The Silence of It

"Then you're lying to YOURSELF ! " she suddenly yelled. 

And they both fell silent on the phone with the echo of it. The shock of her never-raised voice,
( and ) of his constant reserve.

The aching silence of wanting, without him entirely being able to. 

The pounding mess of it - that they'd been trying to replace.

( ( ( 

But they were so good before.
When they took the city.
Ohhh, and when, and when... when they danced… she kept spinning him 'round while he laughed. Pulling on his tie and his heart until the music wouldn't breathe. 

And he stopped, and took her hand,

and said -

"trust me once, just follow me once. 

we've got to stand on that Ledge, cause there's nothing to fear….stop shaking baby, 

look -you're up so high and I've got you tight" 

She really would have kept him for a little while. 

But the past, you see, has a dagger out for the remedies we find to fight the memories - when vices won't suffice. 

When fearlessness calms. 

So he goes back in the boxing ring till his muscles go numb. Till her perfume fades from his neck. 

And she goes back to never sleeping alone.  

) ) ) 

"Stop shaking baby, stop shaking and tell me about something else. Let's talk about something other than us. 
So I can talk to you one more time" 

But her voice broke and wavered.

And she hung up the phone.

And he called back over and over, as she watched it blinking in the darkness.
But never answered.

Eventually they went silent again.

Headphones: The Swell Season's "Leave" and "Low Rising"

Travelin Man

He leaves possessions in all the homes of the women he's had. (all those beautiful, captivating women.) There's worn-down books handed over at dusk, and painted stones and postcards...and framed pictures face-down in boxes. -
Think maybe, he thinks those things will lead him home when he's done.
When he finally picks a home.
Cause he's a ramblin', travelin' man...
Speaks softly, grasps gently, walks quickly, smiles downward...and sleeps alone even when he's not.

And when I had him - when I had him he carried a music box in his pocket and lingered with the dust of the road on his boots and tires.
He listened to jazz, arrived early, and left for the day at first chance. Holes in his suits and my scarf round his neck.

That was a few characters (we've played) ago.

So just once a year - I unlock the back of an antique box and take out a postcard - trying to remember all those tiny loving moments of the everyday of him -
But it's somewhere in that distant, flat scope of land out there.
It's just the echo that I can brush clean, barely. Once in awhile, with a smile.

Melting into Strangeness

And then in the morning the first snow fell. 

After the breaking point was hit. After the foggy, smoggy glass 

was dripping 

clear 

with each furious, 

tiny, burst. 

Furious - 

in that flurried, fluttering - 

excitement 

for a fleeting fall 

- it'll hit the ground and halt. 

But it'll make the most beautiful forgotten trails. 

It'll melt. 

It'll let me steal from it - 

and crush the infamous pieces 

into daubs of paint - 

deep cuts of paint

and ink

and burns. 

And melted wax. 

I've been missing melting into strangeness. 

Been suffocating the roaring madness within for a hand to hold. Just a hand.

I hardly was let to know the force of it. 

It slips 

so quickly then. 

It dulls 

so easily then. 

When you've known the greatest creatures - 

who always left the door 

unlocked in the roughest part. 

Who allowed the touch. 

Allowed the desperate 

condensation of hours - to be lost into sounds. 

How it makes my madness growl now. 

How it tingles - 

hearing the piano keys speed in tempo 

echoing the sound 

against the very orchestra rafters. 

Listen. 

Listen to the excuses to leap. 

First Chill

I love Chicago when it's finally cold like this. When it truly belongs to the locals who can survive certain things bitter. When there's wet fallen leaves all over the dropping-light of the early evening walk home...

I'm so fascinated by the people - by how they act, and react now- with more barriers between the outside world. More barriers piling up, before the snow piles up where the rain puddles are now growing, and growing murky with yellow leaves….

But I cherish that. I ache for all the layers - the precious layering of different textures. The lace, the wool, the denim and the over-washed cotton, the black on black on grey…. on the black and blackened concrete that sparkles grey like this… 

Not quite white. Not quite warm and sunbaked anymore. Not quite so demanding. 

