9.24.2005
this will be my first poem to appear in anything other than my hand-made little booklets or heart-felt greeting cards. it was composed in a haphazard fury, with hardly thought or revision, but somehow... it meant something to me. it captured something that was capable of moving me (something that doesn't happen often anymore).
Let Go (The Human Condition Can Be Summed Up In Two Words:)
Ryan David W.
“explain to me the universe,”
she said, with lemonade in her hand,
and a hurt in her eyes like the Marianas Strait,
“and why,” she followed, “goodness and rightness
are just scattered, flowing blemishes
on the face of all this evil.”
i searched the linoleum tile
as comets completed their cycles.
i examined the backs of my eyelids
while the matter that composed them decayed.
i offered a plea that she thought was meant for her:
“Father, forgive me, i don’t know what i’m doing.”
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
to witness the gentle winding
(like vines, like ribbon, like wire)
of our two lives
into one cord holding fast-
one beautiful bow-
a steel spire stretching up-
was the deepest life
i have known.
to know the gradual unwinding
(the bend, the seperation and spinning apart)
of our tender thread-
the catch, the fray, the tear-
the slipping of the tether-
our tower’s shudder and collapse-
is the deepest death
i have felt.
storm (within, without)
1
no phrases or pictures
could transfer or transcend
the emotion of this storm,
of this rain, of this rage.
an open window--
no bottomless sleep
or infinite stumble
could wake me up from or walk me
out of this desperation.
an open window--
for breaking through or peering in,
but not for climbing out.
2
ceaseless rain,
show me constancy.
darkened sky,
grant me hope.
drifting clouds,
prove me stable.
rolling thunder,
teach me love.
“The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
- John 12:25
i’ve said it for a while now. the human condition can be summed up in two words: let go. but what shall i release myself into?
do i trust the cold machine of the human race? do i admit myself to after all be an automaton and a by-product of this vast apparatus?
act and react.
live and relive.
move and remove.
i care too much. i tried to love my family, but ended up only needing them like a cripple needs pegs and props. i tried to care for someone, and found myself merely and endlessly infatuated. attached. i tried to give myself wholly and genuinely to my friends, but ended up the same as a crack addict or dope fiend. i inhaled them.
the only way to survive in this world is to become as cold and as hard (they call it "objectivity" and "individuality") as a lead bullet carrying out the death sentence or a genocide. i will rip you up.
i used to see a light and feel a pull--the bright weight of it was too much for my questions and emotions, my fear and hate. it dragged me up by the chest, out of the dark water. it sustained me. now shadows and thunder are all that i am. the only illumination is by lightning, the heat and speed of which i cannot approach. who says goodbye? who feels? who speaks? who cares? who cared? i used to.
who cares hurts.
now i spend my days walking in circles,
waiting for appointments.
i am early for the first time in my life,
only because i am empty.
i wear holes and paths into the grass
and through my ugly carpet,
exposing the foul dirt and poor woodwork
that have lied hidden for ages.
likewise, my thoughts loop and circle,
grinding away at my reality,
exposing a raw heart and a fragile soul
that should have stayed buried.
i am homeless.
welcome home(less).
where shall i rest my head?
Jesus would have none of it.
i wanted to wander with him,
but he left me while i packed.
(is that not typical of him?)
all i want is security,
and Maslow would sympathize with me.
all i want is a home,
but home will have none of me.
Gender
i am
a man,
i think.
i think,
therefore
i am.
Theory of Composition (thanks to Mary for the inspiration)
you are every work of art,
every fine sculpture and masterpiece.
your hands are the works
of a far greater master than Raphael.
your left thumb exceeds the L’Ouvre
by it’s grace and intrigue,
and your smile makes a fool
of the coy and childish Mona Lisa.
the smallest, surprising detail
and the grandest artist’s theme--
the accomplishments recorded
in every art history book--
are contained and surpassed
within your mild earthly frame.
this is an old verse from an old me--from a much happier and care-free time. i'm using it to try to remind myself that cruelty and apathy are not the only ways to stay alive.
love has no
if or also
(you can drown
in because
for all i care)
if ever i love,
i just do.
i do.
9.08.2005
Let Go (The Human Condition Can Be Summed Up In Two Words:)
Ryan David W.
“explain to me the universe,”
she said, with lemonade in her hand,
and a hurt in her eyes like the Marianas Strait,
“and why,” she followed, “goodness and rightness
are just scattered, flowing blemishes
on the face of all this evil.”
i searched the linoleum tile
as comets completed their cycles.
i examined the backs of my eyelids
while the matter that composed them decayed.
i offered a plea that she thought was meant for her:
“Father, forgive me, i don’t know what i’m doing.”
The Second Law of Thermodynamics
to witness the gentle winding
(like vines, like ribbon, like wire)
of our two lives
into one cord holding fast-
one beautiful bow-
a steel spire stretching up-
was the deepest life
i have known.
to know the gradual unwinding
(the bend, the seperation and spinning apart)
of our tender thread-
the catch, the fray, the tear-
the slipping of the tether-
our tower’s shudder and collapse-
is the deepest death
i have felt.
storm (within, without)
1
no phrases or pictures
could transfer or transcend
the emotion of this storm,
of this rain, of this rage.
an open window--
no bottomless sleep
or infinite stumble
could wake me up from or walk me
out of this desperation.
an open window--
for breaking through or peering in,
but not for climbing out.
2
ceaseless rain,
show me constancy.
darkened sky,
grant me hope.
drifting clouds,
prove me stable.
rolling thunder,
teach me love.
“The one who loves his life will lose it, and the one who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
- John 12:25
i’ve said it for a while now. the human condition can be summed up in two words: let go. but what shall i release myself into?
do i trust the cold machine of the human race? do i admit myself to after all be an automaton and a by-product of this vast apparatus?
act and react.
live and relive.
move and remove.
i care too much. i tried to love my family, but ended up only needing them like a cripple needs pegs and props. i tried to care for someone, and found myself merely and endlessly infatuated. attached. i tried to give myself wholly and genuinely to my friends, but ended up the same as a crack addict or dope fiend. i inhaled them.
the only way to survive in this world is to become as cold and as hard (they call it "objectivity" and "individuality") as a lead bullet carrying out the death sentence or a genocide. i will rip you up.
i used to see a light and feel a pull--the bright weight of it was too much for my questions and emotions, my fear and hate. it dragged me up by the chest, out of the dark water. it sustained me. now shadows and thunder are all that i am. the only illumination is by lightning, the heat and speed of which i cannot approach. who says goodbye? who feels? who speaks? who cares? who cared? i used to.
who cares hurts.
now i spend my days walking in circles,
waiting for appointments.
i am early for the first time in my life,
only because i am empty.
i wear holes and paths into the grass
and through my ugly carpet,
exposing the foul dirt and poor woodwork
that have lied hidden for ages.
likewise, my thoughts loop and circle,
grinding away at my reality,
exposing a raw heart and a fragile soul
that should have stayed buried.
i am homeless.
welcome home(less).
where shall i rest my head?
Jesus would have none of it.
i wanted to wander with him,
but he left me while i packed.
(is that not typical of him?)
all i want is security,
and Maslow would sympathize with me.
all i want is a home,
but home will have none of me.
Gender
i am
a man,
i think.
i think,
therefore
i am.
Theory of Composition (thanks to Mary for the inspiration)
you are every work of art,
every fine sculpture and masterpiece.
your hands are the works
of a far greater master than Raphael.
your left thumb exceeds the L’Ouvre
by it’s grace and intrigue,
and your smile makes a fool
of the coy and childish Mona Lisa.
the smallest, surprising detail
and the grandest artist’s theme--
the accomplishments recorded
in every art history book--
are contained and surpassed
within your mild earthly frame.
this is an old verse from an old me--from a much happier and care-free time. i'm using it to try to remind myself that cruelty and apathy are not the only ways to stay alive.
love has no
if or also
(you can drown
in because
for all i care)
if ever i love,
i just do.
i do.
the liturgies that i speak
down in the darkest corners of my skeleton
are superficial superstitions,
and that is all.
i have not believed in God
for 8 weeks now,
but i am just now noticing that.
worse still, He has yet to notice.
i lost my faith in a gas station cooler
(behind the root beer and Coca Cola).
i cried for a moment,
before moving on to the milk and water.
days later (after all of this), i shall read a book.
sometimes that helps.
my illness is
loneliness.
pure loneliness, darling.
there’s a difference between
being an individual
and having no one.
the difference is a bottle
and a half of muscle relaxants
or off-brand painkillers.
now that’s what i call real medicine.
friendship is just a placebo--
hollow, water-filled capsules
that ease your mind
and let the rot rot.
overdose of camaraderie!
(it’s what i take,
and what do i get?)
a stammer like a drunkard’s,
a brain like a toddler’s,
a heart like a rapist’s,
a life like a corpse
with social anxiety disorder.
most of all,
just loneliness.
Humanitarian
i’m changing lives day by day.
i slip them on and off,
i seep them in and out
(like underwear or engine oil).
she is one hundred miles away.
watch the shift of my position
as i pack bedsheets into boxes.
my polarity reverses its pull
and drag with every clean shelf.
she is one hundred miles away.
i’m sticking with my past life.
no, it is sticking to me.
i thought about change,
but could ponder only this:
she is one hundred miles away.
clock out,
and begin the process
of waking from a long
and thirsty dream.
