i were a carpenter

On tricks

2012-01-27T05:21:00.000-08:00

I often get the feeling that we're all of us just scanning our cards folded inward at radius plotting our next trick. We're all taking our time on each stepping stone hoping our legs are long enough to get us thru the next stretch, hoping each next stone is atop at least mostly solid earth. All of us striving like kids in hand-me-down shoes that don't fit...yet. All of us like children eating plates full of green beans because we have to hoping the sun doesn't set before one last loop round the block on our big wheel (and to be sure, a big wheel is a three wheel non-motorized race car that hauls ass). Hoping like middle school girls and boys that there is a reply note in our locker. All of us hoping like high schoolers that another grandparent doesn't die next month, god forbid our eldest siblings should overdose like Brian's did and Matt's did. We're all of us college students knowing degrees are one part brilliant and the other part bull shit. The human race, that's what it is, it's one longer than shorter distance race toward oblivion and the starting gun is a memory we either can't remember or a blast we've forced ourselves to forget. The finish line, that's the best part because finally, once the striving has truly ceased we'll all of us find the sun rising rather than setting, we'll walk around calling each others aces aces, and we'll all of us pass the food around without thinking any nickels are holding up our dollars. All of us will forget our tricks and just eat, and our Host will proclaim grace.

sojourn, selah

2011-11-26T14:00:00.001-08:00

Going
Once upon a sojourn
Selah
Bullnose'd
Speed-square'd

As battalion

As ears

As ancient
As twinkle in my father's eye
As fire-breathing dragon

As sticky-eyed, droopy-eared, bobble-headed pup

pursuant

till shape takes

till form fills

till hill’s flatten

till valley cantilevers

till tower tumbles
till boulders stack in river's bed

like mountain is holy
like face is glowing
per covenant
till old and worn
like curtain's torn
like wells of deep water
drawn upward till tasted
like law is etched in flaps of heart

like hell is possibly burning

like hope is per chance eternal

brother said that
"decisions

based

fear

are

giant

pockets

created

for

future

regret"

and james said that
"anyone

who

listens

the

word

and

does

not

what

says

man

who

looks

his

face

mirror,

and

walking

away

forgets

what

looks

like"

i say that
i'd
believe
them
but
i
might
have
forgot
how

till cave'd chest

2011-11-19T15:13:00.001-08:00

Sunsets through bamboo limbs
single star above the cloud line
pilots engage landing gear
landing here
and I wish I were disengaging
landing there
but I fear
9-5 clenches tighter the more I’m aging
proven by my engine sitting grounded
catacombed inside this fuselage
rounded
by expectation
my rogue inclinations
are mirage’d
like future dreams
like rose beds
gripped between my tire’s treads

transatlantic embarkation cards
too empty
too dead
to me
tonight
tomorrow
Father
send me
in sojourn
send me
or else
send me
a stone’s throw
beyond your Son’s
pleading
bloody
yelps

so I can burn
My candle
at both ends
To know you
To know how
To know when
Till no end
Till no rest
Till cave’d chest
Till every spark
Is caught
In blankets
You wove from intentional fabrics
And wrapped it around my two shoulders
Just like all shoulders
inside many-colored coats
Removed by brothers
Dipped in goat blood
For posterity
But so that some learn slavery
And trust in dreams
Or interpret fear
In light of eternal parameters
And not just present deserts
for running
Faster
In the wonder years
My younger tears
Were spent
In sackcloth
And now I’ve new garments

And I like them
a lot

you need a sword

2011-11-03T19:08:00.000-07:00

Obviously there are instances where physical swords are currently and have been throughout history wielded unwisely, for reasons I do not write in this blog about, it does not contain a personal opinion about fighting, combat, or war. Also, I do not deny the potential negative impact of war metaphor (with adults and especially with children) nor do I deny the positive (with childen, especially with adults). I do not intend to outline a debate on just war. With all political indignation, pacifism, and Freudian analysis aside, I wrote this here bit, inspired by my nephew. Please read it.

I was catching up on some vids stored on mycellular telephone. One in particular I watchedseveral times over. It was one I hadshot weeks back somewhat nonchalantly, while checking the old missed call/textlog on a Sunday afternoon. Nephew (Brady)was running around while I was circulating with my feet planted in the grass, legs wrapped around a daisy (green plastic disk in shape of daisy petals) at the end of arope hung from a ficus (benjamina) limb. Nephew was running in circles trying to catch me with a sword inhand. Allthewhile, he was insisting on what Icouldn’t gather until he tripped, became aggravated, and I finallystopped laughing, circling away from him, at last listening to what he had tosay.

“You need a sword,”he said

“Why?” I asked, somewhat befuddled, defiant.

“Because, you need to fight,” he stated, matter of fact’ly.

Tree’s leaves are green. Green jello has pears in it (and a lil’ cottage cheese). And, you need a sword [Uncle Alan] becauseyou need to fight. He didn’t actuallystate the former two Sunday afternoon truths, but as I watched the vid and ponderedhis logic, the one statement he made outright seemed to most obviously followthe two that I had fabricated. What I meanis, the first reason why I was enraptured by the vid, and what I cherish aboutmy nephew Brady or any/every child for that matter, is the simplicity behindtheir reasoning. In other words, there wereno secondary arguments to defend his primary insistence upon my needing asword. There was one reason, “becauseyou need to fight.” Period.

The second reason I loved this vid was due to the directconnection in Brady's mind with a sword as an object, and fighting, an action. He doesn’t necessarily yet understand themakeup of a traditional sword, how metal as a state of matter can be malleable,shapeable, hardening, temperature permitting, potentially with sharpened edges,for practical use when whittling, dicing vegetables (or fruits), or in hand-to-handcombat. He doesn’t yet understand thatin this world we don’t always get our way and if/when we absolutely must getour way for certain reasons, say defense of justice, protection of peace(purposefully vague, subject to interpretation), or to obtain certain itemsthat we are in no way capable of obtaining without fighting it away from someother body…or does he understand these things? Regardless ofwhether he does or not comprehend why we fight, and at that with a sword, he remainsa child (capable of err and very soon capable of accountability but not yet asfar as I’m a judge of such things (though he talks extremely well for a massivetwo year old bulldozer)). And as achild, with tears he forced a sword into his Uncle’s hands, mine, and told me Ineeded it because I need to fight. Agreed. I do, I strongly believe thatI do. I need a sword because I need tofight. Period.

Finally, in life there are those who go through it all for all the reasonsthey are told to go through it all and there are those who put a foot down, have a long thougt on the potential good that can arise when minds' give sway to heart, when ideas are really thought out, and money gets put where the mouth is, and dear moses when pages get torn out of “my mother’s hymn book” (feast in heaven, john r. cash) and voice boxes start tintabulating like all God-given gumption, “in his love abiding, and in him confiding,just like a tree that’s planted by the water, I shall not be moved.” Period.

You need a sword because you need to fight. Period. Well said Brady.

When I Seattle

2011-10-20T17:40:00.000-07:00

when I Seattle
I’m knee deep
in space so streaked by Puget creeks
beds so stacked with salmon weak
by weeks end I feel no different
but I get used to that light black flesh
that falls off my back like mount sigh’s sunset
when I seattle
she dresses to impress
like the goddamn Pacific crest
and when she comes thru
man she really comes thru

when I Seattle
my neighbor,
my second best friend
two weeks after I met him
and a week after we committed to fixing my brakes
and 800 dollars after new rotors, pads, and caliper core charges (I never cashed in on)
after shots of tequila
and homemade salsa
went to Thurston County Correction Facility for violation of a restraining order
damn you alex
“how the hell am I supposed to fix my brakes?”
“and what in the hell am I to do when your gal comes on to me?”
funny thing is, first question you asked
through the pane of glass
with your facial hair grown way out till bad ass
was if april had come on to me
and that was when I realized for the first time how important it is…honesty
that moment when i looked back at you and said “yeah”
matter of factly
staring resolutely, “yeah, but no.”
until a smile appeared acutely
pressed through the same goddamn prison windows
and you said, “when I first learned to love,
I never thought I’d build a prison
but then I built a prison and I stay there at night
yeah when I first learned to love
I never thought to build a prison
but then I built a prison and she can’t come inside

when I Seattle
I take I-5 to my 7-4
drinking Batdorf Bronson
as ranier peeks out for all the right reasons
and my tent starts itching until I’m finally sleeping
inside the only stream I ever took a picture of
I saw it, and the algae covered rock, stopped, snapped
I doubted we’d ever find our way back
that path was so construed impassable
the green so thick, trail markers hidden
we made it back, it was hardly worth it
it was heaven

when I Seattle I eat at a diner with rex after church
to this day…four years ago plus
he thanks me still

when I Seattle
I’m on long lake down in Olympia for fourth of july
around a campfire
and everyone is shooting the shit
everyone one has homemade icecream
everyone is letting it drip
like rope swings jutting down embankments
everyone is fossilized
everyone is zeroed on this guy named zach
he’s talking about transformers,
the first one that ever came out
and how its leagues ahead of anything produced previous
“like better than toy story,” I asked
“a little bit” he said
and the night was permanent
permanently etched like finger keys into our hollowed out fossils
so that when dug up, like now
the only note they play is not disingenuous

when I Lauderdale (or Delray Beach for that matter)
the boys dress like they seattle
but once the rain came I knew they never did
because they ran for their cars,
they flicked umbrellas and ran for their cars
they flicked their umbrellas, ran for their cars
and hopped all the puddles like they were nuclear
one thing is true, they never Seattle

but across the street, a couple hand in hand
strolls in the same rainstorm
with eyes for no one else they stroll in the rainstorm
with eyes for nothing else they stroll in the same rainstorm
but in it live, truly
the Lauderdale lovers
they seattle

when I Seattle
I have planks in both my eyes
so I rarely get time
to look
at the specks
i was never commissioned to disinfect,
much less remove
but this for you I do
so that our feet begin to fit our shoes
a man named Travis told me last night
that he only wished to climb atop the moon
to announce for himself
one thing, one question,
one thing, one question
what am I waiting for?

and isn’t that
said like somber
spoken like truth

announced like gospel
arriving like clouds
ushering like kingdom
from a tongue like a sword
the one question we can expect to hear (well, among others)
did you Seattle?

even when knee deep
in space so streaked by Puget creeks
beds so stacked with salmon weak
by week’s end you feel no different
did you get used to that light black flesh
falling off your back like mount sigh’s sunset
did you Seattle?
or did you dress to impress?
and circumspect the base of the Pacific crest
not realizing that when i came thru
I came thru for you

nautilus shell

2011-10-10T19:17:00.000-07:00

The simplest truths are the hardest ones to learn
like, the grass is greener
I know because I jogged down a wide-angle turn
on the street parallel to your house
with a bookcase in my trunk
that I made to resemble a book you had read
with me but a passing thought in your head
and I recalled something that david had said
"stay on the surface of you"
and something that brother had uttered as well
that surrounded my doubt like a nautilus' shell
"gasp for the surface of you"
which was all I had wanted to yell (with my mouth)
which was all that I left in my wake
yet you still have a way of holding me today
albeit coldly
like my hat has been in your pocket
all the while outside your door (with wet hair)
but you’ve locked it
remember this, I drove away and I never quit filling that bookcase
little sister

still, I’ll dream some nights about you
but I’ll wake from those dreams without you
it’s not that I want to woo you back here
using the same charm from way back when
i just want the same shred of decency
that you had the moment you don’t remember meeting me
so I can explain what you didn’t to some bloke who follows
and keep him from scraping his chin on your hollows

I’ll say
hey kid…listen
(and I’ll pause there till I get his full attention)
watch the clock like I do
but only if you’re not counting on it to save you
only if you’ve got a headwind against you
for that’s the only way to get lift
the only way to utilize foil
the only way to skirt her two-minute’s traffic
in a close-hauled tack, in your tiny boat
(I thought I lost it but I just sailed past it)
the only way to keep sight of her vessel
is to not slow down

So don't slow down, but stay your course
Stay out of debt
Don’t fear remorse
Get a job
Study something
Love Jesus
Love your family
Love the world
Get out in it
Way the fuck out in it
Get small
Get reall small
And plant a tree
Plant a tree beside a river
But don’t be foolish
Don’t plant beside the river that brought her near to me
For as with any sailor I’ve too held sheets until they burn
And I know the simplest truths are the hardest ones to learn

almost a year ago

2011-10-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Walking the streets of Durban on some holiday, with universitystudents stopping traffic for a festival of sorts, I’d been attempting to traceout my route to Capetown on the map I’d snagged off the tourist brochure rackat the airport back in Johannesburg two days previous. I wasn’t looking forward to boarding yetanother overnight bus down the coast but I didn’t really have another choice otherthan hopping a train that would’ve taken me right through the center of thecountry with seemingly drab views. Isuppose I’d ruled out a car rental because I figured it’d stretch my budget toothin, nevertheless, the instant I saw a sign for 1^st Car rentaldowntown that day I hopped a small ped gate to get a pricing on the vw rabbitin the window. To my surprised chagrinit was a bit more pricey than the compact chevy, I went for the Spark. I was in and out of that car rental shop,made a stop at the hotel where I’d stashed my backpack after breakfast buffet,and was ecstatic to be soon careeningdown the coast in my rental, ecstatic to not have my knees in my chest on acrowded bus with sickening music videos cranking clear through the morninghours of the night.

I’m no novice in a manual, and even though I’d cruisedacross Dhaka, Bangladesh behind the wheel of a manual with the drivers seat onthe right side of the car, it was confusion to the hilt that october day due to the fact thatthe side of the street also swaps in South Africa, furthermore it was bat spit madnessgetting out of downtown Durban on a Friday, (coincidentally a national holiday) while shiftingwith my left hand from the right side, turning a power-steering-less vehicle onthe left side of the road, I may as well have been flying an airplane, it felt thatforeign, all the while trying to figure out which lane’d be considered the slowlane.

West bound and having finally found the highway I was atlast content to be solo touring South Africa. Four days previous I’d said a final goodbye to my aunt whose cancer’dsoon become fatal. I’d sat on the floorbeside her hospital bed for the last time only letting tears fall when hercoughs’d throw her eyes shut. Whensomeone is that close to death all social cues disintegrate, holding youraunt’s cold hand is normal, encouraged, in fact, anyone in the room with hands hasan auto-invite to hold yours. Deatharrests the commonality of kin, breaks down all the character we scrape intolines with our credit cards on tv trays, all our bull shit, our plastic; deathtakes all our veneers and warps them to the point where we can all see one another for nothing more than the particle board we are. It’s quite a reliefactually; the dishevelment of social barrier, death remains a curse, broken relationship with creator the way i see it (horribly painful, sting lost). Even having stopped through Brooklyn, having spent a night and a day with Will, nothing had quite leveled, mystomach had stayed high and dry and all the public transport had stifled allhope in me till i was bloodshot and hungover. Thecompact rental, of all things, and the open road was a sobering rush of windlike holy ghost and my eyes came clean and hope came into view, it oft worriesme how emotion can pan to polar poles and then regroup and middle in an instant.

The best advice I was ever given about traveling

2011-09-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

"To be a real traveler you must be willing to take yourself out of the center of your universe. You must believe totally in the lives of the people and the places where you find yourself, even if it undermines your faith in the life you left behind. You need to share with them. Participate with them. Sit at their tables, go to their streets. Struggle with their language. Tell them stories of your life and hear the stories of theirs. Watch how they love eachother, how they fight eachother. See what they value and what they fear. Fill the spaces they keep in their lives. Become part of the fabric of their every day lives and you will get a sense of what it means to live in their world. Give yourself over to them- embrace rather than judge- and you will find that the beauty in their lives and their world will become part of yours. When you move on you will have grown. You will realize that the possibilities of life are endless and that beneath our differences we all share the dream of loving and being loved, of having a life with more joy than sorrow." - Kent Heuburn, via nicole

eight twenty eight

2011-09-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

I put a piece of chocolate in my mouth and glance at the coffee’steam. I glance a thought at the ways God moves and put another piece of chocolate in my mouth. Sipping carefully.

I know that in the sea of things that God thinks, I’m a very tiny boat. But when he glances a thought, like sea-breeze, and I scramble to pull in the luff, even scrape my knee, it’s like a piece of chocolate in His mouth.

And I agree that sheep like we have gone astray, that we like sheep bend knees and neigh for greener pasture and for stiller waters and God’s posture is often taciturn.

Dear Swiftness,

Meet me in my daydream and show me the Way (Home).

Yours etc.

right before band of horses played.

2011-08-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

god when i wake from sleep

god when i am moribund

god when i've got more joy

and feel it's on the increase

make me throw my bed away

make my grave implode (or something)

make me know that i've no friend like you

(and you no longer call me slave)

as the sun begins to shy from day bright

as the streets begin to lax from day drives

as my heart begins to scuff and drag

down the shore to water's edge

evoke in me a merciful revival

evoke in we a fast forgiveness

evoke in all our little hearts

a journey towards a resurrection

as sin sets on approaching hill

as doubt creeps eerily nigh

as my weary vantage

overshadows every single good thing known about self

insight a riotous evac(uation)

insight faith that will eclipse

and reminisce beside this weary boy

the great lengths you strove to bring me peace

by tony hoagland, a really great poem.

2011-07-13T14:56:00.000-07:00

America

Then one of the students with blue hair and a tongue stud

Says that America is for him a maximum-security prison

Whose walls are made of RadioShacks and Burger Kings, and MTV episodes

Where you can’t tell the show from the commercials,

And as I consider how to express how full of shit I think he is,

He says that even when he’s driving to the mall in his Isuzu

Trooper with a gang of his friends, letting rap music pour over them

Like a boiling Jacuzzi full of ballpeen hammers, even then he feels

Buried alive, captured and suffocated in the folds

Of the thick satin quilt of America

And I wonder if this is a legitimate category of pain,

or whether he is just spin doctoring a better grade,

And then I remember that when I stabbed my father in the dream last night,

It was not blood but money

That gushed out of him, bright green hundred-dollar bills

Spilling from his wounds, and—this is the weird part—,

He gasped “Thank god—those Ben Franklins were

Clogging up my heart—

And so I perish happily,

Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”—

Which was when I knew it was a dream, since my dad

Would never speak in rhymed couplets,

And I look at the student with his acne and cell phone and phony ghetto clothes

And I think, “I am asleep in America too,

And I don’t know how to wake myself either,”

And I remember what Marx said near the end of his life:

“I was listening to the cries of the past,

When I should have been listening to the cries of the future.”

But how could he have imagined 100 channels of 24-hour cable

Or what kind of nightmare it might be

When each day you watch rivers of bright merchandise run past you

And you are floating in your pleasure boat upon this river

Even while others are drowning underneath you

And you see their faces twisting in the surface of the waters

And yet it seems to be your own hand

Which turns the volume higher?

tom wudl meets jan van eyck meets vero meets helplessness blues

2011-06-19T12:50:00.001-07:00

And of course a weekend in vero beach is as it has always been- slow, uneventful, tiring as hell, full of frustrating (in the best way) conversations. My brother is moving from vero in a week’s worth of days so he’s been wrapping up a year’s worth of classroom rules, lesson planning, assignment grading, student and faculty relationships, you know running the gamut that is correctly labeled finishing well.

