"I Dare Not Wonder"

I think about death more as it relates to life, as a time to learn and to reflect, to change if need be before time runs out. Some people act as if we live forever, boasting when they do harm. It terrifies me to think of all my own blindspots, that I might live to regret my denial in all its sickening forms. Despite the unwitting harms we do, most people have a kind of light that surrounds them, a terrifyingly beautiful glow that draws others nearer when the fray of living might otherwise divide us. For the callous few that rule us, their aura is a twisted red greed, more like an inpenetrable shell, baiting, using, punishing the courageous among the have-nots. As of late, my countrymen grow hungry like refugees scraping in the ditches of a war-torn country for discarded scraps. We are prisoners, the occupying force not foreign but domestic, an oppressive white regime dominant throughout our history. The glow of empathy has slowly been drained from our collective conscience by their brutality, and we grow ever desperate for change, increasingly brutal in our own right, though we are not unjust in the way we protest. We do not retaliate against the vulnerable, nor steal from the poor as they do. We do not fear losing privelage or live terrified beyond steel compound walls. We are the survivors that become the inevitable resistance when power does not listen, kills us in the name of the law, as it lies, projects, and reifies that WE are its enemies. Power never sees the apparent illusion of being held indefinitely and there will be be no warning when it's lost.

Now I Know

It's been three years,
But even in a pitch black room full of strangers,
I would know which hand was hers.

I used to tell her this when we held hands, and it was absolutely true.
My God she is still just that beautiful,
That's part of why it still hurts.


Tapered so thinly, her hand fit easily in my palm.
And there was the way she held her fingers so close together, like royalty in a ticker tape parade.
I think in part due to her ability to speak with her hands.
With languages and music, she was simply brilliant.
It still makes me laugh; all the finger spelling in her sleep.

The last time she loved me,
I think it was Versailles.
Through the lazer lights and man made fog,
She gave me that desirous glance for the last time.
We were there to take the castle, the sun almost down.
Mid country, a land away,
As two poor children in the palace of a foreign king,
We were powerful leaders of a private resistance and we knew it.


But, I was mistaken to think,
Beauty of this kind could be anything but free.
I never wanted to possess her,
Only be a part of the way she shined.
But no other person can be the vessel that carries our worth.

She noticed this from the beginning, that I was broken.
It always showed up when she wanted to dance.
She tried so hard to pull me out of myself,
But I anguished about what other people would think,
Missing over and over the chances to make her happy.

I was just afraid she'd fly away,
The dancing fool I wished I'd been,
Alone and lost inside myself,
Knowing that my chance had passed,
to put her needs ahead of mine.

I thought I needed her to prove my worth,
Kneeling when she screamed,
Standing when she caved,
Hanging on for dear life while trying to convince her/myself I was loveable.

This kind of push and pull,
It's like a storm.
Confusing love with other things.

Despite all this,
We fought the world together.
Accentuating our better selves,
Especially when the world pushed back.

If nothing,
What I need to say is finally clear.
My holding back somehow undone.
I applaud your courage to scale the palace walls alone,
And I'm not so sure I would have even tried if you hadn't let me go.

John Doe

I often heard him crying out,
As if someone would answer:
The color of his grief,
Came across in familiar terms.

He was always there,
Slumped beside his basket full of missing things:
Lacking more than a man should be,
Too far gone for human contact.

For 15 years he sat,
Staring across the asphalt fields:
Even in the Texas heat,
He stayed buttoned down with winter booze.

But as our city changed,
He was constant:
A slowly growing myth,
Pinned outside the grip of time.

He lived so long,
In my mind he was immortal:
The eccentric watchman,
Holding fast at the southern gate.

And then he was gone,
Missing from his normal perch:
His basket left alone,
Its contents scattered by the summer wind.

Ham-Bone

To you I am a dancing fool,
Without a care in the world:
In our own sweet way,
We drifed into each other's arms.

Like playmates in the summer sun,
We seem to find the magic shade:
And even in the night we are young,
Savoring all the stars like lovers do.

You said that I came to you,
In a dream to calm your waiting heart:
But I was looking for you all along,
Floating through an unkind world,
Looking for a place to land.

Or maybe,
By some strange twist of fate:
Nature found a way,
To help us laugh again.

And now I'm beginning to see,
That scars upon the heart can heal:
That my once solemn soul can mend,
By letting go in your embrace.

This is why I hold you close,
And why I kiss you so softly:
Because we are in many ways,
A gentle mystery to unfold.

So travel if you will,
With me to see the northern lights:
Or any other place would do,
As long as I can hold your hand,
And share this world with you.

Directions

Sometimes I feel wild inside,
With dark thoughts and wishes:
Holding back with all my might,
Things made worse by thinking.

With all these scars,
Perhaps I've changed too much:
Though I have done my best,
To dull at least my sharpest edges.

But there were times,
When by restraint my joy was lost:
And because of fear I did not sing,
At least when you were looking.

So I remained the stranger,
Even when you held my hand:
Hiding with my words,
The things I really wish I'd said.

I regret not risking more,
To save the love I've lost:
Waiting too long,
For fate to intervene.

I Loved you so deeply,
When we snuck away:
And we kissed that night,
On top of Serenity Hill.

