tazlukesh - Tumblr blog

[tazlukesh]

Maybe, Maybe

A story:

A man and a woman wait, on opposite ends of a bench, for a bus to arrive. The man smokes a cigarette and taps his foot occasionally to an imaginary beat. the woman wears thick, red-framed glasses and stares west, into the setting sun.

How do these two characters meet?

Do they board the bus and the man turns out to be a secret agent who needs help infiltrating the office where the woman works?

Or do they board the bus and the woman turns out to be a secret agent and she is spotted by a rogue agent, which leads to a gun fight? Duck and cover. Scramble behind the seats. Jump out the window when the bus screeches to a halt.

Another idea—perhaps our two heroes meet because of an alien invasion. No, a nuclear bomb detonation. And as the shock wave billows toward them, they collapse into each other’s arms desperate and confused, consoled by the simple fact that at least they didn’t die alone.

Or maybe our heroes don’t need guns and swords and grandiose, glorified, exaggerated fight scenes to meet. After all, there are smaller ways for good to triumph evil.

Maybe our heroes help an elderly man carry his groceries up the stairs. Maybe they buy a homeless person a meal, or stand up for the person being harassed at the next stop.

Maybe it’s as simple as complimenting someone’s outfit and making that person feel seen. Maybe the man compliments the woman’s glasses or the woman compliments the man’s suit.

But the reality (as you well know) is that our two heroes never actually meet. That’s how this story would go if this were real life. It wouldn’t be one story, but two stories, one for each hero as they go their own way. Because that’s how stories work in real life—they diverge. They don’t always resolve.

Maybe this is a story about a man and woman who wait for the same bus and never speak to each other. Day after day, week after week, month after month, they wait and not once do they speak.

Maybe this is a story about a man and woman who wait for the same bus and never meet. Until one day, they do.

[tazlukesh]

All In Motion

Come in person Explain nothing.

Listen to the thunder rolling far away. This is the darkness leaving.

In motion—it is all always constantly in motion.

The light and the dark— in motion.

The fear and the love— in motion.

A tidal wave and a current— in motion.

Collisions and consequences— All in motion.

[tazlukesh]

Call It Our Generation

We were young and on fire, ambitious and daring, dreaming...

And unable to express all of this.

So we sat there, tingled and mingled, checking our inbox, our messages, our notifications, waiting for a reason to talk, never willing to speak.

You said it was a lack of time. I said it was distance, impermanence.

It was a lack of conviction.

We had stumbled upon an uncertain certainty and couldn’t recognize the chance when we were so busy looking for something permanent.

We were young and on fire, ambitious and daring, dreaming...

Too young to realize that something permanent is a state of constant, consistent effort.

[tazlukesh]

Poems w/ Friends V.4

“This One Gets Weird” by Jeff Lukesh and Tessa Lukesh

There are cheaper ways to light a fire--

But Lambos look good in orange.

There’s a joint burning on the nightstand-- The join is a metaphor for my youth-- But baby I’m on fire.

I’m on fire as I cruise down Route 66 in my orange Lamborghini. Burnin’ down all I meet. Like that joint and my youth.

Like the rocket of my life.

[tazlukesh]

Maria

They will say she is nothing, no one. That she has nothing and therefore is nothing. As though it is the things of this world that define us, that identify us and not the things we make in this world that define us and identify us.

Is that what you are going to do her--call her Maria, The Woman With No Home? The woman who has no home because her home was taken from her. Or maybe she never had a home. Maybe home was looking to kill her before she could even understand the violence in its ways.

Maybe she left her home for a new one and found the door to that new home forever locked, the key forever hidden away from her because she is Maria, The Women With Nothing. Maria, No One.

Maybe violence is her home. Maybe violence is what Maria is used to, what she knows and understands. Maybe violence is what she hoped to escape, but violence is all she has seen in this new land, so violence is all she has come to expect in this new land. Violence, everywhere she goes.

Violence, because she is nothing. No one.

She is seeking refuge, but refuge requires safety. Safety requires care and funds, space and time. These are the things of this world that define us: how much time we have and how we are able to spend that time, invest that time; how much funding we have and how we invest those funds. Maria has none of these things, so therefore she is nothing. No one.

But Maria is not nothing. She is not no one. She has not lost her identity. Her identity has been taken from her. She has not lost her memory and you cannot find it. She has not lost her memories and she has not lost her identity, and even if she had lost either of those things, you would not be able to find them for her. They are not yours to keep or name or take or give away. They are Maria’s, yet you call her nothing, no one.

As though she is not someone’s daughter. Perhaps someone’s mother, someone’s everything--their breath at night and hope in the day.

