss, and never wished the man a whit of ill fortune, I cannot help but take note of what blessing has been bestowed upon me. This item is of rare beauty, to be sure, but the quality of it rests not in that glorious, glassy pink and blue variegation of the conch, but instead in the power that resides in this nautical wonder. I have seen it work, time and time again, and there is no doubt that, however imbued with the power, it does in fact operate like a damned magical device."
Sadly, Price was never again able to write further about the Shell, and it is never further mentioned in his journals. Whatever magical properties the Shell seemed to be possessed of, Price never got around to articulate them. He suffered a severe stroke shortly after acquiring the Tempest Shell. He lingered for years as a virtual vegetable, although his nurse, Miss Cloris Ostram reported that he seemed to "perk up, or be agitated, in the presence of his beloved and overly expensive seashell." Miss Ostram inherited the Shell when Price passed away in 1906 but quickly sold it to Herschel Hart's Traveling Museum of Wonders based in Ohio.
The Tempest Shell, an iridescent pink and electric blue nautilus shell, emits a faint hum, only audible when its protective bell jar casing is removed. Many viewers have complained of muscle aches, blurred vision and migraines after seeing the Shell. Nearly everyone who encounters the Tempest Shell relates having a vague memory of a sort of music box chiming melody for weeks afterward. There is undoubtedly a strange aura surrounding the thing, but its particular powers are only visited upon a portion of those who come across it.
Herschel Hart and his wife, Eliza, were two of the unlucky ones affected by the Tempest Shell. Upon the Traveling Museum of Wonders' acquisition of the Shell, Eliza Hart was overtaken with waking dreams and hallucinations of horrible storms of thunder and lightning, especially when near her husband. Herschel had similar visions of tsunamis and hurricanes of increasing intensity when around his wife. These visions, initially recognizable to the Harts as fabrications, slowly began to seem more real to the couple. Herschel Hart, in a frantic, scratched handwriting says (in a letter postmarked December 3, 1906, approximately six weeks after he acquired the Shell), "I can't begin to decipher the truth of these damned storms. It continues, with the forest now fallen to the winds and the whole of the town ripped to its anchors... but I'm assured by my kin and my friends that the losses are all in my mind. But what are they trusting but their eyes? Are my eyes somehow more easily deceived? How can any of us be sure that it isn't I seeing the truth while the others turn blindly away from the deadly grip of blasted nature?" Eliza expresses similar frustrations in a letter to her mother sent that very same week. It was quite brief. "Mother, this lightning shall kill me," was all it said.
The constant howl of these hallucinatory winds and the ever-present threat of imaginary lightning was, understandably, very maddening. Herschel, eventually realizing that the storms were worse in the presence of his wife, sequestered himself in a small toolshed on the back of his property. Still, even diminished, the storms seemed to continue. He took to writing his thoughts in black paint on the walls of his new quarters. The toolshed, on the Harts' old property in Brook Park Ohio, is owned, now, by a young man named Edward Morris. Mister Morris took photographs of the black painted scrawl on the walls of the shed, but painted over the writing because it made him uneasy. The words in the Polaroid snapshots are not always clear, but much of it can be deciphered.
"Even moved I still am afraid the howl Far away has been [?] better but still afraid I must go but to [indecipherable] This worry anguish and loss of Eliza She worries and we just [unsure of word, but usually transcribed as "need" or "know"] time IS crawled... to KILL us. Where I must go but to hide cowards!!! to hide In it OH ELIZA, love, you knew all along."
Eliza Hart eventually starved to death in her own home. She ceased writing in her diary weeks before she passed away, but the indication is clear. She was so terrified of the "storms" outside that she was afraid to leave her home. When she was found, every scrap of food, every can, every jar had been consumed. Herschel Hart disappeared without a trace. The property and his Museum were both considered abandoned. Hart's items, including the Tempest Shell, was assumed by Hart's cousin, Glenn Myers, who sold it, piece by piece at a Chicago auction house, where it was purchased, for a large sum, for this collection.
Further research into the Tempest Shell's history revealed that the Harts were not alone in their hallucinated storms or their growing terror. A trip to Reykhólar revealed, through the kindness of the villagers, several near identical tales, involving, over the course of seven years, seven distinct couples falling under the spell of the same malady. The locals understandably assumed something in their environs had driven the couples insane, but nobody could pinpoint a cause. The names of all seven couples were, however, found in the guest book of Arnar Fjalarson's museum.
Nurse Ostram, too, makes passing references in her diaries to a Mister and Missus Ebenezer Dolan, who, after visiting Harold Regis Price (while in the possession of the Tempest Shell), complained of similar frightening visions. Records show that Ebenezer Dolan took his own life approximately a year after his encounter with the Tempest Shell. His wife, Clarissa Dolan, was admitted to the Whispering Woods Asylum in New York State in 1902, her complaints matching those of the Harts and the Icelandic couples' perfectly.
There may be more unrevealed victims of the Shell, and it is, in fact, recommended that couples do not view the piece. The specifics of how the Tempest Shell works are under investigation, but the circumstantial evidence is too voluminous to deny. The Shell obviously has a power to it, some sort of radiation that affects only particular people. Still, in that aspect, it is a much coveted curio, and a valued piece of the collection.
