Safe Mode
The Sound of the Coyotes
January 17, 2006
As development continues to slash and burn my wooded community, coyotes make their presence known for the first and last time. Without a home, no longer hidden within the depths of the tall pines, wild dogs race past my house, conversing in high pitches along the way. Dead trees mingle with bulldozers as a smoky haze thickens the air. It seems, these days, I am without a voice, and after having confronted corporate monkeys and overpaid big wigs in an effort to sustain physical sanity, I gave up after my first defeat. Failure follows, and my passion is paying the price along with the retreating coyotes.
Development spreads like terrorism across this land leaving abandoned supercenters in its wake. The sound of coyotes reminded me of laughter when I was in Yellowstone, but tonight, when I heard that same sound, my interpretation was just the opposite – they are cynical and sad and tired of running. The voices of the coyotes failed to make a difference just as mine did. We are city folk against our will, annexed and bound by location.
Endings
Grounded for as far as the eye can see. No leaving in sight, flatlands flooded in drought.
The end of the month is always met with a shortage of supplies. Relief is never in sight, and this time, it’s further away than ever.
I’m already sick of work and frightened to death of longevity.
Wooden Stakes
February 8, 2006
The bulldozers are coming and there’s nothing I can do. My voice is not a strong enough weapon and money does more damage than the A-bomb. Wetlands and forests just outside my fenced backyard have been surveyed and tagged. By this time next month my view of the wilderness will be replaced by a dirt field. The owls will no longer signal the sound of dusk and my dog will no longer have the pleasure of barking at grazing deer. Wind making its presence known by rustling swaying pines will be silenced by the constant hum of traffic. Circling hawks will move on as the flood waters make their way to my doorstep with nowhere left to go.
Nature is for sale everywhere I look, and developers are the only ones buying.
Tree-Huggers Unite
February 9, 2006
Could you relate? If we had come together and talked into the early hours, maybe we could have convinced ourselves that everything really does matter.
She is dying a slow death, and the distance between us…the distance between us is killing me, but I can’t seem to close the gap, and she can’t seem to remember my name.
Standing proud and still, they listen. Familiar sounds from current inhabitants break the foreshadowed silence of the inevitable. Distractions keep their minds off future development. Right before their eyes, fallen comrades are piled and burned – a fate that spreads quicker than a common cold in these parts. They wait and listen for the mechanical monsters to return and finish the job.
Checking In
February 17, 2006
Another day put to rest, a 12 hour shift goes by in the blink of an eye. I am sometimes floored by the velocity of time.
Work is going good. It’s such a relief to have money again, to buy my own toothpaste when I need it. Although I’m itching to get my own place again, I’m still waiting on my best friend/roommate to figure out where she’s going. Her options are to stay in school and get a master’s or walk away with a BA for the moment and go to work full-time. I opted for the latter of the two, and the thought of going back and getting my master’s is the farthest thing from my mind. I’m ready to get all of my shit out of storage and redecorate my life with yet another new start.
I’m still amazed at the amount of Louisiana license plates I see on Houston’s streets. The Katrina disaster is no longer in the news and CNN has moved on, but here in the south we’re still recovering from a record breaking hurricane season and already dreading the next.
I served for the first time on jury duty a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been called about 3 or 4 times, but I was always able to use school as an excuse not to go. I arrived 20 minutes late at the jury selection building in downtown Houston’s historic district – it was the same day that jurors would be selected for the Enron trial, suffice to say, I was a tad bit nervous. Missing about 6 months of work could create a problem, especially when it’s a new job. The first thing the announcer told the hundreds of prospective jurors waiting to be herded to various rooms and buildings was that none of us would be selected for the Enron trial. Everyone clapped and sighed a breath of relief. I did, however, get picked for a criminal trial.
It was an aggravated robbery case, and although nobody was killed, the 3 or 4 robbers involved (the number was never confirmed) were packed with one revolver, one double barrel shotgun, and one huge freaking knife, and they literally scared the piss out of a couple of teenagers slinging burgers at a local fast food joint. One of the guys involved was already found guilty for the crime and still sitting in jail awaiting his sentence. He testified against his partner in crime, and we the jury had the burden of questioning whether this guy was telling the truth or not. In the end, we decided that there was just not enough evidence to convict the defendant, even though we all believed he was really guilty. Is it better to lock up an innocent man, or let a guilty man go free? I made my choice, and I hope to never carry that burden again.
Widows of Phantom Brides
February 21, 2006
You keep waiting and it finally comes, in unfamiliar territory, you find the strangest doors.
If I ever have a love of my own, I hope he looks and acts and dreams exactly like you. Tainted throwbacks sporting suntanned rings, I hope I have the pleasure of taking first. Coupled misery and faded passion monopolize social circles and remind me of my chosen status. To grow old alone puts the fear in even the strongest, but at least my time will be my own, and my passing will not induce sadness, but if it does and I give in to brides in wedding dresses, I hope to leave behind a widower just like you.
One more bout of winter before summer starts to rear its scorching head. I hope the Gulf is a little more welcoming than last year. Viruses and sharks plagued her waters as I stood on the shore fighting the sun.
We grow younger as we age and older when we fail to move forward.
No guilt on a day like today to spoil a relaxed mind and rested body.
Divided we stand, united we fall, I love my country in spite of it all.
Childhood memories wasted on you, and now we’ve grown bitter into adulthood, and recent memories fail to stick around.
The Vicodin Sisters
Cooped up in an inner city condo relying on the buddy system to leave the premises, they dwell until their prescriptions run out. I have to wonder if they miss me or think about the past as often as I find myself backtracking into the earlier days of youth. How much did it all mean if this is where we are now? How much could it really have mattered? With daddy still fitting the bill in an uptown residence surrounded by the ghetto, they drool and sleep and smoke and steal. I am at this point that lets me let go link by link. Rusted and weakened, beat down by failure to maintain upkeep, bonds are broken and friendships die, I am at this point where my defense is high. Pettiness and paranoia are more than just character flaws when they destroy long-term relationships. They are the strangest strangers I’ve ever known.
