The Fires of Winter (a new Christmas Carol)

 I wrote this short little carol today as I delivered mail. I heard the melody in the wind-chimes hanging at one of the first houses on my route and the song developed throughout the course of the day. 

The fires of winter keep the cold away.
Long is the night, short is the day. 
We will bless the Lord because he came to save 
and because the fires of winter keep the cold away. 

The fires of winter keep the wolves at bay.
All through the night we can hear them say, 
"You should bless the Lord because he came to save
and because the fires of winter keep the wolves at bay."

The star of Christmas came to guide the way.
Shining at night for magi on the way. 
We will bless the Lord because he came to save 
and because the star of Christmas came to guide the way. 

How to Celebrate this Christmas

 It certainly feels like Mary’s Magnificat is becoming more and more relevant. 

Singing in the Small and in the Dark

I started writing this song about two weeks ago - but I was sick and couldn't record it. So I wrote more verses. And the cold lingered, so I waited to record it and wrote more verses. I figured I should finally record it, even though I've still got the congestion that won't go away, so that I can stop adding more verses. 

In the silence between your heartbeats
in the space between the time
you might hear a voice
that sounds a bit like mine

Singing in the small and in the dark
a song that's unrehearsed
and what comes back to you 
is the measure of every verse.

Plugged in low and fading fast
the squeeze has caught my heart.
I would like to tell you 
but I don't know where to start. 

Say what you will when time stands still
and shadows cross the floor;
I never knew you then,
you'll never know me more. 

You can hear me or ignore me, 
it doesn't matter either way. 
What was faint and forced
is stronger every day. 

Your greatness has no virtue;
you tell me only lies.
You fill the house with bitterness
and complain when your love dies.

Get in the car and drive away, 
drive on down the road.
Look in the rearview mirror
and watch the world explode. 

Say a prayer to God above 
if you think you've got the right.
Purge the demons from your past
and try to set things right. 

There are things I can't ignore - 
the wormwood and the gall.
I'm trying to remember 
so I can forgive them all. 

Curse the darkness and light a flame; 
it's not an either or.
Every opportunity 
lies just beyond that door. 

The world is spinning round and round
and here we are again. 
Sometimes the light goes out. 
Sometimes the bad guys win. 

There are days and days of nothing 
except for headaches and fever chills.
I've never felt so dirty
or taken so many pills. 

But we will not be overwhelmed 
by the enormity of grief, 
doing justice, loving mercy
and waiting for our relief. 

In the twisting grip of conscience
we know the right from wrong. 
Others choose to suppress it   
but we will sing its song. 

Singing in the small and in the dark
a song I think you've heard
and what comes back around 
is the measure of the word. 

Lord, In Your Mercy

 This is a song I wrote to share with my church this morning. I started it in my pew last Sunday even as our pastor was giving his sermon. The rest of the words came as I was out delivering mail during the week. 

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. 
We invite you to enter.
Quiet the noise at the crowded center; 
slow the pain, let our fear disappear. 

Switchblade dreams and waking nightmares, 
panic attack on the stairs.
The weight of everything we carry 
is more than we can bear.

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. 
We invite you to enter.
Quiet the noise at the crowded center; 
slow the pain, let our fear disappear. 

Riots in the streets, the world's aflame, 
everyone's looking for someone to blame.
We are weak and we are helpless
against the violence done in your good name. 

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. 
We invite you to enter.
Quiet the noise at the crowded center; 
slow the pain, let our fear disappear. 

Hard pressed on every side;
we feel as if we'd died. 
Persecuted, not abandoned; 
you've heard us when we've cried. 

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. 
We invite you to enter.
Quiet the noise at the crowded center; 
slow the pain, let our fear disappear. 

I Don’t Believe America Was Ever Good

 

There’s fog in the morning and I can’t find my way
I hear obscured voices leading me astray
I know there’s danger, I can feel it
I hope there’s beauty but I can’t see it
There’s a mournful church bell toll
as our leaders pledge to troll
                the opposition
I don’t believe America was ever good.

