Perspective

Shem Greenwood — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:34:03 +0000

Snared in sleeplessness, I contemplate

What worlds may exist in the center of a pebble

What poetry burns in the heart of an ant

I wonder what events transpire

In the fog surrounding an atom

And if this world and all its wars and dynasties are

so large after all.

Our sun, and the immeasurable stretch of black space

The twisted starfish of our galaxy

May be a speck of dust on some greater face

To be washed away by

a stray drop of rain

Or a fugitive tear.

Terrible Masterpiece

Shem Greenwood — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:28:25 +0000

These are lyrics to a song I’m working on.

I met a woman on an evening just like this she told me

Love is a pistol that you load with every kiss she told me

Love is a pistol that you load with every kiss and it’s

Just a matter of time before someone pulls the trigger

Met a man who told me love’s a beautiful balloon

and it’s gradually inflating in a porcupine filled room he told me

such a colorful, such a beautiful balloon

but you know what happens if it gets too much bigger

and now I know I’ll never know I’ll never know

what lies in store

feels like I’m stuck inside an elevator

but the numbers on the buttons don’t correspond to any floor

CHORUS:

Love is a terrible masterpiece

That you paint with the black of the night and the white of the flood

The blue of her eyes, and the red of your blood

and love is a house that you frame with your very own bones

And the heaviest stones

It may keep out the cold or fall in on you one of these days.

Love it is the copper key that opens all the locks

When you’re a shipwrecked sailor being broken on the rocks

Just a brittle little boat upon the jealous jagged rocks

It will be love that keeps you clinging to the rigging

My whole life’s a jailbreak, and I’m digging with my spoon

Deep down in dirt and darkness and I’m dreaming of the moon

I’m just a poor escaping prisoner down here dreaming of the moon

And it’s the thought of love alone that keeps me digging

And now I know I’ll never know I never know

Which way to turn

Love is like a fire and the world is full of ice

I can’t decide if I prefer to freeze or burn

CHORUS

The angry little honeybee has got her pointed knife

And she stabs it in for all she’s worth but it will take her life

You see she stabs it in so deeply but she can’t leave with his life

and love feels an awful lot like that sting

Bloodthirsty enemies are screaming all around

The tower’s catching fire and the gates are breaking down

But if you defend this castle keep the walls from falling down

In the end you know you just might be a king

and now I know i’ll never know I’ll never know

If we’re better off by ourselves

But the whole world is a haunted house to me

And the clock is striking twelve

CHORUS

Seafood and Bloodlust

Shem Greenwood — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 08:17:25 +0000

Samantha crushed her half-lemon with barbaric intensity, feeling the juice empty from the thousands of ruptured chambers within the fruit. She was not watching as the fresh, fragrant acid gushed over her broiled fish. Her eyes were fixed hatefully on the waitress flirting with Andrew at the other end of the restaurant.

A lifetime in polite and civilized society had manacled Samantha irrevocably. She was not capable of carrying out the murderous uses she was envisioning for her salad fork. She could only smolder and fidget. When the waitress sensed the malicious energy that was focused like a laser at her perfect french twist and turned, Samantha redirected her gaze instantaneously, glaring so vehemently at the salt and pepper shakers that had anyone asked for the seasonings at that moment they would have been hot to the touch.

Andrew had been a devoted boyfriend, thoughtful, open, but disheveled, clumsy, with poor taste in clothes. He was outspoken, pushing away the most popular people with his obstinate opinions, not to mention his style of dress. The strain of living in his alienated world had all become too much to bear, and Samantha had cut the relationship short while they were apart for the summer, though they had planned to stay committed until they were reunited when classes began in the fall.

And now, now he had the nerve to dress well and smile as the waitress hovered over his table. Now his unchanged opinions, brash and overbearing a year ago, were popular, and everyone agreed with him when he sermonized. When he stooped reflexively to pick up the waitress’ fallen pen she remembered how often he had bent over backwards to please her, and her anger mounted like a posturing vulture.

Samantha was not honest enough with herself to realize that she did not actually resent Andrew, or even despise the waitress. Ultimately, she was angry with herself. She had thrown away the deed to a coal mine only to discover later there were diamonds there. And though he had done everything he could have to show her, she never saw how much he was worth, and would not see even now were it not for the attention that everyone she knew seemed to lavish on him. Now even strangers seemed to fall in love with Andrew at first sight, and they were all prettier and skinnier than Samantha was.

She cursed the coincidence that brought them to the same restaurant on the same night. If she had thought about it she would have realized it was no coincidence at all: Andrew had introduced her to this restaurant.

