cursed · version · of · a · certain · virgin · mary · womb · occupant

I woke up at 6:30 am this morning and made my way to the bus stop. One bus totally flies by me without a pause. Apparently one of the two busses that used to stop there doesn't anymore. The next bus shows up about ten minutes later and I get on. I pull out what I thought was my student ID and swipe it. "Invalid card." It was my drivers license. I'd forgotten to bring my student ID. I explain this to the bus driver who has already started driving. He tells me it's ok and I sit down. After a second I realize that I'm going to need my ID to buy my books with financial aid and get back home, since I also neglected to bring any cash with me. I get off at the next stop and walk fifteen minutes back home, run upstairs to get my ID and a couple of dollars and walk out to the bus stop again. I don't know if it was lack of sleep or the combination of headlights in my face and the exhaust fumes of every passing vehicle, but I started to get nauseous and felt like I was going to collapse. The bus comes about a half hour later and I get on sit through one of the worst bus rides of my life, feeling as though I was going to vomit the entire time. I finally get to school, five minutes late and after my first class ends, I started feeling better. In the middle of the day, I went to the bookstore and waited in line for about 20 minutes with about $300 or so worth of not so light books. I found all the books I needed except for the one they kept behind the counter at the checkout. I get the register to pay and am told that I have to have a printed copy of my schedule in order to use my financial aid to purchase my books. Great. I went upstairs and printed one out, waited for another 15 minutes in line again and finally purchase the god damned books. But guess what I forgot to get? The one they kept behind the fucking counter. By this time I had to get to my next class, so I just said fuck it, I'll come back again. My last class gets out 20 minutes early, which is great because the bookstore is on the other side of campus. I walk all the way back and the line is about three times as long as it was the last time. About 35 minutes later I finally had everything I needed and could finally head home. Guess where the bus stop is. Yeah. Other side. I get there just in time to see the bus fly by, just like the Saved by the Bell theme song, mother fuckers. Now I get to sit in the sun for another half hour and wait for another bus and when it arrives it is packed to the fucking rafters and I'm holding a fuck-ton of books in my arms and standing in the middle of the aisle because I gave the last seat to a fat lady. I'm too nice sometimes. But, its all right now because I'm home and there's a purring cat in my lap and Kacie will be home soon and we'll eat dinner and play some Little Big Planet. Ugu.

I.
The most this homeless ghost can boast is: "see this poem? i own this" - because we're getting older and beginning to find ourselves on long roads passing the bones of armadillos and the scabbed over eyes of trees and she won't stop singing and its all right and everything is all right all I want is water to float in. All I want is my own ocean - all I want is my skin to hold my paper spirit and a beer - coz our hands clasp gold and we clasp hands - and let loose all our veins on the pavement. I don't want to be overcome by the short paralysis of sleep so we talk about the hotels famous people died in and I think how the shoulder of the road is home to many dead animals.
II.
Descending Monte Verde with stone wings, sun on spine, steel fingernails - throwing our bones in the earth - chewing on rocks - we are indigenous - since this son's spanish tongue vanished lungs damaged from loose cigarettes and city smoke - now heavy hearts hang on horseback but heads held high and only inches from the sky -
III.
And if we really wanted we could grow scales and swim to where we wouldn't have to work and it'd be easy. And while it rains and the prophet tells love, no woman will cry and not the red armed mothers sweeping perpetually muddied stone steps until quiet death.
IV.
carstrucksbusses are all phantoms and so they pay their tolls - we're still driving and we're still silent and not speaking because there is hardly any need now - not with Ani Difranco on the stereo and our own telepathic discourse filling in the quiet - and the ring on her finger is catching the last fast fading rays of sunlight just before sinking - and the air of the trails we beat, crazy and in sandals, the last couple of days through mud and mountains, still fresh in our veins and love is still a crazy little thing, mister mercury - the path is set before us and we walkin'

