i love this kid

Not My Own

New song up on http://www.reverbnation.com/krystalpark.


Not My Own

the story of my skin
stretches longer than
the care that lies within
the hand that vast began

its not my own

I’m sitting in it now,
pores expose my flaws
threads of grace somehow
interlace I’m caught in a love

that’s not my own

we are not a slave to fear
oh we cry abba abba abba father
its not my own
creation groans
you’ve brought us home

the story of my skin
is not my own

wilting

the friction of thoughts
kindle defeat.
creating heat.
destroying
me.

Straightforward Thoughts Are Overrated

I just realized something. All the lyrics I write that I end up liking are the ones that really make no immediate sense. That used to frustrate me because I thought "good songs" had lyrics in which people could connect and understand what was going inside my head. However...this had led to me writing countless lyrics over the years that I thought were "clear" and thus "right," which was true...but they sounded like the cheesiest crap I'd ever heard...which is why I don't like most of the stuff I've written.

But I finally get it. I can't write straightforward lyrics, because I don't have straightforward thoughts. And I'm ok with that. More so, I'm ok with other people not being ok with that. Part of what I've struggled with in songwriting (and life in general I guess) is the perception of what others will see of me. The more I've been able to let go of that, the more I've really felt my work reflect who I am. I still don't like most of it, but I'm starting to..bit by bit.

Instead of this straightforward message, I think my lyrics hover around ideas and emotions to situations sometimes tangible and sometimes not...and are really there to provoke questions rather than really answer them...or something.

So, sorry in advance for any confusion or frustration. Deal with it ;)

I want a banjo

The end.

Indigo Shells

A doorknob unravels,
conscious of lingering shelter.

Rattling and rusted
panels quiver from solemn sighs.

Metal velvet screeches its protest against
careless architecture. Hitchhiking across,

translatable astrology imparts stories
from freckles crumpled in

indigo shells
smuggled and swelling into a dusty radiance

at gundown.
Lay your sun down.

Twenty One

Bright eyes playfully duel existence as the bouquet
of faces coo thoughtfully over the shoulder of 1988.

Giggles. Laughter. A joyful holler.
Tick tock.

Morning dew slumps in the early afternoon,
dripping glistening thoughts into the ground

upon which tiny feet tromp.
Tick…tick…tick tocks the conductor’s

tongue. Everything is wrong. Surreptitious.
A mother’s smile. A proud father’s nod.

The haze reveals our rib cracking hearts
from delicate memories no longer attached.

The Accuser

**revision/different poem? I don't know

Oh one who sucks arid
the marrow of freedom out of
bones bought with the Blood.
Tell me, tell me.

The liar with the lair
in the deep of my soul.
Thieving and resurrecting.
Tell me, tell me.

Dripping with contempt
he is cloaked comfort.
Soothing syllables slump around shoulders
Tell me, tell me.

Ripples in self reflections
of this river I see.
Flowing, it rushes over
Tell me, tell me.

I know, I know
oh how I deserve
I know, I know
oh I’m not free, how can I be

Accuser of the Brethren
soft whispers splinter between
my folded faults
-- beauty’s hiding place.
I willingly embrace
the lion in the cave, the cave, the cave
oh and the desert,
soul thirsty,
the dry desert
of my own deception.
Tell me, tell me,
I will believe.

The Accuser of the Brethren

** In response to Aaron Porter's sermon I listened to this morning


The Accuser of the Brethren,
-- the liar with the lair
in the deep of my soul --
sucks arid the marrow of freedom
out of bones bought with
the Blood.

Thieving and resurrecting
my throbbing insecurities,
he subtly pulses them into reason.

The heavy battle within
slowly tumbles
and roars.

The clashing swells
and surrounds me
too fast, too thick
until I cannot see,
ache to feel,
will not hear
Him,

Because the Accuser has coated each strike
with the dripping contempt
of what my flesh knows I deserve
and so I believe
and so I am deceived
into the darkness
-- the eternal shadow that only grows
and never fades.

Unaware
I have stopped breathing,
my body cedes
to the unconscious assails
of nightmares and reality
that lock hands and
compose commands
I crumble to,
because my brittle frame
of mind has been depleted
of the Creator’s nutrients.

And so I have become
soul thirsty
in a dry desert of my own
deceptions.

