No One Was Dancing(Prologue and Ch1)

Prologue: From the Lips of Southern Prophets

My papey? My papey, God rest his soul, was as brilliant as brilliant comes. His word was gold. He would say, “Thane, it’s gonna come a time when people won’t care much too much about the world dying around them. It’s gonna come a time, son when people is gonna do what’s right in their own eyes and nothings gonna stop them from doin what they wanna do.”

My papey died in a hit and run, ridin’ a bicycle across the street. I reckon that and his prophet warning is what made me want to keep the world in my palms. The problem is these days…and I always love to hear people talk about these days. It’s always been these days. These days you can’t hardly even tell what’s happening in the world. There’s war and terror and mistrust in the government. In my day if you had told me there was room to keep the government at an arms length, that arms length woulda been knocked off by someone who knew better than to bite the hand that feeds.

The shame is the war and terror…they’re goin right on in our hearts. You can’t pass somebody on the sidewalk without wondering if they’re ready to turn you with a knife to your throat. Even one time in county that old boy, Reb Thompson, short for Rebel, got shanked by an ole’ prisoner who said that he looked at him the wrong way. Well if that didn’t make the warden madder than a Missouri mule…sent that old boy straight to the ‘lectric chair on that very day. Didn’t need no due process. A shankin’ was due process enough. Didn’t even give that boy time to cool down before they tossed em in the ground right next Reb. Saved money on funerals, the way we saw it. At lease then we had some idea who ta look out for. These days you can’t tell the gangbangers from the politicians as far as I’m concerned…

I worked my way up from Sherriff Deputy to top brass in the FBI. They would always say, “Thane, as honest and as much of an old timey straight shooter as you are, you can do anything in this business.” And I reckon I have. What you’re about to find is my last will and testament for the Bureau. These files will tell you some outlandish sorts of stuff an I reckon that only the parties involved will ever know the real truth. But you? You can make your own decision. An’ I’ll tell yah, you should know that some of the names have been changed to fit the integrity of the cases they represent. And by all means, know that these stories are just the way they wanted them, in a voice that fits much like their own...

I just keep thinkin, yeah Papey, I spose you’re right…

and as ol’ Mr. Dylan said…The times they are a changing…and I sure just don’t know what to make of it…

One: A Discussion over Sunday Brunch

“…and oh, yes. I have the fire shut up in my bones.

Tomorrow when you wake up, eat your breakfast. Generic corn flakes with 2% milk because that whole stuff will kill you. A banana for potassium and you’re set.

Orange juice for vitamin C.

and Fiber. Get your fiber.

For a full helping of the gospel, take two parts faithfulness, three parts prayer, one part selfishness and mix. The byproduct is some unholy cross of blessings and curses. These are the things that wake you up at five in the morning to a throbbing headache and numb appendages. Yes, you’re alive. Yes, you feel this.

A shower to steam the wrinkles from the lipstick stained shirt you wore last night. The night before. You don’t worry about cleanliness. If cleanliness is godliness, you’re a heathen.

A Pagan.

Prophet of Baal, repent from your wicked ways. Or don’t. It’s none of my business, yet.

You walk into the closet. Another pair of Dockers slacks and a pressed to perfection pink tie to match the beauty of the lipstick from not so much your wife. not so much your mistress. not so much your lover, friend.

I don’t want to be the one to tell you this, but these things won’t save you.

Your professors would tell you that too much negative anything could kill you. Too much good intentions mixed with too much tranquilizer will kill any sized cow that you put in front of a gun.

Too much blood in your system, yeah, that’s your big worry right? Well, too many red blood cells, that’s called polycythemia. Think athletes, think steroids. Adrenaline laced throughout your body. Too much red blood leads to tumors in your liver. Liver tumors produce too much cortisol. Too much cortisol and you can end up with Cushing’s syndrome. Cushing’s syndrome leads to fat deposits in your face, arms, legs, whatever part of you that you don’t want fat build up, there it is. No dear, you’re not pregnant so don’t waste good money on tests. You’ll want to look into liposuction. You’ll want to look into a good gastroenterologist. And you thought Prometheus had it bad?

