"Once upon a time, there was a troll king and a princess..."
-- Sean Rice

____________________________________________________

Evenscore
by sean rice

The Troll King sat with misery
that was written on his face
With the princess from the land nearby
busy shredding off her lace
The huntsmen could be heard
hunting all of the Troll King's Race
The Princess has been stolen!
said the criers of the case
The Troll King stole the Princess!
said the horsemen on the chase

"Silly shit," the Princess, said.
"I just don't understand!
why they cannot see it's red
like the blood of a common man"
The Troll King that all had wanted dead
that all had wanted from the land
he only smiled sadly with a heart made of lead
and took her by the hand

A troll is but a monster and a tale they only hear
he said it very gently with a heaving sigh to her
then caught into his fingertips a single falling tear
the princess shed it freely before he heard her saying, "Sure!
I can understand the awkwardness and even rage and fear
but I don't want to see the death of my only love, Dear Sir."
The horsemen on the farther hill were quickly drawing near
The troll considered carefully then made her climb a fir

Fashioning a mirror from the very rock that bred him
The Troll king shushed the Princess and ignored her every protest
The monster stood the shiny thing against a lower limb
and it was then that they all came upon the hilltop's crest
The Princesses stern sire then crossed forth (his beard was perfectly trim)
and in front of the quaking troll king his horse then came to rest

Neither spoke and neither moved and neither dared to breathe
Each strained against the angry words they wanted but to fling
The Sire gestured boldly to the princess with his empty sheath
The Troll King only lifted up the finger with the single wedding ring
to the magic seeing glass and invited but a look to the sire that merely seethed.
But then the gaze did fall and said the single Troll King:

See your face as it truly is for this mirror allows no mask
It's the king of monsters you're bound and oathed to kill
The problem is you've surpassed the object of your task
I'm but a Troll your daughter loved and the monster king until
another took his place so that there's only one to ask:
Are you ready, yet, my dear liege lord, your promise to fulfill?

See! You wasted your time, but you didn't waste mine. Have a nice day, somewhere else. ;)

There's a wind that breezes through the attic and it sings a song of lonliness
There's a mask on the ground and it was painted in the air
A model posed the picture and I published it one day.
The mask is still lying there. The make still lies there.

There's a vision that three women turn to me in a cornfield row
I'm holding the camera tightly not to shake it.
The each wear the one mask and snap their heads toward as one,
"Why did you let that poor girl look back? Do you know what you did?"

They say it in chorus to the camera. Say it as one.

My dreams are art. They are a torture. They are vivid.
My dreams go onto paper when they can.
My dreams destroy the lives of all around me
and I fear to wake with my hands.

Once upon a time there was a Troll King grieving.
There was grief in the Troll King's eyes.
A princess came out to wipe the tears and cried.
It was the princess that cried and not the king.

The ugly troll, a monster, they say, rubbed her back.
Listened and wondered, "What is love" as she had asked
In a notebook full of thoughts and full of aspirations...
all scattered about the floor with her tears.

"Get up," The Troll King Said. "See how my life is?"
I get up every day despite this and to escape this:
Being the Troll. It sucks.
"Get Up. You're beautiful. You're brilliant. We'll make it."

She came back on a metro after having gone home.
She decided on that day to be with the Troll.
She decided that she could BE the person
If only the Troll King could escape being a troll.

Once upon a time, there was a life.
Two of them, in fact.
Once upon a time, two people started walking forward.
Once upon a time they slept.

There is a river through the land and it's called "James."
The Princess snored softly through the first freeze of the year.
Blankets. Huddled in the car. Finding the comfortable place for the hips.
Day One.

It's always Day One.

Dear Stephanie Grant:

I'm sure the friendship will survive, but there are some things I will never tolerate and this is how I'm built. As much as I would never allow anybody to say bad, denigrating things about you when I was with you, I will NEVER tolerate a person saying bad things to me about Kelsey. This is called loyalty. Loyalty is a concept you don't seem to get and nobody around you really values you for that quality: Not Len, not Harun, Not Ezra Prior, not anybody.

