WORDS

Old-School Words

10-26-00
waiting for pleasure -- waiting for time -- waiting for the
pain and jealousy to cease -- waiting for you to leave --

What is my role in all of this? Whatever should I do -- as
a woman who has cast herself out of Love's way and into the
arms of Indifference?

I feel. I cry. And then go to sleep, but I do dream:

And these dreams that I'm dreamin' no matter how ludricrous
are the gateway to my subconscious, no matter how
obnoxious, no matter how far off they are from reality --

There is a possibility I should bare the responsibility
with no sympathy from the misunderstanding crowd.

The crowd. The crowd. The crowd that will point fingers day
in and day out while snickering behind my back,
talking
"schmack", laughing at what
they do not
understand,
then giving me
"mad props" and shaking
my hand ...
because
of what I am.

I am --
a very delicate, sexual, sensual being, innocent and naive,
with these truths I bleed --

I realize what I have lost as I give the victory to you,
but do not assume that I ever loved you, only if I do, do
not imagine there is anything you can do to console me.

I refuse to be the victim of your insincerity; it's
unnecessary since everything was laid out on the table from
the get go.

I must decide once again if i am willing to settle for all
that I've been denied because you never lied ....

But I must confide in you: sometimes at night when I look
into your eyes, I think you did.

12-06-00
I'm a little incensed when it comes to the world today i'm
concerned for the children without a safe place to play
listen in disbelief to what the politicians say

in a country that declares war on inanimate objects while
laughing disapproval at its disappointing projects people
uncaringly live their lives, do not even protest

I'm a little maddened when this city can spend a million on
street signs as it binds people into poverty while lighting
up a block of trees at christmas time.

we need a little hope this holiday season. Jesus is dead
and people live without reason, 'cept to love whom they
know and give up being decent, forgetting about those who
are barely breathin':

Black men in inner cities who just cannot find work,
daughters of single mothers, of deadbeat fathers and jerks,
unsuspecting children for molesters who lurk; meanwhile
someone holds a gun to a convenience-store clerk.

We smile singing carols this holiday season, spend hard-
earned dollars for commercialized reasons, only to show
others that we are still breathin';

hope to find love when the new year begins as the holes in
our hearts and souls deepen.

12-19-00
Communism, socialism, inequalitarian pluralism
democracy, aristocracy, bureaucracy
history, economical difficulty
all things social scientists write about, preach, teach,
hoping they will reach someone who will listen and care,
someone with the balls to dare to
speak out with a radical, practical, magical, nontraditional view:
of what the government, its constituents, and others seen
as insignificant are supposed to do
But to be influencial one must be able to influence with
strong arguments
controversy is controversial; it's so commercial especially
now where what's relevant is constantly displaced as
society loses time and steals space
People can't be replaced and the past can't be erased so
They just cover up their tracks, hoping they won't be
traced

04-05-02
Education is key to our society -- to succeed; well, some
would say money or greed, for greed is the seed of death by
corporations, including radio stations; and fuck public relations!
Could it be, really, like, American society that produces
the largest amount of anomie, leading some to believe that
they've been deceived? The promise of success in exchange
for hard work only applies to lucky jerks while poor
citizens grow up feeling lied to.
And what am I to do? One small person is all it takes, so
they say, but when is some small person gonna have the
courage to say something, to make something happen? A month
from now -- ten years from now -- today?
Oh, I can't tonight 'cause Friends is on; let the sickness,
crime and sadness go on and on and on and on and on and on and
On top of the world stands an old white man with a
miniature colorful world in his hand. Not knowing its value
he throws it over the end and it goes down, down, down, down, down into the
River Oaks is where he lives, and he's home with his phone
and his cell phone and his car phone and his wife and his
kids; and his kids are the same age as the kids down the
road not far from his home in the dark without a phone,
without a dad, and their mom can't pay the bills and she
sure can't get a loan, a loan, alone,
All alone Denny sleeps under I-45, glad every night that
he's still alive with no dentist or doctor or blanket in
the cold -- spare change is what Christmas used to feel like.
But Denny's far from Christmas and from Christ, though he
still tries to pray to him every night. No doubt that God
is listening to him, 'cause when one has nothing, one cannot sin, and everyone needs something, someone, some possession to believe in.
In this world, through this pain, through the bureaucratic help and the P.O.'d taxpayers who vote for the mayors who will help them the most, while the uneducated people who need the assistance are least likely to vote;
They say VOTE, VOTE, VOTE for the sake of voting to keep up the democratic illusion, to feed citizen's delusions that
success is a Suburban in the suburban driveway of a
suburban house near a suburban school and a nice little mall to go to on the weekends.
And where are the true people, good citizens who may help?
They're all off watching Friends.

