December 31...11:00 A.M.

Gosh. Here are Clifton's first 6 punt returns as a Bulldog:

Against Rice
#1: 67 yards, TD
#2: 62 yards (tripped up at the 10)
#3: 8 yards

Weber State
#4: 11 yards
#5: 92 yards, TD
#6: 86 yards, TD

The 3 returns for 189 yards and 2 touchdowns are an NCAA record.

Yeah. 6 returns for 326 yards and 3 touchdowns. The very next game he goes and tears his anterior cruciate ligament, lateral collateral ligament and hamstring tendon agaisnt Oregon.

Clifton Smith

We only get one more chance to see Clifton play in a Fresno State jersey. I'm just bummed he came as an academic non-qualifier. I'm even more disappointed that he lost a whole season when he destroyed his knee. He would have had completely ridiculous numbers he hadn't missed so much time. Having a Bakersfield product (Ryan Mathews) come in this year makes it a bit easier to swallow, but I'm going to be really disappointed when he's gone. This is right up there with when Brandon Bakke's career ended with the basketball team.

New York

I miss New York. I didn't take very many pictures while I was there. Photographs kind of simplify what you're actually experiencing. Either way. Summer. 2008. Hopefully Johan will be wearing a Mets jersey this time around.

Lost but Searching

Immerse within this verse constructed with a nudge to hush women :)
Wishes become dust in inclination to rush contentment
Snitches twist intention amid their lives of time wasted
Take statements out of transit then insist that I betrayed them
Plaintiffs stick to accusations postulating clients' innocence
Hypocrites sicken even the most sin-strickened witnesses
Sift amid the splintered boat we sculled in summer weather
Measure up the weight of gain or loss and toss the lesser
Dress your complaints of my conduct just excuse my vomit
Honest thoughts on hindsight shine light on the heeding comments
God, there’s no logic to the premise of what you argue
Charred for the view that my fortress was contoured to discard you
Far be it for me to say “See!” when mentioning past sent warnings
Ignore me, then drape me with blame after hope commences forming
Contort or distort me to the image that best eases hurting
Surely I’ll try to find the next chick that thinks I’m lost but searching

Pittsburgh and Philadelphia

From Chicago I drove through Michigan and up into Toronto. Visually, Canada was like nothing I saw throughout the states. But I didn't take any pictures. After driving past Niagara Falls I went to a baseball game in Pittsburgh and my brother met me in Philadelphia. Click on the statue of Washington. It's got a great quote. As far as that goes, go back a few posts and click on the picture of Soldier Field.

each rhyme that she took

Sawdust blown away
Wood shavings brushed aside display/
A well designed
Defiled shell of failure in a play/
In vain he searched for characters to trade his scripted part/
Depicted part of what he was so far
She numbly ripped his heart/
Retarded sense of context
He dissected each encounter/
Bound each prospect with potential
Built a fence around her/

It used to be effortless
Stressed syllables matched without pressure/
Sounds aligned without measure/
Pleasure was expressing a thought
Not substituting for a lesser word with a better flow/
Nor throwing out a token that would let her know/

Stoop within the gutter
Prod the vagrant's vacant book
Look at when she left his life and each rhyme that she took
She shook the being she was to fit his neatly inked desires
He'd write to grasp her shadow though he lacked the words required
So on they danced their "cat and mouse" till one of two things happened
He ran his heart of ink or she just couldn’t read and vanished

Niagara Falls

Yup.

Bland

A different day
Syndication of the issue/
With pen disseminate
The way I hate the time I’m with you/
I can’t get through each reunion
Because on cue our time elapses/
Panicked
Clasp the clock around the neck until it passes/
Unhand it
Wrap my ears around your voice as it splits air/
Neglect to share your scent on days the breeze hints of your hair/
Unfair
The way the winds of autumn tease me with your fragrance/
Days spent in your absence leave me waning with the vagrants/
Aimless
I see out our moments
Hold them in my thinking/
Squeeze out every second known but let me keep your breathing/
Breach my scenery
Bleach each image etched upon my mind/
Please leave alone your visage
Render lens and iris blind/
Grind away my skin and nerves
Disperse my sense of touch/
Just let me tuck away the flood of blood when our arms brush/
Suck away each flavor savored
Sweet and sour flip/
Everything deemed bland
Against your taste upon my lips/

Soldier Field

I've been to several sports stadiums. Most recently there was Shea. I grew up seeing old videos of my mets winning the world series in 1969, and more recently, 1986. On a much smaller scale, the stadium is also remembered for hosting the beatles. I've also been to Texas stadium to see the Cowboys and Broncos on Thanksgiving Day. For me, those experiences were both epic. But just walking around Soldier Stadium and seeing the plaques dedicated to our armed forces was incredible on a totally different level.


