A scalpel perfect edge
to the grassy rut
slippery as the truth
formed of dense black pine trees
thin like wrought iron, like a curtain
darkest at the bottom
where it gathers moisture
strong yet brittle, unusually still
A smokey fog moves like a tired ghost
betraying the passage of time
The wall of trees seems impossibly tall
Their tops fade into an omnipresent grey
All trunks no branches like burnt matchsticks
like nature’s monument to its unbridled rage
a victory over itself
As far as setting the scene and offering some primary palette with which to color this piece of writing, know this: It is early summer, early enough that the severe angle of the late afternoon sun slices through the still-too-green canopy of trees on this mountainside with the nonchalant precision of a surgeon preparing dinner. The perfect smell of gardenias–reticent to release their once-white, head-now-bowed blossoms with caramelizing petal tips–underpins the very moment, the ephemeral sensation that stirred me from a writing hiatus that has lasted years: that scent arriving when a light breeze off the lake idly changed direction.
There is an undercurrent I catch now and again; or rather, which catches me. I felt it in the smell of those gardenias. It’s a pulling sensation that’s similar to a more familiar impulse to stop and sketch, to create, to capture. But it’s not as demanding; It’s almost wistful. I’m pulled to write. It’s the promise of the quiet satisfaction of re-reading something you’ve written, years later, and meeting yourself again. It’s the need to write for it’s own sake and yours–like a loyal dog’s love of playing fetch, and the understated need of the owner, to participate in the joy and exertion of throwing things away with the full knowledge that they will be returned.
its a funny thing, life exists between the pings of the metronome… and yet, we rely on pictures and status updates to document the subtleties that give memory texture. the failure of language… I prefer it to the more common failure of picture or commentary. I would rather tell a story over and over than show photos and re-read the listless narration of life documented before any perspective could frame the moment. It’s why I write songs. It’s why I write. It’s why I tell stories every chance presented – so the soft light of the past can illuminate the present and give pause when we consider our futures. Tell stories. For God’s sake. And your own. And when you discover one, like a treasure buried in your past, sieze upon it and wrestle the emotion from the scant details so that you may breathe life into it again. It’s the only way.
yours with humble gratitude for your patience and grace,
Clifton
the phrase cross platform blogging makes me think of cross pollination and a dogwood we had when I was a child that bloomed both pink and white, though I think it was spliced rather than impregnated. soon the dogwoods and pears will take the absent place, dusting the streets in white, left by the snow. but for now, winter remains. so let it. remain.
yours,
Clifton
via Flock
hunched over a short end-table of sorts, a small wooden pillar more suited for an obscenely large candle than acting as a desk for a type pad. hanging over the edges like cheese.
I feel like I’m hanging over the edge. had a steroid shot a few days ago. hasn’t helped. I’m just trying to cough up my spleen but can only manage bits and pieces.
but it’s raining. so I’m writing.
I’ve been, lately, and it’s been good. fast. but good. I don’t like the mask metaphor so much… though the masque’s of the past seem entirely appropriate… but I don’t like the mask metaphor really because my face stays generally the same. I have a rough beard I keep trimmed pretty close, and wrinkles outside my eyes. My eyes don’t open very much. But I like the hats metaphor; because my face doesn’t change. But I wear so many different hats. (I’m not sure how I like this bolding business… but perhaps it will rope some slow reader into the stories.) I’d nearly forgotten how pleasant the wind was and the bare sun on my bare head – and my hair’s been short for so long I’d forgotten that sensation… you know that sensation.
Recording Artist, Motivational Speaker, Entrepreneurial Adventurer, Brazen Actualist, Riveting Storyteller, Reluctant Peacemaker, HipHop Enthusiastic, Digital Forefronter, Agressive Lover, Incandescent Visioneer, Irreligious Disciple, Sidesplayed Tiderider, Resolute Daydreamer, Windswept Pioneer, Cockeyed Troublefinder, Widesmiled Ambassador, Wildchild of God.
ladies and gentlemen. the failure of nametags.
I like the hats metaphor. Because I do change hats regularly. for mood or occasion or endeavor or whatever.
