A Raven's Ramblings

Lullaby

2008-06-16T09:16:00.001-04:00

He falls into sleep with the softness of a whisper,
a time of anomalous existence where nothingness
takes shape as dreams and images that shelter him
from the delicate truth of death.

Behind closed eyes he watches me move to
either side like a silent sentry and I begin to
wonder what it's like to be in his dreams
and ponder the places he has been and the
people that exist only in his mind.

The shadows lift from my armchair in the corner
when the sun rises from its slumber and washes
away the dark presence that follows with the night.

The light strikes his eyes twice and once again he is awake,
his limbs no longer numb and void of life.
His eyes, glistening blue and white,
know humanity again for fourteen hours;

he witnesses my smile, and recognizes
the loving sentience of his grandmother and the
steamy greeting of black tea on a cold winter morning.

The Common

2008-03-20T12:37:00.000-04:00

Jane and Paul think that farming
is like their college foodservice,
that little lunch-ladies swoop the
peas, corn, carrots and buckwheat
into harvest buckets before marketing
to the general and hungry public;
they believe that agriculture mimics
their elitist collegian multiculturalism,
that it desegregates the 3-field system
into one field that has stopped rotating
and continually loses its fertility, for
separate but equal is inherently unequal
and every field needs a fair chance.

They believe it's that easy.

Children

2008-03-20T12:32:00.002-04:00

We ought to have two children,
just enough to replace our position
in the provisional populus;
let them do our should-have-dones,
and settle our old scores.

It costs money to be born, however;
our mechanical midwife that looks
just like a chicken separator
is on a 3-day getaway to
erupting Kalamalooto, Honolulu,
and, after all, giving birth among
the wilds oaks and cedars
was outlawed when a green-collar
Buffalo Bill became the
insemination whistle blower.
He found the sedge grass and the
sacred fallen leaves tossed up
and imprinted with our shapes,
depressed by our naked love-making;

and it's all evidence that somewhere
along the production line, you and I
touched in the simian way of apes,
rolled the conceptual dice of
the great paleolithic game,
rolled in the wet hay,
and avoided the
writhing polymer needles
of the electric gigolo
that is meant to conceive
our one and only
dream.

Marxism

2008-03-20T12:29:00.001-04:00

There are famous names on the blackboard slate
that everyone writes down in their college-ruled.

These are the names that haven't faces,
but definitions and little notated renditions.
These are historic lives once lived,
but lives and legacies that will be
buried forever in the philosophy of flash cards
and the pathos of busy-sheets;

Maybe no one will recall them in a few months,
when all of the schedules have fallen away,
when the month of May rushes in,
when noble names and thinkers
become replaced by sports,
scores of canonized T.V. Guides
and a few difficult serious Senior Relationships.

At some time everyone will ask, “Why?”
and finally come to realize that they
once held the answers in the names that lurk
in the back of their minds, in a place the size
of a withered kidney bean called the hippocampus,
and in the disconnected ideas exiled from the
world-wide-web of text-messaging activists.

We live where inequality is constantly realized,
and anarchists work at the global fast-food market;
where everyone forgets what it is to be human,
to calmly and creatively think,
and to achieve something greater than
a few new conspiracy theories or
a high-calorie sauerkraut on rye at
the end of a hard, lazy day.

Huntress

2008-03-17T20:41:00.001-04:00

She sat across a clean, white table,
spoke only in her quiet tones.
Her gaze wandered to his own,
watchful like the silent huntress.

She was gathered in conversation
among strangers and smiles,
close enough to hear his resolved words,
but words spoken only to others.

The yearning moments galloped on.
She leaned so close behind him.
He spoke with his eyes,
like the phantoms in her dreams,
and he watched her scribble her notes,
embarrassed.

She sat a bit behind his family at lunch,
and wondered if he could spot her so close.
He rose and poured pungent black coffee,
the same flavor that she often drank.
She imagined all of his glistening facets.

A day transpired into the winterly ether.
Together in a group of youths
swept into a deluge of adulthood,
he stood beside her beneath the eaves
of university, and smiled into the breeze with her.
Not a word was spoken. For that sunset alone,
an eddy swirled them side by side;
forces beyond the watch of nature wrapped them
in the temporary tether of a fleeting moment,
where the huntress could wonder about
her desires and dreams that could never be satisfied,
her languished future never to be seen.

Under the evening sun wilted lavender was
caressed by the wind, and attraction bloomed.

Embla

2008-03-17T20:21:00.002-04:00

Woman leaves the audience.
Man follows with his hand in hers.
Woman walks somewhere with Man;
there is determination and purpose in their strides.
Smiles slide across their faces.
Woman and Man are in a dark room now.
They don't speak more than a few words to make it to privacy.
In their long, silent gazes, they know;
Woman is in the arms of trust and
Man has long since been conquered.
Woman knows happiness then,
knows that this conceives in shadows a radiant future.
Woman knows her vulnerable nakedness then,
Man becomes more gentle and loving in turn.
They make love and their bodies meld and
shift into fleshy mountains and smooth cliffs,
pieces of driftwood of ash and oak
steadily sloshing in the red sea.
Woman makes love to Man, Man to Woman,
and amidst the tender stroking and tingling,
they breathe in the sky and know what it is to be alive.

Real Omelets

2008-03-17T20:10:00.004-04:00

Curiosity splits the eggshell of your inhibitions;
Desire draws out the wriggling slimy yolks.
Wonder asks if you'd like it to be over-easy,
Scrambled, or just premature.

The Organic Ideal

2008-03-17T20:05:00.003-04:00

Coil, beat and slip;
mound it on the wheel and
watch it skip
     across the floor.

Spin it too fast, feel the cracks.
Comb and coil, burnish and toil,
beat on the textures and reinforce
     the organic ideal
               with marble mixtures.