Plus, I got a Bernard Berrian bobblehead in the team store.

Frick Museum in Chicago

I love dinosaurs. Seeing them at the museum was definitely a highlight of the trip. I should say "museums." I saw dinosaurs in museums in Denver, Chicago, Pittsburgh, and a small town in Utah.

Denver Skyline

At least part of the Denver skyline. I took it from inside a museum just after watching a a fossilized stegosaurus helplessly defend her infant children from a relatively small predator. probably. More pictures to come.

Colorado Rockies

My truck wants to go back here.

Lackluster Rhyming; Ear Slaves

Wishes becoming mist
In an era remiss of innocence
Missing
Or envisioning
A kiss on the tips of lips
Mimicking an eclipse of mythical visions
Or depictions
Figments
Fragmented actions
Fractured by the lack of time
Or timing
Mimes chime in with their reenactment
An artistic recant of lackluster rhyming


Peeling off gauze
Pause
Cough up embalming fluid/
Grab a cup
Turn it up
Relax to this calming music
Breath grazes vocal cords
Vibrations bend air waves/
Mouth facilitates thoughts
Caught
Now you’re my ear slaves/
Hypocrisy:
Me trying to appease you
Yet I’m bound by my pen/
Tied down by flesh
Meshed with a hunger to sin/
Lend an open mind
I’m confined to the ink and its well/
I wield the pen
Yet it manipulates me when it spills/
Filled with black confessions
Guilt lessons with faults discovered/
Amazing what a “Christian” exposes when the vaults uncovered/

Masai Warriors

I'm mulling over next summer's trip. Or maybe even a trip before then. I thought I'd do two things. Recap. And then look for some inspiration.
Here are some "masai warriors." Notice the watch the one on the left is wearing. Hard core.

African Elephants

A picture taken while on a safari in the masai mara (southern Kenya), and one I drew. Can you tell the difference?



Me either.

Cue the Music; Blanket Seams

Too many days I’ve raped this dictionary
Tearing Webster’s hymen
High pitch rhymes get violent
Ripping thighs and stitching them from abdomen to spine. Then-
Let them mend to hear you cry when spinning lines that might split
Gripping on the hemmed up seam to see your lumbar vertebrae
How they shake when words escape
Draping down your tongue and mouth and placed upon my dinner plate
Taken from your lungs to stuff my ego when our winter drapes
Racing sirens light the pavement’s paint in wasted haste to save you
Patients wait
They hate you
Scrape your place from memory to clean a lane to wade through
Thank you
But I can’t do it
To take our time and write it out would waste my day
So screw it
This avenue has brewed my fumes
I’m through
So cue the music

Our bond takes form in text
Perplexed you feel confined
Restricted minds decide a love is bound by page and rhyme/
A different frame of sight will find your grace when seen by me/
Can blind the eye of countless men when penned for all to read/
Air seeps from lungs with every passing touch your hands impart/
When love is acted out it’s seen as porn
In words it’s art/
In darkness all the boundaries of my flesh can find their peace/
The sweetness of your skin
The scent of limbs within my reach/
The morning blink of waking time displays frayed blanket seams/
Each written verse that beats your drum becomes a faded dream/
Blatant empty sheets think of your face and turn to laugh/
Mapping all your attributes
The tune
On them
Falls flat/
Grasping to the mattress for a remnant of our night/
Like all my other days this one is barren
Stripped by light/

fairest thoughs

Despite the drive within your spine to let your spite define us
Defend the times our minds entwined and let them splice inside us
I tried to let our lips convince my system that we’re victims
Minions of some twisted script that God thought not to mention
He opted for His altered scheme to take my seed and toss it
Every vein within my being was drawn to plot with logic
I’ve conjured every way to take our chance and dash its flame
To sand away the ways I’ve dropped your odds would shame your name
All games unplayed and truth explained I lack the love to act
Indeed, to grasp ego and stroke would choke our recent past
Please seep between the letter’s words and drink the bleeding hope
Although the paper’s dressed with ink it left me needing clothes
I’m hopeful that my naked skin will heat your mind when cold
Conveying the way I hold you up is better felt than told
Fools would see the fence and let it taint the ground their lawn's on
Hold to what we’ve shared
In time the fairest thoughts get drawn on

