tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81404417710822601532024-03-12T00:50:58.424-04:00Very Most GoodRandom writing by Jamie Perez, and some other stuff here and there.Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.comBlogger1180125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-60300787161818945662024-02-24T23:49:00.002-05:002024-02-24T23:49:36.784-05:00Flood the Zone (Again)<p>Heavy trails mixed with trials</p><p>Simple shapes like spheres and cones</p><p>One reign follows another</p><p>The thing about a metronome</p><p>Comfort food, arithmetic, working the stops</p><p>The weather is up and down</p><p>These signs mean something to somebody somewhere</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-30680152733074432762024-01-28T23:03:00.002-05:002024-01-28T23:03:49.615-05:00Carrion Bird<p>On on on on</p><p>On off on on</p><p>The swelling a sign</p><p>The signal a progress</p><p>Off on on on</p><p>Far from home again with the precipitation</p><p>Buying being bringing among</p><p>The filling and then the filing then the forever</p><p>Off off off off</p><p>You’re on and then you’re going</p><p>Suddenly follows perception</p><p>This container again</p><p>This gravity</p><p>And finally this willingness</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-82729243018231849442024-01-22T21:47:00.002-05:002024-01-22T21:47:28.369-05:00The Fingers Move in the Light<p>What you hide, I now know</p><p>Fall forward, again, and mark your consequences</p><p>The light flashing in the corner of your vision</p><p>The long dark road, the shifting borders</p><p>Field after field after field and once more with the lights</p><p>This is the sunrise that will become a memory</p><p>This is dew on the exposed skin of your forearms, inside your elbow</p><p>You know the smell and you know what it’s like for the possible to be sitting right in front of you in a smart get up</p><p>What will tomorrow taste like after all the stitches</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-36192241075780107612024-01-11T21:14:00.000-05:002024-01-11T21:14:09.777-05:00Books Are Dangerous (Sonnets Are Dangerous)<div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">AI is dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">The Internet is dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Isolation is dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Dynamite is dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><br /></span><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Bears are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Kitchens are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Mobs are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Stairs are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;"><span class="s2"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Tylenol is dangerous </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Ungrounded outlets are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">Driving is dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;">Ideas are dangerous</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody; font-size: 17px;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">The sky is dangerous<br /></span><span class="s2" style="font-family: UICTFontTextStyleBody;">The sky is dangerous</span></div></div>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-74189797323847766502023-12-19T20:54:00.001-05:002023-12-19T20:54:03.864-05:00The Many Decline<p>On deck or overboard it gets dark early this time of year</p><p>Develop, develop, develop, develop</p><p>The wasteful won’t inherit jack in this gothic romance</p><p>And a silhouette and a promontory and weather.</p><p>Retire to the fire and think about a better future</p><p>Like train travel and a green economy</p><p>We can share.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-8959760238338454972023-12-12T21:24:00.002-05:002023-12-12T21:24:44.531-05:00Forever-everLike so many things before me, take this bread, December 12th<div><br /></div><div>Forgetting today, forging next generation alloys, and nothing ever done but with allies </div><div><br /></div><div>Like various symmetries or a wheel spinning or all the piece lining up on the metaphorical board</div><div><br /></div><div>Like cake, like cookies, like the last days of your last years</div><div><br /></div><div>Two houses jammed together to make a bigger house</div><div><br /></div><div>As porch is to galley is to deck is to roof deck</div><div><br /></div><div>So back is to back is to back is to back</div><div><br /></div><div>Like a truck or a train, but so very far in the future</div><div><br /></div><div>But I’ve gotta say, I know your friends. I’ve met your friends. I’m cool with your friends.</div><div><br /></div><div>I still have so many pets and so many snacks and a roof over my head.</div><div><br /></div><div>I don’t know where we’re taking this thing we call life.</div><div><br /></div><div>Let’s keep breathing though, and let’s keep our eyes to the sky.</div><div><br /></div><div>In Baltimore there’s a radio picking up a faint signal</div><div><br /></div><div>Signaling which why is gonna matter most this year.