desultory

you think of the year as you climb down the stairs
all your saccharine dreams and unanswered prayers
'maybe this is the taste of failure' you hear someone say
as you slide through the door and silently slip away

it seems as if something is missing, you are forgetting...
you shiver as the details fade, the wind-chill besetting
the walk to your car, when you notice across the lot
the face of a stranger who brings a wandering thought

she looks like so many girls that you used to know
in her face and her gait, but her prints in the snow
prove that she is real where the others cease to exist
you reach for your keys and some ineffable wish

sunday night

silent mantle,
dusted picture frames,
rust-colored wall paper
above crusted window panes,
hardwood fades into muted browns and grays,
unlit candles grace the living room
above the forgotten fire place.
outside new snow proceeds,
falls, and collects on old objects,
slowly a new winter bleeds
over places we used to live,
we have forgotten, and gone,
we have moved, and moving on,
this to prove
everything we must make true,
but at what cost, once
we've forgotten our bedrooms.

summer is only slightly missed, in moments of weakness
overcome by memories
of a december tryst.
even so, i see the familiar cove,
the bulrush and the heather stalks,
sun-kissed, the tiger lily spots,
and the fir boughs shadows
stretching across the vacant docks.
i am here. but i hear
face-down, the spectral sound, pleading
of listless waters begging,
entreating, but for what,
for snow? no, for meaning,
for something more than the cycle-seasons
lack of real death, lack of reason,
the water wants out
and all i want is to stay,
but for us, nature provides no such treason.

i remember everything that is,
that was, for all that is, to me
only exists as a memory,
and i cannot fathom how elusive
this thought is, and the profundity
that no one seems to believe.
i can see the snow, and i,
i can feel the ghosts
but i am not afraid,
i just don't want to run away.

bitter pill manifesto

romantic- so do you miss her?

stoic- who?

r- your girlfriend.

s- she wasn't my girlfriend.

r- i thought you two were dating.

s- no, we were together for a month or so but it was never very serious.

r- ah, well, whatever she was, do you think about her much?

s- i don't know. i try not to think about much of anything really. i mean, i guess i do sometimes, i can't forget her or anything, but i'm not losing sleep if that's what your asking.

r- so she wasn't that important to you? i thought you two were pretty close and all.

s- we were, but not so much anymore, so it's like, why worry about it. i mean, it's not worth thinking about, because she's gone. i've moved on, i mean, what's the big deal? i'm not one of those people who invests a lot of meaning into relationships and then feels crushed when it fails, i just don't see the point in it?

r- what good is a relationship if you don't invest yourself in it? it would be meaningless. the point is to be in love, to feel something, to be alive. don't you want to feel alive, or are you just trying to protect yourself?

s- perhaps, i dunno, it just seems like people take themselves too seriously, you know, like their life was some epic drama where they live and die by every relationship. that seems ridiculous to me, like they have an inability to separate fiction from reality. everyone is trying to write their own biography while they're living their lives, dissecting every inane social instability and recording it all on paper or posting it on the internet so that others acknowledge the unique existence that is their life; countless records of an inconsequential life, same details in a different order. people are so insecure, you can talk about individuality and everyone being unique, oh you are an original, but everyone just wants to be recognized, so they'll create any artificial distinction in order to feel like an original, but really they just want someone to acknowledge them.

r- you can't fault people for being emotional, it's only natural. besides who doesn't want friends and to be recognized as an individual? i realize that you don't have a lot of friends and your used to do things on your own, but relationships are important to everyone else. yet you speak of them as if they're all fake or for the weak minded. have you considered the possibility that, perhaps, you were just born without a heart?

s- i've explored that possibility yes, but it seems unlikely. no, i think people create these bloated versions of their lives and the relationships they have to make life feel important, because deep down everyone is insecure and scared that life really is pointless. so they create an arbitrary social matrix in which they can play the role of hero or victim or tragic figure, whatever it is that makes them feel better about themselves. they just distract themselves with their own invented dramas.

