I.          Jabberwocky

 

 

A Letter To Heidi, Never Sent

 

          For no reason today you crept back into my conscious thought.  The fond remembrance was unexpected, but met with a smile.  I dug through a box of letters to reread your last attempt to contact me, which brought back a little more and made me thankful for the time we had together.

 

 

A Memoir Of Tara

 

          In the square discomfort of Lonni’s borrowed car, Russel kicked his way to the front seat while Tara leaned back to merge with the indistinguishable silhouette beside me.  Had I known prior to this trip that she was a good six years older than me, I might not have looked on her as a potential.  But she was beautiful, young of complexion, and possessed a smile reserved by God for only his most breathtaking creations.  So, of course, I became quite entertained by the idea that I might charm her.

          Struggling for comfort, I threw my feet into any and every position, unable to settle for longer than a few seconds.  Tara lifted her feet to one side and invited me to do the same.  I leaned into the door to relax, as she said, “Actually… do you mind?” and settled against my chest.  Did I mind?  I had been through the whole trip hoping to be so close, never expecting such a wonderful reality.  Too content in the instant to sleep, I slowly dropped my lips to rest on her forehead.

 

 

A Memoir Of Melissa, In Anticipation

 

          Nearly four years have passed since any thought of her has entered my mind.  But at the mention of her name, images suddenly appear of her cluttered room in the upstairs of Grandma’s house, where she quickly came outside to offer me Gummy Bears.  Or images of that screaming little sister, tattling to her mother of any mischief on my behalf, when we briefly shared a home in Virginia.  Four years… now, somehow the memories seem pleasant, and a fond half-smile creeps over the lines on my face.  In a few days I’ll be back in Maine, sleeping once more under the same roof as my cousin.  Perhaps we’ll be civil this year.

 

 

A Letter To Shara, Never Sent

 

          So consistently have I been reminded of you of late.  Be it a gesture, a laugh, a gaze, a smile—you become familiar in so many different people.  I still grieve with a terrible fondness at the realization of how deeply I miss you.  Yet things become so muddled.  I awoke this morning from a series of nightmares, not remembering whether you had died or simply gone away.  As well, it may have been either; the same incurable sadness is appropriate.

 

 

A Letter To Lana, Never Sent, Never Intended

 

          This is wrong.  This is an injustice.  Time proceeds never allowing itself to be captured, not for even a moment.  I lie here once again under stars you set in place, at the same height and in the same draft, yet how aged have I become.  I return to conception, that moment I first smiled to lie with you, now understanding how cruel youth can be.  How many nights have I lost to you, now that even my heart is cold to know the end?  For every good thing truly does meet its end.  A life full of years is a life full of loss.  Yes, the many hopes I once had are diminishing to become one, quite different; I hope desperately for the grave—mine and yours both, when at long last our perseverance through much suffering may end in reward.  Bring me quickly out of this life and into the next!

 

 

A Letter To Mancy, Never Sent, Never Intended

 

          I’m thinking about you right now… have been for quite some number of days.  I haven’t deluded myself any, I know you aren’t thinking about me.  I have to say you’re an enchanter; I have to say that makes me enchanted.  Drove to Franklin to see you yesterday.  You were having a busy day at work, putting on makeup, taking a walk, and not knowing how to make a grilled cheese sandwich as your only customer grinned in disbelief.  I don’t even feel like writing.  I think we’ve already established that I feel things too deeply and think too much.  It’d be nice to let all that go.  I wish I didn’t need to write every little thing.  It’d be nice to just spend a day with someone and then be done with it.  It’d be nice to not still be thinking about that day three years later, but to be enjoying another one—that one.

 

 

A Letter To Sister, My Sarah, Never Sent

 

          Believe not for a moment that you have been neglected, my sister.  If you hear no word it is that I have managed to successfully distract my time and focus my efforts, but think not that I have forgotten a solitary detail of past.

 

 

A Letter To Natalie, To My Memory Never Sent

 

          Interesting letter.  I would read it again but my head might explode.  So I’ll just try and remember what stray thought came to mind while reading it—not that you’ll remember what you wrote. 

          Actually, God sent me two or three perfect girls.  They were boring, and I wasn’t interested.

 

 

A Response To An Invite

 

          “Miss Otis regrets she’s unable to lunch today.”  A fine and classic song; I forget by whom.  You’ll excuse my absence this day, though for a week I might be riddled with guilt.  The total honest truth is that I am tired of people.  I claim this without reservation because it is merely an inward and personal struggle, aimed at none other than myself.  I have grown, yes, but I still have problems.  And problems of a most serious nature, as they can easily be justified to an almost nonexistent status.  Today’s excuse is, one, that I am particularly and uncomfortably noticing the removal of certain females from my proximity, and two, that the unrelenting pace of this vacation had to be manually slowed by a lapse of solitude and nothingness.  Although, in reality, I was probably only more aware of my flaws than usual, and in self-consciousness I am incapacitated.

 

 

A Letter To Gloria, To My Memory Never Sent

 

          I thought about you the other week and wondered how you might be.  I sat down to write some poetry just now and found myself writing you instead.  Me and my juvenile and fruitless crushes, but I remember you being absolutely gorgeous, and I recall being sad that night because your spirit seemed deeply alone, and I thought it terribly unjust.  I have wished once or twice that I’d called you up to go for coffee before I left town, but my melancholy doesn’t usually allow me to do that sort of thing.  I tend to just let myself slip into a passive self-defeat.  I could bore you with the details of life, but they are so temporary that it just isn’t necessary.  I’ll save all that in case I ever sit with you again, as those are the sorts of things I imaging people talk about as they sit around searching for conversation.  If nothing else, allow yourself to be flattered that I smiled the other week when I thought of you.  I wish you some measure of happiness.  You deserve that much.

 

 

A Letter To Natalie, To My Memory Never Sent

 

          It is the second night after I left you in Gainesville, I’m guessing about 4:30 or 5:00 AM.  There are always footsteps crossing the floor upstairs—they never quite sleep here.  I’m still in Atlanta at my aunt and uncle’s, sleeping (or not) in Shawn’s old room.  He’s away in some other bizarro college town.  He’s moving with Kelley and her son Henry to New York next month.  I’m writing now because I saw this paper scattered across the playroom, and because I don’t quite know what it will be like when I get to my new home tomorrow.  And frankly, because I can’t get you out of my mind.  Don’t let it unsettle you, though, if you can’t say the same, because I really don’t expect you have that option at this stage in life.

          My overactive (and shamefully sad) mind has been forcing me to relive the very few sincere and personal words we were able to exchange on this last visit.  I admit that I was (and perhaps still am) bitter at Arturo for taking my time from you.  It made me very sad indeed, because he’s far more integrated into your life than I ever was.  I know I’m being ridiculous about it, but it was like—or rather it felt like—watching someone take my place… or rather, the place I wanted.  Can you understand that at all?  I just… I don’t know.  I just miss being allowed to love you as much as I really do.  I hate that I can’t be the most significant person in your life, the way you really still are to me.

          (And I hate being really happy about finding a black pen, and then it runs out of ink, and my only other options are a red crayon, a dull pencil, or pool chalk.)

          I’ve always been honest with you, even if I haven’t been entirely vulnerable.  You know my track record with vulnerability; you know I’ve only ever been hurt that way.  I’d honestly rather be run through with a ten-foot iron stake.  In my brand of screwed up, faulty reasoning, there are only two possibilities.  Either you really still love me and you just can’t open up like that, or you really don’t, and you hope I give you up.  I don’t know… I’m really confused when I try to figure it out.  So I act as open as I can without really being so, because I don’t want to be destroyed over it.  If you honestly have no interest in ever having any kind of romantic relationship again, I want you to tell me straight out so that I don’t keep wondering about it in the back of my mind.  If that’s what you want, so be it.  I love you enough to let you go.  But if you think I can ever see myself truly happy without you, you’re dead wrong.  Without the strength of Christ, there is no way I could survive it.

          You want vulnerability?  Here it is.  Everything Christ has allowed me to do has been shaped by my passion for our friendship.  I moved to Tampa at God’s prompting so that I could know you, and strangely, it worked.  I care and understand far more now than that first summer with you, although it hurt arriving at what we now have.  And here I find myself going back to Nashville, full of new ambition and hopes, because it was clearly God’s hand that I saw opening these particular doors.  But every waking thought, every inspired line, every tremble, ever shiver and waver in my voice, is all due to the vivacity, the longing, the intensity of what I feel for you.  There is a particular, inexplicable bond we share that no earthly love will ever compare to.  I am certain of this, to the point that it is my only source of hope, and my only constant fear.

          So there it is.  You are everything to me.  I can fool others into believing I care for them, but I can’t fool myself.  You are truly the only one I can’t do without.  You’re the only one that matters.  I need you to believe in me, to stand beside me and complete me.  I can’t say that I won’t succeed without you, and I can’t say that I’ll lack any fruits of the spirit.  But I can and will say that as long as I have a heart, it belongs to you; you are very much the fullness of it.  I will never be through with you, and I can only hope that you will never be through with me.  You have more power, more influence, more sway than you ever imagined meager little you could have over a person.  You will not find anyone more sincere.

          Talk to me.  Tell me everything.  Let me share anything at all that touches you.  I’m trying very hard to keep you… or to regain you, I’m not entirely sure.  I only know that when I look at you I see more than anyone else.  I see you as you are, and I love everything I see.  Don’t hold anything back.  It won’t be one-sided anymore… not until you cut me off, if you ever do.  Just always be honest with me, and I will be with you too.  Let’s start giving to each other.  We both deserve it.

 

 

A Letter To A Newborn (Our Sweetest Addition)

 

          So you join us now in the eleventh hour of the conversation begun when God first said, “Let there be light.”  You have missed a great many things, but He’s written them down for you to catch up.  You may want to listen a while before speaking, because there is a sort of redemption in a child’s bright, observing eyes that sets right how ill things have gotten.

          I’m afraid you will see some horrible things mixed in with the good, which we would certainly keep from you if we were able.  But with this new life you are experiencing comes a heavy responsibility that only our God’s wisdom will make clear.  Be sure to search for His voice amid the squalor and nonsense that have already begun filling your ears.

          There is so much we have learned that we would happily relay to you, but you must experience it all firsthand if you are to truly understand.  Never take for granted the blessing of parents who have gone through these things ahead of you, and never hesitate to rest on them when your feet get tired and your soul weary; they are there for you with absolute love and understanding for just such occasions.

          The only advice I can give that I know by trial to be of any use is this; go through life as you are now, marvelously simple, wonderfully naïve, and beautifully questioning.  Never lose that fire in your eyes that tells us you are alive, because you are, after all, the full realization of God’s amazing grace and compassion.  I can only pray you someday know what this means.

 

 

A Memoir Of New Jersey

 

          I loved New Jersey.  I would come home from Mrs. Shaw’s kindergarten after we sang the sad “Goodbye” song—which used to make me cry, as other children pointed and laughed.  I was on Mr. Striker’s buss route, and we would pass his farm on the way.  My head would vibrate against the window as I stared at the passing scenery.  Kelly Green was always singing those childish rhymes.  I was glad when her noisy mouth stepped out into the shadowy woods.

          The next stop was Rebecca Carter’s driveway.  Sometimes I would go with her instead of to the camp where I lived.  Usually, though, I would just wave to her and continue on in the mostly empty bus.

          Mr. Striker was a kind old man; on holidays he gave us candy.  My favorite part of the day was just sitting there, watching the enormous brick buildings come into view, knowing my mom would have a cheese sandwich waiting for me.

 

 

A Memoir Of My High School Lunch Hour

 

          Lunchtime.  In high school, the hours between eleven and one are for socializing.  You find your friends—or pretend to—and sit around in groups to impress each other.  This group with athletic babble, this one trading CDs, another secluded bunch of no ones off to the side doing homework or applying to various institutions, saying how well they get along with teachers.

          And here and there, in the voids of the hallway crouch the misfits.  Not the rebellious heroes of the underground—for they too have a table reserved—but the silent shadow figures who reside virtually unnoticed and uncared for amid the too loud chants of shallow personalities.  These are the watchers, the thinkers.  Their melancholy solitude is rarely permitted to be interrupted, and even less frequently do they momentarily reach out to interact with the cold and oblivious world.

 

 

Introduction To “Skepticism, Pride, & A God Who Loves Us Anyway”, A Discontinued Journal

 

          And so begins my study of the theologies and evidences of the Christian faith.  I begin with reluctance in even accepting the connotations of the term.  My primordial explanation, then, shall be that Christianity is the attitude of total submission, humility, and reverent obedience to Christ.  With that in mind, it becomes my intent—in hopes that I might one day convince my dearest friend that it is possible to know truth—to document every evidence that life is in our Bible and its relevance is all-encompassing.

 

 

An Abandoned Thesis Statement

 

          For the majority of history, the institutionalized Christian church has been the single most massive impediment to a true understanding of the character of God.

 

 

A Word On My Conviction Before God

 

           Christianity itself is not an evil.  When followed wholeheartedly and interpreted correctly, it is the ultimate form of goodness and purity which cannot but help anyone willing to receive it.

          My reservation is with the misinterpretations and misrepresentations that rely so heavily on the stubborn acting out of faith (if it can be called that) that they abandon the underlying theme of unconditional love.

          To avoid confusion in regards to discerning which of my actions and which of my words are grounded in what limited truth I understand, and which are the result of my own imagination, I resolved sometime ago to distance myself from any practices of overt religion which would allow an outsider the opportunity to examine me in order to find fault with my God.

          I do no justice to the God of Christianity, and thus, I choose to serve him personally, without the protection and security of an identification tag.

 

 

An Unfinished Testimony

 

          In hopes that my reader may understand more fully the passion which now compels absolute surrender to a higher supremacy, I likewise accommodate myself to a term widely misinterpreted and offer this deeply personal account.  I should begin, I suppose, with the assertion that there exist two very different Christianities.  The first is quite simply an integration of God’s revelation into every aspect of life.  Its subscribers actively seek to imitate the character of their creator as exemplified by his son.  The second is a perverse distortion of the inspired writings and a foolish estimation of a self-satisfied aristocracy.  Because the two bear the same title, there is often confusion as to which institution is being referred to.  As the latter is much larger, and boasts its intentions in the pure intentions of the former, it is often presumed to be the only association.  Yet this damning misrepresentation of God is self defeating in purpose and many of its members become disillusioned and ashamed.  It was into the one I was introduced, and the insincerity has compelled me to embrace the other.

          I wonder now at what point my salvation was confirmed.  Until very recently I had been confident that it was assured with that naïve invitation my unrested, five-year-old mind gave for a God it could so little comprehend to “come into my life.”  That, however, was a concept with implications I was not at the time nearly capable of understanding.  I can certainly claim no conversion, as I was from the age of accountability willing to faithfully accept supernatural intercession.  It was perhaps this lack of spiritual blindness which led to the long-standing attitude of complacence which dominated my teenage existence.

          Quite honesty, I was a hypocrite.  I demonstrated, for the majority of my years, the more destructive practices of religious fanaticism.  I was the clean cut youth who literally bought into the world of CCM—that is, the culture which evolved from what is now known as Contemporary Christian Music (I capitalize these as a symbol of the institutionalized self-elevation so prominent in the industry today).  It thrives off selling anything that can be stamped with our Lord’s holy name, which is nearly everything material.  It grieves me to illness to see what I was once very much a part of, producing cops of any current trend and offering no substance or quality to a world in such dire need.  The industry spits out Christian shirts, and Christian music, and Christian clocks, and Christian pencils, and the world stares in disgust and disbelief, that we who claim to hold the truth could so trivialize our own God.

          Do not misunderstand.  In no way do I mean to suggest that the things in themselves cannot be used by our astonishingly tolerant Lord.  But in an increasingly decrepit social atmosphere such as we have now, it becomes far more imperative that we are certain our motives for output are in accordance with the will of who we claim to serve.  Society, for the most part, has progressed beyond taking offense at what is produced, it now aptly and understandably points to the motivation of those producing it….

 

 

Notes For “The Two Christianities”, An Abandoned Apologetics Book

 

Part I:  Churchianity—A Viable Religious Option.

