throwback blog. woo! let me know you read this, if in fact you do!

From this balcony, I can see the world

as i know it lately.

The bustling life that is college moves about below,

like a riot:

people running to and from the fight,

leaving for a while to rest, and

to take up arms again, later.

Calculating clouds mourn overhead

as people button their jackets and tie their scarves below.

Leisurely, is what it is,

the cold prodding the passerbys.

Now it's night,

and the splendid lights from a million

college flats and shacks twinkles between

the trees.

The cacophony of the unstoppable young

sits like haze over the town.

I sit in a broken lawn chair,

sipping my cigarette.

I look like like Kurt Vonnegut right now,

I think,

with my bent filter,

sizing up the world,

as i know it.

I feel aged and satisfied

with my woes and successes,

all piled up in a shopping cart on the street,

pushing, always pushing,

smelling of beer and cigarettes like all

the bums on every corner across this country.

And even as the peace settles over 

my young ragged body,

the beat of another tomorrow,

no not one, many tomorrows

pounds through the walls and through my chest.

What a splendid world it is indeed,

to die a million times every day,

and to be born again, to live, then to die,

then to exist once more.

The fire-bright stars sing to me tonight, 

held up by the glue of the world. 

you are so perfect in my mind.

i know that you aren't perfect, but i don't mind. 

I've been thinking a lot lately,

about life 

and love and the like, 

(a term lost on me thus far).

and the pursuit thereof.

I witness people in the midst of it,

I mean knee deep in the stuff,

and I can appreciate it

(I do really!)

but I don't really get it,

seriously.

I imagine it to be a state of mind

not at all unlike going out-of-doors on a perfect day

and enjoying the sun

and colors 

and the grandeur of it all,

When

I can be a do-nothing

and be alright with it,

just sitting around

basking in the stuff.

But there are sometimes it just seems

like killing time,

waiting for something to happen.

But

this begs the question,

What takes precedence over this?

If this is not how we're are to squander life,

then how?

It's possible

I'm not cut out for the job,

doomed to live a single existence.

(I'm fine with that I guess, really I can be.)

But I don't know man,

I'm just rambling.

To clarify,

I believe love

or whatever

to be a stronger force than my

appreciation of the out-of-doors,

every single day of the week.

And life is a series of bus passes,

our job is to make our transfers and get where we're going.

me,

(and everyone else, really)

are led to believe that after seven hours of working 

straight on anything,

you start to go a little crazy.

and

well,

this may be true an all, 

but it all i want to do is work harder

and longer

and then i get caught up and 

forget about everything

and everyone. 

I had to slice a part of my finger off with a blade,

by accident, honest

to slow down and chill.

my finger wouldn't stop gushing

and i bled all over my long hard work

almost.

***

i stand outside smoking another cigarette

waiting to talk to someone.

it's surprising calm outside and i hear a lonely

drip

dripping.

it's the drain pipe, with stale drops of water

falling all the way from the top.

We talk.

it goes well, 

well,

as best as it could, 

which is better than i thought.

i chew some gum to get rid of the tobacco taste

but it cuts right through 

peeling the paint from the inside of my head.

***

i'm playing piano now,

lots of chords,

a big cluster-fuck of the whole goddam scale

which dissipates 

into a bass driven run across all the keys,

all of them.

my bloody fingers busts open again

and my tracks are left

like paw prints

across my favorite keys.

***

i'm showering, finally.

on the bathroom radio,

a mix from my friend plays.

this one,

it's saved my days often,

and now it's working again.

the warm water is it's own reference point in my day.

i enjoy the water as best i can

as music from far away echoes around the room.

Now it's bob dylan.

"simple twist of fate!

it's just a simple twist a fate!!!"

this is the cleanest i will feel for a while

because when i get out of the shower,

my fingers will still smell like cigarettes. 

***

but listen, 

i made a new mix today,

  a really good one,

which works almost as well as the other.

i'm listening to it often, maybe i'll send it to someone.

yea, maybe i'll do that. 

