28 May 2005

Cobbled together this afternoon:

Tears of glass, shatter last
on empty concrete walkways.

And the walls around, reflect the sound
of the beautied, mourning wastrel.

“Lies,” she sighs, as seagulls rise
over golden gated glory --

The life she sought, all broken thought,
has creased her gentle mem’ry.

( C: 4 )

24 May 2005

This is not the sort of piece I normally write, but I’ve spent the last several nights working on it. It’s not fiction, its part journal, part letter, part story and is perhaps my longest non-collegete screed. It’s about 4 and a half pages long, so I’ve created a Word document for you to print out if you really do want to read it. The Word Document can be found here. Feel free to comment on this. It’s a letter I’ve intended to write for some time, and found it somewhat healing.

To H:

I began this letter last night as I reminisced near Michigan and watched the copper plumed light rest on that rippled sorrow lake. I doubt the return of yesterday’s descending spirit, the muse that inspired such a flow of words... such a recapturing rarely occurs, though we spend our lives in search, striving for that repetition, to catch a warm breath already had. Others have hoped, vainly, for repetition. Written treatises on it, as Kierkegaard did. I find myself engaged in that ritual hope and I suppose it only appropriate, being that Kierkegaard and have much in common. Both of us are irrationalists with some rational skill, though his far superior.

Repetition. The word itself grates at me, frustrates me, since I am convinced that there can be no such thing. But I attend to the siren’s breathy lilt. The hope pervades my life, and reality frustrates my movements. Repetition. I repeat the word, and find that it is not the same, has not the same connotation. It has a different life in that moment, than the moment before, and the moment before that. The relationships have altered the meaning, and if not the meaning, the emotional sense of the moment so that no repetition can even occur.

I attempt to reconstruct last night in my mind, and then on paper, so as to give you some insight into my feelings. But I find that the moment can never be captured. Senses of it, certainly. Glimmers and shimmers, dashes and dots, but never the thing itself. I can recount the words I thought: “The songs of a tinny phonograph band echo across the water,” (I had more here; I began to imagine that this band had hope for tomorrow, that they were singing a song about how they’d be the one to make it, that they’d be ones to live a whole life) or “Watch the wisp-clouds flit past the gulls and dissipate into shadow,” but what of it? The moment is gone; there can be no repetition, just some aimless analysis that can never succeed in being the moment’s equal. I re-read this and it all seems an empty approximation, vain mutterings of a fool.

But why try and recreate the moment? That damnable hope. What does it matter the circumstances of the evening, except to myself? I want to place you there, to share this experience with you. Life is for the giving, someone may have said. I can’t recall. It seems to resonate with Christ’s teachings, though. The night was rare, an exquisite night. It needed sharing. But who was I to share it with? Empty banter and questions of intent? (My own in both cases; I am empty, and rarely certain of my intent)

I lack the ability to describe it any other way than this: an existent night, when all you can do is sit and whisper thoughts to yourself and hope and pray that nothing changes that all that you don’t change this so all you can do is exist and rest and know that you are and everything else is too. A night where the wind is just cool enough and just strong enough to remind you that you are, but not enough to call this your state to serious consideration. Tranquil wind, soft caress. Perhaps it’d be odd to describe a night wind as beautiful. Yet it was, gentle and unassuming. Reminded me of you, I suppose. Restful.

Read on...

( C: 1 )

22 May 2005

How much does love matter in marriage? In a feral world, little. But when life becomes so rich that it is no longer about mere survival, the practical thing, the necessary thing is pleasure. What will make my life better, easier? In former times, a strong woman from a good family -- this would allow a man to survive more easily. Certainly, this was the perspective of the patriarchs. Now, perhaps, love: love will allow me to live more easily, allow me to rest, knowing that I am not alone. Less practical, this, but in a world that allows such luxury, the luxury quickly becomes necessity. But, truth be told, the world has moved beyond the luxury of abstract love to another concrete: sex, physical pleasure.

(Certainly, love has always played something of a role -- Shakespeare certainly wrote of it enough. We seem to appreciate the abstract “pure” things more than practical reality, and the necessities of life, as if conceptualizing a pure thing will suddenly cause the world to fall into line. Thus, we have the tragic hero. His tragedy is found in his inability to accept and dwell in this world. His attraction, his purity of thought.

I do not take away from love. I merely note this for my own edification and care.)

( C: 3 )

18 May 2005

I lay, near sleep, when my hand twitched in violent response to some misty dream. As a drifted to consciousness, I noticed something odd. My hand -- it felt damp, somehow. My position of repose remains the same as I consider this mystery, and try -- as only the half-awake might -- to rationalize the phenomenon. “I really can’t feel my hand,” I noted. “Its probably just sweating.”

I fumbled to reach under my body with my left hand to touch the right. (I’m a stomach sleep-- ah, I am a chaos sleeper, limbd tossed every which way. In college, I’d let one arm and one leg hang off the bed: I’d teeter precariously on the loft, every night an adventure.) As the left met the right, the left brushed against similarly odd data. The bed, soaked. My mind rejected the data outright and sent off the left on a different mission to rub my eyes before realizing, halfway there, that the original mission had not been fulfulled, causing left hand to freeze in panic and become as useless as the right.

