Rushing into action, you fail.
Trying to grasp things, you lose them.
Forcing a project to completion, you ruin what was almost ripe.
Therefore the Master takes action by letting things take their course.
Lao Tzu
Last night I had a dream of a world where my daughter hated me. She despised me with such a grudge that it could not help but remind me of her mother. A bitter chill relished in her eyes, as her words stabbed like daggers through my heart. I was never a great farther. I was never the man that kept a family shrine around his desk at work, or scheduled family events for every weekend. I was never the type of person to run around with a wallet full of pictures screaming to the world “ Look at my baby!!!!”...
Some people are scared of ages. The ones you pick up are more of a burden, it would seem. Like it didn't mean anything. I don't doubt that. Especially when you're reading symbols. The story is yours to create - No, not always. To tell - Maybe, if you wish. To remember. To personify - Yes. But experienced knees are such a hassle...
The media has once again cast its dark shadow over another news story. A story repeatedly played on by every news channel and has now stepped up to get it's own special. A story that sooner or later will have protesters, politicians, and maybe even Jesus speak out against what the media promotes to be the problem. But in all truth it's not the problem, it's only the fall man...
Two lonely lovers on opposite sides of the Atlantic fall into the arms of another. Each wake up the next morning with fear of what the other will think and if they should tell them.
You can take the poet out of the city certainly. But can you take the city out of the poet? I suppose I will soon find out. This week I left New York City after living there for five years. First I was a college student, and then I was on my own, trying to find work in the very bowels of a recession. Needless to say I was not successful and have had to flee the metropolis of Manhattan for the much greener environs of Arlington, Virginia, my old home town, or more appropriately, county.
Manic depression, world wide panic, the world has fallen off its rocker. People always say how the worlds gone mad, but truthfully it’s the people that’s gone Looney. This morning I heard a news broadcast about a couple in Florida who paid one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars to have a dog cloned, a dog cloned for one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars! The old saying goes “ If you got it, Flaunt it.” but to me that’s more of a waste. I’m not a person who really watches the news. The only events I’m exposed to, is what I see during the ten minutes before weather on the ones and with in that time frame a lot of bullsh*t is dished out.
The moving images of the governments' aspiration being depicted from coast to coast. Justified are the premises, no matter what side the station picks. We never stop to think why their isn't a third opinion on nightly sets that say that there is another way. Flames are just a prop in the pictures, illuminating results of the fireworks of overzealous engines atop the pyramids. Not seen as human anymore; and shouldn't be if you alter the reasoning. The people lost are marginalized because their lives needed to be forgotten to bring peace... only to the power's state of mind. The Gaza Strip is just another in the long line of "it's sad it has to be this way, but it is."
You ever have that one co-worker that you are always on the verge of either slapping or shaking the crap out of? Heck I must attract them because I’ve had at least one at all my the jobs I’ve had. I’ve had the anorexic, manic depressive that needs to be the center of attention co-worker, the always on the very of a mental breakdown or massive heart attack co-worker, the “I smell like I made out with a fish monger in my gym locker”....
“I’ll steal you.” that’s what I told her. Her eyes looked at me with sort of a intrigue. Her lips smiled and I knew she was flattered. “ You’ll steal me?” she repeated, dimples penetrating her cheeks harder now as her eyes sunk into more of a seductive tone.
“Sure… you don’t have any security tags on you, right.” her voice exploded in laughter, breaking the silence of the bookstore. “ No I don’t.” she said under chuckles. “But I do have a husband that may put up a fight.” her laughter continued as I joined in with a grin.
Three nights ago the heavens rained upon us in New York city, taking breaks but not fully shutting off their showers until Saturday morning. In the mist of one of these storms while making my way home from work. I fell upon this young woman who unfortunately lacked an umbrella during the down fall. She walked past me, her jacket trenched and hood so out weighed with water it concealed her face. I called to her and offered to share my umbrella. She accepted but seemed shock at the offer. We continued to walk up...
