On my break i think I did the same thing that a majority of my contemporaries, That being nothing. A whole heaping load of laziness and over indulgence on the ability to sit around, eating and drinking enjoy the comfortable couch over the ticking of the keyboard keys. I let my brain melt, at the precise wrong time. I am now flooded with obligations that should have been started weeks ago while also feeling like I could give a shit less. But! there is a bright side of this narrowing tunnel, in an optmistic turn on my procrastination, I did write a looooot of poems. ( beware I was under the influence of watching independant films)
"We treat servers like spiders"
To you, My friend
we owe too much to repay
The jobs we despise
you use to feed
with vervent necessity.
To your plot
we take a great deal
to return diminuitive amounts.
You work in solitude
and we demand of you
no union or company
My friend, ignore our ignorance
for we know what we do.
Our world without you
moving throughout it, unseen
couldn't be the pillow top we rest on.
An Outline to L.A.F.S.
I. Spontaneous Meeting
A. tongues turn to knots
1. fumbling of words
2. exchanging apologies
B. traditional handshake
1. both hands are warm
a. soft encased in rough
b. silk in stone
2. the hold is inviting
a. comfort slips ease
b. good feeling lost, and found
C. eyes stop searching
"I'm friends with my Ex's"
Conversations are reruns of this drama,
We know eachother too well.
We hide our half smiles
And sweaty hands
As best we can.
Trust is wavering,
like in the later days.
Distance is our problem,
Proximity is hard to define.
If we touch, we will betray ourselves
We know eachother too well
The time is the comfort
Though we separate,
we become closer again.
this is only first installation of the poems. Theres only so many hours in the day.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
Day 12-14: In the light of an L
When your not use to it, a loss can tell a man alot about himself. There is so much invested in collegiate sports; the physical portion of the body, the mental aspect in the time managment between your life and your sport, and in my opinion the most effected, the emotional realm. In the game of college football emotion is everything. A well mannered and calm offense can easily march down a field, while a relentless fast twitched defense can take it away from the opposition. But the most interesting thing that can dives into the true character of a man happens after both of which have displayed all they can, having been drained in all three aspects of the game and still come up short. The fact of the game is this, through any athletes career they are promised two things;one, that they will face adversity at some point throughout their journey, And two, that at some point on one fall day you are gonna loose.
Last year when we lost to Nevada, the fans rushing the field and our dreams of granduer falling by the wayside, I sunk into myself. I felt like everyday that I worked for, every gaser I ran, the workouts, every deck I sprinted up, and those hot grinding days in the summer, the other 364 days that I busted my ass where all for not because we weren't "perfect". I was ruined because we had one talley in the loss collumn. We taxied in and the somber voice of the pilot reflected our monotone drab of the city. I remember being an unpredictable mixture of anger and self-dissapointment. It wasn't untill we played the next game that I snapped out of the self defeated funk that was me for that week. On the first play I was in I hit the O-lineman head to head, shot my hands to take hold of his pads, extended and saw the quaterback t6ake off away from me. I ripped off of the no name lineman andtore after the man with the ball. Breathing heavy, but with a purpose and willing my legs to move just a step faster so I could layout and bring him down before he could get the pass off. I was moving in what felt like slow motion, then the next thing I knew the ball was out and one of my teammates took him down. I cant remember who it was that smacked the QB, but I do remember the smile. The way we both laughed at being "almost" there, slapped eachothers helmets and headed back to the line of scrimmage. That game felt amazing simply because I realized that it wasn't all over. That I still had time with these guys, with this team, doing the thing that I love.
The thing about a college football team is that each year it changes. You lose guys to graduation and the NFL, moving on and finding what next years team needs to be at its best. But that team also can never be recreated it's always different. We thought as the seniors of this class, that we would be the exact same as we were last year without a couple of guys; that wasn't the case. I love this team as I have the past four years that I have been apart of the program, but I am finally able to say that, after a tough fought game with TCU, that I am more of a man than I was back then. I know that it takes both wins and losses to be a true champion. You have to knopw how that loss felt, take the personal resposibility for it, and understand that just one win or loss doesn't define a season. I am lucky enough to have realized this when it came to me, so that i can truely enjoy these last couple of games with these guys and finnish off a great year. ---
...and then there was poetry.
