Tag: Poetry
Musical Demo: Picture Perfect (aka Picture Perfect Love Affair)
In the late 1990’s I was a poet and lyricist first and foremost. You can find some of the poetry I wrote and have written over the years on the site (click the writing tab above and move down to the poetry selection). That’s not the point though. One poem I wrote, just a lyrical mash-up inspired a bit by Green Day, was “Picture Perfect Love Affair”, a crazy guy in love with a girl in a photo. In fact, that story sort of mocks me at the time, as girls from High School still mattered, and I only had their photos to look at.
Years later, I forget when exactly, I had a little edit of the poem. “Edit” being the addition of a chorus to use between stanzas:
It’s a picture
Picture perfect
Picture perfect love affair
It’s a real simple build up and filler but it does the job that is expetec of it – it moves you forward and transitions you.
The summer of 2016 had me meet (online and off) Nick from the Pretty Voices. At one point or another I ran lyrical verse past him in a conversation and lo and behold, Nick delivered a demo of my work.
As it stands right now, I don’t think the Pretty Voices are going to record this thing, but it IS nice to have something I wrote put to music.
The weight of their worlds
Lay their hardships unto me
Their doubts, their fears
Their degradations
Lay their weights upon my shoulders,
Threats and harms
Leave them be
Steer them straight, right, and true
Deliver from evil
And to the promise of the now
Yes, lay their hardships unto me
And through my suffering
Spare them all
A word’s worth is subjective
Last night I started mucking around with a challenge that I had not partaken in for quite some time. Not a challenge, per se, but an investment in my thoughts and creativity that I have dedicated elsewhere for a while.
I wrote a poem. Actually, two poems, but that’s besides the point. The last poem I had written was back in March or April. Before that? January. And before that? I can’t recall.
And yet, getting through the words, stringing things together and painting a picture of thought and emotion… well, I had doubts… Doubts that I’d done the job, doubts that I veiled things enough to not seem obvious, doubts that I had crafted a narrative that made sense in constructing a scene and building a message.
Doubts that I could get a reaction from anyone I shared this with.
A gun-shy poet. That’ll never work.
What it’s worth is purely subjective, as the poem itself will say. That applies to more than just writing, but people and things.
Waiting for Her Word
It’s been months since I posted anything on my personal blog here. Where am I? Is this sitei site dead?
I’m busy more often than not, and no – the Stonegauge is not dead. Â Just dormant. Â When I have been writing lately, it’s been personal and it’s been in the mail (didn’t I once say that it’s great getting letters in the mail?)… Â That or I am doing hockey stuff.
This off-season has afforded me more time for myself (which has been a good and bad thing). Â I’ve found escape in writing, an ability to immerse myself in a thought or idea, or a feeling and a story. Â It’s like a release, as it used to be when I would write a real good poem that conveyed something creatively.
Oh, I’m still doing poetry too. Â Just not much of it, thanks. Â That’s what this post is – a poem. Â Something I wrote a few months ago for an absent face.
The Unpublished Works
Everyone likes seeing their name in print.
Well, unless of course it’s trash tabloid-ism or an arrest warrant… But I’m not talking just-printed-on-paper but I mean a by-line of one sort or another. I can say that from experience as I’ve gotten that kick — seeing “John Fontana” linked to letters-to-the-editor, or being sourced/interviewed by USA Today, being quoted in The Hockey News, The New York Times Slap Shot blog and la-de-da.
But I can also say that wasn’t where I intended to go with writing when I started out as a kid. My intention wasn’t to be a face-in-the-crowd (though no matter what you write or publish, you are another face in the crowd of literature) in the newspaper. Not another source for magazines and what not. Not a weblogger. I planned on doing things creatively and having my own book. Or books — plural. Take your pick.
But that never happened. See, when i was a teen I got away from story writing so much and was writing poetry most of the time… a habit that’s followed me into adulthood. Lyrical verse more-so than deep observations and perspectives.. Well, yeah they are perspectives but they are my perspectives. Sometimes just pop, sometimes inspired by events or people or feelings in my life.
Over the years, I’ve had some of them available to the masses through the web… Certainly you can find a couple of them on this site and probably elsewhere on the web… But they’ve never really been published in the sense of print. Never published in the sense of being out there for any traditional form of mass consumption. I haven’t bothered to take the time with sending out poems to magazines who have niches all of their own (and aren’t available unless you pay for a subscription or pay for a copy — while you’re not getting paid for your contribution).
