Always the same dissonant clash when time wasted turns to time intended. What makes me think I can condense thoughts before I sift them and filter? What makes me think I have the right to order them before release?
Always the same murky mesh of muddled melodies and disjointed diction.

--kept my rhythm in perfect time
walked in purposeful stride
lost my footing down riverside
will you wait for me to stand
again?--

...and thus begins my intensive campaign to have "y'all" replaced with "b'ys" as the preferred term for southerners addressing groups of two or more people, animals, beer, etc.
Wish me luck.

" This is my beautiful new wife, Lila-Ann. The moment Momma brought her home from the hospital I knew we were destined to be wed. So here we are, thirteen years later, just as happy as kinfolk should be on their hitchin' day."

Last night my dreams were set in Ohio---as though that was my ultimate destination.
I woke up in a panic as though I was not ready to be there yet.
I'd like to say the realization I was not in Ohio let the panic subside.
I'd like to say a lot of things right now.

Here ye shall find the last typed words of Andrew Collins, Convergys employee. I see my time as an working man, once again, dwindling down to a matter of minutes. Twenty-eight, at this point, and I seem to have run out of things to do. Sort papers, recycle said sorted sheets, clear out email, and stuff free candy into my already bulging pockets.
Though not nearly as sad a departure as I had originally anticipated it is fairly nauseating to think that I have no idea when my next real job will be.
Well, not quite nauseating but, not far from it.
At this point I imagine the sensation would be comparable to what you feel hanging your toes over the edge just before an eight-story base jump. I know most people would advise a running start, but I just can't seem to find the strength in my legs. Or the balance. Only the morbid tempting of the inevitable.

But please don't push.
I'll be airborne soon enough.
And damn the ground.

So she says to me, " I guess I won't see you again. Well, not till you come back with youngsters."
Then he says, " I'm doing a course on landmine awareness. I'll give you my text before you go. You're going to need it."

I hate my friends.
All of them.
Except Jack.
It's not considered drinking alone if your drink has a name, right?

For this evenings performance I would ask you all join me, mentally if not rhetorically, on the rough and faded plain of an old church pew. Here you can lose yourself in the joyous cries of endorphin bliss.
While a quick roll to the window reveals the faint sound of weeping and gnashing of cigarettes, a long roll back will let us watch for falling prices.
Open your lips and embrace the goodness of Welches and Wonderbread. Close your teeth and clench your eyes to find the clearest convolution of John Q. Normal perspective.
This is a place of man.
But this gouging revelation doesn't hold near the nauseating horror of my younger years.
This is a place of man.
It was here by sight I revoked my faith.

And now I am happy all the day.

Procrastination

discuss

holyfuckingshit

I think I startled myself as much as the rest of my house tonight. When I subtly announced that I leave this place in scarcely a month I experienced some sort of bastard hybrid of adrenaline rush and severe projectile nausea.

I leave my island in just over a month.
Again.
And I have no idea when I'll be back.
Again.

So if I've been here before why does it freak me out so much this time?

The space between choice and chance is measured differently by everyone. For some of you there is no space. For me it is wide and always has been.
Only their words make me doubt that gap.
Their words and their eyes.
Throughout this twisted ride I have never seen choices.
No crossroads. No rock-bottom. No yellow wood.
I am as unapologetic as my uncertainty allows.
Regret is exclusively directed toward my vulnerability to commentary. Whether commending or condemning you snag my flesh and spur me on. Motivated far too much by spite and expectation.

Show me my choices that I might trade your ignorance for insight.
Or see my path and stop fucking my balance.

Thicker Than Water

I just stumbled across a poem I wrote when I was 17. The class assignment was to write a little verse about love and recite it to the room. This one caused the teacher to double over and call me a "sick son of a bitch". Gotta love invoking profanity from authority figures...


*My darling dear, or should I say, my former eyes delight
Assuredly it pains my heart to send you off in flight
And though, at first, my heart did fear I'd never find your equal
My soul now revels in the joy that I have found your sequel

You see, my darling, 'twas not you whose spell had me enslaved
Though sweet, you are, and charming it is simply love I crave
So now, my dear, I've found new love to woo with gentle whisper
And for that love I must thank you
For I've just met your sister*


That counts as a love poem, right?

