Immoral Machine

Immoral Machine.


The Unyielding Hand of Change.


There is no desperation, only exasperation.


I am a coordinating conjunction.


An external manifestation of unconscious desires.

transition

The grip slips slowly as

lashes bat back and forth,

flitting between the known

and unknown.

Scenes emerge like a whale

breaching the surface of

the sea. A million drops

of water glistening like

crystal in air.  

Currency

ART IS THE CURRENCY OF THE SOUL

Blossoming

We become that

which we have

always been.

evergreen

you are more

than a ring

in the trunk

of this tree.

you are the

bark and the

leaves in this

perpetual

present.

Careful With Your Words Please

watch your words

carefully.

they brandish

the same

cutting edge as

the knife

in your kitchen.

if you don't

there will be a

reckoning

of minds with

only

one winner.

As Winter

passes

how fearful

we grow

of its

return.

Predator

It’s teeth sink into my flesh.

I’m helpless to stop it.

The light dims around me.

The fury dies down

As silence surrounds.

Tangled Logic

There is only that 

Which is not

This and is most 

Certainly

Neither

Here nor There

Or

Anywhere

We seem to

Think we

Know or

Are. 

Your Voice In The Gathering Storm

You were singing to me

As I was crouched on the ground.

I stood to face you.

My hands played

A beat to keep time.

The storm gathered as

The sea grew restless.

Two whirlpools

Swirled in opposing directions.

We finished our song and

Smiled as nature

Gathered her tantrum.

I wonder about us,

What it means

If anything.

Social Critique & Emotional Hatefuck

The conveniences of our society are symptoms of its greatest ills.

__________________________

I'm sick of the fighting

I'm sick of the lying

No more

No more

None of this

________________________

What you did to me

is

What I did to you

Can't say I blame you.

A Collection of Thoughts

is the goal of language to achieve a level of clarity

that can recreate reality into scenes more vivid

than our dreams?

___________________
Back then I was someone else.

Right now

I'm well on my way to finding

someone else hiding inside

my skin.
__________________

The crisis is always the same

it's the reactions that change.

_________________

Have we spent the whole of our souls

on baubles and trinkets?

_______________

Who would have imagined

you and Faulkner had so much

in common?

Scorched Landscape

thinking about

the way some loves

end--


easily


painfully


regretfully


there is a finality

that once crossed cannot

be taken back

not

because one lacks the desire

rather

because there is nothing

remaining--


the land


the time


the memory


all scorched into

a void where nothing

can live

and everything

is a mockery

of what once was.

Debussy : 1st Arabesque

I could hear the seasons in your hands

as fingers flitted about.

Impressions from another life

rendered through sparkling

black and white.

The sounds of solace

in a time of boundless change

could make any heart weep.

This soundtrack plays

against many different films,

all rendered into beauty

with this sound.

describing

a bottle as empty

as your

heart.

Speak Easy (Draft 3)

The dark corners of the room spoke of

decades past. Heels clacked on the floor

as shadows danced by candlelight.

Words flowed like wine as we sat in the

well worn wood. A cool sweat reflected

on the glasses as the ice melted amidst the

sound of Jazz floating in air. A steady pulse

of time swung back and forth into a groove

as your finger tap-tapped on the table top.

We played the parts of film noirs past. Your

dress fit for the body of a movie palace

queen. When the candle wick burned out

and the wax hardened once more, we stepped

from that static age and into the rushing

tides of the city streets.  

_______________

Original Post:

http://thenoiseoftrouble.blogspot.com/2010/11/varnish.html

Revision #2

http://thenoiseoftrouble.blogspot.com/2010/11/speak-easy.html

Ancient Architecture & Future Ruins

You hardly ever think of all the planning and work that goes into

the creation of a building as you enter it. 

There had to be plans drawn up, materials gathered and organized, 

workers that needed to be hired to sweat, grunt and create.

Have you ever thought about the architects of antiquity? Hands and

minds that hewed edifices from rock extracted of our mothers body. 

Cities like Uxmal, Athens, Xi'an, Rome, Angkor Wat speak silently 

as we gaze and enter their sacred spaces and wonder in rapture 

at the feats of our kind. How shall our ruins appear to the future 

tourists walking through broken glass in our palaces of consumption?