Flat Tires
I push
and push
'till my lungs
burn to cinders
Each block
moves slower than the last.
But I
have
to
get to you
I can't loose
you
again.
Pounding uncured pavement
to get there.
legs go
numb
but still, I push
sweat goes in my eyes
I dont need to see.
I know where I'm going
pushing
and pushing
again
Trophy Hunter
I never liked the taste of blood,
Till you cam around
I look for tracks in the mud
Stay quiet for the sound
the may love me and the sheets were under
but I have no heart left,
I'm just a trophy hunter.
I leave them alive
taking arms and legs.
Girls walking the streets
with plastic and pegs
I can't consume, for them, I'm not hungry
I'm stealing parts for you
so when you see, you remember me
Sandpaper Tongues
Its funny to see
A Bar when hurding cattle.
Isolated bulls are the best of themselves;
Docile, stoic, at times playfull.
Introduce a cow,
Watch the hormones
Turn on a fragile brotherhood.
Feet get stomped,
Chests hold air,
pools of saliva scatter the ground
stewing with the mud.
Last year when we lost to Nevada, the fans rushing the field and our dreams of granduer falling by the wayside, I sunk into myself. I felt like everyday that I worked for, every gaser I ran, the workouts, every deck I sprinted up, and those hot grinding days in the summer, the other 364 days that I busted my ass where all for not because we weren't "perfect". I was ruined because we had one talley in the loss collumn. We taxied in and the somber voice of the pilot reflected our monotone drab of the city. I remember being an unpredictable mixture of anger and self-dissapointment. It wasn't untill we played the next game that I snapped out of the self defeated funk that was me for that week. On the first play I was in I hit the O-lineman head to head, shot my hands to take hold of his pads, extended and saw the quaterback t6ake off away from me. I ripped off of the no name lineman andtore after the man with the ball. Breathing heavy, but with a purpose and willing my legs to move just a step faster so I could layout and bring him down before he could get the pass off. I was moving in what felt like slow motion, then the next thing I knew the ball was out and one of my teammates took him down. I cant remember who it was that smacked the QB, but I do remember the smile. The way we both laughed at being "almost" there, slapped eachothers helmets and headed back to the line of scrimmage. That game felt amazing simply because I realized that it wasn't all over. That I still had time with these guys, with this team, doing the thing that I love.
The thing about a college football team is that each year it changes. You lose guys to graduation and the NFL, moving on and finding what next years team needs to be at its best. But that team also can never be recreated it's always different. We thought as the seniors of this class, that we would be the exact same as we were last year without a couple of guys; that wasn't the case. I love this team as I have the past four years that I have been apart of the program, but I am finally able to say that, after a tough fought game with TCU, that I am more of a man than I was back then. I know that it takes both wins and losses to be a true champion. You have to knopw how that loss felt, take the personal resposibility for it, and understand that just one win or loss doesn't define a season. I am lucky enough to have realized this when it came to me, so that i can truely enjoy these last couple of games with these guys and finnish off a great year. ---
***
...and then there was poetry.
Flat Tires
I push
and push
'till my lungs
burn to cinders
Each block
moves slower than the last.
But I
have
to
get to you
I can't loose
you
again.
Pounding uncured pavement
to get there.
legs go
numb
but still, I push
sweat goes in my eyes
I dont need to see.
I know where I'm going
pushing
and pushing
again
Trophy Hunter
I never liked the taste of blood,
Till you cam around
I look for tracks in the mud
Stay quiet for the sound
the may love me and the sheets were under
but I have no heart left,
I'm just a trophy hunter.
I leave them alive
taking arms and legs.
Girls walking the streets
with plastic and pegs
I can't consume, for them, I'm not hungry
I'm stealing parts for you
so when you see, you remember me
Sandpaper Tongues
Its funny to see
A Bar when hurding cattle.
Isolated bulls are the best of themselves;
Docile, stoic, at times playfull.
Introduce a cow,
Watch the hormones
Turn on a fragile brotherhood.
