THE MISADVENTURES OF AN ESOTERIC INVESTIGATOR
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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 03:08 pm

For my chemistry class (a non-major chemistry class, which I am beginning to regret taking) I have to do a project on three elements. One of the things that I needed to do for this project was "something creative - a poem, collage, song, etc... yours or someone else's."  So, rather than dig around the internet for a poem about tin, tellurium, or xenon, I wrote one.  It's not exactly about tin, but it plays a prominent part.




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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 09:48 pm

Here is the last poem I did for this semester. Some of you may recognize parts of it. At one time it was two separate poems and then I used both of them in a short play I wrote and then I took this part of the play and turned it back into a poem. How's that for plasticity in art!

Aquatic )


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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 09:14 am

The last poem for my creative writing class is a prose poem and of all of my projects this semester, this I am least content with.  Maybe you will think differently.

SATURDAY )

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Monday, April 6th, 2009 10:25 pm

This week's theme was the use of sound.  This is my result:

HUNTING )

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Saturday, March 28th, 2009 08:12 am

This week the assignment was to write a poem inspired by a Weekly World News headline. The headline I received was: GOD'S AUTOGRAPH SELLS FOR $500 MILLION. This is the result:

FOR SALE: TETRAGRAMMATON )

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Monday, March 23rd, 2009 10:55 pm

For the second assigned poem in my creative writing class, we each had to bring in a small object which we were willing to give away forever, something that had a story behind it - something meaningful. We had to go to the front of the class, hold up our object, tell its story and then whoever wanted it has to "bid" by giving a reason why they wanted it.

An older woman in my class stood up and offered a metal bookmark with a green string. She said that she is very organized, knows where everything is, knows where everything came from and who gave it to her and that she was giving away the bookmark because it didn't have a story. She didn't know where it came from, it didn't mean anything and she didn't want it.

Naturally, I was the only person who bid on it.

So, I've been thinking about this for over a week now, trying to write a poem about it. Under the cut is the result.

But first, the bookmark:



NOTHING )

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 09:25 am

For the remainder of the semester, we will be writing poetry in my creative writing class. I may have mentioned I am not terribly excited about this, but am going to muster as much enthusiasm as I can. Especially in light of the fact that some people in the class, and one in particular that I'd like to boot upside the head, keep whining about how much they hate poetry and "the grotesqueries of the subjective."

The first assignment was a first-line swap.  We wrote the first line of a poem and then the whole class basically randomly traded.  The line I got was "Tonight, dinner can't come soon enough."  Below the cut is my result:


This is Poem Number One )


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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Saturday, March 8th, 2008 10:15 pm

i walked through
puddles
of melted ice on sun-warmed
concrete
and saw the sky
reflected in each
and so i strolled
through heaven stepping
lightly
from cloud to cloud.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 11:28 am

over breakfast she said:
"you are like a river in winter;
you look solid,
stable, and
unmoving
but under the surface
you are running away."

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Saturday, January 12th, 2008 10:28 pm

i was mesmerized this morning
by the shadow of snowflakes
as they
fell under the street lamp
and for a moment
i saw
a balance;
particles of light
dancing through the air
mirrored
by dark photons playing
on the pavement.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Saturday, October 6th, 2007 11:50 pm

sometimes
i feel perfect
and other times
i feel
another existential crisis
coming on.

or
maybe its ennui
or
my saturn return
or
a mild depression
brought on by
seasonal affectiveness
disorder
as the days
grow shorter.

or perhaps
i am just pissed
at my neighbor
who honks
his car horn
at 5 am.

but i am thinking
(which is different from
feeling)
that this is
natural
growing pains
not physical
(my knees don't hurt)
but mental
and
spiritual
(my head hurts)
so
when i am done
i will be
perfect
again.

or
so I fool myself.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 11:16 pm

i hate
to start sentences
with i
because it feels
indulgent
to talk about
myself.

i have
spent too much time
breeding
anti-egotism
and thus negating
myself.

i think
the reasons are obvious
because
the ego is the focus
of our consciousness
and we set the
aperture
so small.

i fear
i am frightened
i am afraid
of thinking
of being
tiny
alone
and
only
myself.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Wednesday, July 18th, 2007 10:06 pm
misunderstood

he was talking over her
babbling, explaining.

she screamed.
"I'm an ocean, goddammit!"

he stopped, halted, confused.
"what?"

she said-
"but all you want to do is build castles in the sand
and leave footprints in the surf."