Ode to Love12-25-01

Part I

It's a wonderful night as the stars are laid out to shine,
and I turn to say goodbye to my love, so divine.
The time has come for me to leave him for the night; we say goodnight, I hold him tight, for he just might -- disappear
when the light of the sun says hello and farewell to the
night. For then, he would be the memory of a beautiful,
glorious dream, like the song that played in the car --
"Katie Come True" was its name, and he sang with my heart,
which in happiness felt pain: premature fear of waking up;
glittery pain -- the kind that comes with an essence
greater than words on a full blank page could describe.
True romance. True happiness. Truth entered me and
projected from within me -- truth that love is real.
Fuck it; it's realer than real. It's happier than a happy
meal, sweeter than sweet tarts, schmaltzier than schmaltz,
has more rhythm than a waltz; it's more passionate than
passionfruit, more peachy than peachy keen, more precious
than silver or gold or silver screens or silver dollars or
silly valentines or flowers --
It's talking for hours. It's listening. It's not just some
feeling like butterflies or something in your gut; it's
about taking chances, not slow dances. It's about music,
not money, and art, not charity. It's about being and
accepting, not rejecting or ignoring.
Love is all things beautiful in poetry and prose, and all
that is beautiful nurtures it; and it grows and it grows
and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows and it grows
until you glow with your heart and soul, and then you know,
like I now know, that love is real.
And it exists. It's for the taking,
and everyone is deserving.

Ode to (MAKING) Love, Part II

Now some of you may be thinking
I'm a fool in the making, but I know what I'll be making later --
Love, sweet, sweet love, that is --
Love In The Boom Boom Room, love in a bed, love when I'm
sleeping -- in my head.
I'm gonna -- un-but-ton-my-blouse with my man next to me,
and say, You better be naked by the time I count to three. --
and by the time I get to #2, he'll be makin' love to me.
Yes, I'll be makin' love (to borrow the cliche) 'til the cows come home,
while lonely bitter, critics of love will be twiddling their thumbs, and waiting by the phone.
And I'll have my honey Take me;
and perhaps I'll take him.
We'll have Afternoon Delight with the lights on and the lights off as we Wax on, wax off.
Lips, cheeks, backsides, thighs -- everything is going to be worn out and worn in again and again.
Inhibitions lost -- much like virginity -- to Love's red
wine, making it harder and harder, yet easier, to make love all the time.
So if fools fall in love, then they must make it twice the time; and I'm glad to be called a fool.
Let fools be fools if fools may fuck on floors, make love on rugs, or even exchange hugs, 'cause
This self-described Fool in Love is one fool who is gettin' some.

Rad Quotes

Oh, how I wish I could take credit for these, but, like
Dante of a great Kevin Smith movie (Clerks, for anyone who
dares not get the reference), "I believe in giving credit
where credit is due," er something.

************************************************************
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are
mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of
everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say
a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like the fabulous
yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the
stars ....

-- Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957

We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak
dusty imageless locomotive, we're all beautiful golden
sunflowers inside, we're all blessed by our own seed and
golden hairy naked accomplishment bodies growing into mad
black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes
under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset
Frisko hilly tincan evening sit-down vision.

-- Allen Ginsberg, "Sunflower Sutra," Berkeley, 1955

... But one fine morning, she hears a New York station
she doesn't believe what she heard at all hey, not at all
She started dancing to that fine-fine music you know her life was saved
by rock 'n' roll.

-- Lou Reed (Velvet Underground,
"Rock 'n' Roll"

Who knows how to make love stay?

-- Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.

-- Moulin Rouge

These burgers ... are crazy. These burgers ... are
cra...zy!

-- The Moldy Peaches, "These Burgers are
Crazy"

Indie boys are neurotic -- makes my eyes bleed.

-- The Moldy Peaches, "Lucky No. 9"

I need you to show me the way from crazy.

-- Jimmy Eat World, "My Sundown", Bleed American (which was changed to self-titled after Sept. 11)

Keep your head up high, or you may miss the sunrise.

-- Matt the dreadlocked pimp

I asked you to go to the Green Day concert. You said you never heard of them. How cool is that! So I went to your room, and read
your diary.