Feet get stomped,
Chests hold air,
pools of saliva scatter the ground
stewing with the mud.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Day 8-11: the days go by
On days like this it's hard to write with so much going on in the day. The thing that has taken my attention is the issues that are surrounding and seem to have overcome the football program at Penn State. It's a tough situation in my view because as a player I understand the consequences a program recieves as a whole when one individual's misdeeds come to the forefront . It scars the public image of not only the person invovled, but trickles down through all the way down to the equipment manager. In this circumstance, it has gone straight to the top for it's sacraficial lamb to purge the institution of the charges on Jerry Sandusky. The truth of the matter is shocking enough, but when coupled with the end of an illustrious career it takes on a whole new face. Joe Paterno has coached at the university for better than half a century and netted the school near one-billion dollars in revenue, and has been a large part in shaping the college football landscape. The media has called for his immediate resignation, stating that no one will be able to focus on the game if Paterno is on the sidelines. In response, I could only see this as the reality in the situation, It wouldn't matter. If he's there or not the focus will now be on him and the others that have been removed. It is easy for an outside voice to say that its his program and all falls under his umbrella, but as it is in a place of demand such as a head coach, there are alot of things that go unseen when you are in charge of over 100 college boys, 20 coaches and staff. thats just looking at it as a realist, understanding the numbers are irrashional to claim under one man's supervision.
The thing that is missed from the "subjective reviews" of media associates is the humanity of this situation. As a college athlete you are a part of a family with the head coach, be it wanted or not, as the roll of father figure and in a more understandable means the patriarch. But with that in mind, one must look at it like this, If an outside source were to verbally slander one in your group, what do you do? Do you trust this person you've allowed to get close to you? That you've come to love like a brother? I say yes. And this is what Joe Paterno did. In teams, trust is one of the standards that great teams are built on, without it the foundation gets shakey and fails at some point along the journey. Paterno chose to back his man and ended up being wrong. A fact that I have no doubt is destroying him and his team, as well as the families that are stricken by this set of incidents. No one wants to think that someone they trust is capable of the act of child molestation or anything in that realm, so when it actually happens its even more unbelievable.
Paterno's career has been more than influential to many young men that have passed through Penn State. To fire a man of such esteem is an act that shows absolutly no respect for the great accomplishments and social duty upheld by Paterno. The right thing to do is to let the man finish his season and allow his players, fans, and Paterno himself a sense of closure that doesn't revolve around this inccident that shouldn't be the final event in an amazing lifetime.
But there will always be poems...
"My auntie was a smoker"
Her wrinkled hands
were soft to touch
Those blakened lungs,
her soothing voice
She had yellow teeth
with a beautiful smile
And blood-shot gorgeous
green green eyes.
"It's not casual, we have a modern romance"
your funny
looking when I get down to it, built perfectly for me.
that crooked smile and burnt red eyes
Match your zombie stiff posture
produced by the liver bludgeoning the night before.
that birds nest hair styled only to one side'
the racoon eyes you gave yourself
calls to me.
I would hug that headache away
if you didn't look cute with your nose scrunched.
I would give you your clothes
if my shorts did'nt look so cartoonish.
As you stand there holding up the wall,
your face in you hand and the drinks on your breath
I wonder,
how I ever survived
without you.
A 3-part Relationship
I
infatuation
time
sex
petting
love
II
your a god damn blood clot.
would only be right
that you'd attack my heart.
III
I will remember you
when we were new
Please think of me
how I used to be.
The thing that is missed from the "subjective reviews" of media associates is the humanity of this situation. As a college athlete you are a part of a family with the head coach, be it wanted or not, as the roll of father figure and in a more understandable means the patriarch. But with that in mind, one must look at it like this, If an outside source were to verbally slander one in your group, what do you do? Do you trust this person you've allowed to get close to you? That you've come to love like a brother? I say yes. And this is what Joe Paterno did. In teams, trust is one of the standards that great teams are built on, without it the foundation gets shakey and fails at some point along the journey. Paterno chose to back his man and ended up being wrong. A fact that I have no doubt is destroying him and his team, as well as the families that are stricken by this set of incidents. No one wants to think that someone they trust is capable of the act of child molestation or anything in that realm, so when it actually happens its even more unbelievable.
