tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80476925281620755362024-02-06T20:01:58.966-08:00Poetic Doodles, IIMore scribbling and textual droolBryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-19795117560229615072008-06-05T12:41:00.000-07:002008-06-05T12:48:11.738-07:00It's oh'eight a'ight<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwEKYXQ8LVzaS_QMuU8qKkLuvKbJZRc50eMZfx3quumLEDFDoXAmH8JNLExWZ3zUpALcin0zAfEE0eA8F8T_axuRKBW0fXjJxW3OPXrA93dVHYe3GQMtYZmXyrqXpK321qCzsiPpeBuQ/s1600-h/08.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTwEKYXQ8LVzaS_QMuU8qKkLuvKbJZRc50eMZfx3quumLEDFDoXAmH8JNLExWZ3zUpALcin0zAfEE0eA8F8T_axuRKBW0fXjJxW3OPXrA93dVHYe3GQMtYZmXyrqXpK321qCzsiPpeBuQ/s400/08.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5208486574072037922" /></a><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'lucida grande';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:x-large;">2008 – Life is Great. (My last acrostic for Brown seniors)</span></span></span><br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">Preface.</span><br />I love roads, traveling, feeling complete when<br />the right foot hits the gas pedal and I<br />speed forth somewhere between here and there.<br /><br />On the road to find out, I sing out, like Cats Stevens, and ask,<br />how else do we learn who we are?<br /><br />Everything is evolving at exactly the right time and<br />I know my evolution is<br />going as it must, because I am<br />human and I grow, everyday,<br />towards knowledge of what it is I’m meant to be. Yet,<br /><br />all of us, currently, are trapped in modern reality:<br />living/loving/believing/dreaming/hoping that such<br />roads will continue forward and deliver us towards happiness and sorrow.<br />I travel in love with today, and I am<br />going to embrace my tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,<br />head-first with a smile -- because<br />this is all I can do while inhaling my lifetime of lady fortune.<br /><br />i.<br />Beyond the confinement of flesh<br />lives a soul that is<br />ubiquitous with everything;<br />nothing compares to the<br />karma of being dreadlocked in<br /><br />Time. See,<br />I was born to this mortal trap, but<br />my mind belongs to the emancipation of my heart’s greatest gap.<br /><br />ii.<br />Before I began climbing<br />on the educational ladder, my<br />grandmother taught me the love of words,<br />giant beings, brain turds, that can catapault<br />across pages of journals with enormous energy and a<br />nascent philosophy for loving life. I began to question my<br /><br />Journey, as a young man,<br />on the shorelines of a small lake where I<br />heard her purple poetics. The memory is<br />near my soul dance and hypnotics of how I choose to survive.<br /><br />iii.<br />Being alive means knowing how to laugh -- to join the<br />overture of shooting Janet on this blue-green planet of<br />love, forests, oceans, deserts, mountains and unknown<br />terrains of possibilities.<br />Even the sharpest mind, with its simplicities, has yet to be imagined<br />next to the orchestra of our hearts.<br /><br />Brown has a way of swirling, for starts,<br />all the colors of a crayola box<br />in the artist’s tool kit, and the true<br />learner keeps their all-star beginning next to their crafted<br />erasers, pencils and markers of time. Cuz as the white power ranger,<br />You draw the magic with doodles, history and rhyme.<br /><br />iv.<br />Bryan, my father used to say to me, You’ll be<br />useless unless you learn that if you want something done<br />right, you must work to get it done<br />all by yourself. “You’ll see,” he’d lecture, “that<br />going forth in the world means you’re man<br />enough not to complain, but to fix those problems that frustrate you.”<br /><br />Sometimes I want to throw in the towel to let<br />everyone else win, but then I remember<br />my father’s advice<br />and that powerful word, integrity, and I<br />jump forward with celebrity clenched in my teeth seeking<br />justice and goodness for all.<br /><br />v.<br />By the pond one night, a mosquito arrived from the<br />underbrush with dyed-hair and a lip<br />ring. She sang a<br />cacophony of buzz-buzz and<br />hizz hizz and oh, what a relief it is to hear<br /><br />Such a sweet song. My nature was to whack it, but such violence was<br />unnecessary, so I didn’t smack it. Instead, I decided to look<br />zany in the eye of a mirror, knowing it was<br />all I<br />needed to realize how magical a creature<br />nestled to its nature<br />actually is. So, with a plop-plop fizz-fay, I asked,<br />how are your skeeter ways today?<br /><br />vi.<br />Crazy little kid I was, collecting<br />ants in a plastic wristwatch, and<br />bringing them wherever I went. I<br />remember my mom yelling, parental rant,<br />exactly where was I taking those bugs?<br />really, Bryan, why can’t you have normal,<br />acceptable friends? Why must you play with ants?<br /><br />Little did she know about the amoeba collection under my bed.<br />Ulcers would float in her head if I told her I took them in a plastic<br />container from my school and kept them well fed with an<br />imaginary kingdom of Lady Bug Queens and Planaria Princesses.<br />Everyone needs an imagination to survive. I kept mine in my room.<br /><br />vii.<br />Crap, school sucks –<br />all this learning on someone else’s clock; with seconds and<br />hours are wasted in mandated institutional<br />asylums: Bring out the Scottish drums, historical Phylums and<br />let them make noise – ask the bag pipes to play, I say,<br />loud so boys in plaid skirts can punk it out in a nonconforming way.<br /><br />Life’s philosophy is always better written<br />on a paper towel with black magic marker in an enraged<br />growl of Ginsberg-like howl of<br />Armageddon. School bites the proverbial weenie – but<br />now it’s over. Let the next prisoners arrive.<br /><br />viii.<br />Caves are lessons on how to survive,<br />as they ask us to question all the<br />near-sighted lessons of shadows<br />on fire-lit stoned walls -- where our<br />necks, bodies and arms, mortal calls, are shackled.<br /><br />He was right, that Plato dude,<br />enlightening young minds in an apathetic mood with<br />lessons of pre-<br />existential truth.<br />Now, I ask you from a telephone booth, “was this last stanza a lie?’<br /><br />ix.<br />Crandall scandal, but I try. That’s the headline across the<br />entertainment section of tonight’s nightly news.<br />Ripley has the blues, those robin<br />egg hues, and he’s looking for<br />someone to sing them with him…<br />in a piano bar filled with cigarette smoke and worry.<br /><br />Ellen Degeneres<br />rings him on the phone, but it’s blurry and beckons,<br />I want you to be my guest.<br />crazy woman, such a pest, he thinks, and<br />asks, “will you teach me to dance?” Not a chance.<br /><br />x.<br />Clarence Dowell<br />once said, “the first half of our lives are ruined by parents;<br />now the second half is ruined by our children.”<br />Napolean dynamite says, “Sweet.”<br /><br />A bay is God’s opinion the world should meet and go on, wrote Sandburg,<br />neither fire nor wind, birth nor death (ergh) can erase good deeds,<br />noticed Buddha<br />and now I wonder what you have to say?<br /><br />xi.<br />Creativity comes from when the mind creates an<br />overture from experiences:<br />sunsets with friends,<br />laughing at what fools we can be when it ends,<br />or those moments<br />when life changes us and we evolve.<br /><br />Creativity doesn’t solve such an<br />obnoxious curse. Carry a leopard-print<br />umbrella or wear a<br />red, feathered boa<br />to the prom to rehearse that a<br />normal life is overrated, and<br />everyone else seems ordinarily obtuse.<br />You, on the other hand, are an individual, notes this guy in Syracuse.<br /><br />xii.<br />Doodle in notebooks<br />and collect news clipping of ugly wedding brides on<br />Valentine’s day.<br />I mean, keep track of the news that is<br />strange ~r~ than fiction.<br /><br />Buy a journal, make one,<br />record the rhythm of thoughts<br />in undated history<br />tip-tapping ideas for<br />tomorrow, when reflection<br />allows you to look back.<br />Notice the world at this moment, letting<br />you grow wiser for the ones yet to come.<br /><br />xiii.<br />Did I tell you the one about the<br />elephant and the eleven blind<br />men?<br />Each was a scientist and wished to<br />record what an elephant looks like.<br /><br />Jokes aren’t empirical data, however.<br />one had the trunk, another a leg, the third a tail.<br />How can anything be known when<br />none of us have ever been able to see?<br /><br />xiv.<br />Dillydallying is a way of life.<br />I can’t say I’ve<br />lived my own this way --<br />letting time creep up my legs<br />and tip toe towards the tendons in my arm. No. I<br />reach forth, grab kismet and<br />destinty before I let the fates get a hold of me.<br /><br />Kicking back, though, my<br />ego grows frustrated…<br />not because I take moments to kick my legs up, but that I could be<br />dancing, or running, or moving<br />about the blue and green moments, instead,<br />loving every second as if it was my last, and<br />laughing at the insanity of it all – comprehend?<br /><br />xv.<br />Early in my life I knew when the time<br />arrived to graduate, I’d<br />run, sprint, depart. I’d flee into the unknown like a<br />neophyte fledgling leaving its nest. I knew, too, my sister would<br />empty her branches off my parents tree a<br />year after I did.<br /><br />Now, I’ve returned to the forest I once knew.<br />I’ve found my flight has gone full<br />circle and the winds still remind me that<br />keeping such memories in my heart is not enough. I need more.<br /><br />xvi.<br />Each of us are madmen, emptying the<br />never-ending ocean with a fork. We<br />go bungy jumping on red strings of<br />licorice because we trampoline the<br />eternal risk of one life time.<br />Men. women. children. Each of us as<br />apprentices to the hard work of one<br />nerve-frenzied lifetime.<br /><br />Learn from this chaos. Find<br />entertainment in the mundane –<br />a way to stay sane in the insanity,<br />never throwing your utensils<br />away, nor tossing a towel to the wind.<br /><br />xvii.<br />Eeyore holds a bit of truth within his cyncism. but<br />Rabbit doesn’t sit still long enough to notice.<br />I tend to like Piglet, myself,<br />cause he’s innocently precious in a<br />kid-like way, chasing a balloon and looking for new ways to play.<br />so does Pooh, I guess, with a mission for a honey<br />overture of all life’s<br />nectar and wax.<br /><br />Kangaroo teaches nurture<br />and Owl seems to know everything.<br />Tigger is simply a spazzagezoink and sees<br />every moment as the perfect place to pounce.<br />Life, notes Benjamin Hoff, is both the Tao and Te.<br />You have to find a way to ying and yang the reality every<br />now and again.<br /><br />xviii.<br />Frog legs! My mom loves to order frog legs for dinner, &<br />I get sick to my stomach. I prefer sushi, cooked steak in<br />tempura sauce with a side order of ginger and rice-noodle soup.<br />ze idea of frogs, he sayz in a fwench accent, ze idea of<br />green legs and, WHAM, Kermit being fried,<br />elicits fury in a Miss Piggy rant and<br />rage. In this stage of my<br />appetite I’d rather not eat green accept for<br />lettuce, beans and wasabi<br />dipped in soy sauce.<br /><br />Squid makes me nervous, too; it’s like<br />eating a rubber hose with suction cups<br />and crunchy toes.<br />No. Leave the Frogs and Squids alone.<br /><br />xvix<br />God is hope.<br />I know this now as he/she/it has<br />brought me many<br />songs to sing for my little journey, especially<br />on days where I’ve felt out of fashion and alone.<br />Now, I need such hope. I find myself dangling at the end of my<br /><br />Rope, and like some dope<br />on a see-saw with insecurities and doubt, this<br />boy is looking, more and more, way up and<br />yonder, so he can continue to ponder for<br />nirvana that never goes away. It is here I wish to stay.<br /><br />xx.<br />Grabbed a basketball and went<br />outside to shoot some hoops today. It’s been<br />forever. Even though I played alone, I sure did<br />foul a lot – I even gave myself a technical for un-<br />necessary sportsmanship, which screwed<br />everything up for my team, because I needed myself for<br />rebounds and foul shots if I was going to win.<br /><br />All I wanted was to stretch my<br />legs and to get some anxious<br />energy out of my system. Too quickly I was<br />x’d out of the game, though, and sent to some Russian farm team.<br /><br />xxi.<br />Gigantic. The sea. The galaxy.<br />our ability to make sense of<br />the nonsense where all<br />the starfish wash onto shore.<br /><br />Aren’t stars meant to hang in the sky at<br />night…to sparkle their burning possibilities before<br />days blur into illusions of the moon’s<br />revival? I suppose such questions don’t matter.<br />Eventually, the right time, everything<br />will be as it will and the answers will be in the palms of our hands.<br /><br />xxii.<br />Gonna go to the library to grab something to<br />read -- anything has got to be better than the never<br />ending crap school labels as worthy. Gonna<br />enter another world where my eyes<br />race like letters on a keyboard towards imagination.<br /><br />Books are the soul’s lifetime of work, and because they’re<br />entrenched in intellectual liquid, they<br />need the thirst of great minds to drink them.<br /><br />xxiii.<br />Haven’t collected toenails in<br />a very long time.<br />You should keep a jar nearby, and<br />each time you clip those claws you can<br />stash them for your sister in a vessel of sibling love.<br /><br />Sick? I have another.<br />Think about a booger bag –<br />a container for crusty<br />critters that can be caked for an<br />eternity in a package<br />you can mail Mindy on her birthday : ).<br /><br />xxiv.<br />Having an artistic vision rarely<br />exists for a world full of blank pages. Yet, some of us move through<br />lined<br />thoughts with ideas. We need to draw<br />our original interpretation of a lifetime in personal<br />notebooks of our soul. The<br /><br />Colors we use should transcend untouched territories and<br />overcome those visions of illusions -- the<br />language of shades that contrast diverse<br />lifetimes.<br />I look to the mind,<br />needing the invitation for the galleries that lie ahead.<br /><br />xxv.<br />Harold didn’t love Maude as much as he needed to<br />erode the darkness he felt within. The<br />rope, the blades, the fire and the sorrow were an<br />old way of being told, “hey,<br />life is a<br />disaster in a Petri dish of doubt.” It isn’t until a field of a<br /><br />Zillion daisies are introduced -- each<br />one an original and not needing to be like another – that an<br />eighty-year old moves on, teaching another to sing out with his banjo.<br /><br />xxvi.<br />Here we go, across the stages,<br />onto performances of the unknown trying to<br />remember those who made us who we are. This is a<br />never-ending story of endless possibilities.<br /><br />Brown is the color of soil, the swirl of an entire universe<br />rubbed together in hope.<br />It’s melted earth-wax on<br />the corner of first and muhammed.<br />Take this moment, graduates, to breathe in<br />and think about what once was and will<br />no longer be. When<br />you do that, you have permission to fly.<br /><br />xxvii.<br />K, the consonant, the eleventh letter in the<br />alphabet, is supposed to bring us closer to a<br />language needed for communicating a<br />billion ideas at this very moment.<br /><br />J, that which comes before K, does the same. But,<br />are any of these letters<br />meaningful in the philosophical<br />existential coindidental experimental<br />soup? Doopity doop. Poop. I haven’t a clue.<br /><br />xxviii.<br />Kindness grows when<br />love is shown.<br />Anarchy blooms when<br />restrictions are blown.<br />Eternity looms where goodness and chaos<br />roams.<br /><br />Little yellow hatchlings run across the farm<br />existing as little peckers, trying to do no harm – If<br />only I had some barbecue sauce for this McNugget wisdom.<br /><br />xxix.<br />Kentucky was my home, where I<br />lived, slept and roamed while<br />evolving towards my<br />individual discoveries and<br />narcissistic insecurities.<br /><br />Eventually, a<br />meandering New York state of<br />mind became a set of seagulls,<br />and like Frodo, I was called elsewhere, feeling unsettled.<br /><br />xxx.<br />Little do the Brown bears know, when<br />entering the world from their dens, how un-<br />wise those honey bees are.<br />I’ve heard their buzz and pollinating business,<br />shouting, “here comes a bear…look out!” bizz buzz.<br /><br />Call me a madman, but<br />I’ve been bestfriends with Alice, the Grizzly, for<br />eleven years. I know that beneath the<br />roar and growling of every “grrrrrr” ump, one can<br />always find a “fuzzy wuzzy” teddy bear, like you.<br /><br />xxxi.<br />Lucy Liu once said she admired the<br />ogre-like strength of the Incredible Hulk and the<br />goddesss-diva status of Wonder Woman. Even so, she<br />doubted anyone would take her serious if,<br />on occasion, she raged hard, all bulky and green.<br />No, she makes a better woman warrior.<br /><br />Now, Lucy Liu played Ling on Ally McBeal and<br />I was one in love with her (as much as I had a<br />crush on Portia DeRossi). Neither of them needed<br />kryptonite to keep me away, though. Because now I’m in love with Ellen.<br /><br />xxxii.<br />Look at that last stanza,<br />u would think I meant to<br />knit those words for you, but I<br />entered them, instead, upon Logsdon’s script.<br />Naughty me. Always one chapter behind myself.<br /><br />My God, has it<br />already been a year?<br />Really? Such truth<br />gushes at me with too much force. There’s no<br />escape, and despite all the improv of my heart,<br />everything I want to say, I can’t. So, elephant shoe. That’s good enough.<br /><br />xxxiii.<br />Minds are like parachutes<br />and they only come alive when idiots<br />leap out of the plane and<br />laugh at the rapids rushing<br />or falling head. It’s important to<br />yell at the top of your lungs, “Oh, My God!”<br /><br />Keeling over, squatting in air, you eventually land,<br />and plant your feet firmly on the ground again,<br />thinking, “Did I just do that? Did I just<br />ebb and flow across the azure sky<br />letting flight spiral me back to earth?”<br />Yes, our minds are the willingness to<br />navigate territories that scare us to death. Plunge forward.<br /><br />xxxiv.<br />Mistakes are par for the<br />course and I’ve made more than my share,<br />growing, every day, more aware of how<br />opaque I’m actually becoming --<br />wanting the transparency for my humming<br />a carefree tune while tip toe-ing through the roses,<br />not allowing anyone to forget to smell the tulips.<br /><br />Art is subjective, so the way I<br />sing the tunes in my head<br />has little to do with how others<br />laugh at my drumbeat. Every<br />error I’ve ever made has made me who I am.<br />You’ve got to be flawed, in order to be awed.<br /><br />xxxv.<br />Martin Luther King<br />opted to stick with love because hatred<br />needed too much energy to bear.<br />The mountain still needs to be climbed, so why<br />go up it, pushing that boulder, with anger<br />on your shoulder when a smile should suffice? If a<br />man doesn’t know what he’s living for<br />each and every day, then the<br />rivers of struggle will pull him down, inevitably.<br />You need to keep the mission in sight. Your submission of<br /><br />Delight comes from good deeds, violence bleeds<br />arrogantly between right and wrong. And yes, we must<br />Question to be strong, never<br />underestimating how our answers may take a long time to<br />nullify one’s curiosity. Stay awake in this<br />narcolepsy, sleepwalking through hypocrisy.