Bookmark and Dog Ear

just a thought...

There are too many lists and reasons for lists. There is a list for groceries, and a list for tasks, a list of things to pack, a list of pros and cons, a list of things to do and a list of things forbidden. I have become an enemy to another list. It is the modern list which exists in the cyber world. It is a dangerous list because it never disappears. It is a long list or what may be considered a directory created for the infinite website places I've visited and wanted to "bookmark" so that I might visit them again with a simple click. It can be controlled, but most of the time, it isn't. Somehow, I had acquired this lengthy list over the course of several weeks, months and even years. It was growing slowly like the slim coating of an alien egg farm. Astonishing and quite alarming when I stop to think and wonder on it, really. Before today, I took pride in skating my cursor over to the icon to open my vault of internet wisdom and waste and I would scan my eyes down the alphabetical steps to all of my favorite places and click to my hearts content. I also, of course, had sub-categories in alphabetical order that would occasionally tease me and make me wonder to myself if the webmaster had made any changes to his front page. Oh, I could check on it another day. This new web-like list, unlike the ones that are harmlessly written down on paper, had become quite a library of places or rather of websites accumulated by my fingertips from mindless bookmarking which I felt were considered fantastic cyber venues at the time. 


Yet after today, I have been looking with tender burden over my own shoulder and I started to notice the golden one who once was consistently giddy was now getting swallowed up by the crashing wave of "favorites" along with the never ceasing passing of time. As pointed out, it appears that many of the random titles that reveal a flashy icon and catchy phrase became lost as a misplaced stranger to that once euphoric bookmarking moment. Therefore, with a firm smack on the back of the head (done out of random necessity), it is time to return to the banal purpose of disposable lists. It is time to surrender the self from the bonds of bookmarks and dog ear practices, let go and release the suffering medulla oblongata from the predictable prison of obsessive compulsive categorizing.  Catch the satellite and simply surf, dude, simply surf.

The Grasses are Calling Me

When eleventh grade rolled around,  my English teacher announced it was time to choose our subject for the final term paper and that we had had enough time to consider our choices.  Now it is my spirited recollection I was sitting in my seat rather passively without a single idea running through my mind.  I truly mean to say, yes, I honestly do remember that during that particular moment in time I was in a state of unwavering bliss with everything but a thought in my head.  I recall hearing the teacher's voice asking each student one by one to announce an American writer to do research on and write a lengthy paper for.  So in the same way, like taking attendance, names were called out and instead of the reply being "here," we were to say, 

"Herman Melville."  

"Edgar Allen Poe."

"Jack London."

"John Steinbeck." The match-up game continued and so on.  

Now it is again my recollection that while the names were being called out like the click of a gun's trigger, I felt a slight tinge of anxiety.  My eyes were darting around the room as I  tapped my pen, thinking very hard, because in my own mind I was much more interested in Seventeen Magazine, playing air guitar to Zeppelin's Dazed and Confused and occasionally escaping to the mall with friends to look for guys, I mean clothes.  Therefore, it is to me quite a mystery, and I am still in complete wonderment to this day, although by now I'm getting used to it, that when the teacher came to calling my name, and with her double sided classic red and blue teacher's pen poised in the air above her paper awaiting my reply, the answer rolled off of my tongue like soft ice cream streaming down a dreamy-eyed five year old hand on a warm summer day.  

"Walt Whitman." I said.

"Walt Whitman." She murmured as she wrote it down next to my name and nodded.  

How did that happen?  How did I know who Walt Whitman was?  How did his name arise in my head next to Leif Garret's?  There was a brief moment, I think, that during that momentary  exchange in that stuffy classroom I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I can look back on this event, and realize that this could have been the very starting point of cosmic, angelic, celestial, heavenly-Nicholas Cage intervention.  Someone in a higher place knew what was good for me and therefore put it before me, allowed me to taste it, follow it, reject it, thrive on it or hate it.  It could be a random book, an extraordinary thought, a bad dream, a helpful stranger, a distant friend, or an event that scoops me up and spits me back out.  I am sure there may be earlier accounts throughout my childhood I could wonder about and lean into, however, I believe, this was indeed one of those "look here" moments.

I still thank the forces that brought to me Whitman's Leaves of Grass.  The Song of Myself held more deeper meaning that I could ever know, and from that day I felt as if it were my own song as it spoke to me.

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

Darker forces have been after ever since.

My Coffee is Waiting

Stillness and the new year arrives and beckons me to change into something extraordinary. Actually, I don't think I could actually change into anything. Haven't quite explored shapeshifting. Nor would I want to change into someone else. I am just fine the way I am. I am, however, learning to lower my expectations to avoid anxiety over fruitless moments. However, there is always room to change my way of daily thinking. So the momentous date stays ingrained in the brain. January one. New day. New year. I'm also hearing, "The start of a new decade." The dinosaurs could give a shit about a decade now that their contorted bones lye still in the earth. They continue on through lumbering dreams of tearing through flesh or picking up a ton of lake mud and grasses; chewing and pondering paradise. My paradise is here. Electrical fed momentum is my daily bread. There are no dangers here. At least not yet. Only good old fashion American want.

In this dirty and twisted world, to some people, I suppose, a new year is just another day for them to pick up a rifle, dig in and fight for instilled principles. To someone else the new year is just another day covered in bruises, a fat lip and maybe in a few months when the new year doesn't matter much, a broken arm. There are also some people who know the new year holds nothing more than business as usual in a foreign place that wants to see you naked and will pay for it.

My paradise is here. My coffee is waiting. Nothing needs to change, yet something needs to change.

Clouds

Clouds cover the moving canopy
and stir the memory of restful times.
Of Sitting in trees and following bees
through the dark and lime green grasses.

Cool air songs rest upon the shoulders of thought
and send dreams running from their prisons.
Escaping the noise and restless voices
from troubled memories and painful lessons.

This is the place where the comforts of gray
turn the inward light in motion.
It soothes the moment and quiets the claw
that cuts through the morning's closure.

Suspension is bearing its weight on the room
while the spirits are unwittingly twirling
Among the blue hue the longing will end
while captured thoughts continue their yearning.

Weary and Dark Song

I already had my morning imagined. I was going to approach my minutes step-by-step. I wasn't going to invite my expectations to get too far ahead. I didn't want to get caught in the net of disappointment. I wasn't going to invite the hoodlum of doubt into my hour of bliss. When the walls of obligation squeeze and suffocate the breath of creativity, it is time for the sledgehammer.


I was able to get a better view of my intention by just using my voice. A request was made through my spirit to ask for an adjustment of working hours. What might seem to be a minor interruption can forcibly blast a path of self destruction and sabotage to end the course set for purpose and enlightenment. This selfish intrusion only defines the illusion of my limited equation. It is within my own power to wield the hammer and smash the shadow that bears down on my mental capacity. I'll slice through the lies that bind these tortured thoughts and hold me captive in a fixed and weary longing. My head, my shoulders and gut scream for the warm rays of healing. Hands only sought and found between the layers of vapor through the grainy mirage. I'll drag my weapon and leave a trail for you to find me.

Bite Me

Routine is an accident of preconceived self-discipline. Routine is the heart of mindless expectations. Routine is a dark and endless tunnel reaching only as far as the end of the room. Routine is our soul's prison and Eve's punishment for believing what she was told.

~k.guarino

Not Me

I'm saving the world,

unplugging

and taking a walk to get ready

for alot of running and screaming.

Care to join me?