hypocrite

so the other day i was coaching Pixie's team of small girls, passing
on some of my accumulated soccer knowledge. Tank, meanwhile, was
exploring the surrounding woodlands as little boys are wont to do.
during his adventure he happened upon a discarded pen that was still
very much alive. my son shares my love of pens so he was excited by
the possibilities it represented. after practice was over, i walked
one little girl over to where her father was coaching another team and
made sure he knew she was there. safety first and all that.

Tank was telling me all about this pen he had found for the entire
length of the walk. i told him to rest at the benches while i
delivered the little girl so that it would only be i who interrupted
the practice. when i returned, he was drawing on the bench.

"see, daddy?" he said. "it's still alive and kicking."
"i do see, but we can't be drawing on public property, sugar man," i
replied immediately feeling the hypocrisy of what i was saying.

i gave him a short speech about how drawing on public property was
vandalism and how that was wrong, all the while cringing because i
have been known to enhance public spaces in my time here on earth, and
even though i have stopped tagging buildings and asphalt with spray
paint and have gone a little more legit, the old inclinations are
still in me struggling to get out. there was no heart in what i was
saying, and i stopped trying to make my point far before i would have
had i agreed with what i was saying.

for the record, i do believe that vandalism is wrong. i don't agree
that all graffiti is vandalism. one part of me is all about the law
and order. another part of me wants to paint the world. i struggle
against this dichotomy all the time. sometimes law and order wins the
day. other times my guerrilla tendencies have their way.

when we say we will die for our children, often we're not just talking
about a physical death. sometimes it's sacrificing our dreams,
desires, and who we are for their benefit.

ghost

201

i have often imagined, in the wake of my existence, in the
afterthought of the major happenings of my life, that these hands of
mine are barbed wires, snagging and scarring everything they touch.
how else to make sense of all that has happened? there's been quite a
bit of destruction, the causes of which i have not always been able to
identify. as is my modus operandi, i blame myself. everything has
always been my own shortcomings sabotaging the situation.

but, perhaps, my hands are not barbed wire at all. perhaps i'm simply
a man without skin, and everything i see touches me.

i am not taking the blame for your poor or in decisions anymore. i
will no longer apologize for standing still, standing strong in your
whirl wind trend chase. you play the part of the weathervain if it
suits you, and i'll play the part of windowless tower. we can
coexist.

at least as long as it takes for you to destroy yourself.

ghost

the one that got away

she gave him a mix tape. she had spent hours picking each song,
carefully listening, digesting, interpreting each lyrics, each word,
each syllable. her original list had been cut from thirty to just
eleven. eleven perfect songs to tell him how she felt about him, how
she had fallen for him, how she wanted to be with him and only him.
she had used their words to reveal her very heart.

he made her one, also. the only song on it was, ???american woman."

at least it was original Guess Who version and not the Lenny Kravitz
remake. that showed he cared. that was something anyway.

ghost

am i?

what is normal?

i hear people describe things as normal, but i don't have the foggiest
notion what is considered the norm by which to compare things,
happenings, feelings, whatever. i know what i've been told, i
understand the archetype of normal, but i'm not seeing much evidence
of it around me.

and who decided whatever the definition of normal is was the standard
by which we should all compare everything else? i know the first
argument made is the life experience is unique to each of us, that
there is no normal, but i feel like it's like cliches or stereotypes.
there's truth to them and obviously enough people were living normal
lives that that template became widely accepted as the status quo.

but.

i don't know anyone, besides maybe the Golden Boy, who is living what
i'd consider the normal life i've always been told we should aspire
to. and while i'm as proud as i can be of and for him, i realize i
will never have this ideal normal.

then, i begin to wonder if i was meant for normal.

i don't need much excitement anymore. a jedi craves not these things,
but i am sometimes intensely lonely.

there's no reason for this. just thinking out loud, as it were.

ghost

works

"plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate
into hard works."-peter drucker

what is a dream then, if it is not followed by a plan? that's what i
need. a plan. or perhaps more accurately, a map. i'm at a loss as to
just how i should proceed.

yesterday i started the steps toward another novel publication. it's
been a year and a half since the last one and it feels good to be
working toward it again. oh, i'm always writing, crafting, and i've
finished three novels in that time, but there's something different,
something more exciting when the novel is written and you begin the
fine tunings, the detailed clean up of hastily scribbled dialogue.
it's a different piece than the creative writing part of the process.
the writing is always happening, so much so that i sometimes become
jaded to the magic of it. this part is more rare, and i enjoy it like
i do the occasional first kiss.

(side note: it's been a long damn time since i had a first kiss. in
case you were wondering)

it's like the first real glimpse and reward of what you've spent a
year writing. there's another moment when you hold the printed
manuscript in your hand for the first time, and then the colossal
pride and sense of accomplishment when you finally hold the bound and
printed novel with your name in bold letters across the cover and
spine.

but, that takes me back to the plan. i keep writing and producing, but
i'm not sure how to proceed, how to turn this thing i love to do into
a way to make a living. i don't know. maybe it's just a matter of me
keeping on keeping on and searching for an opening or an opportunity.
like when the Colonel asks Rambo in First Blood part II, "how will you
live?" Rambo answers, "day by day." a little cheesy, i give you that,
but it's how i roll.

but then, you knew that already.

ghost

present ly

i am wandering, my footsteps falling into focus out there.
i am alone, but walk where others have set their staffs and wondered.
i ask, "how can one be found if one is never lost?"

they laugh.

i walk on.

ghost

dump

"you remember too much," she said to me recently. "why hold onto so much?"

