DUST JACKET PROJECT

this is a song i wrote, recorded, produced, everything from my...

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

this is a song i wrote, recorded, produced, everything from my bedroom.
i wrote it for a girl i love with all my heart.
she doesn’t understand that love. i’m hoping some day she does.
i miss her.

Paper Cranes

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Your hands are keeping busy
And your eyes are sitting pretty
You’re looking through the darkness
And squinting hard to see me

All I need are these hearts and paper cranes
Pieces of parchment, folded in unusual ways
Scribbles, scraps, and receipts, that forget to get thrown away
I drop my coins on the ground because I can’t hold anymore change

“This is Not an Exit” reads a paper sign crudely taped to a sliding convenience store door. The...

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

“This is Not an Exit” reads a paper sign crudely taped to a sliding convenience store door. The clerk’s eyes wander from the door to the flask of whiskey he’s hiding behind the counter—as if subconsciously making the connection. as if wishing that someone had told him the same thing. This is not an exit. The alcohol constantly permeating his body is not a way out. it doesn’t allow him the ability to leave. drunk or sober, it’s the same fucked up world. a constant drunken stupor won’t bring back the deceased. it won’t make her fingertips brush against his shoulder like they used to. it’s only a time machine in that it steals time. arms on his clock pass with his permission as he waits for his skin to shrivel and his hearing to wain. while all along he knows that this is not an exit.

“My hell is a closet I’m locked inside.” So much to say. So much to say. So much to say and no one to say it to. The day before my nineteenth birthday. I have waited damn near nineteen whole years of my life without telling anyone who I really am. Without telling potential loves how I really feel. I’m wondering how I could do this to myself. Now it’s almost too big to contain. I watch Ted from across the room. The voice of reason. The kind eyes and sincere smile. He would never judge. He wouldn’t feel uncomfortable. He’s a dude with no romantic interest in me, why would he? I’m debating silently whether it would be right to burden him with my secret. i’ve been afraid of burdening others all my life. if there’s anything i’ve learned in these eighteen years and 364 days, it’s that keeping quiet is what has led to my greatest unhappinesses. it’s not that others haven’t suspected. but maybe i’m just too good at lying— or maybe i’m completely transparent. i’ve always worn my heart on my sleeves. Not by choice, that’s just where my heart resides. Except in cases such as these. this is my hell.

Emperor Temari

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Emperor Temari

The Brim of the Brim

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

President says, Wyse man says, they all say but I try to listen

failing, of course

Why we stop and breathe and reminisce and meditate, absorb heat and zen and blues and greens.
But my life operates as a sort of mass reproduced signature of
currents that have been rippling since Little Boy started to cry.
I am a product of production, and an image of that which I wish would shrivel and shadow the corner.

(then why haven’t I stopped it?)

The buzzes alert me, and my world is complete.

love takes work, from both sides one walks away the other is...

Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

love takes work, from both sides one walks away the other is more than likely going to look back to make it work.

Daily Destruction

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Daily Destruction

These empty pages are tearing me upThey are wasted nightsand wasted thoughtsIt’s time to come...

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

These empty pages are tearing me up
They are wasted nights
and wasted thoughts
It’s time to come back
and fill them all up

Time to be alive again,
roll the windows down, no inhibitions
Time for two in the morning:
Wake up don’t forget this

Lose the tingle of feeling numb
and bring on the sting of real life’s return
All that’s bottled up,
time to pour it out

Let it soak through this book
distorting all in its path
To smudge all the words, let the lines disappear
Dripping with feeling,

it’s all I can hear It’s all that I want, and all I can have
To let it all go
The good and the bad

If only this moment could have lasted.

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

If only this moment could have lasted.

a letter to ts eliot

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

i’ve measured my life out in coffee spoons.
i’ve seen every morning,
evening,
and afternoon.

in all the world what’s left for me?
books to write and none to read.
there’s nothing left for me to read,
except the headlines in the morning,
when i open up my door and read the sad news,
i have often wondered “can i take anymore?”

but -
first things first.
are we better off alone, or are we worse?
for leaving early and going home,
writing painful love songs and little poems,
for no one but ourselves.

over china cups full of tea,
the couples whisper words of jealousy.
jealousy,
will eat you up someday.

through empty halls and cold staircases,
worthless talk and listless faces,
listless faces,
come and haunt me in my dreams.

over rusted hinges and window panes,
searching for a familiar face,
one i remember or recall
from before
the fall of man
when you first
held my hand
i fell for you like the rain in spring
or a dead leaf falling from a tree.

im a wasteland on a foggy evening.
a little lonely bit of being.
being lonely never hurt me.

mr eliot, won’t you write me something
like from when you were young
and still in love.
please, write me something,
like you mean it.