I ought to put together a manuscript and do something with it. But I’m hesistant.
Catherine Durkin Robinson, local blogger and Creative Loafing contributor, has written two book manuscripts. Her first one is being published, chapter-by-chapter, on a blogspot site. The other, a more recent work based on her life as a teacher in Hillsborough County, is being sent around to literary agents in hopes someone will pick up the work and mass-market it. Sadly, that has not been the case and the rejections have been comical at best.
Their loss. I’ve read the book and it’s not only a good read, it’s provocative and controversial enough to be read widely by those fearing school-district scandals.
I also have another friend, in the Pacific Northwest this time, who went out and self-published her first novel. The book, Steel Goddesses, is currently available on Amazon.com for purchase. It takes a lot of courage to go out on a limb like that and self-publish any work… But it sort of cuts out the middle-man of having to appease literary agents who tell you what a proper market for your writing is-or-isn’t and tells you to change your work to fit that niche. At least that’s what I’ve seen with rejections served up to Catherine.
So the idea I am kicking around is actually putting together a manuscript of poetry I’ve written over the past decade and self-publishing it. I realize that poetry is not exactly a hot seller and not going to lead me to riches… It’d cost me more to publish than the commissions I’d get in the long run from doing it… But it does what I have long sought to do — take the writings jammed in Mead notebooks that I’ve carried around since High School and take some of those verses and show them to the masses. Will people connect? I have doubts. Will strangers read what I’ve written? Even more doubts… But it’s mine, and it’d be out there. My claim. My piece of literature.
My book.
It’s a thought, at least.
This Bitter Month
Boring weekend with too much downtime and the end result is me posting a poem I meant to keep private. Yeah, Kate, you can get on my ass for being a morose m’fer (as you did last time 😉 ) but I thought this was good even if it was muy triste.
Uninspiring: Let Me In
It’s been a long time since I wrote anything rhyme-based. In fact, despite all the hurt and emptiness — I haven’t been inspired to write shit. Usually the hurt, the pain, the anguish, the longing… It all drives me to write. It (or usually the source of everything inside) becomes a muse. I’ve had some great muses in my time (I’m talking people here, not instances of anguish) where the longing was what drove me to scrawl out lines of internal conflict and what not. Three above the others. And one trumps all.
It’s odd, though, that Current Source has inspired almost nothing for me. Here and there? Yeah. But nothing profound… The only poem that I had written was months old.
While I like the rhyme and the declaration — which goes beyond the obvious call for someone to drop their emotional wall and let someone “in” — it was foreshadowing of sorts. A warning sign I kept ignoring.
Slowly, Her Name Fades Away
Well, the daylight slips away,
And I start to forget her name
She loved me for such a long, long time
Unlike any other lover of mine
She was so different,
But in the end, the same
Slowly, her name fades away
Our time just passed,
I thought it’d last
But my mistake …
She’s one and the same.
Well, she couldn’t cope,
A lover on a rope
So I must say,
Her name fades away
It’s guaranteed
That her and me
Would have run away some day
But as time went by,
That thought did die,
And our love passed on a Wednesday
Miracles forge —
and also disrupt
Slowly, her name fades away
What she meant to me,
I now can’t comprehend
I thought it was love everlasting,
At the end, it was just make pretend
Our love was once a fantasy,
A tale that I did once believe
But it’s sad to say, she’s gone away
Slowly, her name fades away
©1998 John P. Fontana
Poetry
Since my sophomore year in High School back in 1994 I’ve done my share of writing rhyming verse and what one may or may not call poetry. Some of the following prose was written between 1994 and the present. Some are romance, some are broken hearts, some are stories, some observations, some just nutty. It’s subjective if any of them are good or not…
- Aspirations of Romance
- A Time to Every Purpose
- At Loss to More
- Be Honest With Me
- Crimson Crown
- Deception
- I’ve Lost You Again Today
- Letter
- Losing Hand
- Lost Inside
- My One
- Never Gonna’
- New Found You
- On Your Mind
- Picture Perfect Love Affair
- Ripped from a Soft Womb
- Scoreless
- Slowly, Her Name Fades Away
- Yer Ono Blues
- … [More to be listed]
On your mind
I don’t know how often other people do this but I always get curious about other people’s thoughts — thoughts involving me, thoughts involving others and such. While opinions and perceptions can come off hurtful when you hear them – they can also raise you up to new heights.