<br /><br />xxxvi.<br />Nature hides<br />green<br />over the winter.<br /><br />This is cyclical, natural, hardly<br />unusual,<br />and in the spring, another awakening of<br />nirvana blooms. Gray turns into hope.<br /><br />xxxvii.<br />New beginnings. We are<br />given life in a bundled sack that must be<br />unraveled and explored. Even if<br />yesterday all is understood,<br />eventually, tomorrow can hold the potential for<br />numinous doubt.<br /><br />This is why I say be<br />ready to rant and shout,<br />always keeping a Vietnamese memory<br />near your thoughts and mind,<br />go forward to find that everything happens for a reason.<br /><br />xxxviii.<br />On my neck, a<br />chain cascades -- a golden<br />oval dog-tag reminder that when I<br />need a home, I have one. Every<br />now and again, I grab this linked rope<br />entirely in my hand and<br />let go when I feel okay.<br /><br />Kooky truth, that is, to say I<br />allow a necklace<br />such power for my soul. But<br />I am a weak man -- and<br />each of us need a talisman to believe in.<br /><br />xxxix.<br />Oh, I can be quite stupid….I’m proud of being a<br />moron, an idiotic imbecile who<br />emits a dufus-<br />reign onto the kingdom of too much seriousness.<br /><br />Cuz everyone needs a pogo stick<br />laying around in the garage<br />and each of us needs to bounce, while<br />yodeling, upon<br />the grand stage over the<br />orchestra pit. Audiences<br />need more fools….boing boing boing. bong. Am I wrong?<br /><br />xxxx.<br />Peter Piper picked a peck of<br />ecky icky peppers,<br />catching cough contagiously from the<br />kooky lepers.<br />Izzy Bizzy Banana Girl<br />needed<br />Peter for a swirl, but<br />all she got was a hacking whirl<br />unexpectingly<br />giving her a twirl as Peter Piper gave a goober-<br />hurl of needing several doctors.<br /><br />Jeepers creepers, Izzy yelled, so Peter could see her<br />uvula swell,<br />look what you’ve spit in my face.<br />I am now a disgrace,<br />and, of course, the fork ran away with the spoon.<br /><br />xxxxi.<br />People need to laugh more than they do…to<br />reach deep into their gut for the<br />internally loud release of hysterics;<br />everyone deserves such humorous lyrics of<br />silly laughter….<br />they need to lose control where<br />eyes tear up and<br />roll in painful epiphany.<br /><br />Keep the<br />ability to find humor from<br />your friends:<br />live, love<br />and laugh often. This is the way.<br /><br />xxxxii.<br />Rainbows are visions<br />and only illusions, sings Kermit<br />underneath the shadow of cattails and<br />holly trees.<br /><br />Believe in them –<br />each colored arc brings a possibility of<br />crayola box miracles on a roy g. biv<br />curve.<br />and, besides, rainbows have nothing to hide.<br /><br />xxxxiii.<br />Ran seven more miles today.<br />Entered the outdoors of blue sky<br />and post-snow sun to<br />deliciously break a sweat while listening to my i-pod.<br /><br />Laps like this, on wet pavement<br />against well-worn kicks, have become an emotional<br />umbrella for me. I know while<br />running my heart is pumping life, making me more<br />even-keeled and balanced. I<br />need such exercise, and to perspire my worries away.<br /><br />xxxxiv.<br />River dance.<br />I tried this once, by the Ohio,<br />dangling my clunky shoes with Alice, and<br />let my untalented tip-tapping,<br />eccentric clogging<br />yank the seriousness out of my life.<br />Klydesdale horses are what we were. And I learned<br />I am not a man with<br />rhythm who<br />steps to the drumming<br />tunes with my feet.<br />Even so, each of us<br />needs to bust a move, so we did. We do. Can you?<br /><br />xxxxv.<br />Rode around with a lot of crazy kids when<br />I was younger and<br />dappled with adventures that<br />lured danger every mile I traveled.<br />Each of us are daredevils when we’re<br />young -- Such risk is what ages us.<br /><br />Krystallnacht. The Holocaust. Teenagers<br />running scared to death of national<br />identities that would rather not have them around.<br />Sometimes I think, God, I’ve been so lucky.<br /><br />xxxxvi.<br />Rationality is a statistical nightmare<br />on a standard curve with little deviation.<br />Boy, we thinkers are cursed, caught by<br />illusions that are somehow mapped<br />near those truth and lies we tell ourselves.<br />Science is flawed because it’s human,<br />or we err because we’re not scientific enough. Do I<br />need a reference for this? I probably could quote Foucault.<br /><br />Cause and effect. Placing the world’s<br />hubris under a microscope to<br />randomly run some tests.<br />I fail every time, but usually end up with a<br />short story that no one will ever read.<br /><br />xxxxvii.<br />Remember to sing music from the gospel. We<br />owe it to ourselves to hear such song<br />when thinking about history, struggle and the<br />eternity of letting go.<br /><br />Destiny is nothing unless we teach<br />ourselves to hear the church choir vocals and<br />notice the harmony of robed youth singing in praise.<br />I heard them raise the<br />spirit of culture once upon a time, and at their church I found<br />heaven – celestial bliss –<br />and I have been a changed man ever since.<br /><br />xxxxviii.<br />Smith, Anna Nicole, wanted to be Marilyn Monroe,<br />crazy how some saw her as a<br />hoe, when really she was more like a<br />rake, learning to be fake for the<br />entertainment of the masses. The world<br />needs a tribute for this candle in the wind, this<br />girl with a reality show who made<br />everyone<br />realize how normal their boring lives really were.<br /><br />Larry, poor poor Larry, our Kentucky boy, seeing<br />every joy disappear like a chocolate donut or<br />amphetamines in the throat of a star. I’d offer a<br />hardy har har, but life’s sad. so so sad. God is this stanza bad.<br /><br />xxxxix.<br />Sanity is madness put to good use and<br />half the game is 90% mental.<br />Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and<br />laughter is the shortest distance between two people, I’ve found.<br />Man invented stupidity<br />and I’m sure it’ll be reinvented again. Yet,<br />Nothing can erase our good deeds. (These are stolen,<br /><br />Lines, quotes, once said<br />at a different occasion on another day.”<br />u, though, are stepping forward, on your own, and what is<br />read tomorrow depends on how you’ll offer<br />advice with your words. Trust me, I’ll be listening.<br /><br />xxxxx.<br />Tomorrow, my friend, and tomorrow and tomorrow,<br />u will find yourself upon stage after stage,<br />to the last syllable of recorded<br />time, because, yes,<br />life is a shadow, and<br />each of us signify everything.<br /><br />June will be here soon, and<br />eventually will<br />slip into more calendars of yesteryear. The<br />songs of high school are no more.<br />I was there once, the<br />class-cave of 1990 in upstate New York;<br />Ah, it seems like yesterday.<br /><br />xxxxxi.<br />Velveeta Cheese is supposed to be<br />a tasty addition to pasta and hamburger.<br />Let me admit something, though.<br />Every time I leave the grocery store, I<br />never buy it. Why? Because<br />the mice I feed prefer Helluva Good Cheese<br />in thin slices served on Triscuits. They would<br />never<br />eat something like Velveeta.<br /><br />Boy, this is a cheesy stanza, but it’s hard to find<br />ridiculous glitter to post upon my words with an<br />icky glue stick that resembles a Hallmark card. Things may fall<br />apart, Okonkwo, B.A.M.F., but who<br />needs such literature when you have your Babeez who dub you 4 eva.<br /><br />post-face<br /><br />My father’s advice rings in my ears at the strangest times.<br />You may one day find yourself replaying the<br /><br />lines spoken to you,<br />again and again (that you choose to ignore), lines being<br />sung in your soul when<br />traveling your roads less traveled.<br /><br />People are stubborn -<br />oh, we know what we’re doing and know when to put plugs in our<br />ears – but years will pass and<br />the words spoken at you, to you, for you, will enter<br />in you at the strangest times:<br />cause everything that needs to be said, is said to the wind.<br /><br />Go out of this cave, 2008. Exit the<br />oval door and enter the light with knowledge.<br />Once, there were many who gave you a standing ovation, who<br />dedicated their lives so your life could be possible.<br />Bring the “idea of Brown” with<br />you wherever you go because<br />everywhere can use a little more of this place.<br /><br />Follow your heart, soul and mind – they will always lead you<br />over rough patches of gray and<br />rainy skies.<br /><br />So, this is a finale of sorts.<br />Every year I’ve written such silliness. It is my<br />nature to do this – some call it a curse, the<br />inevitable joke has always been on me, with each poetic verse.<br />Out! out! brief candles.<br />Remember the way this<br />school set you on fire – it’s your turn to set others ablaze.<br /><br /><br />Bryan R. CrandallBryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-87657703529482220422007-05-25T13:02:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:04:59.058-07:002007<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXs7LENRsW4TzFFks3MUS9gM69Q2i3IWSpG8UvoIT9f8_FEWdroXbqsWZUrc-k8Ll_hyphenhyphen3b431IqOZAgQsTixLl5wlket2qxBCCoRjq9uVsz98DwVOkhwhZ3K5x8qa1wRxBiIJgyFL8vw/s1600-h/n506626033_125951_2443.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxXs7LENRsW4TzFFks3MUS9gM69Q2i3IWSpG8UvoIT9f8_FEWdroXbqsWZUrc-k8Ll_hyphenhyphen3b431IqOZAgQsTixLl5wlket2qxBCCoRjq9uVsz98DwVOkhwhZ3K5x8qa1wRxBiIJgyFL8vw/s400/n506626033_125951_2443.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322785109035710114" /></a><br /><br />i. another goodbye, another year<br /><br />and he went to the front door,<br />nestled at his blinds to look<br />out towards his painted porch<br />to see who rang the bell.<br />he saw no one. his<br />existence was only a maple tree seed<br />ricocheting on concrete from the wind.<br /><br />ghosts. he thought. buried <br />on the horizon of his past --<br />on the shorelines of forgotten lakes and<br />days where he once wandered in <br />boyish<br />youth and adolescence. he knew he had to<br />evolve - continue his revolution of Hegel’s theory.<br /><br />and then came the question. why was<br />no one there, at the door, wanting a greeting, or an <br />orientation of hospitality? hello, can i help you?<br />the world was empty, and <br />he felt it in his <br />eyes -- which he shut --<br />racing inward to find the answer.<br /><br />you’ll have these moments, moonbeams. they come<br />every once in a childish smile<br />and, for a little while, you’ll begin to wonder. who <br />rang the bell? isn’t there supposed to be somebody there?<br /><br />ii.<br />America is not Africa. I’ve never <br />been continentally dark, but since I live in my head, I’ve <br />danced there a million times in Ibo, Dinka and Arabic ceremonies<br />of sand and infertile land before a heard of cows and ideas. I’ve <br />wanted to know what is the what.<br /><br />All things fall apart, <br />my friend, in the beloved country, but i<br />understand they’re put back together by those of us who<br />need to laugh, to feel, to cry, and to chase midget shadows with islamic hope.<br />all it takes is the drive to run a city -- any city -- and the power of our mind. <br /><br />iii.<br />Buddha sits in manufactured glory<br />all around my house and<br />yes, he stands next to a Maple tree stump in the back yard<br />entertaining the nut-hungry squirrels and<br />needy, greedy doves.<br />siddhartha, cycles, the Om.<br /><br />Chinese workers make an American <br />hope, my icons, bought cheap at a discount mall. even so, the<br />rivers continue to flow, fluid, and<br />i continue to question -- is this the only <br />self i have? am i simply a samana learning to play Samsara? <br /><br />iv.<br />Back then, i didn’t clown around much.<br />all that high school social positioning gave me <br />indegestion, luigi. i was odd, but i didn’t<br />learn to laugh until i learned to juggle: to<br />eat the moment for the flavor it actually was.<br />yapping. tap dancing. writing poetry for no one.<br /><br />Man, i don’t know who taught me this. Me -- the<br />orangutan, an evolved ape with the <br />rare privilege to teach and to<br />gain, year after year, the reminders that <br />each career is based on mind games -- professionally <br />numbing. i should have chose plumbing (he types, thumbing his nose at the rules). <br /><br />v. <br />Been improv-ing all my life<br />etching on sketches and skits, testing my<br />charismatic wits of imbecilic tomfoolerly and <br />karmic icecream.<br />my guess is that quarterbacks<br />aren’t too good and improvising the moment, either.<br />no. they’ve got their plays planned out, and they are<br /><br />Judged by espn 1 & 2. (Ah, Big Bootie) but for us, the <br />Jokes are for a locker, the curtain call, and perfect for -- STOP -- a laugh. <br /><br />vi.<br />Be of quality, they say, a man who is<br />rare, and who dares to take the higher ground<br />around and around and around the<br />delusions of mediated foolishness.<br />expect the best, and do <br />not rest until you are a man -- until you can breathe.<br /><br />Blank expectations are where we have to find a way to connect the <br />line from point A to point B with few directives,<br />asking few questions until it is too late.<br />krazy. most of us don’t become men. we can’t<br />earn this until we internalize the advice older generations left behind with blood. <br /> <br />vii.<br />Cartoons aren’t only for Nickelodeon.<br />animation is imagination, a <br />rite of passage and contemplative<br />thought brought to us in a flash, an<br />evolutionary story board <br />reminding us of how ridiculous we really are.<br /><br />Just yesterday, i watched tom and jerry<br />eating cupcakes before their<br />frantic chase ensued.<br />first, draw a nemesis, then scribble a <br />random duality between good and <br />evil with a whole lot of gray in between. Finally,,<br />you need a hero -- always let the good guy win, but let the bad guys get away.<br /><br />viii. <br />Cave. <br />another shackled fire pit. Another<br />random entrapment<br />that this is all there is -<br />habits. routine. ritual<br />and pattern where we fall victim to the<br />normal.<br /> <br />Life is more than this --<br />or at least i pretend it is, -- and i seem to be in a <br />race to exit cave after cave after cave...<br />eventually, i guess, i’ll understand the journey, and<br />anxiously, i hope, the shadows will<br />learn to dance with me, protruding their lips with glorious attitude.<br /><br />ix. <br />Caricatures. <br />each of us authored as a <br />true self -- <br />an ink stain on smeared canvas<br />who, sometimes, makes sense to poetized others.<br />all of us are mere abstracts, the pop art<br />yanked into materialistic definitions<br />of t-shirt, kicks and recycled imagery.<br /><br />Andy Warhol was a freak, but he captured<br />kambell’s tomato soup can like an artistic sneak.<br />ever wonder who creates the print of our<br />entire existence? Who<br />manages to whip up a soul, one brush stroke at a time?<br /><br />x. <br />Church is a state of mind - the place of<br />learned reflection and where light<br />arcs its way through stained glass, <br />rituals, gospel and a drive for more<br />knowledge. Christ.<br /><br />Ask a mime and he’ll perform. The <br />Jubilation is in the hope of the performance.<br /><br />xi.<br />Delirious. i find myself hilariously<br />anxious and subconsciously <br />vivacious in the monstrous<br />isthmus of human goodness.<br />scrummdiddleyumptious.<br /><br />Eros. pathos. ethos.<br />mythos. the greeks weren’t shapeless with their<br />imagination nor practiced as the<br />litmus-stained stasis of human condition allows us to believe.<br />y question the oomphalos*? *Oomphalos - belly button<br /><br />xii.<br />Destiny is a powerful word.<br />i think about it often: <br />x-amining its connotation/denotation<br />of the destination written in the stars, and<br />nearing a galaxy of your individualized fate.<br /><br />Part of me applauds, but hates, the moments i find myself<br />examing the hard work which brought me this far,<br />reaching the pinnacle of every summit, and<br />realizing the boulder must be pushed up again.<br />you’re destined to understand what i mean some day. <br /><br />xiii. <br />Dusty was my first dog. i<br />remember picking him<br />up at the farm, and because he was the<br />runt of the litter, my mother chose him. we were so<br />young, and i still smell his puppy breath. In<br /><br />June and July, we’d spend weekends<br />on Loch Lebanon, and Dusty would<br />run after motor boats, while my sisters and i<br />dove, head first, perfecting our form.<br />and Dusty, Dusty would wear the pads off his feet, chasing <br />never-to-be-caught skiiers. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere.<br /><br />xiv. <br />Every year i move forward, i <br />arrive ten years behind. i<br />remembering the steps i took, <br />not knowing where they’d one day lead.<br />every movement is a slideshow of<br />yesterday and tomorrow. <br /><br />So, i’ve accrued milestone<br />after milestone, <br />making memories<br />all the way. The<br />nearer i get to <br />the destination, the <br />harder it is to decipher where i’m<br />arriving or where i once was.<br /><br />xv. <br />Earth to Bryan. Come in, Bryan, - we<br />seem to have found ourselves between<br />a rock and a hard place. <br />rally up the forces, kid, and<br />energizes the bunnies,<br />you’ve got to move on, somehow. Somewhere.<br /> <br /><br />Captain Firefly, paging Mr. Moonbeam, are you<br />out there somewhere? We need you to propel<br />upstate, land your dreams to where they began,<br />return to the starting line only to <br />take off once again.<br />na-noo. na-noo<br />everything is evolving at exactly the right time.<br />yeah, you keep telling yourself this.<br /><br />xvi. <br />Fact is, words are good for crossword puzzles.<br />i say this bitterly, knowing my brain<br />teasers have been stories and poems criss-crossed in<br />zebra stripes across a newspaper no one reads.<br />games. dissertations. papers.<br />examinations. they’ve yet to create a<br />reliable standardized test for life which<br />assesses the relationship between work ethic,<br />learning, wisdom, accomplishment and love.<br />dumb, really, if you ask me.<br /><br />Love, though, can be the <br />universal choice “C” - the<br />kryptonite for every super man. That is, of course, unless there’s an<br />e) all the above. If that’s an option, I always choose it. i believe in everything. <br /><br />xvii. <br />Great word. a female dog. a<br />rambunctious, degrading term used on<br />every woman capable of usurping power. one in which,<br />eventually, every XX knows as a<br />nickname. a back stab. a slogan.<br /><br />My guess is you’re right.<br />each time its used it says more about the user who<br />goes for the easy bikini kill rather than the golden matriarch.<br />and for me? i prefer the history behind such a lexicon, admiring the <br />nuances intelligent wimin hold. They know more than me, anyway.<br /><br />xviii.<br />Hamilton, New York, is where my mother was born. She<br />arrived to 24 Milford Street, to An E. and Spence<br />ripley, an only child from a pre-WWII romance. She was<br />destined to be an actress, <br />enjoying her True Blue100s and the azure<br />star-glitter in her eyes.<br />that was before she met my father, and my grandparents<br />yanked her college money away and bought a camp.<br /> <br />All throughout my childhood, we drove to Hamilton<br />nearly every weekend, and would <br />go to The Nautilus for an ice cream cone or<br />entertained ourselves playing baseball in the park. such a <br />little piece of trivia -- like<br />all the stories they told me which made them who they were -- who i am.