Month: May 2019

Quotes (321 Quote Me Challenge)

The best lack all conviction, and the worst keep sharpening their claws, peddling their dark fictions…

Andrew Bird (from the song Bloodless, 2019)

Paraphrasing/Referencing Yeats(?)

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

WB Yeats (The Second Coming)

So long as the human spirit thrives on this planet, music in some living form will accompany and sustain it and give expressive meaning.

Aaron Copland

This post is a response to today’s 3-2-1 Quote Me Challenge,  a challenge which was initially set up by A Guy Named Bloke And K9 Doodlepip

Thanks Ben Naga for inviting me to take part in today’s challenge.

The first quote immediately came to mind because I had just picked up A Vision by Yeats at the library, not because I’m some intellectual elitist, in fact I know that most of it will fly right over my head, but something about it spoke to me, said that there’s a reason that particular book jumped off the shelf. Anyway the next day I was looking up Yeats to find some supplementary reading for what I later found out was quite a massive project (which is A Vision). When I came upon the quote and instantly recognized it from the song. So i thought being given a quote challenge it was kismet.

Then struggling for a second quote more in line with the theme of expression I nearly gave up when this morning I found myself on the roof of Wild Ginger in Downtown Seattle looking at the side of Benaroya Hall was the quote engraved in stone! Ha, if that’s not the universe slapping you in the face I dont know what is!

Expecting too much

My own expectations of myself leads to judgment. Judging my family to live up to the expectations that even I cannot meet.

Expectations form Judgments
both inside and out
and if you happen to see
my parentheses, please,
give them back. Judgments
take shape both inside
and out, without dictation,
dictating the course of future
events. Corkscrewing,
worming into the heart.

Living

Living
with the knife between your teeth
bloodshot eyes 
sweat on the brow
'Here's Johnny' 
type living 
that must be
real living. 
clenched fist
razor blade scrapping
knuckles 
bruised and ragged 
a tireless workshop 
of words 
always going 'round
each other with words
'round each other with fictions
isn't it funny how words 
can stroke
can bury 
Living
real living
you don't even know what real living is
nobody does
itching 
the scratch
temptations' 
callous hands 
busy at work 
-always at work 
and you call yourself 
a liar and you call 
yourself flames 
and you stroke 
and bury 
and stroke and 
bury
until there's no more 
weight left to carry
Wake Up!
you dance with 
last nights hallow 
memories 
of dreams 
putting distances  
between 
you and your loved ones 
trying your damndest 
to live up to someone else's
ideal
  Wake Up!
wriggling 
like a trout 
plashing 
the waters
ripple 
lungs 
balloon
expansive now
the waters rising 
touching 
the tip 
of your nose 
and there's no
where for your feet 
to touch 
Wake Up!
it's 6 o'clock tomorrow morning
time to get up and go to work.

Spring cleaning

I’m looking at this mess beside my bed and I’m thinking: if I were to die today, in a heap on the bathroom floor, this is what I’ll leave behind. This will be my kids’ inheritance, they’ll have to clean up my mess, and their own. Serves them right for all the socks on the floor and dried cereal in bowls.

It’s an amazing trick i do;  
i clean up the signs of aging in my sink,
in the bed, and all over the house.
And yet somehow i still convince myself
that i’m the same as i was ten years ago.

Break it Apart

Why
oh why
Do I
Have this
poet’s heart.
Why
oh why
Can’t I break it apart.

For so long I’ve tried
I don’t even know why
For so long
I’ve cried
from this
unfulfilled
destiny.

Oh why

Why
oh why

The artist’s dream
buried deep
inside of me
and no
matter how I try
to crush everything
it still remains oh
Why

I don’t even know why
oh why

This poet’s heart
This broken heart
intertwined
in this
eternal dance
oh.