Line her up with all the slaughtering empires of the past
She stands as tall as any
whether governed by an evil one
or voted by a calloused many
                it is the same
And I don’t believe America was ever good.

Walking circles back where we began
There to start the damnable trek again
As day gives way to early night
Our mayhem knives and chaos guns
Can never make us right
Like Babylon, like Herod
We’ll make America great again
                but greatness is not good
I don’t believe America was ever good.

 

Mark 10:18

The Old Hotel with Dead Things Beneath the Floor

A severe malfunction here. Check the video.

      Ineffective. 

There is no way I could stay here tonight. With the wind and the noise and the darkness coming through the cracks in the walls. Walking around the old hotel with dead things beneath the floor. 

What was it? Some concealed hell inside that house. Running back to bondage, anxious for chains and for restraints, anxious for diabolic manifestations. 

When did things begin to change? What was happening? How did it begin? These are troubled, unsettling questions with no answer except silence in the dark. No one will speak. People disappeared. We still don’t know. 

I went downstairs and saw the blood on the floor. I saw the basement door blown open. Hell, I don’t know what I saw. I don’t know why these things must be done, why these rules must be observed. We have rules don’t we?

     Don’t be absurd. 

A severe malfunction here. Someone, something stirring up trouble in the safest of places. 

People shouting. People screaming.

New Funeral Hymns

 As I've mentioned in recent posts, I play D&D with a group of friends. I have a bard character that have created - he's an adventurer in the vein of Phil Ochs or Woody Guthrie, rather than the stereotypical 'horny bard.'  Rather than trying to seduce anything that moves, he sings about the strength of worker guilds and protests songs. 

I've been writing short little songs for him to sing in game. 

Think of this one as a revolutionary song that is only just barely disguised by a sort of apocalyptic veneer. No one is exactly sure what he's singing about, but it's not quite enough to keep him from being charged with treason against the king. 

Before the blue variations, a curse over five, over three
and when the king is overthrown, sing for the rising of the sea.
Sing new funeral hymns, sing poisoned songs,
for all the agents of his throne.
The scenery of earth is lifted up
before the glory and the beauty come down.
We'll storm this awkward castle, climb the walls and raise a battle call.
When strong hands are lifted up, we'll see that old tyrant fall. 

The Riddle

 I have a few little songs that I've been writing for my D&D bard character to sing. This is another silly one. My bard will have a full songbook soon. 

Hey nonny nonny
Oh nonny oh
Hey nonny nonny oh

Hey diddle diddle 
This is the riddle 
Of the boy who flew to the moon
The rockets were scrapped 
And the beer kegs were tapped
to provide enough lift for the balloon. 

Other songs in my bard's songbook include: 
The Irony of Kings
Say Good Morning While It Is Still Morning 
The Dragon Roland Reagan and Other Monsters 

The Irony of Kings

 Here is another lofi dining room recording of a short song I wrote for my D&D bard to sing. We have a session coming up soon and I'm building up quite a little repertoire of songs for him to sing.

Now we shall sing
Now we shall sing
Now we shall sing
of the irony of kings
and all manner
of vain and worthless things. 

 

Say Good Morning While It Is Still Morning

 This little song began as another short ditty for my D&D bard character to sing, but as I carried the mail out and about this week, I greatly expanded it into something like a full song. 

Say good morning while it is still morning

Say it and be true
Then good morrow, now say good morrow
I'll share this blessing with you

I remember I used to go skipping
When I was a little boy
Now I'm grown up and grown older
I think I've forgotten that joy

There once was a kitten named Callie
Who came but she could not stay
She sat with me for a little while
Then she went far away

My daughter's gone over the ocean
My daughter's gone over the sea
She's been away such a long time
I think she's forgotten 'bout me

Sometimes we sing in the morning
Sometimes we sing at night
Sometimes we sing when we're lonely
And only the song feels right

If I were the King of Forever
Lord of time and space
I would give up that position and power
Just to see your sweet face

There's a verse in this song for my daughter
There's a verse here for a dead cat
I wrote a verse for my son as well
But I don't know where he's at

Say good morning while it is still morning
Say it and be true
Then good morrow, say good morrow
I'll share this blessing with you

The Dragon Roland Raygun and Other Monsters

 If you've paid any attention to this blog over the years, you may have already  guessed that I'm a bit of a dork. It's true. I know it. My girlfriend seems to appreciate it. 