7.22.2009
Strangers
This terrible rush comes over, too diligent, too soft-spoken to be heard amidst the clang and clatter of whatever thing he thought to be thinking of falling out. And she wonders at it, whether the voice that sputters out such random and perverse and sometimes, sometimes flattering vapidity is just a construct of her own gray matter folds or if it's coming from anyone's blinking shattered eyes that scream out for a lick of any measure of attention. It's a mess, to be sure, to pull what's real out from what's imagined and she thinks, perhaps, of him doing the same?
She can't be, he can't be
sure.
Oh but this weighs heavily upon them, strangers as they are, struggling with finding meaning in hidden lash bats and bristling mourning as the crowds file up and down like space age computer punch cards... each punch in place bringing the difference to a head until neither can stand it and the one goes in and the other leaps out and there's a vacuum left in the middle again,
like a starry pool of liquid, liquid void
a dead space, hollow and silver and dreaming of
Fists going upward and teeth gnashing and all of this because of a flipped coin or a butterfly's sneeze or whatever it is that causes one foot to turn in one direction and in the blink of an eye everything's gone and changed again.
They don't KNOW each other, and never will, not because of fate or destiny or anything large, but, because of small things, tiny things, microscopic things pushing them one place or another while halfway across the world or halfway across town they are frozen with fear and with disbelief, searching the source for transmissions or heartbeats or something that sings with the primal energy of a calling, one brain to one brain until, zombie-like, they move in a straight line, one point to one point... they wait for it
And wait for it
And wait for it
There might be a telephone call in her head or a letter written out on his desk, but they don't know the numbers or the addresses or even, by God, the recipient. They are throwing the words, the message, the missive, the correspondence and the very thought of it into the atmosphere and praying for some sort of long traveled balloon postcard response from that ideal that's been etched in white hot acid on the leathery flaps and armor of their slowly fading hearts.
She can't be, he can't be
sure.
Oh but this weighs heavily upon them, strangers as they are, struggling with finding meaning in hidden lash bats and bristling mourning as the crowds file up and down like space age computer punch cards... each punch in place bringing the difference to a head until neither can stand it and the one goes in and the other leaps out and there's a vacuum left in the middle again,
like a starry pool of liquid, liquid void
a dead space, hollow and silver and dreaming of
Fists going upward and teeth gnashing and all of this because of a flipped coin or a butterfly's sneeze or whatever it is that causes one foot to turn in one direction and in the blink of an eye everything's gone and changed again.
They don't KNOW each other, and never will, not because of fate or destiny or anything large, but, because of small things, tiny things, microscopic things pushing them one place or another while halfway across the world or halfway across town they are frozen with fear and with disbelief, searching the source for transmissions or heartbeats or something that sings with the primal energy of a calling, one brain to one brain until, zombie-like, they move in a straight line, one point to one point... they wait for it
And wait for it
And wait for it
There might be a telephone call in her head or a letter written out on his desk, but they don't know the numbers or the addresses or even, by God, the recipient. They are throwing the words, the message, the missive, the correspondence and the very thought of it into the atmosphere and praying for some sort of long traveled balloon postcard response from that ideal that's been etched in white hot acid on the leathery flaps and armor of their slowly fading hearts.
7.21.2009
Another Self-Induced Sleepless Night
So, I have a tendency, sometimes, to fall into a bad pattern of insomnia/mild caffeine abuse that just perpetuates itself and becomes an annoying vicious circle. I'm on, I don't know, day four or five of running with three to five hours of poor sleep per night. This isn't terrible, but it isn't exactly great. I can feel myself headed for a monster crash... it will most likely involve a crippling migraine, hallucinations and a whole hell of a lot of being ridiculously crabby.
I almost feel like insomnia is a character trait of mine, a sort of shorthand for the type of person that I am. I know that's a bit silly, but it reflects two important things about me: When I'm excited to do something, I will put everything else, especially sleep, on hold to do it; and, when I'm dreading something, I will do everything I can to postpone it for as long as possible. These two facts, flaws you might call them, create a sort of perfect storm of insomnia.
Currently, I'm working on consolidating all of the creative aspects of my life into one nifty little website hub (www.jasondangerblock.com, of course). And it's going pretty ok. I like doing it and I feel like I'm accomplishing something and I like that there will be something to show for my work when it's done. It also means I want it to be done as soon as possible. I'm not patient, especially when it comes to my output, and I am a much bigger fan of the product than I am of the process. So I want to finish it. So I've been putting in late nights trying to get the thing to work and drawing up nifty little pictures for it and reconfiguring it and so on and so forth.
This, coupled with my increasing disdain for the vapidity and stagnation of my day job (and the rapidness with which slumber brings on a new morning), makes sleep seem like an obstacle to my goals and any hope of a measure of success. So I stay up all night, working on things that will likely only ever be seen by a handful of people, trying desperately to keep my dreams alive while staving off another fruitless day of mediocrity. Eventually, of course, morning does come, and bleary eyed and still gauzy from my ceaseless parade of whacko wee hour dreams, I wake up, muddle through a shower and riddle myself with caffeine in an effort to join the living for the day. This, of course, isn't novel or unique or anything, but it does, I think, go a long way, in tandem with the factors listed above, toward hampering the next night's sleep and the cycle continues undaunted and unbroken until I have a whopping meltdown and fall into a twelve hour coma. This can take weeks. And when the coma ends, the whole process starts slowly up again.
