Hello and welcome to my museum. As you already know, it is called The Entire History of Me. In case you were unclear about the subject material, it's going to be about me. Does that sound a little egotistical? Maybe. In fact, yes, yes it does. But that's okay. I want it to feel that way. Because this time, it's all about me.
Now, this museum is not a biography. If I wanted a biography, I would have written one. What this is is a reflection on the last four years of my life. So perhaps "Entire History" is a bit of a misnomer, but I feel like these past four years have been a culmination of where I've been for the eighteen years before that. Maybe that goes without saying, but now I've said it and nobody can stop me, so there's that.
These aren't events. Or at least, not events in a biographic sense. In a way, events aren't much of anything. It's just stuff happening. It's not important when stuff happens. It's important what we take away from the stuff that happens. The way you feel after an event. Because a thing could happen, and it could be the most profound thing that ever happened and that's just a record-able fact that it was super profound, but if you walked away from it feeling not profound, then to you, it wasn't profound. You didn't take anything from it.
I find, however, that the opposite circumstance to the one above is always the more common: It was just an event. Or an object. Objects are like events in the sense that they only matter in what you take away from them (on an existential level, obviously because objects usually are a thing that matter even if you don't feel anything particularly about them). So this is my museum. My history. Of things and events that mattered very much to me. That lead to me.
It's an eclectic bunch. It's a little slapdash and a little odd and all me, because that is who I have always been. And it's who I like being. And it's who I may never get to be again.
Thank you for your time.
-Joey
Thursday, April 30, 2015
Engine
Opening
it up, seeing all the containers and parts,
this
bit of metal, that hose connecting to something
you don't get. You think of the effort that goes into
crafting each one. Suddenly you're conscious of
every
nick, every ding, every scratch or mark you've left.
All of your own imperfections.
When
you slide underneath, you don’t feel as bad.
Every
inch was designed with looks in mind,
to be something people want to see in their
driveways, their garages. Nobody sees the underside.
Not
unless you’ve driven it up on your dad’s ramps and slid
underneath
it on the cardboard that’s been in the basement
So
long it's almost as soft as a blanket.
You lie in the cool shade of this machine,
seeing
a side new side of it. The rough undercarriage,
not designed for looks, but for function.
Blue skies, cool air, your dad is handing
you
the wrench. Twist it around, undo the screw, let the oil,
black
from use and overuse, drain out and out and out.
You wonder why you never did this when you were a kid.
Filter next. You dad hands you a glove,
Stained
with years’ worth of this very task.
The last of the oil is hot as it spills over
your
gloved hand. New filter on. Tight, but not too tight.
You
work your way out and hold the funnel while he pours
five
quarts of new oil into the little plastic container, suspended
by
who-knows-what inside the engine.
You
close the hood of the car when you’re done.
You
get behind the wheel.
It
doesn’t remind you of the good old days.
Either
of you.
But
despite the marks, the scratches, the mistakes
And
the missed opportunities,
His
face is proud as the car comes to life.
Inspirational Works:
- Perhaps the seminal work in missed father-son opportunities. Me and my father have always been close to an extent I feel, but we've had our differences in the past. Those differences seem to matter less and less as time goes on. I'm lucky, I still have quite a lot of time with my father. I'm just glad I realize that now, rather than later.
- My father has never been a connoisseur of visual art, which is why this exhibit will not display much of it. But he has always loved music. When I was a kid, I remember he would put on his favorite albums in the car of older artists most of my friends had never heard of. This is one of the earliest songs I remember loving when I was a kid. I didn't understand it at all then, but that didn't stop me from singing along to it whenever it came on.
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| My car, Derek. A gift from my father; I don't know what I'd do without him. |
A Letter to My Friend
Trying to reach out against
convenience.
Imagined slights.
Lashing out.
No happy ending.
Things are changing.
She’s leaving.
Families split up.
You’ve chosen to let it go.
You didn’t expect
to fall in love with her.
Or what you’d become
if you did.
You fucked up.
 |
| This picture was taken exactly a year after I wish I had written this letter. There are four of us here, and there should be five. |
Inspirational Works:
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| I don't know how to tell somebody the storm they think they're facing is imagined. Or worse, that they're the ones making the wind blow. |
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| I feel like he's allowed himself to be isolated. He keeps us all at bay. |
Sunset // Moonrise
I noticed the sunset today for the first time
in far too long. I thought I had forgotten
what it looked like. Too long clouds had
covered the skies, or night had drawn its
star-covered blanket over itself by the time
I stepped out and looked up. Not today.