Paterno's career has been more than influential to many young men that have passed through Penn State. To fire a man of such esteem is an act that shows absolutly no respect for the great accomplishments and social duty upheld by Paterno. The right thing to do is to let the man finish his season and allow his players, fans, and Paterno himself a sense of closure that doesn't revolve around this inccident that shouldn't be the final event in an amazing lifetime.
But there will always be poems...
"My auntie was a smoker"
Her wrinkled hands
were soft to touch
Those blakened lungs,
her soothing voice
She had yellow teeth
with a beautiful smile
And blood-shot gorgeous
green green eyes.
"It's not casual, we have a modern romance"
your funny
looking when I get down to it, built perfectly for me.
that crooked smile and burnt red eyes
Match your zombie stiff posture
produced by the liver bludgeoning the night before.
that birds nest hair styled only to one side'
the racoon eyes you gave yourself
calls to me.
I would hug that headache away
if you didn't look cute with your nose scrunched.
I would give you your clothes
if my shorts did'nt look so cartoonish.
As you stand there holding up the wall,
your face in you hand and the drinks on your breath
I wonder,
how I ever survived
without you.
A 3-part Relationship
I
infatuation
time
sex
petting
love
II
your a god damn blood clot.
would only be right
that you'd attack my heart.
III
I will remember you
when we were new
Please think of me
how I used to be.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Day 4-7: Damn roadtrips will put you behind.
Well this weekend has left me feeling indifferent. The game was not what we wanted, but I couldn't help but think while I was sitting next to the "White Rat" and "Black Paul Bunyan" their distaste over the evening, and how this past game was a blessing in disguise. Yeah, we played like a big blue turd in the first half, but that lack of focus on our part and the determination in the boy's from UNLV to show they have more than just a little fight in them, was a good wake up call that you can't just roll in and think that the emblem on your chest will do the work for you. But that aside, on the way back from Vegas, and any trip we take out of state for that matter, I listen to a mix of Bon Iver's newest self titled album and the sophomore album from Dallas Green's City and Colour. I've been listening to Bon Iver Like it's my job, though it hasn't grown on me quite like that of Justin Vernon's first major record, For Emma, Forever Ago, It still has a soothing folk falsetto that has turned into more big folk group with songs such as "Towers", "Calgary", and the shining gem of this album in my ears, "Holocene". He maintains the same lyrical standard and poetic nuance that has been displayed in his past works, while taking the simplicity and accenting it well with more instrumental backing.
The other half of my mix is Green's album Bring Me Your Love. This, like many of the albums that I love, is one that I over listened, and had to take a step away from for a while but returned to. As it would have it, City and Colour has a relatively new album that was released this summer titled Little Hell. "Fragile Bird", the first single, follows suit with Green's "Sleeping Sickness" with its branch off of the powerful acoustic narrative that has come to form the identity of City and Colour's sound, but doing it in a splendid way that plays on the subtle use of electric guitar and firm backing of drums and other accompaniment. While most of the tracks relay on the skilled acoustic playing and tenor vocals of green in songs such as, "The Grand Optimist", title track "Little Hell", and "O, Sister" there are still songs like "Natural Disaster" that seem like album filler that keep it from being the master work of natural talent that his other albums show.
Since I fell behind, I have to unload a few of my poems that I wrote on the road all at once. The first comes like many that scatter my notebook, from phrases that i get in passing.
"The beautiful thing next to me"
bare
smooth
at rest.
down the neck,
cross the collar
skimming 'round the chest.
'round the ear
lick the lobe
bite the neck
softly
moving
stopping only
to squeeze...
An Elderly Businessmen says: "
I am a multi-colored cumberbun
Not really appeasing
And firmly out of fashion.
I've been replaced
By a younger silky vest
or nothing at all.
I used to be the centerpiece
sipping expensive spilled brandy
A front seat exhibitionist
To a back seat maneuver.
Now I wait in a closet,
In a square,
a box
for a nonexistent event
a voyeur to a life
i used to secure around the waist.
my elastic is worn now.
I have stretched out to fit my job
left saggy after being
Used.
"Will my kids have my chocolate skin?"
progeny is born
without a race,
born with a beautiful face
they didn't choose.
The only promise their skin holds;
when they get cut,
their blood will be red.
"Good guys speak like mice"
Get outta here!
I'm sick of that face.
