The Fire in Our Eyes

Wash away the thoughts and fears
that complicate the moment

and forget you ever knew
just what the word "alone" meant

Then feel the way we feel held tight
within each others' arms

and you'll see that all those fears
were really false alarms

Close your eyes and follow me
into the great divine

A heavenly place our dreams will create
so reality won't confine

There we will reside together
whenever we're apart

with the freedom to study each other
like we are living works of art

Love will become all we know
and all we'll ever feel

Our lives will reach the peak of joy
which will make it seem surreal

Then passion will erupt in us
and engulf us both in flames

Together we will burn forever
loving just the same

(The fire in our eyes
isn't something we see
It's the fire that burns,
burns internally)

My One Poem for Lala...

This is something I wrote my ex in the first couple months of the relationship, when everything was sweet and rosy and not full of lies and betrayal. When there was SO MUCH hope and un-damned love...un-dammed love. I don't think I ever shared it with you guys. It's not GREAT but...if you repeat it a few times it rolls off the tongue nicely. It may be the only poem I ever wrote her...I cant remember. I haven't gone back through those files in....yeah. But this one...has been comin to mind lately. It helps that I have it engraved into the side of my brain. I even made her memorize it at some point. I thought it might help us. I don't think it helped us. That's the kicker. I wrote this....Before EVERYTHING, before all the turmoil, laid out my intentions before her, clear as could be in black on white. A map of my love drawn out in a few words. The fact that it came to have even more weight and significance for me and us later on though is a trip. It's like my intuition was at work behind my back when I penned this, or maybe I just KNEW there were troubled waters under that beautifully controlled surface....but I underestimated their depths. Everybody's got issues, right?! Yeah, NO, some people have WAY WORSE issues than others. Let that be known! I'm not sayin she's still that way now, I'm just sayin she was that way then. I'm just sayin I wrote this for her, for HER HEART and she never got it. Never appreciated it...never understood how much it meant. How much love I was declaring in this declaration every time I whispered it to her. What a waste huh? Anyway...

All I wanna do is give the gift of love to lift you up
well above the riffs that rub and rip you up
well above the tiffs that tug and trip you up
til there's little left of what you truly love
about yourself or anyone else you know
cuz what we've felt has dealt the hardest blow
enough to melt a heart at sub-zero
til it PARTS
And a warm river starts to flow
that waters every part of you that wants to grow

Beds are Lonely Places

Beds are lonely places
like untouched deserts
You can roll around in one
like a slow wind
but nothing really changes
You are a dune in a black and white landscape
You are a form, a shape under a thin sheet
of moonlight
Your solitude is solid and intact
You want to destroy it, but everything is so soft
You can't
It folds and unfolds around you like oil and sand
There is nothing you can do
but wait 
for a flood of phosphorescent love

_

To Behold Her, to be Held

2-13-06

"when I first saw her
I turned my head too quickly—
it's been spinning ever since"

There is the semblance of dusk
freckled all over her face,
as if to behold her is to be held
by the unsettling serenity of a setting desert.

A beam of daybreak gleams
in her nightly eyes,

as though Dawn and Sunset
intimately embraced, and,
in quiet parting, revealed Her:
a beauty uncompromised

by the passing of time
or the negligence of weak men;
a loveliness untouched
by the black snowflakes
life lends to all the hearts
and all the parts
of the human experience.

She is a moment of truth in the day
and a breath of passion in the dark.

Unattainable to most, maybe even herself,
she often leads alone.

Cupping her proud head in my hands
I touched her,
once,
like one might touch a deep waterfall:

Neither of us sure
who would be carried
away the most.

So we drifted..........apart

.....ever since then,

and ever since......then,

it's just been........water

........falling

from the sky......

......................like rain.

Will You Believe Me Then?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Bangkok
at six o' clock every evening
they play the King's Song everywhere
and wherever it is heard
wherever it is possible
commuters stop walking
joggers in the park stop jogging
and everyone stands still for minutes
as if hypnotized by the sound.
I want to take you there,
not to show you but to kiss you
at that moment,
so you can see with your own eyes
how your kiss can stop the world.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey LAYDEES!

I got somethin for ya!

And with a smile like that you know it's gonna be gooood, right?

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

HA! I tease but I tell no lies! Word.

Word to your beautiful mothers of course!

LOL! Excuse me while I entertain myself! With ANY luck maybe I can make you smile as well.

Let's get to the point of all this tail wagging, shall we?

One thing I did productively this weekend was crack open my LAST poetry notebook for the first time in ages. I did this on the ride home from the island. It was a fairly crazy experience! I haven't looked in that thing for years, hell I've HARDLY written in it FOR YEARS. Which is terribly sad to say. Lemme make it clear why...

My poetry notebook was once the only thing I ever wrote in. From the time I got my first one (which I also just opened and looked at for the first time in YEARS!) in 1995 to the time I bought the last one, I ALWAYS had a notebook that I took with me everywhere! How far I have fallen. How far have I fallen? Lemme tell ya!

It used to be that I would FILL a notebook like the one I have now EVERY YEAR! Maybe every year and a half, but that's still Quite a bit of writing in not a ton of time. This notebook I have now I bought shortly after I moved to Oregon, in 2005. Since then, In the course of FIVE FREAKING YEARS, I have filled maybe a fifth of it! Freaking SAD.

Here's the good news though, the part that involves you wonderful feminine figures in my life. It turns out a lot of the stuff in there is basically LOVE POETRY! Yeah. Wow. Not something I write often, not something I really like to write at all, but the first few pages of that notebook have SEVERAL pieces, some of which I barely remember writing! Some of which I may not have even shared! And you know what, by my estimation, they're not half bad.