<br /><br />xix.<br />He doesn’t mean to laugh as much as he does, but<br />everything cracks him up, chuckle, and buckle under-<br />neath his snorting hee-haw sense of humor.<br />did you just see what i just saw? He breaks up<br />even when he should focus, <br />realizing the <br />seriousness of every moment, the <br />omnipotence of ignorance and the<br />narcissicism of a giggle.<br /><br />Jokes on him, on us, he supposes, and he realizes the<br />existence of the whizgigging tear from a <br />smile counts just as much as the <br />saline drip-drop of pain.<br />i’d rather laugh at myself than<br />cry at myself,<br />and that’s the way i’ll be ‘till the fat lady sings (ba dum dum, ch’)<br /><br />xx.<br />I had a dream near November. a<br />scary dream, where i opened my front<br />door and no one was there,<br />and when i turned around, my <br />house was being robbed. they <br />laughed. i turned to concrete.<br /><br />Since then, my monsters have been obvious.<br />people aren’t as good as i want them to be,<br />especially when i watch them from paralysis, and am<br />not able to exist. i<br />saw my family and they saw me.<br />eerie. they wanted to help, but as a fledgling who<br />ran away, they were too far away -- they were home.<br /><br />xxi. <br />Kuz on the night it was discovered that <br />all seagulls morph into <br />scandanavian blondes with beak-lips, and that<br />every great dane takes flight across icelandic fjords ---<br />you were there with Aaron Martinson, mario before senior prom.<br /><br />Just three of us, wound up,<br />eating icecream, cracking jokes, and experiencing the<br />danish truth for a mere fraction of our life. <br /><br />xxii. <br />King Lear wants his daughters to love him -- he<br />needs their approval in his madness as the temptest storms<br />on a dark-lit stage. ah cordelia. <br />u have <br />such loyalty for the<br />everlasting performance.<br /> <br />Royalty<br />and i play the fool part well,<br />coming before the court as the unnamed son and<br />hiding in a hovel of humor, while<br />entertaining tragedy to those i <br />love ---- ah, but this world is just a stage i’m merely going through. <br /><br />xxiii.<br />Lass fried auf erde sein und fang bitte mit mir (*let peace rule, and let it be within<br />an. me -- with God, our father, we are<br />mit gott unserem vater, bruder sind wir alle*. all brothers)<br />or something like that. i was young when we sang it,<br />note for note, in a german class at<br />the junior high i attended. the tune <br /><br />Just sticks in my head <br />and pops out at the most random time<br />no, i can’t sing and my german is rusty, but if<br />everyone is family, i’m sort of into letting peace rule the earth.<br /><br />xxiv.<br />Life. There are those we think insane, who hear the music and dance to the <br />overture in their head -- the crescendo of<br />bass, strings, brass, drums and applause which<br />bounce along hallways, art rooms, stories and youth like a bud lucky cartoon.<br /><br />Eternal music. How can we not spin to the<br />rhythm of Vesudeva’s river<br />in a quest for Om -- Um, and/or another<br />new beginning. And why don’t the others hear this music?<br /><br />xxv.<br />Learning is complicated.<br />oh, they’ve designed this school stuff, and preach how we<br />need thirteen years of compulsory education, how we<br />go because we have to - it’s part of the machinery --<br /><br />Very much like the 30 years of labor<br />invested to the mechanism of a <br />career, before <br />the social security checks kick in, and an<br />opportunity for retirement arrives.<br />ridiculous, really, this<br />interdependence between <br />a system and the self. <br /> <br />xxvi. <br />Monday, i walked to school<br />across the 2nd street bridge leaving my Ford to<br />rest, unmotivated to move.<br />this happens when one loses his keys.<br />i have lost my keys more than i have found them, even if i<br />need them to open doors to my future. All roads are<br />situated ahead with <br />orange cones, speed limits and the <br />nerve-wracking radars policing the pace we live.<br /> <br />All of us are tested<br />as patients to our patience,<br />randomly chosen for practical jokes, and<br />oh, how we’ll laugh. scream. laugh. scream. as the<br />nincompoops on the ledge of stupidity.<br /><br />xxvii.<br />Mosh pit.<br />explain to me how any of this is not a most pit.<br />you wore the dress and combat boots, and<br />eventually dyed your hair sunset orange, so how was any of this not a<br />random stomp of adrenaline, testosterone and adolescence?<br /><br />Man, it’s better than<br />a square dance or the waltzing of debutante divas and their groomed<br />rico-suaves in a promenade of conformity. Only the few will<br />zulu stomp and romp as they fall from birth to death, outside symbolic skyscrapers. <br /><br />xxviii.<br />Magic is hard to believe in, and<br />i’ve been reprimanded for having such hope, and for<br />creating a land of leprechauns, unicorns and gnomes in <br />a soup of brown utopia, even if <br />no one else wished to believe.<br /><br />Fools. Idiots they are, <br />reaching into their drawers for laws, handbooks<br />and routines to make them feel safe from the<br />nirvana they’ll never know.<br />cause they can’t grow, and <br />eventually, they’ll simply disappear, not knowing there was<br />serenity in the wand and the power of the pond they refused to see. <br /><br />xxix.<br />My father’s a Nascar fan.<br />i prefer speeding on my own,<br />lapping along the track,<br />lagging behind the other cars.<br />i even enjoy going the wrong way<br />or racing the roads less traveled, where<br />no frog has been before.<br /> <br />Sometimes, i take my time,<br />hovering the moment as if it is an<br />eternity, stopping to smell the tulips,<br />leaving footprints beside the roses.<br />because these roads are free, i’ve raced, and<br />yes, it has made all the difference.<br /><br />xxx. <br />My sisters and i were thrilled when,<br />on christmas morning, 1981, we<br />received skateboards -- banana logs which barely could hold<br />two feet.<br />our pride came from sliding down the driveway without falling --<br />not just any one could accomplish that.<br /><br />Dad would even try, but he’d fall<br />and all of us would laugh to show him how it was done.<br />nerds. that’s what we were. dorks.<br />neophyte, kids<br />yearning to prove ourselves that we were capable of something. <br /><br />xxxi. <br />Nock Nock. Who’s there? Aardvark!<br />excuse me? Aardvark<br />who? Oh, Aardvark a <br />thousand miles for<br />one of your smiles!<br />nock, Nock! Who’s there?<br /><br />Errrr, it’s Alfie. Oh, yeah? Alfie who?<br />man, Alfie terrible when you leave, and <br />i’ll dedicate every<br />laugh, from now on, to the<br />yucca yucca yucca of the good-natured soul. <br /><br />xxxii.<br />News is on again. some<br />girl stabbed her 15 year <br />old son in a fit of medea-induced madness.<br /><br />This just in: tornados are currently<br />reminding someone, somewhere, that we’re<br />under the thumb of a greater goddess. why make our own<br />news? Why celebrate our slap-happy silliness, when nature’s <br />going to take care of us one day at a time anyway?<br /><br />xxxiii.<br />News flash. The red carpet isn’t for the queen. no. NBC studios is<br />going to sober the rich and ridiculous for interviews so<br />u and i can watch them again and again and again on<br />you-too-are-a-boob-tube gossip gala extravaganza.<br />entertainment tonight needs its footage, and since anna<br />nicole smith imploded, they need a new madonna.<br /> <br />Does it seem odd to you,<br />all this hyperreal Americana?<br />no. he says, i don’t watch much t.v..<br />how can i? i’ve got more important things to do.<br /><br />xxxiv. <br />News update: one of these days i’m <br />gonna turn it off. i’ll wave a magic wand and <br />u will hold an empty glass of water.<br />you will giggle and fidget, and <br />everyone will watch you on the stage, wondering what will be<br />next.<br /> <br />Hocus pocus, miraculous jokus.<br />u will blink once and a goldfish will appear.<br />everyone will be amazed by the magic, but it won’t be worthy of the tabloids.<br /><br />xxxv.<br />On the walls of my history, mistakes<br />are chiseled with invisible ink. i <br />know what they say, but they’re not for<br />everyone to read.<br />sometimes i share them. And<br /><br />Just when i feel my wings can reach the <br />orange blur of life, the feathers catch fire, and i<br />spiral like floating ashes back to earth to<br />highlight the imperceptible poem.<br /><br />xxxvi.<br />Part of me wants to fold my corners, <br />as if i am a piece of origami,<br />sentenced to be twisted into the<br />shape others want me to be.<br />and i feel their <br />fingers bending my sense of<br />individuality, creasing my soul<br />under my heart and wrinkling<br />my mind until it is<br />exactly like theirs. It is<br /> <br />Maddening, and<br />as paper, against scissors and fingernails, there’s a<br />desparate fear of fire and getting wet.<br />i want to fight back,<br />show them how deep a paper cut can go<br />or unravel with the words i<br />need to survive -- like a 1000 cranes of hope. <br /><br />xxxvii.<br />Pods of i’s --<br />eerie really, a wired generation of<br />children tuned out to immediate gratification,<br />keeping vanity higher than Mt. Olympus -- an<br />immediate culture of entitlement.<br />now. now. now. i don’t have the <br />patience to hear what you have to say<br />amidst the thumb-driven phenomenon of scrolling<br />up and down for personal satiation. Millenium<br />go-bots conditioned towards selfishness and<br />hubris. Of course, he laughs,<br /><br />My t.v. is on CBS, and <br />alec baldwin is cussing his daughter for<br />the failure to return a phone call.<br />this is our tomorrow. I’m just as guilty. <br /><br />xxxviii. <br />Perfect. The pace of the race<br />eats away at the grace of my<br />routine. <br />each day, more needs to be done, and<br />i can’t find enough hours in the week to<br />rally the internal forces<br />against the to-do lists.<br /> <br />So, what do <br />i go and do? <br />exactly. i vacuum too hard against a shelf, <br />ramming a twenty pound barbell on my toe,<br />and, ya know, it’s made me even slower. <br /><br />xxxix.<br />Point is,<br />i haven’t figure any of it out yet. yeah, you got to<br />live a little, laugh a little, and <br />love a lot, but the purpose thing beats me. <br />orpheus could bring rocks and trees to movement, but<br />when he went for Eurydice, the underworld took the upper hand.<br /><br />And perhaps, like him, I’ll land in Lesbos with <br />nothing left but my singing head, and the <br />damage caused by Ciconian Maenads,<br />ripping the magic to pieces, while <br />enchanting their missles <br />with poetics and pizzazz.<br /><br />xxxx.<br />Pygmalion.<br />interesting story, huh? how a sculptor<br />neglects the real for a statue he<br />created by his own <br />hands. Perhaps we love most what we’re able to<br />bring into being: a painting, a story, a child. then there’s<br />eliza doolittle, shaw’s <br />creation -- a gutter-snipe- <br />kockney from the streets who was<br /> <br />Created into the very essence of a lady.<br />henry higgins <br />loved the magic of his mind.<br />ornamental fruition from the labor of <br />ego, and no matter where we go, such creation is our only hope.<br /><br />xxxxi.<br />R we more than<br />ants scurrying to reach tomorrow, storing<br />yesterday in our hills? <br /><br />Are we victim to a system’s<br />apparatus which institutionalizes its<br />rituals and norms into <br />our being, and uses us for the<br />naive propogation of its own cause? i pause. yep.<br /><br />xxxxii.<br />R we the lead of pencil<br />escaping into form, and<br />going from thought and<br />arrogant ideas into sketchy<br />nothingness or are we the <br /><br />Creative genius<br />hiding in a box of paint<br />lusting to be found<br />on canvas one day and <br />entering the universe, one doodle at a time?<br /><br />xxxxiii.<br />Sleep. <br />curl up into yourself<br />on any couch, any chair, any wall, any bed, and let<br />the sandman punch your lights out, and <br />the venom take over your body like a spider, man.<br /><br />Peace. be at rest, because<br />existence is more tranquil when<br />entertained from canadian dreams, eh?<br />just kidding. it’s time to wake up.<br /><br />xxxxiv.<br />Since i was a little boy, i <br />had my way within silence, <br />especially when crowds of<br />people hogged my <br />peripheal view of the world. i learned young to<br />entertain myself from the nuthouse, and<br />retreat in my head in order to<br />survive. <br />on such occasions, it’s as if i<br />need the masses, but fear them just the same.<br /> <br />Even when i’m the center of attention,<br />ridiculously chalking my boards with <br />ideas, i want to disappear...<br />creep underneath the cattails<br />and write the stories of those who inspire me to death.<br /><br />xxxxv. <br />Sunshine. It <br />has this way of finding itself through the most<br />intense window panes to light my indoor dust and<br />remind me, we’re a dirty species<br />caught in the sludge of<br />living and forgiving.<br />i can’t imagine life without such rays<br />finding their way under doors, around corners, in the<br />front yard illuminating the pavement i travel.<br /><br />Cause and effect. The<br />orb above makes the herb below, warms the<br />rain as it trickles down these blades of grass, and<br />eats away the soil to bring creation to the seed. stay<br />young. this is the joy which brings life to the world.<br /><br />xxxxvi.<br />Song. <br />i could be wrong, but whether we <br />evolved creationistically or we creationistically evolved,<br />god would want us to sing. <br />even if we couldn’t, he’d want us to embrace the color purple and<br />love for our freedom to be centered in our lungs and soul. Go to the<br /><br />Juke joint, he’d say, and step to the spirit of <br />ancestry, history, reformation, recreation, and revolution. We<br />need to join the choir of all cultures and<br />entertain the hostest with the mostest -- we are so lucky to be alive.<br />see, i may not know church, but i <br />sure know the meaning of the search,<br />and, lord knows, i’m caught singing almost everywhere i go.<br /><br /><br />xxxxvii.<br />So, you’re up at the chalkboard and you hear a<br />mean rip -- i’m talking gas from <br />intense baked beans and white castle. somewhere in <br />this room, you anticipate a kid just exploded, and you<br />hang your head low as you turn around to see who it was.<br /> <br />Dorry ‘bout dat kids, says a braided Barney wearing an<br />orangemen jersey, and<br />making a cross eyed distorted face.<br />in a nutshell, this is teaching. <br />no child is left behind,<br />i find, when they all know how to laugh. i design the <br />quizzes and they<br />unleash the laughter.<br />eh hem. did someone just fart?<br /><br />xxxxviii. <br />There’s a curse to being a poet,<br />u and i both know it, yet philosophically we grow it, and<br />randomly we flow it through our transcendental veins.<br />next day, it still rains, but the sun is much stronger,<br />egotistically, because we hunger for its <br />rays while meandering throughout this mortal maze.<br /><br />Man is born to ask why, <br />interrograte the truth, laugh, feel and <br />cry and through his questions, a poet will learn<br />how to fly, <br />and the flight will recycle, Michael, in the artist’s<br />eye. some are born to follow. others are born to<br />learn from the hollow cave, while burning ideas for the shadows to follow. <br /><br />xxxxix.<br />Very clever there, gooch bandit.<br />all this time you convinced me, dumb<br />noob that i am, about stapling your elbow, the squishyfleshygushy part <br />called the weenis and telling your peers they suffer from weenis<br />envy. <br /><br />Bry, the teacher, loves his words --<br />ran down to biological Berry Line (yes, <br />i like to check my sources)<br />and that’s when I learned i was a <br />numbskull. dj dawgbite makes things up and i believed him. <br /><br />xxxxx <br />When i first arrived,<br />a creek of Beargrass adopted me. i <br />learned my body was the ploy of water to <br />keep recycling itself around the globe and <br />existence is a watershed of h2o -- a <br />river heading towards the sea. <br /><br />Eventually, i learned, <br />my bones and flesh will become fish food -<br />i found solace in this, and <br />learned to giggle that no matter how much i try to <br />yank nature into my mortal control, it will yank me into its own. <br /><br />xxxxxi <br />We can be ferret like, needing to horde objects -<br />i admit it; i tend to glue keepsakes in my scrapbook of<br />life. <br />days. weeks. months. years. and<br />eventually, i get back to the pages of some journal kept long ago to<br />remember the pace will always be out of my control. One day, i’ll<br /><br />Leave behind such books: piles of them which will <br />annoy the poor souls who clean up after me. <br />unbelievable, i think, <br />remembering the years i went through the diaries of<br />ane e. rip. my god, i am her grandson. my poor ancestors. <br /><br />xxxxxii<br />What? he asks me,<br />i haven’t said a thing. I haven’t opened my<br />lips all year. You’re the teacher always<br />lollygagging and yapping, yadda yadda yadda.<br />i know i am, i tell him, but i can hear your mind<br />and it never sits still. it’s so loud.<br />moron, he thinks. idiotic english teacher. doesn’t he know <br />silence is golden?<br /><br />Can’t get the kid to <br />hush up. Comes in first period, causing a<br />racket of blah blah blah blah blah,<br />interupting the silent world with his chatter box.<br />shut up, i tell him, you talk way too much!<br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxxiii.<br />Well, we had terrible seats.<br />i hid my orange fanaticism and future on the third<br />level. i’m a superstitious man, but i <br />learned that when things don’t go my way,<br />i have the right to change my mind. the first half was<br />awesome and those red birds were<br />making ex’cuses all over their dumb, free hall. the<br />second half wasn’t as pleasant.<br /><br />Keef wanted to know how i could cheer both teams<br />enthusiastically. that clown was carrying on like a red and black mad man<br />engulfed in rows of orange and blue. yeah, that moment will<br />forever be tattoo’d in the way things once were -- the way things should always be.<br /><br />xxxxiv.<br />Welcome to real life, we tell them,<br />you are graduating and about to enter the real world. <br />now begins the rest of the journey, and there’s<br />no way to explain what’s to come.<br /><br />Crazy, i say, because hasn’t this world already been real?<br />over the last four years, haven’t we all experienced <br />life as it is or are we supposed to believe it was all our imagination?<br />let me whisper a secret in your <br />ear: this year is as real as it gets --<br />every year is, but it is up to us to make it authentic and alive.<br />now, upon tassle turning, go out there, be-bop and jive.<br /><br />xxxxxv.<br />Yodel. I’ve never tried myself, but you should. Climb<br />onto a city bus and let your lungs go ---<br />hollar “Yodel -leh-hee-hoo”<br />as if it is an urban chant,<br />nestled in the heart of humanity, a<br />necessity to save the galaxy with an<br />eternal chirp-choir cacophony of<br />serenading sing-song. <br /><br />Krazy? then whistle. <br />enter that bus like a hiss-pipe diva,<br />releasing the toot-tootie trill of <br />existence.