Great Movie - Great Song

"A Lack Of Color"

And when i see you
I really see you upside down
But my brain knows better
It picks you up and turns you around
Turns you around, turns you around

If you feel discouraged
That there's a lack of color here
Please don't worry lover
It's really bursting at the seams
For absorbing everything
The spectrum's a to z

This is fact not fiction
For the first time in years
all the girls in every girlie magazine
Can't make me feel any less alone
I'm reaching for the phone

To call at 7:03 and on your machine I slur a plea for you to come home
But i know it's too late
I should have given you a reason to stay
Given you a reason to stay

This is fact not fiction
For the first time in years

-Death Cab For Cutie

A Picture of Myself

Hello world. I thought it would be nice to see the face behind the writing. I must tell you though; I am Piscean and so this face is everchanging. Pictures from 2 years ago look almost nothing like me now. Here, I'll prove it to you

See. This is also me, circa 2005. Want to see something else?

I'm the marine in back with "me" above his head. This is circa 2003.

Like I said - everchanging, evolving, growing.

About Me

I guess you could say I'm an avid collector of subjective experiences. I like to weigh them against each other, sort them out by category, sometimes blend them all together, add, subtract, multiply, and divide your input against mine to shape a consensus reality with those I hold close to my heart - and in simpler terms, to create the story in which we all have active or passive roles, and the occassional cameo appearance.

I was born into dogma, as were we all, perhaps because it was necessary for me to understand the difference between personal truth and myth, though both are equally subjective. I suppose I had to learn the box exists to get outside of it.

I've been told that I have a way with words, as I should, because they were my first friends to shape my impressions of the world into something symbolic and intangible. Like our own minds, they are powerful and it is my opinion that it is of dire need for every single person to master their own words. Their reckless use inspires destruction, just as their masterful use inspires creation.

I've never quite fit well inside any institution, social or public, I suppose because I regarded external, unadapted, and idealogical conformity as a subtle, yet dangerous entity of slavery. I believe it is ok for a time to adopt others ideals and stories while we are learning about ourselves, but that we must eventually break free of those adopted models to create our own. To me, this is adaption. This is evolution. This is the ultimate source of creation and the path of personal freedom.

Emote

The holidays
are hollow days-
getting more difficult
to swallow days
Goodbye warmth
and goodbye light,
I'm retreating to
my cave tonight
to wait you out
and wait
and wait

12.21.07

Sometimes

A tall, sad man that
eats alone,
thinks alone,
sleeps alone.
While the rest of the world buzzes away,
he wonders
can anybody hear me?
He writes his dreams
into a box
for the world to see,
to create a realm
of make-belief.
He takes his pill
and lies down to dream,
that tomorrow won't bring
the very same thing.

My Better Side

I wished all this writing would catch
your eye.
I want to begin a story right now and you
can be my partner in crime.
I say we fight this world, take what's ours,
and leave the rest behind.
This is my story.
This is your story.
This becomes our story
and anything we dream is ours.
I can see it in your eyes,
and in my own,
like a wild fire lighting the way
through darkened skies.
Now is the time to take what's ours.
Now is the time,
my better side

It's not about Time

Is time to remember

or forget

all of the memories

we create?

Is it our deception

to forget

the deepest connections

we have made?

Do they know that time is

ever fleeting-

So we must cherish love

forever.

Time is separation.

Time is not.

Time is made up, but our

love is not.

Mike Brande

12/14/07

23 Tools To Brainwash and Influence People through Media

The opinions and behaviors of people and societies are easily swayed. Every decade, every year, every week, those who control mass media change the climates of human thought. New pop stars, fashions, and fads are paraded center stage and then exit stage left followed by floods of expendable cash, leaving the path of sordid garbage known as "popular culture" in its wake.

Now the power to rule the world and wag the cultural dog is at your fingertips. What follows are simple instructions, a manual, a playbook of sorts, some simple behavioral tools to influence and take advantage of the nervous systems of all your peers.

23 Tools:

http://www.gatecreepers.com/entries/23-tools-to-brainwash-and-influence-people-throu/

Dear Television

Sometimes I think that this television remote is my best friend because I can hear you spouting across the way, a one-directional conversation discussing what kind of upgrades I need and which hotel I should stay at because it's closest to the beach in some remote destination city, forced to smile at us americans, because our dollars feed them.

What a clever disguise you wear, commercial after commercial of product and service after product and service under the umbrella name of quality programming.

Forget you travel channel. I'm not thoroughly interested in how many different types of massages I can get for my money at 'generic name' day spa located closest to said hotel, closest to the beach in some remote destination city.

Dear Television,

Did you ever think you might use your mass appeal, and your infiltration of our cultural psyche for a greater purpose than the bombardment of ad after ad from corporations with legal rights, but no soul, and your "reality" shows that have dumbed down and stolen precious time from the general populace who have all nearly accepted the surrender of their actual lives for your realist escapism programming?