Thoughts On A Conversation with Venus

Promises made

in the hours after the light,

words exchanged like

breath in a kiss.

Soon

my dear.

Soon.

Slaughter-House

when the

morning comes,

who

remembers

the morals of

the night before?

The Hard Pour

is the one at

the end of the night

that gets you

to bed

and keeps you

there til

morning.

Spoken Normally, Fast, and S l o w

I was wondering about nothing when I thought of something, it
struck me as a thing worth remembering or at the least thinking
about until I remembered what she said about all the time I spend
lost inside the inner spaces those places seldom traveled by
the conscious mind the reaches of deepest truth truths too
loud to face on a normal plane I searched inside for it I could
have sworn it was there looking for me among the piles of
moments stored away as being useless and sentimental the
kind of pap that would play well to the masses but those are
the moments I wasn't looking for but what of that thought
what about it I remember wait no do I I'm not sure it's hard
to see in here it's so cluttered now the words are tumbling out
so fast i dont; think my hands can keep up or can they i dont th
ink so noe there are typos everywhere wait can you read this
or is it too i dont know wait what is it too tooo tooto to ab
stract now that its breaking down where is that thought is it
here i could have sworn it was but i guess not i can t sloww
down but i should   i  am   I'm   b r e a t h i n g i n a g a i n
I a m f o r g e t t i n g w h a t i t w a s a l l a b o u t i t h i n
k i f o u n d w h a t i w a s l o o k i n g i t w a s r i g h t y o
u t h i s w h o l e t i m e

After the Mourning

You had just come from her memorial service

the last time I saw you.

There was an expected unease in your eyes,

a slight tremble in your voice.

Its been about a week since then.

Last night was closer

to the you I've known

as we sat there

drinking beers in my car.

I played you some music

by the band whose gig you missed.

We listened for a while,

finding what is there,

what is left of us

whenever such things happen.

The heart cracks

and creaks from use,

its strength is unsurpassed

by any manmade creation.

When the moment had passed

we stepped out in the night

and into the place

we give birth

to that primal sound.

The Artist (Draft 3)

by nature is a creature given to feeling the tides of life

in a hard and impassioned way. Every moment and

emotion is amplified into something that can be

immortalized in a creative act. This is best exemplified



through work crafted in the passion of loves creation or

dissolution. Each end mirrors the other in an opposing

spectrum of action and emotion. What may have been

a unifying force now tears bonds apart. The artist mourns



its passing with a fury uncommon to an average love,

creation flows in torrents that cannot be held back.

One can view the strata of an artists life as periods of

work with identifiable creative output.



The internal conditions of these works are representative

of universal themes that are identifiable and relatable by

others who may or may not be creatively inclined. Ultimately,

the Artist perseveres and embarks on a new era of creativity.
 ____________________________________


Note: drafts 1 and 2 can be viewed here:

 http://thenoiseoftrouble.blogspot.com/2011/01/artist.html

http://thenoiseoftrouble.blogspot.com/2011/01/artist-draft-2.html

Hello,

It has been a while since the last time we wrote each other.

I'm glad to hear things are going well for you.

Have you ever felt the tide rushing towards you

when your back is turned?

I feel it all the time.

It's a strange sensation to say the least.

I've given up on trying to make everything

make sense at all times.

Theres is a  place and time for order

and reason,

we can't forget the need for spontaneity

in our lives.

Not everything is fated.

Hope to see you soon,

XO

what there is to hold

like a river flowing backwards
words lost in the wind
my hand scratching my head
thoughts wondering as they wander
taking the moments as they come
and wondering where they've gone
all body and all mind
living and deteriorating all the time
these thoughts don't connect
isolated from one another
freed from context
juxtaposed against a mindless backdrop
suffer oh how your suffer great martyr
we grow tired and weary
the cycle repeating
actions caught in a predictable pattern
what more do you want
a pound of flesh
or a gallon of blood
letting words run as they come
all this suffering
you ask yourself why
but there is no one to answer back
so you live and survive
without the answer to the question at hand
don't look to me
my answers are no better than yours
how weak we've become
how weak we are
how strong we are if we dig deep enough
into ourselves
restless nights
sleepless nights
the city shaping our fate
our hands clambering for anything to hold
all there is is what has been here
just us
just us

Don't Mess with the Fauna

What do you expect

a skunk to do

when you won't

leave it alone?

