Pulp Fiction Scene - "Hamburgers"

(the end to a trilogy)

I secluded myself in a world of plants

A hospitable yet depressingly unresponsive vegetative land

Like ivy I spread throughout it, recklessly growing to explore farther

In search of support, a rapidly more precious commodity

But overgrowth has doomed me with choking my supporters

I’ve dived into the mystery of the bush to find it isn’t as deep as it seems

Harsh wood just beyond its many leaves, the dive hurt

Opposite the cactus, I discovered an oasis and siphoned it too fast

I couldn’t savor the taste as it went down my throat and still I was thirsty

I climbed too high in the trees, though beautiful, I was lonely and scared of heights

I wanted down but it was quite a fall from that great view

Sadly I could only look straight down, and couldn’t enjoy it.

Like the dandelion I was unwanted while compared to an endless sea of perfection, grass

Stifled in my grotesque uniqueness, I reaffirmed my stain

Attempting to nurture a greenhouse of greenery requiring no manure

I found that the only outcome was my stench

I never redid, relived the magic of the time, “stopped to smell the roses”

As I attempted a garden with the desire for constant work, to oppose that of reality

I didn’t enjoy the plants, simply used them and now what’s left is dried and shrived

Alas I still have the undying redwood, one last pillar of the genius I created and despoiled

He must burn.

In a blaze of glory he shall die, unlike his siblings, majestic and proud

His death shall bear the fruits many more to come, new life for me to love

Having learned from these experiences, I’ll create a new garden.

Certain Deception.

Edna Johnson had become convinced. Here, sitting in this classroom, listening but not listening to a lecture on the importance of proofs in the mathematical world, she had become convinced. For nineteen years she had been unsure, had had the faintest glimmer of doubt, but now, finally she had become convinced that the world existed solely to deceive her.

            She had always felt as though something was wrong, something just beyond all the senses; some great fallacy that everything seemed to allude to but that could not ever be proven was always out of her reach by frustratingly slim margins.  She had often seen incongruences in the world, things that did not seem to follow logic. Phantasms would dance in her peripheries, disappearing when she would look at them directly. It appeared as though some force would reweave the fabric of the universe, replacing the apparition with something that seemed logical. Whatever it was, she knew it had been there.

            The idea of this veil plagued her. Its pulse and veins she could feel coursing through everything around her. It was greatly demoralizing to be aware of this thing. There was no privacy. It ran deep into her world that seemed to be so entirely saturated by it. She had tried for a long time to ignore it. She had denied its existence, but it remained the unexplainable dancing light in her peripheries. Slowly everything had become flooded by it. In everything there was a cold twinge of falsity. Things began to lose their emotion and importance. Edna Johnson had become consumed by this deception. It had become her world.

            So Edna Johnson, the scholar, the scientist, formed theories and conclusions about the world. Edna Johnson had finally become convinced that the world existed solely to deceive her. Humans’ hearts all beat the same, with unreal pounding of hollow puppets. They all seemed to be a part of this great falsity; she soon realized it was the core of their being. She, alas, was the only thing not a part of the universe. So then, if they were a part of this great interwoven lie, And she was the only thing that they stood to deceive, what could she possibly do? She could not tell anyone about these claims; they could not know that she knew about them. She could not fight them, they were everywhere; they controlled everything. She was only safe inside her mind. She could not break out. At first she became sad. She could do nothing but sit and go mad with loneliness, she thought. She had nothing to do. But she realized, that if the universe was all one entity, and it existed solely to deceive her, it must have a plan. This plan would be carried out through signs, subliminal hints and things that slowly change a person. This way she would have the illusion of free choice, and do exactly as it wanted. Such intricate trickery, she thought. But she could do better.

            Edna Johnson was a brilliant actress. She had decided that she would play the part of Edna Johnson, and be exactly what it wanted her to be. They all would never suspect her of knowing about the falsity, the fallacies, the incongruences. She would make Edna Johnson from these little things, images, conversations, life, for she knew that they all led up to some ultimate deception. she would waltz so elegantly, with perfect rhythm, onward to that planned fate, and when she knew it was the right moment, the penultimate moment, not too late, but not too soon,   she would throw off her veil, her character, her disguise, and show them all that she had bested them. Edna Johnson was a brilliant actress, and so she had made herself into this young woman, this scholar that sat in the classroom, listening but not listening to the professor speak, effortlessly passing all her classes, the epitome of the student.

            She had convinced the world, the universe, and all its inhabitances, that Edna Johnson was someone quintessentially a part of what they all had wanted her to be. It was something so enormously fake, her character, she was absolutely devoted to being herself, as others pictured her, that, she noticed, she was devoid of personality on the inside. So Edna Johnson had become convinced, that the only way that she could become so completely a lie, that the world could feel so inundated with falsity, was that the universe existed solely to deceive her.

