Tuesday, January 27, 2009


There is something I feel like I am missing, yet I know its something I have. I do have it, but its not enough. I am constantly surprised at myself. I’m no fool, yet sometime I feel like one. I’m not blind, yet I don’t see what you see. My world is a very different place then yours. Its okay, I love it here. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I just wish I would remember when in Rome, do as the Romans. I’ve let it cause some trouble now and again, but its also worth remembering that I am the stranger in a strange land. Do I have a home of my own? Where we can speak the same language, where we can just be. Its out there somewhere, I like to think I can feel you out there sometimes, calling me. Sometimes I like to think that you hear me when I call back. I say that as if its not true, how do I know you don’t?
When I look up at the sliver of a sliver new moon rising over the mountains. When I see its reflection dancing in the mirror. When the mud hens give me that look with their outrageously absurd face. It doesn’t feel so crazy an idea. What is crazy? There’s no such thing, there is just normal and abnormal. Statistics and majorities. The world tries to call me weird, and that’s fine with me. I would tend to agree with them, the truth is I am unusual. But the world does some very bizarre things too. There was a time, for thousands of years no doubt, where left-handed kids were thought to be simply obstinate. We used to tie children’s left hand behind their backs and make them write “the right way”. It sometimes makes me chuckle a bit, at the silliness of it all. There is no sense in thinking in absolutes like that. Right and wrong are equally illusionary. So am I wrong to think these thoughts? How could I be?
Here’s a secret that no one knows. I used to dream of an angel, Victoria. She would come visit at night as the world dissolved away, watching over me. I remember her wings, feathers long and white. Her face, always obscured, by haze or vale. She was secretive and sly, with a little smile, confident and enigmatic. Not a being one takes lightly. There was no singers or harps, just a quiet attendance. She was my focus, my talisman, and it was thoughts of her I used to still a ever flowing mind.
I tried so hard to believe my dreams were real. I tried so hard to believe my own lie. Some lies feel oh so good. Lies of caring and friendship, peace and grace. I miss her lies, or are they my lies? It doesn’t matter, she hasn’t visited in so long now. But there were others that took her place. Or did they? Maybe it was always her, just in a different guise. No matter, they have all fled, others occupy my twilight hour. Do I wait for her return? Should I call for the missing? A congregation of dreams. A counsel of fragments. What tune will we sing?

Sunday, January 25, 2009

One hundred

What if I could wish for one hundred pounds of anything? I could have a hundred pounds of clay, and make a life size statute. One day I would get it cast in bronze. Do people still do that? I hope they do, real statues, real art. Not just twisty lines... A statue of human emotion, a statue that makes human emotion. Noble, tranquil, loving. Or maybe baroque writhing, crying in passion. Something that would be breathtaking. Yes I remember. It wasn't the last time, nor will it be the last time. But I remember. The Three Graces. Glowing quietly in a hall of unsurpassed beauty, shaming it all. The walls seemed to stretch away to the sky forever. Inch after inch covered in paintings, every one a masterpiece. Its a funny thing to just wander in off the street and see. I was totally unprepared, I felt like I was going to fall over. That could be the value of one hundred pounds. One statement.

I could get one hundred pounds of flowers, fresh and full of life. I could spend a day just handing them out. Would it take more then a day? A week perhaps? Who would last longer, me or them? Maybe it sounds silly, and maybe it would be. Some people would care. Some people surely wouldn't. I know I would be made fun of by a few. But I know that if I had enough, I would get through to at least one person. Really get through to them. Someone who needed it, some one who thinks that life is grey, someone who would never forget a small gift of color. That's all it would take to make it worth the effort, worth the spending of a wish. It would all be fleeting, they would all wither and die. In the end we would have one hundred pounds of dust and clouds. But that's what would make it special. The bronze would last forever, maybe inspiring years and years after I am clouds and dust. Just as Antonio Canova did for me. But the future is not mine. If at this moment, I could brighten a thousand peoples lives for just this moment, or even just that one... That could be the value of one hundred pounds. One smile.

I could get one hundred pounds of red aluminum foil. I would gather a group of volunteers and head for the mountains, with a mission. As I sit here, this very second, or this, or any second of your choosing, we could walk outside and see the planes coming in. In fact if you have sharp eyes, you will see 3 planes. One time I counted five at once. On the dry and brown hills of California, we would write a message. I guess it wouldn't even matter what we said, my vote would be for: "The cake is a lie." How many peoples lives would I affect? How many thousands soar overhead every day? If I could just show one of them that life isn't so serious, it would be worth all the stamping around in the dust. I know I could get the local P.O.E.E. involved, we would make Malaclypse the Younger proud. I know I'm getting silly here, but that is my point. Its only when we start thinking its all so serious that things get bad. And things feel pretty serious these days. The tree of life is burning. I can only fight the fire the way I know how. That can be the value of one hundred pounds. One moment of disassociation.

