Ha!
Gravity finally came in March
Right on time
Pulling us all
(Everything)
Together
And who would have thought?
About what we all
All-reddy knew:
A single explanation
In complex phrases:
So much work
For such a simple
Beautiful
Idea
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
sometimesyouonlythinkyoushouldwrite
The rain is coming down outside. It is early. Dawn. The light is that pale, bashful kind of, blue. The world is hardly awake yet. Listening to Bob Dylan and its one of those moments—yeah: you know. So I’m going to write about it and I apologize in advance. I realize again how long it’s been since I really listened to music (yadayadayada). It has been there all along, huh…but I haven’t (so they say). Clear, ringing, crisp and contoured, and less invented than all the terrors that keep me away from thisnow… “you got all the lovin’ honeybaby I can stand…” people are missing life, huh¿, yeah I miss it: the everything wool that loomifies the tapestry of pain, rain, drain, suffering, and elation and so on and on (but I shouldn’t have). Somewhere in the background God shrugs, wondering why and how it is we get so dis-tract-ed, then maybe he puck-snickers a little, because at any moment there must be at least few people that are where I am now: sitting up, early and alone, and nudged by the powdered elbow of the Mystery. Remembering this feeling from some time before life. And well, maybe that is all that is necessary. Maybe this is all you need. Maybe maybe--so take it when you need it brudder, cuz the morning that comes after night is everybody’s friend.
Night Owl
It’s not all so easy
As you would like,
I suppose.
You are not so graceful as you dreamed you would be;
Monuments do not tumble from their perches before you
As you walk by.
But it’s fine, you know, it’s okay.
So I’ll forgive it,
If you can.
And isn’t it that...
The winter sky sticks to your insides
Like a pasty shroud,
And there’s not much that you can do?
: Like being underwater-
Struggling only makes it worse.
Isn’t it that...
People live at the end of long tunnels this time of year;
You shout at them, screaming down those god-awful tubes,
But you’re never really sure if they hear you correctly when
They respond—but
Not to the thing that you meant to say?
...Isn’t it just that way?
See:
I am 4 am lucid--my chin wags at noon
I am conquered and stupid--my words move too soon
If I look when I leap
I am usual, cheap
But I get me in trouble from my toes to my stubble
Start seeing in double while I sift through the rubble
And the fine mess I make
Seems like all I can take
Still I’m carried along like a sad little tune...
...Outside
Bus rides
Concrete lullabies
The hard, hard soft
Like tenement lofts
And the lies, soft, wet
Making off-track bets
And all the petals falling off of all the flowers in the northern hemisphere
They all land all at once in my distracted ears
And who writes about flowers
Anymore
Anyway?
But then...
It’s
Not all so hard
As it seems sometimes
In fact,
When the strike of the light
Is just right
I swear
You
Are right next to me;
As close to me as anything can be.
So I clutch the air inside of myself,
Hold it there
And I wait...
Because maybe god will show up this time
And me in these old shoes:
I might not know what he looked like, should he appear
Maybe he looks just like you sitting there:
Eyes weary-far, and your head tipped just so...
And exactly as graceful as I dreamed you would be
God-awful real and right next to me.
And my busted up places
Let in little traces
Of curious lights
That come down late at night
Reference the summer and get me to spring
And it strikes me that we are just full of such things,
But to smear it with words
Seems obtuse and absurd
So I trip on my muse
And I struggle and lose
But still I must inquire, and still I must impugn
For I am 4 am lucid, and my chin wags at noon
As you would like,
I suppose.
You are not so graceful as you dreamed you would be;
Monuments do not tumble from their perches before you
As you walk by.
But it’s fine, you know, it’s okay.
So I’ll forgive it,
If you can.
And isn’t it that...
The winter sky sticks to your insides
Like a pasty shroud,
And there’s not much that you can do?
: Like being underwater-
Struggling only makes it worse.
Isn’t it that...
People live at the end of long tunnels this time of year;
You shout at them, screaming down those god-awful tubes,
But you’re never really sure if they hear you correctly when
They respond—but
Not to the thing that you meant to say?
...Isn’t it just that way?
