remembering is strange
and kind of hard to do
nothing is ever how i remember it
when i return
which makes me wonder if the things that i remember
actually happened at all.



"the lack of continuity
in recollection
v.
how things actually transpired"


this keeps me on my toes if nothing else.

there was this Chick Tract
my parent's gave me when i was smaller
and in it the main character dies and goes to Heaven
sits down next to G-d
and watches his whole life on a big movie screen

everything that had just transpired.

in the tract they come to the part where the character
accepts that he needs Jesus to save him from all the terrible things
the movie of his life has shown him being a part of
lying to his mother
stealing
having adulterous thoughts
all wiped clean by emotion drunk moment of weakness and prayer
which is the highlight, and ending of the movie.

he gets up and walks towards a standard door sized white light.

the man waiting in line behind him for his life's movie is terrified as he never had this moment in his life and he is up next to play movie time with G-d.

and the tract ends.

i never think to much about the door of light, or the scared fella preparing himself for the... other door?
at least not much anymore
which is a comforting change from how my mind worked when i was smaller.
but
i would really like to watch the movie of my life just to make sure i have all the major points right.

somewhere out there
(probably in jared goertzen's basement)
there is a high-8 cassette which contains footage
of a young jameson drunk me
getting dumped by my girlfriend while i was on tour

NOW

when i say that i was on tour i need to clarify
my nominally known regionally touring band was out for a couple of weeks playing small venues and basements.

nothing spectacular.  nor had i been gone long.

it was nothing spectacular.  but we had a good day on merch, and got a hotel, and it was half past wasted for us all.

and i needed to call my lady so i moved my sleeping bag to the vending machine room, because clearly that is the optimal place for privacy.

everything happened really fast

the room got small, sausha told me what her and john had been up to, and then there was erik, goertzen, and a camera.

i think i laughed and drank more.  i don't really remember.


a couple of weeks later, after they both implored that i did not tell john's girlfriend until he had talked to her, my aunt passed.

i drove to her funeral.

my mom said some things there, beautiful things, and really impressed upon everyone to live intentionally

john called and left a voicemail
his girlfriend called and wanted to meet up and
"see what happened"
i didn't know what that meant, and i didn't call either back.

i wanted to live intentionally.
so i drove home in silence, and drank whiskey until i passed out on the roof of my garage.

i watched some friends lose someone close to them
and was struck by how much work it is
to pass into oblivion
there's the making sure everyone who needs to know is aware
a daunting task in and of itself

there's the funeral
traveling
making time for the realization
cold as it may be
that one will never be again

sorrow is a whole job on its own
taking everyone different lengths of time and effort to come to grips with
some people never come back

but there is so much tedium in death
mindless red tape
settling the business of living
who will tell your landlord
who will clean your apartment

will they still miss you when they're done?

do you have to file taxes for the dead,
and if so where does their return go?

i suppose these things are all beside the point
except to say i don't hope to die anytime soon
sounds like way too much work

it has been one whole month
since i have smoked a cigarette
a habit i have held to
longer than most others in my life
a relationship i have maintained
longer than any lover
an escape
a comfort

our years long courtship
spent burning brightly
even in darkest night
would have to burn out eventually
a love letter
written on kindling

for me cigarettes were not unlike
your love
spark
flame
burning embers
tossed out the window of a moving car
just before you hit the filter

i'm only in this all
for the long haul
the early morning quiet
the rotations of the day
carrying me far and wide
and a love like
a cigarette's
will cause as much cancer as
smoking one

a writer i love
said no man can be in exile
as long as he remembers that
the world is one big city
and while this is true
all the world is ready and waiting
for me to darken its hall ways
and dirty its towels
and sleep on its floor

a man can still be in exile.

