If you take a new name,
Let it be Good,
And do your duty
To live up to such a name.
Offer your voice
In humility.
Offer your life
In service.
Let the one who exalts exalt,
And let the one who brings low bring low.
What will be will be,
And that which seems shall end.
Then the world will know goodness,
As it was ordained to be,
And you will be as you are.
Monday, September 6, 2021
Chidbirth
Oh Lord that you would take this cup from me,
As I move into my fortieth week,
This child within me grows and wants to be
Born into the kingdom that I seek.
The pain has crept into my lower back.
My belly there below my bowels is wrung,
No faith that birth will come do I now lack,
Nor doubt that on my pain will it be hung.
The terror of the life that grows in me
Will shed this skin in full scream as it births,
And for this form that wraps around baby
The cries will sing ecstatic funeral dirge.
Let all this pain come now, for I'm full term
Remove now from this body spirit germ.
As I move into my fortieth week,
This child within me grows and wants to be
Born into the kingdom that I seek.
The pain has crept into my lower back.
My belly there below my bowels is wrung,
No faith that birth will come do I now lack,
Nor doubt that on my pain will it be hung.
The terror of the life that grows in me
Will shed this skin in full scream as it births,
And for this form that wraps around baby
The cries will sing ecstatic funeral dirge.
Let all this pain come now, for I'm full term
Remove now from this body spirit germ.
Chapter 1 of an Unfinished Novel
Buck knew it wasn't going to be pretty once Cyrus finally got ahold of Jerry. While the old boy had done a good job of avoiding his comeuppance for several days, he couldn't hide forever, and that was a fact.
Being over six and a half feet tall and with a shag of bright red hair on the top of his head, Jerry stood out like an infected thumb. Had God given him the good sense to use his size to protect himself from the likes of people like Cyrus Evans, Jerry would have had nothing to fear from his bellicose adversary, but he had been born with meekness in excess of his stature, which quite undermined his ability to use his size and strength to any good use, aside from grasping items shelved out of reach of blue-haired old ladies at the grocery store, or replacing light bulbs in the ceiling fixtures at his parents' home. Just one smack across the face from the backside of Jerry's broad hand would certainly have been enough to put his adversary at bay, but the lanky giant seemed to lack any storehouse of anger, resentment, annoyance, or even self-pity with which to put such an intention into effect.
One often finds that persons who are devoid of physical stature make up for the deficit with an overly rambunctious or fractious disposition. If Cyrus were the epitome of this rule, Jerry proved the opposite, for Jerry was as towering and docile as Cyrus was diminutive and hotheaded. Though a stranger to Clay City would certainly have predicted a certain victory for the towering Jerry Rentschler in an entanglement involving one as small and soft-bodied as Cyrus McGall, townsfolk of the rural Illinois whistle-stop knew better. Not only were the McGall family pugnacious, but they fought dirty to boot. Rentschers, on the other hand, well they just didn't concern themselves with much other than attending Sunday services and milking cows, both of which were attended to in the mornings and in the evenings.
So when it finally circumstanced that Cyrus McGall had fully set his mind upon the pacification of his rage by means of the increase of suffering in the physical body Jerry Rentschler, there was no doubt in Buck Hamilton's mind that the violence would be both severe and unresisted.
The originator of this perturbation was, as usually is, a female. In this case, a twenty-two-year-old newcomer who had taken a job as a special education teacher at the only elementary school in the county, which as located in the county seat
One often finds that persons who are devoid of physical stature make up for the deficit with an overly rambunctious or fractious disposition. If Cyrus were the epitome of this rule, Jerry proved the opposite, for Jerry was as towering and docile as Cyrus was diminutive and hotheaded. Though a stranger to Clay City would certainly have predicted a certain victory for the towering Jerry Rentschler in an entanglement involving one as small and soft-bodied as Cyrus McGall, townsfolk of the rural Illinois whistle-stop knew better. Not only were the McGall family pugnacious, but they fought dirty to boot. Rentschers, on the other hand, well they just didn't concern themselves with much other than attending Sunday services and milking cows, both of which were attended to in the mornings and in the evenings.
So when it finally circumstanced that Cyrus McGall had fully set his mind upon the pacification of his rage by means of the increase of suffering in the physical body Jerry Rentschler, there was no doubt in Buck Hamilton's mind that the violence would be both severe and unresisted.
The originator of this perturbation was, as usually is, a female. In this case, a twenty-two-year-old newcomer who had taken a job as a special education teacher at the only elementary school in the county, which as located in the county seat
A Family that Never Existed
Once upon a time there was a precocious girl named Nadia who was twelve years old and still wore pigtails. Her mother and father had dutifully trained her to eat morning breakfast with the family precisely at 7:30 a.m. in which they performed a ritual of awakening toward the coming day.
Father took black coffee from his favorite mug, a very practical ceramic cup of quite standard proportions emblazoned with a decal from an accounting firm with which his company conducted business. Clean shaven, he wore a white shirt and tie, but he never read the paper at the table.
Mother, too, took coffee, but her choice of both cups and complementary flavors varied as wildly as the weather. To suggest that she had a favorite mug would be to accept that she were capable of such commitments, for her favorite drinking vessel (if you asked her) was quite clearly the one she had chosen for the day. In fact, there were already no fewer than 73 coffee cups of various shapes, sizes, and colors filling the cupboards, and their number would by no means diminish lest mother's daily expressiveness be limited. Besides, her obsession with variety in drinking vessels quite nicely provided friends and relatives with a very simple solution when at various holidays and special circumstances the occasion arose to choose a gift for Nadia's mother. In the refrigerator, she maintained a wide selection of accouterments, including hazelnut, Irish cream, vanilla, mocha, and many other sweet cream flavorings, which she mixed quite indiscriminately and without regular proportion.
