Bipolar explorer finding sun on winter days when the icicles won't melt
or trapped in a loveless marriage to the rites of springtime when she gives you something cold to mourn
Always hiding behind the opposites and the contradictions of what you call home, and love, and friendship
Meant to run towards in a time of need, but instead cast a looming shadow in the setting sun all the way down to the end of the sidewalk, looking long, and distorted, and unfamiliar
Wayward traveller, never on the right road, but always a messenger to the stars in the sky
delivering news for some to hear and all to see reflected in the dangerous eyes of a black river
Caught running between the enticing, lavish highs and the eloquent lows, masked in the Cheshire Cat's brilliant smile
From beneath the wet night comes a different, quiet pain, expected to be endured in the dark or below harsh florescent lights that paint the creases in your face as you count white teeth that no one else can ever admire
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Saturday, January 25, 2014
Unfinished #2
I am not Exotic, I am exhausted.
The way a zoo animal must feel when the same families stand outside the glass in the same spot at the same time each week and say,
The way a zoo animal must feel when the same families stand outside the glass in the same spot at the same time each week and say,
"I've never seen one like that before."
When I say I'm selling you a product of little intrinsic value, know that I mean it's probably worthless and the item in question is a collection of my words
that I figured no one had ever thought, heard, or dreamt before.
Just me. Because I am that brilliant and my mind is one of a kind
Until I read the tomes of knowledge left in our care by the likes of Plato, Blake, Keats, and company
who really have no discerning revelations, but still manage to repeat the ideas of others much more eloquently than I could ever imagine.
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Unfinished
I said I'd never write
another thing for you
or anyone like you.
But once again,
I'm being punished
by my honesty
and putting into words
anything that has ever meant
everything to me.
another thing for you
or anyone like you.
But once again,
I'm being punished
by my honesty
and putting into words
anything that has ever meant
everything to me.
Untitled 400
When I say that I'm after you, Mr. Sinatra,
I don't mean in the same way a shy boy is secretly
thinking of the blonde who just strode through
the doors of the bar,
Nor to you, Yeats, does it mean
I am after you in the fashion
the slow song always follows my favorite
on the album or the radio,
reminding me that words aren't always
meant to be pretty.
What I mean in saying I'm after you, Michelangelo,
is that in the scope of linear time,
I follow you, although not necessarily in your footsteps.
When we have seemingly ceased to create
When we have compared everything in the world
to something and anything else,
I will continue to find my answers
Staring down the barrel of a pen--
--Once you, Leonardo, Tolstoy, and Pop,
are nestled somewhere below the ground
and among the thoughts of those in particular
who will come after me,
I too, will have served my time.
I don't mean in the same way a shy boy is secretly
thinking of the blonde who just strode through
the doors of the bar,
Nor to you, Yeats, does it mean
I am after you in the fashion
the slow song always follows my favorite
on the album or the radio,
reminding me that words aren't always
meant to be pretty.
What I mean in saying I'm after you, Michelangelo,
is that in the scope of linear time,
I follow you, although not necessarily in your footsteps.
When we have seemingly ceased to create
When we have compared everything in the world
to something and anything else,
I will continue to find my answers
Staring down the barrel of a pen--
--Once you, Leonardo, Tolstoy, and Pop,
are nestled somewhere below the ground
and among the thoughts of those in particular
who will come after me,
I too, will have served my time.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
To the Seventh Wonder of the World
June 22, 2013 - cont'd
I'm not sure why something had to be sacrificed so that Machu Picchu could be included as one of the "new" Seven Wonders of the World. Instead, couldn't there have been eight or nine? Or however many it takes? The world is a large place, and it saddens me to think that only seven places in it can be considered "wonderful."
I'm not sure why something had to be sacrificed so that Machu Picchu could be included as one of the "new" Seven Wonders of the World. Instead, couldn't there have been eight or nine? Or however many it takes? The world is a large place, and it saddens me to think that only seven places in it can be considered "wonderful."
*******
I felt like the journey that brought us to Machu Picchu and back was almost as difficult as it was for Hiram Bingham to discover the damn city in the first place.
It involved leaving Cusco early in the morning and driving two hours through the Sacred Valley to the train (conveniently named for the intrepid NatGeo explorer and inspiration for Indiana Jones, himself), and after two or three hours aboard, continuing an additional thirty or forty minutes by bus up the peak of Machu Picchu.
As a resident New Yorker and frequenter of the Metro-North Railroad, the Hiram Bingham was like nothing I've ever experienced. The blue, gold, and magenta steam engine looked like it chugged right off the tracks in 1911 and into 2013.