But the one that always gets me is when I hear someone dreamed of me. Me! I was on someone’s thoughts enough that I ran through their mind… Even if I had nothing to do with the underlying fabric of what went on in the dream and the psychology of what happened (dreams have a great wide amount of meanings)… It’s just special to know that the thought was there.
So here’s my next one — yeah, a little verse on this St. Valentines Day… Inspired by the ones on our minds.
On Your Mind
When last was I
A Sight for sore eyes?
The last time you
Longed my hand?
When last was I your
Knight in shining armor,
Your prince,
Your noble man?
When last did I
Paint a picture
That made you melt because
You were my muse?
When last did I
Earn your undivided attention
While we discussed the
Front page news?
When last did my thought
Earn your affection
Because of the joy
That I bring?
When last did we
Fly through the heavens,
Together —
In the night
While you slept,
And you dreamed?
© 2007 John Fontana
Note to self — if you gotta blog, blog here
You know, I get my thoughts out pretty well on here. It might be snipping about personal matters, it might be poetry, it might be just re-listing song lyrics (which seem to be popular with the Search Engines) or quoting movies. Whatever the case, I blog here not-so-much but I do blog here from time to time.
I also blog elsewhere… And tonight I figured I would blog on DFA-link int he Pinellas County DFA group about my fondness for Al Gore and how I am holding out for him to enter the 2008 Presidential primaries.
The only thing I didn’t expect when I blogged this was the fact the post was going to get wider exposure than what I was aiming for. Much wider. Hugely wider.
Blog for America front-paged wider.
More than three years ago, I never would have dreamed in my wildest imagination that I would be featured on the front page of Blog for America — the then-It blog of the Howard Dean for President campaign. Dean failed in his attempts, but he founded Democracy for America in an effort to organize Democratic support better. Blog for America lived on and is still highly thought of on the liberal/progressive blogosphere.
And at 11:45 PM ET, on February 12th 2007 — yours truly has made it to the front page. Whodathunkit?
Incomplete or not, here it comes…
I started writing this one months ago while someone was kvetching to me in the usual disrespectful “you’re there while I need you” manner and gave me a little vision during it.
So one good thing came from my sap act:
Dance of the Ages
Dancing barefoot in the grass
Gypsy woman reflects the ages
Curly hair tied back with rags
The melody makes love to her
Fabric waving through the air
Her dress flaps loose, without a care
Playing on the tamborine
And watchers heeding her every move
Gypsy woman lives on the road
No roots or ties, she knows no home
Her band of gypsies come and go
Strangers eyes are her closest friend
Night falls and the music ends
She washes, naked, at the rivers edge
Pale moonlight bathes her in a glow
She longs for the throes of passion
Day comes and the troop pushes forth
On their course, their road heads north
Gypsy woman heeds that cry
Somewhere new, there’s a strangers eye —
To captivate and to alure
A lovers gaze, a young man’s urge
To tease and taunt through her dance of ages
She lures them to her like cats to string
© 2007 John Fontana
More poetry
On a creative tear.
Moral Suicide
What is a standard worth
When you are
Unhappy in life under it?
What is a principle worth
If it keeps you alone
Day-dreaming of a bliss that
Isn’t real?
The rules and laws
You set for yourself
Are made to be broken —
–unless you dread where
Life will lead
Without them
Unhappiness is a constant,
When longing an unattained goal
Which amounts to the
Standard practice
Of my life
© 2007 John Fontana
H-L-Z
Untitled
All I can do is watch you from
Afar
Your blonde hair
Shifting with the breeze –
Willow branches taunted by the
Throes of air as it bows and
Sways where and when
The hidden forces will it
All I do is admire you from
Afar
Smile darting and mischievous
Gleeful
Youth and happiness
Escaping into a
Cynical world
Anarchy and confusions
Life as we both know it
All I can do is endeavor into your
World
Mysteries of your being —
Auroras in the heavens
Blazing and dancing
Wonderment, allure,
Compelling me to try,
Try,
Try again
All I can do know you through my
Reverie
Out of reach, out of knowing
Out of a solution to the confusions
That find me enamored by you
Knowing nothing is a bliss
Having nothing — torture
Yet having this dream spoiled
Having the answers
May just extinguish the
Artistic maelstrom
Your palette paints into my
Soul
Light My Fire — no, put it out. Please.
It’s been a while since I decided to read any non-ficiton. Usually it’s biographical works on icons of the Entertainment industry (ie: Beatles or the Doors). Keeping with that trend, I decided to pick up Ray Manzarek’s Light My Fire, it’s a Doors autobiography I’ve been meanign to read for some time.