There is no man in the moon. But there is
a painter in the sun. He reaches out, his
brushes tipped with nimbus clouds, and
drenches the clear blue sky in shades and
hues of orange that fade somehow to deep
blues and inky purples. Like the stain on
the jeans I’m wearing tonight. I wore them
to look good for you. I hadn’t noticed the
stain until I was already walking across the
sweeping lawn, still green in the fading light.
I think of all the things I wanted for us here.
You never loved this place the way I did.
I’m Apollo, chasing the sun across the sky
as I travel west. The air is cool on my face
along the way and I won’t catch you before
the colors are gone and I’ve lost the opportunity
to kiss you in the dying light of the only star
worth looking at. According to you. Night falls.
Colors fade like missed chances,
words I never said out loud, things you never
told me when they could have mattered. I basked
in the warmth of your glow, never stopping to
appreciate the magical moments when it disappeared.
When the sun slips away, it takes the warmth with it.
Moonrise
Dusky hues and painted shadows
slip and fall, rattling ting-a-ling-ting,
silver light bathes Artemis in her lake.
Acteon thinks he’s Apollo.
Silver light casts no shadows,
allows no deception.
His remorse runs deep and wide,
a river cutting through stone,
waiting to be bridged by deception.
Fond memories drown in rivers
too wild to swim. Too dangerous.
We tried to build a raft.
Rafts split and break,
timbers shatter, snap-crack-rip.
At the mercy of a current we can’t control.
Enough is enough.
Let me go.
Inspiring Works:
The Fray, Happiness
- This poem is all about duality: one side and another. It's about the two ways people react under pressure, and the way something of mine almost fractured under the pressure. This song, Happiness, explores the duality of being happy, how great sorrow and great joy can be nearly inseparable at times. And how one isn't possible without the other.
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| Unfortunately I could not take a picture like this, but this is pretty much exactly what I saw in my head when writing these poems. |
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| Apollo and Artemis were obviously inspirations in this piece. |
Multitool
A boy gave it to me.
It was sleek and silver
and made of so many parts.
Complexity and ingenuity.
When I got it, it was unmarked.
The blade folded smoothly,
immaculately sharp and perfectly
cared for. The steel was pristine.
Hand over hand, brother to brother.
I used it many times since.
The blade is still sharp, but the steel
is marked in a few places. Scarred.
He laughed when I told him,
showed me his new one.
Beaten, battered, nicked, scarred.
Immaculately sharp.
Form or function. Complexity woven
through ingenuity to be smooth.
I think of how much he’s changed,
the man who gave it to me.
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| When it comes to family, some things will never change |
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| "Welding is the only kind of art you do with a stupidly hot torch. You need finesse, but you also need to melt two pieces of steel together." - Alan Osuna He says he's not very good with words, but sometimes he just says things that deserve to be written down. |
Inspirational Works:
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| Something about the intricacies of clockwork make me think about the tool I was given and based this poem on. Little pieces all working together to make something amazing that just keeps working. |
Castaways
“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” - Henry David Thoreau
It’s not who we are now, it’s a brand new day.
It’s what we do and how on this brand new day.
Lay down your sword, slick with hot, red blood.
Beat it into a plough for this brand new day.
In the streets, the revelers gather for miles.
Sinning is disallowed in the brand new day
Face who you were, all the pride and the shame.
In humility, bow to a brand new day.
The waves crash, roll the ship side to side,
sailing on, prow facing a brand new day
Betray what you love most, all that was known,
and wake up, disavowed, on a brand new day.
Step into flames - cracked skin, searing pain -
feel the sweat on your brow this brand new day.
A child sits up waiting for a man who won’t come.
He had meant to endow him this brand new day.
A lone ray of light on the place where she died.
Heartbroken, swears a vow on a brand new day.
Cleanse yourself in tears of regret. Burning pain.
Thankfully allowed to see a brand new day.
Inspirational Works:
Sting, Brand New Day
- Though it's not the most inspirational song I could associate with this poem, it's impossible to write something like this without hearing this particular song for me. What else can be said? It's about new beginnings and getting the chance to start again. It's a strange music video though.
- This song is a sample from a musical that really captures the idea that I wanted to evoke in my piece. The musical itself is a series of songs, none of them connected, and all of them vignettes of people's lives at critical junctions where suddenly everything becomes new in some way you could never have expected. A truly beautiful and heartbreaking show.
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| I think it's difficult to capture the essence of a "new day" in a picture. But this one does a rather good job. |
WATER ON MARS?
My mom took me to a museum exhibit
when I was young.
There was a special display,
pictures taken by satellite
as it passed over Mars.
The podium had big letters on it:
WATER ON MARS?
Why was it a question?
If there were pictures,
shouldn’t they know?
Apparently there are lots of ways
ice can form in space without water.
Why can’t we bring some back and melt it?
Apparently that’s harder than it seems.
But I don’t think it should be.