            At the end of the lecture Edna Johnson gathered her books, stood up proudly, aware of the work that was to be done, easy but of the utmost importance. She walked out the door swiftly, showing that no time should be lost in this life. She was confronted by the girl who had sat next to her in class, who always stared starry-eyed into space instead of focusing on the task at hand, but also giving off a sense of purposelessness mixed with general dismay. Enda thought her name might be Mary, but could not show that she in fact did not know it. The maybe-Mary said to her “I read somewhere that you can only be sure of your own sanity by questioning it. I find that interesting, that the insane would be certain, and we the droning masses, would call them insane. What do you think?”

            She thought “How very tricky.”

Stone House

I feel like I’m throwing glass in house of stone

Making a mess but nothing more,

I’ve failed to understand the concept.

The stone always remains intact, no matter the task

And the glass always seems to shatter.

I can’t see through the walls

The delicate balance that is created by the glass house,

Is denied in this cold harsh room.

I wonder how long I can twiddle my thumbs with cut feet

Because I’ve nothing better to do,

In this impenetrable fortress.

A delicate dwelling near perfection,

Where one would never want to leave

And a solid wall, no, walls

Where I am trapped.

This situation is only made worst by my stupidity, the shattered glass.

Lean on Me Inspirational Speech

the leaves are falling (second in a trilogy)

The leaves are falling,

On this windless night.

Alas by dawn,

They will be gone.

Drifted and forgotten,

Left to reveal the husk,

Of the lifeless tree.

But this night is now,

That morning then.

And, the leaves are falling.

Scattering here and there,

It doesn’t really matter,

For they will not be seen.

Trampled underfoot,

They will lie.

Helpless and crushed,

They will die.

Yet, the leaves still fall.

Turning and flipping,

They descend,

Upon this cloudless night.

Yet, who bears witness,

To this artful dance,

But the moon and I?

They are but,

Dark splotches,

On a black canvass.

Invisible to all.

So, the leaves, they fall.

Numerous in their lost cause,

The cold consumes them.

A death in vain,

As gravity decides their fate.

Not a cry,

Is heard nor given,

To define their end.

Left, the fruitless vine,

The only consequence.

The leaves have fallen.

Something to mourn (previously wet flowers) draft 3

The first cemetery I ever visited was Arlington cemetery in D.C. It was supposed to be grand and marvelous, but the sky was overcast that day, the white marble didn’t sparkle with honor or glory. The flowers seemed not to give off anything they were supposed to, no emotion of remembrance or forgiveness, just slowly decaying life under that sky. Older sections were tombstones of all different shapes and sizes, mostly big, honoring fallen heroes, I suppose. But the majority of the sections were crosses. Endless rows of crosses. They had run out of space for big ornate tombs for the heroes, our guide had said. Now they were all just crosses. I suppose they didn’t have a choice when it happened. I suppose they had no idea. I felt they’d been cheated, I felt as thought I had borne witness to this betrayal. I felt as though I was a conspirator watching the changing of the guard. I felt as though I could never honor these men as much as they deserved. I wondered if that was death.

The second was in West Virginia, Mt. lookout cemetery. It was much smaller than Arlington. Just the families that had lived in that small town their whole lives I guess. A small patch in the back of the church, where someone thought it would be a good place, someone’s dewy backyard. Quaint. I saw the grave markers of my father’s family going back and back and back. I saw what seemed to be my great-great-great-grandmother, if I could read the moss correctly. I saw my great grandfather died when he was only fifty. I guess he hadn’t put much thought into it, where it was he would be in the end. I wonder if he liked it there. But he was only a name on a tombstone. A name and a date. I have seen no pictures. There are no stories. Again I wondered if this was death.

The third was a local cemetery, a big one. I was on a walk and came across it. There was a lady at the gate who was leaving as I was coming in, so she left the door open. It was a gate that could have locked me out. My father used to joke, as we’d drive by cemeteries on trips: “Why do they put fences around graveyards? Because people are dying to get in!” It seemed more like a cage. It seemed like going to a zoo. I had no purpose here. My life had seen no death, save the other cemeteries. I knew no one here.

This cemetery was large and ornate, hills of tombstones of all varieties of rock and shape. It was old and had hosted many a generation. It was broken into sections on a series of rolling hills.

There was a sign nearby the Jewish section that said something in Hebrew, ‘cemetery’ I guess. So I walked through the tombstones all isolated from the others, void of uniqueness, except that they were Jewish, and that they had sisters and fathers who lay beside them, with their name. I wonder if this was how they wanted it to be. Defined by faith, I guess that’s not that bad, if they were faithful.

I realized I was alone. There was no one left visiting relatives or friends. I was an intruder. I knew no one here. I had no one to mourn for. I saw the fences and the flowers, the grass shifting in the wind. Everything felt so static. I walked on for fear of becoming rooted.

