Who are you

Who are you,
When your last bottle is emptied
When your last fan goes home
When the stage lights dim
And no one calls the phone

Why do you,
When the rain won't fall
When you've got no hope
When your dreams are exposed
as hollow jokes

Where are you
When its the same old gutter
And the same old shame
And the same old hustlers
calling your name

I hope at last you're on empty
And I hope at last you're broke
I hope at last you're out of gas
And you know your drugs won't work

It's only at the bottom
You can really see where you are
That's why there's a floor on the world
to catch you when you fall

It's not about climbing back up
and showing the world your scars
You gotta start filling with a better gas
if you don't wanna be back in twelve hours

You've been running on fumes
about Your Hopes and Demands like a will
Stop trying to barter your precious life
and enjoy it as the gift it is still

You don't have to prove that you're Good
You're not, and you're precious to me
I've got no list for the cheap and the gold
You're all the same quality

Quit medicating your pain
with a thousand snake oil lies
Just give it to me and see where you are
when I lift the fog from your eyes

I know you're in a dry and weary place
no matter how you dress it up
This desert was always here
and I can tell you it stretches as far as you fear
but through me you'll find the way out.

So trust me if you dare
and believe against your eyes
You'll see who you are and where
When you give to me your why

Some jumbled prose

While I was cleaning up an apartment that I (incorrectly) believed I had been invited to tidy, I came across some roughly folded papers that had formed a sort of sedimentary layer at the bottom of a bag. After I managed to excavate the area and unfold the badly damaged bits of papers (mostly receipts, bills, and warning letters from an institution) I discovered that somebody had written bits of poems on them in a fading blue ink. Unfortunately, the owners of the apartment returned before I could properly transcribe them, and I was evicted - in all fairness quite politely- from the premises.


I was young and foolish when the road first called to me
I thought if I ran fast enough I could glimpse eternity,
just beyond the horizon as far as the eye can see
The setting sun and the rising road beckoned dreamily.

The wind has wandered far tonight,
and it must rest 'neath twinkling stars

the wind is weary, worn and spent
and settles sweet its beating heart.

The moon is old and wise and wary
of the vows it hears youths swear
for Love is ancient, strong and doughty,
and cannot be summoned by empty air.

The wind breathes hard as it runs its race:
a sprint above the world around
but keeps up straight its determined face
towards the end - if it can be found.

I am young and foolish still and the road still calls to me
though where I go I do not know for it bends most dreadfully
My favorite tales are grim to read where the end is hard to see
I only hope this winding road will one day set me free.

The Man in the Whirlwind

The Man in the Whirlwind

Out where it's flat I see a man walking
No trees grow on the plains
The grasses bow for a storm is brewing
The winds ride wild with the rain

The sky grows black though the sun's still shining
the clouds speak death for the man
His path is long and the day is winding
The winds run free in this land

Lightning cracks but the rain won't pour
Fires have swept o'er these lands
The man won't flinch though the heavens roar:
He's holding a bird in his hand.

A black-eyed sparrow in the palm of his hand
He'll see her safe and sound
With the wind and the fire he understands
There's death for a bird on the ground

The dust and the sand are stinging his face
He cups his hand to his chest
He leans as he walks and quickens his pace
In his house the man may find rest

The fires come racing over the plains
they dance to devour the land
But the whirlwind leaps and blows them away
the man is the wind's oldest friend

The fires burn past save for a small patch of grass
There's a man in the heart of the storm
creatures too small to have survived that at all-
They're alive around the man in the storm
 


No tree grows where that man goes, for the wind and the fire are strong,
But still he walks with his timid flock, though his road be dark and long.
 



 
 
 

Where I belong

Where I belong

Late one night, while gazing at stars

that blazed like eyes of ancient fire

And trembling ever so slight

from wintry cold and lost desire,

I turned my face up towards that swathe of light,

and asked my King if I would find

A place where I might rest at last.

For not in the citied coast do I find comfort, 

not in its smells, or idols that steal the mind away

from any world beyond its cramped and shrinking borders, no. 

There men dream of better days, like swine in a pen they cramp and lie,

fancying far off exploits of their wild kin until the grimy metal truck arrives,

and they die. 

"I am an animal with no wood," I cry, "save a pleasant city park! 

I rushed from edge to edge and saw

the neighborhood rise up like walls, and it is growing dark."

'Be still,' I heard my Captain whisper,

'And know that you belong with me.

'In this moment cease your shaking and feel at last some certainty.'

'A wanderer I made you, a beast that shies from common roads,

'Blessed or cursed to see no farther than the bend beyond your nose.'

'Listen for my heartbeat child, and find comfort in that endless song,

On any sojourn you are no stranger, 

For by my side is where you belong.

Horizon

I found this poem dotted onto a sun-bleached hankerchief that was kept on the dashboard of a massive rusty tractor-trailer with an inordinate amount of spikes. The name of the poem is

Horizon

I've been trapped in a prison of faces,
all of them look just like mine:
hollow eyes for empty places-
masks for shame and wistful smiles.

Round and round I make my paces,
the door unbarred to gall my pride,
no chains could chafe or be more hated
as those that hold me back inside.

A ruined street, a single rebel,
the stage stands still for my ticking heart,
my wardens approach and cast long shadows,
my will and hopes to quickly thwart.

But Lo! I'm headed for a new horizon,
opening below the virgin sky,
gold-white salt flats and a dawn vermillion,
rise up to meet me as I travel by!

