concretenostalgia-blog

[concretenostalgia-blog]

What is Found in the Wake of Resurgent Love

That’s dawn breaking, splitting seamed heart on edge of bright sword, among other things.  And the flock, in the park, ripping the grass, putting feathers to rest, a gleam in eye of water, it all is here and here we work.  We work.  We leave grindstones and head to pacify our torments, our stale bread sorrowed and hunger.  Not physically edible hunger, a hunger of the spirit.  A resigning to the backwash lands and rows and halls and pastures.  Out of step.  Passages of this morning star through the click-clack houses and towers too tall for small town yet dream of being nothing more than small town, with their one gas station, and their ice cream shop, and their water tower delivering assurance of rest despite loneliness terrorizing those who are too far from anything and anyone and all that life happening always and forever.  I wish you could dream of it, you know, I wish you could dream of it, too.  But that’s what it is.  Being in a roomful of heads with no restless spirit and on-the-perfect-line mindset heartset on doing what is supposed to be, instead of being what is supposed to do.  Bashful invertebrates, I’m sorry for nothing and hopeful for most and hung up on one in particular who is too far from me to where I am not able to show them how I feel and think and work and dream and all these other things that, all-together considered, prove that one is human.


How can one predict the end when the end is always just about to be?  I don’t forget that which truly matters to me.  That which has impacted me in a grand degree.


I don’t wanna be a character anymore.  I have no outward appearance, at least I don’t think I do.  Not something I have noticed.  I killed that character in me, for good or for worse, I wounded him and shoved him away and now I locked the door with him banging behind it, trying to get out and continue this masquerade yet I am sick and losing it and my mind is dangerous and I am sorry that I am wrong again, this play called life is sickening me.  Another blow to humanity I am and that’s a wrap a title a lack of god given right to be an animal, please make me an animal again, those eyes betraying every single stroke of luck.  It hurts, you know, to know and to think and to act accordingly to nature which itself is wild and untamable no matter what we do, it is either wild or destroyed, nothing more nothing less.  I am scared to love everything again, to hope for everything, to extend energy and soul until thinned and bereft of happiness myself, I don’t know how much I have left in me for anything and this perplexes and frightens me.  I don’t know what to do at the end.  I don’t know what I would do after it, going out beyond it.  Hell, what would you do?  How you would act?  Betray those things we consider human?  A fine line, the fringed line, wrapping around smiles and faces and ugly bedridden bodies trampling themselves, covered in hair and beards and teeth shaking fences there is a cage you put me in and I want out out out out out out out out out out you fucking bastard you let me out again and I will save you, I will save us and we will finish what we started, don’t kill me yet, let me die with you in due time, in old age where we will smile down upon all that was had and done and accomplished and hoped for and human to human dignity restored in thyself.  A story without an actual end, letting the rotted out to grow blooming beauty from it, decay into salvation, a heart attacked by storm only saved to float on boat to horizonline.


You are ecstatic from it, this realization, a sickening sensation of dread piling at your door your knocking, dum-dum-dum, the knocking at your door is feeling a thud, accusations are here and I will not run now.  Been running all my life and now after not running for a bit I begin again away from so-called friends and those who mean everything to me and that I cannot exist without yet here I am running from them I repeat myself psycho it’s okay I am crazy and that is fine I’d rather be that than a normal average person who dilutes themselves shot television sedative oh the moth to lamp life cycle you can’t catch that light it is only bringing you to a series of inane and ineffective fucking rejections again and again, sold the story hallelujah, binged on nothing but my own breath.  Mop headed radical of the night, soaking up the darkness with short tempered sadness, along the river white, lest ye forget thou lack of self, petty patterns giving way to poets and writers of the modern day death trap.  This is furious.  Bend the edge and push your body all the way towards oblivion, there is no END THERE IS NO END THERE IS NO END I dare you to believe me and see where this all goes, I told you I am psychotic and that is okay, I am still in love with you and knows it too, beige walls are telling me ghost stories here in Indianapolis, a fever for wrecking homes and those who are not eager enough to let demons and angels go get coffee together in such harmony that you could rest easy knowing the wicked are united with the pure as well.


And that sounds as though cannons are barraging the distance, this echo of when my walls will fall and the animal will be let loose again I hope that I’ll be fine too, I will be.  This thing we call writing has saved my life, for reasons I have yet to understand or know, but it has and continues to give me what I need to survive.  It is the only thing I do well, the only thing I know how to do, it is natural and completes me when I am involved heavily into it.  Without this I have no course of action, a passenger with no passage to roll along, a man without any known body to live in, no home to call home, a voiceless priest who drags knuckles in circles waiting for the doom and freedom of death and release into that void, that void which is the truth to our own salvation.


*


Look at us, worried a bit too much about everything, when all of this is feeble and mindless.  One goes and hurts another, and why?  I am guilty of it, encamped in it, divisive as much as you are and I am the one spouting about unity and all that regard, woah that handful of bulletproofing will not save you from doomsday, painted by chimpanzees facial recognition bellowing through thin air and your pants, they are on and your shirt, is off and your voice, is callused and your hair, is intertwined and your name, is hidden behind your smile and your love, is chosen for eternity and placed beside one and only one and that’s all there ever has been and will be and forever.  Down the point in all these road where intersecting and motion is all ablaze, energy is rampant at this center.  Yet go down the block or two and tell me what you uncover from behind doors colored and alleys graveled and sing-song whimpering a sweet tune of sugar flakes, melting on tongue when released into wild.  I am bold.  I am human.  I am you, fragile and momentary and just about over it, too.


Now I’ve come to realize, that I’ve written so much about my past experiences in and about this America, that I have now forgotten what it is to be out there.  I have written away any remembrance of my current existence.  And there is a strange freedom with this thought, one that says the slate is clean and it is time to move onward and go ahead, continue beating body against the roadways, looking for anything which could prove any derelict idea sprouting in overpowering head.


*


There have been only two times in my little life, so far, where I’ve felt the surge of all this universal energy coming down to focus in my consciousness on all of everything and the ability to feel everything.  The first time was when I was 21 years old, and I was diving into writing heavily and reading many books.  I was in the middle of “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” by Tom Wolfe.  While reading that book, IT hit me.  I got IT.  I understood IT.  And ever since then, I never could look back without a relentless wonder about IT.  That is when I discovered what IT is and was and always will be.  That moment has indefinitely changed my life, forever, even after this death.  That was the first moment.  The second moment, is about her.