Sam, a tow-headed brother of eight years, mimicked his mother in choice of drink but modeled his father in choice of glass. Each morning he announced his preference quite unpredictably. One day he might ask for whole milk with chocolate flavoring, while on the next day requiring grape Kool-Aid cut with apple juice. On some occasions, when father would allow, he chose root beer leftover from last night's dinner, or simply water. Orange juice was a common selection, and the amount of pulp seemed to make very little difference to his palate. But invariably, he drank from an ice-filled glass tumbler upon which was screen printed the images of Gargamel and Azrael running madly, presumably in pursuit of a Smurf.
Nadia chose one of only two options, and she varied her choice daily. On Mondays she drank Earl Grey with one spoon of sugar from a teacup selected from a set her grandmother had given her for her seventh birthday. On Tuesdays, she took skim milk from one of the Indiana glass diamond point amber goblets that the entire family used at dinner each night. On Wednesdays, she returned to hot tea, and so forth until Saturday when the family took a rest from the ritual.
On any particular day, the ritual proceeded like this:
Father woke to the radio on his alarm clock at 6:00 a.m. It was tuned to an AM station that, at that particular hour, announced world, nation, state, then regional news, in that order. He woke slowly from his dreams, only leaving bed at the end of the farmer's report, which ended at 6:18.
Next, he went to the kitchen where he took a red can of Folgers from the cabinet and measured one-fourth a cup of coffee grounds into the filter basket of a Bunn drip machine. After the apparatus had been filled with water and activated, he shuffled stiffly to his Lazy-Boy where he sat quietly for a few minutes before reading a chapter of the Bible and reciting the Lord's Prayer. When the coffee had finished, he returned to the kitchen, filled his mug, and retired to the bathroom to shower and shave.
Nearing 7:00 a.m., father returned to the bedroom to find his shirt and tie, and in this manner also woke mother, who after finding her robe and slippers, climbed the stairs to knock on the doors of Nadia and Sam. Satisfied that the children had been roused, mother descended the stairs to the kitchen, where she set about the business of selecting her coffee mug and creamers before setting the table with Sam's tumbler full of ice and Nadia's respective drinkware.
As for breakfast, well, a variety of food simply was not tolerated. The only choice was pop-tarts, of whichever flavor mother had selected from the store during her weekly shopping. Mother placed the pop-tarts on the counter near the toaster, where Sam and Nadia were responsible to toast breakfast for themselves. Father, who never enjoyed pop-tarts, toasted for himself two pieces of whole-grain toast, topped with real butter and jam from his mother's strawberry garden. Mother ate neither toast nor pop-tarts, content with only her coffee and creamers, and occasionally, whipped topping sprinkled with cinnamon.
Sam always made it to table before Nadia, announcing his drink selection to mother as he took his seat across from father at the round table for four. Mother smiled broadly, tousled his hair, and served him as gleefully as a cocktail waitress. At almost precisely 7:27 each day, Nadia entered the kitchen and placed a pop-tart in the toaster, allowing her just enough time to warm her pastry before seating herself at the table by 7:30 a.m., finding either a cup of Earl Grey or goblet of skim milk waiting for her on the table near her father's right hand.
A happy family. An organized family. A family that punctiliously celebrates the individual character of each of its members.
Father took black coffee from his favorite mug, a very practical ceramic cup of quite standard proportions emblazoned with a decal from an accounting firm with which his company conducted business. Clean shaven, he wore a white shirt and tie, but he never read the paper at the table.
Mother, too, took coffee, but her choice of both cups and complementary flavors varied as wildly as the weather. To suggest that she had a favorite mug would be to accept that she were capable of such commitments, for her favorite drinking vessel (if you asked her) was quite clearly the one she had chosen for the day. In fact, there were already no fewer than 73 coffee cups of various shapes, sizes, and colors filling the cupboards, and their number would by no means diminish lest mother's daily expressiveness be limited. Besides, her obsession with variety in drinking vessels quite nicely provided friends and relatives with a very simple solution when at various holidays and special circumstances the occasion arose to choose a gift for Nadia's mother. In the refrigerator, she maintained a wide selection of accouterments, including hazelnut, Irish cream, vanilla, mocha, and many other sweet cream flavorings, which she mixed quite indiscriminately and without regular proportion.
Sam, a tow-headed brother of eight years, mimicked his mother in choice of drink but modeled his father in choice of glass. Each morning he announced his preference quite unpredictably. One day he might ask for whole milk with chocolate flavoring, while on the next day requiring grape Kool-Aid cut with apple juice. On some occasions, when father would allow, he chose root beer leftover from last night's dinner, or simply water. Orange juice was a common selection, and the amount of pulp seemed to make very little difference to his palate. But invariably, he drank from an ice-filled glass tumbler upon which was screen printed the images of Gargamel and Azrael running madly, presumably in pursuit of a Smurf.
Nadia chose one of only two options, and she varied her choice daily. On Mondays she drank Earl Grey with one spoon of sugar from a teacup selected from a set her grandmother had given her for her seventh birthday. On Tuesdays, she took skim milk from one of the Indiana glass diamond point amber goblets that the entire family used at dinner each night. On Wednesdays, she returned to hot tea, and so forth until Saturday when the family took a rest from the ritual.
On any particular day, the ritual proceeded like this:
Father woke to the radio on his alarm clock at 6:00 a.m. It was tuned to an AM station that, at that particular hour, announced world, nation, state, then regional news, in that order. He woke slowly from his dreams, only leaving bed at the end of the farmer's report, which ended at 6:18.
Next, he went to the kitchen where he took a red can of Folgers from the cabinet and measured one-fourth a cup of coffee grounds into the filter basket of a Bunn drip machine. After the apparatus had been filled with water and activated, he shuffled stiffly to his Lazy-Boy where he sat quietly for a few minutes before reading a chapter of the Bible and reciting the Lord's Prayer. When the coffee had finished, he returned to the kitchen, filled his mug, and retired to the bathroom to shower and shave.
Nearing 7:00 a.m., father returned to the bedroom to find his shirt and tie, and in this manner also woke mother, who after finding her robe and slippers, climbed the stairs to knock on the doors of Nadia and Sam. Satisfied that the children had been roused, mother descended the stairs to the kitchen, where she set about the business of selecting her coffee mug and creamers before setting the table with Sam's tumbler full of ice and Nadia's respective drinkware.
As for breakfast, well, a variety of food simply was not tolerated. The only choice was pop-tarts, of whichever flavor mother had selected from the store during her weekly shopping. Mother placed the pop-tarts on the counter near the toaster, where Sam and Nadia were responsible to toast breakfast for themselves. Father, who never enjoyed pop-tarts, toasted for himself two pieces of whole-grain toast, topped with real butter and jam from his mother's strawberry garden. Mother ate neither toast nor pop-tarts, content with only her coffee and creamers, and occasionally, whipped topping sprinkled with cinnamon.
Sam always made it to table before Nadia, announcing his drink selection to mother as he took his seat across from father at the round table for four. Mother smiled broadly, tousled his hair, and served him as gleefully as a cocktail waitress. At almost precisely 7:27 each day, Nadia entered the kitchen and placed a pop-tart in the toaster, allowing her just enough time to warm her pastry before seating herself at the table by 7:30 a.m., finding either a cup of Earl Grey or goblet of skim milk waiting for her on the table near her father's right hand.
A happy family. An organized family. A family that punctiliously celebrates the individual character of each of its members.
The End of Recess
During recess one day, Reggie found a ball and began to bounce it gleefully on the ground. Sam noticed this almost immediately, and he concluded that it would not do at all for Reggie to continue in his solitary business of entertainment.
"It's not fair that you should have the ball to yourself!" Sam shouted. "You should share it with the rest of us!"
Reggie looked up as an ominously countenanced tribe of first-graders began to encircle him. He stopped dribbling the ball and held it tightly to his chest.
"But this is my ball," Reggie pled. "I found it first."
"It's not your ball," Sally interrupted. "It belongs to the school."
"Yeah, that's right," Sam declared. "The ball belongs to all of us, so you ought to share. It's about time I had a turn with it, you ball-hog!"
"And it's my turn after Sam!" Sally asserted.
"Then mine!" Joe added.
"Next me!" Ronnie yelled.
"Not fair, I'm next!" Mandy cried.
The more each child focused upon securing individual time, the more chaotic the unruly mob of children became. It roused itself like a sleeping dragon, pushed and pulled itself into a somewhat orderly line with the oldest, largest, and loudest children at the front and the youngest, smallest, and quietest at the rearguard.
Timmy, the smallest boy in all the first grade, looked on the situation with detachment. He made no effort to assume a position in line, for if he had tried (as he had many, many times before), he would soon come to the conclusion that his appropriate place was at the very end of the line, and there was no one for him to fight for that that position. It was from this perspective that Timmy allowed himself much time to consider what he would do with the ball once his turn had finally arrived. He noticed that most children spent time either bouncing it, kicking it, or running with it in an effort to abscond with the prize altogether. In any case, he noticed that the primary motivation of each child, once entrusted with custody of the ball, was to ensure that his time with the ball was maximized, which led him to interact with it in various ways (dribbling, kicking, throwing, etc.), while also separating himself quite as quickly as possible from the influence of the group.
"Hold on!" Timmy shouted. "How about we make a game of it so everyone can have a turn at the same time?"
"But what game shall we play," Sally asked.
Timmy thought for a second, then said:
"Reggie, since you were first with the ball, you stand over by that tree and be captain. We'll let Sam be captain of the other team. Sally, Ronny, Maurice, Vanessa, and me will be on Reggie's team. Joe, Mandy, Jacob, Rachel, and Brian will be on Sam's team. The only rule is that whoever has the ball can't run away with it, but he can throw it to a member on his own team. But if someone from the other team gets the ball, then it's the same rule.
"That's good!" Jacob shouted, who was especially agreeable because he happened to be the one holding the ball. "Here, Rachel, catch!"
Rachel caught the ball, but as soon as she did, she was surrounded by Ronnie, Maurice, and Vanessa, who were grabbing at her arms and legs, trying to pull the ball from her grip.
"No, that's no good!" Timmy called out. "You have to give her room to throw the ball. You can't just grab it out of her hands."
"Who cares if I take it from her?" Maurice complained. "If she can't manage to keep the ball away from me, then it's her own fault."