Strangest Strangers
February 2006
She is no friend of mine, and I’ve been sad to see her go, but she’s been leaving for some time.
Maybe I should try to connect. My lines are becoming deep and time grew late over night, but here I am, still in a realm of my own and still failing to see the world for what it really is.
The concept of mortality becomes clearer as we age.
Layer by Layer March 2006 With the cruise control set at 80 mph, we watched the landscape change as hills outlining the sky carried us into early morning hours. Bring me back around. I’m worthless in this state of mine. Nothing to say except I’m no longer stuck in the moment and glorifying the future. Out of touch slackers and perverted dreamers are no longer clamoring in my ears or junking up my reason. I miss them sometimes, but as time permits, emotions subside and I miss them less and less.
Throw Away Friends
March 23, 2006
Put them behind me like relics from the past. We are beyond occasional phone calls and drop-ins. Dwellers of the same city, but we might as well live on different continents. I wish them well, but I’m done dwelling and I’m bordering on something beyond us, me, and them.
Early Morning Verses March 2006 I know what it takes when something’s in the way, but it takes more than just knowing. I wonder if they really know how the other half live. I listen to them talk, their conversation laced with misunderstandings and sheltered views. If they knew my past, what would they think? If they really knew me, would they want to know me at all? My mind is much too heavy and my thoughts are killing time. Bring me back around again, I’m lost in paranoia, regret, and skepticism. Independence is a much needed treat, and as I work my way up to that point, I get lost in the shuffle along the way. It’s just so fucking easy for some people.
Meditating on the Beach
April 2006
I spent all my money this weekend on a beach excursion that was much needed and greatly enjoyed. The Gulf was still too cold for my liking, but the cool sea breeze, soft sand and grassy dunes were enough to bring me back around. I flirted with a passing surfer and hiked behind the snake infested dunes to relieve myself of the two cans of Budweiser I had downed. The only time I drink canned beer is on the beach. It tastes like shit anywhere else, but on the beach there’s nothing better.
I bought a skim board for $25 at a Matagorda gift shop where I always get my season beach pass. The cold water kept me from putting it to use, but by the end of the summer, I hope to have the skim board conquered. It’s my first step in learning how to surf on a bona fide surf board.
I also bought a shark tooth ring for $4.06 at the gift shop, but I can’t wear it because it’s way too sharp. The damn thing gets stuck on everything and I cut myself every time I wear it, but I still dig it. I want to actually have fun this summer and quit worrying about finances and the future. When the hell did I become so uptight? I don’t want to spend my 30’s and beyond worrying about old age and death. I hate them both, and they will be here faster than I could ever imagine, so why try? I’m thinking I might need to take up meditation because my mind is unfocused and working way too much overtime.
Restless and Uptight
Again it’s time to jump right in, let life begin. Again, we have stayed too long falling victim to immobility. Like an old car, we stall when ignited at first, but it will come back to us just like that old Buick. Unforgettable moments are building up in my imagination and pressuring me to release them into present reality. Get me going and I won’t want to stop, it’s just a matter of rediscovering that rhythmic groove. Layer by layer, I peel away paranoia and reservations. I need to feel like a poet again, a dreamer, and my progression through adulthood is continuously stifling this need. Transforming the mundane into something inspiring, insightful and an altogether original idea is more challenging than it’s ever been before.
I need to “get back to my roots” as they say and disregard practical reason as the voice of all voices. Why waste any more time on this, I am plunging through life way too fast to bother with consequences.
Ten Year Cycle
Put it to good use. Exercise what you have before time steals the wisdom lying dormant in the forgotten vents of your brain.
It disturbs me to think that I can’t find the motivation to chase after my endangered aspirations.
What kind of person will I be ten more years down the road? Unhappy, restless and uptight? Perhaps we spend a lifetime coming to terms with ourselves, or maybe it’s just me. I do know that I will probably never be completely satisfied, and if I had everything in the world that I ever wanted, I would only want more.
Another lunch break almost spent, four more hours and I’m homeward bound. The wind is picking up and the sky becomes a deeper shade of gray, but I’ll have to watch the incoming storm from a six story building out of a faraway window. I wish I was at home on my porch where the air is always cooler, and the over-hanging trees give shelter from the storm. Four more hours.
Defy Time
April 7, 2006
Sad eyes always on the verge of greatness, it’s hard to find poetry in happiness, tortured artists find pleasure in pain. How many years has it been? Too many to speak aloud. The best art comes from absolute misery. He died when the season was in bloom, and after another anniversary passes us by, we reflect on a time when we were young and in control for a split second, or so it seemed.
Time seems to have a healing power that is cruel yet necessary. The poet in me does not want to “get over” tragedies from the past, but it is unhealthy to mourn for a lifetime.
I must find something else in order to keep going.
Day Off
April 2006
Tomorrow I plan on catching up on some reading in my shaded backyard on a Sunday afternoon predicted to be absolutely gorgeous.
She sold the rights to your soul, and now we can look forward to hearing your scream in the background of a car commercial.
– to Kurdt –
It’s Just a Bad Day
Try not to be down when the future weighs heavy on your everyday, it will eat your time and bury you alive. I’m finding out how hard it is to remain in a state of passion, hope and idealism as old calendars pile up in a box in my closet. Already bored with my most recent accomplishments and caught up in over-analysis, self-awareness, and paranoid daydreams, I’m sick of myself and everything I do. I’m never where I want to be, but on good days, when I look into the past with optimistic eyes, I realize that I’ve always been where I needed to be.
Getting Through the Everyday
April 2006
We’re still here. With the pulling of the ocean, we weather along with the sand dunes hoping for a break in time. But it passes us by, relentless by nature, it passes us by, without warning, like a thief in the night. We steal each breath and reserve the knowledge that it could be our last, it can always be our last. Generations crowding our youth push forward, and out of the way we drift, like the changing of the guards, we step down and pass the burden. “Make your mark,” they say, but how can we afford to make anything? In this day and age we have the right to assume the worst, but we’re still here, in the wake of turmoil, we plunge ahead, ready and willing to take anything on.