Your perfect skin,
That perfectly fucked up hair
No one believes you
Were made for this place. for us.
No one can just wake up like that.
Get outta here!
'Know whats funny,
You remind me of
Those F. Scott Fitzgerald stories
Not the ones 'bout money
The ones about extraordinary girls
Who never leave
They don't go,
They stay.
All the mesmerizing (?)
and no feet to carry them
SO, Get outta here!
leave me behind.
WOOOoooo, that feels better. :)
The other half of my mix is Green's album Bring Me Your Love. This, like many of the albums that I love, is one that I over listened, and had to take a step away from for a while but returned to. As it would have it, City and Colour has a relatively new album that was released this summer titled Little Hell. "Fragile Bird", the first single, follows suit with Green's "Sleeping Sickness" with its branch off of the powerful acoustic narrative that has come to form the identity of City and Colour's sound, but doing it in a splendid way that plays on the subtle use of electric guitar and firm backing of drums and other accompaniment. While most of the tracks relay on the skilled acoustic playing and tenor vocals of green in songs such as, "The Grand Optimist", title track "Little Hell", and "O, Sister" there are still songs like "Natural Disaster" that seem like album filler that keep it from being the master work of natural talent that his other albums show.
Since I fell behind, I have to unload a few of my poems that I wrote on the road all at once. The first comes like many that scatter my notebook, from phrases that i get in passing.
"The beautiful thing next to me"
bare
smooth
at rest.
down the neck,
cross the collar
skimming 'round the chest.
'round the ear
lick the lobe
bite the neck
softly
moving
stopping only
to squeeze...
An Elderly Businessmen says: "
I am a multi-colored cumberbun
Not really appeasing
And firmly out of fashion.
I've been replaced
By a younger silky vest
or nothing at all.
I used to be the centerpiece
sipping expensive spilled brandy
A front seat exhibitionist
To a back seat maneuver.
Now I wait in a closet,
In a square,
a box
for a nonexistent event
a voyeur to a life
i used to secure around the waist.
my elastic is worn now.
I have stretched out to fit my job
left saggy after being
Used.
"Will my kids have my chocolate skin?"
progeny is born
without a race,
born with a beautiful face
they didn't choose.
The only promise their skin holds;
when they get cut,
their blood will be red.
"Good guys speak like mice"
Get outta here!
I'm sick of that face.
Your perfect skin,
That perfectly fucked up hair
No one believes you
Were made for this place. for us.
No one can just wake up like that.
Get outta here!
'Know whats funny,
You remind me of
Those F. Scott Fitzgerald stories
Not the ones 'bout money
The ones about extraordinary girls
Who never leave
They don't go,
They stay.
All the mesmerizing (?)
and no feet to carry them
SO, Get outta here!
leave me behind.
WOOOoooo, that feels better. :)
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Day 3: Music is life
I almost forgot. again. but I caught it with enough time to react and write something, thank peaches. I was listening to alot of music today, when I was riding to school, in class through the sneaky sleeve method(if you don't know you're missin out), and when I got on my grooveshark account while I was facebooking. As if someone "cosmic" force knew I was feeling especially "musical" today, I got asked the strangest question the other day, "Do you like Music?"... After digesting this question I came to a conclusion; You can like music that I find to be pure crap, I'm good with that. But if you don't like music at all, we cant be friends. Seriously, what do you do while you study, fill out your W2's, or travel for god sake? Listen to NPR the whole time?(Mad love to All Things Considered, that's my shit) The truth is everyone has a soundtrack to there life, whether you want it that way or not.
While still peeved at the notion of anti-musicists, I came to realize today that I've been missin' out. Florence and the machine is utterly amazing. The calm woody sound of her voice is relaxing and evocative at the same time. I listened to a couple scattered songs from the LP "Lungs". the first song that I heard was "Dog Days are Over", I fell in love with the light initial strumming in the intro followed by the semi-bombastic title lines and chorus. the whole album, as I later pursued, is carried by her holistic tone and free flowing unpredictability that puts you in the mood to run around like a hippie idiot and not give a shit who was watching. One of the best tracks was "Howl", its folk feel sways the body and taps into an animalistic vibe that seems natural no matter how many times you listen to it. "Lungs" as a whole has something for anyone who appreciates a lyricist and the eclectic mixture of booming accompaniment and soft subtle guitar play. I feel a twitch of lame come over me for not hearing this earlier, but still happy I found it when I did.
