February 9, 2010 at 18:30 (Random Rants)
Tags: Aphorisms, black coffee, Facebook, g-mail, Henry Rollins, holy grail, Mark Twight, Nietzsche, nostalgia, Overman, Red Bull, ubermensch, yawp
Just sit there. Keep searching. Type in Twight, Rollins, maybe even Nietzsche. Somebody somewhere wrote something you forgot. That’s all you need. Strong words in a stronger order. It’s like pouring Red Bull in your black coffee, isn’t it? You hit the right combination and it’s like hitting the lottery of inspiration. You’ve found the right phrase, you’re fired up, those keys won’t dig any deeper into your keyboard. Now you’ve got to get up and do something, right? It’s got to be hard, fast, precise . . . doesn’t it? Just like the words you’ve just read. Get up! Do it! Someone is yelling at you from behind that flickering cursor.
You’re already a few minutes closer to your next birthday– that day you sit around and eventually wonder, What did I do last year? Next year will be different, won’t it? No Facebook, no G-mail, no need for inspirational quotes . . . you’ve read more than a 14th century monk with ink stains for fingers. You’ll go outside everyday. Maybe you’ll dress for the weather, maybe you won’t– the elements have no effect on you, you’re inspired. No more nostalgias, no more procrastinating– you’ve read the grail of aphorisms and you’re ready!
Start somewhere. Do something. Not every action has to be an imitation of the Overman, not every thought has to be the brightest burning star in the sky. Who cares that you’re not a Rock Star, a Movie Star, or a nut-inflamed Stuntman? Begin by standing up. Walk the other way. There’s nothing here but regret. Yell in praise that you’re up, that you’re awake. Congratulate yourself with a yawp. Make sleep something you do at the end of the day, not a shallow pool that you wade through. Today probably isn’t your last day, so don’t polka-dot your clock with regrets. Forget nostalgia, it’s over. Don’t cling so tightly to today that it becomes an addiction. Always tell yourself that you can rest whenever you want, as long as it’s tomorrow.
© t09II Vagabond Lit
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February 3, 2010 at 17:16 (Indiscernible Categorization)
Tags: beer, pen and paper, Poetry, snipe hunting, Tom Waits, Vagabond
Sleep hits me in the face like a bag full of leather winged birds. I’m hoping that tomorrow has more hours. I need to be able to kill a few and still have a few. If I get them, I’ll share them with a Beer and we’ll invite some Pen and Paper over to our table. Show ‘em a good time, maybe slow dance to Tom Waits. May we’ll invite ‘em up to the cabin this weekend to do some hunting. We can’t let on that we’re hunting new Poems. Pen and Paper take that as seriously as I take Snipe Hunting. Imagine a full-grown man out in the yard with his long necked companion waving Pen and Paper while yelling for Poetry. Hell, most people wouldn’t bother to take us seriously. They’d blame my “issues” on the Beer. I’d drop my pants to relieve myself and yell back, “She’s mine and I love her!”
Eventually, we’ll fall asleep, surrounded by naked Pages and Pens ready to burst a blue one. Maybe I’ll knock her up and she’ll birth a whole litter of Poems– making me one of those proud dads who doesn’t care that his friends don’t even smoke the nice cigars, much less the ones I’m passing out. But all this for tomorrow– that mystical day when I can do it all.
© t03II Vagabond Lit
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February 2, 2010 at 18:18 (Literary Icons)
Tags: basement trains, charon, france, odysseus, paris, Poetry, roman payne, unrhymed verse, Vagabond, writing
A response to Roman Payne’s 21st Century Poem:
My nagging and persistent thought that Paris was dead! That Hitler’s heavy boots trampled the dust that stirred the diaspora! But, no! Paris soaked into the dusty earth like an eloping rain. No longer does she grasp for the flesh of wayward men, she goes stronger now to the banquet of artist’s souls. She is the eloquent hostess who validates Charon’s fees. I am Odysseus.
Her melody is sung in unrhymed verse, her voice is the sound of wind brushing clouds against the sky. Paris! I thirsted for your breasts, I hungered for your loins, I dreamed for the children of words that were ours to be, but I did not anticipate that I would wake so suddenly. That half of my bed would remain cold for another year.
I began to fear that you were queen of distant magazine, animated and antiquated by brush. But now you have been exposed to me! No longer can you hide in dream, or bury your soul in my fantasies.
You are as alive as the words I scribble in false eulogy.
I dreamt that I read the final page of your funeral; a long procession into the fabled earth. Truth dressed me up as you in that dream. I have been dead all these years. My death happened sometime after the prologue. Death began with the crack of a marble and ended with the scattering of gems. And then we kissed goodbye before formal introductions. You bit my lip. Your breasts flattened against my chest. My face wrinkled by questions. Your cheeks full of red. The last memory mine is your heel lifting foot onto train.
© t02II Vagabond Lit
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January 22, 2010 at 05:40 (Poetry)
Tags: eiffel tower, france, Poetry, river seine, Vagabond, writing
Footnotes tongued in margins
partially understood–
Sarah, still and wondering,
wore a mask of France.
Her canvas flowed
the river Seine,
accent long and grave.
Her sun sat perched high atop
rusting Eiffel Tower;
her coffee black,
her hat sat back
unfriended and unspoken.
The streets she strolled
with map unrolled
were hostile and misleading.
She travelled home
and buried tomes
of phrases
soft and bleating.
Not again
would her tongue betray
her birthplace
for a margin;
the tears she shed
were watermarked
the fear she shared
was dead.
© t22I Vagabond Lit
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January 20, 2010 at 21:12 (Indiscernible Categorization)
Tags: agape, brotherly love, Eros, love, philia, platonic love, Poetry, unconditional love, Vagabond, writing
Love? Above all things I believe in love. Love is like oxygen. Love is a many-splendored thing, love lifts us up where we belong, all you need is love. ~from the movie, Moulin Rouge
EROS– lightning love. Passionate, brilliant, usually burns out as quickly as it was ignited. Most people believe in this type of love because it responds to our need for immediate gratification. The most basic and shallow type of love, but love nonetheless.
PHILIA– semantically called “brotherly” love. More appropriately thought of as familial love. Sometimes footnoted as Platonic Love. Can be seasonal or long term. Passions may incite and flare if provoked, but not as unstable as EROS. The sincerest form of love many will ever practice.
AGAPE– absolute, indisputable love. Sometimes called “unconditional.” Many people do not believe in this state of love. The only requirement to acknowledge its existence is to be open to it. We all are capable of receiving it. Difficult for us to share, but not impossible. Agape is always available. It will knock you down when you first acknowledge it, and lift you up when you accept it.
© t20I Vagabond Lit
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