And yet, as I’m still in the early areas of the book, I’m trying to understand why I thought it was a must read? Probably because of all the positive reviews of the book when it originally was released. Can’t be bad at all then, can it?
From a writing standpoint, it can be all that bad. And worse. Though Manzarek has a unique perspective on his tail…. He’s not a writer.
The book comes off much like a personal journal would, I guess… Reporting the mundane as well as the gripping, life-altering events of Ray’s life… But Manzarek loses focus and direction on any given topic quite easily. At one moment he’s about to discuss finding a live performance of the Blues in the south side o fChicago, and the next moment he’s rambling about attire he wore to graduation from the 8th grade…. One moment he’s about to get into his first exposure to Beat poetry, the next he’s laying the smackdown on facism and intimidation of the California Highway Patrol. He goes off on the broadest tangents and does not focus on the event that inspires the tangent thought.
Another instance of Ray veering wildly is a recounting of Jim Morrison’s UCLA film school student film… While trying to detail Jim’s non-linear movie that Rya found “poetic”, he begins recounting Oliver Stone’s version of the student film that he made as part of his feature film on the Doors. Ray goes off on Oliver for makign an innocent film into something with anti-semitism and Nazi inneundo. He attacks Stone (as he has since the film came out in the early 1990’s) and lets the UCLA film school experience vanish from the story.
It almost comes off like a conversation — one that varies wildly as those who partake in the conversation ramble on into the night. Yet, having to read this conversation is painful… Especially with gramatical errors of repeated run-on sentences, short sentences that woudl be better combined, repetition of adjectives, etc….
Ray’s book, while from the heart, has nothing on John Densemore’s Riders on the Storm autobiography.,
Enter the poet; “Socially Inept”
Barrier
In an Information Age
Where knowledge roams free
And technowledgy rules
Wall
Srutting and fretting
An hour on stage
The flock of seagulls committee
Is cammanded by the ignoramous
Made to feel worse by those who care the most
Third verse
Third wheel
Cursed in a rambling ode of
Outsider Syndrom —
And unrequested serving
At a humble establishment
© 2005 John P. Fontana
For postierity
I wrote this poem with one person in mind and it’s odd that it has come true in every faccet.
….well, almost everything… until now.
Things might just be a scare but if not, it’s a serious issue has come up that coudl force a loss…. And no offense, but you were bound for it… Just because you reap what you sow.
Wedding Gift
So Josh and Michelle are getting hitched Sunday and now that I have some time to cram on the gift — I’m hitting a wall creatively. Not hitting a wall but my first intuition is that the poem I was going to give them, framed and with art, isn’t going to cut it.
I originally wrote this thing with a girl named Jamie Rose and her boyfriend from High School in mind. I wrote it because I felt guilty for having a crush on the chick when she was so in love with her boyfriend.
So now I am wondering what I should do — edit it where need be? Keep it as is? Bah! Choices, choices!
And let no one put assunder, for together they are a whole….
Pen to pad, long time gone
I’ve been trying to re-arrange my poetry page instead of ammassing everything I have by 10 poems-per-page. I don’t know why I am doing it exactly but I am doing it…. (all of this while I shoudl be working on Chantilly Lace gifts).
The thing is, I read over certain poems and I can remember exactly where and when I was when I wrote that poem… Some of them I rememeber exactly what I was feeling. I’ve lst at least one entire book of poetry because I lent it out to someone who would later betray me… And at the same time I still have 7 volumes sitting on a bookshelf that are just one big reminder of things in the past.
Some people had journals, some people just kept notes of there lives, some people blog… I wrote poetry. It was release and yet it chronicled things.
Anyway, the poem that gets me – and get sme every time – is Lost Inside… Just because of how I ende dup playing the words. I can remember writing this at my local library … There are a lot of poems with certain strengths to them that I persoanlly enjoy but this is the one that I like the most:
Lost Inside
Seen my feelings lost inside forever
Couldn’t we be good together?
Girl, you are my everything,
You’re all my wants and cravesLost inside the secret you
What am I supposed to do
Girl, you are my majesty
I’ll worship you foreverOnly known I’ve lost my mind
Oh, why worry? Never mind
Everything that I do crave
Is lost inside your beingNow to find you,
Majesty,
I need to be your everything,
Fit the bill and fly the path,
Our equation, do the math,
Add us two and then subtract –
The worries and the hardshipsSeen my feelings inside you, girl
Oh my, honey, what a world
What am I supposed to do?
