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And so it began – the chaotic void of all space and time stirred,
and contracted, and breathed in explosive thought.
In a pop and a crack and a bang there was love, and love lived
in ignorant bliss. Space and time sat around love,
watched it grow, and had it do great things for them.

Over time, love spread across space and time to the point of infinity,
of near-motionlessness, and it was at this point that love grew lonely.
Time and space felt this longing for awareness and understanding,
and knew what love needed. Love needed life.
Love needed life to be loved.

Time and space had love create life,
and with sweet satisfaction, it gave birth
to the moons, the planets, and the stars.
The elements of life stirred and swirled in a universe of color,
and love no longer knew what it meant to be lonely.

When you close yourself off from the world, you close your understanding of things that it presents to you. For example, your hearing. When you’re wearing headphones and you can’t hear anything outside, the world is empty of sound. There is no real understanding of it, and whatever is said can be manipulated and distorted beyond normal recognition. There is no explanation for the silence, nothing except what we make of it. The same goes for our other senses, each with their own way of understanding the world around us. Each, working together, brings a truly remarkable understanding of one’s self.

The essence of the sun shows us, in the emptiness of space, objects of reflection. It shows us that we exist – one thing looking at the other, the other looking back – an infinite respect and understanding that there is something else out there. Do you see the constant back and forth? This is this because this is this. A rose is a rose is a rose, a trinity Gertrude Stein saw all too well.

But if we were to step away from it with a third-person perspective on all things, we would understand the true experience of life, living on a marble of water and fire and earth and wind, the four elements of life that provide self-awareness on an unmeasurable scale. We are blessed with cognitive thought, and cursed with it’s emotional reactions. Love and hate, the strongest feelings we have, are synonymous. It all depends on your connection to the thing, your attraction, your attention. Why do you hate, why do you love? Reasons for this are hard to explain without emotion, without self-awareness.

El Paso, TX
2/20/2011

El Paso is an expansive suburban sprawl. Between mountains and valleys are ubiquitous mini mansions built with palm wood, stone, and red clay. The opportunity for unique, independent, interior design is lost in the faceless repetition of homes. Lawns with burnt-yellow grass are redeemed by epic Italian pines that seem anything but indigenous. Everything is spaced out and requires transportation. The roads are unrestricted playgrounds for billboard signage. Driving down I-10, there are as many ads on the highway as there are on the internet. Couple that with aggressive drivers who drink while driving, and I’m not surprised to hear how high the driver-fatality rate is.

But that’s just El Paso and its massive roads. The heart of my experience here belongs to my uncle. While we drive, observe the scene, and see the evolution of his achievements, he is coming to terms with divorce. He talks of mistakes that feel like opportunities left to wilt. Quotations from a former life begin to resonate with us, such as “nothing ventured, nothing gained,” and I get the feeling he would give it all up to show his family how good a father he is. Instead, he now belongs to a community of bachelors who have a fringe-like influence on their children.

“You got to teach them how to shave,” I tell him as we drive away from the park where his ex-wife and kids are hanging out with other single mothers and their kids. He and I brought them doughnuts from Krispy Kreme. Minutes out of the day belong to bonding experiences shared between him and his two young, impressionable sons. He doesn’t blame his ex-wife. He blames himself. His work and his hobbies filled a void that family simply couldn’t. That was before he realized how important family is. In the absence of love, he would likely say, there is a void. To fill a void, you need a vacuum.

“What’s wrong”

“… – “

“Honey, tell me what’s wrong.”

“… – “

“If you don’t tell me what’s wrong, it means you’re breaking up with me.”

I stayed silent, looking in her eyes with a sad expression. She knew.

“Really?”

I nodded my head wearily, only once, as if ashamed. I was ashamed. I broke the heart of an angel.

On a warm spring night, up high on the hill,
you can see a great night, filled with stars so bright.
On those nights, another star fills the void.
The moon… the full and true.
The wax and wane shows more than you can imagine,
a feeling, an emotion, a thought and a dream.
Every change it brings a new idea to life.
The moon… the full and true.