In back was an open caboose with oak railings, a chandelier, and a bar complete with plush velveteen and leather armchairs. The specialty drink of the day was called a Pisco Sour--composed of pisco liqueur (white grape brandy), limeade, egg white froth, and traditionally topped with four symmetrical dots of either cinnamon or bitters.
(It knocked back like nostalgia, as it tasted identical to "The Joker"--a twist on the whiskey sour and a specialty of my favorite neighborhood bar in London. Having come practically straight from Heathrow International Airport to Lima, my day to day life over the last two weeks had yet to spiral into culture shock, instead melding into one continuous blob of whirlwind consciousness, taking place in one location unrecognizable from the rest)
Maybe it was the potency of the pisco, but the view from the back of the train was surreal. Something you don't see outside of a meticulously shopped and color-cooridinated photograph in the spread of National Geographic.
The first half of the trip, the landscape was that of the foothills of the Andes, which, with my limited vocabulary in the areas of geology, geography, and topography, most closely resembled Wyoming or Montana--bouncy, hearty brush, red, rich soil, rolling hills and flat, shallow rivers whose reflected skyline was broken by black and purple boulders and the subsequent white water wakes. However, by the time lunch was served on white linens with candlelight lamps in the dining car, the jagged red mountains had become dense and green, the river wider and darker, and vines and vibrant flowers where the springy, succulent plant life had once been.
*******
The train stopped in Aguas Calientes-- a scene straight out of a Discovery Channel on-location special. The train station is located right in the middle of the city center. The buildings sit stacked and ascending on either bank of the river on concrete high rises that eventually give way to one main road traveling up the side of the mountain.
Between the train station and the bus stop was a covered market. The colors and textures were absolutely overwhelming. I'm not sure what my fascination with fabric is, but I love anything knitted, spun, or woven. So, in a community that's driven economically by the farming of alpaca wool, I wasted no time in buying a large wall tapestry depicting the major Incan gods at war with the kings-- paying only $20 for something that would easily sell for 80 or 90 (and most likely would've been manufactured in China or by a machine somewhere in a warehouse in Ohio) back in the United States, I didn't have the heart to haggle the price down, particularly after watching a woman in the adjacent stall spinning her own wool.
However, my cousin found herself with an even better story to take home: While stopping to pick up more passengers en route to Aguas Calientes, the station sat adjacent to a small wool market. Women from the town were walking up and down the street with baskets of yarn, scarves, shoulder bags, blankets, and tapestries--one of which caught my cousin's eye. She called the women over and bought a woven backpack right off the back of the train as it slowly started chugging away.
******
When we had passed through the market and arrived at the bus stop, it was a harrowing journey up Machu Picchu. The road (singular) was three-quarters of the width of those in Cusco and only set in moist, red, mountain clay and whatever rocks had dropped off of the cliffs and planted themselves along the sides. Every 50 to 100 feet, was a switchback, the corners around them obscured by the jungle vegetation. On several occasions, we were met by other buses and passenger coaches bringing tourists down the mountain, forcing one vehicle or the other to reverse until the turn in the next switchback where the road widened just enough for the buses to eek by one another with brush or tap of the side view mirrors.
The whole journey felt like a carefully engineered and choreographed Disneyland ride, except with a serious risk of careening down the side of a mountain into the riverbed below.
Turn Left at Machu Picchu: A Retrospective.
June 22, 2013
We returned to the Hotel Monasterio in Cusco after two days and one night atop the mountain of Machu Pichcu.
The Monasterio is an intriguing hotel with lots of local recognition. Once an Incan palace/fortress,, it was semi-razed and rebuilt as a Catholic monastery during the Inquisition and the time of the conquistadors. The outside is red brick with a hidden archway sinking into the hotel lobby on the right, and a huge, weathered cedar door to the left, accented with black wrought iron braces and an enormous cross that draws the eyes up to the gothic style peaks and buttresses, paying homage to the building's historical roots.
Inside, the ceilings are high and the brick walls throw even the smallest sniffle or crumpling of paper. The building itself is a hollowed out square--two stories of guest rooms on all four sides and beautiful courtyard in the middle. The grass is so soft and precise, that I imagined a crew of men with rulers and straight razors cutting it blade by blade each evening. The cedar tree in the corner, shading the marble fountain is the last one left in Cusco not belonging to the National Park Services' reintroduction initiative after the species was almost deforested in the 1970's.
