Between this time and last

Your hair has grown long
in the time that has passed
between this time I saw you
and the last.

You told me I was shorter,
than before, somehow.
Then pause, and then asked
if I had found a job yet.

I just smiled and nodded,
still unsure if I wanted
to commit to a conversation,
was afraid of being haunted.

The last time I saw you,
you were laughing with me.
You were crying, too,
as you handed me your key.

It had ended well,
no hard feelings or anger,
but somehow that didn’t help
in this meaningless banter.

There Are Stories

There are stories of men bending metal into doorframes.
There are stories of women waiting in airports.
There are stories of sailors running aground on blanket-fog mornings.
There are stories of human beings feeling the surface of the moon.
There are stories of chemicals entering bloodstreams.
There are stories of eyes looking this way and that.
There are stories of truckers shouting in loneliness at night.
There are stories of policemen following the traces left by murderers.
There are stories of students leaving their schools.
There are stories of transsexuals rouging.
There are stories of adventurers trapped in forgotten mountaintops.

Alright Chris, Get Rid of Your Huge Ego and Just Write the Hundred Words, Stop Being Arrogant and Thinking These Words Have to Be Everything, It’s Discipline Not Art!

OK then title, that’s a bit intimidating, maybe a bit freeing, here’s one hundred words without stop and without editing and when I hit one hundred I’ll just stop. That’s all there is to it. Simple. Refreshing? Not really. My conscience is wanting to change those last few words. Well at least I’ll correct my typos, that’s OK right? How can I walk around at night, see so many things, think about so many things, then restrict myself when writing about any of it? Because in writing I want to come to some comprehensive (or at least sensical) picture of

Directionless tag

Have you ever looked at clouds’ shadows as they move across the ground, like massive, shapeless animals?  I’ve seen it twice this summer, once from the top of a mountain and once from a plane. They look like dark blobs engaged in a silly and fruitless game of directionless tag.   Somehow it seems to change everything.  All of a sudden, the ground seems to lose its shape, just oozing and floating shadow and light.  One day, some cloud is going to win.  And then they’ll all be able to stand still.  And maybe they’ll give us the solid ground back.

Son, Listen.

You’ve got a lot to rebel against: your mother and me, your boss, your girlfriend, your landlord, your buddies. But you can’t always rebel. Sometimes you’ve gotta shuddup and follow. That’s just how life goes, son.

It won’t take you long to realize this, because you’re a smart kid: there’s one voice you can always rebel against, and that’s your own. You can set rules for yourself and break ‘em, and no one in the world will complain. You won’t get yelled at, fired, broken up with, or left alone.

And yet that’s the one voice you gotta never ignore.

Yes/No

Did you enjoy your stay with Sunnyside Vacation Resorts?

Yes/No

Ok ok let’s see. Yes divided by No. Hmm. I think I need more information… Wait! Okay, subtract the N, carry the Y. No, no, that’s not it… Two wrongs don’t make a right, but I think two no’s make a yes.  So the answer is a half! Wait, what if yes is 1 and no is 0? Then it’s infinity… I think it’s a trick question! Sometimes yes means no and no means yes, so it’s like 1 divided by 1 equals 1, right?  Gosh this quiz is hard.

The Apocalyspe

In the backyards, alleyways
vacant-lots, abandoned-cities
mining-towns, landfills and
ravaged-forests it grows

Slowly filling the void
created by our past
it feeds off our mistakes
and bathes in our wrongdoings

Pollution and urbanization
are it’s parents, nurturing it
with remains from our
deceased civilizations

It is invisible to us
disguised by the sky
-scrapers and bright lights
we drive by it

But it is all around us
it pees in our rivers
shits in our meadows
and farts in our air

It is here people
in our slums and suburbs,
the middle of nowhere’s
and small towns we grew up in

Growing Up

Growing up on a farm, is now a more unique childhood. With the percentage of the population living in metropolitan areas surging over 50%, our children are now growing up in overly populated, overly stimulated and overly developed environments. This transition into an urban world will certainly have far-reaching long-lasting effects to not only the environment but also to ourselves as human beings. We are slowly losing touch with the soil from which we were born. Maybe we are grown and no longer need our mother’s care or we are just rebellious teens who will soon run home to mother crying.

Walk A Thousand Miles by K.M. McFarland featuring Douglas Hosking

Hidden beneath the trail of ten thousand weary pilgrim tracks,

beneath the crusted red earth, down, down, beneath the cracks

left by centuries of stress and stale sweat I toiled

to find you, restless and desperate for the unchained, wild

fury found only buried inside your crust. To the depths

you escaped with quiet dignity, forsaking any sweet farewell breaths

from love, choosing instead the dark, immense pressure of solitude.

You put down roots, thrived, while those remaining above rued

unsatisfying, concrete companionship. Though tethered within the mild, sweet earth,

you stretched for miles, surging along the self-imposed, unerring rebirth.

Great, Terrible Things by K.M. McFarland

There is a moment that flashes
before your eyes
of the worst,
most terrible,
unforgivable
acts committed in your life.

When you snatched a macaroon fresh
from the oven at two,
or glanced at an answer from
the girl next to you at seven.
She never guarded with her left shoulder.

At nineteen, the night she was away,
and the skirts in the pool hall twirled just
right to your eyes, before
a word of protest left your lips,
arms were pinned and it was done,

You rationalized,
ignored the messages,
but never fully washed
away the stain of memory.