 

1.  The Old Testament sets the standard in order to reveal that we are corrupt.

2.  The modern church continues in traditions established under the old covenant.

 

Part II:  Actuality—History Illustrates Salvation

 

1.  In Jesus is the wisdom that provides the means to redemption, by example of one who has not broken the laws of Part I.

2.  As God, he is authorized to substitute.

 

 

A Clarification Of Goals, Circa 1995

 

          I will not be labeled, nor associated more closely with any particular field.  Neither will I allow myself to be involved too closely with the details surrounding implementation of any individual project I may begin.  My purpose is to have the most profound impact humanly possible on the lost souls of youth culture.  My media shall be primarily entertainment, as that seems the only universal communication—certainly effective.  The personal quest I hope to deeply integrate is for absolute truth.  I am at the outset anti-secular, as I have witnessed deeply the destructive nature of self.  I am also anti-religion, as I have witnessed also the incredible hypocrisies done in the name of God.  I am a man of ideas and ideals.  Everything shall be legitimate, produced from an immense burden for the unfortunate and misled.  To ensure that no human pride can taint this intention, I shall answer solely to His Supreme and Awesome Majesty, the Creator, at whose feet my offerings fall.

 

 

A Word On The Purpose Of Gospel Music

 

          Gospel music offers hope.  Its songs encourage and uplift us, and turn our attention toward heaven.  So sacred music serves its purpose.  It speaks to people; it is necessary.

          But there is another purpose for music.  For those who do not want to be spoken to, someone must speak for.  People want kindreds.  We are of a miserable breed; of course we require companionship.  We listen to those who admit their failures as human beings.  It comforts us.

          As it has been said, “There are those who paint the light, and those who paint what they see while the light is on.”  We are the latter, and the horizon is vast.  We paint of sorrow, of love, of wickedness and wretchedness.  We paint pride, we paint jealousy, we paint hope and we paint truth.

          We do not limit the spectrum of observation, because the Holy Spirit is not limited in its encounters.  We are not musicians, we are not artists, we are not preachers, and we are not leaders.  We are a series of photographs from a cross-section of society.  We are imprints of humanity, saved by God’s grace. 

 

 

A Word On My Place In Art

 

          If I am called to produce any sort of art whatsoever, it is simply to reflect life—honestly, unbiased; I mean to capture a fragment of what I see, offering no solution, claiming no involvement, maintaining a safe distance, that He whose work I mirror may intervene in His own manner when appropriate.  It is not for me to be other than a passive observer, relaying to those who inquire only the details they may or may not have missed.  If anything I do should prove of interest, let it be the simple reflection of what truly is; no more, no less.

 

 

A Reevaluation Of My Aspirations

 

          True enough, I could at this point pursue any goal I have, any dream I could aspire to reach.  My predicament, then, is not a lack of direction, but lack of a singular direction.  I have far too many dreams.  I am in that case compelled to wonder which of them my God will allow.

          But once again, I am misled.  Whatever God chooses, I will be, whether I prefer it or not.  The appropriate question is not, “What will he allow me to do?” but, “What would he have me do?”  To be crucified in the flesh is a painful submission.  It requires that everything I ever was or hoped to become is for all practical purposes no more.  I am truly nothing, and with that the Holy Spirit may begin to work.  It has become the only desire of my heart to more readily hear when my master speaks, and to likewise more readily respond.

 

 

A Few Random One-Liners

 

          “There is no one more talented than a jazz musician.  There is also no one more pointless.”

 

          “When you shift over to third person narratives, you may as well quit writing.”

 

          “If your creative juices aren’t flowing, let them ferment.”

 

          “Most conversation springs from the inability to communicate through more effective means.”

 

          “The most heinous mistake a writer may fall prey to is to presume that anything he has to say is significant.”

 

 

A Word On My Connection To Cain

 

          “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin.”

            —Psalm 38:18

 

          “Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry?  Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

            —Genesis 4:6,7

 

          Our LORD spoke such warning to Cain before sin had yet consumed him.  It was his heart to first go wrong, action then reinforcing what inclination set careening to destruction.  It is said that your sins will find you out.  Certainly in their shadow the offender must cower and linger in fear and embarrassment.  Certainly he feels no acceptance until light overpowers them.  To leave trespasses unexposed surely is to invoke slavery on oneself.  But in Christ is freedom.  In humility is life and restoration.

 

          “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

            —1 John 1:7

 

          “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

            —Galatians 6:2

 

          I desire fellowship as I desire light.  For light, my hidden deeds must surface from the filth and mire of decay in which they were buried.  I confess then to you, brothers and sisters, my fellow believers, how overly guilty I am of every imaginable sin.  This heart harbors bitterness unfathomable, pride enough to will myself supreme divinity, and the growing depravity which invariably accompanies indulgence of the primal lusts of flesh.  Intercede in prayer for my deliverance, as I also shall petition for you.  Ask what you will, and I’ll overlook no detail in my defense.  I beg for your patience and welcome your correction.  May Christ deal with severity and grace.

 

 

A Word On My Humanity, Utterly Nonsensical

 

          In my own company, I am undeniably human.  It fills me to the furthest recesses of mass that I have never seen in my makeup.   Blah, blah, blah… this bores me.  My intended thought is only that I do not see myself as a living, breathing (Why do we say that?  If we’re living, that’s given territory.  Unless we’re plants.  Anyway.) human being.  Hmm… human being?  What is being human?  I distract myself.  The thought is gone until I concentrate on inviting it back.  I see myself as already perished, or disappeared or raptured.  All my days consist of is future volumes for discussion.  I am astounded and greatly perplexed by my humanity.  I am a dichotomy and an enigma, and I mean to make a point of it.  If my purpose is to persuade you of anything, let it be to expect the duality of your own self to intensify with time.  I am a vile creature, drawn pressingly to morbidity and wretchedness.  It is natural for me to lapse.  But even this is nonsense.  Of what use to me is knowledge?  You self-impressed, I remain ill.

 

 

A Vision From A Moment In A Distant Future

 

          In the reflection of the window I watch three separate islands spiral away on antique ceiling fan blades from the room.  The icebox and cardboard vendors stand upright against the wall with fewest panes of glass, looking in at their furniture with metallic faces.  Meteors and satellites spin by in a dash of color and dust and light in exploration.  Monsters clash and clang on the skyway behind without feeling or thought or will, only duty and devotion and single-minded obligation pulsing from microchips and gears soldered together by similar packages quietly in a dimly lit factory.

          The Flesh and Blood Elements hide together underground in caverns, dining and laughing and spontaneously reciting lyrics to each other from upraised stages of rock.  In the city they echo up through cold streets from sewage lines and electrical cased pathways, only to bounce off sealed monuments and streamlined mobiles.

          It is into the eighth decade AD by the ancient calendar and one and twenty-six AM by The Father Clock, but such human things as these are no longer “pertinent”, and the history sites are only visited through scrambles while The Watchers reset their engines during the light hour.  This is only the precursor, The Flesh and Blood Elements blatant and alive five miles beyond the limit….

 

 

A Word On All Music (The Silent Orchestra)

 

          Silence has a soundtrack.  It rings in our ears through the screams of youth.  It drips from the sunken in willow tree.  It echoes through canyons with a rush of spring water, shakes birds from their perches atop sure-footed trees.  Music is the orchestration of that silence.  It is our attempt to communicate the stillness of Christ’s eternal truth.  Creation blows into our mouths, the silence is lodged in our throats, we grip each other in strangleholds from the back to urge out the sound.

          A single thread weaves songs together.  It is the continuation of life.  There is no beginning and no end, there are only moments of wonder and musing and renewing.  We are broken and rebuilt a thousand times over.  Songs are the illustrations of those moments.  We are school children, coloring love letters to our mothers, cutting and pasting images too abstract to not be tied together.  All of life is silent reverence.  These are the purposes under the sun.  Music is that soundtrack.

 

 

A Testimony For The Family Of My Betrothed

 

          From the earliest days I can remember, my patterns were somewhat antisocial.  On the old bus route driving home from kindergarten, I used to rest my head against the vibrating pane and make up songs and movie scenes, tuning out the girls in the back with their perverse jokes and grade school rhymes.  Those were the impressionable days in New Jersey that introduced sexuality to the too young mind of a child.  Then were the memories implanted of mild forms of abuse, on which I do not care to elaborate.  Suffice is to say I was yet another of a staggering statistic people often avoid talking about.  Therein lies the framework; that is what set the tone for my adolescence.

          On the fourth of July after just turning five, I laid awake in the moving shadows of my room, scared and insignificant, and began a long monologue with God which ended in what most people would consider a prayer of salvation.  It was for the first time evident that free will and God’s will are not always the same, and where I asked for the first time that my sins be forgiven, and offered up control of my life to its maker.  And this choice, supported by a father who was a pastor and the wife he met in Bible College, caused me to take on the characteristics of the common churchgoer in the name of Christianity.  So to my makeup I added religion.

          Paralleling the spiritual learning on the one hand and sexual guilt on the other, there was also in my childhood a strong reactionary element to the fact that, by the time I reached high school, I had already moved (as I remember) about eighteen times.  While that was easy on my two older brothers, it was a bit more difficult for me, whom they and their friends routinely cut down, contributing all the more to a rejection complex.  Fearing scorn, while also lamenting the loss of past friends, and at the same time being perpetually uprooted from the dust to again become “the new guy”, I became increasingly and understandably introverted.  Intensifying that tendency, I became a latchkey kid, home alone for hours at a time, not wanting friends because I would only have to leave them, and angry at family for the neglect.  So to my collage of guilt, compassion, ethics, insecurity, rejection, and sadness, I added bitterness and rage.

          Now, God is in the business of knocking down walls.  I had pledged myself to him at five, but the formative years saw growth in a disturbing and very wrong direction.  Had the bricks continued to pile… I can only speculate as to where I may have ended up.  I know that I was entirely antisocial, a young man full of contempt, false pride, and overt paradoxes.  Life was confusing and fruitless, and I retreated into morbid poetry to rival Ecclesiastes in its retelling of the hopeless state of affairs.  But our Lord’s plan for redemption is perfect, and he was faithful to honor my request for intercession by never allowing a depth that could not be taken to a height.  Indeed, it is only due to the darkness my soul once embraced that I am now able to fully appreciate the light.  I would not trade my testimony for anything, and count myself among the most blessed of God’s elect, because it has given me insight and perspective which cannot be matched by tradition or fancy words; I have the benefit of experience, and a fair measure of God’s grace to temper it.

          So, when I reached my junior year of high school God began the rebuilding process on who I had become—I was the grandest of paradoxes, the epitome of contradiction!  Understanding the perversion of the male mind and believing that all females must be victims to it, I developed a hatred for my own gender that caused me to only befriend girls, so that I could be the one exception to the rule that, as they say, “Men are scum.”  The closer I got to my girl friends, the more I was convinced that all males should be castrated.  I was told of childhood abuse, rape, self-centered boyfriends, and overall disrespect that infuriated me.  It was the first compassion I felt, since I had been victim to similar perversions when I was young.  Having had no sisters, I adopted these girls as surrogates, trying to protect them from further dysfunction.  I felt myself in a unique position to do so, since I had no need of people, since I was by now a full introvert, and I took great pride in the act of being so entirely sacrificial as to befriend anyone.

          Of course, it was all bosh.  As it turns out, we are all sinners saved by grace.  We all have been victims and we all have victimized.  Five years after graduating high school, I look back with a far greater understanding of the true issues each human soul deals with.  I have been entirely torn down and entirely rebuilt, and there is no longer that spiritual arrogance, not the lack of understanding, nor anymore than the perspectives left from the jumble of emotions that used to rack my existence with confusion.  There was an arduous stint of tearing down and sewing back together the fabric that was my security blanket, which will be plain if my journals finally see publication.  But the relevant part anyway is the design which emerged, what you all see now as you look at me, no longer the antisocial defiant I was.

          I may still be a perplexing dichotomy to many, but it is a lot I accept with the faith that God uses every unique approach, every symbolic twist to turn people’s attention inward, and just sometimes the sheer stirring of a situation is enough to inspire a fresh and uncharacteristic reverence—the very thing Christ himself often accomplished through his own unconventional means.  The metaphors carried over from my poetry into everyday life are for no other reason than to awaken a questioning spirit within a stagnant generation, with faith that all searching leads to a deeper understanding of the nature of God, which I desire for everyone I come into contact with.  Any offense taken at my actions to this end are unfounded, based upon speculation or assumption; let anyone question my motives for anything my imagery prompts, and I will settle to their satisfaction that my intentions are upright and pure.  This is who I am.  I welcome it.

          The most incredible part of this whole history is that the longing of my heart throughout the process—to in life-altering ways emulate Christ—was answered in kind with the introduction of the truest, purest love any God-fearing man could hope for, and in such a form!  I have been blessed with the most perfect compliment that I am truly overwhelmed by it.  Were my beloved to write an account similar to this one, you could point to the drastic differences early on, as well as the many similarities of circumstance, but above all you would come away with a new understanding of the resolution brought about through her own evolution of spiritual discernment, as our Lord’s reconciliation in her life brought her to a path where she and I can now walk hand in hand toward the same light.  She is amazing, as any of you who knew her before me well know, but she has become such a changed person, as have I, that I charge you to look at her with fresh eyes now as my betrothed; and I vow to you that there are lessons you may still learn from us, just as we will continue to be open to what lessons we together might still find in you.  Marci and I are in totality united now, until duration stretches further than the end of time.  She is the completion I was through my life searching for, and you must now train yourself to accept us as we are, our lives and hearts wholly unto submission under God.  You must believe that he will use us in accordance with his perfect will.  As our new brothers and sisters in Christ, it remains your only task to encourage us to that end.

 

 

An Exposé Of Sorts, Concerning Appliances

 

          Today I am two months wiser.  And I may never trust a reconditioned appliance dealer again.

          Last summer my new bride and I moved up from Florida to start a life here in Tennessee.  One of our main concerns in choosing an apartment was that it had hookups for a washing machine and dryer, intending to purchase a set as quickly as possible.  My wife took a job at a local charitable organization and I began working behind the counter at a small café.  Our budget was tight from the beginning, so we resolved to save up my meager tip money for the months it took to afford a used set, while we watched the papers for a good deal.

          The day we walked into that shop in Antioch is a day we now wish we could undo.  The man behind the counter reminded me of Morgan Freeman, which may have disarmed me because I like him.  We finally had enough money in our account to make a purchase, so we looked excitedly and dreamt of seeing something useful in our home.  We were thrilled at the notion of no longer having to load up the back seat and trunk of our car with dirty clothes and trudge up to the local Laundromat.  The appliances looked next to new and Sonny offered a 30-day warranty, so we bought a set and brought it home.  That was the beginning of my ulcer.

          Upon installing our new toy (which we did ourselves) we found that a rusty spot underneath the tub leaked.  That weekend we traded it out for another one.  The newer one make it halfway through one cycle and stopped dead.  The store’s only repairman made a house call after hours; we thanked him and sent him off with two pounds of gourmet coffee as a gesture of goodwill.  Then we went back to washing clothes and—you guessed it—the machine stopped again.  The next morning we left for vacation… with mostly dirty clothes.

          The following week we were ready to settle our little dilemma.  After three unreturned phone calls, we returned to the store and scheduled another exchange.  Lo and behold, the washer they dropped off leaked—well, more like poured—worse than the first one.  Two days later, they switched machines out a third time.  (Count them, that’s four machines so far.)  That time the delivery guy, who doubles as the repairman, waited through a cycle with me.  Much to our dismay, but not at all to our surprise, the fourth machine began leaking halfway into the first cycle.  Monty (as we were all on a first name basis by now) said we could go to the store and pick out a fifth machine, and test it out there before the final exchange.

          I did just that.  I brought a load of laundry to the store and the two of us removed the outer body and watched through the duration of an entire cycle.  No leaks.  No off-balance stopping.  We were thrilled.  That machine ended up in my laundry room that very evening.

          A few days later my wife and I finally got around to washing another load.  Only this time, now that it was in my apartment, it skipped the rinse cycle.  At that point I was tempted to walk around with soapy clothes… but, no, that wouldn’t be quite fair to my wife, whose clothes require more delicate treatment than mine.  With a defeated spirit and an upset stomach, we returned again to the store to make sure we weren’t paranoid and that the washer was actually skipping a significant part of the cleaning process.  Sonny finally agreed to give our money back.

