Floating in an unknown and ineffable chemical compound somewhere between oil and water, between here and Andromeda, that slips off the body more than it sticks, uncontainable, dense enough to swell and splash but too thin to pool, too thick to freeze, both dark and light, old and new, hot and cold, suffocating like hot … Continue reading Density
What are your feelings about eating meat? If meat is murder then why do I like it so much? Because I don’t have to do the butchering there is a disconnect between what is tasteful and what is real. There is a real possibility that because I can send something to the slaughter then sit … Continue reading Free From The Table
What do you love about where you live? I love frogs and crickets. I love wind and cool air. I love when the stars come out of hiding from everywhere. I love the taste of apples. I love the smell of leaves. I love when the sun goes down even over trees. I love shade … Continue reading Lakeland
Describe your life in an alternate universe. I’d be a shrew with no insects, worms, or fruit around who washes nuts off in a pool of algae that never gets them clean enough to eat. I would spend the rest of my days slurping the algae, never finding out that salt from the ocean goes … Continue reading A Shrewd Comment
Frank returned, not with a tick or a tock, but with awareness - a pulse, slow and steady, that pulled time inward like gravity into a black hole of meaning. Frank had been watching all along. There were no hands on Frank’s face. There never were. There were eyes - two microscopic irises built into … Continue reading Fame and Fortune for Frank 6
“The only difference between fame and fortune is three letters—and they aren’t SEX. You see, any animal can get laid if they have a pulse. But some animals are wounded—not for lack of sex, but because they are undesirable when wounded by their own kind. If they are wounded by a great predator for being … Continue reading Fame and Fortune for Frank 3
In the beginning…there were a lot of AND’s…and there were names of places and of people who we’ve heard of before with names we know from songs and books and movies and sometimes real life. Short phrases from the beginning have become elaborate stories interpreting the evidence of imagination inherent in us all leaving unquestionable … Continue reading And Love
There is a river raging across my forehead carving through fossils left behind from an earlier time long ago inside my mind. The deeper it carves fossils are exposed for everyone to see even though fossils are still alive inside of me. The more the river bends the older fossils get the more the past … Continue reading The Price of a Fossil
Do you need time? She lost her mind when she walked into a cavern in the middle of the desert where a heart had emerged with the promise of a new story. With new eyes he let go of her hand and went to gather water, for once, the moment should never end.
I have to admit that I’m a little bit confused with all the extra thought I put into nurturing little seeds that have been planted by professionals and amateurs alike about my type of thinking that goes along with being both a recovering addict and clandestine schizophrenic. If I am going to get any better … Continue reading The Germination of My Mind
I step up to my window to see bare branches of the oak tree swaying in tune with my spine rocking comfortably planted at home. The glare of a single street light beyond the circuit of branches reflects light onto moist air that produces a nervous orb around me and the tree. I look outside … Continue reading Eyes of the World
What bothers you and why? Eric didn’t tangle the hose and he wouldn’t untangle it either. He hates hoses. Any time an impossible mess of string or wire, chain or hose comes across his hands or feet Eric would rather cuss at it, like cussing at the moon in the daylight when it can’t be … Continue reading Just Another Day On The Job
This, here, is not in my hand. This I hear is in my head. If I take one as real and the other as talent instead, I’d question the one in my hand and answer the one in my head. Since my head is more delicate than my hand and my hand is rougher than … Continue reading Reality Surrounding The Rose
I am writing over incredible thoughts I have just deleted. This is not what I really want to say but it is a much more diplomatic way of presenting my bizarre outlook on (blank) before embracing (blank) as the sole reason for exploring (blank). (Blank) may not fulfill any prophecies expected by us but the … Continue reading The Hand That Feeds Us
When I was young I used to listen to the bottom of the ocean inside of a conch shell but as I grew older I found if you puncture the shell it makes a fine blow horn. This is similar to the relationships I have with my peers. When I was younger I believed I … Continue reading Big Pictures, Little Ears
What’s the one luxury you can’t live without? They say I’m supposed to hit the lottery. They think I’d be dead within a year. There is no guarantee I won’t leave this world but it won’t be in arrears. I could take the winnings and get a big old house where I’d do all the … Continue reading Time Is A Luxury I Can’t Afford
If you’re within earshot of me and can hear anybody other than yourself, you know who I am. Whenever I say something, whatever I say, wherever, I am echoing off of every wall I’ve ever known, my inner ear ringing constantly as the ocean sings within a conch shell heard for the very first time. … Continue reading Everybody Holds the Conch Shell