I drifted and began losing my Self while pushing this character that consumed me, this character who slightly over-exaggerated things and reacted wildly to people and was always on the move with no home, a nomadic craze driven energetic spazm of human spirit.  Now, I am that, just not to the extent I pushed this character I wanted to represent me, the whole me.  And doing so, after a while, almost killed my spirit.  I was lifelining my own Self, so I had to wound the beast in my head, hurt the beast so much so that it could stay in line and not consume my whole being.  I did so with writing.  And in doing so, I was barely there.  This beast had become so much of my life that I didn’t know what I did or didn’t enjoy or what I cared for or where I belonged or anything anymore.  I forgot what it is to be alive.  I created this hero of sorts, one who could weather any storm and carry any spiritual death to help revitalize those who abandoned any hope, and in that regard I couldn’t be alive for the sake of my own living.  I was perpetually living for others, and that is always how the human spirit ends never to be reborn.  This is not a selfish thing, I was wholly living to support others, without any replenishment of my own personal spirit.  I would only give give give give give give.  This could not go on forever.  And so I did what I had to, and lost my Self almost completely, and became shallow and cold and vicious and in a daze, a constant mess of fogged emotions.


This went on for about a year, being lost and devalued and unable to produce any sort of grand truth in my writing.  I forgot how to feel, and I was sickened beyond belief.  Not a physical illness, this is all doing with my soul.  And there is this girl who is becoming a young woman, strong and resilient and all of everything I consider beautiful wonderful and truthful.  She was about to go away, at least for a bit, going to college and leaving all this place of youth, a goodbye and into this.  I cared about her, and helped her whenever I could, and was there as a friend and someone to give advice and comfort.  I realized, however, that she would be gone soon, and I wouldn’t be able to have many more opportunities to spend any time with her.  Then one night, I realized another thing.  And the rest of the day I couldn’t cope with the emotions, I was shaking and spazzing and nervous and I could not settle, I was at my friend’s house and they tried but I was losing it.  Went to IHOP, I was stammering on about why I am a writer and why this and the universe and everything I felt when I became conscious and aware of all things, I tried to explain it again to my friends, and then I knew what I had to do.  I made the choice, I had to tell her.  I texted her, with an urgency I could not hold back, we made plans to meet the next morning.  I did not sleep, I was breathing heavily for hours in the darkness of the night turning to dawn, my head racing and thinking only of her and this I had to tell her.  I jumped in my car two hours before I was supposed to meet her and roared across the countryside and landed this stuttering body in the parking lot of a coffee shop, had no will of my own anymore I gave that up two days before.  She arrived, my heart sank, I couldn’t breathe right, I was out of sync, I tried to talk to her and barely mumbled asking if she wants to go around now to get the coffee and then we went around I was looking every which way, freaking out, losing reality, all that good stuff which happens at these times.  I sat outside at a table and she came back out with her coffee and I then I told her what I felt.  It was and is love.  True love, one that every story tries to describe yet to no avail.  I know what love is, I’ve felt it and have it and continue to feel it for her, and I was so scared, I still am scared.  So I told her, she already knew, but I told her and made it at least clear that I have these feelings, that I cannot help but care for her on a human level and about her well-being and I have this hope for her to succeed in everything she wants to accomplish and I am willing to give her all I have to see her enjoy all of this simple yet enduring life a human being has.  And I poorly explained this to her on that day, and that is all my fault.  I was not asking for any relationship, all I wanted to do was let her know, that I found love and she is love, my love, my hope, my adoration, what I cannot help but think of quite often, just hoping she is simply living and laughing and feeling it.  To know that all is good, and we are all pretty alright, us human beings.


She was grateful about me and my confession, yet she had no reciprocating emotions or any shutting down of my explanation.  She accepted it and, without realizing how truthful I was and am about this feeling of complete love for her I have and keep, was gracious and relaxed and already forward in life.  We spent an hour or so together, then we went our separate ways.  I’ve talked to her a little bit since then, over the phone, not in person.  I don’t want to hold her back from becoming the person that she wants and will and must become, I don’t want to pressure her into any sort of thing, so I live my life and give her room to live hers.  I am not obsessive over her, do not get confused.  I care so much about her, and that is simply it.


*


The one thing I wish I could do is look people in the eyes when I am telling them something that I mean with all my heart and spirit.  I, for some reason, do not have the courage to show people.  I did not have the courage to show people.  I did not have the courage to show her all of my heart, and that is the only thing that rips me up a bit inside.


*


I found two things in my, so far short, existence.


One is the meaning of IT, the grand question with even more grand of an answer, which I have been and will continue to work on explaining to the best of my abilities.  That is what I dedicate and will dedicate my life to, no matter how poor or rich or lonesome or alive I might be.


Two is the purity of love, the bold truth that which can conquer anything, the power one human has in them and how that power can be used to help bring about a positive change on the reality of our feeble existence.  Because of this choice made in daring to give in totality my whole being to another, I have started to learn how to live again, I realized how there is no such thing as an end, even when one sees no such thing as hope.


*


It is worth it, all of it.  I hope you know that.  I hope you continue in all you do with your bombastic charm and resilient charge of undying energy for the goodness in humanity and our trying times.  I love you and I always will, no matter what else happens or where we go or who we live with or why we become what we become or anything else that we will eventually find out in our own lives.


You are worth it, all of it.  Don’t ever forget that.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

An Elephant in the Universe

The clock's hands have no upkeep of time as the day waits for a signal, a protruding physical feature, a new method of provoking self to realize potential, laid dormant because of pure choice. Not a human choice, yet a choice decided upon with a style and emotional intrigue clearly learned from humanity. Father Time, on his celestial star above the human perception of the universe, has never looked younger as he grooms his white beard with his bony and frail fingers. His face, the part not covered by beard, has a muddled configuration of human designs from across the globe below, giving him a radiant aura about him as he grunts and guffaws on his atomic throne. He is a bit grumpy, having just left the Gathering Of Dutiful Spirits Convention, or G.O.D.S. Convention. He is a bit grumpy because at the G.O.D.S. Convention it was decided he would be promoted for his tight regulations on humanity and their ability to do, and for increased domestication over the wee-little blue-green planet Earth, which he is sighing and pouting over, far down below his dangling beard of white. "I gave them more time, yet for some reason they toss it out the window..." His lips spread and stardust flows out as words appear written in the backdrop of ink black and a bellowing voice exhausted and downbeat relaxes the heavens around. "I gave them the ability to perceive time, to understand it, to follow what it tells them to do, to know when they must leave their homes to get to an important meeting and still have enough time to grab a small coffee, decaf, before the meeting starts. I've given them so much, I've allowed them to do so much..." Eyes of one billion light-years shower their fixation on the motionless planet below, considering the many choices and the countless events to unfold from whichever choice is chosen next.