8 hours to be exact.
some truckers are suicidal.
i swept the floor
like it was a desert.
construction workers
think i’m worthless.
a dozen jelly rolls
follow me out the door,
across the lot,
into the car,
under the overpass,
down the interstate,
away.
inverse countdown
now,
in leaving,
can i appreciate anything?
two weeks to revisit two decades.
living is a filled plate, a generous portion,
but to speak the praise of every taste is what i crave.
my departure is a vomit. i’m leaving all behind, retaining the flavor,
but gaining nothing.
he took the French doors, so to speak. one door opened on the day of his birth, and shut like a guillotine when he first felt guilt. lost in a green parlor for decades, until at last in the shadow his fingers find the doorknob of his death. it is locked.
then, with the rushing wind of eternity, both doors swing wide, his beginning and his end. his entrance unlocks as well as his escape, and his spirit, rising on the breath of this wind, bursts forth into the gardens of paradise, unrestrained, endless, redeemed.
freestyled improv from 8/24/05
my life’s made up
of trilogies.
victories and wretched trips,
bound in sets of threes.
three denialsss
(rather Peteresssque),
and a chopped off earlobe
that dropped to the grass--
another mess for him to fix.
you know, i’m always making
messes like that.
perhaps you’d be surprised
that every time
he takes me aside
and whispers softly,
“for this, my son,
i died.”
oh, the very next day:
three resurrections,
wrapped in bandages
(but i mean no mummy!).
you still have to wonder,
when he peels back the gauze
and yanks down
through the plaster:
i know the manner
of his death
(oh, i loved the hammer),
but how was his blood
exchanged for mine?
loneliness is a cold room, baby
people take me,
affections, desires,
time and inner strength,
and spend me on cheap trinkets
to adorn their wrists.
i gave myself to you,
to all, as a broken toy
or a shallow cure,
to distract or heal
your loneliness.
in return i earn
distance and silence.
i charge no interest,
only my own heart-break.
but fear not, i have
a bed to hold me
as i comfort myself,
as tears part down
the left side and
the right side of my face
like gentle streams,
as i mourn the hollow cavity
where used to lay my heart,
before it was consumed
like a small chocolate candy
by those whom i adore.
some would say it,
and i do feel it--
i am a loan.
so distinct is the last night of childhood,
like watching a trainwreck with my elbows
on the rail crossing or witnessing a grandfather’s
last blink with his head resting in my hands.
anxious, impatient, waiting for months,
only to find that the last moments freeze
into solid icy snapshots and pass through me
like knitting needles through fine satin.
i curled up in the same bed i’ve always had
and felt the waves of sleep and change creep
over my knees and wrists and finally over my eyes.
i will wake up a new man and leave forever.
i will have the same fears and aspirations.
i will desire the same selfish, hopeless things.
can we change anything besides our surroundings?
i will wake up tommorow and leave forever.
i have this terminal illness,
identified and diagnosed
as i lay in bed watching
seconds cycling by one at a time.
the symptoms are a heartbeat
and pulsing brain cells.
my body is a tumor.
it grows and expands
with every dividing cell,
with every growing muscle,
with the stretching skin
and sprouting hair and fingernails.
the disease rushes in and out
of me with every breath.
every completion of waking and sleeping
carries me one day closer
to the grave i’ll be keeping.
this life shall be my death,
and i spread it to you as i touch your mouth with mine.
whoever said "i wish i could go back and change the past" needs to realize that they've already gone back and changed everything. they changed their past as soon as they thought of it, because (i am sorry, dear) our memories are as pure as shit.
whoever said "i wish i could travel to the future" needs to realize they're on their way right now, and they can change their future as easily as they've changed their past. all it takes is one action: a decision.
the only place we cannot touch or change is right here and right now--the unbearable emotions, incomprehensible states, the depth and width of a world to which we do not belong. we are incapable of altering the untouchable present that beats us down and drags us out the door into tommorow.
i am a sizeable solar system,
with driting sentiments
and spinning convictions.
the regular cycles
of my days and nights
do have a center.
the awkward egg
ellipses of my reality
have a still core.
you may wish it not
(and so may i),
but you are the sun.
what i am rotates about
and is centered upon
you and your glow.
if your light ceases,
if your heat comes to an end,
than so do i.
Backseat to Saugatuck (losing the world as i go)
sunset is the world
turned on its side,
when my shadow runs
along walls and telephone poles
instead of the ground.
my feet no longer
carry me along
horizontal planes,
but drag me upwards
and lure me downwards,
my spirit traversing
from heaven to hell
and back again.
the sky is red,
and is snuffed out
with a gasp
as the sun passes
behind the world,
away from me.
it flickers out
like a desperate candle,
and with it goes
the light of my soul.
Numbers are Numb-ers
shifting through page after page
of pie charts and line graphs
(each shape representing small bundles of people)
is like overdosing on novacaine
on your wedding day, the day of your first kiss.
my father turned on the television
like an over-sized microwave oven,
displaying images of bloody children over an appealing bed
of arena rock anthems.
these pictures circled in our view like TV dinners.
statistics are no substitute
for what we once called “conscience”
(conscience being that hunger for divine perfection
which we anaesthesize with our every
slanted percentage, heartless analysis, and insincere dogma).
8.26.2005
down in the darkest corners of my skeleton
are superficial superstitions,
and that is all.
i have not believed in God
for 8 weeks now,
but i am just now noticing that.
worse still, He has yet to notice.
i lost my faith in a gas station cooler
(behind the root beer and Coca Cola).
i cried for a moment,
before moving on to the milk and water.
days later (after all of this), i shall read a book.
sometimes that helps.
my illness is
loneliness.
pure loneliness, darling.
there’s a difference between
being an individual
and having no one.
the difference is a bottle
and a half of muscle relaxants
or off-brand painkillers.
now that’s what i call real medicine.
friendship is just a placebo--
hollow, water-filled capsules
that ease your mind
and let the rot rot.
overdose of camaraderie!
(it’s what i take,
and what do i get?)
a stammer like a drunkard’s,
a brain like a toddler’s,
a heart like a rapist’s,
a life like a corpse
with social anxiety disorder.
most of all,
just loneliness.
Humanitarian
i’m changing lives day by day.
i slip them on and off,
i seep them in and out
(like underwear or engine oil).
she is one hundred miles away.
watch the shift of my position
as i pack bedsheets into boxes.
my polarity reverses its pull
and drag with every clean shelf.
she is one hundred miles away.
i’m sticking with my past life.
no, it is sticking to me.
i thought about change,
but could ponder only this:
she is one hundred miles away.
clock out,
and begin the process
of waking from a long
and thirsty dream.
8 hours to be exact.
some truckers are suicidal.
i swept the floor
like it was a desert.
construction workers
think i’m worthless.
a dozen jelly rolls
follow me out the door,
across the lot,
into the car,
under the overpass,
down the interstate,
away.
inverse countdown
now,
in leaving,
can i appreciate anything?
two weeks to revisit two decades.
living is a filled plate, a generous portion,
but to speak the praise of every taste is what i crave.
my departure is a vomit. i’m leaving all behind, retaining the flavor,
but gaining nothing.
he took the French doors, so to speak. one door opened on the day of his birth, and shut like a guillotine when he first felt guilt. lost in a green parlor for decades, until at last in the shadow his fingers find the doorknob of his death. it is locked.
then, with the rushing wind of eternity, both doors swing wide, his beginning and his end. his entrance unlocks as well as his escape, and his spirit, rising on the breath of this wind, bursts forth into the gardens of paradise, unrestrained, endless, redeemed.
freestyled improv from 8/24/05
my life’s made up
of trilogies.
victories and wretched trips,
bound in sets of threes.
three denialsss
(rather Peteresssque),
and a chopped off earlobe
that dropped to the grass--
another mess for him to fix.
you know, i’m always making
messes like that.
perhaps you’d be surprised
that every time
he takes me aside
and whispers softly,
“for this, my son,
i died.”
oh, the very next day:
three resurrections,
wrapped in bandages
(but i mean no mummy!).
you still have to wonder,
when he peels back the gauze
and yanks down
through the plaster:
i know the manner
of his death
(oh, i loved the hammer),
but how was his blood
exchanged for mine?
loneliness is a cold room, baby
people take me,
affections, desires,
time and inner strength,
and spend me on cheap trinkets
to adorn their wrists.
i gave myself to you,
to all, as a broken toy
or a shallow cure,
to distract or heal
your loneliness.
in return i earn
distance and silence.
i charge no interest,
only my own heart-break.
but fear not, i have
a bed to hold me
as i comfort myself,
as tears part down
the left side and
the right side of my face
like gentle streams,
as i mourn the hollow cavity
where used to lay my heart,
before it was consumed
like a small chocolate candy
by those whom i adore.
some would say it,
and i do feel it--
i am a loan.
so distinct is the last night of childhood,
like watching a trainwreck with my elbows
on the rail crossing or witnessing a grandfather’s
last blink with his head resting in my hands.
anxious, impatient, waiting for months,
only to find that the last moments freeze
into solid icy snapshots and pass through me
like knitting needles through fine satin.
i curled up in the same bed i’ve always had
and felt the waves of sleep and change creep
over my knees and wrists and finally over my eyes.
i will wake up a new man and leave forever.
i will have the same fears and aspirations.
i will desire the same selfish, hopeless things.
can we change anything besides our surroundings?
i will wake up tommorow and leave forever.
i have this terminal illness,
identified and diagnosed
as i lay in bed watching
seconds cycling by one at a time.
the symptoms are a heartbeat
and pulsing brain cells.
my body is a tumor.
it grows and expands
with every dividing cell,
with every growing muscle,
with the stretching skin
and sprouting hair and fingernails.
the disease rushes in and out
of me with every breath.
every completion of waking and sleeping
carries me one day closer
to the grave i’ll be keeping.
this life shall be my death,
and i spread it to you as i touch your mouth with mine.
whoever said "i wish i could go back and change the past" needs to realize that they've already gone back and changed everything. they changed their past as soon as they thought of it, because (i am sorry, dear) our memories are as pure as shit.
whoever said "i wish i could travel to the future" needs to realize they're on their way right now, and they can change their future as easily as they've changed their past. all it takes is one action: a decision.
the only place we cannot touch or change is right here and right now--the unbearable emotions, incomprehensible states, the depth and width of a world to which we do not belong. we are incapable of altering the untouchable present that beats us down and drags us out the door into tommorow.
i am a sizeable solar system,
with driting sentiments
and spinning convictions.
the regular cycles
of my days and nights
do have a center.
the awkward egg
ellipses of my reality
have a still core.
you may wish it not
(and so may i),
but you are the sun.
what i am rotates about
and is centered upon
you and your glow.
if your light ceases,
if your heat comes to an end,
than so do i.
Backseat to Saugatuck (losing the world as i go)
sunset is the world
turned on its side,
when my shadow runs
along walls and telephone poles
instead of the ground.
my feet no longer
carry me along
horizontal planes,
but drag me upwards
and lure me downwards,
my spirit traversing
from heaven to hell
and back again.
the sky is red,
and is snuffed out
with a gasp
as the sun passes
behind the world,
away from me.
it flickers out
like a desperate candle,
and with it goes
the light of my soul.
Numbers are Numb-ers
shifting through page after page
of pie charts and line graphs
(each shape representing small bundles of people)
is like overdosing on novacaine
on your wedding day, the day of your first kiss.
my father turned on the television
like an over-sized microwave oven,
displaying images of bloody children over an appealing bed
of arena rock anthems.
these pictures circled in our view like TV dinners.
statistics are no substitute
for what we once called “conscience”
(conscience being that hunger for divine perfection
which we anaesthesize with our every
slanted percentage, heartless analysis, and insincere dogma).
these are echoes from high-school hallways. i heard them at the bottom of a bookbag in my blazing heart Cosmogirl diary. the entries were dated from August 24 to January 28, except for the very last line, which was uttered after a legally-sanctioned high-school hallucinogen known as “prom.”
i fell into a pot of honey called sleep.
backstroke.
it hangs upon my lip as obscene jewelry.
how many goodbyes can one pair of arms sustain?
one more, always.
tossed your snake eyes
into my deepest pockets
and felt them jingle
as i walked along
the sidewalk in the city.
i pulled them out,
rolled them in an alley
against three small boys.
needless to say, i lost.
shotgun breezes blew him away.
smile for miles,
until you glide
off the edge
of this Earth
and discover what it means to forget.
fingernail clippings on the black market
a tulip auction...
gambling for moths.
clearance sale on unicorns and evergreen.
late-night tapioca trades at the pier, behind the CB.
bargains on cinnamon sticks.
bartering over barrels of eggnog.
drop all commodities and run.
i find no life in assembly lines.
you’re more work
than these arms
have had in years,
wrapping around you
like slender wires
and you crack them
like brittle vermicelli.
moldy, crumbling fingers.
everyone is just feigning morals.
all this world is one big laundromat.
don’t think and drive.
minus one sensory system.
a girl in the midst
of moldy, crumbling fingers.
compass-barren woman.
drink of empty fields
and stumble for her
into the night.
you have amazing eyes.
with permission,
i’ll carve them out
and hide them in my pockets
as i wander and travel,
toddle and stumble.
near midnight,
i’ll pull them out,
one on each palm,
and meet you all over again.
