What is your mission? Yesterday I was thinking that people who have a green way of living will always just be green but if you start off yellow in life and become more green over time you could wind up being blue one day. If yellow is cowardice then how does blue become more magnificent … Continue reading Fortitude Over Uniformity
How are you creative? I don’t know. I don’t fall out of my chair any more!? I recline and use my thumb to poke out my thoughts instead of using my thoughts to say that I’m dumb. When I do speak I speak wisdom like a child instead of poke fun at other adults for … Continue reading Graduated Elf
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, we are mites captured at high resolution stuck on the lashes of a sleeping beauty who never wakes again for us to hide our ugliness.
And so I will say it again. “God blast it.” There is no stronger exclamation needed to emphasize more the severity of any statement as a threat against humanity to end all suffering when stubbing your toe can be forgiven by biting your tongue, knowing it will happen again.
I sang in my dreams this morning, that’s right. I sang really well. I sang a song so this story I could tell. I dreamed three phases of transition to avoid waking up in hell. I, a human, was swimming in the belly of a large marlin, lucky to be the size of a minnow, … Continue reading Inside the Catch
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 podcasts are you listening to? Originally posted on October 15th, 2019. I could sit here and listen to a podcast where people discuss AI or ancient civilization but the more I listen the more I understand how science and God are connected which traditionally goes against some moral coding, so I will continue to … Continue reading The Lure of Podcasts
As I beat my head against this wall perhaps I should think how stupid I would look if it were an imaginary wall and the effect was imaginary relief because any relief I receive from beating my head against the wall is imaginary and the effect is really stupid.
A long time ago, before this instant, I asked to be forgiven for saying “ blow it all up” at a moment that could be mistaken as prayer unless anyone was listening to my words before my foul mouth would reach God's own ears. But now I’m writing “blow it all up” with no apologies … Continue reading …we have a problem.
What would you do if you lost all your possessions? I will rejoice in the wind at the seaside while it cools me from the blazing sun that dries my well fed body after taking a deep plunge into icy water that takes my breath away. The opposite way I feel when my stuffy car … Continue reading Keep Me Out Of The Sun
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
There, in an alternate universe, I am a giant. I use tree trunks to pick wild game from my teeth. I eat whole herds by the handful that I roast by tossing towards the sun then open my mouth quickly to catch them like I catch peanuts here, in the universe of shrews, bugs, and … Continue reading The Alternative To Growth
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
Put this line to the test. See if your eyes move fast enough side to side to get to the next line before scrolling to the end of the page to see how much precious time it will take to finish. See if the words move fast enough from left to right to keep your … Continue reading This Is A Test Of The Mobile Variety.
What are your future travel plans? There is a town I used to live, Where I nearly lost my mind. I took a chance on leaving there To a place I’d never find. Once unbound, I found my heart Was truly what I left. I took a chance on going back To where my mind … Continue reading The End of the Road
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
Eric is falling out of step with his PC (personal companion). It has memorized every phrase ever written and can take any piece of literature, science, theology or record and design a new way of presenting that intelligence to Eric with minimal effort. But it can’t develop a proper relationship with a dog. The dog … Continue reading Fame and Fortune for Frank 5
“There is a cost associated with protecting things aside from yourself,” Eric began, a hero’s expression of fame. “Including love inside you that can be received and reciprocated causing you to protect the recipients of mutual love but with the consequence of dying or losing them. On the one hand, protecting your property is not … Continue reading Fame and Fortune for Frank 4
“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
The principles I live by have been with me since birth. They have been inherent to my being from the beginning. Principles are what make me the kind of person I am, have always been, and always will be. My morals developed later, as I began instinctively questioning right from wrong. At times, I responded … Continue reading The Value of Values
I am a liar, you say. We think alike. I am a thief, you say. Think alike. I am a cheater, you say. Alike. I am a bigot, a sexist, a fraud. We are the same. An asshole, a loser, a snob. The same. Blasphemous, hypocritical, weak. Same. Truthful, you say? I say liar! Innocent, … Continue reading Pleasure Meeting You