I’ve concluded a tremendous road-trip within the past weeks. The hats I wore on said trip were varied and colorful. The trip went like this: Left Atlanta after my youngest brother’s game on a tuesday night, Valdosta late-night with a friend for a couple hours of sleep on a floor, Lakeland for an unofficial campus visit at Florida Southern for a few hours, Tampa International to send my brother off, University of Southern Florida for several days battling a miserable sinus infection, Clearwater to scope out the beaches and potential tour stops, Through Ft. Meyers on my way to Sanibel with extended family over seafood at the pink flamingo – shelling and selling and winning advocates, Miami for several days with the heart of the family for food and the coconut grove arts festival perusing jewelers and collecting marketing information, A1A having collected my mother starting on Ocean Ave in Southbeach for 4 1/2 hours along the coast to West Palm and eventually Cocoa Beach by interstate, 9 1/2 hours of interstate the next day brought us back to Atlanta where I slept in my bed, 24 hours later to Flowery Branch and eventually to Lake Burton and Joni’s, Greenville the next morning and afternoon before Clemson that night, and Athens for dinner with a friend before caravaning back to Atlanta for a late night, afterwhich I rested, for several days.
My granddaddy used to ask me, “are you complaining or braggin?” and embarrassed he’d discovered I was doing both I’d hide my head and make excuses. These days I shoot a little straighter: I like driving and I like talking; but I really like not driving… and I really like not talking. So that was a long 10 days.
I’ve still an entry of incredible significance I haven’t gotten to. But this foray seemed timely and astute so it is.
This is me without a hat. hair cut close.
yours,
Clifton
Outside this quiltedcomfortable the fire sleeps within the last log, an emberwhisper like a accidental whistle. Beneath this doubledbunk from childhood resting in a small spaceheater’s embrace, I relive the day with Frost and all he had to give. Forty-one outstanding poems underlined uneven by my pen stand at attention in my collection trying to disguise their pride, they know their author wouldn’t approve. The leaves the stars the fields the snow these have received immortality in verse–though Frost might argue they posessed it already and it is us who most recently received it. And possibly there’s something there, a ratio or rule, or fancy of the universe.
Infinity is only received the moment it is given.
Frost enabled the seasons’ literary license in perhaps the same fashion the seasons enabled Frost. And too intertwined to resist playful comparison I hope the most tropical seasons enable my tan. I know they’ve enabled my love and they’ve definitely made easier lust, and I guess I can only ask as much.
Mr. Frost, thank you from the depths of my depths. I will surely reconsider all that you’ve considered in my presence without pretence and I’ll find more time to follow in your peaceful ways.
yours,
Clifton
Via iPhone
I think it’s important to realize, before any other assumptions have the chance to crystalize, that the word Longing has the word Long as it’s origin; and originally nothing can be long, but only after time can longing be, “too long” or in this case, my case, “to long.”
I believe over time that words take on the sound of their definitions and as certain emotional responses become obselete, then in turn, the words die off and others assume their roles. And isn’t it true that to say, “I long” for someone has a deep sadness it carries even to someone without any understanding of english. I love the phrase both concretely and abstractly because it doesn’t require any response, emotional or otherwise. It’s an intrinsic human notion to yearn. And no one can rightly live without it. So tonight it rains. And the Earth is groaning. And it’s wonderful.
yours,
Clifton
Via iPhone
There’s a strange underlying pattern I discovered a few years back; and I suspect a subplot though it hasn’t entirely revealed itself. Whenever, and though it hasn’t been habitual nor even often, I have given up some single thing–and I use the phrase given up because I really pay attention to prepositions and put a lot of stock in locational thinking and proximity, and the words given up lead me to imagine actually handing something upward to be taken from my grip by God–whenever I have decided to abandon my obsessive control of some idea or decision or aspect of my life, whether it be my finances or my anger or my sexuality, I have consistently found that God returns that exact item to me, and fairly quickly, only in an entirely new form. My anger is focused but righteous instead of misdirected, rude, and self-righteous. My financial investments are blessed beyond belief and my needs are always met. My sexuality is intensified and my understanding of the world’s sexual nature is calming and makes prudence and satisfaction attainable and enticing. This incredible pattern of giving things away only to have them returned as they were originally intended, sharper and more beautiful, is one of the most encouraging miracles I believe I can depend on. There is a lesson in trust and renewal beneath these allegories somewhere; but for now, the grace indicated by a God who gives new eyes and ears, a new heart and new hope, is sufficient, and that is amazing. Amazing grace.
