Stale and cold, a dead end up here. The men at the bar would sit on these stoold until the end of time, sipping beer and lost in the glory days of the past. I had shanked, cut, peeled and eaten fish for two long years, filling my pocket with money but leaving my spirit hooked on the door of the small shanty where I lived. I had stayed in this village of slaves to the sea too long, drinking my beer in this seat everyday, trying to kill the boredom between bouts of sailing. But, as I stood up and looked around, there comes a day when the spirit of a man can no longer be shoved aside and instead demands to be heard upon his whole being! That day had come and, thus liberated I no longer felt the shackles of finance and comfort. A man stumbled in suddenly, letting in a shower of white flakes to fall on the dirty sawdust of the floor. I was there, before the door could fall shut, with fingers gripping the wood and throwing it open. Outside the door snow blanketed everything, the fringe land of a solemn and uncaring world. I shrugged my pack on and took a deep breath. "The first step is always the hardest," I muttered. The first step on an unknown journey into a world that cared nothing for heroes or dreamers. The second step followed the first, a little easier. Soon I had faded into the snowy mists, away from the warmth of the firelight that was the small village. The falling snow covered the footprints behind, leaving no path behind and no direction but forward.
It has now been two months since I left that little corner of stagnant comfort and I sometimes miss the steady arduous work to lose myself in. But it is my first time in the coastal waters of Washington and I find the myriad tiny islands, scattered about like flower petals in the rain, strangely appealing. In Canada I met with a vagrant girl looking to make it to California and so volunteered to accompany her for some time. Since then we have made a leisurely pace affecting the role of lovers from Europe researching locations for a book. We have chartered many a boat to visit sometimes gloomy islands, sometimes fantastical bastions of peace and silence. Great forests of green rise out of gray bedrock with blankets of fog threading through the trees. The locals are at once rude and extremely jealous of their privacy yet often turn suddenly about and share all they have with wanderers such as us. It is as if they wish to make sure you carry no taint or trace of the great city that haunts the west coast of the Pugent Sound before they dare show any honesty. I spent many a night on these small beaches, a roaring fire and good friends all around. Often the night held strong and clear, the atmosphere made magical by the popping embers trailing off into the starry night. But I still can`t quite quell the desire for something more, something complex that exists in my mind as a jumbled knot of images and ideas.
So I have again left another life behind, one of possible peace and fulfillment in rustic living to seek out a vague calling. I am on a boat bound for the city of Seattle. A city I have heard spoken of as one of contradictions: enlightenment in its open-handedness towards all life-styles; cynical and hypocritical with each other. A land of towers reaching to the sky, of buildings designed to the whims of a man`s artistic muse. Yet word reaches my ear of people that suffer in slums and back-alleys, fight over ideology and the right to love. I cannot even believe to hear about the constant stream of cars, noise and arguments that fill the city to the brim. All, though, fade into a mere gnat`s buzzing at the first sight of Seattle`s profile rising up to the horizon across the ocean. Such shapes, so boldly raised and proclaimed! So bright and young, how orderly the arrangements of lines appear! "Surely here," I thought "here I could make it. Here I could find a ground fertile enough for what I wanted to do."
The boat drew nearer to the city, the buildings growing in size and detail until I could see the busy lives of the very people that inhabited it. "There" I stabbed a finger outward, talking for the future, "there. In the cement and glass, in the streets and squares, in the garbage and poor, and in the beautiful and pure, there I will learn this city, there I will find my answer and there I will plant a seed to save the world."
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Love in Lavender
"Two stars in all the heavens, having some business elsewhere, did entreat her eyes to sparkle in their stead. Her eyes shone so bright that had there been birds there they would have sung, thinking that it were not night. Her voice arose through the darkness, echoing in my ears, stroking with heavenly harmonies the very strings of my soul. And if it was only a night spent in her presence, it was a jewel of brilliance streaming through the airy regions of my memory bright and strong."
I put this poem deep in the filing cabinet in the corner of my cubicle. It had been two days since I met her, two days of anguish, spent shifting through accounting paperwork while I tried to quiet the heartache for her. But I couldn`t and it was slowly eroding my waking life. The affairs of the office now seemed so trivial, everything muted to a dull buzz next to the memory roaring in my head. Sam comes by to talk shop but its all I can do to just keep a professional face and I hear nothing of his questions. Jill, the secretary, who flirts with subtle undertones dropped by to say hi but all I see is the face of that lovely, mysterious girl. What do you do when love finds you unexpectedly and strikes with the passion of old? Love born not from a conscious choosing, a conscious desire of any collection of traits but romance, full of heart-searing endearment. What do you do when you find her......and lose her in the space of a night?
