The Postmodern Beat

New Beginnings and All That

2009-11-11T01:25:00.004-05:00

Afternoondream. Is that hand for me? Eye contact leads to. Friendly handshakes disguised as affection. Love is ridiculous. Movies lead to touching. Touching to beauty. Beauty to regret. Regret to obsession. Obsessiondepression. She makes me nervous. Be on your best behavior. Don’t talk during the movie. Make small talk as you look around the room. Girl-smell. Don’t look too closely—might see a bra or something. Perfection. Rejection. Connection. Inspection. Erection. Put the movie in. Sit down next to her. Not too close. Read the situation. She likes you. She does not like you. Actually pay attention to the movie. Look at her hand. Close? Read the situation. Think of Sara. Do not think of Sara. Move on. Old feelings come back. Stop. Go. Can we turn the lights out? And that one too. Try to put your arm around her. Awkward. Won’t work. Be cool. She doesn’t notice that you tried. Be still. Read the situation. Move arm back. Sit. Make witty insightful comments about the movie. Did she move closer? Smooth skin—I’d bet. Homework. It’s a weekend. Forget it. Who was her last boyfriend? He was. How far did they go? Maybe you could. Is lust sin? Our lust is brief. It’s starting to snow. Prettier than rain. She is. Green eyes. Always. The good ones have green eyes. Slim figure. Frail. Glass. Makes up for strength in personality. Nicer than she thinks she is. Or meaner. Mystery clouded. No mysterious touch. Big eyes. Get lost for days. Dazed by smile. Straight teeth. Makes me insecure. Is she nervous? Do girls get nervous? They can’t touch her. I am here. I got this far. Remember a month ago. Had nothing. Have something now. Happy? What is happy? Focus. Read the situation. Hand any closer? Lean over. Relax. Impossible. She relaxed. Be cool. Put feet up. Take off shoes. Do feet smell? Shit. Don’t smell bad. Girls don’t care. Yes they do. Put arms behind head. Be cool. Show her you don’t care. Fix your shirt. Wrinkles. Collar popped out of sweater. Fix it. Don’t make a show of it. Read the situation. What’s happening in movie? Does she like it? Is she bored? Say something. Don’t talk too much. What’s the time? Will we finish movie? Yes. No time afterward. What do you say after? Try to set up another. Don’t be too forward. Don’t seem desperate. A girl wants a man. Men know what they want. Courage. Strength. Chivalry. What is. No one is perfect. Nervousness is your shtick. It gets annoying. Read the situation. Be cool. Remember the plays she was in. Damn Yankees. You forgot. She told you earlier. Look at her hand. Adjust your pants. Riding up. Uncomfortable. Tighten your belt. Fix creases near crotch. Awkward. Godspell! Is it hot in here? Ears are red. Don’t get a headache. I am excited about this. Was. Is. Still am and all. Nervousexcitedanticipatory. Pray to God. How far will this go? She could be a good wife. You’re being ridiculous. No one ever knows. With these things. What does she think of me? Am I a good man? Puff up chest. Broaden shoulders. She wants to be wrapped up in these arms. Get lost. Like Sara did. Like Sara DID. Get over it. Stop. Move on. Great girl sitting here now. New Beginnings and all that.

isaac

---------------------------
now now don't get excited. I wrote that freshman year.

A Dream

2009-11-06T00:42:00.004-05:00

"Weak. Fuckin' weak," I said. "I cant take it. I cant stand weakness anymore. Mine or anyone else's. Im tired of all this talk of brokenness. Im tired of my silly meaningless tears and lower your voice and be polite. Polite. Polite. Dont smoke by me. Dont swear by me. Dont talk about girls and sex and what were all actually feeling. Dont talk about what your thinking. Im tired of non-honesty and general nervous shyness. I want destruction and blood and chopping down trees and come stand here baby and smoke a thousand cigarettes and get fall-over drunk. Speed down that cool road and blow down that line. A human freight train chugging across this green earth blowing big black death clouds across the sky. Spare me your vulnerability. Death to conservatives. Death to liberals. Death to moderates. Death to labels. I want to burn--"madly across the sun, its not aimed at anyone, its just escapin on the run, and for the clouds there are no fences facin" Sing your song mister tambourine man but just dont complain to me about all of the worlds problems anymore. And dont complain to me about your problems anymore. If your not gonna fix it then shut it. Spare me your protests. Spare me your petitions. Spare me your civil disobedience. Spare me your vegetarianism. Spare me you conferences. Spare me your charity. Spare me your governmental and non governmental programs. Spare me you legislation. Spare me your academics. Spare me your PhDs. Spare me your lectures. Spare me your sermons."

They looked stunned but I was relentless:

"Here's a common story. Liberal Christians, however many of them. Or Conservative Christians. Or Liberal or Conservative non-Christians. In other words, a group of do-gooders, sitting in groups or giving lectures or sermons, attending conferences or lectures, sitting and standing around talking about the down and out and the poor and the sinners and the drunkards and the deadbeats. Talking about systems of poverty and institutional and environmental racism. Talking theology and philosophy. Talking politics and religion. A group of general complainers sitting comfortably in rooms dressing the same, whether its fashionably or fashionably unfashionably, figuring out the worlds problems and actually believing that talking about all of it is doing anything. So they finish up late at night, one of their conversations, and they say to themselves: 'Lets get some coffee and continue our wonderful conversation.' And so they go to their local coffee shop and sit down and an old ugly crooked-toothed waitress comes up to take their order, and she's slow, and she even gets the order wrong. Not only this she actually tries to talk to them. They look at her but not in the eyes, and they speak slowly to her as if she's less than human. And to them she is less than human. She's a fucking dog. So she leaves and they make jokes about her and the other fuck ups sitting around drinking coffee and smoking alone. They get annoyed that all of these dirty people are sitting around talking too loud, drunk, lazy, fat, assholes. And these do-gooders sit around and dont make the connection. These are the very people they want to help, first mistaking that these people need or want their help. Next mistaking that they know how to help them. Suddenly these do-gooders get upset that these people arent homeless and prostitutes with hearts of gold. These are dirty ugly people who dont give a shit about you or anybody else and they dont want your help which isnt even help.
So these do-gooders go back to their lecture halls and their sanctuaries and they talk to themselves and create more and more illusions about what it is they are supposed to do. They put more barriers between themselves and the rest of creation. No one wants to actually help these people, they just want these people to be like them. Jesus wasnt a church goer. The sermon on the mount wasnt in an auditorium, church or otherwise."