Maria: you call her refugee. Someone Who Is Escaping. Someone Who Is Fleeing. Someone Who Is Leaving. Someone Who Is In Between.

Nothing. No one.

Maria has dreams, or had dreams. Maria has a family, or had a family. Maria has a culture, or had a culture. Maria has traditions, or had traditions. Maria has a native tongue, or had a native tongue.

Maria has memories of a homeland that was once beautiful and filled with song, but that song has since been replaced with the crashing and pounding of bombs. The melody of a neighborhood and it has since been reduced to rubble. So you call Maria nothing, no one.

Or, perhaps you say nothing at all and turn a blind on Maria. Perhaps you choose to look past her because she is nothing, no one.

She is Maria. She is just another face. Just another pain in this world.

Nothing, No one. Maria.

--inspired by “Maria” grandson cover of Rage Against the Machine.

[tazlukesh]

Poems w/ Friends V.3

“The Beginning is the End, Is the Beginning, Is the End” by Jeff Lukesh, Taleah Lukesh, and Tessa Lukesh

Distantly, yet not so far away, I could see the sun set through the veil.

And as I stood on this ridge and watched this burning light die, I realized... The beginning is the end.

[tazlukesh]

Poems w/ Friends V.2

Collide by Snow Meckelburg and Tessa Lukesh

We’re not all lovable creatures. Creatures don’t hide in the dark. Creatures frolic in the shadows, dance in the storms, and rush at the gorge.

Love. Love lifts shadows, causes storms and carves the gorge. And we, we are the creatures. Loving and lifting, carving and causing. We are the love and we are the creatures.

Creatures that die alone. Creatures that dream alone. Creatures that love alone. Creatures that collide, alone together.

Maybe together, we’re not alone. Maybe together, we’re not all lovable creatures. Maybe together, we are creatures and we are loving.

[tazlukesh]

Poems w/ Friends V.1

Wild by Rivers by Timothy Opyt and Tessa Lukesh

Wild by rivers the moonlight rolls by. Rushing, pulsing, like the current of our heartbeats.

And the river rolls while the moonlight glow And wild by rivers, the current goes.

Innocent, Contained Freely Restrained-- That which flows freely has already determined  its course.

[tazlukesh]

Poems w/ Friends

I’m adding some new content to this page. Anytime you see a poem entitled “Poems w/ Friends” it means that and friend and I alternated writing every other sentence of the poem. Each poem begins with a single line and progresses from there with two minds and two personalities at the helm.

[tazlukesh]

The Woman Who Lived Two Lives

-written on 3/11/20

Have you heard the story of Anne Hall? The woman who lived two lives?

She fled to one end of the country when she needed to feel loved and in control, the other side of the country when she needed to feel unpredictable and outspoken. She spent more time in that unpredictable life, the one that left her exposed and hardened. She felt raw like a fighter most days. Those days left her heart bruised and blackened, her vision so cloudy from the anger and the tears that she may as well have had two black eyes to accompany her two lives.

After months of outliving those days, Anne hall would fly west where the hard and shy seed opened up and the sun welcomed her and embraced her in the land’s expanse.

In the west she was not The Fighter Anne Hall. In the west, she was still a mystery, a treasure chest that had yet to be opened. (Of course, she had run away before anyone had had the chance to open her chest of treasures.) In the west, everyone saw Anne Hall and saw her potential but didn’t dare to intervene. In the east, that simply was not the case. Everyone saw Anne Hall’s potential and kept her from reaching it, or they knew her secrets and seen the chest opened and let Anne Hall fight for what she wanted. Alone.

The west was the corner of the ring for Anne Hall. In the west, Anne Hall had time to breathe, to think. There were friends and family--people who knew the past but not the future. These were the people who took care of Anne Hall between the fights. They cleaned her wounds and stitched her cuts. They filled her water bottle, gave her ice when she asked for it, and a towel when she needed it.

In the east, the people never approached the ring. They let Anne Hall fight. They knew the future but walked past the fight. They didn’t fill the empty water bottle or pass the ice. They didn’t take the time to see the cuts and wounds and stop to notice the towel folded on top of the stool.

No one stood in Anne Hall’s corner like they did in the west.

But, after enough rest in the west, Anne Hall would itch for the east. She’d feel like a coward, a quitter after too much rest, like she had given up on fighting and succumbed to hiding. So, Anne Hall would stand up and fight.

But she was too fast in the west. Few people would fight Anne Hall in the west because they couldn’t fight what they couldn’t see. So, restless for a challenge, Anne Hall would board a plane bound for the east. There she could train hard and train long without distraction. She’d dissolve into sleep, exhausted every night. Then she’d walk and clean her bruises, bandage her cuts, and begin again.