It was among a field of lavender and a backdrop of a burning sunset that we first met. A flier for the summer lavender festival over on the Olympic Peninsula had caught my eye and I was soon on a ferry bound for the far shore. I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon with butterflies and ladybugs aflutter in the air. The festival was setup around a large field of lavender overlooking the Pugent Sound with a dense, green forest surrounding. Food vendors and local artists had set up booths on the outskirts of the field and there was a large stage set smack in the middle of the blowing flowers. It was a beautiful setting and it took my mind off the dreary work I had waiting for me on Monday. So I spent the comfortable hours of a summer afternoon wondering among wares and attempting to catch the flowers in some resemblance of an artistic photograph.
The day progressed; shadows grew long; light becoming golden and setting a yellow halo behind every small stem of lavender that still blew faintly in the summer evening. In line with the general atmosphere and character of the people, a beautiful melody began to emanate from the clearing in the field. A trio of musicians stood tall, caressing from the strings of their violins a light but curiously deep rhythm. I was content there, to listen to the floating sounds and feel the summer night approaching. And at that moment the world as I knew it was sane and predictable and demanded nothing from me other than certain compromises. I saw my life then stretching out into perpetuity: step by step to the end. It was to change with the sip of apple cider.
I stood on the edge of the field, the hot beverage at my lips when I saw her. My heart aches even now when I think of her sitting there on a bench, hands folded in her lap watching the coming sunset. I was drawn over by the child-like intensity that she seemed to regard everything with. My second impression was of listening to her own music; something lost to others, a true individual melody. So it was that I had to repeat my offer of some cider before she lifted her eyes to mine. Ah, they were so pure and clear, free of any weight of the world. Her smile when she said yes was so plain and full of enjoyment I felt we had known each other for many a year. Her voice was soft like velvet and during the first few moments of shy conversation I felt a growing fondness for this young girl whose eyes glowed with an almost maniac energy. It felt like love and yet it was not, like a great pain but with no source.
I barely got her name before she laughed and suggested walking off into the field to view the sunset. So we stood there, the fragrance of lavender blending with the smell of earth and nature on the wind. I can`t remember what we talked about nor when I acted but I found myself listening to the drifting melody of a solo violin and holding her hand in a soft embrace. In my memory now there stands the two of us: waist deep among the flowers in a easy silence of understanding. Black silhouetted against a sky filled with an explosion of orange radiating from a brilliant globe of fire. Even as the world turned and the color faded, it did so just as passionately- leaving pale arcs of dying embers in the far off clouds. The stars came out in all their magnificence and filled the night with awe and wonder. We sat down on the cut stalks of sold flowers then and talked of philosophy, day-dreams and our secret hopes, things that seem so irrelevant in the light of day yet fuel the fire of life in the black darkness of night.
Not once did we talk of where we lived, what we did or even consider meeting again. Was that fate? To find love so strongly that it must exist only for a night or else burn out those involved? I don`t know and it drives me crazy; for we left the festival separately, each saying goodbye and our hands pulling apart reluctantly; the fingertips lingering together in a silent message of how much we wanted to say.
The four walls of a cubicle surround me now, pop music plays from a neighbors radio and I drown in paperwork every minute. But it fades and I think of her and feel a blazing heat of sadness and melancholy immediately supplanted by the desire to search the world for her. That feeling does not fade. I lean back against my computer chair and think of the days to come, days of her occupying my thoughts and dreams, long days of heart-numbing work and empty nights alone. My friends say "Time will heal the pang, memories will fade. Just give it time." In the midst of all this pain of thinking and dreading I can no longer see the future clearly and its as if a bell has rung my head clear. I don`t want the pain to go away and I don`t want the memories to fade because it her in my mind and they are all I have. And if the future is unclear and no longer a straight path to a dreary end then I have a choice.
It is another day and the bright morning sunshine fills me with an amazing strength and standing in the waving fields of lavender I feel hope that from this beginning, this choice, I will find her.
I put this poem deep in the filing cabinet in the corner of my cubicle. It had been two days since I met her, two days of anguish, spent shifting through accounting paperwork while I tried to quiet the heartache for her. But I couldn`t and it was slowly eroding my waking life. The affairs of the office now seemed so trivial, everything muted to a dull buzz next to the memory roaring in my head. Sam comes by to talk shop but its all I can do to just keep a professional face and I hear nothing of his questions. Jill, the secretary, who flirts with subtle undertones dropped by to say hi but all I see is the face of that lovely, mysterious girl. What do you do when love finds you unexpectedly and strikes with the passion of old? Love born not from a conscious choosing, a conscious desire of any collection of traits but romance, full of heart-searing endearment. What do you do when you find her......and lose her in the space of a night?