I wonder, sometimes, if the majority of my normal waking hours were spent doing something even mildly fulfilling, would I still have this problem? Would I still push myself in an all-too-likely futile march toward some sort of achievement? Or, would I be content with my day's accomplishments and go to bed looking forward to the possibilities of a new morning? I can't even fathom what that would be like... the concept is so alien to me. I imagine, though, under those circumstances, that my output would be quicker and far more competent. But maybe it's the feeling of being trapped in such abject mediocrity that spurs me to try to do more, even if there's little hope of success... I'd like to think that I'd try to do better no matter how well I was doing. And that, I suppose, is good and bad. Contentment is murder to improvement, but it's still something we all strive for, isn't it? Is a life of always pushing against what you've done to achieve something more inherently better than just accepting a life that's fine, but not as good as it could be? My official goal, I guess, is to aim for the middle of those extremes, but I can't really see ever being content even if I wasn't just treading water every day.
Still, this sort of behavior, as self-aware of it being self-induced as I am, probably can't continue. I need to find a better way, at least for now, to balance what gives me substance with what pays the bills. Luckily I've got all night to think about it! Just let me crack open another Diet Coke...
I almost feel like insomnia is a character trait of mine, a sort of shorthand for the type of person that I am. I know that's a bit silly, but it reflects two important things about me: When I'm excited to do something, I will put everything else, especially sleep, on hold to do it; and, when I'm dreading something, I will do everything I can to postpone it for as long as possible. These two facts, flaws you might call them, create a sort of perfect storm of insomnia.
Currently, I'm working on consolidating all of the creative aspects of my life into one nifty little website hub (www.jasondangerblock.com, of course). And it's going pretty ok. I like doing it and I feel like I'm accomplishing something and I like that there will be something to show for my work when it's done. It also means I want it to be done as soon as possible. I'm not patient, especially when it comes to my output, and I am a much bigger fan of the product than I am of the process. So I want to finish it. So I've been putting in late nights trying to get the thing to work and drawing up nifty little pictures for it and reconfiguring it and so on and so forth.
This, coupled with my increasing disdain for the vapidity and stagnation of my day job (and the rapidness with which slumber brings on a new morning), makes sleep seem like an obstacle to my goals and any hope of a measure of success. So I stay up all night, working on things that will likely only ever be seen by a handful of people, trying desperately to keep my dreams alive while staving off another fruitless day of mediocrity. Eventually, of course, morning does come, and bleary eyed and still gauzy from my ceaseless parade of whacko wee hour dreams, I wake up, muddle through a shower and riddle myself with caffeine in an effort to join the living for the day. This, of course, isn't novel or unique or anything, but it does, I think, go a long way, in tandem with the factors listed above, toward hampering the next night's sleep and the cycle continues undaunted and unbroken until I have a whopping meltdown and fall into a twelve hour coma. This can take weeks. And when the coma ends, the whole process starts slowly up again.
I wonder, sometimes, if the majority of my normal waking hours were spent doing something even mildly fulfilling, would I still have this problem? Would I still push myself in an all-too-likely futile march toward some sort of achievement? Or, would I be content with my day's accomplishments and go to bed looking forward to the possibilities of a new morning? I can't even fathom what that would be like... the concept is so alien to me. I imagine, though, under those circumstances, that my output would be quicker and far more competent. But maybe it's the feeling of being trapped in such abject mediocrity that spurs me to try to do more, even if there's little hope of success... I'd like to think that I'd try to do better no matter how well I was doing. And that, I suppose, is good and bad. Contentment is murder to improvement, but it's still something we all strive for, isn't it? Is a life of always pushing against what you've done to achieve something more inherently better than just accepting a life that's fine, but not as good as it could be? My official goal, I guess, is to aim for the middle of those extremes, but I can't really see ever being content even if I wasn't just treading water every day.
Still, this sort of behavior, as self-aware of it being self-induced as I am, probably can't continue. I need to find a better way, at least for now, to balance what gives me substance with what pays the bills. Luckily I've got all night to think about it! Just let me crack open another Diet Coke...
7.19.2009
www.jasondangerblock.com
So, I have been talking for months and months and months (also, technically known as "years") about creating a website for myself and my many mediocre works. I thought I should probably have a piece of internet real-estate (virtual estate?) all my own, and as I push toward my goal of being an honest-to-goodness professional artist/writer/bon vivant, it has become increasingly more necessary.