<br />not a warbler? Then leave the bus a poem. <br /><br /><br />xxxxxvi. curtain call:<br /><br />God, it seems like it was <br />only yesterday i sprawled applications<br />on my parent’s floor, trying to make a <br />decision of where to go and what to <br /><br />become next.<br />you are opening a door, i thought to myself, knowing that<br />everything was evolving at exactly the right<br /><br />time. name. telephone number. declaration of major.<br />origin and date of birth. allergies. medical record.<br />data on your parents educational background.<br />and then, to the post office for a stamp of approval.<br />you are only at that moment once in a lifetime.<br /><br />he understands such snapshots -- how they quickly become memories on<br />early sunday mornings over a cup of coffee, and he<br />laughs that time doesn’t sit still, nor does the <br />language, for what he wants to say, flow easy: <br />o curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane* (*Ah, human cares! Ah futility<br />the silliness of our willingness to be human fools. in the world)<br />omnia iam fient quae posse negabam*- (*everything which I used to say <br />my cave drawings are being left say could not happen, will now happen.)<br />over the fire-lit shadows of a brown cave, and once again i’m <br />reaching for a pen, an adventure, and <br />reminding myself that everything happens for a reason.<br />optimus magister, bonus liber*, and as a teacher, i’m still (*The best teacher is a good<br />writing the pages of my own -- Ore rotundo* (*with full voice). book)Bryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-50476107487164864522006-04-09T13:05:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:07:33.348-07:002006<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi64x7-skIZZPv4WSA1Kw0NAR6GR7zl9Vik5abqDnkVeEwnjZpN0wX9o-592QwXblpm7WDtKi9GR5nqozINOl_S4VjZs0yFj8teK4NNw7hRuPQrOcytBUrqXG2awCBmUNdcL9z2610ZwVY/s1600-h/119_1988Copy.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi64x7-skIZZPv4WSA1Kw0NAR6GR7zl9Vik5abqDnkVeEwnjZpN0wX9o-592QwXblpm7WDtKi9GR5nqozINOl_S4VjZs0yFj8teK4NNw7hRuPQrOcytBUrqXG2awCBmUNdcL9z2610ZwVY/s400/119_1988Copy.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5322785659733432274" /></a><br /><br />2006; When Words Become A Finale<br /><br />(preface)<br /><br />alive, right<br />now, at this moment,<br /><br />i’ll find a way with words<br />nearing the clock of another<br />tick-tocking year. i’ll<br />read the forty stories<br />of individuality from within a semblance of<br />diversity - a scripted we, collective whole --<br />us.<br />cause it’s 2006, and<br />this memory sticks to a life,<br />in a brown swirl of existence,<br />over, above, beyond all that is alive, right<br />now.<br /><br />i.<br /><br />at asakusa temple, in japan,<br />under the pagoda and beyond the tourists,<br />seven hundred doves flew away with<br />the small steps i tried to take.<br />i don’t like to disturb the peace.<br />no, i prefer to let things <br /><br />be. <br />and the sight of all those doves<br />stretching wings beyond anything i could do, made me<br />see the potential of one lifetime, and a promise to do what i could.<br /><br />ii.<br /><br />collegiate thoughts, the<br />intellectual meandering where<br />everyone tries to find an answer and a<br />right choice for the multiple answers of what we’ve<br />read, experienced<br />and understood.<br /><br />bells ring in celebration --<br />each of us larger than the boundaries<br />left to us by ACTs, SATs, and admissions.<br />laughter transcends us all.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />iii.<br /><br />and so i had a dream where a<br />song hovered over international fear. i<br />heard music singing in my sleeplessness,<br />leaving an impact on my daydreams,<br />enlightening the terror that<br />years of history planted.<br /><br />bryan, she taught you how the mind is<br />unbelievable and through<br />leaping through books<br />lends itself towards global understanding.<br />and the lesson came from <br />relatives occupied in the professional<br />deliciousness of writing another ending.<br /><br />iv.<br /><br />because life gives us lemons,<br />ellen degeneres has a<br />cloroxed mustache. humor is in the<br />cacophony of instrumentation<br />and a the mad magic of a musical mind.<br /><br />because life gives us dog crap<br />on our brand new sneakers,<br />living makes us watch our step.<br />this is a key ingredient for<br />existing -- the<br />need for a pooper scooper at times.<br /><br />v.<br /><br />people amaze me,<br />all of us running around<br />timidly lost, yet mystically<br />reflective.<br />i once was a student myself,<br />cns, my high school, that<br />kindergarten year in utica. then<br /><br />binghamton, a <br />university that showed me the doors which could be<br />reached, and ever since, how i’ve preached the<br />need to keep opening them.<br />since you’ve found the doorknob, too,<br />i nod approval your way.<br />decide whether to walk through --<br />eventually, it will all make more sense than my teaching ever did.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />vi.<br /><br />kryptonite paralyzed superman,<br />and yoda had his bad days, too.<br />rudolph was embarrassed by a nose so bright,<br />and so it’s perfectly all right to be you.<br /><br />cry the beloved country marked some to dry tears,<br />and elie wiesel introduced your junior year to fears.<br />shakespeare confused language-upon a petty plight,<br />the perks of being a wallflower says the quiet are all right.<br />lavender had to be pulled from a tree,<br />eleanor rigby says loneliness is me.<br />blanche dubois was overly dramatic,<br />existential harold found maude quite romantic<br />reality searches oceans for bing<br />rivers become siddhartha’s thing, because<br />yesterday was a memory, and today it’s history.<br /><br />vii.<br /><br />jog. run. sprint. walk.<br />on the road to find out, move,<br />simply pace yourself ahead of the<br />horizon, so your shadow<br /><br />can be seen upon sunrise and sunset.<br />have your obsessions,<br />each deserves them,<br />rather it be george bush or the marines,<br />vannah white or snuffaluffagus.<br />eat well. digest. stretch every<br />nerve ending and synapse until you’re exhausted.<br />austin bass is a good enough lass to think about,<br />kneel before the moon before PTSD hyperventilates.<br /><br />viii.<br /><br />january, the letters written to the self are in<br />envelopes, where they will be <br />left until december finds its way again.<br />i wonder where you’ll be when the<br />songs of your senior year will<br />arrive.<br /><br />cause it will come at last,<br />like prom, rights of passage<br />and your mid-thirties before you know it.<br />rituals. patterns. cycles. milestones.<br />karma.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ix.<br /><br />gee, um, what, huh,<br />really? no,<br />are you kidding me?<br />hmmmmm.<br />actually, that’s what <br />my mom said.<br /><br />crazy. whoa. dude.<br />oh my god,<br />not now, sometime later.<br />right now i want to veg<br />oh, and later, <br />yep, i’ll be in that tree - sloth reality.<br /><br />x.<br /><br />lately,<br />i’ve been worried about<br />living my life to its fullest --<br />you never know when the mind might go.<br /><br />crazy, really, our regression.<br />oh, today, it’s my sixteenth birthday, and<br />only yesterday, i was in my twenties, with<br />my stories which are precious to me, these memories, where<br />each tale makes me who i am. not<br />sam, nor a lily of the valley, but a silly ham on my own louisville hill.<br /><br />xi.<br /><br />driving along I-65, i <br />exit towards new albany<br />and can go west on eastern parkway,<br />nearing my neighborhood, and my shelter.<br />the home is where my heart is, <br />even though i have several homes.<br /><br />casually tapping my breaks,<br />understanding it slows my pace down, i<br />notice a woman on the side of the road. she<br />needs money, food and assistance.<br />i am not her<br />nor can i imagine the desperation of her life. i <br />go home, bag a few items of food, drive back and<br />hand it to her.<br />a child from wednesday, <br />made me think, and i donate with a wink he made a difference.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xii.<br /><br />krud. i meant to do that,<br />really, it was on my agenda all along.<br />interesting. it didn’t get done? ugh.<br />so, the hill didn’t disappear.<br />the hill drew bigger. but <br />i had to climb. push that rock ahead.<br /><br />disordered. <br />and a few lessons learned --<br />very good lessons in which<br />i proved to the world i am<br />strong. see my strength and admire.<br /><br />xiii.<br /><br />just the other day,<br />all i could do was look up.<br />my eyes searched the sky<br />arrogantly seeking a<br />life that wasn’t there yet.<br /><br />disappointed? not really. my<br />eyes kept staring at the clouds. it may have been a<br />lonely longing, this fixation <br />at the blue space above, or it may have been<br />heaven i was trying to admire<br />and/or the idea there’s something <br />not quite us, beyond all of this..<br />then it happened. my <br />eyes didn’t deceive me.<br />you became the hawk i was looking for, and you soared.<br /><br />xiv.<br /><br />children.<br /><br />livinglovinglaughingscreaming<br />obnoxious little children,<br />growingdreamingbecoming<br />adults. mature.<br />neophytes leaving the nest.<br /><br />days. <br />i watch them pile up like autumn leaves<br />leaving the tree that gave them <br />life. children are my seasons.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xv.<br /><br />the peculiar story,<br />how it is told,<br />opens a mind to wonder.<br />movies. films. nightly news.<br />advertisements.<br />style.<br /><br />decency. integrity.<br />understanding complexity with dignity.<br />from the way i understand it, the <br />freaky story is told through<br />your dreams, but not all of us are dreamers as good as you are.<br /><br />xvi.<br /><br />since we’re on the subject of luke skywalker,<br />u should probably know that the<br />star lit galaxy is a twinkle in your eye<br />and the force<br />never leaves your fingerprints.<br /><br />even chewbaca, all hairy and all,<br />doesn’t escape such energy --<br />whhhhaaaaaaaaaaaa (that’s what he says)<br />amidst the Ewoks and Hans Solo.<br />right. that’s correct. <br />darth vader wears a mask <br />secretly dreaming to be breaducated by you.<br /><br />xvii.<br /><br />and it was spring. there were<br />monkeys. fireflies. fields of<br />bees aggravating the days of our hives.<br />elephant dung. a white alligator.<br />rhinos in the mood.<br /><br />food, expensive, packed.<br />and biophiliacs racked for moonbeams and zoos.<br />yep. a decent enough excuse to go wild.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xviii.<br /><br />anime. anyway. i am me<br />s e r e n d i p i t o u s l y<br />historically, we are<br />locusts finding our groove<br />escaping the shells that contain us.<br />isn’t it crazy how weird it all is?<br />gaining insight by becoming fiction,<br />having success by portraying the past?<br /><br />for i danced once, a mild waltz<br />learning a simple step a<br />young lady trained to teach.<br />now, the acting’s over, time for a speech.<br />nevermind. i forgot what i was going to say.<br /><br />xix.<br /><br />pretty crazy, huh?<br />all the energy and work <br />that goes into a moment?<br />ridiculous amounts of the spastic:<br />itineraries, requests, and pleading our<br />cause, cuz we just want the best...<br />is there anything wrong with that?<br />are we fooling ourselves?<br /><br />hectic. we see the hurdles<br />and we leap over them, turning around to<br />rally all those behind us to catch up. we could<br />ditch them, let them find their own way around...<br />eventually they’ll make it, we can hope,<br />soul-searching in the shadows of <br />those who tirelessly know how to leap.<br />yep, it’s crazy, huh?<br /><br />xx.<br /><br />tonight, i’ll be performing a piece i call<br />awkward. it’s a theatrical number where<br />bryan will attempt to control his wandering <br />i, and will lose weight without trying.<br />the cast will include danish reggae singers,<br />hauntingly looking like seagulls,<br />and it will be standing room only.<br /><br />hold on. no drama.<br />only a four letter word called hope.<br />direction. you’ve got to have <br />gigantic words to speak, back up singers, lights --<br />everyone has different reasons for that...before the<br />smoke will clear. nudge nudge. there’ll be applause.<br /><br />xxi.<br /><br />being young, they say is wasted<br />enchantment, spent on young<br />neophytes <br />naive of what lies ahead.<br />i had a plan though, where<br />everything i was warned about would be<br /><br />harvested in the palm of my hand.<br />oh, and i suppose i chuckle some,<br />realizing my luck, and that ants work towards<br />nirvana, while grasshoppers don’t winter as well.<br /><br />xxii.<br /><br />characters are what make a story matter.<br />all a writer needs is their own, unique angle.<br />right? so, i’ve got this precious child in <br />love with the world, okay, and she’s energetic...<br />you’ve got see her, and sometimes she tans,<br /><br />just a little bit, to become bronze,<br />and she carries this zebra folder, while<br />caring deeply for all her friends, and she values<br />knowledge...not just textbooks, but the deeper stuff, and <br />sometimes she yodels in class and impersonates her family<br />or curls up on a couch and hides in a hoody...<br />now that is a character, and i couldn’t write her better myself.<br /><br /><br />xxiii.<br /><br />and then the night came where i<br />left, turned a tassel and never<br />looked behind me.<br />i had that internal drive --<br />sadness wrapped in tightly held fists<br />organized and compact,<br />needing only my own two feet to move on.<br /><br />knowledge and wisdom soon followed, and now an<br />eternity of experience has<br />nestled nicely in the luggage i carry.<br />next, tomorrow, i can’t predict, but i <br />expect it will blossom upward, my <br />yesterdays fertilizing the future.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxiv.<br /><br />soul. there is one inside me,<br />although who i answer to<br />ricochets between spiritual moments<br />and the frustration of mortal doubt.<br />heaven, they say, can be in this<br /><br />life, at this moment, right now.<br />i trust in that religion,<br />temporarily losing sanity when<br />the expectations of perfect bliss<br />rampages against my inevitable flaws.<br />everyday, however, i try, i<br />learn from my mistakes,<br />letting the lives of others model a better way.<br /><br />xxv.<br /><br />been doodling again,<br />reaching into my book bag for<br />instruments: pens, pencils, markers for<br />diagnosing a blank page with art.<br />gee, that doesn’t look like me<br />even though i scribbled a strabismus<br />tip toeing towards those love handles.<br />that’s right. it looks like a buddha, grimace, an<br />elephant with hairy legs and bad teeth.<br /><br />let’s sketch a background, an<br />orange couch, a banana tree,<br />green grass around my ankles and a big footed<br />sasquatch to fall in love with.<br />dang. did i just cuss? my bad.<br />oh, i drew an octopus in my ear....<br />now all it needs is a signature...self portrait, complete.<br /><br /><br />xxvi.<br /><br />elvira had a rep, you see, <br />ran around on her family stealing<br />ice cream, dippen’ dots, from cracked-up<br />carnivals and frozen freezer aisles of walmart.<br /><br />luck wasn’t with her, though, and<br />oh, the po po locked her up, but<br />man, she could read. her literacy was <br />awesome: plato, harlequin romances, Mad Libs.<br />xtremely intelligent, locked up wanting to play dodgeball.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxvii.<br /><br />and all eyes were watching god,<br />renting the body for the minute where<br />it had the chance to be alive. the<br />child looked upwards, too,<br />awkwardly awaiting the moment ahead.<br /><br />lord, she said, i’ve been good to <br />you, honest, faithful, hard working,<br />on my best behavior. all i ask, she spoke<br />nervously, is for your understanding and your <br />strength. there was silence, but the child knew she could smile.<br /><br />xxviii.<br /><br />ava maria. i heard this for the first time when i was a<br />nerd in high school. the italians were everywhere in my<br />neighborhood, and on gray days, moms were known to<br />announce through windows, Avaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Mariiiaaaaaaaaaa.<br /><br />now, when clouds pile upon clouds and the rain<br />eventually falls, i think about that music, how my<br />people of yesterday new something i was too <br />underaged to understand. it’s the sound <br />that song makes, when produced by musical magic, which reminds me<br />everything is everything for a reason.<br /><br />xxix.<br /><br />all of us are at war, really, battling, protecting a<br />nest of comfort we hide deep within our hearts.<br />new generations and old generations share <br />a history, being written, already told.<br /><br />nine months later, another chapter begins the<br />imagination and dreams of another life.<br />creation is a miracle, and the struggle becomes the<br />kindred spirit of brotherhood. sisterhood.<br />each of us a part of a family<br />reaching beyond boundaries to the next level of the<br />soul. we fight. we flex our muscles. we attack.<br />oh, but the truth is, we seek our mothers. we<br />need the comfort of their arms and their love.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxx.<br /><br />bravado. paris hilton. the pose.<br />rambunctious scared apes we <br />are, flexing our inhibitions so<br />no one can see how human we “be”<br />diversity is a word, but deep down,<br />on the platform of personal truth,<br />not a single being can escape.<br /><br />people fascinate me. <br />and that’s why they need to be policed,<br />reeled back down to reality.<br />i was born, i’ll live, and i’ll die ... i already<br />see through the facade. that’s where my quality is.<br /><br />xxxi..<br /><br />reached into my pocket,<br />and pulled out a wad of twenties,<br />you got a size ten in this shoe. they’re on sale, with commission, <br /><br />x2x100 divided by the inevitable when we all go broke. barefoot.<br /><br />xxxii.<br /><br />jumpin’ through a line to buy a tie,<br />over a few streets at the value of a city, another<br />store, the pregnant cashier asked me what was wrong.<br />everything i told her, but i’ll be okay.<br />please just let me go, i thought, don’t<br />hover over my mood.<br /><br />she grabbed my hand. she said,<br />honey, it’ll be all right. <br />everything is going to be just fine,<br />really. i guess i needed that.<br />my course along the galaxy had me<br />arrogantly preoccupied with the<br />necessity of only me. i thanked her and walked away more free.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxiii.<br /><br />just one more question,<br />only this, so if <br />shakespeare didn’t really write all his plays<br />how did he become a literary giant, the bard of<br /><br />stratford upon avon, and the master of the globe?<br />they love him, i answer, like those who worship<br />elvis presley. we like to believe in the rebirth of the<br />phoenix, and that such mastery will exist in us. it’s called idolatry.<br />he wasn’t satisfied with my response.<br />elizabethans knew ol’ Will and<br />now some scholars claim the playwright was a fruit.<br />so they say.....so some care. I ask, does it really matter?<br /><br />xxxiv.<br /><br />jade, a shade of pain and then you die.<br />on my first trip overseas, I listened to <br />seal a lot. he had these<br />harvested facial scars and that song sang to me.<br /><br />such violence, you’d think, the whole world’s coming to an end.