St. Charles Avenue - Christmas Day

Even Mark Twain Understood

“The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.” - Mark Twain

It is in the striving for the impossible that we find many things possible and foremost in all things earthly is the Brotherhood of Man.

Purple Fish Singing the Jazz - ALMOST DONE!

Yes, Fish can sing!

Traffic in the Rain

Old Lady Drinks


Traffic in the Rain

A Christmas Greetings to Whomever Decides to Read

From my friends on the East Coast (of both North and South America) to my friends on the Gulf Coast, a very Merry Happy Holiday Seasons Greeting Christmas Kwanzaa Channukah Festivus. Whether you're in Buffalo, FLA, John Hopkins (strangely linked to me through a mystery email), Sweden, Brazil, Iraq, Afghanistan, Alabama, Colorado, Canada, Canada and Canada, you are all welcome and, should I not get around to posting anything in the next couple of weeks, Happy New Year too. I am officially looking forward to a New Year.

Day 10? Is IT?

Me at the familiar Touro stomping grounds. It's either a Saturday or a Sunday.

A Drawing for Mrs Lewis at Touro Infirmary

A gift to Mrs. Lewis who is on staff at Touro.

Melissa Chimes in Via Email with Some Quotes

SOME WISOM FROM MY SISTER, PLEASE ENJOY:

Everyone is sent into this world with the sole purpose of loving other people.

+++

Just as one candle lights another and can light thousands of other candles,so one heart illuminates another heart and can illuminate thousands of other hearts.

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Nothing will bring you peace except yourself. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

+++


All violence is contrary to love:do not participate in violence. -Tolstoy

My Last Journal Entry

(I've decided to add a preamble to the following. This was not written as my last blog entry ever on earth. I have a particular journal that it was time to put down and move on. There was just a lot of emotional baggage and to carry around the book was like to keep that baggage with me. So as to move on, in life and in journals, I had to end it early instead of writing through all of the pages. I'm okay with that. So, the empty pages that are mentioned are literal empty pages that can also be taken as descriptive comparisons to all the little nothings in life that add up. It is my unabashed ending to a long and clouded tale, journey, time of life. It's title is quite clearly what it is, my last journal entry in that journal, many pieces of which are being held close to the vest for now until some lifestyle occurances begin happening. Thank you and I exeunt.)

So, it comes down to this, the inevitable end. There'll be empty pages to follow that may haunt me for years, the need for them all to be filled eating at my mind, but here must be an end and here it is. I have nothing glamorous to say, no great words to write. The most profound thing my dementedly brilliant mind can write is this: Such is Life.

Yes, it boils down to something as simple and boring as that. Where's the climax? Where's the spectacular? Where's the fantastic? Well, it's everywhere, but it's nowhere to be grasped all at once. I've tried all the tricks, I've broken all the rules and I've gained nothing but broken hearts and sad experiences.

Did I learn? Yes, volumes. A hundred thousand could be written about where I've been, both physically and mentally. It boils down quite nicely into: Such is Life.

So then, what does one do what that information? Clearly it would be a tragedy not to share all this wisdomwith the world, but then, perhaps it would be a greater tragedy to give it to the world. Eyes that can't see won't want to - that is one thing for sure. The news will fall on deaf ears and pass like air.

I once thought I was put on earth to write the Great American Novel. I don't need to now because I have lived it. I'll let someone else write the story of my life. I've had enough surviving it thus far and I'm certain that the most fantastical aspects are lost in the fog.

It's funny the things you can find in the fog, but it's sadder still when you lose that something in a fog. I have lived in cloudy days and made a storm of my life. I have left wreckage in my wake that no man can gather again. Tempest-tossed emotions, actions,a dn reactions, if you will, that I never bothered to look ahead at what damage may come.

Such is life and such are the consequences of life. My only wisdon I'll part with is that life is to be expiremented with. It is to be lived fully and with grandeur, but don't fall into folly and live in delusions that only appear to have the joy of life. I'll wake everyday to the cost of making that mistake.