Seat it in the kiln --
cone ten to broil.
     Raku
and magnesium salts,
liquid silicia, molten and glaxed,
fire will bring out your faults.

Untitled #3

2008-03-17T19:59:00.003-04:00

Blue,
     blue nights.
Burnt orange on the unmade
polyester bedsheets.
Blue,
     blue nights,
wondered away out of a dark window
     while watching passer-bys,
imagining
where they were going and what was
     on their
     minds.
Blue walls and cheap Picasso prints --
     Dali is standing over the bedposts.

     A guitar sits in the corner;
     it hasn't been played in a few nights
by anyone but the moonlight.
Blue,
     blue nights,
lonely like reading newspapers in the bathroom,
or playing chess alone in the summer breeze.
Blue,
     blue nights;
the blue that only shows itself in the few moments
before the sun goes to sleep in the bedrock
     and color no longer exists.

Boot Days

2008-03-17T19:56:00.001-04:00

Sun removed the chill
of frost that iced over will.
Brown boots crunch through snow,
cold cars pass by slow.

Feet cross those snowy old roads;
blackbirds sing and chrip.
Crows are perched up high
on an aged, wiry white pine.
They croak and swoop low.

Brown boots slide and step.
Ice and slush. Not quite there yet.
Steam glazes the sky.
Hello and goodbye,
then winter wanders away,
and life trickles on.

A Brother in Arms

2008-03-17T19:51:00.003-04:00

I wear a suit so that nobody knows what's
     beneath the khaki merino wool;
That way, everyone may taste the gourmet of my
     everyday elitism.
I take care of my little brother with the
     power of positive thinking, denial
and the fantasy that it's still 2003,
     that he's just quiet and infantile.
He'll grow up to be just like me.
          Five years ago, that might have passed inspection,
but now I have an overdue parking ticket,
the miles have transpired and my hope needs an oil change.
I take out my pocket change and mound it
     on the table in front of him.
In the year that we're counting our nickels and dimes,
     he just looks at me and cries.

Threshold

2008-03-17T19:45:00.002-04:00

There's someone ahead a ways,
who crosses frozen cascades
and jumbled frost-heaven roads.

A swift gait leads her forward,
chancing strides, yet quite stable,
led with her quiet intent.

Birds rise on the icy air
beyond the dying maples.
Cars sputter and clunk by her.

She reaches the gray glass gates,
just a dozen steps ahead,
and holds open the cold doors.

What does her smile imply,
her curious countenance
and that silent youthful gaze?

I may never understand,
but still pass her with a nod
and wonder about her world.

Twenty-Somethings

2008-03-06T22:06:00.003-05:00

What really depends on the first twenty-something years?

Thirsty for an escape but working up to a career;
It'd be a lie to say there isn't any irony here!

The elite school makes you the slave:
the driver of Blue-collar furnaces,
of those struggling in the golden fields of wheat --
or it places you on the hill of success,
North of the land of opportunity,
but it's not for you.

We were too afraid to run away from our day jobs,
so we got married, tied the noose,
read the newspaper
every morning, went to church on Sunday
and we settled for a career.

Year after year we took a vacation in May,
watched the farmers hay our fields
and didn't have anything to say.
You read Huck Finn to Jim, little Jim.
Secretly we hoped he'd escape our life of worker syndrome some day.

One day we skipped church and drove to the coast.
We tried to get the most out of our love,
to suckle from the forbidden beehive,
and smiled,
then turned back and broke our own spines,
broke in a new pair of leather shoes,
went light on the polish,
and tried to get little Lucy into college.

We gave money to her college fund,
and Jim ran for some high-seat.
Then she was in heat.

But in the long run, as we know,
when our grand-grandson came,
he was mean, and we looked off into the sun
and succumbed to the light breaking over
a far off horizon, across the mountains,
over the islands, and let our sightless
Bodies return to infantile mirth,
and re-enter the
womb of the Earth.

The Dewey Decimal Complex

2008-03-06T22:04:00.001-05:00

I want to be a librarian;
I want to have my social groups
consist of books,
not jumps through hoops.

I want the dust I brush off shelves
to mimic a woman's smell,
and a lust for knowledge replace
the need to breed.

I want to write like I'm a competitive fighter,
and recommend books because
I actively read them.

Calm and succinctly sophisticated,
I want to be a librarian.

Common Sense

2008-02-17T11:10:00.000-05:00

I stood in a bathroom stall for a long time, today,
Dripping for inspiration, under those fake fluorine lights.
This poem is a product of my plight.

Rain

2008-02-17T11:09:00.000-05:00

Lit up in the rain,
Smiling shivers, warm goodbyes;
Run away with me?

Office. Complexity.

2008-02-17T11:05:00.002-05:00

The great judgment halls are empty at night.
The carpet is a dirty gray. The empty space is musty,
And the raw air in the old office buildings
Stings the lungs with formaldehyde.

Blab, Blab. Give the correct answer. Praise. It's the
Critical phase. Mr. St. Hilaire? The peer group is a pecking order.
Success rides the wave of grades, and all insights are like grenades
And must be revolted against. Write poems on your test and, for
A moment, forget grammar and the granite rules of verse.
Write to free onself from the human condition – it's all so complex.

Colors illustrate in my mind's eye the ganzfeld field
That exists just beyond my field of vision.
Here I come, listen to our collision as the steel framework
Of buildings fuses with our musings and social rules.
Listen to something new, then turn off your iTunes and think.

Dissonance of Seasons

2008-02-17T10:18:00.001-05:00

Another human life washes in with the
Cold confusion of the misty universal tides.

Her infant body has been broken over the spines of
The ocean's rocky protrusions, burned by the brine,
And beached on the sandy illusion of safety.

Shadows and dust are all that she may be,
A complex driftwood husk, Ash or Elm, lifeless until
The moment she breathes her first earthen breaths.
Her skin seethes hot with life, and is fused with color.

