15 September 2010

Why Are You Laughing

Sitting in a room filled with students, like me, about my age, from the same country, and most from the same state, watching and listening to a concert for a school event, and it hits me, I don’t relate to anyone there. I don’t understand them, and they would not understand me. The things they do and the things they like, and more importantly, the reason why, are completely different from my own. They don’t listen to my music, read the books I read, watch the TV I like, act the way I do, or think the way I do. I am an outsider in the middle of my own culture. I could just as easily fit-in in a cartoon.

It made me wonder, if  I was the only one in the room as confused by our culture as me. I wondered are there others out there who are going along with the joke, laughing at the punch-line, but not really finding it funny. Or is it me? Am I the only one who doesn’t get it? I know what is culturally acceptable, and what is not, but I don’t understand why. Does everyone else really understand what’s happening? Why is country music bad, why is it wrong to stay sober on your birthday, why is it good to swear like a pirate, why is it fine to sleep around, why is nagging and complain about everything good, why is it fun to condemn, why? Who gets to decide what is right? Why do we listen to them? Why don’t I get to shape my culture, and why does culture get to shape me? 

Why do young kids sometimes commit suicide, why do teenagers keep getting pregnant, why is alcoholism funny, why is divorce something to laugh at?
Cultural influences are not responsible for everything bad in the America, but it doesn’t seem to be helping. When I think about it, maybe sitting in a large room of people who don’t understand me and who I don’t understand is depressing, not because I feel utterly alone and isolated, but because I see how different it could be, and don’t understand why it is the way it is, and why it’s not changing for the better. Why is being “bad” culturally equal to being “cool”?

14 September 2010

Chasing Dreams


 Chasing Dreams

1
Chasing dreams
Planning schemes
Swimming streams
2
Running last
Thinking fast
Distance vast
3
Planting rye
Unsure why
Standing by
4
Broken deeds
Reason bleeds
Soured mead
5
Dodging sneers
Turning gears
Shedding tears
6
Nothings true
Mental hue
Chances blew/flew
7
Dragging list
Hazy mist
Pounding fist
8
Plane to see
Next to me
Found the key
9
I’d been bound
Freedom found
I’ve been crowned
10
Singing loud
Perching proud
Above clouds

28 July 2010

Depressing Rain


Disappointingly, dreaded deluges deliver
  Dreary dripping dark drops,
Drowning downpours--deeply despairing--
Downward during dark day

Remembering remorsefully, raging rivers
Run recklessly, rendering rafting 
Relentlessly risky--ramming rocks--
Rowing rigorously reduces rending