(no subject)
I looked through an old journal/notebook of mine and found some stuff that I really hated when i wrote it. In retrospect its not that bad, a bit unpolished, but its pretty much so far out of date that I can put it up here without it causing drama. Not that thats ever stopped me from posting something before.
A poem. Pretty structurally simple, and a bit meandering, but here it is.
Everyone's a poet,
'Cause its easier than art
and everyone's a cynic,
Its too hard to have a heart.
I don't know where else I'm going,
I'm forgetting where I've gone,
I'm just floating in the present
trying to ignore whats going on
And once I saw a movie
about a girl who loved her guy
till the lovers caught a bullet
and they fought before they died.
why when one man's happy,
does his neighbor wish he cried?
Is there just so much to go around?
His avrice justified?
Every song's a reminiscence
of proverbial better days.
We dwell on what we used to have
and what weve thrown away.
Today is tomorrow's betterdays,
and tomorrow's just a grind,
Until its somedays betterdays
And today is left behind.
A quip. I forgot this, but i chuckled when i read it.
I wrote the great american novel on the stall door of the bathroom of a refill station outside of Lawrence, where the Great Americans will sit and read it to a background that reminds them of home.
And maybe when they leave they will at last feel some release.
This is either one or 2 songs I was messing with for a while:
The first: I dont know how much sense it makes, but I liked the last line
You've got ironic glasses,
A whole ironic botique.
You have your patched up jean wear baby,
and your laundromat chic.
The other(s). Rhythmically they are a little off, but thats why I'm not a musician right? Also, again the ideas aren't neccesarily tied in that well:
I'm so afraid of dying
but im much much more afraid of life
as I stare at the cold reflection of my face in a kitchen knife,
I'm not planning to end it, 'cause I hear thats too cliche.
How could I leave you all?
You're begging me to stay.
Still I'm lonlier with you than I have ever felt alone,
I'm always hoping for your voicemail when I call you on the phone.
I am sick of all these blossoms
that aren't fully opened yet,
I cannot stomach fruit that is not ripe.
Rather leave you noosed up on your vine,
to help you grow up straight they tied you to a post with twine
Twine (twine twine)
Someday I'm sure you'll be an expensive wine.
I went to church this tuesday,
they said "Boy you better read this"
I swear I stared at it for hours,
and I wanted to believe it.
No, I didn't find the answers,
but the children [clergy?] all felt better.
Flipping through a book everybody rearranges letters.
Still I don't think its in reading
that I'm gonna find a prayer.
If I ever find the meaning
I'm gonna write it everywhere.
and I actually found a 3rd (4th) lyric sheet. Again not to music.
I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye,
because I'm always caught staring at some pillowy sky,
they say a cloud looks like what you want it to be.
Girl sometimes you look just like a cloud to me.
Try to shape this clay into a sky scraper,
girl's just trying to work with what God gave her.
Now heres two short stories I wrote, one finished, one not.
Shelling
Walking along the beach that afternoon, I watched my father stop to examine a shell on the ground. He picked it up slowly turning it over in his hand before sending it skimming across the tumultuous water. I let the waves run over my feet as I walked, squeezing the firm sand between my toes. Now and again I would stop to examine a shell on the ground. That was why we were here after all.
It had been my sister’s idea to go shelling. She made little earrings and necklaces out of her more interesting finds. Somehow they even turned out alright, not cheap and touristy like the kind you see in every store front at the beach, but intricate and deliberate. A pair had been sitting in my apartment for about six months, dangling from a lamp waiting for someone to claim them. She and my mother walked a quarter of a mile behind my father and me, outdone by our long legs and willful strides. My sister had heard that this island was particularly good for shelling, especially after a two mile walk away from the tourist beaches.
I hadn’t seen much of her or any of my family since I had left our house for an apartment about three miles away, closer to the university I attended. The distance wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to keep my relations out of my mind and prevent much visitation. I saw my sister the most, as a result of her inability to drive herself around town. My father had more or less dropped out of my life, despite the fact that we spent most of our respective days less than three blocks away from one another at the university. The trip reminded me of two things: the distance I had perhaps unknowingly maintained, and the reasons I had maintained it.