We already had a big camera
that could fly through the sky
away from here
from Earth
and through our atmosphere and past the moon
way far out into the glittering stars and blackness of space,
shooting off at who-knows-how-many-miles-per-hour.
How hard could it be to reach out and pick up
just a little piece of what we were looking at?
Besides, I wasn’t very curious about Mars.
It was red. So what?
Saturn had those rings I had never seen before.
Let’s see a picture of those.
Or a picture from inside the impossibly huge storm
on the surface of the gas giant, Jupiter.
I didn’t know much about the last three planets.
But why not take pictures of them too?
Then I would know more.
In fact, why ever stop?
Why stop only one mere planet away from us?
There have to be a lot more questions out there than just
WATER ON MARS?
Why not answer some of those?
Maybe because it was too much,
too scary,
to take pictures of things so far away.
Maybe it was hard enough to figure out if there was
WATER ON MARS?
and that kept us from asking more interesting questions
on podiums like these
in museums everywhere.
Besides,
its just water.
We have lots of it.
Right here.
On Earth.
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| I don't know if I could ever find the pictures I saw on the podium that day, but these remind me of them. I guess one picture of Mars looks much like another to me. |
Inspirational Works:
David Bowie, Life on Mars?
- Frankly, I don't think I had a choice but to include this. You may disagree with me, because there is very little thematic similarities between my piece and this song, but I would have thought less of myself if this had been left out.
The Beatles, Across the Universe
- Still on the space theme, but at least this one makes more thematic sense. Across the Universe is a song that has always made me think about soaring through the cosmos. It's a song about wonder and about accepting all the beauty there is and can be.
The Bar
He moves like his joints pain him, this man
who sits next to me, staring into his glass
as though the depth of the
amber liquid might hold
answers to a problem he cannot voice aloud
in the dark basement bar
on Franklin Street.
Cold stone walls, concrete floor
drinking in light, leaving us alone in
darkness where,
unseen by some,
watched by all,
we have gathered clutching drinks
that will make us immune to pain,
to emotions,
to memories.
We line up, sinners in a sanctuary
kneeling against pews,
glasses clutched in our hands
in prayer.
I never believed in prayer any of
the three times I was dragged along
to Sunday service,
not kicking and screaming like my brother,
but as a silent protester amongst
the throng of cheerful, dutiful churchgoers
who were simply happy to see a new face
join their family.
I remember a man standing on stage
in the enormous room
filled to capacity.
He spread his arms wide and told me
I wasn’t okay.
He said it with a grin on his face.
As I stared at him, his grin
grew wider and wider until split his face in half.
It dripped off onto the floor.
The people cheered for him,
like the bar patrons cheer when the especially drunk girl
takes another shot.
The man on stage is in the crowd now
with half a face, applauding and telling her
she isn’t okay.
But this isn’t the enormous room.
Here, everybody is okay. Anybody who says
otherwise is immediately drowned out with
a holy chorus of “fuckyou”’s and “asshole”’s.
Here, there is no judgment.
Not from man, not from god,
except perhaps Dionysus whose only concern
is why the law student who has an exam in the morning
is still sober enough to drive himself home.
His agents surround the poor bastard,
delivering the divine word of their lord in the form of
Irish car bombs and angry balls.
There’s anger now. The law student wants to leave.
The messengers don’t want him to go.
Hazes of emotion and shouting and swearing
and suddenly I don’t want to be here anymore.
It’s not because of the fighting -
there’s enough Irish in me that I don’t mind the fighting -
it suddenly feels too small.
Hot. Drink does nothing to cool it.
If I were somebody else, I might feel tears on my face.
I used to be the one who wanted to leave.
I don’t want anything anymore.
That makes me mad. Makes me want to march over there,
grab the law student by the shirt and force him to stay
because this is somewhere you come
when you don’t want to leave.
Nihilism is unbecoming.
Like the man who stood on stage and smiled
while he told a group of people that they
were not okay.
Here, nihilism is hedonism
as the liquid flows
running down the sides of cups
and spilling down the front of a button-up shirt
and a blouse, unnoticed by the dancers
who laugh and forget
that sunrise is now closer than sunset.
He forgets that he has a girlfriend who went to bed
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| I don't think I could ever find a better picture of this place. Something in the way this is taken captures perfectly the way I think about it. |
Inspirational Works:
The Verve, Bitter Sweet Symphony
- When writing this poem, there was one line I kept coming back to: Nihilism is unbecoming. The idea of nihilism is something every angsty high school kid is fascinated with, and I was no exception. It's only worrying when it comes back to you later in life. This song is one of the most beautiful examinations of the idea of nihilism I can think of: the feeling of isolation and insulation from the things that are supposed to matter. It doesn't praise it, it simply examines it.
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