I finished my rant and went home. My head spinning. Sleep, sleep, I need sleep. Off the lights. Collapse into bed. A dream:

Stormy clouds. Mist along the shore. Walking along the moist sand now clumping up like mud and making striking footprints seeing every toe's impression. Dark waves sweeping up to the sand. The beach was bare save an old man, sitting on a rock, staring ahead with gray-blue eyes nearly glazed over. Walking in his direction but he never came closer. Stopping I close my eyes and suddenly in the blackness of my eye lids I hear his breath. Eyes open. Sitting on a rock next to an old man, slumped over defeated. I had an overwhelming urge to apologize to him, about what I dont know but the feeling sat deep within me. Ive wronged him somehow, I thought. Had it been anyone else I would have said something, Im sorry, something, but I got the impression that he knew already. He was surrounded by a palpable sense of forgiveness. Calming and terrifying. Without speaking the man set his hand on my knee. This sort of overt male contact usually makes me infinitely uncomfortable, a homophobic tendency I hate within myself but must at least acknowledge. Yet this random hand-on-the-knee brought up with in me a childlike sense of trust. I wanted his hand there. This was a hand that meant a type of love that is beyond any sort of sexuality. As is the case with many a dream I could not speak. Words came up my throat and sat in my mouth, unable to move out the lips. I could think of nothing to do but close my eyes and doze off into sleep. I awoke and the man was gone. The waves continued to crash and rain came down. It was then that I felt that infinite feeling of being alone. Alone on the beach. Alone in the world. Alone in the cosmos. I felt alone and I smiled because that sense of trust was not gone. That sense of forgiveness was not gone either. I had wronged this old man, this much I know, but there in my loneliness I felt complete. I was alone like the ocean is alone. Like a thunderstorm is alone. And I became the ocean and the thunderstorm. And I smiled.

I awoke from my dream lying on my mattress, boots and jeans and shirt still on and buttoned up. My head foggy, looking around, groggy, looking, perhaps, for that invisible old man but he wasn't anywhere. Just my little room, cluttered with clothes and books and nothing-papers, kleenex from last week's snot-run. My little room sitting inside my cold house. I was feeling bad about all that I had said but feeling too prideful to admit my harshness. Too confused to admit that everyone else is confused too. Angry with myself for my weakness and for my inability to acknowledge the necessity of weakness. The reality of weakness. The necessity of vulnerability. The reality of vulnerability. I was feeling upset that I didn't want to go to the protests anymore and I didn't believe in them. I saw all my heroes as failures even though I knew they weren't. I'm the failure, I thought. I lost sight of something somewhere along the line and now I didn't even want to find it. All I wanted was the feeling of that old man's hand sitting on my knee and I thought, if I could get that back I might be able to believe in everything other than her again. I might be able to care about everything, most of all myself. For now, I thought, it is only a dream. Life will continue to be what it is, which is to say, unimpressive--so I'll live in my dreams. What's the difference anyway.

isaac

Northern Lights

2009-11-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

Great song from Bowerbirds called 'Northern Lights.' Lovely lyrics, if you ask me.

I don't need from you a waterfall of careless praise
And I don't need a trophy for all the games I've played
But all I want is your eyes
In the morning as we wake
For a short while

And I don't need you to catch my wanderin mind
And I don't expect a southern girl to know the northern lights
And all I want is your eyes
In the morning as we wake
For a short while

And I do need the wind across my pale face
And I do need the fern to unfurl in the spring
And I do need the grass to sway
Yes I do need to know my place
But all I want is your eyes
In the morning as we wake
For a short while

isaac

The Change

2009-10-30T02:23:00.008-04:00

Probably a tad obvious I've been reading Graham Greene lately......the search for voice continues....

Also--and I'm only going to say this once--don't take everything I write seriously. That little saying by my picture means something.

When one experiences a moment of intense heartbreak there happens a change within them that will go unnoticed to all but the keenest of observers. One must either be anticipating it or looking for it or else they won't catch it. One is left alone, their lover now gone, and suddenly they must face themselves as only the self. The other is no longer there as a mirror. God, it seems, has gone off with the lover too and so one is left kneeling on the ground searching about for something to grab hold of. Some bit of innocence or a memory, a belief that was once solid. But these have all left the room. One cannot even conceive of such emptiness and so one must change. One must change and one must start constructing a new life devoid of these foundations. Perhaps, if one is lucky, one might even reconstruct new foundations and call them "love" or call them "God." But things will be different from now on, this much is certain.

I anticipated my change and after the dust had settled it began to work itself out in me quite as I had imagined it would. I remember, a week or so before it happened, two friends of mine who were once together but are now undergoing their own post-traumatic change, were sitting on high chairs at a high table and I was standing next to them, rattling on about what I knew was about to happen. If She does it, I said, if She ends things, then I'm going to become a cold bastard for some time. I don't see any way around it, and I was pointing fingers up in the air. I'm going to be a bit of an asshole because it's the only way I'm going to be able to move on. If She ends it then for a long time afterward I'm not going to believe in love anymore, I said.

And I still don't.

So I became the cold bastard that I predicted I would be and I've become quite comfortable as him. I may not seem like one all the time and hopefully I'm not, but in certain situations it has become a necessity.

I told Her, while it was happening, that I was sold on Her and that I wouldn't ever find anybody else and that too has remained a fact. But what one knows and what one acts on are not always the same. One has to find ways to move on and so I began to develop flirtations and crushes. I began to act as if I really had it for these new girls and I became disappointed when I found out they had a boyfriend or were interested in someone else or if they simply weren't interested in me. These are not girls I had much of an interest in being in a relationship with but girls who, in one way or another, occupied my mind. These girls were not Her and I didn't want them to be Her but they were somebody. Something.

There have been, on rare occasions, girls that I have taken an actual liking to and in one instance over the summer something developed. Of course it wasn't the same and there was nothing I could do but end it with her. I think she understood and luckily it never got far enough that any sort of dramatic attachments were formed. I took something from this, perhaps a smaller but still important change. I will never, it seems, be in another relationship quite like the one with Her. This is true simply due to the nature of the relationship. It was the first, and as the first it can be the only first. The only truly untainted love of my life. Anything resembling love from this point on will be second best. It will not have been my preference. At least not for awhile.

So I go through my days now conjuring up romantic feelings for physically attractive girls I hardly know. Depending on who she is I may develop casual flirtations and we might go on little dates to restaurants. Perhaps we get together in groups and I make an effort to sit next to her on the couch, our legs touching, our arms touching. Feeling each other's breath through contact. But it's all a game and it means nothing to me. Regrettably even the more physical encounters that have sometimes occurred are more of a sport for me than any sort of real intimate encounter. Of course this leaves both parties feeling cheated. I go home at night and feel like the lowliest misogynist in Anderson. I cover up guilt with faux-narcissism and vulgar jokes.