"Listen," Sally interrupted, "Timmy is right. The game won't be any fun for the girls if the stronger boys keep holding all the girls down. There have to be some rules that make it fair for everyone."
"Go play your own game, then!" Sam yelled. "If you want to be a girl, then play with the jump ropes. This game is for boys."
"But the ball belongs to everyone, not just the boys!" Rachel shouted.
"You're a crybaby," Sam sneered.
"But we won't have enough to play if the girls don't play," Timmy noticed. "The game is more fun if there are more people. Just don't be too rough with everyone is all."
"But who says what's too rough?" asked Brian. "There has to be a rule."
Timmy thought again, then said, "Okay, then. There are only two rules. One, no running with the ball. Two, no touching anyone who has the ball."
"It's not fair that you should have the ball to yourself!" Sam shouted. "You should share it with the rest of us!"
Reggie looked up as an ominously countenanced tribe of first-graders began to encircle him. He stopped dribbling the ball and held it tightly to his chest.
"But this is my ball," Reggie pled. "I found it first."
"It's not your ball," Sally interrupted. "It belongs to the school."
"Yeah, that's right," Sam declared. "The ball belongs to all of us, so you ought to share. It's about time I had a turn with it, you ball-hog!"
"And it's my turn after Sam!" Sally asserted.
"Then mine!" Joe added.
"Next me!" Ronnie yelled.
"Not fair, I'm next!" Mandy cried.
The more each child focused upon securing individual time, the more chaotic the unruly mob of children became. It roused itself like a sleeping dragon, pushed and pulled itself into a somewhat orderly line with the oldest, largest, and loudest children at the front and the youngest, smallest, and quietest at the rearguard.
Timmy, the smallest boy in all the first grade, looked on the situation with detachment. He made no effort to assume a position in line, for if he had tried (as he had many, many times before), he would soon come to the conclusion that his appropriate place was at the very end of the line, and there was no one for him to fight for that that position. It was from this perspective that Timmy allowed himself much time to consider what he would do with the ball once his turn had finally arrived. He noticed that most children spent time either bouncing it, kicking it, or running with it in an effort to abscond with the prize altogether. In any case, he noticed that the primary motivation of each child, once entrusted with custody of the ball, was to ensure that his time with the ball was maximized, which led him to interact with it in various ways (dribbling, kicking, throwing, etc.), while also separating himself quite as quickly as possible from the influence of the group.
"Hold on!" Timmy shouted. "How about we make a game of it so everyone can have a turn at the same time?"
"But what game shall we play," Sally asked.
Timmy thought for a second, then said:
"Reggie, since you were first with the ball, you stand over by that tree and be captain. We'll let Sam be captain of the other team. Sally, Ronny, Maurice, Vanessa, and me will be on Reggie's team. Joe, Mandy, Jacob, Rachel, and Brian will be on Sam's team. The only rule is that whoever has the ball can't run away with it, but he can throw it to a member on his own team. But if someone from the other team gets the ball, then it's the same rule.
"That's good!" Jacob shouted, who was especially agreeable because he happened to be the one holding the ball. "Here, Rachel, catch!"
Rachel caught the ball, but as soon as she did, she was surrounded by Ronnie, Maurice, and Vanessa, who were grabbing at her arms and legs, trying to pull the ball from her grip.
"No, that's no good!" Timmy called out. "You have to give her room to throw the ball. You can't just grab it out of her hands."
"Who cares if I take it from her?" Maurice complained. "If she can't manage to keep the ball away from me, then it's her own fault."
"Listen," Sally interrupted, "Timmy is right. The game won't be any fun for the girls if the stronger boys keep holding all the girls down. There have to be some rules that make it fair for everyone."
"Go play your own game, then!" Sam yelled. "If you want to be a girl, then play with the jump ropes. This game is for boys."
"But the ball belongs to everyone, not just the boys!" Rachel shouted.
"You're a crybaby," Sam sneered.
"But we won't have enough to play if the girls don't play," Timmy noticed. "The game is more fun if there are more people. Just don't be too rough with everyone is all."
"But who says what's too rough?" asked Brian. "There has to be a rule."
Timmy thought again, then said, "Okay, then. There are only two rules. One, no running with the ball. Two, no touching anyone who has the ball."
. . .
In the end, Little Timmy never got to the end of the rule-making. The bell to end recess rang before anyone had any fun at all.
Act I
First,
All that God is,
Chiseled out
The heavens,
The earth.
It came to pass,
The earth
Was desolate,
Void.
Darkness
Faced
The abyss.
The Spirit
Brooded
Upon
The surface.
God spoke,
"Be light."
Light.
God saw light.
God saw beauty.
God separated light
Away from
Darkness.
The darkness was called night.
The evening and morning were the first age.
The
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
reshith (F.beginning, first, chief)
elohim (M.gods)
bara' (chose, by cutting, chiseled, shaped)
shamayim (M.heavens)
erets (F.earth, countries and land)
And the earth was without form and void.
erets (F.earth, countries and land)
hayah (it came to pass)
tohu (M.confusion, desolation, empty)
bohu (M.empty and void)
And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
choshek (M.darkness)
panim (M.faces, from turned {toward?})
tehom (F./M.the deep, abyss)
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
ruach (F.spirit)
elohim (M.gods)
rachaph (relax, brood, moved gently, cherish)
al
panim (M.faces, from turned {toward?})
mayim (M.waters)
All that God is,
Chiseled out
The heavens,
The earth.