Tonight the moon crosses high over our heads,
its graceful face, so solemn, so alone.
It always gives light and direction,
we owe it our thanks for coming back to us each night.

Oh, over this horizon the moon remembers the day that comes,
everyday and everynight, a solemn dance around the bits and the bites.
So let us rest our heads and think of blessings and
moments of ecstacy that bring us eternal happiness.

And we will live forever in the harmony we wish upon the moon.

Safe-guarded like a mother’s love,
a concept of peace manifests the dove,
flying free, unscathed by jaded thieves,
un-vexed by life’s little pet peeves.

Freedom to love, learn, live with each other,
a growing body of thoughts we take no bother,
obsessive, compulsive, saturating the wet rags
of liberty and truth, now each in separate bags.

It wasn’t always divided like states,
there were no borders or defining traits.
Things like peace were a simple oath
made to wars with nothing left to loath.

Now it takes miles of red tape
to stick a notion like preventing rape;
permits and privileges to hunt and fight,
reasons absolved like our human rights.

It takes wings and hearts of gold and jade
to fly as that dove whom the heavens made.

Let’s talk about a feeling, a feeling we can all share.
It’s called love, and while you might laugh,
or twist your face in a way that says otherwise,
when you search your feelings,
you know it’s true in all of us.

Just the word and the way it’s used… love…
it brings warmth to all hearts.
It has no gender and knows no foe.
There is no aversion, only intensity.

One who hates, some say, would know the farthest pole.
But hate, in all ways, loves that which we don’t.
Think not of the things that remind us least of love.

Fill yourself with things that you love,
and the entire world that knows will love you.

I am a cog in the great wheel of creation –
expressing amazing emotions of living cognition,
and strange vibrations that make my reality so realistic.

I am the script that reads itself and moves on its own,
always learning from the cognitions, emotions,
and strange vibrations of time.

There are others like me,
but few in number,
as our purpose is vital and specific.

Our placement in the wheel is symmetrical and destined,
equidistance from one another,
ensuring the wheel keeps moving.

We help move the wheel for all others,
and without the wheel
the world would fall.

Without the thoughts that appear aimless,
emotions seem radical and extreme,
and vibrations would turn rough and nightmarish.

Oh! Stop this distortion; something is not as it should,
a cog has come loose in the great wheel that creates
and drains from its side a wild energy…

…of life,
love,
and hate.

I know what I’m waiting for; my leg stops skipping at the sound of your voice. The ground around me is still, and I realize what I lost. My ears ring up as the jazz dampens down, my arm hairs flicker in the morning sun, and the vision of your face makes me warm, smiling gladly (all alone) to have ever  known you.

Dorchester, November

I’m in my coworker’s car with his girlfriend and 2-year old son sitting next to me, and we’re heading from work to Dorchester and Blue Hills Avenue. The conversation was between him and me, sitting right behind him, about work and the people we work with. His girlfriend sat shotgun and their kid sat next to me. F-bombs and judgments enveloped the air, for good and for worse, and I composed myself as best I could while the kid listened blindly looking out the back window.

A Jamaican super-mix was playing track forty-two, and a brief interlude of melodic vocals helped me escape the fact that people live differently out here. “You’re in the hood now,” he said, laughing like he was joking, “Deep in it.”

Why wasn’t I concerned? Why didn’t I care about the kid or the girl, or the three loiterers inside the gas station while I bought a bag of Fritos through bulletproof glass? The company I had, and the randomness of it all… it was too odd for the neighbors.

My coworker is changing his fate with the help of this job.

We sat in his apartment and shared a Dutch over business talk. It reminded me of nights in Rolling Green when I was younger, drinking and philosophizing about all things. Except back then, I didn’t worry about my safety.

