musing kennbivins

It’s been well past a month since I initiated the simple experiment of parking my car and biking it as much as I could for one month. My fuel budget of the past two months had found it’s way rising well beyond the $225 mark (thank you, Mr. President).

Well, I am happy to report that I only spent $102.16 on fuel for the past 30 days. I have also discovered a new love with cycling and and an alternative exercise. I experience more of my world and my day this way and will continue to bike as often as I am able for the rest of the year.

What is consummate turn, you may ask? Simply, what is complete has now come to a revolution or a turn. I’m doing it all over again. Because I liked it. Anyone want to join me?

Water from rocks and manna-soaked socks
And quail in my locks, still a 40-year clock

I wait at the dock yet my ship never stocks.
39 more years I’ll hang on this block

“This one bring you luck!”
But luck is a crock

And I’m staring at walls that tick and then tock
And then a dismissive obsessive regressive tock

Walking alone while I die with a flock
Will Jesus come save me or will Buddha just mock?

A whisper is heard, “I stand here and knock”
But hope seems elusive and this door won’t unlock

“Extricate me from sedentary before my soul rots!
I want to be more than some stain or ink blot!!”

“What is that in your hand?” Hope or a rock?
If only I could just touch the hem of His frock

At the head of the line, at the feet of the altar
Where upon rests my gaze, there upon begins my falter

In the face of adversity and some purposeless scene
Where upon rests my hope, thereupon lies my peace.

kenn

“Do something once a day that scares you.” - Eleanor Roosevelt

In kenn-speak, break from your routine, step outside of your comfort zone, and LIVE. Daily.

16 days into my 30-day experiment and I’ve discovered a newfound passion for cycling, an alternative to coffee, an aversion/attraction to train commuters, and about $100 in unused fuel funds thus far. I’m quite certain that I will continue this alternative design of transportation for as long as the weather permits. I’ll post real numbers on how much I’ve saved at the end of the original 30 days. Stay tuned.

Four walls and an echo
Down a long and distant hall
Four intents and no passenger
And a self-constructed wall

Three beats and then waiting
For the time to pronounce my vow
Three strikes and then debating
Should I forfeit the game right now?

Two seats yet filled to capacity
Did she save a seat for me?
Two ballads have made me restless
And their cadence won’t set me free

One candle seems too solitary
Me, myself and eyes are under strain
The fine print of my love songs are contrary
To life’s context and catchy refrain

Blank pages in an athenaeum
And the moon without her sun
For still I write these love songs
For a million and no One.

——————————————-

In honor of my recent birthday, I bought myself a shiny new bicycle earlier this week. It’s a Gary Fisher Kaitai to be specific. Starting Tuesday, June 17 and for the next 30 days I will be commuting to work with the aid of my KaiTai and Atlanta’s own MARTA train. The trek is 10 miles one way but the purpose of this experiment is to see if I can make it on one tank of gas for the month. I’ll keep you posted.

One hundred and eighty pointless distractions
Leading to inaction
Twelves times less their passion

Is Kenn home? Who’s asking?
One hundred and eighty reprimands
And a serious tongue lashing

Return to your first love, return to your passion
Those other misleads and concubines
Will exhaust your stored up rations

Hurry now, scurry now, better get to dashing
Though your Dad will never leave you
Even when leaving is all the fashion

Quiet on the set. Alright. ACTION!
Dad designed you like a ball at the top of a hill
More complex than fourth-grade fraction

No Polaroids or still-life’s taxing
24 frames per second
The ice is cracking, latency retracting

One hundred and eighty necessary abstractions
Laid down as random brush strokes
The ball is now in action… forward passion >

Dear Friends, it’s been a matter of days and circumstance for which I have not written nor been able to communicate but grace and destiny abound as this transmission reaches you now. Your existence coupled with your presence means a lot to me. Your availability and support humbles me. Your consistency is what I’ve always asked my Father in Heaven for. You mean more than you can know and I’m thankful you are here.

While this electronic and public articulation has its downside, one of them is not the fact that you can’t see tears gathering where light meets my eyes. I am elated and reflective right now. I consider June 1, 1970 and how my life has been full of failures that have ultimately lead to success. I dwell on how life means so much to me now where once upon a time, I was far from impressed with its offerings. My life is not ended yet but looking back gives me greater reason to move forward with purpose. And again you make the difference.

Since 1970, I have shared words and love and rejection and oxygen with you. Thank you for your wishes, kinds words, grace, forgiveness, and consistency. I love you, Friends.
I love you madly.

forever, kenn.

This was a small scribble in my sketchbook that just looks eerie when I look at it now. I love it. Can you hear the voices too?

I rarely frequent Starbucks but I stopped by for a soy latte this past week on the way to witness my son’s final orchestra performance for the school year. As I awaited the templated artistry of the drink maid, I was browsing the clearance shelf of baristas, coffees, and overpriced ceramic cups.

But, “Hark! What is this?” A little simple cup with a the instruction, “grow” written across and the icon of a plant in it’s infancy. This is cool and I do like green but this is Starbucks. This cup must be about seven… what the? Three dollars?!! Sold! I love my cup. Don’t you?