I am not a technologically adept person. Not really. I have a faculty for technology when I can do something useful with it. I quickly learned the value of even a rudimentary word processor, like the old school green screen Appleworks, and how it crushed the electric typewriter like a grape. I figured out early on that databases were marvelous ways to keep track of Dungeons & Dragons spell lists and monster statistics. I was at the forefront of the mp3 revolution because the idea of fitting 175 songs onto a single CD appealed to me. But I've never been into technology for technology's sake. I like my computer, but I'm pretty much wholly disinterested in how it actually works. As far as I'm concerned, it works no differently than a car, the human digestive system or a toaster: magic. So, even in this era, fully immersed in the internet as I am, I have very little practical skill with making a website.
Actually, that's not entirely true. While in college, when I should have either been attending classes or playing Microprose's "Civilization 2," I spent some of my valuable time using Microsoft Frontpage to make a website for the greatest fake band in all of human history: The Ho-Chi-Minhs. It wasn't a difficult program, really, but it did require a bit of manipulation to get the site to do what I wanted it to do. I spent untold hours laboring over it, making it far more detailed and realistic than any fake band's (best known for a song about a fish mask that smelled like beer) website should be. It was modeled on ridiculously minutiae-obsessed music fan sites of the late 90's, especially ones dedicated to Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins. For my fake band, I created a crazily intricate and fabricated discography, full of ep's, promotional singles and import only vinyl records showing that our fake songs were remixed by our turntable alter egos DJ Marky M-Bop and DJ Danger B. I gave each release a catalog number and a kick-ass cover made with Image Composer. Every song was hyperlinked to its lyrics. It was colossal and it was bizarre and it was, in my opinion, wicked awesome. It never made it to the internet, however. Before it could be completed and uploaded, it fell victim to the aptly named Chernobyl virus and it was lost forever.
That was over a decade ago, now. I hadn't tried again, instead getting sucked into the pre-fab worlds of Myspace and Facebook, and ready-made blogs like this one here. Still, none of those options quite match the niftiness of having an honest-to-goodness website of my own. So I mucked around with Godaddy, got bucketloads of helpful advice from my cousin-in-law Erika, and FINALLY began to work with Firefox's Kompozer program to create the skeleton of www.jasondangerblock.com. And it's looking ok, I think. There's no flash animation or dancing hamsters or anything, but for a guy who doesn't really know what the heck he's doing, I think it could be worse.
It's not even close to complete, yet, but I'd still like to hear what people think of it (if they think anything of it at all). My one goal for Jason "Danger" Block Dot Com? To have it not suck rancid goat butt. I think it's a goal I can meet.
I am not a technologically adept person. Not really. I have a faculty for technology when I can do something useful with it. I quickly learned the value of even a rudimentary word processor, like the old school green screen Appleworks, and how it crushed the electric typewriter like a grape. I figured out early on that databases were marvelous ways to keep track of Dungeons & Dragons spell lists and monster statistics. I was at the forefront of the mp3 revolution because the idea of fitting 175 songs onto a single CD appealed to me. But I've never been into technology for technology's sake. I like my computer, but I'm pretty much wholly disinterested in how it actually works. As far as I'm concerned, it works no differently than a car, the human digestive system or a toaster: magic. So, even in this era, fully immersed in the internet as I am, I have very little practical skill with making a website.
Actually, that's not entirely true. While in college, when I should have either been attending classes or playing Microprose's "Civilization 2," I spent some of my valuable time using Microsoft Frontpage to make a website for the greatest fake band in all of human history: The Ho-Chi-Minhs. It wasn't a difficult program, really, but it did require a bit of manipulation to get the site to do what I wanted it to do. I spent untold hours laboring over it, making it far more detailed and realistic than any fake band's (best known for a song about a fish mask that smelled like beer) website should be. It was modeled on ridiculously minutiae-obsessed music fan sites of the late 90's, especially ones dedicated to Radiohead and the Smashing Pumpkins. For my fake band, I created a crazily intricate and fabricated discography, full of ep's, promotional singles and import only vinyl records showing that our fake songs were remixed by our turntable alter egos DJ Marky M-Bop and DJ Danger B. I gave each release a catalog number and a kick-ass cover made with Image Composer. Every song was hyperlinked to its lyrics. It was colossal and it was bizarre and it was, in my opinion, wicked awesome. It never made it to the internet, however. Before it could be completed and uploaded, it fell victim to the aptly named Chernobyl virus and it was lost forever.
That was over a decade ago, now. I hadn't tried again, instead getting sucked into the pre-fab worlds of Myspace and Facebook, and ready-made blogs like this one here. Still, none of those options quite match the niftiness of having an honest-to-goodness website of my own. So I mucked around with Godaddy, got bucketloads of helpful advice from my cousin-in-law Erika, and FINALLY began to work with Firefox's Kompozer program to create the skeleton of www.jasondangerblock.com. And it's looking ok, I think. There's no flash animation or dancing hamsters or anything, but for a guy who doesn't really know what the heck he's doing, I think it could be worse.
It's not even close to complete, yet, but I'd still like to hear what people think of it (if they think anything of it at all). My one goal for Jason "Danger" Block Dot Com? To have it not suck rancid goat butt. I think it's a goal I can meet.
