And if you came along I know you couldn't disagree...

...it's the same old story
everywhere I go,
I get slandered,
libeled,
I hear words I never heard
in the Bible
and I'm one step ahead of the shoe shine
two steps away from the county line
just trying to keep my customers satisfied,
satisfied.

bi-polar-ass-weather-day...

In our town, there is a secret spot where you can still see the stars at night, believe it or not. It is the only spot like that left, unclouded by the rumbling factories, uninhibited by dwindling skyscrapers rising nearby. It is a good place to go to walk and talk in whispers. Following the little hill that rises from the park to a small clearing which overlooks the statue of the armless general on his bronze steed, most of us later remember this spot as the first place we knew we might be in love.

-Written by someone who isn't me

hello babies. welcome to earth. it’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. it’s round wet and crowded. outside, babies, you’ve got about 100 years and there’s only one rule that i know of, babies. god damn, you’ve got to be kind.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The Jewel Heart

By Barbara Helen Berger

Bluebird

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pour whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

- Bukowski

"It is not so unusual, not knowing"

Everything is Illuminated

Gramdma Evie...

...I love you.

Try To Remember Some Details

Try to remember some details. Remember the clothing
of the one you love
so that on the day of loss you’ll be able to say: last seen
wearing such-and-such, brown jacket, white hat.
Try to remember some details. For they have no face
and their soul is hidden and their crying
is the same as their laughter,
and their silence and their shouting rise to one height
and their body temperature is between 98 and 104 degrees
and they have no life outside this narrow space
and they have no graven image, no likeness, no memory
and they have paper cups on the day of their rejoicing
and paper cups that are used once only.

Try to remember some details. For the world
is filled with people who were torn from their sleep
with no one to mend the tear,
and unlike wild beasts they live
each in his lonely hiding place and they die
together on battlefields
and in hospitals.
And the earth will swallow all of them,
good and evil together, like the followers of Korah,
all of them in their rebellion against death,
their mouths open till the last moment,
praising and cursing in a single
howl. Try, try
to remember some details.

- Yehuda Amichai

I promise, I'm trying so hard.

For Your Lonely And Your Head And Your Bed.

C'mere

Little one

I miss you

I best be to sleep, but go be warm and cozy for me.

My room is cold and hard.

It's okay. It suits me.

Some day

When you aren't expecting it

I'm just gonna come over with all my comforters in the middle of the night

And get in your bed

And wrap you in them

The End.

Taiyo Matsumoto’s “Tekkon Kinkreet”

Translation:

Black & White.

"I think you're broken white."

hit me

like a deer in the headlights,

why don't you?

don’t hold out too long

if I don’t come in sweet summer

sometimes the sea has her way with me

on the long road to you

she is swollen with my tears

salvage your heart

never say I left you

say I drowned

-Michael Davitt

today i passed you on the street and my heart fell at your feet...

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

-Oscar Wild

“Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes."

-Stephen Colbert

“ We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the griefs that are in me and what do I know of yours? And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful?"

-Franz Kafka

Painted Ladies

Sofie and I painted our bodies. Put your insides out.

(You have ghosts?)
(Of course I have ghosts.)
(What are your ghosts like?)
(They are on the inside of the lids of my eyes.)
(This is also where my ghosts reside.)
(You have ghosts?)
(Of course I have ghosts.)
(But you are a child.)
(I am not a child.)
(But you have not known love.)
(These are my ghosts, the spaces amid love.)

J. S. Foer, Everything is Illuminated

Hagg Lake Bike Race Round 2