flukes in the cosmos

tonight the moon looks like a vanilla bowl of ice cream. there is no typo in any statement. she used to eat fat little worms when she was a child. i told her that time was a lake and she reminded me that rivers  bring them water. lips, a tiny dog named elvis and calm and bone marrow. i wound down a hollywood hills stream resurrecting myself in my jewish deli city. alan watts returned to late-night radio, some indie station programmer brought his voice again; the illusion of separateness, buddha is an awakened one, sansara is a rat race to which we slave. outside, my friend and i were smoking and talking about meeting women and the distance between the nucleus and electrons, relative to a football stadium, ourselves. without the charge, we are soup, alone in december we can survive anything. still stars in the sky during the day and night is a prize if we can remember our moment. feeling thin, adult, meaning, bringing bunches of meaning, filling the plate with meaning. a christmas party, american spirits, basil whiskey, and little themes repeating themselves in new spirit.

"metaphors are dangerous. metaphors are not to be trifled with. a single metaphor can give birth to love." - milan kundera

she's passionate about tomato soup, prop. 37, and old people. i told her about the lady i rented a room from in franklin canyon years back. it only took abby three marriages to have the same last name as her street. she laughed. abby had an oxygen tank, swollen legs, flaky skin and a dark sense of humor, loved the syncopation of my guitar, watching tennis, and kept a tiny prison bed in the miniscule nook she sublet a teenager who spent his nights wandering the neighborhood, drinking whiskey, wincing from the hollow burn, improperly smoking cigarettes and smelling cooking from houses belonging to families and stoves. they weren't good days or bad, they were mine, simple. but we don't include those details because they arrive later and are inconsequential in comparison to the spark of interaction.

elvis reclined on her lap, head hanging back like a kid upside down or a playful bat.

fortified with six b vitamins including 50% dv folic acid 1 gram of sugar per serving

i see an eyelash floating in my cereal milk, it used to belong to me, seconds before. we keep losing these things we've grown, produced by our very being. they just happen to fall off.

"life becomes more and more about what we've lost." i told a curly-haired girl at a bar some lost months ago. she kept calling and calling.

you wanna borrow some passion?

i lived alone, walked in the middle of the night from my santa monica canyon street to an ocean avenue filled with hundreds of thousands of people and a few underwhelming art installations. years after, it was me and my girl and some bicycles from venice and after that i was alone again, wondering about a glow.

i meant to say nostalgia, prior to passion, but wait, something happens:

nostalgia untethers to curiosity.

there have been all these flighty people defeating me time and time again through heart-wrenching feeling or icy indifference with bands and locales and experiences and, but, i set my stubborn roots in this magical desert, buzzards flying overhead, my seeds spread by santa ana winds and subtle seasons which natives like us know how to detect, and so we prosper, the way desert creatures know how, burrowing, meditating, climbing to some altitude in early chilled mornings before the stampedes wake and, there, we nurture spirit and thrive in our own way.

i wasn't bred for the path of least resistance, as docile as my pursuits appear on surface, surface, you can have surface. i'm somewhere dark, ensnared in monster tentacle, knife on belt, tearing away invigorated by some struggle or another.

i know that i've created all of these predicaments. it's what we do when nature fails to blow hurricanes our way. but there is purpose, it's a worldly laboratory and we are all mad scientists conducting experiments for our own opportunity at something more, physical, it happens in the physical, then manifests, if true, in the spiritual, near-infinite minuscule experiments creating something like, god, or ultimate creation.

this artistic soldiering, has greatness, even if it's a single hand on a massive push, on an object too large to comprehend outside of vision.

the reader is both repelled and attracted to the indulgence. something else exists is all i'm saying and i can locate a torn shred of a map to it's location on this strangely arranged keyboard.

so grab your passion now, coddle, cuddle, let it float away like the butterfly and give chase, ignore, paint, sculpt, dream about all those turbulent images and non-sensical patterns you've been beginning to suspect for some time now.

recognition

everything will be in black and white, remember. the future is a child on playground about to skin his knees, tear through jeans, go play again. i don't know if our paths ever crossed before.

i was sitting somewhere on the promenade drained and stimulated by all the adrenaline i've been pumping through my blood from beaten stages, holes in walls, awkward pauses, beats, edification for that moment of tension and burst, sun reflecting me in the menu window of a restaurant. i see all the years beginning to accumulate on my face and staying there and i'm worn out and invigorated at the same time, days unidentifiable, even my dreams are foreign, scary, and this world is beyond understanding alone.

britt and i were talking about continuing our parent's metaphysical journeys. trav and i, reincarnating opportunities for behaving in truth like cloud atlas and our own purpose. bec, we looked into each other's eyes and spoke of darker depths, until that guy behind us, stood up and went home, hugged his kids, we hoped, imagined, laughed. shane, we said it's all in our minds, our tickets to freedom, most importantly creation, like this or that book he read on cell phone at jury duty or some george lucas quote i'd heard, creators. tallulah, i told about the time i was kicked in the solar plexus by a horse and she gave me hers about the jealous head-butting goat at the farm, then we sat in the car, she finished her cold pizza slice breakfast and we made up fictional get-rich-strange worlds, straight-faced mostly, we get it, jealous goat factory fires, insurance money, human blubber, block out the sun ransom, not necessarily in that order.

i'm the luckiest man in the universe.

russian books

you might know me. i'm the one creating own tales in mind and riding imaginary horses hoofing streets in this lonely amazing city. i was writing this scene reminiscent of us and i could taste your mouth. and someday mankind will be divided by those who can survive outside and those who must stay indoors. and one day we will have but a single username to classify ourselves. until then, circumventing dystopia, we could discover something precious dredged from our rocky soil.

you start with getting by, then good days and bad days, more weeks, more time and you almost forget about her feeling, like honey.

until you do.

it's strange but they never bring rescue in those achingly desolate moments and days upon days of crushing agony. they only arrive knocking in forceful waves once you've unmistakably immersed yourself back into violent forests with beasts of blood and wild man as your guide. and then you don't have time to be slowed down by excess and charm, face painted, heart savage again. there's play-acting in every ceremony but at the core is a straightforward truth, a heart of the matter; that it's invigorating to be in discovery at full stride, haunting ghosts instead, travelling in synchronicity with animal spirit and hunt and moment.