I am kinda hoping you will be so kind as to give me a more accurate opinion of their merit or quality though. You think you could do that? I would appreciate it. I would love it if you didn't hold back your reactions, IF you have any. It would help me know which ones to keep on file/shop for publication and which ones to...donate to the internet! Free of Charge! Out of the kindness of my heart of course. ;)

Seriously though, if you feel it, if it's got somethin, lemme know, someway somehow. I don't care. It'd be cool know which ones pop AND it'd be cool to know who likes what as well :). I'll start posting them on my new blog soon. And Mr. Guys....Try Not to HATE! Just TRY. :)

As for why I was writing so much like that at that point in time.....It's hard to say. Looking at it now, looking at those pages, at the version of me who was writing those things and feeling all of that, it looks like my heart was going crazy. And I kinda say that with sadness. My heart was just going nuts with emotions and overflowing feeling. NO WONDER I wanted out of America so bad! God I was a mess. Part of it, however, was cuz I came to Portland a still-wounded animal from the relationship that burned the hell out of me in Phoenix. I wasn't over her, not at all, and being that it was months later, I WANTED to BE! And So I was throwing myself, my heart at the window of any woman who paid me attention and calmed me with a kind tender kiss. Half of those windows weren't even open. Think I even broke one or two. Damn fool I was.

BUT! At least I was writing. At least I was writing. My saving grace. Literally. My saving grace. And here I am, closing one of the biggest circles of my life, able to firm-footedly share the turbulent times of my heartfelt existence one poem or one story at a time. Not with pride, not with shame, just with earnestness, with a somber look in my eye that says, "look, see what I used to be? So wild and weak. That was me, beautiful and sad at the same time. I am not that way anymore. But it doesn't scare me to remember, especially if it doesn't scare you."

thank you for reading

Rarity

9-4-05

If I could spare you
my disparity
but wear for you
my tattered sincerity,
share revel in our
similarity
but not tear you
with my severity...

If I could care
fully for your polarity,
snare you ever so
barely,
dare to wonder at your
singularity,
but not impair you
unwarily...

If I could flare up
for your eyes imparity
prepare you a smile
with cuckoo clock
regularity,
scare the fear out of you
and into scarcity,
without despair or qualms
over brevity,

I would be more perfect
than either one of us
could bear to be.

First Time Experiences: Version 2.1

PREFACE

All right. Ima try and keep this preface as short as possible. This post is about what the title says. Lately I've been having a LOT of first time experiences. And the lot of them, from big to small, are pretty bad ass in my book. Certainly worth recording for my own benefit. Whether or not they are worth reading about for you is a Who-Knows for me.

It won't just be about first time experiences though, that qualifying line will blur in the name of experiences I had for The-First-Time-in-AGES as well. So there will be a few of those mixed in and I'll describe them as such. To me, those experiences are JUST as important as the Cherry poppin kind cuz....we pretty much forget the sweetness of everything, even our own bing cherries. It's good to get a mouthful, headful, eyeful or heartful of recollection these days, along with the new wave of first-hand experience. Good shit right there. So says me.

I've titled it Version 2.0 cuz I've done this before once or twice in the days of my old blog. I don't remember how many times I did it and I don't wanna go back and check so we'll just acknowledge all of them together as Version 1.0 and this one will be this one.

The other thing to note is that I DOUBT I will remember ALL the first time experiences I've had in the past few weeks in one sitting. So I will come back and occasionally add more, and when I do so, V2.0 will become V2.1 and so on. FYI.

Also, ethics says that I should say this will probably be edited. I'm guessing there are a few first time experiences I've had that I'm not ready to disclose publicly at this point in time. So those will just have to stay in my reserved, private collection until....I don't know what. Sorry. :)

The order is totally random. Chronology is a word I don't value much, like faith.

My soundtrack while writing this is the IMOGEN HEAP album titled "Speak for Yourself."

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #1

Listening to Imogen Heap's album titled "Speak for Yourself." I've wanted AN Imogen Heap album for YEARS, ever since that GARDEN STATE soundtrack song really. I've wanted, thought about it today and now I have it and it is all up in my ears, just like that! That's how cool my flippin life is right now! Word.

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #2

I ate at the HARD ROCK CAFE in Bangkok for the first time a week or two ago. Crazy huh? Tell me about it. I don't know why I've never eaten there. Guess I can blame it on my oh-so-frugal lifestyle for the past 4 years here. Now that that shit's over, I'm droppin dinner tabs like rappers pop bottles! It was tight. Really enjoyable, didn't really get to look around at ALL the memorabilia, but I'm not expecting that to be my only trip there. They did, after all, have build it yourself FAJITAS which....

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #3

Do you have ANY IDEA HOW LONG IT HAS BEEN SINCE IVE HAD BUILD-EM-YOURSELF Fajitas! Far Too Fuckin LONG My Friends! Just at the sight of the spread they laid out before me my eyes had orgasms. NOT simultaneously mind you, one eye is always a little slower than the other, Don't ask why. But I damn near buried my face in the steaming skillet and "motorboated" the whole thing. I was advised against it though, can't remember by who or what, possibly by that sizzling sound it was making. But yeah, that shit was SCRUM-DIDDILY-O-CIOUS.

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #4

First time I've intentionally started tellin personal stories from my life in a classroom setting. That's just crazy to me. How cool it is AND how that could be true. That I never did this purposefully before. Such a missed opportunity to do more than teach books and vocab. Damn.
(I have pictures and video of this now but they're all on the....

