I want to tell Carly that this poem is for her. Hey Carly! This poem's for you! Thank you for the craft supplies!
I want to wear a suit of bubble wrap, so if I get hit by a car, I'll still be badly hurt, but I'll have something to do while I wait for the ambulance.
I want to smear my chest in glitter, so I can run out of the woods, flailing and shrieking that I was shit on by a unicorn.
I want me and my art to be stuck together like two bits of wood acting as the bread of a PVA sandwich. I want to treat my art like a lover. Play back and forth, always offering, never asking, knowing when to fuck and when to make love.
I want my poetry to read like footsteps on a path of drying cement, so everybody can know where I've been, and where I am, and when they reach me, I can tell them where I'm going.
I want to shut my brain down for 24 hours, so that just for one day, I can craft with my heart, and heart alone. So that just for one day, I can appreciate that everything I create; every poem, song, and painting is a love letter to art itself; so that just for one day, I can live without the critical eye that looks at my own creations and says "Well that's no fucking good."
I want to know what the poets know. I want to get closer to Ginsberg, Kerouac, and Burroughs. So I think I'll treat myself to a naked lunch on the road and howl when they come to take me away, ha ha.
I want to spend a year in a strait jacket, so I can learn to write with my feet and say "Yeah, that's right world. 4 pens at once. Try to stop me now, motherfucker."
I want to think up some brilliant new expression; something to lift the chins of folks who are having a hard time with life at any given moment. Something like "If you don't trudge through the sewers, how else are you going to meet the Ninja Turtles?"
I want to treat each step like it's helping the world rotate. I want to snap so loud that I can't type when I get home. I want to care less about money and treat each purchase like it's only ten dollars (Only TEN dollars?!). I want to laugh so hard that I ejaculate confetti.
I want to deliver quiet lines during big laughs, so the audience has to buy a book to know what I said.
I want to quote The Simpsons like it's still 1998 and relevant. I want to live, Marge! Won't you let me live!
I want to get five zeroes at a slam, because it seems more difficult to achieve than five tens.
I want a world where the righteous aren't so damn righteous about it. I want a world where everything goes up to eleven. I want a world where you get strange looks for NOT singing alone in public. I want a world where I can say Snooki, and everybody else will say "who?" I want a world where everything's coming up Milhouse. I want a world where everybody has a sex tape so we can all calm the fuck down about it.
I want to leave an audience in constant suspense. I want my audience to always be unsure of what I'll say next.
I want to...
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Damage
We're all a little damaged.
Everyone in front of me has some kind of baggage, some kind of damage, some old scratches covered up in fresh paint. Some of you have written poems about it. Some have shared it with a close friend, and some have never let it out. Some have forgotten it entirely.
But it's there.
We all know it so constantly that we fail to notice its effects on each other, like we're painted black and blue but we're only seeing skin tones.
The time was right, I thought, to talk about mine a bit.
Diagnosis: 9 years old - Everything is making this kid cry. A fetal ball was my fighting stance. Seemed like my only goal was making my weight match my IQ. Of course, these days, that'd be a good thing.
Diagnosis: 9 years old
Diagnosis: Can't stop crying
Diagnosis: Highly intelligent
Diagnosis: Can't identify with other students
Diagnosis: Major Depressive Disorder
Lucked out being the smart one - most kids couldn't spell the name of the pills I started taking.
I couldn't tell you how long I was in therapy. I can tell you that it happened Tuesday afternoon. Every Tuesday afternoon. And I can tell you that it was getting tense, trying to convince the more skeptical of my classmates that I was at a "doctor's appointment".
These days I laugh in the face of anyone who asks me if I wish I was a child again.
We're all a little damaged.
And some of us try to wear it like cosmetics - to show the world the empty glow of our hollow-eye-shadow.
I have a simple message to deliver - to anybody who will hear it.