(Nadine is the personification of hope)

This is not some love poem or a soliloquy of a dream
This is not a confession of an angry black man or how its difficult to be a human being
This is not a suicide note left with hesitant intentions of being seen
And this is not an adolescent cry with regret that I have been weaned

What this is is inspiration from a flesh and walking dream
What this is is articulation to the canopy above the seas
What this is is experimental though obsession it may seem
What this is is a gift kind of like money green or chocolate cream

This is exotic feathers seconds after the beak has preened
This is a one-apple fixation more from healthy trees
This is an arduous extensive reach to tell her what I really mean
This is one mans venture into what rhymes with Nadine.

Now upon meeting Nadine I felt chills up my spleen
Or down my spleen, you see direction wasn’t my focus while my focus was this dream
Yes, this dream I rename Nadine, to protect the innocent amidst a crowded scene
And her smile was like some glow or gleam or shine or sheen just rendering me

Riddling me, butterflies inside flittering deep, betrayed by a mouth that wouldn’t speak
This was not a commonplace meeting or a random dating thing
This was not some fortuitous glint or something karma has deemed
This was not boy meets girl simply for girl and boy to thump like peens

This was not boy selecting candidates to consummate his black book team
What it was makes me sing and what it is is like Plasticine
Molded mass around structured glass, who knows what it will be
Yet with 206 bones from about 300 that convened

And gray matter that is more complex than the most intricate machine
There is hope to which I careen as directional as a stream or gravity’s lean
I know not what I saying but I am saying what I mean.
People may look at her and see someone refined and pristine

A warming smile encased in glass, steady, safe, unwavering
I am inclined to behold much more, her depth like gasoline
Explosive is what emanates, her heat burns pure and clean
Natural, nice, quite phenomenal, networking is where she beams

Amazing, analytical, animated, adept amongst many other things
Detonating, drop-dead gorgeous, I dig her diction, shes my dream
Imagination, intelligent face and introspective she might be
Nothing precedes her nor depletes her, neo, novel, my intervene

Excited, enlightened, energetic, endowed with grace of 40 queens
40 things and 30 scenes and 20 props made of polystyrene
Is that so keen? Not clear but keen. No wait I’m keen. Well, I once was Keen.
I once was Keen before Nadine. But in her honor I eschewed an E

In exchange for that E and to her esteem, N took its place, N for Nadine
Conclusively or decidedly or perhaps more appropriately unconditionally
Homage and admiration and permeation beyond the seams
France is where it originated from and hope is what it means

Starts in the N and ends as in E yet her monikers no big thing
Her dermis and curves and motives and verbs is where I would place the reams
Of stash and cash and interest and gladly exalting this Nadine
This exaltation is long so pardon my lingering scene

This is not some love poem or a soliloquy of a dream
This is not a confession of an angry black man or how its difficult to be a human being
This is not a suicide note left with hesitant intentions of being seen
And this is not an adolescent cry with regret that I have been weaned

What I hope is that her heart and nerves and ears hereafter see
What I hope is that my Love prevails condemning crooks and fiends
What I hope is that a remnant sows and nurtures kinetic seed
And the seed shall be though we can’t see and one day it will burst forth from the ground and it will be.

No thing, no fling, no temporary scene, no nicotine
Well quaff and feast and dream and clean
Reconvene forever between God’s grace and
Well reconvene and reconvene and reconvene forever, Nadine.

Love Kenn, your Keen. End scene.

not sure why the baby is upside down or why I’m doodling babies but…

I was reading an interview on the early years of Jack Kirby, the artist and co-creator of Spider-Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, Captain America, and a host of other comic book legends. Since I have a tendency to doodle as I read, talk, or work, I figured I would start sharing those distractions with you here. These are by no means complete works of art. They are instead line ramblings and doodles. Enjoy the deviation.

I love writing. It’s therapy for me though it hasn’t always been so. When I was urged to journal my thoughts several years ago, I found solace in layering my feelings with parallels and imagery. Since then I have found more peace and healing in sharing those writings.

I am once again called upon to share more of myself as I grow and reinvent. A week ago, I embarked on a 37-week program to challenge my habit of prayer and my personal relationship with God. The purpose is to develop an ability to communicate more specifically in prayer and find God in all things. Though these daily orisons are personal, I’m encouraged at the lives that I may impact in my own humanity and so I will share.

If you’re interested in following along, check it out.

Thinking of you sleeping right before you wake up
Has me so warm to steeping that I’m about to break up
The visual of you wrapped in sheets not wearing any makeup
Has me so terse that if I burst then I could fill a lake up

There must be some hobby or craft I can maybe take up
In the event that you awaken and decide to pull your stakes up
Or in honor of you and this view I could build a cake up
That says “You’re on my mind and all for just the sake of”

Thinking of you stirring right before you wake up
There I go again thinking of something we could make up
Like leave the sheets in disarray or toss the pillows as some quake up
But then maybe this is a just a dream. Don’t ever want to wake up.

.kenn