The Monolith

This was the first song I recorded after I got the stereo connector cable for my computer.

I have no idea how to play this again. It was a one-shot thing made up on the spot but I like it enough to use as the bookends for digital.piano.2010 (track 1 and 5). I'm still playing with it in Audacity while I learn to use the program, so this isn't a final version or anything.

I could improve it if I can figure out how to play it again, so I'll probably do that sometime.

Monolith

Monolith pt. II

Album

More information is forthcoming. It is 4:30AM at the moment and I just whipped this cover together.

Also feel like maybe I should get back to drawing. I'm starting to miss it, I have the artist's itch and it's not like rough elbows, you can't just put some cream on it and expect it to go away overnight. You gotta get in there and put work in.

Paper

You left too early,

yet we still share an unknown love

Did you say hello before I came?

Or pat my back as I went on my way?

Perhaps none of these things are true

 

All I know of you are tales

Your skin is paper

and your eyes are sunken black.

Skin, like paper, is what love is written on

Love is the ink that life is written from

I would hope for understanding

but that hope, too, is gone

 

There remains still a small desire

rather, a willingness

to want to know

or at least ask why

 

living, alive for a night

mostly all I found was paper

or dreamed of paper

paper skin

paper days

---

A short poem from June 2009 after a dream.

I was strumming the dobro last Halloween and came up with a song version, seen below. Can't remember how to play it, though.

---

I think the morning is when I feel most alone

I dread June for the memory

Press another day on and another night by

And the last one is how far away?

 

I met you once in a dream in a building

All of us were away and the world melts away

and the night melts away

and the morning rolls on by.

 

Your skin’s like paper

and your eyes are blackened bone

Love is the ink that life is written from

Skin, like paper, is what life’s written on.

 

I slept through morning and dreamed

you were here and knew me as one of your own.

Water

Something is wrong, I am sure of it.

The touch of your skin on the nape of my neck is no longer a comfort.

You have not said a word, but there is a sickness. I can sense it.
We’ve spent years in hallways and alone, always only with each other.

There is something I am unaware of, something hidden and dying quickly.
I have held you and loved you in both the savory dark and the day.

It is over the telephone that you tell me. You are distant and detached.
I have indeed loved you if I am old enough to know and believe.

You, in the quiet and calm, sticky and wet with blood, and so very, truly alone.
I will try to make it up to you. It was nobody’s fault but our own.

Alone in the water.

We are drifting apart, I am sure of it.

In a little house, in the water.

It won’t end well. Another year or so will be all.

In a little house on the hill.
In a quiet, little house on the hill.

---

April 11, 2010.

One that came into my head as I was writing in my journal/Manifesto.

Based on a real life account although it did not happen to me.

The Carbon Cycle II: Shape of a Painting

Brushes coming in from all sides
or maybe only one
painting me solid
Someone watching; studying
Cold chemicals wash over and through canvas
from opaque to translucent to transparent
then clean again – gone.

Pencils on paper
black and white, shading, giving way
to depth and life
The same judging – necessary?
To an extent.
Pressure, soft plastic on paper
From dark to light to blank
A silhouette remains.

Cells merge and divide
Born from ideas: in the future
They will make way for ideals
They are still judged – always judged.
Cells of carbon born with nitrogen and oxygen
And life together from love
From smooth to rough to cold they may go
Ephemeral as the others (this time - another error?)
Harsh chemicals, smooth plastic; sharp, shaped steel
Cleanse another creation away?
Prepare a new slate for creation – in what way?

Yet choices close in time
Breath begins and life lives
In carbon, from carbon, always carbon cycling
Still projects come alive
New judges open eyes and see

Fated to grow rough and weathered in time
Harsh and bitter in time;
fulfilled and gratified in time.
Then cold but remembered
Still and silent, yet ever alive in a way.

---

2009.

There were another couple lines at the end but I think I like it better as it is.

Progenitor

As the first man was blind
So too was I blind
Solitary and sacred footfalls over the land
All around, in the darkness, beneath the sky
Of the world

The vast and infinite world

His eyes were opened for the first time on
a day different from all days

- Exactly like today, perfectly, absolutely

Thoughts shatter the silence, words break the
Solitude of the world of the man of the blind

Ripped, broken, open, seeing eyes.

“Who walks before me?
Whose form fills my view?”

‘Til he saw her and knew her as love
She was his always
His pulse and breath of day
As he loved no other
He saw her as the only;
The first; the truest; the life;
He looked and said,

“There is not enough love in the words
In the world to describe these things
Which I now feel for you; to give us a
Name such as love is not just.”

So he let it always remain wordless
Unspoken yet drawn from life
More sacred than silence and solitary
Yet shared in the darkness, beneath the sky
Of the world

- For you I will remain silent
There is not enough love in the words
In the world
For a life; always
Unspoken for you

---

April 22nd, 2008. 

Since Valentine's Day was last Sunday, it seems appropriate to post a love poem.

This was never written for anyone specifically, I just used to write these sorts of poems back in the day.

Recipes - Pasta alla Carbonara

There are a few different takes on Carbonara. The American version tends to be heavy and filling, whereas the original Italian version is light and wholesome.

My version is somewhere in-between, it has explosive flavor yet doesn't leave you feeling like you just ate a rock. I tried to make sure it's pretty good for you as well.

Tools/Utensils

• Cast-iron skillet
• Frying pan
• Pot

Ingredients

• 1/2 lb pasta (Penne, capellini, or rotini works well)
• 1/2 pack bacon (you'll need 5-8 strips, the thick cut kind with as little white fat as possible works best so it's mostly "crisp", you don't want any of the chewy part.)
• Cheese (Parmesan, Romano, and/or any other sharp, white, Italian cheese)
• Crimini Mushrooms (these guys are awesomely good for you)
• 3+ cloves garlic (depends on how much you like it.
• 1/3 cup whole milk
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Red Pepper
• Olive Oil

Grate a few big chunks of the cheese up and mix them together in a bowl. You should have a pretty good lot here, cheese in a bag will also work to fill out the amount. How much you use is up to you. (It should be pretty cheesy.)

Set the bacon up to fry in the cast-iron skillet. This needs to be a BIG skillet, fry it slow so you have plenty of time to work on the rest of the ingredients. When it's done, set it aside and drain all the grease except for tiny, tiny bit out of the skillet. The bacon should get done a little before everything else.

Put water on to boil for the pasta.

Chop up 4 or 5 good-sized mushrooms in whatever size you'd like and mince the garlic.

The water should be boiling. Add in the pasta.

Brown the garlic and mushrooms with a little olive oil in a small frying pan.

Add the cooked pasta and a small amount of the water to the cast-iron skillet that you fried the bacon in. There should be a little bit of grease left in there.

Add the cheese and milk to the pasta and stir it up until it begins melting.

Add the mushroom/garlic mixture to the pasta and crumble the bacon into it. A bit of the oil from the mushrooms can go in as well but make sure it doesn't get too greasy.
Mix everything together. Season with salt and pepper.








It's quite tasty.