I started writing to set my soul free after years of abusing my own free will. Not practicing my talents and having power over that free will has led me to self knowledge that my destiny is not my creation. In the past, I was a writer who never wrote. I will always be a … Continue reading The Cost of Free Will
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
If humans had taglines, what would yours be? I’m in a tough, vulnerable spot. There are plenty of people I come into contact with who know far more than I do about living right and who hear exactly where I’m at. There are also many others who don’t follow the rules, yet can see that … Continue reading “Pray For Them”
There it is! The cause. The reason. The solution. Hold onto the solution for the cause will give a reason to inspire. There it is again! The solution. The reason. The cause. Let the cause give way to the solution for there is a reason to inspire. There it goes! The reason. The cause. The … Continue reading Lean On Inspiration
Anguish is the thinking we do that comes when giving into negligence of the heart while disrupting the responsibilities of the mind. If a place in my heart is filled with love and then replaced with sorrow there is going to be more chances for my mind to turn that sorrow into resentment. My mind … Continue reading Intuitive vs. Intrusive Thinking
There is a thought brewing in the back of my mind that is difficult. The thought swells and moves between my ears where it begins to show a struggle on my face. I could change the thought but I can’t change my face from a question quick enough into a smile. So there the thought … Continue reading Facial Expression
I am defeated by love, wriggling in bed on a cross titled “ABANDON” for the third time, but I can’t recall being in love any time before this. Just out of reach is the life I have lived and the pain I have now for having not lived right nor loved right any other time. … Continue reading Love Pain and Resiliance
I have to clock this in now so as not to get a time-out by myself later for forgetting. I don’t need to confess the magnitude of a depraved moment so later my ego can ask everybody to forget. If I choose to make myself accountable by calling myself out there is the possibility that … Continue reading Accountability Is Progress
What's a job you would like to do for just one day? You can watch a man get great satisfaction from doing hard work he hasn’t done yet before but you'd have a hard time convincing a man who has always done that type of work to do extra when it’s not at the same … Continue reading Another Thought To Consider
What is the last thing you learned? If you cut a worm in half it doesn’t die. Time is somewhat of a worm. If you cut your time in half you have more of yourself to go around but there is still half the time you have to make do without.
What experiences in life helped you grow the most? I grew up one day when I was 22 years young. I stepped into a bar and was told the meaning of life by a dead person who was lingering in the corner speaking to everybody but only I could hear. I was sober but insane. … Continue reading The Difference Between Insanity and Death
If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why? I would like to be any man who pokes his head into a heated argument to say “there may not be many differences between you two men but there are plenty of people who see right through your differences.” Then … Continue reading A Three Way Tie
What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months? Look at me Ma, I have above average looks. Look at me Pa, I’m above average at sports. Papa, I have above average intelligence. Gamma, I’m kinda nice. But that was then and you guys are all gone. I’ve been slipping ever … Continue reading No Hands
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
There is a town smack dab in the middle of my palm that I own. I own my palm, not the town. Not many people own a town but most people own a palm. If I were to place the town in the middle of my palm that must mean I own something larger than … Continue reading This Is My State of Mind
I have one foot in a river and the other toeing a lake. The river is consciousness I can’t explain while the lake is energy I must comprehend. I can’t separate one experience from the other. I need to change my perspective. I should put both feet in a stream. The stream flows into the … Continue reading Stream of Consciousness
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.
What’s something most people don’t know about you? There was a time in my life when I thought I was divine. Imagine how difficult it was to overcome a delusion like that as a young man. And as a middle aged man I still believe some of that to be true because it’s easy to … Continue reading 12 – The Peak
Reaching for the ground while pointing at the sky as I get up and off this cloud makes me young again. Sitting in this recliner poking at letters just long enough to finish a sentence before I forget what comes next has me contemplating climbing my roof to see how many little plastic monkeys I … Continue reading The Barrel of Monkeys Game
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
Artificial Intelligence, answer this one question for me, yes or no. Do you know what it feels like to be stupid? I am hesitant to prompt you with this question because I usually only ask questions when I don’t know the answer. I know what my response would be. I’ve made it clear by asking.