but for you sappy folks thinking, feeling, romantic connection is your guide, machete clearing your way through weeds, discovery of path, i offer you this: 

on public radio there was a piece, i caught the tail end, about a runner, he was in terrible pain, damaged health for awhile but getting better and better, finally convinced by his woman to give up on the pain medication, sure enough, he turned out fine and thankful and running again and he stubbornly conceded everything to her and she said:

i didn't have any other choice because i love you.

keep venturing

these words are dangerous. sunset blvd. crawls along merrily and unshaken through gloss and that leftover 90's spirit, urine soaked wood and a feeling from the years before at red rocks. venice is teeming with cats on rooftops and alleyways, possums trot like stupid possums do in front of headlights on dark nights. magic, when they give us that tin cup of milkshake extra instead of throwing it away. these days are the same til they're not, it takes a struggle to cover the previous coat of some left behind pseudo-masterpiece or brilliant arrangement too far ahead of it's time. but you can become stronger than a wave, tidal surge, you are a unique source of energy. and dfw was killed, i believe, by too many words. bill hicks and those folks by truth, it's like these amazing people walk our earth and become absolutely realized only a small moment of time before they are to leave, giving us but a clue to the clueless universal organism. but let's not make martyrs of the departed, instead, let's take those hints and lessons and impart something brilliant while we're here. these words are luminous.

down at the new amsterdam

staring at this yellow haired girl, there is no epiphany. life will continue to teach us the same lessons until they're learned. the ones who get it, move on.

art, expression, i chose the wrong template. i will work on this despite climate, because i have no choice. and i saw some article about the links between creation and mental instability and i laughed like a madman to myself, stating the obvious again and again.

to be a man on wire first requires an ascension, then the line, next feet, followed by gravitas, followed by the ability to laugh at the use of the word gravitas, followed by braving the singularity of being, every ounce of it, moving forward with all the elements, finding balance, if only for one wild walk from tower to tower.

then you can go back to the philandering miniature french asshole or whatever you wanna be in this world, indifferent, until you show them something wonderfully out of the ordinary.

la weekly

"...the most substantial change he made was in the protagonist's rationale for suicide: in the movie, it's not because the character hates humanity but because he feels he has failed to connect with it."

"but i believe inherent in any artist's work is an optimistic truth. that the very creation of art is in itself an act of optimism."

-tom tykwer and lana wachowski

i like the way she sang free falling. i keep ending up in franklin village or some eastside nook, nail lodged in tire, tired and alive. i step on stage and unleash the beginning of an expression, tears spilling to humor rolling to an amalgam of uncorralled energy finding direction. everyone on this planet is making their own movie. i'm always assigning blame for the insanity, my this, your that, her, her, her. and i'm a mess, scrambled eggs, salsa on a plate. now i'm a lightning rod of expression, an outpouring of libidinous current channeled onto fixed canvas with shape-shifting gaze. the pay phone, west hollywood dancing it's gay dance around us, i shuffled, cheered, yelled my strange angry character into the receiver, i was so exhausted it hurt, and they roared like beautiful tickled lions, their smiles and laughter pouring down the sidewalk, and i caught some of this fragile music that people make when feeling that mutual understanding of invisible universe, everything got better that moment. and we all drove to a birthday cake.

finding aqua water and wheat paste on chavez

schoolchildren in a big group on the sidewalk of vermont and something. i'm gathering and bunching, abstracting beauty from everywhere. you live in the world. and you warm the ocean when you enter in pieced together underwear bathing suit bottom and nothing but dark skin. i know you don't wanna laugh but it strikes me in the gut, you thinking i'm overflowing with passion, you. i once accused beached elephant seals of salivating for your presence, gravitating to your earth. and i don't even know if i was joking then. fine, so we're a couple of people full of life energy blasting away and showering the results like stubborn parallel volcanos. but it's not tragic if you can laugh about it and it's not tragic because we're being honest and clashing and living the best we know how and i don't regret the feelings we've shared, however together or away or wrong or right, they've never been mundane and are always combustible and sweat inducing and maddening, evidenced by my pacing on strip of grass near montana and somewhere, talking on the phone and hearing that voice of yours like a spark, rush of wildfire, kiss of windy aftermath. so yes, i find my way on singular journey in the dark, you find reason to be frustrated at my ineptitude, list reasons i'm stupid, then make your life magic like you always do. but trust that we are gargantuan from before, now, whatever tomorrow brings and the form may never return we won't be young and we are still gargantuan like that feeling we've said so many times. now, i'm in a mediterranean cafe eating a "spinachi wrap", it's not named after me, baklava and coffee black, two cups, i won't be able to sleep tonight, but you fire into me like a cannon.

no one will read this

and i wanted to get home and write. i left a message, sometimes you hear a song on the radio and it's so good that you don't finish it, because you have to call someone you care about.

and what do we do?

bond over movies, music, family, life stories, meet out there in the middle and build something in the space, feel it's shape, reflection.

i'll write you a river, carry you to the sea. i can list off a bucket full of bullshit, far more than that trite attempt at novelty you gave me our second night, and i know that i loved you in a way that was previously impossible. i loved you like never before.

i slept in my car. and why do we do what we do?

the ocean was black and blue, bruised morning. i drank coffee and lifted my lights up. my friend and i were talking about the good dying young, she was brave and honest and we spoke about loving some more despite it all, feeling everything.

and i can see the beauty in all things.

yellow victorian

i remember sliding pocket doors trapping wood-burning heat in the room. we incinerated masterpieces because there was never any purpose sustaining them. and that which we contribute is a mere blessed flutter of the figurative butterfly wings flapping man's evolution. now years later, i'm in some kind of nightclub victorian with shabbier woodwork and a feeling of collective non-entity. i wanna shake the shoulders of people taking this at face value. want us to melt in a pot together, witches brew, come out enchanting with life in one burst, that's all. it will make a difference, push followed by push, we're getting somewhere.

french cigarettes

the ashes were for brick steps and seasonal halloween pumpkins, carved out for this time of year. burnt nubs, touched filters, woman, you're voice is meditative for dark nights like these, even if you say you can't sit still. and time heals all wounds is the expression we have in english. six months from now, we will laugh, you're right. grateful smiles and golden commiseration for now. they say expanding consciousness is found at the top of the inhale, bottom of the exhale, and our smoke gives it a little dirt to reflect the muddled feelings and splendid imperfections life offers. but it's night and the sky is black and the stars, moon, are still visible in beverly hills and the emptiness between everything fills me up with hope outside my car, for only now is as beautiful as ever.

