What in the heck ? So, as I have mentioned before I work for an NCR affiliate (short version I fix computers in supermarkets)… so… I get to sample some of the latest vendor offerings they are trying to peddle/sell in the local area. (I usually stick to trying all sorts of the new drink offerings). Yesterday I was up in north jersey (township of washington), this particular chain always has some cool new items, so I ran across (this) and decided to give it a whirl… I gotta say, (first learning what the hell Switchel is), damn tasty, I don’t like anything too sweet (and I am allergic to chocolate, side note, when I tell people that (especially the ladies) they almost look like a small part of them died inside – it’s just chocolate people! – I guess I don’t understand)… anyway, I had the maple/ginger one, I like tart/sour things (like kombucha) and maple syrup is not too sugary/sweet… pretty interesting taste profile on this thing (with a little ginger kick as well). Check it out if you see it… or make some switchel yourself.
The allure of the moon is quite separate from the actual fact of the moon… (scientifically speaking that is)… I almost feel cheated by the knowledge of what it is, imagine looking at the ancient skies with ancient eyes… and the wonder therein, but then again we still know so little of everything (even if we think we know so much, so so smart we are – being here just a blink of cosmic time). But the moon is still an AMAZING thing even when defined… this lonely rock orbiting us as we orbit the sun… think about how we compartmentalize that as fact but it should be… a wonder, a miracle, an amazing testament to the amazement of the universe at large (even in this one galaxy in billions). So, take pause, look up at our loyal friend, and remember what is actually going on hence, this massive rock (compared to our tiny frames) bound to us by an unseen force (I mean … think about that for a second, do you question gravity ?).. All this because I decided to post a moon poem I wrote a few months ago… the more I write, the more I wonder what guides my hand sometimes, if you would ask I would say I am agnostic, if I would ask I would say I am looking but evidence points to something, I wish I had the answer – so I continue searching.
5/22/18
half moon
what is your intent
half lit
obscured in mist
hazy moon
what do you portend
what is in store
if my fate is read
ascending moon
rising high
shape shifting shadows
traces of eyes –
watching
hypnotic moon
you mesmerize
how long I stare
at this nightly sky
waiting
as you pass on by
a lonely witness
to my life.
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notes… pretty self explanatory on this one, I was not going to post about this topic, I had some weird ideas I didn’t float, I was going to post about posting posthumously (I mean, who would know if you lined it up/scheduled your posts?), I also had an idea to throw out about starting a blog called “My Way” where people could post videos of their daily commutes (if it doesn’t exist already that is, your commute(s) say things about the places you live in I think, I think it would be a cool experiment, so if you steal the idea – at least credit me)… driving home tonight was horrendous, ok, it should have been awful but I was in such a good place mentally (honestly probably thanks to this outlet), I totally forgot about the upcoming American holiday Labor Day and took the GSP… oy, what a mistake, but I pulled out of myself a little piece of realization, put on some good tunes and just smiled through the whole thing, getting pissed or angry would have solved zilch, traffic is what it is, so I took a deep breath and just sucked it in, I tried to people watch and see who was mad, who was going to the shore (ahem, everyone), or who was just doing whatever. I got some dirty looks, honked at (as if I could go through the car in front of me), and the full array of reactions you might imagine. I can’t say I would react this way every time… but, I should because we have to realize what is important in life, what matters, what we can control and what we can not, I implore you to do the same, so the world is a touch more tame, you will fail, so will I, I would love to tell you how perfect I am and how to live your life, but that’s garbahhje (as I would say with my Jersey accent), make an effort, in your own way (find your own way), and thank you for reading… my way.
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Musical accompaniment … ? some moon stuff (of course)
The first track is some deep ambient… from perhaps what I consider the best ambient album I have ever heard (so far)… maybe it was the time of my life, I don’t know, it resonates with me. So turn it up or pop on the head phones / buds and chill (let your mind wander)…
the second track… well, I am going to see them in less than 2 weeks in Brooklyn and I am totally friggin geeked out about it… one of my new favorite bands but a singer whom I absolutely absolutely love.. and she plays the hurdy gurdy like no one’s biz.
