Torn, Part 2

Torn, Part 1

Benzodiazepine Diary

Upon expiration
Heaven forbid I should have
Any unexpressed thoughts
Or unrealized ideas remaining

There will be many dormant
And unrealized ideas left
Especially those schemes
For big bucks quick and plentiful

My reality in actuality
Revolves around hiding
Behind latent thoughts and
Layers of "protective matter"

I tell the children that
The monsters are pretend
Just stories designed to
Keep them in check and fear

But the monsters in your soul
Exist only to kill you and yours
Rape your spirit and dignity
Boots on throats laughter abundant

Love is torture
God is fiction
Governments are false
Family is dysfunction
Law is interpretive
But integrity is unyielding

Yet for brief and calculated moments
We can capture our selves for what they are
Live for situations great and fleeting
And etch memories into the granite of our brains

Site: Unbuilding Facelifts

Ah, That Ray!

Story: Part 6

Abundance

"the poetry is...abundant in passive verb tense and characterized by a dearth of pronouns."

Passive verbs are not automatically wrong...the passive voice serves an important purpose:

- When you wish to downplay the action [intentionally obtuse]
- When you wish to downplay the actor [again, obtuse by intention - thus the dearth of pronouns]
- When the actor is unknown [here too re: pronouns - generalized characters]


The active verb pronoun poem exercise:

I flick
She bowls
We snack on croutons

I lick
She rolls
We fuck on futons

I'm going to take a nap
He'll need to brush his teeth
We'll have to close the blinds
Or, the sun will creep beneath

She winks
I sneeze
We suffer from our roles

She stinks
I wheeze
We tore the pantyhose


[point well taken, I never thought about it before and will think about expansion]

The Further Adventures of Furious Floyd

So Bored

Day Old Pumpkin

Today's Three Albums That Made Me Happy

All vinyl and through big ass speakers (not mp3/headphone music), by the way:

Various Artists, Reggae Spectacular (2 record set)

Stevie Wonder, Hotter Than July

Miles Davis, Tutu

Between Now and Then and Soon

Once the observer
The intellect
The cynic

Then the pied piper
The hub
The truth

Then the star
The man
The king

Then the great
The stable
The rock

Now the enigma
The prophet
The philosopher

Soon the old
The vulnerable
The dead

Expectation Management

Aspirations set unattainably high
Creation of misery artificial and derived
Where in all obviousness there is
only abundance and relative joy

Do we have to settle
When there just has to be more
Or at least perspectives
that allow acceptance
of self and others (and self again)

Only when inner peace
is actualized perhaps
Will there be real life - living
Or then do we die eternal

Nirvana, first or all
is not a kind of Being
Bliss consists in the cessation
of all thought

In this phenomenal world
Everything is changing
To dwell on truths
A blessing that would be

["Wonderful World Beautiful People" by Jimmy Cliff
in the background, from the "Reggae Spectacular" album, 1988]

Front: Part 5

The Drug Poem

Drugs, drugs, drugs. I love drugs.

Big drugs, little drugs.
Drugs that make you sleep.
Fat drugs, thin drugs.
Drugs easy to peak.

I love drugs you smoke.
I love drugs you pop.
I love drugs that make you high.
But not to high to stop.

I love tiny pills.
And, syringes filled with bliss.
I love all the ecstasy.
And, all the girls you kiss.

I love drugs you snort.
And, drugs you smoke and pass.
I love all the little drugs.
That help you get some ass.

Drugs, drugs, drugs. I love drugs.

Poems for Ass

The art of taking it all
and the California fantasy
of my childhood

Only reflection points
life history questionnaires
in mid life therapy

Oh yeah, that was me
but it was you and you too
thanks to magic boxes

Sprinting and limping
to unimaginable finish lines
and other poetic devices

In order to fulfill labels
genius tag way too early
and battles raging

Pushing up hills
while sliding down
productivity's inner turmoil

But realizations known
that it will all be OK
as planned all along

Francois Says...

Francois Says...anything Francois wants to say.

Buried: Part 4

My New Jacket Follow-Up

OK, so today I discover a new special pocket in my new-ish jacket. Remember, my "Party Jacket?" Well, there's a nice riveted patch on the back and I noticed that one of the rivets had broken. "Shit!" I thought, "what a piece of crap!"

Broken? No, two of the "rivets" are snaps. It's just another very special place to store your stuff.

Kids today. Sheesh! Good thing I'm a parent now.