The Thief
those temple-chests,
wrapped in curtains and gold--
of whom he was a tabernacle,
wandering and lonely.
fire in the desert,
cloud in the sand,
leave hurricanes of glass
for him to follow upon.
40 years lifespan constructed
for one encounter
with a crowned criminal
and His fully-exposed glory.
The Nativity
did time and space waver
as the Son of Man
collapsed into this world?
did weaker stars melt
as his infant shrieks
pierced that barn?
the universe shifted
in a 5-foot epicenter,
those first waves of invasion
rolling outward.
redemption in a stable,
before a throne of straw,
and i must wonder:
will you let your heart be changed?
fine creases of light
“a man is not a fruit (that he may be eaten, and the core thrown away).”
glacial heart, cold and slow-moving
people were meant to be the two doors of a locket swinging shut.
Red Light, Green Light District
he could steal bodies with-
out ever entering a morgue.
no one is a vending machine,
no one is ever for sale.
he was a twinkie factory,
filling fluff with creme.
no one is a pastry.
men can be sewing machines--
they pierce every pure and lovely
cloth that slides beneath them.
you are fine cloth, my dear.
be stitched by hand,
by candlelight,
with a stronger thread than lust.
buoys will be buoys
8.15.2005
i fell into a pot of honey called sleep.
backstroke.
it hangs upon my lip as obscene jewelry.
how many goodbyes can one pair of arms sustain?
one more, always.
tossed your snake eyes
into my deepest pockets
and felt them jingle
as i walked along
the sidewalk in the city.
i pulled them out,
rolled them in an alley
against three small boys.
needless to say, i lost.
shotgun breezes blew him away.
smile for miles,
until you glide
off the edge
of this Earth
and discover what it means to forget.
fingernail clippings on the black market
a tulip auction...
gambling for moths.
clearance sale on unicorns and evergreen.
late-night tapioca trades at the pier, behind the CB.
bargains on cinnamon sticks.
bartering over barrels of eggnog.
drop all commodities and run.
i find no life in assembly lines.
you’re more work
than these arms
have had in years,
wrapping around you
like slender wires
and you crack them
like brittle vermicelli.
moldy, crumbling fingers.
everyone is just feigning morals.
all this world is one big laundromat.
don’t think and drive.
minus one sensory system.
a girl in the midst
of moldy, crumbling fingers.
compass-barren woman.
drink of empty fields
and stumble for her
into the night.
you have amazing eyes.
with permission,
i’ll carve them out
and hide them in my pockets
as i wander and travel,
toddle and stumble.
near midnight,
i’ll pull them out,
one on each palm,
and meet you all over again.
The Thief
those temple-chests,
wrapped in curtains and gold--
of whom he was a tabernacle,
wandering and lonely.
fire in the desert,
cloud in the sand,
leave hurricanes of glass
for him to follow upon.
40 years lifespan constructed
for one encounter
with a crowned criminal
and His fully-exposed glory.
The Nativity
did time and space waver
as the Son of Man
collapsed into this world?
did weaker stars melt
as his infant shrieks
pierced that barn?
the universe shifted
in a 5-foot epicenter,
those first waves of invasion
rolling outward.
redemption in a stable,
before a throne of straw,
and i must wonder:
will you let your heart be changed?
fine creases of light
“a man is not a fruit (that he may be eaten, and the core thrown away).”
glacial heart, cold and slow-moving
people were meant to be the two doors of a locket swinging shut.
Red Light, Green Light District
he could steal bodies with-
out ever entering a morgue.
no one is a vending machine,
no one is ever for sale.
he was a twinkie factory,
filling fluff with creme.
no one is a pastry.
men can be sewing machines--
they pierce every pure and lovely
cloth that slides beneath them.
you are fine cloth, my dear.
be stitched by hand,
by candlelight,
with a stronger thread than lust.
buoys will be buoys
disclaimer #1:
i lost my journal at DTS, thus i misplaced several months of writing, realizations, and personal growth. thus the below is a snippet of the past few weeks, and that is all. if you find my journal, let me know. it was small, square, pink, and ugly.
disclaimer #2:
privacy is for lunatics, hermits, and those who are alive.
the dying keep no secrets, for they do not need them.
Sonnet for the Fickle Muse
unnamed poem and unfindable insight,
please hear me plead from my stark white
page and faulty, dented, dried-out pens.
come to me with mystic salve
and remove from me this parasite.
i search the night for sacred lore
as a sailor for some shrouded shore.
words are gulls against the horizons
of every thought i have.
so tell me just once more
why every time i speak,
my tongue falls out my beak--
and every time i love,
my mouth declines to move.
Swinging on Mood Swings
2/25/2005 (Cinemas)
Time passed, and again his thoughts approached her, timidly as ever. He remembered sitting before her. Close to her, with a ribbon of hair accross her face as she smiled and her cheeks glowed and her eyes glistened. He remembered later the cool sift of her fingertips as they swept across the palm of his hand. They were like doves grazing the roof of a cave as they passed through it. But how did they mean anything at all? He wanted to see her again. He wanted to be close to her. Leaning in and feeling something like a dam break in his chest whenever she smiled. And yet he wondered why. He was always wondering why. Was it possible to create a ghost of feelings from the person he wanted to love? He told himself that feelings could not be trusted, and that feelings are not for real. What he needed was truth. Something solid that would never change. Still, though, all the feelings he had--for her, for all of his closest friends, for the wise and calm-voiced priest, for his unripened younger brother-- they were the reason he wanted to stay alive. The facts and truths and solid things in books and prayers provided an explanation for his bloodflow and a cause for his belief. But his feelings, oh like air that gives life to a body with none--they gave him the motivation to eat or bathe or to continue living. Though unstable and untrustworthy and often gloom-filled, they were also the source of his deepest inspirations. His feelings were meant to flow through him so fiercely. They connected him to other people just as rivers that pass from city to city, ancient, necessary, and life-giving. They were the blood that connected the organs and cells of truth and fear into a body of purpose and action. Every person, location, institution, and situation, was bound up with this thread of emotional existence, forming seams in a splended garment of hope. He took this bright cloth, freshly stitched, and fell asleep, thinking once more of her. Of the way her eyelids passed across her eyes when she blinked. They were like veils, like white clouds drifting across a full moon.
8/6/2005 (Carnivals)
assure forever in an instant,
and in an instant turn and question forever.
clutch at someone’s body as if
you could somehow take hold of their soul.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
yet there is no objectivity in emotion,
no distance or perspective to see by.
there is only the rise and fall, rise and fall,
and a cork with which to stay afloat.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
purple and green are all i see.
the violet wine that floods the cork
and the olive grass that grows
across my grave.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
(The Human Condition Can Be Summed Up In Two Words:) Let Go
“explain to me the universe,”
she said, with lemonade in her hand,
and a hurt in her eyes like the Marianas Strait,
“and why,” she followed, “goodness and rightness
are just scattered, flowing blemishes
on the face of all this evil.”
i searched the linoleum tile
as meteors completed their cycles.
i examined the backs of my eyelids
while the matter that composed them decayed.
i offered a plea that she thought was meant for her:
“Father, forgive me, i don’t know what i’m doing.”
it’s always cold on Sunday morning,
for the thoughts and dreams of Saturday night
are a cold, sharp and bitter cream.
if we are just fragments of genetic code,
or spatterings of chemical equations,
then why is it that we reach
for every minute, breath, and word
as if the next may never come?
Pleading in a Dark Campground
Father, strain this love i claim.
remove the egos, lusts, and stains.
repair the many wrongs that Thou dost find
in days and nights and mouths and minds.
Father, whom i should love most sweet,
i pray for her i often love too sweet.
restore the every instace we have sparred
and close the very trust we may have scarred.
Oh, I desire to be all enthralled with Thee,
but there is one that i may touch and see.
her steps a flight, her words a nest
that hold my wings and bid me rest.
i ask that Thou wouldst take us tender doves
and teach us both to live and die in love--
for Thee forever always first and last,
for each other if Thy will be passed.
Sonnet of Salt
this pillar of salt
(my flesh, my heart, my face)
stands in place.
this crime is my fault,
my soul cries this halt,
and my body knows this sin.
(“arise my child, and enter in.”)
my spirit dries to cobalt
at the arrival and awareness of my iniquities.
how statues must break to fall to their knees.
i am the salt of the earth,
gaining flavor from my Giver.
and with this salt will flow rebirth,
for i am no pillar, but a river.
Cellular Phone
15 minutes of silence.
47 seconds of total nothing.
i never wanted such things
to lie between us.
i always dreamt of tenderness,
of joy, of completion.
never this blazing fire of stillness
that blisters the flesh
of my stomach.
i strained my ears
to hear your breathing
(such vital signs as paramedics
scramble to detect),
but discerned only static and dead air.
i hope hard that this
awkward, slaughtering silence
is not a symptom of you
slowly dying to me.
4.24.2005
i lost my journal at DTS, thus i misplaced several months of writing, realizations, and personal growth. thus the below is a snippet of the past few weeks, and that is all. if you find my journal, let me know. it was small, square, pink, and ugly.
disclaimer #2:
privacy is for lunatics, hermits, and those who are alive.
the dying keep no secrets, for they do not need them.
Sonnet for the Fickle Muse
unnamed poem and unfindable insight,
please hear me plead from my stark white
page and faulty, dented, dried-out pens.
come to me with mystic salve
and remove from me this parasite.
i search the night for sacred lore
as a sailor for some shrouded shore.
words are gulls against the horizons
of every thought i have.
so tell me just once more
why every time i speak,
my tongue falls out my beak--
and every time i love,
my mouth declines to move.
