REMEMBERED MUSIC
(Rumi)

'Tis said, the pipe and lute that charm our ears
Derive their melody from rolling spheres;
But Faith, o'erpassing speculation's bound,
Can see what sweetens every jangled sound.

We, who are parts of Adam, heard with him
The song of angels and of seraphim.
Our memory, though dull and sad, retains
Some echo still of those unearthly strains.

Oh, music is the meat of all who love,
Music uplifts the soul to realms above.
The ashes glow, the latent fires increase:
We listen and are fed with joy and peace.

Nirvana - Lithium

I'm so happy
Cause today I found my friends
They're in my head
And I'm so ugly
But that's okay cause so are you
Broken mirrors
Sunday morning is everyday
For all I care
And I'm not scared
Light my candles
In a daze cause I found God

Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey

I'm so lonely
But that's okay I shaved my head
And I'm not sad
And just maybe
I'm to blame for all I've done
I'm not sure - I'm so excited
I can't wait to meet you there
But I don't care
I'm so horny
It's okay, my will is good

Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey
Hey, hey hey hey

I like it - I'm not gonna crack
I miss you - I'm not gonna crack
I love you - I'm not gonna crack
I kill you - I'm not gonna crack

I like it - I'm not gonna crack
I miss you - I'm not gonna crack
I love you - I'm not gonna crack
I kill you - I'm not gonna crack.

Swans - Love Of Life

Joy Division - Atmosphere

The Cure - Boys Don't Cry

Dead Can Dance - The Protagonist

David Bowie - Space Oddity

Sylvia Plath Reads Lady Lazarus

Morrissey - Seasick, Yet Still Docked

1622-61-3

It brings joy back, interest
Fascination with the minutiae of life
It makes me feel worthwhile again
Unafraid of my shadow
No need to beat myself up
For flaws I am born with
Or raised to view as normal
It makes me proud to be me
Feel singularly human
Willing to extend an olive branch
To anyone and everyone
Without any sense of weakness
I am a better person
More alive, more observant
More insignftful
More functional, more rational,
More human
It brings back a bit of the child
I thought I'd never see again
Free from this awful stone on my chest
There is a spring in my step
And a twinkle in my eye
And I don't know why
I need pills to make me what some
Experience naturally every day.

"What She Said"
(morrissey)

What she said - "How come someone hasn't noticed that I'm dead
And decided to bury me, GOD KNOWS I'm ready"
La la dee da da da

What she said was sad, but then all the rejection she's had
To pretend to be happy could only be idiocy
La la dee da da da

What she said was not for the JOB or LOVER
That she never had.

What she read - all heady books, she'd sit and prophesize
It took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead
To really, really open her eyes

What she read - all heady books, she'd sit and prophesize
It took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead
To really, really open her eyes

What she said - "I smoke, because I'm hoping for an early death
And I need to cling to something!"

What she said - "I smoke, because I'm hoping for an early death
AND I NEED TO CLING TO SOMETHING..."

Oh no no no no....

a note

This blog contains over 700 posts from the last two years or so. This may not seem obvious at first, but by clicking the months listed on the left you can access the archives. I moved away from individual posts having to have a name, since it seemed artificial in some cases, but by doing this I lost one of the easier and more interesting ways of skipping around to interesting-sounding posts.

Anyway, I've been forced to make this blog an invite-only affair for the moment, which pains me considerably. I hate censorship, but I'm currently embroiled in a legal matter and I'd rather my intimate, sometimes unorthodox brain wanderings not be available to be used against me, taken out of context or otherwise. So for now, this is how it will have to remain. Whatever happened to the noble idea of truly free speech? Someone always ruins that idyllic intention.

A little about this blog. If you are an old denizen of this space, not much has changed, except I haven't updated as frequently as I once did, and photos/illustrations have largely been put on hold for no obvious reason other than my laziness and and multiple disasters having hit me simultaneously, like some kind of perfect storm.

