wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet

[wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet]

David Berman - Self-Portrait at 28

I know it's a bad title but I'm giving it to myself as a gift on a day nearly canceled by sunlight when the entire hill is approaching the ideal of Virginia brochured with goldenrod and loblolly and I think "at least I have not woken up with a bloody knife in my hand" by then having absently wandered one hundred yards from the house while still seated in this chair with my eyes closed. It is a certain hill the one I imagine when I hear the word "hill" and if the apocalypse turns out to be a world-wide nervous breakdown if our five billion minds collapse at once well I'd call that a surprise ending and this hill would still be beautiful a place I wouldn't mind dying alone or with you. I am trying to get at something and I want to talk very plainly to you so that we are both comforted by the honesty. You see there is a window by my desk I stare out when I am stuck though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write and I don't know why I keep staring at it. My childhood hasn't made good material either mostly being a mulch of white minutes with a few stand out moments, popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer a certain amount of pride at school everytime they called it "our sun" and playing football when the only play was "go out long" are what stand out now. If squeezed for more information I can remember old clock radios with flipping metal numbers and an entree called Surf and Turf. As a way of getting in touch with my origins every night I set the alarm clock for the time I was born so that waking up becomes a historical reenactment and the first thing I do is take a reading of the day and try to flow with it like when you're riding a mechanical bull and you strain to learn the pattern quickly so you don't inadverantly resist it. II two I can't remember being born and no one else can remember it either even the doctor who I met years later at a cocktail party. It's one of the little disappointments that makes you think about getting away going to Holly Springs or Coral Gables and taking a room on the square with a landlady whose hands are scored by disinfectant, telling the people you meet that you are from Alaska, and listen to what they have to say about Alaska until you have learned much more about Alaska than you ever will about Holly Springs or Coral Gables. Sometimes I am buying a newspaper in a strange city and think "I am about to learn what it's like to live here." Oftentimes there is a news item about the complaints of homeowners who live beside the airport and I realize that I read an article on this subject nearly once a year and always receive the same image. I am in bed late at night in my house near the airport listening to the jets fly overhead a strange wife sleeping beside me. In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation of various cold medicine commercial sets (there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand). I know these recurring news articles are clues, flaws in the design though I haven't figured out how to string them together yet, but I've begun to notice that the same people are dying over and over again, for instance Minnie Pearl who died this year for the fourth time in four years. III three Today is the first day of Lent and once again I'm not really sure what it is. How many more years will I let pass before I take the trouble to ask someone? It reminds of this morning when you were getting ready for work. I was sitting by the space heater numbly watching you dress and when you asked why I never wear a robe I had so many good reasons I didn't know where to begin. If you were cool in high school you didn't ask too many questions. You could tell who'd been to last night's big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallway. You didn't have to ask and that's what cool was: the ability to deduct to know without asking. And the pressure to simulate coolness means not asking when you don't know, which is why kids grow ever more stupid. A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying for a letter from the class stoner ten years on but... Do you remember the way the girls would call out "love you!" conveniently leaving out the "I" as if they didn't want to commit to their own declarations. I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept and hope you won't get uncomfortable if I should go into some deeper stuff here. IV four There are things I've given up on like recording funny answering machine messages. It's part of growing older and the human race as a group has matured along the same lines. It seems our comedy dates the quickest. If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes I hope you won't be insulted if I say you're trying too hard. Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live seem slow-witted and obvious now. It's just that our advances are irrepressible. Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands. It makes people too self-conscious about the past, though try explaining that to a kid. I'm not saying it should be this way. All this new technology will eventually give us new feelings that will never completely displace the old ones leaving everyone feeling quite nervous and split in two. We will travel to Mars even as folks on Earth are still ripping open potato chip bags with their teeth. Why? I don't have the time or intelligence to make all the connections like my friend Gordon (this is a true story) who grew up in Braintree Massachusetts and had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree until I brought it up. He'd never broken the name down to its parts. By then it was too late. He had moved to Coral Gables. V five The hill out my window is still looking beautiful suffused in a kind of gold national park light and it seems to say, I'm sorry the world could not possibly use another poem about Orpheus but I'm available if you're not working on a self-portrait or anything. I'm watching my dog have nightmares, twitching and whining on the office floor and I try to imagine what beast has cornered him in the meadow where his dreams are set. I'm just letting the day be what it is: a place for a large number of things to gather and interact -- not even a place but an occasion a reality for real things. Friends warned me not to get too psychedelic or religious with this piece: "They won't accept it if it's too psychedelic or religious," but these are valid topics and I'm the one with the dog twitching on the floor possibly dreaming of me that part of me that would beat a dog for no good reason no reason that a dog could see. I am trying to get at something so simple that I have to talk plainly so the words don't disfigure it and if it turns out that what I say is untrue then at least let it be harmless like a leaky boat in the reeds that is bothering no one. VI six I can't trust the accuracy of my own memories, many of them having blended with sentimental telephone and margarine commercials plainly ruined by Madison Avenue though no one seems to call the advertising world "Madison Avenue" anymore. Have they moved? Let's get an update on this. But first I have some business to take care of. I walked out to the hill behind our house which looks positively Alaskan today and it would be easier to explain this if I had a picture to show you but I was with our young dog and he was running through the tall grass like running through the tall grass is all of life together until a bird calls or he finds a beer can and that thing fills all the space in his head. You see, his mind can only hold one thought at a time and when he finally hears me call his name he looks up and cocks his head and for a single moment my voice is everything: Self-portrait at 28.

[wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet]

Untitled

rivers drawn to an end stone and wood, warped and bent razing winds through land and sky howling, blowing, as life runs dry

sun fit to burst entombed, inert sketched signs in air inner eye, cursed glare

[wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet]

Lil Ugly Mane - Collapse and Appear

I fell apart and took my mind with me I have been barely sustaining My pain just marinating I fell apart and took my mind with me Just a Ghost cloaked in lies with a broken spine I fell apart and took my mind With me Just an unrecognizable creature caught under an avalanche Fell apart and took my mind with me My presence unnerving I'm a shadow always lurking Surrounded by death Even the towel rack reminds me of the handles pallbearers grip tightly on the way out of church What they use to lift you up into the back of that hearse I see a woman tighten grip on her purse Can’t be offended, she doesn't know my intentions She imagines the worst Around here, the conditions severe Around here, you tightrope between detachment and fear between the shattered fragments of existence that collapse And appear Never changes, just exacerbates depression deeper year after year. pain weaving in, pain weaving out Heart-worms, sharp turns, Sparse words, scars-burns I spent a long time dying Don't wake me up yet Public executions You’ll never see me upset Force-fed myself with blow, but now i settle for sedatives No longer in the street I belong in the crevices Positively negative Popular I’ve Never Been Hard to be a person when you lack the mental requisites Emotionally deficit  Consumed with all the wretchedness Not optimist or pessimist My politics are in exodus Spouting countless fountains out while drowning in the brine My life's the foulest algorithm science can't define They trap you in these systems that are phallic in design Because they fuck you in the mind Boy, they fuck you all the time I fell apart and took My mind with me Being strung up at the ligaments with cultural derivatives I fell apart and took my mind with me Pronounced dead by a nemesis A doubt without a benefit I fell apart and took my mind with me Just a cluster of atoms thrust deep in a chasm I feel apart, and now your mind is with me Smoke in your eyes The worlds a joke in disguise

[wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet]

Neurosis - End of the Harvest

Like the walls of your stare, you will fall (within you) Succumb to the new and give way Old fields will fail (memory) Yielding crops of rock and dust A book lies open Its pages crumble at your touch Words breed lies (writhe) Wind feeds fire unseen Have you ever tasted the soil (destiny) And felt your own death in your veins? Shield your eyes from the moon (found them all) As it mocks your wretched self With fire in your heart The truth lies clear Words breed lies (writhe) Wind feeds fire unseen Bend your thoughts Unveil your soul Now drink, revive Reach, scrape and bind

[wemadeacrosswhereourshadowsmet]

Songs: Ohia - Ring The Bell

Help does not just walk up to you i could have told you that I’m not an idiot I could have told you that In every serpent’s eye watch you go where you go Every serpents double tongue takes a turn with your soul If you let them ring your bell (x2) They’re ringing the bell (x2) Why wouldn’t i be trying to figure it out Everyone tells you that Everyone tells you not to quit I can’t even see it to fight it If it looks like i’m not trying i don’t care what it looks like Cause i stood at the altar and everything turned white All I heard was the sound… of the world coming down around me (x2) Why wouldn’t i be trying Why wouldn’t i try (x2) Cause those double tongues are singing hear the wail of the choir through the fog The sound of that choir through the fog They’re always close they’re always so close always close always so close If there’s a way out it will be step by step through the black (x2) Why wouldn’t i be trying to figure it out it don’t mean i’m not trying if i don’t make it back I know serpents will cross universes to circle around our necks I know hounds will cross universes to circle around our feet I know they’re close Step by step one’s beside me to kill me or to guide me Why wouldn’t i be trying to figure which one out (x2)