It came to pass,
The earth
Was desolate,
Void.
Darkness
Faced
The abyss.
The Spirit
Brooded
Upon
The surface.
God spoke,
"Be light."
Light.
God saw light.
God saw beauty.
God separated light
Away from
Darkness.
The darkness was called night.
The evening and morning were the first age.
The
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
reshith (F.beginning, first, chief)
elohim (M.gods)
bara' (chose, by cutting, chiseled, shaped)
shamayim (M.heavens)
erets (F.earth, countries and land)
And the earth was without form and void.
erets (F.earth, countries and land)
hayah (it came to pass)
tohu (M.confusion, desolation, empty)
bohu (M.empty and void)
And darkness was upon the face of the deep.
choshek (M.darkness)
panim (M.faces, from turned {toward?})
tehom (F./M.the deep, abyss)
And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
ruach (F.spirit)
elohim (M.gods)
rachaph (relax, brood, moved gently, cherish)
al
panim (M.faces, from turned {toward?})
mayim (M.waters)
Sadness Left Over
If the Lord knows my thoughts,
For what pain will He exchange them?
Does he take pleasure in my anguish?
Or shall I keep silent?
Will I say to you,
"Here is my heart,"
And you to me,
"And mine,"
But keep part back,
For the Lord alone?
He knows our thoughts,
Shall we tell them to each other?
What does He delight in pain?
Truth of heart,
I am trying to confess
To you who will not receive it.
And sadness left over.
For what pain will He exchange them?
Does he take pleasure in my anguish?
Or shall I keep silent?
Will I say to you,
"Here is my heart,"
And you to me,
"And mine,"
But keep part back,
For the Lord alone?
He knows our thoughts,
Shall we tell them to each other?
What does He delight in pain?
Truth of heart,
I am trying to confess
To you who will not receive it.
And sadness left over.
Righteous art thou, O Lord, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously?
2 Thou hast planted them, yea, they have taken root: they grow, yea, they bring forth fruit: thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen
justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust
Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes
Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again
With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build – but not I build; no, but strain,
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes.
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
On Marriage
I should be working, but
I'm thinking about your smile
And thinking about it while
I do.
I should be working, but
I'm writing the world a poem
And writing it to show them that
I do.
I'm thinking about your smile
And thinking about it while
I do.
I should be working, but
I'm writing the world a poem
And writing it to show them that
I do.
Upon Smoke
Where's there's fire there's smoke
Within dust that is stoked
By the strong Breath of God
That is breathed into sod.
In all heat there is light
And invisible might
That can quicken dry bone,
Giving life to a stone.
What is raised is not dead.
What lies down will be wed.
Though the ground is accurst,
In the sky, light will burst.
Warm the soil with your breath.
Raise up life from all death.
Quicken dust from the ground.
Dwell on earth, and be found
In the heart of a man
Where you dwell, as you can
Heat our blood with your life,
Mixing man and a wife
To again, raise up dust,
Red clay colored in rust,
Where Adam sleeps with Eve
And awakes to believe
That the breath that you breathed
Is to him who believes
Life that lives and not dies,
When a man shuts his eyes.
And lies down in the dirt,
Where the worms eat his shirt,
Till there's no more man left,
And the spirit is cleft
From the flesh where it lived,
And clung once to his rib,
Till the beating heart ceased,
As the spirit increased.
Within dust that is stoked
By the strong Breath of God
That is breathed into sod.
In all heat there is light
And invisible might
That can quicken dry bone,
Giving life to a stone.
What is raised is not dead.
What lies down will be wed.
Though the ground is accurst,
In the sky, light will burst.
Warm the soil with your breath.
Raise up life from all death.
Quicken dust from the ground.
Dwell on earth, and be found
In the heart of a man
Where you dwell, as you can
Heat our blood with your life,
Mixing man and a wife
To again, raise up dust,
Red clay colored in rust,
Where Adam sleeps with Eve
And awakes to believe
That the breath that you breathed
Is to him who believes
Life that lives and not dies,
When a man shuts his eyes.
And lies down in the dirt,
Where the worms eat his shirt,
Till there's no more man left,
And the spirit is cleft
From the flesh where it lived,
And clung once to his rib,
Till the beating heart ceased,
As the spirit increased.
You Must Be Born Again
Two thousand years ago, a son was born
To God above, who rested upon Mary,
And placed within her blood and flesh and bone
His spirit, who for thirty years would tarry.
Until the Roman soldiers cut it out,
With tools of iron plunged in son man,
Pried forth from flesh the son of god full grown
The birth of spirit born from eau and sangre.
When Jesus said, "You must be born again,"
To Nicodemus, who had come by night,
He also said, "What's born of skin is skin,
But what is born of God is born aright."
Here's a test, assured: Pull out a knife
And cut from off your corpse a hunk of flesh
Then wait for it to live apart from you,
Without God's will that will allow it to.
For what is born of flesh is born of flesh,
And subject in the end to die in death,
But though eternal spirit lives in you,
It won't be killed till God ordains it do.
For what is born of skin lives as man wills,
But what is born of spirit can't be killed.
To God above, who rested upon Mary,
And placed within her blood and flesh and bone
His spirit, who for thirty years would tarry.
Until the Roman soldiers cut it out,
With tools of iron plunged in son man,
Pried forth from flesh the son of god full grown
The birth of spirit born from eau and sangre.