She’d win some fights and lose most. She’d train harder after those fights. Train harder then rest longer and prioritize recovery so she could train even harder. All the while, people watched and walked on by. Only a few passersby cared to call out tips or suggestions--even fewer stopped to fill her water bottle or grab her stool.

So Anne Hall fought and fought. And when she won a championship and went home to rest, not a single person cared to ask Anne Hall why she fought. Did she enjoy the fights? The training?

And it was right here, right when Anne Hall should be falling asleep, that she would purchase a plane ticket to head west, to feel loved, to feel time slow and the sun embrace her, all the while knowing, eventually, she would have to return east to finish the fight.

[tazlukesh]

The Extent of Our River, the Depth of Our Puddle

This is living history       every moment agitated and unpredictable                                           and it roots you in place.                      One endless loop of change.

This is time--this is living the past as it happens.

This is the moment--a leaf in the current. We are rooted in our moment of tide, never knowing when the current will dry, never knowing which direction the tide will shift next.

We are the leaf. We ride the tide, never knowing if the current we ride is a river or a breeze on a puddle until we look back once the ride has ended. That is history--that is living. Not in knowing the moment or the outcome but in being present and aware for every loop and swirl and twist and turn, so that when we reflect, we are able to see the extent of our river, the depth of our puddle.

This is living history. This is the moment.

[tazlukesh]

Self-portrait

These are the thoughts I feel, the pain I think.

I see the success--I see that road before me like a ten year span. It’s a tunnel that darkens. Who I become inside that tunnel is not who I want to become.

I doubt myself--I doubt others. We doubt ourselves and trust others instead of trusting ourselves and forcing others to prove themselves.

We doubt, and because of that, we will never know the future. We must trust to know.

Instead, I fear and I worry.

Who I am is not who I want to become.

Who I am is not who I wanted to become.

I have stumbled, I have strayed. I have been tested, I have tried.

My soul is clawing at the walls, trying to pull itself up, and I want it to settle. Oh, settle my soul. I want my soul to float, not fight.

Instead: Here is the wall and here is every ounce of strength I have pushing against that wall.

These are the thoughts I feel, the pain I think. I want my soul to float, not fight.

[tazlukesh]

Lines on Monday Morning

This isn’t me, this wild, frantic anger.

This is me, this wild, frantic anger.

[tazlukesh]

Lines Written at an Airport Listening to “TOO MUCH HATE” by Joplyn

The man worn and weathered by the world and its grinding gears of time has learned that the pleasure of life comes from the small joys. I see that in his smile as he sucks the remnants of cinnamon and sugar from his fingers. A bite-sized indulgence and he gives in. Why shouldn’t he? He sits there calm in passing with life running through a tube from a tank to his nose. He knows nothing in this world lasts forever. He knows to savor. He knows to simmer in patience for it is in those moments of patience that we can learn the most. But only if we are willing to wait and watch and learn. This man has waited and watched a learned. This man has been willing. I can see it in the way he savors the world as it passes by. The world is in a hurry. Let it be. This man will wait. He has learned that time moves in a circle and if he waits now and lets the moment pass it will cycle back, cycle back ever so quickly, and when it does, he will be ready and waiting.

[tazlukesh]

Simple

Without love we will flay ourselves just to feel something.

Without love we will flay ourselves and flay each other.

[tazlukesh]

Written on 8/25/19. So thanks for this one.

We don’t pick this life because we want it. We pick this life because we have to. This life chose us and we must lean in or drown.

People say we create but we aren’t creating. We are finding the collisions, helping others see the connections that already exist.

Our willingness to embark upon this endeavor will always be taken for granted so we must guard against that by approaching our process with joy and respect.

There will be days we loathe the process, days we cannot remember the process, but the outcome is always worth the suffering. The outcome is a process and the process teaches us lessons, and as long as there is a lesson to be learned, there is no regret.

[tazlukesh]

Let Them Go

Let them talk and let them run. Let them smother and burn and char your kind heart. Those are but scars that will harden outside your heart to protect the kindness within.

Let them talk and let them run. They do not see the scars within. They do not see the flames they cast. If the fire goes unnoticed, then the kindness will never be seen.

Beg them, help them. Fall on your crown and bleed before them; it will make no difference.

All they will see is insubordination, a refusal to cooperate.

Offer them kindness and they will see hate. Offer them your heart and they will slap it onto a spike. Offer them grace and they will search for the fire--always fire, more fire.

So let them run and let them talk. They will never break your heart. They charred it once--they can burn it again. But you will only ever offer to help. You have only ever offered to help.