I’ve stayed lost inside the secret youAnd inside, I’ve lost my mind
Oh, why worry? Never mind
Everything I’ll always crave
Is lost inside the secret you©1998 John P. Fontana
OK, I'll bite… Which Beatles are YOU?
Bah these online quizes….
humbug — you just got to take cartain ones:
What Beatle are you? John Lennon
You enjoy poetry, painting & a fine wine. A lover not a fighter.
ter>Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.
"The Edge" of Sanity
I decided to spin some tunes and do some writing – which hasn’t come easy the last couple of weeks — today. After some audio bullshit and sound card problems I finally got everything running smooth and I had a re-awakening from a song I used to love in Middle and High School —
Aerosmith’s Living On The Edge
I had written a paper about it years ago for my English class (Ms. Manson always supported us being free spirited and such… And encouraged us with music, poetry, writing, etc) and had taken the song too seriously, in a way, when I stated that one message from the song that could be taken was that we are living on the edge of sanity and sobriety.
Anyone who sees the pop culture and news headlines knows this to be true, so that was one thing that is very true about the lyrics of the song.
But then there’s a refrain that comes up twice in the song that I never really put two and two together with, even though it should be obvious for everyone.
If Chicken Little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it wasn’t would you still come crawling
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again and Again and Again and Again and a-
“Crawling back again” was the line that first hit me for social reasons when I listened to the first instance of this in the song, but then it started weighing on me about Chickie Little and the Sky falling. It’s talking about those who are determined to say that things are all wrong with the world — they’re too this, too that. Too much pollution, too much taxes, too much drug use, too much sex, too much media, too little intelligence, we’ve strayed to far from the church, we’ve got too much greed, too little oil, too few resour—
Hold it right there.
Something actually happens to be right in the world and even when we throw out politics and politically correctness and religion up to our asses. Everyone on either side off an issue knows the issue is wrong because they are experts on the issue and don’t want you to see the truth if it doesn’t fit into their billing. I don’t want to bring up any of my own political beliefs with this because I believe the song right now more than I believe in politics. More than I believe in government. More than I believe in religion and more than I believe in people.
Livin’ On The Edge
Hudson, Tyler, Perry
There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today
I don’t know what it is
Something’s wrong with our eyes
We’re seein’ things in a different way
And God knows it ain’t his
It sure ain’t no surprise
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
There’s somethin’ wrong with the world today
The light bulb’s gettin dim
There’s meltdown in the sky
If you can judge a wise man
By the color of his skin
Then mister you’re a better man than I
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself at all)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t stop yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
Tell me what you think about your sit-u-a-tion
Complication – aggravation
Is getting to you
If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it wasn’t would you still come crawlin’
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again & again & again & again & again
Tell me what you think about your sit-u-a-tion
Complication – aggravation
Is getting to you
If chicken little tells you that the sky is fallin’
Even if it was would you still come crawlin’
Back again
I bet you would my friend
Again & again & again & again
Something right with the world today
And everybody knows it’s wrong
But we can tell ’em no or we could let it go
But I’d would rather be a hanging on
….
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Livin’ on the edge
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Livin’ on the edge
{You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself at all)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself)
(You can’t help yourself)
Livin’ on the edge
(You can’t help yourself from fallin’)
Livin’ on the edge
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Yeah, you got to that now
© 1992 Swag Song Music company
Whattaya say?
I came across someone I had been searching for over the last seven years on Classmates.com just now… Someone i used to have a mad crush on and someone I was too scared to admit I was interested in.
But that was 10th grade and High School… A long long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Or seven miles and almost 10 years.
At any rate, it got me to thinking about what you would say to someone you haven’t seen in such a long time? What would you talk about with them? Would you just come clean about things that happened last time you talked? Or old problems that might have been left unsolved between you?
Or would you start fresh like the three examples below?
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“Nice shoes, wanna fuck?”
“Excuse me, you look so familiar and I was wondering if you could tell me if this dress makes my ass look big?”
I came across this girl’s aunt online in 1999 and I had the opportunity to get in touch with her but passed on it. Why? Fear in part, and also because I didn’t want to rear my head back into her life while she certainly has a life of her own that I am not even a thought in. Time passes and things fade away — but memories and feelings aren’t so easily pushed into oblivion. I’m not planning on paying Classmates in order to get in touch with the girl for the same reasons… My interest is piqued though, for the moment.
