28 November 2005

-- 2000, 6000 -- 10,000 years of human thought & where have we gotten? At vanity of vanities, all is vanity. We shuffle, we scramble, we desperately grasp at the browned scrub brush of time’s long hill and we hope -- we hope to God, the gods, ourselves -- that the roots are deep enough to hold our sickly bodies... that our ideas are enough to hold our sickly bodies to this world...

-- Now, wouldn’t it be something to find a field, flush trees in their autumn glory all about, and should, truly shout, “Glorious!” and mean it, because it all truly was glorious? I can only imagine the pleasure of meaning something -- something utterly and wholly true -- so fully and proclaiming it so loudly...

-- I desire heroes sprung, full-formed, from the earth, pre-fall Adams in full purity and full thought -- thus, likely, my preference for Tolkien and his kind... myth. There, the men are what they are, tall stone, unmoving against time. I’d much prefer to see the world in that light; but, alas, it is not to be so. Men are no golems: the First was the only to avoid formation. (And who can say that he did not develop in his perfection?) -- neither can I, by sheer will, for myself and cause myself to be now complete.

( C: 1 )

25 November 2005

So, this morning, our cat went to the vet for routine tooth extraction. They were going to put her out, pull the tooth, and give her a good cleaning.

This after noon, the vet calls to inform us that she’s dead.

It’s a sad day. Tiger was as good a cat as you can ask for. She had a remarkable personality, and was -- perhaps -- the most wonderful companion after a difficult day: she wanted nothing more than provide comfort and friendship, as she glided about, mewing and purring.

Who provides the comfort for her death, now that she’s gone?

I feel terrible for my mother, for whom Tiger was truly a companion, following her around the house and the yard like a small and nimble dog... the conversations she’d have with that cat...!

( C: 2 )

24 November 2005

Hey, all -- have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I plan on doing the same.

(And be certain to have some of them sweet potatoes smothered in marshmellows. I’m telling you -- there’s no greater food to eat once a year. It’s sort of like something very good and tasty in your mouth and on your taste buds. That’s the closest I can come to describing the experience, because it is truly transcendent, like being taken to the seventh or sixth heaven, except that its your mouth being taken there, and heaven isn’t likely as marshmellowy-orange tasting.)

( C: 0 )

20 November 2005

“The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge.” Specifically, what knowledge? All knowledge? That knowledge which has value? Or a specific knowledge? -- the knowledge of God?

Well, fear produces a particular behavior -- a man fearful of another instinctively reacts, he trembles, changes, or avoids. Thus, a fearful man has the beginning of knowledge, knowledge of how to behave with another.

Fear of a man undeserving of fear is no true knowledge, because the reaction is incorrect, as there is nothing to fear. Irrational fear, then, is not a beginning of knowledge -- it incorrectly informs the man how he ought behave.

Fear based upon what is -- now that is the beginning of knowledge of proper behavior. Even avoidance is an appropriate movement, for it acknowledges God-as-God and God cannot be avoided. (A man who avoids God as a result of fear will eventually find him, because he has that beginning of knowledge and cannot help but to see the Lord in all his travels.

He understands consequence, that the wages of sin is death.)

My thoughts are premised on the nature of, and intent of, Proverbs -- moral teaching, or instruction on how a man ought live. In this context, it follows that the ‘knowledge’ written of is knowledge of moral living, or a reference to behavior. --thus that fear brings an intuitive knowledge of moral living in relation to God.

The fear of God brings a behavior, based on fear, that is the knowledge of how a man must live.

( C: 1 )

18 November 2005

A man who lives his life as another
Often hides his secret sighs
And wishes he were his brother.

He watches his life on a flickering, cheap TV
Unfold according to the script
The actors playing their sane roles,
On and off the set.

He sighs that soul-sigh,
But the contract is already signed,
He has actor friends and an actress wife,
Who thinks she knows him deeply, even as he lies.

Daily he dresses as they dress him,
He exudes passion and repeats his lines,
He performs his job,
To return and act some more.
But deep inside he cries,
Even has he bends up his mouth and eyes,
And speaks of a joyful life.

And the static in his vision,
Does not the script untie
For the people are in their place,
The production lights, high
And the role already written.