Swinging on Mood Swings
2/25/2005 (Cinemas)
Time passed, and again his thoughts approached her, timidly as ever. He remembered sitting before her. Close to her, with a ribbon of hair accross her face as she smiled and her cheeks glowed and her eyes glistened. He remembered later the cool sift of her fingertips as they swept across the palm of his hand. They were like doves grazing the roof of a cave as they passed through it. But how did they mean anything at all? He wanted to see her again. He wanted to be close to her. Leaning in and feeling something like a dam break in his chest whenever she smiled. And yet he wondered why. He was always wondering why. Was it possible to create a ghost of feelings from the person he wanted to love? He told himself that feelings could not be trusted, and that feelings are not for real. What he needed was truth. Something solid that would never change. Still, though, all the feelings he had--for her, for all of his closest friends, for the wise and calm-voiced priest, for his unripened younger brother-- they were the reason he wanted to stay alive. The facts and truths and solid things in books and prayers provided an explanation for his bloodflow and a cause for his belief. But his feelings, oh like air that gives life to a body with none--they gave him the motivation to eat or bathe or to continue living. Though unstable and untrustworthy and often gloom-filled, they were also the source of his deepest inspirations. His feelings were meant to flow through him so fiercely. They connected him to other people just as rivers that pass from city to city, ancient, necessary, and life-giving. They were the blood that connected the organs and cells of truth and fear into a body of purpose and action. Every person, location, institution, and situation, was bound up with this thread of emotional existence, forming seams in a splended garment of hope. He took this bright cloth, freshly stitched, and fell asleep, thinking once more of her. Of the way her eyelids passed across her eyes when she blinked. They were like veils, like white clouds drifting across a full moon.
8/6/2005 (Carnivals)
assure forever in an instant,
and in an instant turn and question forever.
clutch at someone’s body as if
you could somehow take hold of their soul.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
yet there is no objectivity in emotion,
no distance or perspective to see by.
there is only the rise and fall, rise and fall,
and a cork with which to stay afloat.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
purple and green are all i see.
the violet wine that floods the cork
and the olive grass that grows
across my grave.
existence is emotional.
it is pure emotion.
(The Human Condition Can Be Summed Up In Two Words:) Let Go
“explain to me the universe,”
she said, with lemonade in her hand,
and a hurt in her eyes like the Marianas Strait,
“and why,” she followed, “goodness and rightness
are just scattered, flowing blemishes
on the face of all this evil.”
i searched the linoleum tile
as meteors completed their cycles.
i examined the backs of my eyelids
while the matter that composed them decayed.
i offered a plea that she thought was meant for her:
“Father, forgive me, i don’t know what i’m doing.”
it’s always cold on Sunday morning,
for the thoughts and dreams of Saturday night
are a cold, sharp and bitter cream.
if we are just fragments of genetic code,
or spatterings of chemical equations,
then why is it that we reach
for every minute, breath, and word
as if the next may never come?
Pleading in a Dark Campground
Father, strain this love i claim.
remove the egos, lusts, and stains.
repair the many wrongs that Thou dost find
in days and nights and mouths and minds.
Father, whom i should love most sweet,
i pray for her i often love too sweet.
restore the every instace we have sparred
and close the very trust we may have scarred.
Oh, I desire to be all enthralled with Thee,
but there is one that i may touch and see.
her steps a flight, her words a nest
that hold my wings and bid me rest.
i ask that Thou wouldst take us tender doves
and teach us both to live and die in love--
for Thee forever always first and last,
for each other if Thy will be passed.
Sonnet of Salt
this pillar of salt
(my flesh, my heart, my face)
stands in place.
this crime is my fault,
my soul cries this halt,
and my body knows this sin.
(“arise my child, and enter in.”)
my spirit dries to cobalt
at the arrival and awareness of my iniquities.
how statues must break to fall to their knees.
i am the salt of the earth,
gaining flavor from my Giver.
and with this salt will flow rebirth,
for i am no pillar, but a river.
Cellular Phone
15 minutes of silence.
47 seconds of total nothing.
i never wanted such things
to lie between us.
i always dreamt of tenderness,
of joy, of completion.
never this blazing fire of stillness
that blisters the flesh
of my stomach.
i strained my ears
to hear your breathing
(such vital signs as paramedics
scramble to detect),
but discerned only static and dead air.
i hope hard that this
awkward, slaughtering silence
is not a symptom of you
slowly dying to me.
“A voice is calling: clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God. Let every valley be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; and let the rough ground become a plain, and the rugged terrain a broad valley; then the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all flesh will see it together; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken." Isaiah 40:3-5
for so long, truth was based on the validity of a person’s argument. reason was our god, and we sacrificed logic at its altar. processions of debate passed by the temples of philosophy, each theorist bowing their head in reverence as they passed. we had found the pathway to God. it was in our minds all along.
but something changed. logic was cold and heartless. it had no life. and besides, facts are not as sturdy as we once thought. we excavated our hearts, in search for something else to guide us to God. instead of forming arguments, we began painting canvasses, composing symphonies, and writing poems. we cast down the idols of knowledge and reason, and crafted a golden ark to carry on four ebony poles. we would worship beauty, and carry its shape with us as we left the barren stone city of reason. multitudes passed through the rusted iron gates into a deep forest, wrapped in vivid cloths and dancing with the frenzy of change. beauty was our pathway to God-whatever had beauty, relevance, and the ability to inspire us became the path, the truth, that we followed. the sky, once grey and cold, warmed to a steady and endless sunrise. we have followed this road for some time now.
i hypothesize--no, i dream (for reason is outlawed now--we think only in wonderment and pictures)--as i lay on my back inside a scarlet canvas tent. argumentation and poetry have both led us to the same place: ourselves. we left the city for the woods, but our feet still tread the same soil surface. we tired of logic, but as we wander down this path of subjective charms, i begin to doubt. just how long can this last?
Contemplation on Travel
people are disoriented by consistency.
every once in a while, they hope to
solve their riddles and plug their doubts
by hopping in a car and driving.
hence vacations.
it’s like they think they can put distance
between them and themselves.
then they arrive at their senses.
paradise is never found in a change of scenery.
in any journey, there is only procrastination.
splitting seams and flitting dreams,
butterfly ambitions in a field of doorways
that i did not sculpt.
i want a million roads
through a million galaxies,
with a million fellow pilgrims.
towards one destination.
my next year is an uncharted organism.
we are dissecting it.
ADVERTISEMENT:
our facilities package the patron into a safe, durable Tupperware structure--and, of course, our patented vacuum-sealing procedure ensures long-lasting duration for every corpse.
DON'T WAIT FOR THE WORMS! LET US SHOW YOU WHAT PLASTOMBS HAS TO OFFER.
God’s grace is not a leash. dragging a dog towards Paradise is not an accurate depiction of salvation. God’s lavish sacrifice removes the leash, the noose, of sin from our necks, but it does not replace this leash with just another chain, no matter how weightless, holy, beautiful, or easy to bear. no! God’s grace is the removal of all chains and bondage, and is exquisite enough, powerful enough, to beckon us into Eternal Life. we will not be dragged into Heaven, but will come praising, crying, and dancing.
God’s grace is so divine, His sovereignty so supreme, His power so absolute, and His mercy so profound, that He can make a sacrifice that exceeds humanity’s capacity to understand or justify it. He gives us a choice, to love Him or to deny Him. He gives us the grace to believe, through faith, or the freedom to eternally slay ourselves into the Enemy’s hands, but He still gives us, through His over-abundant mercy and justice, a choice.
Christ’s death on Golgotha was not to make us robots, responding to the syntax of grace in a preprogrammed equation. His sacrifice transformed us from decrepit, depraved androids into humanity as crafted in the fresh green of Eden. Robots, no, for that is what we are in sin. a psychological, emotional, physical mechanism that yields only what it is: more sin. without Christ’s divine interference, we are automatic animals, lifeless and choiceless.
oh, this sacrifice! it is worth so much more than to transform sin machines into grace machines. it is to amputate the automation of autonomy and the gradual dying of sin--and though we die in surgery, He raises us up in holiness and righteousness. He strips out the circuits of depravity and implants His perfect organic body. he drains out the poisonous alloy in our veins, and pours in the rich blood that flowed out of Him at the place of the skull. this is grace.
sometimes when she looks at me,
i feel the expansion of air between us
as it fills a vast balloon of ache.
we have an aquarium between us.
it refracts lies into our intentions,
as we press the illusions of our hands together.
goldfish swim between our fingertips,
and we find an ocean were we hoped
there was only skin.
i want to erase our bodies,
disintegrate the walls of our flesh,
and lie together in the empty woods,
spirit with spirit, heart with heart.
all hearts shall cry the holy name,
of Him who made all hearts to cry,
Whose glory took on shape and came,
to sunken globe as holy spy.
this glory lifted on a hill,
whose logic only children win,
has taken every cry to fill
with God’s great heart in place of sin.
and though this feat was red and dark,
though God Himself has crawled through hell,
the blood that flowed from the nail’s deep mark,
has dripped and gather’d as Calvary’s well.
as deep as sorrows we may find,
so deeper still is God’s great well.
all weary sinners and loathsome kind,
may drink of life and live to tell.
Romance of Orbits
my love for you, dear sun,
is the grey-birthed shadow that bends and runs,
as you drift across the sky.
in the morning as you appear,
it stretches freshly out behind me here,
as if to draw you nearby.
my shadow pulls its rope--
and you always answer, climbing your gentle slope,
as my eyes run along your path--
until at noon when you are closest,
and it’s shifting form is lost beneath my toes,
when as an eclipse i most feel your warmth.
from such a height you fall,
gaining speed, and crashing toward horizon’s call,
my shadow heaving fiercely.
as you drop my shadow grows,
spreading across the world; and you lawn down,
in the shadow-birthed grey with me.
fragments:
desperation is a sign of inadequacy. inadequacy is normality. people should not feel so afraid of being normal.
in sunlight and summer breezes,
i throw my head out the open window
and watch through the rearview mirror
as it rolls and bounces down the road.
everyone is in a bubble, it just varies the size and shape. i might as well choose Jesus, Inc. over Bud Light.
this world of mine is a mystical rainy slimed-up dance through thunderclouds and deep woods.
what’s more important: to be right, or to do right?
3.09.2005
for so long, truth was based on the validity of a person’s argument. reason was our god, and we sacrificed logic at its altar. processions of debate passed by the temples of philosophy, each theorist bowing their head in reverence as they passed. we had found the pathway to God. it was in our minds all along.
but something changed. logic was cold and heartless. it had no life. and besides, facts are not as sturdy as we once thought. we excavated our hearts, in search for something else to guide us to God. instead of forming arguments, we began painting canvasses, composing symphonies, and writing poems. we cast down the idols of knowledge and reason, and crafted a golden ark to carry on four ebony poles. we would worship beauty, and carry its shape with us as we left the barren stone city of reason. multitudes passed through the rusted iron gates into a deep forest, wrapped in vivid cloths and dancing with the frenzy of change. beauty was our pathway to God-whatever had beauty, relevance, and the ability to inspire us became the path, the truth, that we followed. the sky, once grey and cold, warmed to a steady and endless sunrise. we have followed this road for some time now.
i hypothesize--no, i dream (for reason is outlawed now--we think only in wonderment and pictures)--as i lay on my back inside a scarlet canvas tent. argumentation and poetry have both led us to the same place: ourselves. we left the city for the woods, but our feet still tread the same soil surface. we tired of logic, but as we wander down this path of subjective charms, i begin to doubt. just how long can this last?