<br />that was what the judybats recorded, where they<br />entertained me in my sentra driving in collegiate thought.<br />voice. guitar. song. soul.<br />every generation bears the seed of its own destruction.<br />now, that’s not music. it’s aristotle. <br />song repairs the heart, where philosophy tears it apart. poor kurt.<br /><br />xxxv.<br /><br />dang. they got an atari system. man<br />oh man, they must be <br />rich. colecovision?<br />i can’t believe it, donkey kong<br />and q-bert.<br />nintendo. super mario brother,<br /><br />that’s getting over my head<br />and progress left me in the dust.<br />you are of the magical generation, where<br />letting fingers control a character’s fate<br />overreaches the books and stories i believe in.<br />really, i’m jealous. all the good toys were invented too late.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxvi.<br /><br />hacking. in my day, <br />it’s what my grandfather did,<br />evacuating his lungs from camel smoke.<br />now, it’s a keyboard game and<br /><br />the truth is, it’s better than ping pong.<br />ripleys, believe it or not,<br />a faster life is upon us.<br />next stlp meeting will be tuesday.<br /><br />xxxvii.<br /><br />my parents told me good things come to<br />all who wait. i was patient,<br />remembering their advice as the<br />years piled up.<br /><br />very interesting words to tell a fat kid, but<br />i stacked away the <br />coins in piggy banks i’ve never seen.<br />krazy, but maybe they’re right, and<br />even if they’re not, i heard them.<br />retirement will come soon enough.<br />yes, i do this so that one day i can say i waited.<br /><br />xxxviii.<br /><br />phases of the moon,<br />elliptical revelations <br />that remind me<br />everything has its patterns. (but bryan, i <br />really, weally, wheeeeelllllyyyy need to pee).<br /><br />very well, then. (you may pee).<br />oh, and if you run into international<br />evil doers, terrorists who speak the<br />language of durka durk durka.....remember you <br />know my sign of distress. when my <br />eyes bulge and i wag my arms above my head,<br />raise your hand again, and ask, bry, can i please go to the bathroom?<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxix.<br /><br />all i can think about when i <br />near amalfi drive, is <br />now what? where am <br />i coming from and where am i going? does<br />everyone wonder such things?<br /><br />we, the transient beings.<br />east. west. <br />south. north<br />the compass pointing the way to where we should<br />meander. we see where we need to go,<br />over there, back here, perhaps along the <br />river. a ferryman might take us across, but not<br />every individual will understand how he rows.<br />life isn’t as easy as the lessons<br />a teacher may chalk on a board.<br />no. wisdom comes from outside these walls,<br />down the street a bit and to the left. no right. somewhere out there.<br /><br />xxxx.<br /><br />a showcase comes upon <br />my little world each and every year.<br />a project, which culminates<br />never quite as i expected.<br />days pass. pages are turned,<br />and there’s always another book on its way.<br /><br />we, the readers, find<br />intelligence in such narration,<br />leaving no child behind at the<br />destruction of our own personal race.<br />eventually it adds up, <br />reaches deep down and provides me with more wonder.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />post-face.<br /><br />this is the curtain call, of sorts,<br />where we close the tapestry,<br />open it up and take a bow.<br /><br />this is another part of a phase, which leaves a<br />haze on my exhaustion from another year.<br />ovation. standing. applause. this is<br />ubiquitous, everything and nothing at once.<br />see, for you it’s a once in a lifetime event<br />and together, you’ve endured --<br />not necessarily like others before you, but<br />different is good, and look where you <br /><br />are. at this moment, right<br />now almost robed and tasseled to the<br />deliciousness of a ceremony celebrating you.<br /><br />strange. in 1990<br />i was allowed to stand up, wave, and an<br />x was checked by my name. i didn’t matter.<br /><br />graduation was a central, new york conveyor belt <br />of getting another year <br />over and sending us out to the lakes with<br />dreams we’d become someone.<br /><br />boy, it goes fast.<br />yep, fourteen years later, i<br />entertain myself with a poem. and i wonder, who have i become?<br /><br /><br /><br />b.r. crandallBryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-19458012848341100772005-04-09T13:09:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:09:44.018-07:002005Two Zero Zero Five, My Final Thoughts<br /><br />i.<br /><br />knowledge is life. wisdom. a<br />river which flows throughout us and<br />i am a bridge<br />sustaining yesterday with<br />the memory of today.<br />everyday’s a lesson, i have learned,<br />needing the structure i’ve become.<br /><br />am i touching <br />down, planted in concrete<br />and able to withstand the<br />madness and serenity of passing traffic? <br />sure i am. i stand and i hold on. i hold on.<br /><br />ii.<br /><br />saw another movie with its insight cabled<br />tightly in a two hour twist of ego.<br />eventually, filmed, i was wrapped in my own<br />victimization of hubris between the commercials.<br />entertainment. angles. cinematic grammar<br />needing the same old stories told once ...<br /><br />again. over and over again.<br />nbc.cbs.abc.pbs.mtv, etc. the<br />dynamics of hollywood empires not fallen nor<br />erased by its innocence and<br />rearrangement of reality<br />so, for a moment, we matter.<br />on the t.v. a tale is told, tonight, a dance in the sun.<br />new years yet to come -- recycled., like reruns.<br /><br />iii.<br /><br />he likes to read. <br />always has, until guilt sets in and he<br />needs to get outside -- live the life<br />necessary to be written onto page.<br />and, he likes to journal<br />how everything/nothing/this matters<br /><br />all he craves, though, is a good story. how the<br />race of being human catches up, and <br />bobo’s burden of the ring<br />arrives even after gollum gets his way.<br />unbelievable. that’s how these poems<br />go. so, for a little while, <br />he/she/they/we can grow.<br /><br /><br />iv.<br /><br />by now, you know that somewhere, over the<br />rainbow, there only exists more doors to the<br />imagination.<br />they each are painted in <br />the spirit that moves you,<br />atlases to the moment the journey begins -<br />navigation-voyage-flight-movement.<br />you are the <br /><br />artist with the brush,<br />randomly pinpointing the<br />brilliance, radiance, song and dance,<br />under the framework of sky,<br />creating the lines, space, a mood on a <br />kid’s face.<br />lovelaughterlivingleaving-<br />everyone must exit the door.<br /><br />v.<br /><br />all of us are made of earth:<br />man, woman, child<br />awkward forms of bone, muscle,<br />nerves, and mud, carcassed beings<br />deep within the<br />aggravation of its harnessed cravings.<br /><br />birth begets rebirth begets being born again,<br />over and over<br />arriving as dirt, dust and<br />knowledge. there’s always an end.<br /><br />rivers teach this: Ohio, good morning,<br />i am alive<br />going along with this rhythm, while i have it,<br />growing into what i’m to become,<br />sustaining this body until it must be returned.<br /><br />vi.<br /><br />in the tree, walnuts. never claimed to be otherwise,<br />admit it, odd, peculiar, seedlings they are, pink elephants<br />not meant to fit in all family trees.<br /><br />but through the leaves the sun is focused,<br />on those of us pushing the boulders uphill,<br />living to fulfill dreams which<br />grow in the garden of a hip-hop, flip-flop life. the<br />evolution takes time, like the music in our heads,<br />racing - a squirrel who plays chicken on the highway of life, but prevails.<br /><br /><br /><br />vii.<br /><br />look. evil is subjective.<br />i mean, look at alice.<br />nerd. dork. a word that rhymes with witch.<br />ditch. electric chair. flip the <br />switch and <br />everyone goes happy.<br />yodel lai he hoooooooo.<br /><br />crap. i forgot to add the fabric softener,<br />and it’s made for a womyn, strong enough for a man.<br />racist. sexist. bigot. crackerjack cheese puff.<br />tally the anxiousness, the pace of these words<br />eagerly awaiting the reader to <br />run away with the punch line (which is usually bryan)<br /><br />viii.<br /><br />moo cow. p.u. cow. pow wow<br />aglow now,<br />singing in the field of penguins.<br />one. two. three. four.<br />nab your tentacles on the floor.<br /><br />cot two cot two, giddyup giddyup, giddyup, get down.<br />oh, no, mr. bill, not another bamboozled<br />xenophobic, claustrophobic hypochondriac. quack quack quack.<br /><br />viii&1/2<br /><br />this is my curse. i <br />reach to be my best, excel, <br />and while almost at the sun, my wings<br />viciously catch fire and i am <br />icarus once again.<br />sucks to be me.<br /><br />cause the next day, upon landing in aches and pains, i’ll<br />reach the sun once again, or<br />at least i think i will, but won’t.<br />flying is for the birds, but<br />the dream is for humanity.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />ix.<br /><br />look. it’s purely coincidental that<br />all of us are swirling in this batter of uneaten<br />cookie dough. eggs. flour. sugar,<br />even the vanilla extract and chocolate chips,<br />you know what i mean?<br /><br />don’t know what i mean? okay.<br />all of us happen to be in this bowl, right,<br />with all these other ingredients, totally random,<br />so we can taste good once cooked, together,<br />on some pie rack the “man” created for us. but<br />nope. it won’t work. they’ll forget to turn the oven on and eat us raw.<br /><br />x. <br /><br />quazy how the need to go fast<br />usually ends up in a ticket, <br />or some crazy internet scandal<br />causing us to lose money. yet i say<br /><br />drive fast. make bets. attempt the <br />impossible and when you lose, play innocent.<br />now is the only moment that matters.<br />how would your grand kids feel if you didn’t have stories for them to learn?<br /><br />xi.<br /><br />blink of an eye, summer’s here<br />leaving another generation of imagination attempting the<br />aggravation of the real world intervention.<br />i hate to tell them that it stinks, but winona ryder did star in<br />reality bites. ‘though, once you get past the whining and the<br /><br />depression and the angst and the drama,<br />obviously all that is left is happiness, awe and weally whacky <br />wonder about how one earth could have such<br />delicious everything underneath forgotten rocks and<br />living beneath soil only to <br />evolve into exactly what it’s supposed to be. it’s not just black and white.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xii.<br /><br />jelly on scones. blueberry pancakes. scrambled <br />eggs, bacon toast at a diner of old lady waitresses.<br />rhubarb pie. rice soup. poached salmon.<br />elephant ears at the fair, hot cinnamon rolls,<br />monkey bread, christmas cookies, potato salad,<br />yogurt on top of angel cake and strawberries.<br /><br />french fries, tator tots. sushi and wasabi.<br />each bite, a new discovery of what the palate <br />rationalizes into flavor, taste, aesthetic and mood.<br />rarely, does the culinary artist within grow, but with<br />you...you have every right to smack your lips and return to the kitchen.<br /><br />xiii.<br /><br />my example is lunacy, i suppose --<br />always manic in a drive to accomplish<br />the impossible, on a mission to <br />hang the crescent moon on heaven’s nail so<br />everything, for a little while, anyway, <br />will be serene, calm, so i can exhale with<br /><br />fuzzy wuzzy was a bear<br />over and over again<br />with a smile on my face at how<br />little it takes for me to believe in <br />everything you work for. i’ve got your back as you<br />reach the heavens to hang the better life on that same nail.<br /><br />xiv.<br /><br />random they accuse me of being, an<br />idiot insane on the insanity of the inaneness,<br />crazy as a loon at a pow wow,<br />after the cowboys have rode their horses.<br />randomrandomrandomrandom,<br />doing/saying/being whatever whim comes to my<br />overly anxious brain.<br /><br />fudge. total fudge. i’m focused<br />on what really matters and that is everything.<br />x-actly my point. everything is confusing.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xv.<br /><br />knowing what i know now<br />entertains me, only because i can<br />laugh at how stupid i once was.<br />singing songs are like this. <br />earlier, i could sing “i’ve been working on the railroad”.<br />yesterday, i could sing my a,b, c’s.<br /><br />growing up, i got a walkman<br />and tuned everyone out. I became a<br />recluse in black clothing, webbed in internal<br />realities, because songs helped me to survive.<br />eventually, i began to listen to different tunes, though.<br />the melodies of great symphonies before me,<br />taught me wisdom and i began singing my own song. i say, “sing”.<br /><br />xvi.<br /><br />maybe there are werewolves<br />and they go bowling for lawn gnomes,<br />running away when the robins start to sing.<br />i don’t know. i live with a dog who<br />sleeps and for entertainment, rolls over to<br />sleep some more. i wish she was <br />as entertaining as a bowling werewolf would be.<br /><br />great. now i’m all sad that my canine<br />exists uselessly, only to flip-flop in dead possum,<br />not to howl at the moon nor roll gutter balls past<br />the jolly little dwarves at the end of the alley.<br />really, my world could be more interesting<br />yelling, “Juliette, don’t eat the Nisse.”<br /><br />xvii.<br /><br />superficial what?<br />and with std’s?<br />man, promiscuous little boogers<br />attend that school.<br />now, why doesn’t everyone go <br />there? i mean, if it’s the greatest, brightest, best, ever,<br />how is it we’re not all there.<br />are we the dumbest, dimmest and least?<br /><br />hmmmm. i sort of like that.<br />all of us can exhale now, knowing how<br />little we are and unimportant. it’s too bad we know how to<br />laugh.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xviii.<br /><br />reaching for the moon one day, i heard someone<br />yelling it didn’t belong to me.<br />are you a nincompoop, the voice screamed, <br />no one, no one is to touch the sky!!!<br /><br />how sad, i thought,<br />as i tucked my arms back to their side.<br />my intentions were good and i planned on<br />sending the moon back in its place.<br />life is too grande not to have a taste of<br />every opportunity which arises, so if they <br />yell at you, make sure you at least grab a star.<br /><br />xix.<br /><br />duh. um. hmmm. <br />aaaaaahhh...ugh. thud<br />now, that is a performance. it’s called<br />a man trying to articulate his passion while<br />hanging his memories on a nail. it’s a<br /><br />vietnamese folk tale. i think it was<br />you who shared it with me, once.<br /><br />hhmmmm. uggghhhhh, duh,<br />ahhhhhhhh, whack.<br />never mind. that was another story, when<br />no one was around to see my curtain call,<br />and when the velvet robes were pulled shut before I <br />had a chance to bow. God, I hate the theater. Such drama. la de da.<br /><br />xx.<br /><br />doobie doobie doobie doo<br />aardvark, cow and ostrich poo,<br />voo do vat vith vu? woo woo<br />i dooooooooooooon’t believvvvve it,<br />dabid hobby -- it’s not even dursday.<br /><br />hippetty hoppity tru’ dat,<br />and sing along with this poetic skat, <br />rapping at the mic, with mickey the rat,<br />voo do vat vith vu? woo woo <br />eccentric language stew, yep, that’s totally<br />you. (mecha lecka hi, mecka hiney ho -- yo)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxi.<br /><br />jugs. that’s what they do to<br />unruly guys at st. x. <br />see, they do the crime<br />they pay the time<br />imprisoned by jugs.<br />naughty naughy, tsk tsk.<br /><br />horribly evil it is to stand as a t-shape<br />idiot with two jugs in each grip. They must<br />go crazy, in heavenly pain, aching in<br />god’s wrath that thee hath<br />sinned. ouch.<br /><br />xxii.<br /><br />first it was betty crocker.<br />ran up with a recipe for<br />entertaining the heart -- she<br />didn’t know about L’il Debbie, did she?<br /><br />how about Sara Lee<br />or Mrs. Butterworth?<br />does the CEO tell all the<br />girls about Silver’s or Lil Ace’s<br />eight secret ingredients on being a <br />stud? Lady’s man...Lady’s man!!<br /><br />xxiii.<br /><br />nobody knows<br />all there is to know in this<br />madness<br /><br />however, when the wind blows<br />under our wings we must fly.<br />you were given gifts to use wisely.<br />now is the time to<br />hatch from your senior cocoon and live.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxiv.<br /><br />my grandmother taught me to sing the songs<br />all around me. look at the trees, she said, the<br />rivers, the lakes, the sky, the clouds and<br />the kingdom of life.<br />i have tried to live as she did, and<br />need her memory in the back of my mind,<br />always knowing these eyes are watching god, too.<br /><br />just like zora, i need a world of story. i need words<br />on paper to make sense of it all.<br />never forget the color purple<br />existing in your heart.<br />sing the song of poets and smile your smile forever.<br /><br />xxv.<br /><br />little things matter most<br />in the end.<br />born into <br />body,<br />you must internalize the magic, the<br /><br />karma, <br />never forgetting the blues<br />oscillating in the accomplishment of dialectics.<br />ubiquitous infinity<br />saves all of us in the <br />end. but this is only the beginning.<br /><br />xxvi.<br /><br />jokes on us,<br />each and every day because<br />riddles bring nothing but<br />ego to the punster.<br />madness, the hubris<br />yearning to pull a fast one even quicker.<br /><br />life has the last laugh, though,<br />and soon, once again, the eyes leak,<br />never confident of tomorrow’s regrets<br />eventually settling within us all.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxvii.<br /><br />my instinct is to play drums while driving.<br />i’ve never had a lesson, no, but there’s something about song which<br />causes my hands to find the steering wheel in a pit-pat<br />holy experience. at times, my rhythm is<br />awkward, but so am i, and i have hard time with my<br />ears. what sounds good to me is purely<br />ludicrous, but i play anyway.<br /><br />laugh, anyway.<br />i sing, too. sometimes with windows open, other times<br />closed. and when i play, i wonder <br />how others view me from their roads. i keep the <br />volume loud. why? why not. when i’m tapping<br />at the internal drum kit of my soul, as<br />ridiculous as it is, i’m making music. that’s all that matters.<br /><br />xxviii.<br /><br />just yesterday i arrived,<br />early, in a toyota tercel i named joan popper, my <br />simple blue traveler which brought my world of books and<br />story to this land of splooievilled kenyucky.<br />i have no regrets, either, because somehow i learned to<br />earn this -- this moment, so quickly shared.<br /><br />my travels have changed some<br />and gas prices have climbed, but still i find myself<br />going, moving, being, seeing, loving the road ahead.<br />each day i accelerate, sister,<br />each day the wear and tear of age brings me closer to what really matters.<br /><br />xxix.<br /><br />so, i’ve been thinking a lot about loyalty and trust.<br />every man, and woman, must do this eventually,<br />arguing, internally, about what is right and wrong. we<br />need the constancy of sincerity.<br /><br />mahaffey has this. he’s truth,<br />always appearing one way, but providing another,<br />holding on to his beliefs, morals<br />and convictions of what’s best in this world.