</div>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-42289953348323302762023-12-11T21:28:00.002-05:002023-12-11T21:28:58.870-05:00Just Keep On DiggingJamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-46933536151012636072023-12-06T13:59:00.003-05:002023-12-06T13:59:33.472-05:00It Comes Before the Question<p>Is there really a finest goldsmith in any age?</p><p>We find ourselves smack in the middle of the Season of the Word of the Year and so many of its brethren,</p><p>And while we’re ok on split wood for a while, there’s not enough to last the Winter.</p><p>Tomorrow I’ll be back to work.</p><p>Meanwhile you’re focused on stretches and taking care of things.</p><p>You’re love of architecture is infectious,</p><p>And you have so many things to share.</p><p>These are the last moments we’ll spend together and we both know it.</p><p>Once upon a time all gulfs were uncrossable.</p><p>Nobody had a taste for looking back and the plants just kept on growing.</p><p>Someone invented the word ford and someone else made great boats and some other someone still was good at bridges.</p><p>This is the time that just keeps going.</p><p>When I hold up my hand, how many fingers do you see?</p><p>Write it down and remember me.</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-71533051804014906462023-12-03T23:01:00.001-05:002023-12-03T23:01:54.204-05:00Oh What (Interrupted Sonnet)<p>Early December in the midst of borrowed conventions</p><p>Some would say focus, others would motion to an equidistance </p><p>Forget everything you</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-23150022975621136192023-11-27T21:25:00.002-05:002023-11-27T21:25:24.009-05:00Don’t GoPeel it away<div>I mean the sounds in the night</div><div><br /></div><div>Prancing need not be ladylike</div><div>Heavy fanning and cold days coming</div><div><br /></div><div>This is what I remember</div><div>Racing across a casino floor with every care in every world</div><div><br /></div><div>You count what you’ll count and I’ll stand by</div><div>This whistle, that siren, that four on that floor</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Where’ve you gone? Where’re you now?</div><div>How will we get our mouth around it? When will we put all the good back in?</div><div><br /></div><div>This is about dirt and dust</div><div>This is about trajectories and everything after</div><div>This is a myth and this is the telling of a myth</div><div><br /></div><div>When becoming is done, this is what we are</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-48018443898439795442023-11-20T22:19:00.001-05:002023-11-20T22:19:02.935-05:00Potatoes Are Back<p>It’s a simple spell were you never second in line,</p><p>And so much of wrestling is retraining your reflexes.</p><p>Habit is to habitat as Barbara is to barbiturates?</p><p>That ain’t right.</p><p>How’s’about forgetful Sundays and sunbeams shuttled with care?</p><p>Fending off fright with complicated confection?</p><p>Drumming up support for collective action to counter a century of bad ideas?</p><p>Better us than them, as we shuffle into the shadows.</p><p>But that which was and will be will be that and that and that again.</p><p>But the sky is above you and beside you and below you because the world is round and we’ve known that a long time.</p><p>But we’re all tied up with exceptions upon exceptions.</p><p>But most tables and chairs, but fingers, but the seasons, but surely more.</p><p>There were so many and we make it fewer so you can deal with it.</p><p>Will there be ease? Will there be whipping?</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-74440403057516624492023-11-15T22:54:00.003-05:002023-11-15T22:54:59.725-05:00All the Threes<p>Sometimes, sometimes.</p><p>I’m still not processing the still loss.</p><p>The breakdown of things broken down,</p><p>Forgetfulness in the face of horrible times,</p><p>Leave behind, leave behind, leave behind.</p><p>There’s the one that won’t go on.</p><p>There’s the interruption of what we should’ve done.</p><p>There’s hindsight owning your ass.</p><p>We spot it up again and again.</p><p>Sometimes it’s a drain and other times there’s a garbage disposal.</p><p>Here’s what you were aiming for, only flayed, thank you very much.</p><p>Drift is real.</p><p>A hole in the ground is real.</p><p>What I mean to say, is I miss you.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-6009222830524444362023-11-13T22:39:00.004-05:002023-11-13T22:39:52.467-05:00What Have<p>Frequent floating session IPAs seize opportunity</p><p>So many how many like ten but no like six more like</p><p>Why isn’t there a White Sox Nation?</p><p>After the whole spectrum is liberated and every last field stormed and you get a season and you get a season and you get a season</p><p>We all look under our seats</p><p>Reflexes are a stemmed thing and we’ve remained trainable</p><p>All the pandas were sent back to China</p><p>And there’s a card with your name on it.</p><p>Amazing</p><p>Even while so many other things are a choice and so many choices are being made right now</p><p>Tear is a choice</p><p>Lead is a choice</p><p>Cleave is a different choice</p><p>Which brings us back unexpectedly to seize and we’re down for travel</p><p>Put it up, put it up</p><p>Kit, kindling, now you’ll have them, kinder, kinder, kinder still.