I have a D&D character which is a bard. He's not really the stereotypical D&D bard, seducing the all women  - though he does have some bawdy songs in his repertoire.  He's more a sort of adventuring Woody Guthrie, a folk singer and folk hero. And, in advance of an upcoming gaming session, I have composed a couple of songs for my character to sing. 

There was a mighty dragon
whose name was Roland Raygun
but down he fell
straight into hell
for consorting with the pagans. 

Now I do not wish him tortured
though he torched my father's orchard. 
But how the hell
is his name so well 
remembered and blessed by fortune? 

The ogre with an iron hatchet
her name was Margot Thatchet.
She was a beast
to say the least 
and stirred up quite a racket. 

The kobold king for oil 
did loot, and raid, and spoil. 
He was blessed by priests
for war in the east
and greatly increased our toil. 

His son followed up years later
assuming the role of invader.
Oh what a bore,
again to war.
He made our trouble much greater. 

A Place Where the Rain Doesn't Fall

    This is a song about a couple of men that I knew a long time ago in another life. Bob I met in Rochester, Minnesota. And Rick I met in Danville, Illinois. I think about them sometimes, but I have no idea where either of them might be these days. 

Bob knows what he knows and it's hard to say more

He's lived in Saint Cloud and slept in Saint Paul
He was locked up in Mankato and run out of Duluth
He's homeless and ragged, but he knows what he knows

The public defender assigned to Rick's case
Can't do much for him when he's drunk at the trial
She pleads with the judge but he's thrown to the jail
He'll be sober as a stone as long as he's locked away

It's raining just now and I'm dry and I'm warm
With a hot cup of coffee and a roof over my head
But what about Rick I ask, and what about my friend Bob
He waits for the rain to stop until the library's closed

And then he'll look for a place where the rain doesn't fall

Just Give It Time (A Song for September)

 September has been, in recent years, a difficult month for me. And September this year is keeping to the pattern. It’s been full of stress and pain. So I wrote a song about it. 

 

Dream Police and Psychic Sympathy

                Agents of the Dream Police are trained and equipped to use the Rodes-Buchanan Twinning Device to infiltrate the dreams and reveries of the subjects of their investigations. The Rodes-Buchanan Twinning Device is an electrical device capable of transmitting human thought and physiological responses via psychic transmission. As an added benefit it can also determine the specific weight and density of each of those individual intercepted thoughts. The Dream Police are forced to use this bit of paranormal technology instead of invading dreams by their own power because they are psychics without spirit. They see nothing and they understand less.

But the twinning device creates a psychic sympathy between the minds and bodies of connected subjects so that, despite their lack of spirit and vision and understanding, they are able to see something after all. After connecting the leads and wires to the heart and head of the subject, (and after using his personal, individual dactylogram to authorize and activate the psychic transfer) Doctor Benjamin Test – chief of the Levant Area Dream Police - injects Field Agent Basil Ikon with alternating doses of Semi-synthetic Eukoldol-7 (a radically redesigned version of the opioid popular among Nazi soldiers during World War II-really evil shit, trust me) and Pervition (a pill form of methamphetamines, also popular with the Nazis). Sometimes he supplemented these with chewing gum laced with cocaine – the kind used by one-man UN submarine pilots. They chew it as they penetrate and patrol the rivers of the Roman Empire.

They also ingest the yage, the South American entheogen which contains the chemical Telepathine, which fluoresces green under ultraviolet light. It may be toxic in large doses, but when calibrated correctly it facilitates psychic connection between users even over long distances.