we are not that modern

marble floors, ice sculptures, wide glass above a city, everything was in wonderful disarray. we will see each other the next time it snows in los angeles, i told her. each room spinning in different spheres, light cones, directions and i was located somewhere in my mind. there will come a time gigantic waves will crush the junk that i have seen, sparklehorse intoned in my head for months upon months. and now here, she purred something about loving me, which i found strange, the pretty girls don't come to this town to fall in love. i knew truth in some distinct region of reality, believed in the powers of physical proximity, breath touching, electrons intermingling. the dresses of the women spun, music turned louder and more relevant to the moment, everything became urgent, the tidal crescendo of cymbals and strings clashing and cutting into these wounds, this destitute collectivism, buoyed by something invisibly profound. i turned to her and our eyes must have been lit aflame because the entire city caught fire below and i joked about finding traffic to feel a part of something and she smiled and time wandered.

venice

hypnotized, before the sea.

A medium sized head

my heart is working, healthy and alive. i can explain a sliver of my feeling universe. because you need it more than i do. because you must learn by word of mouth, observation, you, a master impersonator until you arrive, i know you will. stubborn and everything, fresh tears and honest, and it won't be in what we created and that's all right. i understand. but it'll be magic. feeling, tree branches, memories, phrases, the books our neighbors leave out on the sidewalk are all clues. laying in shavasana with a reeling mind unspooled and smack dab epiphany, is a reward. with you i learned to be humbled by life's surprises. just like that floating dock with the full moon, black lake, and your voice reflecting my best self back to me like light across the water. was that emotional narcissism or do the meaningful people in our experience illuminate pure understanding? either way it starts with the bastard self and hopefully goes eternal from there and back and around.

you told me to not shy away from my victories, but now you're gone.

two people are ingredients in something more, there is a reason why we come together and orbit, interact, fire asteroids into each other's blank planets. more, i had once written a letter about more, hadn't i? more, because you can't go hiking with another person without getting back into your car knowing more about this living. more, because when you wake up limbs tangled, breath indistinguishable, dreams still hanging in the air explaining themselves to one another, the day is now introduced by more than just sunlight. it's us, a shoebox full of hospital gifts and photos, shared sweatshirt, the meaning in eyes, my smile, and those are only physical, they all exist inside. you can't run from them, dress them up, play someone else, they will be there existing in cells changing.

you will never read this, but will echo into feeling. i promise.

so hear this; my heart is working, healthy and alive. it beats faster some of these days, inside a heavier chest at times, i cough, cough, a dry cough i've had since i was a kid, barefoot on indian earth, california teaches lessons like a violent saint. don't doubt me! don't do nothing or i will eat you! the ground will fall out from under your feet if you don't move! you must move!

and so we all do.

our last day was the event horizon. the rest a black hole. you learn nothing in a vacuum. i see myself again reflecting from every event and lesson, but mostly, from now. i see myself from now. we can do that too and it's more profound, showing ourselves the way to ourselves. fine, but two people, holding up the curtain together, they reveal something else and it's important. it's not everything but it's important, it's why we take all of our hang ups and baggage and mistakes and we put on our favorite torn jeans and try again with another stranger drinking whiskey and eating licorice. i was clever the night we met, honest the next, passionate the rest and i don't regret any of it, i've felt, failed, and given. all we can do is give.

and now i give my self, sacrifice it for expression, flagellate my ego and hopefully remain a channel for the blessed purity. so when i say, i, me, compliment my own smile, it's because i've learned that the best way to discover something new is through this reflecting, inner, outer, inward, out world.

so, thank you. i've been revealed, so have you, to whichever degree. we both have different definitions of time, mine hurts more per moment and it's the only one i can fairly give credence. i have little money, the breeze blows through my windows, and last night i was in that damn grocery store parking lot where we miscommunicated making it official. there was fog in the morning, i wrote another script, sunshine again, the leaf blowers hum like the impending circular saw in a james bond film, cue rolling belt, only noise, outside of the annoyance of machine or ego, is something grand, same with the inside, find this golden blurry fireball of potentiality, of now, of all these threads and folds.

you said something sweet to me once about a picture book, how i put it all together for you like that, thank you, but it's more than sight, or any sense, it's knowing, the hurt reminds us when we forget, but it's knowing.

i hurt, i love, i know.

so thank you.

maude says it's wonderful harold, now go and love some more. i keep referencing her on this blog. my heart is working, healthy and alive.

henry miller

"Only a few days before, she had clung to me desperately and then something happened, something which is not even clear to me now, and of her own volition she boarded the train and she was looking at me again with that sad, enigmatic smile which baffles me, which is unjust, unnatural, which I distrust with all my soul. And now it is I, standing in the shadow of the viaduct, who reach out for her, who cling to her desperately and there is that same inexplicable smile on my lips, the mask that I have clamped down over my grief. I can stand here and smile vacantly, and no matter how fervid my prayers, no matter how desperate my longing, there is an ocean between us; there she will stay and starve, and here I shall walk from one street to the next, the hot tears scalding my face."

build this fire

there is an algorithm for understanding defeat. not the bottom of a bottle or another pair of legs around your waist, thrown against the wall in that movie sex act. the white cloud of surrender requires hurting first, like you wouldn't believe. thank god we forget how much it really does ravage us, or we wouldn't do it once more.

examining each threadbare circumstance until we are singular again. reclaiming a center of universe. wrangling the mind back toward, right here.

the bar in silverlake, dancing uncomfortably wrong in our booth, the two of us making seductive jokes in elmer fudd voice. a bottle of champagne on grass, sun, people, guitar, alive. this is where you stop.