r- that's quite impressive, you have reduced everyone's problems to insecurity and an inability to cope with the world, is that about right?

s- close enough, yeah.

r- it must be nice living in that black-and-white tower of yours, not having to come down here with the rest of humanity and worry about things like loneliness or acceptance. it's the human condition my friend, you can act like you're above it, that's cool, but i'd rather live a life of meaning and feeling than live in your passionless, cerebral existence, you say everyone feels alone, well what about you. you're ignoring everything that is human in order to convince yourself that maybe there is no such thing as loneliness.

s- that's not quite how i live actually, i'm just as much of an existentialist as the next guy, probably more so. i realize that life doesn't fit inside a box and life cannot be systematized, i know exactly how you feel, but the difference between you and i is that you romanticize life and try and make it both beautiful and tragic, you wear your heart on your sleeve because the depth of your emotions gives you a sense of purpose and reality. but me, i'm not afraid to embrace the absurdity of life. there's nothing out there, no one can make any sense of things because eventually you grow up to find out the world is not like your parents said it would be, it's been painted with a grey brush and nobody knows what hell we're supposed to be doing anymore. and instead of playing tragic lover like everyone else, i'm trying to cope with the world as best as i can. so you can play drama games if that helps you, but just realize that it's only pretence.

r- pretence? who are you to invalidate my life and everyone else's just because i don't have the same cynical view of the world as you do? i think you're just afraid to put yourself out there because you don't want to feel pain or humiliation or loneliness. how is it, in your mind, that everyone is living only in the semblance of a real life?

s- because somewhere along the line of human history people decided that it wasn't enough to be a person, they had to recognized as such by others around them. it's socialization; you move everyone into bigger cities and tell them they have to compete for their jobs, become rich by selling people crap they don't need, exist among countless strangers, perpetuate a consumer based life-style, and do it all while maintaining a unique personality and without feeling lost. it's universal angst; the postmodern condition, why do you think everyone has thought about suicide at some point in their life, everyone tries to define themself by the clothes they wear or the possessions they acquire; everybody looks like their wearing damn costumes but we call it fashion, people are hopelessly insecure because they feel like the world is swallowing them up and no one is noticing. so you become neurotic, you invert your personality and write out your life like a narrative; relate it to those around so that your story proves that you still exist, you are an individual with real experiences and real feelings. it is the custom to conform your life to whatever art you find to be beautiful and profound; life imitating an art that never had any foundation in reality, so what specter of genuine humanity are we chasing? people are messed up man, and i get that people use their social network to find some corner of the world to call their own, but you gotta remember now and then that it's just your distraction, it's not real.

r- so then what is real? if i'm just inventing all these problems and magnifying all my emotions, if i'm just overly imaginative because i don't want to admit that i feel lost, even though i do anyway, then where is the real, what am i supposed to do? because even if things are as you claim, i'd still live in my 'delusions' because there is nothing else but the cold stale reality in which people have made themselves sick with their own existence, but you can't fix life. so maybe we will buy a new car every few years and wear nice clothes and eat fancy meals while the africans on the t.v. starve and kill each other and the third world is exploited by big business and the different religions kill each other in the name of a good god, but if that's the world than i want nothing to do with it, i'd rather live in my own version.

s- but that's just the problem, everyone is so concerned with their own shit that nobody realizes life has become a figment of our collective imagination, there is no substance, only countless images because it doesn't matter what actually is, only what people believe; as long as people think you're doing fine, as long as you don't let her know how much she hurt you, you just have to be strong and confident because everyone is forming opinions about you, and they are going to judge you whether they realize it or not. there's never enough time to get to know everyone, so we make assumptions and judgments to fill in the blanks, and it doesn't matter if they're right or wrong, because everyone is just acting anyway. so fuck it, why even try.

