2012

The post of the mailbox shook, reverberating the metal mailbox with a steady but anxious beat. Like a drum struck with hesitant but impatient strokes of a hand not quite large enough to have a melody or harmony of its own, the mailbox sang its steady tune. The hand struck the mailbox post absentmindedly, not even aware of the affect that enabled the mailbox to sing. Hanging listless and open the small hand swung like a pendulum back forward and down again, encountering the slowly splintering wood that was breaking apart under the stress that had not yet cracked the young boy. The pendulum of this grandfather clock belonged to a young boy and each swing of his short but sinewy arm kept the beat of a clock counting out the seconds, then minutes, and eventually hours of the day with all the consistency of the human heart and its resounding drumbeat. ...

Hands shaking as fingernails bite Into the palms of his hands Clenched into tight fists Trying to suffocate his rage Choking on words which burn In his throat like poison This bile in the belly of a monster Belongs not to a demon but a man With eyes that burn with anger Smoldering like embers in dark sockets Even as their fire dwindles Into the soft glow of feigned comfort They have the power to burn Power to set the world on fire But here and now His rage has no place Except in the quiver of his fist And the monstrosity of his eyes He lets out a long forced breath Letting his body go slack And his eyes slowly drift closed Wraps a controlled arm around His little girl’s shoulders Which shake with quiet little sobs Bringing her in close To shelter her from the world That took the light from his eyes Wrung out his heart until all that was left Was this bitterness, this rage This monster That even as this wrath builds in his chest He pushes it back down Forcing a gentle, unnatural smile on to his face Holding his daughter as she cries Turning his hollowed out chest Where his heart should have been Into a cove of resounding calm To harbor her heart and make sure That hers, unlike his, would survive The cold abrasive storm As he held her tight in his arms Looking ahead with dead determined eyes She would survive Even if that meant what was left of him died He slowly unclenched his fist Which had gathered in rage Opening it out of love To wipe the tears from her face And with a calm and controlled voice Hinted with the melancholy Of humanity’s cacophony He whispered in her ear Everything is going to be all right

This is not the way I thought it would be The light at the end of the tunnel Is not as bright as the stories said It is barely visible from the Unreal City The path is dusty and the doors lie On rusted hinges swaying in the wind The wind funnels down this dark corridor Screaming through the cracks under the doors Breathing life into those who are stuck behind its bars Who didn’t or couldn’t quite make it there Trapped with iron grips on cold prison walls Clinging with the fervor of rage Embittered to the roots of their soul Screaming back at the wind With tortured shrieks of terrors unknown As the breeze whispers into their ears Taunting melodies of the songs sung At the end, behind that backlit door That will remain just faints murmurs Of a world hidden from them By the darks gates of the city they built around them As they watch with sunken and darkened eyes From the prisons that they sealed themselves in Watching the slow progression of shadows Drawn like moths to the light That seems to grow dimmer at every passing moment Monsters pace in these dark rooms Consuming the light at every moment that door is opened Leaving no light for those who need it To guide their passage down this dark corridor The way is lost but we find ourselves not in a dark wood But a desolate earth Where the monsters roam not behind closed doors But in the light for all to see The light is gone and we must find the way back There is no Virgil here, no Beatrice to lend a hand Just the blind hands that reach out for light Not knowing what it looks like or how it feels We are lost, I am lost Listening to the screams in the wind Trying to sift out the song that may not be for me But is so close I can taste it The door is left unlocked And this unreal city is not home to me I promise This dust will not be all that is left of me

This evening around 6:30pm there was a rare annular eclipse of the Sun which was visible in Northern California. According to Professor Marcy at UC Berkeley an annular eclipse is “when the Sun, Moon, and Earth are lined up, but the Moon is farther than average from Earth, so it looks a bit too small to fully cover the Sun. Thus, if you are at one of the right places, the Sun will form a ring, or annulus, around the Moon. It’s a special, fun form of a partial solar eclipse.” ...

This is a small excerpt from a larger piece I have been working on for the last couple of months. Tentatively titled Avery’s Sojourn this excerpt is just a little blurb from the beginning. It is still a major work in progress but a couple of people have been asking for previews but everything is still under heavy construction and there is a lot of work to do still but here is a tiny glimpse into Avery’s life. Enjoy. ...

I just got back from a brief but wonderful visit with one of my oldest and best friends who now resides in Napa, California. Yes, that does mean I have an awesome excuse to visit the beautiful wine country just a short car ride away from Berkeley. She attends the Culinary Institute of America in Napa training to be a chef and baker! Yes, she is that cool. She showed me the place where she gets to learn how to cook and make pastries at the CIA and I was a little jealous. It is so different from the life I am living at college here at UC Berkeley that it was refreshing and new. ...

Weathered hands patiently adjust clothing that hangs looser everyday as time slowly wears away the very flesh of life Whittling away with an ever persistent knife That has had its blade at us since the beginning molding us from this shapeless lump of clay into something beautiful only to continue cutting away past the point of beauty into the world of obsession and tradition where we cut not because we must but just because we know nothing else. ...

Yesterday at UC Berkeley was a celebration of the India holiday called Holi. At Uc Berkeley and many other places this festival is considered a celebration of the coming of spring. ANd who is it celebrated you might ask? By a bunch of people gathered together in one place to throw handfuls of color at each other. This is the before photo where we are all nice and clean. It didn’t last long at all. ...

Laughter is strung out between souls Souls that will never touch or see one another But still feel the tug and pull Of the string between two cans That vibrates as words crawl from one to another Spanning the space between those who cannot see But still believe Like whispered secrets sent from window to window By children without bed times or nightlights to guide them They cling to that string and use it to weave a life With or without finding the end of that thread The thread that pulls and strains As time places the weight of distance On the iron shoulders of eternity Strumming the string of vitality Feeling the shiver before the break The untwining of the thread Right before it unravels That last grasping second as time slows Before there is the Break Can you hear the laughter drifting away On the ends of a broken string It echoes out and fades Never to reach the end of that line That was strung too tight But never tight enough to hold the other Anchored at the end Where two souls would become one Like a violin strung too tight The wires scream and grind until The breaking point And the twang of a string destroyed by the twisting of time The loss of sound with a deafening silence Brought about by the abundance of sound At the end of an unraveling thread That carried so many secrets So many laughs on sunny days The sounds of a soul crying for the other Will never find their way Left alone now in the world Knowing no one is on the other end of that string No one to listen or care Just the silence Suspended on the wind Until it is picked up again

Music notes drop with concrete feet To brick pavement crumbling underway Finding footholds that slowly dissolve Into the quicksand of time Fading away into a generation that belongs No where and to no one Being dragged downward by the music notes Cradled in your arms like anchors That you refuse to let go Clinging to as if it was life as it takes you away Gripping onto stonewalls Which crumble under the weight Of a broken string as if hell rides on its heels But there is nothing here Just a musician pulling notes from the air Like whispers from the breeze Light and free they are caught from the wind And tied to a string Spun from clouds like a child’s dreams A balloon floating away tied down by a thread That separates it from freedom By a fragile bond that quivers in the wind The anchored note roams outward With hope to stand again But is reigned in before it can drift too far Down the corridor of time For a moment it will linger there In the space before the next string is plucked And the last fades away The dying moment lingers with a sadness That is tangible in the air Suspended in a moment of being That will never come again