Elsewhere in Dreams

It comes out stilted
filtered & scripted
when I love you
when I’m happy.

I’m tempted to
borrow tragedy;
the red wall,
the long fall.

The long haul &
the don’t look back
are needle to the
plow to the groove:

peculiar music
of the pastoral
neatly tailored
plot I chose.

In spacetime you’re a four-
dimensioned dimple.
Quite a lot of maths,
but still quite simple.

Haloes when you grin,
there’s no denial.
Two worlds define the
edges of your smile.

The bird bursting from your chest
is a crow, is a dove;
to escape the amniotic cul-de-sac
you go widdershins:
anti-magic engine thrumming:
impossible gravitas.

The beam bursting from your head
is a particle, is a wave;
you are the collapsing form
I cannot unsee;
the antibody lives on:
unapproachable parallel.

Look to windward. There it is. Could have seen it coming; didn’t. Such is life. There it is again, and again, and again. Look to windward though eyes tear up. There is life there no imagination could devise. Look to windward though it is cold. Still there is life there. Least expected places always. Right?

This is how everything is. No shoulder for the pack; the pack is anyhow carried. Passive voice. Active voice. Does it matter? Maybe. Or not. Lack of pronouns. The actors are frozen in place; the board is set. Not playing but being played. Brief bursts of energy. Movement. Choice. Illusion?

Look to windward. Stand still. Wind moves. Or wind stands still. Who moves? Invisible hands; so many.

I would not open the door of your unhappiness unless
there were no other way into the storm, into the night.
I would not enter, myself and the air I bring with me,
into that empty room and stand in a sliver of light unless
there were no other way to gauge your melancholy.
I would not close it behind me unless all the other doors
came unlocked, so that I could test their weathers,
the bluster and shadow of their various altitudes.
I would not open the door of your unhappiness ever,
except to perch beyond it and tell you that the world
is a cold, dark place when you are missing.

Are you bursting with the life
suddenly inside you?
The oblique impossible cord
winding round and round the poles
will strap you down.
The many-fingered consequences,
the thumb-wrapped miniature fists
will be ballast.
The punishing weight of gravity,
the body of your body,
won’t topple you.

Are you bursting with day
suddenly from grey on grey half-life?
Tell me how this will and that will
not steal you.

If there’s one thing I love about living in 2010, it’s the internet. Specifically, I love the number of experts that you can find on any conceivable subject. If you want to find a new site devoted to some obscure technological artefact, it’s probably out there. If it isn’t, you can start it.

Of course, when you’re on the internet, your bullshit detector is set to full. You don’t believe everything you read. It’s just a bunch of people talking. You don’t believe everything a random collection of people say, and that’s true of the web.

Plus, when someone you recognise is constantly wrong, you can correct them in the comments–the internet likes to pretend to be interactive in at least the most perfunctory manner–or just ignore them completely.

This is one area traditional media can’t compete. In fact when you’re used to the internet way, the traditional media model seems not just obsolete but downright silly. These people positioned as guards at the gateway of information: Who are they? Who appointed them? Why do they get to be there? (Sidebar: The further inside the media establishment you look, the less you’ll respect it. There are few institutions that deserve the position of gatekeeper.)

For instance, you know something about technology. Yet you read an article in the newspaper about some technological artefact and you realise neither the reporter nor the editor understands it. They don’t get the most basic stuff about it. So you dismiss the article and turn the page and read someone going on about politics and never think that if they can’t understand something as simple as technology, how in the world could they understand something so complex as politics?

We all have this sort of blindness, a kind of amnesia. When you read Wikipedia, the editors are ruthless. If a statement is unsourced, they delete it or add a [citation needed] tag. Either way you know that the phrase is suspect. There’s also a strict rule against weasel words and things like that. Yet reading a newspaper is an exercise in find a phrase with a citation, or finding an article without weasel words. Traditional journalism is pathetic. You practically have to read between the lines to get an accurate idea of what’s actually happening.

Internet news sites get down to business. Items can’t be long, for both attention deficit and bandwidth reasons. If something is complete bullshit, someone will say something. Probably lots of people. Some are saying? Well… who? Links help build context. If you really need context–if you’ve come out of a coma recently–you can follow the links or quickly google the subject at hand.

