Stick and Stones

:-)

When you visit my house the morning after a party, even a few days after a party one will notice a variety of foot steps stomped around on [sand colored] tile, the grout between the tiles topped with a lay of spills and dirt. Pistachio shells and [red splats] of last nights chocolate covered strawberries. The stench of [cigarrets] that had risen up through the worn hardwood from the basement that attached itself to the dust and the walls and into the weavings of the long dog hair laced curtain giving us some privacy from our neighbors through the sliding glass door [smooched with] months of dog nose waiting for someone to go home or fallowing a squirrel sifting through the collection of things on our back deck. A dog lay between my legs under my chair at our dining room table sleeping in from being kept up until the last of the party fell to sleep. A collection of shoes at the door. My French press set beside the computer helping to focus me LIKE an oil lamp guiding one through a cave, sharing is aroma of [mint and lavender] with the air along with the [stale beer and old cigarette] smell. The counter is [scattered with crumbles of peanut shells and crumbs] from late night snacks. Brandon wearing [yesterdays lucky shirt] and his guitar [lounge] in the living room serenading me between episodes of dexter. [Empty] beer bottles in strange places such as the light chandelier above me. A cat [nestled] on some [‘lost and found’] sweater on a table in the corner next to a stack of magazines including a [colorful] collection of natiol geographic, penthouse, and ultimate guitar. A few [stray purple] streamers hang from various high places LIKE rope left tied to a high branch from last year’s tire swing.

I've really been revisiting the past lately. In a very positive way.

I feel as though I am finally developing a few old rolls of film that

I've kept in the back of my drawer; that I've kept forgetting to deal with.

Synthesizing . Making sense of it all.

Walt Whitman has been very enlightening to me lately

Song of the Open Road

1

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.

The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens,
I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go,
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them,
I am fill'd with them, and I will fill them in return.)

“That we find a crystal or a poppy beautiful means that we are less alone, that we are more deeply inserted into existence than the course of a single life would lead us to believe.” John Berger (English Painter)

Two years ago I lived in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I spent most of my time working and distracting myself.

One thing I would do before and sometimes after work

was stop by the Cameron Village Library.

In the library, on the second floor, there was a fishbowl

of poems. I would take one each time on my way out.

And for a long period of time I truly found each poem

very applicable to my day and life at the time. As if they

were deliberately handpicked for me.

Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Walt Whitman, Alduous Huxley, etc

Sometimes those were the only things getting me through my day there.

I created such a dull position for myself at the time.

But that is what I asked for, it's what I wanted.

It was all good to experience.

Anyways... I visited around New Years this year

so I stopped by the library. Poems still sit on the long wooden

desk on the second floor. Even the same persons at the desk, everything the same

except the mention of not seeing me for a while.

It is weird working in a place where people cycle through

revolving door like. Developing a sort of a unspoken relationship.

More dependable than most other relationships. And (almost) always pleasant.

Be it for the reason that one of the parties is being paid to be pleasant with you

or that they simply desired to be.

Anyways... what I was getting to was that I picked out

another poem and I found it quite perfect at the time.

Crossing The Bar

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,

when I put out to sea,

But suck a tide as moving seems asleep,

too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

Thankyou sir lord a.t.

What separates us from children? What is that spark that seems to permeate us in our youth and vanishes as we grow? Is it reclaimable?

Children are so impulsive. What keeps me from acting on my emotions?

Why do I do this to myself? I am scared to lose.

What have I got to lose?

Everything is so real.