Swear Words and Prayers

I love words. Big fat juicy ones. Little tiny bony ones. Dirty words, holy word, dark threatening stormy words. I love long, complicated, ego-stroking words and fanciful words that exist only to serve the needs of children.

I adore the shape and taste and feel of new words. The 'nice-to-meet-you' birth of a word, just learned, taking its first steps, off the tongue and into the world.

I am particularly fond of profanity. The secret weapon of words. The sweet sticky sounds that can hold an entire conversation hostage. The hard-charged F of recrimination or the soft fluttering f of an invitation. 

My favorite, though, is the discovery of a word whose materiality is so organic that a gentle nudge can send it floating like a dandelion on the current of a conversation. A word so sweet as to be missed the instant it is spoken.

Today's word: Murmuration - A flock of starlings is called a murmuration.

Information Overload

I am overwhelmed by politics and cultural inequality and racism and sexism and hate. I am paralyzed by the meanness of people, which is plastered on every surface.

This, I suspect, is the danger of media - the more I can see, the less I can do.

.

True Romance

True Romance is one of the most under-rated action films EVER.



Christian Slater
Patricia Arquette
Dennis Hopper
Val Kilmer
Gary Oldman
Brad Pitt
Christopher Walken
Bronson Pinchot
Samuel L. Jackson
Michael Rapaport
Dick Ritchie
Saul Rubinek
Lee Donowitz
Conchata Ferrell
James Gandolfini

Ode to Mediocrity

I wonder about mediocrity. Has anyone ever extolled the virtues of the moderately skilled? Sung the praises of middle-of-the-road, 6-of-one, luke-warm, neither this nor that, mediocre? 

Perhaps the mediocre sing, tooting their own little tarnished, second-hand horns, slightly off-key but with brilliant celebration. Half-wits and hacks. Thieves and beggars. Those who can see no higher than the horizon, and then can reach that height.

I suspect those who have aspired to something more, something original or valuable, I suspect the greatest minds, envy the attainable height of success reached only by the mediocre, whose pinnacle of success is located so much nearer to earth.

There’s the Rub

You fit for a while

and then later, you don't.

It’s hard to say when it happens.

One day you look down

Or up

Or across the dinner table

And discover that your things still fit,

your books and clothes and dishes

still inhabit the same space

But your body no longer slides easily

into that dip in the mattress.

Your mouth no longer slides smoothly

around the same old conversations.

There's the rub.

When it works

and it fits

and it’s absolutely right

it's worth all the bullshit,

until it simply isn't anymore.

Blerg

Blech, rrrrrr, arrrggg, wha? ugh ... this is my internal dialog as you are regurgitating your slightly racist, uber-conservative, religious/political rhetoric. I'm smiling, nodding, furrowing my brow thoughtfully. I'm trying to arrange my face in such a way as to give the appearance that I respect your opinion and want to have a reasonable conversation. Really, I'm tired of listening to your silly bullshit nonsense. I'm still smiling and nodding politely, but inside I want to shake my finger at you, call you names, point out how wrong you are and then walk away. 

I won't, of course, but I really want to.

Love in the age of computers

The poetry of people
crashing into one another,
of language sliding across the surface of chemistry,
the humane 'trap and release' of temporary friction,
the audible sound of connections being made
like the latch of a door
or the bolt action of a .45,
the unexpected clickity-clack when it works,
when the heart skips a beat
then doubles its time to catch up
to the girl on the bicycle,
the combustion of first flame
or the hiss of rain on a dying fire,
It's all different now
as language is detached from flesh
by the cool blue disconnect of the world wide web.

The crackle of current just before the first storm,
the desperate attempt to speak
and then unspeak
the interior of longing,
the rush of want,
the heat of fear,
the necessity of contact
as skin is re-introduced to the old newness of skin,
replaced by a spongy dance
across a plastic alphabet of squares.
No history lesson written in flesh,
no greedy hungry mouth,
no pulling pressing hands,
no journey across the familiar landscape of bodies
sticky with forgiveness.

Only hollow palms
cupping the space
between syllables,
measuring the distance between
(please come) back
and (there's no place like) home.

The poetry of people
crashing into one another
sliding across the surface of chemistry
closing the distance between bodies
is lost in the age of computers
because there's no weight
to words spoken
by apathetic fingers
and delivered in Times New Roman.