Dawns turn to days that turn to midnight,
and I fear my resolve may flicker,
Lord that I might travel towards your light,
and travel stronger, quicker!

There was a bowl of bracken water
in my prison, foul to taste.
And though it seems this desert empty-
I know I pass from strength to strength.

In my dungeon the air was breathless,
and black the ceiling hung low to crush me,
Here I gaze into infinity,
pursue the endless with felicity,
feel the winds caress and kiss me,
and chart my progress by the stars.

Lo, I see a new horizon!
A desert golden-white and bare,
some say I will die of thirst
in pursuit of empty air.

Others that I should have never left,
my prison was in fact a haven;
better to be poisoned, broken, craven,
than wander to an early death.

But I believe in new horizons
just beyond the reach of human eyes
and I will gladly traverse this desert
until it lead me to paradise.

False Dichotomy

"I know it's hard to accept the Facts, but the Truth is that there is no god."

The crumpled logo on his T-shirt moves as he waves his arms about. It tells a very funny joke if you happen to watch the tv shows he watches and believe the things he believes and studied Science as much as he has.

He has a beautiful face; pale but intense, with articulate, sensitive eyes. It's too bad that he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He doesn't believe in Beauty. Secretly, he wishes he were a knight in 12th century Europe with a sword in his hand and his eyes hardened behind the slit of his great helm as he faces off alone against a pillaging army of rapacious mercenaries. But he's born in the 21st century, and he's been taught to know better. The internet and some movie writers in Hollywood have explained to him that there were no righteous knights.


"You may not like it, but what the Bible is teaching is clearly my point of view, where God just made sinners to burn in Hell because they didn't cognitively assess their eternal options and pick the most beneficial and profitable choice like I did."

He tries to look serious, maybe a little grim but also passionate. It's hard to look grim or passionate in a pair of (ironed) khaki slacks, with a little white collar poking out of the top of your (monochrome, earth toned and expensive) woolen sweater.

 He's leaning forward, which does help you look engaged, if you are leaning forward to thump your fist on a battle map and affix your generals with a zealous eye. We're all awkwardly leaning forward to see each other's faces because we've placed our folding chairs in a loose circle, with large gaps in between us to fit our purses, coffee cups, and sense of security because we don't actually know each other that well.


How boring it must be to fit the entire universe into a cramped white-walled office-space lit by a florescent light. To be able to collar God with a necktie and use it as a leash, ask Him to show some respect and keep quiet while you review your church's financial quarter.

How tiring too, to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, only to discover that Rebellion means living a virgin in a basement somewhere watching videos of fake women pretend to love men with more muscles than you, unless by some lucky chance you manage to enter a 3-month marriage to some girl with daddy issues who's willing to exchange (safe) sex for emotional support. (The exchange rate is typically about 8-12 hours of listening for 1 3-second rush of Dopamine. Endorphines and depression reduction varies on how much self-worth you put on your genitals.)


Aren't we tired of this yet? Aren't we all sick, ready to vomit all over our leather-bound study bibles we open once a week?

We're all marching in step to the booming loudspeakers that tell us which side we're on and which side to hate, two identical armies bleeding red human blood for control of a world as colorless and claustrophobic as a tomb.

But stop listening to the loudspeaker for a minute. For one second, stop taking this war seriously. Because its purpose was never to motivate you, but to block out the music we've been hearing since we were born.

Do you hear it now? The winds of heaven, blowing down off the slopes of the mountains of God? Those roaring, buffeting winds that strike a frequency in our hearts, causing them to sing?

Can you hear it now? the pattering and thundering of God's rain on the roofs we've constructed to keep it out, the slashing monsoons to this thirsty world?

Can you taste it yet? The brine from that crashing, endless sea? The grey, aching horizon that calls you to leave all behind?


I'll be damned if God isn't actually bigger than the fortresses we've created to wall ourselves off from the world. Maybe the reason it's gotten so dull in sunday school is because we couldn't fit God in our newly purchased youth building.

And if the Facts point to a meaningless universe where we drift aimlessly to our deaths, then try and stop me from wandering to every corner of it, play-acting at being a hero for my invisible God.

Because if there's one thing I do know, is that this world we've constructed is one huge cattle-schute, to funnel us, heirs to the Infinite Kingdom, away from our destiny. And I choose to believe that our destinies will find us the day we stop being controlled by our fears and false desires.

I'm just one little boy-man with gossip issues who inspects his biceps in the mirror and finds them wanting. But from this day forward I don't want to keep accepting the role of a gagged wooden puppet, pretending to be perfect and have all the answers.

Since all men die, I'd rather die gripping my King's banner in the free air than lie embalmed in a flowery casket. If I'm going to live for God's love, than it's real love, all the way. The love that gives this world color and and breaks down our strongholds and chains and sets us free from the suffocating identities the devil tells us is our destiny.

Destiny

I found this poem at a busy intersection, where the signal lights were confused, the drivers seemed to be (mostly) unaware of the intersection at all, and as I consequence I nearly was run over half a dozen times. The poem, which was written on the back of a crumpled boarding pass, was lightly dusted with sand. I have a deep suspicion that the author is either dead, or will not complain if I publish it here.


Destiny

Whether in joyous love or thirsty hate,
to be consumed, we yearn.
Not for the cold ground and touching cold gold, are the God-children born.
No, if there is one thing I trust for certain,
one thing I have learned;
in the heights of heaven or the depths of hell,
men were made to burn.