She was thankful that she was seated in such a way that he was unlikely to notice her. She was thankful for her friends, whose vapid waterslide of endless conversation made it easy for her to distract herself and forget her rage. She never noticed the ring on the pretty waitress’ left hand, or that Andrew ate alone, and sat for a long time by himself, staring at his empty plate, before leaving.

Cemetery Thoughts

shalowhi — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 16:06:28 +0000

She drove past the cemetery almost daily, now that the boys’ swim team practiced at the YMCA instead of at the Country Club. It was a part of town she wasn’t used to, but soon she’d know each bump and pothole as she made the drive back and forth four times a day taking them to and from their two-a-days.

She always noticed the green tents above fresh graves. The ones overflowing with mourners were sad, but the empty ones were almost devastating. The freshly dug hole waiting. Or the freshly buried body, already alone. Somehow the empty tents made her ache: A quick stab to the heart, and a dull throb in the empty spot in her belly.

The other thing she always noticed during the drive through this different part of town was how much it reminded her of her childhood home. No sidewalks or even curbs, so the grass grew right up over the lip of the street; small, tired houses alternately faded or freshly painted; overgrown yards hemmed by chain link fences – if hemmed at all. One day driving past, her son asked why people would even have “those metal fences.” In their part of town each measured square was defined by eight foot wooden privacy fences. Probably the chain link is cheaper than privacy fences, she mused. And her son wondered if maybe here people didn’t feel such a need to hide.

Another day, on the way home past the cemetery, her son mentioned that his friend from school had said that his grandparents were buried in that cemetery there. For a quick moment she envied him. A life led in one town where you could bury those you love near enough to visit. Her own father was buried many hundreds of miles away, close to her mother. But in later years, when she lay next to him, who would visit the two of them? She pushed the thought aside, but not before her hand slipped unconsciously to her flat lower belly.

If she could have been conscious of her chain of thoughts instead of hiding them away, burying them so deep, she would know that they shouldn’t be connected. Empty funeral tents and unvisited graves had nothing to do with the miscarried baby. A baby too tiny for a burial. Driving fast, she hit a large pothole hard, at the same time as she felt the familiar squeeze of her heart but by then she couldn’t remember why she was suddenly so sad.

Coming Back From Oahu (I thought the theme was remember when, so I posted something old!)

bremferd — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:54:09 +0000

The man in the leather vest that
Sat next to me on the plane
Was tired of riding his motorcycle
In circles all the time.
He said that he was ready for the Interstate.

I can only imagine his frustration,
Living for the road while living on an island. Ouch.
He let the cat out of the bag just then,
stroked it, gave it some words of reassurance,
and called it Neko, which means cat
In Japanese.

I wonder if he knows that.
He wiped the torrents of snot from
The cat’s face and stuffed it back in the bag and said
Something about seeing his wife and kids.

While trying to find my next flight
I found a man that understood
What I’d been thinking about.
He looked like a handy-man or a janitor
With a large gut that half-covered his toolbelt.

He’d lost all color, as many often do in the face of insignificance.
His skin and hair sagged, void of all will to stand out.
We got on the train at the same time, just him and me.
Standing at opposite ends
I made an effort to acknowledge his presence
He acknowledged mine in turn.
The red sign next to my head kept flashing:

Please hold on,
Please hold on,
Please hold on…

We understood one another.

The next train was different.
Everyone that boarded but me knew what they were doing.
A man in a uniform, leaning against the railing
Talking on his cell phone.
He was too busy and experienced
To bother with the red sign:

Please hold on,
Please hold on,
Please hold on…

Perhaps those with purpose have no need for signs.

The train came to life
With a cold rush and a sigh
The hustle and bustle had been left outside
And for our time in the tunnel
We were nothing more than people in a train.

The man in the uniform seemed to doubt,
Or at least consider the possibility
that he might not be what his uniform said he was.

Please hold on
Please hold on
Please hold on…

But before any of that took root the doors had opened and he was gone.

Sitting at my terminal,
there was a couple that had themselves in order
They each held a magazine
Brimming with examples and definitions
and signs and purpose.

They fit the pattern
Of every advertisement I’d passed
During my time in the airport.
Their respective magazines were made especially
for and by those of their gender
Telling them what their greatest questions in life are
And answering them.
What it must feel like to be so complete!

I wondered if they’d ever bothered
To read the other’s magazine.
The girl leaned over to show the boy
A bit of her reading that she thought was important and exciting

He rolled his eyes,
Convinced by Men’s Health
That he had no reason to take interest.
She wasn’t disappointed,
Glamour had warned her ahead of time
That this would probably happen.