For new visitors, welcome! It may not all be rosy within these walls, but it is truthful to what is in my head. I tend to write more when I am depressed or reflective, either as an escape or a further exploration, respectively. I invite you to comb the archives or jump around as your imagination takes you, and please feel free to comment when you feel the urge. I am notified of all comments, no matter how old the original post, so I will see whatever you write. I am always glad to have feedback and humbled that people take the time to read what I write.

-JS

Helen of Calgary

When the cloud is lifted
Does a new one take its place?
Can love find its anchor in a face?
I've trotted out my arteries,
Spleen, cortexes, and veins
No two thoughts about you are the same.

Golden-haired child with
The soul of a woman twice your age,
A playful, timeless grace-
When the cloud is lifted I still
See you there before me;
Your famous face.

The ships stay in their harbors
But my longings may stretch out
A thousand lonely days.
You may be common in your own mind
But that green light behind your eyes
Says otherwise,

And that perfect smile
And its attendant beauty of thought
Of observation and expression
Are surely worth fighting for.
And I shall win your love some day
Without sword or shield,
Without flaming ship,
Without rows of soldiers
In the pay of kings
Without any material things

Solely with my heart.

because I'm direct,
and speak my mind
I make some people uncomfortable,
others just think I'm simple,
no artist in any way.

it's true,
I despise art;
and when I am away from here
no artist better raise his pen
to convince the world otherwise.

Boy Under a Winter Sun.

i understand some things. even the winter sun brings some warmth.
i have been dragged by hurricanes over distant rocky shores
before i was born and my brain had the word "practice" tattooed
over every square inch of its surface. still i sit behind my apartment
jealously guarding my thoughts, trying to make everyone in the world
know just how desperate and peaceful i am. but my stomach lies. it
doesn't have the appetite, and even the rays of the sun can't fix
what is wrong with it. though my fingers are tired, i throw rocks
looking toward the horizon, the coastline. even in the dead of winter
the sun finds a few hours to shine. makes its appearance and then
sprints from enemy clouds, dodges trees, floats behind mountains
only to reappear again on the other side. it sinks and is re-formed and
and is reborn. even a winter heart knows enough to hurt, and mine does.
it hurts like all the starving people of the world tied together.
though people seem blind, i have a gaze with arms that stretch miles,
a mouth which sucks color from everything I see, spits it out as
cities and homework, bright glass and artificial light. But concrete
cracks at the will of roots and plants, and even such a pale sun
brings a few hours of heat, a few hours of relief from the grim cruelty
of night, or its go-between servants dawn and dusk, winds which scatter
the pages of Divine Comdedies far and wide. covers them with body rot.
swamps and sand dunes cover half the globe it seems. they have a stomach
for modern life i was never granted. my gaze is planted in the past,
in summertime. somewhere a shiny pool of water waits for me. somewhere
a girl in a down jacket and knit hat and mittens smiles and waits for
me. it is her blonde hair i pretend i feel when the creepers and
mud-vines brush my shoulders. somewhere there is a hill where you
can see for miles, and nowhere are there roads or houses or chimney
stacks of industrial might spewing black chaos into the sky. she
will take the hand of some younger version of me, when this dream is
over, and i am clean and good again. when i am no longer under
suspicion, feared and hated, laughed at or pushed aside. she will
take me in her arms and dance me away, to a world where no one
is ever laughed at, or pushed aside, or derided for trying to be a
gentleman. here in the fading sun i pray she waits, and even dying
suns have some light to spare for a lazy dreamer perched upon piled
stones outside a fence by a stream, for someone who was once pushed
and pushed back, who has fallen on hard times, who rests on a bed of
broken glass and wakens to the sound of blood pumping through his
mind. surely even the winter sun has hope it can offer to that kind.

yes, it will all be over soon
it doesn't take much to believe
i have no higher gods than you
you've tracked me down
found me out
i can't keep my nose in the air
any longer
pretend i'm different and distinct
i'm one of you, i'm one with you
please don't turn away
there are no gods higher than me
i've tracked you down
seen what you're about
a lifetime journeying
no, it won't be over any time soon
we could be partners against
the nighttime world.