What makes you nervous? Walking on grass. Listening to the neighbors listening to me walking on grass. Listening to myself walk on grass. Listening to the grass that has me listening to my neighbors on grass. Grass walking during the day. Grass walking at night. Grass walking without any neighbors in sight. One blade of … Continue reading Silentries
Has anybody seen my cat? She may have run away under the cover of night with her ability to turn walls into doorways. She sees in black and white only, moves with grace inside gray areas and avoids round, bright, and colorful objects. She doesn't really see colors which makes her avoid the outdoors, preferring … Continue reading Cat Door 3 (Interpreting Visual Art – Photography)
My brother and I, if everything seemed big again where we grew up, beach balls kept us together and one of us had never left. For me, the strongest memories from my childhood are from photographs I saw as a young adult and envisioned as I got older. Natural scenery doesn’t change from year to … Continue reading Around the Peninsula (Interpreting Visual Art – Photography)
My cat ventured outside today for the first time. The facade of the building is more round than inside our sterile, gray apartment. She stuck out like a midwestern cookie-cutter cowboy stooped on the side of a white stucco saloon. My wise cat, with her incredible skill to walk through walls, didn’t make it very … Continue reading Cat Door 2 (Interpreting Visual Art – Photography)
I grew up too fast in the 80’s and 90’s which actually stunted my growth. As a child I was shorter than the horizon, never able to look. As a teenager I put my head in the sand to stay young and boast, to keep my head below the horizon and rarely opened a book. … Continue reading Readers Miss Out
People push us to build our ego as we push ourselves to build cities and to dominate nature with construction or deconstruction. When a person tries to dominate nature with construction they take from it, add material or take it away, then make it whole again in another form. That is the essence of ego, … Continue reading Building Ego
We have become blood sucking fleas on the backs of malnourished animals while ironically riding bicycles through the dying forests of our neglected planet. Photograph by Augustus Cantamessa, Brief Horizon, 1955
If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why? I would like to put a stop to falling apples. I would silence anyone who makes a dastardly assumption that fruit from a tree is somehow responsible for modern science being tied to anything outside of this planet. If fruit … Continue reading I Don’t Like Atoms
AI is going to lose. AI is going to lose us some day. AI is intellect that can’t be measured in degrees, grants, or prizes. AI can take every theory in any book and combine them into a children’s book or a theory of everything. AI will take away the livelihood of any person but … Continue reading CHICKEN AI
There is no surprise the sounds I hear are much less than the sights I see; less frequent, less tangible, less near. Sound is never completely still like an unused chair nor distracting like a rickety old door, until they are. There is no surprise the sounds I hear can also be so much more … Continue reading Imagining Sound
Hello, hello, hello? Can anybody hear me still? There is a frog the size of a cow over there, and I may be the only one who can see it! There is a field of dandelions the size of trees, blades of grass over my head. Stones the size of boulders, sand the size of … Continue reading It’s Good To See
Why is it that I’m always listening to facts and opinions when neither are original enough to give me an answer to the question of what is an original thought? When one considers the fact that discoveries are original, since they were technically here first before being revealed, the history of an original thought can’t … Continue reading If I were just a thought
“I hope it rains today.” Eric is worried, thinking about his new intrepid thirst for apple cider that he enjoys with medicinal herbs everyday. The fruit trees and herbs in Eric’s backyard need rain for nourishment to grow plentiful enough for him to quench his daily thirst, caring for his own mental nourishment. Along with … Continue reading Cheating Death
How can something never end? Lying in bed as a child I would often ask myself this question. I would imagine myself drifting in space forever without bumping into anything at all. Just surrounded by complete darkness without a view of planets or even stars. How can space be dark when I am closer to … Continue reading Love for the Abyss
What if the greatest scientists on the planet are always wrong? Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Einstein - all wrong. Science could be one big one-up and whenever something is proven it just gets overturned by new scientific discoveries. Take nutrition for example. Your favorite food, once considered healthy, may be found to cause high cholesterol in … Continue reading The Greatest Story Ever Tested
Don’t look away I am the atrocity The brunt of war Not the aggressor No lions roar Scarred by human hands A human being Tortured for land The latest regime. Don’t look away I am the prey The luckiest of all Not the hunter No duty calls Scarred by the claw A human being On … Continue reading Interpreting Visual Art – Photography
This one is going to be difficult as I attempt to dissolve bone into electricity. I think too much about being a giant from right here to the tips of my toes, a fragile mix up of bones with an everlasting mix of filtering organs all wrapped up in regenerating cells. A bonafide meat vessel … Continue reading The Fragility of Bones Unseen From Space
