Musical Seams

It's been a long time since I posted anything.  It's been a long time since I wrote anything.  Which is sad. This is just an old scrap; unfinished, or at least unpolished; for the sake of posting something.  Not much too it really.  Just some thoughts in a funny way of explaining them.

Musical Seams

It was a bleak morning’s afternoon.  You know how those are.  I’d run into him once or twice before.  He was so aggravatingly familiar that I never bothered to ask him who he was or where he’d come from.  I didn’t really want to know.  I was on my break, working at the music store, when I next bumped into him--literally.  So what?  He said sorry, I said fine; I just wanted to go back to looking at music.  He wouldn’t leave me alone though; I tried to ignore his attempts to be nice and conversational by putting my headphones in.  He got all kinds of dirty looks for his laughing after he held up the unplugged jack at the end of my chord.  

“Look, I’m sorry I bumped into you.  Go away.”

“Mmm, no.  I like this store.  I think I’ll come every day.”

I frowned.  I knew that meant he’d keep bothering me.

“Fine, I don’t care.  Just leave me alone.”

As I left, he followed me, jabbering all the way.  You’d think I would be freaked out by this but for what ever reason it seemed normal.  Like it had always been that way.  Sometimes he wouldn’t shut up, sometimes he had almost nothing to say.  

No...I don’t know...go away; I felt like a broken record with my answers but he didn’t seem to mind hearing the same thing every day.  One day he didn’t show up and in a twisted way, I felt a twinge of disappointment which I quickly erased from my thoughts because it was so stupid.  The next day he was back and back to his old jabbering.

I decided to go to the park to see if he’d follow me there one day.  He did.  He’d been provoking me the whole way.  What’s your favorite this, have you ever thought about that, if I were a jelly bean what flavor would I be?  His questions ranged form the ridiculous to the sublime and back again without even the bat of an eye from him.  It was so painfully annoying and so longed for at the same time.  I hated it.  The way he did it made me want to punch him in the ribs so he’d shut his trap, but then pour my soul out.  Somehow he’d made me care which made me want to prove how much I didn’t care.

“Do you prefer platypus or beavers?”

“No,” I said.

“Ah, an otter person I see.”

“Please leave.”

“What’s your favorite instrument?”

“I don’t know.”  What I really wanted to say was which ever one rings the best harmony with my heart when music is the only place I have left to turn.

“Hmm; what do you know?”

“That you’re bugging me.”

“Hah, that’s funny.”  He seemed delighted to be so annoying.  “At least that’s something.”

“What’s your favorite time to remember?”

I almost smiled and I almost cried.  They sort of looked the same on my face.  ‘All the joy of meetings past, minus the pain of what might have been’ would have been a good answer.

“I don’t know.”

“Do you have one?”

“I haven’t thought about it.”  Lying like that had become so easy.

“Favorite grade?  Favorite summer?  You must have a favorite summer.”

“No.”  I had answers to all his questions, but they were mine.  With each one though, keeping them in hurt a little more.

“Have you ever had a favorite time of day?” he asked.  

I could have told him it was at ten minutes to five, especially in September, just as the leaves scrape the light from the bottoms of clouds like so many pallet knives.  Instead, all I said was, “No.”  

“You’ve made a habit of not forming opinions, haven’t you.  Was that on purpose or did it just happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it always like that for you, or is it a more recent development?”

My reflex was just to say that I didn’t know again and be done with it and done with him.  But I was tired of being done with it; all that really meant was I’d go back to being alone, inside myself, begging to get out; staying broken until I had to come back to my problems and decide again whether to fix them or to just ‘not know’ some more.  Lying about not knowing had become more painful than knowing.  I knew.  This time I would know out loud.

“You know,” I said, “it hasn’t always been like this for me.  I’ve grown this numb, ignorant shell of ‘not knowing’ over years of unanswered wonderings about things I’ve been told aren’t important.  Things like, what is it about holding a living thing that makes you smile?  Or what about a harbor keeps a ship afloat?  Why must the dawn be breaking to come?  Why are insides and outsides on different sides?  Must a mind be tormented to be beautiful?  What about discomfiture is so needed for learning?  How does the top get so far from the bottom?  Which way do you swim when the sea all looks the same?  How complex a thing can be defined by a name?  These are things that I really don’t know.  I must confess though, I lied about not knowing everything else.  I say I don’t know because they say it doesn’t hurt to feel nothing.  Whether that means it eliminates pain or just won’t be a hinderment makes no difference.  Now I say they’re wrong.  Dead wrong.  I say it makes you dead and being dead while you’re alive is anything but painless, and anything but helpful.”

