Blank. Simple. New. Clean. Bright. Malleable. Changeable.
The greatest asset a single living entity can hold. Yet also, the greatest danger.
The possibilities are infinite.
But once a path has been chosen, there can be no turning back.
We all start out as tabulae rasae: wide-eyed, innocent, full of hope and endless potential as we arrive screaming and helpless into the world.
But then, worlds collide; values, beliefs, words and actions clash and intermingle, sometimes with supreme success; other times with horrifying, harrowing consequences.
We scream and cheer with joy, giddy with the good luck that fate bestowed upon us. And we gasp, cry out, turn and run as we witness the horror of the failed courtship that morphs before our very eyes into a dance with death.
Two paths that couldn't be more divergent.
Like a parasite that invades a host, the corruption that corrodes your conscience slowly but surely eats you alive, gradually and exponentially building to a fatal crescendo where choices, fate and destiny brutally collide, with a violence that shatters the worlds of those that hold you near and dear.
You wish you could undo all the damage that's been done. You wish there was a way, way back.
You wish you could wipe the slate clean, and start over.
But you can't.
It's broken. Forever.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
I Have a Rendezvous with Death
By Alan Seeger
1917
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
1917
I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.
God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Home
We all seek it, but few of us ever find it.
Where is it? For a few, or perhaps many of us, does it even exist? What is it, really?
Where we are, or where we want to go? Where we stay, or where we left? A lifetime left behind, or the memories to come?
But what if, you've never stayed in one place long enough to ever call it home?
You're moved and shaken by circumstances not of your own doing, uprooted just as you're finding your feet, your place, your way in the microcosm of your surrounds.
You feel no sense of loyalty to any one place. You're a drifter, so to speak.
When people ask where you're from, you don't know how to respond.
You never loved the place you left. Yet you simply couldn't like where you arrived. So you look to different shores, but wonder if you'll find what you're looking for.
Then again, how can you find what you're looking for, when you don't know what it is that you're looking for?
When you've never experienced it? When you've never known it?
The one constant in an ever-changing world. A comfort found nowhere else. An asylum in times of crisis. A strength amidst fragility. A warmth in the cold. A light in the darkness.
A place you belong.
But where?
Where is it? For a few, or perhaps many of us, does it even exist? What is it, really?
Where we are, or where we want to go? Where we stay, or where we left? A lifetime left behind, or the memories to come?
But what if, you've never stayed in one place long enough to ever call it home?
You're moved and shaken by circumstances not of your own doing, uprooted just as you're finding your feet, your place, your way in the microcosm of your surrounds.
You feel no sense of loyalty to any one place. You're a drifter, so to speak.
When people ask where you're from, you don't know how to respond.
You never loved the place you left. Yet you simply couldn't like where you arrived. So you look to different shores, but wonder if you'll find what you're looking for.
Then again, how can you find what you're looking for, when you don't know what it is that you're looking for?
When you've never experienced it? When you've never known it?
The one constant in an ever-changing world. A comfort found nowhere else. An asylum in times of crisis. A strength amidst fragility. A warmth in the cold. A light in the darkness.
A place you belong.
But where?
Friday, June 21, 2013
Hello darkness, my old friend
It's been a while.
Good to be back.
In other news:
LA and San Diego, here I come.
27/07 - 19/12
Good to be back.
In other news:
LA and San Diego, here I come.
27/07 - 19/12
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Ulysses
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
1842
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known---cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought
This is my son, my own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
1842
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
that loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known---cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled world whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end.
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought
This is my son, my own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the scepter and the isle--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centered in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Friday, February 01, 2013
Comfort in pain
When you're so used to it, it's all you know.
You crave it. You can't live without it.
It's all you want. It's all you need.
Life seemingly has no purpose without it.
You hurt, you bleed, you scream, just to feel alive.
What's the point of living, then, if you can't feel alive? When it isn't pervading nearly every aspect of your existence?
It marks phases in your life. Periods when it was all you felt. When it was all your lived for. When it was all that kept you going.
Sometimes it burns like a dull, persistent ache in the background, other times like the hottest fires of hell.
But you like it.
You like the pain.
The hurt. The scars. The flashbacks. The raw emotions. The full weight of the invisible, silent turmoil as it comes crashing down on your consciousness.
You take it all in, soaking it up like there's no tomorrow.
Happiness feels like something's missing. "This is the real deal," you tell yourself.
"It hurts. So bad. But I like it."
It's comfort. In pain.
And you wouldn't have it any other way.
You crave it. You can't live without it.
It's all you want. It's all you need.
Life seemingly has no purpose without it.
You hurt, you bleed, you scream, just to feel alive.