I’m going to tell you the truth. Now.

I’m afraid for you. You see, the issue here is that you don’t appreciate your life. You don’t really understand how well you have it…”

And all of a sudden her voice was more than Wes could take. He woke up in a daze, half hung-over thinking about the impossibility of his infidelity once again. He was positive that there was no way he had slipped up again…

His wife began to stir…Could she know?

“The problem is you’re so ungrateful…What do you think orphans in Botswana think of your brand new Bentley? Your 401k? Your expense account? Are the left-overs from your room service in the hall of the penthouse in the Weston feeding those children?...”

Chalkboard…fingernails….the answering machine played on…

“For infidelity, take two parts willing participant, 5 parts vodka, 1 part uncertainty and mix…For a broken heart in a wonderful wife take…”

Coffee…Cigarettes…move faster…move sharper…

“Have you wondered what impact you’re really making on the people around you? Your wife? Your boss? Would you like to find out? Do you ever wonder what those small bug bites in the middle of the night that wake you up and make you realize you have to go to the restroom are? The swelling…it’s normal right? Could it be that you’ve put all of your spiritual eggs in the one wrong basket?”

Wes Strickland reached behind his ear…to his calf…these small little bumps beginning to swell. Mosquitoes, he reassured himself…It has to be. Those pricks in the middle of his daze…they had to be bug bites…

“Steroids can do funny things if injected into the right pressure point…Remember the cortisol? Remember the prayer line? 1-800Forgive? I’m not sure that God has a problem with you anymore…but I’m afraid I do…”

He wasn’t sure he had called a prayer line? 1-800for…

“For untimely death mix 1 part mistress, 1 part leaky faucet, 1 part loose shower line and mix…let sit for 3 minutes and cool to taste…”

And all of a sudden his night was crystal clear…and he remembered the footsteps…the chloroform…

“One last thing, Mr. Strickland and I will leave you to the misery of your fat deposits…your cortisol…your polycythemia…don’t take a shower…even the best soap won’t clean up the mess I’ve left you…It’d be in your best interest to run and to never look back. Leave your wife a note and tell her you’ve made your own life miserable…don’t involve her in this. It’s for the better…If you don’t, I can promise it will catch up with you, Wesssss…”

Elizabeth Strickland woke to the shower running, the vivid crash of a glass mug against the floor and the smell of smoke…and her husband nowhere to be found…One day she’d find out how the dead woman had wound up in her bathroom, but it wouldn’t be through Sylvia’s message on the answering machine.

Wes had taken care of that.

He left one tear stained note that simply said, “I’m sorry, it’s best if you forget about me.” with his wedding band lying inconspicuously on top.

It wasn’t until weeks later that they found his car…and his body with abnormal fat deposits like tumors growing from his calf and bulging from his deformed, waterlogged face at the bottom of Cross Lake.

It was said Sylvia had a thing for reading the obituaries and keeping the tally marks of her success. She would paper mache the results on her wall as trophies. For Sylvia Clawson this wasn’t just a pleasure, it was a profession.

Later, her landlord would say that he had made every effort to ensure that his building had the most paper thin walls in the city. He would say that insulation was a luxury. That there was a reason that the A/C vents were always positioned just above the telephone jack. He would say that every once and a while from her apartment you would hear one, two, three…rings and a cough. Then, “1-800Forgive prayer line. What are you struggling with, sweetheart? Tell me all about it and I’ll pray for you, honey.” And by that time it was already too late.

FHH CH2(So Far)

Cautionary Tale: A bit unfiltered so far...Revisions are still forthcoming and it lacks a few important thoughts that will be added as the appropriate words come to me, I just need to post something to feel alive...so have at it. I hope maybe it's something you're not used to hearing.

Something Has to be Said for Love

I’ve gotten into a habit over the last few years of staying up late at night. There are a few things that I enjoy immensely about my late night experiences and not the least of these is the infomercials. I find it fun to watch products that will most likely brake with any extensive use, but you know that for the few easy payments, the magic food chopper will somehow change your life.

It’s interesting to think of God in the same context(payment plans and changed lives.)