(People love to live vicariously through others who have figured out a way to express their pain better than they can. Get enough of them around a table and turn your misery into a good story and a good laugh and you'll have duped them into being your friends. For sure they will think you're terrible because of the way you brush things off and plow through what you call "meaningless" relationships. They'll call you selfish and call you an asshole, but they'll also think you're terribly funny and secretly they'll wish they could be like that too once in awhile. Only you know you'd give it all up in a second for another chance at that innocence you once had. Sitting out on the pier being afraid to hold her hand, awkward first kisses after months and months of dating, etc etc).

Inevitably I will find out that this girl I have formed this silly attachment to has feelings for another boy or that she indeed has a boyfriend and I will become surprisingly upset about the whole thing. This little scenario I have created quickly crumbles into nothing and I am left to face my pathetic solitude. It's as if she sought me out only to, when we got close, pull back the curtain and reveal to me her heart, which makes mine look all the more ridiculous. I become jealous, not only of her and her man, but of Her. I doubt She is going through this sort of idiocy because she realizes that it will get Her nowhere, and that it's getting me nowhere. She always had this ability to see how things would turn out before they ever happened, and yet She was never confident about it. I, on the other hand, was confident about everything and was ultimately wrong about everything. The only thing I was right about was that, in the end, She was going to leave me. Yet what I did not at the time realize was that it was my jealousy and inability to be loved that drove Her to it.

Jealousy, jealousy. Just call me Bendrix. Like him, I measured love by the amount of jealousy I felt. I thought I was madly in love and I thought She wanted nothing to do with me. In the end all She wanted was happiness for me and all I wanted was for Her to want me. In the end neither of us will get what we wanted.

We're always told of God's perfect love and how it covers our wretched sinfulness. Yet what someone missed was the simple fact that it's impossible to love something perfect. One is always aware of their own imperfection and no matter how much they say they love what is perfect they will always secretly resent it. This is why I could not love Her and why for sometime God has felt so distant if not gone all together. Unfairly I saw Her as perfect. I could not imagine Her wanting to be with me, a jealous paranoid unattractive fool and so I was always dreaming up reasons as to why She would leave me or who She would cheat on me with or why She was so unhappy with me. In the end it was pure delusion, and it's the same with the Almighty.

Look at me now, becoming aware of all of my shortcomings yet having no idea how to fix them and honestly fearing their fixing. But life isn't all bad. At times it can be even fun, when dancing or carrying on at parties. She momentarily escapes my mind and I can escape instead into the eyes of some blonde or brunette, either here or in Nicaragua. Regret is a funny thing. Perhaps I regret the relationship with Her all together. No, I know this isn't true. I would go back in a second. I would give up the potential writing and the romanticized conflict even to see her for one minute face to face again.

But in the meantime I feel as though I'm stuck. I haven't the will nor the heart to begin to pick up the pieces and move on into some sort of mature life. I find not value in committed relationships anymore. I hate the thought of spending years and years with someone that isn't Her. I suppose this too will pass with time. In fact I hope to one day appreciate the life of the committed man, wanting what is best for the other person and seeing yourself as two as opposed to one. But that day is not today.

God, give me prudence and self-control...but not yet.

isaac

Unhappy Peace

2009-10-28T23:06:00.002-04:00

The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity. The words of human love have been used by the saints to describe their vision of God, and so, I suppose, we might use the terms of prayer, meditation, contemplation to explain the intensity of the love we feel for a woman. We too surrender memory, intellect, intelligence, and we too experience the deprivation, the noche oscura, and sometimes as a reward a kind of peace. The act of love itself has been described as the little death, and lovers sometimes experience too the little peace. It is odd to find myself writing these phrases as though I loved what in fact I hate. Sometimes I don't recognize my own thoughts. What do I know of phrases like 'the dark night' or of prayer, who have only one prayer? I have inherited them, that is all, like a husband who is left by death in the useless possession of a woman's clothes, scents, pots of cream...and yet there was this peace... (Graham Greene, The End of the Affair, page 36)

isaac

October

2009-10-23T04:41:00.001-04:00

Outside the rain is getting tired—slowly now, dripping, falling into quiet pools in the corners and crevices of cracked pavement and thirsty earth. The streets are bare save the night-remnants of sleepless youngsters and the warn-out old drunkards: men and woman just trying to forget the meaningless work they trudged through all day. Struggling to go unnoticed. Leaves are beginning to break away from their branches, one last swirl-ride and then a hard shot to the ground, where they’ll sit, going from red to brown, yellow to brown, orange to brown, all gathering in the same place—a goopy mush beneath our boots.

The sickness is knocking at our door. The sickness of questioning everything that should not be questioned. Finding ways to be unhappy. Sunless skies sucking up every drop of marrow from our bones, leaving us dry cold and brittle. We’ll break at the slightest bit of pressure. We’re going for walks alone, pulling up our shirt collars, walking now with tense muscles and keeping our hands warm not in the hands of someone we love but in our bottomless coat pockets, fiddling with our keys and our chapsticks (but our lips stay bloody and broken).

I walked outside and sat on the porch to smoke a cigarette. Four in the morning. Damn. The sky is somehow lit up and the rain has begun to fall harder, coming straight down now, stubbornly. This is a haunting night. Poignant and difficult to ignore. The bare silhouetted trees look like veins set to the gray sky backdrop. These are dead veins and they’ve been so for some time. This is not fresh death but rotting death, life past a memory and forgotten all together. This is not the rain of rejuvenation but the slow unrelenting rain of darkness. A black flood is coming to sweep us all away from here, and not to somewhere new but to somewhere painfully familiar: within.

The rain comes and the dim water rises, gushing oil-black into hazy whirlpools with sinister intentions. Gone is faith. Gone is hope. And the gray-green hands of despair, crooked and sharp and tangled, will reach up out of this goopy wretched sea floor and grip tightly around our ankles pulling us down down down toward the dank underbelly of existence. We become like green leaves turned golden, turned brown, turned black. Pile them on! Let them burn and rise up to nothingness.

My internal ocean is crashing against the jagged shoreline. The lighthouse has all but burned out. Ships are being hurled into one another; men tossed overboard left to float adrift in a never-ending sea of helpless eternity, without purpose.

I’m sitting now, four thirty. These dark thoughts running in and out of mind yet a calmness still comes. Tomorrow I will wake up to sunrise and the flood will have drawn back. But this is not really a happy ending, nor really an ending at all.