r- because what's the alternative? you have to find meaning where you can, and once it's gone you just have to make it up for yourself. nobody's going to save the world, so don't sit here and wait to be rescued, alright, you've gotta save your own piece of reality and make it your own, otherwise you're just going to go on living as if nothing mattered, loathing everyone and everything because, to you, a bitter reality is better than a subjective one. i gotta say, that doesn't sound like the ideal situation. besides, look at your parents, look at my parents, it seems like you're only describing young people, older generations don't seem so lonely and uncertain of themselves.

s- no i suppose they don't, but whose to say what different people repress, or even always fail to realize; that life is only in their head. eventually people get married and have kids or become absorbed in some occupation and that's what life becomes about, work and kids and after school sports and weddings and grandkids and anything else to divert your attention from your unnecessary life as it spirals towards nonexistence.

r- huh, well for not being a girlfriend she sure as hell messed you up. your such a downer, kid. you should call her up and get back together so you won't depress your friends so much, hell, i'll call her if you want.

s- well it has nothing to do with her, and we're not getting back together, we never really broke up technically.

r- how's that.

s- because she's dead. she' d been depressed for a long time and finally decided she didn't want to deal with it any more...so there that is...

goodbyes

"Airports are depressing, don't you think?"

"yeah. i have a picture of jesse, heather and i lying in the middle of the phoenix airport. we've got this mexican blanket heather bought the day before, we're covered up and we have this pillow that we're sharing; we're taking a nap or something. i had my new indiana jones hat pulled over my eyes and we all have sunglasses on. all three of us have this hollow expression on our faces; like a mixture of exhaustion and peace. it was right next to the ticket counter, everyone was standing around using up the last of their film, trying not to think about going home; we just laid there on the carpet after we checked our bags because we had nothing to do."

"Do i know jesse and heather?"

"no. you know aaron though, remember him. well anyway he was there. i have a picture of he and i later that morning hugging these stupid, abstract egg-shaped sculptures in the terminal. these giant white things with blue dots."

"I remember aaron, he moved right?"

"yeah."

"Do you still talk to the other two in the picture?"

"no."

"I couldn't imagine working in an airport, you know, like being a ticket-taker or something. everyone there seems so vulnerable and out of place. people try to act like flying doesn't bother them, but they're always apprehensive about going somewhere new or having to say goodbye to all the new people they just met. there is something so temporary, so ephemeral about an airport, it's like a small city where nobody lives but everyone visits for an hour."

"i like to guess which people are leaving and which are going home just by looking at them. sitting in the terminal looking at all these people and giving them homes and lives, guessing which ones are waiting for the same flight as i am, hoping i get to sit next to the girl across from me, until her boyfriend or husband comes over and i pretend to start reading my book again. but maybe he's her brother, probably not though. and when we land some place strange it's home to some of the passengers and some are just catching another flight, or just visiting, but you can't tell. it's weird because you almost expect to see them on your flight home but you never see them again. nobody knows you don't live there, and then you go home and people think might think you're a visitor."

"Whenever i'm at the airport, even if i'm just picking someone up or something, all i can think about are goodbyes. like those movie cliches where someone is left crying in the terminal."

"we tried to have one of those dramatic scenes at an airport once. it was that same day, when we landed jacob and i decided to fake one of those meetings and so he got off the plane first while i waited, i was probably the last one to get off the plane and i ran out of the gate just as jake yelled my name. we ran towards each other and i jumped into his arms like we hadn't seen each other in a year."

"Nice. was everyone staring at you guys?"

"no, not really. there was this asian guy staring at us i remember. it was pretty crowded."

the death of wendy

what an awfully big adventure t'would be
to die so young, so magnanimously

there broods a girl who lies in Kensington;
the child-mother who turned twenty-one,
she stares at the stars while she lays supine
and dangles her feet in the Serpentine.