While the street that runs outside the Monasterio is perpetually busy and noisy, within the walls, there's a constant silence. I half expect my words and echo to return to me as whispers, if at all. During the day, it's peaceful, especially after days of nonstop rush, travel, and verbalized tension. However, late at night or in the last, deepest hours before daylight, it's eerie. Coupled with the steam rising from my breath in the 30 or 40 degree weather, it seems like something in the walls of the Hotel is not just dampening the noise, but stealing it.
We returned to the Hotel Monasterio in Cusco after two days and one night atop the mountain of Machu Pichcu.
The Monasterio is an intriguing hotel with lots of local recognition. Once an Incan palace/fortress,, it was semi-razed and rebuilt as a Catholic monastery during the Inquisition and the time of the conquistadors. The outside is red brick with a hidden archway sinking into the hotel lobby on the right, and a huge, weathered cedar door to the left, accented with black wrought iron braces and an enormous cross that draws the eyes up to the gothic style peaks and buttresses, paying homage to the building's historical roots.
Inside, the ceilings are high and the brick walls throw even the smallest sniffle or crumpling of paper. The building itself is a hollowed out square--two stories of guest rooms on all four sides and beautiful courtyard in the middle. The grass is so soft and precise, that I imagined a crew of men with rulers and straight razors cutting it blade by blade each evening. The cedar tree in the corner, shading the marble fountain is the last one left in Cusco not belonging to the National Park Services' reintroduction initiative after the species was almost deforested in the 1970's.
While the street that runs outside the Monasterio is perpetually busy and noisy, within the walls, there's a constant silence. I half expect my words and echo to return to me as whispers, if at all. During the day, it's peaceful, especially after days of nonstop rush, travel, and verbalized tension. However, late at night or in the last, deepest hours before daylight, it's eerie. Coupled with the steam rising from my breath in the 30 or 40 degree weather, it seems like something in the walls of the Hotel is not just dampening the noise, but stealing it.
Kuzcotopia
June 21, 2013
Peru has been a whirlwind.
On the 18th, we arrived in Lima at three in the morning, left Lima by 6:30am, arrived at our lodgings in Cusco around four hours later, at lunch, unpacked (or as much as one can do with the anticipation of exchanging one unfamiliar bed for another the next night), and spent the remaining hours of daylight touring the Incan ruins of Saqsaywaman before a late dinner and a 4:30am wakeup call.
It's a shame we couldn't have spent more time in Cusco. The city itself is fascinating. I may be well-traveled for someone my age, but my adventures have taken me to locations like France, Spain, Basque, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Bahamas, etc…all European countries and North American territories, all western-world cultures--all different and exciting in comparison to my own, but still influenced by Anglo-Saxton roots and Coca-Cola products.
(However, to be fair, Coke runs rampant in South and Central America. Someone once told me that language and religion divide people, while music and cuisine bring them all together. I'd like to take this time to amend that observation: cuisine, music, and the Coca-Cola Company unite people of every race, religion and nation)
The city square, Cusco Plaza, is marked by a giant stone and gold monument of Pachacuti ("The Transformer of Winds"), in memoriam to the king responsible for leading the fight for Incan/Andean independence from the conquistadors' occupation of the Sacred Valley. The plaza sits in the center of at least six different streets that meet head-on to create a sort of roundabout lined with storefronts--mainly jewelry and apparel, as silver ores and mining are the largest source of economic prosperity in the country, followed closely by alpaca meat and wool. Flying from every window, and even atop the monument, is a horizontally striped rainbow flag. It's the official flag of Cusco, separate from Peru's quasi-Canadian-looking flag, in which the maple leaf is traded for an eagle--and given that 90% of Peruvians identify as staunchly Catholic, I didn't have the heart to make never-ending gay pride references about their national hero and beloved revolutionary.
What fascinates me the most about the city are the streets and building facades. Partially paved, but really about 92% worn brick and cobblestone, the streets are about one lane--including the surface area of the sidewalks.
However, this doesn't dissuade two or three lanes of traffic from forming. There aren't many traffic lights in the city center, so the rules of the road are dictated by one-way signs and stop signs. As in Lima, "dictated" really means "casually suggested," in the same way a pilot casually suggests that you put your cellphone in "airplane mode," but in actuality, it's better for you and everyone around you if turn off your iPod, forsake your winning level of Angry Birds, and just power it down completely (ie--you never do).