One of my fav things he did during his last week before his seniors graduated was host a meal during his morning period classes (which they called the 2^nd and 3^rd thanksgiving. He had students organize who would bring what and they ended up with skillets making pancakes, bagels getting shmeared, and coffee flowing like tide (I wasn’t there but his description laid out a royal spread). On top of it all was somewhat of a class finale led by mike where he handed out awards that he created for the most memorable moments, shared laughs, but also awards for students who truly put forth effort. My personal fav award was the “Kenny Award, (or the reason why snacks are not permitted in class award)”. Kenny was the fictitious student spoken of throughout the year that always made a mess of his desk whether that be with a bottle of orange juice or baggy of dorritos; I think the award actually went to a girl who brought a large box of ritz crackers, knife, and a jar of pb and was creating an outrageous 10 o’clock snack one day when Mike was at the board with his back turned. After ten or so of Michael’s awards, students took a few cracks at letting their teacher know what he had meant to them. Of course, all that I recant in this blog is second hand, but I just really got the picture that it was all beautiful resolution to a long and taxing year for students and teacher.

I’m not sure if she received an award in his class or took a stab at the round-the-horn thankyou session, but a foreign exhange student from Germany wrote Michael a card that has been sitting on the desk in his room since I arrived. I either physically pick it up or just remind myself of its charm near every time I walk thru his door. It’s a simple card, no extravagance in design, just pure genuine thought with a date, greeting, and salutation in respective predictable locations. However, attached to the other side with scotch tape is a cut-out, most likely from a national geographic magazine, of a painting by Tom Wudl entitled, “The Birth of Jan Van Eyck and the Extent of His Influence…1988-1989.”

Of course a good deal of my present and future appreciation of this painting is due to the fact that Michael’s student took the time to scribble a letter on the back of a thin yet sturdy white 4x7 sheet of cardboard attaching the ng cutout to its posterior, nevertheless, I believe it would have slain me had I stumbled upon it in any circumstances.

Wudl’s painting, the pasted and cropped (sadly) photo overhead, places Jan Van Eyck at the smack center (I will not attempt even the slightest of serious criticisms on this piece in this blog though it is something I do intend to do at some point (most likely via wikipedia)) and with 6 arms outstretched in varying positions, his eyes near closed as if he’s reminiscing a thought he’s hoping will break the silence of the mind of whoever views the piece. Eyck is standing on the base of a mountain, lightning crashing overhead, baby falling, air balloon rising, cityscape, waterscape, mountainscape, treescape, every strata of society zoomed in, broken off into squares, spliced in till one can hardly imagine any motif…rockets...ornithology…sailboat (full career). All great stuff and again, no serious criticism here, but I just want this. I want to get really deep into the way of living and influence that this painting epitomizes, emulates, encourages. I want a full-orbed glance at all the beauty there is to find in this life.

Our weekend in Vero presumably came to a close this morning, after daily happy hour visits to Waldo’s, chucking the Frisbee on the beach yesterday, hanging till late with Josh, Mike, and Kevin. breakfast this morning at the French diner will cue our exit this afternoon and my eyes will cringe again on Tuesday morning un-rested and unsettled discontent and malaise with frustrated eyes careening this way and that at the lives everyone else has figured out, after spending memorial day painting a fence in pompano, I’ll wake and perform my duties all over, as “a [dis]functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me,” (fleet foxes).

i wrote the above entry three weeks ago and never posted it, thought it needed more editing, it did, but i'm not going to do it. mj leaves tomorrow for el salvador and as he heads out to work with a school and church i think of Van Eyck and his charismatic look at life and living well.

link to view painting in full beauty http://www.lalouver.com/html/group_08_3/05.html

wendell berry, "the mad farmer liberation front", new fav

2011-06-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.

Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion – put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

five twenty one eleven

2011-05-21T15:57:00.000-07:00

it comes in waves unattached

to location

in brain

and in heart

daytime trains barreling thru cerebrum (no one understands how)

in the heat of day- with black earth caking my sunburnt skin (head to toe)

it starts three inches deep

between my sternum and backbone

and it moves down (sometimes slow, today quickly)

around the outer edge

of an upside down spire (with the upper part where the lower part should be)

reaching the base (as it only can in the inverted case)

then returns skyward

it is in lover’s epic smile (the postlude to a colossal fall)

or the face of child (realizing the bubble gum at the bottom of the screwball)

(not yet) knowing the certain fullness of the state we’re in

it is not the luff, the leech, nor foot

nor any composite hoisted for ardent haste

rather

it is the wind

the breeze

the oceans sister

moving above, moving down from Fa(r)ther above (pronounced like love)

moving down from the clouds till right above the granite ocean

sister loves brother

yeah (with aspiration) it’s true

breath that in deep (then pause)

they work together

and brother loves sister

that’s also worth breathing in deep

they make mother proud

Father is chock-full of delight

hokey pete!

2011-05-17T18:46:00.000-07:00

jack kerouac, on the road

2011-05-16T19:49:00.000-07:00

"we were on the roof of america and all we could do was yell, I guess - across the night, eastward over the plains, where somewhere an old man with white hair was probably walking toward us with the Word, and would arrive any minute and make us silent."

a rambling plea

2011-04-06T11:24:00.000-07:00

thank goodness

my blood came back to the opposite side of toxic

so i can shovel caffeine

till all my poor, late, last night decision'ing

gets covered over like a dredged beach

like a dredged beach

so you can't see the coral reef

so you can't see what's underneath

truly, what is under me?

what is underneath?

deeper than benthic panoply's

these pixilated maladies

this veneer of confidence

i glue to me

to ambulate these city streets

that don't know my name

though their staight lines and their curbsides

have more veracity

than this white washed glamour

my pretentious mendacity

to say what's odious

obvious

in confusing pleasantries

these brutal vagaries

that claim a banner year for poetry

what's underneath?

can i go deeper?

gosh, i just want for all these rambling pleas

to cut me off once and for all

right below the knee

so knees are all i have to use for asking

so that maybe just maybe i'll find myself enthralled for good

by the freeing arms of Loveliness Extreme*

he calls me brutally beautiful*

in ways ear plugs can't stop me from hearing

knowing

my hand-written heart beat...

is from his son

*gertrude stein penned loveliness extreme

*buddy wakefield is responsible for brutally beautiful as well as something very close in word and meaning to the last line. oh and i suppose he makes me think about ear plugs as well.

when he lived in broward 2

2011-04-04T10:44:00.000-07:00

Leaning back against the roughly finished stucco wall in the courtyard of a downtown bar his heart was rain gear hanging in a warehouse on some beach in Alaska’s Shelikof. His hearing came and went with words like ‘200 in sales’, ‘killing it’, and ‘lucrative’. Surviving in a new part of town with his friend Jon, living with a roommate was not what got stuck in his craw, rather living with himself, and the adjacent conversations weren’t exactly remedial, as he’d hoped.

A crowd of men a few years his junior encircled one who spoke in narrative with an arm bent outward serving as a prop in certain parts of the story. “And so I’m fucking her right,” he overheard as the young gentleman’s volume knob crept obnoxiously clockwise. He hadn’t heard the context of this eloquence but judging by the eyes bugging, ashes flicking, flat billed hats re-adjusting till right above the eye brows, it was all sensationally titillating. “She stops me for a second and says she can hardly take it,” he does some nebulous gesture with his bent arm. He dodged the rest of this dialogue, less because it boiled blood more for the planks it turned in his own hollow eye sockets (like empty catchers mitts), more because of the personal malaise it framed, his own identity, different yet all together inglorious and he had no choice but to swallow it whole.

“You done with that?” he said to Jon, motioning with his own empty glass, with the pair he made his way down a corridor swelling with attractive women all dressed in varying shades of black and white. They seemed to communicate a trilogy of postmodern epiphany- ‘I have so much money’ and ‘I don’t need money’, and ‘I’ve never seen a dollar’. And he knew like Elie Wiesel's boyish arms knew no one familiar on a nazi-poland bound cattle car that though their eyes and smiles were fixed so contentedly, their perfect feet could hardly bear the weight from having to carry the entirety of that image.

A band, equally skilled at noise and not practicing piped up the second he opened the door to head inside. He careened toward the bar to close out and threw a few darts as he awaited his bill. “Thanks man, really good times,” he told the bartender as he signed away his twelve dollars. That’s an hour of patching dry wall he thought pushing the pen and receipt back toward the man.

He met Jon and Yoni out front and there they three stood for a bit shooting shit about food-trucks and Yoni pitched a line about the previous night he had spent with a friend, "and the new guy she’s with.”

His neck craned back, like blue jay did with bull ant that morning (only minus the Marlboro this time), and he stayed his eyes on a big ficus strewn with an angled array of street light strays. He tried to picture her face in the light and dark leaves of the tree’s canopy. He smiled and near cracked a button sized laugh when he found himself, in that instance, incapable of recalling her appearance. He thought it was sort of unlike himself to forget a face, especially one he had once found mesmerizing, but he stopped shy of remorse, and though it seemed pharisaic, he chalked up ficus leaves as a very good omen.

when he lived in broward

2011-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

I heard about this Japanese Samurai who was neglecting his duty of guarding a sacred painting. In his neglect, the room where the painting was kept caught fire. The sight of smoke awoke the young Samurai. He dashed into the room, grabbed the painting from the wall with now furtive hands but found all exits barred by flames. Without hesitation, he ran his sword vertically down his chest, wrapped all his clothing around the painting and pressed it into the hole he made in himself. After the flames subsided, others entered the room to find what remained of the samurai’s corpse and the unharmed painting that it contained.

__________________________________________________________________

“A painting, regardless of style or method or description is a collection of color(s) on canvas that displays an image,” he thought as he paced about the downtown gala. He wanted to live and needed work. His most revered peer with a beard, named Jon, an unquestionably Kerouacian Joe who claimed Chicago, with roots big enough to take a seat on and just tall enough to catch your heal while working on a backwards walk kept telling him with persistence and posture that there’s more to being human than being in the right place.

He left the gala with a mind to bolt home, “ohp, see you,” he threw out with a waggish peace sign to the lady behind the counter near the door. Once in car, he realized that Jon was right and that he needed to get himself home to make calls to schedule or cop work (however you want to look at it), the under the table kind natural to the sons of small business contractors . Car started first go and without having to apply foot to gas pedal. He patted the old girl on her pristine dash and started for home. In the move he’d lost a charger for the zune a buddy had given him, and being that no one has zunes, or zune chargers, and that no one gives a shit to learn how to configure the thing, he was in the process of giving up on charging it and for that matter using it ever again for musical enjoyment. So he reached for cd’s and pessimistically hoped in what he’d find. He mind’s digital reader board spelled out with big high-school gymnasium bulbs- “JOHN DENVER, SHIT NO, SINATRA?, THAT FUCK, RADIOHEAD…” He broke the mind drama and slid the cd in flipping a three sided verbal coin in the car's cab- “rainbows it goes, kid a it stays, scratched out the window (other than the last clause everything rhymed, unintentional of course and silly as it was, it pleased the poet in him ever so mildly, smile cracked (size of a button)), he hit a quick drumroll on the squishy steering wheel snare, then crashed on the blinker as ‘everything in its right place’ and his new neighborhood cued simultaneously.

The song middled as he pulled into the shell-rock driveway. Slinging his canvas side-bag from the passenger seat he spotted the pack of smooths his buddy had left in the center consul which he grabbed unhesitatingly, walked a few paces toward a front porch slash over-eave and lit up. “Last for sure, “ he assured himself for all the wrong reasons- he didn’t want to flem-hack anymore or fear cancer-coughs in dehydrated sleep. He hummed and his eyes went catacomb peering up at the Norfolk pine pressing against the neck of the Australian’s higher branches in closest proxy. Power lines set horizontal stripes in the foreground, “how vogue,” he thought and squinted hard as his depth of focus kept auto-resetting on pine and power line and quickly made his mind go loopy. He tilted the neck on his shoulders slightly to exhale smoke like he’d seen a blue jay do with a bull ant. He pulled a moleskine from his front pock and jotted frivolously, “I’ve always known myself to be slightly irrational but love it like tao enlightenment when blue ants taste like Marlboro in the throats of bull jays.”

Reluctantly for sanity sake, Ryan called (he was also quitting the smokes (once for all!))

“hey,” said ryan.

“hey man, I’m smoking,” he admitted.

“good for you.”

“thanks, how you doing?”

“really good actually.”

“nice.”

“Marlboro makes this pack of snus that sells for two ninety-nine. After exercise then breakfast I threw one in and now I bet I’ll be craving free till at least one, maybe two.”

“nice.”

“but yesterday I was out of snus and bummed a red off a guy in the shop when I had a craving…”

“oh no.”

“…yeah, skoal and camel snus are either four to six bucks and these Marlboros are six-packs and more mild.”

“that’s the ticket then?”

“yup.”

“well.”

“what have you been up to this morning?” ryan asked.

“just writing a little bit…oh and, went by an art gallery,” he said.

“nice…well I better go, thanks for calling,” ryan said.

“oh sure, yeah, see you tonight then.”

“oh yeah, right, pick you up at six thirty.”

“nice, do it.”

“um…later then.”

“yeah, peace.”

He craned his neck back again taking in the playful norfolk and australian, staring as long as he could until the swaying limbs fell from focal prominence to the dark and permanence of the power lines in broward.

Catacomb’d he looked away and at a dirty chair and thought of Jon for the simple memory of what he had said for the third or second time now on his way off to a meeting, “that’s where cat sits, I mean cat’s sit.” He stayed his thoughts of Jon and Jon’s fellow human laugh which tended to bubble out of drollery like a panoply of sunken vessels resurrected.

He thought of Jon’s trip with a friend and how they’d seen Hemingway’s house, the southernmost point, and “every street in Key West” as Jon said with the start of a laugh before moving onto some other detail about riding bikes or eating pies, rather pie pieces, or drinking beers, or telling stories. And he wanted that, not the trip or the sense of adventure; he had similarly eventful trips to Key West, that wasn’t the point. He wanted his life to be true is all, like the Avett’s song, he wanted naked truths like Jon was good at telling in semi-lit living room conversations, ‘round midnight with topics such as confessionals on the rocks, he wanted what he’d seen imbuing the lives of inventors and architects, Okakura Kakuzo and Frank Lloyd Wright, in artists and friends, the Avett Bro’s and Jon, he wanted a hole in his chest to await something valuable. Perhaps more selfishly than for pride’s sake, more for possession of goodness than heroic legacy, more for purpose of admission of duty neglected (he lacked a more concise explanation) and active repentance thru coming to senses and making good on wrongs, get this though, he wanted the gospel to get all set in his irrevivably charred corpse, he wanted something like rose buds beside thistles and thorns. He wanted, minus the sword, headband, and other outlandish garb, all that he’d seen in so many angels but without these eyes that always seemed to catacomb, he wanted to be a collection of colors on canvas that displayed an image, like the samurai.

through the ember

2011-03-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

now that the solace of the pencil tip
is all bored into
by the times
i close up
embracing the warmth of the back of my eye's lids
washing aways the footprints
the stomp of dirty shoes
on my pharisaic dormant
doormatt
temperament

but the lids are embers also
that know moving on
means maybe
moving on

and i've seen growth
once i saw past the smoke
rising
from the cinders of my ravages

i saw hope
in a younger brothers beautiful song
hope through inspecting so much history
that grandmothers
and grandfathers closest brothers
never heard
while walking in their earthy skins
but then
with newly fashioned ear canals
which knew no more of lamentations
and heard it all
and wept
because it is okay to love those still running
or pacing
while awaiting
a survival

strafing toward the east i peer
and hope with a boneless neck
atop shoulders bent boyish yet
as death-tolls and nuclear statistics
are all i can get my hands on

were i
numb on suffering overseas
less callous about real injustice
were i
seriously
forced to own the facts
that sign the dotted line of ignorant contracts

(citizenship)
i'd have no choice
but to take a machetti turned sideways
and drag it across my western swaggering
think-tank mind
and move one inch
closer to the real divides
the swinging alaskan noonday tides
while peeking through an ember
locked away from and by this skeleton

found this today, it was written by a brilliant old roommate and shoved inside an old collapsible chess set

2011-03-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

advent
by tucker lux

milk and honey here

and not here

one who soaks all
tears,
here

and not here,
but tears can be wiped
and there are glimpses
unseen

in waterside
prayers and healings

in (sk)eyes

in lips

of a lover
like the gospel

something to dig

2011-03-01T11:14:00.000-08:00

"...make love to me, like you know i'm better than the worst thing i ever did, go slow ya'll, i'm new to this, but i have seen nearly every city in the world from a rooftop without jumping, i have realized that the moon, it did not have to be full for us to love it, that we, we are not tragedies stranded here beneath it, that if my heart really broke, really, every time i fell from love i'd be able to offer you confetti by now, but heart's don't break ya'll, they bruise and get better, we were never tragedies, we were emergencies, you call 911, go ahead, tell them i'm having a fantastic time." -buddy wakefield

bad question, good answer

2011-02-22T13:25:00.000-08:00

should I give money to homeless folks or beggars?
by the (clai)borne identity (deal with it)
from thesimpleway.org f.a.q. link

Jesus said give to everyone who asks. that’s a tough command. sometimes we wonder what Jesus would do in the calcutta slums or in these heroine-haunted streets where folks ask for change on every corner. what we can say with confidence is that we are to give something to everyone who asks – dignity, attention, time, a listening ear. sometimes we may give money, sometimes not. but we can always give love. and there are times when giving money can even be a way to insulate ourselves from friendship or the messiness a real relationship might demand. so you can toss a few coins to a beggar or write a check to charity precisely as a way of insulating ourselves from relationships (and still appease our consciences)… but at the end of the day Christ’s call is to relationship and compassion. when Jesus speaks in matthew 25 about caring for “the least of these”, the action he speaks of is not about distant acts of charity but personal actions of compassion – visiting the prisoners, caring for the sick, welcoming the strangers, sharing food with the hungry. better than sharing money is sharing life, a meal, a home. having said that, most christians need to get taken advantage of more. and we can usually spare some change. sometimes folks say this question about giving to beggars and panhandlers with suspicion, speculating that homeless folks will just use their money for drugs or alcohol… which happens sometimes. but we don’t always ask what ceo's are doing with our money when we give it to their companies (and the recent events on wall street raise some flags about how responsible they are!). in the end, if we cannot take someone to dinner or give them a ride when they ask for money, we might as well give some money. it’s better to err on the side of grace than on the side of suspicion. and we doubt that Jesus is going to reprimand us for giving too much money to addicts… more likely, we will discover we could have been a bit more generous than we were.

songs…

2011-02-15T04:51:00.000-08:00

growing out the tips of tree branches
rising up from the pavement after a rainy summer day
pouring in through colonial style windows
pelting car hoods in some fluke of a hurricane-esque tirade
winding through chain link fences
(hiding eternally from the scorn of weed wacker)
pummeling sargassum
circumventing skyscrapers aft of sunshine- creating all black wings
waving to the frequenter of coffee shops on week days
careening over the piled up tracks- all of flagler’s dying wishes
hesitating to cross the street because momma’s hands are both pushing a publix cart
rising above the fear of breaking down and stepping on the gas
undulating in the steam o’ertop a pot of boiling rice
jumping across tables and saying, son you love well, grandson you love well
waiting as the door closes (before locking) to make sure I’m out safe
running out an mp3 playing device so my ears don’t bleed from radio hits

it wasn’t until these songs jumped back on the mind’s radar did I make for my khaki pants, my grandpa’s shirt (again), and my quattro pro hat. It’s weird how perspectives grab you and tint your eyes until all are drab forces, all are simply leaves, waves, hail, and birds and you can’t hear what’s really going on, new days without the song are on par with impacted fingernails trying to scratch off an ingrown toe hair, don’t do it.

