I’ve Fallen Asleep in My Dreams

 

    I am a paradox version of myself – mournful and brokenhearted, anticipating and owning the heaven of perfect love. Slumbering and overcome by sleep and dreaming of something real. There is a danger, a great danger here – a subtle infiltration and, and, and a complete distortion of the facts. But nowhere regenerated. Nowhere. So I move. And move away.

    Move away to nowhere. Somewhere I can be heard. But beware. Beware. I do not trust the willfully blind to lead me, to keep me to secure. I am falling back – no more forces. I am falling back - no more focus. The future is uncertain, but some men and angels predestined. Like the pythonic spirit of prophecy, a slave able to predict the future and to make great prophet for my masters. The rest shall keep as they are. Helpless to believe. Helpless but to be. Like the rest of us. I open my mouth, but there’s nothing there. I’ve fallen asleep.

    The whole thing makes me ill. It hurts. I know it hurts. Severely beaten and imprisoned, yet singing psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs. It hurts to have a spirit, a soul in this world of physical pain. A disillusioned failure in the middle of a psalm. To have feelings in a world of frailty.

    I may not know what it is that you are facing, but I've had plenty of low days of my own. One thing (maybe the only thing) I know is that tomorrow will be another day. For good or for ill, tomorrow is another chance. 

    The future uncertain within the storm, singing in the dark deeper than fear. Defenses fall, fail future attack. But believe even more. Strength in mystery and the mystery of the faith. I am a future version of myself or soon will be. If not now, then.

Selah (Psalms Unnumbered)

 This is a quick, lofi recording of a song I wrote on my way home from church this morning. 

Selah (Psalms Unnumbered)

Now the chaos and the clutter
too much noise, too little me
overwhelmed and underfunded
haunted by anxiety

Selah. Selah.

Sleeping in a bed of fire
laying on the spinning floor
I am weary with my groaning
my spine is cracked, my feet are sore

Selah. Selah

Speaking words without meaning
live a life of uncertainty
I will pray with psalms unnumbered
let the Lord deliver me

"Selah" is a liturgical direction used in the Hebrew psalms of uncertain meaning - perhaps "pause" or "reflection" 

Life and Death or Something Close

 

Swift motion and cold night air. I am awake and dark
sleep forward now and live hard. Speak soft and sober.
It’s almost a dream, a recovered memory. I was here and gone.
Lost again and the devil is at his prayers. The black dog slipped away.

A rush of tumbling people, slipping down the way
into the mist, into the fog, into the dark.
Chart the place, but lose the line. I’ve burnt my eyes
But now to health. And now to Luck. Confess for blood.

Talk as you please – there is no safety anywhere these days
There’s no use for questions. Don’t bother to ask.
We’ve said too much or not enough already.
Either way, we want no explanation of words.

Life and death or something close, and I’m tired of both.
Make the matter dark with silent weaponry. By the Powers!

By the orders, executive orders. Fake news and the irrational arguments of the masses.
We are sick hearts drying in the sun.

It is becoming harder to live, harder to laugh, harder to love.

No Wings

More pain now, more joy later
tied down to earth
worn out in search
beat my forehead and clasp my knees
with no wings to fly

The Terrible Silence of God Is Coming

     This is a true story. Nothing has been invented. Nothing has been changed. Not even the names have
been changed to protect the innocent. The author leaves it to you to determine the reasonableness of the views expressed. If we have established the statutory requirements, we will be well pleased.

    I was on a stakeout with my partner, G., in a car – a standard midtown sedan, gray. Standard police issue – but she was never in my car. Nevermind the lurid hush-hush tales you hear on on the nets. Bring me documentary evidence. Bring me oral histories or verbal reports. She’d just flown back into town a few days ago. Always needed a fix – but she wouldn’t talk about it. And anyway, I never met her outside of the office, outside of business hours.

    These are the questions that needed answers: Who was here when she was here? Who was paying for it all? Her attorneys were asking the same questions – but with their budget, I’d bet that they were getting better answers than we were. Who’s being unfair here? It’s a hell-storm, shit-show of our own creation, duly authorized and fully approved by officials of the highest caliber. Receipts showed three hundred and fifty thousand in this year alone.

    So we waited and we watched. We would find an answer. G. cleaned and oiled his gun while I sipped old coffee from a paper cup and worried the crossword puzzle in the paper. Code No. 0075 from Room 40 stumped me. I couldn’t work a miracle. Filings and collations on all the intercepts – rows and columns of numbers and letters. 9000 range in the last group, last row. This kind of thing was usually reserved for double encoded names. I thought I might be on to something here.

    On the street, in the cold, war and diplomacy, drug deals and stock exchanges. Take me through from A to B to C. The police will come and consequences follow – at least that’s how it’s supposed to operate. Marijuana. Heroin. Codeine. Hide the circumstances. These back room, street corner deals are usually conducted in secret. But, no sir. Not here. Not in America. Twelve thousand of General Pershing’s troops in Mexico would beg to disagree.

    The call came over the radio: “Calling all groups: Pry meaning from action and locate the missing explosive materials. Photos to follow.”

    “So we wait.” G. said and I agreed. “We wait and watch. Nothing’s changed. Not deadly peril. Not possible miracle.”

    We had the telegram. We had the purloined snapshot showing the suspect on vacation with two buxom beauties (neither his wife). We had pages and pages of decoded documents from the state department. But over all of this we still had questions: Why?

    The call came again: “You have one minute to make up your mind. Move now or suffer.” The bosses had enough – they thought – to demand immediate action, but we were not convinced. The liar lies. It’s what he is. It’s what he does.

    “Should we go?” G. asked me, his voice already fading into the cold.

    “The Terrible Silence of God is coming,” I answered. “And we will, come what may, do what we must.”