Posts Tagged Arts
Young Ones on Side of Cliff
Tricky patterns in my mind
tip me over into empty Corvairs
going off cliffs with sharp razor
blades flying in my face, spraying
my skull into a full eagle nest
where the young ones are
stuttering out the fact that
I can’t do what I want to do
(to be an artist despite having
no talent for that stupid mission),
and all I can do is avoid the
alcohol that was my false
medicine and hope that some
powerful being will show me
sometime that some thing
I might do might do some
thing to make me feel okay.
Freddy Is Sick – Section 4
The concrete flows and jams against the weeds in a sickening bulimic twist of the remains of designs. Freddy doesn’t like the way the greens and the light greys clash with each other and then how the early signs of the dry of summer bring on a dark shine of tan from the slow dirges plotting to kill all who approach. The weeds are invaders, pouncing on vacancies created by man’s industriousness and subsequent evacuation. Half of the roadside is deserted as the men now work in cubicles. They are information society workers now.
Freddy is an information society worker, but he doesn’t like reflecting on this. At work, Freddy is unconscious lest he become a part of the moment and run headlong into the 34th floor window, stretching for the quick ending.
For Freddy, only art is information. Art from the past. Black dots within wide-banded white circles edged with a stately black circle and swimming in a sea of yellow, created long ago. Freddy’s mind swims in that yellow that’s been punctured by people with ignorant intentions who sit and throw turtle shells at Freddy from very tall thrones with amazing back posts that stream over 40-feet tall.
Almost all of information is pushed around so that all of the people may be most industrious by pushing the information around. It is a go-kart race that is drastically rude and under-cultured where the CEO’s are hunched inside, being whipped not so carelessly by men who are known as project managers who think of themselves as miracle workers, shouting (the CEO’s) in the Food King shopping carts. The carts don’t carry stacks of paper as they did formerly as now, the CEO’s grab their smart phones and zap information to some tower where action begins on the files that have been zapped and the smart people in the tower start marking the documents showing the CEO in the cart all of the things he shall suffer for in red-lined rips on his mastery, but he keeps his cart running around all of the produce. He loves the Fuji apples. He’s chomping and romping through the produce. He throws cushy heads of lettuce at some of the carts (which is surely legal whether or not they are soft) to keep the other CEO’s from zapping their own information. The information is soup with millions of characters, unimaginable details that only the select few will decipher and then those select few will be like tigers on the hill-top and roar out the instructions to the minions in the cubicles. The difficulty for the CEO’s is when the government decides the CEO’s are making too much money-making their soups of information and the government roars in intent and delivering oceans of paper from spring time rains with diesel-powered forklifts which can take out 10 carts at a time, but the CEO’s are smart and they go down the narrow aisles with the spices and keep zapping information until the government starts knocking down the shelves in moves that seem to mimic blasting dynamite. Meanwhile, the shoppers don’t notice a thing and they take all of their prepared foods home to zap in the microwave. Lots of zapping and this is what Freddy thinks about.
Freddy receives the zaps in jarring bolts of electricity from cattle prod like instruments that make him type super fast on his computer and ignore the sickening despair of his environment, but for now, during his morning commute, he jumps aboard the black ship in the middle of the unkempt field. Freddy is just as a trophy on the ship with big waves of red stripes like a sky above his ship powering his failed spirit, and the itchy moon made from golden brown sparkles pulls Freddy’s short hair, swinging him in full circles but never dropping him over into the fatal surroundings of the ship.
My Day (this is getting out of hand) in Bullets
- People were greeting me today.
- The lady who lives alone was painting her house. She said “Hi” but she looked at me with a terrifyingly dark expression. I don’t know what she was thinking.
- The speed-walking, handsome, young couple was scared of my dogs. My dogs wanted to lick them and get rubbed. It was at the end of the walk and the dogs’ muscles were sore.
- The lady with three pugs had no control over her dogs. With all glowing respect to all of the wonderful pug lovers out there, these dogs were simply ugly as Detroit River water. One of them ran up to us like it was going to blow dog snot all over us, but Harry gave one of his alligator roars and the poor thing ran away with his tail between his legs.