          So anyway, the moral of this little anecdote is, if any of you young married couples are in the market for a washer and dryer, buy it from either a private citizen of a reputable and nationally recognized dealer.  Avoid fly-by-night local shops that aren’t even listed in the yellow pages.  We finally broke down and bought a new washer from a Sears outlet, with a three-year warranty.  It cost a little more, but believe me, it’s worth it.

 

 

A Word On The Implicit Nature Of Music

 

          There have emerged three major purposes for music—entertainment, edification, and expression.  To entertainment belong the ephemeral trend-setters, the one-hit-wonders, the prattle which ends up on collections sold by television offers, those who enjoy a limited period of success before ending up on “Where Are They Now?”.

          Edification encompasses a wider variety of religious music, sometimes evangelical, sometimes solely for worship, sometimes meant simply to speak healing, hope, and restoration to those in need.  Contemporary Christian Music falls largely into this category, as does New Age.

          Then there are those who create music solely as expression.  They are primarily artists, whose search for truth compels them to dabble with various mediums as they present further questions to God, in hopes that mankind might benefit from the garnering.

          It is the expression that excites me, the conversations with our Creator that demand attention, the endeavors to communicate at the basest levels of humanity in an effort to offer, pure and unadulterated, the simple wisdom that mankind is fallen, God is love, and Jesus is the expression of that love.  It is as simple a skeleton as that, regardless of how the flesh might appear.

 

 

A Prayer For Reawakening

 

          Father, the church is a murderer.  My God, it gets more irrelevant every day, because it sits so comfortably in your warmth and blessing that it forgets your commission.  It forgets even the example your beloved son gave.  Lord, you know more than anyone the extent of the pain in this world.  Music is only a series of cries, of pleas for salvation—for your forgiveness.  How can we be so deaf when they so blatantly scream and anguish for life?  They are so hungry, Father, so dying.  And the church, rather than going out into all the world, plans youth rallies and functions and invite the lost to come to them!  The worlds are so very separate.

          Who will introduce you?  Who have you called to rely solely on you for direction, to reject the religious hypocrisy we’ve become so blind to?  Who will hear you and remember the simple illustration of the sheep and the goats—that many will call on you with claims of righteousness, but you will turn them away?

          I’m willing, Lord.  I want to know you.  I don’t want to claim righteousness on that day, but I want you to recognize me.  I want you to remember my eagerness to be where you led, my willingness to allow you to work through me.  Father, I am only waiting.  I want to be sure that my endeavors are not my own desires, but your spirit moving me, directing my path.  I feel a pressing need to call together your tired and dejected seekers to unity, to a reawakening of spirituality.

          Lord, there is no longer a Keith Green to charge us with being asleep in the light, yet we have been dozing sounder than ever.  Someone must scream loud enough to rouse the church, to either renew or destroy it.  I can’t bear to see such corruption and negligence in your precious and holy name.  My King, if you are willing to use me, send a sign.  I have such little faith, but such a broken heart for you to fill.  Fill it with love, Lord, and wisdom and discernment.  If my time has not yet come, I only ask that you reveal to me more of who you are.  I need you.

 

 

A Prayer For Redemption

 

          Let me be no longer human, Father.  Own me fully, with all its implications.  Demonstrate through me your absolute control as he who created and now directs the winds.  Allow not my attention to be diverted, as it so easily would be, by the corruption of your design.  For marred and imperfect is any surface we etch our made up names into.  Remember in your divinity how insignificant is our nature, and with an according measure of grace manifest yourself in my unworthy frame, that I may at last bear significance.  For you alone are able to redeem your creation.  You make flowers out of earth.  You make rainbows out of air.  You alone shall at the end of time be hailed the King of Kings and LORD of Lords.  You are God.

 

 

A Prayer For Guidance

 

          Am I not seeking wholeheartedly your will?  Was I not only today convicted of idle hands and a body too willing to steep in the luxurious comfort of charity?  I’ve sought your leading as gold, your blessings as the most fragrant oil.  I’ve listened intently for your stirring, that I might know where to look for you.  I want nothing more than to be in your favor.  I call to you constantly to direct my paths.  Whatever door you place in front of me, do I not at least check its handle before moving on?  Wherever there is a sound, Lord, do I not look to see if it might be you?  I call out your name, that I might follow the sound of your voice.

          But you remain silent, my God, my King.  You provide no answer.  You only watch from above to see where I turn.  You send voices of accusation to me, to know my response.  Your light waits beyond a door still unopened, as I stumble blindly through the darkness, hoping for the faintest indications of you.

          And when I do resolve to carry on—even in ignorance—lest you accuse me of resting, you intervene and guide my hand to a single, conspicuous door handle.  Shall I not more hopefully pull on this one, which you seem to have led me to?  Shall I not at least knock, that you have the opportunity to open for me should you wait inside?

 

 

A Word On Structure

 

          On my last visit to a church, the service was a bit unorthodox in that the Holy Spirit compelled the pastor to speak before worship.  The sermon itself eluded me, as my attention was captured by the approach.  Saving music for the end of the service struck me as a wonderful idea; certainly the mind needs less preparation than the heart to heed spiritual matters.  Is it not always knowledge of a thing that precedes comprehension and application?

 

 

A Word On Morality

 

          Among the godless it is generally held that pleasure should be indulged.  This accounts for such liberal activism regarding gay rights, sex education in schools, and the pro-choice agenda.  The assertion is that we hold within ourselves the ultimate morality, and any law imposing upon our freedom to act on that inner sense should be stricken.  This is apparent in the thinking that sex outside of marriage is acceptable if two people are in love (or even simply consenting).  After all, marriage is only a certificate.

          Besides the obvious point that love (or feelings) can change—evident in the frequency of divorce—consideration must be given to the path of human desire.  A couple which begins holding hands (as every Baptist knows) will progress naturally to intercourse in a relatively short period of time.  That which is initially anticipated, once gained, will no longer produce the gratification it promised.  It is a conquest attained, then merely propelling the traveler on toward the next challenge.  Taken into account also should be the scientific observation that matter in its natural state gradually deteriorates.  Cell structures erode and become susceptible to contaminants; mutations form in the very fabric of existence.

          The correlation of these principles is evident when seeing an action through to its completion.  Take any example from any point in its course, and view it from a detached perspective, mindful of eternity.  Two people indulge an impulse—let’s say they have sex, but never wed.  They “fall out of love” and without the commitment of marriage to keep them together, split up.  In a secular view, it simply didn’t work out; now they know better.  People fail to acknowledge the damage that the relationship has caused… and will continue to cause.  Not only have they cheapened the intimacy of any future prospects, they have also established a pattern for founding relationships on qualities that may or may not last.  There is for the secular-minded individual no certainty in any situation. 

          The problem, then, in allowing a societal sense of morality to govern itself, is that human nature leans more and more toward lawlessness and chaos, to the point that it will self-destruct if no higher force intervenes.  If natural inclination were to be indulged, I would likely be a child molester by now.  Immediately prior to this writing I could have gone and raped a young girl.  The decent, then, would like to suggest that we may indulge only if none other is harmed or adversely affected.  I maintain, however, that the essence of human nature is selfish, and selfishness acted out will progress in intensity until the conscience is worn away and morality becomes nonexistent.  And this anarchy culminates in death.

 

 

A Word On Predestination

 

          Predestination was a major doctrinal hardship in our Bible classes at SPS.  No one could quite understand how a just God could choose certain people to be saved.  That, of course, was the root of the problem; the denotations of the word were misinterpreted.  For that matter, I doubt many of those complaining pseudo-intellectuals even read what the Apostle Paul actually wrote.  Essentially, he attested that those God knew in advance would accept Christ, he worked intricately into his plan for the salvation of all who would be willing to accept.  Had he called those who would never listen to his voice, his will would be unfulfilled, and salvation incomplete in its continuity.

          Very simply, all are given the opportunity, the choice, to believe the gospel.  For those he foreknew would choose to follow him, he arranged circumstances as such to aid those “elect” in carrying out his work.  Predestination is the means by which a form of leadership and spiritual guidance emerges in order that every person might have the opportunity to be presented the truth, which is then the individual’s choice to pursue.  Without foreknowledge, the idea is indeed unjust.  To an all-knowing Creator, however, it is the only fair presentation.

 

 

A Word On Philosophy

 

          It is truly amazing to observe how thoroughly the philosophies of today are influenced by German thought of the nineteenth century.  It was then the belief was popularized that nothing short of personal experience should bear testimony.  I needn’t elaborate on how often this shows up today.  The idea in practice, however, causes only dissension and confusion brought about through inconsistencies of perception.

          Each individual experiences entirely different, often contradictory instances, allowing very different perceptions of reality to form.  This is where morals conflict and truth is debated.  The worldview of a starving child in a war-ridden third world dictatorship will very likely not align with that of the secure, middleclass, American teenager, whose biggest fear is not fitting in.  Likewise, different people belong to different religious affiliations, some with extremely contradictory teachings.

          The new age, then—by which I refer, in this case, to this predominant humanist attitude—would reconcile everything by advocating unconditional tolerance and acceptance.  The key terms of this are peace, unity, love, and the like.  The impracticality of this is that absolute truth is then robbed of its significance and power.  In a global ethic, any opposing view is instantly discredited, shrugged off as a personal belief bearing significance only to its originator.  In this light, there need be no hunger for wisdom, as it should already be assumed attained.  Evidence needn’t be sought out because it is “closed-minded” to present an opposing view as fact; truth is again discredited and unaccepted.  Anyone presenting anything as absolute truth is a religious zealot.

          Despite a philosophy virtually nonexistent before the 1800s, however, indisputable facts remain.  They exist to be unearthed in historical accounts, scientific observation, and geological discovery.  Do search, but do so objectively—even skeptically—for the solid foundation upon which to base morality and intellect.  Ignorance will not debase truth, nor will denial invalidate it.

 

 

A Word On The Sinful Nature

 

          All who read this now have wronged the Creator in some way.  We know this as sin.  While the inspired writings teach that man is born into sin, they do not suggest that man is born sinful.  A baby who dies moments after birth is not condemned to hell.  We condemn ourselves, instead, with our first act contrary to God’s will.  Being born into sin means that we are introduced into a world where God is actively opposed.  Adam was not created with sin.  Nor was he introduced to a sinful world.  But he was given the will to maintain or break fellowship with God.  He was created with all human potential, including the reflexes and defense mechanisms that make up the psyche, along with a full scope of emotions.

          The knowledge promised by the deceiver was quite simply a lie; we as humans are also given the capacity to be deceived.  Yet, in Eden man already had access to the truth.  The initial act following deception caused man to reverse the pattern of fellowship with the Father.  His human emotions—shame, embarrassment, pride, and probably anger—became fully realized and confusion sprang from the dual nature, which began with the experience of separation from God.  In humiliation, Adam wanted to hide.  In anger, he wanted to rebel.  Sin for the first time tainted creation, and man was acquainted with both sides of it.  The more sinful man rejected God, the less God imposed himself on sinful man.  The less God volunteered, the less knowledge was imparted.  And man through time has lost fellowship altogether, remembering only emotions, which are a direct result of the primary sin and lead only to confusion.

 

 

A Word On Over-Spirituality

 

          Over-spirituality is a fraud, a hoax, and a cop out.  It is one reality in so excessive a form as to deem itself utter nonsense to all else.  To be never entertained, to be never gracious, to be at all points of vulnerability never subject to correction, but always victim to pride, one must be unalterably biased and critical to a fault.  Self proclaimed prophets award themselves authority and wield a power they mistreat and abuse.  To stand in judgment over any event, any individual, anything outside of self is to misrepresent who we are under, and destroy rather than affirmatively reinforce.  All injustice and vileness is done in the name of a singular reality, disregarding others.  Spiritual distortion, due to its potency and deceptive nature, will, I think, be most harshly judged.

 

 

A Word On Youth

 

          The voice of youth speaks.  It is neither the voice of reason, nor that of experience, but the voice of question.  Why should authority not lie with the individual?  Why should anything be absolute?  How, after all, can anything be proven?  Why should your theology hold relevance to me, who finds no sound reason to believe the foundation upon which it is built?

          Youth is not stupid.  It asks logical and essential questions for which, frequently, no answer is provided.  It is not that it hasn’t heard the Gospel, it is that it wants to know why to believe it.

 

 

A Word On Open-Mindedness

 

          Now at one time I had a friend whose blessed unawareness of truth and whose otherwise keen intellect often caught me unprepared.  Indeed, I owe her a debt of gratitude, for her questions became my own and I was thus propelled into a realm of philosophy quite necessary for my survival as a believer.  I owe also something of an apology to her for the fruitless arrogance with which I responded, though it is my hope that the insufficient answer caused her to ask that many more questions, to which someone more adequate might eventually respond.  I believe our discourse was much more intended for my benefit than hers, though, again, I hope she is a bit closer to finding truth.

          Truth—specifically absolute truth—has always been important to me.  As well I think it should be with anyone concerned with the state of humankind, and she was at least that.  I am convinced that I, for one, have had the benefit of hearing that truth, or those truths, from the beginning.  Its foundations were implanted into my conscious observation from my earliest memories; and earlier still, so that everything I now am and am becoming depends on it.  I should think anyone without such a foundation would be quite alterable, swaying a bit toward each and every theory looking somewhat firm.  But these short lived ideas can never hold up to a good stomping on the way I have found Christianity able to.  Certain things about it may remain unanswerable, but never has a question been offered which is unable to be met with any sound reasoning.  And by sound, I mean not only that it cannot be discredited, but that it is also much more logical than its alternatives.

          Notice this, though; I have always had the truth, but I have not always known why it was the truth.  My eyes are well and good, and I might see before me only one road leading to a favorable destination.  A blindfolded person standing next to me when I say, “We shall go this way,” might reply, “How do you know that is where we would like to go?”  And I should reply, “Well, because there is only one road.”  But it is not until I have gone on a bit further that I will be able to say, “Now I see that this road is certainly where we want to be, for the flowers are much brighter and the wind is much gentler, and there is even a sign which agrees that we are headed right.”

          This particular friend consistently charged that I should be more open-minded.  But she is the blindfolded one, saying, “There might be several roads that I might see if I take off this blindfold.”  And I can only reply, “But dear, I see quite well and I tell you there is only one road.”  It would be counterproductive for me to blindfold myself in order that I might imagine all the non-existing roads; even if I tried I would still have already seen what I was meaning to fancy away, and the attempt would be futile.  If, however, she were to take off her blindfold, she would quickly see that her being open to the possibility of other roads served no purpose but to doubt the one that does indeed exist—and does indeed lead to a favorable place.

 

 

A Word On Ministry

 

          The church’s mission is not outside its walls, but in reinforcing and rebuilding what lies in support within.  Those supports must learn inside how to bear the weight and inner gravities which compel structures downward.  Then, once they have been tested and proven trustworthy, they may be transplanted into buildings built for other functions where they may bear the entire weight.

          Church is intended for those well within the spiritual realm, to encourage and to uplift.  It is more of a reminder to them inside of the way they’ve chosen.  The individuals in attendance are then called to reach beyond the church walls and appeal to logic and reason to answer the philosophical questions innate in humankind.

          Jesus’ was a ministry of love.  Living by compassion and acceptance was his example.  His sermons were given only after crowds gathered to experience his love firsthand.  He did not summon them, but met them where they were.

 

 

A Word On The Christian Life

 

          The simplest illustration I can think is that the Christian life resembles a sort of tree.  The roots buried beneath the subconscious gray matter of dirt are those things which led us to faith.  You might say that the roots are where the initial evidences were observed and absorbed, as in the general revelation of nature.

          These then weave themselves together into a significant mass of faith, which serves to firmly plant us in the earth.  This mass of faith becomes the trunk of the tree, gradually reaching its way up from the ground—and we might say closer to the heavens.

          From the trunk of our faith, then, there grow sturdy branches, upon which some birds might nest.  These birds are ministries, ready to take flight and affect other trees—this bird a church, that one a book on apologetics.

          The branches themselves are relationships, the natural extension of faith, its practical application in a world desperate for oxygen.  The leaves and fruit, then, finally growing off each branch, are the literal fruits of the spirit, the air we breathe, and the sustenance we as a body may then offer.