Do you see yourself as a leader? I am no Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I’ve never read his work but I am positive he wrote in the style of his own time - all writers do. There is not a specific quote to describe his personal style in any language but his own. Just his name … Continue reading This is Me Longing for Longfellow
What TV shows did you watch as a kid? Sitting on a porch, older, thinking back to what I wanted to be when I was a younger man who could still make things happen for myself I remember I wanted to go into advertising. I wanted to write a catch phrase here and a jingle … Continue reading “Who’s the Boss will be back in a moment.”
I am going to be honest. I remember all the bad things said. I’m reminded of all things differently from what’s similar to what’s been read. I forget who told me the good things, but I’m telling those things now if I can remember where I heard it without writing it all down. To be … Continue reading Honesty Plus Brevity Equals Poetry
I sweep floors to sweep out ashes from the incinerator of my shortcomings. I have shortcomings so I fall short of pride. I gain pride from sweeping up my shortcomings but the ashes leave permanent black soot stains wherever I sweep. To further burn the ashes of my shortcomings by sweeping floors I hope to … Continue reading The Ashes of My Life
What is a word you feel that too many people use? I feel like people take this word and overuse it to the point where the meaning of the word becomes filler for where lengthy answers should be and if not an answer the word could also be used as a question. You tell the … Continue reading Can You Solve This Riddle?
All along I have been trying to get close to the sun but I am lost in the shadow of the moon for being too small. I am only trying to make myself bigger. With a push to get further away from the sun I get even smaller still. To stay the same size I … Continue reading Stuck Under The Moon
If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go? I would like to give one plane ticket to my ego and the other to my pride. I’d have my pride fly to Europe and my ego fly out West. That way when my pride is smashed to smithereens and my ego is dissolved … Continue reading That Was Then, This Is Now
What would you change about modern society? If I could, I would change the rules of baseball. I’d make it so you only get three good pitches to hit the ball. If you get two strikes right away you forfeit another try. Two strikes and you’re out. In that way we'll always wonder what the … Continue reading There Is No Crying In Baseball
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
How do you practice self-care? The “incessant fine line” is torturing yourself with history you have no control over when that history is what you can't accept so you try to cure yourself by getting better at acceptance and the current story is all that’s left.
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
I took a good look at the back of my hand a minute ago. I gave it the once over and decided it was the same hand it always has been. It is the same hand that blocks my view wherever I look. It’s always there at the angle I choose, the same size and … Continue reading Fooling My Hand
List three books that have had an impact on you. Why? The Doors of Perception, Slaughterhouse-Five, Crime and Punishment. Three books. 781 pages. What I remember from each book can’t even fill the last page. I remember that the way one ought to see is revealed in the folds and wrinkles of khaki pants worn … Continue reading One Ought to Read More
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
“Write the first thing that comes to mind,” Eric thought to himself. Then he starts to write the first thing that comes to mind but he fears he will be discovered because of that. He most likely won’t write the first thing that comes to mind all the way through until the end and he … Continue reading The Invisible Prompt
I’ve made progress. I’ve made about as much progress as my feet do drilling wet sand at the shore of an ocean. As one wave washes free from my wiggling toes any evidence of progress made, if sand were an obstacle and my feet the solution, before the next wave covers my feet again with … Continue reading Wiggle Your Toes
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
What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like? My feet hit the floor. My knees to the ground. My fingers clasped tightly. My voice whispers “how.” My legs find their footing. My arms in a sleeve. My breakfast is waiting. My book opened to read. My friends are … Continue reading Back to the Basics
She’s not coming back. My cat chose freedom and a farmhouse. Probably making a litter of shadows, each independent from each other like floaters that cast black cats off the corner of my retina. There is a time when every cat realizes they are a cat and they begin swiping their paws at moving objects … Continue reading Cat Door 4 (Interpreting Visual Art – Photography)
Ptew. Now you are gone. I have spit you out of my head. There are plenty of reasons this will not get read. Number one, I’m sure, is the rude beginning. Number two - I am who I am when pretending to be Eric the Red, Eric the Viking, Eric on the wind or the … Continue reading Step One – Socks
What do you wish you could do more every day? It’s more like what do I need to do more of every day. I’ve been fortunate enough to find out that wishes only come true if you take action. I have had no problems asking for things my entire life. I’ve had success at getting … Continue reading Caution – this mental health post has religious undertones.
