The Image of the Sun God

image of the sun god by ~turimbar1 on deviantART
The air has a certain hue to it today,
strewn with dust and pollen and leaves that
float on cobwebs and the occasional santa anna.
And though they are merely unwanted particles,
destined for mothers broom,
they look like gold flakes hoisted aloft
by that insensible ether that guides light
to their precious fringes illuminating them,
leaving sun tracks, before coming to form
my charcoal silhouette on the opposing wall.

novel moved and New poem: "Shame on You"

The beginning of my novel has been moved to somewhere where it does not distract from the poetry. It is currently at  http://stopbythestars.blogspot.com/
Feel free to take a look, I have made some changes since it was last posted here.

Shame on You

Honesty does not become you,
because, as always, the devil lies
in only the details:
systematically gaining trust and crippling it
removing but a grain at a time from the sandcastle.
And it collapses with no one the wiser.

So don't patronize me, appealing
to some abstract sense of fairness or truth.
I heard you last night.
not even the nacht of tar can clothe your nakedness.
You are no longer the child who dismantled those sandcastles,
those carefully-structured dreams with their sandy halls,
the tan pillars weakening with every touch.

STOP, THIS NOW!
stop undermining every soul entrusted to you,
you observer! You spectator!
merely watching and waiting for the moment
the raw underbelly is exposed,
waiting for a chance to take advantage.

So no more details: let us hear it straight
what did you do with the blood red wine?

the rare rant, and a poem

I have been listening to various headphones (I have some nice sennheisers, listened to Kevin's Grados) as well as some live performances, some involving speakers and some without. My headphones expose so much detail in songs, it used to blow me away, and sometimes it still does, but I have become so used to it that it has ruined all less-accurate headphones for me. Even the Grados, they have amazing bass and a rich warm color, but they lack the detail of mine, so they start annoying me of songs I know well. I do not know if I can ever go back to earbuds, even decent ones sound shallow and lacking comparatively. It is annoying to not be able to listen to music you like without subconsciously finding the speaker's every fault.

I wondered why this was, how could I be happy with my old headphones when I have heard live performances before, and know what it really should sound like? Why has this just started to bother me? I realized that almost every performance we hear now is projected from microphones and speakers.  We really have no reference, we have crappy car stereos and headphones and boom-boxes, we rarely hear those warm, rich, unadulterated sounds from live performances (sans speakers) inside acoustically correct areas. These headphones provide the closest thing to that. They set up the soundstage almost perfectly and tell almost every varying tone, but even so, they are not the real thing. They lack the power, the reality of those live performances. But how would I know the difference, I only hear things through speakers. The speakers might sound better because that is what I am used to.

So this is my rant against recreated sound. I must learn to treasure strumming on the guitar, plunking the piano keys, or listening to others do so. I have no musical talent, but I can appreciate the purity of good old analog sound.

this song will go well with this poem:


The Soul Fire Sky

Viewing the midnight sky
I see a million porch-lights, as if
the sky is but a mirror, a huge concave mirror,
the scientists had it wrong this whole time
we are merely viewing the vast metropolis'
and lonely settlements of those abiding in Gaia,

and I see two reflections,
yellow street lights, next to each other
like binary stars, attracted,
but never touching, dancing with souls entwined
in their dangerous orbits,
inescapably bound to their partner
until they unite and explode
in glorious abandon.
And I wonder if some of those Astrologers were not quacks,
they were trying to tell us that everything is as it seems to be.
That this universe cares, that there can be moral in the mechanistic.
But I cannot believe in the stars.

Is this Love?

I want to run my hands through your hair,

trying to read each fiber like

sheet music, that plays your every emotion,

I long to caress your skin, feeling

every pore, every line, every scar

hoping to read,

with my braille eyes,

your mind, your heart.

Yet I am deaf and blind.

I am lost, confused

I sense your softness, your warmth next to me,

but your mind is beyond perception.

I am lost, confused

as to what I can say

what can I do?
I wonder aloud to the sun,
like so many before me.
Yet it watches with it's visionless eye,
impartially illuminating events,
but offering no insight.

All I can do is sit here,

asking about the weather,

How has your week been?

oh good. Ya busy ya,

I want to feel some real emotion,
yet I do not know, cannot know,
my maze, my software.

I am lost, confused

what do I do now?

but sit down and write to unseen eyes,

Portraying with detail,

the limits of my perception.

The library

I have this favorite garden of mine I

visited when I was young.

It had fountains, rivers,

It had innumerable paths, mystic and unknown,

or maybe just forgotten, or ill used.

But I visited for the flowers

of knowledge, the yellowed petals,

those musty yellow and tan petals,

I sat among them, between the rows,

the hedges of wisdom,

the gifts of our ancestors.

I would let myself be enveloped by them,

and their intoxicating scent,

their inherent beauty hidden, waiting for

someone to spend a little time

perusing them, smelling them, examining them,

learning from them.

I never understood why they shed those golden flowers

from that tree of knowledge.

But now I know, now I understand.

Some things are not worth remembering,

some times it is not worth it fighting the sandstorm,

burying piece by piece, the information

that was deemed unnecessary.

Indeed I will be there one day too,

I will be no rossetta stone,

no Iliad, no Odyssey.

Just a flower,

shed from the overburdened tree,

lost among the multitudes of my fellows.

Good Morning

oh how I hate you,

loathe, despise, abhor,

how do I count the ways?

You with those thoughts...

you know the exact ones I am talking about,

don't even pretend

to be innocent.

Your front is so obvious,

the whole world can pick you apart,

as easily as I am now.

Dissecting, here is the heart,

the liver, the brain, examining each neuron,

Finding the cracks in your globe.

Pulling you appart.

And now you finish washing your face,

and vanish from the surface

of the mirror as I leave the bathroom,

ready to face the day

Indeterminate Calculus

Here we are in calc class,

cutting the world into measurable pieces,

making the unexpected predictable,

explaining change and time

but suddenly I am lost,

these graphs offer no insight,

there is no equation for this.

Erase what you have learned, and breathe

deep in this convoluted world

there must be something unpredictable

something that disobeys these algorithms

and changes our perception

of beauty, of ugliness, of the nature of our soul.

Can it be connected?

Can this world of definitions and labels,

really be so simple as causal relationships?

or are we gravitating, slowly

inching closer to the final state

our destiny dictating our present,

and our past a mere explanation

of how we got here.

but now I feel it,

pulling me forward,

like my heart is leaving my chest

like there is a hand yanking it

into the future

into some semblance of a plan.

and now I begin to wonder:

How do I calculate the surface area,

of this fabric that is my life?