7.17.2009
Stolen Heart
It was not in Christian’s nature to pray. He didn’t believe in it. He didn’t think it was anything but a whining plea to God, the fussy mewling of children unable to deal with the unswerving harshness of reality. It made him angry when people claimed to have had their prayers answered. When his family spoke of the healing power of prayer, it made him wonder why so many people who had just as many prayers muttered on their behalf still succumbed to cancer, or AIDS, or sepsis or influenza. He thought it seemed awfully arrogant that any one person would truly think their trivial concerns were getting through on God’s hotline. So he refrained from it, mostly. Every now and then, though, a prayer would escape his lips.
The last time that it happened, Christian was in a church, of all places, which was already quite a departure from his normal routine. He was there for a wedding, unsure of why he had been invited and even more unsure of why he was attending. The bride was an acquaintance, a friend of a friend’s, and he barely knew her at all. What’s more, he didn’t much care for the icy girl or the mousy little engineer she was going to marry and certainly subjugate. They weren’t horrible people or anything. He just didn’t care for their casual haughtiness or the way they disdainfully called waiters and waitresses by their first names. He didn’t like that, underneath a faux-liberal exterior of leftist politics, they were really just money-hungry borderline racists. He didn’t like that the groom cheated at Scrabble by playing proper nouns and then throwing a virtual temper tantrum until his opponent just gave him his points. As Christian sat in the church, listening to the excruciating self-penned vows, he realized, in fact, that he didn’t care for the couple very much at all. Given the sparse population of friends and family seated in the chapel, he assumed he was not alone in this verdict. It also probably explained why he had been invited at all.
Although Christian was hesitant to admit it, he knew that he had only come to the wedding in the hopes of meeting a girl. He felt silly about it, and understandably desperate, but it didn’t stop him from searching the small church for any signs of a single young woman. Clutches of older, or attached (or both) ladies dotted the pews. Haggard aunts of the bride seated with their husbands flanked pretty young cousins of the groom who had their heads on the shoulders of disinterested boyfriends. It was not a promising arena. The annoyance of it was twofold. Lonely Christian was not only shut out of potentially dating any of the girls at the ceremony, he was also subject to their fawning displays of lovey-doviness as the preacher read from the “Song of Solomon,” and then launched into a long sermon about the various glories of being in love. As Christian sat, thumbing through a hymnal and wishing he had just stayed at home, he looked up and noticed just how beautiful the stained glass windows of the sanctuary were.
The one closest to him, in fact, was especially gorgeous, although it seemed to be in no way related to church. He stared at the window, antique and ridiculously lovely and practically bursting with mosaic filtered sunlight. There was a woman pictured in the glass, and she was absolutely stunning. She had the look of an art nouveau advert girl with a serenely beautiful face and skin so milky white that it rivaled moonlight. Her hair was dark blonde and soft, and her eyes were nearly glowing with emerald illumination. She looked proud and strong and noble as she arched her back regally, her lovely curves accentuated by a clinging white and gold gown. Around her head, a golden halo fired its rays into the brilliant cloud-dotted azure skyscape behind her, while a lush garden of rich pink and purple flowers sprung up like fireworks around her feet. She was alluring and mystical, a creation of flawless artistry that seemed strangely out of place amidst windows depicting lambs and anchors and tablets of commandments. Christian was suddenly mesmerized, taken aback by her, and he found himself muttering, “God, I wish I could meet a girl like that.” He had said it quietly, but aloud, and the moment the words spilled out, her swung his head frantically, checking to see if he’d been heard to determine whether or not he should be mortified with embarrassment. If anyone nearby had overheard his accidental prayer, they weren’t snickering about it, so he went back to gawking at the woman in the window.
She looked different, somehow, now, as if she had moved. He couldn’t remember her exact position prior, but her eyes seemed lower now, more like they were looking at him. His face flushed and he felt extremely stupid. Infatuation was one thing, but he decided he should really reserve his unrequited love for breathing human beings and not exquisitely rendered works of art. Still, he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, and as he scanned her, he felt as if she was, almost imperceptibly, moving. He decided it must be a trick of the light, maybe an illusion created by the motion of real clouds outside. But it was hard to deny that she looked different moment to moment. Her eyes seemed to be following his, and her pale pink lips, emotionless and cool to begin with, seemed to be loosening into a very pretty smile. She was moving. She was moving and she was looking at him. And Christian unconsciously began to inch away from the window, toward the center of the church, staring intently as the woman in the glass as she very obviously stared back at him. He wanted to scream or to yell, but he was certain what he was seeing wasn’t real, so he kept his mounting fear to himself. If anyone else was seeing what he was seeing, they didn’t seem to think it was odd. Not a single person in the church seemed even slightly perturbed that this gorgeous, unreal girl was crawling out of the glass and carefully stepping down from the window’s sill to the green carpet of the sanctuary.