Effect Without Cause

Topiary at night-time
Looks like beautiful Rubenesque women
The familiar hourglass-shaped figures
All alluring curves and crevasses
Congregating on my neighbor's lawn

But it's only bushes on my block
Effect without cause - illusion
The brain follows its own path
Enough to make me pause
When fantasy is all I have left

Hole

Story: Part 3

Untitled

when i die i die
inevitability
certain guarantee

feeble elderly
something i don't want to be
the mark and target

so, the solution:
live it up my young comrades
time ain't no damn joke

Back in the Day

I remember reading these words back in the day and not being completely blown away, as I should have been. Firstly, there's no reason the Post should have reviewed this album. Secondly, this is pretty knowledgeable praise for something so intentionally (and outlandishly) strange.

I guess the Post didn't send flowers and belly dancers along with the review was some sort of a slap in the face.

Good shit though. Looking back, it's pretty right on.

Three Things

1) Ebony & Ivory: What the fuck was that? 1982 #1 single, that's what. And, further proof the '80s sucked way harder than the '70s. AIDS in the '70s? I think not. Nothin' a little shot couldn't fix. Anyway, E&I, a song about integration and racial harmony. Fah! Who talked Stevie Wonder into that?!

"Ebony and Ivory/live together in perfect harmony." WTF?! A) That ain't gonna happen; B) How dare Paul McCartney drag Little Stevie into that rat hole of lost credibility. Next thing you know, Stevie'll marry a one-legged man. Call me shallow, but that's just too freaky - even for me.

2) I have so few needs anymore. At least material. In fact, I have absolutely no material needs and very few physical needs. I have desires and sometimes suffer from "want." But, need? Nope. Shelter? Check. Food? Check. Health care? Check. Stuff? Tons.

The unintended consequences of having so few needs are, however, too much time to writhe over art and the aesthetic. Too much free cognition to explore and discover the nuances in/of your brain. Surely, there are emotional and psychological needs to tend to, but that all gets mixed up in the stew.

I need a beer is a far cry from I need some cardboard and twine to make some shoes.

3) I forgot what the third thing was. Maybe I'll remember later (but if you're surprised by Ricky Williams, send me your address and I'll send you a ten dollar bill).

On Lindsey Jacobellis (plus)

Lindsey Jacobellis. So what?

Good for her. If I had the chance, I'd have tried something much more insane.

Gold medal? What-ever. We know she actually won the race - it was LONG over. She should have stopped before the finish line, stepped out of her bindings and celebrated, letting whoever-passed-her win. Who was that anyway? Swiss? Maybe.

166,000 Google results tell the story.

You can win and be boring and conservative or you can enjoy your life.

Go Linds!

Follow-up research results from crack research staff in Berkeley, California:

My next door neighbor growing up has two gold medals from the Olympics and a world record for the backstroke.

His name is David Berkoff. Ever heard of him? Nope.

Google count: 521.

Inane and Perfect

"The Bad Hair Chronicles goes out tomorrow.

Note about the stupid sliding on ice bit: I wanted to put it to music, but the only source I had at the time was the tuner on the stereo. I checked around the dial for something appropriate and right away came across James Brown and hit audio record on the VCR. Another inane and perfect confluence."

-BDW

Pause

There Are Others

Please Leave A Message

Late night messages to machines as
Considerations in no way cease
Funny or tragic are constant cognitions
Of opportunity and vulnerabilities (un)known

As custodian of the surreptitious
Recipient of thought architecture revealed
Veneer to be stripped and discarded
Plans can be foiled

Skinny-dipping:
A brisk swim in the evening
Drinks tropical and romantic
Thoughts returning to - da capo - again

Rested Relaxed Good
Realization of what really matters
"Make yourself happy" the voices say
But this is our only life to fuck up

Work overrated unless that is passion
Tired of caring about it - so there!
But when eyes close [sigh] we see it anew
And it beats typing while drunk

In Plain View

Oh, magnificent elation!
Whirlpools insanity state of affairs
Illogically restrained passions

Testing and exploring
Seeking and kneading
Frightened of inevitabilities

Trembling hands on missions
Reconnaissance before encounter
Pushing nearer and pushing farther

Eyes infiltrating conscience
Psyche and imagination peaked
Feral

Accidentally intentionally
Calamity misdirected for need
Stillness for peace and comfort

Truth or chance?
Control remains capricious
If not despised

For now however
Beginnings as new worlds
Again we will see tomorrow

In the Air

The Bending of Steel with the Powers of My Mind

When reconciling what and whom to be, sometimes
When a commonplace existence has long been ruled unacceptable
Values representative of a "flowering of life"
without the conventions of restrictive paradigms endemic to our culture
-- We must force ourselves to embrace our whole(s), regardless