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #5
Bought my first video camera. Which is pretty cool I guess. It's at Sunny's house now though, which kinda sucks cuz my kids are probably gonna want me to have it in class tomorrow I just realized. Damn. (My kids were the ones who finally opened it for me since it sat in my house in the bag for a week after I bought it. Shoulda just dropped it off with them the next day. They know more about that shit than I do and are way more interested in the details, such as plugging it in and figuring out what buttons to push! All I wanna do is point and shoot. (a dirty joke just came to mind but....I'll pass on that in some effort of keeping this reasonably clean and pg-13. Sorry if that disappoints 90% you. ;))


FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #6

Went to Ko Samet for the first time in Ages! Damn it's been WAY for FREAKING Long since me and that island had a heart to heart, also known as a face to faceplant. It was great! Even for just one night, why not, whatevs, I can't complain. It was one night more than I've had in like....3 years? The last time was with Jeff and Ian and J and Onur and Pla and them. After Prang's graduation. Helluva time that was! Maybe even MORE Rockous than this time! Don't tell that to the friends I went with this time though, they like to think they're "Raisin the BAR" at every bar they hit! Pups they are, just PUPS! Lol! I kid of course, I tease but.....maybe there's some truth in there somewhere. We'll see. ;) Great time all around though, no complaints at all. Consider as many pieces as I can remember cherished and filed under A for Awesome Action-packed Alcoholic Adventure.

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #7

Played frisbee for first time in a few years. And AS ALWAYS, I gots all kinds of sore muscles the next day. FROM FRISBEE! F'real! I should probably be embarrassed by that but it trips me out too much not to record it. I guess it just shows how LITTLE i use whatever muscles the god of genetics gave me! They are sadly for just show I guess. I haven't exercised at all in over a year and I haven't even had sex in AGES!* Which must be said considering that has been my PRIMARY source of exercise for, what...3 years now! Geeez. This is how neglected my poor body is, I can't even play frisbee for 15 minutes without a dozen muscles on my upper body aching like I put em through a gymnastic wringer! This is sad, gotta get a gym membership. OR a copy of the Kama Sutra and find a willing participant in such an endeavor. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
:)

*in the context of sex the word AGES is a very different proportion of time than it is in the context of....playing with a childhood toy. Just for the record!

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #8

DUDES! I jump-roped a giant flaming rope of deathly fire! All right, MAYBE it wasn't Deathly! But all those other words definitely apply. I did it! I did that shit! It was pretty flippin cool I gotta say! Quite the adrenaline rush too. WOOO. Did not expect the rush I got from it during and after. It was right up there with bungee jumpin and shit. I was pretty thrilled. All hail my Yes Man attitude and the mad, drunken, Irish Australian who was crazy enough to say "I'm gonna go do that, by the way, youre comin with me." The words may have been different and much less coherent/eloquent, but his point was clear! As it ALWAYS is. Much to our chagrin. Lol!

OH, and there are pictures! Great pictures, but I do'nt have them so you'll have to wait. Wait with Kerosene baited breath, they're worth it! ;)

OH! And guess what!? I tried to film it from INSIDE the spinning rope of fire death and....I think it worked! LOL! Patience and you SHALL SEE!

HERE THEY BE! This was the night of the fire rope jump dancing biting eating burning fun!

BEFORE
Lookin all cool, gettin ready to jump in with my drunk irishman! And AFTER...
I EAT THE ROPE! I honestly don't remember it hitting me in the face but it ALL HAPPENED REALLY FUCKING FAST! And in case you didn't notice, there was LIVE-ACTION FIRE INVOLVED! But yeah, apparently, according to this picture, I tried to bite through the fiery rope instead of jumping over it. Pretty cool huh? ;)

No worries though, we both got out of there fairly unscathed. And IF AT FIRST YOU DONT SUCCEED, you best damn well try again! Even IF you got burned the first time! And you're now kinda covered in Kerosene....as I was! Lol! And that's what we did! And it WAS FUCKIN-FAN-TASTIC! I recommend it for anyone who aint scared of a little heat all up in their kitchen!
SO THEN, I was SO PUMPED that as soon as they set up the LIMBO Bar and lit it up, I grabbed the nearest girl AND....
Yep, I know! Pretty damn cool eh? Yeah, what can I say! When you got it, you got it! And when you can pass an awesome picture off as having ANYTHING to do with you, DO IT! ;)

All right, so maybe it wasn't me! But it coulda been! I could do that, no problem, no sweat......all right! MAYBE a little sweat, and a couple massive cramps that woulda brought me down and had me rolling around in the sand in writhing pain BUT....I woulda made it under bar without touching it! That counts. :-P

FIRST TIME EXPERIENCE #9

I recently pulled out my very first poetry notebook for the first time in YEARS and I Opened it! "Ooooooooooooh" yeah, it was like pulling out an original Old Testament. Shit was a little crazy. Circa 1995 btw. And I did it with my students! Cool experience!

Shit is falling apart and turning yellow! Hence why I have to keep it in a plastic sleeve. No joke. It was awesome opening it though, I forgot SO MUCH about myself in there, the things I did AT THAT AGE! Whoa. CRAZINESS! You wouldn't believe it if I told you here, you have to see it with your own eyes. I know this because I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes either. In fact, I STOPPED Believing in it....in myself. But honestly, I don't think I've ever had a student at that age who was "creating"/writing as much as I was....and I really had no idea what I was doing was anything that special back then. I didn't. Which is kinda sad but...that's the world we live in! Word to our mothers....and fathers who aren't able to notice or tell us how special we are. Damn.

FIRST EXPERIENCE #10

I celebrated Indian New Year for the first time ever! It was awesome. I didn't even KNOW ABOUT IT! Damn. How did I miss out on that in all that time I've been involved in Indian communities and shit? The holiday is called DIWALI and it ROCKS and it rocks so much and I had such a fantastic experience that I wanna write an individual blog about it with pictures and everything. So you'll have to wait for that....even though I don't know when I'm gonna get to it! MY LORD I HAVE A LOT TO WRITE!

Here's a sneak PEEK ;-P

Enticed? I hope so!

My Word I : Rock of Gibraltar

I really don’t have any desire to play games with people. And more often than not, I Won’t! EVEN IF you try to start one with me. This isn’t because I can’t, I Have Been SCHOOLED! I can play games like your grandma plays monopoly, only my teeth aren’t false and my bite takes more than finger tips! As it should when people try to play me.

Nowadays though, I would just rather rely on open communication and forthwith honesty to guide me through the seas of relationships and life. The only card I'd like to play is the card of Understanding.