I value you as a friend and support you as best I can. I appreciate the help you've given me. You may call ME anything you want including the "dumb ass" you called me for moving to Richmond in the first place. I'll accept that.

I told you once, though: Touch Kelsey and I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks.

I am visciously protective of her and will NOT tolerate your words.

She has never done anything wrong to you and has acted, 100% in good conscience at all times. While there was some question about the events on that one night about why she would call the police, I am satisfied that she acted out of concern and was playing it safe in a situation in which she could not now my state of mind. She did not have your 2 years of experience with me to know that I would never have harmed anyone and my anger was words, only.

She did the best she could with a guy that she had been in a 2 month relationship with. My actions were based on a mental break down that YOU know all to well and can understand, but you have FAR more information to work with than she did.

You have no right to judge Kelsey Thurber. Kelsey has ALWAYS done well by you and has treated you well. You, my ex-girlfriend, have always been treated well by Kelsey.

So have I.

Kelsey has been a solid source of support and love that is completely unmatched by anybody in my past including you. I KNOW she will be there, tomorrow. I KNOW I can trust her and that she ALWAYS tells the truth. I know that she ALWAYS tries to make the right decision and does not use people. She does not give merely to people that are useful to her.

Stephanie Grant, you told me never to contact you because I called you on an unfair thing that you said about my love. The one person I NEVER have problems saying, "I love you" to. You attacked her and I attacked you because you were unfair and without cause to say the things you said.

I'm sorry if that loses my friendship with you, but frankly, a "friend" is not somebody who demands the right to trash Kelsey to me. A friend is NOT somebody who is here today and gone tomorrow. A friend is NOT a person that dances in and out of a person's life on a whim and a desire and a need to be right and unjudged.

Your help with money does NOT make you a friend... it merely makes you a person that has helped me. If you want a friendship, you'll have to learn that there are some beliefs that I WILL hold to: Kelsey is NOT to be touched. Not by you. Not by anyone.

Your choice, my "friend."

Did I tell you about the mountains, yet?
We'll visit them, someday.
The sky makes a sound we call silence up there
and the water that's trapped in the valleys are ice
but looks like water as blue as your eyes
until something touches it and it snaps like a trap into solid
and the breathing is labored with the lack of air
and the moon when its full is as big as two pies
but wanders away when you call it.

Did I tell you about the cities we'll see?
where the languages are strange and the laughter is warm?
Where the children for pennies no longer have to swarm
around you with dirty hands because their hands are cleaner than ours
and they play futball when they're not working in factories we once saw in Jersey
And the hotels now let their own people visit
and English is getting harder and harder to find
We'll see them, someday.

There are a ton of businesses in Richmond, VA with osCommerce sites that are barely designed let alone modified and they're easy to find because several of them haven't even modified the title tag of their sites: "osCommerce" shows up in the browser window, so a Google search of "Richmond" and "osCommerce" provides an instant contact list. A search of their products, of course, doesn't list them at all.

CSS osCommerce v.2.0 is nearly ready for release and I'm spending the day, after bidding for contract jobs, just cleaning up the code and preparing it for download by anyone willing to pay the mere $600 for source. I need to also set up the Demo Store and write the promotion pages to my site with links leading to the demo.

Seven Stone eCommerce is going to be a far larger project and after planning the entire site out, I feel it's going to compete successfully with application superstars such as Magento, but... honestly, the Atria Proposal asking for $80,000 in development funding is looking more and more realistic if I hope to launch before the Internet has become obsolete. If there are any angels out there reading this... Sean Rice needs $80,000 in capital investments and is willing to offer terms.

The Open Source solution of developing the "Free Version" at SourceForge is an option, but I need a clear distinction between superstar core features that would be found in the paid Premium Version. *sigh*

DC Photo Hub is most of the way coded on the architecture level and I should be able to launch the full site by the end of the month. Again, I'm proud of the concept and the execution as it exists, currently, in pre-alpha. I'm also mindful of the server problems that www.modelmayhem.com suffered as a victim of their own success. I'm hoping that the fact that DC Photo Hub is a regional site will obviate a lot of the issues. The Studio Schedular is its own marketing operation, though. 50 Studios willing to sign up and pay, by itself, translates into a nice income for everyone involved. Really, it's a no-brainer for businesses since we're skimming such small amounts from each reservation.