BY EVERY RIGHT, I should not even be alive to write this. I've been so busy trying to die and calling it life that I've forgotten what it is to be alive. I've tempted fate, I've mocked her pixie-dust, and yet she still sprinkles her goodness upon me. Such is my life.

So, it comes down to this, the inevitable end with empty page to follow...empty pages to be filled with your story. For mine is done...

My Wisdom For You

And WHAT IF we actually did the things we said we could do?

---

If you think you fucked it up, re-read the directions.

What I did Wednesday Night

Oil Painting - Not Yet Titled

Close-up of Painting

Closer-Up of Painting

Eye Know What It Means - 2006

Bayou Man - 2006

Me - Painting and Painted - Nov 2006

Some Mo' Pics

Got My Back???

I just got my tattoo touched up by Walt, here's an angle view of it. You can visit Walt at www.nolatattoo.com

Me and SoRo

Me and So and Thanksgiving Lunch at her school

Nov 17th 2006

New Orleans and the Chios Princess

A Tiskit A Tasket A Basket on Telemachus

Happy Birthday to Me

The best part of my day today, this day being my birthday, was a phone call from my two little angels singing the Happy Birthday song. Sophie tried to extend it with the 'you look like a monkey' verse but to no avail. The song was just as sweet, however. And that's all. Headed to bed.

Remember Remember the Ninth of November

A drawing I did early this morning

Yet another picture I did this morning

He Finds In His Pocket

He finds in his pocket of a coat long since past its prime a note. The presumption that it is a note to himself is validated by the words "NOTE TO SELF" written across the top and followed by the more subdued (since you can't fuckin' remember!). The note contains a memory job the likes of which form an order to self and not just a note and they serve to remind to develop a couple of key rolls of film from a night so many nights ago. Yes, develop the *&$%* pics of The S*&%#$ and is cleverly finished with the rally cry Remember the Squirrel! Thus, I have been duly reminded and shall do something about it, like make another note about referring to the aforementioned note so that the order of the note to self actually gets accomplished. Yes, note to self...make more notes to self.

The above is a fictional account of what would happen had the above actually happened.

Portrait of an artist in Shadows

Daddy's Lil Babies Love Short'nin' Bread

Remember Remember the Fifth of November

Me at Guy Fawkes/Buddy and Annie's Anniversary Party; photo courtesy of Roberta

Another Bathroom Wall

OctoberTime

Bathroom Poetry & Art

My First Birthday Party

On the Road

I've been avoiding too much personal stuff lately for some of the obvious reasons, but I am moving out, up, above and beyond and am feeling back to myself again. I have moved back to the city, gladly, and have (I know, I know) begun working again. It's about time, I realize, and am so glad to be breaking the patterns I was living under. The best part is seeing a pattern and stopping it before I get ingrained in it. Anyway...

I was putting in the braces for shelves where a doorway was once usable for my new roomie. I grab from the shelf above me a random book. Trying to find one that is adequately used just in case I screw one up and pull out ON THE ROAD by the, need I say, venerable Jack Kerouac. Is venerable the right word? I'm not sure. BUT, that's not the point...the point:

The point is, I knew then (as I had suspected before) that I was indeed living with a person I could enjoy living with. That's not a slant or slice against anyone else, but it feel like a fresh start altogether. I met her about a week before we moved in together on the very first night that she got to New Orleans.

Her name is Emilie. She had never been to New Orleans and was out grabbing a beer with her boss. I was on the street having left listening to a friend of mine play music on Frenchmen Street. Glad not to have to set up or tear down anyones' sound stuff that night, I was hanging out with my college friend Art from ye old frat days. I was showing Art and his sister, who had previously lived here, around town. Why, cause I think they're fine people. I noticed that, inside of D.B.A., there was a couple pointing out the fact that I had a mohawk.