Her thoughts begin to analyze, and to imagine.
She witnesses the clockwork strife of things.
When she draws the first longing sip from her
Generation's naked breast, she begins to understand all the rest.

She is exposed and sensitive, a chickadee with her mouth ajar.
She is a child who abides only by the moon-tides.
She sleeps at night and awaits the break of dawn,
Hungry to witness the human fray that preys on what is natural.

Courage becomes her only hope along her journey through life.
In the sky suspended on high, she finds her father,
Smiling from the iridescent infinity of space and time.
Immersed in the wonder of such beautiful things, she pauses,
Then begins to travel again, to wonder and ask, “Why?”
When she meets the lonely sundered woods.

The forest has had its defenses breached;
Slowly, utterly, it shrinks and then falters.
In her lifetime, the wilderness mounts its final resistance;
It is folding and buckling, churning and chuckling,
At the slash-and-burn persistence of the greatest predator.

The child continues on, and finds her mother among the desolation
That is in all the ages and in all of the places on this Earth.
With the wisdom of the sages, Mother gives consolation,
Meaning to the isolation, all life now stripped of what it was once worth.

On the damp soil that lies beneath her feet and
In the quiet shelter within the shade of the trees,
She finds solace in Father's timeless embrace,
And courage in Mother's nurturing whispers.

She has become a woman now, and with pride and
Intent, she walks and strides to the rhythm of the wind.
Her shadow is the darkness that creeps across the falling leaves,
That bluster past us in frightening, frigid blasts.

In the short moments between the shifting dissonance of
Seasons and societies, ages and phases,
In the time it takes for our ashes to become oaks,
She has found her home, her heart, and her reasons.

All that this Earth once was is now fleeting,
Save our remembrance of the smell of the endless sea,
The pang of salty brine, and the cool turquoise breeze.
Our woman watches and waits and we take the bait.

Above the splashing waters and the groaning waves,
She waves her reverent farewell to us and notices
The color when it drains from our drooping faces.

Death relaxes each of our hallowed forms in time,
And lays us first to bake and broil beneath the sun,
Somewhere among the universe of our forlorn things.

Then the rope slips and the knots come undone --
She lets us make our plunge back into the sea of fire.
Her watchful face wavers and then fades into the light,
As our lives vanish beneath the waves.

Aurora Pond

2008-02-17T10:16:00.001-05:00

That evening three dead men were swimming
Under the sunset, silhouetted by where
The horizon waned to a warm black.
That evening their feet were wrapped
In milfoil and in muck, itchy from the
decomposing leaves and the sulfuric heaves.
The sun set and for for a moment there was twilight;
Their bodies sank beneath the wavering water and
As they descended, became shadowy, pallid, and quite
A grim sight.

That evening that the three dead men were swimming,
You and I could go skinny dipping without worry,
For the leeches were preoccupied by the reddening rush of fluids
And the buoying bubbles of postmortem exasperations.
And the lazy fish swam about in shifting circles,
Welcoming us to immerse ourselves within the cool liquid
Of their aquatic domain.

That evening that the three dead men were swimming in Little Pond,
We mistook it for the ocean, the blast of polluted air as the sea breeze,
And the toxic sky as the greenest Aurora Australis

We laid together on our bare backs and bottoms in the cold groggy sand,
And gazed up towards the milky way.
We made the radiant stars our lovely children;
Alpha Centuari had epilepsy, and Polaris was our little politician;
And then we laughed in a gaily way, and made the ethereal arms of
The far-off galaxies the boundaries of their cosmic playpens.

Granola

2008-02-17T10:13:00.000-05:00

Stop tossing away
The bananas, the granola,
The raisins; Stop wasting
What your taste-buds hastily
Reject, like it fell on the floor.
It's not fashionable or trendy
To treat it like rubbish because
We've got so much of it, so
Stop wasting more and more.
You wasted more than your meal
Pays for and bolstered the carbon
emissions up to a full stomach.
And in the corn-fields run by
Slaves and those who wonder
About the glorious days of
Marxism and the green hospitality,
You'll be remembered,
When someone starves but
Could have been nourished on your waste –
You'll be remembered.

Crows

2008-02-17T10:03:00.002-05:00

Crows, gathering black
Among naked birch,
Croaking conversational politics,
Telling me to stay awhile,
Witness their down-to-earth
Deliberations that make
Democracy a far cry from
Problem solving or equality.
Wind on their wings and
The shadow of feathers up high,
Swirling and playing and free to
Die where they want to,
And fly where their hearts compel them,
To dine on the roadside, Mother Nature's
Bon vivants, and to gaze through
Smooth black eyes that witness the
Motions and notions of below,
And grin to me every day.

Nayeli

2008-02-17T09:50:00.003-05:00

The leaves were lifted up around her laughter;
She was buried in the autumn breeze.
With the smells of earth surrounding her,
And cascading, falling leaves,
The fall breath and I mounted crisp kisses
All over her body.

Our lives can be simple and discover
An alluring enjoyment in diving
Into the writhing amber of piled leaves,
Raking them all together again,
And then repeating on forever.

Nayeli ran across the back yard and there I sat and watched;
Smiles and torrents of laughter colored our countenance.
Work in twenty minutes could not forsake euphoria –
It mattered not, so we stood in defiance.

A lonely television blasted rambling advertisements in the background.
Products I did not need left their slogans memorized, dangling in my mind's eye.
I went around to that sunny porch and removed that pesky plug.
These moments were just for us, and our love returned to the foreground.

Nayeli was in her playful panther's pose,
Ready to pounce from the brush, to strike.
Her fast food uniform was caked in mud and slush,
Yet it mattered not, so we lived in defiance.

I spilled a cup of coffee on my box-store slacks as I ran for her,
Tossed the mug onto our driveway, and tackled her into the grass –
We rolled around among the down of soggy leaves,
Grasped at old and misty memories,
And loved with a warm and furious energy.