she walked out
and
closed the door.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Monday, June 4th, 2007 07:54 pm

so many lives
washed under the tide
of a history
they will never
survive.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Monday, April 16th, 2007 01:43 pm

i have discovered
that angels don't understand
the turning of the tides
and God misunderstood
the movement of the stars
so when he created
the heavens and the earth
he had no idea
his horoscope said
it would be a bad week
for new endeavors.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Saturday, September 30th, 2006 12:09 am

i am writing about writing,
which is a writer's cop-out
or maybe the only insight
i'm allowed.

my throat hurts and everything is broken.
sleep is only an enemy
for those who have forgotten
how to receive it as a friend.

this is the fourth poem.
the others have been erased
but their ghosts still linger,
invisible to the blind.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Friday, August 11th, 2006 11:15 pm

Some of my favorite poems from this past year...

haunting

I saw a ghost today
not real
but
metaphorical
like the spectre
of an ex
still rattling
chains
and
moaning
spooky music
at all your favorite
downtown
haunts.


inadequate

some poets write
of skies
and dirt
leaves and trees
of mothers and earth
of beauty
with eyes clear
peeled
for the truth of nature
and I sit in the cube
of my telephone job
with the stale air
and dirty keyboards
and ergonomic chairs
and I wonder
what I would write
if I were outside
and life didn’t require
a paycheck from me.


ironic patriotic

i saw an american flag
while waiting for the bus
high on a pole
in the winter-whipped weather
it snapped and rolled
with pornographic abandon
and i watched
joyously
but with remorse
at its tattered edges
frayed and unraveling
and i thought
"how apropos"
which means appropriate
but pronounced differently
it means to take exclusively
for oneself
without permission
and i thought
"that's apropos too"
considering our history
and how we got
that fucking flag
in the first place.


charles baker hennington

charles baker hennington
is a name i just made up
because lies are cheaper
than a drive to the shelter
to donate blood for love
like a junky craving smack
in a blackened back alley
with ten-penny whiskey
and his flack jacket on
because his name this day
is charles baker hennington
i just made him up and
gave him life and breathed his soul
to say hello and let you know
someone is listening.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Thursday, July 20th, 2006 11:53 pm

i am no longer in the mood for rum
nor the compacted pressured poison
of hard alcohol.

a life of tiny challenges
like lipstick on a sleeve
or maddened monkeys mating
high above the trees.

it is a dismal place
where hope cannot reach
but mystic's missing baloney
works just as good as bleach.

beyond these shores is a tree
of the fruit that adam never took
or so did he let eve believe
so he took one bite
and left her behind
the world never recovered.

random thoughts
i spit them out
no plan, no poise
in any direction that i please-
the divine oaks will grow
in chaos' dreaming patterns
and later they will be removed
because they block the traffic.

i miss my sleep
i miss my bed
and the girl that lies within in
so i will leave
interrupt her read
and lie down in it.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Friday, July 14th, 2006 11:36 am

Today is my birthday as some of you may already be aware, and some have made such vocal proclamations that I am in awe as of how to respond to such enthusiasm.

I will spend the day doing laundry and cleaning the apartment.  We're still in shambles since returning from vacation.  Our lax in cleanliness was compounded by the garbage disposal going haywire, spewing it's contents, rather than down through the pipes to wherever it goes, up through the drain in the other half of the sink.  Not a pretty site, let me tell you.  Thankfully we have an amazing landlord who came by and fixed it yesterday, even cleaning the sink for us.

However, when we came home, the light switch knob was missing and two pictures were off the wall.  I can't decide if someone slammed a door upstairs, we have a rambunctious cat, or perhaps a pesky poltergeist.  Yes, I ranked them from most likely and least interesting to least likely and most interesting.

Inspired by [info]anomalon's shameless birthday whoring, I will post my gifty-gift wishy-list for all to see and snicker.

Later on I will go pick up an Xbox and a few games for Ethan's birthday, which is on Sunday.  He was born two days after I turned 18, the summer of my high school graduation.  Almost a birthday present.  Almost.  His mother's birthday is July 9th.  Her mother's birthday is July 9th.  And the grandmother's birthday is on July 9th as well.  Something like three generations of them with the same birthday.  Weird.

So yes, that makes me, Ethan and his mother all Cancers.  Weirder.

Jacquelyn has promised me a scrumptious birthday dinner which should be exactly as I described it, scrumptious.  She also got me a gift despite my whining pleas for her not to.  Of course she didn't listen to me.