My father was a fast walker, trained by countless summers in the Rockies climbing mountains that are too tall to climb sensibly. He was the kind of man who would rather ride his bicycle to work than park in the space he was paying for. For all this though, he was a thin man and despite standing a good bit over six feet tall, he probably weighed about one thirty with his boots and pack. His long hair ran down past his shoulders (though he had developed a tree line a few inches above his ears) and he had maintained a beard for so long that I had never seen his chin.
We had been walking for some time, and as I pushed forward I found myself having to strain to keep up with my father. First I trailed him by only a footstep, walking right behind him synchronously, but the pace had been wearing on me, and I was not in my father’s shape. I lagged behind a meter or two, and followed the trail his feet left in the sand. My father kept his height in his legs, and I had to stretch to match his stride. Even so the gap between us was increasing. It was a relief when, once every five minutes or so, he would stoop to look at something in the sand and I was able to catch up.
I no longer stopped to look at shells. The ones I could see were mostly hollowed halves of clams, or fractions of oysters, though a stranger would later tell me that if you dug on the banks where the waves finally teeter out you could find giant conchs. The shells were really only of secondary interest to me anyway. I glanced to the left where a rip tide was churning the water just off the shore. By now the sand was sharp on my feet, and gave just enough to make the walk difficult. I tried to stay along the ridges of firm ground, but they weren’t constant, and would give out suddenly. We had been walking for almost an hour, and I wondered if this promised land of shells really even existed at all, and how much further I would have to go.
Walking briskly, my father and I ventured up onto the dry land and around a truck where a southern man and his son were casting lines into the water. The earth was hot on the bank, and I was loathe to leave the cool wet beach where, when the waves went out, you could feel the sand dragging around your feet into deeper waters. My father pushed on though, and I was helpless to do anything but follow him at this point. He seemed intent on reaching this shelling beach, or at least intent on the walk there. Whatever his drive was, I had to match it or be left behind. I might’ve asked my father to slow down, but the idea was intangible, and seemed somewhat lacking. As for my father, he hardly seemed to notice me dragging behind. As the gap widened, the waves started to erase his footprints before I reached them. Only muscle memory pushed me forward, and I kept with me the distant knowledge that every trudging step I took would be doubled on the way back.
In many ways my father and I were the same. I had inherited from him not only his metabolism, but the level headedness that was needed to survive in any household with my mother. His silence I also took, and his slouching hiker’s posture. Walking behind him on the beach that day, all of this was left behind. All I noticed was how great the distance was between his footsteps, and how I had to leap to keep up that stride.
and this one is untitled. It was my attempt to tone down the melodrama while still keeping some kind of meaning. I don't know if i succeeded at all, but this one isn't done neccessarily, but I think it sort of achieves the effect I wanted as is, so it may just work as a piece of microfiction right now.
“It’s late,” she murmured dispassionately. It was late. Every day the sun started to set a little earlier, and fill the sky with a warm resigned sense of inevitability. It was late summer, and he felt himself driving against the reddish glow, trying to fight the sundown and get a few more miles in before he slept. She wasn’t having it.
“It’s late,” she murmured, her head leaning against the glass of the passenger side window.
“What if we just drove all night,” he said. The sun was now fading quickly behind the dune in front of them, and the last heat of the afternoon was radiating off the hood of the car. He could do it too; he might. She could sleep in the car if she wanted; if she didn’t want to push the night a little later. The next morning she wakes up as he parks the car, and gets out; she watches him through the brown tint at the top of the windshield, as he walks around the car to unpack.
“What if you pulled over at the next motel and I got some sleep.” She fiddled a little with the automatic windows, her eyes half shut, but still vaguely aware of her reflection dancing on the glass. To be honest the idea had occurred to her, but only in passing, one of the vague ideas that spring up during the hours of Midwestern scenery. She shut her eyes the rest of the way and blocked out the red glare that was still keeping him on the road.
