Thank you.

Sometimes really great things happen. For a really short span of time. And you think, wow, that was awesome. And then, just like that, they're gone. And you wonder, what was the point? How do I get it back? It's not fair!

Maybe. But I think, its like a preview. Or better than a preview. Its the realization of a possibility. A taste of what can be. What will be. It's like being 13 years old, and your mom drops you off at the movie theatre and you're allowed to go to the movie with your best friend all by yourself. You buy your own ticket from your own money that you take out of your pocketbook that you just started carrying. You buy whatever candy or popcorn you want, cause its your money, and no one else can tell you what to buy. You can sit anywhere you want. For a few hours, you feel like what you've always wanted to be - an adult. Free. You don't realize the freedom you already have, being 13, you just see and taste the goodness of the adulthood you so desperately want to experience. And then your mom comes to pick you up, and you go home, and you have to do everything your parents say, once again. But you wait. and you wait. And you jump for those little moments, those little opportunities where you can get a taste of that freedom again, to get you by until finally, you're a real adult, and can live that world every day of your life.

And of course, like any wish and dream and taste of our desires, when we get what we want, its not always exactly what we expect. And we think about the times before we had what we wanted, or got to where we wanted to go, and we smile, because that was a different kind of happiness, a different kind of freedom.

And so I won't ask why, or what the point was. I'll thank whatever gods may be that you gave me the best taste of whats to come. I'll hold to that, until the next opportunity arises to find it. Thank you.

For Someone

Would you like to know what I think of you?
Well for starters, I wish that your eyes were blue
that your figure was maybe a little more Greek,
and you made sense when you opened your mouth to speak.

Would you like to know what I think of you?
With those wiry black hairs on your head all askew,
mismatched socks for the foot then the shoe
and God, do I wish that your eyes were blue.

Would you like to know what I think of you?
And the things that you say though I don't want you to?
And those things that you mean without knowing you do,
but your room's never clean, and you don't follow through.

Would you like to know what I think of you
when the morning sun rises and everything's new
and I'm groggy from all of the snoring you do,
would you like to know, then, what I think about you?

Well, when your eyes of molasses passes my gaze
and I see you've remained unshaven for days
and I reach for that cheek neither smooth nor clean
it's the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen.

Someone's already said this before, in some way, probably better than me, but its the only way to say how I feel right now.

life lived without richness, wherever you may find it, is not worth living.

My Creed (not the band fronted by Scott Stapp)

I believe in lots of things,
do they believe in me?
I put my trust in wonderings
and all that I can see

There might be a god above
and there might be a hell
I know damn sure that there's an earth
the rest, I couldn't tell

but I believe in lots of things
like words and birds and bees
dust of death and baby's breath
and islands overseas

I've never seen an igloo
but I bet that they exist
I believe there is some prince inside
of every frog I've kissed

I believe in the Eiffel tower
and that England has a Queen
and the Pyramids of Egypt
in things I've never seen

I believe in lots of things
that have never known of me
and I believe, but yet I leave
the trust to what I see

So I believe in love and god and hell
and even sand,
but you know, I'll never trust it
till I hold it in my hand

-J

song for an unmet lover (this is clumsy)

i would swallow what little poetic
integrity i posess
and become commercial
no one's buying, of course
but i would rhyme 'love' with 'above'
and call it new

and why, you ask why
sacrifice the I
for i
for some pie-in-the sky notion
of how to fly

to watch an uneventful meteor shower
pick up dirty clothes
watch you drink too much wine
make love in the kitchen
fight with your mother
fight with our children
not speak for days
then stay up all night
to watch you die
as i
wished for it first
you ask why

i would write a poem like this,
so blatant and obvious, and well
its like this:
in my imagined world of possibilities
and exciting ambiguities
real and fabricated tragedies,
you will outlast any recycled
philosophy
this pen could ever write


-J

I feel like we've all written this poem at some time, in some way

"Bluebird" - Charles Bukowski

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I'm not going
to let anybody see
you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he's
in there.

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I'm too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody's asleep.
I say, I know that you're there,
so don't be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he's singing a little
in there, I haven't quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it's nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don't
weep, do
you?



I was just introduced to this a few nights ago, and it honestly grabbed me in a way I can't even begin to explain. How many nights have I, have you, have we all lain awake with the bluebird? and what is the significance of bluebird? The beautiful song that we can't/won't let out? Take blue as in the mood, as in we have a struggle inside we can't break free from? I know its not a poem that requires much textual analysis (I'll probably get yelled at for saying that). Each section lands beautifully. If you know even a little bit about Bukowski (as I know very little as of right now...searching for an adequate biography to read over break...) you'll find, even in his other poems, that at times he is quite hard, crude, offensive, and sometimes uses imagery that us downright repulsive. He was also an incredibly hard looking man. But out of all of that rises bluebird, one of the most heartbreaking and tender and beautiful pieces I have ever come across. I held back the urge to cry when this was first read aloud to me. And to me, this is one of the many reasons I adore poetry so much. It's like that buried treasure, that deep and blinding beauty within every single human being, but a beauty that often goes largely unnoticed because either we don't reach down far enough in ourselves to find it, or other people don't bother to look for it in us either. We use understood symbols (letters, words) not to convey or explain, but to evoke. Have you ever seen the juxtaposition of two, three, four words, such a small set of words, that have stirred in you something that no other words could even begin to explain? Language is such a gift, such a mystical thing when I think about how we use it as art to evoke in others the deepest feelings of our humanity. Things that can only be felt, never explained. Sometimes I think, there is so much beauty in the world that is hidden, but that is because true beauty is something so precious that it will never be appreciated unless it is genuinely sought(if you want to ride with me for a second with the whole Platonic idea of true beauty, etc). Don't keep your bluebird inside. Always look for other people's bluebirds.


-J

After A While

after a while you either
learn
or
you do not
the difference between
pity and empathy
hard and strong
love and
temporary madness
after awhile,
you learn

to hear the truth when he
mumbles or pants, 'baby, its you'
he wants all of you
after awhile
you learn what to do

after a while you stop wasting your time
and you stop taking shit
and you're doing just fine

and after a while
for all that you learn
you are back where you started
minus the burn


-J