For moments (at least) we can see ourselves
Not as what we believe others do
We may forgive ourselves, damaged and vulnerable
Shame is as contrived as salvation
Stability and harmony makes a warmer home
than one of boredom and panic

--------------------------------------

Believe - Together #2

Erroneous to confuse neediness and yearning
as proxy for personal deficiency

Grandest strengths are the embrace
of high-threshold weaknesses within mind and body

An identity built upon constant self-analysis
and instant reinterpretation

Like white blood cells hunting for
and attacking infection possibilities

I walk sprite with knowledge and
the weightlessness of truths

Uncentered dispersions simmer but rarely boil
leisurely cognitions reflective of time wasted

Everything I touch with passion and interest
is poignant, significant, and essential

--------------------------------------

[motivated by achievement and power with little regard for affinity; that's what the tests say]

VD

A full moon too beautiful
to photograph or paint
A perfection fear
And shots of top-shelf vodka

It's Valentine's Day
Aphorism by definition
The loved and the loveless

Suggestions of druggy sex
or sexy drugs

Friends, Believers, and Shakers
At what point does it all
become too fucking much?
Paid, closed, and never late

It is time to confront our truths

MT Art

like minds empty hearts
reserve spaces forbidden
unusually

Indie Cred

It's a Mope World After All

Part 2

For the Love of Me

A luxury perhaps reserved for a fortunate few
With crises and instability; world on precipice
Of human-initiated implosions – necessity of love is questioned

A necessity perhaps lost on the unenlightened masses
With savage characteristics dominant in our cognitive capacity
Filling otherwise necessary spaces, love is our only comfort

----------------------

There is a distinct difficulty I have describing how I feel anymore. Not what I am feeling about something, but actually how I feel – about myself. The generalizations no longer suffice and the specifications are often frightening to self and definitely to others. When description is misinterpreted as manifesto, at best, and as some sort of suicidally ambiguous cry-for-help, at worst, words have to be chosen with great care. Paradoxically, I’d hate for someone to offer conclusion to the tightfisted clues provided. It would be taken as an insult to intelligence (the construct).

The obvious problem with choosing one’s words in an overtly rigorous fashion, then, is the threat of beating of authenticity into script. Cliché is too alluring a trap for even the most cynical and creative. When your world is built upon several well-honed devices, breaking free is difficult. But, when the world you’ve built is also your only remaining citadel, the walls are often thick and old. Mother wolverines are less ferocious protectors of their kits.

Herein lies the problem. Feelings are extraordinarily complicated – complex even. Written description and analyses – unless you are both deeply intuitive and are a terrific writer – may remain an elusive impossibility for most of us. Analysis becomes not only ambitious, but also exponentially more difficult to confront head on.

So, what am I feeling? If I close my eyes and concentrate, I understand that I am tired; deeply weary. I long to sit still and alone and listen to my brain and body; to slowly discover what benefits solitude may present. Unfortunately, and at present, I believe that solitude may prove addictive, with the ending of a temporary seclusion resulting in a depression inducing wanting.

Needy? Sure, I’ll say that I am needy. It’s the same needs we all have in varying proportions and incarnations historically. We all have our needs, yeah? Particular needs range from a need for someone to wrap us up like tiny puppies and keep us warm and safe – to someone generously serving as our personal playgrounds. Balance, I’m guessing, is key but human needs ignored are akin to landmines: be careful where you step.

But, back to how I am feeling. I don’t know. Pensive? Cliché. Riddled with angst? Too dramatic, really. Unsatisfied? Closer. It’s almost a feeling of nearing self-actualization but not being able to catch up to it…yet. Being the greyhound chasing the racetrack “rabbit” is frustrating. Maybe its feeling as if you are the collective pieces of a jigsaw puzzle – all the pieces are there – but remaining fully unsolved isn’t the primary objective (maybe this condition exists because of an insane level of self-selected difficulty). Mime in an imaginary bubble? That’s just stupid. I don’t know. But, it’s interesting. We are close, just not there yet.

Obviously there is desire and the desire to taste the fruits of forbidden concupiscence. This, clearly, is undeniable and possibly an instrumental factor in the funk of present. Wrapped into these lust fantasies is a rigid belief that pursuit is not only deserved, but is morally consistent with homily of integrity. Paradoxes of ironies.

Taken together, conditions summed is like a gauntlet thrown at the feet of one’s belief structure and sense of self-defined superiority. Challenges! I’ve lived a life of accepting and defeating challenges without fear or remorse. Never is a winning streak guaranteed though. Probability, in fact, insists that winning as an absolute, is impossible. We are all subject to rule, whim, and sadism of our existence’s chaos. Science and dogma be damned.

