In Pursuit of a Grail

It's hidden. Hidden in plain sight, lost amidst the chaos.

Sitting mutely quiet, leaving glimmering refractions,

Shimmering shadows dropped upon the ground

Branching, springing forth, marking the path

As breadcrumbs leading backwards upon itself.

Touching, with serene passion, the movement and

Greener grass beyond the restricting crystal walls.

A reincarnated hope locked within an effervescent

Tomb, pulsating with the release of new from old;

Cycling, round - and - round, encasing the viewable

World in shifting colors and shades, absorbing life.

Every enlightenment a frozen moment of time

Obscuring  the way with passing, ageless memories

Of taste, fluttering wings, organization, and fanciful

Dreams. Yearning , thus, I search; twisting, contorting

My body my limitations, anguishing over the mere

Sight of this crystal grail, this chalice which holds

Only one sip, one lingering drop of anticipated

Faith. A beacon of light, a jar almost to distant to see. 

A Day For Me

I can not take credit for this photo. However, I will take credit for today. Today is just one of those days where I find myself just wondering "WTF." If you don't know what that means then I'm not going to be the one who edifies you but rather will the one wondering "Wtf? You don't know what that means? How do you not know what wtf means? Wow...." and then my thoughts will progress to something else just as useless. Today is a day for me. I don't want to do anything. I thought about going home and having a beer, but then I think I'd look at my beer like Ratatouille here and wonder why in the world it was so difficult to lift my hand to my mouth. Its just a day of uselessness and drifting thoughts. So here's to all the me's sitting there wondering wtf?

Remediation

This is a poem that I wrote a few years back in similar style to Lousianna born poet, Yusef Komunyakaa. I  was also able to go to a poetry reading that year by Komunyakaa himself, and was honored to have him look over my poem. Therefore this poem is very close to my heart, and is one of my favorite pieces. This poem was not constructed from a memory, nor was it built around a real cafe, song, or experience. It was a simple daydream that kept going as I listened to blues music. The poem is linked below the image. It is linked because as part of a remediation project, I revamped the poem into the digital medium and am honestly proud of how it turned out. 

Remediation of "Dinner Out"

Ta-Da!!

Today, after finding out my age, someone, we'll call them J, asked me if there has been a time in my life that I wish I could go back to or relive? I answered J with a question of my own to clarify their idea. "If I went back would it alter who I am today?" J was silent and thought about it and eventually asked me why would that matter? Well i responded if I went back and relived even one day, I may make a new decision which would alter some decision later down the road. What it boils down to is the fact that I am very very satisfied with the person I am currently. I may not be the person I want to end up as yet, nor have I made every decision in the best manner to make life easy. However, I really like who I am, and where I am in life. If I could go back, I'd like to go back merely as a viewer. Watching my younger self become the person I am today. J thought I was retarded and walked away. I stood there mutely vaguely smiling as my mind drifted through old memories and snapshots in my mind of my life. (The above picture is one of my favorites from childhood, that "Ta-Da" pose, makes its way into photos every year of my life and it wasn't until fairly recently that I realized that pose was such an ingrained piece of me. P.S. I have the world's most amazing father! )

A Time Capsule's Reverie ~ poem

JUNE 29, 2009

Today I borrowed my brother's Capt. America collector's tin. I filled it with torn yellowed newspaper clippings- laid aside like candy bar wrappers while in search for the crossword puzzle. I placed stupid photographs of people and things that mean nothing to me within it. A smiling hippo, with a glint of purple ink smudged in its right eye, gazed up at my face as a translucent wind-up turtle (which is missing one of his Made-in-China legs) wobbled its ancient way into this dented ark. I secretly snatched a shard of the broken blue and white tea-cup that my mother just couldn't seem to throw away, a selected piece of shattered bone from within the glassed-in display cabinet , its value trapped forever in my metal tomb of passing trinkets. I took my father's bent razor blade, covered in caked red dust, from the single hinged medicine cabinet: in its silver blade's reflections twin eyes stare at my dirty hands lost within the possibilities of their frameless fractions. I defiantly flipped down the metal tab of the box, sealing it from future thoughts and memories. Yet I continued to see the light of pointless years streaking through the scattered cracks. I ran downstairs in search of an extinguisher, to put out this breathless fire within my tin, its fumes are poison drying out my mind. Duck tape fixes everything I have been told, so I create a silver monument of trash. An hour later a silver soccer ball exists where once precious memories were entombed. I looked down at its disgusting presence and kicked it into the 6-foot hole in the backyard. Goal, my mind cries in victory, as I watch it reverberate against the brown dirt walls, Alongside the dead cat that Dad buried last year in a fresh-orange crate beneath the dying crab apple tree. Above me echoed the sound of the bleeding woodpecker continuing his monotonous grave digging: leaving me hollow holes to fill with futile pieces of time. My family never even noticed they had been robbed of their memories in my rampage: I stop now and wonder...did I choose correctly? Of course I did. 

The answer is always C, 

for Captain America.

Keep Off Groins ~photo talk

I know this isn't a current photo, but I recently found it this morning stuffed away with other old albums. I took this picture originally with the intent of capturing the humor of the word groins and danger being on the same sign. However, as I look back at this I found myself thinking more on the fact that we so easily lose sight of the little things in life, much like this sign, as life takes over and covers it with business of routine. Sometimes you need to stop and laugh like a child at a word's double-entendre (in this case groins is referring to a hydraulic structure built to prevent the erosion of the beach). Interesting that such a word, "groin," will remind me of laughter and protecting the little moments of life that can get swept away with the tides of life is by definition a structure set up to protect a small beach from being washed away as well.