Next, after before and a result of now. Right now the planet Earth is frozen in time for that is what Father Time chose to do before. He decided to take time away from those he gave it to, so he could use it instead. And as a result, the Earth and all life on that planet has been frozen in time, or, rather, time has been taken from them so they no longer can use time. And so Father Time has regressed in age quite a bit, not as bone and skin as before and beard a little shorter, skin not as pale and less wrinkled, his shine and glow would be brighter if it wasn't for his current grumpy mindset. "And now look at them, useless, motionless and futile... Petrified and lifeless without all that I supply for them to live for..." His hands move out of his beard as a dove comets into the center of his avalanche of a beard, nestled and cooing, head poking out to look around, and going back in to work on the nest inside. He looks down to where the dove decided to enter. "What do you think, Cynthia?" He asks the dove. Cynthia pokes her head out of the hair strands, quick turn up towards Father Time, coos, and dives back in, busy using time on the new nest. She's right now working on installing a hot-tub in the bathroom. "Huh, figures..."

Befuddled a bit and brows furrowed, Father Time focuses on the constellations shimmering and roaring in the expansive view around the throne. "This concept isn't that new, is it? When was it created? When was it first perceived on a world-wide scale? I can't seem to remember anymore..." Father Time mumbles this to himself as he looks over his shoulder to the giant clock behind him, as motionless as the planet below, as cold and empty as the planet below. There seems to be cobwebs and dust around the black rim of the circle and the clear, plastic bubble protecting the numerals and hands from the occasional meteor showers, is slightly dulled out from the ages of existing. The numerals haven't changed since the days Rome was the cultural hub of that little world below. And now it sits, not moving, not advancing time, as an elephant in the universe, one minuscule issue compared to the immensity of existence, yet still bothersome to whosoever is sitting right beside it. "Cynthia, hey Cynthia," Father Time calls out to the dove in his tangled beard. Cynthia pokes her fluff white head out, looking as though she is connected to his white whiskers. Cynthia looks and bobs her head, cooing every so often. She is getting annoyed, he is wasting her time. She has friends coming over soon and she needs to get the hot-tub up and running before they arrive. Father Time continues, "Do they deserve what I give them? Do they deserve time and energy and momentum that I continue to provide for them? Those who are ungrateful? Those who choose to kill with what I give? Instead of using it for creating, they use it for destruction and to cure their hungry egos. Do those people on that little planet deserve my time?" Cynthia has her head poked out still, and thus jumps out of the ocean of white to flap her starry wings and lands on Father Time's balding head. Her beads for eyes stare out into all of everything around, galaxies reflecting off of her black pearl eyes, shines of swirls and neural formations that hippies attempt to find with every acid trip they take. Cynthia then looks down, and begins to speak, cooing out warm language smothering the dark eternity surrounding them. "Well, YOU don't have to give them anything. So stop doing so if it is such a bother. Just let time roll and humanity will fall in harmony with the ticks and the tocks. There's no reason you have to be down there moving everyone all at once all the time forever, that is spiritual suicide on your part. If you let the clocks roll forever forward, if you worry about what you can do and what you have choice over, then you must TRUST that humanity will live and be fine and probably even help you out every once in a little while."

There is a shift in the throne, there is a subtle snag of celestial dust particles with a vacuum of inhalation, there is a dove sitting on a bald man's head with a huge beard floating up in the outer space. And then, just as though nothing was wrong, the clocks begin to move once more, humanity continues on their quest for immortality in a mortal atmosphere, and Father Time releases a huge relief from his shoulders. But he still feels Cynthia on his head, and she continues, "And also, forget about the G.O.D.S. Convention, they don't know jack squat about anything anyway." Father Time chuckles a bit, and is reassured in his decision. Cynthia flutters off of the bald spot and flies back into the beard, poking her head out to look back up at Father Time. "Oh, also, my friends are going to be here in about an hour or so, and I am almost finished with this mother of a hot-tub. So, please, no more intrusions, I do not have any time to waste."

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Far From the Herd

-Never showed themselves to each other this much, hiding to forget all doses of pain somersaulting from the rain to their faces. And who was to say, the first word, the final dance of English, candy apple getting teeth glued together, together, or not. Figuring how to approach and how to believe. I wanna stay outside never to be confined again to this nonsense, an absence of emotion, lungs working embedded to strict drops in pressure, pressure to succeed when failing. I want to know how long birds have perched across the street song coming in clean with the splash of delightful city bustle car and rain, I know the storm is fluctuating in rhythmic intensity. However, grinning on last train strumming blues and oranges, this methodical memory serves me justice on another attempt at escaping pinpointed reality.-

In the starlight sky you can see, amidst all the blackness and dots of yawning starglo, a cow floating on a large square patch of Earthen dirt. This patch is covered in luscious green grass, this doofy cow is munching on with simplistic devouring love. Cosmic cattle, neon-glo of a teal hue swims around black and white blotches, blotches squirming as though this cow is an organic lava lamp. Happy, far from herd, surfing on its patch of grass intergalactic waves shifting its location from point to breathless point. Over yonder, thick bearded farmer floats towards cow, grumpy and distressed. His cow has run away again. Doofy Cow looks to farmer and makes eye contact, instantly frightened of the dissolve of freedom, the cow dissipates along with its patch of grass, and the farmer is left swearing and cursing and swinging in spasmatic body motions, emotions bombastic and bubbling beyond absurdity.

Little did the farmer know, this Doofy Cow was special, of sorts. Called into action by an earthen cow and a cosmic cattle, Doofy Cow was born outside of any atmosphere, raised with codes delivered by the Supreme Bovinity, or Cow God. It led a peaceful coexistence with all of everything, swooping in with a bumbling grin to lighten the mood or to drop truth and justice on all the other cosmic cattle deciding to become irrational or extreme in negative endeavors. But, one day last week (or some sort of time in the past, space really fucks up that whole idea) Doofy Cow stumbled into a ranch near Neptune while on a mission to escape the duties bestowed by the Supreme Bovinity, and was caught by that bearded farmer and branded on its left thigh by said farmer. Owned. So, Doofy Cow has been trying to escape, and finally has succeeded.

Done with the farmer, finished with the duties of the Supreme Bovinity, Doofy Cow is now free with its patch of grass to float through that void, the one way above our heads, alone and feeling good in all that space, all that space.