One night I was on a late night kick and started watching the movie Spanglish about midway through. It’s always convenient that at that hour, you can guarantee that another showing of the movie you’re watching will come on directly afterwards. So knowing that I’d be able to watch the first of it directly after it was over without having to actually go to the movie rental store and rent it to watch the rest, I plunged myself in.

And I balled my eyes out.

There is a scene where the main characters divulge some pretty deep and sensitive secrets including an affair and just nasty, family breaking stuff. And God, like He always does seemed to nudge Himself into my personal space without really asking what I wanted. You know, typical God stuff.

I’m grateful though. Because what He spoke, I needed to hear. We’ll come back to that in just a moment.

You need to understand something about me. I don’t have a radical testimony about overcoming alcohol and smoking pot and doing a rock of cocaine every night. I’m not a sex maniac who has to worry about STD’s and getting a girl pregnant from sexual relationships. I’ve never stolen anything except a piece of candy from a gas station once when I was 9. I’ve never murdered and barely thought about it. I’ve lived a pretty sheltered life. That’s not to say I’m perfect and without sin. I’m nowhere near ready to cast any stones. Rest assured I do have issues and we’ll get into that later.

Part two of what you need to understand is that I’m an idealist to no end.

If I do something, I want to finish it. If I attend college I won’t be happy with just an Associates Degree, I need the Bachelors. I can’t rest with just beating a video game unless I’ve beaten it 100%. I have to read every word in, on the outside of and most of the time on the internet about a book before I’m able to put it down. It’s just how I work.

So where these two thoughts come together is, as a naïve new disciple of Christ yeas ago when explaining my ideal mate to God, I told Him that she needed to be beautiful and that she needed to be a virgin. I wanted her to be perfect like me (I say this completely sarcastic but still naïve). I kept thinking that in my quest to save myself for my wife that obviously she would have the same thoughts about me and that once we met the stars would align and the birds would sing and the road before us would turn into a vast beach for us to walk and talk for hours. I’ve come to grips since then that nothing really happens that way and not everything I desire will be given to me.

To save you the boring details of my whole uneventful dating life in the last few years, I want to tell you the story of one of my friends. My friend grew up in the ghetto. If you asked him what the Ten Commandments were he would laugh in your face. He did recognize Moses (because Moses is the name of his Rottweiler). This kid had a drug problem from an early age. He would drink like a fish and as a byproduct stayed planted in bed with girls a lot. Now he has grown up and found Christ and through a long chain of events found a girl that he was kind intrigued by. But she has saved herself for her husband and he hasn’t saved himself for anyone.

When she found out, she was devastated.

She’s an idealist like me. All or nothing.

He was left kind of just cleaning up the mess he made in his past. Through a lot of prayer and understanding and the love of God, she was able to see eye to eye with him and realize that it wasn’t something he did to hurt her, but it was a mistake that he made at an early age. They’re happy together to this day.

Why do I tell this story? Because I believe the God we serve is into this sort of thing, and let me tell you how.

There was a group of people once upon a time who was rescued. Let me even back up further so that you understand what exactly happened to them. This people received a promise from their lover, their friend, their father, that no matter what happened He would always look after them. He would always love them and He would always have their best interest in mind. This father, friend, lover, was incapable of anything but love towards these people because they were the apple of His eye.

These people made choices and similar to my friend, found themselves disoriented and “in bed” so to speak in places they knew they shouldn’t have gone to begin with. So they cried out for their lover to come back. Years went by in which He allowed, through agony His bride, His love to undergo slavery and pain, a natural byproduct of the choices they had made. This lover, friend, father, was able to rescue them, but allowed them the opportunity to let their choices speak for themselves. Something to the effect of two words that haunt me to this day: natural consequences.

My mom and dad are the poster parents for raising a Godly family. You hear the scripture all the time, “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” I’m here to tell you that my parents have laid their hands on me in discipline maybe 5 times in my life. I have my problems, obviously but my mom had this system figured out that would drive me nuts. At times I begged her to just hit me. She would call it natural consequences. The actions that I committed were always followed by equal consequences. I seem to remember some scientific theorem about that, but we won’t go into all of that right now. It works! If I did something stupid to get in trouble, my mom didn’t have to hit me, she allowed the natural consequence of my action to set in. If I did something to lose her trust, she wouldn’t trust me. It brings completely new meaning to, “This hurts me more than it hurts you.” I watched her toil through my mistakes. It made me see at an early age that my actions truly impact other people.