<br />for some, they missed out on this pillar, this<br />friend who’d have your back during the greatest storm.<br />every now and then, you meet someone who’s a good guy.<br />yes, sean, you’re the good guy and i hope it delivers to you what it should.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxx.<br /><br />last year, i was in a trinity of disbelief: doubt, discouragement<br />and leaving. the easiest answer was to leave the <br />madness when all around me the insanity prevailed.<br />i have wanted to leave more than once,<br />catching back up to the life i once lived,<br />having the bliss created from memory<br />and living in my wigmore hill past,<br />especially when another year<br />lashes goodbyes against the chalkboard.<br /><br />my instinct is to dive back under the lily pads,<br />causing a mild tsunami <br />kicking only the cattails around. this is my<br />nature, and i want to hide,<br />intrinsically,<br />going underneath, instead of above.<br />however, it’s good to stay still because here<br />the greatest lessons are learned. i know this now.<br /><br />xxxi.<br /><br />a-b-c-<br />d, 1-2-3<br />all the spirit belongs to me.<br />i must shout and i must scream<br />remembering the purpose is to dream.<br /><br />m & m’s, with skittles, too,<br />creating spirit is up to you.<br />perhaps a dance, perhaps a cheer,<br />how the individual matters, <br />each and <br />every year.<br />tippety-toppity, trippity, toe<br />embrace the self, put off the foe.<br />reach above and touch the moon,<br />sing the magic of your tune.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxii.<br /><br />my first dog was dusty. my sisters and<br />i used to swim with him at loch lebanon, until his<br />chasing of water skiers wore the padding from his paws.<br />he had a stroke, though - only could use his left leg.<br />early the next summer, my sister brought home tizzephina<br />louise. i suppose she’s the closest thing (he <br />laughs to himself) to this man’s best friend i’ve <br />ever had. <br /><br />moons changed through phases and<br />onward i marched. tizzy saved my sister’s life and<br />no one can take that back.<br />that day, i suppose i woke up, once again,<br />galloping one step closer to the man i am today.<br />oh, and now i have good ol’ pinhead, <br />my third.<br />everyone likes to make fun of her --<br />really, she’s quite an odd dog, <br />yet, i love having her around. dog spelled backwards is god, after all.<br /><br />xxxiii.<br /><br />jelly. honey. something sweet<br />or full of sugar. that’s what pooh likes.<br />not tigger, nor eeyore (which <br />i tend to be), but good ol’ winnie,<br />catching some of the bee stings, cuz he’s<br />always willing to work for what he wants.<br /><br />maybe that’s the secret<br />of what it’s all about. we<br />need to know what tickles our belly and<br />take all the chances necessary to<br />get there. not all are<br />on the way. <br />many don’t work <br />enough, don’t have that child within<br />reaching past the hives thrown their way.<br />you don’t pooh pooh, you win.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxiv.<br /><br />koi. you knew i’d begin that way,<br />having the first line bring orange brilliance<br />along the murky poem -- you knew i’d<br />need to use those three letters in simplicity, not merit,<br />glowing larger than the universe.<br /><br />god, buddha, maude. the one -<br />i know you know the words i need to say<br />and i know you know i can only imply them.<br /><br />nirvana is what we make this life and that’s why i decide to<br />give, to help, to search for the best in everything i know<br />until i die, . why. it’s just bry.<br />yearning to tackle the insecure <br />egomania a little, sigh, too much. it is time<br />now. go upstream holding the sun and moon upon your back. swim.<br /><br />xxxv.<br /><br />my ancestors make me a mutt.<br />i come from ukranian eggs,<br />celtic stories, english pubs, while<br />holding german oompa oompa tales<br />everywhere i go. no, i’ve never<br />lived in vietnam, nor do i sing the<br />lullabies a generation of immigrants have<br />entertained in american dreams.<br /><br />no, i’m not a pure bread, either. i’m more a <br />garbled basquiat painting of color and<br />unbelievable randomness that works.<br />yet, i’m human,<br />evolving from everything my progenitors <br />needed to survive, and like you, i’m alive for them.<br /><br />xxxvi.<br /><br />very first day, the woman warrior proved her worth.<br />all of us cracked a smile, seeing another<br />nguyen follow in rather large footsteps<br />navigated and hung before her.<br />your worth was known early on.<br /><br />now, i nod my head, trusting in the<br />gigantic being you’ve become. you’ve <br />undergone this battle, this four-year fight, and<br />you’ve proven your craftsmanship with sword.<br />every one in town bows their head and will<br />never forget your vietnamese power.<br /><br /><br /><br />xxxvii.<br /><br />creativity is born with the passion of<br />loving and living in a blanket of words.<br />art is a part of writing. writers must<br />reach deep into their supplies, utilizing every<br />item available in a new way that lets the<br />soul<br />scream. i’ve<br />always seen the muses screaming inside of you.<br /><br />part of the creation, though, comes from<br />awkward surroundings, challenging the <br />reality you think you know,<br />diving head first into your <br />opposites until they’re synonymous with who you currently are. <br />now, go out there and write. write and make fun of yourself the entire way.<br /><br />xxxviii.<br /><br />redheads. it’s not so much they<br />are hot under the <br />collar as it is they <br />harness so much passion within<br />and don’t know how to use it all the time.<br />eventually, though, some of them<br />live long enough to tame the<br /><br />phoenix. <br />and then, and then, ah man, the<br />rebirth, reformation and renaissance is delicious. <br />krispy kreme donuts, delicious. full of flavor, like black and white film.<br /><br />xxxix.<br /><br />returning home is the secret of it<br />all. when away from what <br />you knew was last week, the intricate<br /><br />particulars become more familiar.<br />on the occasion i travel back,<br />going over the speed limit<br />gaining momentum with the miles,<br />every landmark begins to crystalize,<br />narrowing in on the importance of what once was.<br />bygones will be bygones, and flashbacks will<br />oscillate from neuron to neuron --<br />remember when we went to brown --<br />god, it seemed like just yesterday.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxx.<br /><br />sometimes, i can’t harness the<br />crazy energythougtsmovementsideas going<br />on in my head, either. i<br />try to focus, but become blurry in ocean fog,<br />too quick for my own memory<br /><br />rapid roads of good intentions are<br />our best traits -- brothers --<br />some people don’t get it. how in<br />every minute of motion we exhibit, we<br />retain a zillion thoughts/movements/actions never to be shared.<br /><br />xxxxi<br /><br />how many of us have learned the<br />art of giving....of wrapping the self<br />naturally for the benefit of others.<br />not many i suppose.<br />all of us are so selfish with<br />how important we think our time actually is.<br /><br />slow down, i say. find the moments on the<br />clock to pause and commit those random acts of kindness,<br />helping others so that one day, <br />under the darkest skies of their existence, they too, can<br />selfishly give back to this world. we all<br />take so much for granted: sunrises, ladybugs,<br />early spring, snowfall, an interesting new friend.<br />really, it’s quite easy, but we make it more difficult.<br /><br />xxxxii.<br /><br />learn. learn even when chalk isn’t on the board.<br />utilize this moment, now, to think, to appreciate that<br />knowledge transcends the ridiculousness of school and <br />each second of your day is the lesson you need to learn.<br /><br />school, you see, is a gimmick. it’s a tool to babysit<br />children who are brats, who need teachers outside of<br />having the bricks of k - 12 game-play.<br />really, everything i needed to recognize to grow<br />existed from the hours on the sundial when <br />no one was offering me a test, a quiz or a paper to be<br />graded. perhaps the greatest lesson to learn is how<br />each person deserves respect, has a soul. what we hate in others, i<br />recall, is something we truly despise about ourselves.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxiii.<br /><br />and yesterday, while pretending to be a hoosier, i had to<br />laugh. see, these froads came to my door and <br />explained that they were cousins to the Nisse, but they had<br />x-ray vision, which superman stole once upon a time.<br /><br />so, i asked, you’re kin to lawn gnomes?<br />cousins, they repeated, we’re cousins....<br />how else is a monk suppose to get away with<br />uncommitted night screenings of buster keaton. they then <br />laughed. the froads laughed at my stupidity and the <br />zillion romantic notions i have for life -- a figment of their imagination.<br /><br />xxxxiv..<br /><br />when we run, we live. the<br />intensity of the pavement.<br />lung inhalation, perspiration -- the<br />limitations of muscle and mind<br /><br />scrapes everything into nothing,<br />leaving nothing, exhaling<br />into everything.<br />do it, the right thing, &<br />earn this chance you have<br />running along this trail.<br /><br />xxxxv.<br /><br />quickly, he arrived, did his four years and left.<br />usually it doesn’t seem this fast, but this time, it’s as if jan<br />arnow called me up last night and said, <br />ripley, boy, i need you take this kid<br />that abe loves so much and see to it he<br />exists in harmony, in the peculiar sing-song of that<br />zany brown school. let him be.<br /><br />so, he came. he danced some....stirred mild drama, then<br />made a splash of excitement as all our souls were pierced<br />in the florida sun and ocean salt-water.<br />then, with the snap of a finger, the blink of an eye,<br />he moved on and fulfilled the promise that existed within him.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxvi.<br /><br />cause sometimes, <br />on broadway, the light is<br />directly where it needs to be, and <br />you feel infinite.<br /><br />sometimes, when we’re <br />with friends, the music<br />allows the wind to <br />naturally blow throughout our hair, and <br />suddenly, everything is serene. if <br />only this was everyday. if it only lasted one more day.<br />no. it can’t. the pace catches up to you and you must move on.<br /><br />xxxxvii.<br /><br />how many of us can say,<br />i understand change. i understand the<br />exhaustion a butterfly must go through<br />near the end of its metamorphosis.<br /><br />the wings, unable to stretch, must cramp,<br />retained in their cocoon before the renaissance.<br />and then there are those who know <br />not only american chrysalis, but have tasted the vietnamese winds, as well.<br /><br />xxxxviii.<br /><br />vietnam &<br />america,<br />nestled in fetal position, against the framework of<br /><br />time. <br />rivers in both lands providing life<br />against the hardships of survival. <br />naturally, together, they flow, ya know?<br /><br />xxxxix.<br /><br />many nights<br />i lie awake thinking, breathing deep in my<br />lungs, letting my day unwind into<br />exhaustion, makes me want to holler, too, before letting go to<br />sleep.<br /><br />time moves, swish, like a shot clock,<br />rushes forward with the sweat of a brow<br />and before you know it, your<br />voyage is ahead of the ships in the bay.<br />in the end, it is your<br />soul, your strength, needed to mentor others.<br /><br /><br />xxxxx.<br /><br />men like to tell stories.<br />i’ve told a few myself,<br />knowing that truth & lies interchange.<br />eventually, though, the<br /><br />viciousness of tales catch up<br />and sooner or later we<br />need to reevaluate the <br />cause, effect, trust &<br />eventually, how much of a man we are. I trust in the man you will be.<br /><br />xxxxxi<br /><br />just yesterday, a child<br />entering her independence, playful, a<br />scout among the mockingbirds.<br />she stood in a canoe & thought about the<br /><br />world: npr, history channel,<br />an augustine of saints, time. She<br />dove head first, wide awake,<br />erupting minimal splash, but causing a wave.<br /><br />xxxxxii.<br /><br />leprechauns. gnomes. froads<br />and nisse. cod pieces &<br />unbelievable random thoughts<br />running through our obsessions<br />and compulsions, control & chaos with<br /><br />words -- the brain turds of ohio<br />river b.s..<br />i must hold onto keepsakes,<br />give them meaning, containment,<br />have gates put up and bars, only<br />to, like you, simply secure my existence of today in magic notebooks.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxxiii.<br /><br />sea. that’s<br />all which stands in the way of <br />nations. mountains. the lines we<br />decide are boundaries,<br />restrictions of which culture<br />actually is which<br /><br />knowing the scarier truth,<br />now, more than ever, we are<br />obviously the same:<br />freunde und friend.<br />english to german,<br />life to life, a prayer to harmonize.<br /><br />postscript:<br /><br />tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow .. the<br />way to dusty death.<br />out....out...brief candle<br /><br />the shadows have been behind me<br />however long i’ve taught.<br />one day, i was young, <br />unbelievably naive of how deep our<br />souls can go, and once<br />again i am an idiot, seeking in vain hope that<br />none of this is forgotten. i know,<br />deep down, that it will be.<br /><br />all of us are poor players signifying<br />nothing, all our yesterdays light this fool the way to<br />dusty death.<br /><br />for now, out. out brief candles.<br />i beg you soar. i say leave. go. carry this<br />vision to all that you do. carpe diem’.<br />exist like no one before you ever has. exist beautifully.<br /><br /><br /><br /> - b.r. crandallBryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-23262447701545884022004-04-09T13:09:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:10:18.571-07:002004two zero zero four<br /> b. r. crandall<br /><br /> i.<br />everyday, i<br />rack my brain to ask if<br />i’ve been half the man i should be,<br />knowing that sacrifices were made for me<br />along roads of historical hardships which others endured.<br /><br />bryan, i say, how<br />on top of your world are<br />you? And if i feel successful, i <br />dive, headfirst into sleep, rewarding myself for a life well lived.<br /><br />ii.<br />before i learned to learn i<br />read books.<br />i read my family,<br />dissected them like <br />green frogs in biology labs.<br />eventually, though,<br />the scalpel became my mind and i<br />tore into my soul with too much imagination. now, a<br /><br />bwidge is necessary to get <br />you, me, humanity over siddhartha’s troubled waters.<br />every step i take forward, another drowns by the<br />racing, rancid river. i turn another page, and another<br />story is told, but still, but still, staying blind as the fool i am.<br /><br /> iii.<br />krap. i’m running out of time -<br />evolving into history, a<br />visionary who can’t see:<br />i need goggles. i <br />need binoculars to<br /><br />capture<br />another sighting of sasquatch.<br />i need laser surgery and i <br />need to believe in the mitt.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> iv.<br />tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,<br />each day we idiots are wide awake in<br />narcolepsy. are we snoring? are we<br />entertaining fellow fools in<br />sonnets of shady songs? story?<br />how are we doing <br />as compared to yesterday? today,<br /><br />curtis came and wrote a poem, an<br />unbelievable poem, <br />reaching beyond the dark - <br />tightly, she lasso’d my writer’s soul, and <br />i am yanked alive by her words, <br />secretly sold into her magic. such a witch, you know?<br /><br /> v.<br />just when i thought i had an<br />answer, they threw me a trickier question.<br />my mind was given their virus and i<br />emitted spam to whomever would listen. i know, i know,<br />shut up, already. my hard <br /><br />drive is on, but i can’t shut it off. it’s<br />running all my programs at once, and like an<br />umbilical chord, i’m attached to the<br />ridiculousness of being small. so are<br />you, James....so are we all.<br /><br /> vi.<br />the dad can <br />only do so much,<br />my father taught me. i endured<br />anger, his <br />rages of how stupid i was being, and he forced me to<br />question my world -- my stupid, selfish,<br />unbelievable drive for <br />self destruction.<br /><br />everyday i think about this. his<br />very strict fists <br />and words aimed to ruin my life.<br />now, i<br />see, though. i see an ass for what an ass is. what an ass i was.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> vii.<br />tiny we were<br />in westmoreland...<br />five year olds <br />folding our <br />arms in <br />newly learned respect.<br />you go to school to learn from ms. saladino.<br /><br />for the first time, we were all<br />away from home, mom’s lunch -- the<br />young getting older every day. the garden open-never the same again.<br /><br /> viii.<br />ask my sister about me and she’ll say i<br />love the guy, but he’s a jerk. he<br />loves being a jerk<br />in his quest to make <br />everyone around him their best.<br /><br />friendship is what we have now, she’d say,<br />in a sure, secure song, but when we were<br />neophytes, i hated his standards, his<br />lust of making everyone think too hard.<br />existing with bryan, she’d say, is like<br />yakking. it’s awful while it happens, but it rids you of illness.<br /><br /> ix.<br />andrew is driven. there<br />needs to be nothing else said. he<br />desires goodness, fairness and wrongs to be made<br />right.<br />each of us can learn this from him. in fact, <br />we need to study how hard he works before it’s<br /><br />gone. memories. yesterdays. the <br />reality that time trickles downward .<br />and, perhaps, before any of<br />you know it, the drive will be over (like this poem).<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> x.<br />running. that’s what i seem to be doing all the time -<br />over grass trails, paved dreams and <br />by polluted, forgotten rivers,<br />eternally flowing,<br />racing, moving, being, living,<br />taking my breath away.<br /><br />he sprints, too,<br />arrives to the finish line, quicker,<br />laughs louder and<br />stays on the path of his own drum and band, while<br />entertaining the thongs sung loud, like chickens, in his head.<br />love to run. run to<br />love. live. that’s what i seem to be doing all the time.<br /><br /> xi.<br />at the basketball game, i sat <br />under the scoreboard,<br />scratching thoughts into a <br />hollow journal while<br />ausha made another rebound.<br /><br />how much is life like this court? i thought.<br />it can be a losing battle, game after game, where<br />learning the better pass, the better block, more finesse with a<br />lay up, bird like, swan-swish, really matters?<br />i wonder such things in my poetic<br />madness as<br />ausha shoots again ...<br />now, who knows who will win?<br /><br /> xii.<br />ask me once why i do anything <br />like i do and i’ll tell you<br />it’s all premeditated and for a reason.<br />serendipitously, i am always<br />on my toes of tiptoed tulips in<br />need of the better lesson, glistening on a pond.<br /><br />how else is there to live? with all<br />of us as dust upon this marble, except to be aware.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xiii.<br />Please. <br />he simply asked/stated/said/wondered/<br />understood -- please, let me<br />open your soul. i <br />need to see what’s within.