Stop trying to diagnose yourself to be different. Being Bi-polar is not a fashion statement. Depression is not a buzz word that means "attend to me, peers" - It's sitting awake at a computer screen at 3am holding a fucking knife to your throat, eyes burning red, shirt collar soaked in tears cried out because you force yourself to keep going. You just can't bear to give anybody another reason to be disappointed in you.
You're accessorizing yourself in the choice methods of the suicidal - and while you wail for attention to your glittering malaise - another father has hanged himself with your necklace. Another mother has cut her wrists with your cufflinks. Another scared teenager has used your shoes to step out into traffic. Another human being has swallowed 30 doses of what you're selling and has died in foaming convulsion while all eyes rest on you.
We're all a little damaged.
We've been there. We've done it. We got the t-shirt.
But none of us actually want to wear it.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Meridian
I'm standing, trembling on a meridian line
gauging either hemisphere for its value unto me.
I've followed it as far along its longitude as I dare, revealing naught but further questions.
And I know that matched emerald sheen of grass equally green in all directions will be split upon my first step.
So which is it? Left or right?
Two options clear as day from night, but who could choose between any of these?
It's a sick joke my psyche plays in its ploys to convey me to a conclusion but have me feeling regret long before I choose.
Left or right?
I stiffen in terror at every swift breeze, every loose leaf - the thought that the choice could be made for me by chance motion, by the shifting of the earth - it threatens to strip away the last vestige of my humanity; all of the me that's left in this body.
The light in my eyes has long since gone dim, intelligent thought the furthest thing from my mind, staring blankly at this meridian line and realizing that it's been etched straight into my brain, a long crease straight down the middle - The left saying right, the right saying left - my best laid plans split between east and west.
I've crossed so many lines in my time that I don't even know what side I'm on anymore, or if there were sides to begin with.
I scan my memory banks and filter through what few grains my synaptic shores haven't had washed away.
The left I took at 13 when I said "I think I'm gonna live with Dad."
The right I took at 17 when I thought "Put down the knife...it's going to get better."
The left I took at 20 when I said "University isn't helping me...I need to find my own path"
The right I took at 24 when I saw a single poem on youtube and said "I need to do this...now."
I sit down in the dust of indecision and exhale slowly.
I can do this.
I've seen these lines before.
They always look the same.
I rise to my feet with a deliberate balance and wipe the dirt from my legs.
Always the same left or right...
The sun and moon forever rise on this exact meridian line
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
deep breath in
deep breath out
I try to inspect the hemispheres, try to get some idea of
NO
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
I steady my nerves, shut my eyes
I cringe at the wind and think to hesitate
NO
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
Stop thinking, stop worrying, just move. In these moments, all we can do is act, and act now.
I steady my nerves, shut my eyes, pick a direction and prepare to jump
in 3
2
1...
gauging either hemisphere for its value unto me.
I've followed it as far along its longitude as I dare, revealing naught but further questions.
And I know that matched emerald sheen of grass equally green in all directions will be split upon my first step.
So which is it? Left or right?
Two options clear as day from night, but who could choose between any of these?
It's a sick joke my psyche plays in its ploys to convey me to a conclusion but have me feeling regret long before I choose.
Left or right?
I stiffen in terror at every swift breeze, every loose leaf - the thought that the choice could be made for me by chance motion, by the shifting of the earth - it threatens to strip away the last vestige of my humanity; all of the me that's left in this body.
The light in my eyes has long since gone dim, intelligent thought the furthest thing from my mind, staring blankly at this meridian line and realizing that it's been etched straight into my brain, a long crease straight down the middle - The left saying right, the right saying left - my best laid plans split between east and west.
I've crossed so many lines in my time that I don't even know what side I'm on anymore, or if there were sides to begin with.
I scan my memory banks and filter through what few grains my synaptic shores haven't had washed away.
The left I took at 13 when I said "I think I'm gonna live with Dad."
The right I took at 17 when I thought "Put down the knife...it's going to get better."
The left I took at 20 when I said "University isn't helping me...I need to find my own path"
The right I took at 24 when I saw a single poem on youtube and said "I need to do this...now."