Christian didn’t think his eyes could physically open any wider and he had crowded all the way to the church’s center aisle as the woman from the window, still as luscious and as fabricated as a painting, calmly walked toward him and sat down at his side. His skin was a topographic map of goose bumps and shivers and she gently wrapped her cold, crystalline fingers around his. She smiled, her expression stalled out somewhere between sweet and sinister, and kissed him on his cheek. He felt science fair explosions go off in his stomach and his brain just sparked and reeled from the sheer improbability of what was happening. He assumed he had lost his mind, but as her drawn glass form began to soften into real flesh and blood, as her crystalline fingers became warm digits of skin and bone, he no longer cared. She was incredible. He could just tell. It was as if he’d known her in a dream or in another life or from some long forgotten childhood event. He was melting in her presence, his rationality snapped in half by a lightning bolt of suddenly falling madly and dizzyingly in love. If he had been thinking logically about any of it, he would have found it absurd and wholly unacceptable. As it was, his heart was twittering and every one of his nerve endings seemed to be lit up like a white hot sparkler.
“My name is Simone,” the girl cooed in his ear. Even her breath was sweet, like honey and lilac, and her voiced slithered into his brain and then fizzled into something effervescent and tickling. Christian couldn’t stop smiling. Any attempts at putting the situation into reasonable terms were thwarted by a mad sort of love-sickness that had entirely overpowered him. He felt as if his prayers, his trivial prayers to alleviate loneliness, were somehow being granted. There was a ballooning gratitude in his heart as she nuzzled her perfect head on his shoulder and he ran his fingers through her soft, sienna hair. Spiralbound trills of birdsongs and liquefied melodies slid down the bones in his spine and he shuddered from something he assumed was the genesis of boundless contentment. The world around him had gone fuzzy and indistinct, but that didn’t matter.
And although she’d said no more than four words to him, Christian knew Simone was everything he had ever been looking for. Her green eyes just sparkled with intellect and wit and inquisitiveness. Her voice was a summer-drenched purr of slow burning charm and molasses calm guile. She held herself with the proud rigidity of a queen, with the sparkling detachment of self-awareness and the soft-eyed look of rare and precious compassion. Christian could tell. She unlocked her hand from his and ran her fingernails along the back of his neck. He responded with the eyes-shut muted elation of a scratched pet cat. As she touched him, she spoke again. “You and I, my dear, are so very much alike. I wonder how long ago it was that I was seated here, like you, wallowing in the self-pity of being alone? I was so sad, then, so unhappy with my solitary lot. I would spend my time praying, like you, just praying for some salvation from this isolation. And then he came… he came and he stole my heart.”
Christian opened his eyes, then, with a vague fear suddenly rumbling through him. It was instinctive paranoia, and absolutely correct. Simone’s nails, as she finished her sentence, dug into Christian’s flesh hard. He felt a jolt of pain and flinched forward, trying to free himself of her talon grip. It was only a moment before tiny droplets of blood beaded up from the wound and ran in warm streaks down his collar.
Simone’s smile was wild, now. Her eyes were flaring with opportunity. “Up there, he was… another victim, I suppose, of his solitude. He called out to me while I bemoaned my fate… Oh, it was such a ridiculous prayer. I remember it so well. I remember begging for him, begging for rescue… from this sad situation. From the company of myself. I just begged. And it was like a miracle when it happened… like it was for you, just now. I saw him slowly descend from that beautiful perch, and he was a miracle. I was… I fell in love with him, on the spot. He was everything I’d ever wanted. And he stole my heart.” Simone grabbed Christian’s wrists, stronger than he could have imagined. She licked her pale lips and looked at Christian with a terrifying lust. “He stole it right through my chest.” She moved Christian’s hand toward the neckline of her gown, and with his flailing fingers, she pushed it down just a bit, straight under her left clavicle and showed Christian the shattered glass hole just above her breast. It was a surreal vision, as if a window of her skin had been pierced with a hurled rock. A spider web network of cracks and fissures radiated out from a hollow black void, marring her perfect white skin with a frighteningly incongruous wound. “You felt me do it to you, didn’t you? Did you feel yourself fall? Did you feel yourself surrender to me? You poor lonely soul. You poor, praying fool.”
Christian felt a horrible sense of panic and nausea wash over him. He was scrambling, trying to free himself from her tightening and increasingly painful grip. Her green eyes were narrowing with malevolence. Her figure was somehow more serpentine, suddenly, a living weapon of arching grace. She was still beautiful, but she was also dangerous and terrifying. “Now, sweet boy, I’ll steal your heart, too.” And with that, she lunged at his chest with her mouth, ripping open his shirt while he bleated in fear. Then, with an unrelenting fury, she smashed open the suddenly glassy form of his skin with her bared teeth. The pain that Christian felt was unbearable. Time froze as he focused on the agony. His whole being was stark white with hurt… his nerves jumped like downed wires while Simone rooted in the hollowed cavity of his chest and ripped out a pumping, blood red mosaic of foggy glass. And as she released him from the bond of his own heart, Christian felt an amazing release. He was free of any need for friendship, for companionship, for love. She had torn it asunder, leaving him broken and unbound. Christian stared at the gaping, shattered window hole in his chest. He looked aloof and remarkably unconcerned.
Simone looked at him, smiling with pride, bits of jagged red glass stuck to her lips and cheeks. “You poor lonely soul,” she repeated.