I couldn't rightly let that go and went in and started talking to them. It was her first night in NOLA and in need of a place to stay within a week. I was sleeping on a friend's couch and had the same timeline for getting out, so we started a partnership in earnest to find a place to live. Yada yada. There aren't any details worth gossiping of babbling about...we're new friends and we're roommates. Starting anew, breaking the patterns, moving forward...

So, Emilie, the new roommate is cool. We get along well. On the Road and other book selections and musical interest and all that other shit reinforce that we can share the same space together comfortably. And, for all those interested in my well being, she reinforces the positive side of Dingler that you all know and love. If, you indeed, know and love me. So, three cheers for the brotherhood of mankind and the willingness to talk to strangers...so long as they aren't too strange.

PEACE,
REX

On or around the 5th of October

Friends, I would like the below photos to serve as a warning to all who think it's a good idea to make a bet with an Irishman in an Irish bar. Many of us may reflect on the Irish as leprechaun-like people who say cute things and wear green, but being mostly Irish myself, I know better. Or at least I like to think I know better.

Me, Carlsbad, New Mexico, 2006


Me, Trinidad, Colorado, 2006


I think I was somewhere in the mountains, 2006


Me, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2006


Me, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2006

FACES ARE SECONDARY

What worship do we have
when faces are secondary?
What span of millennia is registered
and voted for as the most beautiful?

Everything modern becomes inconsequential-
the focus of happiness fades, people become real.
Stereotypes fail and fall away
as hours melt, the past a clear blur.

Facades crumble into pebbles, dust
and even I become vacant, superficial.
Reality becomes itself unguised
and intrigue vanishes into folklore-
all mystery needed nevermore.

-Both the poem and the painting were done in July of 1998 by yours truly-

Christ's Ship of Fools

We’ve all been born sad on Christ’s ship of fools,
that's the people who make the real money,
a stagnant beat that corrupts the honest trades.
Trades, huh? Yeah, I traded my life
for what I thought was right,
but it wasn’t a factor in my diminishing growth, my decline.
There’ve been too many times I should have
been truthful – it would have been fruitful –
a cornucopia of scream genie magic.
What a fucking tragic life
my life has been, too many times I have sinned
and been marked as a wanted man in a tainted land.
I’m playing this hand, but I haven’t been dealt
any aces, I’m just learning all the paces
back and forth screaming to the cypress knees,
too many times I have been there and begged please-
only to be looked at like I’m disease-ridden,
but free, free to live a life of solitude.

Michael J. Dingler & Trey Gerkin
Oct 2006

Po-Boys, poboys and poor boys...

A friend of mine recently sent me an email asking about the nature of the supposed greatness of New Orleans po-boys. So, this is a quick description and a little bit of a 'don't you tell me your yankee subs can beet out po-boys any day of the week.' In the spirit of our friendship, I posted the response and am keeping her name anonymous for her own safety from the po-boy patrol. It begins like this:

Your question about Po-Boys is not such a simple one to answer because the greatness of New Orleans Po-Boys is such a "great thing" that it cannot simply be explained. It has to be understood in such a way that you've experienced it. And, experienced it in the right places. But, if were to sum it up in a quick, let's cut to the artery on things, it's all in the French Bread. Sure, the northern mind could say that it's nothin' but like a hoagie bread. However, it's nothing like a hoagie bread. It's like the sandwich bread that Jesus would have made had he been a baker instead of a carpenter. We make all sorts of sandwiches together with them and when I figure out how to do it, maybe I'll send you a half loaf of french bread. I say a half loaf because the full loaf is a yard long. I'll try to go to one of the bread places so that it is freshly made and it'll won't be all grody and shit by the time it get to you. Since I got a bunch of stamps, I may even try and send it overnight (d'pending on the price) so that you can then understand. We even have french fry po-boys that the dress and poor roast beef po-boy gravy on. Yum. You are missing out on food like all-fuck down here! But, yes, it IS much different that a hoagie and a sub. So, the simple answer is da bread.