stainless hands

I’ll take my dirt black hands
Traverse this stagnant land and plant/
I’ll drag this plow
I’ll turn this earth
I’ll spurn this child’s past/
I’ll backtrack through her parent’s plight
I’ll dry and light her wick/
I’ll make her cry because it takes a break to mend a limp/
I’ll twist my fingers deep within your mind to fuel your thought/
On your behalf I’ll bleed whether I’m deemed a fool or not/
On that stance
I’m not out asking for the polished work/
I’m passing out the tools to have when standing on this earth/
So let them turn up stainless hands
With mine I’ll upturn roots/
I’ll work within a spirit strewn
That few would dare to stoop/

snugness

I’m mute when telling stories
My pen guides when I’m willing/
Filling my quill with chances passed
I’m just a canvas for spilled ink/
Telling each detail precisely
Retail sales with no returning/
Be sure the shirt fits
Snugness quickly shifts to burning/
Discerning winds leave scenery naked
Bleak amid this heeding/
The smoothness of my cadence
Rapes your will to cease rereading/
Bleeding from your eyes behind the shelter of this setting/
Regret seeps from your chest as you confess the life your betting/
Unsettling
How from where I’m at I’ve seen the paths you’ve opted/
You saw the life you wanted
Saw the weight of risk
And dropped it/
Does God spit at the time you waste?
Or come away with blushed skin?/
Shrugging at the way you took His talents and just flushed them/
I’m not judging
Just be keen
That if you’re feeling angst I’ve nailed you/
Don’t fail to recognize the skin the sin of sitting sailed through/

suicide's an alibi

You didn't watch me drive away?

You're always playing in realms of sight/
If light confines your mind
Let's intertwine behind the night/
Deemed blind by distance only when our flesh suppresses purpose/
With every word dispersed
With every verse conversed
You're nervous
Upturn this
It's just gibberish
I wish I lit the candle/
Instead I mold to your outline
Rhyme tied
A concept vandal/
Sound mind breaks stride
In time
Revive
Breathe life
The light rekindles/
Hymns full of my hopes are cloaked by scribbles
I'm too simple/
Too typical
Too hopeless
Take two doses of this potion/
Too logical
To neat for possibilities to grow in/
If broken oaths and promises admit the sins I foster/
Resist the thought to run
To call me altered
Or not bother/
Let good intentions teeter-totter on the scale of motives/
Stroke the callused skin with lotion
Know the yoke I've broken-/
Through the laboring in vast imagined crops of friendships planted/
Bask in fields of dreams I've hoed
And soak in stocks of passion/
Imagine every movement fastened to the goal of service/
You'll tip toe on the surface
Miss.. you're not alone when nervous/
I heard this person urging me to splurge in chances offered/
I pondered on the options till it dawned
You're someone's daughter/
I squandered opportunities
I ceded at your hair/
Please be aware that if we cross
I'm lost
I might not care/
Be leery
Hear me
Fear me greatly
Safety is my cloak/
If suicide's an alibi
Then find my lust a rope/
And know I poke and stoke the evenings spent in bashful silence/
Behind and out of sight there lies a past of rage and violence/
Aside from that I'm bent to finish sentences half said/
If you're the vein that fed my heart I drove away half bled/
I graced the pages of your book
And left with you half read/
If anxiousness bred married bliss
I walked away half wed/

have-nots in their toiling

Churning winds bring tales of journeys to lands beyond the eye’s reach
Creating scenes within the mind that withstand the test of time's leech
Mimes lay siege on villages of peons paying for royalty
Foiling the schemes and dreams of the have-nots in their toiling
Boiling to the brim of lips
I can't quit this half spit folklore
Grab floor around the flame
The life it claims behind the smokes pour
Chalky condensation irritates the sane man's vision
Clouded recognition leads to dependence upon provisions
The system encourages the rich to take from those lower in the system
Depleted independence pins the sick to live unmentioned
Life unpended
Silent
Lacking last words etched on head stones
Moans are deemed irrelevant when they're echoed via deaf tones