Christian felt nothing, then, for her. The unbridled lust, the desire, the head-over-heels madness of his brief love was extinguished, replaced with a calm void of presence. He felt at peace. He was unjangled, unexcited and pleasantly cold. And he tried to thank her, but she wasn’t really there anymore, if she ever had been at all. He was, he discovered, alone in his pew, still inundated with the long sermon about the power of union. Christian smiled, no longer bothered by the displays of affection and his utter lack of it. Instead, he was content to smirk, inwardly, at the stupidity of it. He didn’t need his heart. Simone had stolen it, and he was no worse for the wear. He persevered through the remainder of the ceremony, congratulated the unpleasant couple and went about on his merry way.
He never even noticed the resemblance that the figure in the window now bore to him.
7.16.2009
Outsider Art
So, I guess I think of myself as an artsy sort of person... I draw, I paint, I make cartoons. I write stuff. I doodle. I take copious amounts of pictures of creepy dolls. I try to fill my free time with art. I'd like, someday, to maybe make my living via art. I think it would be nice to get paid to make things. I don't think I'd ever call myself an "artist." Not yet, at least. I'm just a guy who dabbles in art. A hobbyist with some vague long term goals.
I wish, sometimes, I was more involved with the artistic community... I wish, sometimes, I was more immersed in that world. But I'm really on the outside of it. I appreciate it, but I'm also somewhat cynical about it. I enjoy it, but I feel out of my depth in it. I often find art frustrating, pretentious, obnoxious, confounding, overwhelming and wholly destructive to my ego. I've never quite belonged with the real artists. I'm self-taught and under-educated. I'm too linear and too pop. I'm no visionary, no innovator, no provocateur... I'm just some guy who draws weird pictures of U.S. presidents as Good-N-Plenty's.
But I love art. I do. And I love all kinds of art. All kinds of writing. All kinds of music. I love that there's so much variety, even as I lament how little of it I'm capable of. I love how talented people can be, even I as fret over how talentless I usually feel. I find inspiration in it, even as it makes me question why I'm bothering to make anything at all when so many people can do it so much better than I can. Good art is beautiful and amazing and thrilling and it makes me feel like dirt. Bad art, on the other hand, inspires me to keep trying... my thought is always "If this jackass can make a go of it, than maybe I can too." There's a definite catalyzing power in mediocre to terrible art... It spurs me to try. Awesome art usually spurs me to curl up in the fetal position.
I do this mostly outside of the company of other artists and writers and creative types... It's partly because I find passion of any sort to be irritating. Irritating because I don't have it, and irritating because... well, passionate people have a tendency to go overboard. And creative types tend to have passion in surplus. I stay outside, too, partly because I feel like a poseur. Whether it's in art or writing or anything, really, I feel like I'm a pretender... some dude with a tiny smudge of potential standing amidst people who have made art their life. I was showing my paintings at a local art show, once, when a man asked me what my art meant to me. I didn't have an answer... at least, not one that satisfied him. I told him I just liked making things. I just put paint on a canvas and moved it around until it looked interesting. I didn't have any deeper motive than that. I didn't have anything that I was trying to say. I didn't have a message I wanted to convey in blue and green swathes of acrylic color. I just like, at the end of it, having something that didn't exist until I made it. This made the man inexplicably angry, and I felt like a complete tool. I should have at least made up an answer!
It's just hard for me to take it so seriously. I do think art is important, but I can't easily articulate why. It's definitely something that improves life... an amenity that keeps existence from slipping into mere survival. But it's more than that. It gives depth to society, and to culture... For example, having the gorgeous Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum gives Milwaukee a real landmark, a cultural touchstone that can act as visual shorthand. It adds a dimension of character to a place with no skyline or real monuments of note (I don't think the Bronze Fonze counts...). It's art with a purpose. It's not just beautification, it's identification... and I think that's important. Still, most art isn't that grand...
I get envious and sad when I read about gallery openings, or shows, or curated exhibits at museums... I want, sometimes, to be part of that world. But I don't think I belong in that world, either. I don't know how I would respond to people wandering around, discussing my art... mostly because there's little to discuss. Even at the little arts & crafts fairs I've done, it gets unnerving listening to people talk about things I've made as if I'm not sitting there hoping to make a sale. One man explained to his wife just what I was trying to accomplish with the way I utilized brush strokes (I think he said I was trying to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia or something similarly ridiculous). I didn't have the heart to say I wasn't trying to accomplish anything... I sort of felt bad that I wasn't.
Does anybody really set out to make Art with a capital "A"? And if they do, don't they feel like pretentious knobs when they do it? Who buys into it? Should I? Am I missing out on some key component of art appreciation that would make me a better person, a more enriched human being and maybe help me catapult out of the realm of mere hobbyist into that of a real artist? Do most people who make things have these same questions? It's like a crisis of artistic faith.
At any rate, I can't see the status quo changing... and that's not so bad. But it would be nice, I suppose, to get the hell over it and maybe fall in line with some other folks like me... But I'm pretty sure they'll think I'm just a big lame.
I wish, sometimes, I was more involved with the artistic community... I wish, sometimes, I was more immersed in that world. But I'm really on the outside of it. I appreciate it, but I'm also somewhat cynical about it. I enjoy it, but I feel out of my depth in it. I often find art frustrating, pretentious, obnoxious, confounding, overwhelming and wholly destructive to my ego. I've never quite belonged with the real artists. I'm self-taught and under-educated. I'm too linear and too pop. I'm no visionary, no innovator, no provocateur... I'm just some guy who draws weird pictures of U.S. presidents as Good-N-Plenty's.
