grown-up games.

It's a tough life to get used, the one of trading poles for polo's, hammocks for desk chairs. The day in, day out, continual grind that stays dependant on coffee, strained by countenance. Constant smiles, careful handshakes, drenched in the sun soaked fingers of others. Conversations snap and burst, turn and change, ending suddenly as new business arrives for both parties.
No protests can be made, its all in the description, you signed on the line and now it's time to prove your worth. Sleep is never continuous, always alarm clock melodies stifling the dreams that used to fly with eyes wide-open. Now these visions are locked in the dark, contained in the subconscious, only played over eye lids with cut short intentions.
There is no time to think like that these days, too much hustle and bustle, not enough wonder and procrastination. In this business, in any business, we all must turn a profit in our small ways. The high school gym hustle lessons extrapolated into 'real world' stakes. Go hard or go home, go easy and get behind. All the 4th hour study hall backs of peer t-shirts, worn with pride, streaming a constant knowledge of ideals that could be vital to survival someday.
They're all weighing down on my head these days: the shower, shave, coffee, commute blues. Constant life stuck in motion, prescribed in planners, each hour budgeted for optimal performance.
No more dry dock days scanning clear green waters for darting shadows in the rocks. The lures we cast here are built to catch the shadows on our plane, and we are also darting beneath these monoliths. The bigger players stand above looking down into the murky waters and contemplate pan, jib, or minnow; baits secured to keep us in chase, constantly moving forward. striving. working. We all have the things we choose to follow after, free ideals, new sets of wheels, and a picket fence dream.
These things keep us going, not tabulating efforts or results, just hours in and pay check stubs. Spreadsheet budgets opened over Microsoft shopping lists form this new kind of freedom. Radio waves and local days keep us all far too informed.
There is no looking out when you are encapsulated and immersed in relevant dealings, there is no questioning stare when your eyes are firmly locked on the prize. It gets hard to keep your head up with your nose to the grindstone.
Someday we will look back and see what we have done, someday we will see our squandered lifetimes. No more youth, no more play, it's time for a world full of grown-up games.

after-life.

(the formatting was jumbled on this piece as it went through the e-mail systems.)


i've come to realize that we are all in fact living on the edge of living. too afraid to jump in and get all wet. we dip our toes and crinkle our noses as we try and weigh a thousand different dicisions.
in the end we will be pushed in eventually. some snot nosed kid will indefinatly run up behind us at an undetermined time and with all his force and flabby arms, he will fling us forward into a pool filled with our own supposed fears and troubles.
it will get darker than. the unexpected plunge will leave us all gasping for air, synapses firing, a body preparing for momantary expiration. in the heart of our concious minds will feel okay, deep down we all know that we are okay, and that everything we always remain okay.
we're the good guy, no matter how the script plays, and if we expire, the film will end. all of our friends and families will walk away saddened, thinking constant thoughts about the movie that was never finished. in all reality they will move on. our ashes will be spread in the last scene and then the occasional family member of dear friend will replay the trailor of our lives on the anniversary of its ending.
there is no constant theme of faithful support for a spirit that has lost its body, there is no perpetual remberance. our loved ones will forget us, they have too many other interests that need attending to. memories are short lived, they play quickly for a moment, leave a smile on a face until the latest sports news, gossip column or personal problem crops up to divert the attention from the immortal retelling of a long last friend's life and passing.
even the people who make a mark, leaving their brand on ivy covered buildings or local businesse store-fronts all will just become a place. an immortal life as a physical incarnation as the campus dining hall or that shabby old furniture store out on the highway will not outstand the grasp of time and troubles.
our memories do not outlive us. we make careful preperation to have them locked deep inside us before we ever take leave of this place. they are ours to keep, free from time but of no use to anyone after.
i assume that when i'm dead and gone, my writings will find a landfill, bonfire or in the worst case a sink ledge next to a toilet for those emergency times. i'm no jack, i'm no herman, hell, i'm not even a w.m. young. there will be no library catalogues, there will be no congress driven achriving. it will all be for naught, a carefully transcribed instruction book on how not to live thrown down the heating pipes of history, headed into the furnace of time.
twenty minutes after you've expired everyone you know will be describing you in the past tense, "he lived such a great life, he's in a better place now," and all the other cliches that stammer from the lips of those who don't realize that it makes no differance what they say at that point.
within three days your name will be a pariah. held back in bar-room lips, a cannon that could shatter the air, an incantation that could bring someone to tears, so it would be best to keep it quiet. that's how it will be.
the last people to remember us will be those who knew us least. they will be the ones caught in sporadic thought, "man, i wonder if he's still putting around somewhere." these people will be too afraid to ask the loved ones, the cherished ones, what exactly has transpired throughout the course of a friendship forgotten. then, they will see some back page dentist office obituary and spend a moment reflecting on that rainy day movie or coffee shop conversation.
then it will be over, truly over. we will be lost to the time and transgressions of later men.
the only way to live on is in the small ways.
the impressions we make and the influences we have, no matter how large or small the may end up to be are the only after life one can bank on. that is immortality, stored in the way you kept your combs by the sink, stacked in their orders. the ideas, the ways of thinking that are adopted by others will carry us on. they will not realize, but they will preserve the memory of all of us.
they will keep our spirits alive in a five o'clock card game or as a highlighter clipped inside a dime-store novel. quiet worship to those who came before, executed through blown smoke rings or upside down wristwatches.
for some, the things they pass on will not be as simple or pleasant. our inclinations of ignorance, a bruised cheek on the face of a wife, a habit of searching for answers at the bottoms of bottles; these can also be the ways we live on.
i guess that's what it comes down to, the big split in good over evil that drives billions of people to war, bloodshed, and empty beds. the simple fact that we are all immortal, living on through the things we let live through us. the actions that define us, the mannerism, the approaches to the everyday will all live on through someone until they pass it on to someone else. this keeps us alive.
our spirits are captured in the habits of those we influence, and our actions become their own angels or demons. a father who can't pass the bottle will raise sons that find wandering pavement in after-hours alleys. we are the good, we are the evil, and we insert it into others every second we draw breath.
we all need to take time to consider our demons, the things that we acquired that prove of no value, except on rainy days when the stakes were high but the colt broke his leg out of the gate. those are the times when we should look back and curse the wretched, praise the worthy, and account for those who have passed and are living inside of our own veins.
then hopefully someday we will be cursed or praised, scorned or worshiped, for the acts we executed and the ways we lived. that is immortality, that is an after-life.

