In the wake of tragedy we search for answers. As a society we blame,point fingers, demand change. What change do we demand of ourselves?
It is sad to acknowledge one life can take so many. One person in a moment of selfishness can take upon themselves them destiny of so many innocent victims. Yet, what have we done to stop such calousness?
Picture if you will a table in an otherwise empty room. On this table are the following items. A shotgun,A box of bullets, a hunting knife, a bow, a quiver of arrows, a bottle of medicine (potassium to be exact), and a stack of books, the top book a dictionary.
What is your first thought? What do you see?
When you see a gun what do you think of?
Far more often then not these items are seen as weapons of destruction. Why?
I challenge you to change your thinking. Look at the table again. See a man going into the woods to get dinner for his family. A father and son saying thank you to a God that provided a healthy animal and to the animal for giving its life. See a woman preparing that animal. A family gathered for a healthy meal they obtained from the resources around them.
Knowledge and words can be just as deadly as the bullets and arrows. It is not the object. It is the hands that hold them that determine their intent.
How do we stop hate? How do we protect our loved ones? How do we change a society that has become infested with negativity?
Values, morals, love. Teach our children respect for life. Help the world see the fleeting experience of life uninterupted. The beautiful positive change one person can make in a hundred lives around them. Be kind to everything. Even the smallest of animals. Accept that it is the diversity of culture, ethnicity, and thought that makes our society a super power in the world. Embrace our differences with love and respect. Teach our children to do the same.
Hate breads hate but one act of kindness can touch a hundred lives.
*my thoughts* please feel free to express yours. I will listen.
In desperation or possibily dessertion
Comfort in solitude
Knowing what is broken beyond repair
Will simply lie there
Hope is the cruelest of all intentions
To give or receive
Deception out of compassion
What is broken
Must be discarded
Is it possible in this disposable society
There are people beyond repair?
The fiction of love
Hope to remian unchanged.
In life there is one promise
Death will be its end.
Why promise emotion when moods so swiftly change
Why promise love that lasts only one day
This world is filled with possibility
Hope is not everywhere
It dies next to dumpsters
In hospitals
In prayers.
Hope dies with good intentions
And the evilest of lies.
What is broken must then lie
Alone until its demise
Broken dishes
Broken trust
Even broken lives.
Watch closely each face
Each alleyway you pass
Enjoy being given your one chance
For behind some door
A beating heart is no more
Waiting quietly to be discovered on the floor.
(C) R.M.Brandon 2012
The air tuns bitter. Rust,Orange,Burgandy, and Yellow fall at the base of Evergreens. An aroma burnt Oak floats around Ghouls and Goblins heading across town. Hayrides followed by hot chocolate and marshmallows snuggled fireside.
Sit back my darlings and listen to a tale. It is All Hallows Eve.
The mask you wear with such pride, hiding who you are in real life, imagin for a moment if that was truely you.
You, Caped Crusader, will soon be called to save the fair Damsell over there. For when the moon rises full the Vampire by her side will long to taste her blood.
Look up, its almost time. The Portal between time opens wide. The stars blur. Clouds swirl with delight, then slowly their faces come to life.
Ohhh. Hold my hand little dearies I'm shaking with fright. It's Hallows Eve when nightmares come to life.
Have a Safe and Happy Halloween everyone!
2012 R.M.Brandon
Failure.
The fear of realization.
Realization of fear.
Everyone fails at something.
Some fail at everything.
Success.
If ever occasion arose.
To some is obsolete.
Some everyday complete.
Value.
Who is to judge?
What measure is used?
When calculating value of life
Who gets to choose?
Some say worthless
Others irreplaceable.
In the great big world
It is easy to feel small.
Journey.
Explore beyond vision.
Trust beyond belief.
Travel through heart
Or simply follow your feet.
Life.
A journey destined to end.
Some experience years
Others, a few heart beats.
Some know only bitter
Yet embrace it as sweet.
Perspective.
The point from which one sees
The journey some rush to complete.
Others sit idly by
Awaiting patiently return
To the other side.
Riddle.
If there is no begining
Where did it begin?
If life is simply dying
Waiting for the end.
The ending does not exist
it simply begins again.
Continuous evolution
No begining, middle, end.
Eyes closed.
Take my hand.
Feel the wind softly blow.
Fall with me now.
For a moment we soar.
The ledge long gone.
Weightlessness
Gravity pulls on.
Taste the freedom
Everything is alright.
Pain.
Impact upon the ground
Has ended our flight.
Fear of failure has gone
Swiflty into the night.
Begining a new life.
The begining is the end
The end the begining.
Failure is success
when someonelse is winning.