So they went about their lives.
I fell asleep before they left,
But I could still see the red sign
From the subway:

Please hold on
Please hold on
Please hold on…

After the hurricane

shalowhi — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 23:32:00 +0000

After the hurricane, he called, urging us to come home. Our generator is running fine, he said, the grocery stores are already opened back up, gas won’t be a problem because I could always get it for you at the refinery. Mostly he was worried about the expense of continuing to stay in a hotel, but I convinced myself too, that I heard loneliness in his voice. He wanted us home. In his job in refining, he is last-out-first-back. He evacuated just as the hurricane hit, and only went two hours away to ride it out where the company had set him up in a motel. We went further, all the way to Dallas, and talked to him every few hours as the storm was blasting along the coast.

But I wasn’t ready to go back. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I think now that I didn’t want to go back to life-as-usual because nothing was usual. Nothing had been for seven months. After the move (from Memphis to Beaumont), the baby (number six, a girl, a joyful event, but stressful nonetheless), the diabetes (my two year old daughter diagnosed all of two days after her sister was born), all striking in three weeks, I no longer believed in usual. Or, perhaps it is better to admit that I hated what my “usual” had become. I stalled for a day, but I did go, taking my six kids on the six hour drive back to the place that was still barely home, arriving in a ghost-town so empty even the kids noticed the eeriness.

After the hurricane, our town was so battered that for weeks I would be driving around and notice some new damage I hadn’t seen before. A stop sign bent backwards, billboards ripped in half, fences blown over, blue tarps on roofs up and down the streets, a tree across someone’s lawn. For months the Autoplex sign read “A to pley.”

What I couldn’t see, what I didn’t yet understand, what how battered I was inside. It took months of just surviving, one foot in front of the other, forcing myself out of bed each day to tend to the most basic needs of my family, before I would notice some new damage I hadn’t seen before. Constant tiredness no matter how much sleep I got. Not laughing at . . . . well, not laughing. Undeserved irritability toward my children. A growing gulf between myself and my husband. Small tasks seeming overwhelming. Things not as easily repaired as fences and roofs.

It is hurricane season here again. Instead of leaving broken pieces and debris, why can’t the storm come through in a cleansing blast of wind and pounding, purifying rain? For that, I would stay. I would stand out in the street and wait while it ripped through my heart, swirled ‘round every little crevice of my mind, til wet and tired I would see that it had stopped, that all was still, and clean, and whole. And I would smile . . . after the hurricane.

Wired

shalowhi — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 21:52:02 +0000

Along the busy street outside my subdivision the trees are forced to grow in grotesque shapes away from the telephone/electrical wires. In their winter nakedness this is exposed in ways I’m shocked to have never noticed, though of course I’ve seen before how trees are trimmed in awkward shapes to keep them clear of the wires snaking along from pole to pole. (As a child, roadtripping with your family, did you ever lean your head just right, and watch the wires loop-loop-looping, dividing, reconnecting, keeping pace with the car?) And now that I am noticing, I see the wires and their wooden poles, standing in lines like scarecrow-soldiers — except here, where they’re more drunken in their post-hurricane leaning — everywhere. Something that blends into the background. Always there, never seen. And ahead, their metal-poled counterparts, with trios of wires stacked and still snaking through the freeway-side landscape.

Our lives are bent in a grotesque dance, snaking over around and through computers, tvs, telephones, ipods, radio, internet, Nintendo. Wired or wireless we are constantly connected. My children never lean their heads lazily to watch out the window of the car. They hunch over hand-held gaming devices, or stare blankly at the built in DVD player, wireless earphones piping Disney straight to their ears, while the car speakers play my favorite radio station.

we give them something to gawk at

stephaniexrobertson — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:27:12 +0000

Living in Laie can make you feel like a fish in an aquarium. Tour buses come into our tropical little town a couple times a day to gawk at the natives. Haha. I kid. Actually, they just want to get a view of our gorgeous temple, PCC, and BYU-Hawaii; and since we live a stones throw (if you can throw with great force) from all of these locations we frequently encounter many a bus on our daily jaunts about town.

I actually don’t really notice anymore.

It wasn’t until yesterday, when I saw a PCC tour bus of several tourists of the Asian and maninland variety rubberneck their way down our street that I realized me and my band of babes were the main attraction.

I even saw a few camera flashes go off.

And it made me come upon a halting, hilarious, incredulous realization: my life is kind of odd to the everyday human. Or is it?