I don't know if anyone made it this far, but I just felt like posting this, so I did. If you read it, thanks for reading, if you didn't I really can't blame you, its pretty long and I'd probably skip over it if I ran into it myself.
A poem. Pretty structurally simple, and a bit meandering, but here it is.
Everyone's a poet,
'Cause its easier than art
and everyone's a cynic,
Its too hard to have a heart.
I don't know where else I'm going,
I'm forgetting where I've gone,
I'm just floating in the present
trying to ignore whats going on
And once I saw a movie
about a girl who loved her guy
till the lovers caught a bullet
and they fought before they died.
why when one man's happy,
does his neighbor wish he cried?
Is there just so much to go around?
His avrice justified?
Every song's a reminiscence
of proverbial better days.
We dwell on what we used to have
and what weve thrown away.
Today is tomorrow's betterdays,
and tomorrow's just a grind,
Until its somedays betterdays
And today is left behind.
A quip. I forgot this, but i chuckled when i read it.
I wrote the great american novel on the stall door of the bathroom of a refill station outside of Lawrence, where the Great Americans will sit and read it to a background that reminds them of home.
And maybe when they leave they will at last feel some release.
This is either one or 2 songs I was messing with for a while:
The first: I dont know how much sense it makes, but I liked the last line
You've got ironic glasses,
A whole ironic botique.
You have your patched up jean wear baby,
and your laundromat chic.
The other(s). Rhythmically they are a little off, but thats why I'm not a musician right? Also, again the ideas aren't neccesarily tied in that well:
I'm so afraid of dying
but im much much more afraid of life
as I stare at the cold reflection of my face in a kitchen knife,
I'm not planning to end it, 'cause I hear thats too cliche.
How could I leave you all?
You're begging me to stay.
Still I'm lonlier with you than I have ever felt alone,
I'm always hoping for your voicemail when I call you on the phone.
I am sick of all these blossoms
that aren't fully opened yet,
I cannot stomach fruit that is not ripe.
Rather leave you noosed up on your vine,
to help you grow up straight they tied you to a post with twine
Twine (twine twine)
Someday I'm sure you'll be an expensive wine.
I went to church this tuesday,
they said "Boy you better read this"
I swear I stared at it for hours,
and I wanted to believe it.
No, I didn't find the answers,
but the children [clergy?] all felt better.
Flipping through a book everybody rearranges letters.
Still I don't think its in reading
that I'm gonna find a prayer.
If I ever find the meaning
I'm gonna write it everywhere.
and I actually found a 3rd (4th) lyric sheet. Again not to music.
I don't think we'll ever see eye to eye,
because I'm always caught staring at some pillowy sky,
they say a cloud looks like what you want it to be.
Girl sometimes you look just like a cloud to me.
Try to shape this clay into a sky scraper,
girl's just trying to work with what God gave her.
Now heres two short stories I wrote, one finished, one not.
Shelling
Walking along the beach that afternoon, I watched my father stop to examine a shell on the ground. He picked it up slowly turning it over in his hand before sending it skimming across the tumultuous water. I let the waves run over my feet as I walked, squeezing the firm sand between my toes. Now and again I would stop to examine a shell on the ground. That was why we were here after all.
It had been my sister’s idea to go shelling. She made little earrings and necklaces out of her more interesting finds. Somehow they even turned out alright, not cheap and touristy like the kind you see in every store front at the beach, but intricate and deliberate. A pair had been sitting in my apartment for about six months, dangling from a lamp waiting for someone to claim them. She and my mother walked a quarter of a mile behind my father and me, outdone by our long legs and willful strides. My sister had heard that this island was particularly good for shelling, especially after a two mile walk away from the tourist beaches.
I hadn’t seen much of her or any of my family since I had left our house for an apartment about three miles away, closer to the university I attended. The distance wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to keep my relations out of my mind and prevent much visitation. I saw my sister the most, as a result of her inability to drive herself around town. My father had more or less dropped out of my life, despite the fact that we spent most of our respective days less than three blocks away from one another at the university. The trip reminded me of two things: the distance I had perhaps unknowingly maintained, and the reasons I had maintained it.