It was among a field of lavender and a backdrop of a burning sunset that we first met. A flier for the summer lavender festival over on the Olympic Peninsula had caught my eye and I was soon on a ferry bound for the far shore. I arrived on a sunny Saturday afternoon with butterflies and ladybugs aflutter in the air. The festival was setup around a large field of lavender overlooking the Pugent Sound with a dense, green forest surrounding. Food vendors and local artists had set up booths on the outskirts of the field and there was a large stage set smack in the middle of the blowing flowers. It was a beautiful setting and it took my mind off the dreary work I had waiting for me on Monday. So I spent the comfortable hours of a summer afternoon wondering among wares and attempting to catch the flowers in some resemblance of an artistic photograph.
The day progressed; shadows grew long; light becoming golden and setting a yellow halo behind every small stem of lavender that still blew faintly in the summer evening. In line with the general atmosphere and character of the people, a beautiful melody began to emanate from the clearing in the field. A trio of musicians stood tall, caressing from the strings of their violins a light but curiously deep rhythm. I was content there, to listen to the floating sounds and feel the summer night approaching. And at that moment the world as I knew it was sane and predictable and demanded nothing from me other than certain compromises. I saw my life then stretching out into perpetuity: step by step to the end. It was to change with the sip of apple cider.
I stood on the edge of the field, the hot beverage at my lips when I saw her. My heart aches even now when I think of her sitting there on a bench, hands folded in her lap watching the coming sunset. I was drawn over by the child-like intensity that she seemed to regard everything with. My second impression was of listening to her own music; something lost to others, a true individual melody. So it was that I had to repeat my offer of some cider before she lifted her eyes to mine. Ah, they were so pure and clear, free of any weight of the world. Her smile when she said yes was so plain and full of enjoyment I felt we had known each other for many a year. Her voice was soft like velvet and during the first few moments of shy conversation I felt a growing fondness for this young girl whose eyes glowed with an almost maniac energy. It felt like love and yet it was not, like a great pain but with no source.
I barely got her name before she laughed and suggested walking off into the field to view the sunset. So we stood there, the fragrance of lavender blending with the smell of earth and nature on the wind. I can`t remember what we talked about nor when I acted but I found myself listening to the drifting melody of a solo violin and holding her hand in a soft embrace. In my memory now there stands the two of us: waist deep among the flowers in a easy silence of understanding. Black silhouetted against a sky filled with an explosion of orange radiating from a brilliant globe of fire. Even as the world turned and the color faded, it did so just as passionately- leaving pale arcs of dying embers in the far off clouds. The stars came out in all their magnificence and filled the night with awe and wonder. We sat down on the cut stalks of sold flowers then and talked of philosophy, day-dreams and our secret hopes, things that seem so irrelevant in the light of day yet fuel the fire of life in the black darkness of night.
Not once did we talk of where we lived, what we did or even consider meeting again. Was that fate? To find love so strongly that it must exist only for a night or else burn out those involved? I don`t know and it drives me crazy; for we left the festival separately, each saying goodbye and our hands pulling apart reluctantly; the fingertips lingering together in a silent message of how much we wanted to say.
The four walls of a cubicle surround me now, pop music plays from a neighbors radio and I drown in paperwork every minute. But it fades and I think of her and feel a blazing heat of sadness and melancholy immediately supplanted by the desire to search the world for her. That feeling does not fade. I lean back against my computer chair and think of the days to come, days of her occupying my thoughts and dreams, long days of heart-numbing work and empty nights alone. My friends say "Time will heal the pang, memories will fade. Just give it time." In the midst of all this pain of thinking and dreading I can no longer see the future clearly and its as if a bell has rung my head clear. I don`t want the pain to go away and I don`t want the memories to fade because it her in my mind and they are all I have. And if the future is unclear and no longer a straight path to a dreary end then I have a choice.
It is another day and the bright morning sunshine fills me with an amazing strength and standing in the waving fields of lavender I feel hope that from this beginning, this choice, I will find her.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Parkour and Freedom
From high atop the Westin tower Seattle sits quiet and neat in the pale darkness. My friends and I stand at the edge, hands linked, waiting for the arrival of dawn, a gem of gold hidden just over the freeway and behind the slumbering rich of Capitol Hill. "Listen," I say in a tight whisper, "You`ve all been down in the streets at night, huddled in the cold. You know the hatred which can rise, born from the alleyways and doorways of a ill city. I`ve been there. I`ve been so hungry i can`t think, so tired I can`t act and so weary I took to drinking and drugs. But this is the same for all of us. I say forget all of that, right now, right this moment. Leave it behind and there`s no limit to how fast you can run and how high you can jump. I say find something to love down there; find the meaning in that humanity and all that steel and glass." They all looked at me, wry smiles at the remembrance of the past and honest knowledge of how hard the fight for the future would be. They were young men and women like me, sick to death of the pit we had dug ourselves into and always sliding back down no matter how hard we struggled up. But this was to be a new day for them, a new beginning. I was their leader in a way; showing them a way out and up and, ironically, over the barriers to a new life. For we were free-runners, a philosophy that existed in other forms all over the world; sadly as a sport called Parkour in France. Tattooed on our middle finger was the motto and creed of our awakening; a simple reasoning through which I gained control over my fate: "Run to Exist."