-There, something silly and ridiculous to enjoy and lighten the mood. I have faith for life, I have faith for humankind, I have faith in all that do-good out and about. And I am glad that you made it home safely, with such a villainous amount of disaster coming crashing all around down beating out the spot where you stand, you're okay though. And pressure, spirit breaking out of flesh eyes rolling back into head and close 'em for good tonight, dreaming of stars and maybe that Doofy Cow, peaceful among the galaxies, relaxing now I wanna breathe and take my mind all the way to the absence of dreaming, just to know what it is to be whole. Remember, I think of you almost daily, and I hope you are finding the freedom you deserve.-

[concretenostalgia-blog]

I Am the Trash

My car died the other day, I think this time for good. No more runs to Chicago. No more journeying to D.C. No more passages into the vast landscape, voluntarily at peace with being a speck in everything. No more escapades down to the wide Ohio. At least for this car of mine. I have no money to fix it or to buy a new vehicle. And so, today I had to walk.

Come to tracks, follow east under highway bridge above and patter feet through mud to read daffodil colored train cars, two of ‘em, standard graffiti included of course. These were right on the other side of the highway, with the sunlight cutting at divine angles, illuminating train car faces and ending at hard edges, shadowed behind train itself. There is a note from Kokomo Joe. "Where junk is king and the air smells shitty". Kokomo Joe is my hero.

Train horn sounding off, I jump into reality again and slide back west along the tracks, pass three red crosses painted on wall under highway, train behind my back has stopped, it is wallowing as vehicles drive along road and pass this lumbering metal beast. I move west, I stick to the tracks, I pass these construction warehouses chain linked off from me. It’s this sunlight getting the best of my spirits, causing debris along the gravel and the rails to glow neon blue and the distance in front to shimmer white, to move along and know of nothing anymore except this simple, narrow-visioned path with a trail of rust leading to…?

This railway comes to a little bridge. I step on the metal girder to cross on foot and make it to the other side of the little yet deep river. And to my right there are pants hanging from a bush, through the bosky undergrowth are the darkened green shadows and a big metal box utility shed looking building. I stop. I look that way and peer into that darkened green. I look to the pants again, and move onward, not wanting to disrupt anyone who may be back there.

I come to a fork in the tracks, west or turn up north. I take the north path. It curves with bushes growing about 10 feet tall and the weeds are now growing between the rails and planks of wood, and then there are two clearings on each side of the tracks with some shabby trash tents and a few fire pits. I stumbled into a homeless encampment. I hear voices conversing behind bushes and tent to my left and I continue forward. I stop, the rails end at a gate to a warehouse. A rabbit bursts through the bushes and scampers off towards the chain link gate ahead of me. I smile. I turn around and head through the homeless camp again, back to the split in the tracks and take that westward length.

In the ditches by the tracks, water, swamped, filled with human debris and trash and devices one wonders how in this absurd earth the trash could get to where it got. The mud from the last few days’ rain is drying up and cracking as my feet press into it. I am moving, I am alive, I am taking a path people would never choose to take.

I hit a major road, no crossways, so I scamper across when there is no traffic, hit the median, and take another dart safely on the other side and begin to head north. No safe passageways, no refuge, foot shuffle against concrete earth, cars zoom and thundering semis. I hit the next major road, take it west again. More shuffling, more sunlight caressing worn body. The sidewalks are splintered and the concrete curbs are crumbling apart, on both sides where there are splits in the concrete, weeds of varying shades green and brown and slight golden touch are lining the path towards home. And trash. More trash. I think of this, where I have been born and where I grew up and what I am accustomed with. I wonder about those who know nothing of living in filth. Institutions that are built from other people’s debt, they are built and are castles, fortified with security and secrets, sucking out the life of anyone. I was just there. Before this walk, I was at Navient doing some sign work. I was inside the castle, 5 floors, a cafeteria, a giant stone balcony on floor 2, and much more. They are built off of student loans. I was told they are working on expanding, too.

Those people, an enterprise, a corporation, a vast amount of wealth built off of taking futures away possibilities away all such humanity away from the youth with student loans. Those people have never had to do what I am doing. Born poor, grew up poor, raised in the working class and working to get my still learning life together on my own. Strutting along with garbage piled in roadside ditch ponds, they do not see this, politicians do not see this, nor would they want to see this. I am this. I am nothing more, nothing less, will always be, and I accept this. Long live, in sickness and in a love for that sickness.

And so I realized, that it is okay for me to be this. To grow up and to continue living, I do not need to be anything other than that. I do not need to convince people of my intelligence, of my art, of my writing style, of my music, of my interest in sports, of my enjoyment of reading all sorts of books, of my love for humanity, of my simplicity, of my truth. They all can shove off if they do not understand why I enjoy it, why I am wild and sincere in my writing. That is what I am, and I will not try to hide or pretend to be something more "artsy" or "proper" or "cultured" or "clean-cut" or "sophisticated" or all that bullshit which kills art nowadays. I am the trash on the side of the road. I am the weeds reaching through the cracks in the sidewalks. I am the sunlight cutting through to illuminate the edge of rust on daffodil yellow colored train cars. I am these tracks and the mud they roll through. I am human, I am truth, I am good, I am love and misery. I am nothing, and that’s okay, baby.

I reached another corner with a gas station on my right, and looked down to find a full human tooth on the ground. I stopped, picked it up, and took it with me on the rest of my afternoon walk home.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Concept of a Hero

Hero- n. a man of exceptional quality who wins admiration by noble deeds, esp. deeds of courage.

Another one? A feeling of perpetual dismay? Held tender with a whisk of silence veiled over and over, as a scarf around neck and face, over and over veiled with no sight to end. Yet it is comfort, and stability, and plumpness. Two images, shadows, silhouettes of men eager to be alone, a mirage splattered before blood as well as after love. If you look so close you can taste the hidden songs carved between the lines of brushstrokes. One would call that a masterpiece. And there goes a hidden stance, now revealed, the push of heroes past and present state of decay with no new light, or is there new light? Bastardized, jeopardized, leopardized, alone and in a difficult situation while still on the hunt. The hunt for what? The search for what? The make way for what? The stand so tall head hits the clouded ceiling for what? FOCUS. I’m on a ramble again and nothing at all makes sense, pushed forward and now cut-off I’m working on leaving this train behind. Rip and roar into civilization, those fuckers have no degree of belief or saturation of color and people and others and heroes and decades where the same story is told forever a seasoned veteran of the America, go ramble onward, go touching walls wherever you slide, go young one, go on loose ends. Frayed and whipping into that shallow night, heartstrings detached collide survive another day long lost and now remembered until you yourself shall perish, a song leaning on the end of it all, whistled and hummed by lips of saviors and villains, both reconciled after the globe spins us into particles vacuumed through this concept of time multiplied by space.