It turns to

instinct.

A Snapshot of a Days Worth of Stray Thoughts

#1
The vulture of indifference gnaws at your
thoughts, keeping your hands from action.

#2
What I find to be true and real does not
always match the popular consensus of
what is found to be true and real.

#3
Your heart speaks a language that mine
can no longer understand.

#4
It is better to fail together than alone.

Apocalypse Heart

Apocalypse Heart


What is there is what was there when we started.


I found you beneath the lights sleeping peacefully.


Speech as sound and meaning.


Everything found is everything that was once lost.


What we hoped for is not what we needed.



It is chance and coincidence that defines our lives

as much as hard work and calculation.

Undoing desire

is the first step

in the path to

mending a

troubled mind.

No more Pyrrhic victories.

We are droplets

in the tide

crashing upon

the shore.

The Ghosts We've All Become

ghosts of the past

watching each others 

movements,

wondering what 

happened to the 

the form.

Glass Eye

watching silently

through this glass eye

we learn more

than we ever imagined

and less than we hoped

to know.

Breathing You In

it was better then because we were

younger.

it was easier to dream

without care,

its hard to even breath

nowadays.

I would gladly inhale

the breath from

your lungs.

The Aching Age of Agony

The Age of Aching Agony

___________________

De-construction of language?

Who do you think

you are?

Joyce?

Thinking About Last Night

When the devil is sitting on your chest

in the middle of the night,

laughing in your face

do you tremble

or laugh back?

Confluence of Limbs

Confusion of Whims

The Familiar Feel of Home

heat rising from pavement,


feet warming from the walking,


cars at a standstill on the veins


and arteries. clear blue? there


are you. everything in its right


place.

Finding Face

I lost it for a while

until i found it on

the floor in front

of the mirror. I

put it back on

and felt fine.

For the Thursday Night Bartender

There is a beauty found in women

like you who populate the loud 

and drunken dens of the world

dispensing drinks and gazes to the

hapless men milling for relief.

A generous smile matched only

by your figure, a patience for the 

slurred words of those drinking

for fun or to forget and every

reason in between. You are 

both mother and object of desire,

provider of communication and

libation, the gateway to sanity

and inner descent. The world

is a better place for people like

me because of women like you.

Whatever It Takes

In this life

you do

whatever it

takes to

make it

through

the day.

Whatever

it takes

to get

you to

bed,

Whatever

it takes

to wake

you in

the morning,

you do it

and you

keep moving

forward.

Just be

careful

to not break

any glass.

cut off the tongue and speak

with you hand,

anything that needs to be said

can be said with 

printed text.

only an insufficient 

mind would not

be able to.

There is fiction in our loves

that finds itself in such

strange company.

Never Love Those You Cannot Have

Save yourself the time,

trouble and heartache

and find someone else

or no one at all.

Daisy Owl: On Existence

Beautifully true observation.

Alice and Elizabeth Taylor

"I have something for you." was the first thing Alice said

as she walked into the office.I hadn't seen her in some time.


Her frail hands reached down into her bag, trembling ever

so. She pulled out a large white envelope and set it on the


counter. "Here, take a look." I opened the envelope and

saw a large photograph of Elizabeth Taylor. She had just


passed away a few weeks back. She was in middle age

looking like the beauty that had mesmerized the world.


"I took that picture in 1982." I turned it over and saw

her writing on the back : LA, Ahmanson Theatre 1982.


"The picture is as old as I am," I said. She laughed in the

way that grandmothers can. A laugh that is a mixture of


love, age and hard earned wisdom. "Thanks for giving

me this and thinking of me Alice." I stood up from


behind my desk and gave her a hug. Anyone would be

happy to have someone like her in their lives.

We Are All We Have

If it were not for each other

who would we have?

the spontaneous overflow of emotion?

the spontaneous overflow of emotion

who said that?

was that Keats?

I can't remember right now.