He stared at me with a one of those mouth open even though it wasn’t sort of looks so long that he almost walked into a tree.

“Where did that come from?”

“It came from me.  The me that doesn’t pretend that I don’t miss Orion when I can’t see him anymore; that doesn’t pretend that munching on silence soup doesn’t make me want to vomit twelve-tone catastrophes at the piano.  The me that hid my insides so deep they don’t have sides.  The me that doesn’t pretend that five fifty five in the afternoon, especially in October, when the light on the treetops is as alive as the trees and the clouds sing as loud as the birds and stained glass cacophonies of unmet potential wait to scream with the light hasn’t always been my favorite time of day.  The me that is me; that still remembers the joy of knowing there’s somewhere to grow.”

I jerked to a halt and looked at him a little bewilderedly; my mouth may have spread open a hair as I stood, self-dumfounded, staring.  I felt a little sheepish and unsure of what his reaction could possibly be to this cold rush of blood that had set my bones on fire and ripped past the borders of all thought as it poured out of me.  He did something I couldn’t have expected less.  He looked me right in the eye and began to smile, and smile, and smile until I thought his face might crack.  Then he roared, “I knew I’d know the you in there!  Sorry, that didn’t make sense, but I knew it.”

“What?” was all I could come up with.

“You’re seams aren’t bursting, they’re too tight for that.  But the stuff between your seams is just begging to get out.”  He was speaking too quickly for anybody’s own good now.  He might have done cartwheels he had to work so hard to hold his joy in.

“What do you mean?” I pleaded impatiently.  “What did you know about me?”  I honestly felt a little perturbed that he claimed he knew ‘me’ even though that was impossible.  Where did he get off thinking he could see through me?  He just beamed with pleasure.

“I’m sorry I said anything but ‘I don’t know’ now,” I said.  His smile faded slightly.

“I’m sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.  From the moment I met you I knew there was someone different, someone else that I wasn’t meeting yet.  For all you’ve done to prove how dead you are, you can’t hide how alive you would be if you had the chance.  Something in your eyes, something in your hands; a something that speaks with subtle voice when hearts are left alone to chase the fleeting years.  Memories that barred the dark of nightmares past; prayers that fractured fear.  A something that rings with hope for light’s last philharmonic spark.  You can’t hide that.”

“Where’d that come from?” finally dumped out of my mouth.

“Me.”  He chuckled.

When that word spilled out of his mouth; “me,” I blinked and realized it was my mouth I was watching.  I looked at myself in the mirror that had been there the whole time.  It’s funny how dreams turn moments into memories.  Even day dreams.  Time means very little when you’re heart has something to tell you to keep from bursting at its seams.

Drawing lines.

Do you ever catch yourself becoming convinced of your imagination? We draw these rules in our minds thinking to hold back the sea that is life.  Inevitably the tide comes in and either our lines are  washed away or we drown trying to draw them in the waves.  

Drawing lines

At a line drawn in the sand

you draw one in the stars

and cry at all creation

your line will not be crossed.

But earth turns round across your line

and stars hold in their place.

Creation’s crossing crosses you

Sitting alone in the sand,
drawing lines.

Moon Water

Sometimes a thousand words are used when one would do.  Sometimes one is used when hundreds were needed.  Sometimes words just spin into a pool of image and you're not sure how many there are or even should have been.  Sometimes they mean something, other times they don't.  Maybe they're just fun to think.

Moon Water

Moon water flows through my window

I never just look anymore

Mountains, shocks of amber burn

Blue bright sky, dark on the peaks

The moon burns with them- 

The amber cliffs

But moon water burns white, pouring through my window

Friend light-

Like light on the tide of home shores,

Smiling water flows in.

Aching

When something written makes you forget you were reading as you read it, a little light turns on to remind you that language in and of itself is beautiful.  I don't dare claim that I can do that with what I write.  But I will write about the happening.

Aching 

     I ache to write.  For the eloquent phrase scrawled on the sea of a page.  Not for the sake of eloquence; not to be applauded, or named, but for the sake of the words.  To touch the knowledge of beauty that is innately part of us, and so often unlearned.  To expand the glint in every child’s eye to a gleam, then a flash, and a blaze.  A glint still in everyone’s eye, though it may be hard to see.  Are we not all children after all?  To have words so simple, so clean that the ink on paper is lost and only their meanings meet our minds.  Sentences that hide in the dusk before the dawn.  The dawn of ideas filling the soul with the knowing of potential.  Incalculable potential.  Words that take no attention for themselves but are there only for truth to stand on.  Wordless words that do not mean but simply are; that do not match the absolute, but meet to lay it bare.  I ache to write such words but rob them with my strain.

