Dreams

I find dreams utterly fascinating.  Every night we retreat to our minds to watch a movie or two.  Is there anything better?  This is part of the problem, though, and a concept that has fascinated philosophers since they first fell asleep.  For me, dreams are the ideal state of existence: complete, absolute, infinite freedom of the mind, of ideas, of desires.  They are the utmost expression of who we are, the most direct translation of the soul.  Dreams are the medium of our mind's reality, and, for that, they are the only source of freedom.  In the real world there are physical, social, legal, chemical, biological, religious, cultural, you name it, restraints.  They're endless, and for a dreamer they are endlessly infuriating.  So this is my problem: my dreams are better than the real world.  That's where these two poems come from, that disparity, that yearning, that chasm between my mind and its stimuli.  This is where much art comes from, I believe, one person's desire for the world to be that way when it is this way.  Art is the attempt to reconcile that chasm.  In fact, it seems likely that this is why we do anything, why we go anywhere, why we even dream in the first place: we each have a vision (for ourselves or for the world) that we attempt to materialize.  I can live with that as long as I get to sleep at the beginning and end of every day.

"I Dreamt I Fell Asleep for Good"

Sleep is a dream

among night-

mares. Hooves

pounding

down on daylight

streaks. Across time

and spaced out

memories of you-

th ought to be wonderful.

And sleep is a peace-

ful filling life with wonder-

ment for us.

But all dreams end

when we wake,

when life begins

again.

"Pause for Freedom"

In this massive black sea

where lack is the leading quality,

we are nothing but the dust,

kicked up and cursed

to lust, not love,

and think,

above all, about

that dust and the freefall

halted only momentarily

by the ephemerally infinite dimension of dreams.

Time and I

Who am I?  That's a big question, isn't it?  To fully and completely answer this question would be to understand the universe itself.  Because we each perceive and come to know the universe solely through our own lens of personality, identity, and mind, to understand who I am would be to understand how I will ultimately perceive the world.  A common expression of this sentiment is one's perception of the glass half full or empty.  If you know who you are to complete certainty, you will always know what your answer will be.

But there is a problem with this whole self-discovery thing, a big problem: time.  How can we know who we are with complete certainty if we are constantly in flux, if time continually brings about change within and without us? Trust me, I wouldn't be writing this post if I knew.  This is the condition that we all struggle with, the pervasive and inescapable condition of uncertainty.

Perhaps, though, the whole is non-existent, and perhaps time is the absolute foundation of the universe.  Allow me to elaborate.  Time is how we define change and transience.  If there were no change, we would have no concept of time.  The whole is the idea of the absolute, that there is a beginning and an end and that between these points we determine the whole.  But if time were the foundation of the universe, that which everything is based upon, then change and transience would be the norm.  Essentially, there could be no absolute anything because everything would be in a constant state of change, everything would constantly be between different states and those states would be between states and so and so on.  There would be no end point, no place to determine whether something had reached finality and completeness.

So what does this have to do with us, with who you are and who I am?  Well, what I'm basically saying, is that we can never know who we completely are because we are never complete.  We have memories of the past, but the vast majority of what we experience is lost with time.  Even memories of yesterday will eventually give in even if you seem completely sure of what you did at this current moment.  Give it time and time will take it.  But even more so, we do not know anything about the future.  We make plans and set a general trajectory, sure, but who we will become?  That's a complete mystery.  And all those future events could come to define you for the rest of your life, they could become the biggest part of your personality.

We all have our underlying desires and innate abilities, but it is our perception of the world that is constantly evolving as we are exposed to new experiences, people, places, knowledge.  We are a small, moving target, but the arrow of time will always strike the bull's eye, and so we'll never know with certainty which way we'll see the world.

Perhaps I'll spend more time developing this another day.  Perhaps.

A few appropriate selections:

"Perception is Purpose"

Understood in the simplest of ways,

he said,

there is but one basic component

to everything.

He could not elaborate.

It had not been discovered,

it may never be,

but this did not dissuade,

or even sadden the man.

He had run over and over

the same elements of this idea,

again and again and

time after time returned

to his material singularity.

There is no other way to explain it.

Explain what exactly?

I had to question.

Why else am I here,

but to listen to the creak of the cooling universe as all life falls asleep?

"The Retrospective Present"

Long looms the specter of the past,

casting its shadow on the mind

wound counterclockwise

and sideways swung.

Our destination is up ahead, soon

comes the boon of our future forms

and for too long they shall last as

the past continues to cast shadows

on the shoulders of the forgotten

field of history, the only time that has ever

mattered or materialized, perhaps.

Love the life of long-traveled light

but don’t deny its purpose as you

forever remember this brief,

self-replicating second of presence.

