wander ing

i have been where the stones
speak in tones to ancient to perceive,
where the wind blows in rhythm
to the beat of my heart,
where time circles back and meets itself
at the end that is the beginning.

i have been where the dream is
unfolding, still wondering itself
into being, still becoming the
tomorrow that will never be,
still shaking off the yesterday
that never was.

it has no where to it.
it is all here.
it was anywhere.

i still remember what the angel said,
what all angels say when you
first meet them.

"be not afraid."

 

ghost

Ashes In The Fall

Ashes In The Fall, the new novel by yours truly is out.  you can follow the link over there on the right under writing down the bones if you're interested. 

ghost

fallout

so the art show went off last night without a hitch, despite mother nature's best efforts to shut us down.?? but we don't fear inclimate weather around here.?? unless it's ice. that's kind of our bane.

??

i don't really have much to say.?? i'm tired, and ready for a little break from these young people.??i just don't have any ideas left in my head to give them.??

??

so hear ya go. this is the best of Ourspective 2011.

christmas eve

trapped within a rainbow of wet paint, the scent of hot glue and cardboard assault me from all sides. yes. there are few places i'd rather be.

the annual art show is tomorrow so i am playing maestro. like arthur the once and future king, i will return. hopefully bearing visual goodies for one and all.

 

ghost

time keeps on ticking into the future

time is ethereal
and the points often
blur together, formless.

some instants happen
forever though,
played over and over
and over again.

born yesterday,
tomorrow i die.

today is my whole life.

 

ghost

pedestrian crossing

i'm a little p!ssed off that i continue to get hate mail for the things i write here.

"nothing you say is valid."

"you're boring."

"stop whining."

"you don't write like bobby or dooce or cee-lo or my friend ally."

so what? ally is only eleven, and just because she thinks she's slept with too many men doesn't make her any more valid than me or my current quest through the lands of Lonely.

i've got a suggestion. consider this site in the same way i do when the radio station plays that d*mn celine dion titanic song. i can change the station. i can even turn my radio off. quite the innovation, that power button. you don't like what i'm saying, go somewhere else. if i'm really "such a waste," take a page out of my ex wives' playbooks. leave and don't come back.  

what validates or invalidates me is actually what i have to say. which is whatever i choose.

so step the f*ck off.

 

ghost 

dream e r

within the Dreaming
songs float by on the backs of
winged creatures,
time is an air too
light to be inhaled,
vision a fantasy of luminescent
eyes who reflect
a river of candles.

mind is a toy,
whose reason conjures
theories of desire, whose
want is a mystery never fully solved.

in the slow,
i awake in a rush,
wondering how one
might travel so far
and never leave one's self.

ghost

news from the front

i feel like a bundle of newspaper that i can't quite get a length of string around. you know, if you're the recycling type, they ask that you not put it in plastic trash sacks. maybe i'm not, despite my marital record, very good at tying knots. maybe i somehow let some slack into the knot at the last moment and the string is now all loose and incompetent, and i'm only being held together by benevolent weather.

i don't suppose a bundle of newspaper is what i'd consider a stable structure anyway. it's built up over a period of days and weeks one piece at a time. it spills across the garage if i'm not careful.  generally i leave it there longer than i should because i had none, or, more probable with the kids around, i could not find the string.

now it's time to take the pile, the pile i allowed to get too heavy, out for the garbagemen makingtheir rounds.  i've got to get that string around the pile before the truck gets here.  it's chilly and i'm not wearing any shoes and i just woke up so my fingers are clumsy and the kid safety scissors aren't as sharp as my tongue cursing in the morning breeze.

i lift the bundle and shuffle out to the curb. short little bursts of breeze catching up under the top paper, expanding and threatening to loosen my weak knot. i drop it at the curb with the unique sound of a hundred pages crunching at once.

i stand and watch the pile for a moment, focusing on that top paper still billowing in the breeze, willing the knot to hold. the knot is off center now. i should retie it, but i don't. instead i run back into the warm house. 

inside the house i hear the bursts of breeze grow to gusts of wind as i prepare for a day among the living. i look out the window and i know. i just know. the knot slides further off center and a big gust catches the top papers and sets them to sailing. another gust catches even more and before i can get my shoes on and rush outside to stop it, most of the papers are tumbling away toward the good neighbor's yard, an invasion force of paper soldiers.

the bad neighbor would, no doubt, as he has done on many occasions, not bother to pick it up. that's another post altogether. but the good neighbors don't deserve my mess invading their space, their tidy lawn, their tidy lives. so, this is me, out in the neighborhood collecting my wayward garbage and stuffing it in a black plastic sack. screw recycling.

anyway, i am this pile now, freely unraveling, the knot completely untied. yesterday's paper sits on top, light and awkwardly folded. the wind has died down, but i wish someone would come and tie me back up. i don't seem capable of doing it myself.

