---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nearly Collide
A white Cadillac
and a black sedan
nearly collide
at First and Fulham
as I stopped to cross the street
on my way home.
I found her on my front porch,
chilled to the bone,
mascara running,
claiming she dropped by to say hi
and was just about to leave.
I let her in,
put the kettle on.
She unzips her boots,
washes up.
She doesn't tell me why she's been crying,
just like I don't tell her how I still can't find a job.
She doesn't tell me to give myself credit for trying,
I don't tell her how good she looks without her makeup.
I don't feel better about myself,
she doesn't blush and kiss me on the cheek.
But eventually she does ask if she can stay.
So I play the gentleman,
give her my bed,
camp on my couch
with a blanket.
Ten minutes later she says she can't sleep,
and would I rather be little spoon or big?
She wraps her arm around me
to keep me close,
she wraps a leg around mine
as if to say
"mine."
And if she had wings she'd wrap them around me too,
because, as she'd say,
I have enough trouble with myself
without the world jumping in.
She says you're welcome,
without using a word,
because she knows
I was saying thank you
without using a word.
A black Cadillac
and a white sedan
collide
at First and Fulham,
so I sit down
and wait for the cops.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There you have it, post number three. (approach with trepidation)
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Knuckles
I've been thinking about musical prejudice and just how damaging it can be. A recent example from my life is the band Cold War Kids. When I first heart the name, I instantly dismissed them as emo garbage just because of their name. I never even listened to their music! It wasn't until much later that I happened to be listening to a Pandora station I'd put together and this really simple but powerful piano-accompanied bluesy-voiced song came on. I was instantly taken with it, so I looked to see what it was: Hospital Beds by Cold War Kids. I was fairly shocked, and decided to look into them some more.
The problem stems from the fact that there is SO MUCH music out there that you often have to wade through a sea of total crap before you find something that you like, and that crap makes patterns in your head. You tend to extrapolate based on those patterns and sometimes miss out on things that you might have otherwise enjoyed.
A prejudice of mine is against acoustic singer-songwriter types. I really don't like Jack Johnson, and I tend to find the genre, in general, to be generic in theme and melody. Most of the time it just doesn't do it for me. But there are artists that fit into this genre that I absolutely love too. Most of the time it depends on the circumstances behind the discovery. You have to be in the right frame of mind. So step outside of your comfort zone. Find someone who's musical tastes you respect, and have them suggest some bands or songs in a genre that you generally dislike. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised. Who knows, maybe you'll add Bluegrass, Gangster Rap, Country-Western and Metalcore to your regular rotation, because I assure you there is great great music in all of these genres, sometimes you just have to wade through some of the bad stuff to find it.
Here's a poem that has NOTHING to do with that whatsoever.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles
They found him huddled,
hugging his knees,
in the bathroom
under the towel rack.
Awake but unresponsive.
No obvious trauma,
but it was clear
that all was not well.
So the ambulance came
and took him away,
not quite catatonic,
to his hospital bed,
where he slept very much
and ate very little.
When they asked him what happened
he asked for a marker
and drew big arrows
on the backs of his hands
pointing up at his knuckles.
His doctors made those grave faces
they're so practiced at
and said this boy is very sick
but we can find nothing wrong with him.
They poked and they prodded
and asked a great deal of questions
which he did not answer.
He explained to them at different times
under different circumstances
how some people see life as a journey,
or a wheel that they spin
and stare at, wide-eyed
to see what happens to them.
Some see life as a chore,
something they have to
wake up every day and do
and he'd like to go back to bed now
because he's very tired.
I heard one day he jumped out the window.
He was chatting with some kid
who just had his tonsils out,
a captive audience.
He said one day he woke up
and just didn't want to do it anymore,
but it turns out you can't
just lay down and die.
So he ran and jumped out the window,
with both fists out
in front of his face,
superman-style.
Those arrows were still pointing at his knuckles.
I think it's so he'd know
which way he was going.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There you have it, post number two. (approach with trepidation)
The problem stems from the fact that there is SO MUCH music out there that you often have to wade through a sea of total crap before you find something that you like, and that crap makes patterns in your head. You tend to extrapolate based on those patterns and sometimes miss out on things that you might have otherwise enjoyed.
A prejudice of mine is against acoustic singer-songwriter types. I really don't like Jack Johnson, and I tend to find the genre, in general, to be generic in theme and melody. Most of the time it just doesn't do it for me. But there are artists that fit into this genre that I absolutely love too. Most of the time it depends on the circumstances behind the discovery. You have to be in the right frame of mind. So step outside of your comfort zone. Find someone who's musical tastes you respect, and have them suggest some bands or songs in a genre that you generally dislike. You'll probably be pleasantly surprised. Who knows, maybe you'll add Bluegrass, Gangster Rap, Country-Western and Metalcore to your regular rotation, because I assure you there is great great music in all of these genres, sometimes you just have to wade through some of the bad stuff to find it.
Here's a poem that has NOTHING to do with that whatsoever.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Knuckles
They found him huddled,
hugging his knees,
in the bathroom
under the towel rack.
Awake but unresponsive.