from the ragamuffin gospel, by brennan manning

2011-02-12T07:36:00.000-08:00

the way we are with each other is the truest test of our faith. how i treat a brother or sister from day to day, how i react to the sin-scarred wino on the street, how i respond to interruptions from people i dislike, how i deal with normal people in their normal confusion on a normal day may be a better indication of my reverence for life that the antiabortion sticker on the bumper of my car.

we are not pro-life simply because we are warding off death. we are pro-life to the extent that we are men and women for others, all others; to the extent that no human flesh is stranger to us; to the extent that we can touch the hand of another in love; to the extent that for us there are no "others."

today the danger of the pro-life position, which i vigorously support, is that it can be frighteningly selective. the rights of the unborn and the dignity of the age-worn are pieces of the same pro-life fabric. we weep at the unjustified destruction of the unborn. did we also weep when the evenoing news reported from arkansas that a black family had been shotgunned out of a white neighborhood?

one morning i experienced a horrifying hour. i tried to remember how often between 1941 and 1988 i wept for a german or japanese, a north korean or north vietnamese, a sandinista or cuban. i could not remember one. then i wept, not for them, but for myself.

when we laud life and blast abortionists, our credibility as christians is questionable. on one hand we proclaim the love and anguish, the pain and joy that goes into fashioning a single child. we proclaim how precious life is to God and should be to us. on the other hand, when it is the enemy that shrieks to heaven with his flesh is flames, we do not weep, we are not shamed; we call for more.

the sensitive jew remembers the middle ages-every ghetto structured by christians, every forced baptism, every good friday pogrom, every portrait of shylock exacting his pound of flesh, every identifying dress or hat or badge, every death for conscience's sake, every back turned or shoulder shrugged, every sneer and slap and curse.

with their tragic history as background, it is not surprising that many jews are unimpressed with our anti-abortion stance and our arguments for the sacredness of human life. for they still hear cries of 'christ-killer!' the survivors of auschwitz and dachau still feel lashes on their backs; they still see images of human soap, still taste hunger, still smell gas. the history of judaism is a story of caring: they are not sure we care for them.

the pro-life position is a seamless garment of reverence for the unborn and the age-worn, for the enemy, the jew, and the quality of life of all people. otherwise, it is paste jewelry and sawdust hot dogs.

two/eight/eleven

2011-02-10T16:35:00.000-08:00

with cup of coffee in hand
i’m already searching for ways to desert
my plan
it didn’t match up to ideals in my head
like the withered orchid (covered with segmented ants)
prostrate on the countertop (beside my keys)
wishing for soil
but i took it inside
to offer me its scent
at my command

dear God
jumpbox me grace
or lay me on top
of a stretcher with handles attached
and carry me down
to the prophet in town
when you find that it’s packed
tear open the roof
and hurl me down
before the man
that makes good wine
thirteen point five
at least
who saves the best for last
and knows how to deal with lameness

it’s not that I’ve begun numbering my days
rather that I’m sitting thick in malaise
and it’s always in tomorrow’s paper
which I received again
today (upon first waking)
and fear I’ve got to catch a train
that’ll lead me
and dump me
closer to the truth
than any route i choose on whim
and con off as the result of prayer
to dear God

junior league baseball

2011-02-01T16:21:00.000-08:00

i found myself walking out to the batter’s box with bases loaded, coach gives the signal for swing away (which i think was actually him twirling chest hair, mouth agape, if i remember correctly). the signals were always more of a distraction than anything else, and though on that hot sunday afternoon in boca raton i had no trouble understanding the horrendously disgusting and confusing signals being thrown my way, i lacked the confidence to carry them out the way he intended. the last bit was the most crucial part, the way he, my coach, intended.

a little context would surely cue reader to my amped frustration on that day in boca raton.

to play little league ball in lantana a kid could not exceed 12 years of age. i hated this rule. i was completely out of control in lantana’s little league. i was so thoroughly dependable on a number of counts. i could steal any base anytime. monsters eat people and cars, i ate stolen bases. i hit through the gaps between in-fielders so consistently i made their team mom’s shake maniacally- a team mom is a mom who has nothing else to do, is overprotective of her child, or loves baseball but lacks coaching skills, or a mom who wants to have an affair with the coach. defense, a no brainer, i played every position- i pitched, i caught, short-stop, center field, no shit i was unstoppable, a legend among lantana little league baseball playing adolescents. but the day i turned 13 my entire life changed. i was forced to retire from the little leagues and join all the other 13 and 14 year olds in junior league. tryouts were horrendous. i was small. i didn’t have a gold necklace, no sweat bands, no big-barrel bat, no hair under my arms. goodness it was another world. i kept looking over my shoulder, back at the old world, the little league field where i reigned supreme, wishing i could trot back there, hop the fence, and re-take my throne. i couldn’t. i got picked up by the mariners, coached by bob brackis (who was married to beverly brackis, and together they owned the boca based towing company known as b&b tow yo butt anywhere ). bob was the italian father of bobby brackis, also italian, 13 years old, and played my position and though he also hadn’t hit puberty yet and was a good deal shorter than myself, he had a tow-truck driver for a father which meant he had shoulders like a logger and could swear like the godfather. he and i were apparently the only two who hadn’t grown like all the other boys did in the off-season but somehow i just knew that he’d would be playing short and i’d be on the bench. i thought correctly.

down florida drive lived a buddy of mine, vaughn parker. he was slick on the diamond as well as with the middle school girls (i know because when we were on the diamond he would tell me they were always calling him after school). he slapped line drives and he was fast, had a good arm so he pitched and batted whenever he wanted. being his parents were divorced and he an only child, he received anything he wanted from his father...anything, bats, gloves, batting gloves. he got hooked up so often i received some pretty sweet hand me downs. but his father was cool though, he drove a big truck and smoked marlboros like bob brackis did, but he thought me worthy to ride inside the cabin of his truck whereas bob thought of me on par with one of his pornographic mud-flaps.

vaughn's dad and bob brackis started a traveling baseball team, and based on my little league street cred alone they asked me to join. we were the d-a-w-g-s, dawgs. we played in weekend tournaments all over the state and kicked ass. we were promised professional baseball careers if we could just kick enough ass. and i was one of the smaller boys still but, i don’t know, somehow playing with vaughn, and riding to practice in the back of his dad’s smokey pre-quad cab chevy truck made me enjoy baseball again even if i could no longer play short-stop or confidently stand in the batters box.

back to the day at hand...

who knows why but i found myself walking out to the batter’s box with two outs and bases loaded. i watched vaughn parker's dad down the 3rd base line nodding his head at me, twirling chest hair like a mad man. i stepped inside the box, took a strike, stepped one foot out of the box, and did something i’d never done previously. i called a timeout. coach tilted his stern coaching face as if his entire universe had just downshifted without much clutch, each step i took was a brash grinding of gears. i trotted down the third base line towards coach to share a plan, one i had just wipped up when i should have been swinging my bat. he knelt and with, marlboro and morning breath pervading into late afternoon boca raton air he asked,
“uhh, what’s the deal, wha-what’s...the deal?”
“i’m going to bunt.”
“what?”
“have the others run, i’m going to bunt,” i explained.

his initial reactions were confused. but the longer he looked at my pre-pubescent face he knew i lacked every strand of confidence needed to hit the ball. he coupled that understanding with my cast-iron compromise of baseball stratagem (bunting with bases loaded and two outs isn’t common). he gripped and scratched the back of his neck with his left hand and started pointing at me with a wagging right pointer. he rolled with my plan and threw a few discrete signals to the boys on base. i walked back and knew what i had to do. if i went for the bunt down third, the guy coming home is done- he’ll be strangled by the simple 2-1 scoop, easy underhand from pitcher to catcher, inning over. but, i poke it down the first base line a ways the pitcher will go for it, and being he’s right handed he’ll have to made a crazy turn to make the 2-1 so he’ll go to first with it making the out to end the inning (x-factor- he doesn’t know how ridiculously fast i am). plus, if i poke it far enough the first baseman will also confusedly try to field the bunt as well.

play resumed, as planned the runners left before the pitch was released. i pivoted my toes and set the angle of my bat for a text book first-base-line bunt. i got my bat on the ball, it stayed in play but it sprang left instead of right. i watched it as i ran figuring the pitcher’d tag vaughn who was running home. but vaughn was nearly home. then he was sliding into home. the pitcher hesitated. he had pumped the throw home but then realized he’d better try to get me for the 2-3 sure out. i was but two strides off first. he rushed, gunned the throw and overshot the first baseman. the right fielder was behind him and after a few seconds tracked it down and threw home to hopefully stop the bleeding. our second runner was already in the dugout and the guy who was on first was barreling for the plate. the ball joined the confluence of runner and catcher just in time but the runner slid very heavily into the catcher. the catcher fell over backwards and the ball was flung into the backstop. by this point i was rounding third with coach parker doing cracked out signals all the while. the catcher gathered himself, threw off his mask and scrambled for the loose ball. it was too late. if vaughn was too fast i was way too damn fast. i stomped the plate, picked up the bat and walked back to the dugout. my team (my fellow dawgs) the stands, and coach parker were stupified with cheers, laughter, and an overwhelming upsurge of high fives. an absolutely unanimous balls to the wall uproar, the stands went psycho ape for sure. it wasn’t the final inning or anything but those runs were game winners for sure. my grand slam bunt won the game. holy crap.

from blow

2011-01-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

"so in the end was it worth it, jesus christ how irreparably changed my life has become, it’s always the last day of summer and i’ve been left out in the cold with no door to get back in. i’ll grant you i’ve had more than my fair share of buoyant moments. life passes most people by while they’re making grand plans for it. throughout my lifetime i’ve left pieces of my heart here and there and now there’s almost not enough to stay alive but i force a smile knowing that my ambition far exceeded my talent, there are no more white horses, or pretty ladies at my door."

sony atrium in manhattan, for ryan

2011-01-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

the conversations we hear,
the ones we make,
the personalities we take in,
the identities we put on,
they sit in atriums around circular stainless tables
and make us spin.

if our eyes displayed motives like holographic baseball cards
displaying the connection of ball and bat plus reaction
i doubt we'd walk away unaffected.

keys jingle beats to the beat of my redemption
as i walk from who i was an often innocent convict
and i confess my time was often wasted as a derelict.
so batten down the hatches boys this ship is going down,
check my pockets once you check my pulse
and change it in town for train tickets.

soap and sponges

2011-01-14T07:41:00.000-08:00

she is beautiful
and i am myself
so i flit and bumble like a dragonfly does
at the end of the day, when the words are all said
and the water looks black and calm
like the edge of the world
in columbus’ restless daydream
wishing her to walk along beneath the stars

when plans are only cities and streets
i walk about in my size 10 feet
in tattered borrowed shoes
and make endless scattered paths (like ficus roots)
beneath the ground
of my hometown

when thunder clouds appear
in the north and western sky
i pack my tools away
call it a day
and make the drive
back to where i ate my breakfast
where i had my latest sleep
and think about tomorrow
making plans that are all pending
rainless skies

my life is all but soap and sponges
i hope my brother knows how much i love him
in that distant land with trees
and 95 too far to reach
to make a swift strut
into my neck of the woods

the day on the wharf

2011-01-05T08:15:00.000-08:00

The day on the wharf, that day I’ll not soon forget. I’ll not soon forget the day on the wharf and all of its simple beauty. Behind retrospect’s veil I can hardly see that moment at the intersection and our inability to assign a captain or cohesively decide on a direction for that matter. I only recall sunlight, sangria, the Hudson, the wharf, the vending counter, and a third party eating cupcakes at the table beside ours and eventually them giving one to Patrick. Moving toward the vending counter where I saw people buying buckets with fruit around the edge and scattered throughout the contents. Candice told me it was sangria and asked if I’d ever had it. There was a moment when I thought to myself, “that’s too much to spend on a pitcher I don’t care how good she says sangria is,” and I nearly turned back, nearly settled for a bucket of Heinekens…nearly. And something now tells me that all that day hinged, and had we not sangria our memories of that day would have slid quickly into that violent abyss, the one with the rotting sign posted a step outside of its descending northern wall, the sign reads- days forgotten (written in blood-colored ink).

It was grace that said “carpe fucking-diem”- shell out thirty dollars for sangria. It, grace, alone knew I’d need that taste to store that memory deep and long enough for a morning like today when I’d wake up fearing that hope is lost, like Father wouldn't take me back smelling like pig-shit and slop.

Pat and I sat back and threw questions like frisbees with limp wrists.
“How’s D.C.?” I’d asked.
“It’s good, how’s Florida?” he’d asked in return.
We obviously didn’t remember to hold them frisbees level and flick, we used too much arm, we tried to muscle it the way kids do when they’re just learning how to throw. And I wonder why even at twenty-five it felt like the right thing to do; like quality or longevity depended on anything but a gentle, level, motion of the wrist to the right, the release of a disk flatly held.

Thankfully our temporary brooklyn resident friends remembered what makes the earth stay in orbit. They knew to enfold one another, to be unrestrained about living well amidst the pain of prodigality. And we all walked on, down the wharf until pat and I took our loving friend's cues about sharing honestly, revealing what lay shivering beneath the surfaces of our frightened minds, letting all of it get bathed and slain in a blood-red sunset.

in these shoes

2011-01-02T19:50:00.001-08:00

In these shoes
I gotta walk on stars to keep them looking bright
and one time I kicked and I shattered the moon,
it became those trillion white specs in blacktop
and now when the sun bends ahead of the earth's curve
It instead reflects upward
and illuminates the dark parts of my night

I'm glad you allowed my fingers to be the broom
that sweeps the hair from your eyes
what I didn't know was that you'd not need my sweeping
until some other froze you paralyzed
leaving your face with water-logged eyes
what you didn't know
was that my bristles stick together at times
and far from pleasant are the feelings I don't share
when I see your gaze stare… real close
but just to tantalize… my hopes… of sweeping round the clock
when winters freeze,
and summer's heat,
and fall leaves
beneath your toes weave
a carpet
but you only permit me to be the rake
when I'm willing to come embrace
whatever tapestry you make
and shake the dust (I borrowed that one)

I define forgiveness as hands full of glass shards
Let to fall
while time moves backward at a redemptive pace
to the tune of amazing
And then back forward to the beat of newness
To the tune of grace
Realizing it had been playing all the while
and the glass doesn't fall it fireflies
overtop the black desert of Kuwait's nights
until oil-wells get poked into the earth's crust like light-brights
like a trillion candelabra dropped to the floor
from the ceiling of one of God's corridors
falling into a bursting oil fire from
oil rigs where the shards disintegrate
into whatever it is we become

and these shoes
ah man I'm going to keep walking in these shoes

father and son

2010-10-17T12:13:00.001-07:00

"you may still be here tomorrow, but your dreams may not"
-cat stevens

lil' diddy

2010-09-28T16:35:00.001-07:00

think it's time for an allignment

time to find where all my time went

and where i'm going now

a really good poem

2010-09-27T03:44:00.000-07:00

calvary by edwin arlington robinson

friendless and faint, with martyred steps and slow,
faint for the flesh, but for the spirit free,
stung by the mob that came to see the show,
the Master toiled along to calvary;
we gibed him, as he went, with houndish glee,
till his dimmed eyes for us did overflow;
we cursed his vengeless hands thrice wretchedly, --
and this was nineteen hundred years ago.

but after nineteen hundred years the shame
still clings, and we have not made good the loss
that outraged faith has entered in his name.
ah, when shall come love's courage to be strong!
tell me, o Lord -- tell me, o Lord, how long
are we to keep Christ writhing on the cross!

new co-blog attempt!

2010-08-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

iwereacarpenter

a beginning

2010-07-18T19:37:00.001-07:00

january came and went down a highway and a dirt road, my memories often circumvent those places that i traveled then, and left, with barely a goodbye.

rare moments, somewhat of a prayer from last night

2010-04-27T21:25:00.000-07:00

they weren’t always so rare, those moments of true bursting love for life. but life has gone grey in months past and for reasons i’m not sure of. in preparing for this missions expo, i’ve been somewhat forced into thinking on things around which past days had more seldom revolved- kingdom, hope, compassion, a life well lived.

the mind is only capable of so much and when fear is given an opportunity to fester, boy it festers, i mean really grabs faith and jostles the living crud right out of you. faith, in part, is believing that grace wouldn’t allow a man or woman to sit in complacent acceptance of a pre-fab dream. i believe that, i really do. call it behavior modification, call it improper horizontal imperative, what have you, i call it good old gospel gumption. it’s an attitude of a reformer, fist in the air, that says as only those who appreciate blue like jazz can understand, the nature of man is about screwing people over- and i’m not going to let sin make that kind of pansy out of me.

it seems that grace can connect with a passionate, correctly fashioned/alligned pursuit of good-will towards men, but the color of grace is so blood red it can’t lay dormant in a believer for to long without moving on to some other somebody. it needs blood that wants oxygen. and if we somebody’s choose to not force it in by deep inhalation or hand held tank through a respirator, by golly grace wants out. it doesn’t leave, it makes good on its promises but also puts its best foot forward and sometimes, crime of all crimes, i think it puts its most concentrated energy in a new body.

this body, my body, is part of another body. i’m malformed, sorry. i need my other body parts to make good on the offer grace has given. i need brothers and sisters, the kind that do the will of my Father in heaven, the tight knit kind that bend steel bars of captivity into stretchers to carry the lame to their bathing pools all stirred up to await the miraculous. i need eyes with sight and blind pals who recognize that they see farther because physicality can’t touch em. i need proclaimers of the Lord’s favored year.

dear God, Quicken your bride to move as a connected body of one. quicken our drowsy tired minds, eyes, feet, and hearts into an educated frenzy toward living inside your kingdom. hasten the day of your return because one more here might do us in. and if you must keep us here, let us bar the doors of hell until we rally nations into knee-bent utterances of your glory, your power.

Lord God Almighty, Jehovah, as i move towards my bed, let sleep only be for me another chance to proclaim good news. and if all my tomatoes in the soil in the pots outside all croak and spoil, let that news also spur me and those within my immediate proximity toward still deeper breaths that reap a harvest of righteousness from turning sinners from the error of their ways. plain and simple, allow heaven to be a real hope-source, allow hell to scare me to laughter because it hasn’t sting for my body. and please, could you remind me again of my salvation, formed by divine proxy before light hit the earth, before small birds had even learned to fly, or before they learned their love of perching on trustworthy branches.

last thoughts on woodie guthrie, by bob dylan

2010-02-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

this is just an excerpt. say, if i didn't think i was doing the poem an injustice i'd have posted the whole thing. it's honestly only going to be life-changing if you youtube the title- "last thoughts on woodie guthrie" and listen to bobby d. read this himself. thanks mike sprinkle for showing me this track in alasky and mike kaiser for reminding me of its greatness. dig it.