R.M.Brandon 10/20/12
A moment of stillness
In a chaotic world
A choice
The bitter wind turns
It must find a home
For change
Nature
Can not be ignored
The fuzzy little catepillar
Brown coat atop countless legs
Awkward
Solitare upon the dry soil
Searches
The pull, intense
Climb
Spin
Alone
For alone is the only way to grow
Fear settles deep
Unkown ahead
Ugliness of existence as it is
Small, inconsequential
Climb, yet again alone
Surrender
Bleak desolution of winter wins
Cold, alone on the ground
She whithers and dies
If only there had been no fear
A beautiful butterfly
Would have emerged
With the Spring sun
(C) RM Brandon 2012
America the land of the free and the home of the brave, unless you are employed for Corporate America. In a country where we have fought to free ourselves from
Discrimination based on color, gender, or race, our liberties are still being violated.
Why? How?
We have allowed corporations to dictate what we as individuals can do in our own lives in the name of "health promotion". And big buisness is using our fear of unemployment in a shaky economy as their right to violate our civil liberties.
Because we have not made it illegal.
In promotion of a "healthy environment" a person who chooses to utilize tobacco is ostricized, fined, and persecuted openly.
This is a legal substance! As legal as the can of coke you drink at lunch. But because of the well known associated health risks corporate America raises the cost of health insurance coverage for smokers, adds additional "employee use fees" and then places policies which make it "a violation of employment" to use tobacco products during hours of employment including breaks and lunches.
How is this legal? Because it is not "illegal" it is still however discrimination over a "lifestyle choice".
Is your cholesterol bad? They will raise your insurance rates, fine you, and force you to participate in "wellness programs" to keep your employment.
Again discrimination, yet not "illegal".
Vaccinations are a choice. Not if you wish to remain employed without being ostricized. You must allow them to inject you with whatever they see "necessary" or be forced to wear cumbersome "protective gear" that make the work environment stressful and isolating.
Discrimination to yet another lifestyle choice.
What has become of our civil liberties? Where is the freedom of personal choice?
Corporate America has a stereotype they wish everyone conform to without regard to personal values.
It's ok. When your emploer forces you to pay extra, do nothing. When you are required to eat only tofu and water at lunch during a 13 hour shift in which you are not allowed to so much as exit the building, do nothing.
When you are forced to take questionable vaccines that pose potential risk, do nothing.
If everyone keeps doing nothing about this legal discrimination we will soon become free from all rights to choose.
What makes America beautiful has always been its diversity. The ability for the melting pot of society to come together to achieve brilliance. It's ok. Let's keep saying nothing as that diversity is slowly stripped from us to create a stereotype, an elite workforce filled with one BMI, one lifestyle, one belief system.
Or make your voice be heard!
Let your legislators know we've had enough!
Make discrimination in ANY form ILLEGAL!
If you continue to do nothing, say nothing, don't be suprised when the Nazi patrol confiscates your cheeseburger and coke because it's not a "healthy choice".
Health promotion, the devlopment of safety policy, and the promotion of a positive, productive work environment have been mutilated by forced policy and open public discrimination. It is time for a change.
After all a lifestyle choice is supposed to be chosen.
(C) R.M.Brandon 2012
Life was given.
In its birth dreams, hopes, and promises formed.
Yet the act of living impedes.
Time slips freely away while everyday planning is made.
Bystanders cast their stones.
The path walked feels ever alone.
Intent falls victim to pain by false judgement.
Who dare estimate the cost of a load they do not bare? Compassion long gone.
Like the door to home.
Stolen memories nothing more.
Yet the gift is still given.
Will be forever.
The foundation to live a life worth more.
All life is precious yet so rarely valued.
The world pushes down those who struggle to carry on. Where do you stand when the long night is drawn?
Are you helping to achieve dreams or ripping them from someone's arms?
Be as you will.
Be careful as you are.
Empathy is a dying breed in a world lost to greed and war. (C) R.M.Brandon 2012
Beneath the city skyline two old men watched the world walk past on the stoop of an apartment building. "You are so lucky. I wish I could still hear the sweet call of the birds as they frolick on the lawn." Said the old man to his mate.
His mate turned in astonishment, "What I wouldn't give to see the glisten of a black birds feathers or watch the sun as it falls from the sky, just one more time." His voice was a shout to accommodate the old the man's hearing defecit. Tears welled beneath his darkened glasses at the corners of his cloudy eyes.
While the old men sat talking a buisness man walked by. His gait hurried, he shuffled his brief case from one arm to next while holding a cell phone to his ear and chewing an apple between "Yes "and "sure". With a nod he passed the men a look of envy on his face. Whimiscally he uttered, "What I wouldn't give to spend my day just watching the world pass by."
The buisness man rounded the corner, the apple he half heartedly chewed slipped from his hand into a trash reseptacle as he fumbled between phone calls and files. Between the buildings he briskly passed a young woman in tattered clothes eyed his discarded treat. She rushed to the trash reseptacle on his passing and plucked the half eaten apple into her heavily dinge covered hands. Retreating to the darkness of the alleyway she pressed the juicy red to her lips with a far off look in her eyes, " What I wouldn't give to have enough food to waste half an apple."
