a sonnet

in my darkest hour i went somewhere good
and although it was hard to escape the bad
the consequences for the actions i had
taken were finally fully understood

in my mind i go to the frost covered woods
your pure pale face reaches out to me so glad
you smile happy to see me here not mad
should i pursue you here? i don't know if i should

it breaks my heart to see you sit there crying
i retreat into my mind to stay away
from the darkness of the world into flying

my mind is tired my body is swayed
the last thing i want is to see you dying
let's go to your house and be there all day

untitled

sunrise in the garden laying here my lady in my arms
we talked all night of meaning the universe god and love
i sate inside myself there and dreamed of days better that would come
my dreaming life in power over my consciousness here and now

i could not see to the end of this dream the end of life formed
the pictures in my head dreaming at the speed of sound
but lately it seems to me that no on has much of any joy
in seeing me and loving me and rejoicing in connections that we share

the leaves swirled around in the meadow with no belief in unity or shame
the orange browns reds and yellows painting pictures of my pain
as i held on to my lover the falling leaves remind me of
my disconnect from feeling all the things promised in my life

for sammy

don't go out little boy
don't leave behind all your toys
don't grow up to a life in pain
don't live life without joy

there is so much for you to gain
but at what risk? how long lain?
if you go too soon for you to be
you'll be covered in rain

outside there is misery
bombs guns steel and the deepest sea
inside this home it is safe
let's just play you and me

inside you i see the future
don't ever let anyone hold you back
i just don't want you to suffer
i hope you have all that i lack

untitled

ashes falling from the sky
a broken mother cries out why
her house is split upon its head
oh so many loved ones dead
the fires will destroy the world
every boy and every girl
the mountains they will move for this
destruction and the loss of bliss
a bombed out shelter lies a mess
it happened as she was getting dressed
a normal day or so she thought
normal till the bomb was dropped
the stripped down cars dead creatures
the body parts covered in dirt
a mother's broken cry of pain
he let this happen he's to blame

poetry pt II

i'm gonna start posting more of my writings.

i'm not gonna say that every one is by me but they all are unless otherwise stated.

something else i wrote about my dad

The connection between my father and me is built on a foundation of devotion and care. He has taught me to be open minded, loving, analytical, and to live life well. Instead of the “Do as I say, not as I do” method of parenting adopted by so many, my father believes in teaching by example. Due to his humble beginnings working hard on a farm in west Texas and raising a daughter at seventeen years old, he was able to learn the principles that now guide me. Teaching me these life lessons, which we now refer to as “cowboy philosophy,” has made him the most influential person in my life.

The “cowboy philosophy” states that you should do the right thing because it is the right to do, not for self-serving reasons and not because you expect to get something in return. Living according to this creed has given me a clear-cut way of going about moral decision-making. The only thing that really matters when making a decision is that you trust your intuition and not betray what you know is right. In addition, it is important to be honorable and act in ways that would make you proud.

In addition to teaching me through his words, he has also taught me through his actions. In 2002, my parents divorced after a lengthy custody battle. In the years leading up to this, my father was working jobs in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. He would drive back and forth between these places, sometimes multiple times in one day in order to work, but also so he could see me. I would call him regularly saying that I missed him and wanted to see him, and he would always come as quickly as he could, even if he had to drop everything he was doing and drive late into the night. Eventually, after fighting very hard, he won custody of my sister and me and we moved to Houston to live with him. Those daily sacrifices spoke loudly about my father’s family values; values that have now been passed down to me.

My father has also taught me important lessons about social responsibility. The "cowboy philosophy" strongly supports helping the less fortunate; according to the life-style, if a man needs help, he should have it. At the risk of sounding like a beauty pageant contestant, almost daily I find myself in situations where I am able to help someone. I have always tried to do so because it is the right thing to do as a “cowboy.” This has led to my interest in volunteer work and campaigning for social causes. My father has taught me to be open-minded and respectful of different views, whether they are religious, political, or social.

My father has also influenced me musically, passing on an appreciation and a genetic gift for music. We both have an ear for music enabling us to play a piece after hearing it for the first time. We often play music together, him on guitar, me on piano, or vise versa. This picture of us playing music together is symbolic of our whole relationship. It displays the profoundly deep connection that we share.