Give up. I bet you you’ll get it back. Only better.
yours,
Clifton Jennings
Via iPhone
the act of creation. I’m not sure how this all works out just yet–but my suspician is that there is a rather telling insight burried right below the surface of the intersection between creativity and kinesis.
Having built beauty, the rounded tangible sort, in my opinion, does not rightly solidify ownership of that creation; rather, after having created that which could make the world more beautiful, the process of giving it away, presenting it even, as a gift to loose among men and the rest of creation, fulfills the intrinsic requirement of those responsible to an author of beauty itself, in order to truly assume ownership and the initial responsibility of guiding it’s path.
We can only truly own that which we give away.
Think about it.
yours,
Clifton
Via iPhone
I’ve said and rightfully so that if you aren’t growing–and by that I’ve intentioned and imagined the stretching of some sort of able-bodied or rather able-planted vegetation forth from the soil or cell walls and into that clean blue gradient streaked with cloud and colored light–that if you aren’t doing something resembling that sequence that you must, necessarily so, be dying–which of course involves the broken, head-hung withering and eventual absorbsion into that great decaying mass of chemical indifference.
but…I may have been wrong.
It has always been a point of internal contention I have hushed and hidden that has quietly pointed out that growing older and even growing old is still fundamentally “growing” and shouldn’t rightfully be characterized as dying if the two are to be set diametrically apart. So… dying is still a sort of growing… just growing down instead of growing up. And the remarkable thing that prompts me to write this is the realization that perhaps growing up or down isn’t all that is possible… that possibly we should consider growing “into” as a viable alternative to the naturally documented and assumed understanding of the circle of life. Now, before you hang me out to dry listening to the Lion King soundtrack, let’s just assume that I’m speaking more along the metaphorical, metaphysical lines of butterflies and termites rather than rotting fertilizer and corn on the cob or anything remotely resembling that diagram of the water cycle.
What if, instead of saying, “If you aren’t growing you’re dying.” the more true statement is, “If you aren’t growing into something more, you’ve been dying since the day you were born.”
Sunshine and rainbows. But startling in it’s clarity. There is something inside each and every one of us that knows that there is more.
We yearn for it and wish to become it within the same strange longing. I think it must be similar to the emotion attached to adoption or the opportunity to be adopted… the desire for family and to be family at the same time.
And so my clever ism is undone and the new reality must be inspected and interrogated. How dare you be true…what do you represent…how have you changed things…and so on.
I suspect my role is significantly altered and my responsibily trippled; but my immediate response is ambitious and eager so we shall see where we end up after chasing this thing down.
Thanks for the patience.
yours,
Clifton
Via iPhone
*cotton sheets.
mine are green.
yours,
Clifton
Via iPhone
*see below
odd I imagine, for what it’s worth (which is a phrase I’m rather fond of and make use of far more than requisite or even advisable). and the fragment. what a beautiful thing. but this and these statements are and will be tangential and decorative, as leaves to a vine–and that vein of thought is the few things fall brings and I anticipate.
there is a moment, so brief, of recognition when your truck’s heater is used for the first time after having been dormant so many months here in Atlanta. this moment, is a stupid moment of clairvoyance where your head assures your heart that the smell of the heater is that of melting spiderwebs and rust and dust; and you acknowledge your head in the way you would anyone or thing you intend to blow off and go off to make your own assumptions and decisions notedly without their opinions regarded–and decide plainly that this narrow second when your heater first blows warm air was a promise of some sort that your car has made you indicating that it will indeed continue to work faithfully in your service and also that it has missed your regular company and would like you to briefly reminise on the past winters you have fought alongside one another against that relentless wind and bite in the crippling world without such a companion outside.
another thing is a warm shower that actually warms. I had my first yesterday evening. I’ve been in and out of a clear, quiet lake in the smoky mountains since, well nearly since last winter, or ever since this past spring, and I am quite accustomed to the lake bath (ivory soap floats), and any number of medium hot showers after long days in the sun. they don’t do much and are mostly for posterity’s sake when someone has the gall to say how long it’s been since they showered and its expected that you give some semblance of a civilized response. yesterday evening however was a different story entirely. my toes and my extremeties in general were cold, very cold, and it had sort of snuck up on me in fact when I stepped into the shower. I was shocked as I tingled and thoroughly enjoyed the process of slowly warming up as the steaming water raked across my back. glorious. and to be looked forward to.
these and others as I come across them.
yours,
Clifton
Performance has always left a bitter taste in my mouth… academically, socially, sexually, and otherwise. So it just struck me that while I appreciate talented performance, I remain unsettled unless it is adding to the beauty of the world – and somewhat intentionally so. Because that is what God intended… and anything else is inherently self-centered and ultimately a twisted reflection of our innate desire to be our own little god.
is it bad when this is the conclusion you arrive at during church… and scramble to type in notepad on your iPhone?
yours,
Clifton
it’s a song I just wrote.
literally… just wrote.
if you steal it, please give me credit, or at least do it justice.
thanks to citizen cope for the inspiration.