All the reports and memos filed by Dream Police agents are printed on paper that resists reproduction – so it is difficult to say with certainty what they knew and when they knew it, but it does not appear that they knew anything about the visionary dreams received by Paul.  Usually they’re much better about tracking this sort of thing, but every now and again they miss something.

For example, it isn’t widely known outside of the Dream Police offices, but the American author, and riverboat grumbler, Samuel Clemens (better known as Mark Twain) had a premonitory dream of the death of his brother, Henry. Clemens dreamt of his brother lying inside a metal coffin with a bouquet of white flowers. He was wearing one of Samuel’s suits. About a month later the steamboat aboard which Henry was working exploded killing nearly 250 people, including Henry. It was this psychic dream that convinced Samuel Clemens to join the Society of Psychical Research.[i]

I dreamt that when I saw her again after all this time in that skeeball arcade she was engaged in a project of surgical self-discovery – gross lip enlargement, and overstretched blepharoplasty. And that she was dating a balding and goateed man wearing a bandana tied around his forehead – who bragged to me about banging such a classy broad. He smacked me on the shoulder and laughed, “but you know what I’m talking about, don’t you brother?” She turned on me with her grotesquely swollen lips and said, “You can’t tell me what to do anymore.” But I never had.

Was this dream psychic in anyway? Was it prophetic or premonitory? Good Lord, I hope not – for her sake as much as for mine. Even after what she put me through, she deserves better than that.

And then it comes. Somewhere Doctor Test injects Agent Basil Ikon with the promised Eukodol-7, an enlarged dose, the syringe like a cannon overcharged with double cracks. But first comes the Succinylcholine - a skeletal muscle relaxant administered intravenously. It is commonly used before surgery, mechanical ventilation, and electroshock therapy. It induces a near total paralysis of the body – including the respiratory system. Dream Police agents using the Buchanan-Rodes Twinning Device often have to be reminded to breathe as they dream.  Agent Basil enters the dark defile, the total darkness of shadow lands. The world is the tomb of a homicide victim. Immutable. His blood is chilled. Death is the shepherd of the grave, feeding on the flock. “Mangez, ô mort, et buvez, et buvez encore,” he says and then he sleeps, and sleeping he steals your dreams.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had any predictive dreams like Clemens dreaming of the death of his brother or like Paul dreaming of the Macedonian man, though I have had my fair share of bizarre dreams that seem like they were heavily layered with symbolic content that could maybe have been prophetic. But prophetic of what I do not know. They could have meant anything and if they could mean anything then they mean nothing. Maybe. Niente di niente. Maybe.

I still remember the three interpretive questions that Mister Spanogle taught us in my high school English class: 1) What does it say? On the positive, physical level, what does the text say? What is it in the material world? 2) What does it mean? Grounded in the physical world but transcending that to something beyond the specific object – what is the dialectical idea? There may be competing ideas here, unresolved ideas, but that is acceptable. When you’ve moved beyond the mere words you can ask what means, but you must ask the first question first. Only then may you proceed. And after you’ve explored what it means you may ask the final question3) What does it mean to me? As an ultimate term of higher truth, as an article of faith, what does it mean? What does this higher truth mean to me? How will it organize my experience and behavior? What practices will this encourage? What orthopraxis? He wanted us to apply these questions to understanding the William Carlos Williams poem The Red Wheelbarrow, but I have continued to use them through all my life. I don’t know if Mister Spanogle studied Saussure, though I assume that he probably did. And I don’t know if structural linguistics has anything to contribute to the field of oneirology, but I suspect that it might.

I dreamt recently that I was asked to write a novelization of a series of youth retreat meetings, to interview the teens and young adults who’d attended the religious retreat and to craft a novel of their experiences. In the dream I was excited about the project even though I knew with a certainty that it would lead to renewed conflict with the leadership committee. I dreamt once of my now ex-wife asking me repeatedly, “Where were you?” But I cannot remember the context of the question – and context is king, even in dreams. I dreamt also of rain, I dream frequently of rain – probably because it hasn’t rained here for many weeks and I miss the rain. I dream of petrichor.