But I love art. I do. And I love all kinds of art. All kinds of writing. All kinds of music. I love that there's so much variety, even as I lament how little of it I'm capable of. I love how talented people can be, even I as fret over how talentless I usually feel. I find inspiration in it, even as it makes me question why I'm bothering to make anything at all when so many people can do it so much better than I can. Good art is beautiful and amazing and thrilling and it makes me feel like dirt. Bad art, on the other hand, inspires me to keep trying... my thought is always "If this jackass can make a go of it, than maybe I can too." There's a definite catalyzing power in mediocre to terrible art... It spurs me to try. Awesome art usually spurs me to curl up in the fetal position.
I do this mostly outside of the company of other artists and writers and creative types... It's partly because I find passion of any sort to be irritating. Irritating because I don't have it, and irritating because... well, passionate people have a tendency to go overboard. And creative types tend to have passion in surplus. I stay outside, too, partly because I feel like a poseur. Whether it's in art or writing or anything, really, I feel like I'm a pretender... some dude with a tiny smudge of potential standing amidst people who have made art their life. I was showing my paintings at a local art show, once, when a man asked me what my art meant to me. I didn't have an answer... at least, not one that satisfied him. I told him I just liked making things. I just put paint on a canvas and moved it around until it looked interesting. I didn't have any deeper motive than that. I didn't have anything that I was trying to say. I didn't have a message I wanted to convey in blue and green swathes of acrylic color. I just like, at the end of it, having something that didn't exist until I made it. This made the man inexplicably angry, and I felt like a complete tool. I should have at least made up an answer!
It's just hard for me to take it so seriously. I do think art is important, but I can't easily articulate why. It's definitely something that improves life... an amenity that keeps existence from slipping into mere survival. But it's more than that. It gives depth to society, and to culture... For example, having the gorgeous Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum gives Milwaukee a real landmark, a cultural touchstone that can act as visual shorthand. It adds a dimension of character to a place with no skyline or real monuments of note (I don't think the Bronze Fonze counts...). It's art with a purpose. It's not just beautification, it's identification... and I think that's important. Still, most art isn't that grand...
I get envious and sad when I read about gallery openings, or shows, or curated exhibits at museums... I want, sometimes, to be part of that world. But I don't think I belong in that world, either. I don't know how I would respond to people wandering around, discussing my art... mostly because there's little to discuss. Even at the little arts & crafts fairs I've done, it gets unnerving listening to people talk about things I've made as if I'm not sitting there hoping to make a sale. One man explained to his wife just what I was trying to accomplish with the way I utilized brush strokes (I think he said I was trying to create an atmosphere of claustrophobia or something similarly ridiculous). I didn't have the heart to say I wasn't trying to accomplish anything... I sort of felt bad that I wasn't.
Does anybody really set out to make Art with a capital "A"? And if they do, don't they feel like pretentious knobs when they do it? Who buys into it? Should I? Am I missing out on some key component of art appreciation that would make me a better person, a more enriched human being and maybe help me catapult out of the realm of mere hobbyist into that of a real artist? Do most people who make things have these same questions? It's like a crisis of artistic faith.
At any rate, I can't see the status quo changing... and that's not so bad. But it would be nice, I suppose, to get the hell over it and maybe fall in line with some other folks like me... But I'm pretty sure they'll think I'm just a big lame.
7.15.2009
Silver
Remember:
This silence is just a bit of the
Mourning,
Coming down in waves of amber on the hilt of her dark eyes.
These days, I forget so easily the cowering nights spent
Waiting to die on elixir,
She was there, like an angel, wings unfurled and her
DARK eyes fogged with some weird drug. I scanned the breadth of her for cunning, and she sought out chalk and dust and put me down onto paper. I couldn't even breathe.
Still, there were words and a song between us,
And she was gorgeously lit by the silvery moon.
It's just so easy to forget these days, now hushed and normal in my calm life...
There was a CAGE
Screaming and it was spent like dust. I fell off
because of it, bruised knees, bruised egos, bruised EVERYTHING.
But I find these hours just pass by without much
Crushing anymore.
I try to thank her in
these poems.
This silence is just a bit of the
Mourning,
Coming down in waves of amber on the hilt of her dark eyes.
These days, I forget so easily the cowering nights spent
Waiting to die on elixir,
She was there, like an angel, wings unfurled and her
DARK eyes fogged with some weird drug. I scanned the breadth of her for cunning, and she sought out chalk and dust and put me down onto paper. I couldn't even breathe.
Still, there were words and a song between us,
And she was gorgeously lit by the silvery moon.
It's just so easy to forget these days, now hushed and normal in my calm life...
There was a CAGE
Screaming and it was spent like dust. I fell off
because of it, bruised knees, bruised egos, bruised EVERYTHING.
But I find these hours just pass by without much
Crushing anymore.
I try to thank her in
these poems.
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