"how do i put it down?" i wonder.

meaningless, i

there must be reasons, right? why we suffer? why we dream?

lately, i feel like i'm walking where there is no meaning, no why. the
easiest an best answer is, of course, my kids. always my kids. but
they are my entire world, and i know that is dangerous. it seems like
the time away from them is spent waiting for the next time with them.
there is little production, very little life outside of my time with
them.

when i'm with them i am busy building their wings, wings that will
take them away from me, away to lives of their own, and i will be left
with memories. what will i do then? what will i do when they no
longer need me and the time between visits become interminably long?
my father sings Cats in The Cradle to me often when we speak. i know
that my kids will be too busy with their own lives and households at
some point, and that i will fight for time with them. i know my turn
to sing will come.

i would like to think by then perhaps someone will have found me
worthy and lovable and if i have become little more than my kids'
safety net, at least this someone and i can focus on chasing whatever
dreams we've managed to hang onto through all of our years.

but.

that seems sometimes like some delusion, like some distant wish.

i just don't know what i'm doing.

ghost

dream writing 2-perspective makes parallel lines meet

dear pretty girl with the name i never knew, 

the sky was static. grizzled. blue. stretching down to lines of the tree and power variety. we cuddled on someone's couch though we both knew it wouldn'tcouldn'tshouldn't last. i understand now why you denied me false idols and stuffed my head with real life. fairy tales taught me nothing. 

but. 

our hearts snared on phone lines and there isn't a point in a death wish because everyone ends up alone in the end. i know why you told me "i'll only hurt you too," because i am a boy with brown eyes that only see wolves in words. tears and fatigue only leave lost friends anyways. i supposed it was for the best, but i miss you already. it tasted like a scalpel or a brick wall against my throat, and i felt like i was chewing on concrete when i told you, "it's okay."  

swallowing cinder blocks. stuffing steel into my skin. 

i woke and wondered where had you gone. 

broken thoughts. 

unrepaired.

wide awake now. i abandon months to notebooks and find i am claustrophobic when it comes to my future.  

regrets collected. i am just an afterthought. a feeling, like a wish on a dead star and the feeling of gritted teeth and my fingers crossed until they break settle on me.

you're someone else. i am too. but i want to be the boy you held in our dreaming.

 

ghost

 

 

age old question

"all i'm saying is, i've known you for, what? a year? but i don't feel like i know anything about you," she said. "you keep everyone at arm's length and disappear like a ninja when i try to slip your rather formidable defenses. is that why they call you ghost? i mean, who are you?"

this made me think of a recent conversation with The Mez, and of course, i couldn't sleep. it seems i've spent most of my life trying to answer that question. not for anyone else, mind you, but for myself. i thought i knew for a while, but it turned out that was mostly a lie.

i think it doesn't matter who i am.

i think maybe it only matters who i am to you.

i can tell you i have met king arthur and albert einstein and jimi hendrix. i can tell you i have stood toe to toe with satan, been on my knees before Jesus, and cried out to God. i have been damned. i have been saved. i have seen hell and glimpsed the possibilities of heaven. 

i can tell you i have run through the forests of r'lyeh ad escaped cthulhu's clutches. i have walked alone, run beside some, and carried others still.

i have discovered that the treasure is never what you'd expect.

but i can't tell you who i am to you.

 

ghost

pulling back the veil

every so often i am struck by the epic stupidity of the people around me. i'm not talking about my family or my kids or my ex wives or anything like that.  i'm talking generally about the folk i share this great green all of wonder with. i do not have a specific example in mind right now, but i am shocked by both their displays of it, and my tendency to forget that people are, by and large, pretty f*cking dumb. that happens more often than i'd like to admit.  and i always wonder how i let myself believe they aren't.

i'm no genius. i'll be the first to admit it, though i doubt i'd beat any of you rushing to agree with that assessment. i consider myself pretty level headed and stable, and i guess i just assume everyone else is kinda working on a similar level. that's the only way i can justify my continued forgetfulness of our shortcomings as a species here on planet earth.

people and the decisions they make are beyond my understanding. i understand point of view, but for the love of God, there is right, there is wrong, there is what is best and what is going to lead to disaster. i suppose the discipline to make the decision even at the cost of our own comfort is what trips people up.

why are we so selfish?

every so often i get a sense of just how utterly out of control we all are, and the thousands of choices we make daily we owe much to chance and circumstance. i'm starting to believe what my dad calls free will is merely a fragile strand of faith.

 

ghost

a story

a sparrow fell in the forest. no one was around. it did make a sound,
though no one heard it but the sparrow itself. the sound was the last
thing it heard. it lay on the ground, decomposed, and seeds fell where
its body had been.

in time, a great tree rose from where the seeds had fallen. slowly.
steadily. the tree never knew from where it came, yet the sound of the
fallen sparrow was remembered thereby, merely a whisper of a ghost in
its great limbs.

ghost

Untitled

Among Starz by Ghost