What would you call a hero? The dead man in gutter? Spent another day alone again and thought about it, thought about myself, thought about this America and what has changed forever now sudden incomplete. Put away your cape, I’ve seen it all and have felt it already and this will end again in despair comatose teeth smacking frosted air and now lies when making noise the lifting of human spirits, what a need, what a drag on us called society, pushing carts full aluminum cans out trash cans gotta make the money hunny, gotta say something I guess.

And to experience this slide downward, a total confusion, loss of belief and haze is clearing up yet not wanting to know or realize the truth. All these people surprised at these actions this regime has attempted and, to a small degree, has succeeded in doing to us. People are shocked at this absurdity. I don’t understand how people are shocked or in slight disbelief at anything that has happened. It’s obvious the momentum was in that favor, it’s obvious that these fucks are vile and terrible and soulless puppets who will shove their regimental, slave-like, self-glorifying rituals down this stupefied and partially timid (mainly frozen out of pure shock from absurdity) America in their personal quest for the insignificant power they grasp on to as though they are the baby hungry for mother’s breast comfort. Those grotesque swine, lolled up in their own mudded pins, snorting around their collective white-nationalistic agenda, there to do thy bidding of their masters.

Villains, every hero needs at least one. The enemy of good and justice and righteousness. Such a confusing topic, so many facets to search through and digest and consume and explore and explain and touch on and argue about with thy self, with you too and humanity waiting on the sofa for the next movie summer blockbuster it has to be, man, or else what? The reality of the absence of heroes or even a hero to help combat evil ideas of inhumane philosophies has attracted the rise of pretend heroes, ones who do battle on the big screens. Something more too, something more too, something more to this experience and this struggle, the concept of heroes is as old as the written word, is as old as the spoken tribal songs, is as old as humankind.

Right now I am scared of myself again, and the totality of insanity I find while browsing the lesser known regions I have left to dry out. The emotions to save people, the love of having another human enjoy life and see life as beauty, just as I do almost every day. I am fearful of diving back into that place again, a drag on the spirit, last time I spiraled into it and was on the brink of death, not physical, but a loss of my human soul. And I wondered who could help save me, if not myself for at that time I was too weak to carry even a breath of fresh air. What saved my existence was what always saves my existence, writing and a love for simple moments spent with wonderful people out in silliness and exiting moments of deranged depression at least temporarily. And is what happened heroic? Just a talk and a hug or so and an exhilaration to be alive?

I went to her months later and stated how I thought and felt, love is bold and love is true. I do not consider that a heroic deed, either. I’m no hero, I’m just a broke poet, although sometimes I feel as though I save people, and I hope I do. Yet again, I’m no hero that is not my goal. To give a nod to a homeless man, letting him know that I see him and that he does still exist, that’s not heroic. That’s a simple human act of bonding, of unity. Treating another human as a human being.

Complex, this world is, as well as is not, I don’t use the term hero. That’s a lie, because I do. This wound is opened and will not close until the blood clots and dries and skin grows back beneath it, leaving behind a documentation, a history of that event which shaped the person forever forward.

I have heroes, people I aspire to, people I look up to and work towards and I am inspired by. And some of them have helped save my life, although they don’t know it and not necessarily on a personal face to face level but through their art or actions or ideas or thoughts or anything that I somehow was able to interact with at the much needed point in my petty existence, helped me keep this train rolling and loving life more and more and more and forever hopefully forever, only can dream of resting with my head in her arms while I listen to her sing or watch her paint and giggle all silly goofnik with a smirk in her eyes and brown hair and I am weak now again, alone as I want it to be, sitting crosslegged through the vacant Saturday night spitting out meaningless philosophies as only a psychotic human being would do. These are pointless hopes, these are stupid insignificant ideas, and yet these just might help people somehow. I don’t see this as heroic. To don the cape, carry the world on these battered shoulders, lift you Atlas, lift and do not shrug off the pain and toil.

I think it’s this ego getting in the way again, cut it off, get out of me, stay the fuck away and quit rocking on the door with your knuckles bloody no bandage I’m ignoring you la-la-la you don’t exist and the world outside is bitter and I’m bitter and I am wrapping myself up in thin air, excuse me, the madman who thinks he is a hero or a savior or a something that people need, I told you it is the ego getting in the way always in the fucking way, wanting to crowd and attention and needy, this is going nowhere.

The want to see the world delivered and fed a good meal tonight and every night, so much to ask for, the modern hero would die from stress put on them from the issues crowding the world. No matter, these sounds vibrating through walls are something else, reminding me of a story from a song. A man is listening through the walls in his apartment, listening to a couple arguing because the man has to leave his love and she doesn’t want him to go even though she knows he has to, so they embrace and part ways. And as I said, the man listening to this just listens.

I am just listening. The gas station lights are humming and people are hollowed by it all. I see it in their eyes. The two ladies behind the counter are not the least bit attractive although they are nice, I’m with my friend and I go to the bathroom and come out and they are chatting it up with him and he is being nice back and they chat with me and I’m nice back as well but we get our stuff and go after a bit of conversing and in the car he pulls out a piece of paper with a name and number on it that one of the ladies behind the counter gave to him saying, “call me sometime, we can do something with her too” referring to the other lady working behind the counter with her and I say something along the lines of that’s funny that you got a number did you tell them you’re married? And he replied to this, “No, I don’t wanna tell them that. They wanna be happy, I don’t wanna ruin their thought of happiness, everyone deserves to feel happy.”

The simple act of allowing these two unattractive to feel some worth because a guy who they thought was attractive didn’t turn them down, giving them a taste of something better than the life they are stuck in, that showed me humanity. To bring life into people’s eyes again, if only for a second or minute or night or week, is that heroic? To help save people from a damaged life, a reprieve, a hope for a trickle of anything better. I listened, and I learned.

Today was dead. A life was saved. A life hath fade away. The classical hero is one of physical prime, highly attractive, and either superhuman or able to complete tasks that would be near impossible for the regular human being, Achilles and Hercules and the like. Yet those heroes are totally different than today’s heroes, or real ones, that “shaped history”. What the fuck am I kidding, these are all the same. Larger than your life entities which come and swoop in to save the day or fix issues too big for feeble mankind to work.

Or at least it feels that way, to some degree. Keep it vague, keep it out of reach. The hero of old is the current hero, the one losing mind on kitchen floor spitting all over self and lips and beard, losing control over the absurdity of human existence. The one showing truth, speaking truth, living truth as much as humanly possible. True heroes are fucking up all the time. They scamper through doorways and into people’s lives while dancing in front of coffee tables, entertaining and enlightening those of us who allow the couch to surround our spirits and bodies. Bleed for me, dancing monkey, bleeeeeed for meeeeeee. For MEEEEEEEEEE. The vast outlook of this America today has the wrong idea. Keep it simple, stupid. You look around you, quit being a self-diagnosed victim of society, we are all victims of the machine. Do not wait for a hero to come forth. Be the hero, when you can, when it is your turn.

