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I have 9 heads, but they're not thinkin' too fast
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| "It was close to midnight, so sometimes I get drunk both days. " |
[Nov. 16th, 2008|11:33 pm] |
On the anniversary of my father's death I drank coffee. I thought about crying in the shower but did not. I called my Mom who wants to fly me home. I wandered out because I thought I would die without seeing something different and feeling the air. I had a long conversation about alchemy and Narcissus. I thought about a birthday present for my roommate. I laughed with a near stranger about the necessity of chinstraps on viking helmets and also about burning tires. I told a joke to a street kid who told me it was her birthday. She already knew the joke but laughed anyway. I thought of a different joke to tell should the need ever arise again. I drank the Tanzanian and sighed at the novel in my hands. Mostly I listened. The moon was bright and cold, but sometimes swimming in clouds. Some kids wandered by singing the words to Wagon Wheel in shrieking monotone.
Last night, a man with a poorly concealed can of Coors Light told me he and his wife were separating and he'd walked three miles that night. I'd almost hit him with my car earlier, but he didn't remember. He also called me a beautiful woman and ranted about how I was the type of beautiful woman who would never give him the time of day. Then he settled right back down into an amiable beer haze, swaying slightly back and forth. I drank the El Salvador and looked out the window. I mowed down zombies and used WASD and survived. I talked to my roommate about female ejaculation and Catholicism. I took a vitamin and felt that I was burning with health. I smiled a lot. Mostly I listened. I drove in the cold Saturday morning sunlight, singing. |
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| the experience |
[Nov. 15th, 2008|01:37 pm] |
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I can say to myself "This is a place I've never been before," and that becomes as exciting as it is painful. |
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| Peace |
[Nov. 9th, 2008|12:26 am] |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 2nd, 2008|11:21 pm] |
I'm crying tonight. I'm crying for a makeshift family that once held me together out here on the plains. I'm crying for knowing more than I wanted to know. I'm crying for being violated. I'm crying for being betrayed. I'm crying for being left alone at my own hand. I'm crying for having to tell you to leave. I'm crying for all the pain that's broken loose again. I'm crying for the person I once was, even flawed. I'm crying for understanding. I wish I didn't understand. It hurts my heart so much more to know, and to know what I do, and to know that there is no one who can stand beside me on this one. This is mine alone to do. I have done terrible things.
I do not know that I am angry. I am apologetic. I have no answers. It just is. I'm not blaming you. I just feel a little used. I feel one last, heavy brick sliding into place. My own actions were deplorable. I was acting on cruise control, sometimes drifting over the center line, sometimes jerking awake when the gravel started to grind on the right. Is it so surprising, then, to see a flash of headlights and then nothing at all? The wheels are still spinning, but I don't have any solid ground beneath me.
I cannot say I am sorry, but that is hollow justification. Blessings on your journey, Atlantis. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 1st, 2008|10:04 pm] |
There's No Forgetting: Sonata
Ask me where have I been
and I'll tell you: "Things keep on happening."
I must talk of the rubble that darkens the clay;
of the river's duration, destroying itself;
I know only the things the birds have abandoned,
or the ocean behind me, or my sorrowing sister.
Why the distinctions of place? Why should day
follow day? Why must the blackness
of nighttime collect in our mouths? Why the dead?
If you question me: where have you come from, I must talk with
things falling away,
artifacts tart to the taste,
great beasts, always rotting away,
and my own inconsolable heart.
Those who cross over with us, are no keepsakes,
not the yellowing pigeon that sleeps in forgetfulness:
only the face with its tears,
the hands at our throats,
whatever the leafage dissevers:
the dark of an obsolete day,
a day that has tasted the grief in our blood.
Here are violets, swallows --
all things that delight us, the delicate tablets
that show us the lengthening train
through which pleasure and transiency pass.
Here let us halt, in the teeth of a barrier:
useless to gnaw on the husks that the silence assembles.
For I come without answers:
see: the dying are legion,
legion, the breakwaters breached by the red of the sun,
all the heads knocking the ship's side,
the hands closing over their kisses,
and legion the things I would give to oblivion.
--Pablo Neruda |
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| Cats! /throws hands in the air |
[Sep. 19th, 2008|08:49 am] |
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I come back to my desk this morning to find my Marco cat with his entire hind leg in my coffee cup...looking at me as though this is somehow my fault. |
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| Shanti, shanti, shanti |
[Sep. 15th, 2008|11:21 pm] |
This is not my land, but the moon shines everywhere.