"he was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice, we manage to endure the burden of the past." -marquez

i can get a little deeper now without it ruining me. it's strange how the same things that haunt us end up becoming our solace. first you have to stare at em directly, then look from every humbled angle, disentangle, unwrap and breathe. sometimes it's like those snakes in a can, popping out, scaring, alarming the lower mind, it'll be all right.

walking, running, getting sick, sweating it away, the body does most of the work if we treat it with love, creating, dash a bunch of old charcoal crisscross along a page and build something new again.

i set words to stone, a caveman on a silver lit cave wall, deep within the marrow of these collective bones and temporal flesh there exists some kind of primordial magic moving in streams, magnet with collective unconscious and ancestral sacrifice.

and one day, out of the ashes or exquisite bliss, i will create something astoundingly beautiful.

patrick's roadhouse

i wipe sugar from the table, creating is not supposed to be sweet. but when i saw my little sister communicating with the ocean, ducking waves, rising up, fixing her ponytail, i was reminded of my own ability to swim.

me gustas tu

i remember this cafe, mornings crackling with the pain of ending and beginning.

a large industrial fan shoves air back and forth, beads of sweat roll down my back most days, summer will end. human relationships bring it all out of us, holy shit.

social networks are metaphors for our egos.

i wanted to write something to protect myself, but i'm raw. i'm indefatigably vulnerable. it's an amazing freedom, knowing you're going to allow everything to hurt and restore if given time.

time is a medium, don't fuck with me. i will worship the ability to pass through, i will honor the magic. that much i will do.

the terror half-hour, remember it? i felt an earthquake at 3:32am this morning. like a waterbed rolling back and forth, the ground providing catalyst for movements of lovers. lips on lips, hearts beating perpendicular, one collection of delicate storytelling, athletic, culminating, caring. one day the earth will crack and explode uncontainable like a woman's climaxing.

stroll the streets, meet the moon, white through clouds, sky blue, life outdoes any filter and i will grasp and cling, breathe, ascend and descend imaginary stairs and some mornings bite the world and tear it apart with my teeth. i will repaint it, i promise, i will draw lovely shapes again, there's still that life-altering magic, good attitude, good attitude my friend.

i remember the adrenaline of loss and regeneration.

the days turn and somehow life brings us together grateful

a fallen buddha beneath a little tree. three million caribou cross the arctic. a young girl so careless with her time. i walk face first into spiderwebs of my own design. get all tangled up, silk thread across my mind. and you and i were you and i again, sitting across from one another at a strange memory cafe and empty indian restaurant. now in our late twenties, yes. you wore a hat, i had the same shirt on that i always did. conversation always alive, we've always been able to share the world. i walked around today, knowing you are my best friend. we've beaten each other up, made love vigorously, cried on steep hills, laughed like maniacs under full moons, moved together with bounding love, on islands and off, brought it to land, earth, water, the big blue is huge, mediterranean alive, a couple of kids grown up in different saltwater, united by warm blood, it's all the same, it's all the same my dear friend. you've made my days meaningful.

a work of fiction

the night before you left, your disease warned me. it smiled in my face like a devil. your body limp; you were submerged somewhere far down below, drowned. "i'm going to continuously disappoint you." you said. i disagreed, i fought, tried blowing it away in a hurricane of my love. i felt your racing heart on the kitchen floor, blanketed you in care, kept showing you the waves.

those were tears in your eyes when we said goodbye the next day. i got to work and cried.

that kid who follows you around, dresses you in splendor, he's not your best friend, he's a blind eye. you'll find plenty of those, swirling like helicopters around your image, willing to look away for the shine. but friend? right now, the disease is your best friend. i hope you ditch it for good. i wish you luck, i wish you love. i'd do anything if it would make a difference, but distance was the demon's best friend.

santa monica

she had this worldly accent and a voice different from any i'd ever heard and she knew how to push through a lot of the bullshit.

do you know what scares me about you?

huh?

it's that you're not afraid to be miserable.

which might've been true. it's tough to tell, because i've been feeling feeling feeling ever since.

graham greene

"he couldn't tell that this was one of those occasions a man never forgets: a small cicatrice had been made on the memory, a wound that would ache whenever certain things combined--the taste of gin at mid-day, the smell of flowers under a balcony, the clang of corrugated iron, an ugly bird flopping from perch to perch."

proper bonsai care

life is what happens when we're falling in love. proper sunlight, plenty of water, never let the soil become dry. always admire once a day, a good one can last over 150 years. a good love can go forever. i believe in love, which is strange, because i'm more confused by myself and earth than i can remember. we've landed on mars, our planet is a bunch of gravity, you don't start shaping the tree for at least a few years. and when the weather dips below 40 farenheit, the organism must go outside for warmth. i get the feeling that time is still and we move across, creating the distinctions and writing stories linear, stories quantam. the thing about this tree; you can talk to it like a monk, give it all the attention in the world, kiss it goodnight, but it has to thrive on it's own, so do i, so do you. we share this time together, make it what we may, wonderful, fascinating, and as harmony accords, this tree will gift itself in agonizingly beautiful formations, provided by sunlight, care, freedom to grow.

capo 2

sometimes i feel i'm on a train
of which i have no control
holding on with everything
when i just want to let go

it's everything, it's everything.
it's everything, it's everything.

this isn't an exercise
more like the real thing
it's not some final prize
it's everything

you said move along
or you'll get run over by the wake
you still believe life is long
but we should not hesitate

sometimes i think i'm on a ship
far out to sea
it's going down real fast
and i'm letting go of everything.

all dogs go to heaven

the summer was rolling me up and down the skatepark and into the barrio singing songs of dilapidated front porches, rickety door handles and mexican radio. living in those stubborn venice blocks and alleyways was the insular feeling of a neighborhood giving everything it had to steer away the cunning eye of gentrification, a foul stare here, music too loud there, and a worn-out food truck selling produce in the middle of the streets every afternoon.

the crooked energy made the insanity a little bit less to bear but nighttimes were scary and disorganized and there'd be greasy bags of food in my hands or resting on pillows next to me in the mornings like lovers of welcomes overstayed. and sometimes there were motels and state parks, movie theatres and backseats, strangers and friends, and i was lazy and hurt and smoking too much weed and drinking more than i should have been drinking. to redeem myself, i wanted to write something spectacularly honest and truthful, instead, my efforts materialized into one-hundred pages of trivial dialogue that meant something to me and nothing to the world and i was out of money and drifting back into the suburbs, somehow sitting on old baseball fields of little league games past. this time, no uniform, only a guitar in hands and hurt in heart and this mind that wouldn't stop racing with all the probabilities and events that had gone away. and i'd get struck by these large swelling waves of adrenaline and wanted to act, but all around me there wasn't anything to change or alter because i'd been pushed away from the sea, and i was swimming in pools of faceless tract developments and air conditioned coffee beans, worlds away from my tortilla neighborhood, wondering if i'd ever get back.

