I want to write something beautiful

I want to write something beautiful tonight. Something that will take your feet off of your socks and throw away your perceptions of what earnest and real. I want to author one of those wow factors, those head scratching, mind altering, knee weakening moments. A collection of words so powerful they shake the very foundation of our souls. The type of writing that captivates, motivates and propels the singular human condition in such a robust and sincere way that my thoughts echo in your head. A dream on paper. A heart scribbled and undone but perfectly displayed. A hope. My fingers ache for it. My mind is at the cusp of it and I can feel it in my bones. I want architect a mountain of language so serene that birds cry when they see it. I want to make babies laugh. I want to make old women realize that every mistake was worth it. I want to make my father proud. I want to collect and spew all those feelings in your heart when you clap for no reason at all. When you sing when nobody is listening and when you cook for your legs. I want to shake the hands of immortality and tell them that they got it wrong. I want to show them that temporary breeds the relentless and reckless spirit of untamed joy. The freedom of death, the ignorance of birth and the purity of everything in-between. I feel so fucking GOOD! I want this on paper, I want this on my conscience. I want to create a memory so vivid, so clean, so rare, that books crumble in distain. A moment on a shelf and a lifetime on the ground. I want to capture a friendship between man and feet. The type of unnoticed but undeniable love that breathes the light of the morning and dances with the drunks at night. I want to tell my family I love them without telling them that I love them. I want to show them. I want to write something beautiful tonight. I will. I know I will.

Rant on monday the 8th

Butterscotch haze,
You’d be amazed by the friends I have
Buck wild cherries, no pits
Tempered humors, and goofy delights.
The kind that make your teeth shine,
The surface of your soul starts with plaque
Days taste, unshaven face,
I’m happily grizzled.
I need to iron out the rest of the moon
With a session from my fingers.

I turn the strum up strong and let it rattle my grin. I seriously love this song. My volume reaches 26 and my bass plays along. Im going to drive slow. Roll down my window and do the same for my front seat. I laugh and give my books some air. Cool cracks of autumn ride through my memory. Those breezes bounce along. Vibrations and mutations, a sentence gets spilled in my smile as I sing along. Feels so good my bones got a chuckle. inside and out, flows of fun, the cool and the carefree. I dip and roll my wheels grip tight. Pavement rivers and front yards empty with Monday night. My voice relays my brian. I think out of my face when get to sing to this song. Track two, unnamed cd. Just a simple burned mix of greats and wierdos that would surely share a drink. This song sets up the party for the ensuing tracks. A cocktail mixer for everybody tracks 2 and up! That would be a sight. Brubeck plays a game of cards with m.ward, and Robert glasper dances with the broad from She & Him. She wears her real eyes well. Zac gill just waits his turn. B.B. king shares a laugh with chuck berry by the bar. They drink Smokey whiskey and laugh from the gut. Jokers and stories, maybe a cigarette or two. They won’t play for pennies, but smiles count big. I’d shake their hands and buy them a round. I scan the room and sip down slow. A hickory sour bite and I notice OMCS still plays its steady tune, and I’ve hit every word. One last turn and I touch home base. Crack the gate, roll up 3 levels and kiss the stars. Windows up, gear in park, lights go off, and I sit. I steady the volume and rest on the key. Song dies in whispers and widows a lonesome guitar. String strung out, their glow dims and passes away, my engine promptly follows. I seriously love that song.

Morning Session

It’s been a long time since I’ve written in the morning and it feels good. My slumber still fresh on my eyes and my mind as clear as the cool gray air. Legs aren’t weary, arms are nimble and my phone just itching to wake me up. Its teatime for sure. There is truly something serene about this hour of day. The first of the kids are awake, thumbing remotes for a glimpse of cartoons and spilling milk from their cereal bowls. Everybody else sleeps, dead in their beds; the world is for the young even if only for a little while. I am a half-breed, my chin grows fur, but I still like marshmallows in my hot chocolate. I woke up for no reason at all today. No hangover of REM, no drag from my limbs, just wide eyes and a fulfilling sense of fresh. The shower can wait, my toothbrush lies idle, this morning is for my mind. I want to stretch it out, let neurons take a deep breath and smile, give my brain a moments rest (it never gets any sleep).

