As the busker with a Southern twang sings "Eleanor Rigby" to the downtown commuters, nobody gives him much mind although the haunting melody is hard to completely ignore. "Where do they all belong" his voice echos among the footfall and silent religious peddlers stand, smiling.
Wine on a Wednesday
we are defined by the things we own
by our actions
by our words
by the way we look
we are everything we are - both active, passive, and inherent
What am I? What defines me?
I have no prowess, no great pursuit
There are small moments of kindess, cruelty, epiphany, and stupidity
moments of strength and weakness
do these things define me?
I consume voraciously - ideas, images, music, food - and I do not produce enough
I am anxious and wanting
is this what defines me?
I love greatly and try to never hate,
I have bouts of prejudice but always alongside by compassion
Is this what defines me?
I fear being generic but express my individuality generically
these things cannot define me
yet they must
3/25/18
The couple shares the small row of seats at the end of the train. She sits, leaning her back against his chest and he with his arms around her. Her left leg dangles over the armrest for it is a mostly empty train and she is in no one’s way. When the muffled voice over the intercom announces the stop, they quickly jump up and walk off the train - they aren’t late but want to get to the bar before their friends start playing.
The night air that hits them is brisk and windy. Although it is relatively early on a Thursday, the day commute has ended and the night not yet come to life.
January 30, 2018. 6:52pm
I remember seeing the world from young eyes. It was a time which like myself, was fresh and new.
The first tastes of consciousness are marked by faint traces of the senses, memories faded like the stories printed on newspapers, sun bleached and powdery. Will I ever feel that sense of wonder and bask in naiveté again, or are all experiences mere lithographs of corresponding expectations?
I feel dull and with deadened reception. No high is as intense as the first, and with increasing doses I seek more and more sensation - something, anything to make me feel excitement again.
There is excitement in uncertainty, in the unknown. It is exhilarating to take a risk and bet it all on the gamble that the next step is a level up. Everything is wonderful and it will never be enough.
There is a fleeting pleasure in the distraction of indulgence. Too often I succumb to engorging my psyche with the illusion of luxury. The richness of solipsism leads to the suffocation of the soul. Instant gratification leads to a heart in debt - I yearn for a greater purpose. This life is a simulation and I am lacking stimulation of the soul.
Commute 9/27/17
My creative soul is dying, having been so long since I sustained it with activity. I balk at mediocrity and retreat out of frustration when practice would serve me best. But I enjoy too little to push beyond that breaking point, and the force of my own inability crashes down upon me. The undertow of nihilism and insecurity pulls me deeper into the depths of the unexceptional.
Commute 9/13/17
What must it be like,
Life without the daily grind?
To have security
Without the responsibility
To have shelter and comfort
Free of the shackles of the timecard?
Regardless, there's always someone's cock to suck to harvest from the society's teat
People are exhausting: shuffling and bumping into one another
Have you encountered the ones who walk as though they are magnets, drawn to walk as close to you as possible?
Some days I feel like I'm going to snap in a bout of violence. Is this who I want to be? An angry person, a malcontent?
Commute 9/8/17
From where does inspiration come?
Is it found under a beaming sun?
Or amid crashing waves in the sea
Or beneath an ancient tree
Wherever it may be
It has escaped me
What is this melancholy I feel?
This twinge of sadness that permeates everything
I saw beauty for a time
Was blissful and blithe
Commute 8/31/17
Volume is a considerable factor of the an individual's experience. Many of the sounds with which we interact are not produced by the human voice. Indeed, there are many times in my own day where there is an absence of it. The range is between deafening and hardly audible, and it is no wonder a retreat into the ambiguous wilderness can be claimed as therapy for the mind.
Generally one learns to gauge the appropriate level at which to speak, but I find the faux pas more interesting to examine. inherently soft-spoken, I recognize the significance of speaking with projection and clarity.
In this city, volume has direct associations with industry, class, and setting. So-called noise pollution is the relentless din of traffic noises. The streets are so often packed with commuters; millions of people pass through the city daily.
‘Help’ Redux 8/28/17
The emaciated beggar says a meek "help" and looks around for someone to give him money.
In this city, people become quickly opposed to handing out dollars and change. Part of it is the widespread and rampant hard drug use. In a fairly small radius you could likely find any illicit substance - pills, powders, crystals, and rocks - in addition to random tchotchkes, single cigarettes and shots of cheap liquor.
So when this man says "help" my first reply is "help yourself" but then I remember he doesn't know how. He either forgot or never learned it.
There are people who commit their time and lives to the endless task of helping the poor - and where would we be without them? For as long as there are rich there will be poor.
Am I selfish for choosing not to contribute? Probably. I'm exhausted by everything. Constantly in pain or a state of self medication. An aching pain I feel in my soul.
And then I think of that man, who has lost many of his teeth, smells like shit, and lacks the current gumption or ability to take care of himself.