A lot has changed since my last birthday.  I've moved, I've vacationed, I've started dating a beautiful, wise, intelligent, spiritual and occasionally infuriating woman.  (That's not a cut, a good thing.  Here's some Bright Eyes lyrics to prove it... A good woman will pick you apart/A box full of suggestions for your possible heart/But you may be offended and you may be afraid/But don’t walk away, don’t walk away.)  In a way, Saturn has already been working its solidifying magick all year, bringing together all the elements of my life into a cohesive, supportive whole which will propel me like a rocketship straight into the future.

As of 4:13am, I am twenty-nine years old.  This is the age many women stay for another ten years or so.  For me, it's a strange birthday.  It is the year Siddhārtha Gautama set out on his quest.  It is the year of the Saturn Return.  It is the last year before I hit the legendary three-oh.  They say thirty is the new twenty, but you know what?  I don't want to be twenty again.

Apparently, I'm going to write a poem.
i want to dance with windows wide open
a shivering breeze on duck pond skin
erases stale air from this ancient site
where i have built my house, my home
from the shambles of youth and arrogant tides
and the heart's investment in something unrealized
a dance
a breeze
a stone
a whirlwind of ambition solidifies
crystallized in a single moment
the space of sight and the sound of time
bringing me one step closer
one chorus, one meter, one note
one sacred harmony reverberating.
I think that's all for now.

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jackshoegazer
jackshoegazer
Yes, Jack Shoegazer!
Thursday, April 27th, 2006 04:36 am

Because this veil it has been lifted, my eyes are wet with clarity.
The world is a flurry,
A rambled, ransacked fury,
Disproportionate in length, desperate in breadth,
Base, mundane, with a squeaky, polished shine.
All surface, no depth,
No meaning but what we make,
Like a cake with no birthdays
Anniversaries or holidays to celebrate.
This is my last night as a vampire, my last night as a moonchild.  My last night of lunacy.  At least this particular brand of 3rd shift lunacy.

Starting tomorrow, which is really today, I am free from the confines of my employer for the next six days.  On May 3rd, I return to work as a creature of the sun, a child of Sol.  During the interval, I must finish packing, move, buy and move new furniture, and dance with the devil in the pale moon light.

Oh shite, who let Meatloaf in there?

My dear Jacquelyn has gotten sick again, this time contracting the stomach bug that my roommate was suffering from this past weekend.  I, again, am the sole survivor, somehow naturally immune to the spreading affliction that plagues my home like zombies after a meteor landing.  I played the role of good boyfriend, took care of her between fits of napping, went to the store to get the medicinal staples of stomach issues, saltines and ginger ale.

I have to make up for all the times I’m a crabby, grouchy bastard.

There was so much I wanted to say before I started typing and now it’s gone the way of the Studebaker.  Only found as reproductions in the back lots of movie studios for period pictures.  Of course that analogy doesn’t quite link up because that would mean that the rest of this post could be found in Los Angeles.

Which I can assure you, it cannot.

I finished The World According to Garp last night.  It was quite good, though it was no Owen Meany.  Owen really meant something to me, I’ve come to realize.  While Garp was in a way, more biographically parallel to myself, Owen fulfilled that profound human need to connect to something bigger than ourselves, the belief, the desperate, dangerous need to believe that our lives have direction and purpose.

When we lost Owen, we lost that purpose, a perfect loop, a perfect chain, the joy and sorrow of something beautifully burning out.  The absolute divine ecstasy that can only be found when one has completely exhausted one’s potential, completed one’s orbit.

Which is our purpose, after all.
Sometimes I think,
All we really want -
Our heart’s desire
Our soul’s entire
Plan, plot, scheme, and dream
Is to get home.
But like the factory
Of dear Mr. Wonka,
One must go forward to get back
Endlessly, endlessly
A never-ending track
That winds and whines and dines
To eternity and back
Veil to veil
A bigger picture
A better love
A deeper depth
To be and become
What we were in the beginning,
One.

Charles Baker Hennington was a humorless man who did not writhe in desire at his peripheral notoriety.
There is nothing left but sleep in my veins, a dumb, thumping pulse I write to suppress.
The people talking around me are driving me crazy.  I can’t write when they’re talking.  I can rarely write with television, movies or music playing.  I think I finally understand the writer’s need for solitude.  Which, of course, doesn’t explain J.K. Rowling who writes the Harry Potter books mostly in a café.

Each unto their own.  Life.  Path.  Orbit.  Spark.
The sleep falls like a curtain.  Some light still comes in.
I’ve seen the day of your awakening, boy, and it’s coming soon.

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