kickin' pebbles while the stars shoot

when the planes hit, I bet most inside were still standing
if you really <3 NY, you know the jerk of each platform landing
downtown, monkey suits roll deep in Giulianni’s subwaycars
only interns rep black power and raise fists to the bars
tight rope walkers would kill for their balance
Osama Bin Laden would kill for their balance
I wonder what their accounts are paying for
I bet Allah cries at what Al Qaeda’s praying for
Killed others just to dig his own grave
you can’t find the beauty of life living in a cave
that’s why I haven’t seen him smile in a while -
he hasn’t seen the sun rise in a while,
hasn’t stood and looked out with his arms on his head
at a skyline or an ocean or the moon's lightshed

he hit us so hard we concussed.
but we came back

and now we don't have the same conversations
we don't zone out to the same playstations
we don't spark bud in the parking lot
we don't spark a convo unless it’s charting a plot
because nobody had the chance to tell him
so now we don’t sleep, we warn the others that

THE BEAUTY IS IN TRUTH
AND THE HEARTACHE IS IN DECEPTION.

if only we came back
my heart wouldn't ache in deception

The Inspiration of Hate

Hate they say, is as old as Cain and Able. I've been feelin it lately. It's after me and the fam like no tomorrow, tryin to let that beast come out. His name is anger, you know the one that gets you to make bad decisions, act irrational, and curse everyone that crosses your path. But then I had an epiphany of sorts.
This world crucified Christ, shot Gandhi, Malcolm, and Martin. If the greatest that ever lived got it, what am I crying about after all? So to the haters, I love you because Jesus did too. I stay grounded and humble and yet still inspired by those that only seek to crush my spirit. The human spirit is the most amazing of things in that its will can truly bring one to do just about anything. Hate makes my will that much stronger. My success will be a product of those that hated and I will thank them. Adversity is a prerequisite to greatness so bring it, I'm ready.

i am a hundred and forty pounds of ink, look at me

i was at this slam poetry thing last year in ol' baltimore, and a man in his thirties came up to spit, he started yelling about being a writer. his poem was driven by anger, his pauses were breathes between punches. he was a bitter angry intelligent driven depressed man. being in my youthful unindependent state with no financial responsibilities and no outside expectations to hole me in, i was free to label this man a failure. he was writing about how he lost. his metaphors and alliteration and sometimes beautiful language were all about the great game of the pen, and how he was in the process of losing this great game. the thing is, he wasn't saying he lost. he was saying that to be "a writer", you had to lose again and again, and only then are you really a writer (or an artist for that matter). only after failed manuscripts and marriages and infrequent orgasims, only when you were pitted against the wall with just your typewriter, then evidently you had what this man had, which was happiness. The type of happiness that people use to justify why they keep doing what they do, why they write, why they try to get the last word. My question in my head then, and now, is why did he have to tell me this? Why did he have to go to a coffee shop in John Hopkins and yell at me about how hard art is? He seemed very sure that the path of his life was the inevitable path of art itself- so why on earth did he have to spoil it for me, and take away my dream that art and expression and all those things don't bring you down to yelling stanzas, rather doing something beautiful? their was competition in his voice i could hear it. i knew if i responded to one of his rhetorical questions, he woudl shut me down with his bank statement and old copy of walden. he would call me a disgrace to writers everywhere, his bullet would be words that i wasn't allowed to use: writer, rent, real life, tragedy. he would call my shit dreamy and weightless and then storm out with an angry flurry of similies. he would be the other team, the better brand of gun, the expected nothing we live for.
in the car that night on the way home, we listened to music. everything was ok.

We're not The Ministry of Truth

But yes, 4 posts have been deleted. If you're desperate to read them, read the comments on this post, that's where they are now. I took them down because while they may have been good for a laugh, they were taking this blog in a direction away from what we as the creators intended it for. I'm not trying to sound pompous, or falsely modest, but we just wanted an outlet to express ourselves. If it was going to be in verse, play, fiction, non-fiction, however these words were thrown on a page...well Vast said it best "Nomads off the dome, thoughts have no home, the page is ours to roam."