So this lover and my mother must have been in cahoots, because all through the story, you see Him allow the people that He loved suffer natural consequences. The pain must have been excrutiating for Him to look at the people that He was meant to be with walking away and even see them whipped and in chains. So the time arose for His dramatic rescue and it was dramatic! You can read about it in Exodus.

The thing that I really want to get at is much like the movie Spanglish and much like my friend, we as humans have the capacity to really botch stuff sometimes.

I think I remember reading something similar to this one time:

“So you really think you can love someone? You really think you’re capable of showing someone the love that has been bestowed on you by your Father? Try laying down your life for your neighbor. Try dying for the people who spit in your face. That’s true love.”

Okay so I might have exaggerated it a little bit, but I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is exactly what the scripture is trying to say.

I don’t believe for one second that the children of Israel wandered in the deserts for all those years wandering around in circles because they didn’t love God. I believe it’s because they didn’t have the proper proportion of fear with their love. I’ve heard a lot of reference to the balance between fear and love, that being that love can’t be the only thing preached over and over again because we’re commanded to fear God.

I like to think that if we love God the way we’re supposed to that we will automatically fear God the way we’re supposed to. Maybe it’s naïve, but I think the love that God asks, also commands fear. What do I mean?

It comes back to Spanglish. I promised we’d come back.

In the movie, the wife was incapable of showing her husband the love that he deserved. But the husband, man can we learn a lot from him. After her admission to an affair and totally expecting to be forgotten and lost, the husband’s response is so redeeming and so indicative of a love that few people in the world will ever grasp(albeit, it’s arrived upon after long and heavy deliberation, but what else can you expect from a human, barely capable of loving.) He chooses to love her. I could use a lot of other words here, but here’s what I mean. The fear that is exemplified in this love is given with his choice to love. He has no idea whether or not she actually will break off this love affair. He has no idea whether she actually wants to be with him or is saving face for their children. He has no idea if the marriage is even savable, but he puts aside all of the fear driven human reactions to love her. To show her that no matter what she’s done that he is capable of loving her because she asked his forgiveness.

God does the same thing everyday. He extends His hand to us in spite of our continual ability to cast Him off to the side and have our affairs with things. It’s not that we don’t love Him, it’s that we don’t know how to love Him through our fears. It’s that we don’t know how to cast aside or indifferences with the human race. Think of it like this, besides God, what has every human relationship we’ve ever been in done to us? It has hurt us. It has abused us. It has taken instead of given. It has dragged us through the mud and expected more out of us than we can give.

It’s so easy to withdraw.

If humans are our example for relationships, how can we trust someone who doesn’t always feel there for us? How can we trust the “air” to hold us and to love us when we continually hurt Him?

Conversely, God is asking us to tip the scale. He’s asking us to flip the whole thing around and look at it from a new point of view. Instead of taking human relationships as the golden standard, He wants us to look at Him for how to love people. Unexpecting. Unconditional. Unrequited.

Love through fear. Love with an understanding of what it is to fear, but trust instead.

Jesus was all about that.

I think of a disciple who failed on an every day basis and Jesus was able to life Him up on an every day basis. Not in a false and pretentious human love, but in a love that said, “I care about you more than you realize, no matter how much I have to beat you over the head.”

He was there to hold out His hand when His brother, His friend was unable to walk on water and began to sink. He said I love you for trusting me.

He was definitely there even after His brother, His friend abandoned Him and said that he had never even associated with the man. He proved His continual willingness to love through the continual passion and pursuit of the heart of Peter.

Jesus was at the well when the Samaritan woman who had known love as sex truly needed Him. He was able to show the gentle path to salvation for a woman who was so used to being used for everything she could offer and nothing that anyone ever saw her for.