Ravens flew overhead, telling croaks and shadows.
Smoked meat on the grill, overcast sun, and the chilly, shivering autumn trees.

I didn't have any money, empty pockets and dusty vaults,
Yet it didn't matter, so we loved in defiance and
I was with Nayeli.

Note: "Nayeli" verbum Zapotecum significare est "tu amo!"

II: The Wild Circus with Qcdf

2008-01-04T23:48:00.001-05:00

A dense blanket of mist had settled in, exhaled by the formless trees. It swept under our galloping horses as we swept by, billowing downwards. Zig-zagging past phosphorescent fungi, Qcdf's horse speeds ahead and I continue to allow her to take the lead. She weaves through fallen trees, down the rises and falls of a long forgotten path last taken by long forgotten lovers. I continue to smile as the horse charges forth, the galloping becoming like a rhythmic drumming, watching as she bounces with the horse, as her body morphs with the voluptuous motion.

What I have not yet shared is Qcdf's unearthly beauty and grace. Not a fan of horseback riding myself, I take to these rides for my own purposes with her. I discreetly study the perplexity of her form. There is the beautiful enigma of her polyhedral body, geometric buttocks, a tetrahedral head -- even flowing seaweed that is her hair, with the same slimy, salty impression that the ocean gives it! O' the marvel of it, the desire that it wells up inside of me, the curiosity of profound experiences it promises. I want to steal it.

All the while we ride through the woodlands, each moment my need for her growing as usual. Each moment we are also nearing the source of a rampant chortling that is mysteriously radiating throughout the forest.

Qcdf grinds her horse to a stop, and her feet again rested against the soft earth. We had reached the drop of a great chasm, spiraling down into abysmal depths, stretching into the violet horizon. A radiant pool of light surrounded and emptied infinitely into its depths.

Above the heavenly abyss, in the crisp autumn sky, a stream of ghostly riders, wagons, and pioneers glide silently through the air, rushing like a white waterfall. I see phantasmal elephants, and clouds of cotton candy; indeed it is the Wild Circus on their Wild Hunt causing such a ruckus. Qcdf and I give them a wave of our tail feathers – and her fanny pack – that met their giggling din and colorful, dancing motleys blotted gray by the shadows. Quite the merry jest. We then return to her home, a ride well spent.

We make it to her house and float from the horses that charge away, wild again, vanishing into ether. Qcdf and I roll in the grass and grunt about our day, and gaze into the open sky above us. With an outstretched hand and and a deep breath she colors the sky with pastels of shimmering orange, red and pink. At that moment I want more than anything to steal her, but she soothes me by unzipping her fanny pack and stroking my earlobes with the Beguiler, its teeth tearing open my pores and enabling my wolfish desires.

At last we are inside, and we again share coffee. The bovine heads mounted around her kitchen carry on a deep conversation, watching us and surpassing the timeless phonograph music. Hfdf giggles steps over to each of our cups, milking our coffees with the sweet nectar of her tender bosom. The drone of music and the gasping of the Phonograph Man then carries the night away on its skirts.

New Year's Resolution

2008-01-02T00:34:00.002-05:00

Here comes two-thousand and eight,
Preparing to unpack his freight.
Usurped of the power of the throne,
Seven has turned sour, and dies alone.

I: On Horseback In Autumn With Qcdf

2008-01-01T20:52:00.001-05:00

Note: This is a series of short sections of a surrealist short story, published as often as I write them. This will be a continuing trend in my blog, and each section will be labeled accordingly for easy navigation.

Every few days in the autumn I leave my little lonely cabin to visit the lovely Qcdf, gliding down the long, leafy path that cuts through the woods and makes it to her splendid house. She's quite youthful and resides with her virginal sister Hfdf – who is with child -- and father Jcdf, the Phonograph Man.

Indeed, in the kitchen room of their splendid abode is a silver-horned phonograph, still with its luster after a year or two of use. Jcdf puts round discs onto its base, touches it with a little needle and sounds are coughed out of the horn. I want to steal it. He yodels away with it on joyous days, and sings of war, the circus, and the astral plane. Together we all gather and sip coffee lightened with a hint of ripe Hfdf's milk and a sprinkle of flour, and enjoy the light-hearted falsetto ballads that reverberate within our heads.

Today I am on the road to see Qcdf like usual. We go horseback riding at the start of every visit. When I see her, she is wearing her multi-colored fanny pack as usual. She waves as I near the house, and after a quick embrace mentions something about the rather unusual attitude of the horses today, and that we must go to great lengths to tame them.

“Don't worry, the Beguiler is kept ever-fresh and safe in my fanny pack” Qcdf says.

I am reassured, and I set down my coat. Around and around we run together, through the clearing that her house rests in, after the wild horses. I intentionally trail behind Qcdf so I can hear the sound of her retrieving her Beguiler from the fanny pack, and witness in my euphoria the slow, rhythmic bouncing of her buttocks, and the graceful stomp of her cloven feet against the cool grass. Steam rises from her feet and is caught like a kite in the blustery wind, whisked away.

She looks back at me before using the Beguiler, and I'm panting for several reasons, but I pass her a smile; what a wonderful thing our smiles are. I want to steal them. After doing arm circles with the device in her hand, the wild, eyeless horses we are chasing slow their pace to a gentle trot, and then dig their heels into the ground so that we may mount them and begin our ride. Before climbing atop the whinnying mare I massage her empty eye sockets carefully so that she is comfortable with me as a rider, and when Qcdf and I are ready, we gallop away together into the deep embrace of the evergreens and autumnal trees.

Of Or Relating To Earth

2007-12-13T17:23:00.003-05:00

Glowing phosphorescence, O' fluorescent signs!
Nine O' clock marks the passage of time
Into the grime of modern savagery.