I sit down in the dust of indecision and exhale slowly.
I can do this.
I've seen these lines before.
They always look the same.
I rise to my feet with a deliberate balance and wipe the dirt from my legs.
Always the same left or right...
The sun and moon forever rise on this exact meridian line
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
deep breath in
deep breath out
I try to inspect the hemispheres, try to get some idea of
NO
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
I steady my nerves, shut my eyes
I cringe at the wind and think to hesitate
NO
A decision unreached is a life stopped from living.
Stop thinking, stop worrying, just move. In these moments, all we can do is act, and act now.
I steady my nerves, shut my eyes, pick a direction and prepare to jump
in 3
2
1...
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
The Poetry of the Moment
There is a stillness and silence to the world - the calm before the storm. Fire-coloured eyes lock and advocate a mutual understanding that we would polarize our lips and have them become magnets. Fingers initiate pilgrimage, a cartographic obsession driving nothing short of complete exploration. Layers of wrappings shift to reveal further ground to cover and, with the delicate care of a librarian handling a first edition, are removed entirely.
Goosebumps are a poor description - our skin blisters without pain, hair stands electric, screaming for freedom and escape from the flesh.
Sparse clouds in the night sky serve as a wordless marquee for a VIP performance intended only for the crickets, and the moon lay static - illuminated glass on deepest black satin waiting to be cracked. Ice begging to be broken so as to include all creation in our discourse.
Such is the music of synapse - that the occupation of one mouth can trigger the other to create a lone harmony with the power of both voices.
Such is the music of synapse - to be deafened by the crush of twitching thighs, to accept in the moment that hearing will never be as important as this - and to invite a further pressure.
Such is the poetry of the moment - to have lost all definition of "I" and "You" and to accept eternal that "we" "this" "us" is all that has ever existed.
It is in these moments that we are all artists - fingernails become paintbrushes on sweat-soaked canvas - voices sing freeform to a steadily intensifying rythm and percussion - and yes, we are acting - but we are acting like ourselves at last.
In song, we meet in reverent harmonies; our voices flow and crash, intertwining and growing in tandem like accelerated vines springing forth from our very throats with a power and pace that would convince us we had altered the axis of the planet.
The world is lost to consequence - the salt sting of sweat in our eyes as distant as the voice of a sparrow calling to God through a hurricane. The burn in our muscles a cool comfort compared to the inferno we encompass as one.
Such is the music of synapse - that one face buried in the crook where neck meets shoulder is, despite the tumult and torrent of urgent motion, somehow able to make eye contact.
Such is the music of synapse - to rise and build in a simultaneous vocal performance and deliver a sudden crescendo strong enough to drown out the entirety of the world's symphonies.
Such is the poetry of the moment - To succumb to the finality of exhaustion and collapse, breathless, synchronized, depleted - and to accept the whisper of the wind as nature's applause.
Goosebumps are a poor description - our skin blisters without pain, hair stands electric, screaming for freedom and escape from the flesh.
Sparse clouds in the night sky serve as a wordless marquee for a VIP performance intended only for the crickets, and the moon lay static - illuminated glass on deepest black satin waiting to be cracked. Ice begging to be broken so as to include all creation in our discourse.
Such is the music of synapse - that the occupation of one mouth can trigger the other to create a lone harmony with the power of both voices.
Such is the music of synapse - to be deafened by the crush of twitching thighs, to accept in the moment that hearing will never be as important as this - and to invite a further pressure.
Such is the poetry of the moment - to have lost all definition of "I" and "You" and to accept eternal that "we" "this" "us" is all that has ever existed.
It is in these moments that we are all artists - fingernails become paintbrushes on sweat-soaked canvas - voices sing freeform to a steadily intensifying rythm and percussion - and yes, we are acting - but we are acting like ourselves at last.
In song, we meet in reverent harmonies; our voices flow and crash, intertwining and growing in tandem like accelerated vines springing forth from our very throats with a power and pace that would convince us we had altered the axis of the planet.