"Human Nature"

When you wake up in the middle of the woods

follow the myth of the moss,

let the light that cracks the canopy

squeeze between the trunks of trees

and trace the path to pastures.

Follow the lead of falling leaves,

anywhere they land is lovely

as they leave their past behind.

Squirrels will squeak and birds will chirp,

but you are a human being—

your mind will find a way if

you lose two eyes or ears, if

fears freeze your muscles into place, if

your heart darts from high to low or horizontal,

your mind will always make the choice.

It knows you even if you’ve lost yourself

and better than you ever will.

Satire

I've often professed my love of satire, once claiming it was the greatest contribution humanity has made to the universe.  Looking back on that hyperbole, it still doesn't seem that far-fetched.  Throughout history, satire has served as the fourth branch of the government and the first branch of society, always keeping the idiots in check. The one problem with this is that the idiots usually cannot tell they're being satirized, at least in its Horatian manifestations, which I admittedly just learned about two minutes ago (who knew there were distinctions?)  My own attempts at satire take a significantly more Juvenalian tone.  I find it hard to suppress my outrage enough to act like it doesn't bother me.  Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my satirical poems.

"Peek-a-boo" was written as I was trying to fall asleep last night (thus this post), which I find to be one of my most creative times.  If I had a reason to wake up in the morning I would find this bothersome, but for now I just let it ride.

"Peek-a-boo"

We’re all so solipsistic—

a little self-loathing and a little self-love—

every death brings the subjective end of the world,

a personal apocalypse,

an impressionistic Armageddon—

notice the way the light radiates

from the flames forced through

an undead dragon’s windpipe.

‘The end is near, the end is nigh,’

we hear it every century, and yet

as one bites the bullet, another bites the gun.

‘The messiah is due any minute now,’

but, oh yeah, so is the antichrist.

(Maybe it’s just the same fuckin’ guy.)

Did you fall into a trance

when you first saw your reflection?

Did you ever separate yourself?

The world is just a projection of your oyster, isn’t it?

Keep your eyes behind your hands,

turn away from the bloody bits of films,

I don’t care.

But don’t be surprised when we’re still here,

don’t be shocked when life goes on without you.

[as yet untitled]

Yes, this planet’s imperfect,

but such a utilitarian dream it is!

And if the small cannot be sacrificed

then whose blood would we spill

to fill our free-flowing rivers and tributaries?

Such an arid area it would be

and that tree of liberty would wilt away

and its wood would be no good for tinder

(though it would be nice and dry, indeed),

but No!

We the people need its shade,

for the sun is hot and vigilant,

and if we chop the tree

from our property,

in that raging light we’d fry,

or even worse go blind,

and then who would lead the freedom brigade?

They’re dead and we’re blind.

Senseless! No!

This nonsense must be stopped right now

and back to power we must go. Goodbye.

"Terminal Illness"

Four more years of squalor

and squandered opportunity

I see ahead of us, again.

Four more years of wasted time

spent to get four more years.

For more years than I can remember

this has been the plan,

to have no plan at all,

to get in and sit and talk and promise

and everything gets delayed

or done in retrospect, but

death, disease, and disaster

are not retroactive or passive.

Four more years of politicians

pissing on each other,

sitting opposite, and

shitting on the other side of the aisle.

Four more years of filibuster

instead of compromise, and

we compromise the world.

Four more years of criticism

instead of construction, so

self-destruction is our campaign

platform, and it’s a form that fits

us well as we quash and quell

ourselves for four more years.

"These Sleeping Pills are Overpriced"

If the American dream is the wish to have

whatever, whenever, however forever,

then it is just that: a dream,

but slowly we’ve been growing from this illusion.

This land is still an infant and

in fancy of world misshaped in our favor,

so with fervor we do fight reality

with the belief that truth is what we make it.

The dream is a pleasant and convincing one,

but some of us are lucid now and shaken

loose from that shallow sleep.

For many it’s a nightmare

and many more don’t dream at all,

so slowly they do fall through life

and slip through the cracks

in this broken bed we call a country.

Through it we’re united, tucked in under

quilts and blankets, but in different

states we wake each day, divided.

Bunch #1

Can't think of much to say today, or perhaps I just don't feel like saying anything.  I'll probably think of something later, but for now I'll just drop a few poems.  Enjoy.

"Only"

Cellulose and sunlight combine

in luminescent emerald waves. The beauty

of light through the living. Harmonious

parallel waves breaking

simultaneously, simultaneous with

the planet’s pivot, a stone turned over

like the clock and the carousel or spun parasols

under light’s love. Our systemic soul,

the sun urges our existence and calls out

to others who wish upon their stars.

Sunlight passes through them

with a life-force fervor, yet

we believe earthbound starlight circumvents.

Some parts spinning, yet mostly motionless,

the universe is one: perpetually

and eventually recombined.