For me and how I live—the choices I make—you might not always like it, but I promise you there is good reason for everything I do and say these days. By good reason I mean NOT Selfish, bullshit reasons. Good reason. BIG reasons. Reasons I CAN explain clearly to anyone who is willing to listen or has patience to see the circle of cause and effect close on its own. You may not want to understand my reasons and see both sides of the issue (aka The Whole Story), but that is up to you. I have even less desire to argue with you than I do to play some lame game. To each his or her own. You are free to do whatever you see fit, as am I.

I’m not saying all I do is perfect, I’m just saying I am NOT Reckless! Not at all. I am far from careless. I am now so centered on my principles and beliefs that define the human being I desire To Be that almost nothing I do steps off that rock of my Gibraltar. Nevertheless, while I firmly believe what I do or say will have good cause behind it invariably, I am not saying HOW I do or say these things will always be the best way possible. I am human, I will make mistakes in that department for sure as life throws beautiful challenges in front of me. But here’s what I will do. IF Upon reflection I see that I could’ve/should’ve handled that moment or situation better, I will do something no one seems to do: I WILL Admit it. Up front. Without fail. You will see.

This is My Word.

The Power of a Picture

10-26-10

The power of picture
is empowered by a mixture
of glowering fixtures.
The souring tincture
and the sweetest licks ensure
a towering fissure
in the form of contrast.
The storm born in a frame of composition
and born to last.
As if it were torn right out of the past
so it could be sworn in at last
to a court of frozen bomb blasts.
Locked in a glossy cast
so it could be passed but rarely passed by
without it catching the apple of your eye
and making it feel harassed until walls break down
until you cry.

This is only possible if you care.
If you dare to bear witness
to your fair share of the pain AND the pleasure
depicted everywhere.
From your 3rd round of blue kamikazes
to seeing FDR lead the world in a wheelchair.
From the burning fields of Nagasaki
straight into Tienanmen Square.

A picture is like a tank.
Once it is here it is here.
But if you never truly see it,
if you never stand up and stop it and look down the long long barrel
of its might, then it might as well roll by you like you’re not even there!

Deciding to Be a Poet: PREFACE

Lately I've been reading some quality poetry. From peers and pros alike. And as I've been doing this I've been getting this feeling in my chest, and the feeling said, "Where is yours?"

You see, reading these people's poetry, GOOD poetry, made me miss reading and writing my own poetry that I feel is...comparable. Or at least better than average.

You see, for those of you fairly new to my world and have been SHARING (through my blog or however) this creatively awesome experience I've been having (which has been like an endless volcanic eruption), I should probably tell you now that I've been holding back on you. For real. I haven't been sharing my best work with you at all. Particularly in terms of poetry!

I just haven't been representing MY ART the best that I can and that seemed like a personal offense when I felt it. All I've been sharing really is really old stuff or whatever has slid off the top of my dome into the ether of your eyes.

What can I say, I guess I don't want to give too much of myself away! Hope you don't blame me.

In case you didn't know though, there is a difference between poems that take minutes, followed by a click and a "publish," and poems that take hours just to be refined, before you finally TRY to get them PUBLISHED. Here is one of my poems from the latter category for a change.

It is the first poem I ever wrote ABOUT poetry, so...considering why I'm sharing one with you, I thought it was appropriate. If you are a poet, I do hope it speaks to you in some way. If you aren't a poet, well then....I hope it does for you whatever it does WELL. :)

I don't know if I've EVER put this poem on the internet before so...I hope you guys enjoy it.

Thanks for reading,

M/KJ

Deciding to Be a Poet

"The violets in the mountains
have broken the rocks"
~Tennessee Williams

Deciding to be a poet
is like entering a mountain
carving contest with an old spoon.

Trusty as that old spoon may be,
it is not a spoon unlike any other,
it is the same—yet with it you must mine

through layers of catching cliches and matted
sameness until you have unearthed an ore
pure and untouched by man's redundant finger.

The judges want nothing more
than originality—no faux pyramids,
dense presidents, or gargantuan Grecian urns

they say. They want you to blaze a trail
up one side, and roll a snowball
down the other, or flip the mountain

on its top and spin it like a prism
in a whirlwind thriving
wind-chime.

Nothing short of that
may even catch their waxy eye.
Even so,

sometimes you will cut the crown off
and scoop out charred handfuls
of useless lava, which you'll strew

about like mustard seed, planting drops
of mountain everywhere you will never reap.
Sometimes you'll undermine the sound

integrity of the tectonic, technical structure
and cause it to capsize, meter by meter
into an ocean of bubbly fury—just a personal

natural disaster that will never see the light
of a printed page—and you'll wonder
what....or how a fledgling poet is to ever rest?

On other days you will incessantly bore
a tunnel—through the mountain's foot, only to realize
you were always there to dig a cave

as you discover the golden Buddha
patiently aglow at a perfect ending....
which took your life, sacrificially, to burrow.

If you are lucky, it will rain though.
And your mountain will be blessed
with a stream that will hew through

the heart of your poem like molten love,
carrying the universe's spirit
in its small, fertile breadth,

rousing life around it—
like an opened birth canal—
yet spanning that immense, barren plain

between blood and soul
in a single skip
of a regular heartbeat.

What's the Point of Having a Blog if ya don't BLOG!

Today I did something awesome.

The sad part is that this is something I could've been doing on any given day for the past several years now. But I haven't. Maybe not even once. I used to....but then something happened, and I forgot.

I forgot about so many of the awesome things I used to do! And this is just one more small tragedy to surface (like a dead body) in the wake of 3 years of turmoil. Crazy.

(the picture is of my homeroom 5/3. Not sure why they don't let me type captions on here)

What I did on purpose today though was a direct reaction of something that I did unintentionally in a class (5/2) two weeks ago. Something that left an impression on them. AND ON ME!

