Integration

I wear the garments of past transgressions

over wounds that festered

but still somehow healed,

covering recent scabs and scratches,

battle-scars that I no longer wear proudly.

I wear the garments proudly.

Reminding me that love permeates even madness,

that even the oozing of raged-filled thoughts

can be halted,

that disparate parts of oneself can be galvanized,

inspired to converse, to coalesce,

that even in what appears as utter chaos

one can chart a course,

non-linear, unpredictable,

but a course nonetheless,

that the destination of the present moment

can be found even in a mind distended

across generations.

Forge

a fluid mosaic

slapped onto a rusted iron anvil,

hammered down upon with increasing ferocity,

but it does not bend,

it does not splash,

it does not so much as move.

I try to make sense of it all,

of the reasons why I’ve done what I’ve done,

seeking some sort of underlying logic,

a noble, mysterious truth,

or perhaps just counterfactual justifications

overlapping simpler explanations,

a steel rod

that spends no time in the forge

cannot be manipulated by the blacksmith;

perhaps it is the same with any craft,

with even us artists,

who need time for pressure to build

before we can have a say

in the how and when of our creativity’s release

Stained Glass

through stained glass, peering

shades and hues that shift like the wind;

seemingly arbitrary directions to us,

mathematically precise according to

barometric laws,

pressurized systems of neural connections,

more complicated than Freudian hydraulics,

simpler than an fMRI scan

would have us believe.

the greens sometimes seem greener

when the sun shines brighter,

yet the lake feels warmer

after a cold rain

in a realm where logical formulas break down,

only keeping relevance insofar as they are applied

in perfectly appropriate fashion,

impossible when applied by imperfect creatures

trying to navigate the ocean,

trying in vain to predict the currents of the wind

Creation

that I might have the audacity to dream again,

something a man said about the audacity of hope

still echoes in my head,

something that the people embraced

but didn’t run too far with

perhaps it was just a seed

cast into the wind,

to land on either fertile soil

or solid rock,

a fate up to the currents of the air

that I might again give form to the formless,

mold from thoughts

something that can be heard, seen, felt,

even if when cast into the wind

it ends up being a pebble

flung into the ocean

at least I’d make a ripple,

at least I’d move matter,

at least I’d do something that could not otherwise

have been done

that I might find the will to create

again

Another excerpt from my first draft...

"Some of us become obsessed with controlling every aspect of ourselves as we strive for this distorted and impossible ideal of self-mastery. Adam and Eve covering their naked bodies in the parable of the Garden of Eden is a mirror of our modern sense of self-consciousness and our shame at the fact that we are, from a scientific perspective, biological organisms. Our obsession with self-control manifests itself in a sort of Freudian reaction-formation in regard to ourselves; we consume ourselves with activities and methods of distancing ourselves from whom and what we truly are. We cover our bodies with fashionable clothes, put make-up on our faces, colour and style our hair, spend hours body-building or tanning, or make sure we are seen with certain people, in certain places, and under certain circumstances to raise our esteem in the eyes of others. In essence, because we are so obsessed with controlling the ultimately uncontrollable facts about ourselves, we do everything we can that is within our control to compensate for our sense of powerlessness. And in doing so, we disregard vital aspects of our humanity and lose touch with our authentic selves."

Inspirational Words: E. E. Cummings

e. e. cummings was and remains to be one of the most well-known American poets of the 20th century. In addition to writing thousands of poems, he was an essayist, author, painter, and a playwright. He's written some of the most beautiful arrangements of words in the English language and a few of them are below.

Read. Feel. Be inspired.

So I'm writing a book...

As I've shared with some of you, I'm currently in the process of writing a book, tentatively titled "The Other Side of People." This book will be an amalgamation and synthesis of the knowledge, wisdom, experiences, and information I have accumulated over my lifetime. I don't want to say much more at this point, as much of it has yet to be written, but here is an excerpt from part of the first chapter of the first draft that I'm working on:

As human beings, we are not just biological organisms driven by survival-based motivations and needs to achieve homeostasis in our bodies. Nor are we merely vessels for thought, shells in which information is processed like a computer. We are not only waves of emotion being thrown about by the whims of external forces and internal pressures as we react to our environments. We are a synthesis of all these things and a multitude of other characteristics that make up the multifaceted existence and experience of being human. Most of all, we are persons; gestalts which are greater than the sum of the individual pieces of which we are composed and greater than the manner in which our parts are arranged. 

Stay posted for more updates.

Cocoon

Not everything that cocoons

becomes a butterfly.

A butterfly needs to undergo complete metamorphosis

at a cellular level,

each part of it transforming, shifting, changing,

in a delicate process that, if disturbed

can result in death.

People often enter cocoons of their own.

Sometimes it is necessary to cocoon,

to lose old ideas, beliefs, perspectives,

and gain new faculties and sensibilities;

to emerge with new possibilities for life.

But not every caterpillar that enters a cocoon

sprouts the wings it needs to fly.

ALL MUSIC NOW FREE

I want to give a sincere THANK YOU to everyone who's been supporting me, rocking with me, motivating me, encouraging me, inspiring me, and listening to my words and music over the past several years. As a token of gratitude, ALL of my music is now available for FREE download, including my latest EP, "the poet":

http://mcfubb.bandcamp.com/

Storm

like a branch that beats down

on a window pane in a storm,

threatening to  break it all –

shattered to pieces

like an unforgiving friend

who doesn’t want to hear apologies,

justifications or reason,

who just wants to know that you feel

as shitty as they do

liquid rock

searing over gray matter,

coursing through veins;

ashen trees with empty roots,

cracking at the seams,

brittle to the core

I will bend

but I will not break

against the weight of the storm

MLK Timeline

Check out this great, basic MLK timeline I got sent to me from www.onlinecollegecourses.com: