you spoke to me in siren song, anyone would drown

I never want to see you unhappy.

-----

Is there always something greater? or is this the greatest?

-----

Fishnets and fighting clothes

you don't know what to do with those

a foreign language is

only the beginning

of this trip we're taking

in the middle of

the Bleak

mid-winter

-----

I thought it should be known that I play this song every day.

I also found another arrangement of it and discovered a missing, rather upsetting verse.

The water is wide, I cannot get o'er,

and neither have I wings to fly;

give me a boat that will carry two,

and both shall row, my love and I.

O down in the meadows the other day,

a gath'ring flow'rs both bright and gay,

a gath'ring flow'rs both red and blue,

I little thought what love can do.

I leaned my back up against an oak

thinking that he was a trusty tree;

but first he bended and then he broke;

and so did my false love to me.

A ship there is and she sails the sea,

she's loaded deep as deep can be,

but not so deep as the love I'm in:

I know not if I sink or swim.

I put my hand in some soft bush,

thinking the sweetest flow'r to find,

I pricked my finger to the bone,

and left the sweetest flow'r behind.

O love is handsome and love is fine,

and love's a jewel while it is new,

but when it is old it groweth cold,

and fades away like morning dew.

Blu

Blue.

Blue eyes

Blue hair?

Blue fingernails.

Blue lights in the subway

Blue doors

Blue sky

Blue bag

Blue tile

Blue paint

Blue suit

Blue building

Blue Brain!

Blue blood

Blue bug

Blue ocean

Blue eyes.

Blue.

waiting for the G

FED UP

in love.

Do you know where to find your home?

Because I painted it Grey

and cut down all the trees

and your front door is boarded up.

shhhhhh!hhhhhh.

your heart is where your leave it.

It sometimes pays to have a bad memory.

or did you cut yours into pieces - too small to hold?

The silence makes it clear

I came home early tonight to get a good night sleep for once this week and instead I stayed awake to watch Into the Wild. Quite an amazing film, I'm so glad I waited until now to see it instead of when it was in theaters. I owe the experience to Tom :-) I think it may have changed my life.

Thank you!!

Now I'm giving myself an hour to lounge around and practice my rudiments before I muster up the energy to go do some laundry and wash dishes before I go to work.

I painted tonight! It's been awhile. It also makes me a little bit happier.

Happiness is best shared.

Sleepless in...sisters?

I'M IN OREGON I'M IN OREGON I'M IN OREGON!!!

I want to go outside and play in the rain. I feel a little bit giddy. 

Thoreau missed

"...the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

-Henry David Thoreau

Well now that's a bit strange, don't you think? The very essence of being desperate comes complete with irrationality, surges of emotion; despair, distress, anguish, torment, misery, wretchedness, all pushed to the point of hopelessness. I consider it a bit far-fetched to associate desperation with that of quietness. Someone truly desperate could not be satisfied day in and day out simply moping about, mourning one's self. If one were desperate, there would be urgency in their step. Drama would play a leading role in their life. 

With all due respect to Mr. Thoreau, I have trouble understanding why he felt this way. I see what he is describing and view it as more of a beautiful let-down rather than a desperate man.

Forgive me if i'm wrong.

Camellia Sinensis

...and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations...

Possibilitea

Remember the tea kettle - it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet itstill sings!

- Unknown

There is a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea.

- Henry Fielding

I am in no way interested in immortality,but only in the taste of tea.

-Lu tung

What part of confidante has that poor teapot played ever since the kindlyplant was introduced among us. Why myriads of women have cried over it, tobe sure! What sickbeds it has smoked by! What fevered lips have received refreshment from it! Nature meant very kindly by women when she made thetea plant; and with a little thought, what a series of pictures and groupsthe fancy may conjure up and assemble round the the teapot and cup.

-William Makepeace Thakery

At last the secret is out,as it always must come in the end,The delicious story is ripe to tell an intimate friend;Over tea-cups and in the square the tongue has its desire;Still waters run deep, my dear,theres never smoke without fire

- W.H Auden

With each lingering sip

I cannot help but see

all that makes tea

as well make me.