'oh to be a child, to be a bird
to sing and dance and fly, oh to be cured
of life, and hearts that break and hopes that try
not to give up, oh not to want to die'

how childish love hath wrought so mature a grief
that must she make her bed for his memory,
for his heartless youth and the feeling still
she thought was love...and now her love to kill

so she bends down to kiss the cheek of death
with hero's lips pressed to immortal flesh
and wins her sleep beneath the soft still rill
where mermaids keep and heavens weep their fill

soon a child alights with hands on hips
disheveled hair and the smell of pirate ships...

his breath is short; the child's heart breaks
he sinks to his knees, his head his hands take
bitter tears flow warm as the orphan cries
and curls into a ball as his Wendy dies


What an awfully big adventure t'would be
to die so young, so magnanimously,
to quit this life and grasp the evil hand,
to reach the stars and to never land

four day fragments

she cried, i just stood there
it's hot under these lights--
you get drunk, i'll be our ride
dancing with wine bottles in their hands
pouring rain outside on us
eventually say your last goodbyes
we'll stay here, or go bowling
i think i'll miss you guys
mushroom john just bowled a strike.

he passed the sobriety test
officer i wasn't impressed.
we went to climb the statue
i'll just piss on this wall
the ground won't sway as much
down here there isn't the fall.
we went back to the apartment
i don't remember much after that
except that i threw up before bed.
went down town for coffee next morning
before practice at three--
you guys take shots, we'll get the bucket of balls
annie sliced and then chased after the club--
rehearsal dinner tacos and unfinished ice cream
sneak outside and go sit on the swings
and watch the sun set behind the silo
again and again.

i spent the rest of saturday
looking for a table to belong to,
but everyone was a stranger to me,
so i wandered around pretending i had something to do
wishing i had somewhere to be.
most days i would rather be on my own,
than feeling alone in a crowded place,
you're not really my family, my friends
only empty shirts with a familiar face.

i felt nothing then, but peace and the breeze
feet pumping, sun behind the trees.
i swing and sing the rowing song,
i keep this moment even though it's gone.
time to go back down the hill
you guys drink and we'll play games with brides maids,
al pacino takes three hours to kill deniro
fifteen minutes left an hour ago,
i just want to be coherent tomorrow.

he's not really the one getting married in a half hour
but we'll play along for his free drink
bartender this is the biggest mistake of his life,
our tuxedos make us liars--
2 a.m. stranger, we will give you a ride
so you won't have to stumble down these city streets
don't forget your knives.
she's probably nicer in the daylight

weddings are alright
receptions are depressing
everyone finds tears and wine
but i avoid expressing
anything inside of me
that one might find impressing.
my lack of words, wont to wander
and conclusions drawn about my life
are perhaps the most distressing,
and what i fear i'll never feel
won't always be a blessing

no you didn't slur your speech
i remebered saying the day before
as jim answered the door
still wearing his tuxedo,
he slept on the apartment floor,
on the couch still lay my brother
and we laughed at the parody
of our lives against each other
on a sunday afternoon.
no i can't turn down the sun
idiot

What we do with it

I am an island I cannot escape
So I wade out in the waves
And watch as lives sail by
Hoping that my memory saves
The stories I would have told you.
Slowly I begin to waste away
Losing all that I believe in
You should be here, be part of me
In my mind wandering day dream.
We could pretend everything is alright
We would play castaways
Or some other foolish children’s game
So that we wouldn’t feel alone
And we’ll forget that we’re afraid.
We would play it so beautifully
I would drown you then I'd sink myself
Ten times until we washed ashore
Then lay there pushing sand between our toes
Until we made new hearts to explore.
Oh perfect day of our lonesome lives
Only our childish minds to be our guides
But youth is fleeting and the child dies
On a lonely beach with dirty feet
And this stupid smile I keep inside.
I feel a bit absurd most days, but it’s ok
I just can’t connect the stories of my life
I can only lay them side-by-side
And say they’re fragments and memories
That still hold some meaning to me
The pieces I use to explain
The tidal waves that bring me back here again.

