As he climbed the dark mountain in silence

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:14:54 GMT

I need to stop myself from living like I don't.

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 07:39:00 GMT

If I could start to see in sounds
I'd know what your war looked like.
I'd buy paints
and show people what music really means.

this happend. really. no, really.

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 00:19:26 GMT

"Look, I know I can be stupid, and hesitant, and I'm terrible with money, so I'm not saying anything needs to happen right now. Right now I'm in a pretty terrible place, but I think I need you.

I mean, I guess that sounds a little drastic. I like you a lot, and I know I need something. I need someone. You seem like a better 'someone' than just anybody off the street."

"Why me?"

"I don't know really. I mean, if I wanted to be totally honest about it: I don't even know you. If it was easy to pick something about you and name it, then it would be wrong. If it was something so explicit I could just isolate it then I'd just keep you at arms length like everyone else. I'd keep you around for that. It'd be the same as if I sliced off that part of you and kept it in a jar on my nightstand. After I had it down to a singular culture of this-or-that, we'd start having problems tomorrow, or next week. Sometime soon. It's not that easy."

"Well, I'm not pretty-"

"You are though."

"I let you talk, now let me."

I laughed. "Alright."

She started again "I'm not pretty. I'm not that smart - not as smart as you anyway. I'm not good with directions. I have trouble making my car payments every month. I'm not really good with anything in particular; but here I am: 2 AM, missed my bus, no money, I wake up on your shoulder, and you hit me with this?"

"Too much?"

She smiled "Not at all."

And that was that. With no car, a job that didn't give me enough hours, 20$ in my pocket, and a little over six hours before I could try to get us home: my head was finally clear.

I leaned down and kissed her, then handed her my book. "I'm going to get some coffee. You want anything?" She shook her head and her bangs fell over her face. She tucked them behind her ear and smiled at me. "Alright." I turned and walked away from her.

I never saw her again.

- - -

When I got back, she was gone. My book and my sweatshirt - which she'd been wearing - were sitting neatly on top of one another where she should have been. They looked they belonged there. Like they should have been holding a sign with my last name on it, waiting for me to get off a bus.

I felt like I'd just been hit by one.

In Darkness and Red Light

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:45:27 GMT

I'm not 100% sure I like the fact that I'm participating in a compilation book by a guy who calls himself matty the mick, but I have to have some kind of motivation, and "a deadline" is pretty good motivation, usually.

Anyway, the story is tentatively titled "In Darkness and Red Light" and it's about two people (a male and female) who are probably the last two people in existence. They travel on foot over a place that may or may not be earth 1,000,000,000 years in the future, or 1,000,000,000 in the past. So far it's about two and a half pages long. I had a friend read over part of the first draft, and she said it was like "reading a surrealist painting." I like that.

After I find out if there's any kind of non-disclosure things I have to adhere to, I may or may not post a sample, or the whole thing here.

When/if this sees completion, I'll point anyone who's interested in procuring a hard copy of the book for themselves in the right direction. However this probably won't be for some time.

Also, I'd encourage anyone who want's to submit something to this book to do so.

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 21:52:20 GMT

Damien Wallock sat alone in his seat, the shadow from his hood covering most of his face. He was silent as he stared down at his jeans, studying the fabric covering his left thigh. Without realizing it he'd started to count the diagonal patterns made by the stitching in his pants. He slouched, gripping his right tricep. His fingers wrapping around his upper arm cupping it tightly. His right leg extended to the seat opposite him and his knee bent just slightly, his left planted firmly in front of him; a ninety degree muscular support. The fabric from his jeans swayed slightly as the train rocked back and forth on the rails.

After one too many tries, Damien gave up his quest to inventory the patterns on his thigh; realizing that the motion of the train, and the small size of the lines made his task impossible. Not to mention the fact that he was currently wearing the jeans, and so the lines wrapped around his leg anyway. He tried to focus on something else to keep his mind from wandering too much. He loosened his fingers and removed his hand from his arm, balling his fist and resting his head on it. He placed his elbow on the window's edge, unifying his movements with the train.

His left arm still ached, but he tried not to think about that. He reconsidered letting his mind wander and decided it would be a good idea. He started to think of the things outside his window: the vague dark, the shadows, the certain trees and gravel on the ground. He thought of the rails, and where they lead back to. He thought of the steel they were made of, of the titanium his bike at home was made of. He thought of people who used bikes because they couldn't afford cars.

He stopped. Checked the time. The digital clock on the wall read 6:05. It's yellow numbers scrolled across slowly, blurring into one another and streaking away from him. He was tired. He felt himself slipping into the train as it slowed to let more people off or on. He'd stopped paying attention to who boarded. The only ones he needed to worry about were a few stops back, nothing to concern himself over any longer.