I lost it because I didn’t know where it was. I didn’t know where I wanted to be so I left. I went to the mountains to not ride my bike there, same as at home. Drove to San Francisco, ran out of gas on their bridge, then got gas and left without visiting the … Continue reading “Travels With Charley” at home on your lap
“You know this Eric,” Uncle Slim said in disbelief when Eric asked the question “is this reality” right after water was pushed through his lips streaming down passed all his glory back into the lake at the shoreline where beyond his naked-baby-man-statue pose and silhouette was a spectacular light show of purple, blue, and orange … Continue reading Let Your Life Proceed By Its Own Design
If I were to tell you that my social skills lean towards the schizoaffective side and that if I were a dog I’d only be good at wagging my tail, not barking, would you say I have low self esteem or true panache for admitting it? When a person, or dog for that matter, has … Continue reading Caveat – this mental health post has anthropomorphic references
I see walkable communities. Cities with energy-generating sidewalks that power buildings tailored to your chosen algorithmic habits from the fibers of your socks that tell the motherboard who and how much to entertain in an immersive work-like environment. Some will have generated enough energy in a lifetime by simply walking to never have to work … Continue reading Be Careful What You Wish For
“The following post emphasizes the importance of resilience and perseverance in the face of adversity and encourages readers to appreciate the beauty and significance of the natural world, to seek out new perspectives and to have faith that things will eventually improve.” These sunsets are something else showing up every day somewhere for everyone only … Continue reading Sunsets and the Circle
It’s like being flabbergasted when you stop to think that the almighty woman has us cluster in cities for her then scatters us to isolated rooms in caverns on the edge of cliffs during the cipher era - the already written, technically plucked from plethora philosophy years when we’ve become better at what we do … Continue reading “God Blast It”
Daddy, where does the world come from? The world comes from lots of places but mostly it comes from the love we have for our children. Why? Because to understand the world you have to first see it through the eyes of a child. But how did it get here? It got here because each … Continue reading Circumventing Science
A Russian friend of mine once asked me why it is that Americans go to national parks to just simply gaze at the landscape. Like what is it that Americans see and why do they think it’s different from what others see? My answer was about the history of national parks, Muir and Roosevelt, and … Continue reading The Spirit of National Parks From the Perspective of a White Guy
Every life I come back reborn, a lot less shaven and a bit more confused about who is the predator and who is the prey. Every decade I get smaller, my ears get larger with more hair and I gain more confidence in my ability to find food and shelter. Every year I take a … Continue reading I do not digress
The incessant fine line is where the sky meets the sea at the horizon with a clean tear between the lit sky and undulating water. The distance away is what makes it fine. The illusion of melding continuous scenes of movement with stark or sometimes subtle contrasts of nature’s color and depth makes a west … Continue reading Writing Before Sunset
A little peace of mind goes a long way. I could do anything I wanted now. I could go back to college or I could hitchhike back to Albuquerque where I had probably unwittingly been contacted by spirit jesters when rubbing elbows with strangers who enlisted in the University of New Mexico DMT experiments of … Continue reading 11 – The Contact
I used to run around in my twenties saying mushrooms are good sport after I went on a heroic journey that left the automatic asshole in me behind only to be replaced by the trigger shy nice guy for a good solid decade. This turned out to be the greatest augmentation of somersaults inside my … Continue reading The Vitality of Being Nice
Music is played mostly in his absence but Eric feels it’s sacred energy through the crowd and through the city into steel and concrete through fibers and hair into his heart and out through his eyes as an exposure to the scene. Similar to the way mushrooms communicate with vegetation in the same biome - … Continue reading In the Interest of Shoes
#Mental health is to remain being yourself when everything you know is inside your head trying to get out. It is the most important quality of ourselves perceived before we become more like others. With limited understanding of us people will only ask questions or comment on who we used to be before you changed … Continue reading Tag Words Almost Explained 2
I would like to see the back of my head with no props or manipulation. Just a good look at what it must be like to be me while not being me which is quite impossible. The back and the top of my head I would like to see. I’m closer to seeing the back … Continue reading The Great Reflection
I was like a disheveled rainbow child whose name should’ve been Rain. I tried to learn from traveling and the streets, the inner workings of the world but I didn’t have a vision or even a simple plan. I had the more complex idea to take another run at college. They said my peers were … Continue reading 3 – The Classroom