From an adjecent building an old woman peered from her window watching the young girl chew a delicious red apple. A low hum filled the air in the room around. Faint electronic whirls and beeps of the machines that kept her alive. Trapped inside four walls with only a birds eyed view of the world walking by she thought to herself, "What I wouldn't give to be able to feel the wind on my face, the dirt beneath my feet, taste food once again. Even being a beggar would be better than the life I'm in."
Just up the block the sound of sirens filled the air. The static filled chirp of a first responders radio, " MVA vs bicyclist corner of Broadway and Pine. DOA." Shaking his head he placed a sheet over the remains of a tiny body. Pink Barbie handlebars jetted from the tire of a sideways sedan. He looked from the apartment buildings in the area where onlookers emptied into the streets. The Sedan's driver stumbled drunkenly around the roadway towards the EMT's oblivious to the severity of the scene around him.
The Medic spoke quietly to his partner wiping tears from his eyes with blood soaked hands, "She couldn't have been more than four. Will people ever realize how precious life is?"
Life is but a fleeting moment in time. Don't let it pass you by.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
It is an odd comfort, knowing those I have admired the longest in my life were little known before their demise. Apparent now in retrospect, word must travel slowly if it is to have any length to its stay.
"Fifteen minutes of fame" commonplace. The in, the here, the now. Those are the faces and names that rise quickly, then stiffle without a second thought.
Yet, the names who live in eternity, the sweet words that comfort generation upon generation, never experienced fifteen minutes while breathing.
So what then of aspirations? Is there comfort in the future even if it is not lived?
But writing is a torturous beast. It is not to seek fame. Nor is it truely to be heard. Those are things of second thought. Writing is an outlet, an escape from the pictures, sounds, faces, that fill the waking mind. It is the pressure valve that segregates sanity from ridicule.
The nature of the beast is all consuming. Tiny snippets stored through out the day that flash in the mind's eye at sunset begging their tale be told.
It is the whisper of the wind amongst the trees, the light cascading on a pile of fallen leaves. It is the tenderness in a mothers eye, the look of a father with pride. It is life in its light, and even more so in darkness. The tales of those long forgotten.
The beast consumes me, or do I it?
Never dance with the Devil if you value your soul but what if by the making your soul if pure coal? What if by design you created your own undoing? What is life but the process of dying?
Yet into the light once again life is far more than breathing in. So writing too must be more than mechanics, more than grammar and schematics.
For a house to stand it must have a foundation. For a story to sell it must weave a tale worth saying.
The story never ends, merely begins again. For life with the beast is a merciless journey.
The line between sanity and insanity is occasionaly drawn by those without imagination. In a world of walls why barricade the mind? Only within the pages of a book can one travel the worlds beyond in any form.
The beast is a beautiful friend.
~After the release~ R.M.Brandon 2012
Good for nothing. Good at nothing.
Surrounded by greatness. To the left speed, strength. To the right agility, grace.
Here, nothing. Why am I here? What was I thinking? Everyone around has a skill, a talent. Mine, failure.
What contribution have I made? What great skill?
Nothing.
Why do this? Quitting would be easier. Ending it before I hurt someone else. Before someone hurts me. May be that is why I don't.
Am I just seeking my own destruction? Is trying selfish when the reality of failure is obvious?
Surrender.
Admit the legacy of nothing is you.
Crawl into the dark hole and wait for the soil to cover. Save the few who care enough to support the embaressment of public failure.
Hope. Maybe it's not so bad. Maybe there is something somewhere I am good at.
Reality.
I will always excell at being good for nothing.
I guess that is something.
In failing alone atleast I will succeed in saving any foolish enough to care the humiliation of saying they were there.
Failure in the midst of greatness. Beauty, grace, speed, agility, strength, intelligence. All of the things I have not.
Which is why I will continue to try on.
It's always the quiet ones. The blacksheep that walk through life like a shadow against the movie screen. They try so desperately to fit in, moving in and out against the chaos of life. Blending, watching.
Mousie blonde hair hung across her pale face. The edges curled where she wished they would fall accenuating the manly features she longed to conceal. Dull hazel eyes darted around the crowd like an animal cornered. "How the hell do I get out of this one?" She pondered aloud. There was no need for her to worry, no one noticed she had spoken, they never did. A misfit. Like a beggar on the corner, everyone noticed it's existence, but no one cared enough to acknowledge it with kidness.
"It". A nameless face in a sea of stars. She inhaled deeply as a large man crowded into her. The aroma of sweat and weakening aftershave nauseated her. Clenching her eyes closed she counted silently to twenty. It was a trick she had learned to keep the panic attacks at bay. After the count she would breathe again and everything would feel spacious. The walls formed by large crowds would open and she would again be alone on the outside looking in.