If you consider a barely 26 year old woman, walking down a street lined with towering palm trees, holding a black-eyed scrappy baby on her hip who is absent-mindedly tooting a hot-orange recorder at his high-pitched singing brother, who is sitting in a red wagon full of food for his friends family who just had a new baby a rare sight…

…then yeah, we warrant a few stares and maybe even a camera flash, but what are they gonna need that picture for and what are they gonna see when they finally load their memory card onto their computer two years later (if they’re anything like my parents- hehe)?

I bet if they looked back at pictures of themselves as young mothers and fathers they wouldn’t see something too different.

We’re all just getting through this tiring, hilarious, and exhilarating stage with as much patience and fun as we can… palm trees or not.

Another dream

bremferd — Sat, 22 May 2010 22:30:59 +0000

The young boy finally had to leave home. He needed to at least try. He knew that if he worked his whole life with the same stale jobs and the same clean cut lawn, dog, and house he would never be happy. His mind would always be upset with what could have been.
And so he left. To the school of the Old Master at the very top of a nearby mountain, of which it is said that one can not only see the whole world from there, but also its beginning and its end. A school of creation.
Finally, he found himself creating in a group of special individuals like himself, each with their own talents and styles, each with something new and beautiful to bring to the world. Colors and sounds and shapes from every corner of his imagination began to emerge and appear as he learned new ways to bring them out. He was pleased to have a fresh beginning and he was improving quickly.
As time wore on his talents began to sharpen. When he had an image in mind, it was his, and he could give it life, he began to produce actual finished work. He drew people to him in this way, made friends with people of much more experience and of years far beyond his, and also with much more pride. And eventually, he drew the attention of even the Old Master, a man who’s beard was as unfathomable as his talents and wisdom. Some say that he wrote the melody of the meadowlarks and painted the tailfeathers of the peacocks. Other creators worked for years and had not received so much as a second glance.
By this time, our young boy’s work was given a close eye by everyone. All that worked or studied at the school looked at him with either admiration or contempt.
A jealous student couldn’t take any more one morning as our Boy received a pat on the back from the Old Master for a particularly original idea.
He approached the Boy and took him under his wing.
“Here’s a tip if you want to go anywhere with this” he said, ” no one is going to appreciate these little works of yours, you need something bigger to be a real creator.”
“But the Old Master tells me that I’m making progress and that I should take my time.”
“He says that to all the young kids that come here. It’s just to make you feel better for moving so slow. Have you seen any of his work?”
“Well, yes. But what do you do?”
“I paint the black that crosses the moon. That’s something people notice. Every night I paint a little more until it’s all blacked out, then it’s up to someone else to take it off again.”
The Boy was struck. Another wall.
Why didn’t I think of that? He thought.
I’m stuck here in another dead end place when I could be up there, and everyone is still trying to keep me with them just like before.
The jealous student could see that his lie had taken effect. He didn’t know who painted over the moon, but supposed that it was someone’s job. At least maybe now the Boy would be unhappy and impatient with his work. Maybe now he’d understand how it feels.
Some days later, the Boy’s family came to visit. They missed him in his many months of absence and had heard of his success. They walked around his workplace and around his room and praised everything that he had done, and apologized for ever having doubted his talents. But he dismissed every compliment, insisting that there were far better creators studying there than he.
His work began to suffer. His creations became more of the same as he began to watch the other students and compare himself to them. Where there was once vibrant color, there was at this time beige and gray. He had lost his original spark, his confidence, and had gained the fear of being wrong that prevented all the other students from creating as they truly felt.
The Old Master took him aside on night as the moon was perfectly full and his white flowing beard meshed with the clouds and his dark twinkling eyes reflected the stars. He asked the Boy why there was such a change in his work.
“Someone told me that I’ll never be a real creator with the little things that I’m doing.” the Boy replied.
“But you’re making so much progress.” the Old Master insisted, trying to boost his spirits.
“They told me that you say that to all the young students and that you’re trying to make me feel better for moving so slow.”
“I suppose that’s true in a sense, but everyone must take their time and be patient with the process. Greatness starts somewhere.”
The Boy hung his head and thought of leaving right then. The Old Master could see the stress surrounding him.
“Why did you come here, Boy?” the Old Master asked.
“Because I thought that I was meant for something more than the place that I used to be had to offer. Something more than those everyday people. I wanted to MAKE something instead of being in constant reaction to what was already around me.”
“And that life will never satisfy you, you know that you have the capacity to do more. But it seems to me that you are now dissatisfied with this life as well. What is it that you’re looking for?”
“I just want to create something important!” said the Boy, a little louder than he intended, “I want people to be able to use it and enjoy it and I want to feel that I have contributed to the world! And I want to be recognized for that!”
“It seems to me that you just need to be a little more patient with yourself, Boy.”
The Boy kept silent. He didn’t want to be babied anymore. It seemed to him that everyone had lied to him in telling him that he had potential when they knew that he had such a long way to go. How dare they get my hopes up! He thought.
He didn’t want to have to wait YEARS to do something important.
“Tell me how they paint the moon every night!” he demanded.
“Who told you that?”
“It doesn’t matter, I need to know.”
“That’s not for a student to know, it’s too much…”
“How am I ever to learn if you won’t teach?”
The Old Master could see now that the Boy was comparing himself to things far beyond his ability to accomplish, and as such he would never be satisfied. The Old Master heaved a heavy sigh that rattled with old songs and mountain air. He tried to explain in a way that would ensure that the boy wouldn’t ask for more.
“The trick is getting up there really.” he began, ” You must go to the topmost peak of these mountains and from there you wait for a good stretch of whispy cloud. You stack up all of your “horribles”, all of your “what if’s”, all of your “never will’s” and you use them to climb onto one of those clouds. From there you balance your way along your cloud until you reach your destination, in your case the moon. You take the biggest handfuls you can manage of the blackest, wettest, freshest parts of the sky around it and that’s what they use to paint the moon every night.”
“And that’s all?” asked the Boy.
“Yes, but that’s not a students task. It is something special for those that have been trained.”
The Boy tried to hide the wonder and excitement in his eyes, but the Old Master had seen it before, and he knew the Boy would never be satisfied.
The next morning, the Boy wasn’t back at work with the others, nor was he there that night. The Old Master prayed that what he had told the Boy was correct. He hoped that somehow, even through his awful amounts of inexperience, he had managed to dig up enough inner strength and creativity to make something of himself. They never saw him again. But every so often the Old Master would think for a moment that he had glimpsed a new star or two out of the corner of his eye on the darkest of nights.