So, I’m trying this thing where I turn one thing into another, right before my eyes. Or squinting, wide shut, blinded, whatever it takes. Because I was on my way to work the other day and I was thinking: (sorry if this is an over simplification of something truly complex, but I’ve never been too good at science, so I have to brake things all the way down for it to make sense to me) if we and everything around us are made up of atoms and atoms alone (at our core) then everything is just the same. It’s the same atoms in different forms. So what makes the same atoms into different things? Why are my atoms me and those atoms over there making up a billboard? The only answer that I reckon makes sense is that it is all in our perceptions. We perceive what is and what isn’t and our perceptions are the only things that make anything different from something else. Because if you go blind, an object is different to you than if you can see it. The only way that isn’t true is if you trust someone with sight to tell you differently. And that’s the same with all your senses. It’s created in your head by the resources you have at that moment. We happen to trust our eyes the most, but if there was no such thing as sight, we wouldn’t be iffy about what objects were; we would use our other senses and be definite about it.
Thanks to individuals with video cameras, like this tourist in Times Square last summer, we can bear witness to the world.
You don't even have to be on a bike in NYC to see this kind of unrighteousness. I was shocked when I first moved here, but now I know that you ALWAYS have to advocate for yourself. One cop stopped me on Houston for no reason. He just saw me on a bike and wanted to ask me where I was going. I felt like he was going to ask me out on a date. Another common thing I've witnessed constantly: cops spittin' game to flirty girls.
In the city of Fabiola, the armature alternately dissolves and integrates. Its light evaporates as a rope soaks up kerosene to burn within the lamp's bulbous chimney glass. It brightens with the food of more rope.
Today is a beautiful day 61 degrees with a slight breeze. So i figured I would go and play a little early morning basketball to clear my mind. After basketball I'm feeling good right... I get into my neighborhood and hear someone playing some loud music in their car with a whole bunch of bass.
Why am I poet? Because I write poetry. A better question to ask is then, why do I write poetry? This is much more complicated. As long as we allow a place for poetry in our culture, then the place for poets is safe. But if poetry is threatened, and poetry disappears, the poet becomes in Soviet jargon, “social parasite.” Therefore we can see that what justifies the poet’s existence is not their being a poet, in upholding some sort of essential poet-ness, but rather in producing a certain kind of work, a poem. All the stereotypes and clichés we might have of how poets exist and what they look like are such because only one thing makes a poet, and that is the poem.
I’ve been playing Nurse/Rehabilitator/Owner to a 6-month rescue puppy for about 2 or 3 weeks now and have just now been able to get a grip. She’s a Pit/Retriever mix with the most beautiful coat and golden eyes I’ve ever seen. She seems to have a great temperament and is a puppy in every meaning of the word. She has no idea she’s “sick” with an enlarged heart, grade 6 heart murmur, a potbelly full of abdominal fluid, and a so-called rare heart defect. She’s my little inspiration, always ready to play when I want to cry.
I knew better but still went along with it. Trapped in lust, my logic was over come by my member. It stood there arose and not in terms for negotiations, as I was in no position to argue.
It was a long two months since I was in this position. Two legs spread...
Well, we’ve made it into the history books yet again! As of Tuesday, November 4, 2008, Barack Obama became our first African-American President-Elect. With only 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency, Barack secured his rightful place in history and in the White House with 338 votes. Aside from winning the “expected” states such as his home state of Illinois, Obama swept across the nation and secured many of the key states, most upsetting for the McCain campaign were the wins in of Pennsylvania (McCain’s “must have” state), Virginia, and Florida. The watch parties for both candidates held stark differences as well. The Chicago watch party at Grant Park in Obama’s home state of Illinois was celebratory and hopeful as results were constantly available for viewers while the Phoenix watch party in the Biltmore district in McCain’s state was much more somber and did not show the audience the status of the election as votes came in.
You may be thinking low class hummm that's an interesting title. When flying you may think that you purchased a "coach" ticket. But with American Airlines it should be considered “Low Class”. It all started when I was checking my bags, can you believe it's $15 for each bag?! So for two bags round trip that’s $60.00 in the hole!! I’m boarding the old school S80 airplane; of course passing by "First Class" thinking I’d like to have some elbow room too!
