The Park Ranger Strikes Back

The other day I realized that I say the word 'epic' much too much so I went to thesaurus.com and looked up some synonyms. I think the best results I could find were 'Homeric' and 'Herculean' so from now on I will replace 'epic' with one or the other, depending on the situation. This will be an exercise in broadening my vocabulary because words or phrases like 'epic' tend to temporarily take over everything I say.
I actually looked the word up when I was down in Bellingham last week for American Thanksgiving. I went down with Josh Burdick and a whole crew of people (Jenny, Toshi, Jackie, Anne, Justin, Phil) going to his house for the dinner and the shopping. Americans are hardcore about celebrating thanksgiving and a Homeric weekend was had by all. The morning after the herculean dinner, however, I spotted an ancient typewriter in the Burdick house and Mrs. Burdick grabbed a piece of paper and said I could type on it. It was definitely a pretty Homeric experience and the following is the awesomecore poetry of the morning that I typed out.

beeswax daytime wakes me from my repose
while sunlight filters through the window frame
it's no surprise the nighttime went so fast
so soft the daylight came so soon
I've not yet woken from my moonlit dream

I dreamt a golden tear was falling from his face
while all around the ocean waves kept pace
with the beating of my own familiar heart
and though it captivated in me every part
I could not hold it from the break of day
I woke to golden tears in place of sunlit rays

and all around me happiness is in my ear
the sight of day has brought my heart to tears
the birdsong, the dog bark, the beeswax daytime
the clear sky, the warm hearts beating next to mine

Later in the morning I wrote more awesomecore (I can't use Homeric or herculean in this situation, although I would have used epic) poetry on a scrap of paper and the day before I was writing a sweetness punk song so I have been pretty busy, but my basic routine doesn't really encourage time for writing. Basically I get up and go to work, work for eight hours, and come home and entertain myself with movies and games. I feel like I'm amusing myself to death. The only real time when I get anything done is right now, in the morning before i leave for work, but usually I work at the Victoria Drive location of Surplus Sam's so that doesn't leave me much time. Hopefully I'll be working at the Burnaby location for a while and I can write a sweet series of morning poems. That would be Homeric.

Park Ranger

A New Smoke

I got a great new book today, it's a comprehensive collection of Robert Frost's poetry. So far I've only read the first two poems, but he starts off with crazy crazy awesomeness. Although Robert Frost is the man, I would also like to get hold of some of T.S. Elliot's poetry because I read "The Hollow Men" ages ago and it's pretty much my favorite poem ever, but I've never read anything else by Elliot.
On the epic journey i missed out on Michigan and Detroit and I was sorely disappointed by this. However, everyone says that I missed nothing, that Detroit is the worst city in America, but they don't realize that out of the worst conditions comes the best poetry and music. I think that's why, when musicians get famous and make a lot of money, their music tends to lose much of its awesomeness. It's because now they are living the good life and they have nothing to sing about except how happy and boring their lives are. The poetry of T.S. Elliot and Robert Frost is not about how happy and boring their lives are. It is good poetry. I look forward with eager anticipation to reading them both.

Pipe Smoking Professor

The Return of the Pipe Smoking Professor

I am definitely back in Canada now and it's good to be sleeping in a real bed and eating real food, my last meal before coming home on Tuesday was a can of "Chef Boyardee ChiliMac". Trust me, Chef Boyardee is good, chili is good, and macaroni is good, but together and cold they taste pretty disgusting. Sorry for not updating for the past couple of weeks, for the las two weeks of my trip I didn't stay in any hostels because I was rushing around so much on the train so I didn't have ready access to the internet. The only times I stayed overnight in a city in the last two weeks were Sacramento and Kansas city and I just stayed up all night. Sacramento was pretty good, but at about 3:00am at Denny's I realized I had lost my ticket and pass and had to run back through the city and retrace my steps. Eventually I ended up at the train station around when it opened and one of the employees had found the ticket and given it to the ticket counter people where I found it. I did write an epic song about Sacramento though, but it's really epic and therefore would take a while to type out so I'm not putting it on here. Kansas city was the least welcoming place on my travels, I just don't think people liked other people there, it was like the antithesis to Halifax. Also there was at least one bumbling security guard who made my life miserable, another who was doing his job, his job being keeping people out of a public park, a criminal purse thief, a 24 hour bail bonds place, a burning sewer vent, many many drunk people, a non-24-hour Denny's, a homeless man, another homeless man, music screamed in the middle of the night, chunks of ice for toes, the book of Lamentations, and an epic journey. The epic journey was the journey from Missouri to Kansas. Kansas city falls on the state line between Missouri and Kansas and unfortunately the train stops in the Missouri half of the city. I had to make it to Kansas so I had about 3 or 4 miles to trek across the city to get to Kansas proper. It was an epic journey and I documented it on film, but I want to get this entry out there so I will put the videos in another entry. Later on in the non-24hr Denny's I documented the results of my entire epic journey (the whole thing) in a poem:

It's been so long, been on the road
cause Kansas winds were in my bones
I've searched the high and Northern shores
I've stood and knocked at strangers doors
I've walked alone on broken streets
I've nursed my cold and broken feet
I've drunk my fill on golden draughts
but never once i have forgot
the sacred song, the silent night
the ancient dream, eternal sight
the yellow sun on Kansas fields
the great expanse, the boundful yields
for this I've searched for countless years
for every mile, another tear
but now it seems they're shed in vain
as darkened skies turn into rain
this is Kansas
a streetcorner
this is Kansas
a neon sign
this is Kansas
a black mourner
this is Kansas
a yellow line
this is Kansas
a chainlink fence
this is Kansas
a dying dance
if this is Kansas
why does it look like the Kingdom of God?

That last line is an epic line for its multiple awesome meanings and although I don't really like explaining my poetry, I feel this line could easily be twisted so I will clarify its meaning. It refers to both the fact that I am sorely disappointed in the real Kansas (it was not what I expected), and the fact that the Kingdom of God is at hand and these streets and these broken and dying people in this broken and dying city are what the Kingdom of God is made up of and because of this I'm not really disappointed, but happy. The Kingdom of God isn't made up of rolling hills and fields of golden wheat, but out of broken and hurting people who have nothing to give, least of all beauty. It's a pretty epic realization.