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/last-thoughts-woody-guthrie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqfdUCJEaHw&feature=related

"careful hands", a song by sleeping at last

2010-02-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

put your coat on, this city trembles.
keep your chin up, as you untangle God
from cold blood and bruises.

we are x-rays of something broken.
cursive bloodlines write every forecast:
an orchestration of dissonance and innocent surrender.

when our color dies,
we will bury the ashes of time,
and we will earn new eyes.

wrists get tired rewriting futures.
our bodies beg us to be creatures of habit.
we are creatures of habit.

only with careful hands
we’ll turn their fangs into feathers and cures.
only with careful hands
we’ll divide the prisoner
from the pioneer.

clever beauty,
umbrellas folding.
in architecture, our lines will measure
a map to find us.
blue ink will guide us home.

cranes are creeping, lifting metal,
we will find new ways to settle,
tipping scales from the killer to its prey.

i can feel the weight around us,
climbing every rib inside us,
a sanctuary in a lion’s mouth

money, by frederich buechner

2010-02-01T04:56:00.000-08:00

"Jesus says that it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Maybe the reason is not that the rich are so wicked they're kept out of the place but that they're so out of touch with reality they can't see it's a place worth getting into."

ruined in a night

2010-01-28T05:26:00.000-08:00

i didn’t sleep through the nineties

but i woke in twenty ten

to feel the excess of sleep

and undergrowth i now lay in

black as earth, my inner darkness

darkened with each tepid sip

the southern comfort and sweetened tea

sweetly sour on my lips

now loud as ships in the cut

are my disturbing yells of ruin

warning boats of shallow depth

so they don't do what i been doing

weary streams shored up

springs covered at hilsboro

what had current and coastal roam

is now trickling pure sorrow

be sure this tune we share

my florida and i

and if we live to tell

with flat rasp we will recite

how much truer we had lived

and how we we weren't born for flight

but truth has gone and flown away

since we ruined in a night

twelve fifteen o nine

2009-12-15T08:13:00.000-08:00

molded, to fit the scene, all is shaping, all but one ruins, only one builds truly, and yet builds for brokenness, as he came to break, to spill, to explain will, the will of one great mercy

ready to go, to leave, to become, to embrace, to find a lost coin, to buy a field, to sew seeds of real belief and let faith become my only identity

preparing to afford myself the opportunity to become spent as well, to become ruined, to put comfort on the chopping block, to place my addiction to consumption in the stack beside the furnace, to hang self from the slats of my privacy fence, becoming the target of an enemy so determined to see me slain, to see me stay a cowering contemplative soldier hidden behind the trees surrounding the battle grounds

oh great mercy, my stream of life, my heart invites, begs, pleads, screams for your flow to rush in, to wash clean, to renew, and in light of that great cleansing that i'd find grace enough to live, mercy enough to be found merciful, and love enough to be made whole, only to come undone

keeping in touch, by frederick buechner

2009-12-15T06:48:00.000-08:00

we believe in God- such as it is, we have faith- because certain things happened to us once and go on happening. we work and goof off, we love and dream, we have wonderful times and awful times, are cruelly hurt and hurt others cruelly, get mad and bored and scared stiff and ache with desire, do all such human things as these, and if our faith is not mainly just window dressing or a rabbit's foot or fire insurance, it is because it grows out of precisely this kind of rich human compost. the God of biblical faith is the God who meets us at those moments in which for better or worse we are being most human, most ourselves, and if we lose touch with those moments, if we don't stop from time to time to notice what is happening to us and around us and inside us, we run the tragic risk of losing touch with God too.

revolution- moving in a circle around a central axis

2009-10-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

i looked and saw a tilted sphere bending towards a haughty crowd. i sustained my glance for it appeared that it would soon crush all underneath. being as it were a heavy ball, a painful mass, doomed to fall i shouted at that scornful bunch and shook in the echoes of my call. i soon found my vocal nodes scratched bleakly by the reverberations of mimicry, and i, regretted to find that crowd was i.

and finding my voice repugnantly bound to sounds of warning not personally heeded i conceded my stance of safety and let the declension from my fate defeated take its course that i might find my new broken corpse tomorrow ringing the changes of true remorse.

but now that i’ve fallen silent,

now that my self-deception fells me silent i see in silence i’m rebuilt and rebuilding

quiet revolution deep within.

sheep or goat

2009-10-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

i’ve never had a great grasp of theological principals. i’ve cared and studied theology but my pursuit has always left me lacking, it has always left me thinking, “you know i get that now but there’s still this and that other bit yet to uncover and i don’t know anything about them.” it’s discontenting really because it feels like i’ll never really know God. i quit caring though and i’m not sure when it happened exactly but i think it was sometime this past year. i went and lived with people who suffer the injustices of financial, emotional, physical, spiritual, and mental poverty and rather suddenly my theological world shattered beneath my feet and i saw that all of that which i’d known previously didn’t mean a thing. seriously, not a thing. i’ll tell you why i know this is true and why i’m starting to bank on this and why you should too. jesus had great ideas sure, but imagine sharing the gospel without the story of the cross. you can’t do it and the second you try you’ve already failed. because to really share the story of the cross is to stand, like Christ before herod, silent with your opinions, plans, and goals and to love your enemy to the point of giving them your life.

jesus parables aren’t like any other stories i’ve heard, his miracles are just that, miraculous. but it is not from these teachings and healings that i draw my hope. i have reason to hope only because of the cross. and the problem is that once i began drawing my hope from that beautifully tragic story of the cross my first reaction was to want to understand it more, not to do likewise. this is where i went wrong, for it is not that God would have me an ignorant cross-devoted actionary, but that in my lessening, abasing, serving, suffering, dying, i would begin to know Christ systematically. and not the other way around because it’s so tough you know, once you think you know who God, Jesus, and the Spirit are to do what they’ve told you to, once you think you know something you start feeling like you understand what he really meant rather than beginning to simply do what he plainly did. that doesn’t have to happen and of course the same thing can happen with christian service but i’ll err on that side any day of the week- getting it done rather than getting it known. why? the miracles and teachings came first but again it is not from these where we draw our only hope in this life, it is the cross and the empty tomb. had jesus only told a parable, be it a really good one that made all the pharisees crap themselves or something, and had it been about the Son of Man bearing the sin of the world to propitiate them from a place of utter depravity so that they could begin to love the way he loved and by his grace understand salvation it would not have been enough. he had to literally die. do i need to literally die? as i write off the “yes” answer to this question i sacrifice my opportunity to share in the fellowship of Christ’s suffering. but before you lash me, before ripping me a theological new one, let me ask you one more thing- chicken or egg, cross or savior, action or word, sheep or goat.

in a hammock

2009-06-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

o sparrow in-graft in me
the heights of your simplicity
that flutter upon the depths of crusted clay
and capture the fullness of this fair day in may
shall i compare thee to a summers dampness
that renders me sleepless and desirous of your sweetness
by the mist your tasks, unhindered they seem
while my mind tarries here and there, i've foreseen
that you are the greatest and most contented
the simple motions of your wings have on my mind dented
a covetous desire, a bend toward all that is plainly
hidden beneath every new moment, reaching mercilessly
to grasp all afforded by this grace in me

injustice

2009-06-14T18:14:00.007-07:00

will i...
suffer
make other wounds my wounds
our scars
forsaking my weary compassion-less start
allowing another obscenely marred
heart
solace
until the indefinitely evil charges
depart

you ask...
is comfort but a melody for songs forgotten?
is my hurt forever thronged by hail demonic?
has turmoil alas seen that radiant mercy blotted?
will hope dry out before my peaceful fields are soddened?

a prayer..
oh God that you would place in me
a trace of that humility
that embraced omnipotence and bent its knee
to wash the befriended feet of humanity

watching the shore

2009-06-14T17:42:00.001-07:00

the rocks
jagged crags
bent like flowers towards the sun
turning skyward in the tide
in the ebb and flow they change gradually
constantly standing their ground
resisting
in the frigid wash they're daily found
wrapped with kelp and other pieces of flotsam sea foliage
and draped with their salty skin
each ornate with uniqueness
though mostly unappreciated
they unaffectedly go about their business
their task of testing permanence
their mission is to be seen invariably permanent
fighting erosive warring waves
breakers bobbing and crashing to and fro
bouncing in tangled masses of liquid changedness
dissipating when wind and currents subside
rapidly awaiting the ethereal breach of morning light
a surreal serenade
mournful dungeons of darkness exacerbate this scene of constancy
growing shadows
a whipping wind entices the stones to sleep
awaiting another day of peace

another hot gulp

2009-04-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

sin impedes the paths of grace and threatens, rather promises to destroy. sitting and reading sipping coffee, lust, rather selfishness took a stab at murdering me. i dodged- today i dodged but tomorrow, well tomorrow is another day. strength today isn’t necessarily strength tomorrow- sometimes it’s quite the opposite.

the patchwork of tongue tissue singed by another hot gulp, a woolen blanket atop blistered pulp. tried to talk my way through, squinting hard until red lights turn blue-ish green. if all was seemly, a release of eyelid indulgence and pressure, would ease escape rather i find endless measures and cautious yellow beems beeming bleekly. all is not as it seems.

i find the paths of the deceiver appear beside the paths of the believer and nearly always the sinful diversions can be pinned onto respite or an overly cautious pace- and commonly at night.

another hot gulp, no different from any other hot gulp and yesterday’s remedy won’t do the trick. new burns and freshly battered flesh. what was once comfortably safe has changed. but never again unless the paths of grace become seemly and hemmed in, and when grace is but memories of forgiven times, one will never find the remedy for new creations with new flesh.

the sparrow and i

2009-04-09T10:33:00.000-07:00

you don't reap or sow
you just swoop and droop
from the japanese boxwood
and bust a move
on the brick wall
and pick off caterpillars
in my old man's backyard
near the berm that covers the sewage line
that descends from my grandma's house to mine
bring em out
make em squirm
it's hard to chirp
when the beak's got a worm
you ain't got a barn
you just got a nest
can't keep much in it
just the feathers on your chest
don't need much huh
you just a little guy
just like me
but i'm a bigger little guy
we both got needs
young ones to love
trees to climb
limbs to monkey down from

something i learned from Holden Caulfield

2009-04-03T08:32:00.000-07:00

i want to know if a girl keeps all her kings in the back row. i want to be able to really care about a splendid gal but folks in general just the same. i feel like the moron who doesn’t care, and like all the other morons i also hate to be called a moron.

i know michael is definitely not a moron. i don’t think becca plays chess but if she did i bet michael would know whether she always kept her kings in the back row or how much value she placed on a pawn. i always text becca to ask for answers to questions. just things like, “what time does the lacrosse game start and how do you get there?” directional pointers i guess you could say. i once questioned her about where cardigans fall on the hipster scale. actually, she didn’t answer either of my questions and i don’t blame her, most of them would probably seem odd to me as well if i’d received them randomly. but the truth is that i text her questions because i know she has knowledge about directions and trends. i would even go so far to say she maintains a stunning level of sweetness, without botching the level of her streetness. a real catch that michael guy caught. and thankfully he’s not a moron. he appreciates her sweetness and her streetness. michael was never into cooking for instance, but now that gal has him loving avocados and organic cheetoes, almond butter and making organic soup. i suppose he has always enjoyed cooking and perhaps it’s just the organic aspect that’s new and completely due to becca.

when life is intense it seems to me that more things are learned. it could simply be that intensity naturally drives one to make the best use of his or her time, and i do say that making the best use of time is a damn good commoner’s definition of efficiency. so perhaps what i really mean to say is that for me more things are learned when i’m efficient. and this is true because it is only when i write things down that i really learn about things, and i only write things down when i’m efficient. michael has been staying busy with school and so he’s really had to squeeze me in, i don’t feel like that is the case (okay maybe a little bit) but truthfully it’s sort of just a fact. he’s in school at pba and he’s student teaching at forest hill high school. funny thing is, that forest hill is neither in a forest or on a hill and i don’t think that those things should be left completely beside the point. i think that the reason they gave the school that name is because the teachers would appear as if they’d been running up and down hills in the forest all day; michael is busy. and he’s told me that due to becca’s simultaneous student teaching their time is limited. and so, as with most relationships that survive amidst the busyness, interactions revolve around the most delicious of life’s bare necessities- food.

one night in nyc, (i flew through the big apple while returning home from bangladesh) i gave michael a call. cliff, candice, dave, and i were walking into a place to eat some hamburgers when michael finally picked up. i hung outside the restaurant and paced about listening as michael laid the cut straight. he told of his busy life and the relationships he enjoyed most, which got him talking about becca. you know i’m not sure if michael and becca say i love you and i don’t want to put words in their mouths because of the sanitation issue but i’ve got to quote mike on a statement. “seriously, i thought so many things of love, but now more than ever i just want to eat breakfast and dinner, to share meals with this girl.” damn i don’t know what else to call that if it ain’t love. i had to write that one down once i got inside. i know people that say the three words that i’ve never seen sit on opposite sides of the table and look as if they’re even slightly enjoying the sight of the other person’s face or the sound of the other person’s voice. and i know for sure that the relationship that stops short of “i love you” but enjoys the bare necessities at their partner’s side is the real kind. and it’s not that the other isn’t love it’s just that i don’t desire that kind of love in the slightest, at least not from someone i’m married to. of course becca probably physically abuses michael during chess and i’ve heard that all relationships have their ups and downs but if i marry i will insist upon a damn huge percentage of our time being spent actually loving with the real kind of love, not the fake stuff.

i’m definitely a moron because a moron is a stupid person and a stupid person is someone who lacks common sense or intelligence. i got massive streaks of intelligence running through all 175 pounds of my body, but i can’t manage the common sense enough to use it, so that’s how come i knows i’m a moron. i’ve sat across the table from my father on many friday mornings after he plays the guitar at a prayer meeting, too many times to count really. sometime, i’m not sure exactly when, but since my return to florida i quit listening to my dad talk. i’ve grown pretty content with things that i think and because he doesn’t validate them i shut my ears down when he speaks and instead of staring at him disinterestedly, i just throw more and more tobasco over my eggs and hashbrowns to appear busy and interested. i probably owe him an apology. ‘i love you’ used to be more than a phrase i said to him before exhaling in disgust. i used to know where he kept his king in a chess match and now i couldn’t care less whether or not he played the game with me at all.

thinking about cooking

2009-03-19T09:22:00.001-07:00

SMÉAGOL: Look! Look! See what Sméagol finds! Ehehe! Hohohhooo! They are young! They are tender, they are nice. Yes they are! Eat them. Eat them.

SAM: Make him sick you will, behaving like that. There's only one way to eat a brace of coneys.

SMÉAGOL: Argh!! What's he doing! Stupid fat hobbit. You ruins it!

SAM: What's to ruin? There's hardly any meat on them. What we need it a few good taters.

SMÉAGOL: What's taters, Preciousss? What's taters? Huh?

SAM: Po-ta-toes!! Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

SMÉAGOL: Phooh!

SAM: Even you couldn't say no to that.

SMÉAGOL: Oh yes we could. Ssspoiling nice fish! Give it to us raw and wwwriggling. You keep nasty chips!

SAM: You're hopeless.

three nine o nine

2009-03-10T22:20:00.000-07:00

“and the disciples of John showed him all of these things. and john calling unto him two of his disciples sent them to Jesus, saying, ‘art thou he that should come? or look we for another’.”

when john’s informers arrived on Jesus’ scene to relay a question from the baptizer, Jesus’ answer was not an explanation of prophecies, no teaching, nothing black and white. though their ploy was to bring back more than what was already known and shown to john, something of even more substance that would empathize john’s imprisoned heart, something that would reason in john’s mind the modesty of his desert prophesying- indeed he paved the way for the messiah. but Jesus asks them to report back on what they had already seen and told john of, information that john was already aware of.

“go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached."

again, nothing new, but wittingly he adds...

“and blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.”

and gifted in supreme measures is the man that does not stumble, trip up, or move towards sin because of Christ. Jesus recognizes the flagging insecurities the good news is inciting among those accustomed to a heavy yoke of corrupt religion, a theology of formulas, and acceptance based on obedience to the law. it seems that all, including the greatest among men, were watching to find a sign or a word that undeniably set Jesus up as the messiah. but Jesus never dealt a padded hand. he doesn't hide behind his actions to keep john questioning. this isn’t divine secrecy, this is the gospel, he reply is as concrete an answer as could be expected, and Jesus is asking all his disciples and john and john’s disciples to be content with this reality, to really see it for what it is, and to look for no other, He is He that was to come. how can we be sure? the blind see, the dirty are washed clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor are given hope. there is nothing else to see, or hear. Jesus wants to be sure that john knows this and everyone else as well for that matter.

Jesus does not contend that looking for deeper proof of his lordship is to be understood as condemnable, but it is not blessed as is a simple belief that Jesus is Messiah based on the work that he’s doing, on that which is plain in the story previously unfolded. simple belief. while the gospel is the story of Jesus death and resurrection and nothing more, it is never less than a coming kingdom, wherein, the least of men find their needs met. it is a compromise of the gospel to look to either one of these poles more or less than the other. understanding and studying the lens through which one may see the life of Christ, the exegesis of God, is never more important than actually setting the lens down and doing the work of seeing God’s eternal kingdom eminently displayed.

pbau revisited

2009-03-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

it’s hard to believe i lived here once, that my life naturally divulged here upon reciprocate nods, smiles, and hellos. what a life. but now i’m hungry and sit aboard my blazing hot ford scanning a mobile address book (i’m completely opposed to an immobile book of addresses). and i’m finding all the same numbers, but not a one is in town- all are living out of state (and hating it), married (grinning and bearing it), and getting ready to purchase suv’s. all, and i mean all fit those criterion as i scroll through names, all except me, david, and josh- we are the only awesome people left. everyone else is lost in the life cycle; fish, high and dry trying to flop back to the edge of sanity. i mean think with me for a second, why would anyone move out of florida? (the only exceptions to florida residence are washington and north carolina- everyone knows that- every place else is brutal and not pretty). no i’m just messing, i can think of plenty of reasons to leave florida (the great pelican state), and i’d die to marry and see that new life was made regularly and to have a massive automobile.

but i can’t understand why moving out of florida seems synonymous with being a gasping fish out of water? why is grad school synonymous with obesity and fantasy football? why is marriage synonymous with a mortgage? why is post-undergrad life synonymous with settling for the first job that pays the bill(s)? and why are jobs synonymous with careers? why are careers synonymous with giving birth to a few rugrats? why are preganancies ever admittedly accidental (isn’t that like saying, “we’ve been striking matches here for awhile now, we weren’t trying to light them, but i guess we’re gonna give that fire thing a try”). seriously why are kids synonymous with beefy suv’s/car payments? why is post-grad school life synonymous with finding a ‘home church’? why does it seem churches are synonymous with living outside the kingdom of God (where the rent is cheap and the views are decent but nonetheless outside of the kingdom)? why does the kingdom of God seem more like than a pie in the sky? why do these cycles of life (which i’m seemingly destined to adapt as well) seem inescapably synonymous with giving up on so many of the things once thought necessary to life, like a fish out of water?

pbau, what a past-time, complete today with a new library.

i’m freaking hungry. the real question is why has everyone packed up and shipped out of florida, leaving me a super lonely drive downtown to grab a sub (so fast i’ll freak). if this keeps up i’m gonna swim into shallow waters and try and grab a bite of something nice. grab me a minnow, beach my belly and watch the tide roll out.

kansas city shuffle

2009-02-27T21:41:00.000-08:00

you sang a melody, a dream
into the coastal breeze
you brought white flames
near my silk threaded fears

your eyes blazed in caves, deep
and serenaded atop angel feet
dancing the kansas city shuffle
as you came away with me

dear friend,

2009-02-25T22:24:00.000-08:00

will you go
with me
to the farthest point
of emptiness
and fullness.
will you become
a beggar
a stranger
a sojourner
a king
queen
lover
whore
on a trail
heading
home

adonis

2009-01-28T23:15:00.000-08:00

hopizul, a nine year old boy, brother to mopizul, son of bulu a vegetable vendor (and i bet he’s also kin to a mother, i just never met her).

an hour ago i boarded my flight from dhaka to singapore, drank a glass of champagne, a glass of beer, wine, and threw on ray lamontagne, yet the only thing i can think about is hopizul (i’d think about mopizul but he’s a bit too much like his father whom i love but is far from innocent). hopizul, like mopizul, is taking classes over at rajabashor’s government grade school. he also takes private lessons on sundays and other days that seem random but definitely sundays i think. the days of private lessons he runs his father’s shop around 7 until 9 before his lesson begins just down the road a bit. i wish i could explain how awesome this kid is. he’s shy, polite, stern with a sale, especially friendly after school... he epitomizes the proverb ‘handsome is as handsome does’ and at the same time he’s untouchably striking. he’s exactly like i picture myself at nine years of age except he’s confident, he’s fast like a fox, and he’s quietly in charge of every scene he finds himself in. like i said, he’s freaking awesome.

he’s got my thoughts tonight. he’s putting back to back tears in each eye. he’s making me hate moving. he’s making me love my last year of life more and more. i’ll tell you what, you know what, i’ll tell you right now, at lamb i was busy. i worked mornings, afternoons, and nights (and some weekends). but throughout all busyness i was never without a moment for hopizul (and others like him for that matter- *bittho, *prithom, *protoyee, *joya). hopizul had my full attentiion. “kothay” he’d say as i started towards him on my bike in the morning. “school” i’d say. that doesn’t sound like much time really and truth is it wasn’t more than 10-12 seconds but it was the stare. i’d stop my bike, spare him my terrible bangla and just stare. i’d put on a thin straight faced grin, look confusedly at him, at a tree of cauliflower, back at him, the cauliflower, once more at him, at his smiling annoyed face, waiting for him to laugh aloud. my lesson plans for the week and all class curriculum could go up in flames and i’d not bat an eye... that is if hopizul had laughed at my idiocy.

he speaks fast and high pitched. he’s the only boy of nine to fully operate a shop (except for robeeyool’s nephew, bobalu’s son on rare afternoons). he stocks all the baskets and hates assistance at doing so. he can do the gig with the upturned bottle of water and back and forth finger movement that results in shimmering vegetables. he rocks a shirt with six of the coolest pockets- a design i partially nicked (not all just some (of the pockets)).

i’d not love hopizul if his innocence weren’t so engrained in everything he does. i don’t think he’s ever been in trouble at home. i’ve given him a scoulding or two for sure. once at a village ho-down he pointed me out to his crew and they all laughed at me. i immediately walked over and hung him by his ankles until he shrieked.

he has silver glowing eyes. i was supposed to head to his house for the eid just past. i couldn’t find his village, plus robeeyool stopped me and made me eat way too much. no excuse was good enough. bulu was harsh. i understood. i wish i was innocent like hopizul. i wish i could be a child again, and...never verbally commit and no-show, arrive late, or leave early. i wish i could escape the attachments. they aren’t wrong, only burdonsome, distracting. they are good, even gifts perhaps, but they eclipse the giver. that is the toughest struggle. it is a boar in the brush with ugly glistening tusks.

but hopizul is adonis, loved by God. and he can see God, and he is fighting off the oncoming animals of distraction from the pits of hell’s forests.. .and he will spend eternity in seasonal arrays of the underworld’s light.