Contemplation on Travel
people are disoriented by consistency.
every once in a while, they hope to
solve their riddles and plug their doubts
by hopping in a car and driving.
hence vacations.
it’s like they think they can put distance
between them and themselves.
then they arrive at their senses.
paradise is never found in a change of scenery.
in any journey, there is only procrastination.
splitting seams and flitting dreams,
butterfly ambitions in a field of doorways
that i did not sculpt.
i want a million roads
through a million galaxies,
with a million fellow pilgrims.
towards one destination.
my next year is an uncharted organism.
we are dissecting it.
ADVERTISEMENT:
our facilities package the patron into a safe, durable Tupperware structure--and, of course, our patented vacuum-sealing procedure ensures long-lasting duration for every corpse.
DON'T WAIT FOR THE WORMS! LET US SHOW YOU WHAT PLASTOMBS HAS TO OFFER.
God’s grace is not a leash. dragging a dog towards Paradise is not an accurate depiction of salvation. God’s lavish sacrifice removes the leash, the noose, of sin from our necks, but it does not replace this leash with just another chain, no matter how weightless, holy, beautiful, or easy to bear. no! God’s grace is the removal of all chains and bondage, and is exquisite enough, powerful enough, to beckon us into Eternal Life. we will not be dragged into Heaven, but will come praising, crying, and dancing.
God’s grace is so divine, His sovereignty so supreme, His power so absolute, and His mercy so profound, that He can make a sacrifice that exceeds humanity’s capacity to understand or justify it. He gives us a choice, to love Him or to deny Him. He gives us the grace to believe, through faith, or the freedom to eternally slay ourselves into the Enemy’s hands, but He still gives us, through His over-abundant mercy and justice, a choice.
Christ’s death on Golgotha was not to make us robots, responding to the syntax of grace in a preprogrammed equation. His sacrifice transformed us from decrepit, depraved androids into humanity as crafted in the fresh green of Eden. Robots, no, for that is what we are in sin. a psychological, emotional, physical mechanism that yields only what it is: more sin. without Christ’s divine interference, we are automatic animals, lifeless and choiceless.
oh, this sacrifice! it is worth so much more than to transform sin machines into grace machines. it is to amputate the automation of autonomy and the gradual dying of sin--and though we die in surgery, He raises us up in holiness and righteousness. He strips out the circuits of depravity and implants His perfect organic body. he drains out the poisonous alloy in our veins, and pours in the rich blood that flowed out of Him at the place of the skull. this is grace.
sometimes when she looks at me,
i feel the expansion of air between us
as it fills a vast balloon of ache.
we have an aquarium between us.
it refracts lies into our intentions,
as we press the illusions of our hands together.
goldfish swim between our fingertips,
and we find an ocean were we hoped
there was only skin.
i want to erase our bodies,
disintegrate the walls of our flesh,
and lie together in the empty woods,
spirit with spirit, heart with heart.
all hearts shall cry the holy name,
of Him who made all hearts to cry,
Whose glory took on shape and came,
to sunken globe as holy spy.
this glory lifted on a hill,
whose logic only children win,
has taken every cry to fill
with God’s great heart in place of sin.
and though this feat was red and dark,
though God Himself has crawled through hell,
the blood that flowed from the nail’s deep mark,
has dripped and gather’d as Calvary’s well.
as deep as sorrows we may find,
so deeper still is God’s great well.
all weary sinners and loathsome kind,
may drink of life and live to tell.
Romance of Orbits
my love for you, dear sun,
is the grey-birthed shadow that bends and runs,
as you drift across the sky.
in the morning as you appear,
it stretches freshly out behind me here,
as if to draw you nearby.
my shadow pulls its rope--
and you always answer, climbing your gentle slope,
as my eyes run along your path--
until at noon when you are closest,
and it’s shifting form is lost beneath my toes,
when as an eclipse i most feel your warmth.
from such a height you fall,
gaining speed, and crashing toward horizon’s call,
my shadow heaving fiercely.
as you drop my shadow grows,
spreading across the world; and you lawn down,
in the shadow-birthed grey with me.
fragments:
desperation is a sign of inadequacy. inadequacy is normality. people should not feel so afraid of being normal.
in sunlight and summer breezes,
i throw my head out the open window
and watch through the rearview mirror
as it rolls and bounces down the road.
everyone is in a bubble, it just varies the size and shape. i might as well choose Jesus, Inc. over Bud Light.
this world of mine is a mystical rainy slimed-up dance through thunderclouds and deep woods.
what’s more important: to be right, or to do right?
"They shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads. There shall be no night there: They need no lamp nor light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light. And they shall reign forever and ever.” Revelation 22:4-5
Walter Metlof never had many friends. This was his problem, not theirs. Walter Metlof was the type of friend who was always asking to borrow money, but would never return the favor.
He had one friend who had stuck by his side through thick and thin. His name was Jeffrey Casseroni, and he was an advertising agent for Penta Tonics, INC., the premier pipe organ and pharmaceutical distributor in the Midwest. Jeffrey had been with the company for seventeen years. He had risen from a peon in the mailroom to the 77th highest-paid employee in the company. Being the 77th highest-paid employee in the company may not sound like much, but considering the 2300 employees in the Southern Division of Penta Tonics, INC., he was quite proud of his position. It was the crown upon his life’s achievements.
One day, June 4th, 1996, to be exact, Walter and his through-thick-and-thin companion Jeffrey were eating sushi as they strolled through Menlo Park in Cataloni, New York. The original Menlo Park was a few hundred miles away. It was there that a certain human being discovered what substance, called a filament, would burn for the longest time in the absence of oxygen. His name was Thomas Edison, and this of course was a wholly different Menlo Park. As Jeffrey finished chewing his last piece of sushi, that is dead, poisonous fish, his amygdala sent out impulses to the rest of his body that made him crave more of this dead, poisonous fish. The amygdala is a part of peoples’ brains that scientists believe controls peoples’ sex drives and food cravings. And so Jeffrey’s amygdala continued sending out sushi-craving impulses, these sushi SOS, until Jeffery could bear it no longer. He turned to his stingy friend-of-a-lifetime and gently asked, “Hey, Walt, could I borrow a couple of bucks to get some more sushi?”
Jeffrey probably should’ve known better than to ask a monetary favor of Mr. Walter Metlof. After all, he had known him his entire life, and he knew full-well how he would likely react. But Jeffrey’s amygdala was a force to be reckoned with, and as the small Japanese immigrant pushed his sushi cart around a bend in the path ahead, Jeffrey had finally caved in. Not even Walter’s mother could have predicted his response.
“What’s the matter with you, Jeffrey? Do you think I’m Bill Gates or something?” Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. He owns a whole lot of paper-thin slivers of silicon. Walter continued, “Money doesn’t grow on trees!” Money, however, does grow if placed in the stock market or private bank accounts. This is due to the effects of compound interest, which makes money act like sexually-active rabbits. This sexual-activity of money is so strong that Albert Einstein said of it, “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Wow. The universe is a big place.
Jeffrey tried to mumble an apology, but Walter continued yelling and hollering about money and how hard his life had been. Suddenly, he stopped yelling and approached the mumbling, downcast Jeffrey. He grabbed the collar of Jeffrey’s tan trenchcoat and pulled their faces very close together. “Take that,” he whispered, very menacingly.
As it turns out, Jeffrey felt the sting of a switchblade protruding into his stomach at the very moment which Walter had leaned in and so menacingly whispered, “Take that.” The switchblade had come from Walter’s pants pocket. He had shoved it in there after he bought it in a pawn shop at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Desoto Parkway. The pawn shop was actually owned by a distant relative of the sushi-cart vendor. They shared a common great, great uncle, who had crossed the vast and treacherous Pacific Ocean sometime during the 1890s, around the time Thomas Edison was tinkering with his filaments. His thinking at the time was to do more with his life than sell pawned goods or dead, poisonous fish. Walter’s thinking at the time, nearly a century later, of buying the switchblade that was now in Jeffrey, had been to use the weapon for defense, in case any young ruffians ever decided to jump him in a back alleyway. The crime rate was on the rise in Cataloni, as it was in much of the United States of America, and Walter thought it best to play things safe. He never would have imagined that he might stab Jeffrey with the thing.
Jeffrey didn’t know it was a switchblade, of course, nor was he aware of the distant connection between the object of his amygdala’s desire and the object of his mortal wound. He was actually quite confused as to what had happened. Who would expect to be stabbed by their best friend over a few dollars? Nonetheless, Walter ran off behind a row of evergreen shrubs, leaving Jeffrey by himself to decide what that tingling sensation was, and then what to do about the very sharp wedge of stainless steel that had violently invaded his digestive tract. The small Japanese sushi-cart vendor had stopped for a moment before rounding the bend in the path ahead. He watched from a distance as Jeffrey Casseroni collapsed into a pool of his own blood, right there in the center of Menlo Park, Cataloni, New York.
it is surprising and beautiful to see the face of a grandparent as they pour over pictures and scrapbooks--pour it over them like a warm shower--and to see the mouth coiling into a smile, and the eyes glistening with recognition and memories.
they catch a glimpse of the mess they’ve made--the beautiful, exquisite mess of people and experiences. enough people to fill a small empire. they share blood and intermingled stories. there is more history dwelling in and produced by them than every textbook ever published. and a grandparent has experienced the ultimate scope of being alive: child upon child upon grandchild, multiple geographies, the honor and freshness of age, poverty and riches, simplicity and microchips. they KNOW and yet still breathe.
in photographs, letters, and memoirs, they can remember again and discover anew the vastness and complexity of the universe their love has created. how much damage has been done? only this: they shaped a world, and then transcended it to pieces by their lives.
in the mirror is the Fall,
blatant and smoldering.
within my mirror slithers
the rebellion of archangels,
the pride of Pharisees,
a suicide the size of galaxies.
a true Serpent’s child
flickers on the thin glass.
I Am the action of sin.
my breath is depravity
and my heartbeat,
it drives spikes into lumber,
through my Savior’s wrists.
this is the reflection of him
who murdered my father,
my lover, my advocate.
for all the grandest
spectacles of death,
hatred, lust and despair,
none can rival the
criminal that stands
before me in this
fractured and rusting
mirror.
it hurts to look people in the face,
for there is shame
in merely living, breathing, thinking.
as i walk into a sanctuary of playing cards,
it is transformed
into a gallows for my ankles.
upside-down, swinging-
the more you know the more you hurt.
all of life’s deepest joys
are tainted by this wretched face.
oh scent of death, fainting existence--
what good is drinking life
into a corpse?
i would not touch that wineglass,
nor any other thing,
for touching would be murder.
but dead men have no will
to withhold their hands.
thus, in touching,
i will suffer the sentence;
unavoidable, inescapable verdict;
of plaguing guilt for all my smoldering days.