I didn't choose to be here. I just "woke up" one day and here I was. Why can't I leave? I don't believe in God nor sin, and morally and ethically I see no basis for anyone but me to make that decision. Especially not some law which forbids ending one's own life. That makes no sense to me at all. We can buy a calf, feed it and care for it until it grows up, then kill it, and it is legal. The pound can kill thousands of healthy cats simply because they are without a home. But it's illegal for a person to choose to take his *own* life, rather than to continue to suffer and use up planetary resources? I'd like someone to logically explain that to me.

The corridors of the world are filled with brutish sex
Like great black winged shadows against the walls
Of every person's nightmares and daymares
It's a sickening and filthy place
Where no one loves, seeking only lustful debauchery
Because every innocent thing about them as children
Has been torn out of their chest
And the wound has never completely healed
So they slave on, and when no one is looking they corner a child
Or leer at some unsure teenager in mounting excitement
Excrement pouring from their eyes and their mouths
Cleft-footed and hands soaked in offal and ink
Like demons cast out of all space and time
Forsaken then forgotten by a God who never had much control.

If I have lost every friend,
At least life has an end.
Every path to happiness has been choked off;

Dogs bark hard at me.
Cats adore me.
What else do you need to know?

In early times I might have been a leper,
A beggar or a sailor - a traitor
Under an unchivalrous moon.

Never the prince I have dreamed to be.
Words like honey and tongue thrusting
Longer than the river Nile.

sadness.

there is a beast sprawled over me, pinning me,
i can't catch my breath. his name is sadness.
it's the kind of sadness that isn't wistful or poignant
it hurts and it feels like the end of the world
the crashing down of all things once pretty and delicate
a unexpected plunge into cold water. it's the kind
of sadness that begs you to cry but won't let you,
the kind that makes your chest ache and nothing
and nobody is important in the world before your eyes
anymore. the sadness that drains you like a spider.
the dead grief of loss coupled with the certainty,
as full and true as death, that what has happened
can never be undone. the beast who is sprawled
over me, he is nothing, i could defeat him in an hour.
if only i wanted to. if only i wanted to. if only...

Man in Chains.
Thanks to Roland Orzabal for lyrical inspiration.

You better love silence and you better behave
You better love silence and you better behave
Man in chains, man in chains

Calls his woman with tears of hope
Says he's fine, he'll always cope, yeah
But he's frightened.

Man in chains, man in chains
She's talking to someone else down the line ooh
Doesn't hear a breath from you

Well, I feel lying and waiting is a poor man's deal
And I feel hopelessly weighed down by your eyes of steel
Well, it's a world gone crazy keeps a person in chains,
Any race in chains, any sex enchained.

Trades his soul as skin and bones
Sells the only thing he owns - the time he knows
Man in chains, man in chains

Men of stone, men of stone, hey baby, no no no, ooh

Well, I feel deep in my heart there are wounds time can't heal
And I feel somebody somewhere is trying to breathe
With a pillow hard upon them, well you know what I mean

It's a world gone crazy keeps a human in chains.
Woman or man, I don't understand.

It's under my skin but out of my hands
I'll tear it apart but I won't make any waves
I will not accept the greatness of anyone
Anyone
Woman or man.

So free him, so free him, so free him
So free him, so free him, So free him
So free him, so free him, so free him.
Free him.

This man in chains.