  I imagine that writing should feel as the pouring of water from a glass.  Each drop so fluid with that last that only a clear stream flows.  The weight of it released, let down through thirsty leaves making full and empty the same: an empty glass, a fuller flower.  Such satisfaction rarely comes from pouring out; from reaching the bottom.  But only after the bottom is met do words leave ourselves more full.  Only as the candle burns can corners be brought light.  Dark corners we may fear to go until a candle comes.  I burn to write so purely but always ashes fall on my pen.

  Don’t think me hypocritical.  I see my toils coming short.  But what pours better than a waterfall?  And even they splash.  For the sake of the words I continue.  For the ache to write I go on.

Panic

Panic comes in the strangest forms. Though usually nothing to laugh at, sometimes it just is.


Panic

Sitting alone, desperately alone

Amongst the various clicking tickings.

What if my nose begins to drip with them?

What then?

Someone must come, but surely they won’t.

I am alone and will remain so.

My legs ache and prickle

Like miniature threats that I’ve been here too long.

And the ticks tick on.

All things within my reach

Are but leaves in the fall--

Dying diversions form the oncoming winter.

Oh! That I had not come here today!

There must be another way.

Alone, undone, cold.

I perish this way.

I am out of toilet paper.

Blank Pages

Marvelous things, blank pages.  It's hard to write without them.  So much potential, so much to offer.  So much reason not to notice blank pages.

Blank Pages

Blank pages.  

A sea run dry.  

Shorelines unzipped blaring at the sky, 

as if to cry out against it.  

What did the sky have to do with it?  

To be filled is not the only use for spaces.  

Blank: the word thinks for us.  

Unused, undone, un-learned-from.  

Pages left unwritten are no proof of not writing.  

The life-trails left in the sand of the sea aren’t a lack of ink.  

Stripped, torn, beaten, worn; the pages bind and grind and burn.  

Holding itself so high the sky cries “blank” at the frozen sand.  

Silent as the once sea stones, blank pages flash back and grin.  

There’s room for that on 

blank pages.

The Zipline

A story from my childhood.  Crazy story.  True story.  Enjoy.

“Let go Lee!  Drop!”

“I can’t; I’ll fall!”

Smack!  Lee face-planted into the tree.   

Take a trip with me to an easygoing little street in the neighborhoods of South Provo.  The houses have a dried-out shoe leather quality to them.  The people are much the same.  They would just as soon water their lawns by hand, and in the fall they rake each other’s leaves.  The air has secrets in it.  Schools out, there’s way too much energy available, and there’s nothing left to do.  I don’t remember who’s idea it was; we were all collaborators though.  Leave it to a gaggle of bored nine-year-olds to think a zip-line’s a good idea.  

Allen had a fantastic backyard.  The trees were like leafy parapets of an abandoned castle.  A rusted out van was the carriage under the archway of golden branches.  The peaks of the castle towers was the perfect place for our project.  Michael   was a “big kid” from across the street.  He always had some sort of junk cobbled together into contraptions too varied and useless to define.  This time it wasn’t so useless though.  Bicycle handlebars and a plastic pulley can do amazing things with the right application of imagination.  Jordan’s dog ran ruts in the ground around the stake he was tied to. I’m not sure where the dog was while we were using his cable.  My contribution was a set of obsolete snow chains that made a marvelous ladder.  The blueprints were more mental than print.  The planning consisted of, “We should build a zip-line!” followed by several resounding, “Yeahs!”  It wasn’t long before a board, resembling the solidity of a dead fish, was nailed to one of Allen’s trees about twenty feet off the ground.  We tied the cable to the tree just above our platform, stretched it almost to the ground, and tied it to another tree as far away as it would reach.  I cannot, for the life of me, remember how we stuck the pulley to the handlebars.  We may have used spit for all I know.  But there it was, in all it’s splendorous, horrifically questionable glory: The Zip-line.  Oh, what a beautiful invention!  A goosey little nine-year-old could feel truly free as he rocketed through the air, holding on until the very last second until he had to let go to avoid the tree at the end of the line.  We never thought to put down a pad of any kind down.  All we were thinking of was how much fun we were having.  My Mom didn’t believe we had actually made a zip-line; she had seen our inventions before.  Our flying machine made of cardboard, plastic wrap, and a fan; or our time machine made of Christmas lights and a bed frame.  She had this uncanny ability to make our equipment malfunction on it’s maiden voyage every time.  Anyway, it was all fun and games until Lee showed up.

