The Ballad That Never Should Have Been - 09/28/12

There's a pub at the end of the world where the dead kids drink their dreams away. There's a hole in the wall at the end of it all where the sinners cry blasphemy. And the only two that you need to know are called Lonely and Miserable, so take two shots of all they've got and call me when your life is over.

The only kids in the world

are the ones who haven't 

died yet,

because the only kids in the world

are the ones who haven't

tried yet.

And the laughter you hear,

full of dread,

full of fear,

is from the one

who are already gone.

And the smirks that you see,

full of glee,

- misery -

are the ones that are singing

this song.

Lonely and Miserable

hit the road

in an old station wagon

with no where to go,

with the last of their marbles,

and a heavier load

than they would never

return with,

so that at the end of it all,

at Hell's last call,

at the peak of a mountain,

on the edge of The Fall,

they could lose all control,

they could lose their souls,

and know how it

so wasn't worth it.

From St. Sanity

to the Point of No Return,

fighting vanity

and they lessons they

didn't want to learn,

they found thirty bullets

and thousands of pills.

So with their limited knowledge

and minimal skill

they decided to burn

it all down

to the bones,

to the shell

of the home

they could not longer find,

the security that had died,

the loves that had lied.

In the Shady Part of Town,

they found a pub

at the end of the world

where they gambled

happy memories away.

In small little towns,

they met friends

all around,

with whom they

could never stay.

Because the only kids in the world

are the ones who haven't

died yet,

because the only kids in the world

are the ones

who haven't tried yet.

And the smiles that hid the lies

and the midnight cries

are all you want to see.

And the hints here and there,

evidence so bare,

you just let it be.

Lonely and Miserable

hit the road

in an old station wagon

with no where to go,

with the last of their marbles,

and a heavier load

than they would never

return with,

so that at the end of it all,

at Hell's last call,

at the peak of a mountain,

on the edge of The Fall,

they could lose all control,

they could lose their souls,

and know how it

so wasn't worth it.

From St. Sanity

to the Point of No Return,

fighting vanity

and they lessons they

didn't want to learn,

they found thirty bullets

and thousands of pills.

So with their limited knowledge

and minimal skill

they decided to burn

it all down

to the bones,

to the shell

of the home

they could not longer find,

the security that had died,

the loves that had lied.

In the blackness they awoke

to and echo when they spoke

of the deeds

that it seems

no one speaks of.

And in one universe,

no one wrote this verse,

and no one ever dies.

But in this one

Lonely and Miserable

hit the road

in an old station wagon

with no where to go,

with the last of their marbles,

and a heavier load

than they would never

return with.

West and Lance - 09/14/12

I wrote you a letter

And I sent it in the mail

And I hope that you get it soon

Because life is better

Though the world is frail

And I need you to know it too

The internet can't deliver

Butterscotch candies

You can't fill and email with glitter

It's enough

To keep in touch

But heartache requires so much

More to keep you from growing bitter

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

I wrote you a poem

And I sent it in the mail

And I hope that it finds its way home

Because despite the world's solemn

And despite the world's ail

I want you to know how I’ve grown

I’ve written 300 poems

About giving up

And only a dozen about trying

I’ve spent so much time

Keeping it all inside

From the actually tears

To the fear of crying

So, Hallelujah,

You can break me down

Any time that you like

Because though he's on the east coast

And she's within a day's bike ride,

It'll always be there names

Those cords bring to mind

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

I won't ever know

Whether it was just a phase

But I know that I never will care

Because each painful step

On each tortured leg

Are my stories to share

Are what got me from there to here

This is what I need to tell you

This is what you need to hear:

I love you, I miss you,

I'll never forget you,

Our friendship grows stronger each year,

You're brilliant, you're beautiful,

Hilarious and wonderful,

Steadfast and noble,

Insane and uncontrollable,

And you've given me the strength

And the hope and the brains

To continue without any fear

So I wrote it all down on paper

And shoved it all inside

An envelope no bigger
Than the words that I did write

I sealed it with a poem

I signed it with a sigh

I sent it off to no one

Who can't tell truth from lie

Physics Shorts - 09/12/12

I.
Waves, waves everywhere
Oscillations in my hair
Physics is made up of oscillations
Described in mathematical incantations

II.
Frictionless surfaces are so much fun
Vacuums are where the best physics is done
Think it's impractical and can't hack it?
Then get out of Theoretical and into Mechanics!