Ok now we take off with in a fully loaded underpowered plane. 15 minutes later I'm thinking ok “honey roasted peanut time” is coming, it should makeup for sitting in the "Low Class" section. But these days those lovely peanuts will cost ya $3 - $4 for a “Snack Pack”. And oh do you want a drink with that, how about some free water?
So I'm convinced that the old Coach is the new Low Class!!
Now I know that just about every cool person on the block was waiting for the iPhone to hit stores. Let me tell you our house was no exception to the rule.
Round one started when my dude was one of early risers to make it to a local AT&T store to cop the iPhone. The poor brother made it to the desk and was turned away because he didn't have his drivers license! Poor fella had to spend most of the day singing the “should’ve, could’ve, would'ves”.
Round two came when I got home and just so happened to call the nearest Apple store and found out they had some iPhone’s left. The line wasn’t too bad and amidst all the chaos, the Apple store representatives were able to wrangle all of us into a line that would around the “aisles” of the store. The wait wasn’t too bad as there was always something to play with during our wait, iPods, computers, display iPhone’s. The surprising thing was that they offered us water when we first came in. As it was about 102 degrees at 6:30 pm, I think we all appreciated that our “needs” were taken into consideration. Two hours later, we were met my Jared and he happily set us up with our new I-phones and the AT&T network.
I kid you not, maybe an hour and a half after bringing these things home, My Iphone starts crackling and out go the speakers! Real talk. Well seeing we have to wait until the next day to get it fixed, I went to bed while my dude takes full advantage of our corporate discount and adds it to our plan... Which they warn you about while waiting on line for your phone. The folks at the Apple store made it known that if you want a corporate discount added to your plan you have to go through AT&T wireless for both the phone, the plan and the discount (something they call direct fulfillment). Well our round about way of going things bit us in the butt later.
So the next day we show up to get my phone situated. I am escorted to the front of the line to an Apple genius that basically replaced my brand new phone with another one. I kid you not, right when he was going to hand me my phone, he days " oops we can't complete this transaction, there is a hold". Guess what the hold was? That damn discount! So we get the discounts taken off so we can get 'er dun and walk five minutes down the road to AT&T to get things squared away. Man by the time we get to AT&T, stand in line for less than 5 minutes (because they were sold out of phones), and walk back to the Apple store, we find out that “Oops, sorry guys, we just sold out of phones”.
On our last attempt up get this mess together we drive 20 minutes to another location. Things go smoothly there, or so we thought. I get my phone and another new number (the old number was attached to the other phone and therefore inaccessible), we go over our plan one more time (1400 shared minutes, unlimited data and texts for under 200... sweet I know) and all seems well. Little did know that instead of canceling my old number, they cancel my man's number that we ported over when we bought the phones and joined AT&T. Let me tell you, this was the last straw for both of us! It took about 10 calls to customer service (8 of which we dropped), one technical case ticket that specifically asked for them to re- instate a number that should never have been cancelled and my talking to every rep they would listen to get this number back. After all that it still took almost a day and a half for both of us to get the two functioning phones we paid for. I will hand it to AT&T though; they took care of us (cuz u know they didn't want to hear from me again).
Now that everything is working, I must say that this phone is so worth the money. It simplifies even the most boring life and everything you want is in your hand, email, videos, songs, and Internet! As a matter of fact I am typing this post right from my phone. How pimp is that?!! I must say I now have nothing to complain about... Then again you might want to check back after we get our first bill.
