I’ve lost the god they've placed upon me,
He is not with me now,
I don’t know if he ever was.
To have such truths, fiction, and words from a bible,
I must spend time in someone else’s world,
Not mine,
There is an encroaching calm,
A growing sense of self,
Happiness made of an endorphic furnace
There is no waiting for another life to begin
It’s here now.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
The Elements of Cognition
Why did I take so long to learn to listen?
Why did I wait so long to ask questions?
Who should I listen to now that there is no one left to ask, then learn?
Who will listen to me?
Why should they?
Will they?
?
Why did I wait so long to ask questions?
Who should I listen to now that there is no one left to ask, then learn?
Who will listen to me?
Why should they?
Will they?
?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Marbled Halls
the rhythmic tap of hard leather on polished stone
a transference of energy from heel to mid sole
inert sounds generated from
an empty echo reverberates then quickly starts to fade
then again the next shoe strikes stone
starting the sequence once more
An arrhythmic pulse infused with urgent restraint,
always corners to turn, wide expanses to traverse, doors to open,
So much distance between answers.
Medusa bones must lie here within these walls
buttressed serpents emerge from granite spires
a concert of gently measured notes playing with the stained light
turning flesh into rock
stilling forever the heart
a siren's song, a protective sight
the scream of silence reverberates.
a transference of energy from heel to mid sole
inert sounds generated from
an empty echo reverberates then quickly starts to fade
then again the next shoe strikes stone
starting the sequence once more
An arrhythmic pulse infused with urgent restraint,
always corners to turn, wide expanses to traverse, doors to open,
So much distance between answers.
Medusa bones must lie here within these walls
buttressed serpents emerge from granite spires
a concert of gently measured notes playing with the stained light
turning flesh into rock
stilling forever the heart
a siren's song, a protective sight
the scream of silence reverberates.
Sediment
When all the mixture of the day settles to the ground,
when the roar of a departing plane loses its crackle,
as the sun drops behind the cloud, becomes heavy, then falls into dark.
A feeling of remembrance, a youthful interlude
delivered on the distant sound of a crowd at a little league game
Standing still in the twilight, a starkness that creates a nucleus.
As a grain of sand tumbles down a river bed
the current unappreciative of its existence
not knowing every constituent but knowing all are needed
to make whole of the river.
Flashes of childhood sprinkle down from afar,
to form a fine layer of cosmic dust
a surface that now glints in light, seeping inside a graying mind.
The skinned knee from falling off your bike,
getting lost during summer camp in the mountains
caught in the current of a riptide following out to sea.
So then, from which direction does memory come,
or is that just a myth, a dream becoming reality,
Collectives, recollections continually lost in factoid processes
put together anew by a repeated meter, a new chord
the totality of wholeness that can never be fully comprehended
yet always the base of every day thought.
when the roar of a departing plane loses its crackle,
as the sun drops behind the cloud, becomes heavy, then falls into dark.
A feeling of remembrance, a youthful interlude
delivered on the distant sound of a crowd at a little league game
Standing still in the twilight, a starkness that creates a nucleus.
As a grain of sand tumbles down a river bed
the current unappreciative of its existence
not knowing every constituent but knowing all are needed
to make whole of the river.
Flashes of childhood sprinkle down from afar,
to form a fine layer of cosmic dust
a surface that now glints in light, seeping inside a graying mind.
The skinned knee from falling off your bike,
getting lost during summer camp in the mountains
caught in the current of a riptide following out to sea.
So then, from which direction does memory come,
or is that just a myth, a dream becoming reality,
Collectives, recollections continually lost in factoid processes
put together anew by a repeated meter, a new chord
the totality of wholeness that can never be fully comprehended
yet always the base of every day thought.
Darkened Bright
Dark, so very, very dark
the deepest purple glint
of a swirling black curtain
streams forth from an uncontained mind
alluvial fingers flowing back into rivers of themselves.
Desert sands seen only as blowing dust
ground from within a vulcanized soul
lifted by winds heard before seen
scaring obsidian with arching swirls
crescent reflections of the moon's gaze.
The sounds of silence will be given away
history unwritten always better kept in memory's fold
held by thought not yet lost in ancient words
as if to describe what has already been written in stone
observant success over assimilative failure.
Fool's gold sparkles from a granite face
tells of many dreams the land has spawned
a Sonoran sun that still shines at night
giving back the day after it withdraws it last rays
brightness in the nocturnal world.
the deepest purple glint
of a swirling black curtain
streams forth from an uncontained mind
alluvial fingers flowing back into rivers of themselves.
Desert sands seen only as blowing dust
ground from within a vulcanized soul
lifted by winds heard before seen
scaring obsidian with arching swirls
crescent reflections of the moon's gaze.
The sounds of silence will be given away
history unwritten always better kept in memory's fold
held by thought not yet lost in ancient words
as if to describe what has already been written in stone
observant success over assimilative failure.