What I did was tell a story. It wasn't just any story though, it was one of the most personal stories of my life. A story full of death wishes and suicide attempts and self-destruction and pure suffering that seemed endless at the time. All of which culminated into a force so strong that I finally ran away from home one day.

This is the story that I told them. It is the story of my first breakthrough, my first life-changing revelation, my first BIG break that came by way of my own two hands and an empty house I broke into. More superficially, it is the story of how I became, overnight, a good boy, a good student, and a (hopefully) decent son. At the time this story begins to take place.....I am ten years old.

I left out most of the ugly details. You don't always need those to convey the FEELING you are trying to get across, especially when you're talking to privileged kids who've BARELY known pain, much less the kind of pain that would push a toys-r'-us kid to pray for death on a daily basis.

Instead I told them the condensed version, but still with Feeling. And I focused on the point of the story, the transformation that took place on that day and thereafter. And while I told that story, for 10....15 mintues, I had 20 kids in absolute silence looking at me at the same time. In the back of my mind, as I looked around the room towards the end of it, I was like "Wow." This is the power of my story. This the power of a story being TOLLED.

I had fucking forgotten that! I cannot remember the last time I told a significant piece of my story in a classroom setting! Maybe back in America, maybe my first year at this school...I'm not sure.

Isn't that crazy!? I got stories that can move kids! I got stories that can move people. Not just anywhere! IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION! Towards an easier way, a clearer path, a better life even! One with more Sense and LESS Suffering! Or AT LEAST reaffirm what they already know! And put it into words that they may have not heard before. So they can see themselves and their own lives with a touch more clarity. Just a touch more! But that kind of touch...that kind of clarity can save people from themselves.

This is what I'd lost, one of many things I forfeited in order to go through the throes of a 3 year relationship that was failed from the get go. Most of which I spent trying to redeem my self-esteem and ego after being cheated on for the first time in my life. Boohooooo.

If had any idea what all I threw out of my plane to try and keep it "up in the air," like it was a fucking life and death situation, if I had any idea what I inadvertently sacrificed, I would've cried for entirely different reasons. I woulda torn the wings off with my bare hands in anguish and revolt!

Cuz, really, what I did without even knowing it was throw my SELF out of the plane. I wasn't flying solo, I was flying hollow. For miles and years and miles, over nothing but icy looking waters. A ghost of my self was flying that plane, while my shadow made sure she was comfortable and orgasmic in first class. What a joke.

It's cool though. I get it now. No hard feelings. I was as much a victim as I was a propagator. I was as much a passenger on Air Futility as I was a prop on an engine. Smoking as it may have been. Smoking HOT as it may have been. I know what I did and I know why I did it, and thankfully most of my reasons were pretty good, pretty sound. She knows what she did too, and...even if she doesn't know the exquisiteness of the pain she helped me paint...oh well. Maybe she'll get there, maybe she won't. Maybe it wasn't for her, maybe it was for me to go through, somewhat alone....as I often felt I was when I was "with her."

Anyway, getting back to today....

Today I instigated what I accidentally evoked in 5/2 a week or two ago.

You see, we have this stupid period built into the schedule called "Guidance Period," and what guidance period is for exactly no one really knows. The only thing we do know about Guidance Period is that when the school has SOME ducks in a row, they tend to bring in guest speakers and our kids go and listen to them talk about whatever during that period.

Well, today, just like last week, there was nothing planned by the school. And...as I was sitting there getting ready to go see my homeroom for this waste of time...guess what I remembered? Yeah, that remarkable "incident" that happened in the class next door. Where I bared my heart and an ounce of my diamond soul. And I thought....why not have a Story Telling Time? So that's what I did.

I went in there and wrote it up on the board and explained what happened in 5/2 the other day and what I was thinking might be able to happen today. The only contingent is that in order for me to Tell one of my stories, I have to be asked a question that calls one forth, or so I told them. Which is kinda true for my life in general too!

So I said, "It's up to you guys! Once you ask me a question that points to a story in my life, you can decide if you wanna listen or not! I don't even care if a couple of you would rather play with your phones or whatever, but if you do listen then that's cool and I'll tell that story the best I can....you just gotta think of a good enough question that will hit upon one of MY life stories."

BOOM! A kid's hand went up! This kid named Joey, such an awesome kid, so much g0d-damned heart it almost scares me! His hand shoots up and he asks, "Have you ever been dumped?"

God I love that kid. It's like we rehearsed this!

I thought for sure I was gonna have to weed through like half a dozen lame questions before they GOT the point. AT LEAST! But nope, right off the bat, Joey knows exactly what he wants to know! Guess why? Guess what happened to Joey not so long ago? Yeah. Poor kid. But....he seems to be keepin his chin up, which is more than most of us do at that age. Or have done since!

So today I told the story, for the first time in I can't imagine how many years, of how Leslie Shultz dumped me in 7th grade and how that set in motion a series of events that would reveal one of the most DEFINING aspects of my life! Let me tell you, it's a damn good story!

From one end of the arc to the other, I had those kids' ears in my hands! And, after so many laughs and perfect moments of attentive silence, by the end of it, they were all like "Whoaaaa." And I was like, "Yeahhh." And Joey, who came all the way up from the back row to sit next to me and hear this story, Joey reached over and gave ME a high-five!

A One Act, Satirical Play I Wrote

Apr 8, 2008

Guess what I got for you!? That's right, a PLAY! A play that I wrote! In all the begillion things I've ever written I don't think I've ever written a play before. I've directed them and I've probably imagined a couple, but thinking them little more than flights of fancy, I've never tried to pen one.

The thing is, it's actually kinda old! I wrote it back middle of last year. Think I mentioned it in a BLOG Schedule before I went to Laos but never got around to it. Just too damn busy. I even told Jeff about it though, and he was like "Cool, let's PERFORM it." I just looked at him, blinked, and didn't know what to say, as I tried to convert my imagined version into an impromptu...Bangkok park version. Had no idea HOW we would do that, but it was interesting to hear him suggest it.