Do you smell that,” Doctor Test asks the oblivious patient strapped to his Rodes-Buchanan twining device in the darkness of the hidden inner chamber. “It is death,” he says as he patiently applies perfumed oils and curative cosmetics for the skin to the oozing pustules on Agent Ikon’s arm. The injection sites of Dream Police operatives are regularly infected and require frequent applications of soothing lotions.

I dreamt of a unicorn trapped in a palm tree. I dreamt of a Catholic priest stabbed to death in the confessional and thrown from a third story window. I dreamt that I was bursting into melancholic unfriended flames. And even if you can’t spell “melancholy” without “holy,” it was a terrible dream. I dreamt of an assassin firing at children on a playground and of my ex-wife screaming at me for tackling the shooter and calling for the police – not because she was afraid I’d be injured myself in the melee, but because she believed I was taking my anger at her out on him. Dreams make no sense.

Summon the elder ones. Smear the oil; recite the prayers. Doctor Test is not ready to turn his test subjects over to the pawing shovels of the resurrection men, even when they’ve become vicarious junkies like Agent Ikon. Outside, the wind picks up, swirling the dust and trash in the streets. Will agents of the Dream Police begin to focus their psychic twinning device on me and my dreams? I do not know and I am fearful. What does this mean? Timor mortis conturbat me.

---

[i] Founded in 1882 to advance the cause of understanding of those events and abilities commonly described as ‘psychic’ or ‘supernatural’, the Society for Psychical Research–the SPR, had its roots and antecedents in the ancient Roman Society of the Paranormal qua Recondite-the SP(q)R, and is the research branch of the Dream Police operations.

 

Stubborn Life

 Here’s another of those lo-fi recordings of a song I wrote today. 

And If I Am Not Well, At Least I Am Alive

I wrote most of this song a little more than two years ago, when I was still struggling with the breakup of two marriages. I wrote most of it when I was feeling raw and angry. The melody I had for it then was more aggressive. But I never felt like the song was right. I never felt it was complete enough to call it done so it was shoved into the back of my notebook with all the other half finished and rejected bits of doggerel I've written. 

Recently I started writing something new - completely unrelated to this -  but again, couldn't really find a way to finish it that I liked.  That's when I realized that I could merge the two pieces, but only if I changed the melody and removed several lines from each to make them balance in tone and subject. 

There is a bit of serendipity to this. 

A friend of mine and I have been comparing notes on our respective writings, sharing drafts of our novels and in the course of that, sharing our own stories with each other, sharing our hurts, and failures, our dark days and our darker nights. It's eerie and more than a little disconcerting to see how easily much of this song could have been his song and not mine. 

The bottle of Guinness that you can just see in the corner of the video is for him.

And If I Am Not Well At Least I Am Alive

I've been here before, but it was different then
the river has been changed and I've been drowned in it. 
I've resurfaced now, come up to breathe again
and if I am not well, at least I am alive. 

Maybe I believed that old fairytale 
of true love, happiness but that was before.
Disappointment has broken me. Failure follows me
but if I am not well, at least I am alive. 

At least I am alive. 
At least I am alive. 

Like monks in the desert, those holy men
I've died a hundred ways, yesterday everyday. 
Fallen to the ground, but I'll get up again
and if I am not well, at least I am alive. 

What is she to me? New possibilities,
new knowledge of myself, now nothing can be the same. 
Feeling and eating well, sleeping most every night
and if I am not well, at least I am alive. 

At least I am alive.
At least I am alive.  

Lavender and Green

 Here’s another song i’ve written just tonight. It’s a song about love and loss and faith and doubt and the whole complicated mess.

Lay me down in lavender and green

 Let me sleep with untroubled dreams 

 Scratch the scab to find the blood 

 Watch the man go up in flames 

 Life is short and we all must die 

 Why did you not say goodbye? 