Eventually, I concluded that the data was correct and that the bed was wet and that my blister had burst, soaking a significant part of the bed. I traipsed upstairs to drain it and discovered that my hand is now a less frightening kind of gross. Ever watched the end of Austin Powers 3? Yeah -- you know what I’m saying...

I’m off to bed again. I think that I’m done draining.

(error fraught. Typed entirely lefty.)

( C: 8 )

Dropping the car off tomorrow. The state police will inspect it on Friday to confirm that its “road-worthy”.

(Lift of the glass)

Here’s to hoping!

( C: 0 )

16 May 2005

This perhaps my most favorite poem. At the very least, it contains several stanzas that achieve my highest goal: the utter expression of my heart at a moment, a lyric clarity that I find difficult to arrive at again. (Moments, at least. Certain parts of the poem need a considerable amount of work.)

(perhaps my favorite of all)
...To this world, he did not belong,
Yet to it he was bound, melody to song.
His life was a gift given to men,
The burning soul, the flame that rent.

(my descriptive favorite)
...As he spoke, the embers roared,
The mountains shook, and the spirit soared.
But shadow shown and the darkness groaned -
Arden broke upon the stone.

Shadow crept about:
Fighting the sacred and devout.
The battle for this soul began:
Satan’s sword against heaven’s hand...

(the rest is here)

( C: 2 )

15 May 2005

I’ve underestimated joy. Pain forces change that we might live; joy makes change worthwhile. Numbness is better that pain -- but the dead are numb. Joy is of the living; otherwise, why not pursue the catharsis of death, so as to numb pain entirely? -- because joy is of the living and can be found.

-

This burn frightens me, and it is no common feat. Fear is not an emotion I have experience with -- nervousness, yes. Stress, certainly. Concern, frequently. But this sensation as if I am falling, deep, deep into shadow and murk, falling, falling with nothing to grasp, rush and roar of air numbing my ear, numbing my skin, numbing my senses so that all I can do is scream in my mind and mouth a silent plea -- this emotion, it flits across my mind, across my face, and I find myself helpless against its caress. I’m not accustomed to fear, and my only comfort lies in brief, choked-out prayers that begin and end in abstract confusion. Perhaps I am over-concerned with my hand; likely, I am. Soon, I’ll forget about this event and my hand will heal. But I find that this week has left me in tears more than all of my last seven years. I find myself unprepared for this weakness and would hinder it, battle it -- but I have no better path, no superior way... I am left with disquiet, tears and pitiful, bleated prayers. This week, I am wounded and afraid.

( C: 6 )

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library. -- Jorge Luis Borges

Indeed.

(Dear me -- if only you could see my hand. I snapped a picture for posterity, but I dare not post it, since I have enough difficulty looking at it -- and its my own hand! There’s a blister about the size of a half ping-pong-ball on my palm. Yes, that’s both height and width. It might be a bit larger, in fact. Pray that it heals properly, with no permanent damage, though I may deserve it...)

I remember fondly those three days of joy, months ago. Such things, joy, hope, the anticipation of another day. They make the human life-clinging tendency seem rational. I wish I could repeat those days, wish I could have a bit more time as a child, a bit more innocence, a bit less weighing on my mind.

( C: 1 )

13 May 2005

Sigh. Let me recount the last week.

I flew to Philadelphia on Saturday to pick up my car -- only to discover it possessed a host of unlisted problems. Whatever. I had the title, I paid the money, there was little I could do, so my dad and I set off home. (Most of these problems were discovered on the way, which only added to my angst) I arrived on Sunday, with very little sleep obtained.

Monday: I head to the DMV to title my car. After waiting for two hours, I walk to the counter, receive my title, and discoverer that no one has any idea where I should go to receive a reconstructed title that will allow me to drive my vehicle. Eventually, they give me an outdated list of phone numbers and say, “If those don’t work, call the State Police.” I call the State Police and leave a message, since they direct me straight to voice mail.

Tuesday: No response from State Police. I call them again and leave message. I drive home from the YMCA, and am traveling along the frontage road along I-94 when I come to a rolling stop at HWY K. The next 10 seconds are more or less missing. I know that I looked right and looked straight, but when I next gazed ahead, I discovered a motorcycle directly in front of me. A MOTORCYCLE. Crash. Bang. Smash. Man on the ground. Me rush out in a sheer panic. Harley riders stopping by and offering me words of comfort: “What the F*** were you thinking, you idiot?!” To the cop: “That F***ing F*** blew the stop sign.” Me with my hands on my head, wandering around in the grass along the road, wishing to God that this was a dream.