My father’s strength continues to inspire me and his actions have literally changed the course of my life. He has provided me with a very stable, happy, fulfilling life. He impacts me both through his verbal teachings and through his actions. All throughout my life, he has always been my closest ally, and this connection is something that is very powerful. One day he’s my teacher, the next my mentor, but always my best friend.

a sonnet for my friend lauren by me

It was three years ago when I met you
We didn’t really speak too much back then
But a year after that when I felt blue
You were there to talk to me, my good friend
We spent so much time talking and singing
You helped me through my trials and the sea
Speaking words only you could speak fleeting
I hope I helped you the way you helped me
You can’t ever know all you’ve done for us
We would drive around town with all our friends
You’ve visited me since, we rode the bus
All over the city, lights in the bins
But you’ve left for college, I miss you so
I wish you were here, why’d you have to go

animal collective

since it came out on september 11, i have been listening to strawberry jam by animal collective a whole lot. i really dig the sense of community coming from the band, being a group of four guys who just like to make music together. they are wholly original and amazing. for reverend green, fireworks, winter wonderland, and peacebone.... all truly amazing songs.

i dunno... they just really appeal to me right now. lyrically they are outstanding. musically they are groundbreaking. i can really think of no artist to compare them to at all but i have greatly enjoyed listening to them. the first time i heard them was in 2005, when a friend burned the previous album, feels for me. i was immediately taken with grass and the purple bottle and have since learned to love the album in its entirety. it is poppy without being unoriginal, groundbreaking without being unaccessible. i then began to hunt down every piece of music these guys have ever created, hearing their almost spiritual sounding campfire songs and loving it, as well as their other releases. panda bear, the drummer/keyboardist/singer/lots of other stuff also put out an album of brian wilson inspired songs entitled person pitch that is equally as good while being amazing in its own way. if i could recommend one band to you who you may never have heard of before, it would be animal collective.

i'm floating in rainbows...

radiohead released a new album on october 10th and after listening to it straight through since then, i have decided that, shockingly, it is quite amazing. first of all, obviously, is the music. it is the most endearing, human feeling album they have put out since OK computer, and it is a nice change coming from the electric coldness (but still brilliance) of kid a and amnesiac. it is (*gasp*) accessible, without sacrificing anything, which is what makes it so brilliant. second of all, they, as of yet, have released it without signing on to any label. they released it on the tenth as a download only mp3 zip file for a price to be named by each buyer. since this is such an unorthodox way to release music, no figures have been produced as to sales, but according to unconfirmed sources "close to the band," the file was downloaded almost 1.3 million times in its first day, making it "platinum." another note of importance is the fact that last.fm lists the ten songs from the album as the top ten most played songs in their database since it came out, with the tenth song being played twice as many times as the next closest song. they are truly something special.

apocalypse

something i wrote, inspired by the road by cormac mccarthy.

they had come on the news saying all would be okay
the smiling hand shakers that pretended to be movers
they said that we were prepared for this.
nothing could have been further from the truth.

that night, the black came full
the overpowering color of hate came to the skies
the billowing clouds and the pillars of dust
that came and took my world away

the world is black and all i've left
is this part of me that was born that day
in the hospital of revelations at 12:07
the glittering scales shimmered in the sun

now we walk the road that is littered with the flesh of the dead
we talk and survive and do the best we can
i teach him to survive because i know the truth
i am soon to die and he will be alone

we head to the ocean hoping to find someone else like us
another carrier of the light, someone we can trust
instead we find the cattle herds of survivors
being raised for their harvested limbs for food

we raise in the morning, we are walking dead
the flesh droops from his too old face
someone as young as he should not have seen this much pain
why did this have to happen to him?

we come upon an unused shelter, a gift from a nonexistent god
for surely if he existed, he would not allow this to happen
but at least we have this haven for a few lonely days
the less you think, the less you feel

we are living in hell, always hungry, always scavenging
he is losing weight, i am coughing through the night
the ultimate ending is soon to come for me
but what will become of him after i am gone

should i make this easier for him? the thought enters my mind
i hold the tool in my pockets, two metal tickets for a train
heading straight out of hell but to where i don't know
i hope that it will not come to that

today we came across a hunter, wanting to kill us for our flesh
the depravity of it is mindblowing
my actions must be justified, i did what i had to do
i protected my last piece of peace by putting one of the tickets in the hunters brain

this morning i didn't wake up and he cried over my body
his thoughts turned to his future, he had never considered this
"what will i do, i don't know what to do
i am lost, i am scared, i am going to die"

now he is just waiting for someone, somebody to help
in this world of pain and this hell of hate
someone does come and offers him shelter
but to help him or kill him, i'll never know

art

while i was in new york city, i went to the museum of modern art, mainly to see the sculptural exhibition of richard serra. according to my cousin cari-esta, it was a once in a lifetime experience and i truly enjoyed it. his work is challenging and epic. my dad and i entered the museum first because of good planning on his part and so we were able to get some pictures of me in the work that would have been impossible at any other point while there.

i was also privileged enough to see the first american exhibition by dan perjovschi, a romanian artist who in completely inspired by the current state of the media and its representation of current events. he creates grafitti inspired, site-specific drawings with a "big fat black marker" that are in a way comic, but far more intelligent and thought provoking than most comics could dream of. he is constantly offering what appears at first glance to be simply funny drawing but when reviewed are quite incisive to the current social state of the world and intelligent. i greatly enjoyed the exhibition and hope to see him gain some exposure in the states.

