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.

Recipes - Pasta sauce

I enjoy cooking. I can't call myself an expert on preparing meat or vegetables but I'm generally quite capable when it comes to pasta, deserts, drinks, or baked goods.



White Sauce

• cheese - Parmesan, Romano, Asiago
• 1 clove garlic
• cream/Half-and-Half
• butter
• oil (optional)
• Salt, pepper
• Basil & oregano (optional)
  

Mince garlic.
Grate up a bunch of cheese - a chunk about the size of a golf ball of each. You kind of get a feel for exactly how much you need by experimenting, it really depends on the quantity of the other ingredients you're using.

Melt about 1 tbs butter in a high-walled skillet at low-heat and add garlic. Brown the garlic, but keep the heat low because butter starts to turn brown at around 250 degrees Fahrenheit. You can add a little oil to keep it from burning but I don't care for how this tastes, honestly.

Add the cheese and about 1/2 cup cream or half-and-half, or maybe both.

Now just sit back and keep stirring it up as it cooks. The cheese takes a while to completely melt. If the sauce seems too thick, add more liquid, if it seems too thin, more cheese.
Eventually the consistency will even out and you'll end up with a nice cheese sauce.

Salt and pepper it and add in the spices, stir them up, then use for whatever.

This is basically Alfredo sauce.
It's good with any pasta.

Another thing I like to do with it is mix it with spinach and eat it with chips as a dip. Tasty.

Pairs

A white cloth shirt on a hanging rack
Folded top to bottom, crisp and clean
Stained not by mud yet torn with
Things less tangible to the eye
A small, clean shirt, not tattered, unworn

A pair of shoes, dusty closet corner
Unlaced, unworn, untouched
With miles yet to walk and places to go
A simple blue, not a thing more

A fresh-made bed, for years it seems
New-dressed sheets, homemade quilt
Awaits a mind wandering of destinations to go
A sleeper to sleep, rest, lie, and dream

Another room, still full of life
Yet a thought lies heavy, hanging
A question half-answered, neither right nor wrong
How long will they wait until the whole answer comes?

A new pair of shoes is surely needed
The others went walking in a land far away
Walking their miles, in no hurry, no race
Their shells seemed to stay unworn

A question with no right answer
Everyone always meets again
For a second or forever
There is no rush, no running
To break in the shoes, to wear out the soles.

---

A poem from October 2008.

I debated a bit on which one to post. I have a good-size backlog and nowhere else to put them, really, besides here.

This one ended up being the first of February.

The Carbon Cycle IV: The Old Man

I had a brother just like you.

he says, as I relinquish some change to the tender
a young man of perhaps eighteen
a hopeful high school senior

Take your cup of coffee and sit.

An old man beckons
A young man listens.

He wears a hat and holey coat
sits down, takes his cap off
He is gray and patchy

He was just like you.

he says, the old man
the patchy, gray, holey, old man

His fingers are nervous yet his voice is warm
warm and desperate for something
Comfort is all, I believe.

There was a time, when I was young -

He says, mouth chewing on a straw
Eyes looking lost and wandering

I used to take medicine when I was young -

Brief insight and clarity into an old man
the gray, sober, old man

But that was long ago.

Chewing on a straw.

My brother would have needed medicine.

Eyes looking down, at the table
Anywhere but me.

So much medicine, so much care.
We would have done it, too - anything.

A reminiscent old man.
Coffee, cool enough to drink.
Light but still bitter. Hot but not burning.

I used to garden when I was young -
My brother might have gardened, were he able.
Now he is able but I am not. Our timing was not so good, was it?

The old man gets up and with the slow swing of a door is gone.
Wondering and wandering, yet with a purpose in his step.
On the street, walking home.

Even I am someone’s brother.

----
There are four poems in this series. Chronologically written and by sequence, this is the last one.

I apologize, I cannot get it formatted the way it should be read.

The Carbon Cycle I: Desert

Sprouting, struggling, finally living
A blade of grass grew in the desert,
'til a seed blew in beside it.
Another blade sprouted in the desert,
and more rose forth and spread alive


rippling green,
rising yellow.

Then decay,
age set in
entirely too soon, it would seem,
and no grass grew in the desert.

One day a blade of grass emerged
and another,

another,

'til once more three had grown.
but flawed and fatal seeds they sowed.
Fragile husks of pulp and water
withered with the day before them;
died in the sun above them,
under the sun that shone upon them.
and crumbled again into dust.

'Til another grew,
and another.

In their roots, they remembered
things never grown before.

Life once more diverged triumphant,
into green and yellow,
over pulp and matter,
decaying, living, growing upwards:

remembering.