Watching. Watching was never uncomfortable. Well, maybe occasionally. When a parent became to forecful with a child, a woman weeped thinking no one would notice, or an elderly person struggled, that was uncomfortable. Watching, wanting desperately to help, but knowing any action would only make things worse. She had been good at screwing up with the best of intentions. Her mental rolodex was filled with memories of chastisment, and utter embaressment resulting from speaking or acting outside of the "popular" way of thinking.
It was far less painful to simply observe, even the attrocities of humanity's sheer oblivion to their own cruelty.
Twenty. She opened her eyes and exhaled. The room had gotten smaller. The large man bore down on her private space. Tightness rose from the pit of her stomach into her throat. Constricting, stealing away any hope for air. Darkness began to fall in her eyes. She felt the world slip away certain in the back of her mind when she collapsed they would simply walk over her corpse. She would be there, on the ground, trampled to a pulp like roadkill on a backroad when the midnight cleaners came in. Gasping for air she surrendered.
Her body lunged forward into the burly foul smelling man who recoiled in disgust. Slamming head first into the cold tile floor, a flash of red filled her mind.
How could he do that? How could he, even a stranger, just allow someone to fall without any basic human compassion?
Like a wild fire in the wind the crimson spread through her mind. Anger, rage. A lifetime of watching, a lifetime of allowing pain, culminated inside her.
She didn't rise slowly from the ground, she leapt like a lion onto prey. Blood trickled from a two inch gaping slit in her forehead, merged with two streams from her rapidly blackening nose, and flowed freely off her chin. Arms flailing wildly in the air, she ripped at the strangers face. Claws open, she gouged away sheets of flesh. Fists balled, she hammered like a butcher to a steak.
Silent chaos. A slow motion blink. Suddenly there was space. Redness diminished. Rage receeded. Beneath her, a stranger, bloody, motionless. Shock. She tried to determine where all the blood was coming from. They sat in a river of crimson banked by terrified watchers.
Dazed, confused. What happened? Did I cause this? Why didn't anyone stop me?
They watched as the medics arrived, the police took statements, her life ended. They watched silently from the distance.
From the back of the police car she looked from face to face. Fear. So much fear. But no one dared to laugh at her now.
It's always the quiet ones. The ones that suck it all in and try to stay out of the way, that make the biggest mess in the end.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
The welcoming auroma of barbeque fills the cool breeze. Laughter echoes into eternity.
Standing in the sweet embrace of the summer sun wishing this moment could carry on.
Time is such a fleeting and fragile thing. Life and it's counterpart death waltzing. A moment of tragidy for one. In the same blink a child is born. Time waltzes on.
In this moment, I seek a pause. A pause to reflect before life carries on.
How much has changed since the last blink of an eye? No more tears have I found to cry. While pondering here I realize, the change has all been on the inside.
Locations, situations the dealing of which only hang on the depth of my grit. Strong shoulders, wide like a line backer, long legs for speed, compassion, understanding. From all of these are formed me.
A whistful dreamer floating at sea. The sea of life carries me from barren shores,to white sand beaches, and the shade of emerald green trees. Laughter, tears, challenges unseen.
The water is life, it's tide is the guide. In this moment life flies by.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
The wall. Running at full speed down the chosen path, eyes focused intently on the ground as it rises and falls beneath you. Ahead a shadow rises obscuring the sun.
Doubt clouds the mind. Indecison. The wall fills the eyes. No way around, only over. But the wall is slick and over seems hopeless without help. Nothing to stand on. No rope or ladder to climb. Is this the end of the path?
Has the journey really ended at obscurity?
It is in this moment when true character is formed. Some will turn and return to the point of origin. Others will veer walking along the slick surface of the wall searching for a way around. A select few will use their will power, bloody their fingertips, and exhaust themselves giving every ounce of themselves to the climb.
Standing at that wall I question, who am I? Do I climb or sit on my ass and wait for help? My feet are already tired, my legs scream for a break, mind is numb with endless quandry, hands callused from the path behind.
The wall rises. No I will not stop here, I will climb. When this journey one day ends the view will be a much better place.
Every life has obstacles, it is how handle those obstacles that defines who we are. Today I hit the wall, tomorrow I will climb it.
(C) R.M.Brandon 2012
All she wanted was a release. An escape, any form of reprieve, from the monotony of everyday life. Her lips drew up at the corners in a permanant grimace. A plastered smile that reflected closer to disgust than glee.
Her body moved mechanicaly, like a wind up toy that never fully unwound because the key stuck. All keyed up. The perfect description. But this weekend was going to be different. She was going to escape it all.
The custom wheels of her Hybrid SUV left the state blacktop as the sun turned past noon. Gravel dust coated the flawless paint christening her adventure.
Emerald green cliffs filled the windshield as the tires crept into a quaint dirt parking area.
She wanted away from civilization and she had found it. Far away. Slipping from the drivers seat, she pulled a brown canvas trail bag from the backseat, flung it across her shoulders, and pressed the door lock button to alarm the car.