The gin I had to drink last night 

 Could not take away your face

 They came for me with unblinking eyes 

 But I had no alibi 

 And so I went away with them 

 Never to return again 

 Lay me down in lavender and green 

 Let me sleep with untroubled dreams 

 Scratch the scab to find the blood 

 Watch the man go up in flames 

 It is no secret that my faith has doubt

 Still I believe though the light’s gone out 

 I will wrestle through the night 

Break my leg and send me on 

 Grant me mercy by your word 

Let me rest in peace, dear Lord 

To the bitter end, that is my oath 

But I’m just so fucking tired 

 Lay me down in lavender and green 

 Let me sleep with untroubled dreams 

 Scratch the scab to find the blood 

 Watch the man go up in flames

Over All, Through All, In All

The noise of storms and harsh alarms 

 Shouts of treason and heresy 

We burn ourselves down to the ground 

 Trading friends for enemies 

 Through a storm of lies and blinded eyes 

We strain to see each other honestly

 Demanding a sign but speaking unkind 

 Without patience or humility 

 But make us 

One body, one spirit 

 Created in one hope 

 With one lord and one faith 

One baptism, one God and father

 Over all, through all in all 

 All our rancor shows in broken windows 

 Shattered glass in the streets 

While leaders of hate in a violent state 

 Their vulgar words are indiscreet 

 A people misguided in a house divided 

 Laid to waste we cannot stand 

 Unworthy of the call with no love at all 

We withhold a helping hand 

 But make us 

One body, one spirit 

 Created in one hope 

 With one lord and one faith 

One baptism, one God and father 

Over all, through all in all

Based on the lectionary reading for today - Ephesians 4:1-16

What Will You Say

It’s a song I wrote as I delivered mail this week. It’s brief, but it says all that I need it to say. 

It’s not much. Maybe nothing. 

Oh God, the Moon

 

I was awakened by the absence of thunder and lightning outside my window early this morning. We’ve had storms and rain and hail and wind and tornados all this summer. Why is this night different from all the others? 

Where are the assassins? Where are the volcanos? Where are the divorce lawyers and the derecho wind storms? Instead I have psychology and philosophy. Questions and ideas. 

I’m going to die. You’re going to die. We’re all going to die. And now I am awake and cannot sleep. 

 Breathe. Think thoughts. Ask questions. Am I full of shit? Oh god, the moon. The moon and the way love turns into hate. Passion sours, curdles and the moon turns.

Gotta’ Leave this Town

It’s another lo-fi living room recording of a song i wrote. I actually wrote this one while i was out delivering mail along my route back in February. I’ve finally gotten around to recording it. 

 

Do Not Look into the Abyss

 

Do not look into the abyss. 

What is this absurd absence ? 

The bridge between angels and man 

Stretching out over empty nothingness.

 Can you explain this reality? 

Tell me that you belong with me. 

All the secrets of the this life 

Hidden in a dark laboratory. 

Like a shadow growing on the wall 

You look large, I am so small. 

Can you hear me knocking on your door?

Why do you ignore me when I call? 

When the dead start rising from their graves 

Tell me again that Jesus saves. 

I’m tired of this life, 

You and all your vulgar displays.

Alone

 

Why did I choose tonight to turn so wide ?

Disappearing into the back of my mind

Everything is fine here except the fire 

Cold and all alone, sleepless and tired.

Dreaming symbols in the dark, lights in the sky 

This might be dangerous, I can’t close my eyes

I am not performing but watch me fall 

Still storm watching as I lose my calm 

Have I done enough or is there more?

I cannot predict what life has in store

If I fell and broke my arm, if I cracked my face 

If I could not sing this song would I be replaced?

Confucius Addresses the Modern American Political Landscape

 

I’ve been reading recently from The Sayings of Confucius (as translated by James R. Ware - 1955). Though never deified, Confucius has been revered, and still is today, as the “First Teacher” and “Sagest of the Sage.” We could learn from his teachings. 