And, what's the rage? No rage, we just always done rolled like d'at. And as for your commentary about your subs beating our po-boys...Only a philly cheese steak from Philly could beat one of our po-boys (if the bread is fresh). So don't get all uppity on d'at one. And if I could send you a roast beef po-boy, dressed, 'extra sloppy' without the end result in the mailbox being tragic...or a fried oyster po-boy...or even a french fry po-boy, you'd have a change of heart. What I'd normally write is that%2

I Hop

The dining experience at IHOP is indeed a worthwhile one, if it's a new one. I recommend the new one in Metairie by the Days Inn on the Service Road South. To show you the sheer joy of a dining experience, I've enclosed a picture. The old IHOPs may still be questionable.

AND, an honorable mention goes out to my Irish friends who supported and were there for the moral support of the new haircut. My the sun always shine on your rosy ass.

From: A Midsummer's Night Dream

PUCK. If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumb'red here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend.
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call.
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

~Shakespeare

A Quote From a Book on a Webpage

"How good it can feel to regain perspective. Our feeling of confinement as narrow, limited, isolated entities begins to dissolve as we take a few steps back and recognize that who we are is "this . . and also . . and also . . and also (multiple personas, roles, models). Moving in and out of these various identities, each is "real" only at the moment we are invested in it. A moment later it may not be relevant at all. We see, in other words, the relative reality of these various identities, "real" only in relation to the situation which calls them forth. But if all of our identities are only relatively real, coming and going as circumstance warrants, is there any part of us that remains steady and stable behind all our roles? If we observe our own minds at work, we see that behind all these identities is a state of awareness that incorporates them all and yet is still able to rest behind them. As we loosen the hold of each identity so that we don't get completely lost in it, we are able to remain light and loose - able to play among these various aspects of being without identifying exclusively with any. We don't have to be anybody in particular. We don't have to be "this" or "that." We are free simply to be. . . . We experience the versatility of our being and the independence of our awareness, opening up the windows of our little homes and letting in a little cross ventilation. . . Humor serves to support this awaking perspective."

The book was "How Can I Help" perhaps by Ram Dass

Sophie and her Jokes

My four year old (Sophia) has begun withthe concepts of jokes here as of late. My last couple of dates with her, I didn't write any of them down and I am absolutely STOOPID when it comes to remembering jokes. I can't even remember tasteless ones. However, in lieu of my rememberance, Katie has sent me an email in in there, there was this Sophie gem:

Why did the chicken cross the road?

-Because he's not a bear.

Sure, she may have to fine tune that one. It's a little rough, but give her some time. That's all for the day.

RETARDED, DISFIGURED CLOWN

Learning to love life by living through loss and mistakes
Lessons learned then gradually surfacing
Letting go, stripping naked to scream
I am not perfect, nor do I strive to be
I am alive in this world of face-first falls and public breakdowns
I'm a retarded, disfigured clown
Dying to be heard for the simple art of letting this heavy wall finally fall
I'm an equal being of no race or color
A hallucination if you will
Sneaking into the lives of strangers and letting them fall apart
To a new rhythm, just to feel better

BLUE OCTOBER - www.blueoctober.com

- - - - -

I have taken down a bunch of old posts and will be re-vamping some things in the near future. Clearly, this is a sign of something to come. If you have a preferential favorite and would like to tell me about it, or would like to see something returned that isn't there anymore, then please do inform me and I'll consider it. No promises. If it comes down to brass tax (whatever tax on brass is these days), I'll send you a copy of what you'd like.