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-9621624207141562482023-11-05T07:56:00.000-05:002023-11-05T07:56:13.559-05:00Different vs. Differently<p>There’s fruit and there’s conflict</p><p>Their mess doesn’t need to be your mess</p><p>They’re different, they’re better, they’re off to market</p><p>Initially, togetherness, publicly before communally</p><p>This circle made of dots, that circle made of string</p><p>And then the Great Uncertainty and the even greater dissolution</p><p>But what was lost when we smashed so many myths?</p><p>The sun rose and we continued with a little less but hearts full of hope</p><p>We’d had clean water before and we had clean water now</p><p>We were all here, well, almost all</p><p>And we found the New Beginning just as quiet as heat loss</p><p>We found lightness to be frightening and some wanted to run and some ran</p><p>But we found just how easy it was for everything to get heavy again and quickly</p><p>A better heavy this time, but surely not the last</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-71859104132852101432023-11-02T03:37:00.002-04:002023-11-02T03:37:29.093-04:00Sanders Again<p>It’s jobs all the way down I mean it’s a job the sanding</p><p>Ranks come in all sizes and learning how to spell “Wednesday” does a thing to your brain that’s an important thing</p><p>We spin and we make do, yes. We catalog joys and harms. We see things repeatedly sometimes to the point of unseeing them.</p><p>I mean, governments come and go, as do their styles, their pressures, their presence.</p><p>What you pry from what, paying attention to both, the start of something.</p><p>Another year and gravity’s still with us, it’s ok, you can exhale.</p><p>Another year, another year, another.</p><p>What they say about siblings. What they say about heat death. What they say about well water.</p><p>When you get a feel for it you’ll risk forgetting something important the rest of your life.</p><p>I don’t make the rules.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-71301048927013652742023-07-03T15:25:00.004-04:002023-07-03T15:25:50.828-04:00Somewhat Fixed Broken Sonnet<p>What spill(s)</p><p>Whether which willing </p><p>Vapor, vanishing(s); and ever more villainy</p><p>There was a Duchess made King</p><p>There was a Shepherd made kinder</p><p>Smoke from fire(s) as fire(s) from kindling</p><p>This is how we proceeded</p><p>How we survived the change(s)</p><p>Cities still stand and men still fall</p><p>We can talk the while</p><p>We can remember the way</p><p>Reject the closing door’s closing</p><p>We are here, we are here, we are here, we are here</p><p>Jay-Z once said, “We might half get kicked out the buildin,” or something like that.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-39265510924812826292023-06-04T23:21:00.004-04:002023-06-04T23:21:33.294-04:00This Is QuietJamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-1374196846178286192023-05-21T09:46:00.007-04:002023-05-21T09:46:59.606-04:00Punch In<p>Punch it in it up up above your weight punching punching down</p><p>Third year options and asks and wants and needs</p><p>Like hopes needs dreams</p><p>Like hype and hype man man oh man</p><p>This would be summer</p><p>Bass from beds and trunks</p><p>Sunscreen but usually not</p><p>Strings braided ‘round wrists</p><p>Rather drinks rather french fries rather much</p><p>The sun keeps going down later and later</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-75872304927805334002023-05-02T23:26:00.004-04:002023-05-02T23:26:44.760-04:00Trying<p>Try try try try try</p><p>Teee-rye try try tee try try</p><p>Trying I’m try try when tee</p><p>Tetherest whether weather weatherest try</p><p>Try no try not try try try</p><p>Day try try tee tee tee tee tee tee</p><p>Teeeeeeeeee try tee try trying I’m</p><p>Wednesday try try almost what which try</p><p>Terrible trying</p><p>Terraform trying</p><p>Triad trying, a second language trying, second skin trying, second after minute after hour trying</p><p>Epochs trying as myriad moments try</p><p>They try they try they try</p><p>Every size, everywhere trying</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-1847270233866024182023-04-29T10:34:00.003-04:002023-04-29T10:34:30.372-04:00Together with Celery<p style="text-align: left;">Yeah, darkness would be sexier</p><p style="text-align: left;">Dress it all up in black</p><p style="text-align: left;">The end of the world would at least offer some tension</p><p style="text-align: left;">You think</p><p style="text-align: left;">And then you’re living through this</p><p style="text-align: left;">Climate disasters daily paired with</p><p style="text-align: left;">Mass shootings daily paired with</p><p style="text-align: left;">Lurching toward government and societal and cultural shitshow upon shitshow</p><p style="text-align: left;">And I’m just skimming off the top of the roiling stew of injustice, unfairness, absent kindness, bureaucratic inhumanity and human inhumanity</p><p style="text-align: left;">With all these convections cycling violence, closing minds, and bring the horizon way way way down low.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I hang onto stories of little kindnesses and little triumphs but at some point I feel the ratios all around me — but maybe I’m not gonna pretend I should trust one of my brains anymore than the other.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Today I feel like a big aging chassis with a little wounded woodland creature piloting it all from the inside.