Listening to...

U2- With or Without You
See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you
Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you
With or without you
With or without you

Barren

It's an impossibility. It is the soap-covered granite cliff to climb, the bottomless cavern to cross. It is my barren mind. Like a napalm-covered garden of spring, I am home to a wasteland of forgotten thought. A cracked skull would reveal nothing but a numbing sludge. If there was ever a time when I was an oasis of originality and adroit observation, it can hardly be recalled. The only line of thought is my re-incarnation into the stone troll, monolith of retardation. Frustration is the name of the game. The more I struggle for even the low-hanging fruit of creation, the more I am powerfully chained into the quicksand that I live. Lifestyle, stagnant pool of paralyzing, inescapable consumerism that I back-stroke through? Feast on the fast- food, instantaneous pleasure to evade long-term pain? I'm neck-deep in the useless but quickly drying concrete of senseless sensory input. Rotting stench of countlessly recycled thoughts makes every day a vertigo-filled stumble through a field of razor wire. Give me a knife, I'll cut it out and grow a new one.

Frustrated,

Michael

would be nice...

Listening to...

Santana and Chad Kroger - Why Don't You and I
Slowly I begin to realise that this is never gonna end and the moment you walk by it's like oh here we go again oh
So I'm singing
Why don't you and I get together
We'll take on the world and be together forever
Heads we will and tails we'll try again
And I'm singing
Why don't You and I get together
And fly to the moon and straight on to Heaven
'Cause without you they're never gonna let me in

Fallen

Remember when we used to dance on a tight rope made of gold?
We hummed His mode and strolled so bold
Atoned and unassailable

Remember when we used to shriek, impaled on a cross of brass?
We shriveled and gagged, lived our funereal mass
Forfeited and defenseless.

How did I tumble from the heights?
To what subtly-stepped ladder did I carelessly surrender?
Here, I'll burn my glutted ears of cotton and lepros legs of wood
To sing the tune and prance the jig on euphoria once again.

you people!

Listening to:

Buddy Rich
Song: Jumpin at the Woodside
Album: Compact Jazz

One of my favorite poems of all time. Francis Thompson (DOB 1859) was an English poet and artist. For years, he lived the life of a homeless heroin addict on the street, his bed made under the varying bridges crossing the Thames. He'd pull odd scraps of paper from trash cans and scratch out the most gripping, heart-rending poetry the nation of Britain and seen in decades. The poetry he would submit to various local papers, but he would send it anonymously. The papers were known to advertise for him, saying that the greatest poet of their time lived among them, yet they didn't know his first name. The following poem captures the encounter Thompson had with an imminent God, a God that didn't abandon him to rummage through the garbage of earth for the vindication of Thompson's deepest needs, a but a God who was the savior who walked the barren alley of Thompson's home to find him. Thompson is better known for his poem, "The Hound of Heaven."

The Kingdom of God

O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrang?d faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry--clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Francais Thompson

Thoughts?

Listening to:

Live - Lightening Crashes
lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she's been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored iris,
presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide

Enter In

searching for the feeble catalyst of joy
hoping for the hair-trigger refutation of my torment
i swallow handfuls of placebo in angry haste.

never dreaming the sweetest fragrance is my hope
never thinking the smoldering altar is my satisfaction
in frenzied genuflection to the brand and ball and chain
i breeze by the quiet place of marveling adoration.

hungry urgency turns aside
it kneels, and kills and offers up
it's allness dances in the center of mecca
it's voice becomes the siren's song of unlooked for atonement.


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L'Envoi

My job is done; my rhymes are ranked and ready,
My word-battalions marching verse by verse;
Here stanza-companies are none too steady;
There print-platoons are weak, but might be worse.
And as in marshalled order I review them,
My type-brigades, unfearful of the fray,
My eyes that seek their faults are seeing through them
Immortal visions of an epic day.

Robert W. Service

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding
dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before - more
sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle."

Charles Dickens
Great Expectations

Daniel, reviewer and critic, has given Verbosity "Two Thumbs Up!"

"I love Michael Jackson so very much and wish I could protect him from these allegations," 14-year-old Ashley of Eugene, Oregon, wrote. "His accusers are after money. I can't understand why people can't see that. Michael is a sweet, kind and caring human being. I know he'd never do anything to harm any child in any way."

Please... are you kidding me right now, Ashley? Let's put down the publicly financed joint you are puffing, and come back to reality. I love Michael Jackson as much as the next heterosexual white male, and recognize him for the Prancing King of Pop that he is. But "sweet kind and caring"? Try"psycho".


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Where does the power come from, to see a race to it's end?
Where do I find the strength to stand, to be what others have not been?

Come all and arise; awaken, oh mighty warrior within.
Let timidity weep, let fear be bound,
And the surety of victory be released.


