A Decade is Earned

Hello,

It has been a decade since I last posted... so much life has happened.

I gained a beautiful family.  My wife.  My daughter. My son.  And a father lost...

I love you Dad, I will miss you every moment of my life but with a smile.




The Lion’s Mound

There is a place high above the battlefields,
where you stand,
in your mighty strength, Dad,
to gaze upon the ghosts, so grand,
in this place I see you up high,
on the Lion’s Mound,
where all I can do is but cry,
as the legions of love march against war,
the war that rages in weary bones,
carrying you, to your forever home,

We have set this stage so many times,
across our dining room table,
between the turkeys and wines
of regiments, and brigades,
to the gates of Hougoumont,
of Dragoons, Cuirassiers, and Hussars,
the medics on crusades,
to save the dying Imperial Guard,
and there it was, our plastic Waterloo,
painted with love in fine detail,
our history, a passion renewed,
with hearts that will not fail,

for there is a heaven, high above,
the battlefields,
where the rifles and the spears,
are replaced with bristle paint brushes,
and a heart that wields,
the knowledge of a thousand years,
and all the pain that paint crushes,

so go on our sweet and proud soldier,
and hear the drum and fife,
as the bugles wail, and bagpipes cry,
the cannon's will sound,
to your triumphant climb,
to the top,
of the Lion's Mound.

by Andrew James Trudeau

I'm a lazy writer.

Here's something I wrote in the summer that I just recently re-discovered and edited.



Across the Forever Sky (07/08/2010)


The barn caught fire in the middle of the night,
the flames, high enough to top the tree lines,

you could see that warm orange glow for miles,
it's rafters wrapped in yellow arms, engulfed;

Their noses perked at whiffs of burning wood,
they might recall a memory of an autumn night,
the cool darkness full of its smokey evidence
of some hidden warmth nestled to the hearth

of souls that gather 'round; Burning with awe.

The barn ignited in the drought of a dead summer
as markets were closing along the dusty road
to some other land, that was full, that was fresh,
by long strides of a whispering sun, sipping doom,

etching itself out along the course of all our hope,
where this land once provided to us, existence,
betrayed in those autumn nights, sheparding ill,
and the echoes of much deliberation and screams;

the barn was now a vibrant crimson red, lashing
its forked tongue tendrils across the forever sky.

Been a long time since a.....

Rock and roll. Yeah, you heard it here first.

I'm a big fan of the font Arial. I love it much more then Times New Roman.

I believe that Arial is the way of the future. As I believe in you and me. I believe that the stars above are all we should be concerned with. We've figured out Earth. Now let's figure out how to get off it. We delay with our personal tantrums. We trip on our indifference, the scope of us diminishing by our lack of team effort. Where the lines are drawn. Where the great divide lurks. In your heart. Each and every one of us.

There is a manifesto sleeping in a server. Waiting in digital form. Unheard but waiting to say so much. Where your heart skips at the site of watching his head explode. Where the blood inside your heart wavers as his blood splashes outward. There is pause.

I have forgotten to write to you. To let you know that it's going to be okay. That this world will spin. With or without us. That its trajectory too lies beyond the stars it currently neighbors. It will become something anew. And we will still be a part of it. In particles. We were born from the stars. A scientist will tell you that. The matter that is you. Every particle and atom born from the cosmos on a long journey of evolution. How we grow from nothing to something to nothing, to something. So how will it happen?

There is something special about watching a child's eyes grow with wonder at the sight of something fantastic, something pure. Unadulterated. That's a good word. It means so much. I remember when I enjoyed Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus too. Even Jesus meant so much more as a kid. Before the wool of death is slowly pulled from across your eyes, and you see, as adults do. When the blood slows, the gravity sets in, and the spin of this world takes us closer, and closer, to the core of things.

What would you give to rewind your thoughts?

I can't tell you what it's like to be a writer. I haven't finished being one. I'm not sure why I feel I'm not old enough to attempt a novel. I just do. I believe there is something inside myself that hasn't matured enough yet. It also can't be about money or livelihood. It must be simply to be. Or maybe the story simply hasn't occurred to me yet.

Some times I worry I simply don't possess the patience.

Disjointed phrases from a heart and mind conjoined.

Inspired

I was handed a small silver token.

With the word Prosperity written along the back.

On the front was the small poorly carved relief of an angel clasping her hands....

My life has completely changed for the better.

Small deeds. Small good deeds.

I will prosper in happiness.

I hope.

These Toxins and Those Defined

h

What defines you?

Is it your clothes? Is it your job? Is it your children?

Maybe what defines you is your sport? Or maybe its your boyfriend? Does your body define you? I've thought about that one too much. It defines me. Some times.

Does your intelligence define you? Or does your bank account define you? Is it your lawn? Is it the size of your lawn? Is it the car? Does the size of your rim define you? Do the size of your tits define you?

When the moment strikes me I feel completely comfortable making conversation with anyone, and I mean any one. But most of the time I have a hard time 'conversing' with myself. Understanding who I am and feeling comfortable approaching what I see. I feel I can approach any one, most of the time. But the rest of the time I can hardly approach my self, and what defines me.

Do the arguments define you? Or does your smile define you? Does his big nose define him? Or how black she is, define her? So many things define us. But what really should?