i remember sitting outside of neptunes lounge with bret asking him about what he wrote song lyrics about and whether or not it bothered him if the song meanings were lost on people (it didn't) and his perfect quiet answers that made me admire him instantly and having similar conversations with roger over quarts and camel lights or at dennys or nina and nats - and being enthused and excited that people i knew were passionate about things and pouring themselves into their music and bothering them constantly with incessant questions about their craft - i envied them and wanted that - i wanted people to ask me about what my song lyrics meant and i wanted people to sincerely be enthused about what i poured myself into - now i write music and work hours on songs and record them and if anyone listens it is only with a mild or feigned interest and they listen once and no questions are asked about what the songs are about, no words are remembered no one sings along - and it does affect me and it does make me want to quit making music altogether - and i think about what i write and its mostly improvised and real thought because i dont like to make revisions and one take is all it should take - mierda - why should i tell the wall what i think? spoken word or no word at all. i aint keeping all this secret scribbled nonsense to myself. do you know how bad we need skeletons? i refuse to punctuate temperance with consequence? what the fuck? i was sincere. i wanted to know everything - so what am i doing on stages gripping mic tight in right hand spitting my mind to the all gone world - the young and drunk tallahassee uncleaned? who will after shows tell you they loved your set and forget your name not five minutes later? why work on song and post on myspace and beg people even your best friends to listen? i think now - like then - i am only singing to myself. god is in his heaven - all is right with the world.

lately i've been wondering a lot about what my life would have been like had i decided to stay in the army. i'm not sure if its because i am getting older and am beginning to harbor uncertainties about what i should do with the rest of my life or simply because i feel i made a mistake, a rash and childish decision that would have far reaching consequences that i didn't allow myself to think about. i feel as though if i had waited a few more years instead of enlisting at the age of 17, i would have made a much better soldier. i know now that i definitely could have held on to my convictions without compromising my character too much. i had options that i just couldn't see then. i could have applied myself and been done with my 4 year enlistment by now. had a career and money and all that shit. if i had to do it over again i probably would have gone navy or air force. being assigned to a sea vessel where everyone on board plays an integral role seems more appealing now than the anonymity/lack of individuality that the army made me feel. and why the fuck did i choose medic when i could have done journalism? what was i thinking. sometimes i even forget that when i was 18 i was a certified paramedic! imagine! how is it that i had more of a future then than i feel like i have now? i mean, music is a joke. god knows i wont make it rapping. thats just fucking funny to me. and writing? i honestly doubt i could ever feed myself with my poetry that borders on nonsensical. i thought i wanted to teach but i'm not so sure now. journalism still seems a viable option and probably the most realistic. i don't know. i just wish i waited. had i gone to college right after high school instead of fucking around, i could have joined the military afterward and gone to officer school and gone in as a officer, made good money. and why do i care so much about money all of a sudden anyway? what happened to my fantasies about ol' man lou the brooklyn bum who shouted poems on street corners, barely scraping by, bugs in his beard? they've been replaced with longings for money for clothes, electronics, backyards and stainless steel appliances, best buy credit cards with no spending limit. i suppose what i really want is to feel as though what i do is important. maybe in the future the peace corps or some equivalent can help me fill that void. maybe playing too many video games in which i play the role of the hero, or reading too many tolkien books filled with honorable characters who sacrifice themselves for others, or watching star trek and wishing i was part of the fucking uss enterprise is just filling me with ideals i can never live up to. did you know i secretly wish for a hostile take over by aliens or zombies or robots from the future or a deadly combination of all three to ensue so that i could start up or join a resistance movement and become an alien/robot/zombie slaying hero? gah. ok - i'll just end this by apologizing profusely to anyone who just read all this nonsense long enough to reach this apology.

"God manifested himself to me as the infinite void; but it was not the abyss; it was the vault of heaven, with blue sky and wisps of white clouds. He was not some foreign God but the God of my fathers. He was loving and kind and he had personality. He said, 'You suffer a little now in life, it is little compared with the great joys, the bliss that awaits you. Do you think I in my theodicy would allow you to suffer greatly in proportion to your reward?' He made me aware, then, of the bliss that would come; it was infinite and sweet. He said, 'I am the infinite. I will show you. Where I am, infinity is; where infinity is, there I am. Construct lines of reasoning by which to understand your experience in 1974. I will enter the field against their shifting nature. You think they are logical but they are not; they are infinitely creative.'

was too much fun. thanks and shout outs to everyone who showed up!

first time gettin paid for a gig!

peace out, suckers.

p.s. fun with the DSi

some of you may remember ernie reyes jr. as "kino" in teenage mutant ninja turtles 2: the secret of the ooze.

so, this is what you get when you order two shirts. even though i already had the next best thing story book, it's pretty rad. plus it only took a week.