Mirror Match Before Laser Floyd

February 28, 2004

I feel a hand reach through the mirror
it pulls me through the glass
and points me towards the darkness
the darkness that we never see—
but this kind of darkness will show you the light
the light of an idea—that your unconscious despair
is something that you—just have to try and define.

Is my despair:
—a need to reconcile the past
or
—a desire to pinpoint what is deficient in me?
No girlfriend and I wish I was better at math
but look harder, look deeper—
force the spirit to speak to you.


Long hair with a silver barbell pierced eyebrow—
I look at my face in the mirror and see my reflection as other
like a dog who doesn’t recognize itself in the dishwasher.
Who are you? Who have you become? 
Disassociated with my new persona
I want to feel whole again
or at least quiet the war within.

At nineteen I am tender and malleable
trying to declare this identity
and I think if I stare long enough in the mirror
I believe I’ll receive answers to my questions.
I have trouble connecting my past to my future
but as I start to piece together what remnants still remain—I realize
I can still be the person who likes to color with fluorescent markers.

These days doubt lurks into everything I set out to accomplish 
and yet I have this perseverance that adapts and combats
against the negative thoughts that try to overtake my aspirations.
I finally snap out of it and force myself to look away 
from the mirror and my brooding discontentment.
Although, as I come down 
I return, unresolved.

I return to a room full of friends
to play beer pong
with Jake, Shane, and Dave.
Red solo cups cover the dining room table
at Jake’s parent’s house in Ingram, Pennsylvania.
Eventually a little before eleven o’clock I climb in a car
and ride along with the guys for a midnight showing of Laser Floyd.

When we arrive at the Carnegie Science Center we see
they’re showing The Wall tonight in Buhl Planetarium.
When I hear the lyric goodbye blue sky
I’m inspired to connect with
another man’s war within
and think about what the word 
goodbye means to me. 

When we get back to Jake’s
I crash on a couch
and as I’m falling asleep
I hear someone playing
Marble Madness on Nintendo.
I close my eyes
and drift away.

Thursday Poem on a Monday Night

THURSDAY POEM ON A MONDAY NIGHT
May 15, 2006

Yesterday the forecast was raining-rotten
a thunder storm swept through town
and a lightning strike caused a surge
that damaged my thirteen inch bedroom TV.
It was a Christmas gift from my parents in 1997.
The screen is now colored with green and purple splotches.
I watched the season two finale of Grey’s Anatomy on it anyway.

It was the episode where the pretty doctor falls in love with her patient.
Izzie is dressed up in a gorgeous pink ball gown, ready for prom at the hospital
but before she goes to the dance, she stops in to check on her love, Denny Duquette.
Denny has suffered a stroke and is already dead. Izzie lies with him in bed
when the Snow Patrol song starts playing, exploring that question of bliss:
If I lay here, if I just lay here—would you lie with me—and just forget the world?

I turn off my broken TV and feel a brooding despair wash over me.
I’m somewhere in between what has passed and what is next.
I sit at my desk with an open Word Document and listen to
the new Thursday album called A City by the Light Divided.
I write along to the music and I may not always know
who I am or what I want to do with my life
but I’m always searching, always writing
trying to find wonderment in the night
staying up until it feels like
I am with you, whoever you are
when it reaches the end of the line.

Take A Picture

“Could you wanna take my picture, because I won’t remember.” – Filter


I had a dream the other night—where I was a teenager again. Perhaps this dream happened, because I was working on a poem from that era that’s set in the early 2000’s entitled, “Songs On the CD I Burnt For You”.  It’s a 20 part “poem” and each part is the title of a song—and each of these songs narrates a greater narrative of whole through a certain period of time from 2000—2003. This particular part was a song by Filter called “Take A Picture”. I keep hearing the song resurface as I’m listening to Pop Rocks on SiriusXM.

It was an important dream, because I connected with an idea that seemed very much like a key. The key helped me unlock a door to view some of weaknesses in my identity. I guess I still carry some of these weaknesses with me as my present self in 2022. Dreams can give each of us a correspondence with our subconscious mind—especially about the things we think we have buried deep enough to hide from ourselves.

I think there are some things in our life we carry with us in some way shape or form—and don’t have the power to move beyond. We each have our own collection of hurts and the moments that seem to sting more than others. I think I saw the vision of one particular person in this dream—the face—and the hair—and the feeling—so that I could reflect inward and develop a full relationship with some of those memories.