When Jesus said, "You must be born again,"
To Nicodemus, who had come by night,
He also said, "What's born of skin is skin,
But what is born of God is born aright."
Here's a test, assured: Pull out a knife
And cut from off your corpse a hunk of flesh
Then wait for it to live apart from you,
Without God's will that will allow it to.
For what is born of flesh is born of flesh,
And subject in the end to die in death,
But though eternal spirit lives in you,
It won't be killed till God ordains it do.
For what is born of skin lives as man wills,
But what is born of spirit can't be killed.
Dragons Are Always Bad
There is no good dragon,
No snake with warm blood,
There is only hunger
Rippling beneath cold scales,
Avoiding hell
Preying upon flesh.
No snake with warm blood,
There is only hunger
Rippling beneath cold scales,
Avoiding hell
Preying upon flesh.
Science Is Theology
Science is Theology
To those won't believe
For one who seeks to know the Truth
Believes it first to be.
Science is Religion,
Whose prophets' law predicts
That good and evil both are to
The speed of light transfixed.
Science is the Government
To which all knees have bowed,
For where the light existeth not,
No other is allowed.
So speak, and soothsay scientist,
For all our ears to hear,
To those won't believe
For one who seeks to know the Truth
Believes it first to be.
Science is Religion,
Whose prophets' law predicts
That good and evil both are to
The speed of light transfixed.
Science is the Government
To which all knees have bowed,
For where the light existeth not,
No other is allowed.
So speak, and soothsay scientist,
For all our ears to hear,
And plead for fire from your gods
To bring us holy fear.
What Life is in the Blood?
When man doth eat the meat
Cut from the flesh of lamb,
What life is in its blood
That causes man to stand?
What food the lamb did chew
To cause his blood to run
Within his heart what strength,
Which grass took from the sun?
For grass did grow in life,
Most humble, rooted, fixed.
From soil's death, it sprang
Then in lamb life was mixed.
Cut from the flesh of lamb,
What life is in its blood
That causes man to stand?
What food the lamb did chew
To cause his blood to run
Within his heart what strength,
Which grass took from the sun?
For grass did grow in life,
Most humble, rooted, fixed.
From soil's death, it sprang
Then in lamb life was mixed.
What power came from sun
That caused the lamb to bleat
Until man cut its throat
And fed upon his meat?
Power
Two monarchs on two mountains viewed a valley from on high,
While swords of soldiers thrust through ribs and arrows pierced through eyes.
"More men must die!" one monarch howled. "No trumpet sound retreat!"
"No fighter runs!" the other howled. "Our will is not complete!"
A wretch and wretch whose horns were locked in mortal, violent throe,
Knee-deep in mud and gore and blood did meet each blow by blow.
Two tangled worms in death-roll squirmed to pay their servile due,
Saluting kings whose judgments bring an end to me and you.
While swords of soldiers thrust through ribs and arrows pierced through eyes.
"More men must die!" one monarch howled. "No trumpet sound retreat!"
"No fighter runs!" the other howled. "Our will is not complete!"
A wretch and wretch whose horns were locked in mortal, violent throe,
Knee-deep in mud and gore and blood did meet each blow by blow.
Two tangled worms in death-roll squirmed to pay their servile due,
Saluting kings whose judgments bring an end to me and you.
The First Chapter of a Good Book about Something
I make no apology in admitting from the outset that the philosophical framework within which I approach this subject is fundamentally Christian. All metaphors of elephants in dark rooms cast aside, let us once and for all admit that, in fact, we are groping an elephant--or more like it--describing shadows of an elephant cast upon the walls of Plato's cave. Were I to abandon the Christian perspective from which I approach any topic, I may as well attempt to write these words in Mandarin, or worse, a dialect of a remote tribal culture still untouched deep in the jungles of the Amazon, if such a people even still exists. Let us, then, once and for all dispense with the ridiculous notion that any person steeped in any culture can possibly make any testament to Truth when robbed of his ability to communicate freely in the language and culture within which he is raised.
No doubt careful readers will already have noticed that I have made several missteps in communicating my perspective. Chiefly, that I have approached the conversation in an entirely non-objective manner by beginning this discussion with the use of the first-person pronoun I. And why not? Do you imagine that the writer is an object other than himself? To be quite honest, the fastidiousness with which a modern man is instructed to regard the use of pronouns in writing has been for me one of the greatest obstacles to communicating my own ideas clearly. As an elementary writing student, I was taught to refer to people in general by using masculine pronouns when the gender of the subject was unnecessary for consideration. In my high school and college years, this practice began to be scrutinized under heated debate. Though I hope you will take me at my word that I did then and do now understand the arguments being set forth by those who find the overuse of masculine pronouns to be problematic, I will beg your forgiveness in writing freely in the employment of language that comes most naturally to me. Imagine how difficult it might be for you to write sentences in which every comma must be replaced with a period, or every instance of definite articles be replaced with indefinite articles. Though this could be done, it does make the process of writing much more restrictive than necessary and presents the risk of writers being too inefficient at clearly communicating ideas in an effort to place the reader at ease. With this in mind, let me assure you that I am fully aware that court is now in session and anything I write can and will be used against me, so please whet your swords.