To My Dear Friend

While my hair was still a jungle
overgrown with curly Qs of mischief,
my dimples were mere afterthoughts
sprinkled lightly in the summer sun.
I sat there squished,
and frantically licking my popsicle
before the thieving sun.
You sat beside me, eating yours.
You played with your toes and dripped grape
onto mine.
Each of us holding on with tiny fingers
to our quickly melting innocence.

At seven I floated on an elephant
riding away through the clouds.
And you on the dragon,
smoke billowing into mist.
Grass itching our backs you mumbled your six-year-old love.
I scratched my tickled elbow and sailed away
through the drifting sea on my fluffy pirate ship.

At thirteen I stopped soaring,
and landed on the heavy ground.
I learned to walk with lead in my feet
and always in my hands.
The world engulfed us,
two flightless birds dissolving into the infinite eye.

At nineteen we met each other
for the first time.
Youthful giggles replaced by seasoned wisdom.
Oh, but your boyish grin never walked away
and neither did our childhood.
What to do with nostalgia?
Oh, how it scolds us still.

The campfire burned to embers
and our fathers embraced as brothers
that day. Years passed
like before, bookmarked for another.
But life’s fists fell hard
across our youthful dreams,
and stole you from us.
But I still have your boyish grin in my pocket
and years of adventure skinned upon my knees.
When you come down to visit,
look for me in the clouds
searching for lost treasure,
searching for you.

Spring

I took this while I was reading (may have been more like napping...) on campus...and just figured out now how to get your pictures from your phone on your computer (don't judge me). I thought this one turned out pretty cool. That is all.

A New Look

...ok, not me...but a new look for the page haha. I was bored. El fin.

The Tallest Man On Earth

If you haven't already heard of him...doooo it. He's kind of like a Bob Dylan meets Mumford & Sons meets Joe Purdy...or something like that. On sunday I'm seeing him in concert...so stoked! September really did creep in fast.

Anyways, just sharing the musical love.

Rolling Stone: The Tallest Man On Earth

Rock of Ages

I played this during Tree and Andrew's wedding while they took communion...after that I was harassed by several people to record it..so here it is. Oh, and I guess I wanted to too...haha :)
Anyways, its not the greatest but what can you do? (Come on, my feet have been itching to do the disclaimer dance for awhile now..I was just too lazy to dance before. Ok, seriously what am I talking about? Haha. I'm done.)

--> Rock of Ages

Flyleaves

I finally finished one of my many half-completed songs. It's up on my facebook music page if you wish to czech it out.

New song esta aqui

Love Is Like A Wave

love is like a wave.
soft. it crumbles. somersaulting. it grumbles.

sea spitting curls of insatiable hunger, ever wanting more
of us. “it was never decided,”

mused the midnight moon, oceans away. and me.
a layer of salt lounged upon those lips

when you read the pages off my face,
sun-faded, worn and creased around the eyes.

life haunts our fading footsteps
on sand eroded from the shells

of syllables lacking words,
and so it crashes on and on and on.

A Dry Sorrow

Bent over back
her soggy fingers soak in
all-purpose-cleaner
– but it isn’t all
purpose.
It can’t clean away the wreckage trapped in her eyes,
or the disbelief scarred upon our faces.
It can’t clean us.
But how my mother cleans
and cleans
and cleans
still.

Roaring in desperate anguish, filling
the atmosphere with what
she can not,
the vacuum sucks up the despair
and heavy air
that has settled into the fibers,
the carpet of sorrows
where we all tread
and wept upon.

A dry sorrow,
slowly creeping throughout my body.
Eagerly waiting to tear fresh grooves into our faces,
the tears linger back as toxins seep
into the unhealed pink flesh of tracks carved from before
– from him.

Floating up these steps once again,
a reoccurring nightmare,
oh please,
be a nightmare.
But the weary slump of familiar hugs
wrench retreating memories,
repressed,
now undressed,
naked,
my grief lays exposed,
vulnerable,
delicate,
twisting through my broken defenses
and winds ‘round and ‘round,
constricting,
pulse weakening,
sadness sinking further
into me.

Things I Shouldn't Know

Things I shouldn’t know at my age
(and oh how I’ve aged)
twine into threads of motionless
thought:

Like knowing you need two black outfits when someone dies.