Dude on cycle ended up being ok. My psyche was not; I spend the most of the day alternating between mania and tears, and fall into a fitful sleep, exhausted by emotional flux -- flux of a non-purifying kind. My dad’s truck was in similar condition. Did I mention that it was my dad’s truck? If it were my own car, I’d not mind so much. If I’d struck a car, the same. But a motorcyclist in my dad’s truck -- this was difficult for me to handle, as if I’d abrogated all forms of responsibility and honor in one awful act. Even worse, an act I could not explain nor understand. Why did I proceed forward? I rarely make that mistake; and, when I do, I catch myself. Perhaps the it’s the lost control that bothers me the most: no amount of analysis can add order to the disordered moment, create structure from the chaos of mind that created that moment. I allowed that chaos -- worse, I could do nothing to prevent it. I could not forsee its presence.

Wednesday: The darkness of Tuesday dominated this day, coal dust lingering over a city, all sickness and melancholy. I call the State Police. They do not call back. I go home and stare at a computer screen for hours, hoping to numb and forget.

Thursday: An improved day. Discover that the repairs to my car will be insignificant. I finally contact a person at the State Police and discover that my car should pass the test, if I get a mirror repaired. Discover that my dad’s truck isn’t so badly damaged. Life beings to take a brighter hue, and I smile for the first time in days.

Friday: Do a number of explosive labs in my Chemistry classes to keep the kids entertained. I’m no idiot; I’m fairly careful about these things. Until a reaction during my last hour of class occurs, due to a small ember still glowing in the container. Fire climbs the air, searing my skin. I mask the pain, mutter about how I’m fine its no biggie, wait for class to end and head to the hospital. My index finger begins to turn white and blister. In the clinic, I have my finger checked out and get the, “You are F***ing idiot” look from the doctor. Second degree burns, I intuit. Wrap it, put this salve on, take some antibiotics, do this for ten days and check back in. I get a shot and the salves and head to the school to inform the Administrator what had happened. I know I look like a moron: “Hey look at me! I do everything wrong! I can’t drive straight! I can’t keep a class safe! Look at me! I’m an F***ing idiot! That’s the theme of the week.” I apologize profusely, and he acts understanding, but I know how this looks -- irresponsible and to be watched carefully, since I apparently cannot manage my life with any degree of success.

So, there you have it. That’s been my week. And thus my re-immersion into angst, and my discovering... well, I’m not sure what. But I’m tired of life like this. I want a breath, a rest, a moment where I’m not being gazed on and judged by a thousand different eyes. Or -- a rest from myself, and the trouble I’ve caused.

I rarely beg for prayers: but they would be greatly appreciated.

( C: 3 )

I’m so tired of being an utter screw-up. I’m so tired of failure. Life moves forward, and I stumble behind, living potential - living failure (What else is continual potential never achieved?), mistake upon mistake.

“how much of this was meant to be
how much the work of the devil
how far can one man’s eyes really see
in these days of toil and trouble

how much of this is failing flesh
how much the course of retribution
my my how loudly we plead our innocence
long after we’ve made our contribution”

~Bill Mallonee, “Respendent”

Update: I’m going to revise my “things are better” statement. Things are now worse: I seem to be that screw-up, and I’m afraid that anyone who perceives me that way would be perceiving me accurately.

( C: 0 )

11 May 2005

Things are much better today.

( C: 3 )

10 May 2005

if only i die just once in my life
if only to try
to take a guess, to be the best
a feeling i hide
that runs this world, that keeps us alive
i want you to climb with me

until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die

the heart of a child
is in your hands now
so let’s see you smile
‘cause i’m not impressed with your loneliness
and it’s been a while
since you forgave all your changes made
so let’s count the miles together

until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die

if only i die
just once in my life
if only to try together

until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die of a broken heart
a broken heart
until i die

( C: 2 )

09 May 2005

I don’t know that I desire to love so much as I desire to throw myself into love, as if f love were an objective thing, like a lake, where one’s only decision is to stay in or out. This view requires little commitment, little obligation. Love works on me, being independent of me. I have small effects upon love, for it is so large... And its effects on me are continuous, powerful, consistent. It would require no object, really, for its positive effects...

Actually, this sounds oddly like the Christian conception of God-as-love. I take no issue with this; because love-as-personality implies all sorts of consequence & obligation. But this abstracted concept of ‘love as thing apart from person hood’ ultimately removes the need of others, making the effects of love more important than interaction in which love is created & maintained. (Humans are points on a graph; love is the line that connects them. Points exist by themselves -- but a segment cannot exist apart from points. It is a thing, but a dependent thing.) It -- between people -- doesn’t exist without the intersection between points.

Summation: love demands person hood, and cannot exist without interaction between people. To view love as a thing to “dive into” is to view love wrongly; exception being the merging of person-love in God.

Redux: “... they were united by what separated them from the rest of the world. They were both equally repelled by what was tragically typical of modern man, his textbook admirations, his shrill enthusiasms, and by the deadly dullness conscientiously preached and practiced by countless workers in the field of art and science in order that genius should remain a great rarity.

Their love was great. Most people experience love without becoming aware of the extraordinary nature of this emotion. But to them -- and tihs made them exceptional -- the moments when passion visited their doomed human existence like a breath of eternity were moments of revelation, of continually new discoveries about themselves and life.”

-Dr. Zhivago, by Pasternak

( C: 0 )