<br />go ahead, she said, but i’m watching.<br /><br />He went ahead and began to write,<br />unleashing her worries/fears/dreams/hopes/<br />yesterdays. please, she said,<br />no more. that’s enough. and<br />he closed his journal and called it a day.<br /><br /> xiv.<br />knowledge is more than<br />all that crap we tell you because<br />the experiences of your<br />road, your journey, is the surest<br />intelligence of truth - it<br />narrows you into perspective<br />and whips you, whap, with wisdom, wiping the buttocks of lies.<br /><br />how one succeeds, <br />over and beyond the<br />ludicrousness of school, <br />college and job - is how they carry their hearts<br />over and beyond the mundane routine of life.<br />my surest truth, katrina, is you,<br />bitten by the bug to work hard, will<br />evolve, immensely, beyond us all. -- passion and drive, your key.<br /><br /> xv.<br />knowledge? what? screw <br />each of you ... and the horses you road<br />in on. don’t tell me how you <br />think. don’t measure me by your<br />hierarchy of intellectual blabbering.<br /><br />be black, i say. be you.<br />love knowing that i<br />already know how to make the <br />cause for a new generation come alive.<br />knowledge? what? screw that. it’s a <br /><br />joke where the punch line is on how<br />ordinary their common thinking is. <br />he can go further. i can go further,<br />needing nothing but <br />soul to succeed in the<br />orchestration of their so called intelligent life.<br />no. knowledge. that and that alone belongs to me.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xvi.<br />madness brought me<br />amongst the streets and skies of<br />creative chaos --- (and i’m supposed to be the<br />knowledgeable one: yet the more i know, the less i seem to <br />exist). So, how do i resist the every day for its<br />nectar and flavor, without getting overwhelmed and nauseous? i <br />need the challenge of ingredients, but drown <br />along the river of its flavor. just<br /><br />joking. i try to laugh and<br />occasionally shed a million tears from the <br />humor of it all. the emotions are<br />necessary, after all, aren’t they? i’m <br />sick, though, right?. -- torn down the middle of the page:<br />occasionally tip toeing with zest, but<br />narcissistically needing to hide.<br /><br /> xvii.<br />knitted within my expectations,<br />i weave glimmers of gold --<br />my intentions are always stronger than my<br /><br />need to teach a lesson. no, the world doesn’t<br />get easier, but<br />onward, you must hope.<br /><br /> xviii..<br />driving here, then there,<br />everywhere, i see the <br />violence of how we exist. yes,<br />i splatter bugs on my windshield, too, and it’s<br />never-ending (like that dream of a vietnamese flower).<br /><br />life is roadkill, though,<br />and we’re guilty until proven innocent.<br />man, my truck needs a good washing these days, so thanks, devin, for<br />bringing me your windex.<br /><br /> xix.<br />jokes on us, josh -- especially<br />on the ones who misplace their <br />senses, their humor....i guess<br />he who laughs little, lives not, but<br /><br />leaving is a difficult thing. see, i used to leave<br />all the time, walking beyond my egotistical<br />zoning, honing in only on me. yet,<br />all that comes around, goes around...siddhartha sees how the<br />river flows. it goes beyond all of <br />us. you will leave, too. religion calls. i finally know how <br />sam wise feels.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xx.<br />the other day, i saw<br />him, this kid, i used to know<br />and we said hello.<br />now i can’t sleep. he keeps<br />going over and over my thoughts.<br /><br />last year, he was alive with magic. now, he<br />exists as a ghost --- blank to everything he meets.<br /><br /> xxi.<br />a penguin knows how to bite. they can be<br />nasty, feathered boogers,<br />going slip slap slup on the ice. they<br />eat herring, you know, and they<br />laugh at the seals for balancing balls<br />along their nose.<br /><br />look. see that penguin. it bites.<br />ouch. it bit me and<br />my life will never be the same,<br />asinine ... i need a doctor quick.<br />xray my wound before i........croak (ribbit ribbit)<br /><br /> xxii.<br />nourished. the poet <br />goes after words like they’re <br />unusual vietnamese soup.<br />you’ve got to slurp it up<br />eating the spices and herbs until going<br />numb. you must taste every syllable,<br /><br />licking your teeth and lips.<br />u must know life’s delicious.<br />u must know the flavors are infinite.<br /><br /> xxiii.<br />rain, if cold, becomes snow,<br />and blankets hibernal minds,<br />and covers a thinking soul.<br />my fingers tap across white keys,<br />yelling to the world, ‘i <br />need your poems...’<br /><br />my soul craves <br />all the seasons, all the<br />love of how<br />one drop<br />now<br />exists -- changed for the better, perhaps, later.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xxiv.<br />leiz left me a popsicle in the fridge. she was<br />eating it earlier, when <br />i didn’t see her. it dripped down her cheek like a<br />zillion random thoughts in my brain.<br /><br />man, i’m glad she told me it was hers, especially<br />after i pulled it from the fridge to<br />satiate my own exhausted appetite.<br />‘oh, bry, that was mine,’ she said. ‘i <br />licked it and put it back.’ <br />oi vay --- these kids with their good intentions.<br /><br /> xxv.<br />poetry, a religion with words where<br />heaven finds its a way upon earth.<br />i need to believe this,<br />loving language -- how it can<br />lift a spirit by twisting them <br />in perplexed cocoons.<br />poetry spindles hope, i hope.<br /><br />music comes from our<br />creation, and how<br />people: you, me, we<br />have the spirit within to play:<br />eternity<br />epiphany<br />testimony that (when we remember the words)<br />everything is possible along the<br />rivers of the journey. the <br />secret, of course, is to sing. simply sing. to find a song.<br /><br /> xxvi.<br />daily, we go through the motions,<br />awakening only to depart from<br />nocturnal dreams once again.<br />he is somewhere between these phases. at<br /><br />night, the knuckles bleed so he <br />get another cigarette. it’s<br />useless to inhale and exhale all the<br />young worry about.<br />enlightenment and truth aren’t as complicated as the<br />nights make them. sleep, friend, but don’t forget to wake up, too.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xxvii.<br />did you hear about the <br />one where the boy goes into a<br />nudie bar? neah, I didn’t<br />get to hear it either.<br /><br />the wax in my ear built up,<br />on top of the fact that i’m<br />not a good listener, anyway....and<br />you?<br /><br />no. i don’t know the one about the <br />girl, the gynecologist and a sushi bar.<br />u don’t either? then why are<br />you wasting my time.<br />existing is about laughing. god i<br />need to laugh.<br /><br /> xxviii.<br />pear? <br />apple wine? a<br />tablecloth of poetics.<br />i am in love with the idea of<br />entertaining words at the edge of a<br />naked forest, where the basket opens to<br />chardonay, and i can not say a word - the feast<br />entertains my palette instead.<br /><br />pear. apple wine. table cloth of poetics lying<br />elliptical on an orb of green grass, growing<br />and knowing that it is within the simplicity,<br />complex realities arise. so, i take an<br />ornamental bite with my silver,<br />cut my chances with a <br />knife, and enjoy.<br /><br /> xxix<br />next to every sunset<br />is a dream for it to rise again.<br />now, it must rise again<br />and we must follow its lead.<br /><br />pride. ethics. culture. drive. the<br />horizon is a listing of what’s to be done<br />and how a good life is lived. the sun, like you,<br />must fall, only to rise again.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xxx.<br />all our thoughts are a blink of an eye.<br />newborns only be reborn,<br />neophytes, vulnerable and<br />awkward.<br /><br />rare, the right words to say<br />in callous contemplation of<br />going ahead as planned, but<br />going backwards, we trudge on.<br />such is life and so must it always be.<br /><br /> xxxi.<br />every time i drive home,<br />my mind wanders over the pages<br />i’ve written in black ink.<br />leaving, and driving back, i<br />yearn to return home.<br /><br />such is growing up and leaving the<br />cave. the safety of shackles <br />oscillates against the freedom of<br />being alive with truth.<br />boy, i’m not sure if i like being<br />an adult. does anyone have any candy?<br /><br /> xxxii.<br />kryptonite. they need to market<br />enormous buckets of the stuff so<br />i can bring people down. no, not the <br />tiny people....they’re insignificant, but <br />hubris. i want the egotistical to fall...<br /><br />to wallow in insecurities for <br />a while to see how it feels to be<br />living beneath their nostrils,<br />living underneath their feet.<br />erroneously, i am under a rock --<br />yet superman flies away with my vision.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxiii.<br />children are temporary and age will have them<br />older before another moon goes full and<br />rotund in its midnite illumination..<br />days are like this. they offer hope but<br />i long for them to return, slow down,<br />and bring me back to simpler times.<br /><br />these children i teach, each sliding along their<br />horizons with optimistic steps and <br />omnipotent doubt.<br />my role, on this moon is,<br />perhaps, to simple to be<br />knowing how transient it all is and<br />i’m only a fly-by in the mirror of life, anyway.<br />new. old. and new again,<br />sun rises only to set us all aside.<br /><br /> xxxiv.<br />krazy.<br />i am krazy. a<br />ripley wrapped by his zaniness<br />and hysterics of living life where the jokes on me.<br /><br />tell me a story and make me laugh. tell me the <br />one about the chicken and his thong, because i<br />need the sparkle in my <br />eye again. <br />you’ve got to steal glitter -- throw it at me. make me blind with hope.<br /><br /> xxxv.<br />last but not least, she’d like to <br />accept the title, ms. brown school,<br />under the guise that she’s not the<br />raver, smoker, lover, swearer and<br />eternal do everything girl.<br />naw, she is only lauren.<br /><br />passing the ball, while<br />finishing the stand<br />and popping corn for<br />nerdy losers on saturday nights and<br />needing an ocean front talk, while<br />entertaining friends,<br />running laps to stay fit, and<br />sitting close to death on couches of b.s.<br />tired/exhausted/frosted and SADD.<br />i have eyes,<br />lauren, and i’ve seen how your tongue <br />licked the icy pole, and laugh at you, cuz you’re stuck, but happy.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxvi.<br />january is coming, and will go as fast as my<br />existence. resistance is pointless.<br />so, i’m choosing to sing the<br />songs...to find the hope<br />i know i need to move on.<br />call it faith, if you will,<br />and sing with me, if you want.<br /><br />purpose is hard to explain,<br />really.<br />i know i have one and it is<br />emitted by my word choice,<br />stolen from poets before me and<br />twisted to make sense to me.<br />each of us, jessica, are such poems,<br />ready to be captured by your spirit and pen.<br /><br /> xxxvii.<br />the sun is a simile<br />each ray of its arms like<br />rumors which make you laugh -<br />riddles which can be solved -<br />ice cream, fudged with chocolate -<br />children being silly -<br />and a smile....the sun is like a smile.<br /><br />terrica smiles,<br />and she’s like the sun.<br />you can feel her harmless hugs from the <br />love she laughs with<br />or the kindness she carries, selflessly,<br />ray-like, with warmth.<br /><br /> xxxviii.<br />hues. the colors of you, me,<br />us in this american goulash<br />on a stove always heated,<br />needing monitors and timers to keep us<br />going, cooking, in the right direction, for the right<br /><br />taste. more salt? pepper? garlic? are we<br />ready yet? cooked? baked? done?<br />alive as we once were? does the boat<br />need any more flavor? i’m ready to leave.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> xxxix<br />clay, new york, taught me that<br />adolescents are stupid --<br />ridiculously caught up in the<br />awkward game of youth.<br /><br />u, too, are caught in the game, but<br />coming out of it soon. the<br />cocoon always hatches (sooner or later) and<br />enlightenment will arise from the phoenix’s <br />life of ashes...dust to dust....and fire.<br />little did i know back then and<br />i regret how much i thought i did.<br />needless to say, i am human. damn it,<br />i am human and here i sit, cursed, seeking forgiveness.<br /><br /> xxxx.<br />teats? tarts?<br />oh, that...<br />my hand writing’s just bad.<br /><br />vat, vat are you saying?<br />i’m saying that <br />creativity is the ooze of a<br />krispi creme donut and that<br />everything is a poem<br />ready to be written.<br />you, tom, are a poem, too.<br /><br /> xxxxi.<br />too bad youth is wasted on the young,<br />u don’t know, exactly, what’s about to happen<br />and how it’ll never be the same again.<br />now will not be tomorrow.<br /><br />vietnam of yesterday<br />under the guise of american lies, trying to set you free, today......<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxii.<br /><br />last year, i <br />almost threw in the towel.<br />u know how it gets when<br />reality doesn’t meet expectations<br />and the disappointments somehow do.<br /><br />well, i came back.<br />i decided to war once again:<br />learning with its struggle,<br />laughing from the accusations,<br />i teach another day<br />among the good, the bad and the ugly.<br />moonbeams, trying to taste their new wings in a<br />song only beginning to be heard.<br />oh, if only i could know them later on,<br />not now, where they’re stuck in the metamorphosis.<br /><br />xxxxiii.<br />clouds are supposed to part, but<br />ours are here, forever, it seems.<br />reality -<br />your performance on stage, so young<br /><br />always trying to remember,<br />needing meaning,<br />despite the sickness we are -<br />raving lunatics, I guess,<br />egotistically<br />walking in the shadows of our own conceit.<br /><br />such is life...<br />tedious, mundane, repetitious<br />and akward.<br />ultimately, though, our<br />beings are still here:<br />living, loving, believing and awake...<br />eternally, with your candle light in our hearts.<br /><br /> <br />xxxiv.<br />dancing, that’s <br />all we have, and music, memory,<br />nirvana starlit skies...<br />i hope we’re <br />earning this: daniel,<br />living, loving, learning,<br /><br />joining <br />one another to strut and fret our<br />hour upon the stage until <br />none of us are heard no more.<br />star light, star bright, first star<br />out there tonight; it’ll<br />never be forgotten. never.Bryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-58827594907447579382003-04-09T13:10:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:10:56.616-07:002003words for 2003<br /><br />b.r. crandall, j. graham brown school<br /><br />i.<br /><br />Running along crescent hills of clifton,<br />Along brownsboro and frankforted roads<br />Children learn to dream of a<br />Horizon, beyond the Ohio River, while<br />Entertaining the journey motif which <br />Lives, uncharted, within their hearts...their<br />Longings.<br /><br />Rachel began running a long time ago<br />And desired scenery, sensual,<br />Under moonlit evenings,<br />Hoping hoping hoping for more hope<br /><br />ii.<br /><br />Juxtaposed to the Ohio River,<br />Along Louisville, lies southern nights;<br />Men meet ideas, thoughts,<br />Images, and truth (which also lies), in<br />Every moment of each dream.<br /><br />People, they walk everywhere, each<br />Investing their own secret <br />Cares, and some of us sing along. Some<br />Kick stones along sidewalks<br />Existing only to feel pain,<br />Running, only to trip upon terrain -<br />I fear<br />Loneliness not alone -- <br />Lucidity, stupidity, cupidity, fish.<br /><br />iii.<br />Laughter, strange,<br />Against its rarity of a character flaw, brings<br />Delusions to my illusional <br />Yearnings to set a written heart free,<br />Beyond the baffled boundaries of<br />Ugh, yuck, bleck, shit -<br />Go take the trash out, will you?<br /><br />How do you do it?<br />Oh, bug girl,<br />U manage filters, files, and a<br />Love for an artistic, poetic<br />Existence, but so young..so young.<br />The pond becomes a playground, for <br />The winged one, sprites, who<br />Exist only to put dreams in a frog’s eyes.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />iv.<br /><br />Violent we are, we beasts,<br />Icaruses with burned wings and<br />Calloused, overworked hands that are<br />Tired...so exhausted from turning every<br />Other page to see what <br />Riddle is written next<br />In this epic poem hidden within<br />An acrostic world.<br /><br />To think we’ve ever solved anything is <br />Ridiculous, because there are<br />Only questions --<br />Unbelievable puzzles to mock ourselves into<br />Traps -- to tip toe through the roses.<br /><br />v.<br /><br />Nude teenagers skinny dip into <br />Adolescent luminescence,<br />Towards the tap dancing tango of<br />Adulthood where nudity <br />Looks like sagging losses -<br />Illogical marshmallows of wrinkles and<br />Endless decay.<br /><br />Know that, and remember it,<br />All while singing that operatic voice of yours.<br />Rivers flow forever, but run dry.<br />Let that love, that laughter, that life, live like it does ---- naked ----<br /> forever.<br /><br />vi.<br /><br />Little, are words, their power,<br />And how sour they taste when<br />Quenched with doubt <br />U need to get over yourself, girl<br />I said, you need to rip open that shell and<br />Taste what’s good for you. don’t <br />Argue with me.<br /><br />Many days passed, and continue to move<br />On. This is how it goes (and you don’t know --<br />No, you do know, it’s gone when it’s gone.<br />Road of barbed wire and irises.<br />On. This is how it goes (and you don’t know<br />Everything -- even if you do know too much)<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxiv<br /><br />Jittery joke on us all,<br />Each finding purpose for the game,<br />Needing another roll of the dice,<br />I wish to buy another vowel, Pat...<br />Final Jeopardy, how much <br />Exists, really, for me to wage, to <br />Rage.<br /><br />My age is working against me -<br />Apart from yesteryear, when<br />Life had more pieces to play with -<br />Life had more clues, yet now,<br />On this playing field, <br />You aging fart, You don’t get another chance.<br /><br />xxxv<br /><br />Juice was pored into a koolaid cup.<br />Apple <br />Cranberry<br />Love for the<br />Young writer who,<br />Now, was thirsty.<br /><br />C....i told u it was good.<br />Orange juice, yum, and<br />X’isting.<br /><br />xxxvi<br /><br />Mr., Can I ask you a question?<br />Everyday I <br />Gain more wisdom, more perspective<br />And my eyes are growing weary. I<br />Need advice.<br /><br />What? he asked,<br />I wasn’t listening....I was <br />Going over and over this <br />Gosh darn poem, and i<br />Simply can’t decide if I need a comma.<br /><br />xxxvii<br /><br />Today, I<br />Entered another<br />Realm, where<br />Reality was<br />Equal to a <br />Lamp post <br />Lashed with electric lashings.<br /><br />Snapping,<br />My neck<br />Is harnessed by <br />The kinks of bad sleep, and I’ve<br />Had a terrible, crooked day.<br /><br />xxxviii<br /><br />Entering the <br />Limelight<br />Isn’t always easy...it’s like a<br />Zillion stars are shining in your eyes<br />And instead of vision, you go<br />Blind.<br />Entering the<br />The song of singers<br />Helps, though, in moving on.