He slipped a bit more and started to think of the station where he'd last seen Barry and Joanna Reeners, and Carl Malloy. He focused on the area around them, the cement and concrete that made up the platform, the lines and angles supporting the area, the blurred noise that raped the scenery every time a chain of cars would pass through. The screaming and hissing of every mechanism involved, human and otherwise. He felt his body swept along by the howling. His mothers voice ringing in his ears, his mind focused on the sweeping motion of that metal through the air. He suddenly felt pinned down.

He stopped again. Jerked his head forward and tried to catch himself from falling out of his seat. He felt his body again, very real and very weighted. No longer pinned down, but not as free as he'd felt moments before. He checked the clock again. "Six twenty." he read aloud. His voice scraping out of his lungs, tired and low. He thought of his mothers words again as he sat there. Every time his arm ached, a stress or a rest placed itself in his minds ear. Her concern was present in the clack of the train cars as he traveled.

"I don't like those kids."

He coughed, shifted his weight a little, and wiped some sweat off his face with his sleeve. Then he rested his head against his knuckles again, applying pressure to the car's window.

"Damien, are you sure about this?"

He coughed again. He tasted sweet on his tongue, and lifted a few fingers to check for blood. There was none. That moment of fear brought him to a solemn resolution. One that he should not have had to come to through experience, but arrived at none the less. "That's the last time I make plans with heroin addicts." he mumbled as he settled back into his seat, and once again let his mind wander.

---------------------

Connor's done. It's not all typed, it's only a first draft, but he's done.
I'll do something more with him eventually I guess.

Preview

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:43:11 GMT

I'm working on a new story, about a man named Connor. I've got the first chapter written. I don't know how long it's going to be, but I'm two paragraphs into the second chapter, and I like where it's going.
Here's some previews:

--------------------------

. . . The setting sun leaked through the holes in his shower curtain. The light in the bathroom burnt out last week and he wouldn't have the spare cash to get a new bulb for it until the week following this one. If it wasn't for the sun he could just sit there in his heated water and his darkness. If it wasn't for the sun.

Connor stood up after he started to feel the heat in the pipes draining. It was probably about eight o'clock, he guessed. The available water temperature and pressure usually receded around this time. Workers coming home, much like he had an hour ago, wanting their showers, and their solitude, and their heat. Some coming home to their women. Some coming home to their men. Some, like Connor, coming home to the fading sunset through their windows. . .

* * *

. . .For the past year. (Or was it two years? He was never very good with keeping track of time.) Connor only had two women in his life. He had his 75 year old landlady that banged on his door every other Thursday, telling him his rent was late. He would then, every other Thursday, remind her that he gets paid on Fridays and he would have the money for her as soon as he got in the next day. After this ordeal was over, he had Lua.

Lua had been living with Connor since he'd found her in the back alley behind the building he lived in. When they met she was digging through the trash looking for something to eat. He took her inside, fed her, let her use the washroom at her leisure (and his request) and realized instantly that he liked her quite a bit. Lua had long, jet black hair. The kind that's rare to have naturally these days because of all those crazy people with the dye jobs and cuts and whatever else might have gotten popular in the past year or so. She had no holes in her head that would not have been there naturally, and was about as clean as could be expected. After their first meeting she was considerably cleaner on a regular basis. Her eyes would glitter when you looked into them. They were bright blue and no matter how you stared into them, it was the same as looking into a cut diamond with a light shining through it. . .

--------------------------

That's actually a lot more than I had intended to show, but I'm having trouble finding spots to cut it off. There are parts that I think are way better than this too, but I'm trying to save those for later.

Reconditioned

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:13:31 GMT

A haze fell over him.
His mind felt like it was on the brink of relapse.
Teetering between the point of forgetting old rules and beginning to be reconditioned.

Tenatively titled Coffee Monologue 2

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 21:42:40 GMT

03-31-08

8:07 AM - I've hidden myself away this time. It's been a week since I was last here and while I don't like being in these halls, my alternatives aren't any better.

Spending seven days under that roof again was almost surreal. Anywhere from 11PM to 2AM for the past three or so days was spent conversing with Zach. We mostly talked about getting me out of here; an idea that started out as a drunken joke and as the details unfolded, became more and more plausible. At this point, plans have been set in motion to exhume me from my hometown, and hopefully reincarnate me in Des Moins. I was almost starting to think this would never happen to me, but now that my move is into the preparation stages I've got no real complaints. We'll see how this goes.

I'm actually looking forward to almost every part of this. There's an almost Zen feeling you can achieve on long drives (especially when you're not doing any of the driving.) The hum of the engine, the blur of the passing everything out your window, the uncertain vastness of the distance you're covering when you've never made the trip before. . . the screaming 10 year old 2 rows behind you. It's all got it's place, some parts you have to force a little more than others. (I should remember to bring earplugs.) Still, I think with a decent supply of coffee, an overabundance of reading material, and perhaps some music, I should be fine with my just-over-16 greyhound travel hours. (Don't those things accumulate or something, or is that just for planes?)