Ok now that summer is over and the year 2007 is slowly coming to a close, I figured I would start my New Year’s Resolution months early. What is it you ask? Of course it’s to “Lose Weight”! I mean isn’t that everyone’s resolution every year? Anyway, I’m browsing through all the new fad diets trying to figure out which ones are the most effective and all. I looked at the South Beach Diet which wasn’t going to work because I didn’t feel like giving up my extra hour of sleep to cook some crazy egg white omelet. I looked at the Atkins which starves you to the point of nervous break down, loads you up on protein and then slowly introduces carbs back in the picture, I’m not down for that. Then of course there’s the good old Carbohydrate Addict’s (hello my name is **Bleep** and I’m a Carbohydrate Addict) diet, which deprives you of carbs the majority of the day to the point that you’re just famished by the time you actually get to have them (at dinner of course). Obviously I’m not disciplined enough to do any of those diets I’ve just mentioned so in furthering my study I ran into a old friend that was on something called the Raw Diet. Yeah, I said it, the PRIMAL RAW diet. We caught up and talked a little bit about our lives which inevitably led to his new diet. I mean brotha was just chillin drinking a mixture of milk, RAW eggs and honey out of a empty syrup jar! He drank that like it was the best thing ever and swore up and down that it was safe and effective. Well folks, I’m here to give you a little back ground on the newest dieting fad.
The Primal Raw Food (Paleolithic) diet is a carnivorous, low carbohydrate raw foods diet. This is basically a diet that was based on the practices of the cave men. Very nice. People on this diet eat just about everything RAW such as meat, fish, fruit, leaves, roots of plants, mushrooms, nuts, eggs and honey. Now that that’s established, lets go on to what you can’t eat. You cannot have any veggies that are not edible raw (grains), starchy vegetables (beans and potatoes) certain nuts (cashews) or refined sugars. Interestingly enough, you can have no dairy products because they cannot be found easily in nature. Oh, and no WATER, unless it’s naturally sparkling water. You can drink it if you want but it’s not needed. WHAT?! Ain’t that crazy?! Apparently all the juices from the fruits you are taking it should provide enough so you don’t need WATER!
Now, on this diet, you generally intake 2/3 plant product (to cover the water you AREN’T drinking) and 1/3 animal product. Back to this raw meat jive. You should be looking for farmed meats such as free range poultry to grass fed beef, quail or rabbit. Now, you can warm this meat if you want to but it’s not required and if you choose to do so, it can’t be via microwave ovens and may be heated to room temperature, or up to 41 degrees. Lovely.
After I did my research, I figured that once again, this diet wasn’t for me. So what have I chosen to get me started on my path to weight loss? Um… the gym and the typical diet of eat less calories and burn more! Ha.. while all you RAW foodies order a plate of RAW T-Bone steak with freshly cracked RAW eggs, I’ll be munching down on my Chef Salad, Light Ranch on the side please, oh yeah, and a glass of WATER!
So today Michael Vick plead Guilty to dog fighting charges. Am I surprised? Heck no. Do I feel sorry for him? Heck no. I don’t understand why everyone is making him the victim. Like he didn’t know what he was doing. Talking about “I didn’t kill the dogs but I was there when it happened” or “I wasn’t betting on the fights but I was financing them”. Shut up! He’s the one who sent out the order to kill the dogs that didn’t perform. He was the master mind behind the whole operation and then folks have the nerve to make him sound like he had no idea what’s going on. My question is: Why should I feel sorry for him? Granted, he’s not the only dude in the world that participates in dogfights but like I said, he knew what he was doing. That whole situation could have been handled differently, euthanize those dogs instead of subjecting them to such gruesome executions. Interesting connection (of course I’m not insinuating anything), serial killers usually perfect their execution styles via torturing and killing animals. That goes to show that there is no remorse in taking a life, be it animal or whatever. Like those folks didn’t know that if you hold a dog underwater long enough or hang them long enough or shock them with a high enough current, would result in death. Ya’ll want to make the argument that their “just dogs” and mess. Well if that’s the case, why can you serve more time for animal cruelty than for beating the spit out of your wife? Explain the logic in that and then we’ll talk. I don’t want to hear about Poor Mike Vick being victimized by the legal system. Give me a break. Finding 55 dogs (really, who needs that many dogs) on property, admitted to killing 8 and you’re still going try to maintain your innocence? What? You didn’t bury the dogs but you bought plots for them? Be for real!
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