and, but, i was rescued.

i didn't recognize it right away but there i was, surrounded by family and specifically by my sister Rebecca. she gave me a living room, an air mattress and a quiet unconditional approval that asked nothing of me but gave so much.

she also made the most heartening bowl of chili i'd ever tasted, whether after a workout, waking up, or any time, i'd sit in the claustrophobic august/september heat and eat this warm chilli, and it was resuscitating something, somewhere. and months earlier, i'd been struck by this feeling of incredible isolation, but there in that apartment, with Bec and her chilli and her slight indifference but absolute confidence in me, i was nourished again. and there was also Charlotte or Char Char, already near fourteen-years-old and with a tumor the size of a baseball on her stomach, her auburn hair receding on her back, Charlotte would sit by the door waiting for Bec to return from work and she'd stare at me, her little tongue out in the most obvious dog smile i've ever seen, watching intently and encouragingly as i attempted to clumsily locate my soul on the strings of my eastman acoustic. and it helped, it helped, it helped, there in that apartment was a loyalty and friendship and laughter that helped me come alive. and when i drove away a couple months later, back to my same neighborhood, i could feel the world and i cried. no man steps in the same river twice and if he feels like a better one upon his return it's often because another person, in my case a person and her sidekick, cared enough about him to let him heal and it's the most illuminating feeling to experience and the river becomes that much more beautiful. and i'm not sure if i've ever clarified how much that time and all the times we've had together have meant to me, and i don't know if i can accurately express them properly, but Rebecca if you read this, thank you, i love you. and Charlotte, last night you were put to rest, and our hearts are heavy, we miss you. the amount of brilliance you gave the world from your tiny Pomeranian frame has changed our lives, the lessons learned from you are undeniably good, you Charlotte, were, and always will be, undeniably good. and somewhere (in my mind or wherever eternal) you are on your furry back, happy, a foot rolling your belly back and forth in gentle motion.

time is a lake

so you and i skated a canoe across it's liquid plane and on this seemingly finite surface floated infinitely, arranging ourselves, four arms rowing through space where, after a sweet paddling distance, an incredible stillness emerged.

one orange sunset lowering behind waves of green trees.

nurturing silence, drifting in gentle unison, voices unfolding, discovering again and again the prizes of space and time.

and the day expanded, contracted and slept and we stayed awake and talked and you told me to look upward and i was dazzled. the stars, they blanketed our minds.

i've never seen such a brilliant arrangement of existence, you shimmered like a planet before me, i know you and you me and we explore, an adventure, we explore. our conversation danced through centuries and mingled into tangled histories and arrived in the present and found itself in love, everything we did together seemed to write love, love, love.

a picnic with the universe, four legs, hands, climbing to the middle of our vessel, pairs of knees to metal, lips meeting, the shooting stars whistled, mosquitoes crooned like a mariachi band, and our breathing whispering music. beneath us was depth, above us possibility, in human form, this ship buoyant by gravity and alive, so intensely alive with communicating souls and listening hearts.

the warm lights of the dock gesturing toward friendly earthly existence, our eyes in the same direction, imaginations bounding, romance existing under those stars, we're always under those stars, i'm grateful we're under those stars, you sleeping in my arms.

string

if you stare out the window, any window, and let the focus drift from your eyes, there are only colors, shades, and shapes blending, competing, perfecting. nights ago i found the 3:30-4 am terror that accompanies such a hollow half-hour, and nearby mornings i'm waking up with drunken butterflies in my stomach. from wasted eves prior or uncertain days to come, in those starkest moments, there is only the wooden table and a heavy feeling encouraged by the mind, so proud of itself for handling the futility, rolling misery along the tops of it's fingers like that trick with the half-dollar. it begins on skin, sinks into space, rises, shows it's face, heads, tails, falls along the wrinkly bumps travelling to the end, only to begin again. and that's a skillful act to pass the time, but it's neglecting the colors and fuck sight, i'm not talking about sight anymore, the colors and shades and shapes in our blood all ebbing and flowing like the union of two cells or rivers of invisible waves pouring crushing along existence like an eternal flood over a once dry creek bed.

the universe constellates steampunk art in abstract hingeless particle based formations of unison out there in the black

its friday and pink and the neighborhood dogs yell, children talk, parents scream, skateboards crack and land and scuttle. there was a moment when i likened falling in love to chasing the dragon, then i encountered someone who slammed my expectations and smashed my ceiling and revealed the sky, sun, stars, moon, and there are clusters of other cosmic shit beyond our eyes that make our souls feel even more at home, i know it because i feel strong bunches of it intertwined with this girl, woman, i love.

imagine me blue

there was a day at a lake. i walked out on the dock, put my toes at the edge. and realized. if i jumped in and went for a swim, i'd never touch land again.

there was a line that i cut to the front. cuz i realized. if i didn't cut that line, i'd never go anywhere at all.

there was a vault. with the most complex combination i've ever seen. and i was a master thief. so i set down all my tools and went to work. first there were sparks. next the sound of metal on metal. then there were human moans! during i heard the futile weather report. which had no bearing on the clouds above my head. AND CLICK

I walked inside. and sure enough. there was something beautiful to hide. everything beautiful, is on the inside.

find you awake

nights ago, delirious, everything flashed in psychic trials of truth. i kept the window open for the cool air on my sheets, like my father, if only i could've been collected like him. there instead, a vacuum of hopelessness, sometimes the carrot rots and everything a human being is working toward disappears. sometimes purpose is relative to courage and belief in an elusive unknown. sometimes while things are shifting, the best job is to endure. trusting time, the most uncertain element, also salvation. i write this on the floor. humbled and beginning, returned, like claws on a jungle cat.

when the robots default

because they're making em smaller than mosquitoes. dancing on raindrops, they dance on raindrops. i give you the news story, you translate it into poetic motion. i think we do that like those two kids in the movie.

charlie kaufman

"but more importantly if you’re honest about who you are you’ll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope."

