Big Old Life - Philip Martz

It's a big old life in a big old world with plenty of big quandaries. Choosing which gulf stream to follow in a northerly or southerly direction without a big old sign. Without a big old clock to tell the hour, it's a big old guess daily as to when to sleep or eat. The same with the tides that run at cross purposes, causing any number of big old tail swings, including the sight of a big old suitor who comes along to sweep one off one's feet, or push on one's tail. So that returning to the same old beach to make a big old nest,

is no big deal.

I am going to be gone for two weeks, and this is due to a place that I love and people that stand by me. Thank you to them as well for this opportunity, and helping me celebrate.

Thank you as well to my friends, family, and anyone who I have met in the past sixteen years. You have shaped me to be who I am today and I would not be the same without you. I love you so much and would be lost without your undying support.

Sixteen

It's my birthday today!

The People Yes - Carl Sandburg

The people yes
The people will live on.
The learning and blundering people will live on.
They will be tricked and sold and again sold
And go back to the nourishing earth for rootholds,
The people so peculiar in renewal and comeback,
You can't laugh off their capacity to take it.
The mammoth rests between his cyclonic dramas.

The people so often sleepy, weary, enigmatic,
is a vast huddle with many units saying:
"I earn my living.
I make enough to get by
and it takes all my time.
If I had more time
I could do more for myself
and maybe for others.
I could read and study
and talk things over
and find out about things.
It takes time.
I wish I had the time."

The people is a tragic and comic two-face: hero and hoodlum:
phantom and gorilla twisting to moan with a gargoyle mouth:
"They buy me and sell me...it's a game...sometime I'll
break loose..."

Once having marched
Over the margins of animal necessity,
Over the grim line of sheer subsistence
Then man came
To the deeper rituals of his bones,
To the lights lighter than any bones,
To the time for thinking things over,
To the dance, the song, the story,
Or the hours given over to dreaming,
Once having so marched.

Between the finite limitations of the five senses
and the endless yearnings of man for the beyond
the people hold to the humdrum bidding of work and food
while reaching out when it comes their way
for lights beyond the prison of the five senses,
for keepsakes lasting beyond any hunger or death.
This reaching is alive.
The panderers and liars have violated and smutted it.
Yet this reaching is alive yet
for lights and keepsakes.

The people know the salt of the sea
and the strength of the winds
lashing the corners of the earth.
The people take the earth
as a tomb of rest and a cradle of hope.
Who else speaks for the Family of Man?
They are in tune and step
with constellations of universal law.
The people is a polychrome,
a spectrum and a prism
held in a moving monolith,
a console organ of changing themes,
a clavilux of color poems
wherein the sea offers fog
and the fog moves off in rain
and the labrador sunset shortens
to a nocturne of clear stars
serene over the shot spray
of northern lights.

The steel mill sky is alive.
The fire breaks white and zigzag
shot on a gun-metal gloaming.
Man is a long time coming.
Man will yet win.
Brother may yet line up with brother:

This old anvil laughs at many broken hammers.
There are men who can't be bought.
The fireborn are at home in fire.
The stars make no noise,
You can't hinder the wind from blowing.
Time is a great teacher.
Who can live without hope?

In the darkness with a great bundle of grief
the people march.
In the night, and overhead a shovel of stars for keeps, the people
march:
"Where to? what next?"

Order

Hello! A few things to tell all of you:

First off, I apologize for not writing much since I got back. My birthday is on Friday (!!!) and I leave for my job on Saturday for two weeks, and I only got back last Sunday... needless to say, I have had a lot of things to do and a lot of people to see. So sorry if you have been disappointed with the lack of updating here. I assure you this blog is still going!

Second, thank you so much for all the new followers! I started out with just one other reader, and now I know there are other people who can read this and hopefully it makes their day a little better.

Third, I really really do have some pieces of writing and stuff started, I have honestly just been too busy to get anywhere with them. I will try my best to get some done before I leave!

Thank you all again. You are the best!