I've thought about that a lot too. It once was that cigarettes defined her? And now the fragrance of fresh linen and soap defines her? And the lingering scent of Dad's cologne? That defines her for me at least. But they'd feel differently about what they'd say should truly define them.

A definition is, by definition, the meaning. The character of some thing, or something, or someone. I define me. Yet.

I'm defined by myself. And some times it just feels like I have so little control of who I am. And who, some times, I'd rather like to be. Is that future me? Or maybe its the me that will never come to be. The shape of things is always malleable, one hopes.

But this is less about me. And more about you. More about the you that I meet everyday, or don't meet and just knows that you exist somewhere beyond my visual scope doing whatever defines you. Looking like, whatever you 'dream' to be defined as. In their eyes. My eyes. We don't merely dress for ourselves, we think much about what the world will view us as. They are the ones looking after all. From my perspective I'm looking out, not constantly down at my clothes... but you... you're looking at me!

You can some times feel very torn trying to understand what defines you. And what you hope other people see. Some people have the gift of not caring what anyone thinks. Or what even they think about themselves. But one could argue, is that a gift, or a curse. The expectation of what people's response will be to you somehow governs our absolute being. That we live in a world of rules and governments dictates that. But we expect a lot from one another. And one of those expectations is to be accepted.

The accepted.

And what is acceptable. What falls within an expected, or reasonable, definition. The whole thing sounds like shit really.

And WHAT is my greatest addiction? Not reading. Not masturbating. Definitely not smoking pot. I am addicted to being worried about what defines me and feeling unsatisfied with the current definition.

One should always strive for better... and never let one thing define them too long...

Cataloged.

Categorized.

Labeled.

Titled.

Marked.

Tattooed.

Defined.

My Theme Song

Librarian - by My Morning Jacket

I love this song. It's off their new album Evil Urges.

Mother, as Author

You could watch the white linen being shaken out across a summer lawn. That sneeze-inducing-scent of freshly mowed grass that would make you fumble for your inhaler. But you remembered her chocolate hair. When it was long, to the shoulder. Natural and wavy. Unkempt, yet pretty. And when you'd get close enough to her, you could smell freshly soaped skin and soft powder. It tickled your nose. And you could sneeze. But she tugged you close. So you wiped your nose against her navy blue knit.

There were days when you cringed at her footsteps. Marching up and down the creaky wood stairs. You'd here the doors slam in her wake. And you swore to hell the damn carpet outside your door and the sound it swallowed. And then suddenly - The Knock. Those eerie moments followed by the hollering of the Lord's and your own names like thunder. And those lovable enemies that were the snickering siblings at each of your sides. And then, six fingers pointed at you.

And you hated walking into one of her crying sessions. One of those horribly fragile moments when you realize the person that guards and guides your every step isn't the invincible person you thought she was. You started crying by the sight of it, and you did not know why.

I like it when she puts her hard hands on my back, and rubs down my spine. For the brief moments that she allows me to stick my back into her face and plead that she scratch an itch, a horrible itch. Mother, Mom, places her hand on my lower back, her fingers rough with a days labor - sewing, typing, cooking, working, rubbing, scratching, washing, scrubbing, shaking, hugging - the fingers tickle at first but they touch. And that moment of contact completely rubs out the daily struggle and the ache, and the pain, rewinding the emotions, to a point where I am a boy again.

I know my parents miss their parents a whole lot. I miss my grandparents too. That touch. Generation to generation.

Under a chocolate sky of blowing hair caught in a summer's breeze.

The following is a poem I recently wrote. I'm a harsh critic of my own poetry, and of poetry in general. I have written something like seven hundred poems. Fuck, that's a lot. But I can honestly say my view of poetry is that it is a job, not so far off from being a miner, and if that is my best analogy, then this following poem is the only diamond I've ever unearthed in my nineteen years of shoveling coal. Dedicated to my mom of course, but more so, to the art of being a good mother - the closest position, in my opinion, one can achieve towards seeming almighty.



Mother, as God

Pours the milk into the coffee,
his pinkie turned slightly, up and away,
she turns her look into a gaze,
wondering when to stop, say when,
she places the carton back in the fridge,

Dad saw these things about Mom,
saw the beauty in the caring placed
on the simple tasks, making the bed,
her wedding band dull and caked
with last nights dinner preparation.

Knew about the errands and tasks,
was happy to know she cared,
and we moaned, cried and whined,
he sat quiet, asking for ketchup,
she walked again, across the kitchen,

she can think of mother England,
watch her pass by in the Eighties,
sweetly Diana, balanced a kingdom,
for you a household, from a bouquet,

daydreaming in lonely Connecticut
pouring your tea,
after I was fed.

We all tried to see these things
the daily motions of being our mother,
the band-aids, scolding, crying, yelling,
and all the gray, and long lost days
and feeding the mouths, you made.

And the beauty never is apparent
in a wake of countless soap operas,
the television, glowing gross expectations,
daydreaming, as the news flashes by,
and if I saw mother crying, I knew why.

Maybe you wanted someone to say,
something sweet, about what you do,
about the days spent milling and hoping,
that father, and us, would grow to be,
the family, you were meant to create.