When the emotion overwhelms you

let it run through you

let it bring action to your heart

let your legs break into a sprint

feel the wind through your hair

let your lungs suck deeply at the air

every part of you embracing sensation

how beautiful is that?

boundless joy?

of course,

we will accept nothing less

we know how short our lives are and

what they are worth

there is no mental slavery

ever worth the bondage

we will suffer

but it will be a pain

we can endure

it will be a pain that is familiar

the nights are our playground to live and dream

the days are restlessly bright

when we ride this wave together

we are

the whole of the world.

In Memory We Are Eternal

Mourn,

let your heart

shed its tears,

transitions

are never easy.

Let love

be the memory

you carry,

Let love

be your impetus

for life.

Our lives are

always in transit,

the spiral continues,

matter changes state,

the spirit freed

returns.

The Tasks of Hands

What do I see when I look at my hands?

I have seen them

balled into fists,

petting my first dog,

holding a girls hand,

learning how to hold drum sticks,

learning to move across piano keys,

hold a pencil and scrawl words onto

oversized paper children learn to write on.

I have seen my hands

stroke my beard,

hold a beer,

scratch my head,

gently hold a woman by the waist,

feel the inside of life,

you get the idea.

There is something

in watching them write

that never ceases

being the purest alchemy.

Thoughts on "The Cart" by Mary Ruefle

Words become a mirror

of us. There is a simple

beauty in their use, a

beauty so simple that

it bears repeating.

ripples of thought

this routine grows tiresome

from time to time.

restraint or

excision

of vice

is no

bad

thing.

"These vices are divisive.

There's no consensus

among the rest of us."

____________

I fed my heart to the wild jungle of your mind.

Women

There is the girl in the beautiful dress,
we spoke easily in the booth as old as
prohibition. Her flame cannot be tamed.

There was the one I loved or
at least I thought I did.
She moved away and got married.

There was the one whom I shared a bed with,
so close but so distant. She's married with
child now. She moved back home.

There was the girl who was there,
she left me feeling empty.

There was the girl who loved me,
it pained me not being able to return
it to her.

There was the girl who made me a
Valentines Day card when we went out
that night. It's still inside my car.

There's the girl who is an innocent flirt,
she has a beautiful heart.

There is a girl I worked with, we sat in my
car listening to music. She asked me the
next day why I didn't kiss her. I asked myself
the same thing.

There was the older woman. God
she was gorgeous.

There was the girl I met my first year in college.
We went out for a while, then she broke up
with me. She's probably married now.

There was the girl I first has a crush on in high
school who always had the worst taste in men.
She's also married with a few kids.

There's the girl who was drunk at her birthday,
I always had a crush on her.

There's the girl who had just broken up with her
boyfriend and wanted me to take her out. We
got too drunk and made out in my car.

It was awkward when her dad saw me trying to
walk upstairs to her room late at night.
She has a kid now but not married.

There is the girl who took the beautiful pictures,
her smile was as glowing as her soul.

There was the woman at the concert I sort of knew.
It was thrilling but all too public. A moment
destined to be fleeting

There is the girl who almost moved to London,
such a kindred spirit. I still think of her.

I sit here thinking of them all
and of the ones not mentioned.

The heart is foolish in its desires.

She couldn't help but wonder what it was that had
changed. By appearance there was nothing to indicate
any difference. That surface level assessment was
content with its status quo. The more she thought
about it the more that feeling increased with a nag
that couldn't free itself from her.

___________________

I saw down with the explicit idea of coming up with
a setting. A quiet place, one that might be familiar to
you. The kind of place an outsider cannot enter with
out the utmost of trust. A quiet place, a place of
contemplation, a place of pondering, a place where
the inner machinations of the mind run without
censor.

___________________

Let it go
Let it go
Let it go
Let it go

Awareness

Two cars

at the intersection,

a green Jaguar ran

the light.

It hit the old Camry

with no problem.

The middle-age

soccer mom

without any kids

sat stunned.

A few streets over

a man walked back

to his car with

a red plastic

container full of

gas. Passing them

both was a young

girl, only 18,

cruising by in her

new Mercedes.

She saw neither.

green screen heartbeat

this heartbeat

tied to a screen,

an eerie glowing green.

tied to this world

as the threads

begin to unravel.