God, may you be with us as we enter this lonely Winter. May we never lose sight of your dim light, even when it is but a tiny glimmer on the distant shore. If we cannot ask for an end to pain may we ask for the faith and love to endure and the strength to reach out to others as we set sail amidst life’s storms.

isaac

A Blank Stare

2009-10-22T01:18:00.003-04:00

And so it happened, sitting here in my dusty brown chair, my feet cold, wrapped up in the blanket she made, folding my laundry. I was feeling sorry and seeing myself as some sort of lonely old man, a widower or some such forgotten neighbor, sitting in the cold re-collecting old memories, eating oatmeal and finding some sort of escape in boredom. The clock was tick-tocking, the dryer running, the low hum of the furnace. I began to feel that familiar swelling in my throat remembering all that had happened both before and after. Remembering her and the other girls since. Regretting and not regretting. Normally this sort of pain swells up and it's enough to overtake me but tonight that was not the case. Tonight something else happened. Just as this memory-pain reached the bottom of my throat I did something I'd never done before, which is to say, I stopped it. I turned it off. I sank it back down below into the stomach.

Tonight there are no tears but a blank stare. Cold feet and folded laundry. Dusty brown chair and lap-blanket. No more memories. No more love. Just tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

isaac

2009-10-21T00:18:00.001-04:00

"Rather than question the existence of the thing that now sought to gain control of her, she merely felt the pity of it all." --Takenishi Hiroko in "The Rite"

...real writing coming soon.

isaac

I Have to Pull Up My Stakes and Roll, Man

2009-10-14T14:48:00.005-04:00

This has been a strange couple of weeks.

So I'm leaving the country for a few days. And it feels important to me.

I'm not taking my computer.

I thought I would leave you with one of my favorite Kerouac passages--one written when he we around my age.

I have to pull up my stakes and roll, Man. I'll tell you what I am, first. I am of the American temperament, the American temper, the American tempo, river. And I tell you I am not Socrates wearing a robe, nor Shakespeare in breeches, but I am a poet in trousers, hat, shirt, coat, shoes, socks and my hair is combed, parted on the left side, I can jive a little bit, I play football and baseball, I go out with dames and I love America, that's who I am. I'm Kerouac. And I'm in the 20th Century, 1941 A.D., right now. I am a poet, a philosopher, and I base my theories on science, of which I am quite ignorant, if not stupid. But I am no jerk, I assure you. I don't write verse, I write poetry. And I am no jerk, because I know that I am part of the American temperament, I love swing bands with a terrific bucket man (drummer), and I love to have these bands dish out life and bite the beat (a steady beat, like Krupa's, that rocks the dance floor with soul and precision) and I love to see those jitterbugs and their subtle bounce with the rhythm, their women who step quick and jerkily and spin with their jitterbug gams showing up to the garters, I love American and I love to look at those jitterbugs who let their hair grow long and sleek, with a knockout dazzling wave; the wide-brimmed, low-crowned hates (3 1/4 inchers); their pegged trousers with high belts; their swaggering walk, the way they smoke, the way they sensationalize, show off, the way they let you know about it, the way they click their shoe heels, the way they look around with a broad sweep and take in everything, pedestal themselves, talk good and audibly, expose themselves and turn the world into the blare of bands, the jive, the women-drink-smoke-debauchery-you thick bastard-Ho-Ho-Make me know it, Dorsey, make me know it!!!!!

...Yes, I have to pull up my stakes and roll, and I told you about one part of the American temper because I am part of all of it."

I'm about to pull up my stakes and roll, man. I'm Horwedel. And I'm in the 21st Century, 2009 A.D., right now. I am a poet and a philosopher who writes no verse and no philosophy. But I am no jerk, I assure you.

isaac

(Breathe In) Who Are You?

2009-10-11T03:31:00.002-04:00

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't Know

Driving around this evening and told myself: You are probably going to cry later tonight. Not deciding to do it. Not wanting to do it. But accepting that, later tonight, around right now, I'm going to cry about the same thing I've cried about since it happened.

Was asked later tonight: Have you talked to her.
And my reply: Nope.

The reason, of course, being that, everytime I do, things get worse and worse. I go back. But not going back is no good either. Stuck. Seemingly forever. Telling me it's not forever does not make it seem any less like eternity.

To be alone, and to remain alone makes me think: You'll never get over her. You'll never move on.
To not be alone, and to try to flee my aloneness, makes me think: This isn't what you want. You wouldn't have chosen this.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't Know

Remember, mind that does not exist, that existence is nothingness and nothingness is existence. Become your breath. That's the first step. Exist as your breath. And then be nothing. Go nowhere. Do not become any more. Do not be any more. Move outside of illusion into real existence which is nothing.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't know

I wish I could go back a year and do everything differently so as to not end up where I am right now, which is stuck in an impossible situation. I could have done things better. We'll never know. What's the point?

The situation: It's looking at pretty girls and getting the guts to talk with them and then feeling absolutely nothing. "Relationship" becomes a sport. "Intimacy" becomes a sport. Maybe hang out all night, smile, goodnight, goodbye, go home, go into my room, think about someone else from my past, someone who has never left me as much as I've left her, someone I never see around anymore, someone I can hardly feel anymore. Someone who isn't even a someone anymore but a something-object, it's a memory of a person, not a person.

Driving around endlessly, drinking coffee, feeling terrible, not wanting to feel good because everytime I do it just makes me feel worse when I feel bad again. Not wanting to go to sleep. Not being able to go to sleep. Wanting to cry but not crying. Not wanting to cry and crying.

Driving around this evening and told myself: You are probably going to cry later tonight. Not deciding to do it. Not wanting to do it. But accepting that, later tonight, around right now, I'm going to cry about the same thing I've cried about since it happened.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't Know

Was asked later tonight: Have you talked to her.
And my reply: Nope.

The reason, of course, being that, everytime I do, things get worse and worse. I go back. But not going back is no good either. Stuck. Seemingly forever. Telling me it's not forever does not make it seem any less like eternity.

To be alone, and to remain alone makes me think: You'll never get over her. You'll never move on.
To not be alone, and to try to flee my aloneness, makes me think: This isn't what you want. You wouldn't have chosen this.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't Know

Remember, mind that does not exist, that existence is nothingness and nothingness is existence. Become your breath. That's the first step. Exist as your breath. And then be nothing. Go nowhere. Do not become any more. Do not be any more. Move outside of illusion into real existence which is nothing.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't know

But then this is nothing, isn't it? We can cover 500 years in 50 minutes of history class. I get maybe 75 of those if everything "goes well" and all of this, this bullshit I'm writing, this bullshit I'm feeling, this house I'm in, these clothes I'm in, my friends, my family...we're all gone, sucked up into the endless stream. Dust, dust, dust.

So let go of it, boy. I want to just let go of everything and everyone I know and think about and just go away, drive off, escape my own mind in meditation--no attachments no pain, no attachments no suffering, no attachments no sadness.