My father was a fast walker, trained by countless summers in the Rockies climbing mountains that are too tall to climb sensibly. He was the kind of man who would rather ride his bicycle to work than park in the space he was paying for. For all this though, he was a thin man and despite standing a good bit over six feet tall, he probably weighed about one thirty with his boots and pack. His long hair ran down past his shoulders (though he had developed a tree line a few inches above his ears) and he had maintained a beard for so long that I had never seen his chin.
We had been walking for some time, and as I pushed forward I found myself having to strain to keep up with my father. First I trailed him by only a footstep, walking right behind him synchronously, but the pace had been wearing on me, and I was not in my father’s shape. I lagged behind a meter or two, and followed the trail his feet left in the sand. My father kept his height in his legs, and I had to stretch to match his stride. Even so the gap between us was increasing. It was a relief when, once every five minutes or so, he would stoop to look at something in the sand and I was able to catch up.
I no longer stopped to look at shells. The ones I could see were mostly hollowed halves of clams, or fractions of oysters, though a stranger would later tell me that if you dug on the banks where the waves finally teeter out you could find giant conchs. The shells were really only of secondary interest to me anyway. I glanced to the left where a rip tide was churning the water just off the shore. By now the sand was sharp on my feet, and gave just enough to make the walk difficult. I tried to stay along the ridges of firm ground, but they weren’t constant, and would give out suddenly. We had been walking for almost an hour, and I wondered if this promised land of shells really even existed at all, and how much further I would have to go.
Walking briskly, my father and I ventured up onto the dry land and around a truck where a southern man and his son were casting lines into the water. The earth was hot on the bank, and I was loathe to leave the cool wet beach where, when the waves went out, you could feel the sand dragging around your feet into deeper waters. My father pushed on though, and I was helpless to do anything but follow him at this point. He seemed intent on reaching this shelling beach, or at least intent on the walk there. Whatever his drive was, I had to match it or be left behind. I might’ve asked my father to slow down, but the idea was intangible, and seemed somewhat lacking. As for my father, he hardly seemed to notice me dragging behind. As the gap widened, the waves started to erase his footprints before I reached them. Only muscle memory pushed me forward, and I kept with me the distant knowledge that every trudging step I took would be doubled on the way back.
In many ways my father and I were the same. I had inherited from him not only his metabolism, but the level headedness that was needed to survive in any household with my mother. His silence I also took, and his slouching hiker’s posture. Walking behind him on the beach that day, all of this was left behind. All I noticed was how great the distance was between his footsteps, and how I had to leap to keep up that stride.
and this one is untitled. It was my attempt to tone down the melodrama while still keeping some kind of meaning. I don't know if i succeeded at all, but this one isn't done neccessarily, but I think it sort of achieves the effect I wanted as is, so it may just work as a piece of microfiction right now.
“It’s late,” she murmured dispassionately. It was late. Every day the sun started to set a little earlier, and fill the sky with a warm resigned sense of inevitability. It was late summer, and he felt himself driving against the reddish glow, trying to fight the sundown and get a few more miles in before he slept. She wasn’t having it.
“It’s late,” she murmured, her head leaning against the glass of the passenger side window.
“What if we just drove all night,” he said. The sun was now fading quickly behind the dune in front of them, and the last heat of the afternoon was radiating off the hood of the car. He could do it too; he might. She could sleep in the car if she wanted; if she didn’t want to push the night a little later. The next morning she wakes up as he parks the car, and gets out; she watches him through the brown tint at the top of the windshield, as he walks around the car to unpack.
“What if you pulled over at the next motel and I got some sleep.” She fiddled a little with the automatic windows, her eyes half shut, but still vaguely aware of her reflection dancing on the glass. To be honest the idea had occurred to her, but only in passing, one of the vague ideas that spring up during the hours of Midwestern scenery. She shut her eyes the rest of the way and blocked out the red glare that was still keeping him on the road.
I don't know if anyone made it this far, but I just felt like posting this, so I did. If you read it, thanks for reading, if you didn't I really can't blame you, its pretty long and I'd probably skip over it if I ran into it myself.