The world is lost to consequence - the salt sting of sweat in our eyes as distant as the voice of a sparrow calling to God through a hurricane. The burn in our muscles a cool comfort compared to the inferno we encompass as one.
Such is the music of synapse - that one face buried in the crook where neck meets shoulder is, despite the tumult and torrent of urgent motion, somehow able to make eye contact.
Such is the music of synapse - to rise and build in a simultaneous vocal performance and deliver a sudden crescendo strong enough to drown out the entirety of the world's symphonies.
Such is the poetry of the moment - To succumb to the finality of exhaustion and collapse, breathless, synchronized, depleted - and to accept the whisper of the wind as nature's applause.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Re-Think
I don't come from the net.
I haven't traveled through systems, peoples, and cities.
I live in this place.
Mainframe. My home.
My format? Binome.
The overlooked backbone, little 1s and 0s.
I know you're all out there.
Out past the system, out past the user, past the net, past the web...outside somewhere completely different, and you're watching our town.
I know the cameras would have you believe the hyper-sensation that is life on Baudway.
And yeah...it's pretty nice. The circuits are clean, and the people friendly. Great place to live. Must be nice for the sprites who can afford it.
But take a trip down through the stacks of the city. Each one a level of life, and each declining in quality. The best keeps to the top so as not to ruin Phong's view from the Principal Office. But scurry down the steps and you'll find me, in my null's nest apartment just a hop, skip, and a jump drive away from Al's slow food.
Funny to think this place has only two restaurants...one at the top, one at the bottom. The closer you live to one or the other determines the likelihood that it's "more in your price range."
So yeah...it's not exactly heaven down here. We live in a constant state of fear, with viral armies going most unchallenged in my neighbourhood. So we scurry, left and right, and just try to keep away from Megabyte. But then...most of us end up working for him.
And then come the games, and I know what you see. You see Bob, big time hero, tear-fixin' virus fightin' Bob. And you see him kicking user ass again and again. He saves the day again and again. But the binomes who die? You think they're just fine? Sorry friend, but their asses get straight nullified. I hear that hellish warning come day after day - The incessant buzzing of "Incoming Game" And all I can think is "I wonder which neighbour I'm going to lose?" I can barely muster the will to reboot.
What I have to say is simple. What I have to say is "What you are experiencing is a temporary distortion of reality." Mike the TV isn't cute, alright? There's only so many times a binome can hear "ninety nine ninety nine ninety nine" Before he wanders out to Lost Angles and throws himself into the fucking sea.
Wouldn't be so entertaining, would it? To focus on the daily struggle of low-level binomes, hiding from virals, and waiting entire SECONDS for their meals.
Hell, when that web creature attacked? Why do you think it hit level 31 first? Because nobody ever bothered to LOOK down here.
One last thing...and I don't want you to pretend like this hasn't bothered you. If you've seen our lives, you've wondered if other versions of us live in other systems. You've realized that you, too, are called "the user". And you imagine that the enemies in your beloved games are your heroes; Bob, Dot, Enzo, AndrAIa. Don't worry, they're not. It's just the binomes. Those big time sprites are saved for endgame, and you never really manage to win, do you? Guardians are great at these games, but what am I supposed to do? I'm just a fucking spelling checker! Death comes only to low-level, wide-eyed, trembling little 1s and 0s.
So just remember, next time you play on your pc? The next bad guy you kill, well it just might be me.
I haven't traveled through systems, peoples, and cities.
I live in this place.
Mainframe. My home.
My format? Binome.
The overlooked backbone, little 1s and 0s.
I know you're all out there.
Out past the system, out past the user, past the net, past the web...outside somewhere completely different, and you're watching our town.
I know the cameras would have you believe the hyper-sensation that is life on Baudway.
And yeah...it's pretty nice. The circuits are clean, and the people friendly. Great place to live. Must be nice for the sprites who can afford it.
But take a trip down through the stacks of the city. Each one a level of life, and each declining in quality. The best keeps to the top so as not to ruin Phong's view from the Principal Office. But scurry down the steps and you'll find me, in my null's nest apartment just a hop, skip, and a jump drive away from Al's slow food.
