as the rain

yes, again

2007-03-20T20:39:00.000-07:00

"She breaks my heart again and again, but I still love her."
- Troy, Reality Bites

it happens

2007-02-12T15:50:00.001-08:00

Matt: I think you can't walk away so you're burning down the house.
Harriet: Yes
- Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

2007-01-05T10:45:00.000-08:00

"You see? That is just like you, Harry. You say things like that, and you make it impossible for me to hate you. And I really hate you, Harry."
- Sally, When Harry Met Sally

And in other news

2006-02-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

"If there's ever anything I can do..."

"Well, I certainly hope you'll die soon."

- Broadcast News

Quote #1 for today:

2006-02-06T21:11:00.000-08:00

When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day, suddenly the work will finish itself.

- Isak Dinesen

Mirrored

2006-01-28T14:57:00.000-08:00

Reality rarely mirrors
what our minds
create.

Sometimes it's so much more.

Like a face above yours
tracing words
in the air between.

How can we imagine the absence
of something not yet
known?

A name dreamt years
before, of one,
somewhere in the world
destroying
himself; cultivating
darkness. (or creating it.)

Destruction, like reality, continues.

flying so you won't land

2005-11-20T20:29:00.000-08:00

So today I wrote a song for you
'Cause a day can get so long
And I know it's hard to make it through
When you say there's something wrong.

So I'm trying to put it right
'Cause I want to love you with my heart
All this trying has made me tight
And I don't know even where to start.

Maybe that's a start.

'Cause you know it's a simple game
That you play filling up your head with rain
And you know you are hiding from your pain
In the way, in the way you say your name.

And I see you
Hiding your face in your hands
Flying so you won't land
You think no one understands.
No one understands.

So you hunch your shoulders and you shake your head
And your throat is aching but you swear
No one hurts you, nothing could be sad
Anyway you're not here enough to care.

And you're so tired you don't sleep at night
As your heart is trying to mend
You keep it quiet but you think you might
Disappear before the end.

And it's strange that you cannot find
Any strength to even try
To find a voice to speak your mind
When you do, all you wanna do is cry.

Well maybe you should cry.

And I see you hiding your face in your hands
Talking about far-away lands
You think no one understands.
Listen to my hands.

And all of this life
Moves around you
For all that you claim
You're standing still
You are moving too
You are moving too
You are moving too
I will move you.
-Alexi Murdoch, "Song for You"

2005-11-14T22:19:00.000-08:00

it's really all so very much
trouble
and the moon is neither waxing
nor waning
but walked away.

the song plays on.
the skin rises in welts,
the rain falls,
and there is no shelter

marks: imagined,
and real

2005-11-14T09:18:00.000-08:00

Deborah: How are you that much nicer than me?
John: Well. You don't set the bar real high.
Spanglish

2005-11-09T21:18:00.000-08:00

"She breaks my heart again and again, but I still love her."
- Troy, Reality Bites

2005-11-08T20:16:00.000-08:00

"It is never too late to be who you might have been."
- George Eliot

beauty and terror

2005-10-31T17:36:00.000-08:00

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

--Rilke

2005-10-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

You get so alone at times it just makes sense.
- Bukowski

maybe this is all places, all people

2005-10-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

"Los Angeles is a city dedicated to the telephone. In part, everyone is constantly on the phone because they are continually making, breaking and changing their deals. They're constantly on the phone because here, in the City of Angels, where the elect have ascended, they often find themselves perched on cliff tops, on canyon tops and hilltops, absolutely alone."
Kate Braverman, Lithium for Medea

substitute people

2005-10-23T14:55:00.000-07:00

"I'm impossible to forget, but hard to remember."
- Claire, Elizabethtown

still out of order

2005-10-22T22:39:00.000-07:00

"The reality of long-term relationships is that they can be beautiful, they can be brutal, and they can be everything in-between."
- Eric Stoltz

2005-10-22T22:16:00.000-07:00

"Come to bed. I hate sleeping without you."
- Lorna, Out of Order

2005-10-22T21:28:00.000-07:00

"The brain will do anything to avoid dealing with trauma. It represses things. … [W]hen the brain doesn’t want you to revisit the dark place, it distracts you with backaches, neck pain, insomnia. The brain has many weapons in its arsenal. Anything to avoid that place."
Mark, Out of Order

she must be tired

2005-10-22T20:25:00.000-07:00

Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog
where no one notices the contrast of white on white.
And in between the moon and you, the angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
I walk in the air between the rain through myself and back again
Where? I don’t know.
Maria says she’s dying, through the door I hear her crying
Why? I don’t know.