At the time I was pretty excited about having written it though. It was COOL to me, somethin new and unexpected. It's just one act so I wrote it all in like an hour, and it happened at WORK! It just came to me while I was at my desk...I think (i really don't remember how I came about the idea as far as a train of thought is concerned), but when it came to me, I thought it was so interesting to methat I got out my yellow notepad and started writing it all out.

Honestly, as cheesy as it may sound, I imagined it all taking place on Saturday Night Live (a tv show in america of comedic skits). I guess because I grew up watching that, it is often the setting for some of my creative mental wanderings. I actually harbor a secret desire to write a whole show's worth of skits...but it would help if I ever became famous :-D.

The irony is that this wouldn't be appropriate for SNL at all! Mainly because it's a piece of social SATIRE. The humor is far from overt and it's probably as amusing as it is tragic. Could you imagine SNL running something like that!? Needless to say, while it started out (in my mind) on SNL, it has become a bit bigger than that.

Nevertheless, I even wrote a joke to follow it on the fake news bit they do. It reads: "In a recent news flash, reports have come in that the art community is applauding SNL's theatrical efforts, while the rest of the country changed the channel and had another beer." :-)

For a few weeks now I've been thinking about it, remembering it and thinkin about how I should type it up. I would've done so over this three day weekend, but it turns out I had the notepad at work and didn't realize it.

The entire discourse of the play was written down then and there though and I haven't taken anything out of it and I've added very little. The only thing I had to write here is the setting and character descriptions which I saw clearly in my head already.

Like I said, it's satirical, and technically it's even science-fiction. And yet it deals with something I seem to learn more and more about everyday. Funny how that works, eh? Lol! "Ah, the folly of the misunderstood man.." ;-)

I haven't a title for it (*at the time that I wrote that that was true), though I suppose it should have one. If you have any suggestions, I'll take em (*and that's what I did! :). And Please let me know what you think cuz its novelty has completely worn off on me and I'm just hoping it's something close to what I thought it was when I first wrote it.

Oh, as a disclaimer, I'll also say, I haven't read a script, much less a play in quite sometime, so I'm very RUSTY on the proper way to punctuate or annotate these things. All I've done is try to type it up in a way that makes sense to me and doesn't distract visually. I also realize that, the way I wrote it makes it almost like a cross between a play and a short story. Since I have no plans to put it on stage though, I'm not really gonna worry about it. Just roll with it folks ;). Hope that works. Enjoy.

~M to the KJ

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NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE

Main Characters~

Johnny: Early twenties, average height and build, attractive and personable. Seems to have found success early on in life through the family business.

John Ronald: Johnny's older brother, 3 years difference. Noticeably larger than Johnny, much more of an athletic build, but gets along well with his brother in business and family.

The Mother: Early fifties, showing her age but still a strong woman, reserved as that strength may be. Nothing but pride and trust in her sons.

Francine: Johnny's fiancee. Blonde, perfectly pretty, sweet looking, slightly younger, but mature enough to be very much in love.

Stage and Setting~

The year is 2062. The world is a different place. That which was constantly called progress in the 1900s, is considered a deranged lapse in logic on the natural order of the world. Diversity is nothing to be valued anymore, it only brings conflict. That is clear now. Advanced forms of population control in the hands of the 'majority' rewrote the social experiment of "equality"--a word now so rarely used that young adults often misunderstand it.

Suddenly, ONE YEAR, certain races stopped being ABLE to reproduce in certain places. The Majority became the judges of the world in an invisible court of "law." They slipped something into the water, or maybe the food, but....soon enough the joy and tears that often come with pregnancy in various parts of the world began to diminish and disappear. It was subtle at first, but as soon as it was noticeable, the truth became too frightening to talk about openly. What else could they do? No one could imagine. What else could they do?

The abandoned ships of separatist values resurged and were given new terms and titles, an altered flag to boot: new words for once out-dated beliefs, like the Past had been reborn but needed to distance itself from its conceiver.

At last old men had an excuse to do what their great-grandfathers wanted them to do.

On stage we find a polished living room that opens out to the audience. The features resemble more closely that of an upper-class dwelling 100 years prior, or possibly the 1920s than those inhabitating it realize. Rich cherry oak seems to peek out from behind thick rugs and cotton handmade doilies draping the end-tables. Two plants, a couple small pieces of art adorn the wooden walls, and a few family pictures are spaced evenly about the room. Books along one wall, where they have been grouped together by color.

While the room isn't small, today it seems crowded. Ten fully-developed individuals are standing about chatting, enjoying a drink--before dinner perhaps. Some even have champagne. They are all adults and all of the same skin color.

The men are dressed formally, but none look uncomfortable. All of them are in good-shape. All of them are wearing white, long sleeve, button-up shirts and dark trousers. No tie, but most have dinner jackets. Some are in navy blue jackets, some in beige, some in black. Their age ranges, but nowhere below 20, and not above 45 either.

The women are almost dressed identical as well. The choice of articles define the wearer as female, even though the thick materials seem to hide what a woman is. Each is wearing a starched, dark blue, pleated skirt that fastens well-above the hips. Between the length and the folds, once upon a time, such a piece of cloth might have been mistaken for a curtain. Above the waistline, they are all wearing light colored, buttoned blouses. Creams and whites and the occasional faint floral pattern. Their hair varies in color and style but none too short. Some of them are even wearing a thin, black leather belt.

The attire and the guests' calm, pleasant, complacent behavior makes it difficult to tell whether this is a formal and special occasion or just an ordinary dinner gathering. Everybody appears to be very happy to be there. Most of them truly are.

There are no children, nor pets, of any kind, present.