Funny to think this place has only two restaurants...one at the top, one at the bottom. The closer you live to one or the other determines the likelihood that it's "more in your price range."
So yeah...it's not exactly heaven down here. We live in a constant state of fear, with viral armies going most unchallenged in my neighbourhood. So we scurry, left and right, and just try to keep away from Megabyte. But then...most of us end up working for him.
And then come the games, and I know what you see. You see Bob, big time hero, tear-fixin' virus fightin' Bob. And you see him kicking user ass again and again. He saves the day again and again. But the binomes who die? You think they're just fine? Sorry friend, but their asses get straight nullified. I hear that hellish warning come day after day - The incessant buzzing of "Incoming Game" And all I can think is "I wonder which neighbour I'm going to lose?" I can barely muster the will to reboot.
What I have to say is simple. What I have to say is "What you are experiencing is a temporary distortion of reality." Mike the TV isn't cute, alright? There's only so many times a binome can hear "ninety nine ninety nine ninety nine" Before he wanders out to Lost Angles and throws himself into the fucking sea.
Wouldn't be so entertaining, would it? To focus on the daily struggle of low-level binomes, hiding from virals, and waiting entire SECONDS for their meals.
Hell, when that web creature attacked? Why do you think it hit level 31 first? Because nobody ever bothered to LOOK down here.
One last thing...and I don't want you to pretend like this hasn't bothered you. If you've seen our lives, you've wondered if other versions of us live in other systems. You've realized that you, too, are called "the user". And you imagine that the enemies in your beloved games are your heroes; Bob, Dot, Enzo, AndrAIa. Don't worry, they're not. It's just the binomes. Those big time sprites are saved for endgame, and you never really manage to win, do you? Guardians are great at these games, but what am I supposed to do? I'm just a fucking spelling checker! Death comes only to low-level, wide-eyed, trembling little 1s and 0s.
So just remember, next time you play on your pc? The next bad guy you kill, well it just might be me.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
To Begin
I'm a stranger in a strange land
of dangers and stage hands
mystics and madmen
and I'm dancing among them
Replete in semantics
of shallow pedantics
who pose as romantics
in wallet-fold leather
their shoelaces tethering
both feet together.
And next to them, brilliance
IQs in the millions
kings of the hill, hence
comes my frustration
a core fractured nation
delaying my patience
delaying my patience
delaying my patience until
snap
I feel like opportunity's passing me by
I feel like opportunity's passing me by
And if I'd just take a moment to look at the world I'm standing it, I'd see
The opportunity's there. Just open your eyes.
Too often do we look at ourselves and see verdant cravens of
carven viridian,
envious of craftsmen,
craving affection like
vermin in crow's feed.
Vitriol spit in tremble and facade, and all directed inwards.
We feel like failures, but we haven't taken the steps to succeed.
They say art is found in an artist's blood, but that art's gonna die if you're too afraid to bleed.
So take a step back, and realize that we're all born diseased.
Life is gonna kill you, whether you advance or retreat,
and I'll be damned if I go out lying face down in the street,
so neat and tidy, afraid to die, we
exercise our right to remain silent.
But there's too much violence in our silence.
We watch it grow from a lack of "no"
to a flat out "go ahead".
"Take my life away, today if possible,
because I don't want to argue."
I'll mutter misery, utter mute vexations
to bobble-headed peers, whose fears mirror
mine. Spineless yes-men, all of us
comparing sizes in cynicism, but all of us too afraid to say "no".
Too afraid to say anything, outside the huddle.
It's a small world, after all
and someone might overhear if you decide to disagree.
Performance of "To Begin" at CFSW 2011
of dangers and stage hands
mystics and madmen
and I'm dancing among them
Replete in semantics
of shallow pedantics
who pose as romantics
in wallet-fold leather
their shoelaces tethering
both feet together.
