when did it become a job?

did it always work this way? centuries ago, was the pressure the same?

when did the word Labor become synonymous with the idea of just going out and doing things?

i guess it's just part of the process, part of the becoming ______. well, maybe it has more to do with an audience. when your audience becomes a list of people with names you don't recognize, and the pressure of ownership/responsibility to history and the push for something more, insight (the kind not tucked into ad campaigns or magazine articles), becomes a weight, one that is light as a feather and stiff as a board...

well, that's when you leave the computer and turn of the tv.


but first...

from a movie i just watched: "he just pulled out a gun. it's not like he even fought in a war."

last line, before changing the channel: "i try not to want what i don't have."

let us speak now

let us speak now,
or forever hold our piece

(that's right, you know the peace i mean.)

a soundtrack to our lives could replay
all of the words that should have
would have
could have
been

but instead
white noise fills the gap between
crickets clicking away at the closest moon
that hangs its light
just so shadows can be born

would
have
could have

(to have and to hold to have and to have not)

would have
could have
have their own ring
their own way of becoming audible
to the composer, the only member
of the audience

< hold >

so many songs are sung about silence
none of them come close to mimicking its echo

< let it reverberate >

Hold. perhaps the only word
worthy of capitalization
when standing alone.

there is something about histories

there is something about histories
and the way they always seem to repeat
themselves (ourselves) when we've reached
another new plateau

despite the evolution of the self
the self returns to that same old
sickly little self
wicked ways can't change
the hearts that have memory programmed
into the pattern of its pumping
of valves and vessels, in and out,
values exchanged from ventricle
to ventricle
the rest of the body
can't take
the continued flow
of past to past and past again
though it's learned how to oxyginate
and recycle
the past (its food for thought)

somehow, with time,
we reach the surface of the skin
the elements remind you, reconnect, you
to the reality of what was
for the first time, automatically,
the nervous system reacts
and the blood that is shed
is not saccharine
not of salt
but of a wish,
a wish to continue,
to close
the proverbial chapter
the one that has her as the lead
and you waiting in the curtains,
the wings that could lift you to life
if only you could remember
those lines you know you
can finally say.

ways to torture a broken wing

stem from the insecurities that are best hidden by daily engagments with calendar items
to do lists
checking stock quotes...

a yellow door is the gateway
to admitting one's failure at
facing the hard stuff

but that's why we turn away, isn't it?
because it's "the hard stuff"
the difficult things
really facing the issues
at hand
or,
stuck on the bottom of your shoe


mourning any loss
only concludes when we die
we become a collection of souls we encounter,
the pennies given to us as change
from hands we never hold
histories we never meet,
as we let the change
drop to the ground
and pass away

we keep the private stuff private
and annouce our commings and goes on away messages,
email reply receipts
"out of town"
"not here..."
"currently away from the computer..."

currently away
from any sense of responsibility
to the past
we refuse to face
to touch
to admit
to the ones that matter(ed) the most.

(all of us are with wings.)