Enjoy the dark calm, There’s no surreal silence crying for a bullet to the head.
Posts Tagged ‘silence’
Munich
Thursday, July 21st, 2011Munich, Germany was the first destination on our European trip and what a place. On this gray rainy day, the city seemed extremely somber. Being a Sunday, all the shops were closed and the city was extremely quite. Silence and quietness are something that seems prevalent in Germany. The people seem to enjoy their silence. Not in a rude or snobbish way, they just appear to be a more silent people who keep many thoughts to themselves. As if they contemplate each word or sentence that comes from there mouth, they seem to keep most words inside as if to spare us if any of the words are not entirely worth hearing; in total opposition to many people I know in the US who talk simply so silence is never heard. It is a calm and almost serene silence but the grey sky brings a sadness to this great city.
The first thing we saw was the city hall building which was more akin to a giant gothic cathedral rather than a government building. It was magnificent, reaching high into the drizzly skies the peaks and spires seemed as if they would tear the sky open.
Decorated in flags and red flowers this building was a worthy monument to stand as the center of attention for the entire city. The large clock tower it its grandeur also has a somewhat childish side and is basically a giant cuckoo clock. Within the green part of the tower are all manner of figurines that upon every hour come to life as the towers ring and music plays and dance and twirl for all to see. Among a rather massive crowd we watched these figures twirl about as the rain started to fall very softly. We went into a cafe right across from the clock tower, high above where we were almost level with the dancing figures. There we had cake. Along with silence, the German people really seem to enjoy their cake. In Germany, it felt like all we ate was cake. For breakfast there was cake, and of course yogurt with cereal on top, for lunch there was more cake, and for dinner there was even more cake. Do not get me wrong, the cake was delicious and there is nothing wrong with massive quantities of cake, I just thought it was an interesting observation to share. In this cafe we had some extremely traditionally German cakes; a warm apple strudel (which technically isn’t cake but i think it still counts) and an interesting fruit cake that is basically a yellow sponge cake with fruit like raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries on top coated in a jello like substance. It was very good and really nice to try some authentically German cuisine because as my friend tells me the rest of German cuisine mainly consists of meat and potatoes, which I also found to be very true. However they are very good meat and potatoes.
I seem to always wind up talking about food, even when there is a beautiful city that still desires attention. Walking through the streets of Munich we passed numerous shop windows filled with tinker toys and tons of little knick-knacks of every kind.
Besides these funny little shops, the architecture is quite amazing. There seem to be clock towers and church spires all around us. Everywhere I look I see some beautiful building in the distance or right next to me.
In a city square of sorts we came upon a structure that at one point was the stand for one of Hitler’s very first speeches to the German people.
It seems like everywhere I go there is so much history hiding in the cracks of the sidewalk and behind building walls. This city is full of life that we barely scratched the surface of in our very short time in the city. With our short ime we were able to go inside one church. It was one of the first things I spotted in Munich, the tall watch tower with the teal dome resting on the top caught my eye from quite a while away from the city’s center.
Nestled within the city streets, this giant resides as if it does not stand tall above all the other buildings. If the towers were not magnificent enough, the inside was astounding as well. With a ceiling framed with window crosshatching, this church had the most amazing ceilings I have ever seen.
In such a large cathedral t is hard not to feel small and insignificant in this house of God. It really was beautiful though, with high arching ceilings, and giant stain glass windows the silence of Germany seemed to be filled with a different sound.
Munich feels full of life that thrives in a contemplative and silent manner. It was amazing to feel the splendor of this city as the first of many amazing cities to come that are all astoundingly different. This place though has the feeling of an antique portrait of a time where life was grand and the people are kind, if not a little strange.
Notice the man in the bottom left hand corner and you will know what I mean.
Tags: architecture, beautiful, bell tower, cathedrals, church, cuckoo clock, europe, germany, Hitler, munich, silence, somber
Posted in Photos, Stories, Travel Updates |
Posted in Photos, Stories, Travel Updates |
Hospital Room (Butterfly)
Sunday, December 5th, 2010Winter is waiting
Like an old hospital room
White and clean
Yet so foreboding
They will wash the walls
Of my presence
Scrub away
Until there is nothing left of me
Strip down my pictures
Replace them with plaster
A life cast of me
Molded too tight
Until I cannot breathe
Suffocating and gasping for air
Inside a white washed room
Sterilized of life
Where dolls sit
With clairvoyant glassy eyes
Of Ovid’s butterfly
Fluttering helplessly
Settling down
In a flourish of color
Only to die slowly
Caught in the grip
Of Winter’s cold fist
Such an absence
Such a silence
It deafens me
Echoing off white walls
The screams of the plastered casts
Of those who came before me
Faces protruding like the gates of hell
Leaving me too blind to see
Staring blankly
At the horror before me
I wonder why I am here
Why I wound up
In this white washed room
Suffocating in a prison
With no windows
No sound
Except the noise of madness
And the sound
Of a rotting brain
As the butterfly takes its last gasps
You left me here
To slowly decay
I watch the butterfly
Curl, wither, and deform
From the beauty it had been
Watching my fate
Unfurl before me
With a merciless slowness
I am waiting now
For the white to capture me
To whisk me away
Into some fairytale dream
A reprieve of this white washed room
But the butterfly’s ashes
Lay around me
Staining my palms
It will never leave me
Winter is here
With its worn cold hands
I refuse to go with you
But I cannot stay
Take me with you butterfly
For where I am going
I hoped I would never be
See you on the other side
Of this damned eternity
For now I will hope for a better destiny
And try to avoid the inevitable
By hiding behind the mask
Of a butterfly’s face
In plain sight
A flourish of color in a white room
Waiting for fate to find me
Yellowstone: Sound Of Silence
Friday, March 12th, 2010
Silence is not something we today hear a lot of in our lives. How many times can you just stop everything you are doing and listen. And when you listen, the only answer is silence. In Yellowstone this is a luxury I indulged in quite often. You could be walking around and just stop in the middle of nowhere. All there would be is silence.