And next to them, brilliance
IQs in the millions
kings of the hill, hence
comes my frustration
a core fractured nation
delaying my patience
delaying my patience
delaying my patience until
snap
I feel like opportunity's passing me by
I feel like opportunity's passing me by
And if I'd just take a moment to look at the world I'm standing it, I'd see
The opportunity's there. Just open your eyes.
Too often do we look at ourselves and see verdant cravens of
carven viridian,
envious of craftsmen,
craving affection like
vermin in crow's feed.
Vitriol spit in tremble and facade, and all directed inwards.
We feel like failures, but we haven't taken the steps to succeed.
They say art is found in an artist's blood, but that art's gonna die if you're too afraid to bleed.
So take a step back, and realize that we're all born diseased.
Life is gonna kill you, whether you advance or retreat,
and I'll be damned if I go out lying face down in the street,
so neat and tidy, afraid to die, we
exercise our right to remain silent.
But there's too much violence in our silence.
We watch it grow from a lack of "no"
to a flat out "go ahead".
"Take my life away, today if possible,
because I don't want to argue."
I'll mutter misery, utter mute vexations
to bobble-headed peers, whose fears mirror
mine. Spineless yes-men, all of us
comparing sizes in cynicism, but all of us too afraid to say "no".
Too afraid to say anything, outside the huddle.
It's a small world, after all
and someone might overhear if you decide to disagree.
Performance of "To Begin" at CFSW 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
My Name is Music
My name is music, and I'm a universal language.
I'm a bandage for wounds made of soothesounds commanded
and handed quite candidly out by romantics
and realists alike, as if both took a stand
to say "this is the one thing we share on this planet".
The places I'll take us in less than no paces
are spaces immersed in emotional phases
from craze and amazement to cracks in the pavement
your faces lack ways to display this arrangement
of raw, pure emotion, the tool of my tradesmen.
I'm a breaker of boundary, surrounded by sounds
to impound your hounding instincts
to impede a foundation, a real common ground
to step round all the sounds that you make with your mouths
in one language "gefunden", in another, just "found".
My name is music, and these are my wonders
and yet you debase them with thunderous bluster
of genre conundrum, the blunder of functionless
styles to list under. With ponderous pomp,
you shred the whole purpose of my voice asunder.
Carry the arrogance off in a barrow,
a carriage if need be, but end the foul marriage
you've made with disparaging comments
at cherished opinions of positive credit.
"That band sucks" is a point of no merit,
There are treasures unmeasured and yet-unknown pleasures
for unfettered minds unafraid to sprout feathers
and fly beyond genre and matters of whether
or not music X is the best music ever.
My name is music, and I am remarkable, if you really think about it.
So please, sit down, relax, and just enjoy me for what I am.
Not what you think I should be.
I'm a bandage for wounds made of soothesounds commanded
and handed quite candidly out by romantics
and realists alike, as if both took a stand
to say "this is the one thing we share on this planet".
The places I'll take us in less than no paces
are spaces immersed in emotional phases
from craze and amazement to cracks in the pavement
your faces lack ways to display this arrangement
of raw, pure emotion, the tool of my tradesmen.
I'm a breaker of boundary, surrounded by sounds
to impound your hounding instincts
to impede a foundation, a real common ground
to step round all the sounds that you make with your mouths
in one language "gefunden", in another, just "found".
My name is music, and these are my wonders
and yet you debase them with thunderous bluster
of genre conundrum, the blunder of functionless
styles to list under. With ponderous pomp,
you shred the whole purpose of my voice asunder.
Carry the arrogance off in a barrow,
a carriage if need be, but end the foul marriage
you've made with disparaging comments
at cherished opinions of positive credit.
"That band sucks" is a point of no merit,
There are treasures unmeasured and yet-unknown pleasures
for unfettered minds unafraid to sprout feathers
and fly beyond genre and matters of whether
or not music X is the best music ever.
My name is music, and I am remarkable, if you really think about it.
So please, sit down, relax, and just enjoy me for what I am.
Not what you think I should be.
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