Love is all around us ~photo talk

Love is all around us. I took this photo the other day, after having walked smack-dab into this branch of hearts. Looking back on it, love is kind of like that. It is sitting there silently in the background of life, growing, enlivening the world its a part of. We don't even notice that it's there until we walk into it or until its gone. I woke this Valentine's morning full of unexpected joy and thankfulness. I am surrounded by people that love me, that care about me, and that have let me become a part of their lives. I could not ask for a better blessing in life. It was one of those moments where one find's themselves supremely aware of the need for love in this world, and grateful to be here to give it to others. Happy Valentine's Day.

Reaching Out~photo talk

This is a picture that I took in the mid-afternoon of a January day. It was a pleasant 67 degrees, blue skies, and absolutely perfect outside. Yet, I felt myself yearning for some kind of change; wanting to turn my whole being after a new source of light. The world is ever changing and full of unexpected events (such as spring bursting forth in the dead of winter) and as humans one of our greatest gifts is that of adaptation. We move, we speak out, we realign, we rebuild, and we recreate ourselves into the best suited creatures to survive. Humans are creatures of wondrous potential.

Lost in the Edges ~ photo talk

Here. Here is the beginning. Or perhaps the beginning is an end, or the middle of a tale. There is never any knowing just where a story begins. For every story is interconnected with another story. There are so many outward effects of a single action that there is no telling where it begins. So here is my beginning, lost amidst the ever spiraling stories of others.

Savannah's Game ~ poem

March 31, 3009

I blindly look up into twisted

Dreadlocks, death grey from birth.

They convulse and twitch, they hang

In the preserving salt filled breeze,

Unwilling to sit unperturbed,

Tranquil as twisted thorns adorning

The crackl'd and dried naked limbs

Of da pile of stock bodies beneath;

We are the silent corpses down death row.

They deafly watch their condemned

Bodies, pendulums swaying, bumping,

Whispering of the night's unheard truths:

Of in' cent murders and plagiarized crime.

All the while the gnashing coal black

Ticks and dust red mites tremble and fall

Fall upon the thrice washed hands, and

Damnéd spot of the Queen of Hearts,

Masking her soul-deep stains with itching bites.

My hand is blessed, dyed red and black

I play my three women, lost in their royal colors

As two lowly jacks raise their scepters, breaking the 3 fates' distant gaze

And the smoke rings lay upon my head, my own Caesar's crown

I stand, so small within their perversity,

The white spotlight, the crescent moon's gaze.

Waiting, without breath or fear, for my turn

For freedom to call out my forgotten name

I can taste the last bitter sweat death left

Running down onto my wet forehead

Each impatient drop of persecution sliding in

My sealed mouth, through these bloodied

Splits, my lips, repulsing from pain, gasp for more

I pass my best 3 to the right, a gift of life perhaps

Sitting quietly awaiting fate, I watch as my death approaches

Sliding frictionless towards my red hand, an obsidian blade

Cutting out my voice as I lay down my cards - I fold.

The Daydream ~poem

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2010

Isn't it strange?

When I close my eyes,

When this world

Melts down

Like the falling cold rain,

Slowly covering the

Window panes, streaking them

With uncertainty and haze,

It is then that my mind is awake.

In that surreal darkness

I can find the other me.

A woman who has lived

A life so very different from mine.

 She has three children.

A tall boy of six:

Deep brown eyes

with flecks of green and gold,

Manacled to visceral sadness

 The worlds pain enthroned

Within him, and his smile

So pure, like the rare winter dew

Frozen upon a tropic bud,

 a frozen death, a sleeping

Beauty.   

His hand reaches

Out to his sister, her gold

Ringlets falling softly

Around her toddlers face

While she plays with Her dolls.

Innocence so bright around her,

You would think she's the Sun.

 Chris's gaze drifts from her to

scan the small scene

             For something is array,

He must shield her from it.

She is HIS sister.

HIS to protect from the world,

From the pain in His eyes.

Hand in hand they walk

down the hall, pulled like magnets

to the new blue room, their newest joy.

That small bundle of wrinkled skin,

And passed down cloth,

A parcel so small that Joyce looks

Upon its tiny nose thinking

How to dress a small body for

The tea party later that afternoon.

 What a way to introduce

This newest member

Of her clan of soft huggable bears

And ever-smiling plastic faces,

they say his name is Sam.

The third charm to their triad:

Chris, Joyce and Sam.         Together 

They'll take over the world,

And be home in time for cookies. 

I see each of them,

I can almost touch them

And hear the  crinkling of their

Laughter as clear as the final embers

Burning in my fireplace,

Their colors vibrant and glowing,

Filling my soul with their heat , their power.

I see my arms

Full of their love, 

So full of their joy,

That I almost forget,

That it almost slips my mind

You were not there.

Your scent does not pervade

Your strong arms do not surround

You do not complete me

 Suddenly I know why his eyes 

Glisten in my dreams

Why Joyce plays so quietly in her

Softly painted pink room.

The rain slows down,

I can see

Through the wet trails

Of their presence in the window

Behind my darkened eyes,

Once again I am alone,

 I am that choice 

Which I fear so greatly,

 I am humble love,

 left for the solitude of rain.