Edit to Entry: Better question than the WHATTAYA SAY — How would you react if someone from High School suddenly dropped in on your life? SOmeone you ahven’t spoken to since then…?
Poetic Meanings — just found out
You know, I was just going through something or other on the web and I came across a little factoid that just hit me a certain way that made me laugh and think at the same time about a poem I wrote a few years ago (song Poem) and how true the lyric is, in a sad way…
The song-poem was Java Jungle which I wrote at Palm Harbor’s “Java Jungle” coffee shop years ago when I was still very much a lyricist and poet. The song is just rambling verse that makes sense to me and probably me alone in some of it’s meanings but has a little niftiness to itself… if you can find the rhyme scheme and what could have been the beat or what the music could have turned into with the song…
At any rate, I’m going to post the lyrics now – then I will tell you more about that “ironic and funny” little meaning I didn’t intend that I just found out about…
Sally-man say:
“Who led the way,
“Across the Great Red Sea?”
Way back,
The long way back,
Back home
Tell Mom and Dad
That I’m going mad
Sitting here on the porch
Deep toking’ a dead roach
Fabulon
And Mickey and Brand,
Across the great land
Living at the center of life
Metropolitan life
Ju-Ju-Ju-Ju-Juniper chaos,
Had a little seance
To find her kindred soul
(Only she’d be so bold)
Cold hard wind, yeah
It’s stained with sin, yeah
Only known as the doldrums
The silence hums
Play on
Easter day
Saint Jude’s Parade
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad,
Lennon Lad
The kingdom’s your to have
Silence abounds
© 1997 John P. Fontana
So what’s the big deal? Well, I could break down the meaning of each stanza and verse to you but some of it is boring and some of it – as I already alluded to — should make sense only to me (Mickey and Brand across the great land, for instance, is a reference to friends of mine who used to come down to be with family here in Florida, I would see them every summer).
The lyric that I found funny is one of the closing lines… I talk about Easter Day and St. Jude’s Parade and then make a reference to “Lennon Lad”. This is all talking about Julian Lennon. “Jude” being direct reference to “Hey, Jude” which was written by Paul McCartney for Julian during the time John Lennon was divorcing Cynthia Lennon.
The entire line was actually supposed to be reference to St. Crispian’s Day, I believe I had seen Renaissance Man not very long before I had written this poem and I was very fond of Shakespeare at the time after a year of his works being passed on to me through Ms. Ciccone at East Lake High School.
Well, St. Jude got worked in there and the reference to Julian was made — “The kingdom’s yours to have” and silence abounds… That’s saying that Julian could have easily followed John Lennon’s footsteps and gone to the top of Rock and Roll but failed to do so… Of course, Julian is still involved with music and still battles demons involved with his father and his childhood… That being said, there are reason the kingdom was never entirely inherited by him or by Sean Ono Lennon for that matter.
The ironic – funny twist that I keep making reference to is St. Jude. I didn’t know who St., Jude was nor did I ever think to find out… I just threw the name out there for the rhyme and for the reference (Jude, Jules, Julian) and only recently (reading another Rick Reilly article) found out who St. Jude is:
The Patron Saint of Lost causes.
So, Lennon Lad, the kingdom may be yours to have but from what the Java Jungle tells you, it’s a lost cause trying to inherit it…
Still looking for input
Still looking for input on submissions to a poetry contest. I got my favorites but I’d prefer to hear yours.
Another Glimmer Train contest
Poetry.
Anyone who knows me knows I did a good deal of poetry in my time and that I have a collection of some of my favorites on the site . I’ve been encouraged by others to go and have my poetry published and have tried in the past – only to be discouraged.
Well, I’m willing to give it another shot with Glimmer Trains LAST Poetry Contest.. I figure I have two outstanding (no pun intended) submissions with them as is, why not add a third or a fourth.
That’s where YOU come in though.
You see, I could easily submit one of my favorite poems on my poetry page to them, but I don’t know if that would be wise because it’s not the favorite that my friends have. Actually, I’m not sure what people’s favorites are on my poetry page. Give me your thoughts on this, I could use some guidance from people…
Editing Aggravations
The story I liked best that I wrote before I started Long Ridge, the story of Thomas and his death which I called Ignorant Bliss, is a mess right now. The focus doesn’t remain on Thomas at certain points and confuses the reader a bit, you don’t know certain facts until too late in the story (though you can’t know everything until later because you are supposed to be as ignorant as Thomas) and at 5000 words, I am going to have to edit the story down for submission.