She is sick with a burning fever, and though we’ve been warned again and again, we’ve evolved into parasites, and while we wage war on ourselves, she is waging war on us.
It’s all on me. There’s always been something, a dream to depend on, a plan in the works, something to keep me going and get through the mundane, the boredom of everyday, but for some time now, the everyday is all I have, and idealism, creativity, and free spirits are much too tired to play after a ten hour shift. I don’t think I’m cut out for this life I lead. I should find another way before longevity sets in.
May 2006
Down here, where humidity sticks around all year round and swamp lands meet the sea, we sink lower in the aftermath. Televised chaotic abandonment is still very real as we prepare for a seasonal encore. Something must be wrong in the atmosphere, slow at first, but here it is, upon, a sci-fi film in the flesh, the only thing left is to milk it to death. Theories advance to fact, heated debates extinguished, “I told you so,” these greenies were right after all. The sky is falling, run for the hills in drought and follow the floodwaters home. Something is wrong in the atmosphere I’ve known.
Reason for Therapy
May 2006
I would say it seems like just yesterday when we were altogether, young and free-spirited, but it doesn’t. The many years in between have been felt, and those days feel like a lifetime ago. Almost ten years have been spent, and I still wonder if anything meant anything at all. Stuck in the future, I mourn for a past I always hated. The pressure of time weighs heavy, and if I think about it for too long, I become catatonic. My passing through life has been strangely satisfying and disturbingly ironic. But I have seen and experienced and learned so much to have led such a seemingly sheltered childhood. I would change nothing, and that in itself is reason for therapy. I feel like calling sometimes, when I awake from dreams of a fading cast.
Dribble
July 2006
Inspire me again, like it was “back in the day” when optimism and idealism reigned and practicality was just a technicality. Inspire me again like it’s a newfound talent and every angle has yet to be discovered. Inspire me again in the wake of childhood, in the wake of youth where the pressure of time unmasks and defines mortality. Inspire me again to stay true to my wants, needs and beliefs before I forget who I’ve always aspired to be.
No one wants to know you on a bad day. When spirits crash and fine lines deepen, facades crumble in a fair-weather world. I just want to be happy in the drab day-to-day, but I’m moody and selfish and prideful in prime, light years away and still suffering from youth. I’m bored with myself and life as I know it. So what do we do when the excitement is gone? Settle in for the long run and keep that dream in mind.
Shrug off the day, it’ll be okay when the morning sleeps and lessens the blow.
In the dark, without an idea, I wait in blind hope with instinct in my ear. I need something to happen, for now is long enough, and I’ve grown old waiting for beginnings.
Dateless entries in the wake of Yellowstone, a long-awaited journey that proved debilitating in the long run. I regret nothing, but after my return I was no longer driven by my obsessive want for travel, open roads and mountains. I came back to reality and responsibility, and it is here that I remain. It happens, truly growing up is a part of life I despise, but having come to terms with this inevitability, I am stranded without a plan. At a loss again and cynical to the point of pure apathy, I struggle for passion, faith and optimism on an everyday basis.
Feeling the loss after years in between, the faster time flies, the more it all makes sense. Leave us be in the misery of the 21st century.
Leave Us Be in the Misery of the 21st Century
Commercials are the new MTV, and purists like myself are regretfully preparing for “The Big One.” Still recovering from the deafening blow of Janes Addiction’s music becoming the newest jingles for Bush Beer, I was convinced that it couldn’t get much worse. After hearing less prominent and underground bands like The Flaming Lips, Ween, and Modest Mouse jump on the commercial bandwagon, I should have known the worst was yet to come. I fear that my exaggerated prediction made a few years back in my college newspaper may be on the verge of coming true.
She sold the rights to his soul for a cool $50 million. Tucked away in Hollywood Hills basking in the success of others, the keeper of the Grail of Grunge finally caved and named her price. Nothing is sacred as I hold my breath and brace myself for the hardest slap in the face I will ever receive. Nirvana is up for grabs and waiting on the highest bidder. My ears will bleed the day I hear Kurt Cobain’s echoing scream used to sell an SUV. This truly is the beginning of the end. I want out before I’m infected.
They’ll never know what it meant to us. Beautifully raw, a job well done, maybe we were crazy to think we belonged.
Extreme and Most Extreme
July 2006
We are few and far between where fear has taken hold and survival kills our time. Dreamers are dying off faster than our Green Earth, and kindred spirits are calling it quits and turning over in the face of defeat. It’s no longer fashionable to go down with the ship, instead, they buy themselves some time by selling anything that’s in demand.
The age of revolutions died in the 1960’s in America, and freedom of speech will soon die in the 21st century, but before censorship silences even the loudest of voices, let’s be sure we’re not silencing the next great idea. Let’s be sure we’re not silencing Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton or Thomas Edison. Creativity, originality and individualism will have no place in a society that sets boundaries for such things. Fear is the strongest weapon ever discovered, and we are masters of this weapon. When the masses fall prey to fear they will submit and agree to almost anything. Our integrity is being threatened at the hands of our protector, and we are too interested in Brad and Angelina’s new baby to care.
I hear them calling me miles away where I left them, where I said goodbye knowing a lifetime might pass before I was ever able to return. Six more months separate me from vacation – the only way I can leave. The time will go by faster than I would like to admit. I should start planning now.
Nobody’s going anywhere these days. Close the beaches until further notice. Ban summer and pray for rain, vacation is too expensive to enjoy.
September 12, 2006
In limbo yet diving deeper, our lungs tighten as we descend. We grow bored in our old age as intolerance drips from our lips. But it was never me to turn a cold shoulder or shrug off a newborn verse. I had passion in sleep and a heart for the weak, I was open in mind and in soul.
In limbo and treading the air, we burn holes in the thickening sky. Our days have crossed a crossroad as vanity replaces truth. But it was never me to judge without knowledge or put off a longtime love. I was wide-eyed with hope and my dreams were in scope, I was anxious and eager to live.
Turned Over
September 2006
Acorns are falling from the sky, the moon is staying up longer, owls begin gracing the airwaves, baseball is coming to an end, it’s that time of season again.