Comfort In Chaos (Interlude)

I’ll find comfort in chaos
and victory in your arms
you’re the one I think of
when I linger inside our little version of forever.
I don’t even know what year it is anymore
but I want to see if you agree
that our favorite people prop us up like shelters.


They house all different kinds of love
and shine like street lights in the dark,
riddles in the dark, and the long road
when you’re alone at night
and thinking of their face
wet tears release the feeling.
 
I’ll find chaos in comfort
but no reason for your death.
When I used to think of the word together
I didn’t realize that on this Earth
it has and always will be
a finite thing with measure.
Someday all of the best memories have to be remembered
but what if there’s another Earth
a realm without beginning or end
where we don’t have to know the meaning of I miss you.

Either in death or separation
sometimes our favorite person
is suddenly, somehow—
gone
at least
until I close my eyes.

I’ll find comfort in chaos
and victory in your arms           
reflecting false mirrors                  
of shadows and spheres            
to find you in me
still my storm on the sea
on our flight to the ford
we see a white pelican
sleeping over there on a cushion.
The bird wakes up to feed us
and tell us from the shore
where all the fish are hiding.

Far from stale air & colors impaired


I’ll find comfort in chaos
and peace in the madness.
Today we learned
how to give death a new name again
after surviving the line
of another funeral viewing.
The spirit of the corpse
eats again in oblivion
or an afterlife where bread
tastes like a dreamer dares
upward we climb
to the gate down the stairs  
exhale your last breath
before yesterday becomes
another ghost without a body.

I found comfort in your arms
my gentle calm in chaos
chrysalis of clarity
mourn no despair
here and now we bask in our lair
still-hope beauty, trap me in dreaming
keep me from waking into words
of a world that’s far less captivating.


Close your eyes again
say I miss you one more time.
Cry out to the face you see in the fire
Cry out to the name above the flames.
Someday it will be me.
Someday it will be you.

Until then exonerate every winter
and every shitty job
that ever made you feel like an exile
you’re not another casualty of society
so don the black feather
of your most negative ego
one more time
then pluck it out.

Shelter


#PorterRobinson
 #Shelter This particular song, “Shelter”, has a music video specifically produced by animators in Japan at A1 Pictures to match Robinson’s vision.

 

The female character is alone in a simulation of sorts, because her father sent her to outer space to survive since its later implied that Earth has been destroyed. She still has her archived memories though. It’s so awe inspiring if you want to watch SHELTER on YouTube. All of those feelings hit me tonight as I reconnected with breadcrumbs from my own archived mythology – what it means to be a kid & a son to my Earthly parents and to my Heavenly Father. My parents took me to Sesame Street Live at the Jaffa Mosque in Altoona when I was a child and I really wanted to go up on stage with Big Bird.


I’m still that person underneath everything who loves to smile and sing along.

Tonight was a celebration of that idea for me. That time you spend in solitude in your headphones can also exist in community. The song, “Mother” is especially special too. I love that line, “I’m on your side for the rest of your life.”

There’s a childlike wonder about Robinson’s work that is so wholesome and magical. He’s also an artist that struggled for 7 years to produce a follow up album to his debut WORLDS and I can relate to that feeling of losing your drive to create and almost losing a little bit of your identity when you’re stuck in a creative rut. “Get Your Wish” really encapsulates that idea of rediscovering who you truly are – which i’ve felt strong waves of lately – repurposing my posture.

 
 
 
 
 
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I’ve felt the need to be true to my original self and not who I project myself as or who others perceive me to be. My friend Andrew discovered Robinsons music too on his own and really connected with the song “Unfold”. If anything I’d say this art has really fun beat drops with blissful, whimsical visual narratives. I love the spirit of the song “Musician” and that freedom of unbridled joy. It makes me want to strive to be less of a hard-hearted cynic who scowls and more of a delightful warm bowl of soup type of person who contemplates what it means to be grateful.



🙂 @porterrobinson

Naming the World

Idling at a red light on Fifth Avenue
I notice a million dollar mansion
wrapped up in a big red bow.
It’s early November, too soon for Christmas.
Who decorates a house to look like a present?
Maybe it’s not the architecture of a building
or even the legacy of its former inhabitants—
House Negley. House Gwinner. House Harter
tea parties toasting past lives on Amberson Avenue.
Perhaps this satin knot is a reminder
it’s good to be alive today.
My right palm grips the gearshift.
Sophia’s fingers weave between my knuckles.
A desert girl with the most magnificent laugh.
Somehow she’s still riding in my car
so much more than just a passenger
I’ll be a soft armrest for you to lean on.
Weary after the fall—a storm wars
urgency in her head and I can see
the ache in her eyes—a tempest
barely dazed by coffee and aspirin.
I’d like to rob a pharmacy
for something stronger.
Hold on to me, desert girl, hold on.
Rain and snow fall elegantly outside.
I trigger windshield wipers and Sophia
opens up her strained, brown eyes.
Is this what you call—sleet?
I squeeze her hand and nod.
Yes—yes, it’s sleet.
The traffic light turns green.
I lift my foot off the brake
and ease on the gas
without letting go.

