Discovery, Interpretation

I read: “Conservationists focus on cognition and the changing of landscapes. Yet it is interpretation that offers the public meaning and values.”

It took a couple of re-readings before I realized that this summed up the way I felt about writing, landscapes and connection to life.

Those who are able to discover and illuminate the significance-endowing elements of cultural or natural landscapes through storytelling turn unordered space into identifiable place. Within the bewildering array of details in any landscape, they provide moral holdfasts. They make passed-by things sacred. They spark place-based ethics.

I want to be one of those people.

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Lost/gone/done

Punched in the sternum. Lightly bruised, subtly winded. Belly dropped, sunken. Tell yourself, Life is good. Believe it. It is. Was it better before?

Perhaps this vacuous sadness is merely the echo, the footprint of blinding permanence. We don’t believe anything is permanent, except life. Loss can’t be permanent. But silly child, you’ve got it all mixed up.

Some things are here now. But all things must go.

You can claw back and cling, anyone will understand. It won’t do, though. One cannot eat a memory.

Friends help. Love helps. Tomorrow this feeling will evolve into inspiration.

Onwards. Always.

Corny porny love scene

This poem is a corny porny love scene It involves steam and lips, satin and dare we say, nips? There are gratuitous close ups of skin. Limbs so entangled and intertwined that you, the viewer, don’t know which is which. There’s an abundance of rouge, though at this point, none on lips. There are also some jeweled velvet underpants that get slowly and delicately get removed by lace-gloved fingers. This is no ordinary film, the fingernails are even manicured. No dirt there. But don’t worry — plenty in the scene. If you know what I mean. All puns very intended.

Raindrops

The German model has a flight from Madrid to London in 45 minutes. The dad of the year shadow boxes his 3 sons on the train platform heading towards home. A beautiful couple stands out in the cold while waiting for a cab. The poet breathes deeply, smiles, and laughs with his old friend as they wait for the check.

The plane comes.
The train comes.
The cab comes and so does the check, and the moments close out. Each minute drips like ink from the present onto a page of the past, forming a line like an unending ellipses.

The Score

Take the value of the stock of the company you work at, and multiply it by the number of women you’ve slept with, times the number of foreign capitals you’ve visited, times the horsepower in your car, times the number of books you’ve read by Tolstoy or Whitman, times the number of miles you run each week, times how many inches tall you are, times the number of channels you get in your cable package, times the threadcount in your socks, times the number of megapixels on your smartphone camera.

This is your final score. Congratulations and thanks for playing!

Jargon

Could we circle back tomorrow? I’m feeling a bit drained from all of these syngeries we’ve been mulling over regarding the economic viability of our client’s value proposition. I’m not even sure that any of this is actionable content.  Think about the core competency of this value-add. I mean, we should probably stop talking about componentizing positions since, I mean, let’s face it, that would just be boiling the ocean. Going forward, we need to gain traction and definitely instantiate the granularity of the thing. Get at the low hanging fruit and all. Alright, good. So let’s circle back tomorrow.

He’s So Freakin Good, Man, Everything He Says Is Genius

When I finally wrote the album I believed in, the album I’d been dreaming of, I thought all those years demonized by depression were over. The words were powerful, unforced, backed with chords that felt like my heartbeat. I was happy. Things were right, finally fulfilling. And becoming famous seemed to confirm my enlightenment.

But a year of fame later, and I’ve fallen hard. Almost cracked. Since I can say any damn thing I please now (these fans hail as genius every flippant thought that enters my head) all chances of difficult, miraculous transcendence are gone. Gobbled up by hype-worshippers.