One for the viewing,
one for the ceremony.
Even Death demands
fashion.

Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

So I've been half done with this cover of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" for foreeevvveerrr ('tis one of my favorites by him). And I finally got around to finishing it the other day...but I am still not sure of some of it...here is where YOU can come in! There are two versions posted on my facebook music page...all you need to do is tell me which one you like better (the only difference is the effects of the instruments...so which one sounds better to you). Just curious!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Krystal-Park/102353526472304?v=app_2405167945

Thanks friends.

Frozen

frozen. what is ice?
what is it to be immovable?
what is it to be gripped by your own vice?
virtues lay among
discarded blues
albums that record
the time and place I once stood
before. and now. frozen.

The Waking

One of my favorites by Theodore Roethke...

The Waking
by Theodore Roethke


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

It Only Took A Year And Half My Face

it only took a year and half my face
for the sky to bow down and gently erase

these characters I seem to carry around
beads strung
around
around
around my neck
telling me, I’ve not changed yet

it only took my last two feet to race
from place to familiar place.

carved on the ground, my feet dance
over milestones of flaking chalk that glance

these characters I seem to carry around
beads strung
around
around
around my neck
telling me, I’ve not changed yet

it only took
it only took
it only took
what was

best

Roll the Dice

I was stumbling on stumbleupon.com today and it spit me onto this page with this poem on it. I haven't written/posted anything in a week or so because...well..the things I've written I haven't felt like posting, haha. I guess that defeats the point of the blog, but whatever. I haven't read much Charles Bukowski, but I liked this poem...probably because I'm at a transition point in my life, or whatever that's even supposed to mean.....so here you go.


Roll the Dice
by Charles Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or
4 days.
it could mean freezing on a
park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the
gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

I Wondered Once

I wondered once what vision must see
if it is humanity who kneels to reality.

Deeper Than Thought

Do you ever find yourself reading something and come along a quote/sentence that makes you want to give the author a high five? Something that either really resonates with you or just tells the truth about something in such a way that you think "yes!" This happens to me all the time...unfortunately the author's don't appreciate me smacking them all the time, haha....
but anyways, here's a short thought from John Knowles' novel "A Separate Peace,"

Perhaps I was stopped by that level of feeling, deeper than thought, which contains the truth.

Ocean Potion Sunblock

The fragrance of summer
tickles my lathered nose.
Coconut nostalgia soaks into every pore,
sinks deep into memories
scripted in tiny wrinkles,
protecting against treacherous reflections
-- the sun’s rays, reminiscing thoughts --
with opaque armor.
Silky and cool and nourishing and yet
a yearning for the salty deep’s freedom
engulfes me.

Flyleaves

Show me how to trace
the wrinkles in your face,

to read your know-how
of survival branch by page.

Youthful feet hopping
knobby knees to dreamland.

Now earth’s secrets are chasing me
at my own dance.

Into the Earth

Into the earth
my lazy back sinks and sighs.

Yawning toes unfurl.

I look up and see a long shade
of blue

tired eyes drift upward
through corridors
past bricks of rust
and elapsed trust
speckles, flakes, gold dust
- the effortless swirls.

It is then I notice
the sun’s crooked nose,
the cloud’s heavy shoulders
rolling into black

and I realize
the deepening roses and lavenders
that decorate the nightfall
tell lies to cover

the fading bruises in the sky.

Grandma's Got Class

This is my new favorite picture. Family bbq...I love how classy my grandma is....notice the Sangria...

Exhale

Exhale

Crosshatched shrugs
and discarded revisions
litter the ground beside
rooted indecision.
Stale words bow deeply
in the air
for too long, far
too long for a ‘so long’
and now time grips,
and slips
between the tiny spaces,
portraits of framed faces
atop creaky shoulders
splintered
and
bouldered.

Disclaimer Dance

Ok...here is the disclaimer to end all disclaimers. After this, I'm just going to post stuff. Really this goes for all of my poems...often I don't have a "point" I'm trying to get across. I'm merely just letting the words speak for themselves, and if you get something entirely different than I was thinking...well, even better! Now the same set of words have multiple meanings...which is why some people hate poetry..and just one reason of why I love it. And as always, they are a continual work in progress, so feel free to dish out the criticism, confusion, suggestions...whatevs (and in all honesty, most of these will be crap...but hopefully by the end of this there will be a few that it was worth it for)

4th of July

I'm in San Luis Obispo for the fourth of July this weekend...but here is proof that I am indeed working on things. Linnaeas lounging in the morning with tea and writing poetry. What could be better?