- My poor Daisy, she does almost everything with tail between legs. I think she’s anxiety-ridden about something terrible happening to her butt hole, and I really cannot blame her for her sensitivities. I think she had a bad butt event before we adopted her at the pound.
- If you want to catch Daisy with tail up, offer her a treat or let her get into a wrestling match with little Pixie. Pixie is submissive with Daisy but that’s because Daisy acts and sounds as if she is going to rip poor little Pixie’s tummy out through a hole in her throat or straight through her tiny black ear.
- Daisy plays gently but she sounds like a Tasmanian devil.
- It is strange that many dogs leave the butt hole exposed. Thinking of this, I am grateful for my clothes.
- My poor Daisy, she does almost everything with tail between legs. I think she’s anxiety-ridden about something terrible happening to her butt hole, and I really cannot blame her for her sensitivities. I think she had a bad butt event before we adopted her at the pound.
- If I really wrote my day in bullets, it might be thousands of bullets. You would think most of them would be boring as well as being stupid as hell, but they are the diesel engine trains running in and out of my sick little mind and they entertain the shit out of me, though sometimes in an inordinately depressive way.
- Can you be entertained by depressive thoughts? Yes, Molly, you sure can be, but it is not the thing the normal person thinks of entertainment.
- It is the snake pit of trails running all around telling me I’m the worst. Not entertaining, but it keeps me busy.
- If the thoughts keep me busy enough, I don’t take dire action.
- I know what refrigerant means; I know what recovery means; I know what systems means, but I have no idea what you do if you run the “Best Refrigerant Recovery System Company in the Heartland,” (especially since the truck was parked in a big field where all of the earth movers were going crazy). I also think I know what “Heartland” means, but I believe it is a grotesque misnomer for reasons we won’t get into in this forum.
- One family in our neighborhood has about 24 feet of a L-shaped, white picket fence in front of a sparsely decorated porch and a smaller-L-shaped sidewalk that does not (the fence does not) have any white pickets. I don’t mind the missing pickets, but the missing pickets left rotting wood so the shadows of the pickets are there and they make me anxious. Something terrible happened when someone was fitful with anger. I try not to judge, but really, a quart of white paint and an hour of time would remedy this, but the fence occupies its worthless geography in this manner for years. I try not to judge because I should be judging my house. I have a scroll full of projects to work on.
- Many have said that writers must be absolutely honest. Hemingway was most poignant, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” Writers must be truthful or it won’t be good with the reader. That drives me like the severest challenge.
- I’m not a writer, but when I sit down to write, I think about honesty before I write the first word. I like doing that. It’s a dare to me. When I’m honest, I’m vulnerable, so I need to feel comfortable with allowing people to laugh at me and be disgusted with me.
- Dogs who lie on their backs with all four in the air, tummy exposed, are exhibiting their complete trust in the others around them.
- Harry does this all of the time. I don’t think any animal ever violated Harry’s trust. Good for him.
- Trying to be honest when one is writing leads to a terrible narcissism, but does one really know any truth aside from the one that is inside one’s own heart (sorry for the quaintish word)? I think not. I believe the rest of the world is a stage of deceptions that throws us in and out of boats full of chaos.
- When my writing is not clear in some fashion, it is often because I am unwilling to be honest. (Fear creates the unwillingness. I don’t want you to be disgusted with me.)
- After reading my poetry, many would say I am never honest, but this is honestly not true.
- Until I started learning about true honesty with oneself, the kind that only happens when you dig so deeply into your heart, it hurts and you blubber cry, I had thought that I was honest. Now I think I am about 87%, perhaps more, but I am quite honest with others, to a fault.
- I try not to hurt others and that’s when I become incompetent, with a horrific lack of honesty, throwing my moral compass in the bushes.
- I’m not a writer, but when I sit down to write, I think about honesty before I write the first word. I like doing that. It’s a dare to me. When I’m honest, I’m vulnerable, so I need to feel comfortable with allowing people to laugh at me and be disgusted with me.
- The earth movers at the school were moving massive amounts of earth today.
- (They are building a new school behind the old school when the old school was just fine and they wonder why they can’t afford teachers and books.
- At least our children will be held in beautiful prisons.)
- Can you imagine the brains of the guy who invented the first earth mover? I am positive he was a crazy man.