You say that we’ll be rescued some day
And we’ll live better lives in a better place
That sounds quite nice, yes, nice
Tell it to me again tomorrow, or the day after that
Because today it doesn’t mean much to me
I’m still here on this island in this sea
This is what’s real, me, and this place
And the future’s not a boat, it’s only hope
To divert your mind from the life you face.
You're so damn scared of being alone
You refuse to live the only life you've known
And so you've left, and we can no longer connect
This island all to me
And you smiling at the bottom of the sea.

who indeed

Can I blame you for disappointing me? You failed to meet my standard, perhaps the fault is in my standard. Perhaps I should not project my desires onto you and then sulk when you fail to fulfill. I often wonder if I can even know you. I know you are here in the world, but you are to me not what you are to yourself, you are my perception, my interpretation. I objectify you, classify you, I ascribe traits and tendencies, aversions and affinities, so many concepts to define you. But are you more than my categories, can you transcend my adjectives? If you can, then how might you describe yourself? What are you that I cannot reduce to a concept or tendency? Some days I am afraid you might not be anything more than the sum of your actions and proclivities, perhaps nothing more than a collection of memories. I like to think thatÂ’s not true. But all you can ever be is a memory to me; you are never present without me projecting memories mixed with expectations onto you. I am going to pretend there is an essential you and an essential me, but who are we essentially? Can you have a personality without me? Are you only nice because I am mean and only funny because I laugh, only artistic because I am not? Maybe our only relation is relativity. Arbitrary? Sartre and Heidegger have ruined me. I will pretend anyway, because I like you, or the you you are to me. This is only foolishness anyway because what happens when one considers such ideas? If I subtract your humor from you, are you still you? what if I take away yourintelligencee? or your happy disposition? Are you still you? Where do we end and our unessential qualities begin? Tell me you are an individual and I will tell you 'so what'. You are only an individual because you are somehow different from everybody else, your individuality is dependent on everyone else, it's only relative. What is worse than not knowing who you are? Not knowing if you are.

let me down

love without a kiss and we live alone
you feel it more as you drift from home
but what's to feel in your fading words
when my guiding lines are becoming blurred
what i thought was true was thinking true was real
and real was the same for both of us to feel
but i feel lost and you feel regret
you don't care and i am cold and i wish we never met
i wish i could hate you and hate your memory
love him more than you love forgetting me


this too

you pause to think of the past
none of this life...no it won't last
these thoughts are only evanescent
only ever here and then passing present
you wish some days the pain could last
but what we feel is felt so fast
if it lingered some, it might be pleasant
but you can't know what will not stay
and time you learn is wont to stray
so how can we feel at home
when home is but to feel alone
tell me now the words i must pray
this too shall pass some better day
you pause...

musings

from the library:
why are there potted plants all over the library? am i going to forget i'm inside, this isn't a foliage zoo. why don't they just put the plants outside and let them freeze, they aren't fooling me.

from the coffee shop:
feeling levity in moments of despair, sad songs that make you smile and you are at peace because you know everyone else is also a heartbroken failure, worse still are those who aren't, those who realize their dreams meant more when they were unfulfilled, now they know the let-down of a dream realized. i smile at despair because i feel most alive when i am the lowest, and smiling in such circumstances makes me feel absurd, and most days absurdity is the only genuine feeling left and the only word that still means what you think it does.

how do you deal with disappointment; when those you don't even know, but would like to, seem to let you down, your idols turn into blocks of wood and the world is a lesser place when you find out they are flawed, when you realize they are just like you.

maybe we feel like saving people sometimes because we want to be saved ourselves, and we think there is some personal redemptive quality in saving someone else, long since given up on being saved ourselves, whether we admit it to ourself or not, maybe if we're someone's savior then they'll get to feel that which we wish we could.

the girl across from me is staring out the window like she is waiting for someone, but she is slowly realizing that she will be alone tonite, so she looks with an empty gaze at the cars in the drive through and imagines that someone, anyone is coming to meet her. she has nowhere to be so she'll look out the window a while longer until she's finally tired of feeling stood up and leaves, her embarrassment and hurt will turn bitter.

poems about no one and danny

October 11
lovers kiss where lips don't touch
eyes wide open staring clutch
her attention and her guile
in the shape of her faint smile
and we're not looking away
when the games that we'll play
died in this, moment of bliss
these seconds when our eyes kiss
i know you'll remember this

September 4
sunday afternoon early september
i'm missing the days that i remember
sitting on a red pew in this wedding tomb
friends and some flowers and an ill-lit room
celebrate the triumph of her gender
and ceremony of his blissful doom
a funeral for his youth's surrender

November

My November Guest
My sorrow, when she's here with me
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted gray
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolates, deserted tress,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauty she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reasons why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of Bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

Frost.