All this really started because of Bmoresharps latest post, which is a double edged sword I guess, because it's also the most activity we've seen since we lifted off. I'm glad y'all are commenting; we're writing this to express ourselves, but we'd love it if it inspired everybody else. We want that inspiration to be positive, however, so if you disagree with what's being written, don't post a knee jerk insult that's horribly misguided. If you even have to do that, how about adding your initials at the end, because we'd all much rather there be a healthy discourse rather than anonymous insults.

So we got our Spring cleaning out of the way, to channel my dude JD and Hieroglyphics - Let it be bright from here `til infinity.

click your heels three times

it's 4:45 in the morning and i'm caught in this weird reality manifesting from a combination of coffee that's probably too strong for a two beer queer like me, reading grim comparative politics theories on global poverty, and looking at the same empty lobby for the past 5 hours (work-study in my dorm's lobby). i snuck out to take a couple quick drags of a cigarette from some friends that for some reason haven't had the desire to find a bed and get in it...but god damn the wind was blowing hard.

i came back in and Nas' "Blunt Ashes" came on my itunes, a song where he intro's with "i'm gonna get blazed and tell ya'll some stories"...whatever was on his mind was dope enough for me to listen to a few times over.

my mind state right now is high enough on its own, and like i said the wind was blowing hard...hard enough to carry with it a few stories i'll give to you, shit that i think about on a cold lonely night;

i stopped judging people by conventional standards when i found out the truth about the midget that lives across the street from me. she smokes weed and distributes it to 18-25 year olds. A grown ass married woman with two kids and she doesn't even have her shit together, waste of life...so wasted that when i would fundraise for school trips that all the other adults on the block knew were bullshit - she somehow knew that a trip to Hershey Park meant meant the world to me and she'd drop me a twenty and smile and say "johnny you can forget the wrapping paper or candy bars, i don't want 'em." So wasted that when she came to the ice cream shop i was scooping at she knew damn well her eight year old son didn't want anything to do with a kiddie cone and she would order him a mother fucking large and let him get as many gummy bears and reese's pieces as his fat ass pleased. So wasted that she ran a YMCA camp where all the down-trodden, abused, lonely, kids from broken homes shared cabins with priviliged kids from the suburbs and in those woods became a family tighter and more alive than any Cleaver's or Brady's. She was just so damn wasted that even though she was like 3 feet tall no amount of double takes, elevated gas pedals, or scared little kids kept her from sitting out late nights on her porch with a charming smile and eyes that saw through all the bullshit.

at the concert i went to last week Nas said, "if you're from the streets i love you." He may not know it but he loves Tim. Bravest ten year old i'll ever know - he forever holds a spot in my heart, and if there is a God that for some reason has to send messages through the pain of others, my message came from Tim. When I was six I woke up from heart surgery in a hospital room filled with family, next door neighbors, my kindergarten assistant teacher, and a few other random people I was lucky enough to be coccooned by throughout my childhood. Never mind, I'm not even going to try and make it dramatic because it is what it is - I had a million people around me showing me all the love I needed and the kid I shared a room with was a ten year old that is paralyzed to this day from a stray bullet that caught him in the spine. But "shared a room" isn't the right phrase because there was no competition, he was going it alone, no legs to walk on physically or figuratively. His eyes held a lonely and scared look at the prospect of going through his life in a wheelchair with nobody to push that i wish upon no one. FUCK.

yea that wind's blowing. Sometimes it's just a cool breeze that beckons me to daydream under the clouds. But tonight it' s cold and it's carrying stories that i'm feeling under my skin - a little shudder, cringe, squint my eyes, i feel it...i dont know where it's coming from but it's definitely somewhere very very real, the soul of this world methinks.

friday the 13th

i looked out to the view, and i tried really hard to appreciate it. i tried to thank god or whoever that i was here, here in my life, constant in this life that borders on a dream sometimes. i felt incapable of real thankfulness because i just kept looking, i didn´t get down on my kness and pray, i don´t do that i can´t but i really ought to, because this youth is a blessing, but in between guessing what´s next and assessing the responsibility of gratefulness, i had it all, with just my eyes and a quiet soundtrack parallelled by the sky. growing up might just be getting more specific, i hope that means something.