Silver Dimes
Clifton Jennings
(Verse 1)
just another one with a sunburn and a weary smile
weathered brow citizen of hope citizen of now
citizen of one land of the underhanded
underdog champion where effort’s never reprimanded
and we’re united but we can’t stand it
we can hardly stand to be with those with open hands and
(Chorus 1)
I can’t sit by and watch the morning rise another time
without so much as a salute to you nameless few
got a copper penny a forty five and a silver dime
one’s for luck one’s to clutch and one’s for truth
(Verse 2)
and you don’t need luck just gas in the truck and a woman’s love
the way the heater smells that first cold winter month
and you don’t need God to point out all the wrong you done
if you’re your father’s son you sure as hell know when to run
and there’s an old man polishing his gun
but we can’t sleep for shades of grey when our window shades are hung
(Chorus 2)
and I can’t sit by and watch the morning rise another time
without so much as this tribute to you silent few
got a copper penny a forty five and a silver dime
one’s for luck one’s to clutch and one’s for truth
(Chorus 1)
I can’t sit by and watch the morning rise another time
without so much as a salute to you nameless few
got a copper penny a forty five and a silver dime
one’s for luck one’s to clutch and one’s for truth
(Bridge)
give me your ten cents ye brokenhearted
and I’ll be broken too
give me your ten cents ye without fathers
and I’ll share mine with you
yeah gimme your ten cents ye brokenhearted
and I’ll break too
gimme your ten cents ye fatherless martyrs
and I will share my father with you
(Verse 3)
dust to dust I learned enough I learned to fail
I learned respect I learned you earn the reputation you get
I learned to pray when to rest and how to brush the dirt off my neck
with my fingernails my dirty fingernails
and we never came undone
sometimes grace is being tied to someone
(Chorus 3)
I can’t sit by and watch the sun rise another time
without so much as a good morning how do you do
got a copper penny a forty five and a silver dime
one’s for luck one’s to clutch and one’s for truth
(Chorus 4)
I can’t sit by and watch the sun rise another time
without so much as love and the other two
got a copper penny a forty five and a silver dime
one’s for luck one’s to clutch and one’s for truth
(Bridge)
give me your ten cents ye brokenhearted
and I’ll be broken too
give me your ten cents ye without fathers
and I’ll share mine with you
yeah gimme your ten cents ye brokenhearted
and I’ll break too
gimme your ten cents ye fatherless martyrs
and I will share my father with you
(Verse 1 beginning)
just another one with a sunburn and a weary smile
weathered brow citizen of hope citizen of now
inspiration comes in the middle of the night… (transmissions).
yours,
Clifton
some time ago I was seriously contemplating a cross continental road trip to chile in a jacked up jeep cherokee. it was in that period that things such as paving took on a kind of candied western blackdiamond glisten…and now on these back roads, unmarked, I recall the guatemalan mud trails and smile sligtly, because my high beams know when to turn off and my wipers know when to turn on, and I’m thankful for the responsibility of watching the road…
…even if it makes journaling on my iphone difficult.
yours,
Clifton
via iPhone
I spent the majority of my productive day yesterday working through the logistics of an extensive plan to travel the southeast, stopping at some 60 or so cities from corpus cristi to ocean city. I took a white sheet of heavy, high gloss paper and eyeballed cities I represented with small, blue circle-dots, making sure to write the city names in a way so as to keep from interfering with other adjacent or neighboring places. I only wrote down cities of a certain size, and those within my approximation of where to travel from maryland to texas. Quite proud of my spacing and silently thanking the art instructors who forced me to consider negative space and objects in relationship (as if there were some that aren’t), I then slipped the sheet of paper into a clear plastic sheet protector, and admired my work.