Her half dead eyes sparkled with life for the first time in months. The dirt parking area faded beneath her feet. To the right a wooden State conservation sign marked the entrance to Waterfall Trail. 'Hike at Your Own Risk'.
How true that warning would prove to be.
The robotic movement of her body melted with each step into the Fern covered cliffs. Within 100 yards she swayed with a leisurely grace. Her stealy blue eyes absorbed the contour of every rock formation.
To the right of the path a navy blue baseball cap poked from beneath a rapidly decaying pile of leaves. Splattered from bill to brim rust colored stains further camoflauged it from the casual observer. Her mind vaguely registered its existence, tucking away the sight in her mental rolodex of needless observations. In the distance a dog barked.
The warning signs were everywhere, but when a person is wound from both ends the only pressure they notice is in the middle. (C) R.M. Brandon 2012
To be continued.......
What is the measure of a man? Who defines the value of a life? Is gold worth more than a grain of sand? Peace, tranquility, devine understanding, are these immeasurable traits or attainable goals?
Only in the Sweet Summer surrender am I able to find a tranquility in life. When the sun beats bright across my skin wrapping it in golden kisses. When laughter rings through the air and exploration is commonplace.
The things we find in this, the shortest of seasons, must cling to the mind during the bleakness of winter.
So how then do we measure a quality of life? Is it in the moments spent in sunlight, laughter? Is it the things we aquire through labor? Is it the memories we collect?
A dinosaur on a picnic table, a row of geese playing on a dock, a rain storm relinquishing the blight of a 100 degree draught, a day filled with collectable memories. Just a moment in one life. No money obtained, no great world changing discovery. Just a day.
Yet this day far more precious than a gem. More beautiful than Gold.
This day is peace in the madcap of a life in motion. So to answer my own question; the value of life is what you give it. What YOU make of it. If the value of your life is memories, share them and you will live eternally.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
At the end of a broken concrete road in the middle of nowhere waits a long forgotten beach. How does a beach become forgotten? Lost at the end of the tide, catfish remember its name. Cranes dance across its overgrown sand, stalking the scaled visitors. With silent
magesty the curves of their necks bend dipping their razor sharp beaks into the cool green water. With a flash of movement, they retreat to the tree tops, an impaled fish as a mid day treat.
Sitting at a distance I watch the dance. Swooping from the heights of an oak tree violet black vistors land beside me. Yellow eyes twinkle with mischief as the feathered fiend sizes up the bologna sandwich in my hand.
Such a funny little thief he is, mouth parted between a grin and a laugh. I toss the bread crust to him and wait. Quickly he takes the bait. Snatch and grab, up into the trees again. Another crust of bread, this time he brings a friend.
Soon I am surrounded violet wings everywhere. The thought occurs, I don't think there is enough sandwich to share. Slowly I rise, meandering to the beconing sand and gentle tide. When I turn to look from whence I came, I realize the blackbirds decided the same.
Dropping my clothes with the wrapper on the shore I float on the hands of the gentle tide. On the lost beach my new friends wait. Violet and black wings my dinner dates.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
Thought of buying a pool. One of those big in ground numbers with a slide and a diving board. Then realized someone would just fill it with trash.
Thought of building a fire pit. Not just any fire pit, an out door kitchen. A combination of bricks,recycled aluminum and steel, and a touch of imagination. A gaping mouth through which to create tastebud hypnotizing meals. Then realized it would be knocked down as soon as to work I had gone.
Thought of surrounding the yard with flowers.
Daisies, roses, orchids, fragrant beauties that would dance in the summers breeze. Their scent would combine like fresh honeysuckle and invite you to sit among their petals. Their colors would bob and sway singing to the wind. I would keep them hydrated with a meandering stream. It would encircle the yard fed by fountains. Clear blue water filled with golden fish would cast rainbows against the presisely placed stone walkway. The walkway would lead to a secret garden walled in by climbing beauties. Centerpiece, sitting stools surround a solar powered Hot tub. At night surrounded by warm bubbles laying up the sky would be filled with stars. Then I realized the flowers would be cut, the stream filled with pollution, the fish would die, and the hot tub would become lost to overgrowth.
Thought of dancing on the edge of the moon when the stars came out to play. Dangling there, watching the world spin away. Then realized the moon is too far away.
Thought of leaving. Wondered why I hadn't thought of that before. Then I realized I had. I never bothered to walk out the door.
There is a resignation when dreams begin to die. Suddenly you realize you no longer ask why.
Time slips steadily past. The chance for change too long gone. Still the question remains, when did life go so wrong?
(C) R.M.Brandon 2012
Day one. For anyone who has never smoked quitting should be easy. Society tells us it is rude. The medical field points to nicotine use for cancer,heart disease,COPD, and many other conditions. Yet, their answer is ,"Just quite. It's bad for you."