I could get one hundred pounds of snow. I would head to darkest, driest Africa, where I could find a tribe of natives that has little to no contact with the outside world. I would give them snow cones and throw snowballs until it all melted. Would it be better to bring them one hundred pounds of beef jerky? I would rather fill a mind then a stomach. One would just be empty again tomorrow, the other may stay full for a lifetime. I am on the fringe of so much effort on behalf of Africans. So many different agendas, so many missions, but it all feels a bit hopeless. Yes.. hopeless is a good word, I've heard the stories. Its not as though they are helpless in Africa. Its just that they are hopeless. They are defeated before they even begin. What if I could show them that there are wonders in this world? I could tell stories of blizzards and rain, and water cycles and endless oceans of ice. Of penguins and polar bears, not long for this world. Show them pictures of lamas and seals. Tell them stories of Narwhals. Can you imagine what that would be like for them? Magic and fantasy, living unicorns and dragons. What greater gift could I give someone, a living fairy tale. Wonder at a world we have lost. I can only fight their apathy the way I know how. That can be the value of one hundred pounds. A dream.

These are all things I could do, but maybe its what I've done with one hundred pounds that tells the most interesting story... lose them. Some times the absences of something is the most powerful. That can be the value of one hundred pounds. One life.

Friday, January 23, 2009


Trees seem to grow in such an unbalanced fashion sometimes, how do they even stand up? I saw a tree hanging at a crazy angle and I didn't want to walk under it. But when was the last time one of these things just fell over on a clam and drizzly day? It just doesn't happen, they are sturdy things. I always like looking at trees, but it was really weird to think of what it must look like underground. Crazy snarling roots, twisting around and around the dirt, hanging on for dear life.
When I lay out on the ground and watch the stars go by, its fun to try see myself from their perspective. A little tinny person on a little tinny planet, spinning around and around at about a thousand miles an hour. It makes me want to hang on to earth for dear life, like the trees. It would be nice to have roots to twist and curl in the dirt...
Sometimes I feel like I am just waiting for a day when the earth will just stop dead, and we all go shooting away like a few billion cannonballs shot at a hostile universe. That wouldn't be so bad. To just be whisked into space, catapulted out to be with the stars. To watch the little blue green earth fall away from under my feet. We wouldn't even feel it, the ground would just fade away under us. The rushing wind would be our only clue, but not for long... I only hope if that day comes I'm holding someone's hand. It gets lonely out in space.

Starving Fish

Tossing in a coin, making wish. Looking down the well, see it eaten by a fish. Incensed, plotting its demise. Grumbling at green hills and the skies. A thought makes rage flee: "It is a prisoner and I am free. It is the fish who should be mad at me."

Monday, January 19, 2009


I have been overwhelmed with a strange feeling. It was so ineffable, I don't think I understand it even now. It just started one day. I don't even know when it began, but I know when I noticed it. Then one day I woke up and felt it fading away like a sweet and interrupted dream. It was a such a sweet feeling, in its strange way.

Cold sunlight slanting in windows, shining its golden orange light on a white wall. Polygonal trees with sprites for branches, rolling square and pointed hills. Frozen passes with high cliffs all around. A small, cramped room under a humble castle. Simple walls of dirt and wooden logs holding up a rock ceiling. A school that flies away from danger. A fairy tail romance between a lion and a wolf. A bare birch tree against a clear blue sky. Sitting on an unsettled beach. Its warm on the beach, but the sun is hidden by clouds. The waves are silent and disregarded. Cloth somethings flapping in the wind, slowly shifting and creaking with the uncertain breeze. My feet curl into coarse and wet sand. In my hand a stately old book, bound in leather. A sense of total freedom. A sense that everything that needed doing is already done. A sense of melancholy nostalgia. A feeling of being so alone. Its not a bad feeling, it even goes unnoticed. For now... The smell of air fresh from the heater, being pumped into the room. The smell of brand new carpet, and of white painted walls. Of humidity and palm trees and the sea. Of rain and wind and air-conditioning. Of destruction.

Does it make any sense yet? I'm sure its all so meaningless to you. Each of these fragments have so much attached to them for me. They tell a story of a time that's long past, but still lives on in memory. Its not the fragments that have been with me these last days, but the feelings. The feelings bring the fragments, not the other way around. Why should they come back so strongly all of a sudden? Strange as it sounds, I think it all started when I took ill. It could just be coincidence, I know, but still... Its the only thing I could point at. And now that I am getting better I am losing touch with it all. Soon it will be gone, I know that. I will miss it, I think.

