my feet are still asleep

My feet have been asleep for the past 20 minutes and it is really putting a damper on my lunch break. All I wanted to do was come home, take a slab of raw steak, and reenact Planet Earth. But instead, I had a salad. And I blame that salad for putting my feet to sleep. F**kin ranch dressing.

But my feet taking a nap is kind of like my life as of late. I haven't really been all there. It is like part of me is taking a nap, and the other part is mindlessly rolling through the ins and outs of the working man in his day to day. Coffee, copies, casework, print. The CCCP of my life. Somewhere, a historian is flipping out that I used the Russian acronym for the Soviet Union. But who doesn't like a cute little play on Soviet history? Lenin would have laughed. Stalin? Eh, not so much.

But back to the mindless repetition, it really is a bummer. I've lost that urge to create and design, and it has been replaced by an unwanted need to eat and sleep the second I hit my own door. It's almost pathetic to watch your own childhood dreams fade to reality- like a monochrome rainbow, with a pot of news papers at the end. All is not lost, my friends. As i am hopeful that this is merely a temporary slump.

Hell, I can feel my big toe already.

© blake jackson

Goat Farming Techniques of the Average Schmo

My brain's been smattered up like lightning in the lemonade.

If i could hold a steady thought for more than a few seconds, I'd stop. I'd press pause to this fast-forward hustle I've lived the past few weeks to smell a rose or someone like it. Maybe if I obsess myself with thought after thought after thought I won't have enough time to realize what has changed, what isn't here. So that's what I do every morning I wake up to try and escape the odorless creep that no one sees resting on my shoulders.

I thought about buying a goat today. Mainly because I love goat cheese. But everyone loves to rain on my one horse parade, and I forgot I'd need a few goats of several genders... and probably need to know how to make cheese. So is life. You can take one little thing that will make you happy, but once you have it, you realize it takes so many other things to sustain that happiness. I can't stop thinking is the problem. I want the clapper for my brain...

Clap- Clap.

© blake jackson

A metaphorical cloud of nails...

Somehow the swarm of jazz clefs and neon vibes traded themselves in for, what i would metaphorically express as, a stick of C-4 buried beneath boxes of 3" framing nails.

Last night, I spent 4 hours cranking out songs reminiscent of Grand Funk Railroad and "She's a Rainbow" from the Rolling Stones. Just music that begs for a united chorus of "La la" hippies. There was a looseness in my joints, a lightness of my brain, and all of it was ripped out in minutes by, of all things, words. The words that I have used in so many ways have come back to bite me square in the hind quarters and there's nothing I can do about it but sit and bitch in an online blog. Douggie told me to write, sorry it couldn't be a happier one bud.

God, I know I don't deserve it, but if you read my blog, would you mind sending me a metaphorical magnet for the nails?

© blake jackson

termites and tetherball...

The a/c is out.

Opportunity has presented itself.  And in 3 days, i will grab opportunity by the metaphoric testes and run until i fall down from exhaustion. Don't screw this up now.

  I have made a habit of striving to one up myself time and time again, the endless search to be happy that holds no end.  Regardless of me acknowledging that I do this, I just can't make myself not focus on the pressure.  Social studies fairs, you know it.  Golf lessons with Dad, you better believe it.  It was always in my mind that ,'I could have done that better.'  And the worst part about that statement is the truth that lies inside.  I can always say I did my best, but somewhere, one tiny corner was cut that could have made the difference.  (Namely my stubbornness in thinking that my way will be just a little bit better.) Even the tiniest corners.

With so much worry about failure, I hope my running skills have improved.  

Aside from that, it is toasty.  A nice screened in porch to sleep on would be amazing tonight.

© blake jackson

Bonzo's Montreaux

‘Sanctuaries’ 

Inspired by a line in TS Eliot’s “The Hippopotamus”

I.

The BROAD-BACKED hippopotamus 

Rests on his belly in the mud

and there are no golden reeds, flailing and

floating in dry winds. Nor the anomaly of such a 

beast silently stalking Nile waters. Only

the sounds of a man with shovel and pail, scooping his dung away. 