[Wise] Words of Wisdom

"Ahh, my friend. It's good when time just stops...and you can sit fully inside your head and just think."

- Otter Prince

Short Cap

My new nickname, of sorts.

There is a story here...

Someday, I'll tell it...

Adroitly developed skills of careful avoidance
Perception management -- theater for unheard of eyes
Encounters formal as courtship rituals of days long past
Choreographed slinking through fissures and back alleys

For moments worthwhile to simply sit and take pleasures
Sharing time as it flows away downstream rapidly
Watching shadow and light dance across your striking form
A hunger to touch -- a yearning to know -- a pining to breathe

As frustrations with self and circumstance mount
As the cosmos conspire to thwart at every juncture
Acrimony battles hopefulness in ugly death bouts
While I anxiously wait outcomes from remote bunkers

The more nothing changes everything changes nothing
Rare prospects for union and tranquility
Continues to lure like siren songs -- rocks fatally jagged
Self-actualization as despairing as euphoric sometimes

Resolutions for optimism remains
As long as there is laughterto eke
Proving ourselves stronger than
Subordinates prove themselves meek

Fah!

Fancy fah moo-y mah
Silly observations for things
Larger than realty

Moo-y mah fancy fah
Making system from parts
Scattered far, wide, and beyond comprehension

Fancy mah, moo-y fah
When correctly the numbers
Sum oddly and counter-intuitively

Moo-y fah fancy mah
Losers win -- when looser
Then our super twin

Choosing Skin

Choosing your love is akin to choosing your skin
What we get is beyond any control
We awake one day as a girl
Or with six fingers
Or speaking Chinese

Just as our biochemical arousal response(s)
Is geared toward a (serious) complex matrix
of predetermined menu items
And hierarchy of proven or known likes

We continually injure and insult
As we fight urge and need

Soiree

Soiree a la soiree
from bored to excited really
elegantly oddball odd

a party of men
a parody of leverage
destiny's reflex

executing chances for career or social suicide
ropes taught and coarsely brittle
without rearview mirror or turn signals

Three Quotations - May Sarton

"On a deeper level I have come to believe (perhaps this is one way to survive) that there is a reason for these repeated blows - that I am not meant for success and that in a way adversity is my climate."

"It is only when we can believe that we are creating the soul that life has any meaning, but when we can believe it...then there is nothing we do that is without meaning and nothing that we suffer that does not hold the seed to creation in it."

"Goal...the completing of the world."

Rings & Things

Marital pairings
Markings of propriety
Weddings like welding

Shifts

So savagely distressing
Or, in so cases, distressingly savage
As partisan pro-love as pro-liberty
Astonishingly aware
but so fucking without clue

Forcing or waiting
For eras anew (again)
And hints of omens of signals of signs, sigh
A king's ransom for the arrest and conviction
of genuine feelings on all of this

Shifts subtle shifts seismic
We search our attics
When we believe we've lost our heads
Nudging but fixed to rails like the trains
We know our destinations

As we grow weary
When the darkness again arrives
Optimism evolves past distant theories
And there lies some comfort - it is believe
The things of which we convince ourselves

Paige, Daniel - Artist

The deal with Dan's records is that early in the listening experience, it's too easy to accept the whole. That is, the perfection of the complete compositions and recordings is so obvious that much of the craft is taken for granted.

Then, one day, maybe on cursed shuffle a song pop's up. Maybe it's "How to Ride a Horse." And you get kind of sick in the pit of your stomach (sometimes over in your spleen). Because, you know. You know you've just gotten your ass kicked. Better than your shit; you didn't think of it first. We have a winner.

Handily and carefully crafted. Like a motherfucker.

And, all you can offer is a hearty congratulations.

The Pissing Haiku

Pissing on oneself
Little hints of control lapse
No embarrassment

Found

- 1983

A New Era

Good that you recognized that it's a new era. The last era ended during dinner at the cafe on Saturday, December 3rd, 2005.

New levels. New holidays:

Ground Hog Day
Field Mowing Day
Attic Day
Angel Day

- RPW, 2006, Ground Hog Meat

Pencil Scratching Preferable

Rose colored lenses
Trojan horse of teddy bears
Ferocious monsters

Reality

"Now you understand why some people think reality is subjective, but others insist it is objective."

- Eugene Mirman

Hello...