He was even showing love in the temple when he turned over the tables. This time to His Father who deserved better than thieves living in His home.

He exemplified His love a few times in His words and their worth reading again and applying again, “Greater love has no man than he who would lay down his life for his friends.” and, “Love your enemy, do good to those who mistreat you.”

The Spirit of the Stairway

Autumn came too fast this year
Winter whispers its cull in my ear
Singing all things are dead they are dead and they are mine

I find I’m awakened by
the ghosts in the night
singing louder and louder…

“break off the dead…
shake off the dead…and move on”

The old lake from the dock
boasts all winter long
of his solemn reprieve
from the times we believed
the summer nights would last forever…but those nights are gone

In the front room my old father’s chair
His haven, fallen in disrepair
but it’s withered the storm…I’ve withered the storm

Sitting on the old wooden swing
It tells the songs I used to sing
about you…about me…all the things I should have said

“break off the dead
shake off the dead…and move on”

the ruts in the dirt
no this shouldn’t hurt
you said oh I love you
but this can never work
and I jumped from the swing
to chase you down the street as you sped off and left me…you left me…

I’m left with my ghosts and you took the best of me…

M. Black Enters the Village

We'll sing welcome to the you stranger, we've prepared a place
where you can lay your weary head
Come sing fa la la la la and welcome to the new year
and think of all the tears we've shed
We've been fighting for honour and glory and power
we've been fighting all year long
and in the midst of it all we've lost all sight
of our joyous happy songs...
get out of here ghost...

Well I think it's time we got out of this town, and let's quit while we're ahead
I've seen enough movies to know this time tomorrow one of us will be dead
and it won't be me...it won't be me NO IT WON'T BE ME! get out of here ghost!

We've been kicking and screaming with bags over our heads
suffocating in your sweet lies
And the choir of angels in the church loft sing their choruses
and alibis
For the years we've lost in this little town,
all the days and the months can't compare
Let's gather around, gather around brothers
gather around town square...
we'll sing, "get out, get out, this fight is over. get out, get out, while there's still time!"

we've been fighting tooth and nail...tooth and nail to the end...to our bitter end

Pre Empty Nest Syndrome-Addendum I: If You Want Something In Life Reach Out and Grab It…So She Hugged Him

I’m watching the setting sun from a new viewpoint in a new manner of understanding. I’m realizing that my time in this season is coming short and coming short of my expectations. I look back at what I’ve written and I realize that not always do green lights point you to the exact path that you’ll follow. Sometimes there are cross roads and intersections. I’m cultivating new friendships and new gut wrenching realizations of my needs. There are people that I assumed that I would be close to that have filtered out of my life and the enthralled surprise of friendship that never would have presented itself in normal “me” situations. I’m coming to realize that the more and more I walk along this path and begin to find so called exits that I’m coming to a complete halt out of confusion and frustration. The notable thing though is that God does not spare me from confusion. I think it’s a call to His character. As I grow into Him and become more so His, He’s saying to me, you want me? You can have all of me. And it’s this statement that has brought me frustration. God doesn’t ask that we understand just His good side when we need something. He wants to show us His entirety. The problem is that not too many people are standing in line for that ride. I don’t think confusion or frustration, either one are attributes of God, but mystery is. Power and sovereignty is. My Pastor says all the time that everything in this life comes through the hands of a sovereign God. I think of hobos and hippies in bigger cities who ride the bus to the station at the end of the night because they have no place better to go. Am I willing to surrender my life so much to the point that I ride the bus because I have nothing better to do with it? Or is it because I want to see where it’s going and believe it’s a better means of arriving there? I think my fundamental breakdown is that in my head I refuse to see that everything is a God moment. It’s not that I do it intentionally; it’s that I have blinders on to so much potential in the world. I want the confusion of God. Not so that I can relish in the fact that I’m continually confused and not so that I can feel like I’m in some eternal waiting room, waiting for my opportunity to go in and see the big man. I want the confusion of God so that I can jump into the foray and fight for something that I might not understand, but will be beautiful. I think confusion and comprehension go hand in hand in God’s kingdom. I think to fully understand peace and experience it we have to fully go through the storm and experience it. Our mundane sunsets must look incredible to someone that’s healed from being blind. And our confusion and frustration look incredible from the outside looking in. There was a movie that changed a lot about how I looked at things. The main character told his girlfriend when he left that if she wanted something in the world she had to reach out and take it. So she hugged him. God is reaching down and saying if we want something we need to be responsible to take it. It’s important that I don’t forget that when I take it, I have to take all of it, not just the good, but the seemingly bad. And when I look back at the path I’ve walked, I can’t even see the beginning anymore. I can’t see the end, but I sure can’t see the beginning.