THE PLAY~

Our attention is directed towards Johnny, who isn't wearing his jacket and seems to be milling about the most, exchanging laughs and pats on the back as he goes. A hug here and there. Everyone there seems to like him a lot, maybe even cares about him. As he does this, he is sleekly stealing glances from his hopeful fiancee Francine as she politely participates in a conversation she is not interested in. She's only interested in one thing tonight: "What on Earth is Johnny Ronald about to tell everyone? He said....even I didn't know."

Johnny's mother watches all of this with pride. Her two boys are the arms and legs of the family, and they are sure to carry it far in their late father's footsteps. She loves them both samely, though the boys are very...she would never say "different," but definitely unalike. John is much more of a "man's man" as they used to say. Tall and large, serious but not against a good laugh...at someone else's expense. Johnny is the charismatic one, with a personality as charming as it is respectable and sincere. He was even unusually creative, a trait she had to displace when he was a child since there was so little use for such a thing "these days." But nothing made her happier than seeing them grown and together, surrounded by friends and friends of the family. "My, they make this family look good!" she thought.

As if hearing his Mother's thought, Johnny looks over at her and makes eye contact. Her smile widens and he smiles his love to her. It is time now. And he knows it. He prays she takes it well.

Johnny excuses himself from the two friends talking to him, walks back over to the coffee table in the middle of the room and picks up his crystal champagne glass. He takes a pen out of his shirt pocket and taps the glass three times. Each ting sings with refinement. He's smiling but nobody notices his hand is shaking a little. The guests--now his guests--stand and gather around the young man in an arc: a quarter moon of faces devoid of worry, with a hidden sea of intranquility standing in the middle.

He sets the glass back down, looks around, is pleased, and prepares to address his audience.

Johnny: Thank you for coming. As you know, I called you all here today to make an important announcement. Not necessarily important to you, but most important to me. I called you in particular because I love and trust you the most--and I've been looking forward to this day too long.

Johnny's Mother: [interrupting] Oh, what is it dear? Are you going to take a year off to work in a reform school in Botswana, make those blackies a little whiter? [smiling as she looks around at everyone] You know that's something our Johnny would do and it would've made his father so proud.
[approving looks all around]

Johnny: [sheepish] No Mom, that's not it...

[the mother finally notices the nervousness]

Mother: [concerned voice] Oh?...is something the matter dear?

[everyone leans in a little closer]

Johnny: No Mom...actually it feels good to finally be able to tell you this. It should have been done long ago...but I've...I've been scared thanks to the blasted Ministry of Sameness! [concerned glances exchanged amongst the guests. Johnny doesn't notice and continues, focusing on his own hands for a moment before meeting their eyes.]

Johnny: I don't want to keep you in suspense any longer than I already have. Especially for fear of making this seem like more of an ordeal than it really is [He tries to smile]. It's actually quite small, in the big scheme of things...don't know why I waited so long to talk... [his voice fades and his attention is again drawn down to his hands which are holding each other]...ANYWAY, I'm rambling [He looks up, beams a smile, embarrassed a little, but everyone smiles right back]...getting right to it!

Friends, family, Francine...[a long look into her shy, pretty eyes as he clasps her hand tight for a second. She blushes. He looks around, takes a deep breath]...I want you all to know...that I'm....left....handed.

[GASPS! DISBELIEF! Stunned expressions all around! Horror is apparent. No words, just dumbfounded faces. Mother feels faint and has to ease herself down into the chair. Francine covers her face with both hands, eyes bulging over the tips of her fingers. No one else moves. He takes a deep breath, assures himself and goes on speaking as confidently as he can.]

Johnny: I knowww, I know it's a shock to some of you. I've gone to so much trouble to hide it and be a righty like everybody else....but I can't change it. I am what I am--but I AM still me. [He says the last line as he steps toward frozen Francine, eyes still wide, staring off at the floor. He reaches out to her and gently touches the sides of her arm. She finally comes back from her unraveling future and looks up at him, like a lost child looking for familiarity. Slowly she takes her hands away from her face as her eyes well-up, looking back and forth into his. Finally she blurts out]

Francine: It's Like...It's Like I Don't even Know YOU ANYMORE!!! [She turns and runs off hysterically like a 10-year-old girl, arms flailing, legs kicking, shaking her head like she's trying to hurl the tears out of her eyes, a blur of blonde locks fades through a dark doorway, still crying out. Now it's Johnny's turn to be surprised.]

[Impulsively, he steps to follow whom he had hoped would be his greatest ally, but his older brother intercepts him. John puts his hands on Johnny's shoulders, his head hangs down a little as he does so. Johnny watches over John's shoulder as Francine disappears, then he looks at his big brother's hanging head. Johnny doesn't dare look around. He knows if she couldn't accept it...the rest of them won't be any kinder. Her reaction may seem extreme to them but only because they have more self-control. And love him less unconditionally.]

Johnny: Brother?

John: Don't Johnny. [He looks up, disappointed and sad, and without breaking this steeled eye-contact, his right hand slides down and removes the antique pen from Johnny's breast pocket. Johnny looks down as he does this, to glimpse it, to believe it, but does not move otherwise.]

Johnny:[voice now shaking a little] ....Dad's...lucky pen...

John: Let's be thankful he never knew how you would use it.

[Stung by this Johnny reaches to lay his hand on his brother's shoulder or neck as his eyes tear up, reaches for compassion. But John shies away from the gesture disdainfully. Johnny stops, looking at his hand stopped in midair. His left hand.]

[John lets go and steps over to the mother who's been sitting in statuesque silence, hands in her lap, staring at the floor as if her perfect life just crashed like a vase in front of her.]

[John takes his mother's arm at the elbow and hand and helps her up. She rises as if in a trance. Hypnotized by disillusionment. He escorts her out of the room quietly and as they go she turns and looks over her shoulder, straining her neck, reaching out to her precious son with her eyes, but unable to stop herself from leaving in shame. As they exit, the other guests slowly disperse the other way, behind his back.]

[Dejected, he turns and faces the audience. Looks down at his left hand, maybe sheds an angry tear. 10 seconds later the lights dim and police lights flash. A short clip of a siren is heard, and a red light swings through the living-room before a man comes on a megaphone.]