"In the dark the city exists only in pieces, a single street here, a corner of a building there; existing in our minds incomplete and so without the clear understanding of the true creature it is. When the sun rises in a few moments look about you. This is the true face of our city, its best and most glorious. Hold this in your minds for the future, hold it fast for the times when you may find yourself sunk in the grime and lost in the smallness of it all. Remember these moments."
As I had been talking the sky had lightened gradually and then seemed to burst with whiteness as the sun drew nearer. Since my new beginning I had seen every single sunrise from here and let none fade in the intensity of its enjoyment. So it was the same with this one; it was like the first and best, and the moment the first rays leaped out to paint the cityscape it was the only one I had ever known. The golden beams continued to strengthen, throwing back the darkness. I looked to my friends faces and saw the same thoughts blazing through them. "Such freshness upon their faces," I thought, "its as if we`re all allowed an innocence of being at these raw moments of time." The orb hung full in the sky, blazing out shafts of light that were reflected in the windows and metal surfaces, the eyes of the city. But in the eyes of those standing around were reflected the final understanding: finally connecting the sights, sounds and smells of a lifetime spent in its belly to the whole magnificence laid out before them.
Time to begin, I thought, looking down at the ledges and rails that would lead down to the neighboring building. My eyes followed a path down and out-along rooftops, over big gaps, along sky bridges and spiraling down many, many walls to reach Gas Works park, the rusted-brown top barely sticking out above the city`s shadow. There, beneath its pipes and wheels, we would meet in three hours. My muscles twitched and pulsed as I visualized the moves I would need to flow from one point to the next. Finally, in my mind a balance was reached; a balance point between all the emotions that could drag me down. "Time to run," I said.
"In the dark the city exists only in pieces, a single street here, a corner of a building there; existing in our minds incomplete and so without the clear understanding of the true creature it is. When the sun rises in a few moments look about you. This is the true face of our city, its best and most glorious. Hold this in your minds for the future, hold it fast for the times when you may find yourself sunk in the grime and lost in the smallness of it all. Remember these moments."
As I had been talking the sky had lightened gradually and then seemed to burst with whiteness as the sun drew nearer. Since my new beginning I had seen every single sunrise from here and let none fade in the intensity of its enjoyment. So it was the same with this one; it was like the first and best, and the moment the first rays leaped out to paint the cityscape it was the only one I had ever known. The golden beams continued to strengthen, throwing back the darkness. I looked to my friends faces and saw the same thoughts blazing through them. "Such freshness upon their faces," I thought, "its as if we`re all allowed an innocence of being at these raw moments of time." The orb hung full in the sky, blazing out shafts of light that were reflected in the windows and metal surfaces, the eyes of the city. But in the eyes of those standing around were reflected the final understanding: finally connecting the sights, sounds and smells of a lifetime spent in its belly to the whole magnificence laid out before them.
Time to begin, I thought, looking down at the ledges and rails that would lead down to the neighboring building. My eyes followed a path down and out-along rooftops, over big gaps, along sky bridges and spiraling down many, many walls to reach Gas Works park, the rusted-brown top barely sticking out above the city`s shadow. There, beneath its pipes and wheels, we would meet in three hours. My muscles twitched and pulsed as I visualized the moves I would need to flow from one point to the next. Finally, in my mind a balance was reached; a balance point between all the emotions that could drag me down. "Time to run," I said.
Spider Jerusalem- Im a freakin journalist
Damn, damn this city. A city in name only, really a conglomerating sack of life that tears at the lining of my sanity. How long have I been here? Too damn long says the buzzing noise inside my head. Peace and silence have long passed beyond my reach, a commodity sold to the rich civs living up on Capitol Hill. Want out? says the cash in my hand; want to run to the country and escape this hell hole of humanity? says the delightful new light rail running so god-forsakenly quiet that they had to play noises of animals to warn the pedestrians. But the ache in my heart and simmering anger in my head says I can`t leave the center where it all happens, can`t turn my back on the whirling birthplace of both our cancer and cure. But I`m a journalist dammit, shooting truth and justice into places others slink past. Watch out Seattle! I`m out there in the slime and muck, your slime and muck and I see everything. Hide your eyes from the temperamental tantrums of a city heaving with unrest and unlife but I don`t and that`s why I carry backup. Because, as the heavy weight at my hip attests: the Word according to your own garbage digging messiah, myself, is born from the flames of the people of the city and burns with the bullets of Spider Jerusalem aimed at its temple.