- I’m embarrassed that I am in such grand awe of earth movers.
- On our walks, I dilly upon many oak trees. Most of the trees are soft wood trees with morbidly bizarre trunks showing the emotional stress of trying to live in America. But the oaks, oh my, they overwhelm me with a seeming natural perfection.
- Oaks are stronger than anything man makes, but they are not stronger than F-5 tornadoes.
- Sometimes, I feel myself approaching a sturdy oak, with a trunk diameter of perhaps three feet, and I hug the oak, it comes out of the ground, greets me with warm energy that flows deeply and seems to assure me that the tree will protect me from anything that life is about to throw at me (except for an F-5 tornado).
- The oak doesn’t hug back but it shoots energy into me.
- I can carry it upright, sideways or perpendicular to my path depending upon obstacles.
- It’s whacked-out crazy to imagine I might be as sturdy as an oak by merely bringing the oak with me, but it gives me security like a blanket.
- When I was at my worst this last spring, I had these continuous visions of the noose from a horizontal branch that was sturdier that you can imagine.
- I don’t know why the sturdiness was such a core part of these visions.
- I am glad they (the visions, the permanence of nasty game-planning) are gone.
- I hope they don’t come back.
- When I have a day off from work, that is when I dream about becoming a writer. I know better, but for a few moments, the reflection comforts my soul.
- Buying lottery tickets is not a good game plan (speaking of bad game-planning) for comforting the soul.
- If one did win, can you imagine not having to deal with the meaningless world?
- One might escape the meaningless world for a much more dreadful meaningless existence.
- If that happened, I wonder what I would write about.
- I’d probably write about how I don’t contribute anything to the world.
- Exercise is good for me. It fuels my imagination and makes me have crazy (good crazy) thoughts.
- I wonder if other people have crazy and mad thoughts streaming when they’re walking.
- I theorize that I somehow lose the stream of the plagues of “this American life,” and quickly, magically, I am alone in my own world where nothing hurts and where despair is a word that has been removed from my dictionary.
- I’m not really a loner, but I love that feeling of being in my own world.
- One time I took a substance that made me feel as if I were in my own world and that scared the tamales out of me.
- Don’t get me wrong, it was a blast, but I was too scared to do it again.
- When I listen to “Cassandra Gemini” from Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta, I am transported to this state of being where everything is heading for the final crash that permanently snuffs out the lights, or quite on the opposite end, I am headed for this massive peak to spend the rest of eternity sitting and breathing air that is like diamonds with a mind that is empty like the universe but more beautiful. It seems impossible that a piece of art could do both of these things at nearly the same time (within seconds, yanking back and forth), but it’s true for me. The words are not satisfactory, but they are the truest thing I can say about that piece.
- It seems that I love art by artists who have also suffered from depression. Other art seems phony. I wonder why this is.
- I love reading books but I love it so much, I always find four other books I desperately need to read while I am reading today’s book.
- Thus, I have a lot of books going.
- The resulting mental gymnastics is good for my aging, toasted brain.
- Sometimes, after the good exercising (of the body, even if this is simply a vigorous [my doctor’s word for it] stroll) and after the panting has stopped, I love seeing how my dogs have arranged themselves for the mid-morning nap.
- You can view the fact that they are living right.
- I love that.
- You can see that there is not one thing that is wrong in their worlds and that is absolutely magical to me.
- Perhaps in this way, it is like watching a baby sleep.
It’s Been Almost a Year
IT’S BEEN ALMOST A YEAR
It’s been almost a year, and at ten years old, Charlene has stepped in as the caretaker. She bursts with survival instincts, but underneath, I know she aches, perhaps more than I. How many years will the grief eat at our weak souls? Will we have relief by the time Charlene is thirty? Will we survive long enough?
Eric worries me. He’s only eight and he walks around dumbstruck. He’s helpful, and he carries my things, but he acts as if he just returned from the war zone in Afghanistan. I want to believe he is moving toward being able to live as a human. After all, he is not the most devastated casualty.