The roads are so steep, narrow, and rickety that it feels like you may take out a pedestrian with your side mirrors at any given moment (but only if you haven't first popped the clutch too early and rolled all the way down to the foot of the mountain, first), yet that doesn't stop all traffic at a four-way intersection from trying (and succeeding) at proceeding all at once and battling for the lead spot in line, while struggling two-by-two through throngs of people and cars approaching from the opposite direction.
Peru has been a whirlwind.
On the 18th, we arrived in Lima at three in the morning, left Lima by 6:30am, arrived at our lodgings in Cusco around four hours later, at lunch, unpacked (or as much as one can do with the anticipation of exchanging one unfamiliar bed for another the next night), and spent the remaining hours of daylight touring the Incan ruins of Saqsaywaman before a late dinner and a 4:30am wakeup call.
It's a shame we couldn't have spent more time in Cusco. The city itself is fascinating. I may be well-traveled for someone my age, but my adventures have taken me to locations like France, Spain, Basque, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the Bahamas, etc…all European countries and North American territories, all western-world cultures--all different and exciting in comparison to my own, but still influenced by Anglo-Saxton roots and Coca-Cola products.
(However, to be fair, Coke runs rampant in South and Central America. Someone once told me that language and religion divide people, while music and cuisine bring them all together. I'd like to take this time to amend that observation: cuisine, music, and the Coca-Cola Company unite people of every race, religion and nation)
The city square, Cusco Plaza, is marked by a giant stone and gold monument of Pachacuti ("The Transformer of Winds"), in memoriam to the king responsible for leading the fight for Incan/Andean independence from the conquistadors' occupation of the Sacred Valley. The plaza sits in the center of at least six different streets that meet head-on to create a sort of roundabout lined with storefronts--mainly jewelry and apparel, as silver ores and mining are the largest source of economic prosperity in the country, followed closely by alpaca meat and wool. Flying from every window, and even atop the monument, is a horizontally striped rainbow flag. It's the official flag of Cusco, separate from Peru's quasi-Canadian-looking flag, in which the maple leaf is traded for an eagle--and given that 90% of Peruvians identify as staunchly Catholic, I didn't have the heart to make never-ending gay pride references about their national hero and beloved revolutionary.
*******
What fascinates me the most about the city are the streets and building facades. Partially paved, but really about 92% worn brick and cobblestone, the streets are about one lane--including the surface area of the sidewalks.
However, this doesn't dissuade two or three lanes of traffic from forming. There aren't many traffic lights in the city center, so the rules of the road are dictated by one-way signs and stop signs. As in Lima, "dictated" really means "casually suggested," in the same way a pilot casually suggests that you put your cellphone in "airplane mode," but in actuality, it's better for you and everyone around you if turn off your iPod, forsake your winning level of Angry Birds, and just power it down completely (ie--you never do).
The roads are so steep, narrow, and rickety that it feels like you may take out a pedestrian with your side mirrors at any given moment (but only if you haven't first popped the clutch too early and rolled all the way down to the foot of the mountain, first), yet that doesn't stop all traffic at a four-way intersection from trying (and succeeding) at proceeding all at once and battling for the lead spot in line, while struggling two-by-two through throngs of people and cars approaching from the opposite direction.
*******
The color scheme of Peru, particularly Cusco, varies from anywhere else I've ever been. It doesn't strike me as dirty, yet all of the windows that aren't boarded over seem to be brushed with the thinnest layer of dust, as do the streets and the sides of buildings. The stucco walls, colored in pinks, yellows, teals, and orange aren't chipped or peeling--they just seem muted and tired…like a matte finish versus one that's glossy. In a U.S. city, I guess this would be considered unkempt to some extent, or more likely than not, impoverished, however, traveling amongst it, this appears to be the standard of living. While the hospital and airport were modern and pristine-looking with blue/green glass sides and uncannily crisp, clean, geometric architecture, everything else has this earthy, older feel about it. Perhaps it's because things like airports, hospitals, and wealthy neighborhoods in Lima are more multinational, and therefore expected to modernize and adopt a traditionally western flair.
Meanwhile, these small cities are generations old and have no need to appeal to any time outside of their own, therefore, they stay authentic…a rather odd juxtaposition when you see enough locals carrying iPhones, and wearing Guess Jeans and designer sunglasses.
The world is never immune to change, which is why I've made it my goal to find some indigenous, aboriginal people still living in some untouched corner of the globe, without even the concept of electricity and gasoline horsepower, just to appeal to my own sympathies that my world and my culture hasn't tainted and bastardized someone else's in a realm void of economic ebb and flow based in the whims of consumerism and technology.
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