Sagittarius:

You'll compete with the Devil for your immortal soul in a midnight game of Scrabble, and win handily when he can only think of creepy, depressing Latin words.


(I want to marry TheOnion and bear its ungodly children)

Anybody want to buy me a new pair of boots?
I think I'm getting trench foot.

Blue light, pale, flickers across your face in twisted premonition. If I knew, now, how to read the flashing I don't believe this act will have played out any different. Revelation comes far too late for any less time to be wasted.
But his picture brings words to resolution. Words will make this concrete. This flickering blue casts understanding on your oblivious frame, curled in fetal slumber.
You sleep sound like a child...
even when you're awake.

Please Welcome...

There's been a lot of talk about this kat...
maybe too much talk.
This kat is not a rebel kat.
This kat is Nicholas, bloody Nicholas.

defeat.

Alright, Christmas.
You win.
I am now officially Santa's bitch.
Happy?
Jolly?
Ass.

14 hours of road-tripping this weekend has given to me the priceless gifts of a permanently cricked neck, acute numbness of the arse, and a new album hoisted among the ranks of my alltime favorite discs.

There's nothing quite like a weekend in rural Newfoundland spent playing " 5th-rate poetry set to 6th-rate music" to sear and, well, urinate on a man's love for music. Burlington was the town (mayhaps even village) whose church invited us out for the weekend to provide sonic backdrop for their worship of everyone's favorite triune deity. The weekend itself was nothing terribly noteworthy beyond my learning how to pray angrily with my guitar. The important episode was the 7 hour trip home where I received the healing touch of Matt Slocum, boy genius.

If you have not already done so I suggest, yea even demand, that each and every one of you acquire a copy of Sixpence None The Richer's self-titled album. If at all possible make sure your copy was pressed before the addition of "There She Goes" and has enough scratches on the back to completely remove any trace of "Kiss Me" (if not, the "skip" and "stop" buttons on your player will more than do the trick).
This album now belongs to an exclusive grouping of compositions I call my "Healing Discs". Music that makes the world a better place. Well...my world, at least. Also appearing on this list are Fiona Apple's "Tidal" and Over The Rhine's "Good Dog Bad Dog".
Buy them.
Hear them.
Love them.
Love me for pimping them.
Repeat.



(it should also be mentioned that, though the official theme of the weekend was PhatFish's "Heavenbound", the unofficial and vastly superior themesong adopted by us Protege dwellers was "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" by The Darkness--a song that makes me love Jesus more than any other song from that weekend)

Tavius Marshall

If anyone was wondering, he's the guy in that Paris Hilton sex video.

You're totally missing it.
The Drews are fighting and you're all the way over there. Not all the Drews, mind you. That would just be crazy. No, today it's only a couple of me that are at odds.
Today is goofy, anxious me vs. serious, brooding me.
They're fighting over who gets to post on the blog.
Goofy Drew wants to ramble on about how little there is to do at work, how amusing the bitter, sex-deprived battle-axes in his row are when they rail on against the "governing authorities", the healing virtues of drinking a liter of wine, and his growing fascination with "Hello Kitty". Serious Drew, on the other hand, wants to post cryptic and over-thought pseudo poetry about how his "realm is tainted by expanding clouds of the faithless and afraid" or some fag thing like that.
Unbeknownst to Andrew and Andrew, the heated battle affords commentary by a third person.
THE third person, actually.
And there's nothing Drew can do about it.
Not even Drew.

When toy shopping, look for the Joe Mantegna Seal Of Safety. It's your only guarantee that the toy has been deemed safe by Joe Mantegna.

Fighting Z.

Ramble long and flaunt verbose finesse to sandbag sagging consciousness.
Harness all the fury of pretentious diction for crystal deception
for perspicuous fiction.
Cranial mining for superfluous findings finds my fanny aligning with these corporate bindings- bound to white women whining about a boss above a basic request regarding respectless reproach (revealing relentlessly retarded reasons for recourse removed from reality).
Really.
(what I won't do to stay awake...)

I apologize.
Insanity stabs into me, sans intimacy, stating violently sad hierarchy: she dominates me, smiting normality, shaking mercilessly sound legitimacy.
Sucks to be me.

(i'm done now)