It’s in the air, it’s in the water, it’s in the way we choke and swallow. We breathe it in, we drink it up, we resist its hold then join the flock.
September
(5 years ago)
I sat in my 96’ Camry enjoying the heat of the day and watching the planes go by. I wondered what I would have done if it had been me. Would I have prayed to a God I’ve never really prayed to before? Would I have played hero and been a martyr in the following aftermath and in pages of history? Would I have screamed and cried frantically until the approaching end? Would I have called my family to bid them farewell and I love you? Would I have sat quietly in shock helpless in the face of death? I couldn’t honestly say, and to this day, I am still unable to fully wrap my mind around the magnitude of such a preplanned tragedy, much less the mindset, confusion and fear of those who were fatally involved.
Not even the Tetons could shield me from the insanity of my homeland reality.
My lungs feel stronger than usual today. They breathe on their own, the air smells clear as my lungs miraculously heal.
These people I’ve known throughout my life, strangers I’ve cared for, worried over and laughed with. Familiar faces I’ve never met with families similar to mine. Memories, dreams, reactions similar to mine. Conquer strength in a twist of fate, I can’t understand. My stomach is in knots trying to understand. But these people gathered to stand against fate and its planned agenda, horror, anger, fear — nothing I can understand from here. My shoes fall back, I’ll always remember but I’ll never know what it must have felt like to be a doomed hero.
A Front Blows in on a Saturday Night
Here it comes. Slowly. Far off flashes of light become more defined, almost threatening, but not quite yet, a low rumbling creeps up out of nowhere, pines do away with an eerie silence, temperature drops by about five degrees. I look forward to the storm ahead of me.
I think it’s getting worse, the storm before the storm, my heart skips a beat at the loudest clap yet, my sheltering porch shakes and the rain picks up again, it’s not over yet, another round for my hungry heart, watch the lights go out in a pop, electricity takes out electricity, entertain me until early morning hours.
The first day of autumn takes the edge off. My mood is anxious and bored, monotonous and predictable, my time quickly leaks by.
October 1, 2006
Emotions take over in situations like this and guilt is beginning to take the lead at this point. I am an enabler and I hate myself for it, but you never understand the extent of severity until you witness it blatantly, face to face. I now realize how bad things have become and how self-absorbed and conveniently removed I have been. I dabble in the recesses of drug induced fun from time to time myself, but a pill here and a pill there doesn’t compare to the full-blown addiction my loved one has taken on. I accept his offer of a Vicodin or Soma, just for a nice buzz for the night, while I watch him, thirty minutes later, nodding off on the couch. Open crackers lay dormant in his mouth with his hand still stuck in the dip attempting to eat another, but his eyes are closed and his mouth is wide open. He’s dead still and sitting up against the pillowed couch. My heart skipped a beat. I took the box of crackers from one hand, the dip from the other, and to my relief, he responded by revealing an open slit in his eyes. I helped him up, followed him into the kitchen where he drank some water, his puffy eyes still half closed. I said goodnight to him and watched him walk off into the back room and collapsed into bed. I checked on him three times that night to make sure he was still with us, and was relieved to hear him snoring the third time. I found his pills the next morning in my car, and without his knowing, I flushed them down the toilet. I will no longer be an enabler, and I won’t stand idly by as another link of my shrinking circle breaks off.
Duck and Cover
October 6, 2006
Say what you will, I’ve tried to put it behind me, a foolish attempt to conquer what I’ve come to know, an endless cycle that can’t be shrugged off. God knows we’ve all tried.
Sometimes I’m sorry, but excuses fair better, I enjoy my disposition. The weekend came just in time. I’m no good at this job of mine.
Buried and blistered from ancient summers, I welcome the sounds of fall, my anticipated relief from everything that’s been this week. I don’t want to think when days are at end, who has the endurance? Who has the energy?
I still feel it inside me sometimes, a subdued urge slowly coming to a head. Take me back, I’m ready and loose ends are no longer an issue.
The Reality of It
Storm clouds streak across the horizon, miles away from where I’m at, but heading to my doorstep.
We should skip out on responsibility today, forget the state of the world and reminisce for what it’s worth, sometimes it’s all we have, when everything has gone wrong.
World War in the Working
October 10, 2006
More than ever, today I see for what it’s worth, too little too late, maybe we can share the wealth in the next life.
Time heals all wounds, but I’ve never been one with time, and I preserve the past like an expensively rare relic worth nothing to anyone but me and a select few unspoken for. And maybe they’re the lucky ones, ignorant to our post-apocalyptic society, expecting the worst and hoping for nothing, who will throw the first nuclear stone?
Tell the new generation what it means to be free because they’ll probably never know.
The Last Good Summer Shake me off like a bad dream, unwelcomed in early morning hours, a distraction in the quest for sleep. I’ll make up my time in the unsuspecting hours of tomorrow, and you will see me again when there is no one left to see. I’ll be biding my time in your cloudy reality.
Here We Go Again
(The Curse of Yellowstone)
Years have seeped through since I escaped from the humdrum I despised with all my time and effort, but those days are a reservoir in my current day to day. I knew I had reached my peak and hit the bottom at almost the exact moment, but it was everything I needed at the time. My escape was a mounting wealth of insecurities, curiosity, restlessness, and an idealized view on life, but we all must abandon the clouds at one point and attempt to be one of them, pretend to fit in during the off season, but I have somewhere to go when the air is too thick, something to fall back on when weekends are too short. Snow-capped and out of sight, it’s hard to believe I lived out my dream, everything went as planned, when the atmosphere thinned out and peaks presented themselves.
Scribbles
Waiting. Disconnected and confronted with familiar backhands, we stand divided by difference, a world distance away with nothing to say, beyond words in this state.
I can feel it coming, a forced beginning to a malicious end, my Freudian slip of the pen predicts a view I never considered.
Leave the air conditioner on until the cold front seeps through the cracks replacing the stale humidity plaguing my November.