*students with birthday parties or home invites- commitments i botched.

a letter

2008-12-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

william, you always covered our tackle, always. i would raid the back fridge for sodas and gatorades. remember those spots that were shoo-in for a half dozen large mouth bass. you taught me to be overly confident in poppers, chugs, and spinner baits. i bet you might be able to fill a stringer today but to be honest, i’m not hopeful. dang, sub prime loans f’d up america in so many ways man- every one of those ponds has a freaking housing development sitting right on top.

you taught me to surf on your old 6’ natural art. you even bought me a new leash and rash-guard. i’ll never forget how hard you laughed when i chickened out buying sex wax because i thought it was something sinful. then you’d crank up ‘ghetto superstar’ or 'smells like teen spirit' as we’d drive up to the hawaiian restaurant off A1A and scope out the swell at lake worth and lantana. lake worth scared me because you always surfed so damn close to the pier. you used to say lantana was only promising for folks that enjoyed waist high chop. despite the rocks, it felt safer and that is why i always argued for it.

life got dangerous as soon as you sold the mustang and bought the trooper. it seemed every sunday, after fishing, surfing, or basketball you’d find some place with a sandy lot, tell me to hold our boards or fishing poles while you seemingly tried to flip us over. it was such reckless fun. thanks for those memories, for teaching me everything you knew. and thanks for coming to my basketball games and telling me to shoot more and that you thought i had a great shot and that if you were my coach i’d never leave the court. for driving me to the mall and helping me pick out a tux for homecoming. for asking me if there were any boys asses that you could kick for me and getting out of the car like you’d really do it right in that instant if i gave the command.

the last memory i have of you is from sanibel island, 04’ when you grabbed my arm and pulled me from that camp fire to talk for a bit. you were piss drunk but i know real tears. remember how you managed to ride your bike all the way to the beach and then how hard we laughed that you didn’t drive right off the sidewalk into oncoming traffic. we sat there for a while man. i remember feeling like you were reminiscing, trying to rewind time to days sublime- to the publix day shift and the night shift waitering job at ruby tuesdays. back to the shot-gun wedding, play station one, sandblasting, church-league basketball, and nirvana. back to the bliss of the 90’s, before america had gone insane, all life had gone to pot, and God’s grace had gone sour.

i don’t know where you are today man and what you’re doing for work? it’s sad but i feel like i’ve really lost a friend. i know you loved your wife and your girls a whole lot, but you always loved the beer so much more. it’s sad man because i’ve skeletons in the closet too but my family hasn’t left me yet. i know your dad didn’t teach you much beyond fishing, drinking, and kicking like a mule but how long can you blame your own shitty decisions on him. i’m really really sorry man, for being absent for most of all the toughest shit, the divorce mainly. you can’t blaim her man, hell i’d have left long before she did, she put up with a lot man and you know that’s true.

in case life seems far beyond God, and that satan has won, if you’ve given up and just let time and distance give way to hopelessness- i pray that you’d let God reclaim your soul, or that God would somehow let you know it’s far beyond Himself to let you go.

this letter will probably hit far from home but this is where we left off, take care man, and know that we’re all dirty beggars looking for bread and a little bit of fish, alan

particle board and cheap grace

2008-12-04T20:24:00.000-08:00

if high school sets up life like a quarter inch sheet of particle board, then college throws on a slick pvc veneer look-alike with sharp edges. no worries though, the edges are trimmed in no time by a razor blade slid out from a thin cardboard sheath- aka the “real world”. I guess i’m there because my fingers are good and nicked. my future is as cloudy as bangladesh in winter and i’m constantly looking up, “trying to find a balance between living decent and the cold and real” (jimmy eat world- futures).

but seriously though, i’ve never looked up like i do today. i’ve never seen things in perspective like i do tonight. i’ve spent the last year in the third world and it has finally brought me that full-orbed once-over of what mankind living in the 21st century can truly claim as normal life. but what now? this question is a perpetual plague. tomorrow? now that’s more like it. tomorrow i’ll grab a set of approximately 15 keys and make for an iron horizontally sliding gate with a padlock. finding the silver square headed key marked sl (for science lab) i’ll unlock the gate and allow 10 or so painters to continue their finshing touches on the interior and exterior concrete walls of lamb school’s newly constructed building. i’ll pass out some bananas and make small talk out of the slivers of their language strewn together in my mind. it’s like shoving my finger an inch deep into a tea cup filled with soil, praying to God that there will be warmth and water (and banana) enough for the seed to germinate.

also on the agenda tomorrow, i’m going to make another real effort at understanding real grace. hopefully laying to rot the cheap grace that justifies sin without the justification of a real perpetual sinner. i’ll ask again for directions to the door at which all men must stand before and knock loudly. no more of this idiopathic self-actualizing that worships Christ un-crucified. no more quixotic dashing down the aisles of cheap grace with the speed of charlemagne. only true confessions of faithless failings and sin. “the antithesis between the christian life and the life of bourgeois respectability is at an end” (bonheffer). it's all or nothing.

i’ve been hemmed into a garment so shamefully ragged, but yet so contentedly sufficient for warmth. that i wouldn’t again tear out the stitches tomorrow- this i pray tonight along with half-hearted cares that my sleep would bode well on this painfully comfortable jute and foam mattress.

what light, white light

2008-11-27T20:43:00.000-08:00

here i tell the story of a boy, post-atonement, who angrily twisted his own regret into greater and greater unforgivable errs. for there was a moment when he held a ball, outstretched in his hand. but then, with food on his face he dropped it, he dropped the ball. unaware of all that would unravel, he dropped the ball and still chases it, with just a loose thread of light in a cooling right hand.

the regret forever stayed, and forever is longer than the night he dropped the ball, but it is all i can remember right now so i’ll spill it. it began...

atop a foam mattress on a night just right, cool air spinning downward from where the warm air normally stagnated. the windows of a 5 bedroom home pinned outward at a ninety, with crooked strips of metal lassoed around painted metal pegs, keeping the glass panes from shattering in the gusts. the gusts blew between the cotton cross-stitched fabric pulled up over his head and dried out his throat till he couldn't dream of anything other than a glass of water.

moving from the mattress out into the hollow corridor with frozen tiles. creeping with fingers running across the paper walls he rounded the corner past the master bedroom where father and mother slept. long asleep were the parents and the home was dark but for the moon light casting down through the sky lights creating two long coffin sized rectangles. passing a rocking chair, feet dragged across the shag of thin and dirty tan carpet, warm and inviting.

drawn near by purest inquiry he laid in one of the moon lit coffins and cut the moon open with a forefinger till the blood was gone from his right arm. he switched to his left limb and pinched the moon, flicked it, and spun it on all five fingers. the light has never since been fuller. full but not near it’s fullest.

resting from the game he retrieved a green plastic cup and filled it with cold water. he took a cross-legged seat back inside a coffin and he stared at stacks of books he never once saw anyone read. he watched the hopeless fish cruise and bump their heads into walls of the fish tank that badly needed to be scraped. “what else is there to do”, he asked, feeling like a fish as chilly swigs rushed down his throat and out through jagged gills. it was such a bold question. but once he'd held the moon all choices were bold, or so they seemed.

darkness always gives way to fear. then and since this has always been true, and presumably it always will be true. he braced himself for the cold path ahead- back to the corner of the hall, to the hollow corridor leading to his bedroom. he slept, almost comatose till today.

the straining amidst present sightlessness has the grown boy constantly wishing for the lost light. he would that he'd go back to experience another cold wintry florida midnight with a moon so bright the light lets him play till both arms are bloodless. that was the last night of childhood for him. he saw hope, took it as his own, and walked back into the sleepiest of shadows.

he dropped the ball the night he walked away from the perfect light but there remains a thread of light irremovably attached to his right hand. his temptation is to find ways to remove it, but my truest desire is to wind it back up again.

this, i’ve learned demands constant altercations. change for me is light driven and always will be. for there was white light one night surrounding a boy in a coffin and i will not be forever unwound.

raisons and prostitutes

2008-11-09T21:06:00.000-08:00

granted salvation is through grace and faith with open doors, with its poster girl a sobbing perfume-drenched repentant whore. why do i find myself chastising the woman peddling sex for cash, eyes still aligned with shoe strings and train station trash.

“just a dollar sir, this scabby baby-rashed boy is my son. i can’t help it i got knocked up, it’s my career, i didn’t say it was fun, come on sir, just a dollar in my cup, my son’s hungry and jaundiced, tell me i didn’t light this fire for nothing.”

and how does grace respond to that today and tomorrow?

ashamedly, grace in me just walks on past and debates the benefits of giving to train station trash. i pray to my God it isn’t for naught. for i feel like i’m inhibiting the flow of grace and love for the sake of this here writing. for the sake of mindsets, ideas, and dry bible study conversation material. the thoughts that never cease lingering.

tonight i bought some raisons and then stood beside a vegetable vender who offered me a few biscuits. i took two, ate one as the man insisted three was a better number. i grabbed another and replaced the void with about 25 milligrams of my sweetened ramadan raisons. i chomped a second biscuit and told him to take care.

before i made it 10 steps the village crazy man was mumbling with an outstretched hand. i thought for a second then released the cookie into his already tightening grip. i walked a bit further and looked back towards the vegetable stand at the vender who shot disdainful glares at the carefree bum who now proudly held his re-gifted cookie. i turned, but soon halted pace.

no sooner had i escaped one scene had another crept upon me. the boy of thirteen who daily asks me and many others for rice stood square in my path. the complexity of this situation i cannot hope to fully reveal for the boy has sat beside me chewing many dinner time meals. he has knocked on my door many a morning. he has drained my water pitcher on many an afternoon. and tonight he impedes my path wearing my brother in laws swimsuit that fit too tightly around my waist (hope that’s fine by you rusty).

we walked a while. i explained i had no work. i explained that i wouldn’t give him any food other than my deliciously sweetened raisons. he repeated his patent speil about hungry siblings which made me recall the words from matthew twenty five and suddenly i felt more like a goat than a sheep. i bought him a foursome of bananas and walked a ways away from the crowded market intersection and breathed deeply the vaporously dusty street-air. sighing...i returned.

spiritually i’m beginning to hang up in order to lead a dismal retreat from the harlots feet. back to a fishing boat and a modest career. a respectable home and a mind full of stories that now dispel the once thought worthy plan.

twenty four ten o eight

2008-10-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

the shops are all barred by darkness but for a single bustling red tea
shack. loaners gather post eleven pm. i sit outside and hover over a
mosquito coil and converse vicariously through the light-hearted jovial chat
of the riffraff.

the rats run from puddle to puddle along the desolate street, peeling the
plastic bags from the sewage ponds like flies on the scabs of a napping
street dog's back. frogs creep between the rocks beneath the lamps waiting
for a bug to descend upon the cracks in the earth below.

just beyond, where the street lights start dimming, mary magdalene stands
with arms crossed, face covered, and body propped up against a wall. and
i am no more out of place but i chose my place while she is just laying low
and getting by so that she she can purchase a proper baby coffin.

you do not have to be alone to feel the natural drag of being sinful but it
gives a new love for the arms of folks holding you even from afar. stars
blink like eyes ajar with caffeinated vessels surrounding and nicotine
filled blood streaming to the flow and the beating of hearts attempting
contentment. i'm hoping they find it. i hope to God we'll end up having
found it.

robert frost

2008-10-08T05:23:00.000-07:00

round the rice bed flummoxed, bent in disquiet
seeking heal-alls hidd’n in the tall grass
walking swift on elevated mud paths
dribbled sweat tastes sweet, tongue shriveled with blight
rolled backwards calling shots of moribund fright
nigh on the deep patch, leaving sun-burned past
atoning breeze grips like a zipper clasp
endless thoughts to whisper into dawning night

paddies bend their ears across the lacking bright
fruitful sprays of grace, from a cross, freely toss
landing on blanched cheeks stained of sinful white
colors embed, anchored in corral reflected light
fear, confusion, tinging death- no longer loss
healing my heart’s contusions with words like robert frost

bob dylan asked some good freaking questions

2008-10-07T21:08:00.000-07:00

yes and how many years can a mountain exist before it is washed into the sea?
and how many years can some people exist before they’re allowed to be free?
yes and how many times can a man turn his head and pretend he just doesn’t see?

yes and how many times must a man look up before he can see the sky?
yes and how many ears must one man have before he can hear people cry?
yes and how many deaths till he knows that too many people have died?

quiet night

2008-09-15T22:39:00.000-07:00

it was a painfully quiet night without a whisper of wind in the olive grove. the moon was reflectively existing, sending shots deep between the beams and leaves. into the stillness of gethsemane’s wood, the all absorbent light of the world rethought the cricket’s sandpaper limbs fleshing out a maniacal melody of brash 3rd’s and 5th’s. the taste of jerusalem’s local wine still pressing so thoroughly into each pleading vesper. raging splotches of rabbinic betrayal festered at the base of the hill, reminders of the final passover cup and judas kisses; unwelcome gulps of violently fermented grace.

sullen officials who’d been befuddled one to many times drew insidiously nigh. their mouths frothing with guilt and displeasure from their own insipid passover brews. bent on murder they fortified Jesus plans, his opportunity to relinquish divine communion for a few torturous days in order to institute a new order, a new covenant to be hashed outside of saloon-style doors, invited inside by all signatories desirous of dwelling within a kingdom that often bears a painful gethsemane-like quietude.

nine twelve o eight

2008-09-15T04:36:00.000-07:00

on the north rail of the bridge, the droplets pitter about atop my umbrella. today’s showers set new speed to the river below. trains thunder past with passengers intermingling an exuberance of bonhomie.

the drongos perch beneath the bridge. only when hunger takes precedence
do they untie a bundle of dry feathers to make a swooping stab for a dragonfly or a slow-scooting water bug.

the distant blue skies are rounding the clouds into shapes. i played along and spotted a flamingo inflamed. apparently the sun joins the sky games on fridays.

if i could choose any activity for my day, i’d like to train a bird of prey to perch this bridge, spot the river snakes, form a grudge against the snakes, and rid the murky stream of their bothersome existence. of course i realize this isn’t much of a solution (barring grace- what isn’t) but it would let me put my hands into preserving a bit of beauty, preserving the beleaugered river critters.

limbs

2008-08-16T10:31:00.001-07:00

why am i repeatedly stepping
off onto limbs
after a monsoon rain
bark weakening the already
spongy terrain

birds in flight
accompany my weakness
dodging night
ready
the next step, the next limb

skies black and commonly bent
landing square
in the shadows
the prisons
dented into my existence

solace beckons
quiet reckoning
before God, man
silence
repentance
before man, God

Seven thirty seven

2008-07-30T21:35:00.001-07:00

sitting beside the unfolding madness. rising to my feet to watch the brawl between the one guy who owed another labor or money, possibly both. Nevertheless, a scuffle over who owes who. One man’s blue jaw, was another man’s entertainment- just getting kicks.

i actually thought about trying to subdue the more violent of the attackers. instead, i surveyed the anger like everyone else. the thought of becoming hero became more and more appealing; heroism pervaded my otherwise temporate purview until the noise started to pick up again. forward from the third row. down a few stairs and out of the nosebleed section. i split two blokes (who had paid a fortune for their front row tickets) and grabbed at one of the protagonists, pushing him back a step under the overhang that daily shades a small fish market. another wiry fellow grabbed the short scruffy dude and made several swift shots to the man’s neck. the peevish stare i received from the guy i temporarily apprehended was enough for me to back out of the ring and shrink into the swarm of market browsers.

atop a half sold ratty bag of jute I leave well enough alone and re-think heroism. the scruff has blown down wind and i shall survey no longer. not my turf or place. my swollen head hides its size, its always burying itself after brushes like these. sitting low, strength returns to my knees. i’ve never been much of a spartan, never will be i presume.

nudged by a familiar hand, i look upward and greet a man i don’t know by name. i arrest his extended hand, subconsciously still having to prove myself to myself, still not settled on the reality of being a full blown namby-pamby.

“just reading this here book,” i blurt out into the stagnancy of market breezes. a true statement. through the entirety of my involvement in the grapple, i’d not lost grip of my copy of searching for God knows what.

“oh, i see, and how is it,” says my acquaintance.

“actually i’m just starting into it, you doing alright?”

“sure sure,” he says reassuringly, nodding the still unidentifiable face.

a nimble young girl in a pink shirt swung around to my side, holding my knee cap fast. all at once, i’m polarized by innocence and her requisite humility.

“she’ll start pre-k this year,” the man informs.

“oh,” i mutter.

“say hello annie,” he adds.

i make faces to stir anew her playful non-verbal self introduction. all smiles and confidence, she giggles as she turns, led by her father’s hand. he wishes a good night.

