4.30.2010

NOTITLE

Probably the longest poem ever. But yeah, I just wanted to write..


Into the well dives my wish
But the prospect of return is dim.
I threw it in upon a whim.
Hoping my misfortune would turn around.

With my nose to the ground
I hunt for the twists and turns of life.
Cut down our trees with a dull knife.
Tie them together. Call it a boat.

When the waves pick up, I hope we'll float.
But that's based on a hope and a prayer.
"I could predict this" Spoke the soothsayer.
The sky tonight, it has too many layers.

We could see, over looming towers and sky-bound skylights
Birds flying over head dive into the night.
Reds and Oranges; The dying sun dies out of sight
Leaving us standing in a field of green.

Leaves abound make rings around
Two souls lost. Lost in the middle.
Of a forest? A field of artificial greenery?
We look to the sky, and back to the earth, to find what it means.

Too many things are attempting to come full circle.
I am the lawyer in a trial,
And the suspect is full of undeniable denial
While I ask questions, prying at the truth.

"You and I, we are just youths!
We wish to seek the truth
Striking at the ground, making sound
Loving the other by claw and by tooth."

Primal desires overcome false mires,
Leaving our feet dripping wet from the dawn.
Speak of stupid passion and child-like desires
I retract and detract and sit down on the synthetic lawn.

Oh, the fireworks that do not explode.
A slow-motion, recurring episode of dramatics
Poetics and romantics. All is hopeless. All is lost.
I threw my last dime into the well. But more than that, imagine the cost.

My hands are numb. Maybe from the frost.
But the frozen tundra could not sway my mind.
Love is the last horizon to find.
But I am lost.

So when should I come back? How should I react?
My smile shall fall heavily among the bric-a-brac.
And so I detract. Into a shallow hole in the wall.
Waiting for an ever so distant call. Ever so distant.

I will never ask "What is it?" I will reply
With a whimper or a sigh. Something that will bring you nigh.
And I will pry. Sixty times with no results.
We shall depart amongst these solitary tumults.

On purpose, I will be lost in Delaware.
Somewhere far from here. Somewhere never near.
Probably the days will linger.
As I remember the days I embraced with the alto singer.

Monsters in my closet. In my car. In my launder.
Force me to sit and ponder.
Will this do me any good? Am I a runaway, or do I just wander?
I wander for wandering's sake. So I must return.

As the fire from the inferno burns
We takes turns. Jumping around. Feet never truly touching the ground.
But then the humor of it all
Become sadly pivotal.

She walks away. She walks away.
Becoming the greatest obstacle of the bunch.
We sit to lunch. The way she walks. The way she brushes her hair...
Again, makes me question. "Do I dare?"

But I don't. I won't.
She enters the door. I hold it open. "I'll take your coat."
Chivalry comes high to the forefront.
High upon my stallion, I forget about the hunt.

Sit down. Order. It is all so jovial.
Speaking talking, I listen. Interested in truth. Interested so.
My, does the day go. It goes and it goes.
Until it is night again. And we depart, my friend.

Marks on hands, simple tallies of love.
Or is it love? It's love. Wait?
The night does wane, and the hour becomes late.
My significance dies, along with the date.

Logic dictates the next maneuver. My rook guards the queen.
Sacrifice its life. But for what, I must ask? (And so does the rook)
By hook or crook, we'll survive it all.
I read it in a book. For we, Love in the time of Diphtheria.

The snow comes down. Cats and dogs hide away.
Blackness overcomes the house. Differentiate between the night and day.
But you need no coat. No blanket. Socks are an option.
I ask "Do you shiver?" and you reply how you may.

Younger and younger we are not getting.
Clocks have broken down. Worn down. Letting us forget
That which we must let.
We must let. I must let. I must let you go.

Bury me in the Sahara. Or in the depths of Africa.
I am Mr. Kurtz. I am dead.
I have floated to the bottom of the pool. Dense as lead.
Just do me a favor and paint our sunrise red.

Laugh away. For the rest of your life.
That is all I wish. That is the last coin flip.
Heads or tails. It doesn't matter. It never mattered.
My lips and teeth will miss you, among the chit and chatter.

The note said that you wished
(I quote the latter)

For a new day to come.
It said, lying upon my table,
That you lived within a fable
And that you wished to love someone.
That you hoped for a dream come true
This wouldn't last
Wounded, bound in a cast,
You didn't know what to do.
I ask who am I to mend this ruse?
The day is done. The night is cold.
Trivialities, they do grow old.
So to pain my mind, I ask, what's the use?

I fold the letter and hide it in my jacket
The cars on the street create a metallic racket
I look. I look for days. Drunk from wine, my balance swerves.
Lonely at this party, I drink more wine; eating hors d'oeuvres.