R.D.J.

i see them often, swerving through the pavement lanes. past construction signs and haggard workers, the rev and whiz and turn. slowing down for those red eyes, but blurring through the yellow, the classic cars go by.
i always here them coming, engines polished heavy under a skilled workman's hand. all exhaust pipes and fender shine atop white-wheeled tire tread. they rumble through the city, motors out-putting noise pollution, making these midwestern plains shake and tremble.
those deep cherry reds, banana split yellows, dreamsicle oranges, all tinted to perfection. high wax finishes reflecting this rural skyline is how they go by. a motion picture screened on a side panel, a one time private viewing for the lucky's only eyes.
when i catch a glimpse in my review mirror, i expect to see him at the wheel. with a long dark cigar between his teeth, beneath sunglasses that shine like mirrors. unkempt hair turned and cal licked by the wind as he leans toward the window frame. a man outlined in chrome shop dreams, set fittingly in this great plains dream.
with anticipation i crane my neck hoping to see him there, a once great friend who would spend the weekend sitting in a room upstairs. we would talk for hours then, between sips of champagne, fine wine and whiskey, talking of the summer days we could spend with the highway as our ally.
plans were made to never be kept, time slated for garages. we would spend the days on some classic car making it shimmer, shine and rumble. "a real long boat is what we really need, with fins to cut the air. we could make this whole continent our playground, we could run the miles then."
so now when i'm cutting through traffic, in my shirt and tie commute, i always see some '50's savior and hope he's in the coupe. alas, i see him rarely, and now he lays on a bed of straw. still making plans and wishing that we had captured the freedoms we used to draw.
maybe someday i will see him. as i crane my neck to glance, and with head held high i'll yell out at him to pull her over to the side. i'll drop it all and run away, far from these dying plains, and find the fruition of my longing with the man they call R.D.J.