Richmond, VA is a tough nut to crack, but a lot of the problem is that everybody is too nervous with the economy to move on anything. We'll see. I'll just keep pounding it out every day until I make it, here. I still believe that the Rasa Design Studio move to Richmond was a good idea and that the city is growing in the right direction after the loss of its industry.

Dear Richmond, VA: Your web site needs a redesign and the only reason I'm not talking to you personally about this is because I can't find you on Google. :) If you have an osCommerce web site and your browser still says "osCommerce" at the top of the screen on any of the pages, you KNOW that you have some serious design and marketing issues. Talk to Rasa Design Studio and we'll fix you right up!

There. Think it'll help? :)

OK. Back to work.

I'm alive. I'm in love with a strong woman that loves me. I have friends that I can call friends and who call me friend. I have my health for the most part. I have my mind for now. I discovered that I have a dollar still in my pocket. I have cigs and coffee for the day. I have my education and skills and experience that I know set me a notch above many that are as stuck as I am. I have a heart. I have passion. I have a sense of humor even in the blackest times. I have my memories back and the perspective that losing them for a Summer gave me. I have a craft for words and a vision for images. I have 37 years of piano and songs in my head. I have a sense of justice and a sense of mercy and a sense of forgiveness. I have a sense that there might be a God and that he has a shit sense of wicked humor that I have no choice but to tip my hat to if he'd only allow me to get rich enough to afford a hat. I gave a homeless man all my change even though I'm homeless, too. I gave a man a cig even though I am counting how many I have left. I told a woman to smile as I passed by and she called from the end of the street, "Hey! Thank you! That just made my day." I can speak more than one language and I was able to smile at jokes told on a bus in Spanish. I have been blessed with beautiful people in my life from all over the world. Perri, Lucyna, Andrea, Burckaan, Ana Kamiar, Deepak, Josh Yaphe, Stephanie Grant, Elzbeta, Crystal, Mustafah, Creature (who has taken on a life of his own), Tony (who has given me my second chance at life even as he questions the need for his own), Trinity, Laura Duffy, Michele, Cindy Williams (who's cutting words often keep me real), Maria Sibiriak who humbled me and taught me shame, Brian (my brother who is perfectly real all the time), My father whose advice is invaluable even though he never followed any of it and whom I buried, Lisa (my step-sister who taught me that I could be accepted on my own terms and not to compromise and who taught me how to respect a woman and what a woman was, anyway).

I turn 41 and I have many things to be thankful for even as my life is at its darkest and also at its most brilliant. Kelsey has taught me a depth of love that I could have only dreamed existed. I hoped even as I dared not hope that a Kelsey could maybe exist in the world.

Today, a woman slept with her head in my lap and I dared not move but that I would destroy the moment. Today, a woman's arms held me close and my heat warmed her. Today, love was made long before the sun would rise. Today, I was kissed by a woman as she left. Today, I drank coffee. Today, I found Cohen's "Here It Is" and listened to it. Today, I got a web site finished. Today, I saw the sun rise after all of this.

Happy Birthday to me.

____________________

Stephanie dared me to try to write a poem without rhyme.

____________________

The wind in the willows were what woke me from my dreams
I couldn't figure out how they could still be screaming
with the voices of women and children and men
when they had been chopped down years ago
The thud as they landed went right through me
and the leaves in the street blowing past?
How could those damn trees still have leaves?
So I woke and listened to the rain with a cig in my hand

_____________

meh...

___________________


Look at this room that you wake in
and look at it hard through the smoke of the cig
that wafts up to paint the walls in yellow tar
The mattress on the floor and the chair of dirty laundry
The laptop fan whirs on the tv table you use as a desk
and sunlight streams in to show you how it is
Good Morning!
How you gonna get out of this?