puddled glass

To be in love corrupts what untouched skin was born/
Dust forming on us covers up what hidden sin did scorn/
Sun pores before my form
Ashamed
A slave to touch/
Succumb to just one stare
Air shared
Your hair’s smooth brush/
Too rushed to soak the broken water’s puddled glass/
The humbled chats we trade become a muddled mass/
Befuddled less than sand when focused through your lens/
Unbent
You shunned your kin to measure poorer men/
Deformed within
I’ve hemmed this hinge less fence of tin/
Weighing in the list of past mishaps that caved me in/
Shave me
Rip what limbs I own that blush your cheek/
Your words beseeched upon my chest give breath to seek/
In need of just your smell
In absence deem me moot/
Like oleanders planted where the soul seeks fruit/
Remove the root of scum that plucks your hand from mine/
If nothing's left then nothing's what I want in life

rollercoasters

If I only had a penny
Simply one cent for every person
Content with the dangers of my amusement park
Muses consented
As long as they were the ones having fun
For every person who had read an article
Or heard of some stranger that I’d hurt
But was unaffected because it wasn't them
That’s all I want
Just one red cent
For every person who was even a little turned on
Because they were taking that risk
The risk someone else lost on
Maybe even at their expense
All I want is a tiny piece of copper
Or whatever substitute the treasury puts in one hundredth of a dollar these deceitful days
For every person who filed a lawsuit against me
Because the ride finally broke when they were the one at the top of the rollercoaster
And all of the sudden it wasn't so funny anymore
They were being read about by the next person planning to vacation
I wouldn't have to work anymore
All you have to do now is decide which tense you are
Past
Present
Future
Where do you lie in my sentence?
When you read that last line, how did you interpret it?
There are several ways it could be read
They all say a lot about you
And whether you're just reading about the amusement park
Or if your currency is what keeps it open.

Act I

brick laid on concrete
discretely built a refuge in which to hide/
wish i'd been more elite when choosing with whom to confide/
lied to
double crossed
played at my own game/
names become irrelevant
character mundane/
ashen, pale face graces the crowd
allowed nothing more than breath/
death contorts my knees as friendly arrows squeeze my chest/
press down against wilting turf
bewildered at the appearance of my aiming foe/
the physical blow becomes obselete
i eye a face i love and know/
it's over now
wow
i said it
like that it's all spoken and done/
i shun the choices i made
let's pour you some gatorade
i'm broken
you won/
this is fun
what had begun as an aquaintance becomes betrayel/
email
text
or phone call
let's all watch as friendships stale/
well, it's no ones fault right?
time eventually finds a moment to age all interractions/
we stole more than our fair share
so let's let time have satisfaction/
the slack's thin
in brief moments the taut rope will end things
well, end me if nothing else/
it fails me why i find the time to bind with those weilding pelting quills/
an iron will will only carry you so far with those bearing the same colored cloth/
my sword was dropped
when among brothern i found my lover lost/
sanity bound and locked
jot down this scribbled warning/
mourning will dribble down clouded gazes
as i raze and parade the barn storming/
ignore me if you wish
dismiss this as a wandering tirade by night/
quietly brush aside
or abide by my plight
yours will be the first matress i light/
verbally ignited
slighted as winds from the ocean blow blazes east/
pleased by the sight of corpselike ashes
two bodies pass as we relax at the great feast/
at ease
apeased
please know that together you managed to end this book/
laughter masks the task of confrontation
so change the song and skip the hook/

foreward

as started on august 11th, 2003...1:02 am.

Metaphysical doors halfway creek
Seasons long past
Across my mind seep/
Leaking feelings dusted over
Still not sure if I ever loved her/
Shoved her still beneath the covers
As conflicts whispered
I muffed her
Hushed her/
Cuffed her to bedposts confined in my mind
Designed lyrical motion pictures
But they fissure because i'm blind/

Bind down my digits
Hands figit at vocabulary confusion
Contusions fade with time
Your illusion leaves me inkless/
Blessed emotional mute
Because you hear me whenever we kiss/
Words escape my pen
Rhyming patterns end
I can't write down your essence.
Within the boundaries of my notebook i can't bottle up your presence.
My poem
Like my body
Turns chaotic from your cast look/
If novels were always love stories
I'd want you to be my last book/