Almost.

I have files and files
and notebooks upon notebooks.
I also have scraps,
class notes
with less space in the margins
than in the paragraphs,
church bulletins,
and a host more of artistic shrapnel
from a mind that is ... dysfunctional.

However, my dysfunction is a special kind
because it looks so useful,
it looks like responsibility,
it looks like the right thing.
I hope I do not learn
to regret all the right things I do in my life
like I regret this.

When I have worn through my poetic dishonesty,
all of that 'shrapnel'
from all of my ideas and thoughts and wanderings
is not as much lately,
not as much as it used to be.
I guess that is success.
I think they call it focusing.
But I,

I feel like I am dying.

I did not think I heard voices
until they went silent
and there was only me
and my routine,
my checklist.

Today, all of my files,
each one of my folders,
and binders full of scraps
looks like a monument
to the ungrateful false god:
 'almost'.

It used to be
that when my imagination
had even the slightest drought,
I would throw up my hands,
throw in the towel
and wonder if I ever was an artist.
I am not so melodramatic now.

I have begun to define an artist,
myself and others,
by how they interact with the world,
how they see the walls and people around them.
Though, as of late
I have begun to wonder
if I have seen the world at all.
Or I am always just passing through?

I want to write something new
but I am old.
Old like the feeling that today
would be so much better
if I had never left my bed behind.
Old like the popping of joints
and the creaking of memories.
Old like the slowness
that makes the world wait for you

But not old enough for wisdom.
No, not old enough
for experience to mean something
more than weariness.
Not old enough yet for patience.

I would walk the world over
with worry
if it would make a difference.
But it does not
and so I do not,
most days anyway.

My almosts stay almost done,
and I begin to itch,
begin to burn
wondering if there will ever be more
or if this is it.
The loss of eyesight
at the end of a life
lived too fast.

creativity lapse and misanthropy.

Today, I've fallen between the cracks.
Today, I don't exist.
Today, I...


All I want is to believe that. I want to pack a bag of things I need to do and head to a book store, any book store with seating actually. But I doubt I would get anything done. So many unread voices sit on the shelves and I want to open each one and sit awhile. Mostly, I feel empty and want to fill myself up with the thoughts and ideas and longings of people I will never meet. I want to wade through their minds and keep what treasures I may find until I have enough materials to build.

Mostly, I do not want to do my homework or chores or, well, life as usual. I want to crawl between those cracks until time and deadlines and responsibility are words without meaning, dictators without power.

I promised myself that I would do some kind of art today, but I do not think I am able. The weight of work undone is yet too heavy, too distracting, too much. Even writing, I seem to write the same thing I have written before. Well, here it is, for better or worse:

-
Approach her gently.
Don’t make too many plans.
Don’t rely on your words for persuasion.
Make it a series of lovely actions.
Lovely to her, at least.
If you need help knowing,
If you cannot quite see
What her mind’s eye
And, indeed, her heart
Would call lovely...
Just ask.
That would be a lovely place to start.

in an effort to distract myself, i bring you: the past.

She stands there like sad poetry gracing pastel pages,
ill-fitted but never wrong.

If you look at her side-ways,
her smile could be a frown.

Doorway open.
Sun streaking perfect, amber light.
Imperfect flies buzz at screened-in windows
as if to make you aware,
there are still worlds out there;
and they know nothing of her sad laughing eyes
and her big, sarcastic lips.

She is less sure than you
that there are differences
between your world and hers.

Some would say
to let the poetry be.
What is ethereal cannot
be understood.

Some would say.

Some always
always
have to say

something.

But as the sun wraps layers of warmth
around your shoulders,
as that perfect amber light
contrasts those imperfect flies,
as you contemplate the poetic differences
of tragedies and comedies
etched across skin,
there is prose that beckons understanding.

There is poetry in human living.

She has it all in her own subtle way.
Those who would say to let her be
have never met her, right?

When you begin to hope to understand,
her world comes crashing in.
Violent, living poetry
without a shade of gray,
her polarized planet stopped spinning
a long time ago.

She stands there
and when you are done reading her,
you smile.

There is poetry in human living.
And it is best when you understand
but understand without division.

There is nothing beautiful about
dismembered worlds yanked from orbit,
dissected lives taken out of context.

And those who always have to say
are only half right.
They read only their own poetry.

 08.03.09 3:24pm

One of my favorite places to just be at: Avalanche Gorge.

changes, requested and otherwise

For some things to make sense, you need a change of scenery. It's unavoidable at times. Your imagination is not always big enough to handle the static. Your muse is not always inspired enough with the same material. Your mind's eye is not always full enough. Often times, I am entirely unaware that change is exactly what I need to get unstuck. Fortunately, I am not the final authority or even the main person in charge of my affairs.

So I wound up in the desert.

I was born there, allegedly. Well, not in this particular desert... but pretty close actually. It is really a small matter of borders and names... how does the government decide where one national 'forest' or park ends for another to begin? Anyway... I was not raised in the desert. Though I love the hot weather and the colors and the sunrises/sunsets of the desert... I love water entirely too much. And mountains. And clouds. And trees. Tall trees. Even if they block some of the stars. But the desert has its beauty (like how far you can see and how amazing that rare storm is) and its things to teach.


It was there that my chalk pastels made sense. And faces made sense. I have not a clue why faces made more sense in the desert, but I know that the colors of pastel that I was working with suddenly just worked.



Color. Texture. Shape. Lines.

It is not that I have arrived. But it is the feeling that now I have somewhere to go. I could not see where I was headed for such a long time. And even though I have left the desert and have no intention of living there; I see beauty from a new perspective. And taking that home with me gives better light to all that I see where I am.

swimming pool blue

I have a paper due for a class and an apartment to clean, but I do not feel tonight what I think I should. So I am trying to work myself into a pensive mood that might produce something, that might let me know that I am still alive the way a human should be. Or at least what I imagine a healthy human being to be.

I wrote some very profound things the other day on a piece of paper that I cannot seem to find. I do not suspect that I will. All my art seems to fall into a void these days. I think my muse is starving because I broke the cycle. One must create in order to be inspired, or did you not know? I did not. If I had, maybe I would not be here filling this virtual space with more letters, as if we needed more words and more messages.

Truth is out there, but it is buried with each breath and word and picture forward. It is overwhelming. I think that is where I dwell now, overwhelmed. It is an accomplishment if I can shake off most of the lies and overtly propagandized messages that adhere themselves to me by the end of the day. I think this is why depression and cynicism and skepticism have such deep roots in our society. We do not know what to believe.

But maybe we don't have to have all of our beliefs lined up. Maybe we wouldn't give up if we didn't feel that pressure. Maybe life would be worth living if we weren't striving so hard after a goal we will never touch. I keep hoping life is about more than the striving. I think that it is, but I am afraid to call it knowledge. Cheese-filled as it is, life is about the love we pour into this cracked and wavering planet. And you cannot love with a goal or it becomes a very selfish kind of love. We do not need any more of that.