I would hold my breath and look around, all you could hear was the sound of falling snow and the world breathing around you. It is something very special to experience. I never really was aware of just how noisy and bustling life was until I escaped to the wilderness for that week. It was actually really hard to come back to Santa Cruz, especially school because there was so much noise that it was almost suffocating.
I miss the silent moments, where it was just me and the living wilderness talking in utter silence. Many people ask if silence can speak and I can answer this for you; yes, it most definitely can. But what is it saying is the real question. When the world falls silent, what will you hear the wind whisper in your ear? Or will you even remember how to listen at that point.
It is important to remember the voice that nature holds, and to never forget how to listen to it. When it speaks, listen because it will tell you the secrets of the world. And that is not something you want to miss, believe me.
Rebel Children
Sunday, December 13th, 2009Look into my eyes
Please tell me what you see
Do you know who I am
Or have you seen someone
Just like me
Standing in the background
With dark solemn eyes
We are the Rebel Children
Broken yet strong
We can be found everywhere
Or nowhere at all
We are the vacant eyes
Of a forsaken god
Always watching
But who sees nothing
And does nothing
Hollow and dark
We are the stain glass windows
Peering deep into your soul
We do not pass judgment
We are the just the eyes
Of a century
How foolish for anyone
To have ever believe
We as humans
Were the images of angels
We are god’s Rebel Children
Never what we are expected
To be in the end
We fight through silence
With our angry eyes
Cast not at heaven
But into the passersbys
God didn’t make us this way
We did
We are the rampant soul
Of a stubborn child
We want only what we do not have
And hate all else
The consumers and buyers
Burning a hole in your soul
Grinding in a cigarette butt
No chance for a fire ever again
Snuff out that spark of life
Leaving you in an eternity of darkness
That you yourself created
So empty and hollow
Just trying to fill that hole
The hole you burned
With your money and lies
With your jealousy and hate
Slowly destroying your life
We are the Rebel Children
Who just don’t belong
The ones who can’t sleep at night
But can’t ever really wake up
We are everything
And nothing at all
Coffee Shop
Sunday, October 25th, 2009Every chair occupied
Tables covered
Newspapers open
Showing crime
Pain
Misfortune
All born by man
Incessant clicking
Of fingers
Swiftly moving
On keyboards
Coffee beans ground
Thick heavy scent
Of coffee
Mixed, tainted
By the ugly scent
Of humans
So many blank
Open faces
Trying unsuccessfully
To communicate
With one another
But the space
Between them
Is just too far
The gap of worlds
To large to cross
Open mouths
Lacking any sound
Hand gestures
To a blind man
A woman sits
In the far corner
Laughs
Big teeth
Open abyss
Consuming all
Putting nothing out
People talk
But nothing
Ever comes out
Maybe
They just have
Nothing to say
Wishing out of habit
Not necessity
Here in a coffee shop
So close
Yet so far from the world
Coffee and people
So very different
Forced to live
In silent harmony
Silence
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Great streets of silence
Have filled the network of my life
In times of necessity
Silence overtakes my faint heart
Swallowing whole
The words so desperately
Floating up in bubbles
That quiver in their fragile state
Whenever words are needed
They have failed me
The power of that word
Falling swiftly, heavily
From an uncouth mouth
Can change the world
In a movement too fast
For the eye to register
The pregnant silence
Grows between you and I
Like a deep festering wound
Something that will
Leave a big nasty scar
For the whole world
To bear witness to
In horror and disgust
Like a canary in a cage
My words are sealed away
With a lock and key
Far too advanced
For such a petty thief as I
The mystery of this labyrinth
Is too complex for me
So I will suffer
In my silence alone
An ocean’s expanse
Stretches far and long
Above, between, and below
My feet that stand
On ground built only
From the promise of words
Yet to surface and be heard
In the deep eddies of the water
Truth is that words
Are a terror, a horror
All in themselves
Their own maze of nothing
Leading to nowhere
So silence is safety
From a world full of words
That I do just fine without
Where every word
Is a potential knife
Awaiting a new victim
A new heart to ruin
Rip open and bear forth
The fruit of an innocent
Of ignorance in truth
And within this deadly flower
Lies life’s only truth
We are all monsters
I think I am going to do a piece of art based off of this poem in my IB art class, it has potential…