Uhhmm okay. That doesn't really make the emotional or even physical withdrawl that you go throu "Just Quitting" any easier.
Today I bury my 17 year bad habit. Why? No peer pressure doesn't work on me. So Society's not the kicker. The medical field? Nope. By nature I'm self destructive. For some odd reason knowing it could kill me is not really a downside.
Why?
Because in less than two months I'm going to step on the flattrack with a team of women I respect. I am privliged enough to guard them, and assist my team to Kick Derby Ass. They give 120% every time they hit that track. From midair hits to cartwheeled trips,boob shots, to back blocks. Through bruises, breaks,and sprains they are there.
They deserve the BEST me I can put out there. Not the me that gets winded three laps in. Or the me that suffers charlie horses from muscular hypoxia.
So today is Day one. Bout day will be Day 59.
Today I let go of the memory that made me start. I let go of dying. I let go of regret. Today I embrace tomorrow, today, and Day 59.
No matter how hard this is physicaly or emotionaly I am strong enough to make it.
In a world filled with talent and wonder I wonder where I stand. Am I on the stage or up in the stands? Watching, observing every minute of life so grand. Yet simply watching changes the outcome.
The perspective of the onlooker makes each scene complete. Where would a love scene be if there was no one to see? It would still be love. Yet the story could get lost. I guess that is my contribution. To quietly watch.
Behind a lens. Behind a pen. Recording each act to replay it again. I am a story teller. A dreamer through and through. Next time your on stage I will be watching you. Where is the stage you ask innocently.
Read your Shakespear. The stage is everything you see.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
There once was a woman who lived in her shoes. She had so much stress she didn't know what to do. So she sat down and cried. As she cried she realized life would always be this way. There was a stamp on her forehead I guess you could say.
Every morning she looked in the mirror not one time did it appear to her. But surely she thought it must be there.
Ocassionaly to people she would talk, about her wishes, dreams, thoughts. When she did they always laughed. "You'll never be better than where you are at." She couldn't see it. Didn't want to believe. Then the day came her dreams fell flat.
She had never been one to quit. One to give in or throw a pissy fit. But this day was different. Finally she realized. Dreams are nothing but hopes lies.
So she closed her eyes. Let her spirit die. If this is all there is, then let this be all.
~R.M. Brandon~ 2012
Welcome to the house of broken dreams. They should hang a plaque at the door "We treat people like things". Take a look at all the things, broken, scattered memories. Yeah we treat people just like our things.
Open up the door. Take off your coat. Once you enter, you're here no more need for that.
Welcome to the House. Hang your hope with your coat. Turn your back or you'll find yourself longing for that.
Keep your eyes turned away. Peer into the holes. The darkness will fill you. Deep down in your soul.
Any empty plague where happiness fades. Bullets and blood remain.
Stay on top of the darkness. Don't let it pull you down. You're mind can get lost. Once it's gone you'll never be found.
You knocked on the wrong door. Maybe not after all you're a whore. You suck, like the holes, happiness out of life. So welcome little trick to the House of Broken Dreams. Pardon as I leave, you come right on in.
I'm just stepping out.
No one will see either of us again.
You take the house.
I'll take your coat of dreams.
We fucked eachother in the end it seems.
Welcome to the house.
Your new home.
Home of shattered dreams.
Enter as I leave.
(C) RM Brandon 2012
A life unbroken. It must exist. Other women talk about it. Homes without holes, children without pain, pets that stay alive. A life unbroken.
What is this then? What in this life is unbroken?
What was that movie? Groundhog's Day. Repetition. The star knew pretty quickly life was running in a huge circle and yet nothing changed the course. Stagnation.
If water never moves is it really going anywhere? Osmotically it is. But does it know it is losing and gaining even in its stillness? It is inatimate and therefore of no real signifigance. Or is it?
Every day is a circle. The sun rises and eventualy falls. Squeeze in as much as you can before the light goes out then do it all again.
A circle.
Fix the holes today,tomorrow there will be a new one. Replace the broken. Tomorrow it will be missing or broken. Give a child a smile. Tomorrow the eyes will again reflect the pain. Why?
Why do some girls get diamonds when others get coal? Why do some kids get families when others don't even get hope?
Is this purgatory?
If a cat gets nine lives and a person is only supposed to get one how am I back after three?
Or am I really alive?
What if this is just a nightmare? My body lays beneath the ground years long gone, but my mind has never accepted and moved on. But the tears that fall on my pillow at night feel wet. Can you feel in a dream?
Death wouldn't really be a dream just another level of existing. Maybe in death you can feel.
What did I do wrong in life then to be cursed to misery? I was young and proud. Naive and cold. Youth, I really didn't know. Now I do. Now I see.But wait its not all bad. If it was there would be no doubt. No. There are still moments so beautiful they can not be imagined.
There are moments of sunlight, rays of happiness, between each fierce storm front.