Truth
a vacuum within a vacuum will suck
only more emptiness from absence.
a vacuum within a vacuum will find
for its appetites no substance but nothing.
this world, a vacuum, gives no response
to my unaimed, unsharpened pleas.
two mirrors, staring into each other,
see no face or reflection. and so
i eternally gaze, desperate for sight,
and remain eternally blind.
though i am in it, it is empty.
i hurl bricks through an empty windowframe,
listening for the rescue of a shatter.
there is none. never has been.
speak thou of options, after the option,
in a black fit, has already been taken?
when liberating choices thou hast previous made,
thou speaks in disowning shock at unbidden slavery,
or worse, in deliberate and custody-banishing hate
to a parasite thou fastened upon thy own belly.
doest thou invite invasion to midnight tea,
but to quail at thy kingdom’s occupation?
you who beg rights of possession to thyself,
and consider thy body’s blossom but a choice:
i would that thou assume thy ownership
before the silver, lethal daggers do pierce,
before the detection of pleasure’s corollary,
even before the cathartic dusk of conception--
in youth, fill the cradle of thy head,
and honor the sacred womb of thy soul,
that thou has no cause to pluck a child,
a flower, from its defenseless plot,
nor opportunity to hear on lonely nights,
that rocking, the rocking of an empty crib.
enter me like a fierce glowing sun
surrounds a glacier.
embroider yours words onto my
shirtsleeves.
i will hoist up the timbers
and see small crucifixes
scalded into the backs of my hands.
when i breath in and breathe out,
supply and diffuse this holy wind
into and out of my lungs.
my gifts will be given with a
jewel of blood on their tops,
and all people, in touching me,
will taste of you.
move me like an earthquake
shakes a pebble.
pierce me as a worm to
its cocoon.
cover me as a hurricane
above an island reef.
enter me.
2.05.2005
Walter Metlof never had many friends. This was his problem, not theirs. Walter Metlof was the type of friend who was always asking to borrow money, but would never return the favor.
He had one friend who had stuck by his side through thick and thin. His name was Jeffrey Casseroni, and he was an advertising agent for Penta Tonics, INC., the premier pipe organ and pharmaceutical distributor in the Midwest. Jeffrey had been with the company for seventeen years. He had risen from a peon in the mailroom to the 77th highest-paid employee in the company. Being the 77th highest-paid employee in the company may not sound like much, but considering the 2300 employees in the Southern Division of Penta Tonics, INC., he was quite proud of his position. It was the crown upon his life’s achievements.
One day, June 4th, 1996, to be exact, Walter and his through-thick-and-thin companion Jeffrey were eating sushi as they strolled through Menlo Park in Cataloni, New York. The original Menlo Park was a few hundred miles away. It was there that a certain human being discovered what substance, called a filament, would burn for the longest time in the absence of oxygen. His name was Thomas Edison, and this of course was a wholly different Menlo Park. As Jeffrey finished chewing his last piece of sushi, that is dead, poisonous fish, his amygdala sent out impulses to the rest of his body that made him crave more of this dead, poisonous fish. The amygdala is a part of peoples’ brains that scientists believe controls peoples’ sex drives and food cravings. And so Jeffrey’s amygdala continued sending out sushi-craving impulses, these sushi SOS, until Jeffery could bear it no longer. He turned to his stingy friend-of-a-lifetime and gently asked, “Hey, Walt, could I borrow a couple of bucks to get some more sushi?”
Jeffrey probably should’ve known better than to ask a monetary favor of Mr. Walter Metlof. After all, he had known him his entire life, and he knew full-well how he would likely react. But Jeffrey’s amygdala was a force to be reckoned with, and as the small Japanese immigrant pushed his sushi cart around a bend in the path ahead, Jeffrey had finally caved in. Not even Walter’s mother could have predicted his response.
“What’s the matter with you, Jeffrey? Do you think I’m Bill Gates or something?” Bill Gates is the richest man in the world. He owns a whole lot of paper-thin slivers of silicon. Walter continued, “Money doesn’t grow on trees!” Money, however, does grow if placed in the stock market or private bank accounts. This is due to the effects of compound interest, which makes money act like sexually-active rabbits. This sexual-activity of money is so strong that Albert Einstein said of it, “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” Wow. The universe is a big place.
Jeffrey tried to mumble an apology, but Walter continued yelling and hollering about money and how hard his life had been. Suddenly, he stopped yelling and approached the mumbling, downcast Jeffrey. He grabbed the collar of Jeffrey’s tan trenchcoat and pulled their faces very close together. “Take that,” he whispered, very menacingly.
As it turns out, Jeffrey felt the sting of a switchblade protruding into his stomach at the very moment which Walter had leaned in and so menacingly whispered, “Take that.” The switchblade had come from Walter’s pants pocket. He had shoved it in there after he bought it in a pawn shop at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Desoto Parkway. The pawn shop was actually owned by a distant relative of the sushi-cart vendor. They shared a common great, great uncle, who had crossed the vast and treacherous Pacific Ocean sometime during the 1890s, around the time Thomas Edison was tinkering with his filaments. His thinking at the time was to do more with his life than sell pawned goods or dead, poisonous fish. Walter’s thinking at the time, nearly a century later, of buying the switchblade that was now in Jeffrey, had been to use the weapon for defense, in case any young ruffians ever decided to jump him in a back alleyway. The crime rate was on the rise in Cataloni, as it was in much of the United States of America, and Walter thought it best to play things safe. He never would have imagined that he might stab Jeffrey with the thing.
Jeffrey didn’t know it was a switchblade, of course, nor was he aware of the distant connection between the object of his amygdala’s desire and the object of his mortal wound. He was actually quite confused as to what had happened. Who would expect to be stabbed by their best friend over a few dollars? Nonetheless, Walter ran off behind a row of evergreen shrubs, leaving Jeffrey by himself to decide what that tingling sensation was, and then what to do about the very sharp wedge of stainless steel that had violently invaded his digestive tract. The small Japanese sushi-cart vendor had stopped for a moment before rounding the bend in the path ahead. He watched from a distance as Jeffrey Casseroni collapsed into a pool of his own blood, right there in the center of Menlo Park, Cataloni, New York.
it is surprising and beautiful to see the face of a grandparent as they pour over pictures and scrapbooks--pour it over them like a warm shower--and to see the mouth coiling into a smile, and the eyes glistening with recognition and memories.
they catch a glimpse of the mess they’ve made--the beautiful, exquisite mess of people and experiences. enough people to fill a small empire. they share blood and intermingled stories. there is more history dwelling in and produced by them than every textbook ever published. and a grandparent has experienced the ultimate scope of being alive: child upon child upon grandchild, multiple geographies, the honor and freshness of age, poverty and riches, simplicity and microchips. they KNOW and yet still breathe.
in photographs, letters, and memoirs, they can remember again and discover anew the vastness and complexity of the universe their love has created. how much damage has been done? only this: they shaped a world, and then transcended it to pieces by their lives.
in the mirror is the Fall,
blatant and smoldering.
within my mirror slithers
the rebellion of archangels,
the pride of Pharisees,
a suicide the size of galaxies.
a true Serpent’s child
flickers on the thin glass.
I Am the action of sin.
my breath is depravity
and my heartbeat,
it drives spikes into lumber,
through my Savior’s wrists.
this is the reflection of him
who murdered my father,
my lover, my advocate.
for all the grandest
spectacles of death,
hatred, lust and despair,
none can rival the
criminal that stands
before me in this
fractured and rusting
mirror.
it hurts to look people in the face,
for there is shame
in merely living, breathing, thinking.
as i walk into a sanctuary of playing cards,
it is transformed
into a gallows for my ankles.
upside-down, swinging-
the more you know the more you hurt.
all of life’s deepest joys
are tainted by this wretched face.
oh scent of death, fainting existence--
what good is drinking life
into a corpse?
i would not touch that wineglass,
nor any other thing,
for touching would be murder.
but dead men have no will
to withhold their hands.
thus, in touching,
i will suffer the sentence;
unavoidable, inescapable verdict;
of plaguing guilt for all my smoldering days.
Truth
a vacuum within a vacuum will suck
only more emptiness from absence.
a vacuum within a vacuum will find
for its appetites no substance but nothing.
this world, a vacuum, gives no response
to my unaimed, unsharpened pleas.
two mirrors, staring into each other,
see no face or reflection. and so
i eternally gaze, desperate for sight,
and remain eternally blind.
though i am in it, it is empty.
i hurl bricks through an empty windowframe,
listening for the rescue of a shatter.
there is none. never has been.
speak thou of options, after the option,
in a black fit, has already been taken?
when liberating choices thou hast previous made,
thou speaks in disowning shock at unbidden slavery,
or worse, in deliberate and custody-banishing hate
to a parasite thou fastened upon thy own belly.
doest thou invite invasion to midnight tea,
but to quail at thy kingdom’s occupation?
you who beg rights of possession to thyself,
and consider thy body’s blossom but a choice:
i would that thou assume thy ownership
before the silver, lethal daggers do pierce,
before the detection of pleasure’s corollary,
even before the cathartic dusk of conception--
in youth, fill the cradle of thy head,
and honor the sacred womb of thy soul,
that thou has no cause to pluck a child,
a flower, from its defenseless plot,
nor opportunity to hear on lonely nights,
that rocking, the rocking of an empty crib.
enter me like a fierce glowing sun
surrounds a glacier.
embroider yours words onto my
shirtsleeves.
i will hoist up the timbers
and see small crucifixes
scalded into the backs of my hands.
when i breath in and breathe out,
supply and diffuse this holy wind
into and out of my lungs.
my gifts will be given with a
jewel of blood on their tops,
and all people, in touching me,
will taste of you.
move me like an earthquake
shakes a pebble.
pierce me as a worm to
its cocoon.
cover me as a hurricane
above an island reef.
enter me.
being alive is a waste of time. for instance, i am at a point in my life where all of my time and energy is devoted to telling lies so that i can get money to try to be happy while i'm busy staying alive and wasting more time. my deceit takes the form of embellishing whatever good things i have accidentally done during my 18 years of wasted time into grand spectacles. i write down these lies on a piece of paper and send them to groups of people who receive their paychecks from colleges or charitable organizations (paychecks are little sheets of paper that allow people to stay alive, that is to continue wasting time). i have filled up several pieces of paper with these lies about myself. when i think the lies are convincing enough and that they will make me feel good about myself, i fold them up and send them to people who stay alive because of their paychecks. they open up my lies and compare them to other peoples'. whoever can tell the best lies about the good things they have accidentally done gets a sort of paycheck called a scholarship. the top liars in the country use these sort-of-paychecks to go spend time with other efficiently eloquent liars at a place called a "university." most people waste four years at this place, learning how to get paychecks. the goal is to get as many paychecks as possible before they die. dying is what happens when a person's physiologocal processes stop providing blood and oxygen to his or her brain. something strange happens to people when their brains don't have enough blood or oxygen. nobody quite understands it, so they usually stick the person in a hole in the ground and give their accumulated paychecks to other people, like offspring or a democratically-elected body of government. rumor has it that after peoples' brains stop receiving blood and oxygen, and after their bodies are put in a whole in the ground, they will meet the person who made them alive in the first place. his name is Jesus. Jesus doesn't care how many paychecks they racked up.
