November 2008
14 posts
z e r o
counting wrinkles around my fathers eyes. counting mother’s worries. counting hairs in my unkempt beard. counting lines of code, counting days, sunny hours. counting inches of empty bedsheets. counting faults, failures and losses. counting empty rattled coughs. counting ribs, dapples of flesh and impregnable reasons. counting round white pills. counting frames, forgiveness’ and lovers....
f e t a l
cold november legs wedge through holes in twisting blankets. blankets and black cloth warm and heavy with yesterday and the day before. steady winds pull a spectacle of light into unwholesome dark and darker thought cuts circles into cold skin. tighter and tighter pulled-cloth. tigher and tighter till nothing escapes. past giving in, the whole opens and swallows a mindless scarlett forever. from...
d a r k
the days come up short. my need is a snaking river. long, curved, unrelenting. i sleep with the calendar like a promise and grind the short light days off; another, another. waiting for a sick planet to shift and put its belly to the sun. it’s never coming, that day. the long warm day. the time will always be too short. the angle imperfect. the wash will run dry and a bed of red garnet eyes...
a s h
the water scalds but warms some forgotten cold. towelling you survey the damage of years of abuse and neglect. roll onto your bed. try to think clear thoughts. try to breath deep finding only coughs and sore muscle. you’ve done those things that had to be done. raised your blood. loved the wife. rolled forty deep and spent years in beauty. yet there is still more. always more. twist flesh...
drink water. lots of water. duh.
“if you’re not prepared to be wrong you’ll never come up with...”
– Ken Robinson speaking at a TED conference.
“that life wasn’t about which choice is best, but making those choices.”
– worthknowing [ruzz: all too true. too painfully true]
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;”
– yeats, the second coming.
“Photography occurs more readily when the photographer relinquishes...”
– dennis stock | [ruzz] i agree to a point. wonder is essential childlike not so.
w r o n g
it’s hard to live with your foolishness. you gamble in the most crooked joints you can find and put down every last cent. maybe even a few you didn’t have. you sit on that old wooden kitchen chair and rant. and rail. and curse and scream and hurt. you know what you have to do but getting from what to how seems like forever. we’re so easily shamed, made guilty. made less and yet...
o b a m a
everyone wants to know. how do i feel about obama winning. i feel for once hope won. for once cynicism was given rest and a deeply wounded nation listened to its better parts and despite all evidence to the contrary decided to try for something better. i think we need more people fighting the deep cynic in all of us, and while i am not sure he can actually invoke the change he speaks, i am sure if...
s e x
sometimes you wish you could just divorce the mind. leave it in its sick and keep the body beautiful. raw. alive. clear in it’s needs. sometimes its safer to fall in love with flesh.
s t i l l
sit still in the quiet and listen to the horns go off. the drained mumble of the half mute upstairs. the wind pushing things around a end of workaday parking lot. the hum of the fridge. water running somewhere. sit and listen to all you’ve wrought. hear the quiet mouth, breathlessly, the mis-steps. the decisions of indecision. the let-it-slide serenade while you plop back deep into the...
“and so longing for one month to ease on by and be rid of the angry dictator who...”
– from “the teneous hold”, a ruzz blog post from may ‘05