The clarity of uncertainty

I'm looking for that guy. Some say he'll be free but will he really be? Another two years of selling his soul for the sake of academia. After that, some more school listening to others tell him how to live or better yet a cubicle in Times Square where 6 figures can replace happiness? The prime of his life spent making sure others see him in a positive light gotta make sure that 401K is nice and tight. But what about the kid who wanted to go pro? Wanted to write into the night about the days of Ali, MJ, and some more of his goals. What about the guy that saw that snotty nosed kid in the hood cursin up a storm, low self-esteem without a dream and thought I gotta pay it forward.
What about the guy who was gonna get the girl colgate smile gleaming listening to Umi Says and thinking it doesn't get any better than this. What about the kid who thought eating a pbj watching sportscenter was where it was at.. or better yet in and out crossovers 11-0 games at all sport chilling wit my very own sundance kid? Are the best times over?
He's outta here this summer... going to see the foreign sun. Hopefully the coronas will give him an epiphany to solve this mystery so he doesnt succumb to the misery of that dude he sees everyday outside CVS with a cup jingling spare change in hand... only his misery is worse for he had it all yet he didn't know his path... was it predestined, was he truly alone? He wishes it was as easy as killer joe on the saxophone. He keeps telling himself madre España is where he'll get it right... he walks on the ground where Presidents, nobel laureates and so many more found there place. Will he ever get that taste, that small measure of peace we all seek? Will he be on his dead bed thinking ya did good kid? Will it all have been a waste... will he want to do it all again.

God I hope I find myself... the unknown is beautiful and so are you.
Here's to the search and all it brings.

Why Hemingway killed himself...

FOR RENT ONLY---A-Z: $.99 each, $2.50 for a sentence,$5.99 for a paragraph. All creative pieces and full stories are put on layaway and paid for in weekly installments.

Were in college and all up in arms about, Dear God! when we graduate, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO? To be honest, we all need to be a lot more fucking worried about WHO WE ARE GOING TO BE.

Frank will forever just be a crank or a lever on a machine of which he is only a part. As a matter of fact, he's not even Frank, he's #345 at the bank.

I want to be a cop or a fireman- that's gonna be hard if I'm not John Heavey first. Plato says you need your arete in order to perfect your techne, and here I am knowing that only so I can put it in a paper- I'm not even a student.

Life is a dirt path 250,000 miles long- if you take that there shiny train, you'll get to the end in no time, and then enjoy the nice throne set atop the pile of quicksand. Walk with your two feet, step step step- watch out for the puddles and rocks- and you'll be dead by the time you get to the end, but would have seen and expierenced every inch of the road. The walkingman will put his cold face into the dirt at the same time trainrider #1 breathes his last breath above the quicksand. Whichdeath would you choose? How are you working your way through those miles right now?


I'm not sure it's that serious,
JH

My Pen is....

Opening up like a sunrise over the horizon, situations appear before my eyes and excite me. As if in translation from sight to mind, by mind interprets reality in a moment and when complete, gets my mind thinking where my pen is….

At these times, my pen swells in my pocket and I’m driven to take it out and allow it to spill ink all over the page. In between my finger and my thumb, my pen is tall and snug as a gun. I stare down the scene with voyeuristic eyes and squeeze my pen, waiting for the moment of enlightenment, inspiration, and stimulation.