By 7pm, I was wishing I was home, and I felt like he felt the same way. He drove, so he had to drive me back. He quickly changed into something more comfortable while I packed my things. From Perry Ellis Portfolio he changes to light blue Levi’s and a flat white sweatshirt. He threw on his winter jacket and completed a fashionable picture. Maybe he knew; he didn’t really notice, or care.

He was thinking about going to Foxwoods. He could have been using that as a cover for more sinister shit, but I’ll never know. I said my goodbyes and waited for him in the hallway as he said bye to his family. It was a sincere picture; in a “last time” sort of way. It had a genuine impression on my memory. He lifted his head to her through the door, said “I’ll be back,” and closed the door behind him as we rolled out of Dorchester.

A program left running on without a single visitor,
a peculiar moment in history.

Should hours and hours pass blindly in the background,
somewhere a curious onlooker will wonder why,
why would you care so much about a thing,
empty and idle despite beautifully drawn?

How many lives do we wake when we rest on the end of a rich full day?

All it would be was a spike in statistics,
a tribute to a trend shared by trillions throughout time.

It’s beautifully drawn, the only mind that would look
beyond that and say love, love
what you want in the wake of other things.

And then BOOM!
You tap a key or move a mouse,
in a flash for something inadmissible and off away the mind will go.
Into the world, into the cyber fountain of all things eternal.

Tonight I placed a necklace with a charm called eternity on a notebook on my nightstand, in front of a photo of a Buddhist pagoda in Leverette. There it rested in two overlapping circles, one half to a half, perfect like a venn diagram.

Off I unbuckled my grandfather’s Waltham wristwatch and placed it there, in between the shaded realm, in symmetry with the photo and everything. There it rested on my nightstand for seconds, minutes, and hours, ticking it’s winding heart away.

My grandfather’s memory awoke in the watch as if interrupted or bumped out of thought. The same had happened with eternity. The lights eventually go off, and I would eventually fall asleep, but the two would be elsewhere.

Beauty’s Mark

There are many reasons to love her beauty:
The way the sun gleams off the seas of
her cerulean eyes. They guide me to her
like a lighthouse for the old sea captain.
Her chestnut hair falls to her shoulders with
the exception of the strands tucked
behind her ear like curtains being drawn
to unveil the perfectly composed orchestra
that is her face.

She shoots a smile like a gun slinger and
her lips are the smoking barrel. The high noon
sun is the spotlight upon her nearly flawless
face. Flawless except for the one imperfection,
the freckle perched just above her lips. It sits
alone, an outcast of her face telling stories of
secrets her lips dare not speak of. So little,
so inviting; to sit beside and hear the stories
of what truly makes her perfect and how
she was marked with this entrancing beauty.

Dave Knowlton

Why do waves exist in a standing pool of water?

Why should a motionless, immobile body of water make motion and stir?

We are always moving, even when we do not stir.

We react to forces that move us,

prove to us why we should stand still and push against those forces.

Through forces in our lives we will always be moving.

The world is a round, borderless gradient of choices.

Let these choices land on hemispheres, latitudes, longitudes.

Our choices are borne from our own set of options.

Through our choices we create and destroy our own set of destinies,

morality… justice… love, life, and happiness.

The water will always move, and always be there.

The Bird

“Chirp!” Of course, the little bird chirped, the only little bird on the tallest fingerling branches of the only tree around. It had hundreds of sunflower-shaped petals blossoming from them all, collapsing in the wake of approaching nightfall. The sun was a half hour from setting, and the bird was chirping continuously.

“My love, my love, my love, where are you, my love bird.” Nothing.

“My love, where are you, my love bird, why?” A tiny female bird flies within his sights, but no longer.

“Why-have-you-let-me-go-for-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-so-long?” Shaking the sky around him, he lets out a strong repetitive chirp unlike his usual singing, a cat call for all the tiny birds to know he is there. It pulsated through the wind and through the residential noise of Somerville for half a mile, enveloping everything around (in what could be illustrated as a loud, brown, orange, and yellow wave of color across an otherwise empty sky).