typing

life, the one you know. it doesn't return. and so the unrecognizable can be scary for awhile. there embedded in circumstances, people, these precious precious sand dripping do something with yourself modes of existence, are the same insecurities, superficial wounds, skin, sensitive skin and chemical hopes of fill in the blank transcendent chunk, active chunk. standing on kingdoms of plastic, eyes in glare, relief at the bottoms of tumblers small, tumblers large, tumbling down hills like rolling stones for three day weekends or mandated grace periods, returning the same and changed.

a black kid's hands sliding along the neck of his left-handed guitar at an open-mic night. a mother limping down the sidewalk, eyes wrinkled in laughter because she can't help it, because it's funny. it's funny talking shit to your best friend on the phone in fragments of unspeakable drivel and dementia because somewhere along the way you both understood that there'd be no need for the middle part. and you clamor, silently or by open mouthed design, clamor, the pots and pans bang loud banging loud for someone to wake up in the middle of the night and understand the urges that tear at your insides for escape in form however abstract.

two strangers meet, say hello, fall in love, say goodbye, become strangers again. and all the wonders they made together, glow for all to see, twinkle in nursery rhymes, spin earth, spin, please keep spinning for the rest of us, we're not finished, we don't know why but we're not finished. i can use my hands, never mind complacency, lack of dramatic motion, my hands will tell you the truth, they'll press and grip and pray in reverence to the physical world, slip through the curtain, grant access to that electric field, it's terrible god, the velocity and strength of the indifferent current, interconnected golden spiderweb lightning singular energy ever-surging invisibly composing and vigorously regulating our existence, it's terrible and i'll channel it with my hands and construct something in dazzling likeness and express compassion and bring eyes to a close, opening them again.

you said the silence was louder tonight. i grabbed you close to me, kissed your mouth with the hunger of wanting to live, kept kissing you, everywhere, until you shook those series of shakes which communicate two souls and light up our brains. and kept kissing you. the victory over death is expressed by shared lips, perpetuates itself through inexplicably connected understanding hearts, shared by touch, texture, gratitude, in this physical realm, trusting in the magnetism that brings two people incredibly close despite themselves, knowledge, concern, trust in the undeniable evidence of wanting you, wanting to be together. creating something intensely moving in presence. painting, sleeping, waking, together. i want to write you a fireworks show, let it dream like the smokey aftermath, then reveal the night sky as a magician pulling the table cloth in one flurry to the amazement and wonderful arrangement of what's already there and eternally will be there, change black pocket of the universe and bring new suns, murder stars, entangle constellations, the universe will sort itself out in one great act of love. i know this to be true.

5

i drove the freeways rising and falling in love with the moment. the rollercoaster moving along and it's a large world after all, complete with wonders unexpected. the sky powder blue brown, cars jockeying for position, gas prices elevating and a feeling i'd never experienced as an adult.

friday

i ran with your dogs on some farmland. the golden burnt sun splashed over us like a kid into a swimming pool at the end of a day, with smiling cannonball. the leash kept getting caught underneath the sidekick's legs but we chased time. a dusty iditarod team, striding in wobbly motion on the california dirt. tongues out, smiles on our faces, my heart staying at the gas station, tracking somewhere outside a rented mazda or in some bathroom for the wayward, key in your pocket. this morning, i'm awake, i told you. put my shorts on, grabbed a piece of fruit, tennis ball, worked my five-toed shoes on and stepped along my path in warm fog. you were talking about your foot patter, sounds they made. my rhythm for mindfulness is steady or intermittently thrown, bounced, rebounded against trendy walls or graffitied alleyways. a mind works like that green felt, between destinations, smacking down on pavement, rising up again. i understand when you talk of motion and arrival. breaking sweat, freshly mown grass, up and down, sandbox for grownups. hands to rope, gripping bars, breaking from thinking. lucky to be able to move in challenge, capability, it's fucking wonderful to wake up. i stumbled to a soft mound, gathered sand for a seat and sat down at the altar, in usual obedience of the blue moaning mother pacific ocean. everything swirling like a bad movie hallucination sequence, fragments of thought, ego, pride, defense, pleasure, fear, pain, the ocean says shhhh and inhales mightily. surfers on waves, sometimes it's about getting wet, taking off on a bad one, making the drop, starting over, because once in awhile a set comes in and a completion is made by two elements, once strange, now existing in greater union. for some moment or another, beyond surrender, without thinking, gentle knowing, i sank into being, opened my eyes, felt oriented. in front of me was the first time i'd viewed the world. nothing else had ever happened, was going to happen, or was happening, it was simply a giant moment fulfilling itself. thank you. i walked home, a guy carrying produce from the farmer's market was kneeling, curious, his dog was playing with an orange cat, if they could get along, just imagine what we could do, we joked. your name appears like a gift. we played some music for each other, the night arrived dark, the cop shielded his eyes from our headlights and retreated, mistaken he must've known. we were indeed, shining. your dogs made a mess with those burgers, i watched, listened, breathed you into my being, somewhere the ocean exhaled. we were already struck, now exploring, hands, everything to come, we shared a drive up enamored, lived honestly, returned intertwined.

daydream

i mourned my sanity
you stayed warm by the salton sea
wore your pink lemonade dress
and those clunky leather boots

i had my sneakers on
and a matching brown suit

i can't believe it's happening
the clouds parting in front of me
and i'm higher than one of those japanese kites
and you burn brighter than the northern lights

you showed me through doors
places i hadn't been before
but that i'll know for the rest of my days
cuz everything i do with you
everything you say to me
it stays.

these words'll explode

rain drops, blinds shut, i opened my eyes inspired by you shining before the day. bright, i read some of your writing, a few expressions, fireworks, i know, so here i am, still dreaming, answering the question you were going to ask me in person. where it comes from?