Round here we always stand up straight
Round here something radiates

Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
She said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis
She walks along the edge of where the ocean meets the land
Just like she’s walking on a wire in the circus
She parks her car outside of my house
Takes her clothes off
Says she’s close to understanding Jesus

She knows she’s more than just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous

Round here we’re carving out our names
Round here we all look the same
Round here we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs
Round here she’s slipping through my hands

Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama’s little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning

She says, it’s only in my head
She says, shhh, I know, it’s only in my head

But the girl on the car in the parking lot says,
"Man, you should try to take a shot.
Can’t you see my walls are crumbling?"
Then she looks up at the building and says she’s thinking of jumping
She says she’s tired of life, she must be tired of something
Round here, she’s always on my mind
Round here, hey, man, got lots of time
Round here we’re never sent to bed early
And nobody makes us wait
Round here we stay up very, very, very, very late
I can’t see nothing, nothing round here
Catch me if I’m falling

- Counting Crows, "Round Here"

ask the dust

2005-10-21T14:35:00.000-07:00

small conversation in the afternoon with John Fante

he said, "I was working in Hollywood when Faulkner was
working in Hollywood and he was
the worst: he was too drunk to stand up at the
end of the afternoon and so I had to help him
into a taxi
day after day after day.

"but when he left Hollywood, I stayed on, and while I
didn't drink like that maybe I should have, I might have
had the guts then to follow him and get the hell out of
there."

I told him, "you write as well as
Faulkner."

"you mean that?" he asked from the hospital
bed, smiling.

- Charles Bukowski

every new beginning

2005-10-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

"In the end, it is important to remember that we cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are."
- Max DePree

handle with care

2005-10-17T15:27:00.000-07:00

"Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken, they are impossible things to repair."
- Anne Sexton

the right true words

2005-10-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

Words lead to deeds... They prepare the soul, make it ready, move it to tenderness.
- Saint Teresa

"[T]ry then, as you work out your individual destinies, to remember that words, the right true words, can have the power of deeds. Remember, too, that little-used word that has just about dropped out of public and private usage: tenderness. It can't hurt. And that other word: soul--call it spirit if you want. If it makes it any easier to claim the territory. Don't forget either. Pay attention to the spirit of your words, your deeds. That's preparation enough. No more words."
- Raymond Carver, "Meditation on a Line from Saint Teresa"

Still on a Rilke kick

2005-10-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

2005-10-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

"To be nobody but yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting."
-- e.e. cummings

divine disclosure

2005-10-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

"God, thou who conceal Thyself in the clouds, disclose my soul, show me my path."
- Marc Chagall, 1908

at this point, it's countless

2005-10-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

Robert: How many days have you lost?
Catherine: 33.
Robert (banging the table): Be precise!
Catherine: ...I slept until noon today.
Robert: Then let's call it 33 1/4.
- Proof

some things you want will just never be right

2005-09-30T08:48:00.000-07:00

It's hard to listen to a hard hard heart
Beating close to mine
Pounding up against the stone and steel
Walls that I won't climb.

Sometimes a hurt is so deep deep deep
You think that you're gonna drown.
Sometimes all I can do is weep weep weep
With all this rain falling down.

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain...

It's hard to know when to give up the fight
Some things you want will just never be right.
It's never rained like it has tonight, before...

Now I don't wanna beg you, baby
For something maybe you could never give.
I'm not looking for the rest of your life
I just want another chance to live.

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm holding on underneath this shroud
Rain...

Strange how hard it rains now
Rows and rows of big dark clouds
But I'm still in love on underneath this shroud
Rain...

- Patty Griffin, "Rain"

love the questions like locked rooms

2005-09-29T14:12:00.000-07:00

"I beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient to all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

chapters

2005-09-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title."
- Virginia Woolf

stuck

2005-09-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

"I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in."
- Virginia Woolf

here's hoping

2005-09-28T09:50:00.000-07:00

"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
- Nietzsche

sounds good anyway

2005-09-28T09:44:00.000-07:00

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
- Emerson

answers

2005-09-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

"The magic moment is that in which a 'yes' or a 'no' may change the whole of our existence."
- Paulo Coelho

2005-09-28T09:31:00.000-07:00

Miami: You make me sad, Skippy.
- Kicking and Screaming

2005-09-25T20:39:00.000-07:00

We are destroyed by expecting more than there is.
- Charles Bukowski

Closer

2005-09-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

Larry: Come home with me. It's safe. Let me look after you.
Alice: I don't need looking after.
Larry: Everyone needs looking after.

unfold

2005-09-24T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing--
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones--
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight.