"why've you gone?"

my mouth is tired of explanations.
old friends, old follies, old fences to mend.
my tools have been turned to another cause.
my thoughts have grown short,
as my words have grown long.
i'm building, building: up, up, up.
looking for new days, new frames;
new tricks for old dogs.

the cement cakes on my fingertips,
making them too wide to dial home.
to a place i fell so wounded low,
and then ran out on my own.
those ghosts, those demons,
we all call them what we may:
but mine have been held off so long,
that i'm starting to forget their names.

because i fled this time a year ago,
to a land that was desolate and stale.
no record shops or acid drops,
just a place where hopeless bail.
i drew up new plans on paper.
etched them deep inside my hands.
then followed them precisely.
no sweat to understand.

so now i stand upon the scene.
building, changing, growing.
as a man, a ghost, a once dead prince,
who got by with never knowing.
soon they'll get the best of me,
catching me on the railroad ties.
those ghosts i shed so long ago,
will again look me in the eyes.

and they will ask me, "why have you gone?"
and they will laugh the whole night long.
and they will ask me, "why've you gone?"
and they will shake the whole night long.

havoc.

today i feel like wreaking havoc, like i would love to destroy everything in sight. no, not due to anger, not due to malice, just for the pure and utter joy that destruction can bring.
it feels as though the entire world is a freshly finished painting, left to dry on the easel as the painter slumbers, dreams of contentedness swimming between her ears as she slumbers undisturbed in the next room over.
i want to sneak in and rework the canvas, no, not with brushes. with bottles of ammonia, with fingers strapped up with razor blades, carving and spraying until it all runs and frays.
i want to find a man on the street. sharp dressed for a night on the town, all mother of pearl buttons and sterling silver cuff-links. i would raise my voice from across the littered pavement scene, forgoing broken bottles, crumpled marlboro soft-packs, and discarded steel reserve tall-boys, running through the heavy summer night. my breath would come harder, but it wouldn't show until after he had fled or the fists had flown. then i would sputter and cough, losing a little bit of the blackness that coats the insides of my throat.
maybe this is malintention, maybe this is the seed of evil. to me, i just want to feel alive today. trapped in the commuter lane 60 mile an hour construction zones, chained to a wrought iron desk, it gets easy to lose your head. sucked dry of energy and inspiration just in time to rush home and charge a camera battery, a cell phone, a laptop computer.
really, right now i want to ruin someone's day. not to hurt them, but to make them see what i see. a world full of unfair action, unintentional movement, unwarranted malice. i want them to see that we have all become trapped inside our routines, prisoners to our social classes. i need to show someone that things can change oh so quickly. with the pull of a match, with a touch on the cheek, from a fire on a hillside to the bum in the streets; something, somewhere needs to happen.
i want to be the synapse that fires. i need to become a catalyst, a vehicle to mayhem and a bringer of pain.

maybe i should just take a chill pill or join the wwe.

verdict.

i have no idea where this is going. well, maybe i do. i can see it outlined for me. carefully prepared by a diligent hand, bullets leading to numerals, numerals leading to letters, letters eventually leading to an entirely different type of bullets.
i wonder how i will see it all, if i should be fortunate enough to make it another twenty or so years. i can not help but consider what i may think.
a great error or a wise turn of judgment, only the clocks and calenders will have their turn and a say. the vagabond on his street corner, all worn sleeves and torn up trousers, is always the quickest with his verdict. through whiskey slurs and cigarette burns he is sure to have his say.
the clean cut men think just as quick, but their spirits don't ease their tongues. they paint the damned on the back of eyelids, or in the moments where their heads are turned. waiting to hang their hats on your head, but only after you swing from the gallows.
the kind hearted ones dig down and bury their scorn. they keep it hidden until a day of reckoning will arrive. then they will expose all the second-hand hosts and the boys who never waited in line. should they be taken second, they will shout, with vigor of voice and a conscious wiped out: "but, wait! take a look at this here! i have buried it away for many a year, but now hear the truth and change course."
we all make our judgements, and who is to know if we have chosen the lesser of roads. the other men will all tell us if we become second class felons, but not if we have damned our own souls. which roads we have taken, the higher or lower, makes no difference when we all burn away. the higher turn to ashes, the lower become fodder for maggots, but in the end no one will stay.




the scrap-yard shined like an old diamond mind.
an old-wooden cross marked a day.
the fog was slow lifting in the fields of the north.
and the radio man had his say.

benches.

the early morning rain is painting a seattle scene.
wooden benches left out dripping.
corrosion eating at their beams.
a patch of red, or orange, or brown.

thirty years and still no respect.
people just walking by, sitting, leaving.
littering newspapers on the planks.
carefully placing gum beneath the seat.

forgotten out in the rain.
the people pass on by, except on sunny days.
when the air is fine they have the time,
to sit and rest in the shade.

it's the fool-hearty head of man,
that lets things go to waste.
for soon a man will lose his hold,
and the benches will be left in place.

so the rain comes down and wears away,
the seasons turn and still no change.
just wet benches in the park today,
getting eaten more slowly than we live.

now that it's june.