"Neither/Nor"

Walking the fine line of awareness,

impaired, the world’s bareness flares

and flexes inexplicably. Inextricably

linked we are with the brink

of existence, sent out untethered

in tattered, temporary rags of matter like

a message in a battle, bottled up and vacuum-packed

bubbles. Burst. Soapy

rubble-soaked roads roasting in the eye

of the sun’s subsurface storm, forewarned

by photons fleeing with a wave-point particular.

An unannounced avalanche of tocks, ticks

and moths, like static people passing moving trains.

Yet birds migrate when the world displeases

or freezes boiling bodies of saltwater molecules.

So:

is death an emerald-feathered wing or a hill of hollowed bones?

Try and read this one ten times fast:

"Saucerspeak"

Beelzebub rubs bubbles in his

handstand upside downtown district

attorney at law offices lit by the

Morningstar supernova exploding life into

the universe right side upstreams

of consciousness fleeting easily

along and into oblivion’s abyssal bitch

and alpha act according to their children’s

wishes upon the northern morning star

polaris, solaris and Saussere said

yes no maybe so or fuck.

Happiness is a Balancing Act

We've gotten too serious, haven't we?  Two Grasshoppers was a lighter turn on a dark road, but nonetheless, this must be diffused.  Balance is essential to everything.  Too much or too little and failure is inevitable.  With this in mind, there are two key elements to any artwork: the message and the medium.  Frequently, the message is serious and the medium is playful.  This is, at least, what I strive to accomplish when I write.  The message, to me, almost has to be serious.  If what you are saying has no weight, then why are you even saying it?  But likewise, the medium has to be playful.  If what you are doing is not fun, then why are you doing it at all?  The key is to find the middle ground, to say something with gravitas but to do it on the Moon.  Kurt Vonnegut, my biggest literary influence, was a master of this moderation.  The Coen Brothers, arguably my favorite filmmakers, also achieve this time and time again.  Wordplay is one of the essential techniques I use to balance the scales.  Unusual subjects, as well, help me achieve this moderation.  That's why I like this poem so much.  Early in the summer, our old black cat Simon would sit next to me frequently and, of course, sleep.  Hours upon hours he would sleep, like all cats.  And it got me wondering...

"Cat’s Eye, Nebulous (Ode to Simon’s Sleeping Life)"

Perhaps we are the gods

that populate feline dreams.

This black animal sleeps more than he wakes,

so which life is he living

and which life is he simply moving through?

Are we the superstition of an old black cat

in the pitch black cavern of his mind?

Are his midnight cries for milk obscured

calls to a god that left him insignificant?

This apparition of existence, the hallucination we live

inside the feline mind is a mystery

of inexact sensations and far off thoughts imbibed

by a cat’s eye, born

in the nebulous stretches of thought.

Untitled (Human Nature pt. 1)

We walk the tightrope, tethered

from above, between

voluntary and involuntary action.

Do you take in every breath, or

does air invade and incite

the vitality of life? Does

the mind escape the brain

and secretly decide, or

are you whole, coherent and cohesive?

Have you chosen this poem, or

were you drawn to it by some

obscure decision-maker, chemically

curious and biologically obliged?

Had something planned out about human nature and the massive chasm between our absolute desire for control and the relatively recent scientific evidence that suggests the world is chaotic and uncertain beyond all comprehension, but you've probably heard it all before, or felt it when you look around or watch the news.  That is simply the movement of the universe.  We attempt to contradict it with art and science and so on and so on, but so much of what emerges is, like I stated in the previous post, below our conscious faculties.  It comes with the package of the individual mind.  We are so utterly specified in space and time, how can we ever hope to control our lives and society if we do it on our own?

Humans have evolved a long way, but the simple fact is that we haven't transcended the laws of nature.  We are still very much determined by our desires (e.g. hunger, lust, revenge), and so much of what defines us is determined by what we cannot influence. We call it love, but is it not simply our genes urging us to procreate?  We call it justice, but is it not revenge with a capital mandate?

On to a completely unrelated poem, I wrote this last night because, well, there were two grasshoppers in my house and I wondered how they got there.  You'll find that much of what I write is about sound, that's the music-lover in me.  I view poetry as the fusion of music and writing, so it makes sense that someone who loves music and loves writing would like writing poetry.

"Two Grasshoppers"

Two grasshoppers,

one stuck on a lamp stem, still,

the other on a knife block,

likewise locked into place.

They must be cousins,

surely, perhaps

casual acquaintances, or maybe

coincidence has brought them to

this well-lit kitchen late

on a late summer Saturday.

Either way

these wayward 'hoppers here reside

a night, until the lights pop.

In the morning they'll be gone,

squeeze into an ether

through a screen square

barely, but gone they'll be

indeed and daylight.