No obvious trauma,
but it was clear
that all was not well.
So the ambulance came
and took him away,
not quite catatonic,
to his hospital bed,
where he slept very much
and ate very little.
When they asked him what happened
he asked for a marker
and drew big arrows
on the backs of his hands
pointing up at his knuckles.
His doctors made those grave faces
they're so practiced at
and said this boy is very sick
but we can find nothing wrong with him.
They poked and they prodded
and asked a great deal of questions
which he did not answer.
He explained to them at different times
under different circumstances
how some people see life as a journey,
or a wheel that they spin
and stare at, wide-eyed
to see what happens to them.
Some see life as a chore,
something they have to
wake up every day and do
and he'd like to go back to bed now
because he's very tired.
I heard one day he jumped out the window.
He was chatting with some kid
who just had his tonsils out,
a captive audience.
He said one day he woke up
and just didn't want to do it anymore,
but it turns out you can't
just lay down and die.
So he ran and jumped out the window,
with both fists out
in front of his face,
superman-style.
Those arrows were still pointing at his knuckles.
I think it's so he'd know
which way he was going.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There you have it, post number two. (approach with trepidation)
Friday, February 17, 2012
Inauguration
Yes yes, first ever post. This is the hard part. The dirtying of pages. Cracking the spine of that fresh new notebook and splashing a little ink on those first lines. In a way, this is very easy, just write down whatever comes to mind. In a way, this leads to the hardest part, which is continuing. Do you possess the fortitude to continue what you started here today (and of course, by you I mean me.)? Time will tell.
The purpose of this exercise is to have a place to showcase my writing. I have a DeviantART account (dukluss.deviantart.com) and will continue, for now, to post my work there as well. The problem is, DeviantART isn't the best place on the web for words. Also, my own paranoia tells me there's something...insecure...about that place. Which is silly. Someone could just as easily swipe my words from my blog as from my DA page, especially since I'll be linking them. I just want something of my own, under my control.
I will attempt to post no less than once per week, on Thursdays, most likely. If I have no new material I will go back and post old things from my DA page or journals or maybe I'll just post non-art things. Also, I plan on taking some older things and reworking them, and posting them here exclusively. That's right! Exclusive content!
Writing this is so strange, because I know no one will read this right now. It will only be accessed retroactively. I'm trying to picture myself in the future, looking back at this and wondering "what will I have wanted to say?"
I sat for days (not WHOLE ones) staring at the create a blog page, just watching the cursor as it blinked in the "Title" section. I just couldn't figure out what to call this damn thing.
But I digress! The first post must have art, mustn't it? (Yes, it must.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Road to Recovery (Work in Progress)
I'm walking the road
Because it's finally been long enough
to forget why I started
Wandering
in the first place.
I had such trouble
Inching one foot in front of the other,
but then someone made my bed
and washed my sheets and
it helped me much more than it should have.
and i'm sorry my room is such a mess and you had to see it like that
and i'm sorry that i'm such a mess and you had to see me like that
I'm hoping soon I'll be in a place
Where I can watch a movie
without skipping the sad parts,
and I can have a drink or two
without any lasting side effects.
Well, not quite yet
but I'm walking the road.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment if you feel inclined, but since this is the Internet, I feel I have to tell you: I reserve the right to edit your assy comments. So don't be assy.
There you have it, Post number one. (approach with trepidation)
The purpose of this exercise is to have a place to showcase my writing. I have a DeviantART account (dukluss.deviantart.com) and will continue, for now, to post my work there as well. The problem is, DeviantART isn't the best place on the web for words. Also, my own paranoia tells me there's something...insecure...about that place. Which is silly. Someone could just as easily swipe my words from my blog as from my DA page, especially since I'll be linking them. I just want something of my own, under my control.
I will attempt to post no less than once per week, on Thursdays, most likely. If I have no new material I will go back and post old things from my DA page or journals or maybe I'll just post non-art things. Also, I plan on taking some older things and reworking them, and posting them here exclusively. That's right! Exclusive content!
Writing this is so strange, because I know no one will read this right now. It will only be accessed retroactively. I'm trying to picture myself in the future, looking back at this and wondering "what will I have wanted to say?"
I sat for days (not WHOLE ones) staring at the create a blog page, just watching the cursor as it blinked in the "Title" section. I just couldn't figure out what to call this damn thing.
But I digress! The first post must have art, mustn't it? (Yes, it must.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Road to Recovery (Work in Progress)
I'm walking the road
Because it's finally been long enough
to forget why I started
Wandering
in the first place.
I had such trouble
Inching one foot in front of the other,
but then someone made my bed
and washed my sheets and
it helped me much more than it should have.
and i'm sorry my room is such a mess and you had to see it like that
and i'm sorry that i'm such a mess and you had to see me like that
I'm hoping soon I'll be in a place
Where I can watch a movie
without skipping the sad parts,
and I can have a drink or two
without any lasting side effects.
Well, not quite yet
but I'm walking the road.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Comment if you feel inclined, but since this is the Internet, I feel I have to tell you: I reserve the right to edit your assy comments. So don't be assy.
There you have it, Post number one. (approach with trepidation)
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