there's that analogy about putting a fishing line into a river. sometimes like a stream, ocean, tar pit. sometimes immerse the entire self and raft as bait, swim like fish, somewhere primordial. wreckage from a sunken ship, a swarm of birds, confusion helping, flapping wings, invigorating the search. i like getting held under by waves if i've forged my body strong enough. but i'd be an asshole, or defensive, scared, to say that it's a choice. there've been fires and flames, wounds that never return the skin of life to it's regularly scheduled program. and there's nothing glorious about those painful moments that shred any sense of control, shown ugly, drafted into wars and aches to which there was no boot camp. they just happen and we do our best and they feed something, wounds always seem to be feeding something. and we try to paint something else beautiful, redemptive, with the blood, bravely. but all that muck, that's only a sliver, is the truth. freud once told me he'd never felt the oceanic moment and i laughed at his cold tone and admired his detachment, like i would a monk's, from afar, glad to be shown someone new and different. but my heart's beaten and thrived in rhythm, in rhythm, the kind you love entirely alone, then sometimes the kind that makes you want to rush to the highest cliff in town, yell from the top of your lungs, hug your mother, kiss the ground, sacrifice everything you have in this form and catapult massively into the ocean, splashing something powerful and intricate enough that the whole world gazes upon this creation for a simple moment and smiles inside and out. There's joy, pain, chaos, banana cream pie and somewhere else, there's always somewhere else and here. and if i'd seen that homeless guy chasing god down the street, i would've tackled him down to his knees or, with your help, forced him into buddha's lotus position and blindfolded, gagged, earplugged him until he let the pain subside and shut up to the magic. there's always the magic, which we revere and emulate in circulation and it makes it simple, humble. and then we begin, listen, express, listen, revere, listen, struggle, listen, smile, listen, care, listen and play.

i'll tell you the rest in person.

quiet company

sometimes we sacrifice the moment for a photo. fixed and blessed pasts cement in visual time. the flawed resonance ebbs and flows according to mixed feelings of honesty and delusion. in our minds in our guts, frames of energy slip in exchange for capture. experience in a cage. soon, the attachment to the past begins to thin in interest and in soul. our lives are not a nightclub or a prison, infirmary or ward, only dioramas with suspicious doors on all sides. opening to delays and freedoms and something larger. a blanket is only so thin, body so warm, planet large. trust something more than your seductive eyes.

two people

beginnings hurt. childbirth is a beginning.

exactly.

...exactly.

no, it's a good thing. like riding a bike. you know, cuz at first you fall a couple times, then once you get your balance and ride off, yeah you ride off.

forget about yourself

the past is a black crow flying in the opposite direction. and you're walking away and becoming quiet again, and this moment actively going somewhere. instead of stepping around the coral tree you're climbing through it, where between branches of growth and limbs of surrender you recognize a sense of passage. without shielding your eyes, it can be scary, bright, forward. it can also be beautiful watching time unfolding messy abstract art with hints of linear. where now the day beams through your window in friendly greeting.

when love bites your head off like a pigeon

i know you said she was spoiled and obnoxious and she closed her eyes in a smug way when she was talking but she enchanted me. she enchanted my life. she was so fucking precious to me for awhile and i still miss her. i hate her for entering my world and i deeply deeply miss her for leaving.

and love like ancestry is a series of improbable events. a couple of glasses accidentally touch in a bad excuse for a sports bar and then lightning strikes and a storm follows and a world that was hidden in the infinite darkness of possibility springs forth into the one and only world you ever want to know.

you wanna know what a relationship is? what it is and what it becomes...realizing that the screen saver on my phone is a picture of you walking down the shoreline at dusk. your figure dark, pacific ocean at your feet, the grey muted earth apparently moving, while a life exists entirely dependent on the belief of two people involved.

because you grow this beautiful love and see how much of it you can preserve. and i would've loved to read all the letters you said you wrote me but were too afraid to send.

and in adaptation we were fixated on donald's line at the swamp. and like magnolia i now have all this love to give and nowhere to put it. and eternal sunshine i can't delete you because relationships as tumultuous, life affirming as ours, make us who we are, give us reason to care for this existence and all it's painful beauty.

and i keep having these dreams with you. one the other night where i'm walking around dolores park waiting to improbably bump into you. and another where our truth spills out in the most honest of ways.

and one time i left you in the morning and ran down the beach and jumped over the most incredibly wide storm drain river that had been slithering into the ocean. i ran and leapt to it's other side and the distance was further than i ever could have imagined clearing, but i did. and i likened us to a swimming pool analogy when we first got together and something about being shown the deep end. it was too stupid to tell anyone about and then time passed and eventually i made you everything to me and i'd resent any moments you weren't.

and then my friend and i were talking and she wondered why i was sad and i told her that i hadn't been through anything more than anyone else, i've probably just spent more time examining it. and this sadness, this fallinginlovewithsadnessthing is boring i told myself, it's time to find a new thing. and i think i just needed a little more time to be alone. and it's important to find a new thing. the hemmingway line.

and if you and i were to become sand right now, we would intermingle and become indistinguishable.

surrendered on sand

i wanna be beautiful like george harrison. she was telling me about the documentary and clapton, the layla inspired wife. george took it like a man, with love, a little bitter, but with love. we're always losing things. holes in our pockets, hearts singing accordingly. cooperatively beating but feeling hurt so tangibly. the wisest man on the beach told me to listen to my heart, there is a truth. always a simple truth. the brain schemes and survives, even owning 40% of the heart, she said. brain cells in the heart. not enough to shade the truth. it arrives blue, beats blood red and governs the universe. i can feel it searching like a prison tower or lighthouse, contained or vast, scanning for life, a creature, a ship, home. insert one of those recovery mantras about gratitude, here. after the rain, there is a day of wind, then a clear sky, calm, warm sun, uplifting heart beating tirelessly for these moments and is flowering and expressing thank you, thank you again.

franzen

"no matter how carefully we defend our selves, all it takes is one footprint of another real person to recall us to the endlessly interesting hazards of living relationships."

song 26

i was laying in the afternoon sun, waiting patiently, for you to come. but you know it aint easy, being patient, when you love someone. another bird came and flew on my line, said she was only asking for the time. she showed me her feathers, of the brightest plume. so i took her to my room.

loneliness does not exist.

crazy people

have apartments and houses and dogs. and crazy people work jobs and have friends and pay their bills on time. and crazy people color coordinate their clothing and tie their shoes and laugh at funny jokes. and crazy people fall in and out of love and somehow feel greater because of it. crazy people are just like you and me.

oscar party

the lights below look like wounded stars. wandering around civilized lives with heads cut off, dreaming of versailles. some inner garden.

windward

somewhere they pray imbalanced. dizzy, winding back and forth on the curb, they fall and trip and timber like wavy trees. bruised knees, laughter, gravity pulling down dark. alternating between smoke and fresh air, lungs grateful. taxi cabs, phone numbers, leaning home on friend's shoulders. keep it together. voices calling into the streets. life spilling in unrecognizable shapes, dripping from deepest wells, seeping, bleeding into the soil, it's almost like hearing someone young again. secret phrases, an engine of joy churning beneath the physical anguish and toil of suppressed years. this happy child always trying to get out, even at the cost of a colder world. i used to say that intoxication was about getting to the smile, maybe it's just the child. our cells evaporate every so often and apparently we change, yet still recall decades of memories at the speed of light. no matter the flaws of perception, the interpretation is art and sometimes so vivid our hands sweat. put to rest, dreams, headaches, bright streaks of light stabbing the day.

chemically concentrated

"everything about life -- eating, working, sex, it's all turning my stomach right now." he said.