I Hope It Wasn't Taboo - 09/12/12

Standing on the pulpit
of a Catholic chapel
doesn't bring me any closer
to God
than sitting in the woods.
I figured that as long as I was
at a Catholic school,
I might as well look around
and see if he 
was there.

I met him once
in my backyard,
watching cottonseeds exist
and I met him again
in my bedroom,
sipping orange juice
and blasting music.
I created him in my mind
and I've killed him
once or twice.
I've asked him about math and physics
and about fate and destiny,
mostly to yell and argue,
because he never gives any answer.
He was my favorite hallucination
for a couple of weeks,
but now I like
the characters in my stories
a bit better.
But I haven't seen him here
at a Catholic school.
His "son"
is in every one of my classrooms,

but where is he?

Una Taza de Corazón - 09/11/12

La cosa sobra

té con cafeína

es que lo tiene

cafeína pero

no tiene tan

mucho cafeína

como café.

Café me hace

saltar y correr

cuando quiero

escribir o estudiar.

Café me hace

dormir y descansar

cuando quiero

saltar o correr.

Café me hace

escribir y estudiar

cuando quiero

dormir o descansar.

La cosa sobra

té con cafeína

es que no lo

tiene tan mucho

cafeína como café.

Té me hace

calma y tranquila

cuando todo mi

trabajo me ha

rabiado.

Té me hace

escribir con fuerte

cuando mi estrés

ha robado mi

imaginación.

Té me hace

sonreír

donde café

me haga

querer llorar

con tema.

Café me da

dolor de mente.

Té destruye

mi pena.

My Best Pens - 09/11/12

The best pens

I’ve ever had

were stolen from

classroom floors

and Debate tournaments,

the ones no one

thought enough of

to remember

to bring home

became the ones

I panic over

misplacing

and use to scribble

poems in the margins.

Graffiti Poetry #8 - 09/09/12

I guess you can call me 
metalloid
because I’m both
brittle and ductile,
shattering when pounded
but drawn into wire
when pulled and stretched.
I guess you can call me
metalloid
because I’m slipped in between
the tough, practical metals
and
the fluid, brilliant nonmetals
but do I take the
good qualities of both
and make them bad,
the bad qualities of both
and make them good,
or some combination
thereof?

I guess you can call me
Socrates 
because I do not
know.

Graffiti Poetry #7 - 09/07/12

The week always seems
to drag on infinitely,
then Friday arrives

Graffiti Poetry #6 - 09/06/12

Mother Sky looks over her brown daughter,
Earth,
barren and lonely,
cold and dry,
and lifts a thick blanket of ocean
over her land,
soaking the cracks of the desert,
filling the holes of the plains,
trickling in the seams of mountains,
until the two inanimate
grow life.

Graffiti Poetry #5 - 09/06/12

Each human being
is burdened with
the seeds of creativity,
the building blocks
of beauty,
the framework of elegance,
the blueprints of perfection,

which we use to build bombs.

Can't you imagine
a world where those tools
are used for creation?

Graffiti Poetry #4 - 09/06/12

I should have known
that it would eventually
come to pass
that I would start
to dream in math.
Not about
doing problems for a class,
but thinking -
dreaming -
in terms of math.

A friend of mine
who studied Spanish
would occasionally
dream in it.
Those who think
in pictures and colors
must dream more brightly
than others.
Those who think
in words and phrases
have nightly visions
that look like pages.
So it makes sense
for on who thinks
in numbers and equations
to come to dream
the same.

Graffiti Poetry #3 - 09/05/12

Through the jungles of equations
and over mountains of facts,
I have stalked
the ever-leaping chalk,
seeking the meaning of life,
the answer to all that is,
and what will be
on next week's quiz.