For some reason today was analogy wodan’s day… I thought of my blog in some weird ways… like, what the hell is the point? Do I have a target audience ? Do I know what the hell I am doing in the first place? Well clearly I am just trying to figure things out as I go down this yellow blogging brick road but as to the other stuff (thank you for your patience those on the entry level floor as this thing is only 4 months in). At times I feel like those people at the airport with the light sticks directing planes, other times I feel like a fly fisherman trying to gently cast these tiny flies perfectly onto the gentle ripples to entice a bite, hell, other times I am just throwin’ chum into the water. I guess I should just have faith that it will sort itself out, but my mind is a churning machine, it likes to work and let the demons speak (in tongues I suppose?)… how the hell do you fix that? or do you? or do you just… be… so easy to say, so damn easy to write, so damn hard to do… but you have to give the effort, give it a try. Anyway, totally unrelated, here is something I wrote today, sort of tongue in cheek but touching serious themes. It has been awhile since I posted something from my whimsical mind, if you go back and read my stuff there has been some more “light” stuff here and there, I can’t be the brooding boy all the time, that would be boring and leave you snoring (not good for blog readers, I heard)…
“futile duel” 8.29.2018
fear –
you dastardly fiend
you perceived thief
I am through with you
I throw down the glove –
you look amused
but I am quite serious,
I endeavor to end this (and you)
I’m quite tired of your ever presence
and yet you seem like you have done this before
so the appointed day approaches
pleasantries exchanged in formal courses
ten paces drawn
I draw quick – and fire
waiting for the hit – or, a hit on my person,
but nothing
as if ever, nothing
and I hear your coy laughter
apparently,
your experience – matters.
many years from that day
and I feel the dud thud of pain
I collapse (but smile),
those around in a panic about the matter
and then it hits again,
the laughter.
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notes… I used the word “dastardly“, admit it, you’re officially jealous…
music…. hmm, I have to say this is what I was listening to all day (totally unrelated to the post, just what I was jammin’ out to on this crazy hot melt down of a day…)
German Folk Music (the english name is Walpurgis Night)… I know – you may doubt folk music being totally awesome, but listen to the chorus section at about :47 and tell me it doesn’t rule…
Champagne wishes and caviar dreams… so I was thinking… as I usually do, I have had moments where I question what I post (after the fact)… but it is so damn silly (in the scheme of things), so what if I lose a few of you? honestly… I say I am doing this for me (and I am, it is sort of therapy)… but obviously everyone loves the (any) attention or adoration, the seduction… I would love to tell you I am soooo above it, I would love to tell you I soooo haven’t pondered it… but that is complete crap. I am trying to not care (not saying not having appreciation, that is a different thing my friends)… but I am human, it is nice to be recognized, I certainly am not above it… but I want to be at some level of it, I want to actually have accolades with you face to face (or at least digitally)… why? because the rest is bullshit, plainly said. I will disappoint you, hell, I disappoint myself, I hold the bar way too damn far above my bloated dumb head… but I am trying, so thank you for writing, reading or … anything, I’m flawed, but I have a penchant for the pen chants… so I will write and continue to throw things to the wind (you all), please let some of it pass as angry rain, it will not all be a windfall of wisdom, do I want it to be? of course… damn high standards, damn walls, I am trying. I want to post and not think about consequence… and those who like it ? great? those who don’t – the world is a big place… surely I know less people and touch less people than there is in the world, or ever was, or ever will be, I am trying humility, even if it doesn’t seem to come in my size (I will talk to the retailer when I get the chance). simply – thanks.
shall I reveal my gallows humor ? because I am alive I can not really offend those that are dead, I once saw a balloon that had drifted onto a tomb, it said “get well soon”
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goin’ obvious with tunes tonight… well, not the album version at least….
so call me old, call me an old man, but I still know good tunes, and I certainly listen to heavier stuff (on average) than you 🙂 like Carcass, Cathedral, Napalm Death, Entombed, maybe one day I will post all my top insane metal tunes since I have been listening to crazy stuff going back 30 years… I know ya’all don’t get it.. but I am not just a valley, or a mountain, or a tempest, or a gentle breeze, I’m me… all of it.
and I had to post the date I wrote that poem. Why? the wool… I will never pull the wool, because I will be honest with you at all times, sure, it is easy to doubt… but how many poetry blogs do you see with the dates attached as mine… of course it could be OCD… or just honesty, that is not up to me, it is to you – reading this, and I trust you, with that.
