I tend to marvel at my own writings shortly after they’ve been saved, despite always later wondering what I was thinking, and letting them fall from favor upon my remembrance of the idea that I am older, wiser, if by seconds. And, let’s face it: seconds mean a lot when a mistake takes a batting of the eye, or the misstroke of a key.
Posts published in “Year: 2011”
The pregnant silence eats random amounts of time, waits until you’re in bed asleep to ask your attention, and always makes you try to listen for a kick.
We’re a lot like the moth trapped on the inside of the door. Hands are there to help us, carry us to freedom, let us fly once we are safe enough to do so. But, we, like the moth, fight these hands. We know not what the lips behind them say, we know nothing of their intentions; so, we fight. We flap our winged gums, we flail our hands and feet wildly, and we stop only once we’re spent and cannot move without fear of falling. In that flapping and flailing, we forget about the hands. They’re a backdrop to our reality; they become but a secondary concern to the feeling of not persevering. We fear failure and panic in our anxieties of what we are not able to do. But, those hands remain. What seems like an exhaustive lifetime to the moth trapped against the door is but a second to the hands and their lips. We have just preserved ourselves in the tired wilting of our bodies. We have not persevered and we have not found freedom. The hands, seeing our tormented selves, is able to lift us from that world behind the door and escort us to the safety of the garden. We, overcome with joy and seeing our escape, leave the hands behind in a show of fantastic and unbridled victory. The hands fall to the side, triumphant in their goal. I say, do not forget those hands. They have saved more than you, and have taken much longer than our own lives to devote to doing so. Be thankful for the outreached hand, even those you fear, even those you don’t understand or cannot see. God will always be where you are; not because He comes with you, but because you are always in His presence.
So,
the simple touch
of a wife in love
can bring about
an appreciation
for a life lived fair.
And the days
We look back on
Mean the most when
We stop to think about them;
But,
we’re not going to bother to…
And the days
We look back on
Mean the most when
I’m sleepy on a highway,
Waking with your touch;
The
Way it should be;
And the days
We look back on
Mean the most when
Your hand moves into mine,
Our fingers walking along;
The
Way it should be;
And we just hold
On to today,
As though
Looking back
Won’t happen
Anytime soon
Because today is
The
Way it should be.
We
can laugh, we
can love, we
can throw barbs,
but we will remain
in refusal of surrender.
So,
the simple touch
of a wife in love
can bring about
an appreciation
for a life lived fair.
And the days
We never look back on
Mean the most when
You stop to think about it;
But, we’ve got to bother to…
And the days
We never look back on
Mean the most when
I’m sleeping on a highway,
Missing your touch the
Way it used to be; And
The days we never look back on
Mean the most
When you keep your hand in mine,
The way it used to be; and
We just hold on to today, like
That sometime when won’t happen
Anytime soon.
We
can laugh, we
can love, we
can throw barbs,
but we will remain
in refusal of surrender.
“She is beautiful!
Her hair curves ever-so
With a neck I wish…
I want to thrust my lips
To hers, as would my arms
Around her, and as do my eyes
Now. She is beautiful!”
“Now, Grandson, you
Know as much of love as
I do of flying. Don’t
Get me wrong, we both
Know what’s involved.
But do I know
Anything of
Thermodynamics?
Do you know
Anything of a
Life lived for
Someone else’s
Hand to be
Your only warmth
In a sun-
Burned
world?
Yes,
But
Not as much
As you might think.”
I walked here from a far off place. Left my worth there, I try to beg for anything to give me value. But you see me and you pass me by, going further away than I’d like to be; but you see me and you pass me by, holding out your hand with a finger to poke my swelling eyes. I cannot breathe without thinking of the breaths I took when I was there; where I’ve been is of no importance to who I am, but that’s how you know what to call me. You can see for yourself.
