The reason for the failure, the real reason for the absolute face plant of freestyle, is in the lack of the creation of something new. It was, in retrospect, an act of taking a math exam in the guise of producing something new. All of themes are well established. All of the word play is well established. When I say "well established" I mean it has all been done successfully prior too their various incorporations into Flowgenomics. And that is why I feel, in rereading several times over, that it is one of the worst failures I've managed to generate.
There's nothing in it. Nothing identifiable in it. It's like saying one and one is two. Over and over again. Except instead of numbers we have concepts in the same positions of the variables. Concepts drawing toward a well established and well documented conclusion. Not that they are not my sentiments. It is just the framing of the picture, the execution of the strokes, and the lighting of the presentation that is phenomenally stale. It's not even so bad that it's good. It's just so putrid that the stench engulfs any reason to enjoy it. When I finish reading it I feel like I've lost time that I will never get back and it leaves me, if anything can be left after riding my eyes down the page, angry that I wasted time.
Well, I did not waste time in evaluating it. I learned what I could do better and worse by making it. I can further apply what I've learned to making something better. The galling thing, the disappointing thing, is that someone else has, perhaps, wasted time reading it and for that I apologize. It will remain up, though, as I persisting reminder to myself for the high latency space to work in. There is absolutely something to be said for the pressure of short turnaround times, but that piece is a clear example of what is and what could have been, had I given myself the time to mull it over for several handfuls of days before pressing it.
What I also learned was some of the value of new music. New music is, by definition, new. By technical definition. By ethos, however, new music is truly new when it conceptualizes the familiar in new ways. By that token, Flowgenomics is the equivalent of vomit. A math exam with set answers and many of them regurgitated from memory with fidelity and sealing it's fate as nothing more than parroting. One plus one equals two. There's a certain amount of shame I am still trying to digest. A certain amount of wishing for a second chance on it, and I can have one at the drop of a hat, but I will not take another crack at it just yet.
I am partly too disappointed to look at it for an eleventh time, but part of me wants to remember the mistake so that I have that in my furnace to power the train toward better production. The mental workshop. A fine substitute for class. What makes new music new is not necessarily the paint on the canvas or the framing or the lighting, but the artist's ability to take a familiar concept and make it interesting again; in this case by presenting the ideas in ways they haven't been presented before. Maybe it's not one particular thing that does it. That makes "new" new. It's not all "or"s. It's a whole lot of "ands". So I'm going to hold that idea in my mind the next time I feel inclined to spit out a rhyme about the fire inside me and engage and coactivate memory language and footprints of words that crush the edges of other footprints of other words. Anyway. Just though I should let you know that thinking is happening. I don't just open my mouth and talk off of the top of my head everyday.
Sometimes you've got to plan if you want to get better.
original works of parts
Song for the Road (Pittsburgh Black and Whites 5)
Touching down, the water,
in the street, it comes up
where the curb comes down and
seeps into a shoe
where the soul meets the mesh.
Rain for days and touching down
one step at a time.
Cold in broad daylight.
Walking down
to where the water comes up
whispering to the docks.
Landing footsteps
like 12th round blows,
blood slow and nerves slower, drinking
in the sun to fight
the shakes of the land below.
Everything smells like fire.
Like everything is
gone through the blaze and
come out too hot to taste with eyes and
too clear to be more than a dream.
Touching down, the water
comes up and steps on a heel
with a metal clad boot's toe,
but there is still so much time, so much cement,
so much weather yet to come between here and home.
in the street, it comes up
where the curb comes down and
seeps into a shoe
where the soul meets the mesh.
Rain for days and touching down
one step at a time.
Cold in broad daylight.
Walking down
to where the water comes up
whispering to the docks.
Landing footsteps
like 12th round blows,
blood slow and nerves slower, drinking
in the sun to fight
the shakes of the land below.
Everything smells like fire.
Like everything is
gone through the blaze and
come out too hot to taste with eyes and
too clear to be more than a dream.
Touching down, the water
comes up and steps on a heel
with a metal clad boot's toe,
but there is still so much time, so much cement,
so much weather yet to come between here and home.
In Defense of Her Majesty
I can see the wind
coming down the gray and double yellowed road
like a woman possessed
to spin in violent synchronization
to the beat of my heart, winter licked.
She comes and keeps on
coming down the road ahead,
screaming with speed and
enough speed in her veins
to strip the skin from the face of my unblinking reality.
I play
chicken in the cold and
try not to blink while she
spins her whips like a shrapnel barbed skirt and
winks like sparks from a summer time trip midst fireflies
before dying against the panes of window glass
the way I watched you go through
on that summer trip
and I stared at those double yellow lines
for hours. Running.
coming down the gray and double yellowed road
like a woman possessed
to spin in violent synchronization
to the beat of my heart, winter licked.
She comes and keeps on
coming down the road ahead,
screaming with speed and
enough speed in her veins
to strip the skin from the face of my unblinking reality.
I play
chicken in the cold and
try not to blink while she
spins her whips like a shrapnel barbed skirt and
winks like sparks from a summer time trip midst fireflies
before dying against the panes of window glass
the way I watched you go through
on that summer trip
and I stared at those double yellow lines
for hours. Running.
Titanic State
There is you.
There is the other you.
There is the other other you.
There is the you with work ethic and acumen.
There is the you with star eyed stupidity.
The you that will try everything once.
The you that never leaves the house.
The you that only does laundry if it is raining.
There is the you that never uses the bathroom.
There is the you that never eats.
There is the you that only sleeps.
There is the other you that never sleeps.
The you that never tries anything.
The you that must sit if he is eating.