 

 

A Word On Experience

 

          To accept the learning of a fool is to accept foolish learning.  It profits no one.

 

          Learning devoid of application makes for ineffective persuasion.  Experiential men will mock necessary concepts offered by learned men without experience.

 

 

A Word On Listening

 

          You well know that some individuals you deem poor listeners, while others you confide wholly in.  First, I commend you for discerning, whether fully consciously or only by a vague sense, who possess even a smidgen of concern and who are out only for self-elevation.  My reason then in writing this is to reinforce what you are already aware of, so that you might more readily recognize insincerity, which stems from an utter lack of charity.

          The main point is that anyone with an other-than-Christ oriented motive makes for a poor listener.  Ulterior motives are always selfish, whether it be, “He can get me that record deal,” or “It’s so nice of me to help out like this,” or even, “God, I’d love to kiss her!”  A few indications of a poor listener might be someone who always turns the conversation to themselves, or someone who finishes sentences for you—usually inaccurately.  They ask a pointed line of questions searching for a particular answer.

          All a listener is really supposed to do—most of the time—is listen.  There can be no pride involved.  There must be relation to the emotion of the words—a feeling of the pauses, the silences, uncluttered with pointless, distracting opinions.  Sometimes the only answer is the absence of it.  Most people, deep down, really do know where action should lead; they do not need our advice.  What they usually want is someone to just be a moment with them, to know that someone cares.

 

 

A Word On Submission

 

          Anyone is only ever really in control when they resolve to yield themselves to a higher authority.

 

 

A Word On Time

 

          Let us for one eternal moment consider that as ephemeral and quickly passing as this may be, is it not also true that it shall as history always last?  Past cannot be changed.  We know this, yet we see our time as fleeting.  How fleeting is the unchangeable?

          I maintain that every accumulated second forged into our experiential lives impacts profoundly each one subsequent, even in the most unnoticeable ways, whether it be reinforcement of one bias or another, or whether it be the minute detail you suddenly remember years later—the detail you long for.  Every instant is indeed most acutely significant, so much so that pondering how to add dimension is futile and juvenile.

 

 

A Word On The Middle Ground

 

          Bizarre as it may seem, it is the mid-ground Christianity that is most extreme, as it opposes both the secular and the religious worlds.  Few hold this position, and fewer are able to tolerate it, but I suspect God’s favor falls equally across all three realms.

 

 

A Word On Evangelism

 

          Why am I not an evangelical?  Frankly, I believe my faith is on such a deep and personal level that it must show in everyday application.  Like how gravity is a law we always act under, are always compelled to live by.  It is not a constant conscious thought.  It is not us having to remind ourselves, “Don’t forget to stay on the ground today—and be sure to tell someone why you don’t fly up.”

          Now, when someone is first learning why things don’t randomly fly up, why we can depend on the consistency of things staying in place, they may ask some questions whose answers we have been living with for quite some time.  That is when our understanding of it comes in.  Non-evangelical believers are no less concerned with the doctrines of Christianity.  They are only at a level of understanding at which it seems quite trivial to discuss them until a person seems ready to learn.

 

 

A Word On Equality

 

          When strangers pass along a sidewalk on a mid-afternoon, what is it that compels the obligatory nod or hello?  Perhaps we carry some small bit of the same God.  Whether or not we believe so on more than an intuitive level, we all are aware of our equality.

 

 

A Word On Trials

 

          How sinful to favor circumstance, and to act accordingly.  Does God act so?  My deluded brethren, ask Job of that.  He will speak that death’s ugly, bloodstained hands caressed his house.  He will vouch that stone can separate skin from nerve.  Yet was he not the closer to his Heavenly Master; closer still than his godly friends, who were of no use in their prideful babbling?  So are we called to be.  Christ’s is not for us to be happy in this plane, but to endure.  And whose endurance is tested by lack of suffering?  No, it is the Christian life to persevere; and for that, expect trials.  More than that, welcome them.  Delight in them; seek them out to assure that we are not a complacent people.  Then will the example be set, as we will learn to love in all circumstances, unconditionally.

 

 

A Word On The Bible

 

          Be careful not to fall victim to the idea that the Bible is the ultimate focus of the believer.  The Bible is simply God’s choice tool for revealing his work and character in the plainest way.

          I fear too much emphasis is being placed on study groups and daily devotions, making sure to read a passage each day.  Let us not forget that the majority of what has come to make up our Christian Bible is history.  And let us not forget that the purpose of that history is to show how and why man must be saved.  But that is all very basic.

          The written words of our Bible deal with concepts.  They speak to the mind.  It is the Holy Spirit, however, who must speak to the heart.  Study of the scriptures is crucial, but for knowledge and for the benefit of evangelism.  The focus of the believer should be his prayer life.

          Ideally, the two should compliment each other.  Look at it this way; I can read a man’s autobiography and become aware of many relevant facts, but I can only truly know him by befriending him—discussing with him whatever daily issues arise.  Then again, if my best friend wrote an autobiography, would I not be the first to read it?

 

 

A Word On Context

 

          Churches today, for the sake of time or ceremony, tend to preach on passages centered around a single verse.  Where this is useful in concise illustrations for an intended purpose, it makes misquoted and out-of-context references more commonplace.  Jesus when he walked the earth made constant references to the prophets, often singularly, often in conjunction with related passages.  What we need to remember is that he lived in a time of religious zeal during which it was practice often before passion by which the law and the prophets were meditated on as the very bread of life.  We haven’t that luxury—nor that crutch—in this present time.

          When Christ spoke, he could be certain his listeners were familiar with the references, enough to understand the context in which it applied.  Today’s congregations lack that extent of knowledge, and our brothers must remember that.  We are like the scattered workmen of Babel, searching desperately for someone who speaks our language, someone with insight to comfort and explain why we suddenly were thrown into confusion.

          Let me encourage you then, fellow servants of our Lord, to know the context your references are drawn from, and how they relate to what Christ enables you to say.  Eloquent speech and impressive citations mean nothing if they can’t communicate the undercurrent of Christ’s love, which surpasses all understanding.  Know before opening your mouth that every word you speak should ultimately point back to the good news of salvation.

          Even what I just wrote is inconsistent within itself, but somewhere beneath the words is a spark of redemption.  Beyond that it is simply nonsense.

 

 

A Word On God’s Favor

 

          The Christ-life has nothing to do with regret or sin or screw-ups or guilt.  I am so free that none of those things taint me.  Jesus took all of that away when he became our mediator to the Father, and since that day those negatives have all been working together “for the good of those who trust the Lord.”

          Amy asked me this past week if I was in love with Jesus, and I said no.  Jesus should not be the focus of Christianity, as he has become.  It is not the vehicle God used to redeem us, but it is the very fact that he did redeem us.  It is that he loved us so much that he provided a way for us to become one with him… through accepting his Holy Spirit to guide our lives, to become part of us by living in our hearts.

          It is not the historical Jesus that we should be in love with—though of course we should always appreciate it and be indebted to him—but it is the loving Father God who sent him to die for us, and in so doing imparted to us the eternal life of his spirit.  Once that spirit is in us, once we have accepted it into the core of our beings, we become a part of the Holy Trinity, united as in marriage to God the father and Jesus his son; that is what I love.  I love it with everything I was, am, and will ever become.

          I cannot help but grow closer to Christ because everything I experience is with him totally integrated into my life.  It is impossible for me to not be enveloped in his love, immersed in his presence.  I am a tiny fish in the immense ocean of the I AM.  I will never cease being a fish, and I will never stop swimming, just as the ocean will never dry up.

          Am I ever out of his favor?  No!  Can I ever swim out of his grace?  Ridiculous!  There may be sharks who would devour me, but even they cannot escape the vastness of the waters which contain them.  So is Christ, and so am I, and so are we all.  Who then can escape water, which comprises our very bodies and atmosphere?  Simply, no one, for Christ is even beyond that.

 

 

A Word On Truth

 

          Truth can be found even in the written lie, which depends upon its basic principles in order to be faulted.  Therefore, let no statement one way or the other be set up as absolute, except that it incorporates all other truths into its foundation.

 

 

A Word On Amendments

 

          Had our forefathers intended amendments so numerous to accompany their most perfect document, I feel certain it would wear a different face.  I suggest that the nuances and “clarifications” we have added have been so due to a tragic loss of community, to the point at which the individual has all but replaced the nation.  Had we not so trivialized, misused, and rhetoricized points, a standard of morality would remain in tact.  Instead, we live in fear and awe of humanity at large, while every bond and universal gesture of goodwill from which our Constitution emerged is null and void.

 

 

A Word On Questioning

 

          I was asked, “Why must you question everything?”  Did you yourself not just validate my action?  The very nature of communication depends upon it.  Without questions there would be no need for further language whatsoever.  Shall I then accept a solitary thing with less than a barrage of questions?  Surely, not as long as I live.

 

 

A Word On My Communication Skills

 

          Interestingly, as clearly as a compliment may hide a truer rebuke, it may be given also in reverse.  I may at times take great pride in the beauty of my words.  I may, however, overlook in such pride that whatever particular depth they were contrived in has fallen short of its intention for being conveyed.  The examples I find to illustrate this all seem similar.  I may craft what I consider a masterpiece of literature and for assurance spread it around to be read.  Often my works are answered with, “Wow, that’s great….  What does it mean?”  In the past I’ve taken such as high praise; no one has ever suggested that my gifts may lie in areas other than writing.  But if I look past feeding my own ego, my trade and style are suddenly much less significant, and I am forced to reevaluate most of who I am.  What this actually says is that I lack much skill in effective communication.  Which is essentially dysfunctional.

 

 

A Word On Beauty

 

          There are in this world some very beautiful people.  I am not one of them.  To be totally honest, I am quite ugly.  I have been so as long as I can remember.

          This is not merely a personal conclusion—I’ve had it pointed out to me.  I recall working in the computer lab in high school, when a girl happened to look in through a small window and immediately began calling attention to me, yelling to her friends to come look at the ugliest boy she’d ever seen.

          Children sometimes ask, “What happened to your face?”  “This is what happens when you don’t eat vegetables,” I reply.  I used to be asked who hit me.  For Christmas I got skin medications and dandelion root.  A senile old gypsy once approached me and suggested coating my face with egg whites. There were days growing up when I was so sick looking at myself that I would refuse to go to school.

          Growing up ugly is not a terribly pleasant thing; it is a reality you must come to accept.  You will always be ugly, and no amount of makeup can change that—you will only look like an ugly person trying to be pretty.  And there is nothing quite so sad.

 

 

A Word On Failure

 

          Well then, we have seen already that I am proud, a poor communicator, and quite ugly.  I think it should be added that I am a failure as well.  It is my God-given right to claim this, and I do so because I know all too well the crippling sting of flat rejection.

          First, any who have read my journals know that I am a failure in relationships.  I am nearly embarrassed by some of the neurotic things I did to try and gain favor with girls.  So that is public.

          Secondly, I am a failure in religion.  I was never able to integrate myself fully into any church groups, and certainly unable to comprehend the significance of tradition.  In belonging to congregations, in embracing the faith of my ancestors, in corporately serving a community of believers, I fell drastically short.

          The failure that hurt me the most, however, was in turning out to be a writer.  It was not supposed to be my focus; it arose out of necessity.  What I really wanted was to be a singer.  But as I say, I am a failure.  The bands I auditioned for never wanted me, either because I changed their lyrics or because I was “too alternative.”  I was the only one of a dozen singers in my high school ensemble who was refused a solo.  Ah well, it turns out singers are pretty irritating anyway.

 

 

A Word On My Introversion

 

          I am quite dysfunctional.  I fear most everyone I meet must walk away with a rather unfortunate impression.  I can soothe my mind a bit here and now with elaboration, but I very much doubt this attempt at an apology will ever meet the eyes of who have left a conversation feeling dejected or unnerved.  In this matter I must rely solely on a grace greater than my transgressions.

          You must understand that I take neither comfort nor pride in my manner; I am acutely aware of the discomfort my presence often brings.  I very consciously reevaluate myself to recondition my social skills for a more pleasant orientation.  In the meantime, I would ask a sizeable favor.  If you meet me, or if you have already had that misfortune, understand that I vividly display the symptoms of a misled philosophy.

          I have never viewed introductions as positive encounters.  I am not accustomed to being approached, so I am frequently taken off guard by it.  I usually am required to leave a world of unrelated thought in order to appear coherent, in which case my mind is more concerned with the steps of proper etiquette than it is with being genuinely invested in the person.  General interrogatives such as, “How’ve you been?” catch me unprepared, and I am rather frightened to answer because I am rarely without an honestly melancholy reply.

          Furthermore, it never occurs to me that I might someday see this person again, so I have a tendency to not retain introductory information.  My reactions are quite automatic, so much so that I am rendered somewhat deaf to what is actually spoken.  No one regrets this more than I, and I truly am working to overcome my introversion.  All I can ask, then, is that you not feel slighted when met with a poor response.  There are excessively few people I would intentionally reject.  Most often, the situation simply frightens me so incredibly that I become distracted by it.  Please do not be put off by my dysfunction; I have few enough friends as it is.

 

 

A Word On Writing

 

          I am recently humbled to have as an epiphany the conscious thought that Jesus himself left behind no writing.  For had he testified about himself….  The only record of my savior writing was in the dirt, surely only to be stepped over and undone moments later.  How different from the great teachers!  How poignant!  What can I think of my own words now?

 

 

II.        Idiōma

 

 

Shooting My One Wooden Foot

 

Shooting my one wooden foot,

I find that, in fact, my balance is thrown,

and I have a strange appearance,

hopping in circles

alone.

 

 

Haiku

 

These are the days of October,

just after leaf splattering

has begun,

when I occasionally happen

upon an old bit of poetry—

wonderful writing, but

sentiment as foreign as haiku,

and just sometimes wonder

if I will ever hear a good

word on how you are.

 

 

The Dream Slate

 

Wipe clean the dream slate.

 

Time has proved to be

nothing more than an endless sea.

Girls are not around;

I float on a sandbar and drown.

 

Ah, the wind here is colder than rain.

The rain slits slices into sheets.

I leave you to your stupor,

a cauldron of devil’s fuel.

I leave you with blistering urgency.

 

Wipe clean the dream slate.

Nothing no longer exists.

 

 

Preacher Polish

 

Preacher polish reflects

congregations of wide eyed onlookers,

mouths open to receive the wine,

mouths open to bounce back

polished preacher practice,

thrown out carelessly

as pearls before swine,

pearls in the mouths,

thousands of years forming,

clamped tight.

 

 

After Months Of Nothing

 

You look like someone that I used to know,

not outwardly, but inside.

You’ve got the hard pack under yellow hands,

looking a fraction of alive.

 

A friend said that if I ever see you

I should pry the locks from your cracking nails,

but I did not expect the moment I saw you

would bring such vivid detail.

 

 

Roommates Never Look In The Kitchen Unless It Is To Take Your Food

 

Out of curiosity, at what point

do you consider a trash bag full?

 

 

The Convex

 

Would you hollow out the convex of your stomach,

drop an extra lining for the baggage of my weight,

if I laid prostrate before your feet

in bubble wrap or porcupine skin,

stretched beyond what brokenness can take?

Would you arch yourself a covered bridge,

escort me through the foliage

to settle on the weir beneath a shade,

spread your silver linings out,

pour tears into my water spout,

drown doubt and fear and weakness in your grace?

Would you turn upright and fix me in

the soil ‘til the roots begin

to branch out with renewed intent

absorbing all your nutrients?

And would you pad my innards, beating,

with the cotton of your fleecing,

piece together blankets from your skin,

let me there in quiet rest,

against the pillow of your chest,

and press your soft, pink lips into my chin?

When I crack the outward casing

of the pain I’ve been embracing,

and the outpour bursts out, racing

over steps I’ve been retracing all along?

 

 

State Of Affairs

 

Harsh scrapes the detail

preceding the incident preceding

the mire of the wreckage

wrought by that first act

of willing confrontation

after the fall.

Moments build like sandstone

layers over a core too

wet with heat to be secure.

Waiting to slip down in

avalanche fashion over the

makeshift tents we left

empty while searching for food.

Brash scream the details turning

acidic and corrosive to the touch.