At any rate, I begin with the presumption that anyone who is seriously bothered by a writer's use of pronouns will likely be unwilling or unable to make an attempt to understand what I am trying very hard to communicate in the first place. It is not that I have no sensitivity for my potential readers, but rather, that I beg my readers to bear some sympathy for the writer who is only trying to communicate his perspective as clearly as possible. I will refer to myself in writing, and though I will refrain from using unnecessary phrases such as in my opinion or I believe that, you can be assured that any statement made in the following paragraphs are compelled from no person other than myself. Likewise, I imagine that there are a multiplicity of yous involved in the reading of these words, and while I completely understand that you may be man or woman, child or adult, American or Russian, I will regard you as a person who has made a willful choice to read these words. If you have read so far already, I thank you very much, and it would give me great delight to know that you managed to read this work to its end, for it is such a person to whom I intend to write this book.
And what is the Subject of this book? That is a difficult question to answer. In some ways, the subject of this book is the book itself--a one-sided conversation between me and humanity. Of all the privileges that a writer enjoys, the most basic privilege is to compose his thoughts privately, giving careful consideration to word choice and sentence structure, organizing thoughts word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. This is the advantage that I have in this situation. You will never have an opportunity to read these words as I type them. You will not get to read the various edits and revisions that I make along the way. You will not get to see the sentences that I have deleted altogether. You were not with me when I sat down in this brown, leather recliner and struggled to form a first sentence. It is possible that you were not even yet born when I began to write these words. Nonetheless, this conversation continues. I will do my best to articulate my thoughts as clearly as possible, and I hope that you will do your best to decipher them without prejudice.
This, in fact, is the basic problem. I have a brain, a consciousness, experiences, a perspective. You, too, have these things, but we certainly do not share the same brain, consciousness, experiences, or perspective. Perhaps the force that drives me to write anything at all is that I seek to connect with you on some level, to feel that I am not isolated, to find something, anything in common with you. Is this not the root of our word communicate, that is, to make common? If I make an effort to find some common ground with you, I do so under the presumption that you will agree to bear the offense of being witness to my confessions. That is to say, you must remain a silent witness until this dialectic has run its course, and I do not in the slightest envy your station in that task. Know this, though, that having written the previous sentence, I have acknowledged the unfair power structure manifested by the art of writing. That is to say, the reader is always slave to the writer, doomed to suffer long journeys at the whimsy of the author without having any say in the course he takes. Still, the reader is not altogether powerless in that he (or even she) may at any time set the book aside to leave the author to remain eternally alone in his pursuit of wisdom.
So I will end this chapter with an admonition: Stop reading if what I have attempted to communicate thus far has not sparked any interest within you, for I have no interest in taking hostages. I seek only the Truth in these pages, and I am not interested in taking passengers who are unsympathetic to that pursuit.
No doubt careful readers will already have noticed that I have made several missteps in communicating my perspective. Chiefly, that I have approached the conversation in an entirely non-objective manner by beginning this discussion with the use of the first-person pronoun I. And why not? Do you imagine that the writer is an object other than himself? To be quite honest, the fastidiousness with which a modern man is instructed to regard the use of pronouns in writing has been for me one of the greatest obstacles to communicating my own ideas clearly. As an elementary writing student, I was taught to refer to people in general by using masculine pronouns when the gender of the subject was unnecessary for consideration. In my high school and college years, this practice began to be scrutinized under heated debate. Though I hope you will take me at my word that I did then and do now understand the arguments being set forth by those who find the overuse of masculine pronouns to be problematic, I will beg your forgiveness in writing freely in the employment of language that comes most naturally to me. Imagine how difficult it might be for you to write sentences in which every comma must be replaced with a period, or every instance of definite articles be replaced with indefinite articles. Though this could be done, it does make the process of writing much more restrictive than necessary and presents the risk of writers being too inefficient at clearly communicating ideas in an effort to place the reader at ease. With this in mind, let me assure you that I am fully aware that court is now in session and anything I write can and will be used against me, so please whet your swords.
At any rate, I begin with the presumption that anyone who is seriously bothered by a writer's use of pronouns will likely be unwilling or unable to make an attempt to understand what I am trying very hard to communicate in the first place. It is not that I have no sensitivity for my potential readers, but rather, that I beg my readers to bear some sympathy for the writer who is only trying to communicate his perspective as clearly as possible. I will refer to myself in writing, and though I will refrain from using unnecessary phrases such as in my opinion or I believe that, you can be assured that any statement made in the following paragraphs are compelled from no person other than myself. Likewise, I imagine that there are a multiplicity of yous involved in the reading of these words, and while I completely understand that you may be man or woman, child or adult, American or Russian, I will regard you as a person who has made a willful choice to read these words. If you have read so far already, I thank you very much, and it would give me great delight to know that you managed to read this work to its end, for it is such a person to whom I intend to write this book.
And what is the Subject of this book? That is a difficult question to answer. In some ways, the subject of this book is the book itself--a one-sided conversation between me and humanity. Of all the privileges that a writer enjoys, the most basic privilege is to compose his thoughts privately, giving careful consideration to word choice and sentence structure, organizing thoughts word by word, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, page by page. This is the advantage that I have in this situation. You will never have an opportunity to read these words as I type them. You will not get to read the various edits and revisions that I make along the way. You will not get to see the sentences that I have deleted altogether. You were not with me when I sat down in this brown, leather recliner and struggled to form a first sentence. It is possible that you were not even yet born when I began to write these words. Nonetheless, this conversation continues. I will do my best to articulate my thoughts as clearly as possible, and I hope that you will do your best to decipher them without prejudice.