It makes me desirous. So much more the desirous, of everything to flow and come and burnnn so good…

So please, burn my face with the cold wind. And burn the imprint of a palm into my waist.

The tombs, the wall, on which ochre gets painted by ancient fingers. Tracing a genetic trail of images that one eye found interesting. 

Tracing the line of places that one soul found welcoming….throughout a million seasonal changes. 

I could spend all my days now hibernating and writing - if only there was such an indulgence. If only there were months for paintings, and mornings for tea in bed and watching the schoolchildren pass, and evenings for wine and long talks of life, and nights for all the embraces he readily brings, that I long for. 

If only there was time. For everything. 

If only there was an outline to play between, and break apart, and settle into when the wind was just a bit too rough, even for me. 

But for now it's my season. It's when there's family, and red candles that melt the tablecloths, and champagne, and welcome hugs….and there's delightfully chilly dotted lines to make all around this expansive city of steel. 

It's letting itself be cold again. 

It's letting itself remember its strength, 
And its roots -

That'll soon be captured with delicate pounds of snow. 

By the Church

I wonder what it's like to sit below that little Fall tree, by the gothic Church there, - basked in the nighttime green&yellow light of the streetlamp above and mossy bark. I'd rest my wearied legs + limbs atop the city concrete and just listen to all the moving things....
Rustling leaves, clicking traffic lights, passing cars, distant voices...and my shaking hands and pounding heart. Wish it would rest.
Wish I knew all the answers to the unstarted sentences. To the unfinished memories - moments - that just...went interrupted. -- Pardon me, I've got work to get back to at my desk.
And none of it could ever be real.

None of this great wide & steel city could be real at any sudden moment. Though I see it all around, and all around it does sparkle and egg me on, to call on, any - every - strange face in all the crowds.
It still thrills me here somehow.


Sigh. I'd lean with that thought back on my elbows and feel the soft sting of little pebbles digging into my cold skin. But it'd feel so fitting.

And who knows what I'd learn there.
Who knows where the hell you and I are headed. You seem as confusing and countless as the entanglement of leaves above that I so...I so...wish to have more of.

So tell me you'll meet me. Tell me you're already here. And tell me it'll be alright.
Just one piercing smile in my dusty macabre thoughts and the light will flood everything through. Warmly.


But there's a million more scenarios I could create from this spot.
And there's too many train stops to where you're always at.

So tell me you're on your way back tonight.
Cause I'd rather not miss the return.


.

Cut the Lines

It seems, that at the SEAMS - we're so eager for a change of life again, and I'm just, ..I just,…FEEL like it won't embark already. 

Not sure how to cut the lines. 

Cause when you're sailing a single little Laser by yourself - and the wind is finicky and too stale - you can lean yourself all the way to the side all you want. You can shake the boat and shout all you want. 

To all the "heart's content" you can make such a NOISE.

But, hah, -- you still won't be flying across that lake of waves… 

And all that metaphor doesn't even mean anything I guess…the temperatures are dropping, and the season's over. The HEAT, you may say is slipping away. 

But it's been...it's merely been begging for more instigation. 

So why don't you- my friend, and I, sit down and share some new stories. Why don't we breathe in cinnamon and exhale - and why don't you tell me something new I haven't lived. 

I'd like something I haven't lived to have - to love on it. 

Well, maybe not loved -
but in that amber, illuminated way - enjoy and be filled -
and have a NEW place to be haunted by... 

Since, oh.., all my haunts 
have been there too long. So long, ya know…I once begged: "give me all those dead things from lives past" …. but today they're just dead to me. 

They're just brittle to the touch - like the soon-to-be-browning leaves - 
they'll break when I TRY to GRASP them. 
They'll stain when I try to POCKET them. 

Pocket it. 

They keep telling me to… Change. Quit. Stay. Return. Leap. 

But I can't seem to know (just) which line to cut first. 

When I can't seem to want any particular direction. 

This endless, wistful staring up-
 at the should-be-blustery skies. 

This shouting at nothing. 

This successful loneliness so oddly played. 

