This series of poems was written in real time to Explosions in the Sky's album All the Sudden I Miss Everyone (Remixes). It is left unedited.
The Birth and Death of Day
No matter what time it is
It’s nice to know that I can always rely on
A new day
To come,
Usually sooner than later.
It’s all relative, I suppose.
But in the “big picture,”
- that is, the picture bigger than just me
- bigger than you
- bigger than all of us together
- bigger than death
- because that picture is death, really…
Nothing this small can possibly matter.
This is what I tell myself when it
Gets “unbearable.”
This is what I pray when it
Gets “difficult.”
This is what I sing when
There is nothing else to say.
…It’s all relative, I suppose.
(Which is another way to say:
“I guess you had to be there.”
So the next time you tell a really awful story
And everyone is looking at you,
Waiting for your point…
You can say:
It’s all relative, I suppose.)
Welcome, Ghosts
Welcome, Ghosts.
Welcome to my home,
You may make yourselves comfortable
Whenever we’re alone
You can tell me secrets
Of the living and the dead
And we can share our stories
Mine: on living, yours: on death.
But don’t reveal too much
Don’t let me lose the hope
In my dream to tell my stories
In my dream to be a ghost.
It’s Natural to Be Afraid.
If it is natural to be afraid,
I wonder what it would be like to be
Unnatural.
Roaming fearlessly through life
Like a blindfolded bull
Thrashing and kicking your way
Into and out of everything.
Plodding quickly through time
Like a solider in a minefield
Leaping and Skipping
Around and over it all.
Screaming sporadically day by day
Like a man possessed
With the right answer to life,
Searching for the one with the
Right question?
I think I prefer to be natural
As is
Like I am
Always in harmony with my surroundings,
Feeling for my chair before I sit,
Owning insurance,
Checking the date on my milk,
And choosing to attend church
Without asking too many questions.
What Do You Go Home To?
{Song Begins}
What do I go home to? What is home? My home is a place where I can hear the train whistle blow as I stand on my porch and stare out into the night I can track it going from left to right the rumble of the tracks constantly moan and shake as the cars hit a catch or a bump or a rock or a penny that some kid put on the tracks because he heard that it would de-rail the whole fucking thing and then momentarily I can hear the whistle and it is farther than it was to the right I mean, farther forward in time and space, it was there and now it is there – you know what I mean? I don’t really know what I mean – honestly I just try to make things sound more important than they really are, but it is hard sometimes, you know? When you feel that whatever just happened really happened to teach you something – like that song playing from the car radio as it is driving by just had to be that one song that reminds me of something, something that I haven’t thought about in a long time, and It feels like it was playing to remind of that thing at that exact moment. I mean, the girl standing next to me hears the song too, but it doesn’t mean anything to her. She might have not even heard it before today. Isn’t that ridiculous that something arbitrary can mean so much to me but not to anyone else? Can this world all really just be how I make it? Can I really choose what is important and what is not? But also, what does it mean when that one thing happens that means something to more than just one person, what if it has significance for two? Does that make those two any more special than the one? What about you? What if this means nothing to you? Does that make it any less worth what it should be or is actually worth? Why am I asking so many questions? Questions that I know will not be answered? Or even pondered to the same degree that you are currently pondering them? Mostly because this is babble. Incoherence. Nonsense. The trick is – you have to find the nonsense that is nonsense to all. Then, because life is mostly relative, the nonsense will make sense to us, not because it stop being nonsense but because we all agree that IT IS, so why should IT NOT BE? Let’s change gears and mention how the song I am listening to is matching up perfectly with the 4 different clocks in my room right now. I mean, the piano is repeating the same three notes in different scales, and one of the clocks is ticking on the upbeat and the other three just happen to be on the downbeat, it is really making this song epic. Not that it isn’t already epic, but I have this ominous feeling again – I feeling like I am not going to be able to stop typing when this song ends, like I originally planned – start typing when the song beings and don’t stop until it ends – I mean, what if this song, and these clocks, and this screen, and the train all {Song Stops}
Catastrophe and the Cure
What a Hero I would be if I had both the
Catastrophe and the Cure!
I could secretly ruin the world,
Bring sadness and despair,
Pour death into the water,
Spoil everything.
And when there was no hope left,
When everyone had given up,
Signed their Last Wills and Testaments,
I could emerge with the Cure!
And Everyone Would Love Me!
I would be the Hero! The Savoir!
I could be Jesus!
Which I am totally okay with,
Except for the being crucified part.
I mean, I’m all for self-deprecation as a mechanism,
But only passive aggressively.
I am no one’s martyr except my own.
I am my own Judas.
I betray myself, compromise my worth,
Smoke too many cigarettes, Drink too much,
Because I hope that one day,
I will stumble across someone who will say to me, knowingly:
“It’s okay! I know this is all catastrophe!
But I have the cure! And I always have!”
So Long, Lonesome
Things always make more sense backwards.
Like the time I stepped into the unknown,
And then discovered that Love may actually exist.
But I fear for that time when I will walk into the deeper unknown
And discover that Death
also exists.
Although, when I do meet Death, I hope that
I get a chance to live everything backwards again,
So maybe I can figure out which decisions in my life
Brought me to the end
And, working backwards from the last moment
To the first, I can answer some of the questions
I was too afraid to ask before,
Or did not know to ask.
Most of which start with:
“Why…”
and roll on quietly.