I'm not just a bum...

Ok, so I've actually been working on a lot of things lately...but none of them are finished...and I keep getting side-tracked! But they are good side-tracks...so I guess I can't complain. Just know (to the invisible people who follow this blog...its really weird not knowing who reads this btw, haha) that I am not just being a bum! In the meantime...enjoy this hi-fricken-LARIOUS commercial. I couldn't stop laughing...seriously..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ0M9CBEkw0
.
..
...
....
.....
.......watch it now!! I seeee you (creeeeepy stare..heh heh heh (oh man, why am i so weird?))

And That Is What Descartes Supposed

So, I have this poetry anthology that also has writing prompts at the end of each section...and sometimes I do these for fun. I did one today...and to be honest, I'm not really sure what the heck I wrote, haha...but so it goes.

Here's the prompt:
Start by thinking of some characters (human or not). The characters could be invented by you or by someone else. If you write a dialogue poem, you can make one character great and powerful and the other rather ordinary or helpless. Your made-up person might talk to a mountain or the sky or George Washington or Napoleon. Let the conversation be about something everybody is always wondering about - like beauty, love, friendship, death - but try making it a strange and unlikely conversation. If you like, let the characters bring in impossible and fantastic ideas - the idea that time is gone, that space is gone, that time goes backwards, etc. Remember, you don't have to understand why your characters say what they say, and you don't have to agree with them.



And That Is What Descartes Supposed

‘The unsettling shawl
of concern –
and yet the heart
creases and crows,’
and that is what Descartes supposed.

‘But what of soul?
Syncopating, beating, fleeting –
modern philosophy.
Consonants only lay waste,’
the wind’s whispers did lace.

‘Oh yes! The separation.
Floundering minds simmer –
distancing matter spits and spatters
in the space between.
The dual only grows,’
and that is what Descartes supposed.

‘But what of resolve?
A joining of forces –
like the ocean and the sky’s horizon,
together incompatibly beautiful
sealing sacred space.’
the wind’s whispers did lace.

Tokyo Police Club

Me gusta musica nuevo!

A friend told me about these guys a few days ago...and I like. Check them out:

Tokyo Police Club

The Only Way You Can Know Anything...

Well...I really don't have much for today. These things happen. But in an attempt to say anything...I'll share a quote from a book I was reading today. It's from a poetry anthology, "Sleeping On The Wing," describing a specific poem by William Butler Yeats:

"The sense of it is that you can't really know a thing for sure as long as you and it are changing; and, if you exist in time, you are always changing - and so is everything living that's around you, and everything you feel. So, the only way you could know anything for sure might be if time stopped. Time's stopping is just about impossible to imagine, but it is something that is supposed to happen at the Last Judgement."

...think about that one for a bit.

Trippy

Just fiddling around...








before
















after

Unstrung Beads

Hmm...so I was wondering when I'd hit this point...the point where I don't feel like posting stuff because it's not all rainbows and butterflies...the stuff people really want to hear. I've held back a little, because I don't want to come across...I don't know what. But let's face it..most of the times that I write, it's not butterflies...it's me really thinking about things, and things at their deepest always surpass the happy facade-like cover - or at least that's how it seems to me. SO. With that being said...here we go


Unstrung Beads

Treasure the upturned poverty
of seeping minds.

Renew this soul
that has expired under the sun.

As the sun rises and sets
so has my will settled

into the crevasse the weather scorns
onto an honest oak.

Therein, my passions
tell lies, pointing my gaze

past my fruit filled defenses
against fallen trees.

Resembling a lens,
the green onion curves and mends.

Sleeveless and coated in ankle-length
armor, we’re fully charactered

-- except for the signaling
of excess sopping beads.

Best Friends

This photo is of my nephew Justin (left) and a family friend Cooper (right). Both of their moms grew up together and are best friends...so I just love this picture. They're buddies from the beginning...I don't know, I just can't help but smile when I see this.