Daily headphones: Indie Arie's "Heart of the Matter" 

Acting

I think I'm nearly done running away. Think it might be time to go back where I started.

(And so begins the long way back...) 

Back to where I went back already - where the inspirations came with every belt of star, chirp of late summer bugs, and leaves upon leaves on all the trees. 

Go back to where I fell. And where I fell in love. 

And out.

Was out in the cold -- but the cold sparkled, and it was a faith I prayed to in the nook between the holly trees.  

Cause I'm really going to hell already - breaking a once-good(always good?) heart. That killing of time before you change - and can't pretend anymore. Any longer. 

I'm waiting just a little longer to say the words my mind's repeating. The ones that just aren't true to have anymore. The ones that should have been discarded seasons ago with the boots with the worn-away heel. 

Forgive me maybe? - I fear I'm the romance that I've already had. 

I've already had - and so I already know - there's nothing like the earthquake there. 

While somewhere in the sweet soft night one man stops and whispers - 

And she answers --

 - with that remembrance of how it might hurt - 

That's how it goes when reasoning keeps losing.

When you can't just keep the distance and pretend - 

when you can't disguise yourself into....anything, 

then it's coming down, -- you're left with, oh... something else--

when you can't act, you're left with actually feeling. 

And feeling makes the confused night so long with someone not quite there.

Collision

I'm fighting every natural urge to run. 

Summon the wind to bluster on command - with the swoosh-flick of a hand - and cause a premature rustle .....that no one else really could notice. 

A flight for no - yet - reason. 

The lights are finally fixed in the hall. There's a new scent lingering in my memory to remember. Over-remember.

And I don't know if I've ever said anything truly captivating -

- especially when, especially when....oh hell. especially when we COLLIDE - 

Especially when I try so very hard to conjure up the potions that came like dripping sweat so often othertimes. 
Oh the pounding sweat of it. - we want too much of it. 
Or have we actually - instead - forgotten the real Want? 

A few nights ago...I was standing on a wide, uneasy rooftop - fighting the fear of the height (and other things a bit closer)- and seeing the expanse of the flat city in every twirling direction. 

.............The wind was roaring the change in season and gently moving my wool dress and strands of hair and metal things. 

.............But I was thinking all the while - staring at the white+yellow+green lights - at just how odd it was that miles away my hometown was battling the storm; that miles away could only exist as a memory standing there.

Everything was just a memory. 

Though it stood still. Though he grabbed my hand later. 

That there was something new, while there was something still so brutally bruised, - that there was something to smile about just as there was something to be so very sad about for quite a long while. 

There were all of these things waiting to collide then -  that've hit the ground (since). 

Just as there's so much still brewing out at sea. 

.............While I leave the TV on not to hear the lack of voices. And forget and remember a thousand times the great hum of that great city right outside and all around.
The great aimless - something?-less - expanse of where I am fumbling around -
for the desire to rise up again and breathe a heavy, smelly, steamy breath all upon it all so beautifully. 

Planes & Premieres & Evermore*

I've been seeing a lot of the top sides of the clouds lately. Watching those forces build - into stretched formations.

Watching them rip apart, by the plane's assurance and roar. 

Watching the majesty of a view I shouldn't be seeing really. 

Pushing down the fear that we're plummeting.

It's just a quiet plane filled with travelers less lonely than I've always been.

So I think of all the other moods and memories I've had while flying this back and forth - of everyone I'm always leaving.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sometimes you run zig-zag and up&down a house FILLED, for absolutely no reason but to feel a third rush. To see more of the thousand interactions all happening at once. Cause it just can't be this great. 

It really is this great. 

When we all - dance with every partner specifically, yell to every song, jump for every shot (slap the bag), yearn for every eloquent toast, beg for every kiss, ache for every desire gone astray in someone else's glance…..and quite literally tear into each other till it bleeds down the back….because we want, & want, & want. 

There's still, astonishingly, more love to give. More to make. 

It's a feeling - nearly a garb - so very special….like those long-gone first glances you think you remember right (when you were falling). It feels like, if you could - you'd dip in and embrace every friend you see in that room, every hair of carpet, every song, and incense and crooked frame, and views from the leafed windows - - all in one great scoop. And giggle. 
It'd taste so good. 