I don't understand this country.
How can someone be the victim of years of neglect and skepticism,
his ailments trivialized, spat upon,
and then when the police come there is no questioning
just an arrest made on the basis of being male?
No pictures, no questions, no attorney, no call.
Stupid small town hick police.
Roughed up for fun on the roundabout "way" to the station.
But I am oblivious to physical pain.
I want to know how someone can undergo psychological torture
year upon endless year and yet those attacks
upon a certified unhealthy person go unpunished?
How can two people be such heartlessly ignorant, selfish to the last?
Any flood would have taken them for sure.
How can I be blamed, feared, whatever,
when I never started anything, when all I ever wanted
was justice, the kind I was promised so many times
and never given, the kind they held like a carrot in front of my nose
until I walked off a cliff, deranged, victim of their ugly games.
Any sane man would lose his patience and his saintliness.
Either they are cruel or so ignorant it defies imagination.
These are the kind of people you explain something to
in simple language one hundred times, and nothing in them changes.
They just don't understand. They are etched into a printed circuit board.
All I've wanted is some kind of moderately happy ending
to the whole thing, not to be completely robbed of my dignity
or deprived of my rights. All I've ever given was love
and when that was rebuffed cruelly, I lashed out in hurt, finally.
These are two very bad people, without consciences.
I wish the hand of God had seen fit not to make them,
but then again, there is no God. They were genetic abnormalities
designed to harass and test my Darwinian fitness, and I failed,
Or at least just finally gave up; I can't take it anymore.
Life living with beasts like these isn't life at all.
I just want my things and my cat and want out. I tried.
All of my logic and kindness never made a dent on their skulls,
nor moved the brain matter within. It only caused them
to be randomly enraged and stick together even tighter
like monkeys growing irate and clinging to their parent/children,
rattling the bushes and howling and biting with plenty of passion
but not one bit of sense or understanding as to why they do what they do.
Mothering instincts, indefensible when I posed no threat, unforgiveable
when I only wanted a fair share and to be treated humanly again.
I hate dealing with robots. The outcome of every interaction is predetermined.
And women will always win, no matter how it plays out,
in the hearts and minds of people we once loved together, they are gone,
they have left me forever and sentenced me with their averted eyes.
And she will never repent for the wrong that she has done tonight.
And every night, what she thought was best was misguided
but she never let me tell her what I needed from her to make it better.
I have tried to find patience through all this, against two people,
and I have been the victim of their viciousness and soullessness so many times
it defies belief, but I will be once again be censured, which is a cruel joke.
I just want them to go away forever, I don't love them anymore, I'm sorry I ever did.
No, I'm not sorry. I just misplaced my trust in the wrong people.
It's obviously they never really loved me. Loving someone means you love them
when it's inconvenient. It's obvious there's a shrine they've built up to the glory
of each other, to female survival, to defend blood even in the face of unreason,
to act like savages. Or it's a simple case of nonsentient obedience to their genes,
which is about as robotic as you can get. Vacuous, stupid, hard to even label "life."
Forget higher philosophy here, judge, I am bitten black and they have the bruises of
fair-skinned people who bruise hitting others or who self-inflict, or who act without
minds behind their eyes, and law will continue to operate in the stone age ad infinitum
while the philosophers mumble volumes and accomplish nothing.

a plea to those who will listen

Being irrationally afraid of
Or prejudiced against those with
Emotional disorders
Or other inherited mental conditions
Is just as bad as hating them
For the color of their skin,
Their gender or nationality,
Or anything else they cannot control.

Be kind to people, especially if
Their lives are hard;
Especially if they didn't roll the
Right combination of dice at birth
To come up statististically average.
Judge people by their actions,
Tempered by an understanding of
Their strenghts and limitations.

Don't fall victim to groupthink,
Mob mentality,
Willful ignorance,
Xenophobia,
Or any of the other ugly attitudes
That marr this beautiful planet
Like black scars dug into
Its marbled surface.

I've got the best family doctor and the best psychiatrist in the world. I can't imagine either of them being better people, more caring, or more competent. My family doctor is a genuinely sweet man and obviously truly cares about his patients. He's extremely honest with me and doesn't talk down to me when it comes to explanations of medical conditions. He's never turned me away when I needed to see him in an emergency or fail to listen closely when I was talking to him. He's one of the people I trust most in the world.

My psychiatrist is just the same. He is the model of a stand-up guy, humble and not artificial in any way, and even while furiously taking notes, always stays right with me in the conversation and is quick to point out my good traits or actions even as I am mourning some flaw in myself. And it's not some cheap tactic either; in his eyes I can see he really means it. He's complimented my reasoning ability and ability to understand complex situations, and he tells me so. Unlike so many intelligent but insecure or egotistical people, he puts his considerable wealth of knowledge and advice on hold and lets me talk. Only when the time is right will he offer some wisdom, and it's always something that shows he has a true understanding of my concerns.

To Drs. Carroll and Goodman, thank you. I literally don't know how I could go on without the two of you to help me through this tumultuous life.