“yeah, you as well...have a good night...to...yourself as well...tonight hope its real good.”

shaking my head still now as i write with this inexplicable knowing that cute little girls in pink shirts are the only ingredient for making real heroes. in the heat of the skirmish i soon became poised for an attack. ready at once to shoot from the hip. it was the exact same feeling now only completely different.

tonight when all the blood started boiling, my first thought was to step up and get some recognition to calm the brawny arms of the farmers and instantly make a headline. rise from subtext, a mere footnote of quoted hearsay. al rubbish. it all faded. became tarnished. it spoiled so quick. but annies eyes were stars set in a constellation of white fire. the memory blazing still, and it descends around me as i breathe the flakes of flickery golden stardust. a hero she thought me, a hero she made me. set apart, not a thing i wouldn’t do for that child. she owned my heart.

throw all headlines in a pile and give a torch to burn them down. no paper can recall the love she begged for, the protection, the bravery, the heroisim her perfect heart emboldens.

so where do i start . . .

2008-07-23T06:50:00.001-07:00

well, i was giving it my best thoughts, the ones that make me hold my head, sip some sugar loaded tea and make my eyes close so tight they hit a mental repeat. really giving thought another go, figuring for myself how Christ's love in me should look or sound when asking how to love the broken, the hurting, those dying of hunger around me and worse still, those without the slightest dripping thought that Christ died to completely accept the judgement of sin.

i let my hands freely fall beside myself, waterfalls crashing to bald the algae covered rocks. oh, i tip my chair back, oh and this rhythm in me, umm, and my back won't crack. it just won't. throw my keys on my desk, remove the agitated lump they made in the pocket of my kahki pants, turn up the herbie hancock and feel the ancient belief that resurrects sincerity from its deeps, the full-orbed revolution of sound thinkology.

yeah urryeah, jazz is that genre for the soul downtrodden, oh, tah, tah, oh tah tah, oh yeah that little splashy snare tapping and then. and then a trumpet leading me through brisk city alley air, skipping high across the puddles of pavement ducking into a dive dimly lit where it becomes real and the musicians are owning it.

and i'm there staring down truest thoughts, down like they're criminals and they stare back, though more in a gaze, tapping out some retro-abrahamic groove, laying it down. it's eyes fall back as the jazz swirls a maniacal love. sort of rebuking all things sanctimonious. i definitely felt that leave, and truly leaving this time and some new shape somehow truly awakening this time- it had to be through virgin birth, and as i stand and realign steps o'er the puddly streets, i'm taught live-able rhythms and i try my best to repeat each step.

and it all ends, as always, back at home, in my village, on the muddy path.

night jobs and regret

2008-07-20T23:07:00.001-07:00

she never minds the requests even when they come late in the game. i remembered dave, a night-shift manager at the old key lime house, getting on me for the shrimp-sized tear in my jeans (which i made by habitually smacking of a coarse file against my thigh in order to remove excessive pvc banding shavings from the cabinets i built in washington state). rimming with insolence my cold-faced-smile had stared back at dave's pithy grin, now i shape a sullen grimace as i shuffle out the back door over the few stones that lead to grandmother's home where i'm sure to find her on the back porch reclined in a chair sipping coffee or deeply buried in her sewing room with the t.v. loudly recalling today and recapping yesterday's tragedies, but always consumed with analyzing past. still only a few weeks on the job i'm hardly useful. my high-school aged co-workers are bagging the same eight an hour without tips and i wouldn't say i'm fond of the neon D.E.A. (drink every afternoon) printed big on the back of my work shirt (though if i imagine manager dave and his shiny head thinking up the acronym and thinking himself brilliant i can actually enjoy the shirt). however, he'd heckled me during my previous shift for the hole in my jeans and as much as i didn't want to think i needed the second job, i did.

never able to plan ahead, family seems to always bear the brunt of my johnny-come-lately requests for assistance. grandma asks when i need the articles of clothing finished, although she's surely to have known by now that my hem, seam, and knee repairs are always calling for johnny-on-the-spot work. and of course she finishes the job while i ravage her cookie jar, no johnny-cake, just around ten bottomless jars, all chock full of grandma's christmas cookie loveliness. "why does she put up with me," i think, still chewing on the way back to my truck.

i make it to work on an empty tank, sputtering into the lot just shy of the lantana bridge, sucking up the shoddy gas and grime that gathers at the bottom of the tank like the folks at costco who waited painfully with me the week before to pay too much for cheap gas. business gas, thank goodness, or thank dad whose to thank for giving the goodness, or the Lord whose to thank for giving dad the business. one things for sure, i can't thank myself, i only slid the card and pumped the ford full of liquid hugo chavez.

i slip through the cars and bikes waiting for the bridge to come down like dave's iron fist that crouches over the time clock awaiting newbie's to hassle about lateness, appropriate skid-proof footwear, and a freezer full of fresh papaya chutney that needs to find its way into four ounce serving dishes to stock the expo island. the first two of dave's requests go in one ear and out the other, the third i cherish for i lifted far to many bags of thin-set into the bed of the f-one fifty this morning not to love standing next to the tray of fries, throwing em' down into that coolness of papaya chutney watching dave's bald head from the back to make sure i'm in the clear.

i finish up my side jobs and head over to the bar side of the restaurant where things usually stay slow till late in the evening, my one escape from the banalities of working for the man, whom i know as dave. i surprisingly run lots of food there though i could care in the least about running lots of food, in fact i prefer it, as long as i can enjoy the work and flee a heckling boss. walking out to the dock i stop and help a small sport-fish snug her port side into the dock. just past the red and green that lead up to the resaurant's tiki-torch lined pier, are a pair of cabin sailors that sway comfortably with the inter-coastal breezes, peaceful.

i grab some menu's and find the family a table for four in kimberly's section because i know she'll treat them right and regardless of how they tip she'll just move on to her next table instead of pausing to tell me all the names she almost said to the customer and all the things she almost did to their food- as so many waiters find necessary.

the chef and stock manager from down at the ritz is my boy michael. he also works nights at the old key lime, but mainly, as he likes to remind me, just to stay busy.
"holding it down in the back of the kitchen eh, could you hook up a chicken and brie for a brother?", i ask michael.
"blackened with fries?"
"no doubt, but you know i be straight ballin on that coleslaw homie, them chunks of pineapple are the truth, for sure, oh, oh . . .
"yeah i made that batch earlier so you know it's good,"
"hey, in that case i'll just get fries, sike."

dishing up my slaw, i think how the conversations are the only thing that make the food service industry worth it, if you're just running food that is. and unless michael or wayne or any of the other entertainingly loquacious cooks have the same shift i find myself chatting very little, and even more, i start to find it very hard to believe that i'll ever hope to be back working here. though i know i should try more to stop myself and those thoughts, for the years are beginning to prove how quickly my sorrowful eyes will slip back to days of imperceptible glimmer. knowing i'll be chomping on something other than fries wishing for a chance to make right my lugubrious dealings with yesterdays pride- caused so scornfully by seemingly inevitable tomorrows.

seven sixteen o eight

2008-07-12T09:46:00.000-07:00

looking out where the mountains should have been i lookied at my heart and saw the many cloudy ranges where wisdom should have been. i'd been looking all day for a way to take a plank out my eye, finding no planks i rather proudly had given up. but then staring accusingly at the weather covered himalayan range i began to see and think of those sins that i had deemed harmless because they harmed no one. in turn, i saw my lust billowing thick cumulonimbus clouds between my savior and i.

i saw how truly unoffended my friends may have been but how forsaken i had once again left my risen Lord. and the planks in my eyes came into sight as Jesus pulled them from my face and revealed how completely his death had bore my burdens. my blindness had been stolen. the plank from my left eye was turned upright and forced into the ground just after the plank from my right eye had been adhered horizontally with hitches and nails.

my pride had left me blinded to my cure and clarity, surrounding clouds reminded of my blurred identity, the mind within confided in a frail humanity, all the while designed by pierced hands of royalty

seven twelve o eight

2008-07-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

if from . . .
creation, the culmination of salvation and victory
had already been spun together to save the wise and free,
these simple minds that lined the bleeding path to calvary

then when . . .
will souls untie the twine that wraps the eyes,
the sheathe
the covering above, beneath
our inner sighes of disbelief
that love will fight for peace

surely . . .
evil never rolls over,
like shore break never shoals over
until tides await the tidal wakes
spreading with rakes the grains of faith,
wrapped in meaningful explanations

but . . .
truths never sit quick
they rest inside wax shells like wicks
once lit the flames aren't quick to quit
though they may shy in breezes

and . . .
i feel such breezes today

six twenty two o eight

2008-06-22T12:46:00.000-07:00

the croaking frogs sound out a deafening tremolo

as the moon crouches in a lowly turbid glow

a street lamp’s glare becomes a stagnant paddy’s rave

as glancing light rays strafe upon the distant foliage maze

naked toes glide thick into a rich silty soil

wetness overtaking before the tired limbs recoil

all fading to a din in the wake of a train at full career

reminding as a muezzin daily calls his town to prayer

all nature falls subject to the stronger louder force

and afterwards it redirects the echo of its chorus

to that which seems weaker but inward it strikes true

and promises the lower glow will finally imbue

the last time i read job

2008-06-01T23:35:00.001-07:00

the last time i read job it was three thirty am. my head lamp was fixed loosely atop a salt sprayed forehead, glaring red rays down onto the pages. dave and tim had been awake for the previous trying hour attempting to remove our ten thousand pound monohaul from the sandy shoals to no avail. there was a strong south wind that we needed to come around to the east or west, an outgoing tide, and chop coming in from the sound that stood between us and new providence.

we had been on our hook between whale and bird cay for three of the most enjoyable days of my life- a necessary rest after the most frightening night of sailing into chub cay (david bradford armstrong jr. has the best written record of this perilous night and i'd scale flaming lattice laiden with boganvilla just to be able to cut and paste that mother frig right into this here blog).

the previous day we had spent our morning hours gallantly attending to some of the chores- scrubbing the hull, patching holes some idiot had made cracking conch in the dingy, cleaning the contacts on the dingy's battery, and putting new screws into the light on the bow of the dingy (i really wish we had given the dingy a proper name, she really deserves one). the afternoon hours i spent in a hammock thinking of better ways to cook canned green beans while dave and tim went diving. when they returned they joined me on the island for an hour or so before we made our way back aboard our regal cal thirty-one. shower-time ensued and i remember dave diving on the hook while rinsing off, resituating our anchor so that she was just right and discovering that we'd been directly overtop a nest of 20 or so massive bugs. we each picked one for dinner despite the white skin ban we had been ignoring since customs. it was a day to beat the band but then again i could say that of pertneer every freaking day in the bahamas. any more background info pertaining to the previous day simply would not be prudent.

the early morning task of moving our boat off the shoals ended unsuccesfully. dave and tim headed back into the cabin to attempt sleep while our hull continued to thud an irregular beat on the bays grassy floor. i knew my own attempts at rest would end miserably so i grabbed my sleeping bag, headlamp, and my bible and headed back outside.

my thoughts drifted to the twenty hours i spent three weeks previously driving from aspen to olympia. i had listened to a sermon where the pastor said he woke around four one morning with a troubled heart and how he had decided to read through job. i remember at the time thinking that didn't seem like a bad idea and i recalled the thought in the restless morning hours propped up on the stern starboard bench of twichell two. i read through job and i thought about my suffering.

needless to say i was wrong about having suffered, in fact i would say now it was darn near sinful simply because i've hardly suffered. but what i do have now is a chance to see a bit of pain, the real stuff. sick and injured folks lay out on the back of the van garri's outside lamb hospital every day. a crippled man hobbled up to my front door last week to ask for money. a cheerful man who works for lamb is now being forced to go to court because someone with money produced papers saying he is actually the rightful owner of the land the lamb employee has owned for years.

and then just yesterday i was awakened by the familiar rapping of a latch on my cast iron front door. this time, it was a young lad that comes daily to the lamb compound for afternoon soccer games. likewise, he routinely visits the home of my neighbor, friend, and boss to ask for food. christian (my neighboring boss friend) hadn't rice the moment when the boy visited his home this past thursday evening, so he asked me to pick up rice that i could give the boy the following morning. the following morning wasn't yesterday, in other words the boy was a day late. no problem right, except that when i asked why he hadn't come the day before he immediately told me it had been raining. but it hadn't rained till nearly noon and even then lightly for but an hour, and so, not knowing enough bangla to express my frustration at the boy's lie, i gave him a kilo of rice like i'd been told to do and went back to sleep, but not immediately.

i lay in bed for a while for the first time knowing a bit more of the thoughts that christian is faced with when this boy visits him early in the morning, in the afternoon, or late in the evening but never when christian has asked for him to come. i've been at his home when the boy stops in and i've seen him tarry over his options- give the boy food or give the boy food and explain to him how he needs to grow up tonight and get a job tomorrow because he's not going to school and it's not getting easier for his family to put food on the table (there are varying reasons why his parents struggle- some are just the time and place and the seasons and some stem from foolishness but what do i know). the former option, the easier of the two, is the one i chose.

i couldn't sleep after the boy's visit and the question wasn't how to fix poverty. the question was how long will it be, after i'm back in the comfort of my down-padded mattress in the u.s. till i forget that i'm supposed to care and i'm not supposed to live like these people don't exist.

but i ask again, what do i know. what in the crud do i know about suffering and poverty and depression and hopelessness and despair and the loss of will to keep trying to make money in an overcrowded country with everyone trying to do the same thing. i know about as much about these things as i know about harvesting rice. i've stopped a few times to watch the kernels fly off the stalks while they are thrashed against the tilted and worn pieces of wood propped up beside a paddy. and i've seen rice raked into piles and spread out the next day and the next day for the next week to dry. but what i don't know is how and when or why these things happen. but i can live without this knowledge, without caring for, and i won't lose sleep except for the one minute i think about how sweet it would be to actually know how to harvest rice. but when it comes to suffering i can't sleep at times.

i'm reading job again and like i said i don't suffer. and i'm far too wound up here under this tree where i like to sit on a weekly basis and watch around five to ten species of birds swoop and croon a bug-catching tune. i like to sit and read the word of God. and today i've just read my God outrightly asking satan if he's considered his servant job. does God really will this stuff. and i won't allow myself to go to the next place logically because then i must ask God why it isn't me and then i'm filled with fear and not the good kind that begets knowledge and wisdom but the kind that reveals the minds inability to understand God's ways and a person's unwillingness to deal with more than a tad bit of discomfort. and yes i read where job throws a riddle at God and where God replies with a hundred riddles of his own and i know that this is where job is comforted. but i'm not comforted right now and i know i'm wrong. job, a man who really knew suffering was comforted with conundrums. but then why and how does this still seem unjust and altogether exasperating.

rain came in the morning, a lot of it

2008-05-16T00:18:00.000-07:00

the sparrow hops the muddy path
my feet trudge this slippery bird bath
beside the muddy kitchen
today, retaining more smoke
the rain quells it down to choke
and suffocate the vivacious critters
from crevices
outward
a sparrows delight

another page

2008-05-13T18:00:00.001-07:00

the poem began exactly three fifths of the way down the page at the back of
the book that still arches when sat flat on a desk because it has only so
newly been cracked open. it's cover is far too glossy and not much to my
liking- the title is printed with cheap golden ink poured into shallow
indentations- it screams, "display me in the front window of a christian
book store."

it was a gift given by my father on the eve of december 25th 2007. despite
its cover, the subject made it my favorite gift until my grandma handed me a
large green satchel that served only as gift wrap for a pillow that was sewn
of fabric from the interior of my first sailboat, twitchell one.

i remember setting the book on the living room table right after my father
handed it to me. i like unwrapping my dad's christmas gifts. i know he
never wraps them and as i rip the paper i know he's thinking, "wow, janice
sure did a great job with that gift wrap." i know that"s what he"s thinking
because i like to say, "hey dad, beautiful job with the gift wrap." to
which he replies, "why thankyou sir," while passing a laughing glance at my
sister. my father's laugh is a echoing rumble rivaling an avalanche in the
canadian cascades, that is if he really gets going. i've seen this many
times sitting in swivel chairs at dunkin donuts while he shouts into his
blue tooth during a conversation that interrupted the youtube video he was
watching on his precious iphone. and i"ve seen this laugh even more times
while he reminisces his favorite movie "jeremiah johnson". the wrapping
paper laugh that i saw on christmas eve was simply the falling tree that
triggers the avalanche.

the boook, a signed copy of a biography on oswald chambers called abandoned
to God. it sat on that very same table a fort night after my father handed
it to me. i finally read the intro and the beginning of chapter one between
taking victorious turns in "settlers of catan". i read during the board game
only because it"s far more aggravating to lose to someone who doesn't seem
to care. but there you have it, i do care and it"s all a part of my life
work- annoying the crap out of people. it's my greatest pleasure. i once,
after reading nehemiah before work, made the comment to my dad that if i
could do any job i would love to get paid simply to antagonize and bother
people trying to accomplish tedious tasks. i meant it when i said it and i
mean it now. even the fact that i said it the first time to my father has
to do with the fact that i knew the john maxwell fan in him would flare up
like fireworks on canada day.

i opened the book today, for the first time since the board game. a
collection of oswald's poems are nested peacefully in the back pages. i was
looking for a poem or anything that i could read to my class about
suffering. we're studying 1st peter and reading articles i found on the
voice of the martyrs web page and looking at peter's recollections of
Christ's suffering, his confession that present suffering is commendable and
inevitable, his encouraging words that others all over the world are
suffering, and finally that these pilgrimages we make in this lifetime will
end in heaven.

i found a poem entitled "de profundis" by owald chambers and it is, once
again, situated exactly three fifths of the way down the page at the back of
the biography written by David McCasland.

Hush! there comes the sound of weeping
Of my spirit vainly seeking
Through the passions that are sweeping
Another sphere

And its great tears ever falling
And its pained voice ever calling
Rack my life with fears;
Never can I live in gladness,
Never can I turn from sadness
But must dwell in tears.

not what i would call appropriate 7th and 8th grade bible material.
beautifully depressing. "freaking a oswald," i silently said, aghast at the
poem. "i . . .i. . .i read your stuff for its hope, for its grasp of earthly
realities in light of heavenly joy. but apparently you had a bad day and
thanks to you, so will i" stuttering even in my thoughts, but wait,
"freaking a." i whispered in my amazement, there was another page. atop the
next page, my seemingly endless depression had found that the end is
actually not that far off, a reminder of imminent redemption.