:)

I Will Follow You Into The Dark

I really love this song...even though Death Cab has become somewhat of a sell-out band as of late. The lyrics are solid and melodiously poetic, the simple guitar allows this song to sound like a loose thought flowing through someone's conciousness - like a loose string floating through the air on a breezy day (don't ask...I like metaphors...also its getting late, haha).

So for today's entry, I decided to do a cover of Death Cab's "I Will Follow You Into The Dark." Instead of guitar, I played the ukulele...because let's face it...the ukulele is just amazing...and I've been a little obsessed with it lately. This is just a rough recording, I need to re-do the vocals, but here is what I have thus far. Enjoy!

Listen here: http://www.myspace.com/krystalsnoise

"I Will Follow You Into The Dark"

Love of mine some day you will die
But I'll be close behind
I'll follow you into the dark

No blinding light or tunnels to gates of white
Just our hands clasped so tight
Waiting for the hint of a spark
If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

In Catholic school as vicious as Roman rule
I got my knuckles bruised by a lady in black
And I held my tongue as she told me
"Son fear is the heart of love"
So I never went back

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the NOs on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark

You and me have seen everything to see
From Bangkok to Calgary
And the soles of your shoes are all worn down
The time for sleep is now
It's nothing to cry about
'cause we'll hold each other soon
In the blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide
That they both are satisfied
Illuminate the No's on their vacancy signs

If there's no one beside you
When your soul embarks
Then I'll follow you into the dark
Then I'll follow you into the dark

Leaping...amongst other things

Ok, this is just too crazy not to share! So...my sister has been trying to get rid of her dogs because she can't keep them, so I helped her out and put them up on craigslist. Long story short..the family who ended up taking them, the husband, Ted Lennon, is a musician so he gave us a few of his cd's. I listened to them and thought...man, he sounds just like Jack Johnson. Later today, actually...like 10 minutes ago, I looked him up online...and he is legit! Apparently him and Jack Johnson were buddies in college and used to jam and do little gigs together. Also, he's recorded with Brett Dennen and played in venues amongst Regina Spektor, Norah Jones, and Kimya Dawson.

What. The. CRAP.

So...basically I want to be his friend now...haha. Who knows, maybe I'll send him some of my stuff...and at least get honest feedback from a real musician, if nothing else. I was sitting here freaking out in my room, so my mom came over...and I tried explaining how cool this is...but she just looked at me like I was crazy, laughed, and then left. Ohhh the family.

Anyways...check him out: www.tedlennon.com/index.html

__ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Ok..so with keeping up with my self-assigment, here is a poem that I wrote right before my last class ever at Cal Poly. I've revised it a bit, including today, thus I am counting it for my entry today. I'm not cheating, I swear...haha. I'm sure it has much revision to undergo yet, but here is what I have so far.

Leaping

We grow up in a psychological
womb

from which limbs and flowers
flow from spools

in the master-crafted
hands that tock and ask

where it is, from which
we’ll launch?

Shrouded in the shaded green,
we were pioneers

but now the clearing in the trees
has exposed a roaring granite wall.

Peering toes teeter and rock
leaping endless thoughts.


-- Krystal Park

Ok...New Plan

So, I've seen a lot of my friends start photo blogs....where they take pictures everyday and use that as a starting point for prose..or no prose. I think I want to take that idea and run with it. Instead of always posting a photo, I think I'm going to expand that and prompt myself to post some sort of media/art everyday. By media I mean...a photo, a poem, a song, a painting, a doodle on a page...anything. I am living at home for the summer, which is great because I can finally spend some quality time with my family (for better or for worse...but either way, it's needed) and to save money (hooray for free food and rent at the parents!). However, being home really sucks all my motivation and inspiration out of me...like, for real. It's ridiculous, I'll be sitting here and want to write something...but I just don't feel like it and I can't get past that...SO, I'm hoping this little assignment I gave to myself will jolt me from this stagnant rut...because it sucks.




To kick it off...I'll post a photo from graduation that I fiddled a bit with in photoshop. This seems to be one of the most relevant topics in my life right now...except how that topic will prove to play out (aka: my future now that I've graduated college)...is entirely up to God. Yay suprises (can you hear the sarcasm dripping? I hear it pouring).

Just Another Day

Today I start a blog. Reason? Because I've realized that no one, except possibly random strangers, really wants to know the inner workings of my mind.