</p><p style="text-align: left;">That’s a little trick I play on myself to pretend this me-scaled me is somehow able to protect anything.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I do like the rain.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I do like turning leftovers from the week into a pile of breakfast tacos.</p><p style="text-align: left;">I do like coffee.</p><p style="text-align: left;">The thing about the path to enlightenment is that it sucks.</p><p style="text-align: left;">That’s another trick I play on myself. Damn it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Thinking about the universe is some comfort.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Thinking about life after all of us. That’s some comfort. And probably just one of those ways I let myself approach life after me.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Dinosaurs became birds. People will become something strange and interesting, maybe something to do with all these robots.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Don’t forget you have a drum machine at the center of your being and that that drum machine has a soul.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Don’t forget we all depend on each other all the time, even when it doesn’t seem like it.</p><p style="text-align: left;">Don’t forget to feed your pets and be kind.</p><div><br /></div>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-63465457960118494272023-04-17T22:23:00.003-04:002023-04-17T22:23:49.551-04:00You Can Dance 2<p>Roman vs. Arabic all the way down, but it’s the 80s and we’re so young</p><p>The space between numbers and/or ranges that are inclusive</p><p>I don’t like to think about the limits of intuition</p><p>I like to think about spiders</p><p>I like to think about the relationship of mass and time</p><p>I don’t like to think of the plight of light</p><p>I like to think like spreadsheets</p><p>I like to think about relationships of people and numbers and things and sounds</p><p>I don’t like to think about everything’s local, but everything is still local</p><p>What is red? What is green? What is indigo and how did it gets its place at the table?</p><p>I know and you know.</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-16703895744712389102023-04-13T04:32:00.006-04:002023-04-13T04:32:42.657-04:00Open<p>Sometimes a song’s just gonna let you down</p><p>And the sun will keep doing its thing</p><p>Some guy walking along thinking</p><p>Seriously no lightning and crashes?</p><p><br /></p><p>And other times untold repetitions will pave a path from nothing to wow</p><p>Folding napkins, snapping your fingers, eating breakfast</p><p>Because life’s gonna do what life’s gonna do</p><p>So everything else moves outside.</p><p><br /></p><p>But one foot in front of the other takes me forward</p><p>And/or it can take me up</p><p>And it can still be tromping and trampling</p><p>These are the times you just have to believe in something anything.</p><p><br /></p><p>That’s how breathing air happened, too.</p><p>That’s how we’re going to get to the end.</p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-34274812672295268322023-04-12T06:10:00.002-04:002023-04-12T06:10:54.319-04:00Where to Begin vs. Where We Begin<p>If you have this guy and he’s brandishing a folded metal chair</p><p>If you have time despite the World’s worst intentions</p><p>If the sun is rising like it always does, but this time you catch it sitting on top of the neighbor’s fenceline </p><p>If you’re still expecting that phonecall and still hoping it never comes</p><p>Or you have the votes but lost the will</p><p>Reproach, resonance, recapitulation, reticular</p><p>That is that is that is that which</p><p>Walking the side of the road on the side of a forgotten town and wondering</p><p>Then every force will be met with its opposite</p><p>Then the wheel will do its best to keep turning</p><p>Then heat will arise and cast down all suffering</p><p>Then time will be on your side, but also everyone else’s</p><p>Zero has been a number since it was created and not one day longer</p><p>Like white horses or arrows bent on targets and a couple other things I won’t have time to share</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-24919968123394737892023-04-09T21:55:00.003-04:002023-04-09T21:55:33.443-04:00What Means<p>In this story</p><p>You know where you are going</p><p>Or how fast your are getting there</p><p>But never both</p><p>Because these are greedy times</p><p>And we weren’t built to make it</p><p>Tell me about those days</p><p>Tell me about all the colors and the sunsets</p><p>The flashbulbs, the lazy rivers </p><p>Tell me about coats on layaway</p><p>And the price of cigarettes at the PX</p><p>Where I’m from</p><p>By what means</p><p>And how I’m letting us all down again </p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8140441771082260153.post-51771873108436479802023-04-06T21:36:00.001-04:002023-04-06T21:36:53.923-04:00What You Do<p> I mean I when I say these things</p><p>Granted we are in this together</p><p>A collection of useless thoughts</p><p>Another distraction</p><p>This neurosis, that news event</p><p>We carry on</p>Jamie Perezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13651269155215936091noreply@blogger.com0