<br /><br />Perhaps I’m wrong and <br />Ridiculous. <br />I have been and will be again.<br />Every time I place <br />Simple sayings into<br />Tight spaces, I <br />Enter the lime light with you,<br />Riding on the wings of your flight.<br /><br />xxxix<br /><br />Nine minutes after three,<br />I pulled into the lot,<br />Counted the plastic<br />On faces, in purses, of their<br />Lives --<br />Each, a flamingo, in more affluent lawns.<br /><br />All I wanted was a book, to<br />Rake in the published voice of a <br />Buddy, back in college, who <br />Unleashed his soul and was<br />Caught as a son of heaven.<br />Keep your head up, kid, I<br />Laughed to myself,<br />Existing amongst East End tupperware.<br /><br />xxxx<br /><br />Lead paint<br />U used lead pain to<br />Knock up that wall, dude? <br />Everyone’s gonna get loopy, whoa..<br /><br />Vat? Vat? It’s not lead.<br />Oh, my bad.<br />Sorry.<br />Search and destroy, guy....paint your life away.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxvii<br /><br />knowing that whiteheads exist<br />and need to be popped,<br />totally zonked by the bone man<br />having subterranean gloom, let me say i <br />love your letter, your poetic<br />evolution and for this <br />eternity, i hope you not only love the moon, but<br />need its pandemonium, too.<br /><br />knowledge, wisdom,<br />and “an eye” have always been your<br />kind friend, lying on the back burner<br />in desire of the right match to be lit --<br /><br />violet fire, with auburn tips<br />oven baked concepts<br />existing existentially, while<br />learning to laugh, love life, and live --<br />keeping one eye on the road and the other<br />eye on the river at your side ... this has and will always be your wordplay<br />rendezvous, and reading you is delicious.<br /><br />xxviii<br /><br />Rowing in the canoe,<br />On Elkhorn Creek, weak from<br />Being alive,<br />Entertaining twelve year olds, a<br />Rainbow trout swam by,<br />Trolling along, in simplicity.<br /><br />Down the river, a young man would<br />Erratically lose control,<br />Needing to save himself<br />Needing to save the young boy<br />In the crash of sudden current, against a tree,<br />Needing to spit water, a bag around his neck -<br />Gasping in a complex moment, under water.<br /><br /><br />xxix<br /><br />Drowning, there are those days I need the<br />Existence of artists to illustrate my dull pages and<br />Rub oil paints into my words.<br />Every now and again, paper is blank.<br />Knowledge does no good.<br /><br />Why?<br />I don’t know about nothing, but know it’s<br />Located dear to my heart, and I <br />Can’t start another poem if they won’t provide<br />Hues, and the colorful clues for being.<br />Each blank page begins with a need for us to<br />Reach for how the other artist lives.<br /><br /><br />xxx<br /><br />Jackelopes are good eatin for<br />Aardvarks when ants are scarce and<br />Monkee brains are off the market.<br />Elephants taste like chicken,<br />Sometimes, depends on the barbecue sauce.<br /><br />My vocabulary is limited because <br />On my quest for truth, i decided not to <br />Read the ones who covered up the banal with<br />Roseo Infantum.<br />I like words..don’t get me wrong, they also make me<br />Sick. Addictions are predictions for death.<br /><br />xxxi<br /><br />Jason was a pooping boy<br />And pooping’s what he did...and<br />Ma hated when he stopped by,<br />In days when we’d used to play, cuz <br />Every time he’d visit us, <br /><br />Ca ca was his surest way.<br />Over the toilet he would squat,<br />Making faces and odd words, and<br />By the time Jason left our house,<br />Sure enough, smell of turds.<br /><br />xxxii.<br /><br />And on and on, another poem, a<br />Shadow on the stage, <br />Haunted by the hunger of words, <br />Loving the sound<br />Each pitter pats upon the paper, including <br />Your name.<br /><br />Lame, another poem,<br />You, written across this line.<br />Ompaloskepsis,<br />Navigating my naval in meditative<br />Serenity....Om.<br /><br />xxxiii<br /><br />On humid nights of <br />August,<br />I imagine<br /><br />Not here, but<br />Going away,<br />Unsociably unsophisticated,<br />Yearning for the ocean - alone -<br />Entangled by its distance -<br />Needing another place than this.<br /><br /><br />vii.<br /><br />Azure, the color of the<br />Sky, a blue, bright -- not the blues.<br />Horizons kiss its hue and makes me<br />love, one deserves to love again, man.<br />Everyone deserves to love and <br />You do, too -- it’s true, so<br /><br />How have you been lately -<br />Energized, enlightened, enthused? You see,<br />Now is the exact moment for you to take<br />Destiny by its reigns and live<br />Exotically, erotically, hypnotically.<br />Reality is how you make it -<br />Show ‘em what ya’ Got.<br />Onward, my dear friend, because<br />Now, we need your color more than ever.<br /><br />viii.<br /><br />Laughter isn’t constant,<br />Is it? and it may be why I love my<br />Zzzzz’s, easing into silent comfort.<br /><br />Noone can make it out there alone,<br />I know, but you’ve got to <br />Create the loner who <br />Knows how they can<br />Exist upon the<br />Roads when they’re lonely.<br />Stars can offer guidance, as can books<br />On the shelf, but<br />Noone makes it without their own hand to hold<br /><br />ix.<br /><br />Knowledge and rainbows,<br />ornate sunshine waltzing upon the Ohio<br />River and at this moment,<br />Tonight, with its trouble and my<br />Need to control the uncontrollable,<br />I love to read your words.<br /><br />Right now, at this moment, a person is<br />On their death bed and another is about to be<br />Born into this miracle --<br />Everyday that’s yours is a miracle,<br />Really. But it’s a<br />Tad bit easy to forget that, unless, unless you’re<br />Stepping side by side with someone along the beach.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />x.<br /><br />Not everyone sees the stars,<br />How they scatter like music<br />In an arranged composition of the night.<br /><br />Not everyone sees the moon, that<br />Giant orb who hovers its phases<br />Under starlit darkness. Yet,<br />You do .. and dance with them, too,<br />Existing to laugh in nocturnal light.<br />Not everyone sees its smile.<br /><br />xi.<br /><br />Ellipses, etc ... blah blah blah, and that<br />Rendezvous with<br />Infinite infinity ... all that jazz.... yadda yadda yadda.<br />Neophytes and fledglings, the artist’s moon,<br /><br />On the road to find out.<br />Mr. Moonbeam dreams too much...<br />And thanks God that others do, too -- others<br />Run along, lakesides, watching the sailboats<br />And the laughter of cunning children.<br /><br />xii.<br /><br />MacLeish became curious of<br />Existing, why why why why why<br />Life needs hope, and hope is life.<br />I think about this a lot,<br />Not all the time, but a lot, especially when<br />Days blend into each other, backwards,<br />And I’m thirsty for a glass of water.<br /><br />H2O. <br />Aqua.<br />You’ve seen me parched, <br />Existing out of breath and dry,<br />So, you brought me something to drink. Thank You.<br /><br />xiii.<br /><br />Lending that touch<br />Is like unleashing the wings of a<br />Zillion and one stars -- yet they’re unleashed, and<br /><br />Dying closer to the everyday they live -- a<br />Rampage across the black chalkboard of night,<br />Ubiquitous loneliness,<br />Roaring in a universe of all these thoughts...<br />You, aglow, like so many.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xiv.<br /><br />Commercials bring us a two minute lie.<br />On and on they preach, making us <br />Reach into them that there is salvation. We<br />Need them to know what life is really like.<br /><br />On and on and on they lie, changing the channel.<br />Now, I think about this, behind warm in flannel.<br /><br />Tomorrow will go.<br />He knows this because he does--<br />Each of us knows this<br /><br />Knowledge, wisdom and advertised truth,<br />On and on they’ll leach onto us unless we choose to<br />Live for ourselves -- turn off the t.v., so we can simply<br />Be.<br /><br /><br />xv.<br /><br />Krispy Creme donuts ... for what? <br />A moment of thirty second satiation, for<br />Love, flavor and cravings, given <br />Into, unto, onto the moment it cries...<br />And who gets paid what for that bliss?<br /><br />A temporary smile <br />Takes the hard labor of how many<br />Citizens, working calluses, upon their<br />Hands for wages, rages, and the cages of the<br />Living....so much is put into <br />Every moment of a chicadee’s life.<br />You’ll be able to afford it all. The good stuff is free..<br /><br />xvi.<br /><br />Jokes on me, this time,<br />On a believe it or not Ripley morning where the<br />Sun shines, but the forecast is gray.<br />Have a nice<br /><br />Day.<br />Am I willing to walk away?<br />Variables in the equations<br />Ibid., irises, ie;<br />Delusional illusions<br />Since the second my eyes <br />Opened, at the brink of dawn.<br />Now i must choose what to see, or not to believe.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xvii.<br /><br />Knew a little girl once<br />And the only curl i saw was in her heart<br />You’d think she was horrid(but she wasn’t)<br /><br />People thought they knew her...<br />Entertained the flippant facade,<br />Not the reality of how she felt within.<br />Childish are the young, yet<br />Enlightened as they grow.<br /><br />xviii<br /><br />Keeping balanced on an uneven beam, my <br />Ears grow cold, numb, and <br />I can’t help not listening,<br />They can’t help not feeling the sound anymore and I<br />Hate the silence, the ice.<br /><br />Down the beam, the sun<br />Orange-warm and bright, glows, but I can’t<br />Reach it -- things are uneven,<br />Shaky, not smooth. I want the solar system,<br />Especially to thaw my years, those fears of my<br />Youth. One foot in front of the other, I travel.<br /><br />xix.<br /><br />Color me a mountain,<br />On the horizon of a<br />River. Call it good morning,<br />Tell it to me in japanese, Ohio,<br />Land, my brown band of brotherhood,<br />Accompany my blues --<br />Neolution, Neolution<br />Dying historically for a solution<br />To make the landscape come alive.<br /><br />Arrived, the boy with his pen,<br />Realized a truth about all the music he<br />Memorized through cultural<br />Society, buzzed on the sobriety which<br />Tells nothing but the truth...the whole truth.<br />Risen, the phoenix is reborn, <br />On the ashes of another’s death...<br />Nubian breath is taken,<br />Giant, within the white clouds.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xx.<br /><br />The trick is not only in our journals, but in the<br />Ridiculous ways we can concoct our truth<br />And create the magic for better memories.<br />Cacophonies are best, when exploded<br />In the sparkle of the human mind.<br /><br />We find voice, only in play<br />And reflection. We see ourselves in <br />The mirror only after experience, but very few<br />Know how to smile back at what they see.<br />I used to hide from the glass, ashamed of the<br />Nights and days of childhood and what I was told.<br />Songs, though, are better sung for me, alone-now I sing.<br /><br />xxi.<br /><br />All my life, I’ve tried to be brief.<br />Less a dictionary,<br />Less a dissertation.<br />You know what i mean?<br /><br />He, they say, goes<br />On and on and on, and<br />He, i say, knows how<br />Mad it is. I want to be<br />A blink of an eye,<br />not the optometrist.<br /><br />xxii.<br /><br />Grow, said the sun to a seed,<br />Reach up towards me. My<br />Energy is vitamin to your soul.<br />Go on, now, grow.<br /><br />Please, said the seed,<br />I need more light, and I’m <br />Thirsty. Water is <br />Necessary, too. But I can’t <br />Evolve with you burning me all the time.<br />You need go behind the clouds.<br /><br />xxiii.<br /><br />Reaching across the table, she grabbed salt<br />And pepper. She said my pasta<br />Needed more flavor -- it was too bland.<br />Did she think i was stupid?<br />All day she watched me cutting herbs,<br />Lifting vegetables from the garden,<br />Lining ingredients for days,<br /><br />Boiling the Pasta made from flour and time.,<br />Lowered in tomatoes, peppers, pesto sauce,<br />And served a <br />New dish, upon an old song. Neither of us would<br />Do the dishes.<br /><br />xxiv.<br /><br />Man met woman in a galaxy of <br />Stars, and suddenly was struck by seduction,<br /><br />Kaleidoscope of peacock behavior<br />Existing to woo a little “wuv”.<br />I am not the first poet to wonder, to <br />See the drive which<br />Haunts our<br />Apple trucks.<br /><br />Chemistry is more of the element, and i<br />Hate thinking there’s even more details<br />Amongst the chaos.<br />No. Man met woman in a galaxy of <br />Testosterone and <br />Estrogen.<br /><br />Dionysius got involved and invited Venus<br />Over and wola! a <br />Raunchy rendezvous of blood,<br />Sweat and tears.<br />Erotic. sometimes, but mostly<br />You do the eye game to satiate the moment<br /><br />xxv.<br /><br />People rush behind headlights<br />Along salt-lined roads. <br />The radio is turned off, and you <br />Reach at the seat belt.<br />I feel uncomfortable, too.<br />Crowds of people moving,<br />Innocently trapped by <br />Angst, clocks and needs.<br /><br />My grandmother<br />Always took the time to<br />Reach across her seat belt to hug us, <br />Children, give us poems.<br />Underneath the tapping of your foot, impatient,<br />My drive is to write poetry for you.<br /><br />xxvi<br /><br />Crazy how crazy I’m becoming.<br />And they say,<br />It’s only the beginning and <br />That senility is even worse. Walt<br />Laughed at me this summer<br />In his sharp, meteorologist way. <br />Needs to see me lose my sh*t, he said.<br /><br />Reality, for me, is already <br />Assanine...and he, he wants to <br />Yank what little truth i have into geriatric dreams. Crazy.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxii<br /><br />Just between you and me,<br />U got to be a bit of a con - man to<br />Scribble out poems. You’ve got <br />To have word-tools and an<br />Interest in S P A C E, a <br />Need to mean a little more.<br /><br />Hell, anyone can write a poem.<br />All you need is wascally wabbits and wile<br />Ye coyotes....then,<br />Every now and again, beep beep,<br />Some road runner leaps across the page.<br /><br />xxxxiii<br /><br />Jokes on you, they said,<br />On you, you, you and you.<br />So, they’re right.<br />Humor. <br /><br />Me in an<br />Overture of self actualization.<br />Reached into my stomach and pulled out <br />Rancid meat, slightly digested,<br />In less that twenty four hours,<br />Silly succotash and stupid sagacity.<br /><br />xxxxiv<br /><br />Boy, those hugs,<br />You got to cherish those hugs as they<br />Reach around your stomach, arm<br />Over arm in a bear squeeze of<br />Need.<br /><br />Love...this is what it looks like,<br />Unlike the way most of us are,<br />Kindness is a young man,<br />In his senior year,<br />Not caught up with the world’s<br />Sadness, but with hugs...just hugs.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />xxxxv.<br /><br />tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,<br />hovers upon us like a plague of yesterdays -<br />each of us will forget and remember.<br /><br />brown school...a huge pain in the<br />rear, a rare gift amongst the chaos,<br />on the corner of Muhammad and<br />why we united together...birds of a feather<br />naturally flocking.<br /><br />since this will be my last poem for you,<br />cause the chapter is being finished, i say,<br />have a great life, move <br />on, forward and ahead<br />on the idiot’s stage.<br />live like maude. love like we do.Bryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-82457684736021184902002-04-09T13:13:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:14:04.844-07:002002 - tea roomtea room poem for j.s.<br /><br />we, learners, sojourners<br /> of sunsets and dreams,<br /> in a countryside city,<br /> sing, and feel no pity from books, <br />brains and how the everyday <br />explains our love of poetry and <br />laughter from Martha Ellison’s Song.<br /><br />We, believers, stand strong <br />in comfy jeans and well-worn sweats, <br />singing how we belong to diversity,<br /> and dancing to the complexity of being different.<br /><br />In the clouds, both rainbows and raindrops are born into a hammock of <br />tattooed colors -- <br /> a sun brings us <br /> the comfort of pillows,<br /> a moon reminds us to walk barefoot in wet grass.<br /><br />From class to class, a human pyramid<br /> of students and teachers share<br /> deep breaths and laughter,<br /> and grow from memories of love and respect.<br /><br />Everything swirled, whirled and twirled <br /> makes Brown...<br /> and it is the sound of our music,<br /> a first and muhammed ali<br /> cacophony of <br /> us.Bryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8047692528162075536.post-37266630857726043362002-04-09T13:12:00.000-07:002009-04-09T13:13:16.610-07:002002 -coffehousefor a coffee house and moonbeams....<br /><br />stupid me, and this dumb b.s. reality<br /> that found myself in a cinematic paradise<br /> with music, a city of circuits for $15.99....<br /><br />and once again I sit here tapping, like a poetic swine<br /> into memories of a life I’ve always longed to live....<br /><br />yet content with the everyday that a teacher must give<br /> and save the applause for a subordinated clause <br /> <br /> (trust me, I don’t know what that is either).<br /><br />Yes, there’s a piece of me totally Toto,<br /> young, naive and an absolute fool upon the stage,<br /><br /> but there’s also that age in me that makes me<br /> intellectual alfredo<br /> a destined dodo amongt the<br /> beautiful daffodils of which I teach...<br /><br />I reach,<br />I preach, <br />I leach upon day after day after day....<br /><br />6:30 a.m. okay<br />coffee injected<br />email projected<br />Alice protected<br />and I’m elected certifiably insane.<br /><br />What other job calls for the inane<br /> ridiculousness<br /> riddles and bliss<br /> of the mind’s mental kiss<br /> and magic,<br /> (the constant flickering of flame,<br /> the constant bickering and blame<br /> of “whydowehavetodo this”<br /><br />hissssssssssssssssss<br />sssssssssssshhhhhhhh<br /><br />the music is getting louder<br />and I’m growing prouder and prouder everday<br /> that I can stand out to say “I know the 2002 salute”<br /> and have a breast I can always grab....<br /><br />this, makes me smile, when life is most drab....<br /><br />And the songs make me seek out the truth<br />and I find it quickly from Boehnlein and Ruth<br /> who’ve brought this house into meaning....<br /> watching as they’re weaning their way into graduation,<br /> satiation,<br /> intellectual constipation<br /> and relief<br /> of “uh oh, spaghetti o’s”<br /> what a relief it is....<br /><br />offering this poetry hand, so we can stand before one another and create...<br /> find those words which make us irate and strong.....<br /><br />because, like all of our presence, words, too, must say “so long”<br /> and onward we all move.<br /><br /> we all go.<br /><br /> we all fly.<br /><br /> we all know.<br /><br /> and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow <br /> creeps in this petty pace<br /> from today, today,<br /> to the last uttering of the tick tock watch....<br /> and all our yesterdays will light this fool<br /> the way to a dusty rest<br /> out out, young poets,<br /> life is but a walking shadow<br /> that struts and frets his wisdom upon the screen<br /> and then is heard no more.<br /><br />it is my tale, our tale, your tale, told by a moron,<br /> full of noise and chaos<br /> signifying everything.<br /><br /> Bring the world everything you can............<br /> cuz we are the everything........Bryan Ripley Crandallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550405821249509237noreply@blogger.com0