See:
I am 4 am lucid--my chin wags at noon
I am conquered and stupid--my words move too soon
If I look when I leap
I am usual, cheap
But I get me in trouble from my toes to my stubble
Start seeing in double while I sift through the rubble
And the fine mess I make
Seems like all I can take
Still I’m carried along like a sad little tune...
...Outside
Bus rides
Concrete lullabies
The hard, hard soft
Like tenement lofts
And the lies, soft, wet
Making off-track bets
And all the petals falling off of all the flowers in the northern hemisphere
They all land all at once in my distracted ears
And who writes about flowers
Anymore
Anyway?
But then...
It’s
Not all so hard
As it seems sometimes
In fact,
When the strike of the light
Is just right
I swear
You
Are right next to me;
As close to me as anything can be.
So I clutch the air inside of myself,
Hold it there
And I wait...
Because maybe god will show up this time
And me in these old shoes:
I might not know what he looked like, should he appear
Maybe he looks just like you sitting there:
Eyes weary-far, and your head tipped just so...
And exactly as graceful as I dreamed you would be
God-awful real and right next to me.
And my busted up places
Let in little traces
Of curious lights
That come down late at night
Reference the summer and get me to spring
And it strikes me that we are just full of such things,
But to smear it with words
Seems obtuse and absurd
So I trip on my muse
And I struggle and lose
But still I must inquire, and still I must impugn
For I am 4 am lucid, and my chin wags at noon
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Santa Fe Reporter
I interned at SFR this summer (2008). It was a great experience and I thank to editors Julia Goldberg and Patricia Sauthoff for the opportunity. Here are a few of bylines I got in the paper...
Swing State of Mind
Swing State of Mind is the election 2008 political blog of the Santa Fe Reporter, where I interned this past summer (2008). Dave Maass is the mastermind behind the site and my principal mentor for the news side of internship. I wrote a number of blogs on this site during my internship.
Grout
The Grout is the St. John's College literary magazine that Kea Wilson brought back from the dead in 2006-2007. I edited the 2008 issue with Skip McGee. We put a lot of time into this. The covers are corrugated cardboard that I personally stenciled with spray paint--300 in all. I also submitted music. Click the page numbers at the top to turn the pages.
The Monolith
This is a short story I wrote in 2008:
The Monolith
It came in the afternoon one day in the middle of the season of offerings. We used to drink fruit wine and share the harvest with the ghosts of nine generations of our ancestors. That was how long the village had stood there, in the shade of the mountain, shielded from the harsh afternoon sun but exposed to the dawn that used to fly across endless plains to wake us from our dreams in the foothills. Some say that the village had been there for even longer and that after nine generations even ghosts went somewhere else to rest. They said that the people of that time spoke words that changed the colors of the sky. I do not know. I never saw.
It came in the afternoon and it blotted out the sun. We looked up and saw the great gray thing there in the sky, like a gigantic belly made of stone. Women screamed, children cried and the men went to the ghosts and to the old women to ask them what it was. Even the oldest did not know. It continued coming. It looked like it would never end and soon it filled the whole sky. The world was dark and gray. Then it was quiet. The women had stopped screaming and the children were no longer crying. There was nothing we could do and we waited. Then it began to rain.
It was not the kind of rain that was clear and cool and helped the fruit trees and animals to grow. It was warm and slick and it was golden with other colors in it that were constantly changing. It was beautiful but I was afraid. It ran down my face and into my mouth. It was sweet and strange. I spit it out but others drank. They swallowed it and smiled.
“It is a blessing!” They ran around screaming. “Everyone must drink!”
The ghosts of our ancestors disappeared in the strange rain from the stone stomach in the sky as people everywhere drank. They all drank and laughed like madmen. When the ones that had not drunk saw the way the others were acting they wanted to drink too. I did not drink. The thing that brought the rain from the sky was evil. I was certain of it.
I saw my father drinking. I tried to stop him but he pushed me away. He looked crazy.
“Stupid boy! Don’t you see it is a blessing? Look how the people smile!”