I call curses down on this

tedious, terrible, torturous

twisting of fates.

I call attention to unbearable,

unfair existence I’ve come to hate.

The rains may fall, but details remain.

 

 

The Twist Of Morning

 

This is one of those days

you dry heave

simply having to wake up,

the alarm puts your

head through the wall,

and there are too few

curse words to describe

the twist in your stomach.

 

 

Saturday, Throughout Panama City

 

The beach stretches out on a road,

straight and littered with adults

struggling to hold onto their youth.

Since 5 AM they have swayed upright

like clumps of stiff grass,

hoping to attract the swarming

gulls from overhead,

to snare them with immobile poise.

Evening throws down its blanket

and the inhabitants are already drunk

and swimming in lights,

screaming blurs of namelessness.

 

 

A Better End

 

The final prayer,

jewelry box still above the earth,

hoped to draw sufficiently to a close

your breath with us.

 

But mine is a better way.

 

 

Surgeon General’s Warning

 

I don’t see smoking as a sin.

It’s not healthy,

but neither are éclairs.

 

 

What We Miss

 

I stood just outside

the gate to a generator

for a full five minutes

before I noticed

it was strikingly audible.

 

 

There Is A Flower Behind A Bush That No One But Me Has Ever Seen

 

There are flowers you do not see

as you hurry by patches of grass.

There is a flower behind a bush

that no one but me has ever seen.

 

 

Humanity

 

It’s interesting that

people find humanity

sufficient grounds to

strike up a conversation.

 

Thank you, sir, but I am

genuinely uninterested.

 

 

Paneling

 

I’d like to find

the guy who invented wood paneling,

that right gentleman who first said,

“Hey, I’ve got a good idea!”

I’d like to find him,

and give him a good thrashing.

 

 

Litter-al

 

We make Styrofoam and plastic

that sit around lining the streets

in dense areas.

We make things that smell bad

when they burn, but look, somehow,

strangely appealing on curbsides

once their only use is done.

Appealing enough, apparently,

to throw down each time.

 

 

Solemn Anniversary

 

Don’t let me think today

or speak today,

on this,

the anniversary of

Jon-Boy’s death.

 

 

The Stabbing

 

The stabbing has returned,

the can opener ripping around

the lining of my gut.

Pain is fresh and propels

the child back in grade school,

slumping against the door in agony,

wanting to throw up and curl up

and die in down and carbon.

 

 

Closely

 

Eyes, sweating and sinking in sockets,

roll over the folds of your skin—

sick to my stomach.

 

 

It Was Not Like This

 

I was in love

once. Years ago.

 

Now I dig through

boxes in the eves to

scrounge and liberate

one stale, broken cigarette

and two dry cigarillos,

cheap incense and a scrap

of metal to look at.

I feel like a damn junkie.

Depression gains a new

depth, as I go to bed

earlier and earlier,

writing less and less

before I do.

 

 

Fond October

 

There were two of each of us that year

of black velvet and deep lipstick.

You were the compassionate middle-aged woman

and the insecure fifteen-year-old whore.

I couldn’t guess who you might be now,

what third party brought the girls together,

but I know that you are still you,

and I miss the essence of it.

 

 

An Odd Moment

 

Once I saw, or rather,

tried to help, a woman,

wrapped in old thrift coat,

with a plastic head,

and the only unusual thing

at the time was that

the tape around her good eye

was so old and solidified

that it had to be held in

with her left bony hand.

 

 

The Occasional Cleansing

 

Sitting Indian style against the

front window of the bookstore where I work,

rain trickling down as if the sky were

repaying some favor, darkening sidewalks,

turning to mirrors the streets, so that the clouds

might be able to smile back up at themselves

for their deed.

This is the spraying down of our polluted world.

These are the days when our litter

spirals down into the sewers and

its fibers stretch until it breaks apart.

 

 

Budding

 

I have never noticed that plant

            before,

that skeletal bush freestanding

against pearl brick

just past the No Parking sign.

 

 

Apple Suicider

 

This is it. I have grown old.

There is no push left to kick your crutch out.

And the nights go by with

apple suicider steeping

and spiders creeping over our eyes.

The thin disguise of youth has divided in two

and I have not strayed my course.

You can tell by the rosé in my cheeks

how I no longer lack, and I can finally laugh,

and it is sad to arrive where no malady survives,

now that my poetry means less to me than life;

and I never quite finish….

 

 

Where God Is

 

Where God is is not the

light cast across cement,

but in the quick flashes of eternity

between stratosphere and cloud,

where the whole sky catches

brilliance, and fear is quelled.

I have seen God. He has allowed

himself to be heard in a rumble,

glimpsed against the far spreading

blanket of nature.

 

 

Monotony

 

They’re called regulars

‘cause they do this

every night.

 

 

Christmas In Tampa

 

Christmas in Tampa

is the only place you will see

a tree backseat in a convertible,

lights and thin wood replacing

snowmen and ice sculptures,

when “Silent Night” means

a thing entirely different.

The fiancé’s liturgical parents

don’t know it yet, and hospitality

meets lines it did not know about.

Planes and police choppers rush

overhead urgently, pictures lie

scattered across cards of polite drivel.

Family itself shifts from past to future

tense as tradition exposes itself

to be the here and now rather than

antiquated Quaker roots.

Music has a subculture alive

only for the short while

store shelves are decorated,

and lines stretch around city blocks.

Keeping ties means constant dialing,

and ringing in the ears as if we were all

shell-shocked or senile.

 

 

Inspiration Abuse

 

Inspiration hits harder than

an abusive wretch of a man,

and like you I do not report it.

 

 

Jubilation At A Loss

 

Such a delectable diatribe,

notorious and noteworthy,

my raised gem of legendary infamy.

 

It is slow now, the pace and frequency

with which the pen moves,

nearly utterly reclusive in its tendencies

to undertake, for all the power

the written frame stirs is at a loss

finally as to its aim.

I have everything tasted

that looked sweet to the eye,

and through it gained a wife.

Alas, I find myself loathsomely jubilant,

a unit no longer poised for stern command.

 

 

The Collection Plates

 

The collection plates,

rich with blood and tears,

fall to marble, crashing,

sending scrambling

fragments of men.

 

 

Congestion

 

Focusing in on a pair of upraised hands,

harmonies noticeably fracture and disjoin.

A man suggests we compress

and unity falls apart.

Congestion cramps and scrapes

clamoring and clanging. Drapes tear.

White noise and static reign,

children’s eyes crowning confusion.

The spirit, unsettled, opens to fear

while panic presses in,

and cynicism creeps across its pace,

forced, unnatural.

 

 

During Worship

 

Poised and ready to pounce,

whole muscle groups and nerve endings tense.

Meditation music withers to audible halt,

urgent instruction unheeded

causes trembling hands to etch

into forever their objection.

 

Happy faces in their instance

are, in fact, manic,

and tomorrow replaced,

if not visibly, deeper down,

at a decayed then fossilized core.

 

 

Israel

 

I am Israel,

and I cannot read

the syllables you mouth.

 

I wander in the wilderness.

 

 

In The Waiting Room

 

I

Audibly you chisel ice with short gasps

from failing lungs.  Stand and demand your due,

be treated like the subhuman symbiant

which has outlasted its cracked plastic casing,

and lies in wait to be swallowed up like a scallop.

You dry up and flake from the corner

sheets of dead personality and unromantic notions,

then push up with your drug store walking stick,

step out with a few familiar words,

and relight the death wish.

 

II

Daddy, tanned in scaffolding of metallic bones,

kisses a small human on his bald head.

 

III

I think to myself, “Dear God,

I hope I never become you people.”

I watch out the door after two crows

to see if he opens her door.

 

 

When Even Now It Rains

 

It is a reflective, late afternoon, nearly extinct

under canopies of screened in, sheer nature.

Words flirt and mingle, lingering in

each others’ innocence beneath

expanses raining down over time.

In this single moment, streets we walked

a thousand times over a course of just one day,

many summers ago, when side by side

we caught raindrops in our open mouths,

then kissed each other with the taste of sky

on our faces, circling empty, prop houses,

collecting dreams in flowerboxes

cemented into inward looking windows.

We walked for an hour while streets were still

wet with freshness, steeped in purity

and garnished with petals and subdued color.

Being alive must be some gesture, subtle enough

to forget every word we spoke that day,

but grand enough to be overcome in a single,

quick wave at each subsequent

showering of the skies.

 

 

Even God Must Sigh

 

I would like for you to no longer

            ask, “Forgive me.

            Remove these transgressions

            I am so prone to.”

For you to not be surprised

every time I live up to my name.

 

 

Weekly Revival

 

The trends that run through congregations,

spreading wildfire throughout the nations,

the epiphanies, the feed, reverberations;

dig Martin Luther up—exhume reformation.

Your movement—I feel it in my bowels;

you gesture the consonants and vowels.

Words this clamping jaw would never mouth,

fresh flowers I find putrid and foul.

I rest my feet on a different puzzle piece,

yours more puzzling to the border,

your fractures disarrayed, and mine in order.

You cannot touch me, cannot heal me,

it’s already been revealed to me.

I sit graciously amidst, somewhat amused

and otherwise sad.

 

 

Prison Cell

 

The bars I climb toward heaven,

I have just found,

stretch only so high.

We are in this room together

with an open door,

 

like multi-colored canaries

running out of seed,

too preconditioned

to test the opening.

 

Let us not see

caged birds lifeless and stiff,

with old paper and empty dishes,

but rather, an evacuated cell.

 

 

Jehovah Jireh

 

I heard The Father say,

 

“How much blood do you require?

I have said, ‘My grace is sufficient.’

I am Jehovah-Jireh. Therefore,

do not dwell in the valleys

of visible mountains,

reaching up.

Some of my chosen

tire of reaching down.”

 

 

Sunday Service

 

Prosperity’s gospel polishes its technique

beneath gleaming eyes and perfect teeth;

smiles open like clouds

for the guise of refreshing,

pour blessings like sand over gashes.

 

For the moment, I sit

in a church’s morning service,

one small dissonance in an accord of sound,

not with animosity, but as any measure

of reminder that there is another

profound expounding soon to abound.

 

 

He Comes In Waves

 

He comes in waves.

There can be no stirring the stillness.

No silence can calm, save at his command.

No torrents or turbulence

break the concentration

of his outpouring.

He comes in waves,

rinses clean the tainting of earth,

soiled binders disappear;

sheer, immaculate mercy emerges.

Impartation of his majesty

touches leaves,

brushes tops of trees,

bleeds revelations, implants fear,

reverence for holiness.

He comes in waves.

His ways are known only to him.

His works are marvelous and just;

there is a tremor in the heavens.

He pours.

He pours down in waves.

 

 

Nothing New Under The Sun

 

I think

people with ideas

should be strapped to

the underside of ships.

That’s what I think.

 

There is nothing new

under the fat, old sun.

 

 

Nihilist

 

Feeling nihilistic

over staggering statistics,

understating the logistics

of the terminally ballistic.

 

Fear what we’re becoming;

it’s inevitable—we all die.

 

 

Empty Handed

 

Arms upraised in

childlike accolades.

Waterfall streams wash over

where repugnant they lie,

unresponsive.

 

 

The Way Things Are

 

Seeing how things are,

 

I want to wake up

in the daylight,

and remember just

how bad things were.

 

 

Surely Large Animals Sleep Well

 

Words must again replace you,

having in common that whatever it is

lasts only for a second,

that it escapes the lips and

never turns back,

and that the whole world can turn

because of its power,

or just as quickly stop,

and again, take off in a dash

in some uncharted direction.

 

You must stop and consider this

because I maintain its truth:

An elephant must have a good life;

his dreams must not be too horrible

to sleep through.

 

 

Another Monumental Miscalculation In The Arena Of Advertising

 

Everybody has perfect skin but me.

Everybody has a reason to live but me.

Look at me, don’t look at me—it’s a sham.

You will never see who I truly am.

 

I don’t care if you don’t love me…

kiss me quick, before the feeling fades.

 

Falling upwards and outward

like shards of splintering,

all consumers will be consumed

by the spendthrift nature of youth.

 

 

Mantras

 

Cite mantras like revelations,

epiphanies of God himself,

truth through repetitious use

of Strong’s and Vine’s pastoral

reference shelf.

The whys address the issues

through hour-long services held,

fulfilling the time requirement,

imposed by congregations who

cannot read.

 

 

Do Not Admire Me For Being Unique, Because I Do Not Feel That I Am

 

Because I do not believe traditional

learning,

I am exempt. You therefore

admire what is not necessarily abnormal.

 

Silly thing.

 

 

Pitch With A Grin

 

I said to the ocean at night,

“Forget the day.”

Her tides rose.

I said to the ocean at night,

“Then swallow me with your waves.”

 

 

Banner

 

Stale, dead words out-slip lips

resounding with “Stand,

out stand, awaiting the harvest

after the rain, beyond lands laid

waste by famine.”

We wait, arms upraised, for

the drenching.  Brown and dry

gold, yellow as parchment.

 

The room is ancient and broken,

vainly attempting in obedience

to glean meaning from

forgotten texts.

Persistent.

The trudging procession is tired.

Rest.

 

 

Gleaned From The Sermon That Sunday

 

A city’s lifeblood runs through the veins of

its people; it may be tainted or purified.

Cancer and anemia wait on razor blades to infect.

A heart affected, changed,

even by Christ enlivened, pulses fresh.

 

 

From Inside Union 5

 

Propped against the only wall

of my small, temporary shop,

the file unlatches

beneath a draping canopy of breeze.

The single thought comes,

“Haven’t written from here yet.”

And that is enough.

A pause follows, stretching long

as the hours tick.

 

 

I Am Done With Community Living

 

The neighbors upstairs are clumsy,

lumbering around with cinder blocks as shoes;

I might one day ram their heads into the grate.

 

 

The Dancing Beneath Your Blood

 

A funny little man dances,

prancing childlike fashion,

hand in palm with young of age,

forgets his horrendous past,

finding his place among the daisies.

A funny little man, surrounded by

funny men and eccentric women,

celebrating their escape.

 

Many are here of pretense and fearing;

quite the opposite, myself.

 

So into you, and you abiding in us,

I mingle now in your blood,

at once a tainted purity.

All I can bring myself to do is remain

silent, alone in quiet reverence.

 

 

I Work In A Café

 

Did you know that there are people

simply known as diarists?

And I make $7.25 an hour fixing sandwiches.

 

I worked for God, but He was voted down

so the board could get raises.

 

Terribly unjust, I find, is that ordinary,

intolerable people fill salaried positions

with bendable demeanors, while we

with the intelligence to deem them so

remain poor and without health benefits.

 

Today I was tipped two dollars. Total.

 

 

I’m Sure It’s The Alternator

 

Writing in our financial notebook,

having believed the car would start

and so having left behind at home the diaries,

I sit at Fido, kneeling on a stool

in the corner with the barrels, looking

every bit the generalization I was mocking,

suited to the neck in drab green cargos and

a charcoal turtleneck, cloth gray beret securing

at the hands the dirt-rimmed, shaded specs.

I wonder for a split second of self-consciousness

how I must look, unattached, then remember

my flesh and my comfortably bright living room,

and look down at the sticks spelling out letters

beneath knuckles a hideous shade of dried blood.

The trembling has been steady, the way my hands

and stomach twitch and tense and I can’t tell

if it’s Parkinson’s or caffeine.

For Marci’s sake, I hope to God it’s the latter.

My car waits in its graveyard outside

for a savior to condemn its soul.

My wife paints pottery two streets over

and shadows become gymnasts

inhumanly distorting, mocking our

carved playhouses.

 

No poem is ever quite finished,

and it occurs to me

that may be the point.

 

 

Mardi Gras

 

I had resolved to refrain

from further referring to

cynicism as my spiritual gift.

Then Broadway Babbler

opened his large mouth.

 

While, true, the spirit is alive

and fully mobile, history is

long dead and buried.

Never forget that your current

vitality will in one hundred years

be an ancient tradition, stale

and fought against by your

generations to come.

 

I could claw my eye out observing

your mundanity—a lot of fat people

bouncing around in slacks and denim,

whose antics at Mardi Gras

we could easily predict.

 

 

Caricatures

 

Apparently we require bigger chains,

for our mascots and caricatures

have cotton in their brains.