It is only within the mind
That this man is permitted to die
For the show must go on --
They’re playing the main song! --
And the contract says:
“All actors must be physically alive.”

So he honors the terms of his contract
And hides his slight freedom
From the infinite producers
Who would take it, if they’d try.

But in the quiet of the play-world evening,
As the recorded forest chirps and settles
And foam is wafting from the wet-paper sky,
He hides his deep secret
Showing nothing awry.
He wonders at life lived as another --
He wishes he was his brother.

( C: 5 )

17 November 2005

(I’ll format this properly later -- it’s somewhat based ona true experience.)

The Lay of Brian, or a Third of Three.

As I taught
With distinctive thought
The arcane integer function,

I glanced from the board,
Which was soil and worn,
From number and numeric relation.

I saw a hand:
The sky it grabbed,
With quick and quivering motions.

And I smiled and thought
“There is truth to be wrought,
By question, the hammer of knowledge.”
Read on...

( C: 0 )

16 November 2005

Jotted this down while supervising study hall:

A tree conceeds
Its leafy green
At the end of summer.

A sea receeds
From land blown breeze
At the edge of water.

A house will fall
With broken wall
Under superior pressure.

If these true all
By time’s judging call
Must I yield to its censure?

( C: 4 )

15 November 2005

The rain is, today, a quilt, fading droplets the individual threads, grey-blue and cold. Between the low, swimming close and the rain and the new early darkness, a man can hardly recall the day light, so he burrows and wraps himself in the night, hoping that warmth and dreams may come, for these are the realm of the morning and the hopes of the night.

And whatever he sought,
He taught
To him and then to me
My mentor sought so clearly,
He ever, ever learned...

( C: 0 )

13 November 2005

It’s a leaf-shook morning, the roily sky layered in white-brushed gray. Leaves of faded orange and red spin and twirl about on their concrete dance floor, the patio just outside the cafe. Between the watercolor dancers, specks of white float glide, determined and unconcerned with the tarantella about them.

The motes are of an indeterminate origin -- you want to say they are snow because its the kind of shivering day that looks like the first day snow, when you want to sprint about catching all the joy on your tongue, you want to but don’t, because that’s childish and innocent and only the innocent can do that and believe pleasure is to be found in such a nonsensical act.

You want to say it is snow, but you’ve been fooled too many times before, stepping into a cold world with thick wool cap and scarf, to discover that the snow was refuse, and the elegance was not to be yours...

An older man with a slack mouth stiffly pulls his cigarette toward his lips. His arthritis is acting up, his bones hurt, and he is old and he is tired and he just wants to sleep or cry or scream, but just smokes and it helps. His laden hand reaches his mouth and he holds it stiffly, so that the pinky side of his hand forms the hypotenuse of an angle with the wall and the ground -- and the cigarette burns a slow, sorrowful red...

( C: 1 )

12 November 2005

The walls are coral brushed and splattered, as they’d been painted and then set on their backs to allow for a brief coral rain, which left the droplets caught on wall and time... On the wall is four pieces of art, two smaller ones, stacked to the right and a painting to the left. Dominating the wall is a larger piece, ruling between the border pieces...

Much improvement is necessary -- my descriptions are not intentionally austere, they are merely poor. Another attempt:

As I glance toward the paintings, my eye is immediately draw to the center piece, and I see the pastel sky and waters; the red of the dock house is lacking the boldness of a truly mighty red, and the dull sky pulls the eye from the canvas toward the wet-clay frame, causing me to see the larger wall and the disjunction of stacked frames to the right. The frames are equal sized: together (and twice again) would be the area of the sea- scene.

In contrast to the washed out center piece, these are photographs, in stark black and white, dead trees in the throes of wistful hope. Each frame is filled with three photographs, and the frame above is the more dominant, black and classic, the white space between border and photo minimized by larger photographs. The frame below is painted silver, and its sidecar shape contains smaller photographs, closeups, less interesting...

Closer -- Shape is important to not, as is color -- more specific than ‘pastels’. & better to look at a scene and describe it as seen than to try and be ‘literary’ (Whatever that may mean!) about it.

( C: 1 )