"To Protest"

Take your banners; men,
Take them among the cold winter streets
And weave in autonomous lines,
Your warm breath illuminating
bloodied statistics.

Take your banners; you dreamers.
Expose the youthful eyes
To what you consider to be just.
Let them know you think it true.

Fight for your cause, humble warriors.
Bring the troops home, if you must.
Let the talk of change flow.

But when your warm breath turns cold;
Retreat.
Let gold-paved disillusion resume,
And take to the woods, you cowards.
Have you no idea how to inspire?

Take your banners in flight; men,
And bring your cause to the wild.
Stake your words at the base of the trees.

"Ha,"
The wise ones will reply--
Hinting at a fact they have long known;
At the words nearly engraved in their withering limbs:
"nothing ever changes"

...Autumn Hues- (one video, a few songs, a new sketch, and somebody else's poem)...

...OTHER LIVES...
"Speed Tape"

...DAWES...
"Love Is All I Am"

...JIM SULLIVAN...
"So Natural"

...JACKSON C. FRANK...
"Milk and Honey"

...SPLINTER...

The voice of the last cricket

across the first frost

is one kind of good-by.

It is so thin a splinter of singing.

- Carl Sandburg

"When the Time Comes"

“Stand clear of the closing doors.”

Please.

Let’s be listless for a while,

I know a place.

There’s a room in this city...

Full of smoke.

If you’re lucky,

It’s at the stop with the children

slowly reciting valedictorian speeches.

Look for eyes that frighten you

like the aspect of love.

(That’s the one.)

Head a few blocks north,

and ring a door or two--

I’ll be down in a minute.

211th chorus

211th chorus

by jack kerouac

from mexico city blues

The wheel of the quivering meat

conception

Turns in the void expelling human beings,

Pigs, turtles, frogs, insects, nits,

Mice, lice, lizards, rats, roan

Racinghorses, poxy bucolic pigtics,

Horrible unnameable lice of vultures,

Murderous attacking dog-armies

Of Africa, Rhinos roaming in the

jungle,Vast boars and huge gigantic bull

Elephants, rams, eagles, condors,

Pones and Porcupines and Pills-

All the endless conception of living

beings

Gnashing everywhere in Consciousness

Throughout the ten directions of space

Occupying all the quarters in & out,

From supermicroscopic no-bug

To huge Galaxy Lightyear Bowell

Illuminating the sky of one Mind-

Poor! I wish I was free

of that slaving meat wheel

and safe in heaven dead.

...SKETCHES...

Feet To The Pavement

i am being led by the hand

so that i can see and understand

so that i can breathe in deeply

what others have done

those who have gone before me

to Rothko's Chapel and the streets

of Austin

to John Coltrane's A Love Supreme

and the blueprints of King David

relayed, baton-like, into the hands of King Solomon

to the sacrificial offering

to Johnny Cash's The Man Comes Around

to conceive how many times work is recycled

so that something short of perfection is made

to Makoto Fujimura's

Soliloquies and Four Holy Gospels

to this quest I place my feet to the pavement

to this way I rest my walk

to this giving place, that grows like bamboo, from

the knowing place inside my heart

to that sidewalk i am glued

but You, my love, must be

my only audience

for now, forever, far beyond the time being

to You, my love, i will grieve with woes

and suffer the most beautiful anxious part

to You, my love, i receive my imputed beliefs

that the shattered glass will, with gorgeous stains, carve

a life in me so diligent

carve a path by an immaterial Spirit so elusive

enabling my being

to run roughshod over minor importances

to the foot of a throne wide enough

to hold, at times, my ambivalence

and the certainty of God

Doodles

I was scribbling down some ideas for a book of poems that I initally called "Shapeshifters". I think I'll change the name to Paternal Lobo now. The poems are basically about family and the metamorphosis of becoming a father; that kind of tender wolf that we become. I wrote 11 songs to go with it. It was going to be a package deal that I would practically give away locally. I've really gotten into these God poems now though. I may come back to it.

...Decay...

When I got my knew camera, this was the first set of shots I took. All of them (except the one with the top-down shot of the girl in the leaves) were taken very early morning at a cloister in the woods I that I find very powerful. It's a conglomerate of all sorts of 50's vehicles-- mostly Chevy's. They are partially buried, overgrown, and rotting away. I have no clue how they came to be. The trees around them are too big to be less than 100 years old. It's just a very strange, surreal environment that I often visit. I wanted to capture the sense of decay, and loss of life there. The shots of the boy hopefully reflect it. I've sort of created this fantasy story in my mind that some horrible accident happened there, leaving everything mangled; only to be abandon. As if nature tried to hide the fact by eradicating the roads and sprouting the old trees. Of course, none of it's true-- but it's an image to me. Some secret is trapped there. I just wanted to combine the strange feeling of the secrecy with the equally obscure sense of autumn (and youthful) decay.

music and poetry: paleo

(Expect Delays)

Hey guys. I feel like a slacker, or something for not coming on here in a while. I've got a lot to share-- I'm not at home now, but when I am, I'll be sure to post up some of my work. Really like your shots, Doug. And the Stephen Crane poem a few posts down is inspiring. Made me think of "Into the Wild," which has also been a source of inspiration lately. Anyhow, I was along the highway with some friends of mine, and saw this sign through the treeline... had to snap a shot. I'll be back soon. I'll compensate for my long absense. Hopefully, you won't have to "expect delays" from me anymore.