It's hunting and gathering time, among tin and petroleum plastics,
Polycarbonates, distillates, chemical amalgamates in fantastic
Thirty-second microwavable packets.

We walk beneath the signs that dictate our desires,
Through the airlock doors and the air conditioning that makes us shiver;
Smiles and stickers feed us into the cogs and gears of the meat locker,
Turning as we walk among the concrete aisles,
Instincts yearning to forage among the aluminum jungles of shelves,
Stomachs churning with nothing to lose but ourselves,
Pant sizes to gain, canned triglycerides and acid rain!

We become subdued by the egg beaters, the wife beaters, the synthetic pigsties
Of too many choices, the rush of capital, and the tone of voices
Silenced by slap-shot box-of-cement construction
That is becoming our own deconstruction.

We still hunt, we still gather, we're still nomads, among
De-humanizing fodder, and we're still getting fatter!
Two-hundred-thousand year old instincts have transcended
Into a two-hundred-thousand mile per hour world,
About to crash and burn, or maybe just burn.
Run through the supermarket superstructure with a cart;
Run through the slender salmon with a sharpened spear;
Snatch the cellophane-wrapped meat, pre-heated chicken feet.
Snatch and flay the quivering fish, fillet – harvest, thresh and beat the wheat.

Our intuition has been saran-wrapped and shelved,
Prices roll back and we delve into the box-stores like the
Scores of hominids on the hunt before us; we've marginalized our tribes,
Collectivized our lives into the hive and turned our gathering into
A glorious parade in the produce section,
Waxed with pesticides and misconceptions
For that ninty-nine cent deal with a ninty-nine percent chance
Of making us keel over sick, and wishing we'd stick with
Local horticulture, farming and fields.

Our hunt is the rush through aisles single-file,
Grabbing lunch meats and processed concoctions,
Snack foods and bags of salty pork-rinds and poultry
That came from some place in Oriental Tim-Buk-Tu with
Pre-chewed, pre-cooked injected infections that seeped into
The gene pool from the cesspool of a million pigs in one sty.
Our heads are held high in the sky from the adrenaline rush
That comes from socializing our young children into the
Post-industrial terrestrial crush.

And it may just be by our nature or the
Nurture of globalized pride in the industrial
Crimes against that which is human and folkish,
Televised across the planet in one sweeping tidal motion.

And the critics of the fittest may agree our evolution is
Causing convulsions in our morality, that we are becoming
Iconoclasts of the powers that be – Yet one thing's for certain:
The human instinct, veiled beneath the curtain, remains.
Stone age man has survived into the modern age, and
Beyond humanitarian efforts to end the pain,
To subject the uncivilized to our sophisticated games,
We're still Men with spears and stone axes,
Women rearing children and upholding the backdrop
Of family practices. Philosophies removed,
We're hunter-gatherers by nature,
And we're on the move.

Depths and Roots

2007-11-28T15:46:00.002-05:00

We took the wild way into the windy woods,
And sung the epitaph for ending childhoods.

The rain, like standing in the tidal surge for years,
Eroded fears and burst the floodgates of our tears.
Emotion colors us with watercolor paints,
And we run away free, old ways becoming distant,
Trust lighting our path before we dismiss it.

There is something earthen here defining us,
Spirits raw with lust, exposed like naked mountainsides.

Prolific and profound, we are those roots of oak and yew,
That can't be severed under storms, or by the human condition,
Nor be burdened by the toiling collision of passing years.

The spirit of creation liberates us in this place,
Far from the pang of human civilization:
Nature's immemorial, inescapable rhythm
Becomes reason for conformity and then schism.

The exhaling gales against our open windows
Will cool what scars of ours still sear,
And breathe into the seething flames within us,
That boil up into the innards of our molten smithy,
Where passion churns the hot, voluptuous iron,
That sparks and kindles the bond between us.

Solid and forged by the hammer's thumping scourge,
We will in time reach the endless reach of night,
No matter how great our mountainous heights,
Until we're far from the fruitful fields of passion,
Into the enigma: a life liberated from reasons or ration --
The shrouded place where you and I like atoms collide,
Until awoken by the dawn of light within our eyes,
And we become again human, at best.

Brooding Break Room

2007-11-28T15:40:00.004-05:00

Coffee cups hold coffee and
Little white cardboard boxes usually
Hold a selection of decadent donuts.
Every morning on the break room table,
Jon found the cover of the box open,
The chocolate creams of his dreams missing in action.
Lisa always cast her eyes into the action.
She stood in the corner with Willis,
Talking in hushed tones of water cooler humor
Too dirty to be painted with Jon's watercolors.
He made himself a cup of coffee,
French roast he liked to call Joe.
Everybody else got theirs at the donut shop.
He only liked their toffee flavored coffee,
And he really wasn't in the mood to gawk at menus today.
White walls, white donut boxes,
White tiles, white lights,
Create white hair.
Jon set his white coffee mug on the white table
And opened up the white newspaper.
Little grunts and mumbles came from the corner.
Lisa got the evil eye and her hands went down to rest
On her cute little blue vest, the same one everyone wore;
She was hoping Jon would notice her extra
“Have a Nice Day!” pin today.
A couple of people came into the room as he was
Running his eyes over the latest brutal murder in Swellville,
or the kidnapping in Hometown across the river.
Barbara was a little woman and she liked her donuts and coffee.
Jon was reading the paper and keeping to himself.
Lisa was turned on by Jon's shiny bald spot and sipped hot water.
Jon sloppily turned the page of the paper.
White mug got knocked over.
White table became smothered by black coffee.
White haired Barbara gave Jon a black eye.
Ruined donuts. Ruined uniforms.
Hot coffee burns the legs.
Jon threw down his paper and yelled at Barbara.
Barbara threw her donut at Jon.
Donut boxes carry more momentum than paper planes.
There was so much commotion, Willis couldn't keep sane.
Burning coffee on his blue vest and white face caused Jon a lot of pain.
Barbara was too enraged to feel her old bones breaking.
Lisa leaped onto Jon like a leopard with leprosy. Block the bullet.
Willis blocked Barbara's dying punch.
Jon broke Willis' nose.
Jon found a pair of hands clutched curiously around his throat.
Lisa's tumble made Lisa have a miscarriage. It wasn't Jon's anyway.
Look at everything spilled on the white floor!
Save Mart employees are expected to return from break after fifteen minutes or face infraction penalties.