But I know it's a lie. And I know I am attached to everyone reading this, somehow, even you...and even you.

So we come full circle and end up nowhere. The same place I was when I started. Alone in a room, temperature a cool 57 degrees. Fully dressed. Sore. Awake. Confused. Focused. Sick.

And while Isaac's body is here, he is not. He is floating around into the Past. Into warm dark nights, window opened, feeling loved. While his-body now is cold he is not cold but warmed from another body close by. While his-body is in despair he is actually in faith for the first time with someone else who was at one time in faith too. While his-body is hardened, he is floating back to a time when he was once fragile, when he was once vulnerable.

All of these words, describing who I am in reality and who I am in my mind. They are nothing. They are illusion. I am only that which I am right now.

(Breathe In)
Who are you?

(Breathe Out)
'Don't know

isaac

The Other Day (A Tribute to a Friend)

2009-09-28T03:21:00.009-04:00

NOTE: This is a highly fictionalized account of something that actually happened to me the other day when I went to Anderson's Oktoberfest to watch a friend of mine blow glass. I use some glass terms that I tried to make sound believable although I'm sure I probably used some of them incorrectly.

The other day, without thinking much about it one way or another, I got up and took off down the road toward to see a friend. I was headed downtown where he and some other artist types were doing a demonstration with glass. The rain came down quietly, almost apprehensive, not trying to disturb anyone but falling slowly like millions of white feathers from above.

I was taking a good pace, my head tilted toward the road. I could feel the rain begin to gather in my hair, every now and then it would slowly trickle down my face, dripping off my nose, or my chin. Sometimes it would gather in my eyebrows and my upper lip.

I could feel her but my mind was somewhere else tonight. I was imagining having sex with Chan Marshall's voice. That voice--a whisper containing the power of the stars--the yellow moon, the cloudy sky, the dog's sad eyes, the farmer's calloused hands--that voice--it brought me back to her, to the space between her toes where I would stick my finger, to the back of her neck and a single finger drawing crazy patterns all across her back.

I walked up over the eighth street bridge and looked right over the ledge, down down toward the White River. I saw the black water down below, moving slowly, slowly, forever through time, carving the earth's veins, the same veins it had been carving since before Christ. I looked down and remembered the time I had sat over a ledge with my friend, the first time I'd ever drank a beer, after the whole show had ended and life became about more than her because she was no longer part of it.

Soon I was down to Meridian. I saw the outdoor studio that had been set up in the middle of the street. The sun had just recently gone down and the glow of the glory hole was the glow of God's eye. It was a glowing orange that can only be described as violent. This was not a peaceful eye but one that saw through your trickery, it cut you down so that you were nothing more than your guts and your heart.

It was then that I saw him, the local glass master, a Brit named Gareth Edwards. At one point in his life he was considered one
of the world's finest glass artists, even receiving an honorary award from the Queen. Yet here he was, moving about in the rainy night-streets of Anderson, Indiana, teaching America's spoiled youth the value of art, the beauty of it,the soul, the jewel-center of creativity.

I walked toward the light, this breathing machine of fire and glass. There were two furnaces, one, the larger of the two, was for gathering the glass and the other was to keep re-heating it so that it could mold easier. On either side of the two furnaces were two areas to shape and mold the pieces. As I approached the outdoor studio he came into sight, my friend Thomas St. Clare. Seeing him there in the dark, with the only light coming from the reflections in the glass, gave him an animalistic quality. His features were hidden beneath his untamed beard and wild hair. His eyes were intently focused on the job at hand, his ears finely tuned to Edward's voice, the two of them working like clock-work, their movements becoming almost rhythmic. This was their ritual dance, here in the middle of the street, the rain now pouring down from the black nothingness up above. Tonight was Thomas' first night as the gaffer, with Gareth acting as his assistant. This was an important night for Thomas. Sadly there were only a handful of us in attendance, but those of us there knew it was something special.

All of us in the audience looked on in wonder as the two of them moved back and forth, trading off the blowpipe and shears
as they moved, casing, carving, creating life out of nothing, putting flesh on our imaginations, grabbing air and giving it a pulse of its own.

At one point Thomas looked over in my direction and I looked directly into his eyes, the molten reflection burning bright,
and I saw the fire of a man doing something he loved. This was man who was at times racked with cynicism, plagued by doubt and at a loss for how life had gotten to be the way that it was. Yet here he was, his hands and his heart on fire, sweat dripping from his brow, his mind both focused and yet completely free. I knew as I looked into his eyes that Thomas did not see what I saw when he looked around. He was somewhere else, he saw an audience of thousands around him, all of us in tune with his every movement, every subtle twist and turn, our eyes glowing with delight at the sight of his newest creation.

It was then that I had the rare privilege of seeing someone do exactly what they love to do. To be transformed, in action, literally becoming the thing they love. As I turned I saw his girlfriend, Caroline, and I witnessed an ever rarer event. I saw in her eyes a look of love that comes only at the sight of seeing the one you love do what they love. I saw her falling in love with him over and over and over with each passing moment and she realized she loved this man because he loved something with all of his heart. I saw them glance at each other and my heart broke thinking of her, the one I had once loved, who had loved me, who had been the fire in my eyes.

At this I left and continued back down the road, my head down, no longer feeling the rain that had soaked my entire body.

I felt alone as I had never felt alone before. Walking down the street toward a house she would never see. But then I remembered Chan's voice and the way it worked its way into my head by way of the ears, eyes, nose, and tongue. I remembered the blondes, the brunettes, and the red-heads who gave me something to look forward to each day. If she wasn't going to be there, then they would be. I was sure of that.

I Finally Had Fun

2009-09-27T12:54:00.002-04:00

Here are some pictures from the school's Disco dance--where I really let go, possibly for the first time in my life. Sadly there aren't any of my amazing dance moves. Enjoy!

I Wish To Feel Again

2009-09-21T00:57:00.004-04:00

Expect Typos

I wish to feel again. To find the innocence that hides between two lovers' hands. I want to remember what it feels like to run in the rain with a smile on my face. I want to risk again, to re-live the times when fear meant love's innocence, and naive curiosity was holy. My mind wanders through the corridors of my past. The past, the past, a time we all remember. The past, which makes all of life's difficulties seem as if they were lessons learned, experiences we gained something from. Something. What? Something which we cannot quite put our finger on. But what is our past? Our lovers? In my mind, right now, today, I can think of love, I can feel love, I can imagine it, red, flashing, an innocent accidental touch, two arms and a leg, a secret kiss, two eyes connected to the soul through which all loving occurs. I can remember love. First times, longing, trusting in that which seemed so real yet was so fragile, I can remember love on salty nights in far-off islands and the square dorm-rooms of the-school-which-will-not-be-named-but-that-rhymes-with behavior.