Do you feel any responsibility for generations of children you've raised to see themselves as a product, and your ads for these products, as the accessories they need to define themselves- to feel complete?

When you look into our eyes and spill your pitch, do you see our souls or do you see dollar signs? Do your masters follow their hearts or do they follow their bottom line?

Me and my best friend have decided that it is time to end this this one-sided conversation because you have no soul, and I have already entertained the devil enough for one lifetime.

Michael Brande

You lost your Scarf

I love your old scarf
lying on the ground
somehow,
it followed me
through 6 jobs
and 4 different houses
like a lost memory should
I'd like to think
you'd packed that scarf
away for me
you wore,
smoking cigarettes
on your porch in the cold
escaping walls and tv's
to talk about god
or the world

Mike Brande
8.23.07

Dear Mr. President

Dr. Mr President,I am an ex-marine who served a tour in Iraq in February of 2004 with Alpha 1/11 1st Marine Division. I wanted to ask you directly and I hope this e-mail is not intercepted by one of your aides, but that you can answer me directly.

Mr. President, with your approval ratings falling daily, why do you still support this war on a country that has absolutely no ties to Iraq or Saddam Hussein? Why do you continually risk my own life, and the lives of my fellow marines that has to date, killed more civilians than terrorists?

Mr. President, this is an issue that has run very deep into my blood because of the events I witnessed and in some occassions, I was a part of. I joined the United States Marine Corps because you had me convinced that at 18 years old, I was doing the right thing serving my country in the war on terrorism. What I witnessed in Iraq was not a battle against Al Queda, but against the citizens of Iraq.

Why do you continually ignore the American public's opinion of this war? Why do you consistently re-affirm your position on the war when the American public no longer wants us invading the republic of Iraq? Why are you no longer concerned with apprehending Osama Bin Laden, when he has claimed responsibility for the September 11th attacks against our nation?

I am in awe that you can hold your position on Iraq when I am now 70% disabled with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the events I witnessed in Iraq. I am also in awe that you would decided to cut funding from the department of veterans affairs, that is now the only organization that intercepts me when I try to end my own life because the nightmares and the flashbacks I have are so great, that I can no longer cope with them on my own.

Please Mr. President, I beg of you with all my heart to reconsider your positions and stop risking the lives of the brave Marines I had the privilege of serving with for an unjust war that was based on incorrect intelligence.

Sincerely,

PFC Michael C. Brande
United States Marine Corps.

Me

can't fit a circle into a square cut
though i've tried
always above,
or is it below
the superficticious lull
how fitting,
pieces of a puzzle
buzzed and connected
to the dull hum that consumes the whole
i can see it when they laugh,
even better when they're not
i could never hide it here
nor
anywhere at all

The Creek

No one knows how much I miss sitting at the creek with my dog. Who ever knew that life was perfect at 10 years old. Our eager eyes glance toward the future in anticipation. We can be anything we want, even an astronaut. Wading through the creek to the bridge, I lay down and daydream of the adventures I will have someday in space; my imagination already begins the journey and patiently waits for my body to someday catch up with it.

I found deep space here with my eyes closed. I explored the furthest corners of all its possibilities. For hours on end, alone, I made discoveries and met other beings, communing beyond the symbolic limitations of our world. Infinite is the mental universe, just as the physical and spiritual. We just shift planes.

I think I understood the world then, when I was only 10. A witch at my window told me she only went around scaring people because she was lonely for a friend. Maybe fear was the only thing she knew would work to connect to our world. I told her I'd be her friend. For the first time, she smiled and she never tried to scare me again.

I said my farewell, I was tired now and missing home. Perhaps I'll see you again soon.

When I returned home, nothing was as it seemed before. I learned to listen on many levels on my journey. I should never have used that at home. The bishop's words forked from his tongue, slithering with double edged meanings over the congregation. Symbols lept from the book with a magic will of their own and burned into the eyes of those who saw them and gave them power. They fell to their knees in worship of their murderous diety and performed secret rites within his walls.

I watched my days at the creek slip away. The world was polarizing in his name. Perhaps if they had a day at the creek with me, they'd still see the colors that weave through the seasons of these canyon walls. Perhaps the witch at their window would stop scaring them, if they could see through the fear that had paralyzed the generations of hearts long before them.