So close

"You mean the world to me, baby girl."

I keep reading that line over and over.

Home

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better,

you made it a million times better than I could've imagined.

3 weeks.

More later!

Twenty eight

Four weeks left.

Here we go, baby.

Updating just for you.

I miss you.

Thirty-seven

So today I am leaving for about two and a half weeks to go HOME HOME HOME. Finally. Avon. I think we'll have a computer there but I don't know how much I'll be able to update because I'll be distracted by the beautiful ocean. Yayayay! See you all soon.

My Stupid Mouth

Tuesday Tellings, week ?

So I realized yesterday I forgot to post a Tuesday secret - but hey, it's summer, I'm losing track of the days. But anyway, this is my most recent confession; I'm going to hold off on the secrets. You've probably noticed they've been getting boring. They're running out of creativity, and I need some time to think of better ones for you. So this is for your own good... I guess.

Forty days

Seriously, cut your fucking attitude and

come talk to me again when you have some respect.

Thanks.

You hear but you don't listen

(hey hey hey)

Today was one of those days when you have way too much time to yourself and way too much time to think about things. And if you've met me for more than five minutes, you know I overanalzye pretty much everything.
So here's my question for you, some food for thought, the crazy quiz of the day - are you happier when you kind of push away all the negative, not necessarily getting rid of it but simply dismissing it, or are you happier if you just face the negatives, even if it brings you pain or sadness or whatever it might bring?
That's something I was thinking about.
Also, I really didn't want to post today because that means that the last post on this blog would go to the "next" page, and it was one of the poems I have written recently that I genuinely liked. You know, the majority of the time I just write on this. I rant. I don't really care what it says, I just write it and put it out there.

While on my nearly hour-long walk, I thought of a bunch of prompts but haven't managed to put them all together. I'll give you something tomorrow.

Today I felt, in a word..... frazzled.

Keep marching 'til your feet split open.

Illness

Hi. I have a headache.

I could feel each individual blade
Of grass,
Cool, contrasting
With my warm skin,
Which you touched,
Sliding from my toes to my knees
And back again
As you sat behind me, my
Back on your chest and your arms
Barely rested on mine.
Let's pretend we're five again,
Watch the fireworks.
I'll look at you and
Watch them dance in your eyes.
I'll kiss you and
Realize I don't need to open my eyes
To see fireworks.

"big hearts break easily"

Primero

Well he's got another album out, and every song makes me think of you, of course. Any note of violin, a word of Jack's Mannequin and instantly my mind is flooded.

I thought you were worthless, absolutely worthless, you know?

No more important to me than the gum I spat out this morning, no more significant than the daily black coffee, just a routine of making and pouring. You were nothing, you see?

And yet you were everything, absolutely everything.

The reason my grades dropped, 'cause we were texting all the time. The reason I was off coffee, 'cause you gave me a buzz without the caffeine. The reason why when my phone rang a silly love song played. We were so stereotypical, you know that? I started my day with you, a brown paper bag always waiting in my locker with my favorite breakfast, except on Thursdays, but you knew that.

We knew each other's schedules backwards and forwards, and you promised if I ever needed someone, you would be there in a second.

But that was the mistake, can't you see? You were the reason I needed someone, but I had no one because you wanted to keep things a secret. I thought that was cute and mysterious, so I played along.

Yet you were there when I needed you most. And you were the best I could have asked for.

You broke me, but at the same time you shaped me. Your letters sit tucked away, but I know exactly where they are. When you ask how I am doing, you make my day without even trying.

You threw out my letters because we treated each other like shit, but I wish you still had them so you would know how much someone could care about you like I did.

I hope you meant every word, 'cause I was real every second with you.

You gave me everything I wanted, and showed me everything I feared.

You were nothing, absolutely nothing.

You were everything, absolutely everything.

And now you are stuck, and all I want to do is help you, but I don't think you want me to.

"There was this time when everything seemed to have come together. And so obviously it was time to go and screw it up."

Hey, thank you for making me feel though.