Everywhere people were smiling. Their smiles were strange. They did not look happy like they did in the times when we drank fruit wine and shared the harvest with the ghosts of nine generations of our ancestors. I saw my mother drinking. It was like a nightmare. The color went away completely from their eyes. They were like sick wet eggs in their faces. They still smiled.
“I can see beautiful people that are like gods, kissing and making love!” some of them would say.
“There are cities with towers of shining water! And the people pull their wishes out from great boxes!” others would say.
I ran and hid from the people and the rain. It was difficult for me to find a place where the rain was not falling. I was afraid they would kill me if I did not drink. I fell asleep.
When I awoke I saw that the earth was scorched from the rain. I could not see the trees and animals that had been there the day before. The sky had been robbed of its breeze and the air was hot and it burned to breathe. The great stone stomach still hung in the sky. Everyone was asleep on the ground, where they had been the night before. They each woke up alone and I could see that their eyes had not changed back to normal. They could not remember the feast or the ghosts of our ancestors. They searched for the beautiful brown vessels that they had set out the night before, to catch the rain. The golden rain with the strange changing colors had changed to into a black soup with pieces of what looked like dead animals in it. The people began to fight.
“It’s your fault! You forgot to cover the pot!”
“No, it’s your fault! You drank too much last night! Now there is nothing left!”
They continued fighting. They seemed to be different people than the ones I knew the day before. It got worse. Somehow I began to think of them as dead.
“I hate you! You are not my wife!” one man was yelling. I thought it was my father, but I was not sure.
“You will see!” another woman was screaming, “I will find the places that the rain showed me and I will live with the people who are like gods! Then you will be sorry you held out on me!”
“Lying bitch!” the man said, “You are the one who has more of the rain and you will not share! It is your fault!”
I looked at their faces and eyes. They were the strange, twisted faces of people that had forgotten the earth. They had forgotten our ancestors and the fruit wine and the harvest. They had forgotten the sun. They only wanted the rain, and as they fought and begged the great thing in the sky became larger and darker. The whole world got darker.
“I will give my daughter to any man who can give me one cup of the great rain!” one man was yelling.
The huge stone stomach that was in the sky seemed to become like a liquid. It sent a great stone arm down to the little girl who was crying, held aloft by her insane father. The pillar of stone that came down from the thing opened up. It had a mouth that was horrifying; rows and rows of filthy teeth that never seemed to end. It ate the little girl.
Then, for just a few minutes, it began to rain the strange rain again.
“The children! Give it the children!” Everyone started screaming.
I did not wait after that. I ran. My parents were gone. The dawns that flew across endless plains to bring us morning were gone. The afternoons in the shade of the mountain were gone. Nine generations of ancestors were gone. The village was gone.
Soon all the children would be destroyed. Then what would the people do? I did not know. I only ran.
Now I am alone in the desert. I am looking for other people who have not drunk of the strange rain that makes people forget everything except their hunger for that rain that they drank. I do not know if there are any such people left. I have seen some people far off but I am afraid to go near them. I hide from them. I am starving. Perhaps I will die. If I do die, I hope to go to a place where people speak words that change the colors of the sky. Perhaps they will drive away the great stone stomach that hangs there with its hunger; but I am not sure that it will be that way. I will have to see. (Josiah Stephens)
The Monolith
It came in the afternoon one day in the middle of the season of offerings. We used to drink fruit wine and share the harvest with the ghosts of nine generations of our ancestors. That was how long the village had stood there, in the shade of the mountain, shielded from the harsh afternoon sun but exposed to the dawn that used to fly across endless plains to wake us from our dreams in the foothills. Some say that the village had been there for even longer and that after nine generations even ghosts went somewhere else to rest. They said that the people of that time spoke words that changed the colors of the sky. I do not know. I never saw.
It came in the afternoon and it blotted out the sun. We looked up and saw the great gray thing there in the sky, like a gigantic belly made of stone. Women screamed, children cried and the men went to the ghosts and to the old women to ask them what it was. Even the oldest did not know. It continued coming. It looked like it would never end and soon it filled the whole sky. The world was dark and gray. Then it was quiet. The women had stopped screaming and the children were no longer crying. There was nothing we could do and we waited. Then it began to rain.