It’s raining, but I like it. It’s cold, but cozy and my kettle is boiling. I laugh every time it does. The only kitchen device that tells you when it hurts. You’d think it’d get tougher, but it still whines when it wants off. Water in my cup, bag in my hand, I make a match and they make out. Love you can watch. A love you can taste, a love that will burn if you don’t let it chill out. Coffee seriously isn’t for me.

The drops fall harder, the day struggles to get brighter and I’m tired of waiting around. I turn on a light and watch the trees just soak it all in. My apartment is quiet, my clothes are still off, and the TV has no purpose. Just blank stares. I have a strange urge to play the trumpet. Break the silence so abrasively that it’s funny. My roommate would get pissed and I’d eventually feel like a douche. Maybe the unexpected isn’t as happy cool as it seems. The thought is funny enough.

I wonder what birds do to keep dry? I’d offer them some tea, but they’d shit on my floor. I like the way my face feels today. Its completely alive and breathing. Function meets joy and a new day unfolds.

Muffins (this one kinda sucks)

The lackadaisical security guard bid me no harm with a mere nod as I slid through the door on this cold Monday night. I was missing the colts game but work needed to be done. My flip flops bounced off the floor and slapped the face of my heels as I made the left down workman’s row (its not really called that but I like to). Three familiar faces all bright and new lined the avenue to the glow board that I needed for tracing. Some hellos, some handshakes but business as usual. The assignment was simple yet it was thought provoking. Find alluring forms of typography and traces their skin. I took an easy road but soon grew bored. The serifs, the leading letter body build, the swoop of a “J” all combined to make my wrist a little less interested and my mind a little more distant. I thought of muffins. I have no idea why, but the sweet soft caresses of its dough coupled with surprising nuggets of tangy fruit enticed and allured me. I was stuck molding ink into dances of language. Why is a muffin a morning snack? Dough and fruit taste great at all stages of the sun, but yet it remains an a.m. treat. Somebody needs to make a dinner muffin. One packed with beef, vegetables and other staples of a family meal, yet still having that humble and loveable shape. Starbucks could make a fortune, so could I. Taste meets practicality and muffins can finally know the wit of a steak knife. I don’t even know how to make bread.

311 on Halloween

The concert was fucking loud. I’m talking 1,000 plus rock coinsures banging their lungs to their genetic capacity. Indoor venues make your ribs shake. The dark lighting and the overwhelming stench of joy stretching from speaker to back door ripped the airwaves into a new sensation. I couldn’t hear myself pee when I went between sets. My lobes throbbed and my smile screamed. Incandescent characters dressed in holiday garb lined the bars and the beer never stopped flowing. People don’t give a shit on Halloween and it shows. The one time of year you get to wear your great idea and laugh at the others. Its reckless and loose and everybody gets it. I actually felt bad for the plainly dressed clowns who let their inner child pass away. Standard street clothes displaying blank slates of the creativity. BOOOO! Weird is king on the 31st! Somewhere in-between the maniacs and the methodical thump of the bass, glow sticks exploded against the dim background of the chicly lit stage. Hoards of them blooming in schools and raining joy. Cluster bombs of light and streaks fantasy falling on unsuspecting dancers. Nobody gets pissed when a concert comes to you. I bopped my head, snapped my fingers and watch the stars fall from the sky. I closed my eyes and absorbed the echoes of awesome.

Today it rained (on the 24th)

Today it rained, let electrical flashes fly and even got humid. Sick from a red eye, hung over from a wedding, my weary bones climbed in bed every free chance it got. I slept like a rock.

Her heavy sad eyes were surrounded by those she had known for only a brief while. Their spirits, laughter, and conversation filled her tiny apartment, but not her heart. She was lonesome. The simple creaks of her door, the clink of the silverware against an empty plate and the ambient sounds of the flashing television were puppets in a theater playing host to no one, only a pair of attention craving cats and an empty bed. I got a text on the way home thanking me for nothing. I felt humbled and alive.

