Monday, January 30, 2006

warehouse coffee

January 30, 2006: It's good to be alive and living in this strange time of the world, when the winter is making its way into spring. I've gotten some encouraging poetry from an old friend about how the vitality returns to the peoples faces as spring comes and the petals fall, and it surely will be a happy time, but there is always the sadness of remembering those who are no longer with us, and the people that are losing their minds in one way or another.

I remember a time when I was delivering pizzas:



delivering a pizza
to an industrial warehouse
the guys move slow
things are moving too slow
i can't see this or read it
one draws up a drink and pours
his hand is motionless
the drink pours in the cup
there is silence
they pay and I leave
and I think,
"that was something different."
as i drive home through the dark.



the world is moving slow and i wonder, is all lowercase the way to go, with frequent misspellings? Is there even a reason to spell things rite? Maybe I should just go on a big bad spelling kick and forget the whole thing. Then again, two birds fly by night and a big cat has just jumped across the table. My cup sits on the table. It says "corning glass words welcomes SWE", a commemorative type cup, I guess. It has the no-bullshit kind of form from the basic industrial type class person, but that may be some rampant idealization there, i might say.

Yes, it's true, I work at a bakery. Never mind which bakery. There is nothing so sensitive as bakeries. Lets just say that it is a certain bakery in this town that tends to be a quite large one and well known, but that is about all I have to say about the matter. No one could get me to tell anyone anything about which bakery it might be, because I just can't be sure who might be reading this, and we all know about the bloggers that got fired.

Sunday, January 29, 2006


"cherry blossoms fall and vitality of people is restored". Cherry blossoms are a symbol of spring in Japan. From a letter from my friend Toshiko. This is a very loose translation. I know it actually says "flowers fall, face color restored" Posted by Picasa

changing locations

most of my new posts will be at geocities.com/farrellc912 so look for me there at the bottom of the page

Thursday, January 26, 2006

portland stuff

sometimes i get confused and wonder what i should be doing, but those times usually work themselves out in the long run. I've had jobs where all I did was type numbers into a machine, but somehow the rhythm of typing in the numbers was sort of soothing. The trouble with all those jobs was hard to say. Maybe it was just me, but I remember one guy that was always going off about "black quarterbacks" and how he didn't like them. Talk about a stupid subject. That area in beaverton was also kind of hairy, weird people wandering around here and there. the bus system was terrible and it didn't have a lot to recommend about it. now they've extended the light rail, so the density has increased a bit, so it is a bit better than it was, but it still is pretty horrible in terms of strip malls and other eyesores. at the time I was sleeping on the floor in an apartment complex filled with scary people. On the other hand, a few good things were happening. For example, I recorded a few songs on tape. I would get up in the morning and saunter over to the health food store and get some organic coffee, and then come home, put it in my little hexagonal espresso maker, and brew some up and play wildly on my guitar. Yes, indeed, it was quite a place. Living on the other side of the river I would cross the bridge every day and look down at the water, and enjoy the old brick in the buildings here and there.


benton county courthouse Posted by Picasa

Monday, January 23, 2006


chair Posted by Picasa

from thus spake zarathustra

Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman-a rope over an abyss. A dangerous across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.
What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end; what can be loved in man is that he is an overture and a going under.
I love those who do not know how to live, except by going under, for they are those who cross over.
I love the great despisers because they are the great reverers and arrows of longing for the other shore.
I love those who do not first seek behind the stars for a reason to go under and be a sacrifice, but who sacrifice themselves for the earth, that the earth may some day become the overman's.
--from Thus spake Zarathustra

are there benefits to all lowercase? i guess the benefit is no extra shift key to hit. but the drawback? i don't see one. all lowercase looks cooler. But it might be harder to read.

Here's a little emily dickinson to liven up your day:

I cannot dance upon my Toes-
No Man instructed me-
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,

That had I Ballet knowledge-
Would put itself abroad
In Pirouette to blanch a Troupe-
Or lay a Prima, mad,

And though I had no Gown of Gauze-
No Ringleet, to my Hair,
Nor hopped to Audiences-like Birds,
One Claw upon the Air,

Nor tossed my shape in Eider Balls,
Nor rolled on wheels of snow
Till I was out of sight, in sound
The House encore me so-

Saturday, January 21, 2006


bilberry blows Posted by Picasa

poem-1995

You're handing me some forms to fill out
but are these the right forms?
if I fill out these forms, will I be okay?
How do I properly fill them out?
If I fill them in properly, what does that mean?
Things are proper and are made proper in the proper forms?
-by me

The world is a strange place, full of lengths of hope and strange gleamings and gleaning of knowledge from faroff places. Things seem somewhat the same, but so many years have passed, and many more will pass,....but finally the getup and the stairs have come to a landing, and the world moves, on , the lamp affixes its beam, and I can think enough to worry about good pens and finding a desk from which to write. It would seem to me that it would be okay to run my own translation business, focusing on japanese and arabic and that kind of thing, but actually that sounds kind of dull. I guess I really don't have much interest in doing much of anything other than sketching and karate, and writing long and disconnected sentences.
I was just starting out for a walk and the rain starts dumping down, which just figures. That's just the way it is, I would guess.
I was the smallest in the room...
I took the smallest chair
So positioned...
to catch the mint
that never ceased to fall
-dickinson

I continue to be amazed by the vision and durability of vision of Whitman. He really said it all about america, about the amazing possibilities of this country and each individual, and about individual freedom and living life to the fullest. His life wasn't particularly remarkable. He slowly got more crotchety, and spent most of his time partying, but he did work as a nurse in the civil war.

song of myself:

Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son,
turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking, and breeding,
No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them,
No more modest than immodest.

Unscrew the lock from their doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me,
And whatever is donw or said returns to me.