Africa

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

She is a harsh mother with a blood red eye in the morning birth, tree black silhouettes sit in her like wind ripped visions of the night. A hot iron molding cut figures, bronze in their work so pulled and tried in their breath. Everyone taken is a gift, a telling of the singularity of life; one pull and one push. One less to die.

How massive she is, and oh how small!

The ground is stained red from forgotten peace. Like a drifter, a lone shroud in a restless, smoke-birthed crowd; peace is unknown. A white garment too soft for this place. The very air is thick like steam. Lungs expand and fill the body with an intensity cutting into the soul fringed lining below. No longer are the battles internal, here they have eyes, heads that turn toward you and smile.

Watches die here. There is no time to lift the tired hands and gears.

The four winds have come bringing all the west, east, north and south have to offer but still time will not arrive. Its strings strung so effortlessly in other parts of the world grow tangled in the sun baked air.

Immobile and heavy, tradition is presence. Lost bread is reclaimed in guilt-drenched heads of flesh and dirt, eyelids closing under the curtains of life’s dark glare. The crazed monster with seven heads and countless stone held fists is a cliff at water’s edge calling so loudly for mortal concession.

Guns pass each other on the shoulders of walking chests, screaming to one another in the itch of boredom. Weapons have one purpose and they seethe like molten sheets of parted earth to be used. They groan against peace like a hogs in death, slaughtered behind the hut with strands of a life-long rope still clinging to their black-haired hide.

There is a boiling under the surface that outsiders choose not to see, but Africans are not fooled. The seething molten plates give off heat their calloused hands have touched and their harder eyes have seen.

Photo

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I took this picture of my dad and my nephew on their first...

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I took this picture of my dad and my nephew on their first fishing trip together…what a day!

Poison Oak

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Last night the gray dogs at the foot of my bed
Brandishing teeth toward hairs on my head
Through the forest they followed my scent
To remind me of the people I’ve been
And to show that they’ve known
Of poison oak on my arm.

Photo

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Doors lead you places and take you away. They let you in and...

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

Doors lead you places and take you away.
They let you in and out, they are everywhere but seldom do we notice them.
Doors open and they close, they open up to a new environment and close
the space that is between.
Some doors are new, other are old, some are locked, and many are wide open.
Lets open wide the doors and walk through to the new and the exciting.
Lets notice the steps we take, and the changes in life that happen.

echo

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

slouched to my lamplight, as i do in bed
compliant prisoner to the rapping of the rain outside and the stretched shadows on my walls
i stared at a spot on my ceiling, in between thoughts
there was a split second where the quiet in my head grew too loud
it was then i snapped out of one reverie an onto another
looking up from my notebook and getting out of bed in one swift motion
i found myself walking slowly down a hallway
my right arm lay stretched out to the side, touching its walls
the cream color of the hall made it seem well lit and inviting, though just to pass it by
it was coming from a door painted in a tired cracked shade of green
pressing my hand up to touch it, as if to feel its pain
i felt it. - in the way i heard your guitar cry
and i have come to your door to tell you i have the lyrics to your song

This picture is a sunrise from a mountain near where I live in...

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

This picture is a sunrise from a mountain near where I live in Oregon. I love sunrises. They signify a new beginning, and you can make the day whatever you choose.