Break rooms and water cooler romances can tell a lot about an overstressed, overworked and under productive society.

Paper Mirrors

2007-11-28T15:33:00.001-05:00

Light from above is the truly
Crafty trick of a craftier
Magician.
Shadows are cast downwards onto
Paper.
A silhouette I see of a man
Who can never cast
His eyes back at
Me.
I
Am his maker yet he is also mine, looking
Back from the world of shadows,
Cast downwards onto paper,
Am I not light cast outwards from
The world of shadows, gleaming from above
As he lurks below?
My pen touches his shadow
And we write as one, pen to pen,
Reflected off of the lake
In the penumbra of incorporeal shadow,
Each turn of the page,
Each increase in number,
And the paper mirror, the world between worlds,
Is fresh and new,
So that each of us can touch our flesh to the page,
And watch the other from
The umbra, and shallow shadows of light,
And shallow shadows of night.

To End All Wars

2007-11-28T15:30:00.002-05:00

The azure sunsets, surrounding the lea,
That cooling sunlight shining downwards on
An army of frightened boys, together; dawn
Shall turn them to surreptitious dreaming.

They're heroes in their bravely marching sea,
To swiftly leave the land of droning ends,
And through the fight that makes them early men,
That purifies and so delivers the weak.

The whites of warring eyes turn scarlet red,
As brave as knights and lords, unsheathing swords,
To save the maiden's chaste, to yell their words,
And be released, victoriously dead.

Their trial by His fire, boys to beast,
And then the heavens do await, at least.

-Tyler "Hrafnar" Noyes

This Is What 2000 Was

2007-11-28T15:29:00.001-05:00

The second millennium was a time
When the world sat in fear
And watched the Y2k draw near.
Fearful of computer crashes,
Corporate rehashes and political matches,
Everybody ground down their teeth
And set upon their faces masks
Depicting new age animal races they
Wanted to embody but didn't really
Take the time to bother with.

Politically correct infomercials, commercials,
And "Home Improvement" shows graced the
Airwaves, survival of the fittest.
Corporate and hospital sexuality became our
Entertainment reality.

And books? Some were written,
With the political correctness hidden in,
People from Africa being mistaken as
"African American" and Icelanders
Being called Asians. What happened
To the terms that defined generations?
But you can spare the torches
Because no one read books anyway,
Or had much of anything to say; everybody
Just looked down at the pages and thought
To themselves about how to lose weight
And make it in our twenty-four hour world
While snacking on a 100-calorie pack of Doritos.

And religion? Well, it was right all along,
Because in the distance we all could hear the beat
And the rattle of hooves as the horsemen
Rode on in, but we couldn't see them because of
The propaganda and blindfolds
In front of our eyes that we never knew
Were really there.

The Mayans were right in thinking that we'd
All just stop thinking, come the Twelfth Year
We'll sit here fearing as the world turns, and we do nothing about it,
But speculate and flounder around like a fish out of the water.

-Tyler "Hrafnar" Noyes

Salvation

2007-11-28T15:26:00.001-05:00

A little bell rings, then rattles;
Through isles people stray like displaced cattle,
Eyes quick to spot bargain bins
In the deranged jabbering din
Of the bustling surplus and salvage thrift store.

An over-ripened woman with gray hair
Passes around her ambiguous stare
Between the faces of bargain hunters.
In the store built for the poor,
Nobody shopping is actually poor,
But eager to save a buck through dumb luck
In the pot luck of imported products.
She holds out a metal bucket
and the word Salvation catches a
Few passing glances of indignation.

You're in luck and save a buck or two,
Or three, on groceries and extra shoes you'll never use,
For you and for me. But it's up to you
If you drop your profit in the slot, or continue on
With your material onslaught like a fat pack rat
We like to call a jackass.

Somebody once said it was by good will
That these stores were created. Charity gives
To the poor, yet rings for donations in
A charity store for the poor and dispossessed .
A man walks by and ignores her pleas:

“Give to the disadvantaged, please! A few cents!”
She cries, yet he lies to himself, says he can't,
And even if he saved a few bucks,
That doesn't make sense,
It's all going to an iced coffee and a donut,
And he doesn't want to deal with this schmuck.

The rich shop at the poor stores and the poor
Shop at the rich stores. The rich buy iced coffee
With a penny saved, the poor struggle to earn a penny
To save their souls and feed their children.
The old woman wants the man to know that the
Dark depression of December isn't the only time for giving,
That he ought to stop living in a lie and start forgiving,
But she holds her tongue and silences her curses,
And keeps singing holiday verses and ringing that little bell,
Until a child drops a dime in her bucket and she gives him a
Warm smile and tells him to be well.

-Tyler "Hrafnar" Noyes

Tamdiu, annus unus. Tamen, annus unus.

2007-11-18T16:40:00.000-05:00

It has been brought to my attention today, that it was a year ago that I, in all of my confidence and self-righteousness, embarked on a journey to Pennsylvania, alone, towards something greater.

My reason for going was what I felt was love. What things change in a year. And while it would seem fitting for me to reminisce tempus fugit, time has not flown, but staggered. As a way of distancing myself from miserable a life I could not believe I subjected myself to -- a "relationship" that to me now seems as though it was birthed from ignorance and flame and so destined to be consumed by it -- several ceremonies have been held with fire. Almost everything that was from that time in my life has found its end in the blaze, and its ashes scattered, ready to be sowed into the earth to fertilize and birth new life.