I’ve a maiming desire to be free,

but that is a resolution I have yet

to see.

 

 

Calculated Rhythms

 

In front, pig-tailed philosopher gymnast,

next isle, clumsy, abandoned boy clapping,

smiles begging for approval basked freely in,

displaced unison reacting, oblivious to

surrounding’s invented parts, venting years of

unspeakable. Joy expressed—primordial

efforts, disconcerting emptiness.

Separate displays vanquish traces of daylight

shot out in the name of sanctity, a backdrop

lowering combustible sound, edification

grasped for like ice-cream Popsicles

on a late day after school.

They will leave here full after the refueling,

but with cracks in the fired vases,

energy dripping quickly down the round base

to drain into dishes undone overnight.

Myself, I could enjoy the moment in spirit,

if only my mind did not trace each face to its

gradual deterioration. If I were only

unaware of time, spiraling egos, and deep

insecurities guiding motives.

 

 

Bleach & Honey

 

My hands smell constantly of bleach,

one scarred by the grill,

known to always wear a hat,

and resenting the implication.

Today is slow, tips trickling like warm honey

liquefying under halogen lights,

causing processes in prime to exemplify.

Minutes drip purposefully and intent,

collecting near the clock bottom

and hanging, dead stop, heavy

in syrupy stream.

 

Having written six books,

I confess that still

I never quite know

how any piece

should end.

 

 

Complex

 

Perhaps

the root of all things

is

in fact

my superiority complex.

 

 

Judges

 

Mediocrity by precedent…

habitual reverence.

We create our own leaders where there were none.

            Just as Israel.

Usher in the time of judges. Elect our new kings.

 

 

Gestation

 

Your strength having left,

the vibrant exuberance

poisoned cell by cell, then stripped,

you cover up in the white

leather recliner and wait.

Wait to be injected with life,

reanimated, or to be burdened

no longer with every day finding

less you are able to do.

 

The terrible gestation of your

transfiguring condition is a

prolonged minuet. We hang on

every measure as if it may never

find resolve.

 

 

Proper English

 

The overpopulation of unattractive

people is a staggering statistic—

even worse, the number who speak

proper English.

 

 

You

 

You remind me of someone;

and I wonder,

who do you remind you of?

 

 

On The Rocks

 

Bartender,

another social outing…

on the rocks.

 

 

Ancient Eves

 

I met you

more than eight years ago,

wearing a different faux leather and

substantially less facial hair.

Back then I found prospects exciting,

and threw around ideals like

“challenging and refreshing!”

But here now under this speckling of lights

and these draping vines,

your breath is as stale and warm

as dust covering ancient eves.

 

I should have met you eight years ago,

while my eyes were still unaccustomed

to blinding lights.

I would have found you, in that youth,

quite spectacular, watching from my bench,

unmarred by pity and condescension.

 

 

Monday

 

Right now

there is only

one thing I like.

And that is a good,

healthy strawberry.

 

Jessica thinks I should also

add coffee to that list.

 

 

III.       The Neologism Of The Necropolis

 

 

Seek You On My Own

 

To find you I must bury my head,

scour tunnels for shreds of evidence.

Critters sleek and mobiles creep

beneath streets with fools gold paved.

Distinctions are blurred between

distortions of heaven and perceptions of earth.

To seek you on my own wounds to the bone,

sucks the living marrow out

and throws me under stones,

but still I will seek you.

To see you I’m required to burn my eyes,

make charcoal and ashes from what

I once thought was my life.

To comprehend I must suspend my

senses and plant faith like flowers,

so you can swallow up the

savory season and spice.

To seek you on my own requires me to go

to the depth of the ocean

and ends of the circle of the globe,

but still I will seek you.

 

 

Metropolis

 

Pulse racing hard enough to keep time

with strangers at the crosswalk,

a single bead of perspiration dots your

forehead as they aim with arrows,

eagle-like speeding swoop talon shadows,

drifting over city brick, steam from

the main line rising like audible breath,

 

the man with the paper,

the woman with a magazine,

the peddler waving his arms

at the passing of another

fifteen minutes in Metropolis.

 

Blink, blink, blink go the walkway instructions,

from white into a strobe light of red,

shoulders brush or barely touch,

two lives briefly colliding,

express cardboard espresso roasters hang

across plastered, hand crafted antique shops,

while finger smudges blurry the display window’s

first floor entranceway.

 

The homeless man’s defining walk,

the crazy lady’s voices talking,

all the children playing with sticks

for the passing of another

fifteen minutes in Metropolis.

 

Sirens silence the onlooking, head shaking,

hat tipping, downtrodden hearts,

somewhere alone someone dies in their home

and the domino tumbling starts.

“Civilization?” you ask. Well,

we’ve seen it for centuries past.

 

The one-way streets,

the stomping feet,

the people all pitching their fits

at the passing of another

fifteen minutes in Metropolis.

 

 

The Workingman

 

Brother, tell me, where do you come from?

Brother, tell me, where do you come from?

Brother, tell me, where do you come from?

It’s a dirty, dirty job, but it’s gotta be done?

 

Brother, tell me, where do you get off?

Brother, tell me, where do you get off?

Brother, tell me, where do you get off?

How can you judge a workingman,

with hands so baby soft?

 

 

Never Been Better (Ain’t That The Worst!)

 

In Viva Nash-Vegas you play ‘til it hurts,

skip a week’s worth of meals for a few just desserts;

still you say with a smile as you hunger and thirst,

“Never been better.”  Ain’t that the worst!

 

Old man on the corner of Broadway and 1^st,

sits and plays his guitar like he’s driving a hearse;

all the folks move along, catching only a verse—

“Never been better.”  Ain’t that the worst!

 

Ol’ Tennessee has lost its Southern charm;

I should be lounging in Bell Meade by now,

not sweating in this bar.

I’m told you get your break in Music City;

after six years here, the scene don’t look that

p-p-p-p-pretty.

 

Well, I seen it before, all the bubbles that burst,

all the waiters and busboys got gigs to rehearse;

if you ask how they’re doing, they mutter the curse,

“Never been better.”  Ain’t that the worst!

 

 

Underlords

 

Cinematic efforts impress

leaves falling over your dress,

enter wearing banners for campaign,

tip your glass and drink good Champaign.

Elsewhere under bridges underway,

in a limousine with corsage and bouquet,

dressed with an intent to kill—

when headlights catch human eyes, you will,

female nailed to the desert cart,

cigar smoke, Sinatra, and caviar.

Compliments rattle your cage,

impressionists, apparitions on the stage,

an Edison Victrola on the round,

for ambiance enveloped in the sound;

nightlife is the right life for me,

digesting in the belly of the city.

 

All the gorgeous eyes where the gorgeous go,

where the gorgeous die in the down below;

are the Underlords waiting for me?

 

The undercurrent pulling us down,

tugging the corners to frown,

scowls escaping the fedoras,

sinking back in plush angora.

The boys beneath another round of drink,

numb themselves and deaden to the stink.

Ah, the plans and the scams cross paths;

we choke on the rocks in the glasses.

The spiral continues to spin,

hypnotizing everyone within,

and I can’t believe that I am even here,

amidst all this insecurity and fear,

sugar plums dance in my head,

as I find my thoughts drifting to my bed;

nightlife isn’t quite the life for me,

indigestion in the belly of the city.

 

All the gorgeous eyes where the gorgeous go,

where the gorgeous die in the down below;

are the Underlords waiting for me?

 

 

15 Minutes Of Anonymity

 

Don’t speak.

Don’t talk to me.

I need my 15 minutes

of anonymity.

Don’t plead.

Don’t pry and don’t

begrudge me my 15

minutes of anonymity.

 

 

All Of This

 

When this ends I want to see it

flake like paint, chip like stone away.

Murmurs rumble, mountains crumble,

tremors with tumultuous toppling tumble,

and shred and peel and crawl away;

I want to feel it fall away.

 

All of this alters. All of this falters.

All of this nonsense caves and fades,

diminishing, dwindling; I watch licking

lips, clicking, laughing out justice,

expounding on quips.

 

When this desists, I want to be one

of those there to witness the unthinkable

end to this half-hearted jumble of crud.

When at last it collapses, this tatter of

plaster and cracking, I want to be someone

who hurls dried sections of mud.

 

All of this fractures, all this disaster;

all indiscretion serves as a lesson.

Pricking and kicking, the flawed and

depressurized whims, depress in the

vacuum and cause an overdue caving in.

 

All of this wasted usage of casing,

all this evasive serving of basting.

All of this alters. All of this falters.

All of this fractures, all this disaster.

 

 

Aunt Pam

 

Aunt Pam, I lie awake and

stare at the ceiling tonight.

Aunt Pam, I lie afraid and

wonder what you’re feeling tonight.

 

You shrink back embarrassed

that you pale by comparison to kids

who are barely aware of themselves

and their fairy tale lives,

gentlemen courting brides….

 

What’s it like in there?

What’s it like in there?

What’s it like in there, Aunt Pam?

 

 

Stick Girl

 

Stick Girl wants to be a leaf;

as they jump out of the trees she grieves,

for there are no vessels in her back,

with a harsh wind the stick girl cracks.

 

Leaf Girl want to be a stick,

she tires of soaking up the rain’s pinpricks,

for she has sheltered the stick girl’s bark,

and she wants to float away into the dark.

 

The trunks of the Sycamores grow tired

of the wishing wars that don’t end with the

dashing, lashing spirals during fresh downpours,

from storm windows rattling their panes.

 

Thick Girl wants to be thin,

while Without Girl wants to be within;

and I cannot say a word for fear of being

overheard and misinterpreted

by high strung violins,

 

who in agreement wonder why we even try,

when compliments go straight to their thighs.

I could say Venus should be envious,

and guarantee a warrant for my arrest

for loving things I didn’t know I should detest.

 

Now we’re all so depressed,

being dressed or being underdressed,

and we vow to never eat another bite.

And all the stick girls want the leaves to shrivel;

leaves want all the stick girls whittled down

into shavings and a slice.

 

And I cannot get the words right;

they only feed bulimics appetites,

and end up in the sewers of spite.

I must shut my mouth… I cannot speak of beauty

or of poetry, for fear of being beaten by silence.

 

And stick girl, I cannot feed your fantasy.

And leaf girl, I cannot indulge your fancy.

 

 

He’s Sneaking Back

 

I find myself staying up late again.

I find my lining scars being traced again.

I find my stomach jabbing that old familiar feeling.

I find my furrow being browed again.

I find my old sneer being scowled again.

I find my mind racked and broken

and all sent reeling.

 

He’s sneaking back, he’s sneaking back,

he’s sneaking back, that criminal.

He’s creeping back, he’s creeping back,

he’s creeping back, so cynical.

 

I find my damaged systems being struck again.

I find my life’s blood being sucked again.

I find my rhyming frequent

and incalculably fleeting.

I find myself tired of the song again.

I find myself inflicted by a wrong again.

I find my timing slipping

like my own heart’s beating.

And all I can say…

 

He’s creeping back, he’s creeping back,

he’s creeping back to the pinnacle.

He’s sneaking back, he’s sneaking back,

he’s sneaking back, so critical.

 

 

Blind As Money

 

Holy hands fold over grips,

tight clenched clamps with deadlock fists,

religious elitists grill over spits,

ministry skewers dripping pitch.

 

Your brilliant leaders are blind as money.

 

Poking through the haze of met needs,

stroking heavy fleeces stitched with greed,

pierce a few more notches through the belt,

rape the Virgin Mother for her pelt.

 

Your brilliant leaders are blind as money.

 

 

You’re Not Telling Me Anything

 

You bless me? No, I bless you.

You tell me things that just aren’t true;

so caught up in worship and praise,

you forget to see me in the everyday.

 

I’m in that girl’s cigarette,

I’m in the poor house with your debt,

I’m in the vagabonds who search;

I am not always in your church.

 

You’re not telling me anything

I don’t already know;

you’re not shutting up long enough

to hear where you should go.

Surprise, surprise, I’m larger than your lies;

you have yet to see me with your eyes.

 

I am not happy with your hearts;

you’ve picked my potency apart.

My people should not do such things,

crowning themselves miniature kings.

 

You’re not offering anything noticeably new;

you’re not willing to give me

what I truly ask of you.

Surprise, surprise, I see through your disguise;

I know who you really are inside.

 

 

Christians Can Go To Hell

 

You caught on too late,

caught the virus and it sealed your fate.

You never realized you were victimized

by leaders who had sealed their eyes,

who mistook what you took for God.

 

We undertook to rewrite the book

and we did it very well, but…

Christians can go to hell.

 

Such a simple word;

you look at me utterly perturbed,

and never will admit the counterfeit,

spitting in the face of truth,

useless under layers of sod.

 

We lick our lips lusting after

this illusionary well, but…

Christians can go to hell.

 

 

You Want Too Much

 

You want too much.

I never meant to disappoint you,

but you ask for so much

more than is your due.

You want too much.

I’m sorry to betray you,

but I cannot change your

feeble point of view.

 

There’s a journal on the table,

from the table to the floor,

the journal stays open for days,

while you attempt writing more.

 

You practice autographs for no one,

so when your day may finally come

you can say you did it all for Christ

and a heart for everyone.

But you dwindle in the daytime hours

and wonder who can help you meet your

goal of ruling everything by the age of 22.

Having been there, all that I can say is

I hope you don’t make it, ‘cause I truly

think it would hinder someone like you.

 

You want too much.

You want to change the world.

Well, so do I, but only so

the world will change its tune..

You want too much.

I feel unfortunate to be

the harbinger of such

unfortunate news.

 

 

Mirrors Get It Reversed

 

I hate who I am in the mirror, when you

stare at me with wide eyes and a narrow smile.

I hate this reflection in razor edges

that gauges success kamikaze style.

I could never relay the disdain,

setting fire to journals, and jackets, and film.

I never say I won’t, but I never will.

 

You are the spitting image of pork roast;

I spice your vodka with cider and make a toast:

Here’s to health, here’s to wealth, here’s to stealth,

steadfastness, and things that will never work out.

(I never dare declare what I’m scared about.)

You weave me into the intricate threads of the fray,

entangle the mangled up nerves that I threw away.

You trip on the scriptures you ripped out of context

and stretched across alternate routes.

I believed in you once, but now I have my doubts.

 

 

Family Untied

 

I suffer through a buffer underrun,

utterly defeated and undone;

you promised me to honestly try,

proceed what I perceive another lie.

 

I must disown you now, you understand,

I cannot carry on the family name;

you have failed me for the last time, I’m afraid.

 

Brother, you now cease to be a kin

to the cesspool of dysfunction I was inducted in,

for I cannot choose ancestry over merit,

with disloyalty increasingly apparent.

 

I must disown you now, forevermore deny

my place in this backstabbing family line.

I am done. I am done. I am done. I am done.

 

 

The N^th Time My World Shattered

 

I can’t stop it, what’s wrong with this world.

When the minds of the brothers

pin down their sisters—

well, they are not there for your enjoyment—

I pin on others the sins that I wonder

if I could ever do.

When my heart bleeds, it bleeds for you.

I can’t top it, what’s wrong in this world.

 

Oh, hatred pulses through the tips of

my cigarettes—fuck it, I cannot cope!

I would sooner sprawl my bowels

across the river bed then let myself

slip into decline the way you have.

I am truly sorry for you;

it fills my soul with disgust

that you just sit there with that smug look on.

 

I can only pray that I never… I never understand.

Oh, but I’ve forgiven you; yes, I’ve forgiven you.

 

 

Collapse

 

Partial glass leaves wasted blood untasted,

remains of faces dripping, dripping down

over moonlit silhouettes of patched grass

painted with silenced tints of slipping,

lipping flooded grounds.

Suggestion portrays mentions of dismay

for the rains soaking into earth,

retention gives way to comprehension

of disdain for the haunting notion of her.

In the lapse of the fragments I collapse.

 

Verse two does not retain the focus

of hocus-pocus broken by a word,

someone who wears the memory like a token

leaves unspoken her loneliest return.

Details get unscrambled in the hazing

of the glazing of expressions on the face.

Everything turns drab and unamazing

with the brazen image tainted in her place.

In the grasp of stagnancy, collapse.