-The Minister of Leaves

The Republic of Tea: Letters to a Young Zentrepreneur

I'm Yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your heart and you'll find the sky is yours
Listen to the music of the moment come and dance with me
We're just one big family
It's your God-forsaken right to be loved



I like Jason Mraz.
Just wanted to share.

crack my spine

I am a story.

Do you ever think about how many different stories you are to each person you meet? You're not really a story to people you're close with. You're more like an experience then. But once you're no longer a piece of someone's life, once you've extracted yourself from their microcosm of the world, that is when you become just a story they tell themselves sometimes. Or never.

the Youth of the Nation

the Youth of the Nation

skidds on ice
blinded by green
in the jungle

"can you hear it?"

"here, what?"

I can't see,
they're too fast

"I'm scared,"

I can't see,

"I'm sacred-"

I can't see.

An adventure of a lifetime

Why do we spend an time at all doing things we don't want to do? Is it equivelent to "making a sacrifice"? I have these people that I've collected over the years that I call my friends and yet I still don't seem to feel right. Friends are supposed to be a large factor in what makes being on this planet enjoyable.

Love right?

Take the longest relationship with a person you've ever had, regardless of intensity. How long have you known this person? - that's it. There's supposed to be some value in length right, regardless of quality? You have a group of people that seemingly cares about you, and there's always that semi-nostalgic feeling you get around people you're comfortable with, but still something is wrong. You could make up some lame sob story about how the melancholy state is best for cultivating art, but even if that's true, it will always sound like a crock of shit. Or maybe you're just too self involved and shouldn't spend so much time alone thinking about yourself.

I think in the end we all just really have to be able to distinguish what is relevant to our own lives.



See the man with the lonely eyes? Take his hand, you'll be surprised.

The Little Prince

http://www.angelfire.com/hi/littleprince/frames.html

thanks Tom :-)

early morning irony

(served best with a cup full of caffeine...)


So i'm at work (the accounting firm today). We have a radio station pre-set on all of our phone intercom speakers. It's a lite/pop station, typical nineties chart toppers. Anyway, it's not pretty outside. It can't be warmer than 70 degrees, and it's raining.

-- Keep in mind this is a pretty local radio station --

Cheryl Crow's "I Wanna Soak Up The Sun" just came on.

My Estranged Autumn

Sonnet of the Sweet Complaint
by Federico Garcia Lorca

Never let me lose the marvel
of your statue-like eyes, or the accent
the solitary rose of your breath
places on my cheek at night.
I am afraid of being, on this shore,
a branchless trunk, and what I most regret
is having no flower, pulp, or clay
for the worm of my despair.

If you are my hidden treasure,
if you are my cross, my dampened pain,
if I am a dog, and you alone my master,

never let me lose what I have gained,
and adorn the branches of your river
with leaves of my estranged Autumn.

From the Sanscrit of Kalidasa

Shall I enter into you?
or shall I swallow your ladyship whole?
After a long time I get you back again,
I am at a loss, really, what to do.
Slow-eyed, please stop for a moment
tying up prettily those locks of hair,
for my eyes are entangled there,
I have been extricating them the whole day.
Full of honey's sweetness
your words please my ears, O my love,
and both my eyes are washed
by your face - the Sharad Moons reflection.
O mango flower in Cupid's form
with shapely eyes stretching to the ears,
where are you going after capturing my heart?
Anarchy reigns here, don't you think?

by Tambimuttu and G. V. Vaidya
(4th-5th century)

a losing game

Love is the art of falling.
Nobody can afford to lose everything
yet a lot is being risked
when winning is not guaranteed.
we give ourselves away
in spite of knowing better,
just so we don't feel alone.
Where's life's answer?
***

he wrote in my yearbook

Keep asking yourself lots of questions
and remember that it's ok to always
want more from life,
but don't forget to appreciate things
for what they are.

All the best,
(j)




BUT A MIRROR CAN'T READ BETWEEN THE LINES!