"the city is a million miles away"

mirah tells me.

and really,

she's right. 

(in lots of different ways.)

i'm riding my crappy 80's road bike

around the outskirts of town

(which isn't as far as it sounds.)

it's the darkest shade of night,

as i duck in and out of street lights,

escaping lots of things.

with the recent purchase of my bike

comes the recent option for escape

from the dorm rooms and den chairs

that occupy my nights,

from the campus riddled with buildings 

which have nothing to do with me 

and only a handful that I frequent,

from the main campus drag 

with the gas station 

and twenty four seven copy shop.

so i'm not there.

i'm here, 

on my bike.

and i'm thinking this:

i wish i had a process of disambiguation.

and conversely, ambiguation.

i'm patenting that shit,

if i ever figure it out. 

see,

some things 

(like school work 

and my pseudo-librarian job)

make all too much sense.

and the goal is known.

i wish i could reinterpret these things,

and prioritize as i please.

maybe, 

i'm just getting society's morals pushed upon me,

like being forced into a body bag. 

maybe.

Also,

some things need

and deserve

an answer.

some people deserve an answer

(including me!)

but really,

i think i'm supposed to come up with

the answers and the like.

woops. 

Cigarettes and ibuprofen are saving my life

and killing me all at the same time.

and short brisk walks to and from 

here and there

and a poorly planned stairwell 

create an all to obvious

(and awkward)

divergence.

speaking of which,

i'm off the main road and 

riding down the windy bike path

skirting the watching eyes of,

well,

no one in particular. 

"so simple, yet so complex"

mirah sings on.

i wish i could ride my bike all day long.

Nostalgic romances that I never had,

to the tune of 80's pop songs,

are rolling in and out of my head.

Not at all unlike

the thunder outside on this

stormy night.

Man, thunder 

really knows how to move

in this state.

Thunder 

really knows how to get down.

Doncha kno?

HQ on central campus.

for lesley

I have a severe case of bad timing, here and now. I’m sitting in Philosophy 230, a class regarding moral theory and practice. I’m almost halfway through the class and I am extremely bored.

I’m pretending to be a landscape architect instead of a philosopher, sketching a scene of a plaza between two buildings. My design has a fountain and curved ramps and steps made out of concrete. And room for hotdog stands, those are important. A friend and I once were discussing architects, and he told me how Lou Kahn made concrete beautiful and this other architect whose name I forget made concrete sexy. I don’t know what I’m trying to do with concrete, which makes my design flawed at the basest of levels. And that’s why I’m pretending.

The man next to me is sacrificing his note space for giant block of black ink that occupies the majority of his notebook page. As he continues to fill it in with his bic pen, he looks absolutely ecstatic, like a child playing with gravity for the first time. He draws all class, never looks up, and the block grows and grows in size. 

The guy to my left, yea he just keeps writing FML on his page over and over.

I enjoy the teacher for the class. She keeps the class simple and uses life examples often to prove her point. So far today she has referenced people stranded on a rock, ice cream, and dead babies. She really liked her ice cream metaphor; she was taking about her favorite flavor of ice cream, but she looked like she had won fifty dollars instead. Her favorite flavor is chocolate. Mine is mint chocolate chip.

This class is no simple lecture, it relies on eager classmates to fuel class debates  for almost the entire class period. Our teacher is a mediator, and as much as she may like chocolate ice cream metaphors and knows her concepts, she doesn’t have the ability to see when class discussions go wrong and stale. Because of this, often someone would say something along the lines of these:

“Nazi Germany was full of Communists, we just disagreed with them and did what we thought was right.” 

Or:

“You better be clear I’d be after that son-of-a-bitch if he raped and murdered my wife. I’d kill that motherfucker!”

Or:

“I mean, this is a difficult concept. Okay, so like, really. If we look at both sides, like, I don’t know.”

Or:

“I agree.” 