}(this body)}

when this sickness finally goes

rises up from my bones like dross

i'll flee this place for another
divide the night like a freight train
i never have been too good at staying in one place

restless mind always telling my body how it should be

as though it knows

i'll step to the edges of untrodden heights
scale unclimbed trees
sing unsung songs

when my mind is better
better than this
i’ll be long gone
gone like the flipside of a full country moon
gone for good
there is a woodland where the water is quite mute
and not so swift in the flowing

the rain falls soft & slow there
sinks down deep
exalts the ground
trees & greens
doesn’t leave you quite so wet
i haven’t been sleeping

but once I've rested
i intend to move on from here
to the nourishment of fruit bearing a new hue
sweetness unfamiliar
i was on the porch this morning
with tea – but I was dizzy
time will tell it
downy tree shade that is dark
but not dismal – not daring
before too long
when this spell has finally lifted
i will inhabit a new dwelling
i will not care for this body there
i will plant no flag
carry no memory

[{( in the saffron sky )}]

{a few of my favorite haiku/american pops from kerouac}

..............

I'm so mad
I could bite
The mountaintops

.......................

~~~~~~~~

"You and me"
I sang
Looking at the cemetery

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------

One flower
on the cliffside
noddong at the canyon

-------------------------

***************

Everlastingly loose
and responsive,
The cloud bussiness

****************

..............

Gull sailing
in the saffron sky---
The Holy Ghost wanted it

................................

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Do you know why my name is Jack?
Why?
That's why.

~~~~~~

--------------------------

Beautiful summer night
gorgeous as the robes
Of Jesus

---------

*****************

When the moon sinks
down to the power line,
I'll go in

******

...................

The little worm
lowers itself from the roof
By a self shat thread

..........................

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other man, just as
lonesome as i am
In this empty universe

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ever Present Help/ Helper, Help Me Now

vigilance i must prove
sobriety i must drink
the lion is roaring
the lion is seeking

and You my King
(from this point forth
i will refrain
from calling You anything less
than Your proper name)

the cloud over me is not grey
(it is the essence/Presence
of the Lord of Hosts)
the lightning flash at my back
is not frightening
(it is Your smile)

the dragon is a chamelion
the snake is a cuddle fish
the enemy is camouflaged
in the lies of my own selfishness

i repent, i am the
repenter
nothing more
nothing more than a saint
nothing less than a new creature

i hunt in wood
i carry a spear
it is composed of forever-words
it is made of all You've said

i create war in the jungle deep
i am a warrior with bare feet
i carry a javeline
it is composed of words that create wood
of Your manifold wisdom that makes things

a colorful array

i arise from the smoke, from decay

i will lavish in the beautiful
i will run in forever-fields
i will draw nigh to Thee
i will forsake what my tissue longs for

the repenter
the forgiver
the seeker
the hunter

i traverse the jungle deep
and the lion is waiting for me

i am ready

...Flying V...

After writing this post and reading it later, I decided to make some necessary revisions to bolster the piece's structure. And, although I feel like the changes more accurately reflect the hope that I hold onto concerning my own mortality, I also believe the emotion that inspired these thoughts has been slightly diluted.

As my children grow so quickly, and the years slip by rapidly, and the seasons come and go, and life changes, and I go for strolls in the local cemetery, and I see the gravestones of so many- both young and old; individuals who have passed within the last year or 150 years ago; husbands who have been waiting for 15 years for their wives to join them- it is impossible for me to not consider my own mortality.

Nothing sobers me with the truth that our lives are just blades of grass, quite like standing in a field of gravestones. It strikes a wistful nostalgia within me- to consider the lives of people whose paths I've never crossed. How strange to realize that one day, I will be placed in a spot similar to this (and most days I am unaware how rapidly that day is approaching. But at times like these, I am very conscious of that fact). Observed. Contemplated. Considered. To understand that someday my children will reflect upon life at the stone placed above my head- and then years later, the child or children of someone whom I have never met. These thoughts are the roots of the following entry....

...Flying V...
--------------
Honking heads,
-oVerhead-
Simulate horns of rapture.

Is it that time?
-Again?
-Already????
(pause)

And graying skies,
-oVerhead-
Resound in graying beards,
(pause)

And foretell of gray stones,
-oVerhead-
My spirit caught in a migrating skein.
...Selah...

...Random photos from the past couple of months...

Duck banding

Gentleman Jesse and His Men
"Butterfinger"

The Strange Boys
"They're Building The Death Camps"