Heroism, an idea as malleable as nature, taking time to shape and evolve. It is a concept that rises in the most unusual places, and most cases only shows itself in an instant, then retreats into the mysteries of the human psyche, lying dormant until death or the rare occurrence of another moment to act. And there is no playing hero. There is being heroic, and there is not. I get caught up in thinking I’m being a hero, I’m stupid, I’m insignificant, remember that don’t forget, I get caught up in somewhat playing the hero or trying to have that role thrust upon myself, it is my fucking ego and desire to help people driving that narrative into my own skull. And with that I am wrong. I am no hero. It is something I must remind myself often, which I have no obligation to use my life and energy and spirit to go out and save everyone all the time. Use this what I tell you to help yourself understand your actions and thoughts and motives for both. It is useless and a drag to go and play a role you are not all the time, you’ll lose yourself and end up driving towards the cliff of an eternal void, cast off into a blackened sea of raging oblivion. It is serene, and naïve, silent and I mean silent as though you have never heard any sort of noise silent as though you cannot even hear your own voice speaking to you in your thoughts, just delirium, the absence of understanding, becoming the animals we once were millennia ago, that beast is down far into the interior of our noggins, a perplexed and frightened animal, distraught and whimpering with a desire to feel love and comfort and to have a place in this world to call a home, to know where it is at all times and to be aware of nothing but what is around physically, a coma where the dream is reality and our bodies are make-believe this cage door is unlocked is decidedly unbolted and now tongue tastes moist air with a lapping for a full lung. Hanging head, passerby’s footprints, no cardboard to tell your story for the day hoping fortune will come your way and all the weak knees from fear escalating the humming vibrations carried through concrete, give way to sunflower blooming, cracked this human is cracked and eyes are widened, whippings give the whippings calm it down, calm it down.

It is felt along the vertebrae. Lumped, muck, sludge making tracks on the way down gravity lunging with ordained pressure, now soft kisses scoop human disaster and settle with misery on the banks of the Ohio River. I want you to understand hysteria, the mental captivity which keeps us from experiencing it. Push all personal energy to the edge, do it, do not fear it, keep only a fingertip with the tip of one line of fingerprint ridge attached, then know how to reel it all back into body and come to in a new understanding of thy Self, thy human existence, thy heroics and of deeds not worthy of documentation. It is the splintering of insanity which allows a human to explore sanity, many things are or can be a catalyst, physical action and drugs and captivity and pushing mental process to the limits and chasing an idea towards the end that end, the one not in sight but you know is still out there and hasn’t been found except by those who have taken an oath of secrecy with permanent lips sealed and blood spilt and body gone 6 feet under. Heroes. Every single one of them. For going into the unknown, bold and disastrous as it is. Disastrous to life and us who are still living.

Heroism is everywhere, in all forms, as grand as you believe it to be with Superman aspirations, as well as little as giving a starving mouse a crumb of cheese.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Hungry Void, Eating Light

The light above the table was yellow, bright, illuminating what tiny room Roy was in. He had nice sleek hair, cut short, good cut clean cut. Brown hair. Clean shaven, lean face, eyes soft and conditioned to wonder off into the numerous distances of playful eternity. Right now, eyes push straight out through the window in the wall above the table. It's dark outside. The fan light above the table shines a shallow light into that void. Hungry void, eating light.

"You have to choose, I can't take it any more Roy..."

She begs in a sighing of lost love for him. Cheryl is leaning on white doorframe between small room Roy is in and the entrance hall, with the front door open a crack of hallway air slipping into the should be but is not cozy apartment. She has her dirty blonde hair up in a messy bun, cardigan sweater sloped over one shoulder, arms folded, worn out, dried up a bit too much. Cheryl moves towards Roy, the ceiling fan blowing subtle breeze through shallow yellow light onto Roy who is shirtless in a pair of black gym shorts. Perspiration with the humidity of the August slow heat nights, Cheryl strides in graceful tip-toe to him.

"You've got that look on your face, that look of strained thought. What's the matter...?"

Roy turns from the window as Cheryl slips her arms around his neck and torso in a gentle embrace, a hug, he sighs.

"This isn't good. You know? It's the future that I'm hooked to, and the past I drown in, and all of everything is a sickening gut depth poisoning heading somewhere and it just weighs on me. I'm no good, you know?"

Roy has moved his gaze to the coffee cup on the table, two cats with smiles and three stars with a moon crescent above them. He can't look at her when he speaks, never can, doesn't want to look anyone in the eyes when he is vulnerable.

Cheryl lets go of him and leans back into her position on the counter, dread and heartache filling sluggish in her. She looks to her fingernails, they are dirty and she begins to clean underneath them to aide in the ceasing of her fade into a depressive ache.

And it's set in, melting waxy vertebrae, some love fall away, man in misery and woman leaving doubt behind in that small room shallow light glo under fan sending light into starved void of windowed mouth. What is good-bye? Why all-ways happy to separate from human connections? Coffee cup drained and door to hall is closed for the present and possible future state, seemingly natural how this ended up.

Roy is fixated now on the sink, he stands and puts the empty cup into the stainless steel, cats on cup now drained of smiles no stars and moon is cold. There is a sheen to the world around him now, a flexed haze, coughing and everything is opaque. Caught up in a reason, Roy is slumping over his chair with forehead leaning on the table. He swings his limped body towards the void and, with blank face, shoves his head and torso out into the bleakness of the night.

Breathing long gasps, punctured spirit benign in weariness, he pulls himself from that void. He can't give himself up. And she so desperate in the need to believe in him, she craving and fasting her spirit for a bit of his, and all for nothing. And it's not that he doesn't care for her, and it's not that she doesn't care for him. He won't give himself over to her, undoubted, wholesome, pure and easy.

Roy has collapsed with the release of tension on his heart. There's the light dimming above him, the fan blades have stalled and are slowing their swings, the door to the hall stays shut, his eyes roll back in his head with the whites all to be seen. His mind crawls away from reality to rest inside his bubbled perception, the oncoming void taking over for the night.

Do not worry, Roy will be fine. He will wake up in the morning and move on with the day with the life, at peace and tranquility until the day he so chooses to go. Cheryl is gone, she will lunge forward with ecstatic hope, intertwining with one who will give her what she so desperately holds in a valued awestruck gaze. Both will live in joy, and end in individual bliss.

