life: acoustic & amplified

regeneration

Make a delicious mistake.

Fuck up once in awhile.

After all, I invented peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

by throwing and shattering bright jars when I was six.

Yes I did.

I invented the Frisbee when I flung a plateful of broccoli

my mom was forcing me to eat out the window.

Yes I did.

I invented S’mores

when an intolerably fascist camp counselor

told me I could only have a single dessert:

so I smushed three into one.

What did You invent by stumbling and dropping things,

by your glorious lack of impulse control?

Go ahead, tell me everything.

Or tell an exquisite lie, so outrageous it might be true.

“I invented the way light shatters in the prism of a raindrop

twenty billion times to create the first rainbow.”

I believe you, Friend.

Now listen to me: Whoever God is,

She embraces the whole hot mess.

She lavishes extraneous Life on us,

and a host of Second Chances,

by permitting impeccable blunders like

the uncertain location of an electron,

the mutation in a molecule of cytosine

that created your original ancestor,

the chain of non-causation that lead

to this look on your face,

the way blackness engenders stars

in the chaos of a hole at the center of the galaxy,

the all-pervading fragrance of your first love.

So if you were never sentenced

to the time-out chair in kindergarten

or sent to the principle’s office in grade school,

if you never cut class to explore

the wilderness in your soul

or skipped church to attend the carnival

in your body,

if you never got tear-gassed in the street

when you were in college,

never got fired from a job,

never spent a single night in jail,

or drank the sky like whiskey

from a morning glory’s cup,

dear one, you might not actually

be alive.

 ❤

Fuck Up by Fred LaMotte

I’ve been in the same place 

as you when everyone 

and everything 

I loved and 

ever wanted 

came crashing down.

it makes a kind 

of roaring sound 

in your head

and it won’t stop,

it won’t stop 

until you cry it out

and get to the anger 

and the pain 

and the loss 

that feels so deep 

that you will never 

find the bottom of it. 

but you do 

find the bottom of it 

if you will just 

keep diving down 

and holding every 

ounce of courage 

you possess 

until you land 

on sacred ground, 

and that place 

that ground 

feels like your heart, 

and maybe 

for the very first time 

it feels like you 

are in love 

with someone 

you left behind 

a very long time ago 

and that someone 

is yourself 

and you’re home. 

you’re finally home 

and you can breathe, 

and you can 

sleep again,

and you can love again, 

and you feel 

a kind of peace 

and it is over 

and you are found, 

you are found. 

❤

found by Scott Lockhart / austin 2017

Scott Lockhart on facebook

Website http://www.scottlockhartartist.com/

I asked the clouds for answers but they did not listen

 

or maybe they were just pretending not to pay attention.

 

Then I turned to the sun in its burning glory but there was nothing

 

it was too busy shining on lovers in their secret loving places.

 

I begged the seagulls for absolution but they just laughed

 

as they floated free above me shrieking the news I was already forgiven.

 

I shouted to the circle of the earth to give me peace but it just continued it’s carefree circling

 

acting like everything was perfectly in order already.

 

I pleaded with the moon to set me free but it just continued to smile at me lovingly

 

not worried about my lack of sleep in the least.

 

I screamed to the four winds to come and deliver me from all this madness but, for the first time in history, they refused to blow

 

leaving me right where I was standing with nowhere else to go.

 

At long last, I said to myself, I will stop talking and just listen and as I fell silent, the questions did as well

 

and in that listening came all I had ever needed to know as I quietly walked home.

❤

Amy Lloyd