dumpsterrbaby

[dumpsterrbaby]

The bird sang a song to no one. Its trills rang through the air beautifully, echoing and bouncing over the snow and lamp posts and houses like the ringing of a spoon-tapped wine glass. Delicate, sweet, haunting. It was all of these things in a moment, then it was nothing in the next. Then the echoes brought it resounding back and the moment resumed. Endlessly the cycle continued, until the echoes almost played a harmony with the source.

The bird’s throat became hoarse and the trills stopped entirely. It took until midday before it realized it sang to no one. The returning notes were but its own, and no other bird sang along with it. It had sang alone, to itself, the whole time. Unknowing.

The neighborhood was just as beautiful and snowed over as before, but now it seemed colder.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Following where I’d like, as a river.

Standing where I’d like, as a rock in a stream.

Still as I’d like, as the calm of the sea.

Tumultuous as I’d like, as the waves of an ocean.

[dumpsterrbaby]

How dreary the night! Cold bitter wind its envoy; lame and slow moving darkness its chariot. And yet I love it nonetheless!

[dumpsterrbaby]

How chaotic! The swirling photons above, those glimmering stars that form galaxies and universes overhead. So chaotic! The deep nothing between them and the deeper nothing around them, the dance of reality and its mad unknown orchestrator.

So still, my mind! By comparison, anyway. Compared to the chaos of the Universe, I feel still.

Maybe things aren’t so bad.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Along my midnight stroll the buildings tower, windows repelling glints of moonlight; the streets deeply grey; the universe at rest. Along my midnight stroll my boots echo into the void, the soft silence disturbed by my tread. My shoes catch the pebbles my toes kick up, making my walk uneven and the harmonics of my steps off beat.

I try to find thoughts but there are none, only the beautiful Everything of a universe at rest. The street signs shine bright, though their ambience is like the faded dull hue of a Ghibli film. I know they, too, are resting.

As are the cars! Parked, empty, at night turned into unmoving husks of metal without life.

Nothing stirs. A universe at rest.

[dumpsterrbaby]

A soft tumble of rain consumes the sky, bounding off my hat in hard pellets. Clouds, grey and thick, blot out the light of day. I smile to myself, watching others run inside their cars and homes and maddeningly digging for an umbrella.

I smile, the child I once was years ago laughs, and I fling off my hat and go leaping into the rain puddles. My shoes become water logged, my clothes become drenched, and I fall a few times. But I get back up and splash through the flood, ignoring the incredulous gazes around me.

I laugh the whole time.

[dumpsterrbaby]

The sun dips deep below the horizon. An absence of light, soft and delicately dark. An insect I cannot place screeches; one of those creatures of the night with a familiar cry that you’ve yet to ever actually see. A warm peace envelopes you as you bathe in the supreme blankness.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Distant Thunder

Andrew Wyeth

[dumpsterrbaby]

It is an old history that pains me to relate.

Not even to my future son do I think I can impart the story, nor to my future daughter - even in their quest of understanding their father.

Instead, I thought I’d share the history with my younger self; through pen and paper and scratched handwriting.

I wrote it all down. The details of it all.

And yet it is an old history that pains me to relate.

I could not survive keeping a chronicle of it on this earth.

I burned it. I wept and I burned it.

I try and speak the tale, try and relive the memories, but it’s a sunburn on the nerves of the brain. To relive it is to press hard on it, to press hard on the sunburnt brain until it peels.

It is an old history that pains me to relate.

[dumpsterrbaby]

My heart is in my hands. I can see it beat and shake, throb and pulse. It’s a steady beat that resounds in my head with each quiver. I stare at it, my heart in my hands, as it writhes and worms against my palm.

Is it crying in despair, or laughing in glee? I cannot tell, but it is no real difference. The open wound in my chest leaves me cold, and as I lock my heart in the mahogany box before me it swells. Longing for where it belongs.

With disregard for it, I shut the box and latch it shut.

[dumpsterrbaby]

If I could categorize my spirit in any one way, it’d be obsessive. For where is the enjoyment in things without excessive passion toward them? To live in fractions is to divide your experiences - pursue everything in deep depth! If not fully obsessed with one or all things, where is the rest of existence left? In dwelling, in searching, in yearning. Eyes that admire the sunrise are not the same as feet that chase it. My spirit is an empty vessel that must be filled - for, if left to be otherwise, I can hear the rattling of its bare chambers and I will break with it.

Consume before you’re consumed.

[dumpsterrbaby]

I need to share a memory from my childhood - though I don’t remember much of back then.

What fragments are left, lingering in my head, are small pictures that I feel piece together a forgotten story. It feels important.

The first picture is of a boy, possibly myself, floundering about in deep waters. The boy’s face isn’t panicked, but holds a look of serenity and, not calmness, but acceptance. Ashore, there are children pointing and laughing at his struggle.

The second picture seems kinder. It’s of a mother, sweet faced and with warm eyes, cradling her child over her knee. Her hand is on his back in the manner of motherly comfort. His tears run toward the bottom of the picture but their melancholy is innocently beautiful.

The last image is hard to make out. A decorated tree lays on its side, as if knocked over in an altercation. A star can be seen near its neck a few feet away, as if the struggle has decapitated the creature of pine. The last image holds a feeling of dread. The room and tree and gathered silhouettes of everybody present in the image are all submerged in a translucent blue, like the picture is meant to be seen as drowning. Just like the boy, there’s an implication of acceptance and defeat.

I cannot tell what story these pictures form; what lost memory they represent. But I find myself crying.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Breathing life into my hollow vessel are you, the morning sun, and a cup of coffee.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Falling! Air breathes me in and sighs me out, spinning me madly around. We are dancing, air and I, but she leads the tango and I am cleft footed.

I am blown and shoved around - the concrete looms close but I smile still, for air and I are dancing! I can feel the breeze of altitude swelling against my cheeks. The breath inside me is wild and mad. I am spinning and spinning and spinning, my sight darting from skyscraper to bird to asphalt in rotations.

Ah! How great, this feeling! How riveting; how enthralling. How euphoric. How-

Splat.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Testing my new watercolour brush pens.

[dumpsterrbaby]

Possessing of nothing, I settle for thievery. My artistic consumerism fills my empty vessel and like a cocktail I become the combination of the greats before me.

Their ego, too.

[dumpsterrbaby]

your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.

Charles Bukowski, The Laughing Heart

Voz/ Read by: Tom Waits