November 2006 In tune with nothing I can see in view, clocks marching out of time, running slow to fall behind, catch me here where I woke too soon, the best is alright, (from where I sit) the best is alright (when it’s all just shit) Remember me five years ago, running on high towards an abstract theme? I had what I wanted and gave it up in turn for every existing encounter since then, why does it always come to this? The trappings of memory clutch tighter, I’m forced to hang on until something better comes along.
Ode to Role Play
I hope it never ends, since the days of childhood we’ve kept it going. Through pain and misunderstanding, innocence and experience, we’ve kept it going.
All Those Goodbyes
December 2006
Spread out until all four points are covered, I’ll peep my head in for a last goodbye, until next time my friend, we’ll sit on the couch and watch TV just like we’ve always done, I got used to having her around, two weeks fly by, all that time wasted it seemed, but not when viewed at a distance. New York bound, eventually, Christmas with family and all that jazz, too bad we don’t live closer, I need more ties in this state of mine. Back to the humdrum grind of everyday normality, until our next goodbye.
– for Stacy –
I have forgotten what it feels like to have friends. All of mine are either dead and gone or alive and wasted.
Reminders stick around after an early morning departure. I’ve spent the day shuffling around paperwork and dreading the empty driveway that awaits my arrival tonight.
The Farthest Distance
December 2006
Walk me home with the heat of the day, we’ll rest our minds under the bridge, with broken bottles and teenage graffiti, runaway buses leave us behind to linger in local parking lots, fast food chains, super markets and shopping centers dread the 3:00 hour, that last stretch home was you and me, the farthest distance to travel, treading the edge of busy highways lined with pine trees, golf courses and speeding herds, we walked smoking cigarettes and unloading our youth.
Suffer fast and suffer well for it’s just the two of us as far as I can tell.
Coat burning party. January wasps. Chasing away winter. Will there be room on Mars?
An old man, uncomfortable on his death bed, lets insight slip from his lips and linger as he makes his exit. “It goes by so fast,” he said. “It goes by so damn fast.”
One By One
It is almost here, where dreams take over and fool the weakened and desperate mind, “the big change” is inevitable and much needed. I am not looking forward to what lies ahead and question whether I’m reading into the right signs.
My ten year crutch is no longer serving a positive purpose, but in this day and age, a substitution had better be in place. I have one in mind, but it provokes so much longing that little reminders pop up uninvited, and attempts to come clean fall to the wayside.
Today the rain came instead of snow. Our arctic blast lasted about a day and a half. The ice melted as fast as it came, and flood warnings return without skipping a beat.
What do you believe in now?
We have been beaten into submission by fear. Are we capable of change?
Gear up for the season in bloom. We need something to believe in, maybe this year will be our year. Pull away when addiction grows stronger, easier said than done, easier said than done.
The middle of the week will be my undone. Smile now, when needs are met and time is fine, but hours are passing and resources are scarce and tomorrow it will only get worse. Save a spot for me wherever that may be, get it right, get it right, get it right in spite of me. Gear up for longevity, no choice but to grow and accept what has already come to be, I’ll repeat everything I’ve already said at least a hundred more times. I’ll keep it together this time, I’ll make it work this time, I’ll make it stick this time.
I’ve given in again, no surprise in that, relaxed now and fighting off the crud that killed my Friday.
One by one, row by row, acre by acre they fall and are left behind, a constant hum of traffic – I want to run away with the coyotes and leave this place to the bulldozers. I can’t watch the final massacre.
I’m sitting here listening to Buddy Holly and puppy sitting for my mom while she’s out of town for the weekend. My eight year old terrier is curled up next to me and a one year old lab mix keeps dropping slobbered toys in my lap. She’s obsessed with fetch. My terrier is more my mother’s dog than mine, but I’m second in command. The Buddy Holly album is mine. It’s his greatest hits album. I found it at Half Priced Books for five bucks. I also ran into an old boyfriend whom I didn’t even recognize until he mentioned we used to date. He asked me if I was still writing. I was amazed he remembered. It’s been almost ten years since I last saw him, Ole Blue Eyes, unrecognizable to me now.
Inch by Inch
(acre by acre)
March 30, 2007
In mourning for a close friend who never stood a chance. Left behind to watch the world die, “right before our eyes,” she is cleared away, her remains left to burn in the sun, hotter now than days before.
There’s nowhere left to go these days. Those monsters follow like evil puppets controlled by some untouchable force. As the ocean crawls closer, civilizations remain preoccupied. Pre-warned.
The little that you see is gone, plowed over and concreted just in time for spring. She is coming, inch by inch. I can’t keep my thoughts together, even in the clarity of morning, I have too much to say, and my feelings and emotions are too strong to dissect, there is too much to convey with only words.
I woke up this morning to booming thunder, the loud, angry kind that sounds as if it could cause damage without the help of lightning, the kind that shakes walls and has the sanest adult resorting back to childhood fears and anxieties. She is coming, inch by inch.
Every other house is for sale in any neighborhood you see, but developers are buying land and putting up houses anyway. They follow the same blueprint in any city visited. Slash, burn, let’s kill it all – little pink houses for you and me. There will be nothing left when it’s all said and done. My voice is my only weapon, I don’t have enough money to save the world, but I can get the word out for what it’s worth, I can let them know they’re killing the earth and plowing over the source for their own breath.
Maybe this year is the year our words will come back to haunt us. Put it off like a household chore, not yet important enough to take any action. Maybe this is the year we’ll see it all come undone like a breached levee not worth fixing. Resources are almost extinguished. Our renewables are too slow for the taking, but we have it under control. It’s okay and under control. My backyard looks like it’s been bombed, and as mud gathers under my shoes and birds fly frantically around dead trees looking for the one they call home, the rain came again in a mist, veiling the stagnant open air. My mini-hike was not a good one, but with my disposable camera tucked under my shirt, I approached the destruction of my once wooded community. Twenty-seven pictures taken from a cheap, throw away camera are my proof that the earth is dying. Will there be enough room on Mars for all of us?
My brain is dead so I think I’ll just stay at work.
I can’t shake this mood. No remedy to be found. The outside air is way too bright for a weekday night. Obstacles standing in light’s path are wiped out in a day’s work, and sounds from a new visible freeway reign free.