But love comes in other forms, does it not? Is not love shared between two friends over cigarettes and coffee? Surely it is. But what more? Is not love shared between family members in phone conversations every sunday night? Yes, of course. There is love in coffee, and wine, and books, and beds, car-rides, beers, bonfires, arguments, silence, whiskey, guitars, eye-contact, prayer, and of course writing.

Time is an old bastard, out to get us, he never ends, he never sleeps, always forward, marching, single-file, single-minded. MOVE! Onward. Upward. Don't let up. Never surrender.

Every day, we wake up, we decide, "today I will live, I will make decisions, I will be responsible enough to make it seems as if I am a person who has decided to be part of society and so I will make it appear as if I have everything figured out, I will dress a certain way so that my clothes match, I will be relatively clean, I will brush my teeth, I will do my hair a certain way, I will wear clothes first and foremost thinking of that certain someone who will see me today wearing these clothes and I will want them to find me attractive and I will BE attractive, god-damn it, and today, yes, maybe today, something will happen, something new will happen, maybe something beautiful, and maybe, just maybe...IT will happen." And honestly, I don't even know what IT is. Maybe IT is a kiss, maybe it's a promotion, maybe it's an interview, maybe it's sex, maybe it's a new car, maybe it's a prayer answered, or a good sandwich, or an art project, or a new song, or a good grade, a dog, a car, a football game, a game of chess, a prayer answered--I already said that--maybe it's a date, a date with a boy or a girl that you think about each night right before you go to bed and you imagine them lying there with you. And maybe it's someone you actually use to ly there with at night or maybe it's someone you've never even talked to you but you really wish you could ly there with them (and I realize I'm spelling that wrong) or maybe it's someone you've sort of lyed there with but you really wish you could really LY there with em. You understand. I'm sure you do. You've been there. We've all been there.

And isn't that really the great big human lie? This idea that there's some right way to do it even though none of us have ever actually done it the right way.. No matter how fucked up you are, no matter how soft, or hard, or numb, or dumb, or smart, or lazy, or aggressive, or cynical...we've all been that soft hard numb dumb smart lazy aggressive and cynical.

Have you ever felt as if you're on the verge of something? Something bigger than yourself. Something that taps into the very core of the essence of who you are. It goes beyond words. It's the color orange, it's the wind, it's literally the sunrise during a thunderstorm during the last two minutes of Beethoven's ninth while Jordan hits the winning shot against the Jazz and Emmitt Smith is breaking the rushing yards record while Bob Dylan sings Like A Rolling Stone and MLK Jr. giving his I Have a Dream Speech and Che is getting assassinated and SK is wandering the streets of Copenhagen thinking of Regine and Aristotle is contemplating goodness and Amelia Earhart is flying around the world, meanwhile George Chuvalo is losing like a fucking god to Muhammed Ali, Huey is pulling out shotguns on white cops, Gandhi is spinning thread and Jesus Christ is talking to a revolutionary thief up on a cross promising everyone eternal life. Have you ever wished you could put all of life's pieces together? To somehow hold your past, present, and future together in some sort of proverbial life fruit-basket in such a way that you can pick out your past oranges and present apples and future bananas.

Will we ever get beyond the temptation to be assholes?

I want my heart to break when I hear news worthy of heartbreak. I want to live a life worthy of death. A wise teacher once told me that the mature person is happy when he or she hears or sees something happy and is sad when he or she hears or sees something that is sad. This simple definition seems to be of the utmost impossibility for most of the people I know or have encountered or even seen, including myself. Why? I don't know.

It's easy to hate everything. It's easy to give up on life, to turn your back, to close your eyes, stomp your feet, shout out "fuck you life, you ruined me so I will ruin you." This thought is one that I have thought. I have decided that it is not the best of thoughts, at least for me. This conclusion, however, is one I believe everyone must come to on their own terms.

And although I can see the person I want to be, and I can see who I am, and I can see that I am not the person that I want to be, I am, in many ways, at a loss as to how I am supposed to be that person that I am not but that I wish to be.

It is a strange concept. The one I am about to describe. It is the concept of knowing someone that you no longer know. Many of us (and I say "us" because I know most of you) have known someone more than we've known anyone else. Perhaps you met in high school, or college, or after college....anyway you met this person and for one reason or another you decided to let them in on all your secrets. Your desires. Your wishes for the future. Your problems. Your cravings. And you said this is it, this is the one, this is the one whom I love. Yet over time something happened, something went wrong, someone lost sight of something, one of you fell off the map--got out of it, lost touch with something real--and so now here is this person, this person you loves, this person you shared everything with, and for whatever reason, either death or life, they're gone. They're never coming back.

Yet here they are in the front of your mind. They're everything you think about. They are in fact a physical and spiritual and emotional part of who you are. But no matter what you say, no matter what you do, no matter what you believe...there is a good chance you will never talk to them or see them or smell them or feel them again.

And for some people they move on. They find someone else to tell their secrets and desires and wishes for the future and problems and cravings and they say THIS IS IT, THIS is the one, THIS is the one whom I love. And right there we've proven it, that we know nothing, that we cannot understand life or feelings or love or any of it.

Let me be straight with you.

I loved a girl once and somehow it all fell apart. And since then I have hung out with a lot of girls. I have gone on dates. I have done things--this and that. I have liked other girls. I have said, "Well, she was great but i'm even MORE compatible with THIS girl, this new girl" I've said these things and I have meant these things. But damn it if there isn't something inside me that absolutely weeps at the thought of all of it.

I have spent countless nights crying to God to turn it all around. To literally reverse time on my behalf. But it never happens because life does not work that way.

I've been reading some Greek tragedies recently. And in the Greek tragedies there is always a protagonist that is faced with impossible circumstances in which no matter what they choose someone is going to lose. Anyway the protagonist always has some flaw that gets in the way and every time a bunch of people end up dead. But the whole point of it, the whole point of all of these stories isn't that we will make the right decisions in life so that we will avoid pain. The whole point is that, if you are a good person you are going to do whatever you can to help others and that often times this means you are going to get fucked. And that's okay. Because life is fragile and being good is a risk.