It's almost strange to consider the music the optional part. I've got plenty of albums that I'd love to listen to, they're perfect travel/driving music. There's just something about watching the road pass by you while songs (like, for example: the entire Get Up Kids discography) are playing in the background. If you'd told me I'd be thinking of making a trip like this with no audio stimulation two years ago, I'd tell you we weren't talking about the same person.

I think that last part's more true than I first realized. I can't really say I knew myself two years ago like I do today, and two years from now I'll probably resent myself for writing these words because I'll consider myself wiser then than I am now. Just as I hate everything that I wrote over the course of the past two years. It never ends. I always feel the progress, but never the satisfaction that is said to come with it.

I think if one thing is definitely measurable it's the distance I keep people at. I've been steadily detaching myself from just about everyone I know. I don't know what end this is working towards, maybe a life without love? or just a life with only love for my work. A love of words. Maybe I'm trying to make room for other people. Maybe I just got too comfortable at arms length, and needed a bit more room to move. Again, I don't really know. Pragmatic/Cynical-Idealism is a funny way to live. The way I see it: No one else knows where they're going, but I'm the only one on my way there. My future holds hands with everyone I've ever met, and they're all a timezone or more away. I can feel their fingers, I can't hear their words.

I'm starting into this one slow. I've been mulling over these thoughts for almost 20 minutes. Letting them roll around in my head, like cigar smoke in a CEO's mouth. Tasting them. Choosing the ones to put down and the ones to save.

Out of context, that sounds like I've got some kind of God-Complex or something. I think I feel a bit more like a slave to the words than a master though. If I don't get them out they just keep rolling around in there. They collect dust, take up space. Eventually I'll have to swallow and either lose them, or cough them up in a big mess of controversy and bile.

Regardless of the process, I've barely touched my coffee. It's not worth it though. I've got a package to mail to Olivia. I guess I'll go take care of that.

9:35 - After mailing her package, and rewriting the note that I'd forgotten at home, I walked a few blocks into the town to get a new wick for my Zippo. Of course, when I get to the smoke shop, it's closed. Not like It's eight o'clock and they open at nine closed either. Closed like We'll open when someone in this city thinks of something to put here that will make them enough money to pay the rent on this primo fucking location closed. This place is fighting against me and the more I think about leaving, the more I fall in love with the idea. Maybe that's what I'm making room for. Maybe I'm saving all my love for the idea of being absent from here. I walk back.

With no food in my stomach, and that rot-gut coffee running through my veins, I've contracted a healthy case of the shakes. The 40°F weather outside doesn't help much either. I'm stuck between being cold and fatigued outside, or distracted and annoyed inside. Once again my unwillingness to use the health insurance that I might-or-might-not have comes into play. I take my chances with the snakes.

There's some jockey coming down the stairs now, his broad at his hip. They're both looking at me like I'm some kind of stain on their perfect little existence. That's exactly right.

If I'm remembered for anything, that's what I want it to be. I want to be thought of as piece of dissonance. I want my life to brush against perfection again and again, leaving it's mark. I want to be a bad taste in the mouth of a goddess. If I'm the only discomfort she's ever experienced, I've made her a better person.

1:00 PM - Except this. She's here again. I want to leave this porcelain clean. I'll let her be a kiln in my chest. An open flame, burning my thoughts at the sight of her skin. An unknowing engine. I record my inaccuracies like a hypergraphic. I lie into my own confessional. I reach past the veil before the bombing to grasp a fist full of air. I keep my trophy and retreat to these words. I will never have any more or less than this. I nurture it, and shield my lies from the flash and the din that follows.

1:25 PM - I'm running short on cash, I won't be having much more to drink. My inkwell is running down my gullet and I'm feeling tired. Later I might find myself asleep among the stacks. Discomfort overcome by fatigue. I think Burroughs used to say something about sleep, right? Some 20 word insight that librarians and critics flipped their shit over. I dunno. It was probably more about dreams than sleep, and the dreams were probably more like aspirations than night visions, but it doesn't matter.

4:28 PM -They're all gone now. I've still got four hours here, and they're all gone. Five. No, four. I'm not that tired. That shouldn't have happened.

5:20 PM - I met Bryan tonight in the music hall. He only had a few minutes to spare, but it was good to talk to him again. He's been thinking about learning to play banjo. This is a mental image I'll never be able to shake: One of the most brash, snot-nosed, no-regard-for-authority lone wolves I've ever met, sitting down with a 5 string playing "Deliverance." Hearing this news is probably going to be the highlight of my week.

More and more, Bryan is turning out like my father. I could see them being almost the same person if my dad was 20, or if Bryan was almost 50. My father hates Brian. I've always found this funny for two reasons; the first of which being the one mentioned just a second ago. The second reason is because I'd trust Bryan with my life. He's made his share of mistakes - like everyone else - but he's probably one of the most trustworthy people I know.