It was not the kind of rain that was clear and cool and helped the fruit trees and animals to grow. It was warm and slick and it was golden with other colors in it that were constantly changing. It was beautiful but I was afraid. It ran down my face and into my mouth. It was sweet and strange. I spit it out but others drank. They swallowed it and smiled.
“It is a blessing!” They ran around screaming. “Everyone must drink!”
The ghosts of our ancestors disappeared in the strange rain from the stone stomach in the sky as people everywhere drank. They all drank and laughed like madmen. When the ones that had not drunk saw the way the others were acting they wanted to drink too. I did not drink. The thing that brought the rain from the sky was evil. I was certain of it.
I saw my father drinking. I tried to stop him but he pushed me away. He looked crazy.
“Stupid boy! Don’t you see it is a blessing? Look how the people smile!”
Everywhere people were smiling. Their smiles were strange. They did not look happy like they did in the times when we drank fruit wine and shared the harvest with the ghosts of nine generations of our ancestors. I saw my mother drinking. It was like a nightmare. The color went away completely from their eyes. They were like sick wet eggs in their faces. They still smiled.
“I can see beautiful people that are like gods, kissing and making love!” some of them would say.
“There are cities with towers of shining water! And the people pull their wishes out from great boxes!” others would say.
I ran and hid from the people and the rain. It was difficult for me to find a place where the rain was not falling. I was afraid they would kill me if I did not drink. I fell asleep.
When I awoke I saw that the earth was scorched from the rain. I could not see the trees and animals that had been there the day before. The sky had been robbed of its breeze and the air was hot and it burned to breathe. The great stone stomach still hung in the sky. Everyone was asleep on the ground, where they had been the night before. They each woke up alone and I could see that their eyes had not changed back to normal. They could not remember the feast or the ghosts of our ancestors. They searched for the beautiful brown vessels that they had set out the night before, to catch the rain. The golden rain with the strange changing colors had changed to into a black soup with pieces of what looked like dead animals in it. The people began to fight.
“It’s your fault! You forgot to cover the pot!”
“No, it’s your fault! You drank too much last night! Now there is nothing left!”
They continued fighting. They seemed to be different people than the ones I knew the day before. It got worse. Somehow I began to think of them as dead.
“I hate you! You are not my wife!” one man was yelling. I thought it was my father, but I was not sure.
“You will see!” another woman was screaming, “I will find the places that the rain showed me and I will live with the people who are like gods! Then you will be sorry you held out on me!”
“Lying bitch!” the man said, “You are the one who has more of the rain and you will not share! It is your fault!”
I looked at their faces and eyes. They were the strange, twisted faces of people that had forgotten the earth. They had forgotten our ancestors and the fruit wine and the harvest. They had forgotten the sun. They only wanted the rain, and as they fought and begged the great thing in the sky became larger and darker. The whole world got darker.
“I will give my daughter to any man who can give me one cup of the great rain!” one man was yelling.
The huge stone stomach that was in the sky seemed to become like a liquid. It sent a great stone arm down to the little girl who was crying, held aloft by her insane father. The pillar of stone that came down from the thing opened up. It had a mouth that was horrifying; rows and rows of filthy teeth that never seemed to end. It ate the little girl.
Then, for just a few minutes, it began to rain the strange rain again.
“The children! Give it the children!” Everyone started screaming.
I did not wait after that. I ran. My parents were gone. The dawns that flew across endless plains to bring us morning were gone. The afternoons in the shade of the mountain were gone. Nine generations of ancestors were gone. The village was gone.
Soon all the children would be destroyed. Then what would the people do? I did not know. I only ran.
Now I am alone in the desert. I am looking for other people who have not drunk of the strange rain that makes people forget everything except their hunger for that rain that they drank. I do not know if there are any such people left. I have seen some people far off but I am afraid to go near them. I hide from them. I am starving. Perhaps I will die. If I do die, I hope to go to a place where people speak words that change the colors of the sky. Perhaps they will drive away the great stone stomach that hangs there with its hunger; but I am not sure that it will be that way. I will have to see. (Josiah Stephens)
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