How does one fix a broken life without more breaking?
What does normal feel like?
Norman Rockwell painted it so beautifully. Was that just a dream he was living?
A darkness enfolds. Sunlight vaguely shakes. In this life circling broken for resolution I wait.
Waiting implies patience a lack of drive. None really apply. I do not wait, I fight. I try. To no avail with the next sunrise.
If dawn is to break on yet another broken day,save me the pain,let my body in bed remain. But what if I miss that moment of sun?
(C) RM Brandon 2012
Jill in the box. Yeah; they said it was Jack. But Jill was the one trapped in a life stagnant. Body in a cage, heart on her sleeve. Smiling outside. Internaly she screamed.
A memory of the sun.The warmth of a real smile. That ray of sunlight gone for quite awhile.
Jill in the box. Waiting to be wound up tight. When the spring releases, briefly, she'll feel flight. Then, above her will shine happiness, better times. Fresh air. Light.
Soon followed by darkness once again to despair. Jack always pushes her head back underground, just when it feels like life has no down. Consumed in her cage she patiently waits, the melody, the wind, release.
Oddly enough it is the freedom that keeps her caged. Fooling herself maybe oneday. Maybe one day the spring will break free.
Eternal release.
Jill in the box, Jack forgot to come back today. In the darkness is where you must stay. But memory will keep you, hope will be your guide, until you die. Still trapped inside.
(C) RM Brandon 2012
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| (One of my Awesome Shorties) |
(Work in Progress, pardon grammar,spelling,ect. Polishing comes last)
Family ties. Family lies. If she would have known she would have run.She should have seen it. All the signs were there. But she was too far gone. Lost from the lies of her own. Now looking back its crystal clear. The blood, bone, sinew scattered everywhere. If she would've know all that time ago, what would be different now.
She looks to the crowd of gatherers. Begging in her eyes, not to save herself, that time has long passed bye. She pleads for them to think, think what they would do, if they ever had to walk in the shadow of what she has lived through.
Every family has its lies, the monsters that come out at night, when two fucked up people breed the complications out weigh fore sight.
Almost human the puddled mess of a man on the ground. Maybe more human now than when it walked around. A twisted grin on her face, she turns her hands to the police, deep down craving the cleanliness of white sheets. So long. So long has it been since clean entered into play. Oh wait, there was that week after the first time he went away.
What is this scene? This mess of humans being? Domesticated madness, the end of a fairty tale dream. Let us turn back the pages as the police car drives away. Back. Far back beyond yesterday. When two worlds collided a liar and a thief in the end we will get back to the mess at our feet.
First ponder this question, what life would you take if one was at stake, a life you helped make or a life you promised not to forsake?
Ahhh. See. See life has a way of sneaking up from behind making everything rational vanish with time.
Not so bad for the eyes, but great for the ego. That was her first impression of him.A simple act of kidness, the right words thrown her way. She had been hurt for so long. The physical pain didn't really bother her anymore. She had gotten used to that. Broken bones heal, bruises cover. But the scar she carried in her chest, the open wound that yearned just once to feel love, that pain never subsided. Years later she would wonder if that hole had been transparent. He was what she needed to feel right.
Everyone deserves that in life. Right? To hear I love You and know how it feels to mean it? He gave her that. Hope. Ultimately he gave her the cruelest gift of all, a wasted hope for better. Why would hope ever be wasted? For the lost, the forgotten, that emptiness becomes companion. When one takes that emptiness away, their compass to the world is scattered. To give hope without true intention is by far the cruelest of fallasies. Yet, love, even misunderstood or faigned, is blind.
She loved him, because she thought for the first time in her life she had found someone who loved her. Of course men had said it before. But that is for the flesh, no one ever dared the heart.
So we have the lost one, a transparent hole, comfortable with flesh that has forgotten how to feel pain anymore. And the hero who dared to play a knight.
The hero was no hero after all. Calcualting,cold, searching for vengance for a sin that she had never been told. Blindly she followed him, placed her heart in his hands.
As the years trickled bye he ripped it to shreds.
What could she have done to deserve this destiny? Love a man without integrity. He wanted nothing more than to be his father's son. A life she wanted to desperately to help him run from. Yet she never stopped to see he wasn't running, she was dragging him as he ran back kicking and screaming.
Deception,lies, secrets, spies. One happy family....
TBC ~RMBrandon 2012
Life through my Lens ; random shot I captured playing with lights in the woods. Do you see what I do?
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| The most beautiful canvas ever painted, is painted new each day. Take the time to appreciate the art of nature. R.M. |
Awhile back I posted a poem dedicated to my kids titled ; More Than Skin. Lately, the subject of superficialism seems to be a recurring thing in my everyday life. Let me explain a bit. When I was a teen I spent some time living on the streets. Something happens to your view of the world when you see it through the eyes of hunger. No matter how many years pass, how many degrees you obtain, how high you climb, you never forget that look.