I guess I trust him so much because I've seen what Bryan is about. This is the same reason my father hates him. My father tries to hide any of the non-positives in this world from his immediate family. I relate his fear of our experiencing the unpleasant, with the fear of the unpleasant itself. I associate his protective nature, with weakness. I think he feels himself to be the only thing standing between us, and the rest of the world.

I hate that ignorance.

I hate his guilt. I hate the ideas that he's ingrained into my mind like I hate the church: Good ideas used for manipulation, and he's as good at his game as the Vatican. I can not think straight when I get a 20 minute lecture at 2AM about him breaking his back all day in the freezing rain and then he starts asking me what I plan to do with my life and why I'm not moved out yet. He's grown into his God complex. It didn't develop, it was always there. He took 50 years to realize it's full potential, but now that everything in his head fits, there's no stopping him. He will never be wrong. He has never been wrong. He will never let you forget that.

He believes himself a protector of the so-called good that he envisions in the people around him. He lies to himself, feeding off his want to be this guardian.

I hate his pain. I hate how easily he is heartbroken, and that he genuinely believes himself to be this shining protector. Half of his pain is produced from that ideal that he holds for himself. He wishes himself a gate, letting in only the filth that will behave in his family's presence.

I don't see any of this in Bryan, because he feels no need to try and protect me. He does not afford me a shielded existence, or unnecessary comforting words. I do not want them. They are trash. I want truth more than protective lies.

Everyone you can associate with here holds sin with the weight of an island on their backs. The only angels have taken refuge in the gutters. They know the old filth doesn't want to be here any more than they do, but they're abandoned now, with the horrors taking to the streets. So when you're broken, when being stepped on is the kindest act bestowed on you this year, then you bed with wet leaves. You cozy up to the sewage, and you know that for you it doesn't get any better.

6:10 PM - Silence can be far more disturbing than the background noise most people mistake for it. I'm not sure if it's the fear of cracking the quiet, or the fear of questioning afterward that keeps people silent.

Do not be afraid of noise.
It is a sword, a shield, to be used and protected.
To reject it is to accept an open invitation to the grave.
If you fear noise
this is the only place you will find real silence.
This is the only place you will be happy.

-----------------

Audio coming later?

Watching the sky. draft 1

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:22:43 GMT

On top of this building, it was easier to see. Everything could look just how I want it to. It could be dusk, and everything have a reddish glow, or maybe it's just after sunrise, when things look their freshest. There could be a big crowd gathered because of a car crash a hundred feet away, or it could be the dead of night, and not a soul for miles. Any way I wanted it.

All the same I knew I should open my eyes. When I did, I laughed.
In my concentrating on the possibilities, I never noticed the rain.

I was soaked, and the sky full of rolling black clouds. I reveled in the grey of the sky, and the road, and the sidewalk. "Better than I could have imagined it" I said to myself, happy to be alive at this exact moment.

I watched the sky for a few minutes. I laughed at the drops, and felt inspired by their persistence.
I looked out on the scene, and after a few minutes of appreciating the uniformity of man and nature painting this picture all one color for me, I jumped.

The Dust Horse

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:05:41 GMT

This house is like an forgotten disease. A tumor that I'd extracted with an old rusty pair of pliers and a six week old shaving razor. Being back in it is strange, and any new attempts to breathe life into it are being met with the most surprising resistance. The only thing I can really do to stave it off is retreat to what little space I've got, and attempt to streamline there. I've got Achilles playing on the stereo, that keeps most of the other inhabitants away, save for them coming in from time to time to tell me that they need more firewood. I scratch their back, and they attempt to break my spirits.

The record just ended, I like to let it run for a bit and use the *thud* *thud* *thud* as a sort of list. For every bass movement that comes from the album not restarting, I think of what I've accomplished. Of course I'm the only person who enjoys this, and so halfway through my tally I am interrupted, and have to act like I was just about to flip the record over. Instead of seeming like I'm using it to preserve my intimacy with the dust and stains that I'm working on removing.

Again, the record finishes, and to avoid redundancy I change it. I don't have many heavy records right now, so I've got to choose carefully. 'Witness' should work though. I walk out into the kitchen to brew another pot of insomnia. It's going to be a long night, but after I'm done I should be able to wake up okay tomorrow. I should be able to climb out of bed instead of having a wall of resistance and thinking well I'll just get up in 5 minutes and then pass out for another 2 hours. Resting in a the waste.

I stop the record to go outside and burn some of the papers that have been strangling my bookshelves and dresser drawers. When I come back inside I smell like chemical smoke. My dad alerts me of this by making a comment about attracting women, as I unload the heat source I've trekked in from outside. Man, you must be beating the women off with a stick. You smell like that all the time? I have nothing better to do than ignore him. Let him continue watching television and thinking he's clever. I'd grown tired of his humor about the same time that I got interested in female anatomy. Now he's just another thing I have to deal with when I visit. Almost like a hospice, I come around at those times of year when it's socially unacceptable for me to be alone.