Through me the afflatus surging and surging, through me
the current and index.

I speak the pass-word primeval, I giv the sign of democracy,
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart
of on the same terms.

--this says it all to me. To accept nothing which any cannot have.

Friday, January 20, 2006


it's me! Posted by Picasa

Thursday, January 19, 2006

hair hangs straight down

What do you do when your hair hangs straight down?
what do you do? when you look around,
and the world seems flat?
when the engine starts and stops?
when the breeze blows from two directions?
when you stumble on a curb?
when you look at the sun, and it blinds you?
when your hand shakes from above the wrist?
what do you do? where do you go?
this only and all I ask of you; but
expect only the least reply
-by me 1995


It's funny how you often never know what older people are thinking. You get the feeling they may have gone through moments of huge significance which were not just wholly explainable.
So I try to just keep to myself and do what I can do. Luckily I have a simple any easily defined job at this point.

Monday, January 16, 2006

I know that I am. I know that another is who knows more than I, who takes an interest in me, whose creature, and yet whose kindred, in one sense, am I. I know that the enterprise is worthy. I know that things work well. I have heard no bad news.-thoreau

rilke poem

Because once someone dared
to want you,
I know that we, too, may want you.

When gold is in the mountain
and we've ravaged the depths
till we've given up digging,

it will be brought forth into day
by the river that mines
the silences of stone.

Even when we don't desire it
God is ripening
-rilke

If I had grown in some generous place--
if my hours had opened in ease-
I would make you a lavish banquet.
My hands wouldn't clutch at you like this,
so needy and tight.

Then I'd have dared to squander you,
you Limitless Now.
I'd have tossed you into the ringing air
like a ball that someone leaps for and catches
with hands outstretched.

I would have painted you: not on the wall
but in one broad sweep across heaven.
I'd have portrayed you brashly:

as mountain, as fire, as a wind
howling from the desert's vastness.
-rilke, book of hours, I,21

pure and empty heart

My great obligation is to obey God, and to seek His will carefully with a pure and empty heart. Not to try to impose my own order on my life but let God impose His, to serve his will and his order by ralizing them in my own life. This means certainly a deep consent to all that is actually and manifestly his will for me.
-thomas merton

-

God's love takes care of everything I do. He guides me in all my work and in my reading, at least until I get greedy and start rushing from page to page. It is really illogical that I should get temptations to run off to another monastery and to another order of monks. God has put me in a place where I can spend hour after hour, each day, in occcupations that are always on the borderline of prayer. There is always a change to step over the line and enter into simple and contemplative union with God.
-thomas merton

Yesterday, when I was reading in the cemetery, I thought how the silence you find in yourself, when you enter in and rest in God, is always the same and always new, even though it is unchanging. For that silence is true life and, even though you body moves around, you soul stays in the same place, resting in its life Who is God, now in winter just as it did before in summer, without any apparent difference, as if nothing had changed at all, and the passage of seasons had only been an illusion
-thomas merton

cults

I found out recently that a friend of mind had joined the Adi Da (Bubba Free John) cult, which is a nasty cult where the leader declares himself to be god. For that, I would just quote this from the Bible, Matthew 7:
"Watch out for false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but they are really like wild wolves on the inside. You will know them by their fruits. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a poor tree cannot bear good fruit. "Any tree that does not bear goof fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. "So, then, you will know the false prophets by their fruits."

Sunday, January 15, 2006

went for a walk up in the woods, found when we got back we needed a jump, and a girl drove up, got some forest people who appeared out of nowhere, they jumped our car and we were on our way. Life is strange and fascinating.


 Posted by Picasa

Lone Founts

Though fast youth's glorious fable flies
View not the world with worldling's eyes;
Nor turn with the weather of the time.
Foreclose the coming of surprise:
Stand where Posterity shall stand;
Stand where the Ancients stood before,
And, dipping in lone founts thy hand,
Drink of the never-varying lore:
Wise once, and wise thence evermore.
-herman melville

humor

A man journeyed to Chelm in order to seek the advice of Rabbi Ben Kaddish, the holiest of all ninth-century rabbis and perhaps the greatest noodge of the medieval era.
"Rabbi," the man asked, "where can I find peace?"
The Hassid surveyed him and said, "Quick, look behind you!"
The man turned around, and Ribbi Ben Kaddish smashed him in the back of the head with a candlestick.
"Is that peaceful enough for you?" he chuckled, adjusting his yarmulke.

Eternal Nothingness is Ok if you are dressed for it.

Yeats and Hygiene, A Comparative Study: The poetry of William Butler Yeats is analyzed against a background of proper dental care.


 Posted by Picasa

The earth does not argue,
Is not pathetic, has no arrangements,
Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise.
Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures,
Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.

The Confidence-Man, by Herman Melville

At sunrise on a first of April, there appeared, suddenly as Manco Capac at the lake Titicaca, a man in cream-colors, at the water-side in the city of St. Louis. His cheek was fair, his chin downy, his hair flaxen, his hat a white fur one, with a long fleecy nap. He had neither trunk, valise, carpet-bag, nor parcel. No porter followed him. He was unaccompanied by friends. From the shurgged shoulders, titters, whispers, wonderings of the crowd, it was plain that he was, in the extremest sense of the word, a stranger.
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excerpts from leaves of grass

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belong to me as good belongs to you.

I loaf and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents
the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.
-leaves of grass, walt whitman, 1855

How the flukes splash!
How they contort rapid as lightning, with spasms and spouts of blood!

Be at peace bloody flukes of doubters and sullen mopers,
I take my place among you as much as among any,
The past is the push of you, me, all, precisely the same.
And what is yet untried and afterward is for you, mee, all precisely the
same.


guitar and chair Posted by Picasa