Revulsion
Though I waste watches framing words to fetter
Some unkown spirit to mine in clasp and kiss,
Out of the night there looms a sense 'twere better
To fail obtaining whom one fails to miss.

For winning love we win the risk of losing,
And losing love is as one's life were riven;
It cuts like contumely and keen ill-using
to cede what was superfluously given.

Let me then never feel the fateful thrilling
That devestates the love-worn wooer's frame,
The hot ado of fevered hopes, the chilling
That agonizes disappointed aim!
So may I live no junctive law fulfilling,
And my heart's table bear no woman's name.

Hardy.

Ode to a Nightengale
...Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--
To thy high requiem become a sod.

Keats

R. Frost

A Late Walk

when i go up through the mowing field,
the headless aftermath,
smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
half closed the garden path.

and when i come to the garden ground,
the whir of sober birds
up from the tangle of whithered weeds
is sadder than any words.

a tree beside the wall stands bare,
but a leaf that lingured brown,
disturbed, i doubt not, by my thought,
comes softly rattling down.

i end not far from my going forth,
by picking the faded blue
of the last remaining aster flower
to carry again to you.


Reluctance

out through the fields and the woods
and over the walls i have wended;
i have climbed the hills of view
and looked at the world, and descended;
i have come by the highway home,
and lo, it is ended.

the leaves are all dead on the ground,
save those the oak is keeping
to ravel them one by one
and let them go scraping and creeping
out over the crusted snow,
when others are sleeping.

and the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
no longer blown hither and thither;
the last lone aster is gone;
the flowers of with hazel wither;
the heart is still aching to seek,
but the feet question "whither?"

ah, when to the heart of man
was it ever less than treason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of love or a season?

Candles

it's my birthday tomorrow,
no one here could know,
i was born this thursday
twenty-two years ago.
and i feel stuck watching history repeat me
well am i just a kid who knows he's needy



Something's stirring in the trees
a stale air does move the leaves
it holds me here, this ill-birthed breeze
float you grey-hued feather
from the tangled heather
the sober song of a bird then cried
you were born the day that summer died

early august

i walk the mowing fields
uniform golden stalks cut down
combed, pathed and thatched
revealing furrowed ground
to the edge of the field
fir limbs and pine boughs
reach from the dark wood hollows
to the new and uncut fields
where the stalks and stems stand tall
full with no machine-line shadows
their heavy whiskered heads
lean sideways as if to hear
songs of birds
thoughts of bees
and rabbits words
the sun lurking in the west
on the glowing jagged crest
crowned with golden praise
and outstretched rays
to burn the mountain breast
now the valleys fade
into dark-hued hilltop shade
turn the corner to where the hay is laid
in soft feathered rows
combed smooth in lines
and sleep in repose
to the southwest corner
where the elm and birch trees
stand round tina's old house
and ill-kept yard
freckled with dead leaves
like some memories discard
turn left
behind; the salmon colored sky
where there was sun
and polar pink-hued purple
where there is none
and this old tar road
no lines or curbs
nor signs but those
that farmers and grandparents chose
for foreigners to mind
a single cricket finds my ear
finds it well
and plays as if to praise
or soon cast a spell
on the pale sliver in the sky
to bring it low, or take him high
one last turn around hopper and peck
on this road that seldom winds
all bare save the poles
and the their two power lines
come to the parsonage
and the old church van
the yellow ped-sign
with the black stick man
walking with a floating head
and appendagless hand
the road we used to walk
sometimes i still do