But goddamit Seattle, why can`t I get a cup of coffee without being assaulted by ethical or moral bastards? You see readers, the jizzed and jazzed populace, we are all fueled by the caffeine monster and we all just want a little hole of peace with that cup of joe. So why the hell am I assaulted and mentally striped naked by either the sterility and freakin boredom of Starbucks Clones or weirded out by extreme quaintness and mis-construed bohemianism. I don`t want bland and vague paintings that make me realize just how smart I am for interpreting it any old way. I don`t want cheery music about empowerment or conversation about the rain. Its water, not some spasiastic visitation by a religious leader. It happens, often and dependably. And yes this is my six cup and no I don`t drink too much, I`m still alive. But anyway Im here at the starbucks on 1st avenue, both incredibally wacked out by what I see and the totally gut-wrenching taste of music they dare play. I consider briefly screaming for a minute straight to improve the general ambience. But, my loyal readers, it is what I see that you tune in to read every week. And what I see is indifference. Indifference birthed from this goddamn city like a wellspring of KFC chicken, all the chicken lovers rushing over and eating that crap straight up.
You see there is a dividing line separating reality from the nice, creme-filled donut of imagination. The primmly dressed and stoical faced customers file in to get their mixture of sugars and caffeine, spending the dollar earned in white-collar jobs. Their eyes tell a different story, their bored to death looks in their face briefly surmounted by a glimmer of hope that sometime today they will find a sudden freakin quest of mighty entertainment. Detachment written in the eyeballs, zombie-food to the American way of life. They don`t notice the world around them; the homeless sitting outside hoping for some change; the kids huddled in groups around the corner with hate in their faces but a fading hope in their eyes; the young students of the city universities that are slowly being bulldozed over by the inferiority of cynical professors and mid-lifers that lost their dreams in a gamble over fulfilling their queer pleasures. But nobody sees these signs of the city; only the bits and pieces of a single individual.
Well, you know what? Look at this card I carry. You know what it gives me? Power. You know what it says? That I am a journalist and, in bold, a bona-freakin-fide carrier of the truth, yes THE TRUTH. It says I can yell and curse and drink myself into a coma on the side of the street, but it also says I must see the true scum and skanky mess that coats this fair city. I still hate all these claustrophobic walls and tearing of the brain that accompansy everyday but I still gotta live here. So wake up Seattle and open your eyes. Think about what you`re doing, why you`re doing it and maybe that you don`t need that triple fat-injected galaxial coffee when we could go running through the streets and parks in the sunshine and say hello to someone and take in some freakin human interactions. Lets see each other in all our freaky gore and scurvy, but at least we`ll be alive and out there on the edge, the clean and pure edges of our psyche exposed ready to tingle with electricity at the touch of another human being.
This is Spider Jerusalem signing off. I`m going to bed and let the devilish beast that is the city run out from my brain, hopefully. Damn this city.
But goddamit Seattle, why can`t I get a cup of coffee without being assaulted by ethical or moral bastards? You see readers, the jizzed and jazzed populace, we are all fueled by the caffeine monster and we all just want a little hole of peace with that cup of joe. So why the hell am I assaulted and mentally striped naked by either the sterility and freakin boredom of Starbucks Clones or weirded out by extreme quaintness and mis-construed bohemianism. I don`t want bland and vague paintings that make me realize just how smart I am for interpreting it any old way. I don`t want cheery music about empowerment or conversation about the rain. Its water, not some spasiastic visitation by a religious leader. It happens, often and dependably. And yes this is my six cup and no I don`t drink too much, I`m still alive. But anyway Im here at the starbucks on 1st avenue, both incredibally wacked out by what I see and the totally gut-wrenching taste of music they dare play. I consider briefly screaming for a minute straight to improve the general ambience. But, my loyal readers, it is what I see that you tune in to read every week. And what I see is indifference. Indifference birthed from this goddamn city like a wellspring of KFC chicken, all the chicken lovers rushing over and eating that crap straight up.
You see there is a dividing line separating reality from the nice, creme-filled donut of imagination. The primmly dressed and stoical faced customers file in to get their mixture of sugars and caffeine, spending the dollar earned in white-collar jobs. Their eyes tell a different story, their bored to death looks in their face briefly surmounted by a glimmer of hope that sometime today they will find a sudden freakin quest of mighty entertainment. Detachment written in the eyeballs, zombie-food to the American way of life. They don`t notice the world around them; the homeless sitting outside hoping for some change; the kids huddled in groups around the corner with hate in their faces but a fading hope in their eyes; the young students of the city universities that are slowly being bulldozed over by the inferiority of cynical professors and mid-lifers that lost their dreams in a gamble over fulfilling their queer pleasures. But nobody sees these signs of the city; only the bits and pieces of a single individual.