 

 

This Abrasive Season

 

Vivacity is the sharp stain on my neck,

all discrepancies doubled over with regret.

And words such as these don’t heal;

they only simmer in the juice of what we feel.

 

There is a reason for this abrasive season.

 

There is a confidence of broken respect,

worn down from chains to sand and sediment.

And days such as we pass now will cackle like the

gravel-throated fowl we take aim and shoot down.

 

There seems no reason for this abrasive season.

 

Corruption and calamity erode the holy

ground we used to squish between out toes.

Consternation, contemplation, complications,

variations, insist that we internally implode—

redundant, I know, but that’s the way it goes.

 

There is no reason for this abrasive season.

 

Well I could say this hatred makes me ill,

but there are people here that I’d still like to kill;

when you strike without passion, unprovoked,

I’d love to wrap my grip around your throat.

 

Oh, this is treason, this abrasive season!

 

 

Cancer

 

Consequence implies the stars misaligned,

malignancy weighs heavily shackled on mankind.

 

I am a blight across the face tonight.

I slip away without a trace tonight.

When I’m laid down and we meet up,

you will answer for this cancer.

 

Claws clamping tight, no relief in sight,

69 concentric waves, like startled raids in flight.

 

I take a dagger in the heart this time.

I am a staggeringly crude design.

I am distorted and a morbid

necromancer with this cancer.

 

I grieve aloud, I crave the sound,

I pound and no one hears me pound,

raping death who is my private dancer,

this spreading cancer.

 

 

A Message To The Insignificant Pricks

 

I show disdain for all the painted on faces

feigning inclinations to partake the tainted,

blatant waste of space. I hate it. I hate it.

I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. You tiny,

insignificant people, you make me sick, you

make me vomit at the thought of dwelling on it,

your condescending comments, while you are

so tired and common; I confess it is a chore to

so abhor you, so draining, and your actions

and inanity must be so self-abasing. I swear,

as surely as your flame will dwindle gracelessly,

my words across your life’s screen are the last words

you will ever see. I promise you. I promise you.

I promise you will amount to nothing.

And when at last you have passed through this life

all things but unscathed, you will think of me

and wish you had not lived what I hated,

I so strenuously claimed, what I maintained was

the truth, that there simply was no use in any

of the solitary ways you wasted your time.

You’ll get yours when I get what was rightfully

mine from your tiny little lives.

You will ultimately add up to nothing;

and I swear, as you’re clinging,

I will be there to step on your fingers.

 

 

Lurch

 

The method I choose, many will not use,

reactionary in my embrace;

I throw myself down on your grace,

while chaos stirs dissension

and the praise doesn’t hold my attention.

I cut myself on broken down barriers,

and bleed all over the carriers.

 

Lurch, lurch, lurch,

the church, the church hurts.

 

They feed their addiction to tradition,

while I position myself by the door,

necessary relevancy lost in emotional steeping,

chimes of the church bell signal spiritual weeping,

deception so cunning and subtle,

a debate that awaits no rebuttal.

Week after week we speak squeaky clean

mantras in untouchable estates, weak-minded

saints, untainted by challenges,

maintain a stranglehold cycle.

I plead for the meekness I lack in my weakness,

speak venom in the midst of such peace,

that the pleasant, uncreative pawns rest safely on

the mantle like the pretty displays that they are.

 

Lurch, lurch, lurch,

the church, the church hurts.

 

 

Towers Of Babel

 

Search for the brickwork as stone upon stone

reaches up to the heavenly splendor of home.

The walls are thin and leaning in—

Babel towers high.

The outline drawn, it towers on,

crushes the workers inside.

 

Our pride, our achievement;

you cry, our bereavement.

 

Our Towers of Babel are still winding up

like the beanstalks we climbed

when our prayers weren’t enough.

Distraction and focus unhinged at the joints

of disloyalty to those we thought

you had anointed to succeed.

 

Without larger buildings we cannot be sure

that you have been pleased to not keep us so poor.

The pavement is cracked already,

and showing the traffic

of the needy who have been lining our streets—

those unfortunate and tragic.

 

Our blessings, our prospects,

our dressings, our projects….

 

Our Towers of Babel are still as displeasing

as when we first noticed your wrath unleashing.

How powerful now can the houses we bought

seem in light of the showers we have

certainly, certainly not gotten?

 

Our Towers of Babel must fall.

 

 

I Can Do Without This

 

I can do without this.

I don’t care about this.

I can do without this.

I don’t care about this.

 

It’s over now, the hoping for, the groping for,

the choking for, it’s over, the emotion seeping

outward evermore.

 

It’s broken, hanging open, this token disarray,

it’s stoked and spilling over, this constant charade.

 

It’s ended, this splendid mess, distressing

complications, I’m sending for the mending

qualification of duress.

 

I can do without this.

I don’t care about this.

I can do without this.

I don’t care about this.

 

 

Down Mt. Washington

 

Smoke clears black and white

on a backdrop of model trains,

the sun peeks through and a thread of blue,

and it feels like a blizzard on the way.

The trees give a choke

and then wither into elves;

the winds blow to the forts below,

and we’re a mile above ourselves.

 

Barreling down Mt. Washington is easy;

one wrong step, you plunge a hundred feet.

Plummeting down Mt. Washington and freezing,

I wonder who will come and rescue me?

 

Eyes peer outward from the portal

window, its circular rim of steel,

against the clash of wind on backs,

standing backwards in granite fields.

 

And years from now pictures will retell

of that day of picnicking at the base;

years from now the monument remains

of the seven mile legacy of first seeing your face

against a horizontal altar from

the heavens to our God, oh,

that blissful day serenely planted,

now never forgotten.

 

Barreling down Mt. Washington is easy;

one breach of concentration, footing slips.

Plummeting down Mt. Washington and queasy,

Landing on the padding of your lips.

 

 

The Procession

 

Days roll by in procession,

on the sidewalk people grip their hats,

we spin like hubs of concession vans,

and wonder why we keep doing that.

 

And the rains don’t fall

like they did over kids,

and snowdrifts never crash

like they did when we lived.

 

Parked outside by the open sign,

at the café where I earn my tips,

I think in the empty of the dining hall

of impressions between coffee sips.

 

And the skies don’t cloud

like they did in the fountains,

and leaves never crunch

like they did in the mountains.

 

The procession brings with it a silent face,

I caress it with my signature embrace.

Weather never thinks about today,

rather, running slow, it washes past away.

 

And the winds don’t howl

like they did in Maine,

and the treeline doesn’t scowl

to remember the name.

Not here today.

 

 

It’s Over, For Sure

 

Nothing can redeem this.

No one should even try.

This world is utter nonsense;

we continue to wonder why.

 

So I’m leaving behind all I vainly ever hoped,

and I’m sailing out to sea, and cutting every rope.

 

Everything here disgusts me,

every one of you too.

If I could wipe out humanity,

that’s what I’d surely do.

 

So I’m cutting out the memory

with scissors from my heart,

and chipping with a pickax

‘til it crumbles all apart.

I’m sending out the signals

that my world has met its end;

you won’t get me to ever love again.

 

 

The Trenches

 

Where does this sinking feeling come from?

I thought I had Atlantis raised to the sky,

but I slid off a cliff and the splash made my

eardrums burst in the whale that inhaled me alive.

 

How much grunge can the sponge of my

tongue run over, stung by a jelly fish king?

Who’ll take the knife and cut through the

advice, giving halves to the fractions of me?

 

And why do days like this persist to

exist, and insist that I fall to the floor?

What can possibly rise from the wreckage

inside, to explain what the crashing was for?

 

And why do I keep falling, falling deeper,

when you promised I’d already hit

the lowest point on earth?

How do the trenches keep growing,

growing steeper? Tell me, tell me,

tell me what it’s worth!

 

 

Dehumanizer

 

How many smiles have I knocked off faces?

In how many people have I aided wanting to die?

How many lives must be sacrificed before I recant

and step away from my role as a guide?

 

In troubled times, I reinforce the apocalypse,

and aid with disillusioning guise.

How long must you endure my penchant for

exploiting everything that may be dehumanized?

 

I was introduced with troubling distemper,

when induced into these terrible trials.

Since then my screams have increased beyond measure

—I have refined them to my personal style.

 

But I do not wish to be typecast

for impressionists who think they do it right;

I resist my rise to balladeer and terrorist,

I do not wish to be this blight.

 

I resume being human for the rest of my life.

 

 

Newsworthy

 

I will not conjure you.

I will refute the disciplines.

I overturn the chalice

and poise my hands, and ask;

 

descend—with a vacuum that never ends,

transcend—our inspirational dividends.

 

I resist this emotional parade.

You reside in the turmoil and

ashes of the grandest charade.

The heart of your people lies

bandaged in tattered, drab drapes.

There are mud-ingrained, blood-

stained tapestries to double as capes.

 

Descend—mend the sidelong glances we send;

lend the words to your long-term friends.

 

 

Chorus

 

Capture my heart,

enrapture and impart,

give me your wisdom,

give me your discernment,

redeem your promises,

give us our inheritance,

oh Lord, oh Lord,

oh Lord, oh Lord….

 

 

Your Glory

 

The restoring,

the outpouring

of your glory;

come morning,

come torrents

of glory.

 

Speak softly amid this praise

of your faithfulness and grace,

immerse as in your storm,

douse us with your warmth.

 

The alluring,

the imploring

for your glory;

come storming,

come fury

of glory.

 

Speak softly amid this reign

of the healing on the lining of your face,

reverse this absurd norm,

jousting with my center of reform.

 

The reforming,

the rewarding

with your glory;

come swarming,

come surely

your glory.

 

 

IV.       The Malapropism Of Maudlin Gestures

 

 

The Whole Thing Is A Lie

 

The smile in your words,

the words in your silence,

the sigh in your make believe

heapings of gold,

the kind in your scold,

the cold in your violence,

the cry in your efforts

in making me whole;

 

the whole thing is tragedy

disguised as a hope,

the thing appears bridge-like,

is only a rope.

 

The balm of your thinking,

the palm of your smile,

the outstretched greeting

with a personal style,

the manner in meekness,

the meaning in gleaning,

the sheen of the preening

at the wings of denial;

 

the whole thing is misery

confused with blessing,

the thing appears healed,

hidden under the dressing,

 

the whole thing is agony

portrayed as a dream,

the thing is admittedly

not what it seems.

 

 

Miles Of Dry Heat

 

With the shades drawn,

I can’t tell your face from a stone,

with my eyes closed,

I feel that you feel so alone.

 

So it’s miles of dry heat to your side of the bed,

it’s not worth the effort; you curl up instead

to a small, fetal planet which can’t sustain life.

I careen like a meteor away from my wife.

 

And its hot and its late and its dark and its stale

and its shot and its hate and its stark and its pale.

 

When the night speeds the

pulse of a heart in unrest,

you will spurt out the hole

your hand left in my chest.

When the night beats its

ceaseless and hypnotic drum,

I am paralyzed as I lie in

wake for the morning to come.

 

 

The Morning After

 

Last night I did something that hurt someone.

It was something that can’t be undone.

 

I wanted every sliver of your heart;

I wandered through your shivers in the dark.

I know I said I loved you,

but I couldn’t show you how.

I don’t know how you could believe me now.

 

Last night we stumbled into wastelands,

walked through the cemetery hand in hand.

 

I always let my prowess interfere;

you should not have ever met me here.

I know I said I’d never do

a thing to bring you down.

I don’t know how you will believe me now.

 

Rattle the cage I made you stay in

while I played my deadly game;

you waited patiently, I promised you

a day that never came.

And now I see my own hypocrisy

that beat you into dirt, and the treachery

of my tendency to love the ones I hurt.

 

Last night will elevate itself to a turning point,

baggage that we’ll drag through time.

 

This heart of darkness cowers now, in fear,

the implications ever so severe.

I know I said I’d honor you,

though not sure I knew how.

I don’t know how you can believe me now.

 

 

Lament In Longing

 

Lover, does your soul cry out for me?

Lover, am I truly everything?

There are pictures in your eyes,

a pining when you cry.

 

All the golden years you spent,

all my longing and lament;

and I meant it when I said I loved you,

did you mean it too?

 

Kitten, do you tremble to recall

how our eyes made love like fire

and burned them all?

There are pictures in my mind,

of a time when we were

so much more alive.

 

All the golden years we spent,

all our longing and lament;

I meant it when I said I needed you,

and it’s still true.

 

 

What I Would Say To You If You Were Here

 

I would still be reeling if the words that hit the ceiling

had an ounce of truth to hammer in my ear,

but you who lost all feeling as the painted mask came peeling

just renounced the youth who stammered words so clear.

 

Oh, why did I lie?

Oh, who am I?

Oh, why did you let me lie?

Oh, now who am I?

 

The walls have got me climbing up the thoughts with which

you’re rhyming of analogies to blasphemy and rage.

Your face is not the least of these unforeseen discrepancies

repeating its expressions on the page.

 

Oh, how could you be so cruel?

Oh, who am I to you?

Oh, you were so cool.

Oh, who am I to you?

 

 

Life Between Breaths

 

Not the one I want calling on the phone;

I’m not alone, but I’m not in love.

The voice on the other end drones on just like

you did—the tendency makes me sick.

I go blind just thinking how much

living I’ve been missing.

 

Life between breaths leaves

a whole lot of death in between.

You cannot affect the impression

of ground on my knees.

Life between breaths is

the best I can do to survive;

all I have left is what little

you’re keeping alive.

 

Lately it seems my diseases are

all I have to give; down on my knees

for reasons I can’t eloquently cite.

There is no last night, there is no tomorrow,

and the whole of emotion is tense.

All of this is ridiculous.

 

Life between breaths leaves

a whole lot of death in between.

I digress from transgressions

to bless the impression I see.

Life between breaths gives

no rest from the presence of pain;

sensation suggests that it always

will be this way.

 

 

Love Is A Many Splintered Thing

 

Those we hurt the most are those we love,

those hanging from the rafters up above.

Those we hurt mingle with dirt

and cinders from the past.

Those who mean most are

the hosts we think of last.

 

Love is a many splintered thing,

the joy we only know through suffering.

Happiness is the deepest of our falls.

Hope is the scope of the helplessness of it all.

 

Those people we see on the screen seem so surreal;

those choked up blokes who are stoking

the embers we feel.

But mine is heart that will not do what it is told;

it will not forget or move on from

what turned it this cold.

 

Love is a many splintered thing,

a toy we loose interest in

straight from the packaging.

Happiness hasn’t existed outside of this realm.

Love is a lifeboat with holes smashed into the helm.

 

Love is a many splintered thing,

clipped at the edges of heavenly, hell-bent wings.

Happiness happens to haplessly, horribly bend;

disillusionment reigns in the disturbing

message it sends.

 

Love is a many splintered thing;

I know this because of its terribly treacherous sting.

Happiness is its last, lingering defense;

I long for the freedom and call for

my recompense.

 

 

Reliving It

 

I thought I’d burned this bridge,

sealed the exposed pulp with stitches,

thought you were under it when it fell,

thought we’d been sectioned off,

you in your valleys and me in my mountaintops,

wrapped in my swaddling cloth, alive and well.

But the echoes ring torturous in these parts,

repeating those horrible words

that send arrows through hearts.

And they seem to be getting louder and bolder

and stepping out into the light;

I take aim and then see I’m

surrounded on every side.

I thought it was clear when you

thoroughly disappeared from my life,

that it never appeared I had wanted

to make you my wife;

but revisiting strain and reliving this pain,

seems destined to drive me insane,

the vacancy seems to apparently render you right.

 

 

Please Don’t Bleed On Me

 

I am not a sponge.

Please don’t open lips against my neck.

Please don’t say I am the one.

Please don’t give me things I can’t forget.

Please don’t bleed on me.

I cannot take such things.

Please allow me to save face.

Please don’t cut yourself open.

These carpets cannot absorb anymore;

whose benefit is this suicide for?

I am riddled already with disease.

Please don’t bleed on me.

I am not a sponge.

You lunge with sharpened fangs.

I am undone, and not ready

to accept your pangs.

Please don’t bleed on me.

I am not equipped to cope with suffering.

Oh, don’t call—I am not a hotline;

don’t give me this suicide.

Please don’t bleed on me.