When we grow up your friends get married and settle into patterns. Not denim or plaid but rotations of the ordinary. It made me a little uneasy to swallow the thick air of the predictable. The lack of unknown, the distinct sense of control and the speed of which life drains from our spirits was enough to make me feel old. I never want to feel like that again. I never want to wake up and learn what I had been told I would. I never want a fortune cookie to be my only source of inspiration. I never want to answer the same phone calls and drink the same beers. I never want to give a fake hug.

Youth is what we’re all made of. Even the 92-year-old man whose sunken shoulders no longer fill out the jacket he had bought a decade ago. His wrinkled hands palming his cane and missing his dead wife. He doesn’t think of her anymore, it hurts too bad. But that ambition for life, that crisp sense of friendship with the sun is what I’m after. I could sleep myself to death in a matter of weeks. I could fall into depression, sink into a slumber of nothingness and eventually die. And so could he. But my feet itch for more. My eyes burn for what I can’t see. And my heart is still learning to read. So is his. If I had all the answers, I’d be boring. If I could sleep with any woman, I’d be jaded. If my soul were at peace, I’d smoke more pot. I don’t want the perfect sense of self or the cookie cutter experiences, I want ride that will leave me booting with knowledge, and laughing with immaturity. If I live in a perpetual state of routine and fulfilled expectations then I am already dead. My shell shakes the eager hands of those who think I’ve made it. I smile back and whisper of escape. I pray my word remains mine, and my story a mess. Free verse, no paragraphs, no periods, no ending. Just commas and quotes. My fingers feel free tonight.

NY summer with my ball

Today I thought about summer time in New York City. I loved the tunes of the sparrows, socializing on the maple tree sidewalks. The way my mom’s high heels clicked on the wooden floor of our Brooklyn brown stone. The humidity dampened its tone. The pale skin of winter was still fresh on the faces of office zombies. Nobody in the city ever got tan. The Italian pizza man had a thicker laugh when he wore his purple shorts. God that pizza was good. Flour still fresh on the crust and the sweet grease that only seemed to come from his oven. I killed napkins as a kid.

I had a blue racquet ball and I envied its energy. Nothing in the world bounced higher or faster than this humble blue companion. The promise of the park still fresh on my mother’s lips I remember I bounced that ball as hard as I could. I wanted it to show the joy I felt in my legs. It hit the edge of our stoop and shot forward into the busy yellow street. I heard my friend grope the undercarriage of an unsuspecting cab and disappear into the gutter. Shocked, stunned, and alarmed at the possibility and reality of loss, it was the first time I can honestly recall a sense of mourning. Death to a ball, death to a boyish comrade. But before my bereavement had a chance to kiss my bones, a bigger, less enthusiastic ball stumbled down the street. Even at that age I could appreciate the taste of fate. I took my new ball and lost it within weeks and my memory of it shortly thereafter. I remember it more for its birth than its life. God taught me about circles that day, and I didn’t know it until just now.

I felt an ex girlfriend kissing me this morning. I woke up to the clink of eggs in a pan and a blank beige wall. Her scent slept in my sheets. A lucid sex dream spoiled by breakfast.

My Bed

My mattress is hard. It bends slightly but holds my spine with a stubborn shape that seems to rock me to sleep. My ugly brown sheets dance with the rivers of impressions carved by the pillow pattern on its crust. I’ve never seen its organs, but they never grumble because they feast on sheep. My pillows are thin and cheap, but they match and come in pairs. I drool during naps, but never during sleep, and I can count the stains of my daydreams. They give me directions to midday escapes. My feet hang off the edge and the light in my loft is too heavy to ignore, but my cradle invigorates my eyes and highlights my most intimate thoughts. Vivid flashes of what was, what is, and what will be. They pull my eyes when I rest.

I honestly believe Dejavu is when a past dream unfolds itself the tangible world. A living memory that you can feel with your finger and soul.