Belfry

Some nights are most poignant from the belfry

the tattered bat-wing clouds flap

over the blood-thirsty moon
hearts are swallowed,
pulled out by such a moon
I thought the sky protected me
gazing up so reverently
but this is darkness, and midnight
here is desperate, you notice
with sugar sweet starry lies
even the night cannot hide
hope in its many folds and faces

clearly, i see clearest, with my face lodged in the mud. If my heart sees and my soul beats, and my eyes simply be, though wallowing - perhaps finally this is where faith takes seed. Ask, and I will pray. Ask again, and I will answer your questions, give you directions, and wish you well on your way. Ask again, and I will join you, forever and a day, always.


uhohhhhhhh.... I think I'm addicted to italics....

Handful of Dust

frozen the mammoth, ice prison
Or am I?
Who's caged really  in crystal time
Cinched the cooler
glass glacier world, standing
watching, watched?
Gimmicky, are we all? Finicky, though lodged within the aqua pearls of iceberg penitentiary, slow as the ice floe, stuck in ocean eddies. It's only the top, the upturned face of the iceberg, breathing in the sunlight - the peninsula of a vast, underwater continent of ice, blinding bright in the dawn. Am I a penguin, sheltered safely en masse; a walrus, all tusks and whiskers, clamping onto the ice and hunting molluscs; or, perhaps, a polar bear, transparent skin and ravenous fight?
Marble, mystery of water and lime
my eyes swirl in striated lines
blue and white, her paintings
blurring, arching, and dividing
mosaic of color
do the fish beneath understand their sky?
do we?


http://funnydoom.com/wp-content/gallery/8caves/caves-0001.jpg

Today was not a writing day, I'm afraid. Everything fell flat on its face. Yesterday: that was a writing day.


A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
~ TS Eliot - Wasteland

Leftovers

Honestly, I'm nervous about this, about everything. I don't advertise my blogging, because I've worked long and hard on writing, and what does this show? Casual, lousy, stream-of-consciousness blather, that's what. And I wonder: can Mary Oliver write, and it not be poetry? Can Gaiman spill ink on paper, and mythos and wisdom not flower forth? Will Sylvia Plath's words ever not cinch a rope about my neck and drag me, smitten and smote over a wasteland of macabre beauty? So what is this drivel I spew, writing leftovers - why is my basest rhetoric like somersaults on broken glass sometimes?
It's dastardly pride, believing my writing is within earshot of such champions - but, Gaiman, are not dreams hopes, and echoes of hopes? Permit me this dream.
When someone stumbles upon this blog, these virtual scrawls, I cringe - could they not read something more spectacular, something polished that I've written? No. Because I don't share those, either.

Morning at the Peak
Long necked trees burst like swans
swimming downstream with the morning
light wings the way
mists like ships pass through
the susurrus of empty branches, calm
the white-tailed deer of dawn drinks.
milky, the mirror-pond sees only fog.
magician snaps a kerchief
gossamer valley, white rabbit
drawn from blackhat night
I, too, take wing and vanish
into the smoke

Hands

hourglass, crystal ball, scythe, neat-tucked bed, dusty corners, spiderwebs, time-greyed armoire, rusty crib, ancient toys the stuff of nightmares, ceiling collapsing beneath a weighty loneliness.

have you found what beauty is for?

Beauty is beyond me, its outer gardens waft to me. You've seen the whole of it: the love, the new words and senses, the pinched and kneaded time, bleeding colors spinning rainbows into auroral webs. It's in your eyes, face, rhythm and tempo. What do the lines in my hands say? Do they frown or smile pleasantly? Do they beggar me with wisdom, or silent, plaintive, whisper I've made mistakes - too many. A ledger of scarlet, written in palm cuneiform, a pictograph of questions, unclasped, etched into flesh.  Thumb isolated, a border of sharp fissures, fault lines - my fault?  Large 'A' on each hand, an 'l' following? Sacred symbol lines?

It is not for all, every experience.  My hands tell stories I cannot hear.

listen: the swan song sings for me - this is beauty, truth, beauty

I slept, and woke on a snowflake, just me and a giant snake, shivering with cold. Gazing into each others eyes, must we put our selves aside and cuddle close? I wrapped my arms about him, he around me, and we shivered together atop our snowflake eternity, the worldscape beneath of clouds, aurora, fields and forests. But the snake loved too much, or nature prevailed, and constricted - I could not breathe. But warm, warm, it's better this way, coiled not cold.

black glass ponds are not mirrors, but windows. What do you see? Is it love, or sorrow?

Sorrow, the crow, and memory - or thought? Dusty roads barefoot glow beneath yellowed-paper moon, glitter-black dress of twilight - is it dark in a phoenix egg? Is it this that drives the fight for freedom? Or because inside, without room, the song of life is strangled, muffled?

before you blink, as you smile,what gift to you who loves no gifts? It beats sola para ti, and it's glass running through my veins, and sand, will you have my hand if I give it? no. take this empty box, it's mine, it holds my everything. is it mercy or grace I need more? 

have you found everything without me

to guide you

i'd give my blessing but i misplaced it with my heart-

felt hopes and dreams of warmer things, what everyone

else just forgets - it's the best, the only, night of my life

let me have it with all my dreams intact

these lines on my hands untouched

such stories 

~in memory of..~

where prayers were not enough to save us the sorrow of your passing.

Five Steps Back, Four

Aimed and Aimless Thoughts.

Ever since I started writing, I realized I'd finally found myself an unwinnable game. Or, perhaps, a game I could not surpass everyone in - there is always room for improvement. Another aspect about this game that, perhaps, suits me particularly well is its individuality.  It's also a bit embarrassing. I was always a bit of an individualistic player. I love team games, but I don't believe that they inspire my competitive drive. Since the team relies on me as only a small portion of the victory or defeat, I don't feel as though I need to better myself exponentially. I'm usually more than content simply matching the mean skill level.
Not so with individual games. But the strangest part about my competitive nature is that once I win something, I don't really care about it any longer, win or lose. I know that I CAN win. I don't have to try to win any longer. That doesn't mean I don't try to win, it just means I don't TRY to win.
The difference is spectacular.

Writing is different. It inspires my individualistic cravings for competition and betterment, without having any actual competition - or at least any concrete competition. And the first thing I learned in this competitive marathon, a marathon that may well last the remainder of my life, was that I'm awful. Simply. Awful.
For every discovery I gleaned, improvement I bled for, each sacrifice made, I fall behind five steps. It's like being thrown out of a plane with a sewing kit and cloth. Every time I sew together a piece of my parachute, I fall slower? Maybe? But I'm still falling. More like it, it's rowing a canoe upriver, a white rapids. I'm actually going backwards with each stroke, but eventually, my arms may get strong enough to make headway. (I should have just pulled to the side and walked upriver, huh?)
Now, though, I've improved. Instead of one step forward, five steps back, I'm only retreating four steps.

The same quality of rowing upriver sometimes affects other aspects of my life, and some I've been enduring recently. In church today, the discussion was on vulnerability, clothing yourself in righteousness, openness in the church, the family of the church body. How many things are there that we internalize rather than sharing with our church body, and how often is the church body helpful in overcoming these things? How often does the church body help rather than leave us hanging, or, worse, judge us for our failings?
Things such as anger, shame, depression, panic, pornography, psychological disorders, difficulties in marriage, relationships, the home - none of these are things I struggle with at this time, but how many people do, and don't feel open to tell the church? Or, having told the church, feel judged or "prayed at" rather than aided in the healing process, the grace and mercies of God?

One thing I was thinking about, in relation to this, is the short story "Franny" by JD Salinger, where Franny and Zooey are discussing the short prayer of the Tax Collector in the gospels: "Lord have mercy on me, a sinner." Actually, they are talking about it as a repeatable phrase, and as a way of praying without ceasing. Sometimes I wonder if this is a good way to avoid temptation, to refocus on God with all your might.

Inundated

Inundated

seas outside,
who requests this moat, tonight?

Once a house, a boat

soaring on an inland sea.

In undated lands, we

flow over, overflow

low mountains, clouds, drifting

below the flood, below

gold-leafed mud, shining

tiny cities, water-whelmed;

rising, the ocean breathes

salty dreams alkaline,

brine bitter as wine clams

over hearts tonight

locked behind window, pains

bleed over the sill, puddle

in your eyes, faltering

hands fumble, still

desperately distinct.

all your answers lie

in my heart tonight.

Where you are in always

time, there is, love

never sleeps, ever

dreams.

Good Night.

I'm usually exhausted by this time of night, my mental state reduced to a lump of melting wax. I thought my transitory insomnia had dissipated for good, but it strikes again, playing its hand in spades. The mountains of my dreams are skull-capped in white, the trees garlanded with carnation lays, the birds decorating each with the wreaths, singing sweetly. The pond frogs hum the cadence of the morning, bagpipes, yes, that will do nicely. The grey sky drizzles its tears over the valley bowl, tears washing the feet of God, gently perfumed with the redolence of pine and floral exuberance.
Drink in this incense prayer, for mine are none so pretty, none so pretty indeed.
Singing, strumming at this guitar, staring down the flickering candle, wishing my voice wasn't drier than chalky beef jerky with a side of desert sand, raspy as those frogs might be, not in dreams. Ah, my idealism says my flats are just sharps from below, a piquancy of music, perhaps. Judge not my music, prithee, lay your hardness aside and your hearts before, and let's sing. Sing the songs of mountains, hills, deer, love, breeze between the leaves, dewdrops on flower petals, snowflakes on the rabbit's nose, hibernating bear, leaping fish in sunset's last green explosion, lunar eclipse on a night of naked joy, racing faster than every heartbeat. Let's sing, and remember what's good, and what's good night.



Discussions were good, this night. Enneagram conversations; psychology and competition discussions; dialogues over whether pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and apple-cider might mix into something tasty, or disastrous; people discussions. I think I'm fairly consistently learning how full of holes my psyche is. We walked through some patterns of psychological taxonomy, and I found myself nailed on almost every parameter, consistent even to the disregard of classification, the grave weakness shared by this psychological collection, the triumphs and hopes of this diagnosed individual. Yes, stuff me in a box, staple it closed, lock me in an attic, neat and disposed. But while I understood most of these things concerning myself, I have gleaned a few tidbits that were interesting. I'd explain what these were, but, unfortunately, my classification tends to secrete this sort of information away, and I cannot break free of this box...