A shift in reality and beauty disrobes herself, showing all to me- I wet the tip of my pen and, giving three quick clicks, am ready to write. Keeping my eyes on the object of my pen’s desire and concentration, I write rapidly up and down the page- up and down. I write so voraciously that my wrist begins to cramp and I notice that calluses are growing on my hands. But these minor setbacks are as in vain as the sand to the endless tide- my writing continues.

Driven like a Cadillac by an intoxicated businessman I weave over and across the avenues of the page and accelerate to higher levels of excitement. I can’t control myself, so I close my eyes, allowing my hand to freely write what my mind surely sees. By God, I’m done! I have ink on my hands and am breathing a bit heavily, finding difficulty to even open my eyes, but my pen is relaxed, waiting flaccid on my thigh for its next tour of duty.

i do not deny it.

It began by consequence of her entrance into the room. As our eyes met, my intestines were stimulated and rumbled like the titter-tattering of sticks across the slowly tightening skin of a drum. This feeling gave me cause to sit up straight and hold my breath.

Though I tried to hold in this mounting sentiment, the union of our sweaty hands added saturation to the gaseousness within me, and beads of perspiration began to roll down my brow. In my efforts of suppression, I stared and smiled and loved her, and refused to move or even cough.

Staring into my eyes, she smiled and then closed hers. Here, with her moving towards me, the aforementioned rolling drums gave way to the bombast of the brass band playing in my physiological orchestra and I suddenly pulled back to make the music of the human heart.

MOVEMENT ONE: The low rumble of the tympanis.
MOVEMENT TWO: The blare of the trumpets, tubas, and trombones.
MOVEMENT THREE: The high, gasping staccato notes squeaking forth from the flute.
THE FINALE: all the players loosed a wretched symphony of all that was simmering and growing inside of me. I could not help myself. I had nothing else to say- I sat there, foolishly, and smiled.

In giving her allowance and entrance into this concert of my body, in a sense, I showed her my heart; but alas, to no avail- she turned her nose up at me. She said she loved me, and she did- but she did not like what she had heard- it was too much for her to handle.

As the leaves ultimately give way to the bluster in early November, her hand drifted forth from mine. And as her senses computed what came forth from inside of me- dear God, tears welled up in her eyes, and she left- desperate for a breath of air away and apart from what I had released.

I was left alone to sit and fester with my wafting stench of loneliness in the stuffy den. Taking the time to give sensuous reflection to what I had purported, not even I could deal with its resonance, and alas, felt its sting.

Oh love! My lady, my love! I am so heartily sorry to have left a taste of unpleasantly in your mouth. But please do not direct your anger at me, but at God almighty himself who has cursed and filled us all with these feelings. For you know that you yourself, when alone, staring at a sparrow through an open window liberate this bubble, and, at times, cause even the meditative bird to take flight. Think about that my precious, and acknowledge that all brown eyes cry.