I would describe myself
like a landscape I've studied
at length, in detail;
like a word I'm coming to understand;
like a pitcher I pour from at mealtime;
like my mother's face;
like a ship that carried me
when the waters raged.

- Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy

and yet. and yet.

2005-09-23T21:21:00.000-07:00

"There are enough signs. Of the lack of tenderness in the world. And yet. And yet. All you have to do is ask. Anyone here can extol the virtues of an onion. Where to get barbecue minced, pulled, or chopped. The hour of the day they have known the thorn of love."
- C.D. Wright, Deepstep Come Shining

sometimes they seem so real

2005-09-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

I dream that he comes to me and tells me he is going on trial. He knows he will be convicted this time. His past crimes will all be revealed and he will be put in prison. He starts to cry and I feel bad. I know he never cries. I want to hug him, comfort him, tell him goodbye. He puts on my sunglasses and walks away. I say nothing.

living, reversing

2005-09-22T21:07:00.000-07:00

"Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I'm always missing someone or someplace or something. I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing."

"Story of my life: I'm so self-destructive, I turn solutions into problems. Everything I touch, I ruin. I'm Midas in reverse."

- Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

2005-09-21T09:24:00.000-07:00

"At this point in my life, I've done so many things wrong
I don't know if I can do right...

Although I've mostly walked in the shadows
I'm still searching for the light...

You see, I've been climbing stairs
but mostly stumbling down.
I've been reaching high,
always losing ground.
You see, I've conquered hills
but I still have mountains to climb.

And right now, I'm doing the best I can
at this point in my life."

- Tracy Chapman, "At This Point"

the missing

2005-09-19T10:05:00.000-07:00

"We’re all lonely for something we don’t know we’re lonely for. How else to explain the curious feeling that goes around feeling like missing somebody we’ve never even met?" – David Foster Wallace

you and your face of night... without listening, hear what i say.

2005-09-16T09:24:00.000-07:00

I posted this on my other blog, but it needs to be here as well. To borrow Scott's words, who says most things better than I can, this poem brings me to my knees.

As One Listens to the Rain - Octavio Paz

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,
your shadow covers this page.

[Otis is an elevator.]

2005-09-14T01:16:00.000-07:00

James spoke candidly and soberly to Otis, the way women speak to diaries. Often, as he sat and spoke, he took from his pocket the pair of opal earrings that were always on his person. He rubbed these opals between his thumb and forefinger as if they were rabbit's feet or some other talisman of fortune. Whether all this was helping him or not didn't concern James. He simply obeyed the impulse to speak to Otis every night the way some people drink alcohol or seek out chocolate or slice sharp metal across their wrists.
- David Schickler, "Telling it All to Otis," Kissing in Manhattan

it is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid

2005-09-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

George Gray

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me--
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire--
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

- Edgar Lee Masters, Spoon River Anthology

later you will be running after it

2005-09-13T14:36:00.000-07:00

Nadya, pink-cheeked, happy, her eyes shining with tears in expectation of something extraordinary, circled in the dance, her white dress billowing and showing glimpses of her slim, pretty legs in their flesh-tinted stockings. Varya, thoroughly contented, took Podgorin by the arm and said to him under her breath with significant expression: "Misha, don't run away from your happiness. Take it while it offers itself to you freely, later you will be running after it, but you won't overtake it."
- Anton Chekov, "A Visit to Friends"

remembering

2005-09-12T21:43:00.000-07:00

"It was then, after the rain.
The heaviness of it all was
heavier still; not washed
away. But in oceans all around.
And he stood soaking, beneath the
burden - yet pleased
with the weight."
- J.C.

as the rain dot blogspot dot com

2005-09-12T16:09:00.000-07:00

I had a brief moment of feeling inspired to write. It left, but I'm hoping it takes a shorter hiatus than it had previously. Should it return, I'll post some stuff here, along with other writings. If not, I'll continue to post things I like from other people.

Until then.

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

2005-09-11T12:40:00.000-07:00

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

e.e.cummings