Odin sent along in Máni's chariot all the things wasted on Earth. He sent misspent time and squandered wealth, broken vows, unanswered prayers, abandoned friends. The chariot was brimming with things wasted - chains to yoke fleas and cages for gnats, unfulfilled promises and favors, wasted talents. Máni carried the hearts of those who did not love and the memories of those who did not care to remember. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 12th, 2008|02:49 pm] |
Thank you for the cooler weather and the light of the sun on my face. Thank you for the signs and portents. Thank you for the crows that call outside my workplace, although they've been silent. Thank you for pine cones on tiny saplings. Thank you for cedar. Thank you for the tired smiles on the lips of people who have not smiled in far too long. Thank you for the rain. Thank you for the roof over my head and the food in my cabinets and the soft little cat feet batting at my knee. Thank you for just enough to get by.
Thank you for meteor showers somewhere behind the cloud cover and thank you for a perfectly clear moon and promise in the air. Thank you for realizations and strength. Thank you for destruction. Thank you for pain. Without these things I would not know what I now know. Thank you for fits and starts. Thank you for hidden truths breaking the surface. Thank you for love, however it comes and goes. Thank you for this path. Thank you for just enough to get by.
Thank you for hope. Thank you for all the dark hours when there is no hope. Thank you for driving me so far inside myself that I found what I needed. Thank you for reminders and history and things coming together and thing falling apart. Thank you for the irrational, the inconceivable, the mysteries, and that which cannot be analyzed but just is. Thank you for terrible changes. Thank you for the struggle so that I can learn. Thank you for what is still at my center. Thank you for the eyes I no longer recognize. Thank you for water. Thank you for silence. Thank you for life. Thank you for just enough to get by. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 7th, 2008|09:46 pm] |
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The night is too beautiful. If anyone wanted to pack a bottle of good port, a bouncy ball, and a smile then I could pack up some incense, some rocks, and some cigarettes. And maybe we could drown our sorrows in the reflection of the moon on the lake. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 3rd, 2008|06:36 am] |
Balsam of Gilead
Botanical: Commiphora Opobalsamum
Family: N.O. Burseraceae
---Synonyms---Balsamum Meccae var. Judiacum. Balsamum Gileadense. Baume de la Mecque. Balsamodendrum Opobalsamum. Balessan. Bechan. Balsam Tree. Amyris Gileadensis. Amyris Opobalsamum. Balsumodendron Gileadensis. Protium Gileadense. Dossémo.
---Part Used---The resinous juice.
---Habitat---The countries on both sides of the Red Sea.
---Description---This small tree, the source of the genuine Balm of Gilead around which so many mystical associations have gathered stands from 10 to 12 feet high, with wandlike, spreading branches. The bark is of a rich brown colour, the leaves, trifoliate, are small and scanty, the flowers unisexual small, and reddish in colour, while the seeds are solitary, yellow, and grooved down one side. It is both rare, and difficult to rear, and is so much valued by the Turks that its importation is prohibited. They have grown the trees in guarded gardens at Matarie, near Cairo, from the days of Prosper Alpin, who wrote the Dialogue of Balm, and the balsam is valued as a cosmetic by the royal ladies. In the Bible, and in the works of Bruce Theophrastes, Galen, and Dioscorides, it is lauded.
---History---Balm, Baulm or Bawm, contracted from Balsam, may be derived from the Hebrew bot smin, 'chief of oils,' or bâsâm, 'balm,' and besem, 'a sweet smell.' Opobalsamum is used by Dioscorides to mean 'the juice flowing from the balsam-tree.'
Pliny states that the tree was first brought to Rome by the generals of Vespasian, while Josephus relates that it was taken from Arabia to Judea by the Queen of Sheba as a present to Solomon. There, being cultivated for its juice, particularly on Mount Gilead, it acquired its popular name. Later, it was called Opobalsamum, its dried twigs Xylobalsamum, and its dried fruit Carpobalsamum.
Its rarity, combined with the magic of its name, have caused the latter to be adopted for several other species.
Abd-Allatif, a Damascan physician of the twelfth century, noted that it had two barks the outer reddish and thin, the inner green and thick, and a very aromatic odour.
The juice exudes spontaneously during the heat of summer, in resinous drops, the process being helped by incisions in the bark. The more humid the air, the greater the quantity collected. When the oil is separated, it is prepared with great secrecy, and taken to the stores of the ruler, where it is carefully guarded. The quantity of oil obtained is roughly one-tenth the amount of juice. It is probable that an inferior kind of oil is obtained after boiling the leaves and wood with water.
The wood is found in small pieces, several kinds being known commercially, but it rapidly loses its odour.
The fruit is reddish grey, and the size of a small pea, with an agreeable and aromatic taste.
In Europe and America it is so seldom found in a pure state that its use is entirely discontinued .
---Constituents---The liquid balm is turbid whitish, thick, grey and odorous, and becomes solid by exposure. It contains a resin soluble in alcohol, and a principle resembling Bassorin.
---Medicinal Action and Uses---It has been used in diseases of the urinary tracts, but is said to possess no medicinal properties not found in other balsams.
