This is the Vacant Parking Lot of Your Dreams

I dream Rock and Roll

2007-01-15T16:28:00.000-08:00

At 6.28 this morning, I promised myself
productivity.

By 8.28, I knew that once again
I lied
to myself.

It's a tricky business, promising yourself things.

I find that instead,
I am showered and ready for the day,
but curled up
under the blankets

missing things.

Oh, if only life could be simple...

(is that really what I want after all?)

{probably not.}

there are more than a thousand steps to the top

2006-09-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

I am surrounded by mountains like metaphors.

Each one with a different meaning
different challenges
different stairs
resting points
and peaks.

I just don't know if I have enough time for all
of these mountains.

The decision has been made, was made, will be made...and I shouldn't change it afterall.

2006-08-19T03:41:00.000-07:00

I'm feeling fickle lately

and my wandering
wandering
wandering
mind

isn't going to the places
I want it to go.

Instead,
it meanders further down
stream.

Alas.

This must be stopped.

Soliloquy on the dangers and benefits of loneliness

2006-06-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

When more words are needed, there are often times fewer things to be said.

An ending of one thing.

2006-05-02T21:45:00.000-07:00

How does death feel to a tree?

Things are slow
slow
slowing.

Ever have that feeling of contentment balled up in the pit of your stomach?

That's how I felt today.
And it wasn't the way I expected to feel.
Sometimes I'm eternally thankful for the unexpected.

This weekend bruised relationships with old friends were mended
and I suddenly found myself completely and effortlessly forgiving
a person I thought I might
never forgive in my lifetime.
He'll never know.

My eyes are tired and my heart is full.

Thanks.

Prophesy

2006-04-17T20:44:00.000-07:00

“..we hurry, with the greatest possible speed and noise and violence, through our recreation- for what? To eat the billionth hamburger at some fast-food joint hell-bent on increasing the “quality” of our life?”
- Wendell Berry

There was a flash of brown feathers
as the house sparrow above me
built her nest in the bottom swoop
of a red lowercase e
glowing on the orange brink storefront.

The glass doors part for my arrival
and I enter, bathed in the unholy
yellow buzz of fluorescent lights,
the oppressive glare of neon packaging.
I wander the field of shining red plastics,
shrink-wrapped flesh, and dried tropical fruit.
Electronic crickets and soulless birdcalls are piped
from speakers, the sign advertising the sounds of nature
for sale.

Outside the trees grow strong, their branches held loud
in prayer to St. Giles, their
ambitious roots
making waves in the paved sidewalk,
the only outward sign of struggle.

"How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface, to make a map of my movement--no matter how temporary." -Craig Thompson

2006-02-08T16:22:00.000-08:00

I have never wanted

so badly

to run up and down
the hallway
SCREAMING

FIRE FIRE
APOSTROPHE
ALASKA
SOUP

!!

I'm feeling all
lopsided,
balanced to the brim with
bottled up anticipation,
jittery toed, blue sky smiling,
like a sunshine colored fish in a blue tinted bowl

and maybe
a little more
incandescent
that I usually allow.

You'd think it was love,
and let me tell you,
maybe I wish
it was too,

More than likely,

I'm feeling intoxicatingly trapped in a place
that I both loathe and love.

Oh, how I would love to speak to animals in the manner of St. Francis.

2006-01-19T12:46:00.000-08:00

Ends of things

are pregnant with endless possibility
and finite impossibility.

At the end,
I will find

freedom

to move as I choose.

However

I lose

that stability that I prized perhaps
too little

when I had it.

I'm not really sure what happens afterwards,
but I (secretly) hope that it's great.

When I wake up
in the morning with the sun
sometimes
I crave Greatness.

Lately,
I have become
facinated by the saints.

All of those stories
All of that glory.

Never their own.
Ever.

Even though it's been five years, when a plane hits turbulence, I still close my eyes and pretend I'm on the Underground in London.

2005-12-28T22:42:00.000-08:00

There are moments when nothing seems right,
and yet
a single breath later,

I start to wonder how things could be any more right.

A single photograph can tell so much,
and also so little.

Have I let myself fall so low?

Or have I put myself up far too high?

Will I ever know the real truths of life, righteousness, love, and redemption?
Am I being honest with myself if I say that these are the things I want to know and see?

Or am I happiest among the broken, empty, and lost?

Can one ever really belong in a place?

If it was in Italian, I wouldn't understand the words anyway.

2005-11-11T21:02:00.000-08:00

My fingertips smell of stale coffee and peppermint.

If only my life could be an opera buffa.

I'd like to be the soprano, but one can't always be the soprano.

Someone has to be the mezzo soprano.

So perhaps I should accept my lot in this opera of life;
however, I think that tomorrow I may try out for the soprano's role.
I might be the perfect fit for the role this time around.

In alphabetical order now, please, children.

2005-10-02T17:02:00.000-07:00

What is the soul?
Really.
Where is it and what is it made of?
Is it developed and created, or is it something that we are born with?

Can we really say "Oh, she's such a good soul" or "that person is so cruel. they have no soul at all"?
Can we?

A small bit from my walking journal:

There's a man sitting on a bench near mine. He's stretched out and he's resting his back on a black bag. I'm pretty sure that he knows I'm writing about him. He's watching me. He's wearing glasses. He has gray and white hair.
When I walked by him earlier, I noticed that he's using a picture as a bookmark. It's a woman with long brown hair. Obviously in a studio. The background is blue.
Who is she?
What does she mean to him?
If I used a picture as a bookmark, whose would I choose?

summer moon on a cool night

2005-08-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

who would have thought i'd do it again?
(not i, yet here i am.)

a night in which all is possible.
yawn in the pale moonlight.

wander down those streets alone in the dark.
meet friends in dark places.
smile at drunken hugs and wholehearted laughter.

it's a good time to be alive, these days.
you can't argue that.

i've got my memory and my health.
(for the present moment)
these are things to cherish because,
as anyone who has truly lived knows,
these things are fleeting.