I got my work cut out for me on my labor of love.
Editing can be a good thing. It can also be an aggravation especially when you are sort of happy what you wrote through Zen=writing with no editing. Just throw-it-out-until-you-are-done-and-damn-editing.
Of course, I earned a major ego boost with props i got for the editing job I did of my last assignment which used to appear on my Poetry section. So I know I am capable of editing it’s just a grand task. I am going to have to go back and edit the story I finished last night too, but I need some feedback before I even try that… Just for outside ideas what’s wrong with it.
….And I need to get my ass working on fresh ideas, because I’m coming from one direction with everything I write right now, which typecasts me. I want to be known as someone who has a wide variety genre’s instead of just one.
5 Senses
5 Senses
Taste
– The words
– The longing
– The emotion
Feel
– The flavor
– The Memory
– The Realization
See
– The sweet nothings
– The touched
– The aching for more
Smell
– The Love
– The romance
– The desire
Hear
– Her perfume in the wind
– The kiss on the cheek
– His hand across your bare skin
© 2003 John P. Fontana
Ego
One moment you can have your ego coddled by the powers that be, the next minute you can have it torn down by a barb. One minute you can feel really good about yoruself and the next minute someone can fuck it up for you in one way or another.
That’s Saturday for ya!
I was feeling really good about myself after getting my latest assignment back from Lou… Especially when he pushed the fact that the story was such a piece that it was worthy of publication now…
Oh, there were edits I needed to make, but tte story content was so vivid and so identifiable that it just was great…
Certain people will coddle their own ego knowing what the piece was about and knowing they told me to write about that specific subject.
Then? What happened? Well, lets just say I deflated and deflated pretty fast for that matter when I felt strung along by the powers that be, people, things, etc. Oh, I could make mention of things I’ve previously complained about recently in here (Medical, medical, medical ) but it was more out of my control than that is (and that is very much out of my control).
THe poetry that’s shown up here was written in May and early June when I had the creative juices going. Sometimes posting a poem is easier than writing a journal entry — of coruse it is, damnit, becasue you don’t have to write anything original off the cuff like regular long winded journal entries are written….
Dwelling and Moving on
Sometimes, sosmething or someone pains me. All my close friends know that I’m sensitive about shit and what not… They also know I tend to dwell and that bothers them. That bothers me in some ways looking at it long and hard.
Some of the poetry on this very site I wrote while dwelling on the good and the bad, the wants and the hurt with people. Dwelling leads to a lot of inspiration for these works, which is a good thing (not saying I want to be hurt, because I’d prefer the dream, but I actually thought it would be better for my writing being hurt again… That note is for the Eerie out there if they’re reading)…. But dwelling seems to be bothering a lot of people and myself included.
Time heals all wounds… Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get the fuck over it and all that jazz… it just doesn’t work with me.
I dwell on details with people, I dwell on the feeling, the emotion, the pain — or even the euphoria when I feel it. The happiness… but it’s with who I’m feeling those things with that I dwell on – not the events specifically. I could name five events where I got hurt badly emotionally but I couldn’t tell you specifically when I last went hysterical laughing with someone I cared for, or 5 specific times i made someone lose control of themselves with making them happy or laugh or whatever. (ah, memories – i can think of one specific instance off the top of my head).
Actually that’s not quite the truth – it’s just the negative comes out easier than the positive… The negative leaves a more lasting impact than the positive. That’s human nature though. There are plenty of instances that enjoyment / mutual laughter I have had with friends and family but those don’t stand out as monuments so much as negative things. I can think of positive things that stand out as monuments with people but those monuments are faulty idols now from a long-extinct tribes of the world, or so it feels.
I don’t want to dwell on the negative things I could think, I want to move on, I want to move away… Yet, how? How can I?
At the same time I don’t want to hurt anyone trying to get my own personal escape and move on through another, only to toss them away when I’m over things. I’d rather carry my pain than bestow it on another person. I’m “messed up” like that… I care where other people say they don’t.
I care too much, for god sake… I talk to a friend off and on all day yesterday and today and I feel funky, if not upset, when I find out she’s got a guy friend over her place? Why do I take it so personal? Just my own selfishness? My own idealistic dream that someone woudl want to hang out with me?