A Year Ago Today

A year ago today, I was a different man
with a different plan, looking out at a new world,
my banner furled, my feelings curled inside
until I went wild and died, until I cried foul and lied
to my mother, my brother, my enemy's druthers
the rule of the day, keeping me at bay,
serving me lies on a silver tray that aid
in the way I concede defeat and repeat the conceit
until receipt of my soul is due and I don't
know what to do, I won't know who to screw
because the sides are ever-changing, the tides
are ever-ranging in sine waves of disbelief,
there's no relief in the house of the dead
but to lay down your head in surrender to the man,
the idea that you can is crushed in the night,
crushed in the light, rushed into fright
of that big white hand sitting still in the sand,
waiting to draw the line that's fine and all,
making you small, showing you how the tall stand
and survive, you're not really alive,
you're not really the person they say you are...
you're not really the person they say you are.

my brother, my friend

When all the world seems to cry
aloud, “Why try? Why not die?”
and your ears have burned
in all those psalms you’ve learned
about right and wrong, heaven and hell,
and there’s only one option that seems well,
remember, too, of what rings true
hundreds of miles away on the telephone to you:

Fuck, fuck, fuck! my friend,
this can’t be the way it ends.
I know it’s all fucked
but let’s look at the better side of our luck.
Let’s take a moment to look at history in retrospect
and recall the shit we’ve lived through that we didn’t expect.
Let’s open our eyes, lift our disguise
and live another day as though we knew no other way.

It’s crazy how things will work out
when you let yourself get about
and the chaotic working of the mind
will creep up from behind to remind
that there are bigger plans for you and I
and though it’s sad that the best we can do is try
there’s little for us to do
but get along and get on through.

I’ve been there before,
hung my black cross upon a darkened door,
woke as though in a dream
and realized that I wasn’t what I seem;
my life the clearest white fog
the emptiness heavy as logs
weighing down the happiness of my life
until I can figure a way to cut it from my veins with a knife.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. my friend,
this isn’t the way it should end.
I know all life seems fucked
but there’re other ways to try our luck.
Let’s take a moment to honor those we respect,
who’ll sit by our side while inside we inspect
the health of our souls and the weight of our lies,
reaching deep until it’s really time we died.



11 Sept 06

Quotes from VanGogh

"Whenever I am in the fields I am overcome by loneliness, so much so that I avoid going out. But I'm sure that will change as time goes on. The only time I feel somewhat alive is when I am painting at my easel."

"The weather is splendid outside, but I have not been able to leave my room for two months. Fear paralyzes me - I need courage, but it often fails me."

"It often seems to me that the night is even more vibrantly colored than the day."

When She's Gone

What do you do when she's gone?
When at the morning's dawn you sleep
in an empty bed and long for her arms,
her charms, her smiles that say
all the while everything will be okay?
What then is there when the house is silent,
her footsteps falling on another floor,
her coming home is to another door?
Who do you become when you're all alone,
calling on the phone to say the words
you wish to hear, the redemption
in her voice, though there's struggle in the choice?
How do you hope to be sure
when the confusion sets in
and there's pain to be had in the joy
of the wonder that is sensual
and sweet and secretive and full of the unknown.

mjd

An Artist Commune

I am not a communist in the traditional sense of the word, but the recurring notion of communal living returns time and again to my ailing mind. Since I have recently given up the capitalist ghost to seek my artly plane, I have wondered if, at what point, my starvation will overcome my need for employment. I think, to myself and now on this blog, wouldn't it be nice if there were a farmer living on the property who would grow some vegetables or a fisherman who could pull out a couple of fish to fry up (yes fry, I live in the South people). And then, by the time I'm done figuring out who would need to live here in the country with me, I've created a small civilization that would eventually require a store. So then, I'd become an overseer on the likes to be found in the Grapes of Wrath (movie or the book, you take your pick).

So, I am a dreamer. Or rather, I am a person who dreams up things. Yes, yes, a hard gambit to think of me that way I'm sure. I like to think of Henry Miller's quote: "Dreams are the very substance of reality." Instead of building a commune, though, I'd just rather have intelligent on nearly like-minded friends who'd like to pay me a visit on occasion. They can bring vegetables and crushed grapes with them. I'll cook if there's time. Since, though, our nation frowns upon the free thinking direction of people such as myself who disregard time and schedules and the like, many of those friends must labor arduously leaving me to my own dementia.