One quarter through life some God-ly like thing created

Monday morning I awoke with a startle, and, lazily rubbing my eyes, realized I was twenty years old. Slowly my legs transitioned from horizontal to vertical and shoes were on my feet leading me- leading me. Professors, parents and proliferators of profundity were howling at me. With faces constructed by Edward Munch, the banshees tore my clothes and hair. And I, alas- I breathed and I blinked. And subsequently, and by consequent of that blink, they were gone. I made them go away because I am twenty years old, and I can do that.
Now traveling on my own accord, I looked up- removing the sunglasses that I had bought and worn since High School, I saw the sun- it was blue set in the yellow sky. I wanted it as thus, and so it was- green clouds gathered and rained shadows around the turquoise spotlight that circum-luminated me. Teeth twenty years in the forming smiled.
To my surprise as I stepped over social constructs festering on the curbs, a tower permeated the street and rose up toward the heavens. Atop the tower, a gothic spire appeared, and as it rose, pierced the sky. Separating the clouds, the spire slashed the sky and, the blood of the cosmos fell down, pooling serenely in my furrowed brow. My forehead relaxed and the blood poured over my face and began to collect rapidly at my feet. As it elevated to my knees and waist, I started to swim- for any twenty year old can swim in the pouring blood of the universe.
Despite the congealing nature of the thin molasses drowning the workforce, but not me, I swam the backstroke with perfect form and moved on through; wondering what would happen when Mother Nature got a blood clot. And then, when her scab finally did form, I stood up and did a back flip because I’m twenty years old.
I wanted to die for an hour, so I had a beer and slept; perfectly acceptable. When I woke up, I had a plum in my pocket- I took a bite and threw the rest at a man in a grey suit trudging by with his head down and his hands in his pockets. He did not laugh when he was struck- rather he cried- and in doing so, he slowly died. He must have been twenty-five. On stilts made of red-bull cans I hopped through the rest of the afternoon. As evening stole the colors from the sky, I met with other twenty year olds- all goggle-eyed from the day. We found cause to share the events that formed the whimsical look and feel in our countenances and laughed; eating whatever the fuck we wanted for dinner.
Desert was served by a banker, but it was too sweet. I was unable to dislodge the bites getting stuck between my teeth and started to cry. The tears welled slowly and then with fleet fell furiously at my feet. The tears began to melt my shoes, socks, legs and body, and in the metallic pool accumulating beneath me, I look down and saw the reflection of what was left of my face; it was a frowning twenty-one year old. Upon my complete disintegration, the bankers walked away smiling, searching for lawyers and doctors so that they might share the story of my disintegration.
All that was left of me was the vapor of my thought. It rose to the ceiling like fog on a river and hovered for a moment, existing in and of itself for a beautiful, brief instance. Then, with a jerk, this vapor was sucked in through the end of a trader’s expensive cigar and then- pause- it was exhaled out as a meaningless cloud of smoke. I was twenty-two.

A season of hope's discontent

I gave her it all. My heart, my mind, my story my rise and my fall. It seemed she fell in love with the man that I was. I hadn't been this happy since I played dad 1 on 1. Her smile made me want to be a better man. I never felt so vulnerable and so loved all in one. I prayed at night she'd see what I saw and i wanted to tell her she was my Helen of Troy.
Life threw some curveballs and before you knew it, my secret was suppressed the key thrown away. I cried and I cried but the truth wouldn't let me close my eyes. It kept eating and eating away at the soul. I had to tell her but I knew the fate... friendship ruined, you're a brother not a mate.
Somehow I found the courage under a rock and I said hope is a good thing and the world will be shocked. I said the most dangerous/beautiful three words in human history: I love you. She started laughing she didn't see it coming. I gave her time as I was exiled to la isla negra until she summoned me with her heart. Those nights sleep lost the battle and I hoped once more that the creator wouldn't rob me of the Winnie Cooper not even the Wonder Years could equal.
She called me one day my hand trembling like Ali after all those damn fights. I tried one last attempt to explain to her my heart. I listened to her voice and I thought all was right but she dismissed what we had, said we were never that close from the start. A brother I was to be forever. I couldn't reason or argue with that. For once optimism wasn't my calling card and I finally realized hope can get a man killed...

brevity is the soul of wit

in this new morning i tried to justify myself to the sun, and she just glared at me and said "son, you got a while to go" i could just hear what the sun was saying, i couldn't look right at it, you can never look directly at the truth.

the modern Isis, honey, God, she was priceless

My friends will tell you, I stick my head out of the moonroof often when I drive. Maybe you'll try one day and see - it takes away 20 years of tv and video games from the windshield. For any of you who think I do it for show, you’re right, but only the first time. The rest were genuine…that’s where I found her.

Strangers in the countryside, the ones that daydream out windows in little forgettable towns between poughkeepsie, new york and Tom Quinn's house in connecticut, they will tell you stories. Stories about a wild seventeen year old racing down Rt 44 some nights around sunset; his head peaking out of the roof and his eyes squinted through tears, half from the wind, the other half because it’s the wind. He’d take his eyes off the road for just a second to see her smiling next to him.