Gone are the days when we laughed. Laughed and cried.
Gone is when silence was all we replied.
Gone are memories which we promised we'd keep.
I'm in a pine box. You'll probably refuse to weep.

Violins, cellos, may you hear me out?
I do not know what you sing about.
Only chords of strain and softness strike me blind.
Rain pounds heavily upon my eyes. I am cast with doubt.

Struggle. Shout. I turn around and fall into a whimper.
The light dies near, I fear to say. To say I say with confidence.
As my dreams of a picket fence splinter gone.
We are strangers, here forever, now to hence.

And whence shall we leave again?
Beg my pardon. I must mean meet again.
Because this cannot happen twice. This cannot happen three times.
This has to cease. But I must ask when.

Thunder strikes this very house. I do not know how strong this roof is.
Earthquakes shake, take a toll on my foundation.
My foundation. The ground does shift.
I lift to heaven high with no elation.

Clouds take my sky. Commandeer the panorama.
Manipulate my scene from serene to what I deem sublime.
From a distance, your voice echoes.
But that is just the to-and-fro's of the cellos.

The sea must mellow out, one day, while I am still alive.
Birds flying over head, quit their gliding. Fall rather than dive.
Brick by lonely brick is taken from the foundation
Of my sea-side house. Atlantis is home to lovers before.

The picture's blurry. Your dress is green.
Life is not what it may seem. It isn't. It really isn't.
Specters are transparent, as so they appear.
I fear, that I'll stutter. I have failed. D-Dang.

Bang. And then we're bang to the beginning.
By my tally, I do believe you're winning.
Fooled me. I forgot it was a game.
Fooled me twice. You forgot I had a name. My name?

I don't remember either. Jay? Blake? Jake?
They're all the same. They wind up dead, or simply living.
Oh, darling, isn't it just so riveting?
When will the conclusion come? When will it come?

It comes sooner for some. Postponed for me.
As the sun goes down, I walk with glee.
The tree means nothing, in the larger picture of it all.
Slow down time. Please. Jack. Jose. Adderall.

Get me off this world. I'm dizzy. Busy. The days,
They come with ease. But knocked down twice,
It does suffice that I'm left with scarred knees,
And hollow chin. Throw the coin. I love these whims.

Struggle? Beaten down? You left this garden,
To love the plush and lavish lifestyle of the town.
You walk with them. She walks away. She walks away.
She has walked away. Everyone, this is parlay.

There is time. Oh, there is time. For visions.
And then revisions and decisions of those visions
Incisions. My heart divides from my soul like nuclear fission.
But alas I'm still alive. My eyes have mist. My eyes have mist.

Do you understand? I tried to explain the gist of it.
Hearts divide. Explosions in the sky. Words unspoken.
I throw a token. Deep abyss. "I love you dearly, miss."
Swing? Miss. Boxes. Letters. Dawn. Dive. Goodbye.

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

4.04.2010

New Title

Here is the poem where the new title comes from.

TS Eliot
The Hollow Men


Mistah Kurtz—he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy


I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

No! I am not Prince Hamlet

Last night, predating the last entry, a room mate of mine asked me a question that I actually was stumped by.

"You're pretty concerned with people. Even everyone as a whole. What about yourself?"

I was like "OHHH SHITTTT SON. You just became all doctorate therapist on me, by asking me how I feel."

But, it's a question that does evade me still. What is it that I hold dear about everyone else, while there is my personal being at stake. There are those that don't give two shits about others in the world, and then there are people like me, who probably think about others more than they contemplate about themselves.

What about me? What about me. A sentence and a question separated by a rising intonation.

I, for some odd, and probably stupid, reason, wonder why we, as a whole, don't care more. Why is it that we don't look at ourselves and ask "What is wrong about me?" Not everyone can be the hotness, the business, el primo guapo (For my spanish friends). We are human, and by rights, philosophically, we are err'd. So why not try to improve those errors?

I have a messy desk. I question if it's a negative or positive thing. If I deem it negative, I should do something about it. So I do.

But then, I suppose, there are people who believe that this messy desk is perfection, and that this desk cannot be further improved upon.

These people must believe, also, that they are penultimate perfection in other realms of living too. They cannot do wrong. These people are either hermits that believe society is not good enough, or unibombers who hate society for their problems they create upon them.

Who says I am right? They possibly can believe that they are err'd. But are these errors significant? Can people look at themselves and say that "I have a problem telling the truth to my significant other." "I can't love, because I have been trained to be manly." "I value money over people." Is anyone really able to face these truths?

Steps may be the best way to go. Gradual alterations of the self.

I alter myself. I still have faults. Everything is perpetually under a moral and ethical construction.

Yet, the question about myself has been evaded like people evading homeless people in San Francisco and Berkeley. The homeless ones that you can see from ways away that they smell.

Why do I care so much about THEM, rather than caring about myself?