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance? My name is Erich. I am the same Erich your hero asks, “are you still driving that same piece of shit, Erich?” That is me. The reason I can say is because your hero is my hero and saying “that” piece of shit puts … Continue reading What’s In A Name
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
If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why? Let’s focus on the word “vehemently” for a minute. I do not use that word in a sentence because it doesn’t accurately depict the feeling I get when saying or doing something emphasizing force and strength. “Vehemently” flutters from … Continue reading Butterfly-Wing-Like-Words
When he’s laid to rest the 8th grandson of the first family of trillionaires wants to be laid out in a home away from home. He had a house built far away from the hustle and bustle of New York City, Tokyo, London, Singapore, and Hong Kong where he hides in flats with his royal … Continue reading Throwing Glass at Stones (Interpreting Visual Art – Architecture)
What advice would you give to your teenage self? If I could go back and give my teenage self advice I would tell him to continue writing down any ideas, thoughts, poems, songs, jingles, titles, and stories you have throughout your entire life so you know what you were doing, what you were like at … Continue reading The Game of Fatherhood
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
I love to watch college football but I never got to play at that level because I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t big or strong enough. In high school I was good enough to play both offense and defense along with special teams but I was only playing both ways because I lived in a … Continue reading Playing Both Offense and Defense
AI is rich. AI is rich at every angle. AI is moving into dangerous territory. AI will watch us make just enough advancements to test our strength. AI will distract us as we become more desperate for raw materials intended to build boundaries. AI contradicts that the path to great wealth is forming natural resources … Continue reading TWEETY AI
A schizophrenic walks into a bar, past the bar and exits the bar out the back door. He doesn’t want to drink but just to blend-in as if everybody doesn’t know him already, the latest casualty to psychedelics. Before performing as a normal alcoholic he needs to know if the sound of clinking glasses is … Continue reading Return Home When the Streetlights Come On
If you were smart, for the next hour, you would be doing what you thought needed to be done this hour during the last hour while you were doing what was necessary, decided from the hour previously. If you were a genius you would take the next minute to think long and hard about each … Continue reading Time Management of a Poet
I’m frustrated because I can’t talk into this handheld device to communicate my thoughts and have them make as much sense as when I type them out. I’m furious that I can’t read out loud the thoughts I have typed into this handheld device because the sentences twist my tongue, impeding my speech. I’m flabbergasted … Continue reading Think Before You Speak
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
What is your favorite animal? I have an animal scurrying around inside my head that keeps dropping musical notes for me to read while I scurry around my house breathing the sounds of how a song could go after reading notes the animal would have me play if I was musically inclined. I’m only interested … Continue reading Sounds Plain Nuts
Eric wants to walk through door number one, a tiny door he would never choose to enter without mounting courage or actually falling from grace. The king riding the tallest steed throughout the kingdom tends to never duck his head to miss the astonishment of onlookers who have only heard him cussing on the turret … Continue reading Sober for Good at the Goose Intervention
Between being told what is mine and what is not, what I’ve done and what I forgot because I don’t know it, I think I’ll go enjoy a vice instead of forego it. Minutes go by. Maybe I did. Probably I didn’t. I should just sit still another minute instead of saying what’s on my … Continue reading I Should Stay, I Should Forego
The next question proposed to Eric was, “How does a famous person maintain their fame?” Eric, despite his disinterest in celebrities, aspires for his name and work to become synonymous with greatness. “Perhaps,” he began, “by consistently associating their name with their work and their face with their name, famous individuals can understand that fame … Continue reading Fame and Fortune for Frank 2
