Texas.

I leave for Texas tomorrow morning. I'm sad and happy. (You know how it is.) I've already said goodbye to all of my friends, and I went over to my girlfriend Rachel's house today to say goodbye. I gave her a package which included a mix tape for her trip to France, a poem, and this painting:

I was terrified today because I sprayed on it what I thought was acrylic finish but turned out not to be. And it turned a jet black. Thankfully we used this product to get it off and now it has sort of a dark, artistic tint. But she loved it--and the poem and the tape. She might be the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me. I'm gonna miss her so much.

Which is why I got her face and initials tattooed onto my shoulder. It rocks.

Also, my brother did a painting for my dad's honorary Father's Day, since he's not coming with us to Texas. I think it's pretty cool. The theme is dreams, because my dad has insanely creative and bizarre dreams. Some of the subtler stuff doesn't show up, but here it is:

And while I'm shamelessly promoting my brother, here's the latest video of his original guitar piece, with the filming done by Calebsmind Productions. Check it out at the following link.

Hello there. I'm a link!

Hope you enjoyed that. Anyway, I'm not going to be able to post at all during my trip to Texas and Alaska, but I'm working on a lot of poems and hopefully I'll start some short story projects and essays as well while I'm gone. So keep posted! I get home around July 1, and then I leave again a week or so after that.

Regina Spektor as well as Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros both came out with a new album today!!!! I downloaded both but I'm too excited to listen to them yet. I've been awaiting this moment for a year or more......

Goodbye, all! Blessings for all of you! Have a great summer, everyone! Miss me!

-Christopher

Dream Poem

              Why    dark. liquid dreams,     —in skulls padded with            Brain Pillows!

   films glinting, -murky-  like the   wet-concrete Rainbows

-REM, radio sky    flickering   silent-stained

Voices tumbling, -mythical, like waves  … off the walls

and the    faded, pastel  Sun blinks with sPasTic  -eyelid

         People: smilingfrowning  —faceless, rolling like fog Over the Earth

Jaws and Eyes :           these the white Ocean Crests tumbling…

smiling, frowning

      Why   the Sleeping Deity, turning in bed-

Why   nocturnal ocean with         moonlight epidermis

               and trees that –stand awkward, like    adolescent Goliath –paralyzed in time, sunlit

               or scarecrows grinning with   straw-stuffed esophogas

  acrylic skies drip-ping free     ¡plop!     running –earth

Cubist. Individuals ambling,  sparks of memory singing,   “Remember me?”

-and you’re     ridiculed with singeing  blushes

       ashamed by   skies heavy   throbbing –disgusted!

    exhalted on cloudy-staircases,  loved on whispery   linen sheet

            FEARFUL with   gasping  arteries        -icy terror streaming.screaming

 ooh seized by surging lust  -pounding  in snoozing animal glands.  threatening ejaculation!

              there’s grief or  fear wracking your   smoky skeleton,  transparent

               so the ground screams for   You,  moaning terrible! unbearable!

Below your feet,swimming

       Why nightmares,   phantom closet-dwellers    -parasitic nightly hauntings

            Why terrifying! labyrinth-castles,  with      coiling,catacomb  -lungs

    where the walls..  wheeze with       bacterial breath

and  souls  bellow  -in agony… in  forsaken   -architectural organs

Why  world!      ripe with sunset warmth—

      with intimate,songs   hot on your neck

           and happiness… that launches you to flowing,white    Cumulus streets

     with bare feet lapping Parisian concrete

and smiles that   descend  like,     Solar Storms

or Mothers or Loves   singing  lullabies, soft

     Why dreams,with,wind   that licks your face  as you        ..soar among the Stars

Why nightmares with  vicious,   alter-egos  swinging Axes!  licking salt off their lips-

          or kingdoms in the ,trees!    moon-bound suburbia

       celestial monsoons tearing/ beasts roaring- mythical howls/  Godly fingers, absent

In your –Brain Pillows!           nocturnal melodies,  these Things we call Dreams..

Cat Poem

I wrote this for my Dad's birthday in April. He likes cats.

Taking a stroll in the Mediterranean moonlight

In an alley bathed in that glorious white

I encountered a cat as black as the sky

And an emerald sparkling in each round, frightened eye

I knelt down to stroke its small head

But it mewed in surprise and across the street fled

Before it turned back to me and said in a voice full of grace

That this cat had come from Outer Space

It had not opened its mouth nor made a sound

Simply sat there with olive eyes so bright and profound

It talked to me in my brain, using feline telepathy

This remarkable cat had ESP!