I woke up to the sound of pouring rain,
washed away a dream of you
but nothing else could ever take you away
because you'll always be my dream come true.
I want to hear you say,
"I remember you."
-Skid Row

Blueberry Days

Blue surrounds in
seats and sheets
and skies and goodbies
wings spread with
layers inside
soft and flaky that
try to hide
but they'll emerge-
-it's all the urge
***

change of address

I want to give you a bit of background on my life, it's not much, but it's how i've gotten through the past few years. (the *** bits are what I wrote)

We'll begin here:

I want to beg of you much as I can to be patient
toward all that's unsolved in your heart,
and learn to love the questions themselves,
like locked rooms, or like books that are
written in a very foreign tongue.

Do not seek the answers, which cannot be given you,
because you would not be able to live them,
and the point is to live everything.

Live the question now,
perhaps you will then, gradually, without noticing it,
live along some distant day into the answer.

-excerpt from "Letters to a Young Poet" by Raynor Maria Rilke
-----
One's real life is often the life one does not lead.
-Oscar Wilde
-----

There is a vitality, a life fore, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all times, this expression is unique. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.

-Martha Graham to Agnes DeMille
-----

In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavily on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens. If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, than our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness. But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid? The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into new heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose?
Weight or lightness?

-excerpt from "the Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera
-----
Spring.
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe the spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only underground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of un-carpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot,
babbling and strewing flowers.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
-----
Not knowing what tomorrow brings
I take another step.
Not sure of why the blue bird sings
I draw another breath.
If you're looking for an answer,
I can't help you.
***
-----
"Take me to another place," she said.
"Take me to another time.
Run with me across the oceans,
float me on a silver cloud."

If I could I would but I don't know how
If I could I would and I'd take you now

"Stay with me 'til time turns over,
I want to feel my feet leave the ground.
take me where the whispering breeze is,

it can lift me up and spin me around."

If I could I would but I don't know how
If I could I would and I'd take you now

We are laughing as we go.

We are swimming backwards through the doors and through the windows.
We are melting into nothing.
-Phish
-----
Can my eyes meet yours in a warm ebrace of the spirit?
They long for contact, for connection.
My eyes hold the secrets I want to share with you,
to create with you.
I am asking for a gift,
The single most important thing -
opportunity.
***
-----
Detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully, That is how you are able to leave it.
-Morrie Schwartz
A teacher affects eternity;
he can never tell where his influence stops.
-Henry Adams
-----

Raging under the stars a man sick with love poured out his sorrow under the night sky and said, gazing at them:

"Oh beautiful images of the idol
whom i adore just as you show me,
in your splendor, her rare beauty,
if you could show her my burning flames of passion
you would, with your golden countenance,
make her merciful,
as you have made me passionate."

-english translation of "Sfogava con le Stelle" by Claudio Monteverdi
-----
"Is not general incivility the very essence of love?"
-Jane Austen
-----

Where do you come from?
two lips, open
can you see them?
they're smiling at you.

Stop looking for moments of clarity.
Truth flows through you.
Truth creates beauty in us.
Truth creates
truth laughs!
at life's parody.

(smell the flowers)
***

-----
from tea we draw friendship and eternity.
-unknown
-----

little pink houses...
little pink flowers
little pink petals

(fall) float

in order to
inspire
innocence
***

-----

In every heart there is a room
a sanctuary safe and small
to heal the wounds of lover's past
until a new one comes along
and every time i've held a rose
it seems i've only felt the thorns
and so it goes, and so it goes,
and so will you soon i suppose
but if my silence made you leave
than that would be my worst mistake
so i will share this room with you
and you can have this heart to break.
-Billy Joel

-----
you can walk away from your mistakes
you can turn your back on what you do
just a little smile is all it takes
and you can have your cake and eat it, too
loneliness will get to you, somehow,
but everybody loves you now
you have lost your innocence somehow,
but everybody loves you now.
- yet again, Billy Joel
-----
I'm sleeping with myself tonight
saved on time, thank god my music's still alive...
someone saved my life tonight
so save your strength
and run the field you play alone
-Bernie Taupin
-----