Fool's gold sparkles from a granite face
tells of many dreams the land has spawned
a Sonoran sun that still shines at night
giving back the day after it withdraws it last rays
brightness in the nocturnal world.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Greener Grass
I do not know what kind of lawn my father planted in our first house. My recollection now solely comes from a fading photo of my parents standing in the front yard; smiling faces that look intrinsically familiar yet foreign at the same time. Each time I set that tarnished photo down, I finish by looking at the grass crushed beneath their feet. They have given no thought as to what it took make each blade so very green, just smiles offered to the camera's lens. We only lived there a few years, then an apartment for a short time, then finally the structure was built that I came to call home. When I was old enough to obtain a cognitive mind, it was the dichondra grass in the yard that became my strategic link to the formulation of the word "home". It was so exact in its growth pattern; small delicate stems terminating in a clover-like leaf. Green became my favorite color: a dark, rich, intense shade of the green worn by that dichondra basking in the Southern California sun. Every Saturday I wanted to walk through the yard in my bare feet not wanting to cut the grass as the mower lopped off those wonderful, green, leafs. Soon after my mechanized assault, the injuries healed, the grass again spring-spry as all the headless stems had grown back.
As I grew into high school the time I spent on the lawn grew shorter each week. The frail yet beautiful grass that was memory's seed became not what I did each weekend but nothing more than a pesky chore that did not always get done. Why I took great offense at my father's intent to push woody runners of St. Augustine into the tranquil sea of soft green I will never know, I just did. Why should I mind, I was waxing the Malibu for the weekend as if someone other that me would notice. The coarse, thick blades St. Augustine entwined themselves amongst the vivid green stocks just as a python wraps itself around its evening meal. I never knew the exact moment that the dichondra died and the St. Augustine assumed control; it just happened, it was there. The passionate warmth that I so wanted to have attached to the memory of my childhood home became flawed, in part, by the fading vision of that long, cozy home with the stiff, off-green lawn it had when I last saw it. I still fight to put the dichondra into that vision but with only false and soon forgotten success; the St. Augustine still pushes its way in.
I lived in Missouri for a while where my yards were never anything more than mowed fields. The remaining stubble was harsh even poking its way through the hard rubber soles of my harachis. That yard really looked appealing when it was tall, overgrown. Long, feathery stocks of Timothy about two feet high, deep purplish-red flowers of red clover, the stature and beautiful evil of thistle all blowing in concert on the evening's wind. Mowing it all down to one inch storks, I tried planting blue grass and rye but the natural growth never let that succeed. I derive more comfort from a trip I made to my father's childhood home just before I moved back West. That image still remains as intense as the day it happened. It was an old, decaying two-story house, hand built by my grandfather and his friends. You could still see the integrity of the structure but the yard around the house had grown back to its natural state. The holistic beauty the entire image is of an old farmhouse sinking into an ocean of flowing grasses and creeping vines. The collective nature in the seemingly incompatible parts of that vision giving that recollection great staying power and resonance whenever I ruminate on that memory. That was my father's house and his grass, not intrinsic enough for me to call mine like viewing art but never quite knowing for sure what the artist's impetus.
For the last fifteen years I have lived in the desert of Arizona. Supposedly, tumble weeds cannot even grow here as they just become vegetative road kill. My father and mother are no longer present on this earth but are still standing in some kind of grass somewhere, smiling. I now have my own yard, and it has grass growing in it. Most yards in the desert are planted with Bermuda grass and, for whatever sense it makes, thrives in the heat of summer then goes dormant, turning a dead-like brown in winter. I liked the Bermuda when I first moved in: the yard was already established, it is soft on bare feet, and you do not have to mow it but half of the year. As time passed, I came to the conclusion that the Bermuda was not a color that would have a lasting legacy for me. Over time its pale green blades just seem to keep getting fainter and stiff. I tried planting dichondra as if to resurrect the ideal of nurturing the perfect green grass; the ultimate comfort found within the link to my childhood home. For a myriad of reasons that did not work, so I decided to do some horticultural research to obtain success. After very little effort into the preferred grass types for arid climates, I came across some troubling data on dichondra. It really is weed, Kidney weed. The reference went on to say it was best never mowed and did well when planted where it would not be walked on. So, I dug some St. Augustine out of my head and planted it in the yard. It is still in the process of choking out the last few remnants of Bermuda, but it has almost won.
As I grew into high school the time I spent on the lawn grew shorter each week. The frail yet beautiful grass that was memory's seed became not what I did each weekend but nothing more than a pesky chore that did not always get done. Why I took great offense at my father's intent to push woody runners of St. Augustine into the tranquil sea of soft green I will never know, I just did. Why should I mind, I was waxing the Malibu for the weekend as if someone other that me would notice. The coarse, thick blades St. Augustine entwined themselves amongst the vivid green stocks just as a python wraps itself around its evening meal. I never knew the exact moment that the dichondra died and the St. Augustine assumed control; it just happened, it was there. The passionate warmth that I so wanted to have attached to the memory of my childhood home became flawed, in part, by the fading vision of that long, cozy home with the stiff, off-green lawn it had when I last saw it. I still fight to put the dichondra into that vision but with only false and soon forgotten success; the St. Augustine still pushes its way in.