-- Weezer, "El Scorcho" on Pinkerton, their best album

"On Aging," 08-21-02
It's not the end or the beginning; it just may be the
Mid-life crisis may as well be called "end-life crisis",
As those merely half-done living their lives begin decaying on the insides:
Withering away/ bones decomposing under slightly wrinkled/ caving in/ liquid skin,
Clutching skeletons in closets with memories stored on hard-to-reach shelves.
Tucking dreams away in suitcases with cold embraces and old-school ADIDAS shoelaces;
Blurry yearbooks test the past for relevance with blind, shallow-minded prejudices.
Forgotten ticket stubs from rock 'n' roll shows slowly fade, piled up in locked up, would-be sock drawers.
What for? When was the last time you opened that door?
"Wasted talent" is a film's great line -- do you recall it,
As ancient, aging bottles of both bitter and bubbly experience stand up on racks with corks in them as decorations for generations?
As your tears fall for subconscious reasons on aimless drives around 9 & 5.
You look around, and it becomes difficult to find life's little, lovely, lukewarm beauties.
But they left, soon as you began to count down the years
until your retirement, your death, your last breath ...
Left with the fear you confessed 20 years ago:
The fear you'd grow up to be a three-dimentional reality of what you always promised yourself you'd never, ever, ever, ever, ever,
Ever, allow yourself to evolve to be --
Now, what a sad, sad sight you are to see ....

Fairy Tales

Once upon a time, someone started a story with "Once upon a time," and it ended with "happily ever after," and
grateful children clapped their hands in innocent delight. But not today. Today there are no more children, just ants crawling on beds of a red hot earth with no soul. I remember the day well when the change came, or at least I did, before I drank five bottles of Skyy, and what happened to my mixers???

09-19-02
Call me unAmerican,
If you think that's what I am.
Excuse me if I oppose nuclear war,
If I think life is worth more
Than revenge, profit, or pride.
Revenge has no end --
Comes back again and again like a trend:
"Terror in a box, buy it while it's hot!"
Then pick it apart, print it on paper,
Then light it with a match.
The fire will spread until everything's dead,
So no one can defend ...
But at least someone got revenge.

It's time to call it quits on the greed for profits,
Since profits don't really exist.
Every extra dollar for The Man
Is just stolen from an exploited kid.
Now pride need not really be addressed.
Most religious folks think it's a sin.
Just the same, I'll tell you what I'm proud of,
And that is that I am American.

I'm proud to be an American,
Where at least I know I'm free
To go to work, and pay my bills, and shut my mouth --
Except when I want to exercise my right to free speech.
It's a right that most people won't use --
Too afraid to speak the truth, then be abused, or even worse,
Be called "unAmerican".

Well, call me unAmerican,
Cause I'm not grateful for what I have -- completely.
I don't feel in debt to my country, but to the underclass --
To the uneducated, impoverished people who have nothing but
Guns and drugs and disease
To hope with,
To cope with,
With broken-down houses, inadequate schools, unsafe streets and corrupt police.

Call me unAmerican,
Cause I think America can do better,
Cause I think the "Land of Opportunity" should live up to its name,
Stop talkin' shit to Saddam Hussein,
Give up the political theater games,
And do something for its own people.

I got lost yesterday. I went home to this place that I thought was my apartment. My key worked, so it may have been the right place, but when I walked into my room, I couldn't see the floor.

It's just a reflection of my life. I always thought it was the opposite. You know how the most fucked up people have clean houses? Like on American Beauty, how the boy next door's house was immaculate, and his mom says, "I apologize for the way things look around here." Even though I know that, my rooms not that big, so I try to keep it clean. When it's cluttered, I feel closed in, uncomfortable.

Well, a mess has been piling up for a couple of weeks. It is messier than it ever has been. There are piles, literally piles. Oh, I already said that. Piles of books, bills, ticket stubs, laundry I haven't taken the time to put away ....

I'm so neurotic I'm trying to interpret my mess. Like my life, the order of my room has changed. "What does this say
about what's going on in my life?" I ask myself.

A normal person would say, "You're just busy, that's all."

But the piles are growing, and I don't want to be there ....

11-11-02

You remind us of our pasts, the dark shadows that we used to hide in and then cry because we couldn't see and we were afraid of the dark. You tap me on the shoulder, I turn my head and all I hear is the echo of nothing. The sound that nothing makes is a horrible sound. Worse than tears drip-dropping on the emo-waxed floor ... so shiny it's sickening, a distorted reflection in a deflated balloon. Please understand, it's not you, it's the reminder, of being locked on the top stair with the rats and no key and the crack of light we felt we didn't deserve. Gotta move on. Gotta move on. If you don't keep movin' the darkness swallows you whole, and then you're nothing, you're erased. Not existing is worse than existing, because then feelings would be missing and feelings to communicate are what we commonly call life words. and it hurts, i know, I know it hurts, but we're the ones who will get past. you and me, and you'll see ... don't fucking shake your head at me. look in the mirror because you're worth it, and I'll try to do the same not just pretend the abuse didn't happen and look the other way like they mostly do ... I will be here through the fear, distant or not. just know i do what i gotta do but honey that don't mean i don't love you. to love you is to love myself, to remember ... the sun will be out this december in texas. keep you're head up high or you may miss it.