In the theme of the night I'm havin', I had a music based idea. I just hope I'll get to use it someday.
"You are the soundtrack to my love life"
1.intro/play around the clothes
2.the hard click of those high heels
3.light slaps of our skins
4.your soft cool breath in my ear(you know me)
5.exhales
6.your rabbit heart beat
7.sucks/pops
8.laughs
9.#$%&%#@
10.inaudible words
While still peeved at the notion of anti-musicists, I came to realize today that I've been missin' out. Florence and the machine is utterly amazing. The calm woody sound of her voice is relaxing and evocative at the same time. I listened to a couple scattered songs from the LP "Lungs". the first song that I heard was "Dog Days are Over", I fell in love with the light initial strumming in the intro followed by the semi-bombastic title lines and chorus. the whole album, as I later pursued, is carried by her holistic tone and free flowing unpredictability that puts you in the mood to run around like a hippie idiot and not give a shit who was watching. One of the best tracks was "Howl", its folk feel sways the body and taps into an animalistic vibe that seems natural no matter how many times you listen to it. "Lungs" as a whole has something for anyone who appreciates a lyricist and the eclectic mixture of booming accompaniment and soft subtle guitar play. I feel a twitch of lame come over me for not hearing this earlier, but still happy I found it when I did.
In the theme of the night I'm havin', I had a music based idea. I just hope I'll get to use it someday.
"You are the soundtrack to my love life"
1.intro/play around the clothes
2.the hard click of those high heels
3.light slaps of our skins
4.your soft cool breath in my ear(you know me)
5.exhales
6.your rabbit heart beat
7.sucks/pops
8.laughs
9.#$%&%#@
10.inaudible words
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
DAY 1&2: I already flubbed up
Well as it is I already missed it; the first day of my blogging life. but luckily there was a day after yesterday. I think that time left in blogger purgatory has let me gain a perspective that I want to have in this blog. I'm going to do the 30 days of poetry, if not out of "shear" respect for the festive month long festivities of NO-shave November, but to start this blog off as a sort of artistic outlet that I find I often need. I don't have a place to unload my fascination with poetry, music, and cinema. So, this will be it! It seems like a perfect fit.
My first piece is one that I created after reading Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man . Its creation is not directly tied to the work but takes its own feeling:
Note to society: The Cogs have Voices
I am your blood.
Moving inside you,
Giving you life,
Lubricating your machine.
I am your lungs.
Your respiration is my will,
Your breath, my whim.
I tickle your throat
And you know that cough is mine.
I am your big toe.
The stability of your foundation
Crucial to any step
In any direction.
If you cut me off,
You will fail.
The next piece was on that I wrote yesterday (that I failed to post) that kind of reflected how I felt about blogging and my hypocritical view of the online version of "Me":
"Rhyming is fun till someone gets hurt"
Fuck Twitter
And Facebook
And all Kinds of spaces
Lets skate
Get milkshakes
Match faces with Faces
In too much a hurry
with no place to go
with knowledge in hand
we have nothing to know
we invest in technology
Buying all that we can
We prepare our apology
For the betrayal of man
My first piece is one that I created after reading Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man . Its creation is not directly tied to the work but takes its own feeling:
Note to society: The Cogs have Voices
I am your blood.
Moving inside you,
Giving you life,
Lubricating your machine.
I am your lungs.
Your respiration is my will,
Your breath, my whim.
I tickle your throat
And you know that cough is mine.
I am your big toe.
The stability of your foundation
Crucial to any step
In any direction.
If you cut me off,
You will fail.
The next piece was on that I wrote yesterday (that I failed to post) that kind of reflected how I felt about blogging and my hypocritical view of the online version of "Me":
"Rhyming is fun till someone gets hurt"
Fuck Twitter
And Facebook
And all Kinds of spaces
Lets skate
Get milkshakes
Match faces with Faces
In too much a hurry
with no place to go
with knowledge in hand
we have nothing to know
we invest in technology
Buying all that we can
We prepare our apology
For the betrayal of man
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)