Welcome Back Bukowski

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

I left the northern coast of California because the suffocating presence of my family required my immediate departure. I lose my coat in Fresno. I hitch up to Redding where I stay in the most asinine hotel room haunted by the ghosts of strangled prostitutes. I find a tooth under the covers and subsequently have insomnia thinking of what outlandish scenario could have placed my ivory trinket beneath my sheets like a modern day princess and the pea. I wake up early and catch a bus north. I stop in Weed California which is just as hilarious as it sounds. A one stop town that, as far as I can tell, makes its revenue by selling t-shirts and memorabilia with “I heart Weed CA” to middle class suburban kids who pass through on their way to ski resorts. I buy two postcards and a shot glass. I like to buy local. In Portland I meet a nice boy on the bus who comes on to me talking about rugby and asks to come visit me in Vermont, the Oregon of the east coast he says. I take down his number, but I don’t call. I never call. I visit old friends and am surprised by how much I love the city. I watch “streets of fire” with other hipsters in a bar / movie theater and walk off my buzz over the bridge caching glimpses of the beautiful summer skyline. I hitch out with an ex-forest ranger who is late picking me up and has a car packed like a sardine can. He and his two friends are heading to Rhode Island by way of Denver. I have never seen the northwest and of it, I can only say that it is like getting hit in the face with a stick of gum. The air is so crisp. I see the center of the universe which is located curiously in Wallace, Idaho, which is also where Dante’s Peak was filmed. Coincidence, I think not. I ask for directions to a cheese shop at a supermarket in Missoula, Montana and am laughed out of the store. I see Yellowstone and old faithful which I am convinced is a conspiracy to get tourists to come and get them to buy merchandise. There is no way I will believe that a geyser goes off so routinely. I witness the sunset on the Grand Tetons, where a crow perches next to me on a piece of drift wood, and tells me that the future is going to be dark but exciting. The anticipation is palpable. I eat ice cream in Big Piney, Wyoming for my birthday, and follow it up with a truck stop breakfast where I wear an absurd ten gallon hat while minimum wage mothers sing corporate songs of celebration. I land in Denver with both feet running. I scour the parks and streets for a friend of a friend who came from Africa to lead me though this maze. I find him with other anarchists who, after giving me the serious size up, welcome me into their fold. I suspect they think I am an informant, and so to prove myself to them I work hard, and while I am not an anarchist, I find something valuable and interesting about the lifestyle. They teach me things about cooperation and community that any job never could. I get swept up in a sea of public dissent. I am maced on my birthday and have a mild panic attack. The police looked like storm troopers and I think about the power of the state and am scared for my future for we are allowed no mode of discourse and are so effectively shut down with such brutality I begin to think that Gandhi and non-violence is bullshit. The anarchists offer me a place to stay, which is good because I hear the cops are picking up people sleeping in the park. I find a typewriter in a tree, stowed away for a special day, it doesn’t work. I am taught by a freedom fighter how to patch and repair a tire of a fixed gear bike. Hipsters and anarchists aren’t that different after all. A man, who sees me with a flat, can’t help and so instead returns 10 minutes later with some chocolate, which I promptly eat. While preparing food for the march I am harassed by anti gay protesters, who apparently link punk and anarchists with homosexuals, a link that befuddles me. So in reaction, we all walk over to the men with mega phones and have a big gay makeout party. Then Jesus shows up and all hell breaks loose. I am interviewed by a reporter from the associated press who wouldn’t email me the photograph he took of me because of liability reasons. I am irritated by this. I make a sign out of cardboard and tape it to my chest advertising that I need a ride to St. Paul and that I am desperate. It attracts many people who need rides themselves and I subsequently become the patron saint of travel. I find a guy who offers to give me a ride in exchange that I listen to his manifesto, I have no other options and reluctantly agree thinking perhaps it will expand my mind. His off kilter enthusiasm makes me uncomfortable and I spend the rest of the day acting out hitchhiker death scenarios that my mother so graciously implanted within my psyche. I rescue hopeless souls from the purgatory of the rideless and organize a little caravan. I chain myself to a bike for a protest against cars. I have never been tied to anything before. I work all night long with anarchists to prepare 2,000 burritos for a march, all the materials are stolen from dumpsters. It is amazing the amount and quality of food that we throw away in this country. I fall asleep in a pile of flour tortillas. Performance art, and commentary, beer and friends are central to an anarchist variety show that marks the close of a good week. Two boys are asked by