Shackleton's Pride

and this is what we endure. we endure endurance in this fight to award prizes

and to claim victories and to find ourselves receding

into the vast and dark treeline of what has gone before us.

we embrace and love and dance and then careen out of order

into chaos

into fear.

we love it and support it and endure it and find ourselves whole

through it.

we fight with everything to hold on and then rip at our fingers to let go

because it

burns

at the touch.

and i am reaching for the pull chord of this parachute of unease and release.

because the wind is raging and i am falling 

no 

plummeting and dying.

and the ground is getting closer and reaching out its arms

with shrill whispers

come closer and we will tell secrets

and laugh laughs

and dream dreams.

and in its allure i feel the staunch and sobering reminder

that this place has nothing for me,

not in this manner...

i will fall back into the arms of grace and peace

because in the uncertainty of the moment this floating in limbo is all i have

it's all i need.

this quenches fear.

this invites life and it reassures that contrary to popular belief

ALL IS NOT WRONG IN THE WORLD!!!!

and i hold, not in control,

but not afraid!

not in the way, but defining the purpose of such simple strokes of grace.

and i float into Your loving arms.

into Your everlasting arms.

into Your grace.

A Series of Four (Birth, Life, Love, Death)

4 things i wrote about Jesus.

birth(my how proud pythagoras would be)

opening night of this grand scene
and alas from the mouth where none have dared sing
we dare to voice this great and mighty chant of sorts

i find my glory in this lean-to
such an unholy structure
complete with ashen floors and straw scattered in ideal places
this place of shame is where i find my pride and my joy is defined

they will sing their songs and i will bide my time
it seems that's the only line of thought that keeps me from stepping out of line

"oh, a Saviour is born" and "glory to G-d!"

and myself in myopic pursuit, i wonder what is truly one night
spent cold
dark
alone
in this dread

i spread my cold hands out from a bowed head, across the window, this latchless, glassless, empty hole
it symbolizes You and i and everything that keeps us apart
it's deepest recess, my darkest soul
we're synonymous
oh, i could offer You this home, but it's as if i'm too good to let You in...
and i am...

would You listen to me? i'll bring these gifts, these fine thoughts, these fine gestures
and i'll catch You staring up from amongst the fog
both of us know this is so beyond me!
YOU are so beyond me!

and so i make my plea, take these gifts and just honor me
honor me for trying...

as if i could make Your love and life
some sort of game played with cards and dice
You gaze at me and i can tell, You see so much more than just Your own reflection in my eyes
You see me for what i am, an undeserving, unknowing wretch
but You're ok with that
and forgiveness pours from Your every smile, every laugh
i've never known such great love...
it defines, it controls, while all the while allowing me to run free into sunlit fields of freedom and liberation
and You're so small... yet surely You know...

"this must be the Christ" and "glory to G-d"
You're not the one in the cold tonight, my Saviour, i'm afraid i play that part.

life(a perfectly drawn line in the sand)

the sun and the stars intertwine to create a masterpiece of pure white on illuminated blue
You walk and even the flowers tend to follow your gentle scent
but it wasn’t always this way
and it won’t always be

lost in this crowd…

i am finding You new in silence…in the dreary times…
when the bell rings
but i’m still awake and i haven’t figured out quite why…

add 1 part unfaithfulness, 1 part uncertainty
and mix

this is a travesty…or that’s what they’ll say
and that You speak in revolution and revelation

but somehow You leave me dancing to rhyme and reason…

all the while i’ve considered finding a quiet place for myself
a solace…but You won’t let me…
and retreat seems so far away from who you are inviting me to become