The sun was setting, and still no tiny bird came to him.

“My love, my love, my love bird, where are you,” and silence for a moment as the faint sound of a tiny female bird catches his ear again.

“My love?” He sang only once, a call of desperation, ‘are you there,’ expecting a quick reply. Regretfully, there was no reply.

On the little bird went, “My love, my love, my love, my love, where are you, my love…” all the while oblivious to a tiny bird, jumping quietly up the tree underneath him. She heard his call, and sang back  her song to him before swooping down to come closer. It was only in fun she hid herself from view so she could see what he does.

“My love, where are you, my love, my love, why?”

“Play more for me.” And her voice caught his and his heart skips, a quick reply so close he could feel it. He was filled with a new energy. And on he goes, still alone on the tallest fingerling branches, singing his song for the world to hear. Several feet below, the tiny bird watches his stanza, his empty waiting and choral climax that sends ripples through a noisy sky. She watches and smiles, and waits for the sun to go down before flying to meet her committed companion.

Hey, Zucker.

~ Hey, Mel, how’s it goin’?

Oh, it’s all good, you know. It’s sunny outside and we got a good breeze for 8am coming thru the door. What can I get you?

~ I’ll have the Breakfast Blend today please.

Sure thing. Small?

~ Yep.

Soy?

~ And sugar, please.

There’s a quick smile of understanding between the two of us before she goes to make my cup. Her eyes look at me, searching for meaning, for a moment. It’s just a good day, I suppose, for both of us.

Here you go.

~ Thanks.

She notices the book in my hand, different from the one I was reading a few days ago, “Cosmicomics” by Italo Calvino.

What are you reading now?

~ Oh, I’m trying some Gertrude Stein. “The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.”

I show her the book, she looks at and opens it, reading the personal note that was written from my mother to my brother. She smiles and quickly closes the book.

Cool. Is it any good?

~ Yeah… it’s a lot of talk right now, though.

A quick laugh, as I, nor her, apparently know nothing about Gertrude Stein’s writing style. I’m not thirty pages into the book, and the journey within has not yet begun.

Alice does talks a lot, but it’s enjoyable. Autobiographies in general are written to show no distinction between conversation and narrative, and that’s what makes this book so great. Whenever a character speaks, it is Miss Toklas’ interpretation of it (even though Gertrude Stein is writing everything). The conversations between Miss Toklas, Gertrude Stein and other characters in the story are ensconced in art and the procurement of art in Paris during the 20′s, 30′s and 40′s.

Neither of us knew why we laughed… maybe it was the book… maybe it was us.

Well, I’ll see you around.

~ Yeah, I’ll see you Monday or something. Have a good weekend, Mel.

You too. Hi, can I help you?

I can see the difference
Between permanence
And impermanence.

The Earth in the sky,
The trees and the wind,
And the space between stars.

The Love in our heart,
Our compassion,
Our happiness.

I am only a physical part
Of the earth we live
Of the universe we share.

I am always a spiritual vehicle
Of all that is good
Of all that brings joy.

If I was a product of the 2080’s, I might hear stories about how things were in my parent’s time, or perhaps my grandparents’ time. All the same, there would come a time or two when I heard stories of history and change, long before any time of my they knew of. We, the product of that enduring turmoil across the world.

There was this time before all that, in 1969, when a million people came together in search of peace, love, and music, at a place called Woodstock. People found a way to coexist for three days with little food, a lot of drugs, and an endless supply of parties for the senses. The parties were on stage; the passionate cameos of legendary artists, daytime stillness in the sun and rain, explosive demonstrations of musical talent, candid late-nighters by famous sounds like Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Santana and more. Nobody would know the names of these musicians except the few and privileged, who listened in school, and saw the grand picture of our creative evolution since our modern renaissance.