I walked atop a hill. The dates on these went back to 1870. They had family plots and were ornate, gargoyles and angels giving scriptures, all cracked by earthquakes since. I guess no one bothered to fix them. I suppose no one put up the money. I wondered who they were. I wondered if anyone ever cared to look up here. I wondered if they are still remembered.

The sprinklers came on. I was an intruder. I had missed closing time. The opening of that gate had let me into a world I was not meant to see. I was a tourist in the after-death. You never think about these things, sprinklers in a cemetery. I guess you just think that it tends itself, when you put a body into the ground with the embalming, it embalms everything around it. That the tombstone never changes. Only the flowers blow away. But no, they had sprinklers, to keep the grass alive.

Then there came a great slapping noise, of water striking against stone. It scared me. The way you jump when you awake from a dream. I didn’t know what it was. It was the first noise in my trip. It was vivid like the flowers hadn’t been at Arlington. It was defined so clearly, unlike death. But it struck me with the fear of being caught here, wondering with no obvious purpose. And all I could say in defense would be “the woman left the gate open.” This time I saw it. A tomb stone, a great pillar of some fancy rock, newish, had been placed only a foot or two in front of a sprinkler. It felt so wrong, the thought of putting it there, that my heart began to sink. The great smack of this system meant to sustain life would hit this poor man’s back, forever. I was finally overwhelmed. I mourned as much as I could. I meant it. I knew that I was the only one that had ever stayed past closing to watch this unfortunate man. I was the only person to see the gifted flowers drenched, and the only one to hear this horrid noise. I finally overcame my need to wonder about my fate. I did not wonder about death. I had found purpose. I was no longer an intruder. I was no longer a conspirator. I was the only one who cared.

"Bitches Ain't Shit" Ben Folds

the bush (first in a trilogy)

The Bush
Thorny, ugly, dark, foreboding.
To compare thee to a rose
Is to compare a rock to a sculpture,
Art to rubbish.
What purpose does your ugliness serve
But to draw the veiwer's eye,
Not to but fro.
The Bush
The rose has thorns,
As do you,
Yet it is declared beautiful.
How could your thorns fathomably be used,
But to protect something exquisite,
Alas, you bear nothing of the sort.
The Bush
The rose is bright and vibrant,
You are thick and dark.
Your forebodingness is useless,
For it only drives them away.
The Bush
You aren't as poetic as a rose
Which has been proven time and again.
As you sit there,
As they bask in their glory,
You remain forgotten.
What does your darkness hide,
But nothing, for we are one in the same.
Oh Bush
Oh Bush
You are not alone.
The Bush.

RE: I blog for the future. I blog for the past.

If I do not know myself,
can I change?
can I make myself in to something by will?
can I deny the scorpion who killed the frog his justification,
by putting myself about it.
can I put an end to suicidal tendencies?
I would like that very much.
I once misused the word "ephemeral"-short lived,
when I was thinking "enigmatic".
What a perfect blunder, an echo off the back of my mind.
so no, identities are not enigmatic,
they are ephemeral,
much is love.
and so, I can change.
I will stop awaiting the day you bloom,
and stop making comparisons between my life and plants I pretend to understand.
I can't say I will always be happy.
but I hope to give myself a sense of pride in overcoming the shadow of my identity.
I once wrote and "I am" poem with self-centered similes,
I will another tomorrow, without them.
the epitome an climax of my insufferable self pity.
and then it will be done.
and I hope one day to say things like:
"cast your shadow upon me, for I know the sun still shines"
I have not seen it yet I think,
no I have seen what I thought was god in overcast skies,
trying to draw meaning from not a person, but the idea of one.
and again I find myself listening to the mechanical tick of a clock,
and the faint hum of florescent lights that seem to follow one forever.
so can I say no more?
can I kill myself, the one I pity,
and make myself into what I've said I would be from this point on,
countless times before?
with any luck,
no. any will,
I will.

walking man

The roar of impatient engines

Threatening disaster

But never enough to overthrow the system

The light is an unyielding red

Accompanied by the hand of god

Demanding they stop and parting a street

For pedestrians

The bright white walking man

Commands the motion of the lame, slow

As they begin to cross into dangerous territory

A stark hot blackness

So close to the growling

The only protection is a thick white line

Strong but weak

The pedestrians move not fast enough

And the hand of god begins to count down

It does not have to part the seas forever

Their pace increases

But one is left behind

He stops

Just as the hand instructed

There is s cold moment of hesitation

As the cars contemplate his action

Obedience or disobedience?

One is heresy to god

The pact of the lines and poles and lights

Has been broken

The cars wish to burn the pariah

The other is extremism

For him the hand of god is greater than the most common of sense

And by that measure

He should die still

The now green light and the new walking man

Herald an end

The end of the pedestrian pariah-saint.