The circle dots were begging to be connected of course, and like so many constellations, it took great restraint to assume a practical stance and begin at the heart of it all. atlanta. my first attempt was a great circle, in a jump-rope sort of way, that was so intimidating I pictured insane interns jumping out of a tour bus with their heads on fire jumping into the ocean and mississippi river and gulf of mexico. a new sort of cabin fever: spontaneous combustion combined with bird flu. My second go at it, thin tip sharpie on a fresh, clear sheath, was a slow success, starting toward florida and circling back like a spirograph through savannah and virginia beach and greenville and memphis and austin and new orleans until I had a geographic hibiscus, and a plan. I spent hours pouring over a calender ensuring that major cities were given multiple days leading up to weekends, leaving time to rest on sundays, and calculating highway mileage between the small, straight lines.
I enjoyed this process far more than I would have imagined. There’s something about lines I’m drawn to. And perhaps, soon enough, I will visit some of these indistinguishable blue, circle dots; and in that way, we will be drawn together.
yours,
Clifton
is the best word to describe sleeping last night. I was comfortable, thin t-shirt sheets, a light blanket and a heavy comforter, and yet, everything was strained. I feel gaunt this morning. my neck’s tight, my lower back’s in knots and I know I must have dreamed the entire night because the familiar fatigue of having wrestled something to a draw has set in, mentally and emotionally. and now, everything looks heavier. there’s a pair of needlenosepliars on a dark wood file cabinet that seem as if I could barely lift them. even the fan seems to have trouble pushing the air. perhaps time will move slowly as well. I would like that.
yours,
Clifton
“…and the pitter-patter on the roof
sounds like What’s the matter with you?
But this rain can’t wash a thing away
the dirty truth just fades to grey
and leaves the hate so smooth…”
–excerpted from the silence that screams–
she was a round little jewish woman named Mrs. Sher, pronounced sure–and that she was; she had thickrimmedglasses and the edges of her mouth turned down but not in an unpleasant way: it seemed she had been squinting to read her whole life and had inadvertently found a frown, though it transformed into a radiant, whole-hearted embrace of what’s good or to be celebrated when she read something she liked. this little woman broke down the barriers structured writing had snuck up and netted me with sometime in my sleep. she explained grammar as an essential tool in any writer’s quiver, because of the ability to subconsciously guide the reader by causing him or her to pause or notice or speed up or get in close with the action and emotion of the writing.
and then she pointed out the patterning. I had never seen it before. not clearly at least. she had me read a sentence describing a train. and then told me to shut my eyes as she read the sentence, and instead of listening to the words, listen instead to the sounds of the words. and I heard the train.
it was revolutionary for me. it rocked everything I knew and had assumed about good writing deriving from ambiguous emotional reactions… it showed me that there were many writing gods, and that they had far more power than I had ever imagined. and so authors became artists. and as an artist, I first yearned to author.
the tiny excerpt above is taken from the end of one of the songs I wrote later that year when I first started studying patterning and layering and syllables as sounds. I awoke this morning to a clean breeze and the strong smell of rain, and I was pleased in a way that only waking to rain seems to evoke. its that patterning that I want to celebrate. and Mrs. Sher I want to recognize for presenting the path to writing and equipping my quest.
yours,
Clifton Jennings Rhoad
it’s early as I write this. It feels young. this fall seems like spring in ways. crickets instead of birds, college football instead of the major leage…or high school soccer -but there’s something daring about it all. and I guess it only makes sense; there’s elections, georgia tech’s got a new offense, I’ve got a few mountains to climb both personally and in communion with those I’m blessed to call friends…and remember–while summer wanes, winter waits–
yours,
Clifton
via iphone
is the length of the song–if you can measure a song in seconds–for which this blog inherited its admittedly cerebral title, stellar even, if I can so candidly pickpocket the brilliance beneath, or rightly shining down upon, Incubus’ endeavors.
I listened to this song twice, every night, for a year–and I’m not sure I’ve ever slept better.
this endeavor of my own will be indeed, my own. but to isolate ourselves as some sort of impenetrable island is to be a desolate desert island–and my fiery friend Murphy will tell you as an islander, the treasure isn’t under the island. so Incubus has my first nod, and one of admiration for that matter. the title is a well written reference to the fluidity of movement between moments. so be inspired–that’s the aim.
let’s build beauty.
yours,
Clifton
Aqueous Transmissions 