Selflessness? Lack of consciousness for my personal well-being? Maybe I'm just a open hearted individual, aka hippy, that just loves everyone.
Dude.

No, that can't be it. I believe that people are naturally ignorant about personal strifes, so that's not it.

Maybe this will sum it up. A line from a poem.

"No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool...
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—"

My "honed" analytical skills can tell you that the speaker of the poem is saying that they are not a prince or a lord, but a simple man that helps increase the swelling of the progress (Shakespeare's plays had groups of people on-stage to display a court or town scene). He is faceless, unimportant, but part of the mass.

I guess what I'm saying is that I am just a person. Nothing more. A pessimist about my own future. So I care more about those around me, because they the ones that control my degree of happiness in my life.

And I try to do likewise.

Laughter covers up the sadness of our ends.

So what about myself?

I like basketball, people, and music.

Anything other than that,
I fade into the crowd, and you may never see me again.

Edit: 1 minute after.

I can sing "Tik Tok" by Kesha. All of it. That should define me. Tell you who I am. And if it doesn't, life, as we know it, is a big lie.

Don't Know.

I have always wondered what it means to actually do something with yourself.

They say "Boy, go and do something with your life"

Then I wonder what that something is. Are we supposed to get menial jobs, that you return home to your 1.5 kids and your wife that may or may not be addicted to valium and cheating on you with the pool boy? Should we go to college, only to arrive... Arrive being the operative word.

I feel as if just "doing" is so...pathetic isn't the word...meaningless. I think it's meaningless to just be at a level that you enjoy, and while being at that level, you stay there. I feel that people should strive to be more. Doesn't everyone want to improve themselves?

Of course not. There will be people who are satisfied with where they are.

I personally don't understand how they can live this way.

But then it boils down to whether you believe that there is a reason. Is there possibly a reason that we should live? Why don't we just kill ourselves in the bathtub listening to Tubthumping by Chumbawumba, throwing the radio in to our watery ending? This would skip straight to the answer, if there is a purpose. And then we'd deal from there.

However, if you do believe that life is worth living, and that the end can wait, why wait? Why should we wait. That was a statement more than it was a question, because the statement deems the mentality is more important than the questioning mind. There are people who, like a great philosopher said (Soc, Plat, Aris?) "The unobserved life is not worth living." There are those that live, and that is all. They exist, standing, sitting, doing what they are expected. Thinking what they feel everyone believes they believe.
But is this good enough? Shouldn't we ask everyday "Am I doing this right? Am I doing this, the word this being so ambiguous that I can't even fathom a single meaning of this, right?"

I personally ask myself everyday, when I wake up and when I fall asleep, "How can I make my life better today? What was it yesterday that I can improve upon, and what shall I do tomorrow in order to make sure that doesn't happen again?" If we are not striving upward, shall we linger?

But then, the question should be what is right? What makes my opinion more valid than those who, I say, just exist? That is true.

Take the example majority versus minority. If the majority values monetary assets as their false idol, and the minority values interpersonal relationships as their false idol, who is right? Who's idol is more real?
And the answer would be no one's, right?

In actuality, correct. But because the majority controls, they are 'right'. At this point, they dictate what it is we should believe. They believe that this designer bag is more fabulous than this one. This value is more important than that. You are more important than they.

In the end, though, what does it all mean? Just because the majority is right right now, does that mean that they are true (For lack of a better term)? If there is an eternal judge, would he say "YUP, you guessed that the D&G jacket that you got for 30% off that still cost you 350 dollars is right"?

But then, we're dealing on such a level of un-sureness that no one, even those that propose they know, don't know.

That's my problem. I want to know. Whenever someone says "Oh, it was nothing." I say "FCKINGTELLME". Because I feel that if I don't know, there will be something haunting. Something that will perpetuate to my demise. What if that something I don't know, winds up being the one thing that could have benefited me? Now, that's such a correolis effect theory that it's ludicrous to talk about.

We don't know, anything. And that I feel is where we all wind up winding up. Those who have faith, may say they know. They read a book about it all. But they don't know. There will be those that say that they know the universe was created by a bang, rather than a whimper. But they don't know.
I don't even know if I like the new cast on the real world because that one guy tried to prank the other dude, but wound up getting him sick. It's crazy how much we don't know in this world.

Edit:

Five minutes later.

This is a philosophy. So discuss. Or don't. Either way, if you have read this, I've made a mark. It can be so subconscious that you may never see it in your daily life, even a day in your life, but it's there. You'll sit there at your desk, or standing holding a cup of gin and juice (Laid back), with your mind on your money, and possibly money on your mind, and contemplate "What am I doing?" And just contemplating that made your life a little better, more substantial, more worthwhile, more real. From there, we can all work together to be able to say "Shit, I still don't know.... SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOT SHOTS."