Again, I have been trying to make a point about just sitting outside my humble abode and writing whatever comes to me, sometimes it is what can be called poetry, other times I have just deemed it free-form, but what’s the difference ? I don’t know, I am merely a conduit, of madam inspiration, how inflating, what persuasion? who knows, I don’t know what I am doing, even after all these years, I’m just some guy, with a calling I suppose, it all comes so naturally so why fight it, even these little notes and things are totally off the cuff, stream of consciousness even though I have such a scheming mind I can not lie that I do not plan what I talk about, just not…. always, how it comes out, but isn’t that life? should I agonize over every syllable ? seems silly when people are dealing the sheer horror life can bring and the sheer joy… how can my words stand up to the loss of a loved one… or the birth of a new one? I guess, I do not know, I am searching, for answers, for stories.. for words. and perhaps emotions and connections. Truly the more I learn the less I know, how many years this has guided my philosophy, maybe all life is like this, the better you get the more you suck (not a great bumper sticker, I must admit)… but… isn’t that what life is, just a learning curve that never ends…
“from the porch” 8.26.2018
I look up at the sky tonight
not sure if I want to scream, or just sigh
sort of in-between
I wouldn’t much mind the rain
but it seems, late for that
as those clouds, earlier there, have left the scene
gone to else
where, I wonder
I guess it does not matter,
summer is fading
as soon the waking
for another turn
around the track of seasons
we churn along
everything circular
everything gone
over and over this sameness
has this what has become?
of my days
I strain to see each filament in the spectrum of light,
I imagine every drop of moisture that collects
and defines the clouds I observe,
this night, all days, all times.
where is my place in all this?
do the clouds look down and ask questions –
or are they just clouds
as is what I am?
struggle, as I may never know the right questions to ask,
or to whom,
or am I not to understand
but not in this stubborn grinding mind
of mine, drives this vessel
for all I know,
I wish I could stop the clouds,
poll them,
but of course they pay me no mind –
a photograph (you ask) ?
just a reflection of the past
something I can collate and collect
but never really capture
a moment,
every moment I would like to remember
maybe my mind is just a common squirrel
hiding these acorns of warming
for what is known to surely come,
I can feel a chill – already.
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I was also gifted the following article as I wrote this post.. just by chance:
Now I do not agree with the outcome or more clearly the conclusion, but that is what real free speech is about, letting others speak with whom you disagree, see something in what they say, or at least listen, and think about it.
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Music… can you handle it ? can you deal with some real? how about a sick performance by one of my faves, come on in closer, click the link, close your eyes… and enjoy…
on a side note I also edited a previous post. a pretty big edit.. well, edition to be totally true.
and have I said … thank you, to anyone who reads this, I throw this stuff against a wall, expecting nothing, and I have been granted with more than that, so… thanks, to you.
I was driving down the GSP tonight (as I am wont to do), and just noticing something, something that seems very Jersey to me, shore planes… now what the hell are shore planes might you ask… and surely I might have an answer, going back as far as I can remember (not that it is that long in celestial time) these biplanes (well I imagined they were biplanes they certainly sounded like it), well, anyway, these planes would drag these huge banners back and forth across the beach sky like “Eat at Joes” and similar jargon, no websites because this was pre-internet (somehow we grew up without it), but anyway those planes, another one of those very specific things that is dug in there into my Jersey DNA, I remember the sound, to look up from my castle building or crab hunting, such a distinct memory linked to a sound and a time, and the sand…
the following is something I wrote and posted on Facebook a while ago, it is Very Jersey specific, but I liked it anyway, but with today I kind of regret not shoehorning in the planes… how on earth did I forget the planes? ?! I guess inspiration was incomplete that day, I suppose I could rewrite it, but, that does not seem to be my way….
the squeaky swings
of phillip’s beach
rusty chains
green burning seats
sunlight sneaks
through the gaps
white-wood shower stalls
smoothed with age
from water’s fall
the yellow striped awning
the wide-wood steps to the gate
hardly hold
the little wild ones at bay
neon buckets mold towers
little hands fashion moats
the unrelenting tide
sweeps away all that is built
names in the sand
spirals and feet
all disappear
in the surf
even the sand crabs
diving head first
driving home, exhausted
a day in the sun
a day on the ocean
a nap in the car
back safe at home
the night drift to sleep
still riding up and down
the waves of phillip’s beach
an interesting article I came upon… (article)… I guess I am a loner hypochondriac … if there is such a thing, the article rang some bells in my dome, made me think, and maybe you, reading this… just food for thought, I am on my own journey but it is pure hubris to think I am the only one who has thought all I think or some of it at least, at some point, at some actual dna thing we are all the same… it is so big, why am I trying to figure it out.. because… well, that is how I am wired, to figure stuff out regardless of the daunting nature, maybe it is silly and stupid… and exhausting, but, this is my only life… it is all I know, how do you change… that ?
