the excerpt of a letter

the excerpt of a letter

what is it to "make" something? do "they" know? can they tell me the limits of a man's creation? what if i were a singer and i built a chair? would that make me a carpenter? not necessarily but maybe i'm a carpenter who sings. maybe i am neither and they are confused by the smell of oil and spirits and tobacco. how well do they know? what is an artist?

they've been saying recently, "he's moved into the production end of music." did i? and God in all his wisdom has moved into hurricanes and earthquakes?

do they know the chair i build is only a piece of the catalogue; the song i sing only a piece of the same; the record i produce for another is framed in gold leaf and the painting i pour life into will only feed another epic poem? are they limiting me; limiting divinity; limiting the story?

do they know that what i do i do only unto God, and what i'm given to do only pieces along that path? surely. but surely if they loved me... should they partake in all of it? hmm. its funny, they. 5 records now. they act as if they own them all, and yet the faucet drips.

what if my head is simply down like some mad van gogh? and when the muse is dead, perhaps there will be 2700 pieces of catalogued work. perhaps they will sell me and at pauper auctions. perhaps they'll burn the dog-eared corners. they do already. perhaps then, not. regardless, the paint runs thick.

do they know i am only given one turn at living?
jP 22.11.o12



(photo perry hagopian o4)

brother

i love him brother, boy i loved him. he was mine and like a twin, and we held hands in sunlight. birds knew us alone and skates flung away the sight of us. we were terror and fright and eventide and joy! boys! we were boys! what a man would forget? what a man for the love of a sorrow? what a man for the foundation of blood? my twin! my darling, my kin lies with her now, and i sleep like rain grows lively for the coming storms. jP N.14o12

sabbath

so, sabbath rest. yes, that was yesterday. then what is today for? today is for gathering. gathering of family and hearts and like minds and starting the first day of the week off with a bang; getting ramped up and remembering who your God is and who is at the center of everything you put your hand to.

me, come 2 sunday, i love siesta. then after its show time. my domestic work day starts at three and i kick ass until around 7. laundry and cleaning, laying out and organizing and getting ready for Monday; what the rest of the world calls day one. check this out. I kid you not, i haven't had a manic monday in years because i don't wake up monday morning behind. my week started sunday. but come friday, first star, start again, and be done. the discipline to leave it until sunday is the offering.

take sabbath seriously. its for you. then watch sunday turn into something hopeful and productive. when monday rolls around, you will not miss a beat. promise. and all you evangelicals out there, get below Gregory. dude's whacked!

jP oc7o12b

(photo jP sept o12)

i had a secret once. one of those secrets that's no ones business but the person you are loyal to. it was ours that secret, and only ours, and to her, to that faithful person, all of my secrets, were not secrets.

i learned that in hands of the guilty, secrets are only lies. i learned too, that the innocent come in pairs, and unto each other in celebration and in birthright, they refuse to keep them.

jP 8.12.o12

dear people,
often, very very often, me and some writer or musician or artist are working late at my house and we're having so much fun that they just crash here and we start again in the a.m.. why is it that the following morning they say its the best night of sleep they've had in years?

can i say something without sounding like a weirdo? i've been without wifi for a many many moons. i had a theory about that stuff and it came on me like a breath and a revelation. i looked into it technically, confirmed my thinking and simply threw it out.

TODAY: i needed a converter so i tore an old router apart to see if i could disable the wifi and use it as an ethernet switch (by the way whomever came up with the word ethernet should win an award. that and the word verizon.. nice.). so i'm standing next to a plain old linksys router. i turn it on and i immediately, very immediately get a headache and get nausea. i was NOT looking for this to happen. i went into the other room pretty sure of what was going on but making real sure it wasn't something else. my chest got real tight but when i came back in and turned off the router its like someone stuck a pin on the pressure in my head and chest and stomach and slowly let out all the bad air. i think i really believe that common users are like frogs in cold water, and before they know it they are inoculated to this stuff because they are exposed to so much of it? its everywhere you know.

but there's another part of this and its that little gadget you carry around in your pocket called a wireless phone. its the same radiation. soft tissue doesn't heal from electromagnetic radiation. its hardens and then gets cancer like microwaved meat. and then they lop off some meaningful part of you in the name of modern medicine and "for the cure" gets another meaningless shot in the arm..

its like your buddy is standing on the tracks with a fast train bearing down on him.. he's listening to his wireless device and some doctor droning him with this "is the only cure" but you know better and from where you are standing, you are too late. you just can't get there in time, and thru tears you know it! you know he's cooked! fyi he's eating a big mac.

if you are having a hard time with this, i get it. i do. but think about it like this. someone just said to you, "this will kill you." and so you are certainly willing look into whatever that is, right?

i sigh. my cell phone has been on the back porch for three months as well. i got a land line. its tough and its unbelievably inconvenient. so is ethernet. but, but, but (exhale) i feel and have felt, and still feel every single day i feel it: some sort of great wash of peace in my life, like that kind of old farm peace when we had party lines and only about one thing really to do of a day, and we had chickens and gathered eggs and planted vegetables and we had a balanced community that was a neighbor or a cousin and not just a computer screen.

It is written: Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.

so try it. really. don't be afraid. give it an honest try. and if you are still not convinced, that's ok. you can always just come sleep at my house. i'll be glad to have you.

love
jP

and btw, when you come, please check your cell phone at the door. :)

wuh, woman
wuh - uh - uh - uh - uh - uh man
she was a thief
you gotta belief
she stole my heart and my cat

betty
judy
josie and those hot pussycats
they make me horny
saturday morny
goils of cartoon (tuin)
will be my ruin
i want to be betty's bar-ney

jean
get me off this crazy thing
called love

m. myers '93

what should one stop at nothing?
putting on a shirt? buttoning it halfway? i thought better.

people in my house
they don't mind crazy.

underthings, yes, pants too?
ok.

i'm wearing yesterdays crinkled up khaki's.
now.

i'd like to go sit around in one of those tribes
and look at all of the bare chested women who never new lines.

from sun
they are clay in a slow kiln;

silk in the morning-time and they smell of earth and the river.
and when they sweat its honey and insects and vegetable oils.

the sheen of that brown ought never be covered.
in residence i am pink-milk and white.

jP jun 2o12