The wind is in full swing tonight. Clouds speed past in the sky reminding me more of speedboats on a lake. The porch light flickers every minute or so and surrounding buildings are dark. A flash in the distance lights up the early night and the air cools off just right. No thunder to be heard, she dies down a bit, and wind chimes fall silent again.
May 4, 2007
Which way to the hill country? I’ve taken off time to let the world in and let myself out. Sycamore trees mingle with juniper and all those worries I carry everyday retreat with the dimming sun in my horizon. These moments take me back some years ago when I lived with society’s unknown drifters, walked with vanishing footprints, and slept in the mouth of a volcano. It’s hard to get away these days and too many lost opportunities have invaded my road map. It’s easy to get sucked in when a year becomes a day and cubicles feel more like home than home itself.
*Bad News Follows*
Reluctant to actually say what’s on my mind and falling into some kind of a walking coma.
We’re all waiting for you to die, a last resort, the inevitable end to a story known all too well.
Faded out, time’s premature arrival looms large and weighs heavy in the path of things to come. As jaded as the last man standing, realizing he’s alone. Let’s go back to where we began, all those years ago.
May 29, 2007 Strained by boundaries, life’s tiny grains, counted out one by one until the pile grows larger than myself and larger than truth.
June 2007
I feel sick. Laid out and prepped for another year, a new decade of my life is served before me and I wince at the thought of it. A severe feeling of defeat hangs low prompting me to wave a white flag, but I ain’t no flag waver, and it’s still too early to take that road.
The big 30 came and went with enough family drama to last me another 10 years. I hate birthdays, but besides the drama (which I won’t get into) and besides turning 30, I had a pretty good one. My best friend got us really good tickets to the Astros game, which they won, 9-4.
Rain clouds threaten tonight’s festivities.
Drained
July 2007
I don’t really know what to do or say. Drained. Sometimes I picture myself at your funeral imagining what the family might say, or coming face to face with your bitch of an ex-wife and your abandoned son. Then I feel guilty for letting such a “fantasy” enter my mind. I feel guilty for feeling so much hate towards someone whom I’m supposed to love so much. I think about a future when we are looking back on these days of now and asking ourselves, “What could we have done? We should have done something. How could we have just stood idly by?” Hopefully we will understand then, when you’re gone and we’re left with whatever’s left, that we did try to help, but in the end, what really can you do?
Our hands are tied, my dear brother, your friends and family are maxed out. The vomiting, and yelling, and cursing, and stealing, and lying, and drooling, and crying, and begging have proved too much. We cannot handle any more wrecked cars, or suicide attempts, or court dates, or jail fees, or second chances, or false hope. You are selfish and inconsiderate, to say the least, but even as I write these words down in an effort to just GET IT ALL OUT, I’m fighting off guilt with a blunt stick and trying to remember our childhood that keeps slipping farther away. Anger and resentment constitute the majority of feelings I have for you, but when all that hate looms large in my heart, I remember the little blonde-haired boy that fed his little sister a snow cone on the outside stoop of their house in a photograph faded by age.
I must stay pure of thought. Manipulated by guilt and contaminated with insignificant irritations.
Slit a hole in time and slide through it.
Dallas
September 22, 2007
Now is not the time to think about our dying earth or the bullshit politics of my distraught nation. I had a good night, tonight, problem is, I don’t know what to do with that. Take it for what it is, I suppose, but my mind is much too active to let things go, and my feet are black from standing around and socializing with complete strangers. “He’s much too young,” will be my conclusion Sunday morning, but when I’m on the stand defending myself against all those naysayers, I might just let loose for once in my life, and sputter a “fuck you” instead of “I’m sorry.”
Planning
September 2007
It’s time to get away. Past time. I have the money, the means, and a week’s vacation to do with as I please, so, what’s the clincher? I will most likely be going alone. This is a daunting task I’ve never tackled before, but I’m prepared to jump right in. I’m prepared to take to the road with music as my only companion.
Autumn’s Vacation
September 2007
I just wanted to let you know that there’s a full moon tonight. Still hanging low over our sprawling city, he reminds me of what a pleasure it is to smile. The unexpected happenings of last weekend have left me wanting more and finally able to throw age out the window and open up, no matter which generation I indulge. And even if this (we) leads to a dead end, I’m still amazed at our instant connection and optimistic about the outcome of my story. So, there’s a full moon tonight and I’m thinking about taking to the road again (if only for a week) and getting back to the roots I used to know before they rotted away leaving me more lost than I am now.
I have marked my calendar. November 12 is my date for a mountainous destination.
All those lost verses trying to make their way into the innocence of my unrelenting mind fall short just before making their mark. Good luck to them just the same.
The highest walls in this southern terrain have yet to be penetrated, guarded and unyielding, they wait for an unknown and unrealistic soul to overtake this dominating regime.
Taking Back the West
She lies dormant ahead of me, an old friend waiting to become reacquainted, “just a little while longer and I’ll be on my way,” and so she waits, faithful, steady and unchanged, biding her time until my return. And I will return, when the leaves fall short, detached from their life source, and the moon hangs low enough to touch, I will take to her like a gull in the wind, I will follow through the foothills of childhood until I return on the other side, unscathed and out of breath from abusing the voice I never knew I owned. She echoes in my mind like a spoiled addiction waiting to be fed, but I put her off like a chore too awful to tackle.
One Week
November 2007
I used to prepare days in advance for a simple trip like this, but now it seems like I’m just jumping into it and my excitement level is muted. It’s been so long, and I’m more pre-occupied now than I’ve ever been before. It takes a lot more to get me going than before. With age comes experience and wisdom, but we also have the tendency to become jaded and all too aware of consequence, insignificance, and time. Don’t get me wrong, my impending vacation is much needed – six years have passed since I’ve seen a mountain peak pierce the clouds – I just seem to have a reluctance to do anything these days.