The Seven Maybes and the God Awful Truth

Maybe I brought it all on myself
Maybe I offended someone's "god"
Maybe I fucked someone over in a past life
Maybe I am an asshole
Maybe I clueless
Maybe I am not as smart as I thought
Maybe I am in purgatory

Naw, some shit just happens
It'll all be alright, as always
Turn down the noise and what have you?
Bliss, just fucking bliss

Who am I to complain?
It'll all be alright, as always
I'm just way too accustomed getting my way
No time for patience

Storied and legendary
It'll all be alright, as always
Bar set way too high for self and them
Head full of thoughts

Creepy Old Fat Ass

Washed up
Nowhere to go
Dying an obese, sedentary death
Out of breath and time

Or not

Beginning of the beginning
Everything mine for the taking
Living high and mighty as usual
In tune with heaven and hell

God damn!

Come along and join
Or watch from sideline benches
Adventures are the makings of life
The ride gets better all the time

It's so good to be royalty

Dan's Hand

Read it Here

The caricatures from Denmark's Jyllands-Posten paper included drawings of Muhammad wearing a headdress shaped like a bomb, while another shows him saying that paradise was running short of virgins for suicide bombers.


"This is a far bigger story than just the question of 12 cartoons in a small Danish newspaper."

- Flemming Rose, culture editor, Jyllands-Posten


"No religious dogma can impose its view on a democratic and secular
society."

- Arnaud Lévy, editor in chief, France Soir


"I can't call a newspaper and tell them what to put in it. That's not how our society works."

- Danish prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, rejecting demands for an official apology


"I understand that it may shock Muslims, but being shocked is part of the price of being informed."

- Robert Ménard, secretary general, Reporters Without Borders


"You can understand the feelings of Muslims, but we're in a pluralist state. We have a right to do that."

- Dominique von Burg, editor in chief, Switzerland's Tribune de Genève


"My guess is that no one will draw the Prophet Muhammad in Denmark in the next generation, and therefore I must say with deep shame that they have won."

- Carsten Juste, editor in chief, Jyllands-Posten

Bad Motherfucker

I'm that bad motherfucker called Stagger Lee.

I'm a bad motherfucker who lives it everyday.

I'm a bad motherfucker, oh yes I am you mothers, come on.

Stupid ass sucker such a bad motherfucker.

You little bad motherfucker, go on and hit the dank. That's how it is in the Oaktown.

That's my bad motherfucker!

I'm a bad motherfucker and you know this, but the pussy ass niggaz don't show this.

You a bad motherfucker? Yeah, hell yeah.

I'm a bad motherfucker and my bullet's gonna find you out.

You're a bad motherfucker if you dare to compete.

I'm a bad motherfucker with a bad rep I got a trophy in my mouth for every bitch I killed.

See I'm a bad motherfucker if ya' ain't never seen it.

Lil' bad motherfucker with a pocket full of rocks.

Can you tell me who the bad motherfucker now?

I'm a bad motherfucker ya' gonna wish you would.

Cause I'm a bad motherfucker - rhymes so swift, parallel to no other.

Little bad motherfucker runnin' wild through the town.

Cause I'm a bad motherfucker, selfish and sick.

I was a bad motherfucker, slightly retarded mentally institutionalized, since the '85.

That's a bad motherfucker all I know he's about to drop some shit now.

'Cuz I'm a bad motherfucker and you're a long way from home.

I Wonder

I wonder what people do with their free time?

With Eyes Open

My friend Lee was shot in the torso once
He said it hurt a whole lot
And the fear was even worse
Than the actual pain

The point is there is pain
And there is suffering
But it’s the fear that is killer
So fucking what, right?

With history unblemished
To a large degree
And integrity intact
Confidently I move forward

With less regard than ever
For rules or constructs
Created as shortcuts
For the dim or very lazy

Advice neither offered nor hinted
On career, life, or circumstance
Sometimes leading is best accomplished
With mouths closed

Heaved

Expectations and pressures
Heaved upon self and often others
Deadlines artificial and arbitrary

Motivation for productivity
Productivity for fulfillment
Fulfillment for life

Resting queued for death
In the interim the pushing
Until exhaustion and bliss

Chasing Down Desire

"...getting turned on was never a problem for me. I liked chasing down desire, and I had endless fun with the buildup to sex. It was the idea of someone wanting me that I found irresistibly hot, the tension of the moment right before. It was teetering on the precipice of ultimate untimacy with another person: the smell of his excitement, imagining what it would feel like to surprise him with a kiss, to lean over his body, to press my own against his, to feel the heat of that first physical connection..."

- Heidi Raykeil