just a note (8/27), I post things like this because my brain is always on and grinding on things, I would not consider suicide (have I in the past? sure, but not an option anymore)… the only circumstance I could foresee is a debilitating disease that takes away this – me, my ability to be this silly little demon that we call David, if I had months to live and those months would be on a hideous slide where I would be losing myself to disease if only to extend my life a few weeks ? that is the only time I would consider it, I do love life, not every second, I am trying, because as I say, the alternative sucks, I wish I could carry with me a little pill of calm, not some drug but the actual thing, you know it when you feel it, I felt it tonight driving home from the store, I had to hop on the Parkway for a couple of exits and all the shore traffic was just gnarled to the core, but I had a sly smile, it probably pissed off those around, I just dialed in some music (cellar darling, my current obsession, going to see them live in a couple of weeks!), and just popped in that pill of calm, looked at the sky, the setting sun, and I felt it… calm. Now the trick will be to do that when the burner is on my ass, and work is in full swing, I had no where to be so I was in no rush, but what is so damn important anyway ? maturity and calm… I am working on it.
so I thought I might sit awhile in this night, I much usually prefer the setting sun (for obvious reasons), so another heat wave passed, and is truly like a wave, this swath of grappling, stifling heat creeps over the entire state, or coast, and bakes, for a little while of time all amplified by the mighty all-encompassing grip of our tiny lenses, but not tonight, the temperature has dropped to her knees, perhaps dipping twenty or more degrees, still – the chorus of insects is in midsummer’s form, loud, not raucous, all the clicks and songs of the chorus we know and can almost sing along (were we just crickets among the thickets), the mosquitoes are not quite biting as night’s before (was it something I ate, or are they just being polite?) cars are just two still beams gliding up the street, I can not tell who they are, just cars, vague vehicles of light, two beams and a set of reds on the back, a train calls in the distance, imagine that, such an ancient beast, how so far advanced we are although we are not, after all we still measure in horsepower, I observe some cars, with their manners, seem like they are looking for something, someone, certainly not me, no one has come looking in quite some time, what is there to see anyway? the same, just the same, maybe I need a break… no. maybe I need TO break – all this, all this familiarity I wear like a cloak, this safety, this hiding, all easier said, especially in my head – and with this pen, is it such the sweet addiction of fear that is holding the key from turning or just something simpler, the ravaging comfort of complacency? from the outside, this must seem like prime real estate, but on the inside, looking out, I can see the walls for what they aren’t, so, if I can see it, why not just change, rearrange, start over – ah, but that is just the thing, that requires a first step, in an unknown direction, and then another – and a destination, and of course here I am, sitting, thinking, instead, instead of…
standing in your standard parking lot, I park far away from the other cars (as if I drive some sacred fancy chariot and not my actual car), and then the breeze hits me, one of those breezes that goes right through you, not like a chill, but with a comfort, the perfect temperature, just slightly cooler than the cooling late summer day, a temperature of balance, of perfection, a comforting hand that makes you take pause – and a deep breath, it seems we wait an entire year here for mere moments like this, an unorthodox equinox of our lives as they tumble through the gauntlet of nature’s whim, our lives spent, on the phone, rent, work, online comments – all in an instant leveled (or revealed) by a simple summer breeze, so I pause, to take it in (it would seem boorish and rude to do otherwise given the circumstances) and then, back into life, injected back into the “real” world.
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notes… I don’t live in the tropics, I don’t live any place particularly warm, warmer than some parts I suppose, I am closer to the north pole than the equator, and I suppose it shows, but I wanted to capture the moment, the feel, trying to do that more now, I would say I don’t know why, but I do, because I am alive, and I cherish that fact, maybe my life is not everything it was “supposed” to be, maybe I am a disappointment, maybe it doesn’t matter, maybe just enjoy it.
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musing music… a super group I bet ya never heard of:
This is an instrumental but just oozes with groove and blues… and the playing is next level, considering those players involved it is not a surprise… sad, things like this go by the wayside unheralded gems unheard gems… well, until you spied my blog.
Shades of My Garden 