a man to drive his van from Denver to New York and in turn ask if I need a ride. I said yes. My attempts to ditch the manifesto writer fail and so we smoke some pot hoping that will mellow him out. He talked of paranoid schizophrenic visions in the twilight of the Midwest and asks if we are prepared to die. This question strikes me, and I can honestly answer, yes. I smoke too much pot and become nervous that people think I am writing about them in my journal. While the others embrace slumber, I embrace funyons and Pepsi and the long road through midnight with another rucksack wanderer as a companion. As the sun rises over Iowa, we eat a diner and I am reminded of high school and all the trials and tribulations that I escaped to make it out alive. I feel nostalgic and concerned that I am not as young as I once was. The idea suddenly dawns on me that this might be one of my last great adventures. I was filled with sorrow over coffee and eggs. We arrive in St. Paul to stories of people arrested at their homes during the night. Secret police lurk around every corner. More and more I envision the empire. Compatriots of ours sent ahead to scout out the scene are already in jail, and people are being collected off the street. Thank god I don’t look like an anarchist. Again we search for housing and end up with a girl with pink dreadlocks. We sleep on the floor near hypodermic needles but I adopt a don’t ask don’t tell policy. She has never been part of any demonstration before so we took her out on the first day and promptly get her arrested. There are many more people than in Denver, and as a result more police, national guards, CIA, FBI and secret service. Protesters fight back hard, and at every turn are crushed by police. The Gestapo cut off all the access to downtown and arrest everyone inside. My friends are arrested, so is Amy Goodman. I take photographs and run into the AP reporter again. I believe this is fate so I tell him I am studying to be a photojournalist and get his card. I ask him again for the photo to which he still says no. Immediately following our conversation he gets pepper sprayed. Karma, I think to myself and snap his photograph to send him later. My justice nerve spasms, I no longer know the difference between right and wrong. I am discouraged and frustrated at the supremacy of the state. The media, the police, the roads all controlled. I stand with my brothers and sisters with our hands in the air blockading an interaction demanding the release of our friends and the right to protest near the republican army. We are shot at, and gassed. In a mass of confusion, with my eyes watering and bombs going off, I think this is what freedom fighters in other countries the US has invaded must be going through. And in that moment our spirits are linked and I feel part of a kindred revolutionary movement. I scream the name of my friends and searched for them out as the smoke builds and builds. I can’t breath, I can’t see, I can’t hear, I can only yell and feel my way with my hands. Police snatch people who get to close and drag them, by arms or by hair, screaming into smokey alleyways. I find my friend who has been maced and attempt to clean his eyes before we are both shot with rubber bullets by a line of police moving in to arrest us. He loses his glasses, and I lose my lunch. We run and run and run some more. We make it out of the battleground, scared, tired, sick and disheartened. We were never meant to speak out. It is all a song and dance. The media does not even report it. After four days of the same narrative, I leave Minnesota and head south to Chicago. I reconnect with old friends again and realize that nothing can stay the same. I have nothing in common with them anymore, and the realization dawns on me over vegan cheesecake. I say goodbye to the younger version of myself and embrace the adult. I am removed from my childhood and have seen much in my time. I feel detached from my peers for they are stagnant. They remain still and I zoom along. I am surrounded by slow-motion mannequins everyday. I board a plane in Philly, return to Vermont and no longer know who I am.

Ballad of a Burned Out Man

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 00:00:00 -0500

He was roasted from the inside out
His heart was in a drought And the locals couldn’t help but see
He’s not like you and me But they knew to leave him be
There’s plenty more like him you see
Who moved away down by the sea
Underneath they’re just like you and me Just like you and me…

He lived in town in days before
In times when he did want for more
Until that fire tore through his soul
And turned his heart to coal
The fire was lit by a confused dame
She didn’t mean to spark that flame
Just not the place she wants to be
Underneath she’s just like you and me
Just like you and me…

So he packed his things, that burned out man
He didn’t even have a plan
Just headed up the coastal road
To a place he didn’t know
To a place where he could be
Free from all the things he’d seen
Where by himself, he could be
Underneath he’s just like you and me
Just like you and me…

So when you see that burned out man
With burned out heart and flames for hands
Don’t be put off by the scars he bears
Because he really cares
About everyone, and everything
But some silly girl took away that thing
The thing that’s there to help us see
That underneath he’s just like you and me
Just like you and me….