What's the point of living, then, if you can't feel alive? When it isn't pervading nearly every aspect of your existence?
It marks phases in your life. Periods when it was all you felt. When it was all your lived for. When it was all that kept you going.
Sometimes it burns like a dull, persistent ache in the background, other times like the hottest fires of hell.
But you like it.
You like the pain.
The hurt. The scars. The flashbacks. The raw emotions. The full weight of the invisible, silent turmoil as it comes crashing down on your consciousness.
You take it all in, soaking it up like there's no tomorrow.
Happiness feels like something's missing. "This is the real deal," you tell yourself.
"It hurts. So bad. But I like it."
It's comfort. In pain.
And you wouldn't have it any other way.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
A Steady Rain: A Poem
A steady rain
Controlled melancholy
Which no-one deigns
But weathers bravely.
The rhythm beats
The sensation stings
Cold becomes heat
As the heavy nails cling.
The footsteps prod
The judgement wears on
It is but a façade
That they had all drawn.
Grace under the glare
Of an incessant doubt
Respite lies somewhere
In the far-off drought.
A steady rain
Who's to blame?
As resolve was slain
It was ne'er the same.
Controlled melancholy
Which no-one deigns
But weathers bravely.
The rhythm beats
The sensation stings
Cold becomes heat
As the heavy nails cling.
The footsteps prod
The judgement wears on
It is but a façade
That they had all drawn.
Grace under the glare
Of an incessant doubt
Respite lies somewhere
In the far-off drought.
A steady rain
Who's to blame?
As resolve was slain
It was ne'er the same.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Faith, after
You feel this inescapable sense of loss, of knowing they're not around any longer, and that you're never going to see them again for as long as you live. You're never going to be able to hear their laugh, feel their touch, breathe their scent, share those priceless moments of unspoken understanding and closeness. All you have left is a memory of their fleeting existence in the world, and in your life.
But you comfort yourself, and you tell yourself, it's not permanent; you're going to see them again, in the next life.
But others ask: but how do you know? How can you know?
Faith, I suppose.
It must be faith.
A silent, blind hope; a knowing peace of mind; an intuitive understanding that they are on the other side, waiting for you to join them. You haven't forgotten them, and they haven't forgotten you. "It's been too long," they say, "but here you are, at last, at the end of your road in one life, just as I was at mine all those decades back."
You let go.
You'll see them again. You know you will.
The thought soothes you immeasurably.
The power of faith. In the face of death.
But you comfort yourself, and you tell yourself, it's not permanent; you're going to see them again, in the next life.
But others ask: but how do you know? How can you know?
Faith, I suppose.
It must be faith.
A silent, blind hope; a knowing peace of mind; an intuitive understanding that they are on the other side, waiting for you to join them. You haven't forgotten them, and they haven't forgotten you. "It's been too long," they say, "but here you are, at last, at the end of your road in one life, just as I was at mine all those decades back."
You let go.
You'll see them again. You know you will.
The thought soothes you immeasurably.
The power of faith. In the face of death.
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Roles
We all play different roles in our relationships with the people whose paths we cross and impact. It's what those roles are that define the very fibres of our beings.
We can choose to be the best of friends, or mortal enemies. Mere acquaintances, or faithful lovers. Blood-bound allies, or unforgivable traitors. Whatever it is, our decisions about the roles we choose to play speak volumes about us as individuals.
Who do you want to be? What do you want to be? But most of all, why are you willing to be who you are, in relation to someone else? And how far are you willing to go to fulfil those roles?
Is it something we see in others, that shapes our relationships with them? Is that why we choose to stay, when we could so easily leave? Is it because we see ourselves becoming better people, because of their mere presence in our lives? Or is it because they love us, fear us, scare us, challenge us, anger us, make us want to cry, scream and shout at the top of our lungs because of what they mean to us, and what we mean to them?
In short, it's the apex of insanity.
But it's something we can't live without.
We can choose to be the best of friends, or mortal enemies. Mere acquaintances, or faithful lovers. Blood-bound allies, or unforgivable traitors. Whatever it is, our decisions about the roles we choose to play speak volumes about us as individuals.
Who do you want to be? What do you want to be? But most of all, why are you willing to be who you are, in relation to someone else? And how far are you willing to go to fulfil those roles?
Is it something we see in others, that shapes our relationships with them? Is that why we choose to stay, when we could so easily leave? Is it because we see ourselves becoming better people, because of their mere presence in our lives? Or is it because they love us, fear us, scare us, challenge us, anger us, make us want to cry, scream and shout at the top of our lungs because of what they mean to us, and what we mean to them?
In short, it's the apex of insanity.
But it's something we can't live without.
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