And those are the only people in class that speak. Now here it is, here’s my real problem- it’s not that I don’t care about what we discuss, it’s that I don’t have the time to structure a good argument, and neither do my classmates. I’m sure they’re smart enough, but when they get four seconds to piece together complex philosophical thought, it comes out wrong almost always. And when I’m lazy and tired, which is more and more often lately, I skip the step of defending their arguments against myself, and just think of them as stupid arguments. I don’t want to be that guy, I tell myself, the guy who thinks other people’s arguments are stupid. Because the next step is to think the people are stupid. I never want to be that guy. 

Oh, and the bad timing thing. There was a time and place where I would enjoy debating and stretching my mind around grey-area concepts. Unfortunately, that time was about two years ago. I never thought I would have as little disregard for philosophy as I do now. Is it because I’m not learning it on my own? Is it the classmates? Is it the puppy-dog-esque teacher? I think that’s it, the teacher. But I don’t know, really.

I was getting on the bus the other day, working my way through the isle to find a seat. I started to sit next to a kid, when he stopped me and started explaining with much enthusiasm that his girlfriend was getting on at the next stop and he promised he'd save her a seat.

"Swear at me all you want, I ain't gonna move. I'll even fight you," he said

"Settle down man, I don't want to fight you. I'm not even going to swear at you. That's cute and courageous, you earned that seat," I told him. It wasn't until later that I meant it. 

At first  thought he was lying. There were plenty of open row seats and I maybe he just wanted some extra room. I might have done the same if i had the nerve. But as I found another seat next to a sleeping man, I watched this jittery little kid guard the seat as if his girlfriend was already sitting there and people were trying to sit on her, right there with him watching. This kid, he radiated the epitome of youth on a bus full of hum-drummers lost to the stale routine. He stood out, not in a good or bad way; he just did. 

As we passed stop after stop the kid's girlfriend never got on and from the precious spring of elation, the kid folded into his seat and started to blend into the bus crowd with his newly found teen angst. Someone sat in his prized seat and he jumped as if to defend it further, but settled again into his depressed state. 

To be young and expendable yet resilient is a wonderful thing. 

I fell asleep eventually, and when I woke up, the kid was gone. 

getting lost

living two different routines is a strange thing. 

after getting back to iowa, and spending time with people after a month back in louisville, i realize how easily i slip from one established situation right into another.

different parts of my person are stressed between the two, keeping me the same person, but it feels different.

on the ride back from des moines my friends and i took a wrong turn and we ended up on a deserted road with white fields of snow stretching to the few lights that dotted the horizon.

at first i didn't really realize it; it was a weird situation we had gotten ourselves into and could, for the most part, get ourselves out.

then i checked myself and took note of where i was. 

i was in the middle of corn fields, in a state rooted strongly in a culture i have never been a part of. 

i was on a gravel road seen rarely by even snow plows in an old chevy that could easily be overtaken by the snow.

i had no idea how to even give someone instructions on how to find us if we had gotten stuck. 

i was in the middle of nowhere.

then i came down and shared the moment with the people i was with.

we turned around and made it back into ames, to somewhere, yet we were still in the middle of nowhere. 

my room is exactly how i left it.

i had no bags to unpack, since they got lost by the airlines, so i went right to all the same things i was doing before i left.

weird, huh?

#3

home life, 

living at home, 

is exactly the same as it has always been.

My dad 

still fixes up the house every weekend.

he still

finds ways to slip me 20s and cover the small things.

he

tries so hard to let me live like some kind of upper-class kid

without me realizing it.

"no dad, i'll ride the bus i don't want to drive."

"i like goodwill dad."

 see, he grew up poor

with only a mother too afraid to let anyone see

she was afraid.

he still

tries so hard to make everyone happy that he to often

forgets about himself

which in turn makes me

pretty damn sad.

I wish he could realize how good of a parent he is,

and that no matter how hard he tries,

he can't make up for the 42 years

his dad has been gone.