As a parent I see it in a different way. I am unfortunately a size zero. Yes, I said unfortunate, wait before you judge. My daughter is still growing. She is at that beautifully awkward in between stage where one part of her body is trying to catch up with the other. She flatters me because she wants to be like me. But she doesn't see the world through my eyes.
She thinks being called names goes away once you're thin. She's wrong. The world around us only sees the surface. They look at me and think I'm anorexic, on drugs, superficial. I frequently get comments like;you need to eat more, don't go out in the wind you'll blow away, a fly could land on your ass and kick it.
People don't bother finding out anything about me they judge. They do it to everyone; subconsciously. Try this for an experiment if you don't believe me. Put an army duffle on your back, dress in the rattiest jeans and shredded tee you can find and stand on a corner. Don't beg for money or anything just stand there. I guarantee someone will laugh, someone will turn their head like if they look at you they will instantly become poor, someone will cuss you, and maybe, someone like me will stop and ask your story.
Give a bum a suit and a shave and the world suddenly respects him.
My question is why? Why as humans do we judge the value of a life with anything other than life?
We do. As a society, we do. On paper, we say a heartbeat is valuable but walking through the streets in a daily we only see skin.
Take off your blinders look a person in the eyes and listen to their words before you ever weigh their value. Maybe you will see something spectacular, maybe you will change a life. It will probably be your own.
We are more than the skin we are in. Skinny, fat, in between, straight, curvy. Whatever it is, just a shell that time changes. Why not look beyond it?
For me, if you fail to see beyond what I am wearing any given day, I understand it's your loss. I will not judge you or even dislike you. I fear that your loss may someday affect my kids. Because your actions become your children's actions. I hope mine have learned to look beyond labels, color, size, to see the value life. But I know once they leave me they are surrounded by a world of surface. Please stop the hate. Look deeper. Help change the world for the better. Not for me, for them.
Imagine a world beyond skin.
Ahhh. The ides of March have passed and the end is drawing near. To my regret and yet revelry I must announce a slight delay in the debut. We anticipated a March release of The Green Man's Curse.
Yet, with wisdom of an amazing editor/writer it has returned to me again. If it is in my hands why the delay? Because I am growing as writer. I could easily give it to you as written, but you wouldn't see the story. You might miss the beauty of a love scene, or the tragedy of a death simply because I didn't show you everything there was to see. Or help you feel what these characters feel.
If I fail in that as a writer, I do not only myself, but my readers a great disservice. So I dive back into the script. In Lost Lambs I have given you a glimpse of the dark side of my writing. In The Green Man's Curse I will show you everything else.
You will love, laugh, cry, agonize, fail, and succeed. At thed end of that journey we will stand together, reader, writer, in a place far beyond your imagination at the begining.
Please be patient. I am working not to give you a book, but a story that will captivate your mind, imagination, and maybe even your life. Until then keep walking with me here. And Thank you for following.
On the bank of the creek. My pole taught in the water. I patiently wait. As I wait, a crow circles above. Two turtles play leap frog jumping in and out from the muddy bank. Slightly up creek a fish jumps. My mind soars with the crow. Up and down through the clouds, high above what I can see, he sees beyond.
If you follow my writing , you, by now, have realized I am facinated with wings and slimy things. Basically anything that flies,crawls, and croaks. Oh and the fuzzy critters as well. But what holds my heart the closest is a toss between birds and frogs. Looking back I guess it has always been like that for me, head in the clouds, eyes to the ground.
What is your critter? The animal that reccurs through your life, thoughts, writing. What does this critter represent to you? No I will not change the word to animal. I said critter and I meant it.
(In the background my mom is cringing over my word choice. Hi mom)
I'm curious. Talk to me. What is the creature that captivates you?
She is the moonlight .
Licking the shore line of my life,
Soflty caressing the edges,
velvet upon sand.
The salt of her skin, crisp
As the ocean breeze,
Filling my lungs with
Her uniqueness.
Her smile, the sunlight to my soul,
Warming the depths,
Of lifes Abysal void.
Her voice quiets the angels on high.
Pure melody.
Her rythm; jazz
To my blues.
Her love, hotter than a wildfire in summer wind,
Igniting the forgotten passion,
Deep in this ice soul.
She dances in my eyes.
Flash of golden skin,
Our bodies rise.
She is all.
All Ill never be.
Everything,
She gives me.
(C) R.M. Brandon 2012
The dawn sounds the bugles cry. Another day begins in the battle to survive. Fight to keep going. Fight to stay alive. Fighting back tears from hazel eyes. Why. The battle to live will always be lost. Fight it we must. For the generations to come. Another day begins. The fight to stay alive. Tomorrow will bring a new sunrise. One day life will be more than just a fight to stay alive. (C) R.M. Brandon 2012
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| MY STRESS RELIEVERS |
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| Follow your dreams |