I don’t want to be aloof in life. I don’t want to close off my heart to everyone except a select few… Yet I don’t want to carry un-needed burdens like this.
For the record, I don’t think I did when I was truly happy — but right now I’m not, and I don’t know how to get there from here.
The Doors are Open
I’ve been thinking of the
Doors a lot lately. I downloaded video music clips a few months ago off Kazaa
Lite and of course i have been enjoying them (even though the audio is ratty
on Light My Fire performed at the Ed Sullivan Show) to no end. Moonlight
Drive, Break on Through, Touch Me — excellent through and through.
I’ve long been a fan of Mr. Mojo Risin’s poetry and verse.
So watching the video for
Touch Me (which was performed live by the Doors on the Smothers Brothers show)
I noticed a little anomaly that featured guitarist Robbie Krieger with a nice
shiner on his left eye. Curious, I went and asked about it on the Usenet newsgroup
alt.music.the-doors…
And was re-introduced to
anal-final-word-on-the-Doors-author Patricia Butler.
Ms. Butler wrote Angels
Dance and Angels Die which is a biographical account of Jim Morrison and
Pamela Courson (Jim’s wife). Butler, however, seems to think that what anyone
else wrote in their books is fictitious or if anyone takes something from their
books and had it put into The
Doors by Oliver Stone, it’s completely fictitious… which is bullshit.
Look, not everything written
is a factual statement or a exactly-how-it-happened account, yet when John
Densemore, Jerry
Hopkins and Danny Sugerman all concur on a story — I’m going to accept
that as a fact and not believe a woman who wasn’t there. I mean Hopkins wasn’t
"there" but Sugerman
was (as a kid). Densmore was the god damned drummer in the band. I am going
to believe what he says over what Patricia Butler says any
day.
Anyway, it’s another pleasant
valley Sunday here in status-symbol land. I think I’m going to go find Mr. Green
(who’s so serene with a TV in every room) and tell him a thing or two about
living in excess and glamor.
Finito — Assignment 1 returned
Well, my first Long Ridge Writers Group was returned to me by Lou Fisher and the response was pretty admirable — for 500 words. Now I get to seriously start looking at my next assignment of 750-1000 words and I sort of shudder right now because I just can’t focus properly on it. Oh, I can write 1000 words on someone or a situation but it doesn’t exactly fit my assignment parameters of writing a situation up. Got to find discipline. Got to make it interesting.
Meanwhile I wrote another story that fit inside these parameters and mimicked just how I was feeling this morning. The problem was that this story is utterly depressing and involves a guy sitting on a bench with a gun in his hand, contemplating his end.. Depressing but it all ends up as a good piece of writing. Unfortunately it’s too autobiographical in a fantasy sense to really make me feel good but it came out cleanly and for a time it made me feel better.
Writings been an escape. An escape that doesn’t last but an escape none the less. Be it good poetry, be it these journal entries, be it short stories, be it instant message conversations with someone who can hold a conversation – it’s escape. Ray Bradbury put it great when he stated that you have to stay drunk on writing or else the rest of the world will destroy you. By investing yourself in your writing you immerse yourself in another world – you get out your own feelings, your own aggravations, your own fantasies and purge yourself of what has been hanging over you.
Of course that doesn’t solve problems of wanting a friend to comprehend what they did and how it isn’t as acceptable as they perceive it. *Sigh* I hate the phrase, “What goes around comes around” but that’s the only thing that gives me peace of mind over things. Sure my heart may mend in the future and I might be able to talk with this friend again but at the same time — the preferable way for things to be fixed is understanding/comprehension and not such selfishness. “I need this, I needed that. I wanted that.. I have to find a way around that.” It’s Erie when someone makes it that way. It’s Erie when someone assumes three weeks is supposed to be enough time for someone to get over a broken heart they helped destroy.
Be Honest With Me
Be honest with me
How many times –
– Does a sparkle energize?
– Does a ruby’s glamour cry?
– Does an angel comb it’s wings?
How many crimes does it
Take to scrutinize
Old men hiding secrets
And their oil companies?
Tell me what defines –
– The tying of fresh binds?
– Silly little love songs?
– My desire to appease?
Where are all the women
And their honey-pots of gold?
With amber-waves of auburn hair
And gentle, pleasant souls?
Fortune running over me
And none the less is saved
Shadows edging harmony while
Fools and morons play
Be honest with me
I am not what I may seem
Lusting change
And Lightning games
With nights of ecstacy.
© 2003 John P. Fontana