Only when this life is ending,
And my spirit is ascending,
And the God-life with it blending ,
Can they cease.

and i once again became grateful for my second favorite christmas gift.

the mango god

2008-05-07T19:42:00.001-07:00

i've never sat so conscientiously close to a god, propped up on a root in a bed of dirt and grass. it seemed to be guarding the mango tree but the longer i stared into the branches the more pitiful the god became. maybe in years and seasons past the limbs were stacked with mangos. maybe its servants would daily come to climb and enjoy his bountiful gifts. perhaps it was in such days that he was cast; when his plaster belly first began to bulge so much so that one of his arms naturally came to rest on top while his other arm stretched out firmly, as if to say,

"come, peacefully. enjoy what you find. i can fill you for a season. i hope you don't mind for in may i will be gone again and leave all my branches bare. forgetting all about your cares and i don't know maybe next year i'll return to do the same, i'm not sure. ask the god of the rain, he sits down below the bird bath."

i decided to pay the old rain god a visit. and to my surprise the plaster god of the bird bath had begun to show his paper mache, losing more and more holiness every time the wind god blew a strong gust.

i'm no philologist, though i very quickly lost interest with the gods when i heard a band of naked boys in a nearby pasture begin chattering about a bideshi (or a foreigner, i being the only one around). they were rounding up fuel for their fires, probably for their families to cook their dinner overtop. they were picking up all the cow pies and tossing them together, packing them down into one massive pile using the palms of their hands as poop paddles. they never stopped giggling, not even for a second and for that matter neither did i. as they worked they ran around kicking eachother in the backside arousing a new string of giggles each time they knocked someone down. i quit watching for a bit because it seemed to me that the more i laughed the more they wailed on each other's hind parts and i couldn't be held responsible. but then the more i ignored, the louder each thud became. the growing volume could also just've been their increasing propinquity, which also changed their game because the next time i looked up they had forgotten about cow poop and were but 10 meters away from me throwing coconut skins every which way- bringing tears of joy to the eyes of every coconut god.

it was such good fun i nearly forgot to watch the sun set over monmatipur. it grew dark red until it flickered puce lightning rays. it imbued all the paddies with stately greens and instantly infused excessive pigments into already tanned shoulders that glistened as they hoisted jute sacks filled with chal (uncooked rice). however, as i excitedly waited for the finale, it just disappeared.

it was as if the sun were frodo and i gandolf the gray, sending out a warning before his perilous quest to the other side of planet earth, "one ring to rule them all, one ring to find them, one ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them." and the sun slipped on the ring forged in the fiery depths of bangladesh.

don't pick the fruit

2008-05-01T00:31:00.000-07:00

trails un-marked
oceans un-sailed

places un-traveled
roads un-driven

fruit un-picked

except the ones that glisten
with hell-spun satisfaction
entrancing this partaker
to bow before this freely given life
rather than the giver

i have held all that is good
in one hand
and taught my other hand to be content
with a warm pocket

i’ve announced to all that God has given me my portion
and that He is my portion
while renouncing the conviction that it was a portion
enough for two, three . . . or even for

the world

dear God forgive me for the recklessness with which i held my portion. forgive my old nature, the one that kissed and made sure I always had my fill of lust. that ripped apart every sinews bond. i trust, or at least i learned to trust in the fulfillment i could gain from sin as long as no one else knew. and this so washed over me as if my body was half-buried at the level of the atlantic shore’s break. and the waves, and the sand in the water of the waves made such damage on my skin. till it hung off my shoulders, fingers, and chin, my flesh the color of cheap watered down wine and somehow i never felt the pain. But i do now, ah man i feel it now.

so much more than the pain of failing love is the pain of feeling loss of many years of life, unknowingly living only for myself. and from my ugly experiences with sin, this is all that i have learned. . .

sin tears apart the bonds Christ designed
for his daughters to enjoy
for his sons to love
these are the sinews that hold
all God designed for good
together
and without it we will not fill the earth beautifully
and we sure as hell won’t subdue it
we will only trapes through these flower beds
with the destruction of stampeding cattle

another day, another tree

2008-04-28T02:23:00.001-07:00

it was so real and unsettling that all other events in my life seemed like dreams. she walked away from the scene but she wanted to die.

it had been three weeks since I had walked through the small cow pasture, up the embankment to the train bridge that crossed over a narrow murky irrigation canal. but i made the trek again after sweeping my house and after sharing a meal with a student's family. i found myself walking along the dirt path that lead to the shady tree i'd sat underneath once before, but pausing just briefly this time as i was assuredly displeased with how close it was to the train's track. i walked on and passed the family fishing out minnows from the canal's mid-shin-deep water. a small child was crouched over a net as the others scurried every which way grabbing at the bit size morsels. i didn't know for certain they were a family, but judging by the way they bickered they had to be. i stepped around the grandpa who was holding the whiny toddler on the bank and began winding down the footpath towards another more densely shaded tree a few hundred yards from the tracks. arriving at the seemingly perfect canopy in just a few minutes, i realized the rice paddies had made an island of the tree and left very little ground for a lad to use for resting. i settled on a rather damp square foot of earth and within minutes i felt two circles forming on the seat of my trousers. the tree's roots were luckily all buried which at least meant i had decent lumbar support. stretching my legs out i found my sandaled feet a patch of grass which let my left calf sit in a coarse mud that cooled my leg and helped to relieve the pressure placed on it by the right leg i had swung over top.

breathing deeply i watched the drongos and kingfishers glide from wire to wire. the drongo's dangling tails are visible from a fair distance away since they are long, black, and y-shaped. if it wasn't for their tails they would look like a crow and i probably wouldn't pay them any mind. the wires they play on jump from pump house to guard house and then they climb up about three meters to the peak of a bamboo pole that hoists a light to keep the area lit at night in splotches like used car lots and for similar reasons.

i opened out of the silent planet and closed it while still searching for my page. i opened my bible, read psalm 14, and closed it as well. i opened my journal and took notes on the farmers surveying their fields. they would walk up to a paddie and stare. then they'd walk to an adjacent side in a pattern until they'd made the rounds. i hadn't really a clue what they were looking for but my guess was that they were judging when to harvest. being right on the verge of picking time i guessed that they were all gritting teeth, scratching scalps, and wondering if they should man the sickles or wait another few days, a week at the most. just one storm can murder a crop and though we thankfully haven't had any high winds other than gusts, and not a speck of hail, those storms could come out of nowhere and devastate. like women i thought.

i took notes on the farmers hopes for a brighter, fuller crop that would weigh in big kg's at the mill. Here's a line from what i called, the farmer.
he runs the irrigation, pumping water
through the paddies, the crop emboldened
he walks the stream and harvests dreams
of his crop as it greens and goldens

i had writ a fair bit and read it aloud to all my droopy rice stalk friends and they liked it. they said it was cheesy but sincerely enjoyable. i thanked them for the "encouragement". i always call them old folks when i address them.
i said, "you old folks want to hear a poem."
they always get a kick out of that and so they cackled back, "at least we're not humans initiating conversations with fields of rice."
"you mean i'm the only one who speaks with you, i highly doubt that," i said once.
"well, the farmers make small talk, but they are very demanding, so we don't say much in reply," they told me, adding, "and most of them really are crazy."
this made me smile along with the drongos perched overhead who were happily chewing on dragon flies.

in my time under the tree i must have seen and heard at least four trains roll by- some fast, some slow. that goes to say i thought very little of the whistle sounding as yet another train approached the crossing outside of lamb's southeast wall. in fact, i wasn't even planning on looking up until i heard a variation in the sound of metal on metal, the sound of a train stopping quickly. the sound sent fearful dissonant waves that sent shivers up the spines of all the "old folks" and they stood upright and grimaced. wanting to laugh at their faces, my eye's peripheral instead caught something stretched across the train's track. it was a twenty-something-year old lady. in the next few seconds a man grabbed her by the hair, sat her up, and then threw her from the track (all by the grip of her hair). next he took a good many swats at her head and yelled a bit, though i could only see him standing over top of her making vivid non-verbals with his hands, accompanying what i assumed were very cruel words. she escaped his grip and began a quick-paced walk with him in pursuit. before he had even caught her she received her second, third, and fourth beatings- this time from women of what relation i of course hadn't a clue. a few people from the train jumped down and said a few words of their own, but returned quickly and had the train started again in less than a minute.

she walked angrily on and was soon encircled by a crowd of two hundred in no time. she walked angrily and wasn't upset i'm sure of it. when upset about that type of drama you forget about walking and explaining yourself, you find a place and ball up and cry. maybe she was saving it for later but she had words of her own for every person she passed. i sensed such a furious pent-up rage in her steps and actions till the moment i lost her in the crowd. it was a tragic scene, very intense. i was dragged from poetry and the joy of harvest to despair and fierce anger. i changed my course, for i had stood and walked fifty meters or so towards the madness.

i headed for home, unsettled in my understanding of joy and i wondered how i'd ever become settled with eyes widening at the rate they were now widening. like i said, it was all so real and unsettling that all else seemed like dreams. she walked from the scene but she wished to die. i wished to speak of joy but i hadn't it in me anymore. i imagined that over years of time experiencing whatever the lady was experiencing, i would despair of life as well. in light of the anger i had seen, to say that i felt humbled, feels like the utmost of arrogant statements. i walked quietly back over the train bridge, seeing the train trudging off in the distance. i looked down once again at the murky grey water and breathed in the thickest of canal air.

relearning everything

2008-04-23T04:04:00.001-07:00

"i have been young and now am too old
and i have seen the righteous forsaken
his health, his honor, and his quality taken
this is not what we were formerly told"

this is not what i was formerly shown
a bleak reality of tarnished gold
waning vapors of ethereal bliss
searching for truth left me this
hypothesis that truth is cancer
concluding there are no right answers
proven through many tests without cures

i am a plagued member
of a race bound by fear
fear of knowing another's pain
fear of losing security
of becoming less
fear of doing what Christ told me to do
of believing God is who he says he is

i know less every day i pass on love
every day i stay inside my home
faulting adam and eve for sin
never finding my own redemption
living a life that serves as proof
of a small failure god
that isn't worth trusting

"can i be used to help others find truth
when i'm scared that i'll find proof that it's a lie
can i be led down a trail dropping bread crumbs
to prove i'm not ready to die
please give me time to decipher the signs
please forgive me for the time that i've wasted"

1st quote- edmund blunden, "report on experience"
2nd quote- nickel creek, "doubting thomas"

lamb email is up and running

2008-04-20T23:36:00.000-07:00

alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org

from the thicket

2008-04-12T22:11:00.001-07:00

"here I am", the Father's reply
moriah's cliff then swiftly astride
and on together with the Son
God will provide, His will be done

a mountain's climb, his mercy's speed
on beautiful feet did trod for me
and carried wood and fire and knife
he was the lamb our sacrifice

the servant's stayed at Father's request
for worship called and He knew best
no other aid hath suffering need
the atonement covers, the Son will bleed

for placed upon the alter lay
beneath the knife from Father's arm
bound by ropes on wood and stone
sin's penalty, the Son did own

obedient in death, he remained
though from a thicket the answer came
and Christ alone my consecration
my substitute and sin's negation

for from the brush good news arrived
the wrath of God was satisfied
this life i live i do not own
my hope unseen, an eternal home

the day of glory, his face i'll see
and know in full from bended knee
the price he paid on calvary
of his great love, my tongue will sing
i shall not die, his praise i bring
forever now, the lamb is king

the lamb is king
the lamb is king
the lamb is king
the lamb is king

recollection of an exorcism

2008-04-07T19:38:00.001-07:00

it began as sobbing, though it was probably the hair that went first. but in my recollection it was the sobbing that initially awoke me from sleep around 2:00 am. the sobbing sounded as the deepest bellows of pain, alarm, and tragedy. my only thoughts were that the owner of those cries has been harmed in a way i've never before heard of and i didn't know if i wanted to be informed. ignorance is bliss right. a good night sleep is also bliss and without sleep, i figured my chance at ignorance was also gone. i ran to my front door and looked over the curtains but saw nothing. in fact there was nothing to see, outside. the noises i was hearing were from the other side of my bedroom wall, inside the adjoining home. the same room from which, hours earlier, i heard the songs of hindi cartoons. hours earlier, i tried to plug one surge protector into another and flipped the breaker. so i shuffled my feet around the porch of my new home in darkness.

i laid in bed thinking i'd never sleep with the noise. but i eventually drifted back to sleep.

i awoke yet again, this time from a dream of a ladies choir. with my eyes now adjusted, it still seemed as if the darkness were protruding as a knife through very thin cloth. the cloth being the outer layer of my eye's aqueous humor (i'm teaching light in my 2nd grade science class). regardless of how my eyes were functioning there was indeed singing now coming from the adjacent home. from the same place as the sobbing i had heard before. i lay still and coughed a bit. in addition to the singing was a man shouting "JeSu Cristo nam, JeSu Cristo nam," and also loud praying. this time i knew i'd not fall back asleep. i debated moving to my former residence where i knew a comfortable couch and mosquito net were waiting for me. but it was now 3:30am and i didn't really want to sift through my scattered belongings tossed around my new home looking for my keys. i shifted to my side and cut the noise in half. nineteen minutes later. i tossed my blankets aside and began looking for my keys.

outside the air was praiseworthy. a brisk refreshment. immediately searching the neighboring yard for clues as to what the deal was, i found nothing more than a large collection of shoes below the steps up to the door. i was heading for christian's house, honestly, but i figured i may as well stop next door and at least ask if everything was okay. everything seemed very tragic and i didn't want to disturb, but i have to admit it was impossible for me to suppress curiously caring at this point. now 4:00am, i walked through the bamboo gate of my neighbor's yard as i had done when i collected my key the previous afternoon. seeing no one and knowing that this was because they were meeting in the bedroom closest to my place, the bedroom with windows that open up into my porch. looking back at my porch i could see that it was those very windows that alone lit my porch (still without electricity, i'm an idiot). pulling the heavy outward swinging metal door open, i glanced to my left. making eye contact with a lady, she nudged a man who came to meet me.

"ki khobor bhay (what's the new's brother)?" i asked.
"ami bhon samosa (problem with my sister)." he replied.
"onek samosa (very problem)?" i said.
"heh, satan"

i made praying hands and he nodded his head and motioned me to follow him in. once inside i met an older man who i recognized as a man known among the lamb villagers as a good storyteller, at least that is how he was introduced to me. seeing no fictitious expression in his eyes he told me what happened.

"they heard crying from the room." he started to say.
"at 2:00am." i added.
"yes, and they saw that her hair had been cut."
"her hair, who cut it?"
"she was alone in the room," he confessed with questioning non-verbals, "so everybody has come to pray."

we were just outside the room when i remembered that i'd also heard people repeating the question, "tomar nam ki (what's your name)?" i stopped the man and asked why everyone was repeating this and he said that the girl doesn't remember her name.

finally on the other side of my bedroom wall i saw a girl sitting on a bed with women all around her propping her up, some sitting on another bed, even more people standing; everyone was praying. as i'd heard before, "JiSu Criso nam," i was now watching the man bouncing as he said it. one of the grey-haired ladies on the bed had a songbook opened and was leading the songs with a completely nasally tone. many hands reached out to the girl and prayed loudly. as for the girl, her hair had definitely been cut in certain places, her head was apparently too heavy to hold up straight and so it bobbed as she swayed. her eyes didn't seem to be working properly either. i joined the prayer and my thoughts were all over the place and it was nearly impossible to stay focused on one thought. i opened my eyes and listened carefully to the words of the songs they were repeating, and i hummed the tune. by the fourth and fifth time through the chorus i could finally sing along.

the girl got up once, staggering through the porch with ladies and men holding her up. she tried to leave through the door on the porch but the father said no. with that she went back to her bed, falling once on the way. now around quarter to five the prayer continued, and the songs continued with breaks every other song so that they could ask, "tomar nam ki?", at least a dozen times. finally, she said the name of who i presumed to be her sister. whoever she was, she hesitated as people prodded her to go next to the girl. as soon as the sister sat down the girl responded to questions; she said her name, that she was doing good, and she even repeated the name of Jesus Christ. this produced many hallelujahs and praises. the singing and praying went on for another fifteen minutes and around 5:00 am the group disbanded, agreeing to meet again at 6:30 am for prayer.

back outside the house i thought to ask if anyone knew where the circuit breaker was so i could flip my power back on but decided it was too early, too dark, and simply not the right time. i shuffled back inside my new home, opened a few of the eastern windows, sat, and watched the sun rise.

it's now 6:23 and the sun is above the tree line. it's too bright to be beautiful. it's nothing but a light source to make other things beautiful when it's that bright. it's only when it's just rising or beginning to set where it's a spectacle. debating whether to head back to the reconvening prayer meeting, i sit and listen to my alarm clock sing the words, "you've been living life like it's a sequel and you're already bored with the plot. as if the cast and the score are more money than before but the script and the backdrops are stock. we've got the rest of our lives to regret all the words that were said here tonight but i'll bet that the morning, the morning will find us in bloom." i don't really know what that means but it feels like i chose that song last night on purpose. maybe not.

four four o eight

2008-04-04T12:19:00.001-07:00

i sat under the tree that hangs over the stream with rice growing along the banks. it was a fine shade for a holiday and not a far walk from my home. i mosey'd through a small grove of trees to get there. between the trees were a few graves, mounded over with mud. there were also candles and crosses on the graves in an orderly fashion and i imagine they weren't long ago tearfully placed by a widow or a granddaughter.
just past the grove, up an embankment, was a short train bridge. i stepped between the tracks on the railroad ties and paused every few steps to watch the murky stream ripple underfoot.
i sat just a couple hundred meters south of the bridge. a bengali boy who spoke good english walked past on the other side of the stream and stopped to make conversation for a while.
"do you like shadows?" he asked, referring to my shady choice of seating.
"yes," i told him, pausing and looking upward.
"oh, well i fish here with a rod," he continued, pointing upstream, towards the bridge. "it's funny," he added.
to me this fact did indeed deserve laughter, but i knew he meant only to say that he generally has a pretty good time fishing.
he went on to inform me that two people had killed themselves in the tree, and now many hindu's say that ghosts live in the tree and that they actually killed the people.
i sat under the tree awhile, after the boy moved on, and made dialogue with the rice paddies. they testified to the truth of the boy's stories, but that the ghost part was just made up. i told them that i concur but confessed that i too cope with reality by making up stories. and i tell myself the stories about good people and true love so that i don't often think of bad people and hate. they responded by giving me a pretty convincing argument for why they are actually heartless droopy stalks of rice. i laughed at them and my laughter caught them off guard. they couldn't help but turn away smiling. you can't convince me of any of that nonsense i began to tell them. you aren't heartless. . .you aren't drooping. . . and my voice trailed off as i realized they weren't listening anymore.
some time had passed before a man walked up with a rather large sack slung over his shoulder. i first laid eyes on him an hour earlier as he was working along the water's edge. i had put my book down for a second and glanced back to find that the man was staring at me. i shouted hello, but not before i had let a good bit of time pass, seeing just how long he would let me stare at him before he would look away. he won the staring contest and shouted back at me a few words i couldn't understand. i waved and pretty soon he was crossing the stream on a thin mud bridge. he set his bag down. i could see now that it was full of weeds and as he squatted beside the bag it dwarfed his tired body. only a half meter or so away we just smiled at one another. we made small talk and i must have told him twenty-five times that i don't understand much of his language. he obviously didn't care. we finished my bag of chanachur and bid one another farewell.
i was happy he came and sat with me. he had helped me to quit searching the tree limbs for markings made by ropes. he had helped me cope for a while and i wasn't even daydreaming.

Genesis in bangladesh

2008-03-31T19:37:00.000-07:00

In broom sweeps
In children's screams
In dog growls and dog yelps
As a mother scolds
And grabs the neck of her young

This is my my silent hour
This is where I listen
But will the Holy Spirit brood here?
Is there surface deep enough for him to move here?
Will I bend like rice stalks?
Or will I defy the wind like bamboo?