When the runts tire on command, the spinning stops. I've got 4 cups in me and a few extra pens.
. . .and shut down.

With little information about Freud

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:16:55 GMT

"I think I read somewhere that Freud was the one who said telephones symbolize desire." Adam said, staring blankly into his drink. "They represent longing better than any other physical manifestation. Think about any movie you've ever watched," he looked up across the table to Don "especially ones from like, the 40's and 50's. A dark street, it's raining, and there's some dude standing in a trenchcoat and a fedora trying to call his woman from a payphone."

Don nodded. Listening silently.

"What's even better" Adam continued "is when the connection breaks - you know, from lightning or whatever - or he can't get through because the line's busy, or dead, or something. Then he's got no choice but to go out in the rain and visit her at her place. It's the ultimate display of the weakness in the human condition." Adam sat back, feeling smug. After a moment, Don spoke.

"What about windows?"

"Huh?" Adam grunted, wondering what the hell windows had anything to do with anything.

"Windows. Did Freud ever say anything about windows?"

"Oh, I dunno. I never studied the guy or anything. I just read that somewhere. Probably one of those newspaper articles where the writer starts out with something unrelated to their real topic, and tries to tie them together in some abstract way. You know, makes 'em seem clever."

"I guess"

"Anyway, why'd you ask about windows?"

"Oh I dunno. They just make more sense in my mind." Don explained "It's more timeless. People have always had windows, they didn't always have telephones."

"Well, before telephones it was letters."

"Yeah, but still. Using your logic, how many of those movies you were talking about had scenes where there was some girl lookin' out a window, probably with violins or a piano playing in the background. The camera slowly zooms in on her looking out the window, then past her to just the view outside the window. After that it snaps to whatever she's supposed to be thinking about. Her kids, or someplace far away, or that dude at the payphone."

Adam nodded. "Alright, I see what you mean"

"Plus - again, using your logic - think about a phone booth. It's made of glass, and there's some metal around the edges to hold it together. When you stand inside it it's a giant 4-way window.

"Windows can also be kind of vain."

"How so?"

"Well, they reflect. Not like a mirror, but partially."

". . . Your point being?"

"Telephones can't connect to themselves. If you try to make them, you get a busy signal. There is no possible singular-mode for a phone. Excluding cell phones and nonsense that we've got today. A window can keep you occupied with yourself if you let it."

"Ok"

"Plus" Adam continued "A window can act as a barrier. It allows you to think safely, inside this bubble. Like saying I'm-different-from-what's-opposite-me."

"Well, I mostly meant open windows." Don said, attempting to defend his point.

"Then that's a whole different ball game. Literally." Adam smiled. "You're not talking about a window, you're talking about a hole."

"Right, but I hardly think a hole symbolizes desire."

"I'm pretty sure Freud would disagree with you there man" Adam laughed.

"Well, if you took it in the perverse sense, then yeah."

"Man, this is Freud we're talking about here. Everything with him was about that shit"

"Yeah, but I meant like, dropping something you don't want down a hole to get rid of it" Don stated, attempting to correct his point.

"Latent desires manifesting, repression of urges. I'm telling you, this guy covered everything."

"I thought you didn't study him?" Don inquired, feeling like he'd brought a cinder block to a shooting gallery.

"Well, I did a little reading after hearing that quote. Just a few periodicals and shit though, it's not like I wrote my doctorate thesis on the guy.

"Right." Don paused "I thought modern psychologists have been finding recently that Freud was a crackpot though?"

"I don't know anything about that man. I just thought the phone thing was interesting."

"Yeah, it was something I saw on the news the other day."

"Ah. Right, well man" Adam said, standing up "I gotta run. I've got a job interview in 15 minutes. See ya around." He put on his coat. "You and Liz coming over to watch the game tonight?"

"Yeah man. Laura and I will be over around 5, 5:30"

Adam, feeling like a fool, lit a cigar he'd been keeping in his pocket. "Right, sorry man. Laura. Got it. Ok, see ya." He walked away, puffing.

"HEY!" Don shouted after him "I told you to stop smoking those damn things."

Adam turned around. "Calm down dude, it's just a cigar."

------------------
I'm not experimenting with formatting or anything, it's just livejournal isn't very good with indentation. Whenever I add extra spaces at the beginning of sentences, they don't show up in the post. This is just easier on the eyes.

This is also the product of more coffee.

Tenatively titled Coffee Monologue 1

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:10:54 GMT

So I had this idea the other day. I've decided that any time I find myself drinking a cup of coffee, I'm going to write. I'm going to write whatever comes into my head, and if nothing comes into my head, I'm going to write about drinking coffee in my surroundings.