 

ghost

show stopper

i walked to my car in the rain this morning. it rained all night and i was feeling good about a rainy day. the clouds grew lighter as i made myself from my home to where i'll spend my day, though. and now someone has a frowny face.

i enjoy rainy days. real rainy days, though, not a drizzle stop drizzle stop drizzle fiasco. who's in charge here? can we get some real rain? actually, i'm being ungrateful. it's been raining here for days. i want it to be raining when i wake up and raining when i get home. i want to stand outside in the rain for a while.  

one of Life's treasures is standing out in the rain. i love working in the rain. unless it rains enough to soak you then gets brutally hot. that just sucks like a vietnamese hooker that wants to love you long time. only there's no feel good ending and all you're left with is an incurable std. ok, so maybe those two things are nothing alike at all.

rain is dramatic. rain makes you feel like your life is interesting. think about the movie Seven. the best rain in movie history, in my humble opinion. i think if i were to ever make a movie, i'd want it to rain the whole time like it did in Seven.

sometimes you want anything but rain, like if you're planning a picnic or going to be on the road all day. but if you're indifferent to the day, you could use a good rain. it would be something to watch for a while.

anyway, i could have used a rainy day. maybe tomorrow.

that is all.

 

ghost

subtle shades of silence

have you ever noticed all the shades of silence?

last night, after my tour with the young thugs, i was driving home and needed a little quiet, so i turned off the radio and just drove. and i noticed the silence. it was a dark indigo silence wrapped in the mystery of all that was beyond my head lights. 

this morning, the sun was already on its way into the big blue and i decided to leave the radio off as i made my way back to school. once again, i was stricken by the silence, but it was different from the indigo quiet of the night before.  this silence was soft pastels. pink. blue. yellow.

and then i thought of other silences.

silence is the soft glow of dawn with your baby girl sleeping in your arms.

silence is gold and shining in the afternoon as your little boy naps beside you on the couch.

silence is bright and bold when the day brings you the unexpected.

silence is full of life as She tells you about her day.

silence is muted and dusky when the house is empty.

silence is black when you sleep alone.

 

ghost

of ghost and kisses and kat dennings

ghosts graze my temple with memories of kisses that sink through quicksand of my sluggish morning into this graveyard i hide entirely too close to the surface. you do not understand, and i can't tell you i push you away to shield your heart from similar ruin. i can, however, say i have placed mine somewhere secret and soft that i can apparently only find in my dreams.

..........................................................................................................................

i've been dreaming lately. i mean, i always dream, but lately they have been one after another seemingly from the moment my eyes shut to the moment they pop open again. the last three nights have been filled with incredible ups and vicious lows as beautiful dreams were followed by something horrible.  this morning i had a dream of what i'll only politely refer to as a romantic interlude with Kat Dennings. i awoke from that with a smile.  when i drifted off again, i dreamed of something that made me wake with a sense of doom. it was almost suffocating and makes me wonder if i was right when i said when we dream we touch some other place. how else to explain how dreams can fill us with such elation and such despair?  i know some of you will give me science and reason. i prefer to believe in magic. 

 

ghost

a patient boy, you know, only, without the patience

there is a certain anxiety in waiting for the phone to ring or the possibility of the door opening, thus granting a fragile sense of freedom from the prison of boredom and the torments of this mind left to feed on itself. although, to be honest, there's no hope of the door opening at the moment.

last night was just one of those night where i was hoping for a call, though i can't imagine why i would be. i had already spoken to the The Golden Boy and he is about the only one who might call on any given evening. i mowed the lawn. i fixed a small dinner. i played a little halo: reach. i watched some tivo recordings. i imagined and scribbled down ideas for an ending to the novel i'm currently trying to finish. i dreamed. 

a call never came by the way.

 

ghost

 

 

in the stillness of an afternoon

sitt i ng
think i ng
watch  i ng

cars  p a s s
dog s  b a r  k
birds  s i  n  g
child ren  p l a  y
people   t   a  l   k

yet, st i l l   s il en  t

s t  i  l  l    l  o n  e  l y

s  i t t   i n    g
thi  nk i n  g
watch  i ng

 

 

ghos t

wind whispering

the wind whispers of ancient things as
it goes about its work.

sweeping abandoned streets,
shaking bipartisan trees,
and putting unruly clouds

in their proper places
in our slowly condensing sky.

 

 

ghost

life prep

how do you know when you've lost something for good? or whether you're just watching a metamorphasis take place, a hardening in preparation for the next hurdle?

how can you tell?

 

ghost

one sided conversation

i keep asking, but You never answer.  You tell me to trust in You, to confide and worship You, but you never answer. You just leave me twisting in the wind.

they keep telling me it's all in Your time, that it's all part of Your plan, that i should just endure. i'm not Job.

You said, "ask and you shall receive." i'm asking. i've been asking. where are You?

answer me.

 

ghost

production

so, i've been kinda quiet lately.  for that, i'm sorry. i have been working through the galley for my newest novel the last few days.  it has consumed me to the point that my eyes are bleary from looking at the screen and my shoulders ache from too long parked in front of the computer. but i just finished that up, so hopefully i can get back to our regularly scheduled programming. 

hasta manana, mi amigos.

 

ghost