Art and the Subconscious Stream

There is no clichéd phrase better than the expression 'stream of consciousness.'  Better than 'the river of time' or 'old man winter,' it perfectly defines what it intends to define, that is, the process of consciousness.   Consciousness truly does seem to have a stream-like quality to it, peacefully fleeting from one thought to the next, occasionally roaring to a rapid gait or pooling into a small pond of ideas.  The fluidity of water just seems to possess our essence like no other metaphor.  This leads me to my second point regarding the stream of consciousness, the idea of themes and the subconscious.  When we allow our thoughts to jump from node to node, we essentially allow our subconscious to rise to the surface and determine the tides.  This is sometimes known as 'free association,' but I'm not discussing that expression, am I?  Anyway, if the stream is followed long enough, certain themes start to arise.

When analyzing my own work, not surprisingly, water is one of the most dominant, recurring themes, constantly condensing into droplets on the edge of my brain like a glass of icewater in a midsummer swell.  (Was that one a bit of a stretch?  I thought so, too.)  Likewise, if you examine the entire body of an artist's work, you will inevitably identify certain themes that appear and reappear, and this, in my opinion, is the process and purpose of art.  In the same way that psychoanalytic therapy attempts to dredge up the subconscious, art is the process of self-discovery and the ability to reconcile with one's own inner turmoils.  This plays a very important part in my own work.  Consciously, I address the issues of the world at large.  This is, at least, my initial intent.  Subconsciously, however, my own issues are quite apparently (to me; I don't, and can't, expect everyone, or even anyone, to pick up on this) rising to the surface of words.  For me, then, art serves paradoxical purposes simultaneously and, in my opinion, that makes it all the more important to me and to a world that increasingly disregards the necessity of the humanities.

Throughout this blog's existence I'll be examining and developing these ideas further, both consciously and subconsciously.  Now, here is an example of what I'm talking about.  These two poems are closely related, so it wouldn't feel right to separate them.  It is going to cost twice as much, though, so fork it over.

"Anchored on the Edge of a Waterfall"

Awareness of the wandering mind

will help us live more vividly.

What does the brain chase? And why?

Thoughts, in a thicket of twisted nerves,

emerge from what? And where?

Brain collides with brane

in a kaleidoscopic hurricane of chaotic inspiration,

denying the Dead its much needed rest and

lifting the living to the heavenly kinetic heights of wholeness.

But where is that overflowing ocean at the end

of these careening streams of consciousness?

And are we even moving toward it?

"Far From Falling Water Now"

Riverside, I idle, and I

sidle alongside the subtle smooth-

moving water as it waltzes

from the waterfall, and I wonder

as I wander where it leads

and where it’s leading me.

The water is so calm,

but currents do curve into shape,

reflections ripple in distortion,

so a portion of the world is warped,

concave in light’s ricochet and retort.

The moment passes slowly

through my memory and I,

so the time it took was tenuous

in the context of my mind. Now

the sound of this idle resides

so soundly in the idyll of my mind,

idolized, idealized, and fully realized

as it bounces about and settles

in the slow-flowing ocean within.

Birds and Shit

Until I find a suitable background, expect changes ever few days or so.  Chime in, whatever.  Your graphic design advice is desired.

The Intro Post

Hey everybody, how's it going?  Good, that's good to hear.  So I figured in this extended period of post-grad unemployment I would, if nothing else, set my mind to work.  That work, it seems, has manifested itself in the form of poetry.  I have always had the knack for a poetic phrase, but had never really acknowledged it as a legitimate path, which, I now realize, is complete, and completely dishonest, bullshit.  To abandon that ability would be the utmost betrayal of human potential, I believe, as I'm sure you would agree.  It would be a betrayal of the self and an outright dismissal of everything I am.  I've always hated what some call "work" and I never cared much for school.  On the other hand, art has always been a great interest of mine, as well as the mind, philosophy, the universe, and so on.  You know, the stuff that has no place in the day to day lives of us modern humans.  Anyway, I've always considered myself a pretty adept writer, so why not give it a try, right?  This blog is essentially my launch pad, an attempt to get the words out, and a way to build an audience.  Without further adieu, here's the first installment.  (Constructive criticism is welcome, as well as any other banter.)


"This is the Rendezvous"

This is the rendezvous

of consciousness, coalesced

and coherent for a moment, if it’s noticed.

We are the eyes in a blind universe, and

the mind of the thoughtless automaton

called existence. We are the name

of this place unidentified, and we

call out to it continually, but the echo

cannot echo from the edgeless cliffs

in this land unending. No beginning

has begat us tiny gadflies, but we buzz,

and sting, and flap through life,

regardless. And around this shit we circle

when the aroma calls us closely, yet

so loosely we do love it, ‘up above it’ in our mind.