In the end, looking at all of it, all of it being life so far after 21 years,I would rather try to be a good loving person and get absolutely destroyed by the spears and arrows of this life than to go on living as a calloused individual who never has the audacity to believe in sunlight.

isaac

I Never Thought I Would Become One Of Those People

2009-09-11T05:07:00.007-04:00

I never thought I would become one of those people that feels confused about the way they feel. For a long time I've been someone who knew what they believed, for the most part. I had values. I had goals. I had a real relationship. Life was going somewhere and life made sense. But somewhere along the line some switch get turned from "on" to "off" and not much makes sense anymore. Not life. Not girls. Not God. You start to question one thing and that one thing goes from a "yes" to a "no" and everything else starts to unravel like it's all attached to one big bright red string tied around the finger of the Almighty. Before you know it you find yourself sitting up in bed at six in the morning, listening to Bob Dylan, writing nonsense on a computer that's worth more than some someone's house. You're 21 years old. You're obsessed. You're deprived. Pent up with frustration, anger, sexuality, sadness. Pent up with sadness with nowhere to put it. So you shove it in your closet and in between your bed and the walls but eventually it starts to spill all over the floor. 'Someone walks into your room they can feel it, sadness, dripping down from the ceiling, sticking out your desk drawers. Maybe you're even happy, generally, but people know you're sad. And when you see that look in their eyes, where you've seen that they know you're sad--well that just brings a whole new level of sadness to the situation. No one wants to believe it. You don't want to believe that your life has become defined by it. They don't want to believe that your life has become defined by it. And you don't want to believe that they believe your life has become defined by it.
And no one really knows what to do.

isaac

By Way of the Green Line Bus

2009-09-09T01:21:00.002-04:00

I shaved the beard. The one I grew for her (no, not her) because she was the first girl I knew who liked the way it felt on her face. I had been keeping my face pretty clean but then we started hanging out over the summer and she said, "Actually I like it. I like how it feels on my face." So I kept growing it. And then after things ended, in a way that I now sort of regret (the same way we were "sort of" dating), anyway after things ended I just kept growing it because it kept growing and I'd never seen it so long. So it kept growing and I kept not shaving it. Pretty soon I was unrecognizable to her (yes, that her) and I guess I liked the fact that it was a me that she had never seen. A me that she had never felt or talked to. Or loved.

But then I thought maybe I didn't even recognize myself anymore. Perhaps I had become someone else. Not someone better or worse necessarily but just someone different. So I watched the scene in Royal Tenenbaums right before Richie tries to off himself--you know the scene--where he shaves his head and shaves off his beard and then slits his wrists. Well I watched it and I thought, you know, maybe I've been hiding behind this beard too, and maybe that was a good thing at the time. But maybe now it's time I became myself again. So I went into the bathroom, right, and almost without thinking I began to shave it off and now there's just the stubble, which I left because my razor is really dull. And right away I looked in the mirror and went "There you are!" and i smiled.

But do you remember the scene earlier in the movie, the one called "by way of the green line bus" where Richie sees Margot again for the first time in years? Well I watched that scene too and I thought: Maybe someday I will see another green eyed girl walk off a bus after not seeing her for years and years. And maybe we'll fall in love again, too.

Probably not.

That's still a good movie though.

isaac

I Only Wish He Wasn't Right.

2009-08-31T22:58:00.003-04:00

January 30, 2009
Friday
5:30 PM
A green sweatshirt
slightly falling down
her left shoulder.
Skinny Jeans tucked into
Brown Boots.

Over coffee and cigarettes
Steve-O once told me that
if I could still remember the
the date,
the day of the week,
the time,
and what she was wearing,
then I wasn't ready to move on.

I only wish he wasn't right.

Sick Thoughts

2009-08-31T07:13:00.002-04:00

I woke up really early and I'm bored. Some of this probably isn't going to make much sense.

This is the most (physical) pain I think I've ever been in. My throat is infected, which basically means it has nearly swollen shut, making it extremely painful to talk, eat, drink, swallow, breathe, etc. Essentially all I've done in the last 48 hours is sleep, drink tea, eat soup, eat jello, gargle salt-water, take pills, take really long hot showers (which are actually really disgusting because of all of the things that come pouring out of my face), watch the Office, etc.

But I'm trying to live by the philosophy/theology that whatever place I find myself in is exactly the place I'm supposed to be in, not because of some predestined plan, but because if I'm here then I'm here and it's the only place I'm in and so I must be here. So I began to think about the benefits of this sickness and I began to wonder if perhaps this wasn't necessary for me, to get this rest before the school year. To slow down to a screeching halt. I haven't smoked anything at all in two days. I haven't eaten any bad foods. I have been getting a ton of sleep. I haven't been dehydrated. I'll be the first to tell you that it wasn't as if I NEEDED to get sick so that I could slow down--but I did get sick, and I did slow down, and I'm okay with that.

I won't lie and say it hasn't been difficult. Getting this sick can make you go to depressing places. Waking up in your room at four in the morning in the darkest time of the day, feeling more alone than you ever have. Whenever I am sick I have this contradictory reaction of wanting to be taken care of and wanting everybody to leave me alone. Part of me wants everyone to know that I'm sick and the other part of me wants no one to know about it.

I have just realized that this is the first year of college that I have started without her. This fact, at first, did not seem true to me. But believe me, I've double checked it in my brain over and over again, and it is. I don't know if it means anything, but it makes me sad, in a way. Who knows, maybe it will end up being a good thing.

My first class starts at 9 AM, which is about an hour and a half from now. My guess is that I will go. Around 6 PM last night I started feeling pretty good actually, and since then I have gone back and forth from bad to okay to good to okay, etc. Right now I feel all right, not good at all, but good enough to get through a few classes and all the bullshit of the first day of school. The last first day. The first last first day.

I hope you're all doing well. Just remember, we're all in this together.

isaac

Loss of Innocence

2009-08-28T02:52:00.005-04:00

Almost every year--no matter how old I've been--I cry the night before my first day of school. It's not a cry of fear necessarily, or even anxiety, but a small symbolic gesture as I lose another drop of innocence. Now as I reflect upon the last sentence I've written, it has occurred to me that a majority of the times I've cried in life have been as a result of some loss of innocence in one way or another. A person dies. A person leaves. We say goodbye. We are confronted with truth. Each painful experience tears away at us, leaving behind bloody wounds that will one day lead to the scars that they will call "maturity."

This is my last year to cry before the beginning of the fall semester. Months and months from now, as I walk down the aisle at graduation, it will signal the end to one of the most beautifully childish times in my life.

Without a doubt the most terrifying cries that have left me have been as a result of the great schism that took place seven months ago. Cries of fear. Cries of sadness. Cries of anxiety. Cries of despair. Cries of helplessness. Cries of rage. Cries of anticipation at the murky solitary future. And the scars form. And the scars form.

One day scars will form up over our eyes and it will become impossible to even catch a glimpse of life's fleeting innocence. One becomes so blinded by the scars of their past that tears are no longer acceptable. Fear is no longer acceptable. And children become object lessons. And children become "what we once were and what we only wish we could be." And children go on from laughing to crying as they become what we wish we weren't, which is to say that all of us must fight with everything we have to reverse time in such a way that the wonderful innocence of being able to cry becomes a way of life. One must reverse the tears that signal a loss of innocence with tears of joy, which are a celebratory gesture of recaptured innocence.