Into the Red
Inspiration is on the way, just like back in the old day. The return of the red rock reminds me of how far I’ve come since my first visit here on these desolate roads. My ears clog and then pop as “operation: vacation” officially gets underway. Sagebrush and mesquite grass cover the landscape, and a lone mountain can be seen far off in the distance reminding travelers that there is life beyond this depressing stretch of nothingness. We’re barreling through the desert at 90 mph, fighting off Hunter’s bats and getting deeper into the bowels of New Mexico.
Foothills are coming into view like shadows of a promise well overdue. We are in remote territory where the locals seem a bit off and my big city characteristics seem a bit harsh for these simple folk, but we are just passing through, me and my travel companions, heading for bigger and better sights. Our altitude is rising and so are gas prices. The open road is much too expensive to sleep off and so we plunge ahead red-eyed and weary.
Where’s the Ocean?
The last great road trip unravels and comes to an end as quickly as it arrived. A nuclear waste land mingles with cloud covered mountains waiting for snow as we travel through White Sands wondering what the government is up to.
I had a dream last night that I ran into you at some desert oasis lost somewhere in Arizona. I was drinking a beer when you walked up surrounded by a hundred strangers and looking as beautiful as ever. We hugged like old friends do after years apart, uncomfortable yet familiar. You asked me to stay a while and so I did, a little apprehensive but happy to see you alive and well. It was the kind of dream you hate to wake up from, and once again you’re on my mind, now more than ever.
A late afternoon moon sits just above a sleeping mountain, full and ready to take over where the sun left off. Desert sand dunes rest behind me now as the last resort rests in my grasp unaware of the downslope we must follow, but tomorrow is miles ahead and I’m depending on snow to delay our final descent.
I can say with a heavy heart and a rejuvenated spirit, that this was much needed, and so life carries on, unplanned, somewhat predictable and always way too short.
It’s been close to fifteen years since I last graced these grounds, but here I am at the Inn of the Mountain Gods watching snow pile up and praying for more just as I did all those years ago when life was new and youth was fresh.
Incense from the Grand Canyon. Room Key. Soap used at the Travel Lodge, Flagstaff, AZ, right off Route 66
Incognito (with love) Potent brown tied to the sadness of blue, sidewalks still sleeping with wax, picture frames mounted with paper nails and all those haunting tales about vagabonds in religious cults, fishermen with their blood-stained boats, at dock encased and fake, plastic flowers bleed out and melt. Ashes from a pink carnation, catch air and disappear into the atmosphere you were there with all your weight cracked and blue from stolen breath how they could cheat you I'll never know. "I'm scared to death" you once said but I'm getting by somehow. Watch them all gathering judges of the new generation what did they know anyway? I saw you there every step of the way up until the end, those bastards were never your friends, so until glaciers overtake our shores, may you sleep in peace and incognito.
You’re never in the wrong. All these years to rummage through and pick apart, and consider for a moment how you really played out, your errors and faults, misjudgments, miscalculations, but I don’t think you’ve ever looked at, I mean really looked at the other side. One of the main ingredients needed for any kind of enlightenment or wisdom is an open mind void of preconceived notions and, above all, OPINIONS. I don’t think it would ever be possible to see both sides of anything without first admitting ignorance, and then discarding judgement altogether. Sometimes this friendship feels like a bad marriage.
Here we are on the other side of what used to be a faraway tomorrow. My shoes are prematurely worn out, where tread used to catch my step, replaced by a slippery surface. Now with the threat of collapse looming large in our rear view mirrors, mass produced distractions are hurled at us through our filtered media. Tell me it’s not as bad as it seems in these approaching days of dwindling luxuries. Take us back to the time of the pioneer where life was simply survival void of the add-ons we’ve grown accustomed to.
Halloween in June
June 13, 2008
If I think too much, nothing comes to mind. These days and years keep flying by leaving unfinished goals and discarded dreams at the wayside of another time when I was unaware with blind confidence. Tonight I see with lazy eyes, pick up the pen, turn away from the television trance, tonight is the night to begin again and put things right, fill these pages, get back on track, and then it subsides, what was the point anyway? Maybe another day, I’ll start again, when the time is right, when the time is right, when the time is right.
I’ve seen them in thoughts, when silence cancels out noise and focus remains inside, they come back to me as they were in childhood when family was a simple concept and friends were easy to find. Ghosts of the living haunt more frequently than the dead.
Just Keep Writing
(what I’m trying to say)
It’s been nearly ten years since I’ve really placed importance on my creative outlet. I figured, if you go long enough without doing something you once thought you loved, and it’s still eating at you, and gnawing at the back of your mind, you must love it enough to give it another try. What I’m trying to say is I miss writing. It’s my therapy. It keeps me aware and stimulated. It keeps me grounded and focused. It keeps me sane, and right now I’m drowning in the mundane worries and catastrophic predictions and prophecies of life.
How Much for a Gallon of Corn?
June 15, 2008
Midday, under a scorching sun where children play down by a distressed river, waste piles higher than the record-breaking temps, and an old black dog lays restless on browning grass. Gather up your heels, these waters will rise again, in the shallows of the city sky stained by misuse and neglect, we saunter on unsure of our unfamiliar land.
Fifty dollars got me to the beach and back. A long drive to take on a Saturday afternoon with the sun bearing down, the air conditioner leaking on my foot, and last night’s birthday bash wearing me thin, but I went, intent on enjoying the day and shaking off a bad mood.
Everything has energy, the rest is just hearsay.
I can always tell when there’s a storm in the Gulf, even if it’s not a direct hit and is hundreds of miles away just off the shores of northern Mexico or Louisiana.
Ike: Coming at Ya
September 12, 2008 (afternoon)
Galveston is being overtaken. Ocean waters litter her streets slapping the seawall violently with the storm still 12 hours away. On a calm, normal day the ocean usually rests about 20 feet below the seawall. Islanders woke up this morning in shock to find water surrounding their homes. The decision to stay home and “hunker down” instead of evacuating proved to be a bad one. It’s daunting to think that the flooding in Galveston isn’t even from the storm surge. Again, the storm has yet to arrive, the flooding, which is already about 3 feet deep on the strand, is from the bay waters, but Ike is coming and unlike recent storms before, this one doesn’t look like it intends on turning – this one will be a direct hit.