(UN)LOST at the Altar Bar

“Control what you can, confront what you can’t,
and always remember how lucky you are to have yourself.”
John O’Callaghan

It’s a monsoon outside The Maine show
so I sprint down Penn Avenue.
Skynet sent me from the future to test
if robots can run faster than the rain.

I’m a T-1000 Terminator
made of liquid metal, so it’s okay
to stomp in the big puddles. Splash!
My quadriceps finally fire, reminding me
I’m human.

I drink my beer where people used to pray.
Turning ultraviolet under a black light
I finish a bitter Dale’s Pale Ale.
In reverie I drift away: wondering—
Whatever happened to those people?
Did they find a new place to worship?
Sleep in or stop believing? It stops raining.
The sun shines outside. Rays pour through
the decommissioned stained-glass windows.

I sing along with John O’Callaghan.
So fresh (and electric)
So new (and improved)
I shake my hips, clap my hands.
Live music can help heal a man.

Whatever you’re going through
let the waves wash over your spirit
like a beer over your body. Learn to
love yourself again
one haunting song at a time.

Love Poem (after Ron Padgett)

Love Poem
after Ron Padgett

We have plenty of throw pillows in our house.
We arrange them every morning
when we make the bed together.
First, the floral ones that match the sheets.
Next, the cylindrical bolsters for back support
followed by twenty-one inch silver squares
big enough to be two obsolete televisions.
The last pillow goes smack in the center
—on its face is a map of the world.
I forget what life was like before throw pillows.
I could jump to generalizations and state
the average male is driven by utility.
He knows throw pillows reduce leg room
unconcerned with decorative nest building.
Nevertheless, there is something to be said

about returning home after a long day.
Greeted at the door
by a beaming smile from the bed.
How about a nap? It’s cozy here!
Throw pillows bring out the color
palette of a room. I’m convinced. So incand-
descent and vivacious. The woman
I love sees the world with her own eyes.
A personal aesthetic draped in dusty purple,
hurricane lamps light up succulent plants.
She is vivid, has her own graceful way
of complementing my negative space.
For dinner we make breakfast,
Eggos and bacon.

Dream Out Loud

Bridget invites me under her umbrella
a shelter where her eyes offer
a glimpse of who I could become.
A real adult with stubble and a clever imagination.

We ascend her jungle green apartment steps
and I note that this is not an off-script encounter
in someone else’s adventure—this is
the new narrative of my own life.

The first thing I noticed the night we met
was the wind charm hanging from her neck
a silver triangle: Oh, you’re echelon too.
There aren’t many of us around anymore.

2 AM, eight months later I ask Bridget to try on
her birthday present. She pulls the 30 Seconds to Mars
girly fit t-shirt over her black party dress and I am
surprised she can stretch to fit into such little fabric.

It’s Bridget’s insistence to dream out loud
and the lyrics on her shirt become a burning mantra.
An assuring lightning bolt strikes—surges between us
Bridget whispers: You know I love you, don’t you?

My broken backstory melts into a puddle inside me.
Healing nights spent alone in my car, misunderstood
and unable to go inside and face that photo frame
with the wrong woman I can’t take off my nightstand.

Bridget shows me who I ought to be.
A real adult with another chapter waiting.
I center this mythical love in my sternum
say goodnight and run out into pouring rain.

Traffic Between Two Worlds

I.
Smoked ham, pepperoni, and salami.
Provolone, banana peppers, and mayonnaise.
Red wine vinegar, olive oil, onions, and oregano.

Oh, how things like our taste buds do change
as I try to wash down this Italian sub with
some freshly squeezed lemonade.

I used to be a picky eater,

but—who am I now? I ask myself as I swallow
the last bite while watching a new Pens winger
take another shot on goal and miss again.

My stomach is full,
but I do not feel whole
—something’s missing.

II.

Retracing my steps back down Centre Avenue
I pull into a bank parking lot across the street
from Saint Andrew’s stone-castle Lutheran Church.