I have cried tears of joy in life, which are tears that no girl could ever keep from me. These are tears that break through the scars of unrequited love and tears that break through the scars of death. They are tears of joy at the sight of family, and tears that hide between the pages of Henry Miller novels, and tears that drop off of the innocence-soaked notes that populate Beethoven's 9th, and tears that flow from the eyes of someone who has just learned what it means to be empowered, and tears that gather at the bottoms of our eyes as we gaze upon the peak of Mt. Whitney hitting God's great blue sky, and tears that fall onto the couch as we wait for sleep to overtake us as we listen to our friend sing the most beautiful songs sitting behind her piano.

These are tears that no one can stop. Not politicians, nor police offers, nor school administrators, nor business persons. None of them can stop tears of regained innocence.

And even when I don't feel it, even when all I can think about is her and her hot breath hitting the back of my neck, and her smooth hair running between my fingers, and her beautiful green eyes, her beautiful green eyes, her beautiful green eyes--even when life itself seems to have no meaning outside of her fingers interlocked with mine--even then! salty tears of joy stream down my face as I begin to understand what it means to be a child.

Oh God! Help me to never fear my own tears. And when I sweat the blood of anxiety, give me your strength that is weakness, and your death which is life itself.

isaac

Breathe Easy

2009-08-22T00:34:00.001-04:00

Greek is finally over. I am relieved and ready to relax for a week.

isaac

Untitled Fragment #555

2009-08-18T22:30:00.003-04:00

It fell on me tonight,
as unassumingly as the rain
that fell into my open palms,
that poetry, in its purest form,
is nothing more than human kind's
feeble attempt to share experience
and love
as the rest of creation does--
which is to say--
imperfectly and without language.

isaac

Untitled Fragment #492

2009-08-17T12:03:00.004-04:00

As he gazed across his frozen pond of solitude
he smiled as he realized
he was exactly where he was supposed to be,
if only because it was where he found himself
in that most holy of moments.

Sunday Night

2009-08-17T01:19:00.002-04:00

Found myself somewhat depressed today although not for the normal reasons--which kind of scares me. There was no "event" or person or anything specific that triggered it but I just felt like crying all day. I had an incredible weekend, and coming back to a pile of Greek homework and the impending test tomorrow didn't help, nor did the fact that my car got totaled (probably) after someone hit it while it was parked on the street while I was gone all weekend. Then there's always stuff with the ex-girlfriend-who-I'm-not-allowed-to-mention-by-name-anymore, and by "stuff" I mean absolutely nothing, which, in reality, is something.

Something happened this past weekend that I can't put into words but it may have completely changed my world-view. I hesitate to even write about it because I have no idea what it means or what the implications of it will be. All I know is, it might have something to do with why I've wanted to cry all day (yes, that does contradict what I said at the beginning). I did sort of make two new friends this weekend, which is always nice.

One more week of Greek left. I wish I got another month off before school starts up again...I guess a week will have to do.

I'm ready for imperfect attempts at honest love-existence.
I'm ready to become a thunderstorm.
I'm ready to fly.
Sometimes being ready doesn't mean shit though.

isaac

Jesus Radicals '09

2009-08-14T23:55:00.000-04:00

At my second Jesus Radicals' conference in Memphis, TN. So far it has been a great time and tomorrow looks like it will be good as well. Sometime in the next few days I should be posting some notes I've taken. Hope you're all doing well.

isaac

THE NIGHT IS QUIVERING FROM THE COLD TOUCH OF REALITY

2009-08-04T12:32:00.002-04:00

The night is quivering
from the cold touch
of reality.

Darkness leads to
darkness-thoughts
and the mundane
readiness of childhood’s
dream gives way to
laughter
at the sight of
the hollow shell
of temptation’s
routine.

Will I die tonight?
Will I finally
give in to the
relentless torments
of time?

Will fate finally
give in to
the popular resignation
of choice?

The crowd won’t
let up:
“Be happy!”
“Be Sad!”
“Be Excited!”

Yet I wait
for a consistent
honesty of existence
that is not swayed
by the empty
ruins of a failed
species.

I wait for
times when the
totality of reality
dips its hungry
finger into our
subterranean
moan-and-groan.

Let fear wash over you.
Let madness pound through your veins.
Let love flow down and around
and in and through and over and above.

My life is not defined
by the rigid technicalities
of a talking documentary film.
Nor is it controlled by
the bright badge
that sticks to the fat
assess of our
disposable noblemen.

I live for the sheer joy
of the peak hitting
the horizon.
The bliss of the
open skyway
above the rich
dark road below.

Or the
quiet subtle squirming
of four lips interlocking
into holy union.
The soft caress of
skin and skin and
flesh and flesh.

I live for
wild thoughts of
grand transcendence through
the selfsame coffecups of
middleclass madness.

I live for you.
I live for me.
I live because
living is life and
life is beautiful.
I live because I
am too afraid of
what’s on the other side
of not living.
I live because
I once knew what
love is and it was home.
I once was home but
now I am far away from
that place.
I’ll get there again
someday.

isaac

I Need to Get to Nicaragua...

2009-07-29T13:04:00.004-04:00

I need to get to Nicaragua, and the sooner the better. Life here is getting stale, not because the friends or the coffee or the pie are getting old--but it's the magic--the life-force is gone because only the road can lead to good story-telling, and I haven't been able to get out there in so long, since last spring break. So I need to get out there to Nicaragua to visit my friend Caleb, just the two of us, like last summer in Montreal, dreaming big dreams and walking to nowhere. He's been down there for a month or so and is really making a go of it and I can tell it's stirring him up and I want some of that for myself. I want to meet beautiful-strange Nica women who speak broken english and have dark hair and dark skin and ask them silly American questions that I probably know the answer to but I just want to hear them try to respond. I want to be in a land of revolution to see the heart of it and the brokenness of it and the triumph and the tragedy. I want to be the loud American in the land of the quit, amongst a people who have really worked and lived under the sun for generations and generations.

Caleb said Nicaragua is a country of poets, or some such expression. Well what are we? A country defined by laziness. That may be the universal American quality. Laziness. Laziness of the mind. Laziness of the heart. Laziness of the body. The country of "getting by."

Maybe it's not so bad here, but either way, I need to get down there sometime soon and see this country of poetry, taking only a change of clothes and a pen and a notebook. I'll bring Henry Miller and Kerouac and Bukowski along for the ride and I'll write the story that's been in my head for the last six months.

isaac