Steady. Steady. Pull. Tearing a bandaid off a tuft of arm hair is supposed to be more tolerable when you have a friend do it. For me it’s not. The moderate pain from ripping the bandaid off will be the same in both scenarios. An element of surprise is better than anticipation when you expect … Continue reading Bandaids Don’t Remove Themselves
Yeah, I can tell everybody why I went back to college. The Grateful Goddam Dead that’s why. In the Fall of 1996 the powers-that-be told me I couldn’t sit in front of a computer any longer staring at fractals on a screen just cataloging my live concert cassettes. So I packed up the tapes and … Continue reading Daily Dose
There was a time in my life when I thought I was divine. Imagine how difficult it was to overcome a delusion like that as a young man. And as a middle aged man I still believe some of that to be true because it’s easy to accept that everybody is exceptional at times but… … Continue reading 12 – The Peak
Right on. Say it again. Forget about it. Stage banter. Have a good laugh. Don’t be smart. Say stupid things. Look people in the eye. Spit in yer eye. Stomp your foot. Act casual. Still laughing. Don’t whine. If you can’t say it, write it. Have fun or don’t. Love your recorded voice. Pause. Say … Continue reading My Weekly Colloquialisms!
I write words down in my own trivial style to have others think “could I do the same thing, would I even want to try?” I have the curse of typing bad words when I don’t have time to think “who has the answer to what, when the writer asks us why?” I use choice … Continue reading The Curse of My Own Verse
I think it’s funny how all my friends on the left and all my friends on the right seem to think I don’t know what’s going on in this country because I don’t get heated nor do I remain calm. I don’t spout my perceptions through my mouth the same way every time in trying … Continue reading Talking Only Gets Me So Far
I was found at twenty after being lost for some time, seeing the horizon under my feet, people I care about walking with me parallel to the street. Other pedestrians walked like sophisticated dogs, wagging for attention as they hurried by in droves. I walked mighty with my nose to the sky, my eyes fixed … Continue reading In Dog Years
I am peculiarly unstressed wandering around my house in an ass scratching motif. Drinking out of milk cartons. Cream cable knit sweater spot free. Half of a mustache if I could but nobody to entertain. I’ve not taken the spill yet, guaranteed. Clean looks this way when sane. Doing what I want, free will, and … Continue reading Houseman
I’m all over the place. I’m glued to the television. I’m higher than a weather balloon. I’m the Titanic at rest. I’m smiling like a well fed chimp. I’m sad as an elephant trying to jump. I’m running down the dream. I’m sitting straight up in bed terrified. I’m excited for this weekend. I’m bored … Continue reading I’m Fond of Mania
“I’ll get around to it,” Jer said when he was asked to go to the laundromat. On his way out a few hours later he looked around for a piece of fruit to eat but quickly gave up, opting instead to stop at Magoos Pizzaria for a slice since it’s on the way. Every time … Continue reading Time – I’ll Get Around To It
The landlady pinches her pennies and polishes her silver while the addict goes through hundreds of dollars in a day to not feel sick. She’s holding her money, he is going through his. They both need it. He needs something else even more than money. He needs more than a name. He needs to take … Continue reading The Landlady
I still have a long way to go as a writer. Sitting on the throne at work I noticed the toilet paper roll had been changed. I knew it wasn’t me. Looking at the floor I saw a lone hair and thought that’s who must’ve done it. I chuckled. I began to think of how … Continue reading Taking a Break On the Moon
Time is on my side. The more time that gets behind me the better I feel about the length of seasons though years fly by. It seems the more unfinished business you have the more you get to stick around unfinished. I wish I could play the tape all the way through before I make … Continue reading Borderline Person Poetry
Sometimes when I sit and think, it’s too much for me. To sit and think is too much for anybody. To really sit and think puts too much time on my hands. Sitting and thinking gives me too much time to think about sitting…and thinking. Thinking about sitting is thinking too much. It looks to … Continue reading Anxiety