Here's the results.
March 19th

8:09am - Even the bricks here are faded. The people here, the environment, everything. It's all so characterless and crusted. The people have become too dull to realize that they've all given up. Anyone over 40 has this I'm-making-the-best-of-things outlook. It's like they all manage to wake up in the morning and tell themselves the same lie. It's baffling.

My 2nd real cup of coffee today - I say 'second', counting the two half-cups from earlier this morning as 1 - is served by an older woman. She is of some kind Hispanic descent. She's probably in her late thirty's, early forties. Realistically, she doesn't look bad for her age. Will I see myself as old when I'm there? In fifteen years, will I consider myself old? I don't know.

The coffee is made with the same water that runs through the pipes in this place. It tastes like the dinge that infests the atmosphere here. It covers everyone's faces and conversations. It's sick, but not as sick as being half asleep and holding the same haze over my head as everyone else. I drink deep.

Watching the people here is good. It keeps me focused on where I can't end up. It keeps my head straighter than I often like to admit. While the mental stimulus that I've requested isn't worth half the money I'm dumping into this place, the deafening chatter of the everyday man consumed with things that don't matter - His expensive television, The game he missed last night, The kid who keyed his new-last-year SUV - almost makes up for the slack. For half my money I get told what to do, and for the other half I get shown what not to do. Repulsive.

There's a girl sitting 2 tables down from me. She's got this annoyingly condescending laugh, and doesn't pronounce the word "that" correctly. She's talking to someone about myspace, and it makes me want to take her phone and expel it into orbit. With a note attached. "Return to sender. Myspace url : "Insert URL Here". Why can't people just send letters anymore? Which reminds me, I need to write Tim back.

1:05pm - The 3rd and 4th cups come with lunch. Pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. I was lucky. I got to order "Lunch" at 11:55. The cook probably hates me for it. I'm sitting with Ryan and Chris, drinking coffee and waiting for our food to finish. While waiting we talk about leprosy, bad haircuts, and that bald guy who's into all of those conspiracy theories. All over those two cups of coffee.

I think when the world ends, I'll be doing just this. If I have any say in it, any kind of warning, this is how it'll go down for me. While everyone else in the world is trying their hardest to get laid as much as possible, or crying, or running around screaming, I want to be sitting in a diner. My only companion will be my favorite cup of black loneliness.

Now that I'm back at writing, and digesting my food, I find myself sitting next to a beautiful woman. She is porcelain. A china doll. She's not helping the process though. I'm thinking too much about her, and getting nervous for no reason. She's got the most perfect skin I've ever seen. It's unreal. Her children will probably be hideous. The world needs more beautiful minds paired with bodies like hers. I've heard her speak before though, she's intelligent. Maybe the world just needs more people like her in general.

She's probably got some Johnny waiting at the end of the line for her every day. Ring, ring.

She's stroking her hair now. She might be a bit more vain than I thought. That's a shame. (Thinking like this isn't helping the digestion either.)

She's quiet, book smart, and probably too scared of the unfamiliar for her own good. A damn shame.

I need another cup of coffee.

1:58 - She gets up and walks out. I don't know why, but I followed her. I guess I was feeling brave, or just lonely. Probably both. What the hell was I going to say to someone like her? Nothing she hadn't heard 1000 times before from some puffy haired yutz. Some slobbering grease ball with charisma up to *here* who just wants to get his dick wet. Then again, she'd probably think I'm no different, minus the charisma and some of the grease.

She must have forgotten something inside, because as she reaches the stairs, she turns around. When she faces me I smile, but she's staring at the floor. A practice that I'm more than familiar with. I move out of the way and silently continue down the stairs as if nothing happened. As if I was walking of my own accord.

It's raining outside. A fitting atmosphere for my mood, and my senseless behavior. Dreary. Grey. Tiring. I step into the rain and then step back under the awning. I pretend to check my watch, and look for someone until she walks out. This would be the part where a normal person would have tried to strike up a conversation. But normal people don't make accounts like this. I take a sip of my coffee.

She emerges with an umbrella. Proper planning I suppose. Another tally on the list of positives for this one. She doesn't see me standing there, or if she does, she doesn't acknowledge it. Maybe she was staring at the ground again, maybe not. I don't know. I watch her walk about 50 feet down the road, and then start out after her.

What are you doing? She's not going to be interested. Why are you following her if you're not even going to talk to her? I am going to talk to her. No you're not. You know you're not. Stop. Well, I could talk to her. But you won't. You'll make excuses like 'I'll say hi next time' No, I- Yes you will. Be realistic. Stop walking.

I stopped.

After watching her round a corner and head towards a parking lot, I started to feel like my old defeated self again. I turned and headed inside the gas station I happened to stop in front of. It's here where I acquired my 5th cup for the day. My portable social-insulation. I can feel the desire melt away with every sip. As I drink it down, the want is replaced by the bitter taste of late night conversations with no one. I am at home here. Within myself.