Green flem hacked up from the depths of blackened lungs
the vestiges of a cold in a cold room warmed only by coffee
one cup at a time
It's time to empty the trash when the Ramon noodle wrappers
won't stay in, anymore
It's time to do laundry when you've decided to match the last clean sock with a dirty one.
It's time to rethink life when you have to choose between bus fare and a black and mild
because the Mavericks are just too expensive in this part of town

Lunch is.... lunch is... oh! Wait! I still have that half a sandwich in my bag.
Lunch is solved.
Thirty more letters go out begging for work in the guise of confidence
thirty more cigs are smoked waiting for a reply
thirty more days have gone buy without rent being paid
thirty more dollars I'll have to borrow for the chance to get out of this
thirty more kisses give me hope that I exist

Look at this room you wake in
look hard through the fog of your mind
as it paints a past and plans a future yet again:
Don't you ever learn, Sean?
Isn't the definition of insanity the expectation of different results
doing exactly what you're doing, now?

Look at this room you wake in.
Happy Birthday to me.

Tags: blessings, essay, poem, poetry
Current Location: Richmond
Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: Dark Alan by Capercaillie

I.

I do not like this feeling I feel fear.
the emptiness that I can hear
in my own mind (healing slowly) leers
the laughing mask of memory

Pills that cloud the senses hide
the ugly truth and ugly side
of a man that to himself once lied
and couldn't bear the honest mirror

You're Evil that you're old! They cry
Pointing fingers and I sigh
when I realize the truth that fly
toward me like a juries' stones

What do I have to offer her?
What do you have to offer, sir?
You're home and hearth and money were
not on you when you died

You have nothing left to hide.

II.

Awake. The sound of breathing loud against the heartbeat pounding
Alive. My name is...
Terror. I know she'll turn and turn again each time and sounding
like a thud that has no sound, itself, she dies again and rounding
off the times I've dreamed this damn dark mare of the night
the numbers are astounding.
There she goes again. There she falls again. There I wake again.

III.

Cenel, ship island. That's her name.
Her voice is the surf of an ocean rolling in.
The creak of rigging and sail.
The depth of her can drown a man.
Her love is all that bouys this man.

IV.

Once upon a time there was a Troll King living
underneath a lonely bridge and giving
all that passed on by a scare, divining
the paths they'd walk down after there

Once upon a time a princess cried
her tears into the river side
and to her future the king was tied
despite his warning to beware

"Princesses cannot marry trolls."
That was the law.

Once upon a time a stone was thrown
to strike them down and break the bone
and tear the flesh and kill the flower they had sown
for surely he was a monster.

How dare that troll be in her heart
he must have used but guile and art
of the darkest sort that she'd be part
of such an unholy allience

There's a someone lurking here
in shadows, silent, taking notes
to use as proof and spread a fear
with factless speculation coats
my face with snarl and leer
the lurker boasts
to know anything about me

a beast he thinks I am to her
and every word I post a truth
that shows me as a dog! A Cur!
A worthless man uncouth
But you're the one in the shadows, sir
you're the one that snuck under my roof

Learning too much from experience
-- Sean Rice

What did you learn in school, today?
What did you learn that you can't learn at play?
Am I going to hear about that fight you lost
to the boy who could find you despite streets you would cross
to avoid?
(the fight that you started, he wanted to say)
'cause your temper ran much faster than sneakers
And close your mouth when you're eating.
Close your mouth, period.

Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake
never tell a lie because the truth you can fake
with a smile and a question and two compliments
and you sleep to forget all the dings and the dents
to what? Your conscience?
(I suspect you can have it and eat it, too, that cake)
When I look around I hear that everybody's doing it
I love you. I love you, too.
I love her. She loves you, too.

When you finely find it that truth that you sought
and its properly in the last place you look (and you thought,
"yeah, because then you stop looking!")
and the ragged edges of experience hooking
you back in to repeated performance
the encore
the applause in ova and in pride you are caught
What fine mastery of skill!
Are you happy now?
Smarter now?
Won't get bit the same way thrice?

What did you learn in school, today?
Did you scratch out a role model from dirt and from clay?
make an idol of a man that woke
knowing how to think before he spoke?
Knowing who he was only because he had forgotten everything
and that's all that was left was himself to flay
for the burden he decided to shoulder
someone else's burden to shoulder.
Why don't you answer?!?
But, dad, you told me to close my mouth!

Kid, you never learn.