Well, you know what? Look at this card I carry. You know what it gives me? Power. You know what it says? That I am a journalist and, in bold, a bona-freakin-fide carrier of the truth, yes THE TRUTH. It says I can yell and curse and drink myself into a coma on the side of the street, but it also says I must see the true scum and skanky mess that coats this fair city. I still hate all these claustrophobic walls and tearing of the brain that accompansy everyday but I still gotta live here. So wake up Seattle and open your eyes. Think about what you`re doing, why you`re doing it and maybe that you don`t need that triple fat-injected galaxial coffee when we could go running through the streets and parks in the sunshine and say hello to someone and take in some freakin human interactions. Lets see each other in all our freaky gore and scurvy, but at least we`ll be alive and out there on the edge, the clean and pure edges of our psyche exposed ready to tingle with electricity at the touch of another human being.
This is Spider Jerusalem signing off. I`m going to bed and let the devilish beast that is the city run out from my brain, hopefully. Damn this city.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Viewing through words pt.2
(contents of a creased yellow piece of paper)
"I`m searching for a word. A single, simple word. A quest for meaning and definition. Truth and quality inherent in the simple friendship of letters. What are they? What is it? Why does it consume my life and control priorities to the detriment of my humanity. Once I thought I knew that word, and thought I knew life and its function. My hand was once in the stream of humanities consciousness and found there many words to fill the pages of a hundred books. I was poet, a creator of images, connecting thought to the birth of ideas and I thought that was enjoyment. I thought I had control and freedom, limitations existed for other men. But i was broken and scattered to the wind by my insistence on and blind following to that fictional notion of literary art. Death in that field came slowly but surely and from my present vantage I could see that vast monster advancing through the ages, could see it eat up the best of us and leaving empty husks to receive the praises of those too ignorant to know the crap we had produced.
The books I had written sat heavily upon my muse, she grew so fat and unmoving that I saw only the past; a dull luster sat upon all. My world grew full of words, so that I no longer saw nature as images of the senses. Instead, great ponderous sentences seemed to spring forth at the merest sight of brilliance. A sunset became nothing but a article of description uttered by my character in their times of solitude. Children laughing and running, once an inspiration to my character, now lay composed solely of philosophic musings and a swirling maelstrom of adjectives. I could not see! The sole pursuit of writing had destroyed the whole world! Where could I see or taste or feel independent of my damn artistic expressions? No where and I grew greatly agitated, refusing even to put pen to paper in fear of seeing the truth expressed even there. I find myself on the verge of humanity now, gradually wearing down the addictive need to create. I must not create or even chance any personal interpretation, for in that pit of hell lies a circular damnation.
So I find myself dumb, idiotic and refusing to engage in rational and logical creative forces. I must not. To pare down the world again to simple sensation, what an achievement and it takes the destruction of my heartiest desire. I trapped and damned man am I! My only salvation lies in finding a single word that does not subsume its indicative object, but that is a pursuit of impossibility! Ah, who can possibly understand that?
Even the woman looking at me contains nothing but words: uncertain, searching, angry. These words hold nothing for me. Then away to a different world."
"I`m searching for a word. A single, simple word. A quest for meaning and definition. Truth and quality inherent in the simple friendship of letters. What are they? What is it? Why does it consume my life and control priorities to the detriment of my humanity. Once I thought I knew that word, and thought I knew life and its function. My hand was once in the stream of humanities consciousness and found there many words to fill the pages of a hundred books. I was poet, a creator of images, connecting thought to the birth of ideas and I thought that was enjoyment. I thought I had control and freedom, limitations existed for other men. But i was broken and scattered to the wind by my insistence on and blind following to that fictional notion of literary art. Death in that field came slowly but surely and from my present vantage I could see that vast monster advancing through the ages, could see it eat up the best of us and leaving empty husks to receive the praises of those too ignorant to know the crap we had produced.
The books I had written sat heavily upon my muse, she grew so fat and unmoving that I saw only the past; a dull luster sat upon all. My world grew full of words, so that I no longer saw nature as images of the senses. Instead, great ponderous sentences seemed to spring forth at the merest sight of brilliance. A sunset became nothing but a article of description uttered by my character in their times of solitude. Children laughing and running, once an inspiration to my character, now lay composed solely of philosophic musings and a swirling maelstrom of adjectives. I could not see! The sole pursuit of writing had destroyed the whole world! Where could I see or taste or feel independent of my damn artistic expressions? No where and I grew greatly agitated, refusing even to put pen to paper in fear of seeing the truth expressed even there. I find myself on the verge of humanity now, gradually wearing down the addictive need to create. I must not create or even chance any personal interpretation, for in that pit of hell lies a circular damnation.