"now that it's june, we'll sleep out in the garden. if it rains, we'll just sink into the mud. where it is quiet and much cooler than the house is, and there are no clocks or phones to wake us up; because i have learned that nothing is as pressing as the one who is pressing would like you to believe."

i hate everything i write today.
sorry. mainly for myself.
check out some songs.




shhhhhhh! listen to:

"the difference in shades" - bright eyes (letting off the happiness)
"make believe" - the pixies (complete "b" sides)
"fell, destroyed" - fugazi (red medicine)
"walking after you" - the foo fighters (the colour and the shape)
"fifteen pt. 2" - forward, russia! (give me a wall)
"the moon red handed" - the good life (novena on a nocturn)
"pink houses" - john mellencamp (the best that i could do)
"women we haven't met yet" - minus the bear (highly refined pirates)
"unity" - operation ivy (energy)
"weatherman" - plus 44 (when your heart stops beating)
"climbing up the walls" - radiohead (OK computer)
"baby boomerang" - the shins (fighting in a sack)
"wind-up" - thursday (full collapse)
"electric relaxation" a tribe called quest (anthology)
"torched and gone" - tyborn jig (ten paces to the buffalo west)

hook, line, and sinker.

many have been posing me the question the last few days: "so, what have you been up to?"
i should have expected it. a trip home for camping and conversation will always prove inquisitous. graduation parties, family gatherings and buying a cup of coffee all have similar questions tied on.
my answer is: "existing."
i have been spending hours balanced on my head, well figuratively, but in a sense in all reality. as the conclusion of "the dharma bums" spells out, we are all in fact already upside down in a world full of emptiness. perception is everything.
curses and blessings, all taste the same when you have a mouth full of blood. straining to make words, forcing smiles that drip from the corners. this is the burden of eternal optimism. this is the toll of continual struggle. it is easy to keep your head up when you've got the noose around your neck.
watch the sky turn and change; continually shifting and stirring. then the lightning flashes, and bathes us all in light. a quick breath in the darkness, a reprieve from the shadows that have been painting these dirty city streets as of late.
for a few minutes every day i turn something over and over in my head. an inspection of hard granite in my hands, observing every flaw and deciding if each gives character or destroys worth. i want to give it all away. a stop at a goodwill store. a shirt on my back covered by a loaded pack, outlined in a shadow by the setting sun in front of me. i miss the vagabond life, i dream of the stray dog's freedom. no obstacles, just a trudge through life. finding routes to safe havens, searching for lunch behind the 4th st. diner in some modern metropolis.
ten pounds of rice and i could make it two months. twenty and i could make a new life. one based on highway signs and railroad ties. packing up into the ranges of the northwest, finding muir's dreams, finding my own dreams. i long for skies so heavy with stars they have no choice but to hang down to the horizon. i hunger for piles of rock so tall they pierce the same skies and force the stars to rain down, showering us in light.
i'm looking for a backdoor out of my own head. somewhere to let my soul in and out so it can float around the ceiling, fly around the atmosphere: playing tag with satellites. i feel contained. my flesh will rip at the seems if i continue to be careless with this containment. there is something larger inside of me, and it is begging to be let out.
so for now, i keep my mind occupied: wash the dishes, launder the clothing, dust the shelves, read some passages, meditate, watch the news wires, longboard the neighborhoods, lift weights, follow the hockey finals, hang with the boys, spend time with the girl, wash the car, build those shelves. where is this all heading to in reality?
it is all procrastination on a greater life. we become trapped in our kitchens, cleaning sinks and washing things until it all shines stainless steel and white. we are lost in our supermarkets searching for exotic foods that would die on these unforgiving northern plains.
build a garden, carry a kitchen on your back, and drift away from all these bigger dreams.
it could all be propaganda, it could all be a wolf telling us lies to keep our sheep coats from shaking. i have bought it all hook, line, and sinker. i guess that is why we get caught. i suppose that is how we are all so caught up. we took the bait, now we rebel on the line, but these anglers have years of experience and a steady hand. soon we'll break the water. soon we will be gasping for air.


shhhhh! listening to:

"NYC - Gone, Gone" - Conor Oberst (Conor Oberst)
"Moab" - Conor Oberst (Conor Oberst)
"Snake Hill" - Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band (Outer South)
"Worldwide" - Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band (Outer South)
"Roosevelt Room" - Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band (Outer South)
"Bloodline" - Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band (Outer South)
"Differance is Time" - Conor Oberst & The Mystic Valley Band (Outer South)