So why do we treat internet news sources as inferior to traditional new sources? Why do we assume a higher standard of truth–after all, journalistic convention is about better truth, right? I can’t see many downsides here. And I think traditional news media are scared of the internet not simply because it’s a different medium. The news media adjusted well enough to radio and television, after all. It’s because it’s a totally different way of interacting with news. I don’t need a 500 word article that contains context, quotes, and supposedly neutral blather. I need a basic summary, some links, and a well-thought-out commenting forum.

That’s going to be a shock for most short and long form journalists, and their editors. There will always be a place for investigative journalism and long human interest stories. But news? Nah.

Rush – Test For Echo
Newsboys – Take Me To Your Leader
The Decemberists – The Tain
Air – Talkie, Walkie
The Cansecos – Self-Titled
Wilco – Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
The Flaming Lips – Flight Test
Xiu Xiu – Fabulous Muscles
My Bloody Valentine – Loveless
The Echoing Green – Supernova
Mortal – Nu-En-Jin
Van Halen – Balance
BB King – Blues on the Bayou
Benny Goodman – Greatest Hits
Audio Adrenaline – Bloom
Audio Adrenaline – Some Kind of Zombie
Bright Eyes/Son, Ambulance – Oh Holy Fools
Hillsong United – Look to You (CD + DVD)
Hagood Hardy – Alone
Jars of Clay – Much Afraid
Jars of CLay – Self-Titled
Jamie Cullum – Twentysomething
Robbie Williams – Swing When You’re Winning
Dashboard Confessional – MTV Unplugged
Newsboys – Step Up to the Microphone
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
British Sea Power – The Decline of British Sea Power
Third Day – Wherever You Are
Boston – Don’t Look Back
Deep Purple – Perfect Stranger
Mr Big – Self-Titled
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Legend
Nazareth – No Vibe
Deep Purple – Purpendicular
Aerosmith – Nine Lives
Europe – The Final Countdown
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Slow Riot for the New Zero Kanada EP
Russel Watson – Encore
Sev Static – Speak Life
Cadet – Cadet
Starflyer 59 – I Am The Portugese Blues
Boards – Geogaddi
The Rapture – Echoes
The White Stripes – Elephant
Listener – Whispermoon
Jars of Clay – Who We Are Instead
The Shins – Chutes Too Narrow
The Decemberists – Castaways and Cutouts
Grandaddy – Sumday
Silver Mt Zion – This Is Our Punk Rock
Explosions in the Sky – Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell the Truth Shall Live Forever
Coldplay – Parachutes
Derek Webb – The House Show
Explosions in the Sky – The Earth is Not a Cold Dead Place
DC Talk – Jesus Freak
The Unicorns – Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone

When she was in the garage she tried to kiss me one last time
where I had kissed the time I spent on fixing you goodbye.
And in her tart saliva I could taste your coming bitterness
but I didn’t mind. I’d already left you behind.

The cataclysm came much quicker that I’d ever thought.
A question split the cord, confession twisted in knots.
From your metalic tears I mind the iron for a battleship,
but you didn’t fight. You’d already left me behind.

And in a week on Hilton Head, the water taught me how
salt water can cleanse, or it can break a building down.
In the morning light I eyed the shore to find the ediface,
but I couldn’t find a single spire left behind.

Like newborn day, like epitaph.
Like a dream forgotten, how it passed.
These better angels welcome home,
from empty tombs, oh how they’ve flown.

Still, sometimes I forget the words reversed and upside down.
A child so badly written you can’t help but help it drown.
But from those jumbled letters I’ve assembled something wonderful.
Something all mine that I can’t leave behind.

I’ve seen you almost crying, walking to the car.
I’ve watched you slowly dying while I played guitar.
You asked me if I’d play you that simple song,
but I don’t dare play it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

You told me that you loved me; I knew what you meant,
but I can’t help imagining what might have been,
if only I had told you I was on the edge.
But I don’t dare say it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

I’d take away your pain if you’d ease my regret,
with some whisky in a bottle and some cigarettes.
We could laugh about nothing. That’s as good as it gets.
But I don’t dare repeat it, cause you’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.

I know that this is crazy, but I’ll toe the line,
in order to feel something, and to pass the time.
Keep telling me “never”. I don’t mind.
I just can’t believe it. You’re the kind of girl
I could fall in love with.