like Moses

Water from rocks and manna-soaked socks
And quail in my locks, still a 40-year clock

I wait at the dock yet my ship never stocks.
39 more years I’ll hang on this block

“This one bring you luck!”
But luck is a crock

And I’m staring at walls that tick and then tock
And then a dismissive obsessive regressive tock

Walking alone while I die with a flock
Will Jesus come save me or will Buddha just mock?

A whisper is heard, “I stand here and knock”
But hope seems elusive and this door won’t unlock

“Extricate me from sedentary before my soul rots!
I want to be more than some stain or ink blot!!”

“What is that in your hand?” Hope or a rock?
If only I could just touch the hem of His frock

At the head of the line, at the feet of the altar
Where upon rests my gaze, there upon begins my falter

In the face of adversity and some purposeless scene
Where upon rests my hope, thereupon lies my peace.

kenn

random advice #70

Do something once a day that scares you. – Eleanor Roosevelt

In kenn-speak, break from your routine, step outside of your comfort zone, and LIVE. Daily.

drag coefficient

16 days into my 30-day experiment and I’ve discovered a newfound passion for cycling, an alternative to coffee, an aversion/attraction to train commuters, and about $100 in unused fuel funds thus far. I’m quite certain that I will continue this alternative design of transportation for as long as the weather permits. I’ll post real numbers on how much I’ve saved at the end of the original 30 days. Stay tuned.

and for the next 30 days…

In honor of my recent birthday, I bought myself a shiny new bicycle earlier this week. It’s a Gary Fisher Kaitai to be specific. Starting Tuesday, June 17 and for the next 30 days I will be commuting to work with the aid of my KaiTai and Atlanta’s own MARTA train. The trek is 10 miles one way but the purpose of this experiment is to see if I can make it on one tank of gas for the month. I’ll keep you posted.

kenn-etic

One hundred and eighty pointless distractions
Leading to inaction
Twelves times less their passion

Is Kenn home? Who’s asking?
One hundred and eighty reprimands
And a serious tongue lashing

Return to your first love, return to your passion
Those other misleads and concubines
Will exhaust your stored up rations

Hurry now, scurry now, better get to dashing
Though your Dad will never leave you
Even when leaving is all the fashion

Quiet on the set. Alright. ACTION!
Dad designed you like a ball at the top of a hill
More complex than fourth-grade fraction

No Polaroids or still-life’s taxing
24 frames per second
The ice is cracking, latency retracting

One hundred and eighty necessary abstractions
Laid down as random brush strokes
The ball is now in action… forward passion >

unborn chicken voices in my head

This was a small scribble in my sketchbook that just looks eerie when I look at it now. I love it. Can you hear the voices too?

grow for $3

I rarely frequent Starbucks but I stopped by for a soy latte this past week on the way to witness my son’s final orchestra performance for the school year. As I awaited the templated artistry of the drink maid, I was browsing the clearance shelf of baristas, coffees, and overpriced ceramic cups.

But, “Hark! What is this?” A little simple cup with a the instruction, “grow” written across and the icon of a plant in it’s infancy. This is cool and I do like green but this is Starbucks. This cup must be about seven… what the? Three dollars?!! Sold! I love my cup. Don’t you?

rhymes with nadine

(Nadine is the personification of hope)

This is not some love poem or a soliloquy of a dream
This is not a confession of an angry black man or how its difficult to be a human being
This is not a suicide note left with hesitant intentions of being seen
And this is not an adolescent cry with regret that I have been weaned

What this is is inspiration from a flesh and walking dream
What this is is articulation to the canopy above the seas
What this is is experimental though obsession it may seem
What this is is a gift kind of like money green or chocolate cream

This is exotic feathers seconds after the beak has preened
This is a one-apple fixation more from healthy trees
This is an arduous extensive reach to tell her what I really mean
This is one mans venture into what rhymes with Nadine.

Now upon meeting Nadine I felt chills up my spleen
Or down my spleen, you see direction wasn’t my focus while my focus was this dream
Yes, this dream I rename Nadine, to protect the innocent amidst a crowded scene
And her smile was like some glow or gleam or shine or sheen just rendering me

Riddling me, butterflies inside flittering deep, betrayed by a mouth that wouldn’t speak
This was not a commonplace meeting or a random dating thing
This was not some fortuitous glint or something karma has deemed
This was not boy meets girl simply for girl and boy to thump like peens

This was not boy selecting candidates to consummate his black book team
What it was makes me sing and what it is is like Plasticine
Molded mass around structured glass, who knows what it will be
Yet with 206 bones from about 300 that convened

And gray matter that is more complex than the most intricate machine
There is hope to which I careen as directional as a stream or gravity’s lean
I know not what I saying but I am saying what I mean.
People may look at her and see someone refined and pristine

A warming smile encased in glass, steady, safe, unwavering
I am inclined to behold much more, her depth like gasoline
Explosive is what emanates, her heat burns pure and clean
Natural, nice, quite phenomenal, networking is where she beams

Amazing, analytical, animated, adept amongst many other things
Detonating, drop-dead gorgeous, I dig her diction, shes my dream
Imagination, intelligent face and introspective she might be
Nothing precedes her nor depletes her, neo, novel, my intervene

Excited, enlightened, energetic, endowed with grace of 40 queens
40 things and 30 scenes and 20 props made of polystyrene
Is that so keen? Not clear but keen. No wait I’m keen. Well, I once was Keen.
I once was Keen before Nadine. But in her honor I eschewed an E

In exchange for that E and to her esteem, N took its place, N for Nadine
Conclusively or decidedly or perhaps more appropriately unconditionally
Homage and admiration and permeation beyond the seams
France is where it originated from and hope is what it means

Starts in the N and ends as in E yet her monikers no big thing
Her dermis and curves and motives and verbs is where I would place the reams
Of stash and cash and interest and gladly exalting this Nadine
This exaltation is long so pardon my lingering scene

This is not some love poem or a soliloquy of a dream
This is not a confession of an angry black man or how its difficult to be a human being
This is not a suicide note left with hesitant intentions of being seen
And this is not an adolescent cry with regret that I have been weaned

What I hope is that her heart and nerves and ears hereafter see
What I hope is that my Love prevails condemning crooks and fiends
What I hope is that a remnant sows and nurtures kinetic seed
And the seed shall be though we can’t see and one day it will burst forth from the ground and it will be.

No thing, no fling, no temporary scene, no nicotine
Well quaff and feast and dream and clean
Reconvene forever between God’s grace and
Well reconvene and reconvene and reconvene forever, Nadine.

Love Kenn, your Keen. End scene.