So I find myself dumb, idiotic and refusing to engage in rational and logical creative forces. I must not. To pare down the world again to simple sensation, what an achievement and it takes the destruction of my heartiest desire. I trapped and damned man am I! My only salvation lies in finding a single word that does not subsume its indicative object, but that is a pursuit of impossibility! Ah, who can possibly understand that?
Even the woman looking at me contains nothing but words: uncertain, searching, angry. These words hold nothing for me. Then away to a different world."
Viewing through words
I sat in a hard-backed patio chair outside of Starbucks, searching for a word. The search had taken me through three lattes and half-a-days time. What word could be so important as to consume so much time you would ask? Well I knew the meaning, even had the proper image fixed firmly in my mind. The problem, though, was the fellows that surrounded the blank, a description of a Fremont fair; accurate, colorful and detailed. Yet it was the same boring drivel I`d been doing for the past year. Perhaps the word alluded me then because I was loathe to finish such a waste of language and skill. My desire was to write stories that mirrored the great blooming trees found in the imagination of children. I wanted my ideas to take root and spread great canopies of flowering thought through my reader`s brains. But I would accomplish nothing if I was stuck turning out filler articles for a paper that had no guts to offer even one bias opinion of its own, neutrality to the detriment of creativity and growth! But I wanted to write so much! I wanted to express through words all the unique angles of life, a view I knew was vague, idealistic and born of a mind given to much day-dreaming.
So I angrily sipped my latte, quietly bemoaning my situation and deciding if I should give in to pressure and write the article with stale words or answer to my inner poet and risk the ire of editors for a "flowery" piece. Such was my dilemma and such was my life. That`s when I noticed a scruffy and perhaps deranged man sitting out on a sidewalk a few feet down. He sat against a cement light post, mumbling and making erratic hand gestures. Oddly enough, it appeared as if he was writing something on a scrap of yellow paper. The air of some homeless destitute hung around him, and yet as a fellow writer I couldn`t help but notice the way he held the pen gracefully and wrote in a flowing way across the paper. It spoke of some form of education and the possession of at least a little sanity.
I guess I stared too long for when I lifted my gaze from his hands his eyes met mine in a steely blue, and for an instant I didn`t see a crusty man in a dirt brown jacket. Instead an intense young spirit so sure and confident poured across the distance. I broke my gaze first, feeling a little shame and fear, sure that he could somehow peer through my sophistication and knowledge to see the true thoughts and feelings that lay underneath, things I wanted hidden. I spent a few minutes in defeat choosing the least pathetic and most pleasing word for the article, packed up and stood. The man was gone from the cement post, instead ambling down the street away from me, a little unsteadily and leaning on various things for support. I saw then, that where he had been lay that little sheet of yellow paper, seemingly forgotten. Not really knowing why I picked it before heading home. Tiny, neat cursive writing filled one side of the paper and, feeling a little secretive, I tucked inside my bag to read later where the public world would not intrude on curious perusals.
So I angrily sipped my latte, quietly bemoaning my situation and deciding if I should give in to pressure and write the article with stale words or answer to my inner poet and risk the ire of editors for a "flowery" piece. Such was my dilemma and such was my life. That`s when I noticed a scruffy and perhaps deranged man sitting out on a sidewalk a few feet down. He sat against a cement light post, mumbling and making erratic hand gestures. Oddly enough, it appeared as if he was writing something on a scrap of yellow paper. The air of some homeless destitute hung around him, and yet as a fellow writer I couldn`t help but notice the way he held the pen gracefully and wrote in a flowing way across the paper. It spoke of some form of education and the possession of at least a little sanity.
I guess I stared too long for when I lifted my gaze from his hands his eyes met mine in a steely blue, and for an instant I didn`t see a crusty man in a dirt brown jacket. Instead an intense young spirit so sure and confident poured across the distance. I broke my gaze first, feeling a little shame and fear, sure that he could somehow peer through my sophistication and knowledge to see the true thoughts and feelings that lay underneath, things I wanted hidden. I spent a few minutes in defeat choosing the least pathetic and most pleasing word for the article, packed up and stood. The man was gone from the cement post, instead ambling down the street away from me, a little unsteadily and leaning on various things for support. I saw then, that where he had been lay that little sheet of yellow paper, seemingly forgotten. Not really knowing why I picked it before heading home. Tiny, neat cursive writing filled one side of the paper and, feeling a little secretive, I tucked inside my bag to read later where the public world would not intrude on curious perusals.
"Sanitary Engineer" of life
Ah, the day begins so gloriously that I hope its not ruined by sewage juices spilling on me. But that's what I deal with, smells and sights that delicate "regulars" wouldn`t last five minutes with. I mean nobody talks to us, nobody helps with their own garbage. I see the looks and pitied glances when I come by. I see them rush off, coffee in one hand and a cellphone pasted to their ears. I like to imagine that perhaps they are going to better jobs, ones inside a cushy office and full of tailored suits and manicured cleanliness. Perhaps they make more money than I do, enjoy perks of a job entirely mental and requiring no more effort than punching in keys and attending meetings. It makes it easier to despise them and elevate my own importance in cleaning up the messes of a whole city. Am I not a superhero? We even get notes, scrapes of paper with messages written; rarely thanks but often belittling our job and complaining of so many things. And its just garbage, goes in the back of the truck like everything else we receive from them.