3:10 - On the way to where I've currently situated myself, I walked past some people I knew. Never a good experience. They were talking, exchanging the same kind of meaningless banter that gets tossed back and forth by everyone else around here. It's like a plague. A stone forms in my stomach thinking that they will ask me to join them. They look at me like they have no idea who I am though, and I'm pretty sure that one of them laughed at me. I shaved my head 2 weeks ago, and I've not yet been more thankful for it. The laughter is certainly something I'm used to, and so I'm allowed to continue walking in peace. The rain keeps me company, that's all I need.

As I start into the 6th cup I find myself sitting next to some student-actors practicing, maybe for a specific play, maybe just for personal betterment. Probably the former though. I find that most of my "peers" don't have any kind of ambition for self-improvement. If something is required, the task will be accomplished with minimal effort exerted. Regardless of why they are practicing, whoever the lead female role is, (while I can not hear the words she speaks, I can tell from her speech flow) she is terribly nervous. Either that, or she needs to find a new career calling. Hardly a heart breaker.

The actors have disband now, and it's quiet. The good kind of quiet that's usually reserved for fishermen, librarians, and pre-dawn athletes. People devoted to concentration. It's almost sacredly rare in public places. So I sit and enjoy my coffee for the moment. The only noise being the scratch of my pen on this paper.

A crowd of old women is passing me now. They've abolished my silence. My solitude being stampeded over like a fat American tourist caught on the wrong street during the running of the bulls. The women are talking about some people they know and television shows. Behind them, more people are coming. It's time for me to move. I walk back out into the grey, with my half finished coffee.

I walk past the actors sitting on a bench. They're discussing American versus European beer. A real couple characters, goddamn worldly assholes they are. I am filled with an inexplicable hatred for their conversation. I keep walking, my coffee keeping my hands warm. I take another drink and forget about the actors, there's no need to concern myself with them anyway. The truth is comforting like that, and my truth is that I have to keep myself focused. My truth is an oil slick. My truth is that there's little sunshine in my future, and I'm okay with that. The truth is comforting like sleeping someplace you wanted to end up. Like good memories. Like not regretting anything.

Like a hot cup of coffee.

Or, if you don't want to read that (it's pretty long) you can download an audio file of me reading it.
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/?nwycyttvujg
Sendspace: http://www.sendspace.com/file/0cl4d8
Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/files/101040581/coffee_monologue_1.mp3.html
Take your pick and enjoy.

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 02:56:57 GMT

I've got a kind of long thing that I'm gonna be recording and putting up for download tomorrow.
Also probably booking a 4th of july show. I'll post info about that too when I have it.

Relief

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 19:19:51 GMT

we wait in white noise
we abate rail car tension
we move in unison
we shout flash-bulb syllables
we work in disguise
we suppress diplomacy for the truth
we mock "early to bed" blinders
we exhume passion for one less night alone
we breathe the dust off and exhale familiarity
we filter thoughts with gravel tones
we praise the water dripping from the ceiling
we concede the failures of yesterday
we press complacency until we break
we hide here
we pass the torch along, carrying the fire
we harness our burdens to use like lifelines
we listen when spoken to
we hold on to every word
we use them to our advantage
we belong in the process
we find ourselves alive
we sing songs in lower case
we sweat in verse
we bleed in harmony
we live in chorus
we die outside
little by little
like everyone else.

Beginning of a short story

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 08:14:11 GMT

Staring out the window on the way over here, I started thinking about those new ad's that Charlie had told me about. The ones that run together to make a moving picture when you pass them real fast. Like on T.V. I wanted to ask him about them again, but this time I was alone. "This is an amazing time to be alive, you know? The guy who thought of that must be a real innovator, and after this there's only going to be more like him. People are constantly re-thinking the every day, the mundane. The human capacity for innovation is astounding." he always spoke that way.

Charlie was always on top of things like that too. He listened to talk radio and read magazines a lot in his apartment. He could always get the jump on you in a conversation.

I didn't want to put it like that. It's too early to be joking about it - even if it was accidental. . .
Charlie killed himself last week. He jumped out of his appartment window, down 3 stories, and landed face first on the sidewalk.

I know people say things like "Well at least it was a painless death" to try and comfort family and friends, but I don't think that's really the right way to think about it. As a matter of fact, I think they're lying to themselves. It must have been one hell of a release for him, and I'm sure the immediate exclamation point that was Charlie's blood stained remains was a painless one, but if he was lead to an end like this where did the pain start? What continued it?

Charlie was never the morbid type. I would know, we'd been best friends for almost 10 years. He never liked to talk about death, he hated the thought of not being alive to see what was going on. He vested more interest in life than the rest of the people on his floor put towards figuring out who was masturbating in the community showers every day. (It was clogging the drains!)