internal exile
is when you are forced to relocate
within a contained area

external exile
is when you are forced into
an entirely new place
away from where you once existed

neither is relevant however
if all the world is one big city

and the diaspora of our time
is all within
heavy hearts
and tired minds
exile on main street
lost in your own self loathing
imperialism as advertisement
conquering the corners of your mind
leaving you no quiet place

exile is a personal choice now

and maybe, just maybe
its what we all need

i realized today
that i have been reading poems
in front of people
for more than a decade now
with varying degrees of regularity
and
i've been writing poems more than half my life
with varying degrees of regularity
but life seems to make the most sense when i do it
a lot of them are gone now
i have no idea how to find them
some of them i have in old notebooks
stacked in a corner in my bedroom
most of them are terrible

i wonder sometimes if these will be terrible someday
if its all just a mechanism
to get out what needs saying
in a safe
place
or maybe its all narcissism
and i just like
spewing feelings on a page
to make myself feel like i'm creating something
that i'm contributing
out into the ether
for others to find

do i write poems because they need writing
or do i write poems because i need to explain myself
                          or is it all like that frank ocean song

we could kick it in the living room
looking through my whole vinyl collection
and you could teach me how to slow dance or something
and ima give you chills harmonizing to
otis, isley, marvin

and every time somebody asked me
if i sing songs to get at women
i say yeah

he came out a year or two ago
it made a bunch of hip hop fans
act like assholes on the internet
i never understand people
or why they care so much what other people do
funny
the song still works if
you change women to fellas


i would be lying to you
if i said
"i don't write poems about women"
i don't always know if its to get at them though
like frankie was saying

and sometimes i just write poems.
i don't know if they matter
and i'm not getting at anybody
i'm just picking at the scab that being alive has left me

and sometimes, i write poems to get at women
i say yeah
 

“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does. 
It is up to you to give [life] a meaning.”
- Jean-Paul Sartre

i found a picture of myself
singing with my friend's band

(who i would go on to play with
and dump tons of time
and effort
and money and soul
into
different poem)

i was smaller then
and your hair was probably green


sometimes i wonder if you saw me one day
at some horrible show
i wouldn't have stood out
i was smaller then

you would've been walking through ICC
probably already tired of being there
and there i would've been
some band shirt
too tight pants
goorin brothers hat

heavy sigh
damnitall things never change

but maybe i was there.  and so were you.

when i see a band i really love
the world stops
i don't know who or what is happening
all i can appreciate is how they play
the way they transition from song to song
spanning albums and career
and sometimes genre

i get lost
and i scream
even if the band doesn't
i holler the lyrics
and move in time in my own space
the crowd around me loses meaning
and i care not who i offend
with my joy

maybe i was there

maybe i was laughable

things never change
i still make that ass out of myself
and i still put myself in situations
where its going to happen

it is not the spectacle it used to be
and frequently i'm there alone
where in the heyday
there was always a crew along for the ride
but still i holler
and shift back and forth in my own little world

and you might see me there
one of these days
but it will be different
i won't be smaller
and i'll be me, not just that guy

that moment
will be just like the other time
except you will know
now what you didn't know then

and we will ride away when the show is done
that will be my favorite bike ride


in that picture i found
my shirt read
"I Am Miss America"

losing track of where i stand 

in most things 

stay weird i say

just stay

i haven't assessed this yet

29 

              twenty nine

                                           XXIX

what a fuck all of a year

and its not yet over yet

it still has its claws deep in my back

nestled in the small space

between my shoulder blades

weighing on my arms

and sending shocks down my spine

whenever it sees fit

the pulse has changed though

rather than skipping beats 

my heart soars and settles

with the fervent passion

of a post rock guitarist 

gone from strumming one chord

for 10 minutes

to alternate picking

some glorious delayed melody

deeper wounds have cauterized

than XXIX could hope to rain down

on my unsuspecting shoulders

my soul

resembles the landscape of a knife fighter

but my heart 

still it soars

stay weird i say

or

at least

just stay

sometimes people surprise you
like when you're crying at an episode of the office
and the first guy you'd call on
to back you up in a fist fight just
smiles, pats your knee, and says he loves you
by not saying anything

just chuckling

because its fucking ridiculous to cry
just because erin found her birth mother
and it was joan cusack
but i am fucking ridiculous
and that was perfect

i cannot feel so many things
that have permeated my mind for so very long
the sorrow of existing
the very weight of my being
seems now like a laughable thought

not that pain is not real
or rather
that the bad that hides behind every
interaction, moment, thought
is no longer there

yes

there is much sorrow in the world
and we all fuck up
tomorrow i will fail myself or someone i love
and tomorrow i will become a better now me

leland p. fitzgerald said
"maybe we're really scared of the good stuff"
and maybe it is inside of us
then we have the opportunity to be
good
all of the time