Naturally I took it home and ran scientific tests

Performed various experiments despite its mewling protests

And whenever my sweet wife knocked at the door

I’d turn off the lights and pretend to snore

No one could ruin my chances of fame!

Of taking this space cat and making it tame

Using it to rule the world, well, somehow

With its wise little whiskers and omnipotent meow

But one night my wife found me probing the cat

I was taking X-rays and wearing my tinfoil hat

She screamed, locked me in, and phoned the police

That’s when my work, well, it had to cease

Of course they promptly had me committed

The nature of my research, I openly admitted

No one would believe it had come from space!

That this kitten belonged to an alien race

Before I could stop them they whisked it away

Doubtless, they relinquished it to the CIA

I had no chance to say farewell to the miraculous thing

For they gave me a shot, and boy did it sting!

I tell you my story in the hope you’ll believe

Of the miracles I swear that I have perceived

The extraterrestrial feline I myself have looked at

The marvelous, the spectacular—the psychic space cat!

Sidewalk Art

I'm so happy right now.

I could hug a grizzly bear.

Do You Anticipate...

Do you anticipate the bureaucratic afterlife?

with its            infinite           forests of filing cabinets and wretched Harpy Secretaries

perpetual exhaustion on.. dusty faces, watching as their eyelids dissolve

ceiling fans pumping slowly, growling like Cerberus

over waiting rooms—stuffy with ancient air caked on papered walls

where dizzy souls, Paralyzed in                 Limbo-time, rust to a stump in their seats

then    swirl off … opaque into each other’s shrunken skeleton lungs

fashion magazines from the 1970’s sit untouched glossy, etched into the wood of

eternal tables between folding chairs, heavenly!, squeaking/squealing

Then your name   !      rings confused-wonderful through decaying ear canals

and it’s like the MESSIAH descending as you approach the glowing window

—Before they hand you with clawed fingers …       everlasting paperwork laced with

faded ink and the technical ja.rg/o,n of middle-class spirits forever pregnant

with heavy-eyed hopes lank/ in their antique throats

assholes fossils in their wheeling chairs statued in time

these places! stretch unending like ant-pile hallways

blind to the elephant dimensions of Heaven

Infinity or bust, ha            sobbing                    — fevered jokes.

Somewhere … in the Universe (or out)— above or sideways    

—Robber-baron angels scaling hierarchical machines towering upwards

in their committees fluttering to       board meetings! -golden-faced

with helium smiles and withered brain matter contented

Pursuing Elysian days cycling bent-backed like sheep (never-ending)

and “administrative assistants” stand at Saint Pete’s gate

weighing souls x 10³⁰       weighing souls to the decimal point!

recording with ballpoint pens eternal injustices! Ah, perpetual unfairness.

and charts and lists and charts and lists “sign-here-please”

I imagine you can see your smoky soul leave your fingertips

the blessed color bleed out of your tepid cheeks,       sighing—

Oh but at last—the Czar, (chief executive!)

do not think I have forgotten Him! Do not worry …

Emmanuel-abba-Creator!ofHeavenand-earth/Lordalmighty.EL,“iam”—Yaweh?Jehovah\KingEternal>eloi—Author-of-Eternal-Salvation,AllPowerful

Teacher, shepherd, fire-breather, etc.?

He has many Names, certainly

No, I have not forgotten Him. He sits Up There …somewhere…—above or sideways

stamping celestial documents with timeless knuckles and brooding with constitutional authority

as reverent bowing groupies, privileged few, plant kisses on His Blessed Feet—wailing “Perfect Being,” weeping misty confessions cringing with insect pain, theatrically shielding their eyes, asking a little too excitedly   “Where were you…                       before Time began?”

but He is Transparent now with Infinite Weariness, rubbing -like a grandfather- his Infant Eyes

-murmuring murmuring, “I don’t know, I don’t know”         then tired –draws the curtain

Fish Poem

In my dream there was a sweet summer fish
Circling endless in a crystal pond
It swam eternal circles, empty-eyed
The water's quiet ripples an infinite sigh
In my dream, it circled on

Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert. Two of the strangest and most remarkable literary characters in existence.

New Paintings!