writing

this is not written by aesop rock as the previous one, but by me:

i don't see why superficial assholes who only think of sex
so easily get good girls out of their dress
i do all things right method acting as myself
i sacrilegiously go through life ringing the rusted bell
the rocket toting lethargic tourists around me
wave their flying peace signs on kite string
this american dream of life in school
drinking, fucking, hating all that's not "cool"
this anti-aesthetic fear of art is struck down
by those who listen, their endangering the crown
worn by a king who can't sit upon the falsely furnished throne
and order all about, "be this and that you disinterested clone"
these people strike down the fear of love and life and pain
really are well endowed, the world is theirs to gain

insanity

In August of 2001 my seemingly splinter-proof
brain bone, scaffling imploded
I kept it on the hush, but nearly tumbling
to the cold hard concrete on near bodega trips
for ciggaretes and soda, shook me to kasper
Dizzy with a nothern chaser, motor sensory eraser
Gorophobe tunnel vision, guilt, self loathing arrangements
Rose rapidly outta bog I'd never fished in
that abates three separate foreign men's
While I seems to hook lines and syncro simple fishing
Simple primitive self taught, easing of soul, mind and body
but the symptoms rejected my cave-man modus operandi
So now it's one fish belly up, through medicated mol edge
Shrinks that get 250 an hour for awkward silence
And, I'd be lying if I said all of this
made even the slightest fragment of sense to me
That's frail... Simply put
I don't know what happened, or what's still happening
I literally feel like I'm teetering on the blunt edge of my sanity

okcomputer

i listened to ok computer in its entirety yesterday and have been listening to it since. i had of course heard and loved the album before yesterday but due to the mp3 digital age (ironically), i have taken to listening to music on a song by song basis, which is unfortunate when concerning radiohead. the album is amazing in the fact that each song is so good, and yet the next song is even better. the build up is insanely intense and the last song is of course the best. but then again, so is the first song, and the second song, etc. in a technologically uncertain time, the CD still resounds, even more fully than it did upon its release in 1997. the songs sing of alienation, dehumanization through technology, globalization, loneliness, mundaneness. quite a dark CD but amazing.... simply amazing.



the preceeding paragraph can easily be applied to any radiohead album. they are my favorite band and i cannot wait for the new CD to come out.

astros

i went to the astros game yesterday for my birthday with the twins. it was a good game. runs were not scored after the first inning and i was lucky enough to see greg maddux start against roy oswalt, two greats of the game. carlos lee belted a two run homer in the first as a good birthday gift and that was the last of the scoring. it was a great game. i went to the game today as well... it didn't go so well. jason jennings started, pitched 2/3 innings, gave up 11 runs, and earned a loss in a crazy 18-11 loss for the stros. i think a total of 7 homeruns were hit. i saw the astros debut of the new third baseman, wigginton, who is replacing morgan ensberg since the team placed him on assignment. this means they are either going to have to send him down to minors, trade him, or release him in the next ten days. it will be sad to see him leave but it is probably going to help the team as a whole since mo hasn't been playing very well since his injury last year. i'm hoping that pence will return soon and the stros can try to put some kind of run together, but i really don't have much hope left. i suppose i will start watching the mets and the redsox more.

harrypotter

on the night of friday july 20, i took my cousin connor as well as a couple of friends to borders in meyerland plaza for the midnight opening of harry potter and the deathly hallows. i began reading that night at 2 am when i got home, took a two hour nap at 5 am, woke up, continued reading, and finished at about noon on saturday. i often get emotional while viewing or reading emotional books/movies and the trend continued. the fact that i was finally reading something i'd been waiting for nearly half of my life for was a bit overwhelming. the book itself was fantastic... i won't get into deatils so as not to spoil anything, but needless to say it was a wonderful closing to a big chapter in my life.

future

a lot of people my age have a problem concerning their futures: they don't know what they want to do or where they want to go because they are not interested in anything (cameron fry's "nothing *shrug*" reply to the question "what do you like" comes to mind). as i get nearer and nearer to beginning senior year, and as i get older, today turning 17, i turn my thoughts to this but i find that my biggest problem is quite the opposite: i am interested in everything. since i learned to read, i have routinely read four or five books at a time at all times. this has created an all consuming desire to learn, inherited from my father, that has made me very interested in lots of subjects; politics, literature, music, science, medicine, society, anthropology, engineering, mathematics, history, psychology, business. i can see myself pursuing a career in any of these. i guess this problem is easier to have than the negation because pretty much no matter what i do, i can find a way to be happy with it. but it creates much conflict and confusion in me. hopefully, through the course of the next year, i will be able to narrow this down to something manageable. i want to write, live, sing, be active, change, change others, live, breathe, make others happy, be happy. i hope i can find some happy medium for all of my desires.