To mark this threshold of a year, even though it has not been a year since the break down of the relationship and my old way of life, I found a jackpot of photographs today. While organizing, trying to get my college information together, I gathered up hundreds of photos that had not yet been burned. And so, to commemorate the day and to commit all of those photographs ad memoria, I finished the burning.

In ten minutes of standing by the firepit I watched solemnly and then happily as all that was became undone, as every image ceased to exist in anywhere but my mind, and even there, veiled and almost forgotten. I witnessed a life that now seems so distant, non-existent and dream-like vanish at last and begin the ushering in of new, greater things. As a box containing all the photos opened with the heat of the flame, fire shooting outwards, pictures fluttered out by themselves. One was of her face, eyes wide and mouth-agape as if in shock or terror. I chuckled and watched as before my eyes it became black, crisp, and then ash. There is little so redeeming or delivering.

So now I exist as myself. New feelings, people, places and ways have entered my life and are here to stay, and propel me into the future. Strands in the Web of Wyrd have disconnected, diverged, or converged and are now spinning a far more beautiful design. I am never left un-amazed, though, when I remember that all the wonderful things now in my life, and all the happiness yet to come, has come from the Earth. Instead of spirituality and having my head so high in the sky that I can no longer see the Earth, or where I am standing, I have conceded to simply live, and simply go. There are so many things beautiful that we do not appreciate, so many things magical and majestic that go unnoticed, in the world around us, that there is no need or purpose for living life as if one was in the heavens above, among the Angels and Gods. I live among pines, and soil, the blue sky and my love, passions and philosophy. When I wake in the morning I am graced by having a home on Erda's flesh, and when I recline at night the stars and my dreams are my entertainment.

There is no promise or matter in heaven or the clouds, reincarnation or emancipation from our world. The highest world, the greater world, is where we now exist, and the descent from this world and into misery is what comes to those who in their dying breath finally realize this. Live mightily, let your name and your deeds exist for all time and all to hear. Care for the frith of your folk, defend your own happiness and well being. It is this life we must fight for.

Cab Cadence

2007-09-25T15:28:00.002-04:00

[This is a revision over my previous, internet-published version that far surpasses the original version.]

Cab Cadence

“Stop!”

Sarah is yelling again, red-faced and wheezing, immersed the heavy blanket of cigarette smoke in the rear of the cab. Her office is three blocks away and there isn't much time to remedy everything you've done wrong. Being so close to her again, it's hard to divert your eyes from her low-cut blouse and the body of the woman you thought you knew so well.

“I'm on my way to work and it just so happens we're in the same cab, out of the thousands in New York. Maybe it is fate. So what?”

“Don't pull that fate crap on me again, Rich. You lost me with that a long time ago.”

A little bit of spit comes out of her angry mouth and onto your face, and it feels good. You still don't understand how going home to see your mother during the holidays created such a bickering dilemma, but you've heard that's how it is with couples.

“You never called it off, Sarah, and you haven't taken it off, either.”

Sarah deftly pulls her hand away in terror, and her eyes go to a squint when you touch her ring finger. Through her anger you can see the flame of desire still burning in those hazel eyes, roaring with the memories of your passionate engagement.

“It's a pretty ring.”

She frowns. Another block streams by in the blur of the outside world.

“Tell me why you're still wearing it. That's all I want to know, all I care about.”

You weakly stare into her eyes, trying to read her. The fire of her anger all too soon supersedes the fire of her passion and love. You take a slow drag of your cigarette, yearning to find a way to unchain that passion again. Smoke burns your eyes.

Sarah is silent for a moment gathering her thoughts, and clenches her teeth.

“We're not getting back together. When I get off this taxi, it will be the last time I see you. I want you out of my life.”

You are taken slightly aback, and become disappointed that she didn't answer the question as you had hoped. You never were to good at mind games, and she was never the type to be easily fooled into revealing too much about herself.

“Why are you still wearing the ring, Sarah?”

“I already told you!”

The Mexican taxi driver casts a dark look into the back seat at the two of you. You meet his glance with a soft smile and he shrugs and looks back to the road, nearly hitting a pedestrian caught within the army of yellow cabs. The next street sign goes by. One block left. There isn't much time until she's out of the cab and gone into the busy daze of New York forever.

“I didn't know you were in this cab, I'm not following you, I'm not interrogating you. I love you Sarah; we never called off our love. All I'm asking is why you're still wearing the engagement ring.” More than anything you crave some sort of gap in her intentions that you can use to soften her emotion. You light up another cigarette in hopes of the nicotine making things a bit lighter.

“I'm wearing it because it's my ring, okay?”

“I don't believe you.”

You try your hardest to hold back your tears and keep a welcoming smile on your face. What more could you do? With the drudge of the morning commute she is slipping away from you for the last time. Memories of what you had with her are the fiery phantoms that sear your every thought and yearning.

“I didn't ask if you believed me.”

Sarah pulls her handbag closer to her and straightens the imaginary wrinkles on her pinstripe skirt that she knows reveals too much of her smooth legs.

“Goodbye, Rich.”

The Mexican brings the gargling smoke-filled cab to a stop at 42^nd street. Sarah violently rummages through her purse and pulls out some crumpled bills, which meet the oily hands of the driver, and she gets a suggestive grin in return. You feel your heart racing as she begins to slide over and open the door, preparing to exit the vehicle.

In a last move of desperation you reach for her shoulder and lock onto the blazer over her cobalt blouse. In one fluid motion she turns and gives you a longing look marred with regret, yet somehow hopefully curious, like a child watching something miraculous for the very first time. In that hazy moment as she is leaving the cab, before the din of 42^nd Street reaches your ears and time again begins its course, the cigarette falls from your mouth, and your other arm wraps around her and rests in her hair, pulling out the bun. Your lips meet hers in a hungry, tender kiss. The taste of her saliva awakens your real desire for her again. Instead of pushing you away, tears drip from the corners of her eyes, her arms wrap around you, and she meets you ravenously, achieving those redeeming kisses she has ached for the entire time, enveloping you. You can feel the cold silver ring on her finger pressed against the nape of your neck like an axe beginning to drop.