You speak in siren songs
with great elegance and eloquence

and a hush falls over the crowd as act 2 begins
oh the elaborate disguises worn to tonight’s show
and Your gentle eyes seem to penetrate each directly to the marrow
yet You never condemn, never betray

just silently in a flourish of sorts, You whisk Yourself away
to a peaceful night under the stars

and even in tempests You sleep and the world feels calm
but the captains overboard and i can’t steer it on my own

i’ll gasp prayers about poor pitiful me and how incongruous my life seems to be
in the eyes of something so divine with the foresight to love me eternally

and i’ll scoff because i’ve continually created a lie
of this charade of a life filled with none but passersby…
brushing shoulders with noone and whats-his-face
not too alarmed…and so unconcerned

but even the least of these catches Your eye
and i can see that brushing shoulders is enough to speak volumes
of Your love and mercy and grace…so cliché…yet so sincerely candid

add 1 part empathy, 1 part emotion
and mix

there’s something just so tangible about this life
as if someone took the center of my heart
and placed it in the fire
and fanned so gently until it’s wrecked then refined

and in the midst revealing Your passion…seeing true life defined

love(do i? do i? do…i?)

so...they say that You can save...
so surely You can increase my faith
but if You can't that's ok anyway
an uncontrolable urge to quit seems so...

typical

somehow i’ve evolved past all need of this grace
i must find for myself restitution
i must pacify the savage
who has quenched the fire that blazed deep in my atriums and vena cavas
to circumvent the sin… hara kiri is how i function
the martyrdom of myself all over the kitchen floor

but don't mind me
i’ll just mop up what i can't manage to contain in my stomach
i’ll just throw away what i think i don't need
but i always needed

the greatest symphony…
oh, what a symphony…
forgotten by word of mouth
sifted through my hands like sand
this parchment used to soak up the blood that came flowing from my ego

enamoured like opening night
stendhal would never understand…

yet the utterance of YOUR name leaves me broken...
and open

a broken and open wound in the fresh wind
and my pittance...

simply acknowledging You...being alive!

because i am not!
i am not and i will not be! i refuse!
the lions and the mice and the whole spectrum in between
with the leaves and the trees they will join in one voice
to utter
the
unutterable

and somehow i'm still mumbling about my faults
pointed thoughts might have hammered You in
but i long ago swore i'd never go there again

yet...i take You there every single day
but i won't leave You there like those hypocrites

as the tears of the Father fall on the Son
in one half of a moment
i find myself and You

as one

broken and hurting

a broken and hurting
scapegoat

but that’s the reality of this love…

death(deflation and career changes)

then i found You alone with misery and pity for Your clothes
with promises of hope but You seem oh so detached
complete with matted hair stuck to Your face and slurred speech
giving widows away and thoughts of trust, dependability

they have eyes but they can not see
and i’m afraid i’m more like them than i’d admit to being

i’m fighting the sun

just how can i stand in front of unrequited love
when inside i know my iniquities…
forgiven, yet still all of me

i can hear Your voice…not mumbling but far under your breath
“I know You couldn’t take my cup, but My spirit, My Father, I lift it up”
and louder… and louder… and…

it still rings true when i remember Your voice

they have ears but they can not hear
and a game of dice is their currency
we’re not so far apart…

this love knows no name, no past, no shame
it grips and molds and rips and holds
and leaves me complete

breathing in gasps, in short moments
this pattern becomes a haven against such agony and despair
and in a desperate attempt to make all wrongs right,
to calm my storms that rage deep inside,
You speak Your last

thoughts concerning You and me and my burden i bear
but the words spoken are separate from the ones i expected to hear
from the deserved…we’re still worlds apart…

“forgive him” and “he doesn’t know”
and…You looked at me…

with a tremor You began to sink
and in a second i knew the hope of this sick life was redeemed
and this cycle was complete, birth, life, love, death…

the next years we would follow nature, embrace it’s scent, it’s touch…it’s love
and we loved
loved without pretense, without need
and You smiled…

this wasn’t life or death, but a glimpse at the world redeemed.