Its astounding that nobody was hurt sooner.  Lee was a bit younger than us, and a bit slow to boot, but when the threat of, “I’ll tell my mom” pours out of another kid’s mouth you start cutting deals.  After no small measure of begging and threatening from Lee, we finally consented to let him ride The Zip-line.  Thinking back, his awkward midget-like steps up the ladder seem like the banging chimes of a clock-tower just before your carriage turns into a pumpkin.  “Hold on really, really tight,” we told him.  “One, two, three, go!”  Off he went.  But one important detail had been left out.  We didn’t tell him how to stop.  All at once everyone screamed at the top of their lungs, “Let go Lee!  Drop!”  Being small and stupid his only reply was, “I can’t, I’ll fall.”  

Lee didn’t let go.  Lee didn’t drop.  Lee’s face was all over that tree like ugly on a moose.  If ever you want to stop quickly, smacking into a tree is a good way to do it.  We told him to walk it off, but I doubt he could hear us past his own wailing.  Again, it’s uncanny; the ability mothers have to ruin fun.  Maybe it’s my fault for telling her about Lee’s near-death-like disaster.  When she finally saw it, she might as well have shot a disintegrator ray at it.  The Zip-line was no more.  All this hullabaloo only lasted about a week, but oh what a week.

In a town on a street where life is what happens while you’re busy doing other things, sometimes drastic measures are necessary to compete with boredom.  We didn’t just compete with boredom; we obliterated it.

My Candle is the Low One

The ramblings of a tired mind.  Formless blurts of non sequitur sentences.  There must be something in it.

My Candle is the Low One

Standing in the ashes falling,

Existence in your arms.

Light through grey is grey.

What color would the light have been?

What color should it be?

“Ivory and gold!” comes the cry.

Some hearts reflect the river, some the sky.

The softness of forgetting is lost

To the scrawl of the learned man.

How do you stop the pendulum swing

When hard earned blood runs dry?

As an arsonous flame to the school of thought,

Clouds of broken chaos breaking;

My candle is the low one--

I’ve been burning it.

Let the Ink Run

Some recurring themes are blatant in this poem. Writing it after sprouts of thought had already begun spreading leaves, I was left with reminders of the seeds that had sprouted; feet that didn't trust the ground, a welcome to the scraps of an unsettled mind, dissonant dreams hedging the dawns.  All like stones marking the gardens of words that I seem to have stumbled upon; and sometimes stumbled over.  But watching things begin to live is worth some dirt on your hands.

Let the Ink Run

God bless the colors of your mind;

The anthemic operas of dissonant dreams

Standing before you, a wall to the day.

Volumes said to the wind,

Screamed at the deep.

Are you as silent inside as out?

So let the ink run.

And golden light of day and dawn, 

Though mountain hardly purple shines, 

Burn in bolts of amber sun

More cold than aching time.

And let the ink run.

With a quiet huzzah, 

You walk through the dawn; 

Tearing its seams as you pass.

Tearing its seams at your dreams.

Walking alone with the rest of them.

Like walking next to a ghost;

Like dancing with no bones.

So let the ink run.

Welcome to the scraps of an unsettled mind.

Speak not your silencing solutions.  

Their breath is too shallow to still the deepened soul.

My feet don’t trust the ground anymore; 

Delicate sole.

And let the ink run.

Pelican Dreams

Sometimes dreams have a funny way of turning into stories.  Albeit very short, this story is one of the ones that makes me smile most. 

Pelican Dreams

A small, brownish pelican gently moved the other birds aside with his beak as he boarded his little raft.  They fussed some but this raft was his and they let it be.  As the tide went out, I watched the brave little pelican floating out to sea.  Some days he’d only float some yards from shore and later come back in with the tide to go about his little brave business.  Other times I watched him disappear over the horizon to brave the deep and the fishes from there that would visit him.  I feared once that he might not return but he finally floated in, head high and eyes sharp.  A tear came to my eye as saw him ashore again.  It was a somehow noble thing this little one did, braving the waves and the deep -- a sentinel of sky and sea on the little wood raft he rode.