In a recent breakthrough in genetic research, Austrian biochemists have discovered what is being called the “grace gene.” Experiments performed in the laboratories of the Genocorp Foundation revealed the previously unknown chromosome, which is believed to distinguish between those who will be recipients of God’s grace and those who will not.
"We are very excited about this newest development on the genetic map,” said Dr. Walter Durbin, head of operations at the Genocorp Labs. “We believe this will solve many of the riddles that have long plagued theology, especially in the conflict between Calvinists and Armeniasts.”
The divine dispensation of grace, which for centuries had been strictly relegated to religious and theological spheres, has been freshly thrust into the scientific world. Many scientists believe the possibilities of studying grace under the auspices of the scientific process will have remarkable benefits. “In the past,” explains Dr. Phillip Justin, ”grace has always been an unpredictable, even dangerous force. But now that it is quantifiable and observable, progress can be made towards the end of utilizing grace for the good of mankind.”
Some have expressed concern that defining grace as a chemical formula is a high price to pay for theological and scientific progress, but these dissenters are few and far in between. Edward Smith, a staunch Calvinist, dismisses such concerns as ignorant and unjustified. “As a life-long five-pointer, this discovery just confirms what many of the Elect have always known about God’s favor: some people got it, some don’t.”
after some of the subtlest moments,
poems rush out of me like waterfalls
or Olympian athletes.
they fall from my hands like boulders
in a mudslide of ink.
phonemes colliding like planets or atoms,
exploding, devastating--
but I lose nothing.
it’s like I picked up a universe
and popped it in my mouth.
i’m collecting these repetitious midnights
in a Christmas stocking the size of Manhattan.
they wither,
but so do we all.
shrink to the size of dice
and wrapped up in ribbons and bows.
i will give them to you.
i already did.
drink up, indebted minnow.
you shallow fish.
you awkward frog.
you owe more than you’re worth.
every hopeful attempting
after peace and faith and grace-distilled love
drowns into this shoreless, unbounded sea.
but God is no loan-shark.
1
pulverized in a back alley,
black and blue checks on his
flimsy chessboard of a chest.
fists dance over his ribs
like running water.
2
i’m a lone weed in this everlasting field.
small men in white suits rush about me.
the snowfall absorbs all sound.
what a large room for padded white walls!
3
from below,
i saw their fingers
(his and hers).
hers and his
fingers stitched together
into a delicate seam.
4
out of subway terminals
and metropolitan glow.
out of alleyway shadows
and sky-scraping trash heaps.
from underneath cracked pavement.
sliding down gutters and lampposts.
through sewage veins
and swaying powerlines.
converging in the streets
and fiercely crawling
into the Promised Land.
12.07.2004
In a recent breakthrough in genetic research, Austrian biochemists have discovered what is being called the “grace gene.” Experiments performed in the laboratories of the Genocorp Foundation revealed the previously unknown chromosome, which is believed to distinguish between those who will be recipients of God’s grace and those who will not.
"We are very excited about this newest development on the genetic map,” said Dr. Walter Durbin, head of operations at the Genocorp Labs. “We believe this will solve many of the riddles that have long plagued theology, especially in the conflict between Calvinists and Armeniasts.”
The divine dispensation of grace, which for centuries had been strictly relegated to religious and theological spheres, has been freshly thrust into the scientific world. Many scientists believe the possibilities of studying grace under the auspices of the scientific process will have remarkable benefits. “In the past,” explains Dr. Phillip Justin, ”grace has always been an unpredictable, even dangerous force. But now that it is quantifiable and observable, progress can be made towards the end of utilizing grace for the good of mankind.”
Some have expressed concern that defining grace as a chemical formula is a high price to pay for theological and scientific progress, but these dissenters are few and far in between. Edward Smith, a staunch Calvinist, dismisses such concerns as ignorant and unjustified. “As a life-long five-pointer, this discovery just confirms what many of the Elect have always known about God’s favor: some people got it, some don’t.”
after some of the subtlest moments,
poems rush out of me like waterfalls
or Olympian athletes.
they fall from my hands like boulders
in a mudslide of ink.
phonemes colliding like planets or atoms,
exploding, devastating--
but I lose nothing.
it’s like I picked up a universe
and popped it in my mouth.
i’m collecting these repetitious midnights
in a Christmas stocking the size of Manhattan.
they wither,
but so do we all.
shrink to the size of dice
and wrapped up in ribbons and bows.
i will give them to you.
i already did.
drink up, indebted minnow.
you shallow fish.
you awkward frog.
you owe more than you’re worth.
every hopeful attempting
after peace and faith and grace-distilled love
drowns into this shoreless, unbounded sea.
but God is no loan-shark.
1
pulverized in a back alley,
black and blue checks on his
flimsy chessboard of a chest.
fists dance over his ribs
like running water.
2
i’m a lone weed in this everlasting field.
small men in white suits rush about me.
the snowfall absorbs all sound.
what a large room for padded white walls!
3
from below,
i saw their fingers
(his and hers).
hers and his
fingers stitched together
into a delicate seam.
4
out of subway terminals
and metropolitan glow.
out of alleyway shadows
and sky-scraping trash heaps.
from underneath cracked pavement.
sliding down gutters and lampposts.
through sewage veins
and swaying powerlines.
converging in the streets
and fiercely crawling
into the Promised Land.
me: "i wish i could be eloquent."
cynicism: "eloquence is just a sad, sad state of denial."
me: "denial doesn't sound so bad."
cynicism: "hah! you poor boy. even denial is futile."
me: "i guess it just depends what you're denying."
Jesus Christ: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."
a pulse of velvet fury,
shaken out like a rug
in my bloodstream,
walloping the daylight.
what drips when
red icicles melt?
Golgotha 5-star resort,
with in-room Jacuzzi,
cherry woodwork, and
free wine on the rack.
ring if you need anything,
or if that doesn’t work
pray earnestly,
someone will hear.
carpets eat pieces of dust
like us for breakfast.
dust is pieces of us.
cracked skin like a desert
for me to wander in,
and it’s just a sign
of your strength,
built up through hurt after hurt.
sliced through with joy
at the sight of your boy
no longer at arm’s length.
so you’ve got a callous, a desert?
well there’s a river wet enough
(wide enough, deep enough).
if you want to feel
then dive into that flow.
you’d never expect this wetness.
we’re mere inches--a slight sway-
from the place where all shades
and depths are washed away.
less than seconds from the day
when all lines and curves will fail,
leaving only words we could never say.
such a bright Word in such a dark world,
writing a sentence atop a hill.
the sentence forms a poem,
and the poem spells hope-
and hope will carve us each
into letters in that Word.
let’s hang out tonight.
we’ll slice through colored sheets of glass,
and install the windows in our cathedral.
we’ll plant a garden in your bed,
pulling dirt about your head,
and watching roses grow.
watching roses grow.
if i could lightly brush your hand,
that would be more passion than my mere body could contain.
or if i could kiss your bitter pain,
then both our stony hearts would melt to sand--
to sand, and then in sweltering heat,
our lips and hands and chests would turn to glass.
and if in a while all heat must pass,
still our glassy hearts will hold our tired feet.
i saw the flash of her eye
sweep by me
like a subway on a dark night.
and when she had passed
my arms turned to glass,
just waiting, waiting for reflection.
i felt the strands of liberty
sweep over me.
i could’ve been a littered street
the way my dust and trash
were brushed away at last--
and then as she came walking my direction.
speaking of cliché’,
i feel like i’m dying.
it’s no homicide,
more of a day by day
process.
when i wake in the morning
and know every word i say
will be more shit than clay,
when i anticipate plush singing
crosses.
i claim to have no claim
on things even legally mine.
“i owe no allegiance to my spine...
as long as you give me tame
crosses.”
how i prove my clinging
when i claim to want
to walk on water--
but insist on bringing
galoshes.
i dropped my face in the mud,
not realizing that all i am is mud.
it fell out of my hand
like a photograph of my lover
when she is standing before me.
i tried to spend myself
like a fake dollar bill.
you just glanced and knew my scheme and--
smiled?
you make all things new.
yes, and real.
you make sunshine
for the things i try to reveal
with flashlights.
12.03.2004
cynicism: "eloquence is just a sad, sad state of denial."
me: "denial doesn't sound so bad."
cynicism: "hah! you poor boy. even denial is futile."
me: "i guess it just depends what you're denying."
Jesus Christ: "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."
a pulse of velvet fury,
shaken out like a rug
in my bloodstream,
walloping the daylight.
what drips when
red icicles melt?
Golgotha 5-star resort,
with in-room Jacuzzi,
cherry woodwork, and
free wine on the rack.
ring if you need anything,
or if that doesn’t work
pray earnestly,
someone will hear.
carpets eat pieces of dust
like us for breakfast.
dust is pieces of us.
cracked skin like a desert
for me to wander in,
and it’s just a sign
of your strength,
built up through hurt after hurt.
sliced through with joy
at the sight of your boy
no longer at arm’s length.
so you’ve got a callous, a desert?
well there’s a river wet enough
(wide enough, deep enough).
if you want to feel
then dive into that flow.
you’d never expect this wetness.
we’re mere inches--a slight sway-
from the place where all shades
and depths are washed away.
less than seconds from the day
when all lines and curves will fail,
leaving only words we could never say.
such a bright Word in such a dark world,
writing a sentence atop a hill.
the sentence forms a poem,
and the poem spells hope-
and hope will carve us each
into letters in that Word.
let’s hang out tonight.
we’ll slice through colored sheets of glass,
and install the windows in our cathedral.
we’ll plant a garden in your bed,
pulling dirt about your head,
and watching roses grow.
watching roses grow.
if i could lightly brush your hand,
that would be more passion than my mere body could contain.
or if i could kiss your bitter pain,
then both our stony hearts would melt to sand--
to sand, and then in sweltering heat,
our lips and hands and chests would turn to glass.
and if in a while all heat must pass,
still our glassy hearts will hold our tired feet.
i saw the flash of her eye
sweep by me
like a subway on a dark night.
and when she had passed
my arms turned to glass,
just waiting, waiting for reflection.
i felt the strands of liberty
sweep over me.
i could’ve been a littered street
the way my dust and trash
were brushed away at last--
and then as she came walking my direction.
speaking of cliché’,
i feel like i’m dying.
it’s no homicide,
more of a day by day
process.
when i wake in the morning
and know every word i say
will be more shit than clay,
when i anticipate plush singing
crosses.
i claim to have no claim
on things even legally mine.
“i owe no allegiance to my spine...
as long as you give me tame
crosses.”
how i prove my clinging
when i claim to want
to walk on water--
but insist on bringing
galoshes.
i dropped my face in the mud,
not realizing that all i am is mud.
it fell out of my hand
like a photograph of my lover
when she is standing before me.
i tried to spend myself
like a fake dollar bill.
you just glanced and knew my scheme and--
smiled?
you make all things new.
yes, and real.
you make sunshine
for the things i try to reveal
with flashlights.
parents can be quite unreasonable when it comes to taste in photography. compliments to Nathan for trying to make me look good, even if the authorities have their way.
p.s. please notice that the last picture is wretchedly sarcastic.