This, in fact, is the basic problem. I have a brain, a consciousness, experiences, a perspective. You, too, have these things, but we certainly do not share the same brain, consciousness, experiences, or perspective. Perhaps the force that drives me to write anything at all is that I seek to connect with you on some level, to feel that I am not isolated, to find something, anything in common with you. Is this not the root of our word communicate, that is, to make common? If I make an effort to find some common ground with you, I do so under the presumption that you will agree to bear the offense of being witness to my confessions. That is to say, you must remain a silent witness until this dialectic has run its course, and I do not in the slightest envy your station in that task. Know this, though, that having written the previous sentence, I have acknowledged the unfair power structure manifested by the art of writing. That is to say, the reader is always slave to the writer, doomed to suffer long journeys at the whimsy of the author without having any say in the course he takes. Still, the reader is not altogether powerless in that he (or even she) may at any time set the book aside to leave the author to remain eternally alone in his pursuit of wisdom.
So I will end this chapter with an admonition: Stop reading if what I have attempted to communicate thus far has not sparked any interest within you, for I have no interest in taking hostages. I seek only the Truth in these pages, and I am not interested in taking passengers who are unsympathetic to that pursuit.
Melt
It's nicer to think of water that once was ice,
And to consider the moment it changed,
From the sun, and time,
Than it is to think of these dead fish on the shoreline
And to consider the moment they changed.
There's an odor in the wind,
Beneath the blue sky,
In late September.
Some words, like melt,
Do better than putrefaction.
Melt is like ice cream, popsicles, chocolate.
Putrefaction is like roadkill, old lettuce, these belly-up fish.
The lake melts in early spring.
These fish melt in early fall.
The first hard frost will stop their stinking.
The first hard thaw will bring back a hidden memory of them,
Sunk down in the subconscious,
Mingling with the soil beneath the wet grass,
Suggesting a promise of something living
When winter's blanket rolls back the shroud
That covers the odor of melting death.
Seems To Was
In the summer of 2014, an idea that I had labeled my life ceased to exist. This idea had grown within me like cancer, wrapping itself around a seminal thought like a parasitic host, just as a tumor begins within a single cell and then grows until the sarcoma exceeds the limitations of the body. There were only two choices: Let the tumor destroy me, or separate myself from the swelling lump and let it die. Reluctantly, and in desperation, I chose to live instead of allowing my life to kill me.
What ended--what I had thought at the time, at least--was my life. But as I watched as my life ended, it occurred to me that I was still living. What continued was not what I had thought that I was, but what I must have been all along. In retrospect, I can see more clearly, or at least communicate with greater conviction, that it was not until I allowed my life to end that I understood what my life had been all along. I know, too, that the disease that had been my life required a certain amount of nourishment, care, and maintenance. It was a beast that I had nurtured into existence, and it required my constant attention. Each day it grew into a monster more odious, more powerful. It grew and it grew until it threatened to destroy its host.
The beast outgrew the temple in which it had lived and died like a snail extracted from its shell.
My life ended. The life that I had called my life ended. At the end of all things, I could no longer pretend that my life was what I had wanted myself and others to think that it was. Surely some of those closest to me would say that they had always seen more clearly the differences between what was my life and what I pretended my life to be, and perhaps they did. It is probably true that some saw the truth and that others did not. Most people are too self-absorbed to think very critically about the differences between appearance and reality of those who surround them anyway. None of that really matters. The point is that there do exist two things: I shall call the first the Is. I shall call the second the Seems. What is and what seems are two different things with two different qualities. One exists as an external reality, and the other exists as an internal construct. One can be objectively and honestly measured, the other exists only within the vapors of obfuscation and deception. It would be tempting to say that one exists and the other does not, but that is not entirely true. Both exist. There are forces that exist that we cannot see, and the Seems is one of those forces. It has the power to destroy--and it will destroy--if it is not destroyed first.
As a free gift to me--I did not ask for it, at least not that I remember--the Seems in me was destroyed, and the Is was allowed to continue. When the Seems died, I thought that I would die along with it. Five years later, I am still living. Though it is humiliating to admit, I have no choice to admit that five years ago, everything that I thought to be true about myself had actually been false. The Seems that had been born in me decades earlier had become a monster that controlled me like a puppet, and I was powerless to do anything but what it forced me to do. I was helpless even to think anything but what it had told me to think. I performed its bidding like a hapless slave, unable to free myself from the demon that had convinced me that if I were to kill it, that I would also have to kill myself, for we had become one. This, after all, is the end game of the Seems. It is given to destroy. At last, when my knights, rooks, and pawns had vanished from the board, and I was backed into a corner surrounded by black bishops and a deadly queen, I acknowledged defeat and surrendered my king. The board vanished, and my Seems fell into nothingness.
The Second Judgment
Have you ever seen a fire racing bright
Through limbs of last year's dried up Christmas tree?
Just one small spark will set the flame alight,
Elohim
Can one count the water
As one counts the stars?
Does a photon stream from Sun
Past the Earth to Mars?
At the very bottom,
Does a single string
Bend the cloth of time and space
To be another thing?
Is it all discretion,
Or is it all one song?
Can the violinist make
One note both short and long?
Count the sound of Heaven,
As it falls on Earth
As one counts the stars?
Does a photon stream from Sun
Past the Earth to Mars?
At the very bottom,
Does a single string
Bend the cloth of time and space
To be another thing?
Is it all discretion,
Or is it all one song?
Can the violinist make
One note both short and long?
Count the sound of Heaven,
As it falls on Earth
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