However, to cure myself of aforementioned dementia, I've taken to photographing things I like, painting the images that I find in my head, and writing (though it's more like poorly written scribble-scratch if you ask my over-educated detractors) the vicious words of rage that seem to placate my demons. Thusly, verily and whatever L-Y word would sound good here, I have decided to take it upon myself to surround myself with the artwork of my friends.

Recently I have begun the practice of selling my art, which is a valiant first step for me. Hording it only allows for so much wall space. However, and most importantly in my tiny little head, I would like to trade art with my friends. It won't feed me, but I'm looking at it as a weight loss program too. I've recently traded a couple of paintings away for pottery and the like and I'm looking at moving into other directions too. So, if there's something you see on my website that you'd like to trade, direct me to your website so that I can take a look. We can negotiate from there. For those of you who stumble across this offer and don't know my site, it's www.huckleberrynowhere.com

So then, there's that. Hunger aside, I am serious about trading art with friends, Romans and countrymen alike. Okay, maybe not the Romans, unless they're with a Greek friend and they are bearing gifts that look like a gift-horse so that I can look it in the mouth. Don't ask, I have no idea what I just wrote means. I must be tired, or delusional, or succumbing to yet another bout of dementia. Or, as a more affectionate person has put it, I'm going to the other side of bi-polar. And, for those of you who wish to know, I am happily not bi-polar, but I'll joke like I am.

In closing, though there are some out there who see my artistic endeavors as meaningless trifles because it doesn't produce anything, I am not deterred. Those of you who actually know me knows that my will isn't easily shaken and I have two things to quote for those who don't know me at all. They are both from the esteemed Tyler Durden :: You are not your bank account. (&) Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. Thus, get over yourself and when you do, have your people call my people.

i will arrive lost

i will arrive lost one day
on the distant shore of who i am
and find hiding there the constancy
of change, the horse of a different color
my staid friend that will lead me
to the ever-comforting doors of salvation.

Black as they may be and troubled by their use,
i will knock loudly upon them to announce
my arrival, my departure, and those
on both sides can weep at my journey.

Jesus will come to sit by my side
to whisper in my ear, much as he did
year after year before my final fall-
"you are no part of the world"
and i will escape myself to wonder
if it is the world at present
or the one i left that i am not of
because i have always thought myself
a citizen of the world.

14 Aug 06

I Ride the Bus, Bitches

Excuse me, did someone in here call the police because security was trying to trick a girl out?

--Overheard Announcement at the Greyhound Bus Station, Mobile, Alabama 2006

David Teska

On Monday, March 18th, 1996, I visit my friend David Teska in the intensive care unit in Pensacola, Florida. On Friday, March 22nd, his family removed life support and he died. He died as a result of a car accident. It was a single car accident. He hit a telephone pole.

Monday the 19th

On Monday, February 19th, 1996, I was almost killed in a car accident in Mobile, AL. The car hit a telephone phone approximately two feet from my door. It was a single car accident. I walked away with only a concussion. The next day was Mardi Gras. I spent that one in Mobile.

Dan Quayle

On Saturday, January 13th, 1996...I briefly met Dan Quayle.

A Still Wonder

I am a still wonder that runs deep,
a sky of demise in grey eyes
that shine of a sad London spring,
sitting quietly on the edge of the Thames,
legs hanging loose over chill frozen waters.

In red wine sleepy early morn slumber,
I wrestle with my sheets, a wintry solitude,
working to cover my bare feet while people
move about in their comings and goings to and fro.

The drawn window is my television to the world,
a simple channel to the outside
that I can comfortably watch while the hours
pass before me like countless friends I've lost.

My falling tears are tragic tears on the soul
that bleed every ounce of joy;
a woman scorned is a boy torn
about which emotion could really be up.

In the twinkling electro-glow of night,
I am alive - my waking life a dark
afterthought of what could have been if only
the phone had rung when I was weak and needing
and could have possible been discovered, rediscovered,
and recovered like a lost ship at sea,
finally finding out who it was that comprises me.