His fanfare was a tribe called quest and he left a trail of sunflower seeds. With a wifebeater and a backwards Astro's hat as his tux and a virgin's smile as his corsage - he was at prom with his youth, falling in love with his high school sweetheart.

She's gotten older and she stands him up most days. But he refuses to leave her. He searches. Walking in the mall, or watching TV he knows he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. She shames him. Late nights he stays up wondering where she is, how to find her. Why won’t she come to bed?!

Sometimes he sees her smiling outside at night when it’s raining, drenched but she looks warm in the streetlight. And she sits with him when he reads old birthday cards from his grandmother and thinks about the life that came before those words. And she comforts him when he learns about how cold the world is; prisons, guns, hunger, HIV, tears. She giggles as they shiver together when he turns the hot water to cold in the shower. And she nods her head on drunken nights to beating knuckles as he freestyles with a 40 in his left and a paintbrush in his right.

But she knows when it’s fake and she knows when he’s forcing it. And she came to him a couple nights ago, told him she’s lonely - she’s packing, going far far away, where someone real can have her.

If only she knew how bad he needs her, how hard she is to find around here. He’ll fight though. Once you’ve found her, you don’t just let her leave. You search. You pack your bags, and you fly.
And you dream that when you get off that plane in that foreign city in that land you’ve only dreamed about…she’ll be waiting, smiling, giving you joy today and faith in tomorrow.

(I may have gotten too abstract with this one from the way some people have told me they interpreted it, but I meant "she" to be life - pure, true emotions, boundaries broken down, anything real)... and "you search for her"

I've missed my dreams again.

Well, I’ve missed my dreams again. I weigh the consequences of just leaving my over packed baggage right here on the platform. Somehow the cold concrete of the floor has begun to seep into the rubber on the soles of my shoes. Speaking of souls, mine is currently desperately trying to get the conductor to pull the emergency brake and let it inside the train. That’s troublesome because the broken body that has been it’s vessel for 20 years is currently walking back to the ticket counter, white knuckles crushing his one way ticket. It’s at that counter that Mrs. La-vie informs him it is only exchangeable for one of lesser value. Her name sounds French and for that I thoroughly expected a more romantic ending.

There’s not much left to do at this point but settle on where I’ll settle once more. I resign to try harder much in the fashion of the Little Engine That Could, only without Watty Piper’s conviction. “We’ll make things work,” I promise to no one in particular. Frustratingly enough, I can never ever remember my dreams when I wake up. A silent toast is offered to whoever invented luggage with wheels. A sudden fatigue overtakes me and I can think of nothing else but sound sleep. I think I’ll check one last time to see if the gift shop has a dream catcher for sale.

when it's dark and you are in a cave.

i don't know how to write about dancing. i don't know how to write about champagne and jokes that i don't get because i can't understand the language when the music is loud. i don't know how to write about the tiny tradegies of a night, reminding myself of the title of vaclav havels book, because i didn't read the fucking book, just like a chapter, maybe it was the name of the chapter i don't even know, it was called "Living in Truth" Granted, he went on to describe how he went from a playwright to the leader of the liberated Czech Republic, but the notion of living in truth, that title, in highlighted letters flashing through my mind, and i'm asked "t'es soûle?" and i say no cause its bad enough i don't know what anybody's saying, but to be drunk and young in paris and not speak enough is like walking with stilts, and i can't fuck with stilts because in fact i am drunk. i'm doing crossovers in my mind, the next question is yelling "cookies!" and taking my mind for another ride, only to be conquered by a more naive, stupid question, and finally if i just say "mais oui, je suis tres soûle soûle", ah but the new york boy must be careful, he must watch his step, hold his tongue, and when he dances he ought to not be too sporadic.

it was a cave, the fucking restaurant was a cave and i danced in that cave to music that is just absolutely ridiculous and with each graceful step (one in three), i am tagging the questions in my head with yellow paint, in big letters, "liar! salaud! bête!" and even though it's late, the stars still spell out the title of that stupid fucking book.