Saturday, January 17, 2009


I feel that I can learn a lot about someone by what quotes they identify with. Is it unfair to just agree with someone who said it better then I could? There are so many things you could learn about me, my dear reader, so many things I would want to say if I let myself. I think about it a lot actually, I hear something that resonates so strongly within me I wish I could just take it with me everywhere I go. Get a little name tag with it on there. Would you know more or less then if it just said: "Adam"? What if I started using them here? Does it even matter? Am I the only one seeing these words? Would it be wrong to clutter up my little corner of the internet? I already do with these wondering thoughts.

Someone weighed the internet once. It seems like a crazy waste of time on the surface. However I appreciate the efforts someone put into something so daft, because they came up with a unexpected and charming answer, one I quite like: 0.2 millionths of an ounce. All that information, every last thing you wanted to know, and plenty that you didn't, in "...the smallest possible sand grain, one measuring just two-­thousandths of an inch across." I think there's room for it. Yet something holds me back. It just feels weird. Maybe what ever it is that certain words find inside of me is just to intangible to reveal in the harsh black and white. Maybe I'm just embarrassed because it feels like cheating. Just cut and paste someone else's work and claiming some right to it. A right that I don't have.

Castle in the sky

Spinning on the mirror, on a calm and silent evening. The full moon stalks along the horizon, watching us. Sneaking from place to place, peering around the darkened houses. Curious and shy, he watches as we glide past. I don't acknowledge him. Best just to ignore his spying. Its his ancient right, after all, and his ancient curse. Watching his home spin madly below him, knowing that one day he will return in fire and glory... but powerless to speed the processes, or slow it. A prisoner to forces long since gone. No there are others I've come to watch this enchanted night.
Butterflies frozen on the frosty glass. Guardians of the boundary above, sentinels of the heavens. Hiding away another world from us. A world of the freedom we deny ourselves. A place of lost hopes and dreams. They live on, uncounted and uncountable. Contented to wait for their return. Like the moon they know they will return. In time all things come full circle. Taking wing on moth's last flight, they come or go. A stately grey moth waits above me, flapping in lazy circles. Knowing this night could be his chance, maybe his last.

No, not yet. I'm not done with my castle in the sky.

The lost

Missing and vanished, it now stands alone.

To far away places they must have been blown.

Driven away on a nightmare's cyclone.

What ever the case its sure they have flown.

Of where are the rest, nothing is known.

But one remains high on its throne.

Uncounted masses have become the quite rare.

No two exists for which to compare.

Yet still it shines with a soothing white glare.

A beacon of hope high in the air.
Good for one wish, one earnest prayer.

Promised to me, this burden to bear.

So many choices for humanities advance.

Feeding the hungry, boundless finance.

Ending all warfare, a harmonious dance.

Or maybe a selfish horizon expanse.

An ailing body's lifespan enhance.

A sublime and enchanted romance.

For so many sins could I atone.

I know what I want yet still I postpone.

My hearts desire awaits if I dare.

But I can't, the sky I must share.

So I choose, lost in a trance.

And make my wish with a sad glance.

I wish for the to stars return to the sky.

I wish for their hope to be seen on up high.

I wish that they comfort you when you cry.

I wish that the dark night they always defy.

I wish for their peace when things go awry.

How could I, for you, these things deny?

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The Waiting

And the waiting begins. Its strange to be sitting among a perfectly random group of my peers. To think that there was a computer somewhere pulling people at random to be here today. Every archetype is represented. Who do I represent?

Not the young business man. No, that's him over there, looking sharp and collected, like he has other things that need doing. Not the slacker, that's him who just past, no question. Sweat pants and slippers, the whole nine yards. And you can see it in his eyes, he doesn't want to be here the most... Maybe not the most, that girl looks so sad, as if it were she herself on trail today. Where's her badge? Can I just not see it from here or was she dragged here on the other side of the bench?

Maybe I am the token nerd, the young and anti-social. I am, after all, writing this. Would it make me cool to just sit here and be bored out of my mind like everyone else? Ah and here we have the suffer dude, in complete regalia. Beanie, knit sweater, sandals and an Ipod a hairs breath from falling out of his back pocket. Complete with typical longish sandy blond hair. Well... it is Malibu, after all.

It would be nice to fit in so simply with an archetype. I'm just another guy, hard to pin down. A bit bigger then the rest maybe, and in need of a hair cut. Simple pants, nondescript sweatshirt, modest shoes. The guy who should have shaved this morning but there just wasn't time. The guy who writes because there's nothing else to do, but still manages to misspell "wasent" every time. Find me in a crowd and maybe you would forget me just as quickly. I don't stand out, but I feel like I am so far away from these people.