Somewhere in the distance, among the maze of sounds and pedestrians, a fox whistle from the driver's seat of the cab, and the drifting smell of street-side vendors, a bell strikes eight times, and you're late for work.

Epitaph for Bill

2007-09-25T15:12:00.001-04:00

[A short story that resulted from free-writing, one of my best works of prose to date.]

Epitaph for Bill

There was a little boy that lived under the stairs of the Old Church east of the river of St. Peter. He enjoyed dancing and running to the shores to play with the debris that would wash up from the coal-fired mills up the river a ways. We thought his name was Bill, but when we talked to his mother – the haggard, homeless woman that walked around town digging through dumpsters – she told us all along he'd been fooling us, and that his real name was Bill. We knew she was under the influence and that her mind was underwater, so we smiled and kept walking with Bill by our side.

We listened to his stories of imaginary friends and fantastic places that he visited in the park day after day; a dragon named Carly, a friendly ox named Joseph, and even a little farm girl named Rita. He told us of adventures we wished we could participate in again, of places we'd visited long before but couldn't anymore; we were adults and adults couldn't play games, only politics.

My husband and I found Bill one day laying down in the grass near the swings at Arden Park, in his usual spot. A little girl with a dirty face and a dirtier, faded straw hat stood over him smiling and giggling while he told story after story. A great writer he'd grow up to be, we knew. Bill was the son that we could never have, in his simple innocence; he didn't go to school and the State really didn't care, for he was just some homeless boy with autism. Nobody cared. Except for us.

Last winter when we were walking home from our underpaid teaching jobs at Morrill High, we saw Bill standing by the riverside holding scraps of cloth around his body, shivering. The icy waters had nearly frozen but kept flowing, resisting the change of winter, the inevitable death of motion – the silence that kills. Bill passed a final brave smile to us and jumped into the dark waters, yelling of adventures Sir Galahad and Lancelot were leading him on, into the great depths below where imagination roamed free, an abyss so boundless and deep that death never bothered to visit it. We smiled with icy tears as Bill floated still and quiet in his waiting, onto his greatest adventure yet.

Silence

2007-09-08T09:43:00.000-04:00

There is very little that could have been written in here for the past two weeks. In fact, I've consciously avoided even looking at this page. Silence is a powerful force and virtue in my life that I need to further understand. Listing off dedications and new courses in life is entirely vain when one cannot stand to what one says, and too quickly makes choices that will not remain in the future. One day one can swear that one will begin reading a certain book, or trying to insert a new idea and way of living into one's life, and within nine days this course has already changed and once again there is only uncertainty -- a state of mind we all must be afflicted with sometimes, and embrace.

It is vain crying out in support for a culture or idea that you do not understand. Five, ten, or even a thousand minutes of reading is not understanding. A name is not understanding. A title at all is only holding one back. Conformity to groups is not understanding. Living is understanding. I often do not live up to the virtues I falsely hold dear; this is a dangerous trend. Do you?

It is senseless over again attempting to re-initiate oneself into some sort of group or ideology. Why would one not feel initiated the first time? Because there was a lack of belief, a desire too strong to get on the bandwagon, and a lack of understanding. One is not given a grade of A+ to F on how life is lived, because the living never ends, only the believing. It is always a struggle towards goals, always an attempt to become better, stronger, wiser; always a time of confusion, always a time of exhaustion. The difference among the living is seen in those that remain standing, and those that prefer to lay down and relax for the rest of one's life. A sedentary lifestyle never did good for anyone; running, pulling, struggling, remaining standing and working always is the way one gets strength and the ability to remain standing.

Am I standing, am I true to the words that seem to forever come from my mouth? Are you standing or are you stealing? If I had the answers to these questions all would come clearer. Only silence will reveal what is coming, and what is now.

Momentary?

2007-07-23T01:31:00.001-04:00

[Previously this had a naive comment before the poem. It has since been deleted]

In the halls of the school and on the side of the pool;
On the park bench and among the bushes out back
It's the primal rule;
You just couldn't keep your hands off of one another,
Could you? Would you?
I know you're type; you're just like them,
Soft and ripe, the ones that were kissing
Outside the classroom yesterday; hands
Wrapped around the waist of the other's pants,
Lips like a hungry fish breaking the surface
Of the dirty water in a goldfish bowl.
Don't you have a bit of decency or daily inconsistency?
Someone said that you were making the most out of the moment,
For what it's worth, that you weren't really trapped in intimate mirth
In your making out, that you'd known about the future coming up
Where there might not be time for you,
Time to feel each other up, and that really sums you up.
But I know that you're not thinking of that future,
Not thinking of a pretty family picture or your soul's suitor,
Not thinking of the time when you won't see each other
For days, weeks, or years,
Or thinking about facing the eternity away from one another.
It's nearer than you think.
Racing through your mind is only the kind of the thought that rises
With the ebb and flow of the blinding lust, the feeling that binds you,
When touching is a must and words remain unspoken,
Emotions unbroken, your souls in a fluid rocking motion.
The other week I saw you with somebody else,
Somebody new that came into your consensus, that you let into your house,
That knew waiting was a senseless mind game;
So you got right to it and before you knew it, it was over;
The cassette player is stuck playing your least favorite song,
But it's catchy and you can't stop listening to it.
In a cycle of morose relationships that never really mattered much anyway;
Other sounds, feelings and desires kept your attention.
Do you feel guilty when on her lips, hands around her hips,
You lay the fatal hissing kiss that tells her if it's love
Or a near miss?