If life had to be so different from the world of yesteryear, why are we not as happy as then? What has jaded our minds to think that the world of today is not as satisfying? Innovation and technology have made our world better; a living, breathing entity in the galaxy, flourishing with countless, interactive life forms that coexist and sustain a healthy, natural environment. We are living on the product of collective consciousness, sensible and compassionate and in balance with all things.

Central Park South & 5th
Chapter One – Family Matters

6:00pm
12-28-2009

I just got off the phone with my parents…

A funny thing happened to me just now. I was opening up my bottle of wine for the week, packed my bowl full and drank a big gulp. The air had just left my body as the taste was recognized, and then my phone rings.

Mom Cell – apprehension does not overcome me like it does at other times. I reach for my phone with a confidence in cohesion. I can talk to them right now. I’m not too far gone…

“Hello?”
‘Hey, Alex!’ My mother’s distinctive greeting welcomes me again, and a sigh of comfort is exhumed.
“Hey Mom, how you doing?”

‘I’m good. I just got back home. I ended up going for a walk with Lynn when the weather got better today.’ She was thinking of coming into Boston with Lynn to window shop and walk around, but the weather turned foul and rained out the plan.

We talked on. My cognition and flow were still quite able, despite a definite shot to the brain. She wanted to talk about her recent walk with Lynn, and confided in me about the conversation they had about Nick, her son and close friend of mine.

Nick has been a fitness enthusiast for a long time. He has a high metabolism. He surfs, and yeah, and he plays a mean game of golf. All things considered, his family is closer to him than anyone, and for them to feel concerned about his health over this lifestyle brings immediate concern to my folks and I. It was only natural she’d want to tell me about the discussion. She thought Nick was a completely different person since she last saw him, two years earlier.

‘It seems extreme,’ my mother went on to say, ‘it is possible for a fitness routine to be unhealthy… it shows in his face.’ She would say something like that, and it would always be true. Our face is our mirror, for good and for worse. If something is wrong, we show it in our eyes, and our smiles. We smell when we’re stressed, and glow when we’re happy. Our body language is everything, but I digress…

By the end of that conversation, my mother handed the phone off to my dad. Talking with him is just as easy, as long as the conversations are mutually understood.

‘Heya, Alex.’
“Heya Dad, how you doing?”
‘I’m doing alright. You?’
“I’m good, I just got back from the gym.”
‘Good for you, Alex.’ Sincerity assured. ‘I won’t ask you all the same questions as mom, but how was your trip home?’ I took a trip back to Boston from New York after spending a weekend with them and my brother at the Plaza Hotel. It was their 30th wedding anniversary.

“It was alright, as much as you could expect on a busy travel day.” I told him more. I told him about the little British girl who couldn’t stop talking in the seats across from mine. All the way to Boston. It was quite and experience, and the group I sat with showed signs of understanding and relief when she walked off to sit with her dad in another car.

‘I just wanted to say thanks for coming out there with us, and for being a part of something this special.’ We both expressed our gratitude to one another for being there in New York on such an important milestone.

“Ah, Dad, I wouldn’t miss something like that. I mean, come on, The Plaza! Thank you for putting that all together, it was such a wonderful experience! You certainly know how to treat us well.”

‘This is true!’ I think he had been waiting for someone to say that for a long time. ‘And I like to treat you guys well, so hopefully there’s more to come as time goes on.’

“I’m looking forward to it.” A moment of comfortable silence hangs over the phone.

‘Well, I’ll let you go, you just got back.’

“Thanks, it was great talking to you.”

‘You too, my boy. Have a goodnight.’
*Goodnight!* I hear my mother yell in the distance as I ready to say it. I laugh into the phone.

“Ah, goodnight you guys! I love you.”

‘Love you too, Alex. Bye.’

“Bye.”