The you that always is believing.
And we are working.
Working hard
on titanic state society
where there are one thousand separate hulls
to shield our heart from sea mountains and berg's sprees.
One thousand breakers and dead man switches
for every human being lost to sea.
Destroy the one to face another,
our core assured never to smother
as we ply the waves and heave the coal,
fire, more fire, to the moon
touch the rays of our white hot soul.
Split the stars and peel the tar
from the way of night,
come the daggers, all at once,
we are full speed without eyes,
cut the fabric, tear the silk,
with melted stone plume, coral, and ice,
we are titanic, the unsinkable,
the one never to be unright.
There is the other you.
There is the other other you.
There is the you with work ethic and acumen.
There is the you with star eyed stupidity.
The you that will try everything once.
The you that never leaves the house.
The you that only does laundry if it is raining.
There is the you that never uses the bathroom.
There is the you that never eats.
There is the you that only sleeps.
There is the other you that never sleeps.
The you that never tries anything.
The you that must sit if he is eating.
The you that always is believing.
And we are working.
Working hard
on titanic state society
where there are one thousand separate hulls
to shield our heart from sea mountains and berg's sprees.
One thousand breakers and dead man switches
for every human being lost to sea.
Destroy the one to face another,
our core assured never to smother
as we ply the waves and heave the coal,
fire, more fire, to the moon
touch the rays of our white hot soul.
Split the stars and peel the tar
from the way of night,
come the daggers, all at once,
we are full speed without eyes,
cut the fabric, tear the silk,
with melted stone plume, coral, and ice,
we are titanic, the unsinkable,
the one never to be unright.
To Fall In Love With You
I am in no state
conducive to
falling in love with you
all over again,
the actionable words being
"all over"
because I am forgetting
the way it all came apart at the seems
like all those evils
within me are back seating in an attempt
to make sorbet in June
feel like February winter,
but honestly I am
still broken
and falling in love is exactly that.
Falling once again,
except my broken
wrist and sutures
for the compound fracture
will be less love's arrival as much as a departure,
another slip away of naivete's
rose budded, coke nosed, alright, this time really counts,
yellow brick rail roaded
goodbye.
Bandage
You wear them
to make the recognizer
in their head see
a contiguous face
with acceptable breaks
in its continuity.
Perhaps not its contiguity
as much as
the ability
to see a face beyond,
in lieu of,
its breaks. Though the bandages do
hinder healing
I wear them
because a smile gained
is a smile
loved. And to be loved
is worth every gram of cloth and salve
kept in a backpack
toted for rainy days
refusing to end.
to make the recognizer
in their head see
a contiguous face
with acceptable breaks
in its continuity.
Perhaps not its contiguity
as much as
the ability
to see a face beyond,
in lieu of,
its breaks. Though the bandages do
hinder healing
I wear them
because a smile gained
is a smile
loved. And to be loved
is worth every gram of cloth and salve
kept in a backpack
toted for rainy days
refusing to end.
The Knock
He is the changer,
stranger danger, danger made
strange by
familiarity made
grow-esque in dreams,
peen hammered dreams,
that rattle
if you shake them hard enough
when you are awake enough
to know that you are still dreaming
and a wise man once said
lock the doors if you want
to live long enough
to know that death is upon shoes sans
so change your songs
regularly. And your socks. Someone is
searching for you and
one day they will be there
by the grace of God
to help you close the door.
Holding your breath
in my mouth
makes me giggle
because it is so obviously not my own,
the taste is
rank. The rivets are flying out of the sheet
metal on my dream machine and
ricocheting off of
the bullshit kindnesses and courtesies and
whorish humors of chums. I don't know whether
to answer the door or
ignore the
the
the
the answer to the question being
the seeing of a threat that has yet
to bloom and the warning of
an answer I am prepared to accept
because I cannot protect myself.
The knock. The knock. The fucking knock.
Kiss me, would you? The only thing
distinct from dreams. Tell me I am a wake
and I will carry on, alive, my heart
carrying more weapons
than a zombie shelter and ready
for everything worse than
the knocks of hand that
do not exist
against my door and windows locked.
Locked and locked and locked.
And still they get in;
beautifully
intricate
ways they have to pray
to locks and slips of steel against steel sleeves,
each entry able to make a new angle to the tilt
and unable to leave.
stranger danger, danger made
strange by
familiarity made
grow-esque in dreams,
peen hammered dreams,
that rattle
if you shake them hard enough
when you are awake enough
to know that you are still dreaming
and a wise man once said
lock the doors if you want
to live long enough
to know that death is upon shoes sans
so change your songs
regularly. And your socks. Someone is
searching for you and
one day they will be there
by the grace of God
to help you close the door.
Holding your breath
in my mouth
makes me giggle
because it is so obviously not my own,
the taste is
rank. The rivets are flying out of the sheet
metal on my dream machine and
ricocheting off of
the bullshit kindnesses and courtesies and
whorish humors of chums. I don't know whether
to answer the door or
ignore the
the
the
the answer to the question being
the seeing of a threat that has yet
to bloom and the warning of
an answer I am prepared to accept
because I cannot protect myself.
The knock. The knock. The fucking knock.
Kiss me, would you? The only thing
distinct from dreams. Tell me I am a wake
and I will carry on, alive, my heart
carrying more weapons
than a zombie shelter and ready
for everything worse than
the knocks of hand that
do not exist
against my door and windows locked.
Locked and locked and locked.
And still they get in;
beautifully
intricate
ways they have to pray
to locks and slips of steel against steel sleeves,
each entry able to make a new angle to the tilt
and unable to leave.
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