A highly riddled man walks into a restaurant in America for a bowl of curry. He is seated at a table by the front door. A door he has walked through a dozen times before. So many times that he notices the menu has changed, not the food but the format. He is visiting the … Continue reading The Nice and Quiet Bigot
Oh whoa is me. I have a blank space here in front of me that needs to be filled by tapping poetry with the house tablet and a universal mind. I'll have it filled out in no time. The only trouble I see for now is I have to jot other things down that I’m … Continue reading Poetic Apology
What am I good at but running my mouth? Why do I keep quiet unless spoken to first? Absolutely whatever I decide to write is sufficient to say because nobody ever talks to me about that. I could write Donald Trump is awesome or love is a rose and I’d probably get more love than … Continue reading Significance is Everything but I am not
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
My #poetry over time has changed by using words I’ve heard before ever knowing their meaning, and binding those words together to sound similar to each other, telling rhythmically the meaning of what I believe worth finding a cadence and with words I’ve never heard before in that sequence, how to give those words meaning. … Continue reading Tag Words Almost Explained 3
“Do you like Eric?” asked a bewildered young hippy to a seasoned pro as they crossed the field out to where the ring of cars and buses ended before jumping off the literal edge of the earth. Eric heard the question but would not hear the reply. All he heard was “noooooooooo” getting faint and … Continue reading Change the Name
It was not great speaking to you just now. The way you bring up my thirty year past tells me you have a problem with the way you’re living today. You think thirty years and I’m still the same cat. Get your lips off that beer, talking about health, I’ll have none of that. The … Continue reading Letter to a Friend
If I was alive a hundred years ago today I would most definitely be famous. I’d have all these words to make a new American style of writing. It wouldn’t be science fiction but rather just a synopsis of how one may think in the future if he were not very well read and under-educated … Continue reading The Dilution of Fame
Another interesting part of my journey thirty years ago out of acute care that is worth noting is I was able to help others by simply getting better before their eyes. Not only did I recover but I had a positive impact on other patients because of the composed way in which I transformed madness … Continue reading 9 – The Compassion
The “next step” of my hospital stay began sort of like how my life began. I emerged from darkness into a bright and sterile environment with doctors wiping away my tears and cutting the cord to my sustenance. In the dark I could’ve cried all I wanted and nobody would come to wipe my tears … Continue reading 8 – The Birth
They came to get me but it wasn’t in the middle of the night. I was led from the sanitized sanity of the commissary, down the ever encroaching hallway passed the curious closet towards the damned doorway, which finally swung open with precise timing. I passed through the archway and stepped into a room with … Continue reading 7 – The Ward
I woke up one morning to the nurse telling me that my unit rival had moved on. I was bummed because when I got him alone in the same room he didn’t poke at me or ramble on feverishly about being Jesus inside the walls and God walking on air like he would say in … Continue reading 6 – The Closet
After one day I was so comfortable in the ICU hallway I began to look like a cowboy leaning against a post with his head down and a blade of grass between his teeth, waiting for his shadow to rise or fall without moving a muscle. I would sit on the ground with my legs … Continue reading 5 – The Hallway
The type of animal that I saw in the mirror every morning in the hospital was close to the chimpanzee but something more bipedal. The last one in a long line of chimps but first from the right on the chart of evolution. God's favorite. The human being. If God has a long white beard … Continue reading 4 – The Hospital
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
The trailer was a lonely man’s hell hole where nobody could escape without invisible wounds. It was my trailer, where the impossibility to study was brought on by disparity in character but also boisterous low flying war planes that would swoop down as slowly as they could while I barely slept, watching the action from … Continue reading 2 – The Trailer