And if you could you'd make it last forever this time. 

It used to feel like it would be forever. 

It used to be all of this, just like this.

Then the hours pass, the couples decide, and the groups begin to disappear….

And I've found myself - listening to the hoarse voices that for the past year have only been together in fabled nightmares of my pleasure. I listen to the beauty of who they are, and how they hurt, and relate, and how we all felt something at the same time, a time ago. 

And that's just it. 

Resting my head on the kindest familiar shoulder, while nature(!) is heard through the outside, and cigarette smoke catches the heat and expands desperation….I think that we all decided once, at different seconds, that this was home. 

I've been trying to feel the same about anything else, ever since.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Then it's just past. 

It's watching beauty, then it's gone. It's us and then…

Then I'm listening to the door softly closed behind, thinking I already missed it all. Already missed waking up to the still-close night of dear old friends - its too soon come and gone. 

The weekend come and gone. 

Another set of portraits, another Happiest Night in my sweet - our sweet - Neverland……another goodbye for now. 

Another plane ticket. 

I never wanna grow up. 

My love letter now has come and gone. I'll love you all still evermore. 

To me, you've  been enchanting 
in the rise - just as you've been in the tragic fall I'm always too often in. 

Daily headphones: Nightmare&the Cat's "Dessert Heir", Billy Joel's "Oh What a Night" and KeSha's "Blow"

Laugh with Me

Lately I've been laughing like I used to....

'like before I forgot a little bit of everything,

Before I thought I nose dove down.
Before it all came with an ache. 

Understand how that feels, that I mean? - It's laughing at a sweet 'western man's humble jokes -

without narration.

Hmm, guess that's^ the best way I can explain it. 

Best way that I can say things are beginning to change all around. 

And it might be good. 

It might (eventually) be really, really good. 

And it doesn't matter how many sandwiches I throw in the blender, it's still a great mess.

It's a heaping mess I'd rather play in - 

pile up into a heap

of beautiful warm and darkened leaves -  

and leap into - in my tiny Victorian boots and green peacoat 

as a little girl - 

I'd rather have so much more. 

....That^ matters. 

It matters that we're OK.

It matters that a great creation has been made.
A great time has met its reunion.

A great movement has met its downhill. 

And great things I've already lived. 

We don't get many days, so few chances to.... - and me, (sigh) well I get just a portion of good days/months at a time. 

So laugh with me. 

Spend a night with me, staring at the city lights at the top of a parking garage.

Skinny dip, fool around in the woods, drive for hours, strum the guitar you don't know how to play, take the drink offered, wade into the lake, go for ice cream on a hot sunday, dance with a stranger to the live sounds, sit on the porch and stare at the stars, actually call people, sink into the sand, on the beach........try it all again. 

Pretend you're sitting on the old porch step on the farm. 

Watch the storm and mock the rain pounding down from the purple clouds. 

It'll be snow soon. 

It'll be alright soon. 

And I could use the company.

Said the Old Ballerina

They were all so much more enchanting. 

When they stood up there, giving away every single falsity made for washing, they really were something. 

It really was a magnificent show. 

...I whisper in the eerie, tingling, space and silence. 

An empty theatre devoid suddenly of its sparkling stars, still with all the red-cushioned chairs I adored a lifetime ago...

For a moment I sweep a perfectly broken-into-a-permanent arch foot+toes around in half-circle - then up on the ball, arms flow around and up and I.... dance again on the empty stage. 

Wonderfully trained, tortured beauty of movements. Years. 

The movements made, acclaimed, when I was captivating.

Ends with a smile and sigh. Feeble knees. Empty marquee.

Sometimes, you choose something else so many times. Too many times. 

And it's gone. 

Sometimes they borrow away all the things about yourself. The parts you loved. 

And it becomes a part of their newest character.

Unwriting the words you ached for first. 

So you fade-
at the ribbons,
at the fingertips, at the curly tendrils ends,
- even further from any recollection. 

And you're forgotten.

Video Break #8

This is a must see. Entrancing short film.