Graffiti Poetry #2 - 09/05/12

I think that I shall never see
a sight as lovely as
a PhD,
an image that gets
me through each lecture,
knowing the outcome
will make it all better.

Graffiti Poetry #1 - 09/04/12

Have you ever watched
a ribbon of chalk
cascade down blackboard
waterfalls,
louder than the high school halls
we've finally escaped?
It's never too late
to return to the lesson at hand
and watch the ribbon of chalk
move in your professor's hand . . .

Morning Haiku - 09-04-12

Earl Grey, Batch Number

T-400108

Cream, Sugar, Honey

A Veces - 09-04-12

A veces

el mundo

parece

como

una película

que usó

demasiado luz.

Todos los colores

se rabian

con los ojos.

Especialmente

en las

mañanas.

I've Never Met Anyone as Creative as a Physicist - 09-04-12

I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist,

and I’ve met a lot of people

who called themselves artists.

I've met sculptors

who could recreate the figure of a man

in marble

and ones who could stimulate

the feel of the wind

in the folds of stone clothes

and ones who sparked chaos

in the hearts of viewers

with the combination of colored glass

spheres and spikes

on black marble,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met poets

who could change childhood memories

into political allegories

and ones who made screams

sound like the lullabies

your mother never sang

and ones who made you taste

their potent lyrics,

some shoved down your throat

like medicine

and others slipped in your drink

when you weren't looking,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met painters

who turned three pigments

into all the colors of the world

and ones who lathered brush strokes

so thick

you could see them come out of

the canvas

and feel the peaks and valleys

of the landscapes

and ones who gave a physical form

to the deepest feelings

I've never known how to put to words

in poetry or conversation,

the kind of feelings that when people ask,

“Are you alright?”

you just cannot answer,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

I've met musicians

who found the resonance frequency

of the human heart

and ones who could turn a melody

into a memory

without ever uttering a word

and ones who wove so many

different sounds together

to produce one simple harmony

that makes me shiver

every time

it flirts through my ears,

but I’ve never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

The artists use that which we

see or touch or hear or smell or taste

to speak of all the things

that we can't

see or touch or hear or smell or taste.

They create new ways to

understand love

and life

and pain.

They create

that which we feel

in that which doesn't feel.

But a physicist

takes that which we can

see or touch or hear or smell or taste

and all that which we can't

and organizes it

in ways no one else has imagined,

no one else has fathomed,

no one else bothered to look for.

But a physicist

sees that which it is physically impossible to see,

touches that which has no mass,

hears frequencies over your ears' capabilities.

But a physicist

puts it all together.

But a physicist

creates everything

from the smallest particles

to the biggest galaxies

in equations,

turns patterns into predictions,

makes meaning from madness,

creates coherence in chaos.

But a physicist

fathoms all that is -

not limited to

that which their mind

or their heart

already knows -

and forms it such that

we all can comprehend it.

But a physicist

finds ways

to simplify the cosmos

while the artists

try to fill it up with

meaning.

I have never met anyone as creative as

a physicist.

A Plant is Not an Individual - 09-01-12

One small church in North Portland

had an unfinished mural

in a basement that hasn't been used in six years,

and a Sunday School teacher

who wrote a lesson each week

for a class of only herself.

But we thought to fix it

because a plant is not an individual -

one blade of grass

connects to its kin -

as you can see by

hacking ivy to the ground

only to watch it refulrish,

the raspberry vines

clawing up from the dirt

only a few days later,

the rose rooted deep

in the cement.

Something more lurks

beyond berries,

beyond leaves,

beyond vines,

beyond what what we think of as a plant.

But a plant is not an individual;

it would not refer to itself as I,

but as we;

it will not whither when bits die,

does not bleed when leaves fall.

Yet even when

the hoe overturns the earth

and the ivy have been tugged

and the raspberry vines have been cut

and one persistent root has been extracted

from a its encasing of a chunk of cement,

all I find are hidden garlic clovers,

growing wild under the ivy.