The Essence

long shall the essence flow
under the emotional current
the tide, for the moon to push and pull
the stories told
days of old live on in words
the immortal language of the soul
our eyes have met many years ago
to share this moment which lives on
the tongues of generations
transcending isolation
here we met, not long ago
to recreate the stories our father's told
connect your hearts to each other
and the rest shall follow

Mike Brande
2.20.07

Again, You Win

i've got a confession
hidden under my breath
for the wind to carry
all my regrets
i don't pull on the blanket
i'd rather just shudder
in the stale warmth
escaping these covers
this same street remembers
then and forever
passerby's who try
forgetting each other
waking up late
into the same day
leaving too little time
to wash your memory away
I've got a confession to make
hidden under my breath
i loved you enough
to fail the same test

Mike Brande
12.19.06

Farewell

the nothing man's lips freeze,
the edges sink lower
this is all a terrible dream
to have woken into
I am unseen light
setting this sky afire
into the night
still,
they need and they take
until what's left of his fervor
spills into the stars

the bite waits to catch them
groping the dark
they fell,
and devoured a nothing man
who carried an invisible light
for the whole world to swallow

Raw With Love

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won't flinch and
i won't blame
you,
as I drive along the shore alone
as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms,
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave,
i won't blame you,

instead
i will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me
everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of me,

and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons our nights
our bodies spilled together
sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth
of you
who made me laugh
again.

little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no knife.
the knife is mine and i won't use it
yet.

-Charles Bukowski

Thanks Mitch. You shared this poem with me a long time ago. I'm glad I found it.

3 Days

so elusive, out of sight in these depths

three days you'll fall from grace

breathing in water to follow you home

here, there are dreams that slip from silver screens

into factions of illusury design

relay transmission

break the surface or lose your mind

to degenerate words you will never shape

as life dissolves piece by piece

magic eyes, i saw searching deep

reflected in light, hard to find

here in creation's abyss

prying for something to treasure

we would nearly die in these cold waters

if the best intentions froze our hearts

and the radiance of your beloved

never rose again

three ominous days, we wait

for you to come back home

Free Write Exercise

i could fill a room with uncertainty or i could breathe the air that takes it all away. if a wish had the power to clarify, i'd save a moment to myself.
it seems we can stay for a while or choose to move with the sea.
let go and flow.
hear the angel sing lullabies for the thoughts crashed upon the shore. let the grains of sand sift through my fingers.
the sun may set, but i can still feel the warmth. tomorrow, i can imagine. i can hold this treasure forever.
if war is all we can concieve, war is all we'll get. we can choose to let this go. heaven is next door, but if we sit at home, we'll never know.
how strange are the times when we let go because the past has it's way of biting us back. we can't ignore the love we felt. it's creation still hangs on the unfinished shrine dedicated to our failures in the depths of our mind.

Angel of Silence

Hate as your mirror

to dwell inside the mind of an execrable presence

tears away all light,

but my ember eyes that burn still

through the soul you left behind and

now you shall bear the poisoned

heart of the silent angel

you destroyed

Mike Brande

Friday October 13, 2006

You know who You Are

Such a lovely picture
but you
just copied the lines
and in time they'll see
through your fake, plastic smile
and your dirtied sheets,
the same design sold down the street
in a neat package available to anyone
who will sell their soul
for an expensive meal to eat

Ramblings

These dismal symbols can't convey
all between the lines of context
Aether is not an easy space to define,
nor does it require definition
Push, and the Universe shall push back.

Don't wait for something to happen
Make it happen.

If you're tired

Let's be victims no longer. The world has been painted as heartless and cruel, so it is our duty to grab a brush, and with a stroke of hope, paint something so beautiful, that we no longer see the dark shadows that bound the generations before us.
Fear is an illusion. So are anger and hate. If we give nothing to these words, they have no power.
Let us feed love and community instead.
There are many people that believe Heaven and Hell are kingdoms in far off lands, beyond death. They are ethereal for now, but these places do exist. They exist in the minds of many.
If we believe that our imaginations are limitless and we believe in the power of our minds, then I subscribe to the idea that Heaven can exist on earth.

Steel and Glass

steel and glass separation
in busy and high traffic isolation
singing the words formed on
the tip of your tongue
can anybody hear me
drive this same circle for an exit
to anywhere but repetition
seems any route on the map leads
to a familiar town with familiar faces
driving in the same circles wondering
can anybody hear me?
in busy and high traffic isolation
if we ever took the right exit,
we found ourselves lost
and immediately asking for directions

09.09.06

Manifest Canvass

Millions of celestial viewers staring down on me
but i am no fool
I'm just as curious as you what happens next
Forgive me please, I seemed to have lost the time
wandering like I do
through infinite worlds inside my mind
I saw you once when I was young
looking up and beyond
Your canvass, like a blanket
and I tried to reach higher
I felt the comfort in your mystery
and I always know when
you're gazing from above
Night after night,
I still search your eyes to comfort me

Death's Afterthoughts

Starry transposition through heavy eyes
And gentle submission into the outstreched arms of this night
Such a causeless sorrow fills the air
I confessed to you through my ascending focus
My will is but my own

11.16.04

Hello

This is my first post. I don't have any specific topic to be frequently covering. I'm just sort of using this as a diary for my thoughts, poems, essays, and stories regarding myself and how I see the world around me. Maybe you'll enjoy what I have to say, but I won't take any offense if you do not.

-Sir Altitude