Commute 7/27/17
Moving moving
Constantly through space
Around and cyclical
Our paths are rarely straight
Coming, going
And occasional pause of rest
How much does seeing matter
If you're not watching where you're going
Space - it is terrifying when the personal is shrinking
Exodus and return
Until that final coda
Commute 7/19/17
Look around
Pay attention
It is exhausting but essential
Living in your head doesn't make the world around you disappear
When you are also a body moving through space
Focus on the philosophical
but do not neglect the physical
Remember you are one of many
A mass that forms a unit
Singular, solipsistic
But not vindicated
Sodden, contaminated
We are a parasite on this Earth
We will witness the fall of this Roman-like civilization
Our way of life has a truncated future
While those who profit stick their head in the sand
Absolved of guilt, they will never achieve greatness
But what about beauty?
Goodness exists
There is not light without dark
July 18, 2017: 8:38AM
Where do you look?
Up or down?
And when you encounter people, it is dead-on, avoided, or coquettish
I was always looking up
Stopping to smell the roses
But all I smell now is shit
And I have to look down to avoid stepping in it
Literally
Figuratively
The avoided gaze is interesting to me
It annoys me
Particularly when it concerns transport -
The autonomous movement of bodies through space.
The avoided gaze says so much
The opposite of a relentless stare
And we are walking straight at each other
Commute 6/23/17
Preachers in the station
Beggars in the street
Watchers of the rivers
Of people on their feet
See the commuters stream
From sidewalk to cross walk
Dodging piles of shit
Never a pause to talk
Buskers singing of love and sadness
Bicycles zipping by
And ignorant, impulsive drivers
Not realizing their potential for murder is high
The chaos is hardly random
In this calculated system
Until you take ownership of your part
The drivers will guide us to hell
Paying for things without thinking
Is a luxury most cannot afford
Yet that lack of worry
Is often the final word
In your sentence into debt
And you'll pay with your life
Baited by the shiny and useless
Looking for distraction
Finding your escape in frivolity
And weight heavily by the banal
This flow of people is a current
And to stray takes a toll
Commute 6/20/17
On one side there are the quick and active - moving actively and reactively visibly and invisibly
The other, the meandering and Slow - a beat (or more) behind everyone else
On which end of this spectrum are you?
These people just now on the metro
Stood their ground, at the side of the door frame like some strange self-assigned gatekeepers and actively watched a stream of people walk between them. It was the strangest thing - having to push by the woman to get into the car when she because she wouldn't move out of the way or move further into the car. They just stayed - like their brains and blood had calcified
To me - there are no brains or blood in these immobilized people
Or rather the absence of the use of them - no vigor nor passion.
It is as though they are turned off to the world around
In those waking moments
Lacking and unaware
Of the dangers life has to offer
Are our lives ever really our own?
By being forced into submission of this greater governing body
We trust that those whose profession is stewardship and protection
Will not give into greed and delusion.
To them we are faceless - a single number among millions
Commute 6/8/17
Watching people glide through life
Floating along the current
You might last longer
Than one who is always fighting it
But despite this extra energy
You never take pause
And relish the moment
What are you?
One who floats?
Or one who fights?
Neither is "right"
I, myself was always a fighter
Refusing to make things easy
Commute 5/26/17
The immediacy of the juxtaposition between the seeking, hungry gaze and that complacent and absent look is jarring. Like fish in a stream who slide past and alongside one another, drone-like humans shuffle along - down sidewalks and through crosswalks and across echo-y subway chambers.
The number of people you can walk by without actually looking at one is astounding.
Commute 5/25/17
Hurry up and wait
It is a punctuated gait
Timers and machinery set the pace
Of these phrases of movement
Quick! Navigate the current
Of commuters - incapable
Of negotiating the sidewalks
Which are the veins of the city
And like RBC flow mashed together
But with more intent
Commute 5/14/17
So. Slow.
So many people dragging their feet through life
A cacophonic (sic?) rhythm and a blank stare
Looking without seeing
Moving without feeling
And while fighting it you are sucked under tow
The hustle is another sort of shuffle
And it is draining, this trying to keep up
Remembering, is the essential thing
Remembering to take a pause.
But be wary! The shade is inviting
Witness to Grief 5/4/17
There is a cry out - a sob, you realize as you approach a man embracing a woman.
As though timed, when you walk past the pair in the middle of the sidewalk a second woman says loudly, "What happened?"
"His brother died, yesterday" replies the first.
The rest of the people on the sidewalk (normally a lively and engaged bunch) just stand around silently and observe the scene. You, on your normal walk toward work, feel like a trespasser in a public place. This moment of grief and comfort is tragically beautiful and captivating - even though you only experience it in passing.
Madness 3/21/17
So much anger
Over that which we can change
And that which we can not
We can not let it overwhelm
And fade into apathy
The irony is, we allow ourselves to get maddest at the things most banal (but still outside of our control)
The antithesis of anger?
Humor - but it can also be (fuel to that fire)
I'm reminded by the joker - perhaps the best example of how anger and humor can make one go mad