A poem for Zoe (the end of August)
I.
The summer at camp treated you well.
The hills opened their soft palms for you.
In the humid days we sang,
and in the desert like nights
we danced around a blazing fire,
like ones described in origin myths.
the world that resides on top of that hill
is the world we built together;
each leaf meticulously crafted
with 32 shades of green.
We placed the hollow reeds in the brown pond
and put the leeches there too.
we gave it song, rules, language, we gave it religion,
we gave it ten thousand wily spirits
to reside in the hollow parts of trees.
and then we came back down again,
when school awoke from sweaty slumber
and issued the predatory call which all good children fear.
II.
And now you lie in the hollow house
where all the other months are spent.
Where every sound echoes forth
from hardwood floors, and the light
creeps through, projecting
the sway of a tree against the velvet drapes;
you search for something in that light
but all you find are particles of dust.
All you can do is breathe
deep enough to move your blue blanket,
and the breath comes out
with the sound of wind slipping through leafless trees.
All you have done
is remain horizontal.
III.
I ask you to leave it.
Let go of the inside jokes buried underground.
Forget the morning toasts to nothing,
leave the first buds of lust that bloomed at night
on the road, on the road; where they belong,
just as they are.
Because the past is truly nothing.
A heap of broken images
collecting electric dust
in a facebook photo album
somewhere in the lower depths of the internet.
You hold it all so tightly in your hands.
You think it an heirloom, an artifact
that hangs around your neck.
It’s a horcrux. Leave it.
Let go of the songs, the dances,
the parades in our circus clothes,
let them fly alone into the night sky,
IV.
And walk beneath them, where the grass
and the trees can’t remember their names
or story of their lives, let alone
the previous moment.
Walk where the lamplight softens
everything it touches.
Do you hear it? The world
calling you into its alternating pattern
of darkness and light, darkness and light,
darkness and light, darkness and light?
Now can you feel the autumn air fill your lungs?
Do you feel yourself floating slightly?
Walk through the dark neighborhood,
with your hands in your pockets, feeling that familiar pull.
and above, the geese form their broken alphabet as the magnets
in their brain pull them forward towards the suns light,
and the trees dye their hair 5 or 6 colors,
like the punk rock goddesses they are,
and prepare themselves for one last thrash
before they stand, still and naked,
dreaming of the seeds they’ve thrown
into the worlds womb.
Inspiration
This is a list of artists that has influenced me the most in the last five years, or longer, and whose work I continue to come back to study, to love, and to find guidance and inspiration. In other words, I want portraits of these people hanging on the wall above my desk:
Hayao Miyazaki
Bruce Springsteen
Paolo Coelho
Mary Oliver
Charles Bukowski
Spencer Krug
Billy Collins
Joseph Campbell
I’m reading a book by Twyla Tharp called The Creative Habit and in it she instructs the reader to not only know who your inspirations are, but also to find the common threads in their work that attract you to them. These are some of the early connections I’ve seen between their work:
- placing spiritual issues are the forefront of their work, and not being afraid to state them bluntly, not hiding them solely behind metaphor and imagery. I am thinking in particular of Mary Oliver’s “You do not have to be good… you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves” or Paolo Coehlo’s The Alchemist.
- a desire for mythology; either myth-making or deconstruction of myths.
- a tension between idealism (Springsteen, Oliver), and telling-it-like-it-is-ism (Bukowski, Morrison)
can you see others?
PS - the single most influential piece of work in the last five years has been the Scott Pilgrim movie and comic books, so those belong on the list too.
this is an audio post for a poem I posted last week. Have funnnnnnn.
If the world weren’t so beautiful
then there would be no need to write.
If it didn’t reveal itself
slowly, undoing it’s blouse
one button at a time with
a steady, deliberate hand,
I would not be here typing
when I should be sleeping.
I sit in stillness. My hand
on my chin, forehead pressed
against the cold window.
my heart heavy as a water pitcher.
I have spent many sleepless nights
behind this glass, watching from afar,
as the world’s clothing slides
off its curves and are left on the floor.
The world stands with its hands
spread, holding each side
of the window, allowing its breasts
to fall unobstructed.
Its hills are dusted with snow,
Its night sky a smeared water color.
The world is looking at me,
With an expression on its face
that could either mean
“come hither”
or
“what are you waiting for?”
Renew
I am scarred to do this. The idea of putting myself out there, even on the internet, is a process that fills me with anxiety and the voice of Resistence in my head keeps telling me to stop. It keeps telling me to repost Zac Gorman pictures. It keeps telling me to repost Charles Bukowski poems. It keeps telling me to reblog Miyazaki gifs. And I have loved and still do love reblogging those things.
But if all I spend my time doing on this blog is reblogging, then I am not an active participant in any sort of creative way. I am not a creater, but a curator of cool shit. There isn’t wrong with that, but I started this tumblr with the intention of posting my own work as well. To date, that work is few and far between.
That is going to end now. Or rather, I am reinvesting in my intention to post my own work to this tumblr, and to the Soft Reset tumblr. It will consists of poems and songs mostly. Gifs, images, videos of me dancing too. It might even be just reflections on shit that I have been thinking about, as a means of articulating my thoughts. It doesn’t really matter what it is. I have reached a point in my creative process where I no longer want it to just be me and my work in a dark room with a small glass of water.
It is time to open the windows, both technological and literal. It is time to show and tell all my toys, and see where they are not working.
So please, if you would be so kind, I want you to be apart of my creative process. I want you along for the ride. With that, I will leave you with the first poem I wrote after a year of writing haiku in 2010. I don’t know what the title is yet.
If the world weren’t so beautiful
then there would be no need to write.
If it didn’t reveal itself
slowly, undoing it’s blouse
one button at a time with
a steady, deliberate hand,
I would not be here typing
when I should be sleeping.
I sit in stillness. My hand
on my chin, forehead pressed
against the cold window.
my heart heavy as a water pitcher.
I have spent many sleepless nights
behind this glass, watching from afar,
as the world’s clothing slides
off its curves and are left on the floor.
The world stands with its hands
spread, holding each side
of the window, allowing its breasts
to fall unobstructed.
Its hills are dusted with snow,
Its night sky a smeared water color.
The world is looking at me,
With an expression on its face
that could either mean
“come hither”
or
“what are you waiting for?”