Timmy is only four. His disposition makes my anger rage at the dead woman and creates startling fears of the future, of his future. He constantly looks up, thinking that he might be able to see the moment when his mother incarnated wickedly as a psychotic ape and smashed the glass, jumping out of the ninth story window. I wonder if he thinks he might go back, 11 months in time, and he might save her by catching her with his tiny hands. I know he cannot process the permanent structures of a suicide. I can’t process those things either, but I know not to look up for her.
It’s been almost a year. It seems we won’t ever recover because time takes far too much time.
***********************************
Indigo Spider has a picture prompt challenge called “Sunday Picture Press.” I’m not good at these, but the above picture haunted me, so I wrote a VERY SHORT story. Enjoy others at the prompt post. I am sure they saw the photo far differently!
My Life So Far – Ha Ha!
I.
Mad scramble.
Eggs without shells.
Pink swans dancing on tin cars.
92 pieces of china, different sizes and shapes,
getting pelted by hail.
Haunting, sinewy dandelions,
creeping with tiny dolls
made to look like Russian soldiers.
17 victories:
Huge trumpets,
Huge trombones,
soccer field larger than an ocean,
and a snapped block.
Tick.
Tock.
Tick Tick.
Tock.
Many snapped blocks.
I learned about half-seconds.
Tiny dolls sing of other fates,
hopping with broken toes on broken china.
II.
Broken horn, car horn,
stuck on D-flat.
Deep, dark oranges
full of bricks and poisons.
Dropped from 9 stories,
compounding death of much of the brain.
Always empty guns.
Brown tanks named Jack,
incomplete without Daniels.
Pink rose tethered to save days,
but fat ass smashes pink rose.
Empty ambulance
chasing all of the thieves
hard into stone wall
which crashes
on top of a miserable loser,
a man of no value
who should be locked
in rooms with chains
and sour mattresses,
without human contact,
waiting for his pine box.
III.
With God’s fingers, not noticeable,
but guiding the chaos,
41 million china plates on my head,
never falling but bending the spine.
Snap.
Snap.
Grow peace.
Grow wise.
Stop.
Stop.
Sit alone after God leaves.
Feel the chaos stir all of the diseases
and cook brilliant red mess.
Tank.
Tank.
Come back to me.
Don’t you give up now!
IV.
On my knees,
into Roman sunsets.
Delicate xylophone
sings of worthlessness
and is indomitable.
The song is not over,
but it is so quiet.
Humans don’t want to try to hear.
***************
Almost Wednesday – It’s One Shot Wednesday – Go check out the fine work there!
Disco for the Insane
Suburban chores materialize depression.
Do them;
grown-ups do.
Towering snow banks intimidate today.
Selfish preservation wants the sun to work,
but others would think me lost.
I am lost; I am hiding,
but please don’t think me lost.
I will survive all of you people.
I have my contrivances.
I find garden gloves with summer soil,
grab my tiny music power box, ear buds on.
I will not crash.
YEEEEAAAOWW, The Prodigy –
I’ve got the poison, and
the remedy is The Prodigy.
YEEEEAAAOWW, making
Howard Dean seem like
the Queen of England.
I scream gigantically, and all is fine.
Neighbors are bottled against the cold.
Out of tune, big huge in spirit.
In summer, they called the hospital.
I was dancing with the lawn mower
in my baggy shorts, black socks
and tennis shoes from a nuclear winter.
They heard me screaming in joy.
I am embarrassing to all who love me,
but oh, if they let me out,
how I dance and survive,
how I survive the insanity
that hides in crevices,
wants me all gone,
makes me SICK,
wants me hanging from my Oak tree.
dancing with my bright red shovel,
my spirit is juiced, jacked
snow washing away, running away,
moving so good, so roundly nutty.
At the sight of our primitive dance,
the neighbor in Humvee,
mouth wide, astonished,
she wants to export me.
“You’re no good for me.”
I dance, The Prodigy sings loudly,
I hear all women I have known
singing this with the horn of a Honda,
a persistent beeping horn
for cracking brains open.
If you don’t like The Prodigy,
you will never tolerate my darkness;
you will see me as scrap for dogs;
you will work to obliterate my spirit.
“I got the poison, I got the remedy.”
If you take my Prodigy, the Oak tree
will master and destroy my good plans.
Is it true that only the insane,
only the forsaken love,
only they need The Prodigy?