 

 

Seemed Worse At The Time

 

Used to be you could dig your fingers

into my forearms and I would not let you fall.

But now months have passed without word

—you do not call.

 

And I am fine with the idea that

she I’d have given my life for has died.

Things are not the same as

they were when I loved you;

coldness like this seemed

so much worse at the time.

 

Daydreams cannot recapture the

simple ecstasy sipped off the top of you.

Wading through your words, I skim the

top layer of skin, and verse filters through.

 

And I am alright with the realization

that love puts an end to every rhyme.

Sadness over you is not so tragic;

everything seemed so much worse at the time.

 

 

You Didn’t Destroy Me

 

Don’t worry about the stains on the carpet;

I’ve scrubbed and scrubbed

and now they look like art.

You needn’t collect the left over pieces

scattered over railroad tracks with false starts.

 

You perch on a wall

with tears in your eyes,

and think of the minced meat

you made of my pride.

I shake up the potion

and knock back a drink,

and smile with compassion

at how you still think.

 

You didn’t destroy me—what more can I say?

I’m glad that we faltered and ended this way.

 

You linger on words I no longer express;

I’ve buried the wreckage and bundled the mess.

I still love you, but from farther away.

 

You didn’t destroy me—now are you dismayed?

I’m happy to know that you’re doing okay.

You didn’t destroy me—well, what can you do?

You didn’t destroy me the way I did you.

 

 

Feeling Good Ain’t So Bad

 

Feeling good has got a bad rap;

I was broken for so long I finally snapped.

You sink into your heroine and sex;

I grin as though I never was perplexed.

So what’s wrong with merely

watching you kill yourself?

What’s wrong with this stability and health?

I was a savior who couldn’t find a cross;

you crumpled in and counted all for loss.

Now I realize you were never mine to save,

so I’m leaving you dismembered and dismayed.

 

And feeling good ain’t so bad;

I’m finally over all the guilt I had.

I no longer die for sins that weren’t mine,

and I finally mean it when I say I’m fine.

Feeling good ain’t so bad;

I wasn’t more an artist being sad.

I do not regret that I’m no longer ill;

there are no more hints of bitterness instilled.

It ain’t so bad.

 

 

A Change In Scenery

 

On a staircase in your path,

you step over me to get to the bath.

I sing a song and lean into the wall;

you step awkwardly through the hall.

I know I don’t belong here,

so why did you invite me?

I guess for just a change in scenery.

 

Musicians swim in like squid;

you are the superego to my active id.

We cannot reach conversation

through the depth of admiration;

in frustration I ration you to kids.

I feel the very tension in

acknowledging you freely;

what we need’s a change in scenery.

 

I live a whole screenplay in my mind,

with a favorite part I always still rewind;

the part where we were stagnant in debris,

then rescued by a change in scenery.

 

 

God Knows I Could Use You Now

 

I’m told God must have a plan for my life,

I’m told that he knows just what I need in a wife.

Well, if you’re somewhere where you can

hear me, step out from the crowd;

God knows, I could use you now.

 

Another human love has failed,

I hardly feel free to believe my heart will repair.

But God is faithful and true,

and he’s fashioning you to be found;

God knows, I could use you now.

 

With tears still on blurred eyelids I pray

that he hears our hearts

and encourages us to be brave.

I need you, I do, and I’m ready to find out how;

God knows, I could use you now.

 

 

Without Rafters

 

You are the scaffolding I dive

headlong into a quarry from,

you are the barrier I ram my

head into when I go numb.

I am without rafters

without platforms.

I am without a doubt without

you running outside my door.

I have no crutch and

nothing to lean on.

I stagger through the darkness

to the rattle of your tail.

I am pierced by your sounds.

I am pierced by your sounds.

You grow plump on my fat.

I am without rafters.

You shake your rattler.

 

 

Don’t Let Me Live This Tragedy

 

Not for all my sullen tendencies.

Not for all Solomon’s words.

Not for autumn or solemnity.

Not for living life unstirred.

 

Don’t let me live this tragedy.

Don’t let me know this grief.

Don’t unleash such uncertainty.

Don’t disease my belief.

 

All I need is your potency.

All I need is your somber tone.

All I require is your entirety.

I cannot make it through this alone.

 

Don’t let me live this tragedy.

Don’t let me stand here and bleed.

Come and relieve me with your mastery.

Come in and set me free.

Don’t let me live this tragedy.

Don’t make me breathe without you.

 

 

The Girl Beside Me

 

In a hotel lobby three sizes larger than Endor,

a Disney World plantation flumes,

still mouth as dry as handfuls of Sahara,

echoes of singing off the marble window sill.

 

And the girl, the girl here beside me

spreads her roots into a concrete wall;

the fountain shoots with passion endlessly,

a draft drifts over glasses from the hall.

 

The girl beside me isn’t who I thought she’d be,

as for all I know you pour across the floor.

The girl beside me crumples like a padded coat;

I find myself not feeling anymore.

 

And it turns out life is not quite what I thought,

when the waters ripple softly and discreet.

The girl inside is everywhere you’re not,

tarnish worn to treasure underneath.

 

 

The Beautiful Things

 

A sunny day, wind and sand and play;

Spring Break, the ball and chain

a million miles away.

Seven hours with two girls in a car;

and no one, no, no one knows where we are.

 

It’s the beautiful things in life such as today

which put to rest those things I had to say.

It’s these beautiful, fleeting moments

that stay with us to our death beds,

and I almost, I almost threw it all away.

 

Oceanside, beachfront patio hotel,

high tide, the job behind and left to hell.

Seagulls give expression to things I’ve often felt,

as I lie there in the sun and start to melt.

 

It’s the beautiful things in life such as right now;

it’s the moment these two creatures have allowed.

It’s the presence of proximity some lazy afternoon,

when I’m proud to keep the company I do.

 

It’s the beautiful things in life such as these girls,

who share with me the beauty of the world.

It’s this wonderful, lovely feeling that

our friendships are in jeopardy,

and we could be catastrophe unfurled.

 

 

Oh… Drat!

 

What are you doing here?

I thought you were staying home.

Your eyes send knives, piercing my head,

since I have not come here alone.

Don’t call me later, crying;

I was not exactly lying—

I can’t be held responsible for your heart.

It’s not the way it looks, my friend,

but I will never hear the end, I’m sure—

or even worse, perhaps I will.

 

 

Make Them About Me

 

Memory fails, I can’t

remember how long it has been,

since you pulled me aside—

in my stomach a butterfly swam.

I sit in a corner while you

sing a chorus from stage.

I close my smiling eyes and you turn away.

And there’s light and there’re people,

but I see a whole other side.

I think of a time when your words

were so much more alive.

 

Make them about me, these

songs that you sing without names.

Make them about me; make

me a hero in every play.

Make them about me; let me

breathe to your heart a new tune.

Make them about me; we are

the only two souls in the room.

 

There’s a mischievous tone in your

voice as you practice your laugh;

there’s so much to say, but

you’ll only admit to a half.

I sit close to a girl as the

curtains close on your face;

applause subsides as you

watch us leaving the place.

 

Make them about me, these

poems you scratch while at home.

Make them about me, as you

dwell on their meanings alone.

Make them about me; make me

immortal with one of your sighs.

Make them about me; sing to me

privately your lullabies.

 

 

Cannot Go Untouched

 

In this world, the plans I made to stay away;

in this girl, the plans I gave to stay awake.

 

You cannot go untouched by a hand.

You cannot go untouched as a man.

 

In this precious distraction from pain,

in this moment when I buckle under strain.

 

You cannot go untouched in this world.

You cannot go untouched by a girl.

 

 

If I Haven’t Left By Now….

 

Did you think that I would say,

“God, how awful!”?

Did you think that I’d just pack

it up and leave you in decline.

Did you think you found the only

way that I could learn to hate you?

Did you think I could give up

your hand before you give up mine?

 

Well, you couldn’t be more wrong

to think the miscreants are innocent.

You couldn’t stray much further

selling Jesus door to door, or using

as a table leg a prosthetic implement’,

you cannot dig up anything

that I could leave you for.

So don’t try… you’re being absurd.

 

 

Sappy Ever After

 

And we will live a sappy ever after,

and children will shake their heads in disgust,

and we will live our lives in open hearted laughter,

forgetting how such pretty things can rust.

 

And we will live a sappy ever after,

in the fairy tales robbed over time,

and they will think us incredibly disastrous,

and we will maintain that love is blind.

 

 

In The Garden

 

In the garden, I was spying on you,

through the leaves of the trees

where the breezes drew your hair

like a curtain across your face.

 

In the garden, I was lying with you,

in the passes where the grasses

drew the masses to march

with intent in centuries to come.

 

In the garden, the fruit is fair,

we are a pair, and we can very much

touch each others’ bare skin;

 

then we drown, then we drown,

going down, we drown, in the garden

with one hand on your cheek.

 

 

At The Outset

 

With the sun high and village to the east,

we set out across the open land

with cameras and canteens,

in the day sky and a rusted out Capri,

stirring dust at every mile mark

and telling childhood stories.

 

Packed to our hilts with ideals and goodwill,

our laughter swam laps forth

and back from each hill.

With no notion of what we would find,

we looked back one final time.

 

Unraveling, further from underway,

stretching stranger than familiar

over scenery of change,

still traveling out of time and out of place,

setting flags at every mountaintop

and tracks in every valley.

 

Filled to our rims with our passions to live,

our shirts wet with sunshine and slightest of winds,

with no notion of what we would find,

the road took another wind.

 

 

Draw Me Out

 

Small scars—you look upon the stars,

and there are no blistering heights.

Cold, dark… you reach with open arms,

and pray for calm amidst these turbulent nights.

 

Draw me out—don’t hold it in,

in these treacherous bouts in this metropolis of sin

where the wicked feed on the pure.

Draw me out—stuck with your pins,

like a voodoo figurine being played like a violin;

use me, that’s what I’m here for.

 

Draw me out—let it begin;

you must release your heart to freedom

from the bondage deep within.

I have the medicine here in my kiss.

Draw me out—move like the wind;

you are the hare wearing the jacket

and I am the terrapin.

I’m overtaking you; do you understand this?

 

 

It’s A Start

 

What we do, we know

that we cannot call it that.

What we do, we know

that we can never take it back.

 

It’s a start,

it’s a pattern beginning

to healthfully unfold.

It’s a step in the right direction

away from turning cold.

 

What we hope is that all of

this will eventually unhinge.

What we feel is the spark of healing

that begins with this twinge.

 

It’s a start,

it’s a temporal solution

to set things right.

It’s a hearkening notion

devotion will descend in time.

 

 

Not A Dime & Not A Care

 

It must be a peace that passes understanding

when the checkbook’s bottom line is understood.

By this time next week I could be living

on a train track or underneath a bridge

or just a hermit in the woods.

The companies are filling up

my voicemail, which I can’t check

because the phones shut off last month.

I’ve been stumbling in the dark to

scrounge for pennies for a meal, because

my stomach’s cramping up without a lunch.

 

Not a dime and not a care;

you’d think I’d worry, but I don’t.

My empty pocket lining begs to

beg for handouts, but I won’t.

‘Cause there’s a peace about the whole

thing as my car breaks down again,

and I am stranded in the poverty

of trusting loving hands.

Not a dime and not a care;

let the bills take care of themselves.

 

Oh, the wife just balanced numbers

off the teardrops on her face,

because the whole of our estate

has been entirely erased.

Another month like this, we’ll

have to procreate to sell the kids;

this debtors’ prison added wings

to swoop on down and take us in.

The plans of fixing up the house

will have to burn to keep us warm,

then the ash will be the stuffing

in our tattered coats all torn.

If I’d a nickel for each time I

couldn’t buy change for a buck,

I’d count myself the among the

poorest of the down-and-out-of-luck.

Not a dime and not a care;

let the bills take care of themselves.

 

 

Lore

 

I never thought I.

I never thought you.

I never bought ideas.

I forgot you.

 

But there you are in plainclothes and black wrap,

sitting there all thoughtful over mishaps.

I forgot to believe that you could be real.

It never occurred to me that you could feel.

You were just a sketch in a journal I’d finished.

I never thought you could

come back once diminished.

 

I never believed the lore.

I never believed the lore.

 

 

Giving Me Grief

 

I saw you outside after the shop

closed down, one link in a circular chain.

My wife just dropped me by to

pick the car up from the auto shop,

and follow to make sure she stayed awake.

My brother said you missed me and I quietly

conceded, then closed myself off in the den;

there are bills to pay,

and that’s the way I lie awake thinking,

now that everything has changed since then.

It was unfair of you to show up

at exactly this moment, when you know

it has been exactly one year.

I cannot say the things I used to say

or feel the way I used to feel about you

that I’m sure you want to hear.

The other day I sat outside and wrote a string

of poetry, completely unrelated, with your pen;

I get more use from it

than ever from your heart—I know it’s tragic,

now that everything has changed since then.

 

 

Bless That Girl

 

Words are emotional again,

having grown tired of silence.

Time left nothing to show, save an

empty man with awkward memories.

 

Bless that girl—she has a name.

Bless that girl—but I don’t know her face.

 

Everything is meaningless again,

and I daresay I am back among my peers,

and my time in place is marked

with an excess dosage of rage.

 

Bless that girl—I can’t complain.

Bless that girl—before she meets her fate.

 

With the dulling brought about by

compromise, there rise rivers in my eyes,

now everything is blurred, and fear

is introduced to earth anew, and takes an

instant liking to your breed of torrential display,

and takes it home to end the day unclothed.

 

Words are intentional again,

and you wonder what my cautions meant,

stress over quizzical depth when I

punctuate tempura with my breath.

 

Bless that girl—it’s all the same.

Bless that girl—her captor lies in wait.

Bless that girl.

Bless that girl.

 

 

Easy On The Eyes

 

I’m a chameleon, surroundings having changed;

I learned to smile under astonishing constraints.

In recesses of impressions in the dark,

these precious temptations leave their mark.

 

Take it easy, easy on the eyes.

Have mercy—don’t shine so bright,

your reflection burned in my mind.

Have mercy—don’t be so unkind.

 

I’m a comedian when misfortune befalls;

you are a catalyst prompting fists against the walls.

In the silence of resounding shrieks of joy,

your vibrancy leaves me utterly destroyed.

 

Take it easy, easy on the eyes.

Have mercy—don’t shine so bright,

your reflection rendering me blind.

Have mercy—don’t be so unkind.

 

You are my destiny, the fates having been called

from the heavens at the foothills of the gods,

where the myth of your virginity unfolds;

I lock down my open mouth onto your shoulder.

In the shadow of the valley of your breasts,

I pour down with the echo of your breath.

 

Take it easy, easy on the eyes.

Have mercy—don’t shine so bright,

your reflection like scars in my mind.

Have mercy—don’t be so unkind.

 

 

Don’t Stand There

 

As I hug you now in autumn,

that summer has gone to a place

where only your memory lives on,

as your toes retouch the concrete

and sweeping arms free,

I nearly can remember

all the world you were to me.

 

Don’t stand there, looking so like you;

it flashes back the sentiments I knew.

Don’t just sway there, swinging side to side;

it takes me back to when we were alive.

 

As you smoke the lost impressions

and inhale a new veneer,

I hold you at discretion’s length,

invoke you to appear,

all the while embracing

for a clamor of thoughts;

I loved you with a loneliness

I never quite got.

 

Don’t stand there looking so improved;

it makes it hard to be this far removed.

Don’t just sway there, swinging side to side;

it takes me back before reactions died.

 

 

Little One, Upward & Open

 

Little one, how I’m longing to

find my way to where you’ve gone.

This world is such an empty place without

your face making it possible to carry on.

Little one, we are suffocating ourselves down here,

when we beat our brows and think of how it

used to be when we were not drowning in

so many tears.

 

Little one, you are the lucky one

to not know how much your missed,

as we down here remember your last kiss.

 

Little one, all our skies have grown heavier,

about to pour, and flowers do not bloom so bright,

and stars do not come out at night quite the same

way they did when they were yours.

And nothing is quite so beautiful anymore,

when thinking of the way you would hold

your arms upward and open, so self-assured.

 

And little one, you are the lucky one

to not know how much you’re missed,

as we down here remember your last kiss.

 

 

© 2003 by Ryan Christian Hedegard