Tell the keys to touch themselves,
I’ve seen enough tonight.
That word is said too much for it,
to not be old and tired.
“love”…
I’ve said enough tonight.
Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry
Monday, January 23, 2006
Why: I Sit and Smoke on the beach
Maybe you can understand, or maybe you just won’t – it’s not of consequence to me. Maybe though, you comprehend why I need to smoke so badly, and sit here on the beach. Although you might, I pray you don’t – I pray you don’t see yourself, with that paper slip and leaves, rolled in hand, as the waves convolute and twist and rive – the stars above your head on fire! If you do, I’m sure you understand why I crave that cigarette so badly, when I cannot bare to smoke.
(Socrates lived between 469 and 399 BCE, in the state of Athens. He died for his belief in civic virtue and “the good life”, contending that we know nothing. )
I am certain you are of mind and spirit beyond the days you know; you have read all the great books of Constantinople and Paris, and long for an idea of feat or war to call your own.
(Plato was a devote follower and friend of Socrates. He expressed belief in “the forms”, continuing to stress the necessity of man to strive for truth.)
Isn’t it funny, these things that were supposed to make it all so much simpler, but instead left us without the real something we’ve always needed? Isn’t it ironic, this sense of irony in the world – the best philosophers and poets and writers and dreamers have dreamt their dreams away, till it seems there’s nothing left to say? And so, we are a generation of sailors – of astronauts and thieves, who sail away on borrowed ships to stars, and steal the words of kings.
(Descartes’ questioning of knowledge transformed methodology and logic. Using the analogy of a dream and melting wax, he wrote of perception and reality being separate. After abandoning academia, the only thing Descartes was certain of was his existence.)
If you can understand me, or if you’ve lived the way I do, I am sure this would all make sense. I am sure then, you will do this, and do that, just the way it’s meant to be – it’s most efficient and proven so by math and time. You won’t waste the previous moment, and you won’t stray from the golden course. You are not Oedipus, as you wish you were – you are linear – but not by choice. You have a house – elegant but simple – you have a job – ordinary but secure – and security – all that isn’t you. You are not new, and you wish you were…
(One of Martin Luther’s goals was to ensure that philosophy and reason were put to the benefit of society. Luther stressed the crisis of faith within the individual, and proclaimed the salvation of humanity an internal struggle rather than a system.)
Sometimes, on restless nights, you take long drives you can’t afford to the beach, and sit on lands you’ll never own; even though you know it’s best, you’ll stare into the sea. And when you’re calmed enough by placid waves, with the stars above your eyes on fire, in the distance you can hear the mermaids on the farther rocks, singing out their tempting lies. Oh, but what you wouldn’t give to swim to them and leave, to pass this world behind and search for gold and spice and things. What you wouldn’t give to fight and have the chance to die, to kill a Cyclops of your own and put Ithaca out of mind. What you wouldn’t give to dream, or perhaps wake and find another life or dream – yes, that would be acceptable.
(A politician at heart, Machiavelli was tortured by the Medicci family after the fall of the Republic of Florence. He wrote of the necessity of the wrong and the economy of violence as truth in a world that does not always choose the right. At heart, he longed for Italy to reunite and return to a republic. He was executed a few years after completing The Discourses and The Prince.)
If you understand me, then you’ve walked along your share of wharfs and watched the merchant ships cast off. You’ve sat on wet and dirty cement landings, and prayed to God for rain. “Why, why won’t it rain,” you cry, and you cry your days away. What you wouldn’t give to cry. And so you write on blank pages, with really nothing more to say. You search for new endings, but the same words take your hand again.
(Martin Luther King was born in Georgia on January 15th, 1929 and was assassinated at approximately 6:05 pm on April 4th, 1968. King wrote of the responsibility to further human potential and protest unjust laws. A man of faith, action, and thought, King led the Civil Rights Movement and was seen as a father to many in a generation rebelling from the accepted values of their parents. He was thirty-nine years old.)
You see, we are each endowed by our creator with certain inalienable traits, among these life, desire to create, and passion. I long for my David, my Mona Lisa, my perfect thought. I am the last to live among a world of gods, where all the thoughts were thought not so long ago. So here I am with you; I think you understand me too. I think you understand why after all this, I need to sit here on the beach and smoke my cigarettes, even though I loathe the smoke. I only wish it were original.
(Existentialism: a philosophical theory which emphasizes the individual person as responsible, through choice, for the manner in which they pursue their existence – free.)
Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry
(Socrates lived between 469 and 399 BCE, in the state of Athens. He died for his belief in civic virtue and “the good life”, contending that we know nothing. )
I am certain you are of mind and spirit beyond the days you know; you have read all the great books of Constantinople and Paris, and long for an idea of feat or war to call your own.
(Plato was a devote follower and friend of Socrates. He expressed belief in “the forms”, continuing to stress the necessity of man to strive for truth.)
Isn’t it funny, these things that were supposed to make it all so much simpler, but instead left us without the real something we’ve always needed? Isn’t it ironic, this sense of irony in the world – the best philosophers and poets and writers and dreamers have dreamt their dreams away, till it seems there’s nothing left to say? And so, we are a generation of sailors – of astronauts and thieves, who sail away on borrowed ships to stars, and steal the words of kings.
(Descartes’ questioning of knowledge transformed methodology and logic. Using the analogy of a dream and melting wax, he wrote of perception and reality being separate. After abandoning academia, the only thing Descartes was certain of was his existence.)
If you can understand me, or if you’ve lived the way I do, I am sure this would all make sense. I am sure then, you will do this, and do that, just the way it’s meant to be – it’s most efficient and proven so by math and time. You won’t waste the previous moment, and you won’t stray from the golden course. You are not Oedipus, as you wish you were – you are linear – but not by choice. You have a house – elegant but simple – you have a job – ordinary but secure – and security – all that isn’t you. You are not new, and you wish you were…
(One of Martin Luther’s goals was to ensure that philosophy and reason were put to the benefit of society. Luther stressed the crisis of faith within the individual, and proclaimed the salvation of humanity an internal struggle rather than a system.)
Sometimes, on restless nights, you take long drives you can’t afford to the beach, and sit on lands you’ll never own; even though you know it’s best, you’ll stare into the sea. And when you’re calmed enough by placid waves, with the stars above your eyes on fire, in the distance you can hear the mermaids on the farther rocks, singing out their tempting lies. Oh, but what you wouldn’t give to swim to them and leave, to pass this world behind and search for gold and spice and things. What you wouldn’t give to fight and have the chance to die, to kill a Cyclops of your own and put Ithaca out of mind. What you wouldn’t give to dream, or perhaps wake and find another life or dream – yes, that would be acceptable.
(A politician at heart, Machiavelli was tortured by the Medicci family after the fall of the Republic of Florence. He wrote of the necessity of the wrong and the economy of violence as truth in a world that does not always choose the right. At heart, he longed for Italy to reunite and return to a republic. He was executed a few years after completing The Discourses and The Prince.)
If you understand me, then you’ve walked along your share of wharfs and watched the merchant ships cast off. You’ve sat on wet and dirty cement landings, and prayed to God for rain. “Why, why won’t it rain,” you cry, and you cry your days away. What you wouldn’t give to cry. And so you write on blank pages, with really nothing more to say. You search for new endings, but the same words take your hand again.
(Martin Luther King was born in Georgia on January 15th, 1929 and was assassinated at approximately 6:05 pm on April 4th, 1968. King wrote of the responsibility to further human potential and protest unjust laws. A man of faith, action, and thought, King led the Civil Rights Movement and was seen as a father to many in a generation rebelling from the accepted values of their parents. He was thirty-nine years old.)
You see, we are each endowed by our creator with certain inalienable traits, among these life, desire to create, and passion. I long for my David, my Mona Lisa, my perfect thought. I am the last to live among a world of gods, where all the thoughts were thought not so long ago. So here I am with you; I think you understand me too. I think you understand why after all this, I need to sit here on the beach and smoke my cigarettes, even though I loathe the smoke. I only wish it were original.
(Existentialism: a philosophical theory which emphasizes the individual person as responsible, through choice, for the manner in which they pursue their existence – free.)
Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Ships
We resign ourselves, after much thought
in distant reverie under countless glistening twilight
princesses, reflections in the eyes of God.
We stumble through the bramble of ourselves,
shaken by the tempest of the day, that demon squall
somehow we fought with fervor through,
to come back to
this place we used to know.
Now it too is distant,
now we are men
with wrinkles on our souls –
ships forever lost to oceans
only we have seen.
Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry
in distant reverie under countless glistening twilight
princesses, reflections in the eyes of God.
We stumble through the bramble of ourselves,
shaken by the tempest of the day, that demon squall
somehow we fought with fervor through,
to come back to
this place we used to know.
Now it too is distant,
now we are men
with wrinkles on our souls –
ships forever lost to oceans
only we have seen.
Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry
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