One comment, please?

Defiant

slate grey sky
begs to pour my tears:
slice my face, pierce my heart.
i dance beneath it's foreboding gloom
i laugh at my pending doom.


Comments

One Mark Hellwig, prosaic wonder extraordinair, penned the following compelling little number in his sleep, I believe. In his sleep and probably shaving his handsomely ruddy face and counting his Gucci shoes as well, come to think about it. All that aside, Mark submitted the following letter to the Hillsdale College newspaper. The newspaper is very creatively entitled (get this) The Collegian. Original, I know.


"Jacob Harrison’s Collegian article last week misses the point on metrosexuals. The rise of the term “metrosexual” is not a victory for homosexual activists, nor does it signify the death of Western civilization. It is, rather, a return to the days when a man gave notice to what he wore and appreciated the gentlemanly arts. He might have used a boar bristle when he shaved; gone to the opera; danced – ballroom, not booty; wore driving loafers, matched his socks to his trousers, and owned a trench coat. In short, the man was well kept, valued chivalry, and sought the good and the beautiful. These men, personified nicely by Cary Grant, were definitely not effeminate.

Today, there are some men who want to see a revival of this kind of lifestyle, who are completely heterosexual yet appreciate the finer, genteel things in life. It is a sort of response to the Über-Casual look in American culture – the “baseball cap and flip-flops for all occasions” mentality. This is not about money or socio-economic background, for I personally know some guys who comb the shelves of Hillsdale’s Salvation Army with a $5 budget. They return triumphant with a vintage tweed sport coat or a nice button down that is surprisingly free of noxious odors or pit stains. These men are undeniably more hunters than gatherers.

Harrison makes a good point about “Queer Eye;” it is indeed a vapid attempt by the liberal media to force everyone to accept florid adult men prancing around like idiot preteen girls with their first tube of eyeliner. I also agree with the other points that Jacob made about the radical feminizing of our culture. However, stupid television shows should not discount the efforts of straight men who are trying to look nice in a masculine way."


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I have been ensconced in bed for approximately 108.5 hours straight, excepting trips to take hot baths, and a 10 hour period of insanity on Friday, when in my delusion I fancied that SARS-like symptoms should be no impediment to working. It didn't take long for my protesting body to quickly dispel that monstrosity of a myth. Have you ever noticed how intimately acquainted with one's surroundings you become after walking through an intense and eternal exposure to a given room, such as accompanies prolonged illness? As I have laid in innocency, trying to combat the wretched parasites drawing the very life and wellbeing from my sinews, it seems the smallest details of the most incongruous surrounding objects have been defenslessly etched on my brain. I could write whole papyrus rolls about the numerous half-empty glasses of fluids lining my window sill, or about the depressingly dark and vague illustrations by one Marcus Stone in the copy of Great Expectations by my bed. Actually, the illustrations are in strange contrast to my powerlessly acute observations. While, seemingly against my will, I can recite unending details about my prison-like surroundings, Marcus Stone seems to take delight in a dismally complete denial of detail. As he paints, lines and light and shadow are after-thoughts of sorts in a free-form managerie of the bland color palette. I suppose that such an approach is befitting of Great Expectations' dark, salacious and mystery-rife setting, but I still find it discomfiting. Looking at it makes my mouth dry up like I've been chewing on a wad of cardboard, salted with a hint of sheet rock dust. I think I'll return to looking for all 7 continents in the ceiling plaster, before I die of dehydration.

You And I Both Lyrics

Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me
Oh things are gonna happen naturally
And taking your advice I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing
But often times those words get tangled up in lines
And the bright lights turn to night
Until the dawn it brings
A little bird who'll sing about the magic that was you and me

Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of
What you and I spoke of
Others only dream of the love that I love

See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages forwards
More words then I had ever heard and I feel so alive
Now you and I, you and I
Not so little you and I anymore
And with this silence brings a moral story
more importantly evolving is the glory of a boy

you and I both loved what you and I spoke of
and others just read of and if you could see now
well I'm already finally out of

and it's okay if you have go away
just remember the telephone works both ways
and if I never ever hear it ring
if nothing else I'll think the bells inside
have finally found you someone else and that's okay
cause I'll remember everything you sang

you and I both loved what you and I spoke of
and others just read of and if you could see now
well I'm already finally out of words.

Jason Mraz

There is something so refreshing, therapeutic and refining about randomly baring one's soul to the piercing and curious eyes of the world. The opportunity of prepared self-expression is a catharsis of the mind and soul, an opportunity to let my thoughts and feelings stand for inspection and purification before a diverse and harsh jury. The process can be lengthy and painful, but the end result is a finer, purer, a more cutting and effective expression of thought. And there are few prices I would not pay for the synthesis of truth and thought into one bright and piercing weapon.