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS RAIN ON ME?
-Travis

-----
If ye love me,
keep my commandments
and I will pray the father
and he shall give you another comforter
tha the may bide with you forever
in the spirit of truth
-set to music by Thomas Tallis
-----

Either darkness alters
or something in the sight
adjusts itself to mid night-
and life steps almost straight.
-Emily Dickinson

-----

A vision in skin
all his own
not much to grasp,
but quite a welcome contrast.
to taste is bittersweet
but his soap and cigarettes
linger in my hair.
His eyes of syrup laugh
at my every glance.
I do not despair.
All I ask is warmth.
***

-----
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life;
that word is love.
-Sophocles
-----
My skin is wearing thin
I hear things behind the door I'm closing.
I've spent too much time
and no friend of mine
has come offering their hand.
S I'm moving on
before the dawn,
I won't turn around,
but the path I choose
is yours to loose
'cause you're not strong enough
to make it through.
***
-----
SO THIS IS THE NEW YEAR? I don't feel any different.
-DCFC
-----
slipping further from the edge of reason, a brand new season repeats itself again. ***
-----
cease your whimpering, look around, run with all the time you've found!***
-----
I want to dance like i'm on fire
until the morning light
so let your mama know
you're not coming home tonight
if you've got regrets
just leave them all behind,
we've all got a cross to bear
so take some peace of mind
knowing you are not alone.
you've always got a friend
in me.
***
-----
the City.
a city where people care
a world to share with you
in good times and bad
because bad times are just challenges
a challenge with you is worth all the time in the world-
if the world were real.
you could be real,
if you were mine,
but aren't you?
because we share a soul,
that dark place that everyone claims to understand
yet it has been said that the soul can not be understood.
we will always have our soul
united in time
we could wait for time
or we could take what is ours
but you cannot just decide the course without me.
you're no island.
no man is, keep that in mind.
build a city with me
for no one is safe alone.
don't you know I've seen you cry?
an island never cries.
***
(good. ground leveled.)
-----

How do i show you

who i really want to be?

I've been so many people

but you've always just loved me.
People make mistakes,
in my life I've made a few,
I should have known
my worst mistake was leaving you.
***

-----

musing...
It's supposed to be so hard to find people that you can connect to, but I think all it takes is a glance. People just don't know where to look. Sometimes a relationship (probably fleeting) can form in just one look from across a counter.
***
-----
I have donated to Union Square's collection of finger prints. Have you?
-----

sssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh!

crystal clear shine the glasses
I'm wearing while time passes

and life before me flashes

BEFORE I TURN TO ASHES!
be careful no one catches you-
listening to me.
***

-----

Driving south

driving away from concrete

into the unexpected
the city is tired
tired of me, and tired for me
colors pass
beyond the glass
my beat-up Buick is my dis-reality
just going or coming.
on your way home
or getting away,
who's happy static?
***

-----

We talk about life, we talk about death, and everything in between like it's nothing, and the words come easy.

-Mika Bomb
-----

THERE WILL NEVER BE THE PERFECT SITUATION. LIFE'S NOT GOING OT WAIT FOR ME TO GET IT RIGHT. I'M RUNNING OUT OF REASONS TO GO BACK AND I CAN'T SAVE EVERYTHING TO SAY IN JUST THE FEW FLEETING MOMENTS WE GET. I'M GOING TO AVOID REGRET BECAUSE TIME IS IRREVERSIBLE. I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE ANYTHING INSIDE ANYMORE. ***

-----

The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths. - Bruce Nauman

-----

"It is not so much
where my inspiration comes from
but rather
how it manages to
survive."
-Louise Bourgeous

HOPE HANGS BY A THREAD

"American girls are

feathers and cream"

I always liked that metaphor,
from the Counting Crows' song, "American Girls".

How do you think it fits?
Is it a fragility?
a sensuality?
a humbleness?
an insecurity?

Instead of answering the question, I will leave it with you. My time spent here will be to help the question ferment into discovery.

American girls are weather and noise

Playing the changes for all of the boys
Holding a candle right up to my hand
Making me feel so incredible

If I make you cry, you tell me why
I'll try again, if you'll let me try