11.09.2004
p.s. please notice that the last picture is wretchedly sarcastic.
if you know my school, this may make sense. if not, then maybe you can relate or think anyways:
Mansfield Christian School is an institution that seeks not only scholastic excellence, but Christian integrity. Maintaining this Christian integrity creates a “safe haven” for Christian young people to be separated from the sinful world and to be taught the doctrines of the conservative 20th-century Caucasian Protestant church. In order to preserve this “safe haven,” it is sometimes necessary to expel the immoral brother from our school. There are three actions which have been designated as reasons for expulsion: rejecting Jesus (as He is explained in the Student Handbook), needing Jesus, and acting like Jesus.
The most common cause of expulsion from Mansfield Christian School is rejecting Jesus. The character of Jesus is clearly outlined in the Student Handbook. His Law is represented by the Student Behavior Code (pg. 5). His Love is enforced by the numerous policies of detention, Saturday School, suspension, counseling, and of course, vehicle registration. Lastly, His holy attire is clearly described by the Campus Wear guidelines. Although the Student Handbook is not officially said to be divinely inspired, it is common knowledge that it is to be treated in a fashion similar to the Decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount—and because of the Student Handbook’s clarity and applicability compared to the Bible, it is generally more strictly enforced. Inability to align oneself to the simple precepts of the Student Handbook is an indicator that one does not deserve to attend this Christian institution.
A second way to be expelled from Mansfield Christian School is to genuinely need the salvation freely offered by Jesus Christ. There will be no toleration of suicide threats, disrespect, tension between students, or other such symptoms of sinfulness. Neither will there be toleration of “excuses,” such as abuse, depression, or confusion. Christian students are called to be holy and acceptable before not only God but also the school administration. Immorality will not be accepted. There is grace, yes, but only so much. After that, the only option is expulsion.
The third and most subtle reason for expulsion is a student acting like Jesus. Such blatant truths and revolutionary ideologies as taught by this Jewish rabbi will find no place in the Christian “safe haven” provided by Mansfield Christian School. The compromise of Jesus is clearly displayed by the way which He was often found eating with, celebrating with, or spending time with taxpayers and sinners (Matt. 9:9-13). This same Jesus is even reported to have made wine (John 2:1-11), even though alcohol use is expressly prohibited in the Student Handbook. In fact, part of Jesus’ life was recently made into an ‘R-rated’ movie, in direct violation of school rules. Such extreme actions jeopardize the secure atmosphere provided by Mansfield Christian School, and thus will be met with immediate expulsion. Jesus’ compromise is also clearly displayed by His disrespectful attitude towards the religious authorities of His day and age. Such harsh language as “hypocrite,” “wicked and adulterous,” or even “brood of vipers” exhibits Jesus’ lack of submission and teachability. If students ever emulated His actions or words, they could jeopardize the entire foundations of Christian education. Therefore, such behaviors and mindsets have no place at the institution of Mansfield Christian School.
Either three of these actions is a viable cause for expulsion. The primary goal of Mansfield Christian School is to provide stability. Stability is the only environment in which a good Christian can thrive. Whether by rejecting Jesus as put forth in the Student Handbook, needing Jesus, or acting like Jesus, students pose a direct threat to this stability. It is only logical that expulsion should follow. So although it may cost a soul or two in the process, it will be worth it all when Jesus returns to find an isolated group of consistent, submissive, Christianable followers. Then God will surely bless Mansfield Christian School.
11.03.2004
Mansfield Christian School is an institution that seeks not only scholastic excellence, but Christian integrity. Maintaining this Christian integrity creates a “safe haven” for Christian young people to be separated from the sinful world and to be taught the doctrines of the conservative 20th-century Caucasian Protestant church. In order to preserve this “safe haven,” it is sometimes necessary to expel the immoral brother from our school. There are three actions which have been designated as reasons for expulsion: rejecting Jesus (as He is explained in the Student Handbook), needing Jesus, and acting like Jesus.
The most common cause of expulsion from Mansfield Christian School is rejecting Jesus. The character of Jesus is clearly outlined in the Student Handbook. His Law is represented by the Student Behavior Code (pg. 5). His Love is enforced by the numerous policies of detention, Saturday School, suspension, counseling, and of course, vehicle registration. Lastly, His holy attire is clearly described by the Campus Wear guidelines. Although the Student Handbook is not officially said to be divinely inspired, it is common knowledge that it is to be treated in a fashion similar to the Decalogue or the Sermon on the Mount—and because of the Student Handbook’s clarity and applicability compared to the Bible, it is generally more strictly enforced. Inability to align oneself to the simple precepts of the Student Handbook is an indicator that one does not deserve to attend this Christian institution.
A second way to be expelled from Mansfield Christian School is to genuinely need the salvation freely offered by Jesus Christ. There will be no toleration of suicide threats, disrespect, tension between students, or other such symptoms of sinfulness. Neither will there be toleration of “excuses,” such as abuse, depression, or confusion. Christian students are called to be holy and acceptable before not only God but also the school administration. Immorality will not be accepted. There is grace, yes, but only so much. After that, the only option is expulsion.
The third and most subtle reason for expulsion is a student acting like Jesus. Such blatant truths and revolutionary ideologies as taught by this Jewish rabbi will find no place in the Christian “safe haven” provided by Mansfield Christian School. The compromise of Jesus is clearly displayed by the way which He was often found eating with, celebrating with, or spending time with taxpayers and sinners (Matt. 9:9-13). This same Jesus is even reported to have made wine (John 2:1-11), even though alcohol use is expressly prohibited in the Student Handbook. In fact, part of Jesus’ life was recently made into an ‘R-rated’ movie, in direct violation of school rules. Such extreme actions jeopardize the secure atmosphere provided by Mansfield Christian School, and thus will be met with immediate expulsion. Jesus’ compromise is also clearly displayed by His disrespectful attitude towards the religious authorities of His day and age. Such harsh language as “hypocrite,” “wicked and adulterous,” or even “brood of vipers” exhibits Jesus’ lack of submission and teachability. If students ever emulated His actions or words, they could jeopardize the entire foundations of Christian education. Therefore, such behaviors and mindsets have no place at the institution of Mansfield Christian School.
Either three of these actions is a viable cause for expulsion. The primary goal of Mansfield Christian School is to provide stability. Stability is the only environment in which a good Christian can thrive. Whether by rejecting Jesus as put forth in the Student Handbook, needing Jesus, or acting like Jesus, students pose a direct threat to this stability. It is only logical that expulsion should follow. So although it may cost a soul or two in the process, it will be worth it all when Jesus returns to find an isolated group of consistent, submissive, Christianable followers. Then God will surely bless Mansfield Christian School.
always am i to drown in peace.
in soft, drifting clam my waves increase.
for but the sky is warmly pink
does hope within me tremble and sink.
in this balmy, swaying stream
does all breath within me wail and scream.
what hidden tempest spirals within,
whose stillness shakes me more than wind?
how often does this havoc reign,
from clouds above with acid pain?
oh secret storm in shattered soul,
that i could never feign control-
may pleading mercy pierce your eye,
and spare this wreckage that is my life.
we are mere inches-a slight sway-
from the place were all colors
and depths are washed away.
less than seconds from the day
when all lines and curves will fail,
leaving only what we could never say.
if there were subway lines
that ran into each of us,
do you think God would ride them?
no, i think it would be more like
when a child picks up
a stubborn pillbug, and smiles.
we're small-
we are so small
the sapling trees
could crush us with their feet,
the Springtime drizzle
could fold us onto our knees,
the breeze
light blue and grassy
could pick us up
and hang us
from the clouds.
if then for just one moment
the vast cities of our feet converge,
or the streets of our fingers intersect
(never slowing down),
or we enter the dense tunnel between our eyes,
or in taking an elevator towards embrace-
for just one moment:
(one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine fourty fourty-one fourty-two fourty-three fourty-four fourty-five fourty-six fourty-seven fourty-eight fourty-nine fifty fifty-one fifty-two fifty-three fifty-four fifty-five fifty-six fifty-seven fifty-eight fifty-nine sixty)
we stand together atop a lonely green hill.
molten hands pouring into each other
brace to form a sweating steel heart.
this heart, our hands, shall beat
every day into a wide and sturdy shield,
shall sharpen every night
into a cold, blue knife.
no faltering voice will sway my hope,
nor dimming lights obstruct my sight,
for golden choice in worthless night
is worth what darkness i must fight.
and when by choice i grasp His rope,
and by His faith i'm flown across,
then i will count my life as loss-
i will come to life beneath His cross.
in soft, drifting clam my waves increase.
for but the sky is warmly pink
does hope within me tremble and sink.
in this balmy, swaying stream
does all breath within me wail and scream.
what hidden tempest spirals within,
whose stillness shakes me more than wind?
how often does this havoc reign,
from clouds above with acid pain?
oh secret storm in shattered soul,
that i could never feign control-
may pleading mercy pierce your eye,
and spare this wreckage that is my life.
we are mere inches-a slight sway-
from the place were all colors
and depths are washed away.
less than seconds from the day
when all lines and curves will fail,
leaving only what we could never say.
if there were subway lines
that ran into each of us,
do you think God would ride them?
no, i think it would be more like
when a child picks up
a stubborn pillbug, and smiles.
we're small-
we are so small
the sapling trees
could crush us with their feet,
the Springtime drizzle
could fold us onto our knees,
the breeze
light blue and grassy
could pick us up
and hang us
from the clouds.
if then for just one moment
the vast cities of our feet converge,
or the streets of our fingers intersect
(never slowing down),
or we enter the dense tunnel between our eyes,
or in taking an elevator towards embrace-
for just one moment:
(one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty twenty-one twenty-two twenty-three twenty-four twenty-five twenty-six twenty-seven twenty-eight twenty-nine thirty thirty-one thirty-two thirty-three thirty-four thirty-five thirty-six thirty-seven thirty-eight thirty-nine fourty fourty-one fourty-two fourty-three fourty-four fourty-five fourty-six fourty-seven fourty-eight fourty-nine fifty fifty-one fifty-two fifty-three fifty-four fifty-five fifty-six fifty-seven fifty-eight fifty-nine sixty)
we stand together atop a lonely green hill.
molten hands pouring into each other
brace to form a sweating steel heart.
this heart, our hands, shall beat
every day into a wide and sturdy shield,
shall sharpen every night
into a cold, blue knife.
no faltering voice will sway my hope,
nor dimming lights obstruct my sight,
for golden choice in worthless night
is worth what darkness i must fight.
and when by choice i grasp His rope,
and by His faith i'm flown across,
then i will count my life as loss-
i will come to life beneath His cross.