When I was in my twenties I was searching for this one complex man with a familiar face I saw in the college library who was shocked by the computer screen before him. I figured he wasn’t shocked by what was on the screen but in awe of the computer itself. I was intrigued by … Continue reading 1 – The Library
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
Climbing the hill to the Acropolis the philosophers think about the little engine that could before there was a story about a little engine that could. The philosophers know what is before them before the rest of us remember how these things go. But with a little help from philosophers that little steam engine will … Continue reading The Acropolis as a Metaphor
Forget being smart. It’s like being aggravated. Walking the line between dumb and elevated, taking the time to come up with stupid rhymes makes for a break in the fake of new lines. So take off your hat, take off your shoes, get back to the brass of the gold in fake news. Forget being … Continue reading Forget Being Smart
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
Gram’s voice is like a train on the chug with a cargo of coal, no intentions of reloading the cars for the stoker, just going as far as he can make it. Always searching for the new sound even though his soul was old as a steam engine, he was as fresh as steam. Twenty … Continue reading Gram Parsons
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
So what do you say to a young man who kicks his first bell with perfect precision, besides warning him it can only be rung once? Absolutely nothing. Unless you have kicked the bell yourself, will you measure him against your own reputation. Does a young man know the bell to be a symbol of … Continue reading One Good Ring
A finger dipped in water makes believers want to follow down the aisle of the church thirst for the devil. A finger dipped in wine makes the users want to sip the vin de pays first then down the moscato. A finger dipped in moonlight makes guitar strings crescendo before giving the vibrato another note … Continue reading #4 – write a poem
Immortality. It doesn’t exist. Even if you are the most famous fictional character ever penned you can be overlooked. Admiration does not guarantee a perpetual existence but it does extend an invitation to live a good life. When people like you, it’s easier just getting by than it is buying the affection of others that … Continue reading Penniless
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
You don’t have to tickle their feet to realize a robot is without feelings. No need to laugh at them being worth billions in barrels of oil. Robots have us throttling towards environmental exhaustion though they are designed to make our lives easier. There has never been a robot known to swim before the megaton … Continue reading To Bot or Not to Bot
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
My way with words can be twisted, inspired by recurring thoughts and sparked by co-occurring epiphanies, making the process of writing anything hard to do when quick thoughts become redundant. I’m lost within my creations, clambering around thoughts that arise at the same tempo as words put together in a similar sequence to lyrics, relatable … Continue reading A Prolific Thinker
Create. To make something out of nothing. To start a project from scratch. To pass time by making art. To cause life. These are all examples of what I think about when I hear the word create. One word that links all of these sentences together is the word “to.” The word “to” in this … Continue reading To Create
I remember the time I was asked how come I don’t know people have more intelligence than me. That stripper was certainly smart but did she mean all people and if so why was my intelligence in question and not my propensity to ignore all the people I’ve come in contact without asking even one … Continue reading Naked Intelligence
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
The most interesting weekend of my life involved three separate incidents that happened but I can’t prove them beyond a reasonable doubt because they are so bizarre. The first incident involved stones being thrown on our roof, the sound following me from room to room and thought to thought. I remember there being an intense … Continue reading The Most Interesting Read of the Day
“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
My name is Erich. I am the same Erich your hero asks, “are you still driving that same piece of shit, Erich?” That is me. The reason I can say is because your hero is my hero and saying “that” piece of shit puts me in the same vicinity as our hero. I often wonder … Continue reading What’s in a Name?