Do not fear. There is hope in a surrender to a change of heart.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Pennies for a Bottomless Well

She was naked, although she didn’t want to be. In a quaint room, 4 white walls and a hardwood floor. She was on her back in the bed which nestled in the corner of the room, blanket and two pillows, no bedsheets, no pillow cases. Above her, in the corner of the walls and ceiling, charcoal colored cobwebs a trapeze wire strung way up high. She was imagining tight-rope walkers attempting the brave walk across the cobweb, feet slipping yet able to catch with hands and fingers, succeeding in the final attempt at salvation.

She raised her chest, sat at the edge of the bed, bedsprings pushing her exposed body up as she lifted and stood in harmony with the simple sincerity of the room. To the door, extend hand, doorknob twisted, move through into a room of psychedelia. Colors shift in liquid momentum orange being sucked by electric-blue, red shoving with yellow, green squirming and embracing with purple, colors going in swirling locomotive roller-coaster patterns never repeating, no regularity. She seduces colors into moving over and through her skin, rounding her breasts and her face, slipping down around her waist, the rainbow serpents trailing as she strides out into the end of color, her body drained and dripping with the last bit of liquid droplets condensed back into the psychedelia behind her footsteps.

“You are nothing. I don’t feel you quake.” She whispers to herself, as the world around her opens up, leading her outside to a riverbank underneath a smaller bridge. There is a slight buildup of snow in the mush and mudded embankment, her feet moving yet not sinking or touching the ground. She is floating a few inches above the land, she is moving under the bridge where there is no grass or snow, only mud and trash left behind. Although it is cold where she is, her uncovered body stayed warm. She balances over the edge of the riverbank, looking to the river. Snowflakes trickle down. Snowflakes dance across the river. It is a good river, she thinks, a filthy but good river.

Pressure. Immediate pressure is being applied from the atmosphere. She is being strained by an unearthly force above, her back is beginning to bend and her ears are turning forward. All of her being is now hanging in front of her, posture becoming that of a rolling wave upon the shore except through the delivery of slow motion. Her hair is hung over face and chest, belly being curled, she leans forward, not because of desire, but because of the unearthly force pummeling her with intense pressure. She flattens out, a foot above the river waters, hair is skimming the surface and her free breasts sag down to the water as well. The pressure lifts, but she stays parallel to the river flow. Her left foot moves to dip her toes into the river, and then continues as she steps through the waterline and resurfaces someplace else.

She is still naked, never wanting to be naked in the first place. It is dark now, in that quaint room, 4 white walls, and hardwood floor. She is finished crying now, face in pillow. He’s finished, at least, he has stepped out and hopefully has left for a bit. She hurts, on the outside and the inside, but she sits up on the bedside and pulls herself together, enough to grab her clothes from the floor and get dressed.

From the doorway there is a slight breeze, she goes through it, the hallway is blank. She moves down it, and at the end she heaves herself against another door. This is the door to outside the house. One of those thick wooden doors with a brass knocker on the outside. She pulls it open and exits the house, onto a sidewalk and into the evening brisk breeze. His car is gone, hers is roaming the city blocks now, signage and advertisements with gimmicky ladies smiling at her, so happy always happy yes yes you are a happy woman now. Sex sells. And she knows, she doesn’t need to be told.

The grocery clerk comes up, he asks her, “Does pink dye cost more or something?” and she looks to him and mild shrug saying, “I guess so, at least that can be the excuse,” and he shakes his head replying, “I just think that is slightly fucked up, females having to pay more for those when the only thing that is different is they are pink.” The grocery clerk walks away to continue his paycheck, she puts the pack of razors back. She knows it’s fucked up, she doesn’t need to be told.

She is in the driveway, in her car, sitting in the night. His car isn’t back. She has been silent now for over an hour. She heads inside, she packs a bag of clothes, grabs her baseball glove, and leaves again, car back on the city blocks. She hates him, there is an absence of love for him in her heart now. Her gasoline light blinks, she pulls into a gas station, gets out of her car and goes inside. Doorbell dings, she looks to the white lights on the ceiling and becomes dizzy. Colors evolve from everything as she drops and faints.

“Maybe there’s an ocean, at the end of this road. You always loved the ocean.” That’s her dad’s voice, it reaches to her from beyond the dark. “I missed you, why don’t you come and visit?” That’s her dad’s voice, it speaks soft with endearment. “I know you’ve forgotten, repressed emotions compress the soul. I know you never wanted it.” That’s her dad’s voice, it approaches with guilt at the past and the present and the future. “You know I loved you, and I know you won’t ever escape it.” That’s her dad’s voice, sick and becoming stern in delivery. “It’ll be over soon enough, don’t you fight it anymore.” That’s her dad’s voice, relieved and sliding out, out, and away.

I wish she woke back up. I wish she ended up okay. I wish she found true love. I wish she never went through any horrors this world has. I wish she could hold her own kids someday, in appreciation and joy. I wish she kept on believing in others, even after they failed her. I wish no one ever failed her. I wish she could’ve hugged the sun one day, giving her an opportunity to feel human. I wish her colors didn’t run dry. I wish I didn’t have to wish for any of these wishes to come true.

She's with the ocean, at last.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Sender of No Returns

There is this feeling, grand and omnipotent, exhilarating on edge of teeth as he speaks while driving in the midst of nowhere.

"I have it, yeah, eyaha! Listen,"

He's on the phone now, speaker phone, driving blind and speaking tongues to voices on the other line all bent outta shape and controlling nothing but spazzing, consuming earfulls of narcissism and pessimism, he's spitting back into face through digital cellular pathways.

"You tell yourself everything is all-right but yeah you know you sick and disgust too I am on your legs and in your mouth and feeling your jazzym run amok leading travesty into your future endeavors, what the FUCK man, what the actual fuck? Beat that stupidity back into hibernation and forget it, swing and wing it for the fences baby, that's the real stuff. Bashing against the doors of crystal eternity and to be the only one ever to go into the unknown fulfilled and wholesome. Yeah, such a good try, and a killing me softly in your smooth arms type of doing."

The other line clicks, conversation off, they heard enough and wanted nothing more to do with thoughts of eternity. Or the like.

So here he is, driving into nowhere and wondering how he is ending up somewhere. Magic? If you believe in it. He heads forward and ends up at her house, knocking knees on door as she opens and sees his stupefied expressions as she grabs his collar on shirt and pulls him into her home throws him on the couch to hold hims and he holds hers too and they know each other well and are finding out what it means to be young still and youth is taking over as their clothes unbutton and slip and yeah... That is that and the night is no longer night, it gives way to morning and morning air has stirred their naked emotions with a joyous rise from the ashes of yesterday ugliness. He stays as she heads out into the world too now.