maybe a character is more real than person
maybe you have the chance to decide

what if there is no G-d?
and it really all sits deep inside you
the act of choosing
will define you long after you're gone

myself
i choose to run headlong at love
i choose to try and make a poem change the world
i choose to know, not believe
that this moment
is above all others
i choose to lay myself bare
on the altar of time, money, effort, sleep, comfort
if only to see about a girl
i choose to hope
and in that hope, for each of us
i choose to never measure the passage of time
and to never know myself by the loss
that time has brought

rather to sit quietly
and know that i am only now

and read the words of wiser men aloud to those i love

"i rapped about eggs recently
i want to write about legs
i want to change everything"

to do as donald miller advised
and stand quietly in the wilderness
reading sonnets to no one

"i'll tell you how the sun rose
a ribbon at a time..."

black ice on blue island
and still sunshine in chicago
tears freeze just past your eyelid
and hang on till you find shelter

the song remains the same
mark said it should
and i have to agree
i'm not depressed
unspecific sadness
melancholia
this state of being
is something the winter months perpetuate
but something ever present, even in warm
hiding behind my eyes
and in the words
bleeding out onto the page

much good comes now
pouring out till my cup
runneth over with joy and
calm
i slept last night, sober as a bird
but like i had destroyed a bottle of bourbon

henry rollins said
that to the lonely
solitude is a hard won ally
but i think its sleep
and that the long, terrifying, wonderful trip
that is this life
doesn't require solitude
but goddamn, sleep helps

laying here
its funny the things that don't matter
like the looming camouflaged fella
or the noise
but i won't complain when they keep me up

in fact i'll lay here and take it all in
every scent and sound

sometimes i worry about everything
like who i am and where i'm going
how the world will end
where we will all be
but right now
beard soaking
i know that this moment is almost over

and as uncomfortable as it is
for the first time in forever
i want it to last

we're quick and loud
and all i want for us now
is slow long days
filled with exploration
and quiet

enjoyment of everything we're starting
to discover
you told me that you liked now me
and i realized that i did too
that now me is a better man than then me
well, different anyway

but different for better
i swear too much
and eat too little
i run on nothing and give everything
enough time has been spent in the woods
angrily searching for home
and terrified that i'll never find it
sitting by a pit
crying out to the emptiness
that i just want to be found

its time for sweetness
its time for a nap
its time for some goddamn breakfast

my knee pulsates now
i can feel the scar tissue move and pop
all the battles and bruises sit just below the skin
like a hangover
of hard hits and straight riders
you don't wanna fuck with this

this beach is no place for my whole life
neither is the parking lot was strewn in
luckily for the rest of the journey
love is its own reward
and drunks move slower than
half naked cyclists



ride or die

this the poem i wrote

being has never been the problem
i am
i am here
i am doing this
i am

feeling has always been the problem
this is
this is real
this is happening
this is

horridly cautious
mind guarded
hiding behind pages
and within notes
being drawn out
by someone other than
the immediate folk
is terrifying

and beautiful
rolling rock never tasted so good
and wet socks are a small price
to pay for a long walk home

morality has never been the problem
i am
i am alive
i am ready to die
i am

fear has always been the problem
you are
you are real
you are compelling
you are

i am
this is
you are

somedays i feel like an existential john the baptist
crying out for understanding and love
in an altogether different wilderness

though, our beards are probably approaching similar

the people i meet are always in transition
and when we've found one another
what i can breathe into them is a sense
of calm amidst complacency
and true love within a moment

i collect these people like tattoos
each one permanently written on my heart
their stories binding with mine for only a moment
our conversations remembered for a life time

because it really is better
to step away from money and comfort
to pursue that which makes your heart flutter
and a dream
is always something i will validate

i've been trying to remember all week
what about PHC's poems reminded me
so vividly in one ride
of my fathers bike

but that thought is gone
as is the whiskey that birthed it
so i'll say truths i know about the bike
and see if they ring true for his words

its well maintained, watched after
valued
always available for when i need it most
and ready for the adventure
that is having me drunkenly
traverse towns and trails
like i never left

i always meet people in transition
and all i really want
is a her with some freckles
a wise head on her shoulders
a clever tattoo or two
and the patience to let me wander
and the sight to see all

that makes me wonder