Lost

I could have

never given you

the life you have.

Director

You used to play a starring role

in this production

but as the years went on

and the run was extended

you settled into being

an extra and

working

backstage in the

production.

Maybe that's why we

don't see each other

anymore.

The Nights Are As Kind As They Are Cruel

The nights are as kind as they are cruel.


The Past and Present can be dead weight
to the soul.


What are any of us reaching towards?


I find myself lost in the same place.


It's the kind of numbing agent that no doctor would recommend.


Spend you beauty now before you run out of stock.


Do you remember all the things I wrote about you?


Do I remember all the things I wrote about you?


Of course ( not ).


How many more mistakes before I can make it right?

Fighting Battles, Losing Wars

It's a restless conpulsion

that fuels these late night

sessions. A refusal to submit

to the normalcy colonizing

the lives of others.

The sounds, the drinks,

the smoke, the ill-conceived

thoughts and chance

encounters that define

these outsider lives.

Who is looking at Whom

I wonder?

We can't be all wrong,

We can't be all right,

can we?

a sweet hurt

a rose

blossoming at night,

petals spreading

a thorn

piercing skin,

blood dripping

down your

hand.

What Happened That Night

We stood under the dim lights of the doorway,

alcohol clutched firmly in hand.

It was late.

It didn't matter,

it wasn't a weeknight.

Our friends walked around

either just as drunk or

more so. Some

were stoned.


There was a couple

in the bathroom fighting

you said.


Was it bad?


It was bad enough,

I heard her banging on the door

yelling for him to

let her out.


So what happened?


Someone came over

with the key to the restroom

and opened it up.

The girl stormed out of there

and he just followed

behind, no one did anything

even though we heard

what happened.

They looked pretty trashy.


She reached into her pocket

and lit a cigarette.

It dangled between her

fingers, the smoke ascended

to heaven, to the moon.

I took a swig from my bottle,

my head buzzing, my blood

running hot.


You looked perfect there,

bottle and cigarette in hand.


Some people are just weird

I said,

Some people are just weird.

Pattern Recognition

A pattern that is endlessly repeating and

non-terminating

will perpetuate itself

both day and night,

week to week,

month to month,

year to year,

season to season.

Other patterns

repeat themselves

by virtue of character

flaws that are too

glaring to confront.

Attempts to do so

are often half-hearted

and destined for failure.

The natural rhythms

run endlessly without

undue influence,

the patterns of self-sabotage

continue on a jerking

crag of start

stop until some thing

has to give.

endless gaze

it's hard to look up

when you are staring

me in the face waiting

for an answer.

dust in the attic

All small

kindness'

given

are now

forgot.

The

memory

of the

past

gathers

dust upon

the

mantle.

I remember

that time.

There is no

sentence

a judge

could give

greater

than the

one I give

myself

remembering.

the words

find their

voice

in conversation

as the night

grows long.

Sap

runs down

easily from

a maple

tree.

Goddess,

can only

a Titan

tame

your wild

Heart?

So what

of this

pain,

this suffering?

Does

there need

to be

a reason

for it?

Is living

not

reason enough?

I'm

living

the lonesome

blues

of the

heart.

A Plethora of Single Fragment Thoughts For Ease of Consumption Without A Narrative Voice

a statue never ages.

making sense of coincidence.

chance? not likely.

broken faces heal painfully.

degrees of love can become separation.

there is no love here.

the night torn with our faults.

the ache that dulls the pain of boredom.

always waiting for someone? why?

proactive measures to inactive problems.

habit is both virtue and vice.

we fail when our success becomes too great.

are you too beautiful for my own good?

free association word rally meeting in the square.

enough to survive but not enough to live.

a choke hold like a hug.

time wasted, time wastes itself.

the precious hours, diamonds thrown away to carelessness.

your heart a vile and contemptuous thing.

if we were honest in our intents we would never get anywhere.

our great moral failings  are failings of self-control.

don't believe in love.

lust only lies.

2 + 2 = whatever we want it to be.

rules are suggestions applicable the majority of the time.

consequences are the end results of adherence or observation of rules.

There is only then.

We are all actors in our own lives.

Masks are as simple as the expression on your face.

The soul etches itself into the face.