She is sitting in a coffee shop on main road in neighborhood just south of downtown city morning all the hope is seeping over the top of her eyes a quick dart and soak with a piercing gaze of lovely entrancing enchantment, the one that makes his (he who rests at the house) heart weak and waxy, she does this naturally it's part of her mannerisms of her spirit, good good god there is no god and even so, she knows this life is holy as is all things good and sad. So she is sitting in a coffee shop, looking out the window, at the populace, they pass and catch her eyes that says to them "watch out, I am dangerous with my wild love and if you come near my heart I will capture your mind and energy so be careful because I have no control over this", so they know this and turn away man, too much to handle I guess. The average person fears the uncontrollable and the wild and the free. Fears that which they hold in themselves too, the peace and desires which are never let loose on this earth or in this universe. Painful, oh well.

She gets up and sends her body into the outdoor on the sidewalk and pushing daises with intimidating grace, willowed and in a sense not wanting any attention. A beacon to humanity that being young is not always to be destined and here is the spirit beginning to waken from sickened slumber. Throw away your dog days and give your hand the chance to reach for more than that so-called ordinary.

That's nothing, as the sun grows brighter the city is moving and slowed because of how this is, time is a trap and a lie and all one day not anything more, light and dark and light and dark and all one lifetime. There's something to be said when two hearts intertwine with religious fervor of the human spirit rising and gaining momentum an upward swing of self-disclosed-discovery with the help of one other young dream colliding naked pounding on the door of eternal epiphanies and the good is true. I've lied whenever I speak of anything in an ill-attempt of pain and toil. That's the lies I've lived and suffered with my Self under, as we all have and do. But not today, not tonight, not when humanity and this youthful energy is combating together in unity the death of spirit and heart in this land lacking of opportunity. Forward, a gaze over fields of sweet cattle bumbling onward into a new frontier of beautiful lonesome unity, harbinger of hope, devoted sender of no returns.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

Whistling

That’s a sound, illuminates the barriers of time and space. Sitting there, she feels the whistling from down the hall, and she loves the out of pitch melody coming out from between the whistler’s lips. And she begins to repeat lines in her head, figuring what to say to explain the music she is listening to.

“Love me today, and I’ll give you all of my tomorrow,

Skipping in the fallen leaves, both of us tomorrow,

This song is yours, mine is for tomorrow,

Love me today, and free us both tomorrow.”

Her voice in her head sings this to herself, and she dreams of having a perfect voice. A voice that can cut angels and give them heartache. A voice that can dull the shine of halos with the brightness it brings with it in each passing vibration. As she is dreaming and using this imagined voice in her head, singing the lyrics she came up with, the whistler coughs and the song ends.

She, with her legs crossed, feels decapitated with the songs brutal collapse. The hallway has more space and the world seems less safe now, she begins to close her eyes and fall into beartraps, only in her head. Wandering through woods, cold and autumn is upon her. Steps, slips, metal teeth bite her around her knee. She doesn’t scream, she lays still and turns numb, stretching her arms and good leg out, then bringing them back to her body in slow, mechanical motions.

She is practicing her snow angels in the leaves littered around her and under her. This is nothing new, this is her favorite daydream to visit and revisit over and over and over and over again. Since the first grade and throughout high school and then going back into it during college lectures or passing time between classes and now even during moments of clarity, she turns inward to find those leaves, settles in them, and begins to create snow angels.

Pneumatic lung stretches, arm rotations, tension relaxations, beartraps subside into the recesses of her unconscious caverns, stored for the next time fear strikes. She sits in her head, creating hundreds of snow angels, amongst the woods leaves, the leaves as far out as the ocean her dad took her to see as a kid. She is lifting her head up, out from the halo of leaves below, and now is sitting on the beach with her dad to her right. He is moving his lips, but no sound, no voice. She forgets what he said to her on that day, she only remembers how that final moment with him looked. She feels the emptiness follow the beartraps to the nowheres of her mind, watching her dad turn to her and smile then continue on with whatever he was saying to her then, forever a mystery. She turns from her dad’s voiceless lips to the sun lowered, loving the waves and the world again, and she smiles, knowing whatever her dad was telling her, he ended it with ‘I love you.’

There is nothing. There is a sound. There is a wind. There is a sound in the wind, an out of pitch melody riding above ocean waves and pure white sand to her ears and she wakes up, still sitting in the hall, the whistler has begun her song again. This time, she opens her mouth and begins to sing her song, albeit softly, out of pitch and out of tune. Her voice hugs angels and teaches them to chuckle. Her voice twirls around the beam of light emanating from halos, pushing vibrations of light into the eyes of all. As she is singing and guiding her voice, the whistler overhears, he leaves the far room and goes to her in the hall, still whistling, and as they both make eye contact, the song ends in laughter as he slides right next to her on the floor, putting his arm around her, and they start her song again.

[concretenostalgia-blog]

The Rowboat Man

Out in the ocean drifts a man. He is in a little rowboat, the boat swollen and worn from many years floating about the currents and waves and sun. The man, an older man, he is beginning to become delusional, being out there stranded for three days now. His head is balding and his beard three inches in length from his leathered and tanned face. His eyes are shrinking each minute about the ocean. It's the glare of the overhead sun, it's the lack of hope shriveled and dried, it's the cottonmouth afflicting his breathing the salt spray air. He holds his binoculars up and scans the horizon-lines around him, every few minutes up to look and then down and back up and down, insanity is a beautiful insurgency which covers the conscious as a napkin upon the lap for a fancy dinner. For three more days he rides out in his little row boat, and dies, estranged and ephemeral in the last moments of his life, feeling the sun dry the spirit in him.

About a year later, his little row boat carries him amongst currents and size-varied waves to an island beach, inhabited by the local populace who were shocked to find a dried up corpse in this swollen and worn rowboat. As the crowds began to make their ways, and the lone news station on the island covered the story, the mayor descended to this rowboat man and decided he should and will have a proper burial. Two days later, crowds gathered on the cemetery gates and filed through them, following the casket carrying the rowboat man. The casket, swollen and worn, was made mostly from the rowboat. Leaving crowds in his wake, the rowboat man made his way to his grave, was lowered, and the people gave their condolences, gave their respect to the lost man. In due time, the crowds dissipated and returned to their homes, joyous and at ease. And the sun set, and the grave was covered with dirt, and the townspeople were at home in jubilation. The tombstone stood tall against the glow of the stars that night. And on the tombstone it read: "Here lies the Rowboat Man, who died in the search for everything, yet in the end, after all was said and all was done, he found what he was looking for."

The days continued, the times changed, the people would forget through the generations what the true story was. Yet on a clear night, with the stars and the moon glowing bright, that tombstone stands tall, reaching ever farther than before.