We are dust, not gods.

I wrote this on April 16th, the night before someone potentially threatened to shoot up my school. (They scrawled it on a bathroom stall.) I doubted I was in any serious danger, but I thought I might as well write a goodbye poem. It's sentimental, but not sappy, I like to think. I wanted to say a good goodbye, but I more than anything wanted to be honest.

We are dust, not gods.

Gravity is God, and atomic attraction

But we are not gods

We fall, skeleton leaves, from winter branches,

Drifting down angel-eyed on the jingling breeze

We sink to the earth and then sigh contented

As tree roots spiral around our limbs, and

Roses grow from our shimmering skulls

No, we are not gods. we are dust.

But our souls live in the constellations, I hear

And swim in the sunset—doves!

We are geese breathing the clouds in the sky flying free

This is good—I like geese.

But we are not gods

And if the Universe collapses in on itself

In a confused mess of a spiderweb death

Or the Sun putters out or we scorch the skies with fire bombs

I know we’ll have lived and laughed and loved

And I have lived and laughed and loved

We must still exist in some stained-glass window

Dimension in the Universe, frozen moment—eternal

Our smiles and dreams and amber pearls of memory

Petrified in time, infinite somehow

We are men, not gods. we are dust! we are grass!

And we’ll grow and die and we’ll grow, like grass

And I? I will cry as Dust in my grave

I will smile and weep and grown into roses and trees

We are dust, not gods.

Thank God for that

I haven't posted in a while...

I have about a dozen unfinished poems lying around on my desktop. I have neglected looking at art recently. I will have some art to bring home from Painting soon, though!

Have I mentioned I despise the new Blogger?

The Lake Nocturnal

I sank like a submarine through the Lake Nocturnal

The lank billows of spidery green, skies clinging to my clothes

Through the humming aqua sounds of the radar glow

My lungs sucked in the water, extraterrestrial air—marvelous!

I sank to a prairie with sea grass rippling electric

Filled with safari fish, prowling whisker-faced

Titanic seahorses and swimming dinosaur birds

Then I spotted a man standing cloudy-shadowed

With a copper brow—furrowed and ancient

And a scowl pressed like smoke onto his murky face

And throbbing, black rhinoceros eyes

I then went on and chanced upon the duke of the mermen

In the termite catacombs of labyrinth castle

Where butlers buttled wearing octopus heads

And emerald chandeliers creaked as they rotated, like Jupiter

In the palace they were having a masquerade

Of sea nymphs and mermaids and Cyclopes

And countless other creatures, strange

And they floated and spun to the harpsichord waltzes

But across the room I spotted a man

With a rusty tin brow and a shadowy scowl

And a pair of black rhinoceros eyes

Later I went to the Capitol

A churning city like an animal cell, gravity dazed

By Victorian buildings upwards and downwards and ceramic streets endless

In an impossible network of neurons, groaning marble architecture

I met the Man on the Moon and various radio gods

And the mayor, whose name was

Something-Or-Other

Came across gilled seraphim-merchants and a pair of sirens, lovely

As well as Nereus and Proteus, with their barnacle beards and sandstone cheeks

Libraries and courthouses and oceanic burroughs stretched for miles

Above and around and below, glinting bright in the lake-light

Voices rippled and blossomed like molten hydrangeas shining

And waves of faces—alien, angelic—surged through the sidewalks

But then I saw him, his skin faintly gold

Burning into mine were his terrible, black rhinoceros eyes

I flew through and over Plutonic deserts and shimmering forests with

Mile-high trees stretching sideways to heaven

By caves that blew bubbles through their rocky gray lips

The clouds above my head were eerie islands submerged

Like the dark moss-haired heads of giants slaughtered

Past aquatic zoos and seaweed jungles: howling beastly cries

Over trenches Charcoal like Eternity

That roared with silence deafening hum

All the while under the sapphire sky, tranquil

Till finally I returned to the surface on a

Silvery ship, waving a sleepy goodbye as the sail rippled smooth

Breathing contented, my thoughts ether

But then shivering, suddenly icy, my skeleton chattering

As I recalled that spectral figure, his copper brow

And his terrifying two rhinoceros eyes

Nightmare-speckled rhinoceros eyes

I gasped as I broke the surface

Cold air/gold air splashing my face

I shook my head like a dog and dried off my clothes and

I whistled goodbye to

The Lake Nocturnal