The conversation lasted thirteen minutes, and following the conversation, things had gone their course. The flow of blood to my brain caused a euphoric chain reaction. I saw read vibrations as I sat and laid back on my bed, staring up at an abstract painting of an apple tree; oil on canvas by a college friend’s sister. I felt something in those vibrating apples. It was love. I felt love for my family emanating from its root and its marrow. It’s a feeling I know so well, and cherish now even more, like the fine wines we all imbibe. Age defines quality. The quality of my love for my family has matured and grown stronger, stronger than the days of my childhood when bed-time was fixed and allowances were given. Now is the time when I give my love back to them, and remind them of how much they mean to me.

In a phone conversation like this, the simplest of talks can bring overpowering love and compassion. I feel like the luckiest guy in the world.

And then there was New York…

6:50pm

FIRST DATE, FIRST KISS

~ Well, this was a really great night.

The closing remarks on an otherwise entertaining date were taking place. In the cab now, we know what we want, but have trouble expressing it. Perhaps she doesn’t feel the way I do.

“Yeah, I had a really good time with you.”

~ Yeah, this was fun…

“Can I come in with you?”

The question was the move, in my eyes. The intention to join her so late in the evening only brought up feelings of lust, not plutonic enrichment. It was a date, after all.

~ You want to?

“Yeah, I’d like that.”

We exchange a smile; a look of agreement. We step out of the cab, fare 22 bucks, all on me. She walks in front of me towards her apartment building. I’m one step behind her, watching her walk and smelling her scent. We walk through the main entrance of her building, and call the elevator. She pushes the call button, and then turns around to face me. I walk up close to her, and my body connects with hers; I pull her closer with my arms, embrace her, and give her a kiss. Her eyes close as our lips touch and a breathe of satisfaction holds the air for several seconds. She smells like vanilla and cherries.

~ Wow. You don’t waste any time, do you?

“I suppose not, not when our time matters so much.”

The right answer. Saying it right makes her feel the right way. ‘I’ve never been so lucky to have you,’ is the message conveyed, and she picks up on it immediately.

The elevator door opens and a young couple exits the elevator, watching us as they pass. The girl looks at me, the guy looks at her. We smile back, enter the elevator, and begin kissing passionately before the doors close. We didn’t press any buttons; we stayed on the first floor for several minutes, unaware of time.

We only became aware of time when the couple that we saw earlier came back and called the elevator again. The doors open to us entwined, and we broke apart suddenly before the doors fully opened, but they got the point.

* Oh, we’ll take the stairs…

~ No, no, it’s fine; we got a little carried away.

“Yeah, it’s alright, come on in. We’re going up!”

My excitement is making me confident and my energy level is high as we welcome them back into the elevator awkwardly. The guy looks embarrassed and the girl is giving me looks.

* Which floor are you going to?

~ Seven please.

The guy hits seven and eight on the button pad. The numbers go as high as twelve. The elevator moves slowly, and the sexual tension is growing as the couple with us picks up on our intentions. I think they had the same thing on their minds as us. We quickly exit the elevator and enter her apartment, the second door left of the elevator.

With this newfound bravado and confidence, I take her hand again as we enter her apartment, a bare living room with a Yamaha sound receiver, a vinyl record player, and two retro-looking tower speakers. I engage her with hugs and kisses, this time without a care in the world. We drop our jackets where we stand; holding each other at the waists, our upper bodies are slightly curved outwards, and our lower bodies are connected by denim and heat. We were a flower in bloom during the darkest hour of the night.

“I’ve been waiting to do that for a long time.”

~ What kept you so long?

She smiles her smile, and I am at a loss for words.

“I didn’t know how you felt about me.”

~ Well now you do.

“I do now.”

We embrace again, and the spotlight leaves us as the view regresses out the window of her front-view apartment, above the city skyline it overlooks, and beyond the clouds that cover them. Even from up there, you can see our love like the North Star.

Serenade softness into my coral shell,
holding me close and telling me all before night fell.

There are only waves and sounds on the beach,
like a lot of great things in life, each
with a legend best left for the wind to tell.

My ears are filling with natural sounds,
a feeling like life has had no bounds,
a life like dreams that are never out of reach.