-----Other Species----
Abies Balsamea, Balm of Gilead Fir, orAmerican Silver Fir. The name is applied to this Canadian species, in Europe, because of the supposed resemblance of its product, an oleoresinous fluid obtained from punctured blisters in the bark, which is really a true turpentine, known as Canada Balsam or Canada Turpentine. Its odour distinguishes it from Strassburg Turpentine, which is sometimes substituted for it. It is diuretic, and stimulates mucous tissues in small doses. In large doses it is purgative, and may cause nausea.
Populus Candicans is called Balm of Gilead in America. The buds are used, and called Balm of Gilead Buds, as are those of P. Nigra and P. balsamifera, the product of the last being imported into Europe under the name of Tacomahaca. They are covered with a fragrant, resinous matter, which may be separated in boiling water, the odour being like incense, and the taste bitter and rather unpleasant. They are stimulant, tonic, diuretic, and antiscorbutic. A tincture of them is useful for complaints of the chest, stomach, and kidneys, and for rheumatism and scurvy. With lard or oil they are useful as an external application in bruises, swellings, and some cutaneous diseases. In ointments they are a little inferior to paraffin as a preventive of rancidity.
The bark of P. balsamifera is tonic and cathartic.
---Dosages---Of solid extract, 5 to 10 grains. Of tincture, 1 to 4 fluid drachms. Of fluid extract, 1 to 2 drachms. Of extract of the bark, 5 to 15 grains. |
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| For all the days that come and go |
[Jul. 31st, 2008|07:27 pm] |
Yesterday I watched a cedar tree grow heavy with rain. I watched it for a long, long time when I should have been working. Instead, I was thinking about you.
That probably sounds trite. But, the truth is, I wasn't able to convince myself to turn away. |
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| I am okay in the cold until I remember the warmth |
[Jul. 28th, 2008|12:57 am] |
All the little household gods
Have started crying, but say
Good-bye now, and put to sea.
Farewell, my dear, farewell: may
Hermes, master of the roads,
And the four dwarf Kabiri,
Protect and serve you always;
And may the Ancient of Days
Provide for all you must do
His invisible guidance,
Lifting up, dear, upon you
The light of His countenance.
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| (no subject) |
[Jul. 26th, 2008|04:04 pm] |
It's a sad song we always seem to be singing to each other
You and me, sweet and slightly out of key...
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| One of these days these days will end |
[Jul. 16th, 2008|02:43 pm] |
Now the years are rolling by me, they are rockin' even me
I am older than I once was, and younger than I'll be, thats not unusual
No it isn't strange, after changes upon changes, we are more or less the same
After changes we are more or less the same
Li la li...
And I'm laying out my winter clothes, wishing I was gone, goin' home
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| (no subject) |
[Jun. 15th, 2008|04:48 pm] |
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I should be more measured in my words instead of getting carried away for a fleeting moment of catharsis knowing that those words exit in other minds and hearts when dawn breaks. Some things are only true on the tongue for that instant and cannot be obliterated once they reach the air. |
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| Gravitational Collapse |
[Jun. 10th, 2008|08:42 pm] |
Once in a while, I think I smell autumn. The sun. Good coffee. Drying leaves. Out of nowhere, on the breeze for the barest instant. It smells like adventure, like a long night of mystery yet to be reaped. It smells like significance. Willing to do anything, go anywhere, touch everything, climb everything, chase moments, get lost, be found, run wildly, and laugh until we cry again. It smells like watching the sun rise over the river and being too tired to walk any further. It smells like river stones. Just for a moment. And I panic a little, because I know. I'd chase it anywhere.
Sometimes I stay up all night and wait for something to happen. Sometimes I stand outside too long, just staring into the stars. I keenly feel the force of gravity closing in. And when there is no more strength to push back, I'll wait to finally become that transcendental darkness, making myself known only by the force I exert. Drawing in anything that ventures too close to my horizon. Sometimes I just lie on my back and wonder if there is a catalyst left on this Earth that can ignite this silence into a star. |
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| Gnosis |
[Jun. 8th, 2008|04:17 pm] |
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It always comes to these crossroads, watching the moon wax and wane. Chasing echoes late into the night while storms rage and patterns of clouds race dark and light. I feel nothing at all. I stand outside and watch the rain come down on the sun-dried earth. My fingers grazing objects in a dream. The tension of a place as the skin stretches tightly in the shelter of this silence. The world moves around me and the world moves with me and the world moves in me and in the end I know how this story ends already. I am the unmoving center in this geometry. Measurable lines and angles, irrational absolutes. The breeze moves over my skin like an exhalation, the wind moves my hair, bruises the body, bruises the lips and still slides frictionless over the core. Skipping stones over the water, each path determined by uncontrolled forces and human error, I envy the certainty of the final plunge when the water's fragile surface no longer has resistance enough to push back. Idly tossing weight against the elements to prove my own faith in transience. I am enough in myself. |
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