Just know,
You pulled me through the darkest nights:
The crayon drawings I made for you,
Calmed the hell inside my head.

When I left,
I cried against the car window:
Giving up,
The beauty of what might have been.

I was not wise enough then,
Too young to understand:
The selfish way I begged,
That God would bring me back to you.

For many years after,
I thought I saw you:
Mistaking strangers from behind,
Because I couldn't forget your face.

What power your memory held,
And you are inspiration still:
Thanking all my lucky stars,
For all the ways our Summer changed me.

Stop Telling Me To Calm Down

I hear people say things and they make me wonder....Why can't I hear God's voice? It's not as if I haven't been listening. At times I've been so low I begged for God to tell me something, anything. Based on what I learned in Sunday school, if the answers don't come you're just supposed to wait. I have yet to hear any voices from above. I've always wondered what it is that makes me different from those that say they hear God speak. Do I have the wrong kind of ears? Is my life and all it adds up to unworthy of acquiring a direct connection to the heavens? I have tried to believe as blindly as a person can in some kind of God that listens. The problem I keep having is that blind faith and the life I've lived just aren't compatible.

It's no secret that I used to drink too much. As a result of that excess, I found my way to the water wagon many years ago. When I first quit drinking, I believed that God had personally saved me from my addiction. Everything felt so new and crisp without the bottle in hand. As time passed the highs of my new life wore off. During various attempts at being sober, people tried to point out to me that, in fact, I hadn't really changed much. Years after I quit drinking I was still the same arrogant drunk, only I WAS D-R-Y. As I fucked up in all the same areas of living, I often used the excuse that it was God's will that things happened the way they did. Of course the pattern would go something like this--act badly, blame others, and walk away feeling justified. I was just carrying the good message of clean living in a profoundly confused way. This is the definition of a rationalization. Ignoring the facts of a situation in order to protect oneself from the truth is the kind thing that exempts a person from being responsible for any behavior under any condition. I believed that if someone else was in pain it must have been their faults that made them so vulnerable. I would say things like "I didn't MAKE you feel anything". It's popular in modern psychology to expect everyone to "take ownership" of their feelings. I took that to mean that we should all expect others to be invulnerable--talk about ignoring reality. Maybe we can't magically zap emotion into each other but we definitely have the power to provide the stimulus that evokes a painful response in those around us. As we move through the world, we constantly receive feedback from others. Friends, lovers, employers, and family, they all provide us with the necessary information to adapt to our surroundings.

In the past, despite my apparent personal flaws, I could tell you all about God's will for myself and the world!...Blah blah blah and peace and love and God's plan etc. I was a spiritual giant and simultaneously the worst listener a friend could have. Eventually the wheels would fall off the water wagon and so would I. A delusional person is only one banana peel away from disaster. I know from experience that things don't always go according to plan. Pretending to be so wise as to be above mistakes is an isolating way to live. As time passes people tire of arrogance. They go away in disgust or pity. What choice do they have? This kind of selfishness leaves no room for human connection. The superior minded person rejects all wisdom from outside sources because their delusions are the foundation of their reality.

The Impossible Trials of Living

Of all the missing colors,
Washed away by sleepless nights,
I missed the blue sky most of all.

The morning birds,
They could hear me shuffling,
Behind the tin foil window shades.

My skeletal hands,
Moving in the half light,
They shook as I talked inside my head.

A few small bills and chewed up bags,
Beside an empty pack,
Were laid upon the table.

In this falling stillness,
I would often hear my mother's voice,
"Jason?"

As if she was searching,
In the dark,
Through rooms of strangers.

She was losing me,
I was losing me,
To an impossible disease.

The fantasy of death,
It always followed,
As my high began to fade.

The violence of addiction,
No moral code can bend,
Taking what it wants from many.

But in my last minutes on earth,
Just before giving up,
There came an inner silence.

My cheek upon the cold pine floor,
Struggling for breath,
I closed my eyes as if to vanish.

Somehow I am still here,
Begging for another day,
In the mystery of what remains.

I found there were many,
Survivors of that desperate prayer,
Watching for the drifters.

Threadbare,
Hand over hand,
They pulled me into the fold.

Together,
We give and take,
In turns like friends do.

Holding each other up,
Past midnight in the coffee shops,
Because some nights we just can't be alone.

Many years have passed,
Still sober,
I am grateful.

My daughter now fifteen,
Knows only the stories,
Of the dying boy I used to be.

And I don't miss the sky anymore,
Because I am not afraid,
Living day to day this beautiful life beneath the sun.

Finally Standing

Unto the silence of man,
Born mad from hunger:
The upside of nothing,
Wherein all dreams can die.

So fast humiliation comes,
With have-not shoes upon your feet:
When poverty is on your face,
Glass ceilings teach us to hate ourselves.

But I have gleaned from faith,
A power thought lost:
Some deeper strength to fight again,
And use what lessons my tangled past has taught me.

In life there is no salvation,
Only what acceptance brings:
For all that people wish would be,
Miracles never seem to last.

Many pray because they're told,
A God will come to take them home:
And all their days,
They slip away like rain upon the glass.

The real magic simply hides,
Within increments of living:
Like the music of a first embrace,
That sends us dancing home to a private tune.

If only we could look again,
To find the simple truth:
We are all together here and now,
Searching not for God but each other.