Tarka: the show pony ‘potamus. He tromps, stomps, dances,

stares, growls and grins.  Because it’s all

he ever knew. 

Wallowing the rust bucket current

like concrete pillars driving through

slush.  The elephants take note of

his graceful water waltz.  Tarka rumbles, bellows, spits,

smiles, trots and takes a bow. 

But all as it seems is not, some how.

In a 20 X 12 pen, no place to escape,

a chrome barred sanctuary for those

with no hope.  

II.

and there are no people in the stands, cheering

on tomorrow’s big leaguers.  Nor little boys

in left field making daisy chains. Only

clip-on ties and stained khaki slacks.

Impatient little hands pick their noses, ears and gum

from underneath the pews.  One 6 year old boy

on bended knees joins his hands, imitating his father.

He asks the Ceiling to forgive him for breaking 

a bathroom window with a baseball,

wondering if Jesus is listening now.

But all as it seems is not, some how.

On a long cushioned kneeler, he stares up above,

a stained glass sanctuary for those

with no hope.

  'Sanctuaries' was a poem I wrote in one of those spurts of voyage, where I felt I was caught somewhere, like Ms. Spears, between a boy and a man.  I could not make myself realize the importance of having the great Ceiling in my life.  I chose to post this work today, because I felt quite the opposite.  As I took the jeep on a 4 hour spin through backroads and unknown streets, I felt the smiley faces in my head take over.  With a heart of relentless loving and a stomach full of Ferttita's deli, it would have taken everything I had to restrain the grin on my face.  No particular reason, it just felt like a great day to be alive.

  So in this sanctuary of the hopeless, I cracked a beer and brushed off the notion that I was lost.  Maybe not found, but certainly not lost.

© blake jackson

the rediscovery of charted waters

  And at some point in time, it was just me, and the dirty red...  

  dirty red folded in 1/16ths, strapped tight to my forehead.  A bandana that has made voyage after voyage.  Revolving rainbows strobing in the glare of my half drunken eyes.  Somewhere in the experience, I just couldn't help but think, that in these Oxford streets, I was a King.  I had my friends, my health, my laughter, my half empty and luke warm brew. I stood on top of a falling mountain but if for only one second, I was a King.  

  Look in to the face of any man or any woman and find out who they are and then find out who they were or maybe who they want to become and if you fall in love then turn and walk away.  A pretty shitty philosophy but one I always find myself following.  Because I don't want to love and not be loved.  Probably the abyss of any ship is a long voyage that ends in nothing.  No treasure.  No amazing discovery. Just sand and palm trees and a parrot who is better off eaten than running his mouth.  (Not to glorify pirates, Somalians.)  But to take the voyage and find nothing is absolutely the worst.

  So i sailed off in a different direction.  One where I don't know if the treasure lies, but it would be better to stumble upon the 'X' than search and never find it.  And who knows, maybe a treasure once-found will find its way back to me.

dirty red was not retired, but is taking a hiatus.  saving energy for the next exploration.  

© blake jackson

it came from the sky...

     And I looked up, and I'll be damned if it didn't hit me square in the lightly flattened bridge of my nose.  

     I had kept the Big Man busy with a whole lot of request and He picked one, ran with it, and dropped the news on me just a few days ago.  The job market woe was put on pause for a bit of good news.  Problem is, I'm just comfortable.  I came back with intentions of leaving as soon as I could, but came to a point where I was comfortable.  I was comfortable surrounding myself with my family, even if it meant taking on the problems.  I was comfortable being with two old high school friends, years later, trying to find ourselves in the happy medium dividing reckless and responsible.  But trading my comfort in for a pair of walking boots is somehow exactly what I need.

     Life has proved to be a search for security.  I want the blanket.  And I will move ANYWHERE to find it.  But now that I've found it, I have to let it go.  

     So if you are reading, Big Guy, thanks.  You know how I like to keep it interesting.

© blake jackson