Now

I stretch my skin
Foreign and thin,
Am I without?
Am I within?

What is me?
What is I?
Who are you?
Who am I?

Calm, quiet
All is nigh
All is silent
Up on high

I only am,
I never was
and never will I be

Made no request
yet every breath
bemoans, attests
reflex, regress.

Calm, quiet
All is nigh
All is silent
Up on high

I only am,
I never was
and never will I be

Yesterday was today,
Tomorrows never reached
We only are,
and we are now
and now seems right to me.

Bruised, not Broken

With each passing Christmas, I learn something new about what I love about it. I inevitably feel a nostalgic sort of sadness, the kind that makes you thankful for each year that's passed, but wistful for the memories they hold.
As I shuffle about the house tonight and settle in with my laptop and a glass of ginger ale, I realized what I love most about Christmas is the clutter of living.
There is food on the counter to be eaten and shared with family and friends.
There are pillows, blankets, and other paraphernalia strewn about. Stockings draped on the couch. Stacks of movies and CD's to be enjoyed during our Christmas celebrations.

The clutter of life.

I am a little bit too organized.
A little too efficient at times.
Everything in its right place.

Even now as I look at the previous three lines, I see evidence of my obsessive-compulsive orderliness.
I nearly had an anuerism when I spilled tea on my pristine collection of DVD's earlier this year.
Just last week I chipped my iPhone screen while carrying too much.

All of this frustrates me and reminds me that I am not in control. I can take every effort at safety and protection, but somewhere in the act of living, the variables change and something is subjected to  entropy and my human flaws.

A friend once told me when I dinged my drumset just days after receiving them "Scratches add character."
This now reminds me of one of my favourite musicians and songwriters, Glen Hansard.

I saw him a few months back at the Vogue Theatre on Granville, and I must say, for a man with a guitar in such poor shape, he sure can create some beautiful music.

I don't look at him any differently because he uses a tarnished instrument, especially with such awesome sounds coming out of it.

I don't wonder if he is careless with his things. In fact, I laud him for it. This man is really living, damn it!

The feelings I get when this happens to my things is one of regret - I should have been more careful! It would be in better condition!

But as Kevin McCallister said on Home Alone 2, if you leave your rollerblades in the box so you don't scratch them up, you'll eventually outgrow them and never have gotten to enjoy rollerblading in the first place.

Basically, if you'll never risk wrecking something, how can you ever enjoy anything?

So I look at my scratched phone. And my wrinkled DVD's. And my banged-up instruments.

And I realize that I am living.

I think I might just keep my Christmas clutter around a little longer this year.

Only In Dreams...

Woodpile

This night is kinetic, and "I" has limitless potential.
From the fragrant downtown goddesses that parade the concrete runways,
taunting, solicitation of sexual solace;
The sad mystique of those setting fire to leaves,
smoke drawn to lung, to limbs, to brain
to leave.

Oh that I could be one with nature, and breathe its fire for myself!
That I could transcend this feeble moment and paint my soul on the dingy alleyways of this lonely existence.

Are my innards not soaked in nitroglycerin?
Are we not living conduit?
Is not my tongue dripping with ink?
Are not my bones aching to be broken?
Will I ever thaw a winter's night?

Who will light the match,
lest I spit fire down the throats of thousands?
Lest I spit fire,
I myself will catch,
Painting an entire city block the deep reds of my innards,
the air rings with my song.

     "When Elliott starts singing with his ethereal voice, his vocals as always come from the coast on the other side of life.  
     This place is not altogether death. 
     It is the universal loss that we all experience at the moment of birth in the separation from our Divine Parents, the Holy Source of All, when we are exiled from the Great Self and Great Reality and given a name, ego, and too many illusions to count.  
     Yet there are aspects of the material plane that offer convergence, reconciliation, renewal, redemption, and the process of healing.  One of them is Elliott Smith’s voice." 

                                                                                                           --Nelson Gary

Pedestal

I am everywhere.
I stare down at you from the billboard heights
I watch you from the bus stop bench.
I watch you as you turn the pages of magazines.
As you mindlessly click browse the internet,
and as you exercise your right to surf channels.

I am in love you;
but not nearly as much.
As you
are in love
with me.

Gaze upon my flesh, my eyes, that I may feel exalted,
that you may absorb everything I am,
be empowered and destroyed
by our contrast
our similarity.



Get on your knees,
You pathetic, worthless lot.
Confess with your lips your desire to be made in my image,
That my work on earth may be done.

Clairaudrients

Am I destroying my brother?
Am I destroying myself?
Perhaps I have gone too far.
Crossed a line.
Awoken a beast that cannot sleep.
Can I shoot it?
It rustles in the reeds, it sounds like rolling thunder.

The steel melts in my sweaty grasp

I am so afraid of everything,
of everyone.
Will someone press pause?
I need time to think.

So many things can destroy me,
A herd of cancers in this concrete jungle
that trample me,
leave me immobile,
leave me crippled.