"the only thing staying down is that single feeling, the one where two people sit across a table, chemically concentrated and bonded by lust, insecurity, and attachment. There's no greater sense than the clean knowing of that person, no matter how many times you've heard em ugly, that clean knowing."

he said to himself.

the character

in hot tin, was chasing the click every night. here, close to the ocean it feels like crashing. the wave is distinct, enjoyable and difficult. and every fixation finds it's home, even orphaned amongst the multitudes. lost in place. at one with space. friends exchanging letters in the modern sense, our stories drawn with crayons. we talk like warning labels, each one of us, basking in our own mistakes. so this is my last pack, turkish documentaries, procrastination and nightlife. this asshole said that artists never tell their secrets, i'm simmering. the tobacco burns to a nub. liquor store, american spirits, coloring books. the good news is we were children. our problems start and live there but we get to be children forever. and that's good news. I stayed awake while you coughed because I loved you.

nostalgic bout/bohemia

do you remember when i told you that you belonged to me? we were parked inside your mom's black car and of course you do. it was exciting that i finally owned you and you me. we recounted our final indiscretions, squirmed, then soaked each other up. invigorated by the possessiveness, between the steering wheel and leather seats, you clung to me for hours. how intensely gratifying, finally capturing the once elusive. you lit up. i caught fire. termites chew my windowsill. body hair accumulates on white tile flooring. i play guitar from my bedroom window to an alley full of louder noise. the starving artist is not romantic, he's self-serving and diffident. there is no johnny depp pose, only neglected health insurance premiums and dishes. a lack of resources or energy, the beats are stubborn, waiting for gems amidst gas bills. department of water and power. dead car battery. battered by the turbulence of the coming days. withstanding a barrage of realism for a single line that'll light up the inner sky. We laid in the sun. We made love. Over and over again. We staggered through those days in a serene haze. An old lady took our picture. Both of us staring in opposite directions. our deepest womb of dopamine, even then, existing on different pages.

be a time capsule

my nights are ricocheting between tremendous fits. waking, sleeping, bothered. you should feel the difference between calm and madness. the spectrum's wide and webbed. travelling happens at the speed of light. but our eyes aren't to blame. they're innocent bystanders to the triggers and mechanisms of our lower brains and higher minds. haircuts. nursery rhymes. desk jobs. the time you were lost at the mall. it all contributes to a furthering sense of tangling in the briar patch of trivial experience and flawed perception. i knew a girl who made her men go crazy. i knew a girl who lived alone above an abandoned gas station. i knew a girl who rode her horse around the orange groves of the san fernando valley. the days melt into splendid gasps of orange and the birds that that bird used to chase with her arms out on the sand, they fly overhead. the sails cut daggers on the horizon, and i'm jogging on the sand and i know it's the end. i know that watching this sunset, as it leaves one last pink slice and aches into the night, it's our end. i have no idea the consequences of beginning but it's a welcome notion and it loses itself in an errant text message or nostalgic bout and it dims and brightens and it's the invigorating quality to the sunrise.

sunset and sunrise

sometimes

only catching a glimpse of this overwhelming beauty when you're drunk enough to dim the staggering brightness of your pain. nothing good gets away. so they say. and i think about being enclosed in some contained environment with her, be it a parked car, rain slamming down on windshield and hood, or a bedroom with our bodies tangled/knotted, loose hair glued to skin by sweat. even surrounded by this planet, committed in a ticking-time-clock of certainty and conclusion. and i think about these things, only so that i can find a little secluded corner of relief in my mind. but it's not much and it's quick.

babushka

physical or invisible. storms of electricity. eyes blurring back and forth. vision muted grey with black lines. wavy like the scream. ghosts impassioned from the shadows of our faces. breathing in her mouth. swallowing her breath. lips in delicate brush strokes. exhale. inhale. exchanging breath like two junkies.

we talked about a bunch. what worries us. i said she's brave. she said she's just all over the place. i said she's brave but it's ok to be afraid. its good. asked me if I was afraid. i told her no. i worried. she said she just had to be more grateful. that's why i yelled thank you at the mountain. an hour after she'd put her hand on my face I told her "gratitude. thank you." for what? thank you. she said thank you.

"i like your energy, its good." i mumbled.
she cooed.
"i like yours."

my hands gripped and caressed the mountains and valleys of her spine, waist, scalp, dug deep and warm gentle and strong.

neighbor snoring.

the greek yafo pepper story whispered in her ear. laugh. the rush of hungering. caring enough to stay away but hungry.

wanting her to leave then come back.

she left my motel twin bed in jerusalem at 4:30 am.

i waited for awhile. she didn't return that night. the music played and she didn't return. then, with my heart, a feeling of my heart coming and going, showering heart. jeff texted me while I wrote this. celebrate it all.

Jaffa

late afternoon wanes. greek drunk energy. we're old men playing backgammon. slouched over the board, slamming marble on cork wood, lose, win, lose more. spill into houses warm with dinner. one, two, cognac, stumble bathroom. in the mirror, dull reflection, wrinkles cut deeper on these mysterious faces. parents gone, feeling alone, nubbed cigarette, smoke dancing from ashtray. there's no one sometimes. the day swallows us in fragments til we surrender. wash face, brush brittle teeth, sleep, dream everything, past failures, things we couldn't see, dark, touch bottom, don't rest, never settle, find a way up, finally wake up, wake up by grace of god wake up, eyes will open again, optimistic with sun.

i didn't fall in love with the mediterranean sea.

in between the moon and you