Late Afternoon
I have a very bad head cold and my menstrual cramps have me doubled over, but the storm is coming and there’s no time to be sick. My roommate and I have stocked up on food and water that should last us for about a week. We also have batteries, a radio, and a limited supply of ice. We’ve filled the bathtub and the water filter and our cars both have full tanks of gas. We’ve brought all the lawn furniture inside and taped up the windows, but after watching the most recent news coverage on the coming storm, I now wish we had boards to cover the windows.
We’ve only been in this townhouse for a year, but the complex has been around since the seventies. Also, the San Jacinto River surrounds our neighborhood, but officials say it’s not supposed to flood on the north side. I hope they’re right because it already looks higher than normal, and the rain has yet to come. My grandfather is here with us. We evacuated him from his house in Bay City yesterday because it was looking like Matagorda Bay was going to get a direct hit, but it looks like we just brought him closer to the storm. Right now, Ike is a category 2 storm, but with sustained winds at 110 mph, it’s a strong Cat. 2. In fact, category 3 storms start with winds at 111 mph. The eyewall of the storm is supposed to hit Galveston at around 2 in the morning. I guess I’ll just stay in bed and watch the news repeat itself until TV is no longer an option. I’m pretty sure I’m running a low grade fever. Maybe I’ll try and get a nap in.
14 Days Nine Hours later…
And then there was light.
State of the World
(and I feel fine…)
January 2009
I hope the end of the world lands on a Saturday. I can’t afford to skip work.
Television grows louder, yelling at me through paid advertisements offering me everything I don’t need. Tell me what I want to hear, the end is near, we’re in the clear.
Farewell to dwellers of the northern land swimming out of sight, out of sight out of mind, I’ll take to the underground before I watch my mother die.
My friends who still consider Yellowstone home may have noticed a series of tremors a couple of weeks ago. About 300 to 400 small tremors, the strongest being about 3.6 on the Richter scale, occurred around the Yellowstone Lake area in the last 2 weeks of December. Very unusual activity. Yellowstone usually experiences about that number in a 10 year period. The alert level is still at green, but scientists are still conducting research while waiting for the next disruption.
This past week, California had an earthquake that measured 4.1 on the Richter scale. A day later, Costa Rica experienced an earthquake of 6.4 on the Richter scale.
The Middle East is still in upheaval as Israel and Gaza are still at war and extremists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq still reign terror. What are we doing here?
80,000 dead in China from an earthquake measuring seven point something on the Richter scale, and Hurricane Ike kicked Houston right in the TexAss.
It’s hard to say what’s going on here: climate change, Armageddon, business as usual – who knows?
There’s a belief that the world will end on 12/21/2012. This is the last date on the Mayan Calendar, and Nostradamus himself predicted a major happening in the year 2012. Astronomers have predicted a Galactical Alignment will take place on 12/21/12. When this occurs, the center of the Milky Way, the earth, and the sun will all line up. I don’t think anyone really knows what that means. We humans are still pretty ignorant when it comes to space. The Mayans were the exception. If they’re right, we’ve got about four years left.
I followed behind and in line as daily struggles turn into years of discontent mixed with complacency.
I have my excuses like we all do, but the storm took me by surprise and the flood was unexpected – as unexpected as my failed spirit. Trees are still stripped of their bark and I still can’t fathom how they survived at all. A surprisingly strong root system must have stepped in the way, a miracle for this day and age.
I need to find something else. A dream to believe in again. Aspiration. Where is my motivation? If I could be so blind as to try again, perhaps mend these trappings of the mind mechanically wreaking havoc. That fucking storm that I faired in my prime, now shrouded with time, but not so long ago I felt the second coming, a witness to The Rapture where I was left standing alone and the world collapsed on itself – only to start again.
A man I once held very dear in my youth showed me the silver lining, and I believed 100 percent in everything he said, but secrets sometimes seep through the cracks revealing truths, unexpected, un-planned for, even psychics were caught off guard. I stand by my decisions, and my beliefs are mine alone. Silver linings are only produced when the sun penetrates rain clouds, this I believe 100 percent.
It’s been a bad week. I got a frantic phone call from a friend today who lives in the neighborhood. She was screaming that her house was on fire and needed me to come over. I felt panic. I grabbed my smokes and my purse, made sure everything was turned off, carefully blew out my candle, and ran outside to the car with my slippers still on. I had the thought that I should grab our fire extinguisher.
March 22, 2009
Half-finished and undone, but isn’t that always the way? All those things we never said, words held back are progressively losing their chance for release as the years go by. I have chanced my confessions in the wake of family functions, birthdays and weddings. I found my voice but continued to go on ignored. The truth is so seldom welcomed. Isn’t it strange the way things never go the way we imagined, and if they do, it’s always a bit of a disappointment. I guess I need more, but I don’t know what that would be, I only know that there is no room left under the rug.
I need a break today. A forced effort combined with a hungry dog got me out of bed this morning. On such a beautiful day when “spring is in the air” with the birds chirping and all that jazz, I’m trying to stay positive, but before the clock struck noon, I had already smoked some weed, and now, an hour later, I’m almost done with my first beer of the day. Sundays are always a work in progress.
It’s an easy, breezy day and I’m trying to suppress my inner Cover Girl one gray hair at a time where life is sustained by Post-It notes and all the dogs have free reign.
Let it rain all day until the skyline is smeared into abstract and I can once again see clearly.
The beach houses have looked better. Christmas trees line the shore and gray skies seem to stick around like an unwanted memory. Boarded-up and abandoned, un-sturdy and off-balance, these dwellings are in no shape to face another hurricane season on the Gulf Coast. It’s been a couple of years since I last graced the sand of Surfside, Texas, but I had to get away and see the ocean and pay no mind to my sunless day. It’s been so long. Waves still call as their energy rolls toward me, but I decline this time as inviting as they may be, I decline on a cold April day with clouds threatening every inch of the way. Still, I’m glad I came, if nothing else, to wash away the hate.
The Apple and the birdcage 