I am an anthill

bremferd — Tue, 11 May 2010 19:38:33 +0000

The room was dark except for the stage. Yellow light filtered back across the faces of everyone I’ve ever known, sitting in the audience. Bellies were being laden with a long table of homemade potluck by the wall and smiles came and went with each performer. A long night of bizarre and unexpected talents.

I had a talent of my own, and I knew all the people performing, but I felt a little under the weather and so sat on the stairs beside the stage. Whether by accident or intention I can’t recall, I ate nothing but leftovers and scrapings that night. Always feeling too removed from the crowd to actually walk across the room in front of the audience to get my own plate or sit with the audience. Always too removed from the performers to actually get on the stage and do something. Always too ashamed or scared or something…
Too sick was what I said it was. I was too sick.

My chest felt tingly and itchy like when I had bronchitis or pneumonia or whatever it was, and it felt like a rash was starting to develop around my neck and collarbones. I coughed. I scratched. And I slapped at a few ants that I found on my arms.
It didn’t take more than a few coughs to find where the ants were coming from, it hit me by the second performer. As I coughed the ants would crawl out of my mouth and nose, some out of my shirt. I looked around to see if anyone was watching and every time I coughed I could feel the buzzing tingle inside my chest. Scratch scratch on the rash.
My attention had been sufficiently distracted from the show and I made my way into the bathroom and pulled up my shirt in front of the mirror. There was no way around it, my body had been made into an anthill. The flesh and ribs had been parted from the edge of my left shoulder all the way down in varying cracks and valleys to the bottom of my ribcage. My skin was red and worn, swollen, picked into a sandy pile along the banks of this living riverbed. The organs were cold from the exposure to this new environment and my heart beat freely in the air of that restroom. I heaved a sigh and felt the angry response within.

Of course I touched it!
My curious pointer finger, that finger that since the dawn of time man has used to probe and to indicate any inquiry, wiggled its little way into the fleshy dirt and even ventured into the pulsating folds of my open chest cavity. Stirring and stirring as any good pointer finger should.
Immediately, there was almost a groan and a hiss, the ants retaliated and practically leaped from their dwellings to expel this foreigner. And I was overcome with the bites and the stings that followed. I could not slap enough to make any difference and I watched myself twist and writhe in the mirror until I was on the floor and out of sight.

After that experience I thought that someone else should know what was going on. I talked to my mother, who was there with my family, and pulled up my shirt to show her what had happened to me. She showed a surprisingly minimal reaction, and said that I should get it looked at. Apparently she had business at the party, she walked away at that.

The initial shock had left me, and if I didn´t move too much the ants were relatively calm. Why worry?

I sat back down next to the stage with a few more scraps to eat, flicking and slapping the occasional stray ant with every cough. Trying to be content and trying to ignore the warm buzzing sensation from their quiet, unrelenting excavation.