I lived in Missouri for a while where my yards were never anything more than mowed fields. The remaining stubble was harsh even poking its way through the hard rubber soles of my harachis. That yard really looked appealing when it was tall, overgrown. Long, feathery stocks of Timothy about two feet high, deep purplish-red flowers of red clover, the stature and beautiful evil of thistle all blowing in concert on the evening's wind. Mowing it all down to one inch storks, I tried planting blue grass and rye but the natural growth never let that succeed. I derive more comfort from a trip I made to my father's childhood home just before I moved back West. That image still remains as intense as the day it happened. It was an old, decaying two-story house, hand built by my grandfather and his friends. You could still see the integrity of the structure but the yard around the house had grown back to its natural state. The holistic beauty the entire image is of an old farmhouse sinking into an ocean of flowing grasses and creeping vines. The collective nature in the seemingly incompatible parts of that vision giving that recollection great staying power and resonance whenever I ruminate on that memory. That was my father's house and his grass, not intrinsic enough for me to call mine like viewing art but never quite knowing for sure what the artist's impetus.
For the last fifteen years I have lived in the desert of Arizona. Supposedly, tumble weeds cannot even grow here as they just become vegetative road kill. My father and mother are no longer present on this earth but are still standing in some kind of grass somewhere, smiling. I now have my own yard, and it has grass growing in it. Most yards in the desert are planted with Bermuda grass and, for whatever sense it makes, thrives in the heat of summer then goes dormant, turning a dead-like brown in winter. I liked the Bermuda when I first moved in: the yard was already established, it is soft on bare feet, and you do not have to mow it but half of the year. As time passed, I came to the conclusion that the Bermuda was not a color that would have a lasting legacy for me. Over time its pale green blades just seem to keep getting fainter and stiff. I tried planting dichondra as if to resurrect the ideal of nurturing the perfect green grass; the ultimate comfort found within the link to my childhood home. For a myriad of reasons that did not work, so I decided to do some horticultural research to obtain success. After very little effort into the preferred grass types for arid climates, I came across some troubling data on dichondra. It really is weed, Kidney weed. The reference went on to say it was best never mowed and did well when planted where it would not be walked on. So, I dug some St. Augustine out of my head and planted it in the yard. It is still in the process of choking out the last few remnants of Bermuda, but it has almost won.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The Moment of Flight
My temptation lies beneath a thin-layered gauze,
cut with sharp intensity, shearing veiled cotton,
remnant threads holding fast to my past sense of honor.
This twisted transformation of punishment for old transgressions,
still not sufficient to overcome pure pleasure's allure.
The unrestricted resistance of fingers passing over silken skin,
youthful lust of a time worn urge,
recollecting the clear image -- a bared shoulder, satin breast,
curves the text of unmatched, ageless context,
my unfettered mind runs rampant, there is no restraint.
A rush, toes griping rock's edge, then breaking free,
a journey to the waters of crystal clear, Muir lake.
The shock of cold unable to penetrate my inner most core,
gives pause to the flight from warmed air to water's entry,
Moments of seconds held closely; still vivid in tactile memory.
I now scream in the pleasure, and for the pain,
all consumed in the moment's collective force.
Returning to the surface, grasping for air,
a gut cramping groin freezes all thought.
Desire heightened further, no lingering regret.
Stilled reflections created in late summer's sun,
melting snow, to fill the lake, then heat surrounding stones,
a dichotomy in conflict to my choice's repercussions.
The granite warms my bared flesh, a cool wind chills my skin,
overpowering the fevor of my staying pleasure into rise;
to jump out, into air -- for the sake of descent.
Paris R Masek II
September, 2005
cut with sharp intensity, shearing veiled cotton,
remnant threads holding fast to my past sense of honor.
This twisted transformation of punishment for old transgressions,
still not sufficient to overcome pure pleasure's allure.
The unrestricted resistance of fingers passing over silken skin,
youthful lust of a time worn urge,
recollecting the clear image -- a bared shoulder, satin breast,
curves the text of unmatched, ageless context,
my unfettered mind runs rampant, there is no restraint.
A rush, toes griping rock's edge, then breaking free,
a journey to the waters of crystal clear, Muir lake.
The shock of cold unable to penetrate my inner most core,
gives pause to the flight from warmed air to water's entry,
Moments of seconds held closely; still vivid in tactile memory.
I now scream in the pleasure, and for the pain,
all consumed in the moment's collective force.
Returning to the surface, grasping for air,
a gut cramping groin freezes all thought.
Desire heightened further, no lingering regret.
Stilled reflections created in late summer's sun,
melting snow, to fill the lake, then heat surrounding stones,
a dichotomy in conflict to my choice's repercussions.
The granite warms my bared flesh, a cool wind chills my skin,
overpowering the fevor of my staying pleasure into rise;
to jump out, into air -- for the sake of descent.
Paris R Masek II
September, 2005
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