Disagreement

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 03:33:19 GMT

I kept the flashlight pointed just where you told me
and I kept staring into the jet-black pipes.
It cut down to where I almost lost my sight
in the dive-bomb tubes
sputtering against the 2am-freeway silence.
Against the skyscraper fog
repeating
twinkling on the pavement.
An ignitionless conversation,
swerving and turning down back-roads
and leaving us arguing over the left turn we made
back at the constant disappointment
that comes with morning-radio.

Bloodspitting

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 04:17:28 GMT

I drop a dead man's stare under suspicion
and wait for the echo. . .

I wait for the thud of dead weight
kissing the cold floor goodnight.

Digging myself to sleep with
a lullaby comprised of shovel-scrapes
and the filth under my fingernails,
I sift my motivation from
the walls in these tunnels.
The cracks in the 8-by-10's
and the veins in your arms
are twins separated at birth.
The ore of your iris
and the dark of your pupil
match the shade of the dirt slung
over my shoulder.

And the cave-in spills off of your lips.

It's on these black-lung nights that I can hear their
song. The shrill sounding off against all of
my wrong turns and second guesses.
Bouncing between "What-could-possibly-go-right?"s
and muffled coughs to rattle the lungs.
Hands thrust into a coat pocket, racing
the eyes to the floor. A wasted effort.

. . .As it lands I realize rock bottom has looked
like a good place to call home for some time now.

This will be sumitted to a poetry reading along with 4 other works.
I'd like everyone's opinion, does it feel together?
When I read over it, I feel like it seems scattered, but that might just be me looking at it from the wrong end.
-Thanks.

The sound of sirens in the distance

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 22:47:06 GMT

When I wanted to get caught I walked
the streets on the rough side of town.

The downhill slope. In a crowd of
vicious faces I saw a fading shadow

begging for matches to strike up
conversation. My failings forgotten

behind a veil of small talk and smoke;
I felt gunmetal grey turning to an

embers glow behind hour barred hands.
A smile ticking off the minutes.

In the end you were just composing through the movements. Another missed
chance. Another broken string, tuned to the sound of sirens in the distance.

hollow man

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 02:28:26 GMT

the winds come from all around
just to blow through you and see
what you'll say next.
the winds carry hope
leave it at the entrance
and forget it at the exit.

so try going a night without
floating on your blisters.
if we knocked the wind out you'd shatter
disbelief and "pride"
drifting in the rafters.
the train's almost come
widows standing at the station
watching the graying skyline.
old wind, cold at their backs.
waiting for you to come home.
waiting for you, hollow man.
you're empty handed.
they're waiting for you to come home
and disappoint again.

Calendar

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:16:27 GMT

I'm starting to believe that anything I plan in advance will - without fail - cripple at the sight of calendar pages to come.

book store

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 02:12:56 GMT

i always feel bad about doing this
writing down excerpts from poetry collections
because you're supposed to buy the book
and read it
instead of squatting in the isles
copying down lines
i don't have the budget to buy all these books
but i'd feel bad buying them
reading
and returning them
to get my money back

Untitled #3

Sun, 16 Dec 2007 00:57:08 GMT

just another day of drinking and waiting for things to happen
that invariably won't
another holiday season where i'm forgotten
between the weather and the piano
i can't even feel like i'm winning

between my low demeanor and wishful thinking
you pop up again and again
between the colds sheets and the lights blinking
and all the books i've half-way read
you're another i'm not sure about beginning

the drunks are all back in their homes
they've left me here to write alone
i'd like to call and talk to you
the phone's off the hook in the other room
maybe i'll try again next spring

Click here for audio

Alarm

Sat, 15 Dec 2007 05:17:42 GMT

it's still a few hours away
but i don't want to have to
look at those candles this winter
i don't want to meet eyes, or
construct smiles that make me as sick
as the candle holder

maybe i'll take your advice
and take that bus to albany
i don't think anyone would notice
i know i wouldn't have
if you didn't remind me

maybe i'll unplug
my clock-radio and pack my good clothes
i could take the money out of my wallet
and leave the wallet
i'd like to think i could be out
on my own
by now

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 05:58:36 GMT

I think I'm going to start doing voice posts, as well as text.
If I ever start updating during daylight hours, or get time alone with a microphone.

Behind Closed Doors

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:41:35 GMT

It's an ugly day
Cold, like in college
And I can't take my time to get to the post office
All the birds are taking practice shots shitting on cars
before they turn around and aim for me:
An unfortunately bright spot, on black pavement
It couldn't be worse
It's already raining
Exhaust fumes from these cars
mixed with trashcan signal markers
makes a scent that aches my head

And I can hear them in their houses.
I can hear them shouting
over televisions and barking dogs
I can hear the two voices
then one

And as I'm passing
I can imagine
the (now) wet floor
the kids in the corner
I can imagine
the bad lighting
like some shitty low budget film

And I wonder if she deserved it.