Perceptions and assumptions, ah they could drive me crazy! Though I have a little more love for my co-workers than non-sanitary engineers, they seem to have no imagination. All the negatives that we pile on the "regulars", all the more we delude ourselves to the true importance of our job. Sure we take care of the things no one else wants to touch. And sure we provide a service that allows the more talented and smarter of our race to enjoy a higher, uninterrupted productivity, but I get just as depressed at the dullness of views my coworkers have. They don`t understand the beauty of a city moving from the stillness of an early morning to full bustling and rushing that is the lifeblood flowing throughout the streets. They don`t see the stabbing light of a new sun spread over a quiet street, painting the black trash cans and still rows of cars in a faint haze of color. Conversations die when I bring up the sensations of losing one`self in half-awake exertions of lifting, dumping and repeat. The concept of zen and a state of awareness seems to be lost amongst my fellow employees. Or I think too much.
I feel like Hamlet when he is plunged in confusion, wanting to kill the king but held back by the hands of propriety and the good of all. Mike, coworker two years running, looks at me oddly when I mutter his lines "And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I mean, so vividly can I envision better lives, more exciting avenues to pursue. The method and means lies clearly in my mind but what? What truly holds back my hand at changing jobs, changing and invigorating my life? The answer often comes just before I fall asleep, when my thoughts have slowed and neurons inside are free-wheeling about. Its both my curse and blessing: the institution of employment, a provider of security and ensurer of tradition; appearing so indestructible as to be unfailing and that is the dagger in my heart. I am afraid to breach that barrier and see what lays beyond, and yet...and yet, in the moments of deepest honesty and closest proximity to giving in, I feel the faintest murmur of some irrational fluttering of freedom, no shape or form yet there the same.
So I keep turning up for work every morning, in the pre-dawn darkness and sharp cold, waiting in my beat-up car with the heater on. There in the Sanitation Processing Center parking lot, surrounded by square buildings and poor attempts at landscaping, there in the time before work subsumes thought and will, there I can just sit and imagine I hold life in my hands and the power to shape it into something great and something wonderful. But the world turns and time advances. Work starts and I lose myself in banter, in garbage and in the crack between freedom and acceptance.
Perceptions and assumptions, ah they could drive me crazy! Though I have a little more love for my co-workers than non-sanitary engineers, they seem to have no imagination. All the negatives that we pile on the "regulars", all the more we delude ourselves to the true importance of our job. Sure we take care of the things no one else wants to touch. And sure we provide a service that allows the more talented and smarter of our race to enjoy a higher, uninterrupted productivity, but I get just as depressed at the dullness of views my coworkers have. They don`t understand the beauty of a city moving from the stillness of an early morning to full bustling and rushing that is the lifeblood flowing throughout the streets. They don`t see the stabbing light of a new sun spread over a quiet street, painting the black trash cans and still rows of cars in a faint haze of color. Conversations die when I bring up the sensations of losing one`self in half-awake exertions of lifting, dumping and repeat. The concept of zen and a state of awareness seems to be lost amongst my fellow employees. Or I think too much.
I feel like Hamlet when he is plunged in confusion, wanting to kill the king but held back by the hands of propriety and the good of all. Mike, coworker two years running, looks at me oddly when I mutter his lines "And thus the native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought." I mean, so vividly can I envision better lives, more exciting avenues to pursue. The method and means lies clearly in my mind but what? What truly holds back my hand at changing jobs, changing and invigorating my life? The answer often comes just before I fall asleep, when my thoughts have slowed and neurons inside are free-wheeling about. Its both my curse and blessing: the institution of employment, a provider of security and ensurer of tradition; appearing so indestructible as to be unfailing and that is the dagger in my heart. I am afraid to breach that barrier and see what lays beyond, and yet...and yet, in the moments of deepest honesty and closest proximity to giving in, I feel the faintest murmur of some irrational fluttering of freedom, no shape or form yet there the same.
So I keep turning up for work every morning, in the pre-dawn darkness and sharp cold, waiting in my beat-up car with the heater on. There in the Sanitation Processing Center parking lot, surrounded by square buildings and poor attempts at landscaping, there in the time before work subsumes thought and will, there I can just sit and imagine I hold life in my hands and the power to shape it into something great and something wonderful. But the world turns and time advances. Work starts and I lose myself in banter, in garbage and in the crack between freedom and acceptance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