And my mind is fixed
On my morning contemplation
Of spoken prayers
The Spirit dares
My mouth to keep mum
And breathe in this silence

a random thought

2008-03-25T01:52:00.000-07:00

do you remember sticky hands. ah man. they don't make fun like that anymore

email

2008-03-25T01:22:00.000-07:00

alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org
alank@lambproject.org

a tree fort and a nephew

2008-03-16T23:19:00.000-07:00

there is no tiring when we climb together. when our boyish minds forget the increments of time together. his heart is no more aware of his body climbing than a tree is aware of the ebb and flow of wind tossing its leaves about. his young hands latch tightly onto tree limbs and his younger feet carelessly misstep- i am not unaware. i assist frequently so that he learns to climb well and i assist sparingly so that he doesn't soon forget the dangers involved. and when he falls he cries loudly and with every whimpering breath he knows my love for him and he proves he knows it every new day as he climbs back on. and i believe that love is pain in sight of higher heights and encouragement to climb higher. and disdain is a comforting kiss telling the tale of deceitful bliss while restricting a boy to climb on lower branches.

death of a young man

2008-03-12T01:27:00.000-07:00

**i read roald dahl's "death of an old man" this morning and fell in love so i wrote something similar . the first two sentences are copied verbatum and many ideas are borrowed. as in dahl's piece, THE USE OF THE PERSONAL PRONOUN, DOES NOT REFER TO MYSELF. everything up to the point of the point of a man pile driving me into the ground is factual. i wasn't mugged in any way shape or form, but i loved the perspective that dahl gave after a pilot lost in combat and so i wrote something similar. i should have made this much clearer before. sorry for being falsely dramatic. i posted this right before i left for the sundarbans in southwest bangladesh and the thought did cross my mind while away, that perhaps i didn't give enough clarity about the truth of the matter. upon returning i had a few emails to follow up on. i apologize for this. it was in no way my intention**

o God how i am frightened. now that i am alone i don't have to hide it; i don't have to hide anything any longer. i'll even breathe deeply and sweep my oily brown hair from my forehead. it's heavy because it's thick. and though i have no need for haircuts anymore if i did in fact need one that is what the barber would say. he'd say "you have thin hair but lots of it so its thick and far to hot for summer which is well along now. it's about time you came in." and i'd smile at him but i won't have to bare the awkwardness of the barbers shop anymore because i have no need for a haircut. and i won't be bothered by people's requests either. as if it bothered me anyways. and the momentous thoughts of mediating between one world and another have careened all others into the sidewalk’s gutters filled with every possible object that serves as metaphor for the foulest of all corrupted created things.

and the gutters are real and they're always stagnant. and the filth wasn't in question anew untill now. i knew of their stagnancy and filth before i began my walk home. and as i held a hand out to the employees at the office the filth was already determined in my mind. as i studied language materials in the late morning hours i knew already and for that matter as i woke from sleep i knew it. and i knew it before i laid my head down to rest just after eleven, falling asleep sometime around half past. and even in the seven restful hours i knew it. it wasn’t ever apart from my knowledge. the filthy drainage that lines the streets and sidewalks is engrained into my mind and as i started down the streets and alleys i knew exactly what i was going to see. so it wasn’t anything really when i saw it. it wasn’t until i saw the boy with the shaven head cocked sideways in disgust as he dropped his last bit of early dinner, sinking into the bubbly waste- and most likely his late lunch and even later breakfast. suddenly now things became worse. and though he was too disgusted to appeal to my white skin for baksheesh i bet i might have not dug deep into the lowly coinage which makes for easy handouts. i probably would have reached right for paper money highly elevated in my jean pocket. it wouldn’t have even caused a shrug on my part because just two fingers would have entered and quickly grabbed a bill for the boy. any bill because things were now worse than anticipated.

i was now alert to the filth again like it was my first stroll through the bizarre. it was now my first time seeing the shops set up on either side of the sidewalk. and on the south side, where the drainage runs, it would still get more business even though the stench pervades deeper into the lungs. i gather that this is because the vegetables wouldn’t be sitting on newspaper directly atop the dirt road, but on newspaper directly atop an old brick path- and this is apparently classier. i saw the boy drop his last bit of shingara and thus more keen to the scene where many were without a last bit to drop. and i couldn’t stand stationary. far too busy. i had to walk. and i walked past vendors the entire way and few had items they didn’t have the day before. and i wonder, with so many hundreds, if not thousands of people selling the same menu of vegetables and fruits and fly swatters how on earth anyone cuts a niche in the market, getting a little ahead of his neighboring salesman. spotting the simple answer to my inquiry i watched as crowds gather around cha shacks with a television, a sure seller. cricket is always an easy sell. and the bottom of the screen always displays who the aussies made chumps of today and everyone know that the deshi squad is hit or miss so there is even more reason to cheer them on- grabbing a steamy cup and a smoke and standing beyond clear sight of the screen so one can only hear the actions of bowlers and wickets and overs and its all very swell. i’m happy for the possibility that one day i might know the game better and stand around and perceive with clarity the action of the cherished sport.

i need a pack of batteries, perhaps another set of duracells but definitely a pair made for 2008 or later this time because i only got two pics out of the last set and i think i should be able to expect more. at least it would be nice. and no i don’t need rechargeable because i haven’t a charger. “koto duracell” i ask. “asi” says the salesman. i compute the figure into dollars and though it’s only a buck ten i paid only a buck last time at a nicer shop and then i remember their quality, and i reason 80 taka is a fair price. i make the purchase and thank him in his native tongue, which i know sounds like screams from a bleating goat, but i’m assimilating right.

it’s far darker than when i started and if traffic wasn’t thick like coddling cream i’d have ridden a riksay but instead i make headway home on foot and pass heaps of children laughing and a few bathing and a few crying and a few bathing and laughing and crying. i duck under a down phone line, through a small group of men shooting the breeze and into the alley my sister trina showed me on her way to school. i wouldn’t have recognized it if it wasn’t conveniently next to the school because there is far less light now than when we walked this morning as the sun came up. the only thing visible is the ground around my feet and the sky above the surrounding walls. but utter darkness is only absence of all light and i still have some light coming in from above the barbed wire atop the walls to either side of me so it really isn’t utterly dark. though i don’t know if it could be considered a working light because my sandaled feet cannot find their way on the dirt path on the alley. luckily i could hear someone behind me and i’d be able to follow them. i could only be forty feet or so from the streets dim lamps but they seemed to far back to turn around. the steps were still coming, but quickly now and i now know that quick steps behind you in a dark narrow alley immediately causes fear or a loss of safety. and, whereas loss of safety means potential danger, fear also signals danger but when afraid, danger seems imminent. and i braced myself as collision was inevitable. very soon it became reality as i felt a shoulder drive my rib cage into the hard ground of the alley. it stole my breath. i struggled frantically to get it back because my brain would need to be involved in figuring out my next panicked decision. i wiggled and tossed and punched the air and whoever was atop of me. my side was then greeted by that kind of small pain that comes right before big pain and i braced myself while it was introduced. it came slowly though i expected it all at once. nonetheless, it took every remaining bit of struggle i had. hands freely grabbed at my backside into the pocket where i keep my wallet. and into my front pockets too and my phone was gone. my side tore open further like a rip in the knee of my jeans as both arms were thrown above my head adn my backpack disappeared. had i thought quicker i’d have reached for my knife clipped onto my pocket. struggling was futile. as i gasped still for air i felt pain reaching the ends of every limb. it was either air or more pain and i knew not which one was a more pressing issue to deal with. somewhere in the lonely struggle, i was forced to give up trying and forced to just accept whatever was to follow.

and they ran and i didn’t think to chase, hell i couldn’t stand, but i really didn’t think to stand either as i was now drifting, wrapped in cloud and sky. i saw the men darting down an adjacent alley and i questioned their speed. did they not know my plan to pursue was aborted the same time i started losing reality. slow down i thought. there is really no need to rush. just look into your hands and see what you’ve got now. you’ve got everything that you thought separated me from you. and now you have it and you still don’t know what you have. you don’t realize our differences were really minor, no more than skin and economic advantage. sure, you’ve got my money now but it will last only two months and only if you follow the frugal plan that you can’t read in my journal. i suppose if you find an atm in the next day or two you could make out with enough cash for a year or two but no more and pending you remember the first four digits of my middle school locker. and once you factor all that out i think maybe we’ll see eye to eye, that we’re exactly the same. and yet we’re fighting the same current from opposite sides of the river. fighting to get by, around, somewhere, anywhere, but never along. and you’ve convinced me that if you can’t purchase by the end of tonight something to last your lifetime then you’ve spent very poorly and you're not dealing with the correct currency. i hope you find that in my stuff somewhere. or come back later to survey the damages and maybe you’ll see it in the coagulation lounging around the edges of the pool i lay in.

but for me, tonight, i think i’ll just lay back down in the dirt and try to enjoy what’s left of the humid night air.

four three o eight

2008-03-04T23:41:00.000-08:00

the smell of moldy citrus was circulating the city air as i rounded the corner on my homeward bound route. my first step from road fifty startled a dirty yellow dog in a pile of leaves. now astir, he started away, embarrassed that i had seen him there. he made his way across the street without checking traffic. halfway through the second lane he turned a glance back at me to make sure i knew he had moved on with his life. i smiled, affirming his decision, and then laughed aloud at the site of his jaw clenched upon a sizable orange, drawing juice enough to drip from his grinning jaw and soak his filthy golden jacket.

a good song

2008-03-03T22:28:00.000-08:00

by derek webb

who's your brother, who's your sister
you just walked passed him
i think you missed her
as we're all migrating to the place where our father lives
'cause we married in to a family of immigrants

my first allegiance is not to a flag, a country, or a man
my first allegiance is not to democracy or blood
it's to a king & a kingdom

there are two great lies that ive heard:
the day you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will not surely die
and that Jesus Christ was a white, middle-class republican
and if you wanna be saved you have to learn to be like Him

but nothing unifies like a common enemy
and weve got one, sure as hell
but he may be living in your house
he may be raising up your kids
he may be sleeping with your wife
oh no, he may not look like you think

life in dhaka

2008-03-02T02:57:00.000-08:00

my family my birthday mug- i put coffee in it

try to get emu to smile- "say ponir"

my birthday present

trying to make ends meet

2008-02-27T21:38:00.000-08:00

dusty streets, smiles
laughter, morning, mourning
smog blocks the sunlight
with no woman's insight
wanted in a dhaka city market
i'm an easy target
white skin shew in for a baksheesh pocket
but i've no paisha coin and no small taka
just a bill of five hundred
and you can't cash me out lady
i bet you hate old navy
skimming off the top
making you a bottom scraper
their ads are sitting pretty
but you'll never make the paper
making in a month what some are paid for an hour
i thought it sweet once but the thought has gone sour
because they'll let you sew the tag
but your face can't sell the brand
made in bangladesh, 100 percent cotton
100 percent rotten and i've no more tears to cry
and i'm partly to blame for this sunless asian sky

**i'm no expert on fair made clothes but i did receive an old navy shirt for christmas that was made in bangladesh. this originally triggered my thoughts on old navy, or gap's clothing manufacturers in a poverty stricken county like bangladesh. then the other day, on my way to and from a book fair (ekushei boy mela), on the dhaka university campus, i passed some garment factories. i could see women working in the afternoon light. after dark, on my way home i saw women working in rows under fluorescent lights. i'm told some factories are run twenty four hours a day and others are open only until midnight. i'll say that again- only till midnight. i googled "old navy trade fair" and was surprised by some of the articles i found. one page, www.behindthelabel.org, had several archives about sweatshops in bangladesh. i don't know where these thoughts will take me. i've never boycotted a store or brand, and i've always thought gap jeans fit nicely, and that they make some decent boxer briefs. but what if these women are really paid less than fifty dollars a month. that's pretty ridiculous, right? especially when gap grossed some fifteen billion last year. hopefully more to come on the issue. next time i pass i'll get out and take pictures.**

one rule

2008-02-23T04:45:00.000-08:00

i try to keep the rules in life- like don't put your foot in your mouth.
i ate the best dag gon dinner i've had yet in bangladesh, that is to say they just keep getting better. it was simply a thrillicious shepherd's pie and a garden fresh quiche and an equally fresh salad. it was all so very organic which is what i live my life for. nonethesless, i scraped my plate and had just begun reading "irresistable revolution" when i overheard 3 ausies and 1 american hating on president bush. i made like i forgot to wash a coffee mug and busily positioned myself at the kitchen sink, but strategically within earshot of the blown steam. before long i inserted a two cent statement questioning the hate and prodding at "where do we go from here?" (i said more than that but i'm trying to forget all those words that reeked of shoe and i can't effectively write out my stutter-slewn speech). my words were followed by a mess of statistics i didn't know what to do with and they brought my ignorance to center stage- just writing of the experience brings the blood back to the surface of my skin. now i'm wondering if there's any way to untie the knots that now block my food from effectively shimmying its way through my stomach.
all that to say that my day would surely have been ruined, through my disobedience of that one simply difficult rule, had i not hours earlier watched a 5 yr old bangladeshi boy eat his first ever tootsie roll.

two fifteen o eight

2008-02-15T02:01:00.000-08:00

the cities below
are my in-flight movie
as the plane lists
the plot thickens
the wings swing
high and low
accenting and underlining
the sun's boiling light
spilled along the horizon

hope has always anchored me
but i just saw my hook slip
and my hope drift
and set again

my soul is awakened
to a world of new life
as i watch the Atlantic
crash on foreign shores

my in-flight depression
changes with memories
of faces of people
i love. haulting
only with the thought
of relationships growing in absence
because "distance is what you make it"

some more on leaving (no pun intended)

2008-02-07T21:52:00.000-08:00

donald miller told me to leave and i'll never forget reading those words just a few days before heading to the abaco islands in the bahamas. i've left a few times since then and experienced three or four changes in scenery. and let's just say that what is mostly to be gained in leaving is a fresh look at oneself and others. new perspective. understanding.

a realization that it was the bread of life they whipped and flogged for His teachings in the synagogue. He gave true food and real drink to put life in us and we eat His flesh and drink His blood so we can abide in Him. the realization comes when we begin abiding in Him everywhere. when we start sharing meals to fill our souls up. so we can head home to dream the dreams that dreamers dream that paints the set as a ordinary scene. to wake from ordinary sleep resting our bodies just enough to attempt living life's monotony with angst.

it's so hard you know but i swear to goodness i'm going to learn a thing or two about contentedness before i croak because if i become the guy on the job one upping everyone else with the size of his new flat screen tv i swear to goodness i'll quit. i'll quit right then and there, johnny on the spot.

seriously though, contentedness has to either be an illusion or the best kept secret. it's tough, it's so tough, especially when you work with folks who say "f- this job," on a monday and every single monday for that matter. or folks who will ignore and flat out refuse attempts at friendship even though it was your most honest attempt and the only opportunity brewing for you or them at the time. i had a manager once who didn't think he should have to let any girl leave early unless she did him a favor. and that was his joke day in, day out and it made me hate life. only because i hated him and i knew he was who i was supposed to love and i don't know how and i can't figure it out. and for that reason i lie awake at night because it feels like i'll never be good at life and if that is true then i'll probably never be content. i'll never do things right, never make things right.

and what's even worse is that rob bell says things have already been made right. that the score is already settled and the only reason i feel ugly and incapable is because i don't believe Christ is able to make someone holy.

and this perhaps stems from the fact that somewhere in my fall Jesus became a white self-pitying college grad. and because i've forgotten the height from which i've fallen. i view God on a level playing field and therefore he's unable to forgive sins. and with that guilt i forget things like joy and lose the confidence i had at first.

but i know a guy who hasn't lost it. he likes eating cheerios one by one and he likes playing with the pile of damp leaves in the yard- picking them up in clusters and loosing them to fall out of his fingers. he eats gummy bears like they're a healthy snack and when his two year old feet sink into the wet uncut st. augustine grass it looks as if he's been handed the world. and in this uncharted territory i witnessed the purest of joys as the morning dew atop the rigid blades ran down through the crevaces in his toes.

and it was in that moment that i knew my issue. it was minimum wage, it was health insurance. it was 401k's and a loss of endurance. grocery lists, mechanic bills, movie theatres, and amusement park thrills. and on top of it all i became educated with the compound of years and i forgot simply how to be content with wet grass

awakened to darkness

2008-01-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

in the past year of my life i've made a regular morning custom of constructing peanut butter banana honey sandwiches. i'm infatuated with the way they hold me over and this particular morning every bite is a moment i cherish. the wheat bread isn't overly florida moist and the banana is just starting to brown. my mom's flavored coffee is still oatmeal raisin banana cream cookie and for some reason it's taste this morning doesn't make me feel like i'm betraying traditional coffee. i know every coffee blend is flavored or roasted but some flavors just need to be banned.
i had a superfluous banana slice this morning that i decided to just toss down the hatch and when i did i froze. it was the strangest sensation, an overly strong occurrence of deja vu' is the best way i can describe it. i felt like i was there, the second that banana hit the floor beneath my esophagus i swear to you i was in aspen. I was silently waiting in near darkness for the milk to boil for my oatmeal. silent because i didn't want to wake any one of ten strangers asleep in my living room. dark because light would have woken at least one or two of them up as well (personally, sound wakes me up far quicker but once i'm up i cannot cannot fall back asleep with the light on whereas i can grow calloused to moderate volumed noises, but it takes sustained eyelid contact for light alone to actually wake me). i was making my oatmeal while simultaneously sliding a gross turkey and cheese sandwich into a baggy with a few carrots i cut up. i was waiting for chris to call me and tell me what he forgot and to ask me to bring a hot chocolate to the top of the ski lift he was operating (which is no easy task when the chair starts to bump over the sheaves- i've lost many a hot cocoa that way-setting the cup on the seat cushion right up next to the back rest then forgetting about it until it's falling). i was dreading my 5 block walk over to the bus stop and contemplating driving myself, at least then i could drive home and not have to wait for that bus twice. i would need a good 5 or 6 minutes to de-ice the windshield and another 1 or 2 minutes to clear the 4 inches of snow from the hood and rear of my car. all of this could be done with the car running because i would need a solid 15 minutes before my shitty defrost cleared a goggle size spot on the interior glass. i decided to walk
back to making my breakfast in the dark. i bet i could function without light. i mean i'd stub my toe here and there but seriously i think i could perform most tasks in near darkness. let's be honest you always need a little light in order to function. and i suppose whenever there is even the slightest bit of light you cannot say you are in darkness, but it's dark no doubt. the only things i need the light for are the big things, the big questions in life. like what is truth? or the questions of how to find meaning in this life? other than that, sadly darkness suits me just fine. i've had so much practice i guess that it doesn't bother me in the slightest. so i guess the question is what do i prefer. i'd have to say light, but then again life is probably just a lot less complicated when i don't have to worry about seeing what is going on around me. in the dark it's of little use looking around. i mean i can see some stuff but i can't really make it out and i certainly cannot even try to understand it. some say i'm being ignorant but i say i'm being pragmatic. in the end dark or light it's all about what is functional and this just works for me.

twelve thirty one o seven

2007-12-31T05:38:00.000-08:00

my mind runs to dreams begun in a womb
where tangled chords feed surrounding insecurities
insulated fearlessness hides inside and hinders contemplated
thoughts of joyfully leaving my temporal abode
my life is a weepy song

i'm tucked away like a murphy bed
and if company stays the night
they're sure to find me and question everything

the earth is warm beneath my feet
and i can feel my aching knees
worn from working weeks
and i'm unable to buy grace

i'm unable to become confident
unable to understand God's ideas
unable to go anywhere
presumably until i escape the womb

peanut butter banana honey sandwich and three cups of coffee

2007-11-29T05:09:00.000-08:00

void doesn't define
chasm between my heart and mind
hopeful months separate
what plan-less months communicate
and tonight i'll change my bandages
lying in the cinders of my ravages

i'm searching for a solution
to paste over this gaping hole
and through it all i've come to know
it isn't loss of blood i mostly fear
by coping for another year
without remedy

pain is equating from the mindless work and time
waiting for the answers to my questions of why
i'm waiting for the answers to my questions
of why

remedy my remedy though daily you steal from me
the things i know i'll never need
show me the mouth that i should feed
to prove the solution isn't me