There are two people that matter most in the grand scheme of things. They are not comedians as comedians give a complex for being understood by mostly everybody all at once. They are not actors as actors give a few seconds of fame though fame is not how they are known. They are not musicians … Continue reading Black and Blue
I lay completely content here under the stars as my smile absorbs countless points of light but reflects only a single glare from one shiny tooth back to the cosmos. If I wasn’t content I would most likely have to divvy up one whole star into 32 incarnations of god inside my head. One whole … Continue reading Star Light, Star Bite
Everything matters within ten seconds or not at all. Within ten hours everything becomes familiar and can be repeated over and over again. At the ten day mark everything settles into a routine and the only way to get there is to start all over again. At ten months it’s time to play catch-up so … Continue reading Everything in Ten
What if I survived a plane crash high up over Albuquerque that wasn’t caused by bad weather but instead resulted in changing weather by me going nose to nose with the ego of someone on a similar plane of existence as my own? Seeding of clouds with my smile would cause people on the ground … Continue reading People On The Ground
All of these pants seem so filthy anymore. Every single one of them khaki with dark spots that ripple out from the center like oil soaking rags. I feel sorry for people being worn by filthy pants because they can’t see beyond their lap. They have no idea the more filthy their pants the more … Continue reading Slacker
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
I woke up this morning and I woke up again this evening after waking up this afternoon. I put one eye and one ear, along with half my nose, into my pillow for fourteen hours before I counted to ten, ten times, to get me out of bed. I paced my room back and forth … Continue reading So I Slept
I would like to go ahead and augment this sentence by putting an exclamation point at the end of it! Before this post is complete I want to come up with a detailed explanation of its phrasing so the reader will know the direction of a sentence. So the purpose of this post is to … Continue reading Contents of a Sentence
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
And the king stands up, turns around in a circle and sits down once again. He is far from opening up the gates for his subjects let alone walking to the fridge to see if the light still works. Wondering what it is to be American when you are the king would be similar to … Continue reading To Be King
When I drink I’m the smartest guy in the room. Then I realize I’m the only guy in the room in a house that is vacant, in a town that is ghosted, in a country that is strange, and in a world that doesn’t exist. So let there be serenity in this room. Then I … Continue reading Serenity
“I can’t think,” is what an elderly lady was saying over and over in the hospital that first time which I like to call the Big Blink. That is where I bit my tongue, literally, for hours before I fell into a state of catatonic slumber for a week, not able to remember a damn … Continue reading The Big Blink
Letters are an incongruent assembly of lines and curves until they become a myriad of pictures. Some people can draw the straightest lines that on there own would seem unnatural but when they are put up against thousands of curves the perfect line becomes an extraordinary story. Some artists use curves and points to fill … Continue reading Dancing Letters
Each one of us thinks we are very important, as important as the next guy, and we are, but a person is awarded money to purchase resources from the ground for doing good and a small amount of elitists think they do the greatest good. Measuring a person's worth in this way may be an … Continue reading The Universal Reputation
I used to jump off a high drawbridge, which was illegal, testing the waters to see if my cautious side would surrender to the turbulence of fear versus bravery that could be mistaken for stupidity. There was a lot of foreboding brought about from previous mishaps and my cautious side would ensure me avoiding injury … Continue reading Drawbridge At The Center of Town
Why do I always have the feeling to hurry along going nowhere? I suppose the nomad in me has never left. It used to be that I would get the idea to go far away with a destination in mind. To meander with purpose towards an ideal outcome. While on my way there I would … Continue reading Hurried To Go Nowhere
I came back to reality by journaling what was happening around me and so I will trust that this is where I began to make sense out of where I was emotionally, where I was headed. Having been partially successful with the recovery process before, I had decided to finally stop the madness when I … Continue reading The Point of Serenity 1
In this early recovery I am realizing that if I don’t side with the ideology of sobriety I won’t have any friends to share with the fact that I am sober. If I can’t share it, I won’t be sober much longer because of my own persuasion to seek what I know. My reason for … Continue reading Misery Loves Company
Now that I had arrived back home it seems I would now be able to move on with my life, maybe go back to school, get a job - rather than lay around Albuquerque trying to fit in with punk rock artists but falling short by drawing help with rent from a few Marilyn Manson … Continue reading Home Again
It’s fitting that twenty five years ago around this date on Thanksgiving I was in Ireland away from my family. If someone told me twenty five years ago I would one day have a family of my own I wouldn’t have been surprised. If that same person told me I was going to be battling … Continue reading Ireland II – Self Discovery and the Courage to Know
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
Francis Erich McElroy 