My mother

still mirrors my grandmother with every passing day.

she is

always on her feet, doing something for someone.

and if you're sitting nearby, 

she'll bring you a bowl of pretzels without you asking.

she's always

thinking about anything related to her children

and

as much as i want her to be wrong,

she's usually right about lots of things.

she's 

fucking good at her job,

to raise money for a small college.

i saw her speak to some people she works with and 

she can talk to anybody.

she'd probably bring saddam hussein a bowl of pretzels 

if he was sitting in the next room.

my sister 

is different from me,

which makes giving her life advice,

which i'm supposed to give her,

hard.

she's still struggling

with her health,

with being overweight,

with making friends,

with picking which high school to attend.

see, i don't think she even knows

what kind of people she wants as friends,

and i sure as hell don't know.

my mom might.

her friends don't really call

and she plays it off as though 

when i get back in town, we'll hang out

but we never really did.

and she goes through hobbies

to keep herself out of boredom.

i see my father and mother struggling 

with my sister on so many fronts.

to keep her self esteem up.

to distract her mind

from pain.

i want to help so bad,

but anything i offer is only temporary 

because things will change

and i will leave.

and i can't say when i will be back 

for sure.

 

my mom leaned over to me in church yesterday

and said she was glad i was able to be home.

that's when it struck me that i was somewhere,

but i don't know if i would call it home.

#2

tonight i got caught up in

a movie!

a decent one, too. (!)

The guy, he was counting cards to

pay for college.

At one point i got so

involved

i had to pull myself back and

examine my own situation

as a kind of

reality check.

At first i was relieved to realize

nobody is going to beat me up over playing

a friendly game of blackjack.

but

then i realized i still have to pay 

for college.

this made the movie somewhat less

entertaining

and a little more

disheartening. 

maybe i should start counting cards. 

#1

Here’s our man

in the basement of a building

constructed circa late 60’s,

his home, Looavull.

Looavull, Kentucky

no scratch that. 

in a basement-esque room in Iowa.

Ames, Iowa.

he’s playing nostalgia,

an air guitar.

his hair plays trampoline over his nose,

over his eyes.

his torso plays rocking chair

his feet play hot invisible coals under his feet.

and

his ears play late-teen alt pop punk

constructed circa mid 90’s. 

and reconstructed here,

and now. 

and now,

and every moment of these lines, 

until they end.

oblivious to him,

we exist. 

he will die first and we will die

never.

we watch him play,

whatever.

he will always be doing whatever,

but he will not always,

has not always

played.
we’ve been watching this man for a-

while 

and

I will recall

for you

(lazy bum)

our man, he doesn’t play

often.

his bedroom rock ecstasy

is intermittent,

interrupted by

Work

and 

Necessity. 

and

Contemplation. 

not that work can’t be fun,

and contemplation can’t be enlightening,

but

these are by no means adequate forms of

playing. 

only adequate means for

existing. 

(you have to make up your own

goddam mind if that’s good or bad. you

have to do some of the work)

as he abruptly skips 

two of the boring minutes and ends the effing song,

they cry,

we cry,

Encore!

Encore!

Encore!

***

No, scratch that, our man is in McDonald’s.

there’s a fucking billion of those.

pick one, wherever,

(I’m picking Utah)

and put him on a table,

jumping and

kicking trays and

meat patties 

all over McD’s playing his axe

while

mothers and fathers of Utah

(or wherever)

shield their young 

impressionable

children from the sheer atrocity of

play

elevated

(literally)

to such a level. 

 #this kind of thing should be limited to the confines of your room! child!#

(he’s fourteen, 

maybe,

here,

and now

but only for a few more lines)

can this level of fun be had

on the sticky tiled floor?

the answer is a definitive

maybe

play can only be achieved when one gathers

the jealous looks of those not able 

to have fun. 

***

Now he’s in california somewhere,

now Maine,

or wherever.

point being,

home is a four letter word.

and he still won’t know where 

to send his mail next year.