There is a reason why Jesus did not allow those He met and who experienced His presence to despair in their worldly image of themselves. To Him, all are the same. Beyond referencing how people take down others, Psalms 62 mentions that such actions and, certainly, the beliefs that worldly status means something, are just a falsehood. “God… Judges us by our works.”. God knows our hearts, our intentions, the entirety of our silence and the meanings we place on and in each. God knows, because He allows us to feel those ways. And, yet, He wants us to always look beyond those trivial (and juvenile) methods of thought, so that we may see His love, His passion, His mercy in all. I am but a body which covers a soul, a mind. What purpose is this vessel? To live, or to worship and give? God wants us. He wants us to see beyond the shackles we place on ourselves, generation after generation. We call ourselves intelligent, resourceful, wealthy of knowledge and action. Yet, truly, we show our most love to God by being blissful and ignorant to the constructs of our predicaments. I never once, since I’ve been saved, told God, “No.”. I’ve never once argued with God over what He wants me to do. I will speak my mind, shrug off the responsibility as though a heavy cloak, but God knows my heart and plays its chords just so I turn back around and do as He has me do. That I am able to come back shows His love. He does not give us time, but allows us to take time from Him and still benefit and be blessed by His presence and welcoming arms. And God knows how we view ourselves is relative. The ayatollah and the pastor are two of the same; though fundamentally different, they hold God’s word in view of His people for the betterment of mankind. Yet, they are constructs of their place and timing in this world. They are not each greater than the other, but they are the same. And, so, God says that the rich and the downtrodden are of the same make: they are not their material goods, they are not their responsibilities or their benefits or detriments to society. They are, together, lighter than a breath. They are, inside their shells and vessels, the same. God gave them both the ability to emote and to understand His bearings on their lives. The rich will have more, and so the poor will want, but to God they are the same and no different. The disparity is a piece of the human condition. Hence why Jesus was sent by God as an Everyman: There is no value in abundance, except to feed and fill the people. Jesus is the greatest example, and, in His travels and teachings, He was and is the realization for humanity that what we strive for, outside of God and communion, means nothing. Heaven doesn’t have a currency or a bartering table. Heaven is freedom from the idea that we are not already His, and the freedom from the idea that we need anything more than His presence and His love.
half of my life was spent forgetting half more, and, now that i’m older, i can see that our memory is what makes us who we are and gives us the ability to be who we need to be for ourselves.
half of my life is spent remembering half more, and, now that i’m older, i can say that where i’ve been has made me who i am and gives me opportunity to be who i need to be for our family.
i don’t like specifics. they weigh me down, and it’s not my way. i like the existential genericness that comes with commonalities. in short, i like to be open to a wide group who can make these words their own. that’s what writing is about: i don’t write for me, i write for who will read me. i want them to experience what i’ve felt, maybe not how i felt it, but to see how i got to where i ended up, so, perhaps, they can see that in their own lives. my greatest accomplishment would be to have someone read through everything i’ve written and come out with a greater understanding of themselves. if they know me, great, but that’s not my goal. and goals are a funny thing: they change. i used writing as a form of expression that can be hidden and yet spoken/written/given away. now, i don’t want to hide. i want to just put it out there and see (or hope that) others pick up and use them as a conduit.
just like this Notepad window, the box resizes. the area from which we work expands, contracts, alters the way my words appear. and that’s okay. that’s why timelessness is important. if i attempt to attain relevancy in only my time/my generation/my circumstances, then what good am i when English is no longer spoken by my descendants? translatability is important. i’m not painting here, i’m writing. i’m not showing people what they need to see, i’m helping them get to the point where they can see and do see. i’m not a tour guide, i’m a sherpa. i don’t have the talent to paint or draw, so i leave that up to those who can. rather, i’d like to type out the directions and make them as confusing as possible so people have to think for themselves. a friend of mine once said, in high school, that to read a poem is really only reading the first and last two lines. he was right. the substance within means nothing if someone doesn’t want to read the work, so for that person the poem is 3 lines. for some, a poem is the first line or word. i guess that’s one reason why i don’t like titles, or i like for titles to be the first line: people are forced to read the first line twice, which may be all that’s needed to better put them in the frame of mind that they can enjoy the work.
don’t get me wrong. i don’t write for everyone alone. i see myself in what i write and regain what i felt when i wrote it. known by few, i have a horrible memory for events. oddly, i can recall emotions from the events more so than what happened. maybe that isn’t odd; maybe that’s normal, but i won’t know that because i’m only one: me.
He says goodnight
To she who
Is not able to hear.
He says, to
An absentee, her,
Goodnight, loss.
“I
I tug on
Your heart strings
To
To feel my
Own heart saying
Anything.”