I sense a strange connection to the light
shimmering behind the stained-glass windows
like the sun shining on the other side of the sky.

I want to go in, but I just take a picture.

I wonder—Whatever happened to that boy
who used to wear a white robe
and light candles on an altar?

That Sunday morning acolyte who gazed
into this same sort of three-paneled glasswork
pattern crafted by hands from the same era.

III.

Jesus said, Let the little children come to me,
and I guess I’m not so little anymore,
but I still want that blessing that allows

me to become one with the light shining out-
side the image, because I believe these stories
are not merely trapped inside the colored glass.

I want to go home to that immeasurable love.

I don’t want to be here anymore, but I guess
I’m just sick of mundane bachelor meals alone.
Jesus give me a glimpse—a momentary flash

make me new like a child again,
show me the other world outside isolation
where you exist as light and are love.

Ixora

The windshield wipers whisk
back and forth, back and forth
back and forth and forward on
as I drive east on I-4
from Saint Petersburg to Orlando.

Through the sideways rain and monsoon winds
I see green signs for Winter Haven and Lakeland,
the later one being where Aaron Marsh lives
who I just saw play with his band Copeland
at the Ritz Ybor Theater, for the first time in five years.

Maybe someday if I’m ever a teacher I’ll go
on a hiatus of my own and call it a sabbatical,
but until then I gaze past the palm trees and power lines at
the lights still on inside an all-night diner where I imagine Aaron
might have first met his wife, Niki, for coffee and some conversation.

How does one craft the sweetest melancholies?
For there are an infinite number of intricate ways
to say you feel a dull bite of stinging sadness

and sometimes it
can be a falsetto feeling
to know that you’re alive

and tonight I feel reluctant that I
did not fight the mirror-room crowd
to ask Aaron what it means when he sings:

in her arms you will never starve
and just how do
the oceans of her kindness,
pull you under?

The woodwind synths cajole me into a catharsis
imagining my own Ixora with red flowers in her hair.
To teleport her here is my one night-dream desire
maybe she might caresses my left cheek. Maybe my
cologne would wear off on her soft, crimson blouse.

The robotic voice of a GPS interrupts my fantasy
telling me to take exit 62 and merge right onto
Celebration Boulevard. I can still hear the wipers
whisking back and forth as my exhausted body
crawls beneath motel sheets—to fall asleep there.

The oceans of her kindness,
they will pull you under,
they will pull you under.

Different Cloth

We’re already 0 for 1 as my brother enters the numerical coordinates for the second cache
into an app on his android phone as we walk along a gravel, man made mountain road.
I try to imagine where the railroad tracks used to be, but all I see are some dull orange leaves.

There’s sweat beading up on my brow from this deceptive, September heat
so I tilt my head back and ease into ecstasy as I close my eyes with the gulp, gulp, gulp
until the pressure built up inside the plastic bottle—crinkles in—and then releases the tension.

The physical terrain of this world is far more vast and complex
than the graphic shapes rendered on an overhead digital map
and as the wavy-haired Elliott quickly walks ahead impatiently I think of the invented
idiom phrase that he sometimes says to me, “You know we’re cut from different cloth.”

Although exploring long lengths ahead, he only disappears once from view after the last turn,
but at least he waited for me to summit before opening the cache he already found hidden in
the hole of a stump where we beheld a black ammo box cleverly wedged between two roots.

After signing our names in the small notepad log, we were 1 for 2 as we both inspected a
silver monopoly game piece of a terrier that made me think of the time I fell asleep
on his apartment floor in State College when I came to visit that summer after our dog died.

In geocaching there is a choice of what you take with you and what you leave behind,
and today we traded a bouncy ball for a green Nessie figurine, still believing in mystery.

I offer to carry the pack for a while and play a new Chris Carrabba folk song from my iPhone
as I lightly sing along we subconsciously set our synchronous steps to the rhythmic beat.
I think of the beer I bought for Chris and Suzie who played the mandolin earlier that year
on the North Shore and how we saw Dashboard over a decade ago—outside of A.J. Palumbo.

It was only last week at our maternal grandmothers house where we noticed that our favorite tree
in the backyard had been chopped down—the one that Elliott used to swing from was now reduced to only a stump as I envisioned my old wiffle ball self rounding third base heading home.

We looked out over at the reservoir scene in a mythical daydream without saying anything.

In the quiet we see the water ripple and imagined the fish and the birds and the beavers
and the bears who examined the wolves returning in proof to prove the perpetual balance
that we need each other to sustain the fragile, ecosystem of life and ecosystem of love, too.