Policeman: This is the police, here on the authority of the Ministry of Sameness. It's been reported that someone classifiably different is in the premises. We demand you surrender yourself immediately. Come out with both hands up...[mumbles in slow rough voice] ...you god-damned LEFTY!

[The blood red light continues to swing through the black room like an axe. Johnny looks up at the sky with one last desperate "why me?" on his lips, then drops his head and shakes it in despair.]

{Lights out}.

The end.

Upon My Return

(OLD blog post)

May 16, 2009 - Saturday ~4:17pm

Currently listening:
The Sun And The Moon Complete [2 CD]
By The Bravery

Current mood: trepidation
Category: Life


Fuck, it's weird being back home. I'm alone in my room now for the first time. Lala was nice enough to pick me up and keep me company. Now I'm walking around my room, unsure what to do with myself. And I noticed my hands were even a little shaky. Thought I should just sit down and write it out. Even though my computer is now being weird and printing the letters a LOT slower than I'm typing. Which is a new feature and really Annoying. Fuck it, I'm still typing fast, if there's typos, so e it.

But yeah, I feel a little...unsettled at the moment. A little ...out of place. My room is my room but it feels a little different. Like I noticed it's naked for the first time. And this transition, this transition is a hard one, I think maybe harder than going back home for the first time in two years. I think that's what's got me a little shaky. It's a hard transition, like I have to shed a whole shell of myself to fit back into this life. This Way of Living.

At first it doesn't feel "Right," like I shouldn't be doing this, like being here is not good for me, but it is. But that shell I speak of, what is it? It's more than a layer of skin, it's a whole frame of being....that comes.....that comes with being in America? That comes with being back "Home" in that environment and That culture?? That comes with having to ReFit myself back into that life??? Yeah. Yeah, that's it. I did, I re-shaped myself to fit in again, I had to do that, at least to some degree.

There were so many times that I felt AWKWARD when I first got there, like I didn't know what to do or how to "act natural." Like who I was in that context the last time I was in that context....had so little relation to whom I had become. I had to Re-form my "American self," for lack of a better identifier. Just to exist in that environment and breathe without thinking about it. And now, after hosting that or being hosted IN that shell, I have to do away with it again, just like that, and be...well, what seems like "Normal" to me. Funny huh?

In the end I guess, when this mission is complete and I do Return "for good," I guess the ultimate goal, and in fact, the inevitable goal, is that I will have to marry those two worlds/selves together within me. I will have to reconcile the differences and merge them both. That's only logical. I can't possible DISCARD what 5 (?) years has done to me here. There's no changing how I've been changed. But I have. Inexorably. I see it in the way I see things back home, so many things that I never even questioned, now seem...ridiculous.

It scares me, though I suppress it now cuz I'm only there for a few days so there's no sense in...REbuking this and that travesty of sense around me, but it scares me cuz...I see so many (more) things that I won't be able to be A PART of, that I will not willingly subscribe to because I CAN'T Just Accept it! And that scares me a little because....what if it's TOO much? What if I can't "deal" with American/Western life anymore!? Right now, I cannot say I have any desire to live out in the woods on my own or feel forced by conviction to leave that country AGAIN but......"for good."

None of this is really new for me though, these thoughts and perceptions concerning the world around me, the SCALE OF IT is what is changing. As I was writing this a song I wrote a long time ago came to mind. The first half of the lyrics read...

"I have a problem with people who say too many meaningless things in a row
And I have a problem with people who pray to a God that they don't really know
And I have a problem with how the world works and how we're living our lives
And I have a problem with all of the jerks that are armed with fists guns and knives

I have a say in the part that I play And I'm not gonna help anymore
I will not be a follower, a number, a victim, a numb little whore...

So COUNT--ME--OUT
I won't be a part of this
COUNT--ME--OUT
I don't need a Therapist
COUNT--ME--OUT
Most of you don't even try...

I'm--the One--Who Wants--to be--ALIVE!"


...I guess that about sums it up :-\

Oranges

I keep looking at the oranges
sitting on my counter
The ones bought with the apples that are long gone
The ones bought with such good intentions
They are bigger than my fists. They are soft balls
full of juice and brightness
But I cannot bring myself
to their appetizing destruction
Not because I think they will be destroyed
But because of the ample time it would take me
to slide my fingers under their skin
and peel back and pull off
That time seems more precious to me
in my endeavor to crawl under
the world's thick, raw hide
(as I expose the meat underneath)
than it does for their purposeful consumption

Either my First or my most recent parable. I'm not sure.

(this is what I envisioned! This is the potential!)

They see him everyday. He conveniently walks into their convenience store. He is always happy. But it is more than happy. He is emitting joy, almost as though joy were a pollen and he were a giant flower.

After he leaves, the joy lingers in the store, the pollen drifts about, bouncing off of and alighting on whatever it will. The people who notice him notice him. Often they notice him and smile. Sometimes they notice him and feel as disparate from whatever he is as 7 is to 11. Nevertheless, he is not forgotten quickly. Every now and then words and smiles are exchanged after the appearance of his departure. He is funny. He is silly. He makes them laugh. If, one day, he never came back, they would miss him, give him a nickname (if they hadn't already) and talk about what he used to do. They might smile and laugh all over again. There is something different about him, but they don’t know what. They have never asked, some have never thought about it. They are only workers. They have a job to do, a job they do well and one that does not seem to allow them to stop and ask such questions of people they don’t “know.” Even if they really want to. Even if they really want to....reach out.

When he leaves, people see him on the street: the same people and different people every time. Some of them notice him, some of them don’t. Of the ones who are always there, more and more see him over time. Sometimes a couple of them watch him walking by, on his way, smiling that smile he smiles, and they feel or just flat out THINK, “He knows something I don’t know.” And they are right. But it doesn't have to be that way.