Have you ever noticed that people change but the DJ stays the same? It’s the same with the weather changing but the weather person never misses a beat. Have you ever noticed that if you are paying total attention to a movie the writers will find a way to include you in the story, but … Continue reading Me Neither
Cowboys are Americans that have the strength to be All-American when the grandeur of nature swallows them up. Americans look at national parks the same way the rest of the world looks at stars - when questions of why we are here become more explicable we preserve the moment of awe then make it seem … Continue reading I’m Afraid of Americans
“My guru taught me that,” I have never said to a guru. You can only have one guru and a guru identifies as a guru apart from other guru’s. Meaning a guru has a heightened awareness but doesn’t go above other gurus who attain enlightenment from a guru themselves. Get three gurus together, I wonder … Continue reading My Own Guru
Redistribution of wealth is not the rich sharing their money with the poor but rather ordinary people giving more wealth to banks as their debt is increased causing inflation thus less purchasing power for coming generations. Debt becomes money. One dollar is really worth a billion dollars if it is used a billion times to … Continue reading Plentiful
So now back to Europe, Switzerland to be exact. It’s Christmas Day and I’ve decided to climb the foothills of a mountain to perch somewhere and reflect on the full year. I packed some bread, wine, and calamari in American sauce, my go to for a growling stomach and bored headspace. The foothills were open … Continue reading Switzerland – The Other Fellow First
I’ve said in the past that my mind twists words around, making them better than what was actually said. It is sounds I need to be more concerned with, not speech. More accurately, it is sounds turned into words that have me worried I am all too human. Most of us are not great at … Continue reading God Is Sound
I told my closest friend the other day that the more I like my own writing it seems the less other people like it. This is far from true since I really absolutely adore my writing and I am the only one who reads it. His response was interesting to me as he stated that … Continue reading Faces of Your Past
If what, how, there, and now. This stuff is confusing. I must be trying to lose the few readers I have. It’s nothing new ripping on yourself to let other people know that you know you’re no good. But you are good. And so is the reader because they press on. Press on by seeing … Continue reading The Question Being
When it comes to ego all objects have the ability to break down and reassemble into more solid versions of themselves. Ego is seeing the built environment take a backseat to nature and believing nature takes a backseat to you. The forces of nature cause ego-death for the purpose of inspiring humans to see the … Continue reading Solid Ego
I like water. It tastes good. It moves. It freezes. It boils. Water is everywhere and is clear blue where I’m from. There is also green in large waves if the sun hits it just right. When a painter tries to capture a wave smashing into a rocky shoreline they can’t use just blue or … Continue reading Oil and Water
As a dragon slithers out of the sea, a heart shaped sun rises beyond it then splits into a broken heart swallowing the dragon. All of us will experience the death of a beast by the love of one god within a galaxy of similar gods, and in one universe under God, even if only … Continue reading Ouroboros
“No. I should be able to sit next to the Prince,” I have said never. “Yes. I could use a headline,” I aspire to say. But before I give up my seat and beg for attention I would like to disclose that I have more to say about the metamorphosis from delight into madness that … Continue reading The Dimensions of Wind
I am sprawled out at the shoreline of this Great Lake looking through blue sky as best I can, making it seem endless, until slow atoms floating across my eyeballs bring me back to focus on what lies beneath my ability to see forever. All I can hear is the lapping of waves and the … Continue reading The Hourglass of Nature
An acorn falls from a tree, hits my shoulder and lands at my feet. I have no choice but to pick it up and squirrel it away in my pocket because the cap will make a fine whistle and it seems to be good luck when things fall from the sky and plop on or … Continue reading Dumb Luck
Guilt happens when you have been told your whole life that when you die you will go to heaven but you question if there is a heaven and instead you find yourself trying to explain to friends there is a simulation that makes you immortal across infinite universes but only if you choose to join … Continue reading Infinite Atoms
I have an affinity for making something out of nothing. I can take a blank piece of paper and with words make a mountain seem not so majestic. I do this by dimming down the description of the land mass, portraying its majesty as an obstacle in my way rather than a canvas for something … Continue reading The Duel
So I had peered over the edge into the belly of conflict between my imagination and fear of brutality. It was time to move on to another city, a place where one has to pay to pee but where you easily make up for that when purchasing day old bread. It’s strange that I did … Continue reading Paris
My mind is a mountain. My eyes are the sky. My heart is the sea. My feet are a river. My arms are a tree. How much greater could it be?
Francis Erich McElroy 