Early June 2006

Lillies Will Grow Again

Wherefore do we go now,
our homes but tattered heaps
of hope sowed so long ago,
our pockets full of flower seeds
tearing at the seems to grow
up from the refuse and turn
their tendered faced petals
to the dawning sun again.

9 June 06
Written to be paired with a necklace made for WRBH's Radio for the Blind and Print Handicapped yearly fundraising auction.

The Company I Keep

I am the all-American boy,
the all-American toy gone wrong
with a good song I can sing
while I bring to life
the music of my strife when sad,
never being bad, but being good
at it while on food of joy I dine
and drink wine and listen to the world
all curled up on the couch
like a slouch in a den
of sin that grows grey
as I obey the voice of a god
that to me is odd and white,
full of spite and would like to do me harm
in his charm of the sour and sweet,
the towers of treats that find me ill
at the windowsill in a day or three
wishing I wasn't me or anyone,
the long lost son of a bitch
with an itch that I can't cure
because I'm not pure of heart,
the art of dismay my secret talent
in a low rent place that isn't my home,
where I'm pardoned to roam free and alone
on a bench on the phone wondering which way is up
the cup half empty like my head in a dream,
things aren't what they seem when I wake
and I take for granted the promises said,
everything's dead in my hands,
the sands of time running through
all I've got to do to survive,
to strive to get by
so that I don't die a sad death
breathing my last breath and seeing the light,
feeling the fright of the end
all my friends fading and gone,
watching the dawn in the morn
the feeling of forlorn vanishing with sleep
with the company that I keep.

22 May 06 - Boulder, CO

It's for the Blind that I See

I am a soothsayer for the blind,
a golden, false god that can sing
a language of silence with a smile-
I suffer, a delirious lyricist
with a cut tongue,
a fanatical fascist in centrifuge.
I have eyes to share the world
though I am a fool with words,
giving thoughts to those without.
I am a lost talent rolling nothing
into the wind of today and tomorrow,
sitting silent in my observations.
I will not sing songs of my lament
because the dance is hard to follow,
the words are far too shallow.

Smile and Be Content

Smile and be content

Smile, I say, smile
and be content
because we have to talk
for there's something to be said
in a hushed whisper,
but remember to smile loudly
and profess your exuberance
in a demure and respectful way

Put an end to your empty
heart that aches in great pain,
or hide it all with a smile
while you talk a good game

Jan '06
Dedicated to HER

Tragically Convoluted

Everything was tragically convoluted
as total fuck-all could be,
the people bumping into each other
as living distortions of themselves that weren't meant
to co-exist on any plane of harmony.
In the center of it was I,
the very I living within each and every one
of us that has the tenacity
to look into the mirror when weak and crying.
From where I sit, it's all our accident,
this world, this life, and I am not sitting
anywhere the Buddha or the Christ hasn't or couldn't
but I haven't the capacity to meditate the same.
When I think of me, I think more of my place
in the brotherhood of man-
a brother just the same to man and woman
alike, united in the sacred blood of the earth.

3/10/06

An Electric Friend

An electric friend lights quiet compassion,
the ties that bind a subtle current
flowing at the speed of a flash
that is recognition in another's eyes

Unmatched is the bond, known
between friend and friend, they silently speak
a truth shared within

Sitting beside one another, they can agree
that the world is a convoluted mess
filled with random chaos in search
of stability, because stable is comfortable

Comfort in the lies is but a way
to pass the time, so we shake the present,
inside it may break or break us free
and either way relearn to just let go

Letting go is giving up the ghost
and surrendering to those demons
inside of us the very pain
we've lived in until we can cry
it all away until another day

'Tis only through our pain can we see
the hidden miracle - We must ask
the question, no matter the result

Jordan P Fitzpatrick & Michael J Dingler (Jan '06 - New Orleans, LA)