 The following sayings seem especially relevant to our times. Those with ears to hear will understand. 

 From Chapter XIII 

 19 - Fan Hsii asked about Manhood-at-it’s-best. “At home be humble; at work be respectful; with others be loyal. Even among the barbarians you may not abandon these precepts.”

 23 - “Great Man is accommodating , but he is not one of the crowd. Petty Man is one of the crowd, but he is also a source of discord.” 

 26 - “Great Man is dignified but not proud. Petty Man is proud but not dignified.” 

 the ideal man, according to Confucius, is not defined by his social status, wealth, or power, but rather by his character and ethical behavior. His teachings also idealizes a strict patriarchy- but the truth of it is applicable to everyone regardless of gender.

Close the Door (What Happens Now?)

Less than an hour 

 Only a brief hesitation 

I can’t stay long

 In a house so full of frustration 

 Close the door. Nothing’s found 

 What happens now? 

 If I’ve delayed 

 Only a little, goodnight. 

What do you want? 

 I’m sorry most of the time. 

 Close the door. Walk away. 

 What happens now? 

 I open my eyes 

 On some bizarre dimension 

Watching the storms

 Of violent destruction 

 Close the door. Apologize. 

 What happens now?

It’s just a low-fi living room recording of a song I wrote. I flipped through my notebook and was surprised to realize that I’ve got about fifty songs that I’ve written in the past couple of years. Not quite sure what I should do with that. 

Uncomplicate the Wreckage

The solid earth is undone 

 And we’re rolling now like the sea 

Smoke is rising into the sky 

Ice and Fire falling in the streets 

 I remember my youth 

When I was so naive 

 Then I could still believe 

 That she might tell the truth 

 Presented with the evidence 

 But who can read the missing words? 

Someone’s hammering on the walls 

 I can hear them knocking down the door 

 Walking yesterday’s circles again 

 I’m not lost but I wander 

 I’m not praying for a miracle 

 I’m just asking for a way out 

 Uncomplicate the wreckage 

 But I still have my doubts 

 Good shepherd come bring me round 

 Help me find a way out

Rapid Fire and Fifty

 

There are gross , sweaty men shouting vulgarities on the corner. You know how poor impulse control leads to swearing and fleeing the scene, fever dreams and a drive toward murder. Stand up strong with upraised fists. Stand up. But I am not so strong. I don’t want to be seen here. 

A life in danger, storming, cursing. What is not being said? Keep the hour open. Keep the light on. What do you want me to say? I don’t know why I am here.  

There are gunshots on the corner, rapid fire and fifty. Fragile small things are exploding around me and I cannot sleep at night. Doors open and doors close on human heartache. An absolute photograph of heavy dark and spinning stars.

Outside

 

in an abandoned farmhouse outside of town 

a bed, a table, a chair next to the window 

outside - the summer sky scattered miles in all directions 

but through the window it is so small

outside is dry heat and heavy breathing 

no clouds, no visible sign of invisible bodies 

outside there are thin, sharp bones in the tall grass at the highway’s edge 

is it fair? is it far? 

take me home to golden afternoons 

I am so small in the fading light 

come nightfall I won’t exist at all

Hail Mary, Full of Space

Hail Mary, full of space, the Lord is with thee;

Blessed art thou among women 

For the secret place within you 

Contained the one who fills 

The heavens and the earth, 

The omnipresent one held 

Within your maidenhead.

Descending

 I am descending - down through flickering, artificial light, beyond the reach of the sun - I am descending but I want to believe. Down through an underground of windowless space. Deep and deeper. I am falling but I want to believe that this decent into tenebrous and silent rooms will not last forever. 

Here is aluminum and steel, concrete and plastic space. A place of cold neglect and cold regret. Change the number. Delete the socials. No warning. No elaboration. 

There is an oily smell here. The air feels oily in my nose. It tastes of machines down here where the inconsistant lights flicker and hum incessantly. Malevolently like some strange and terrible rage, unfocused. Unexplained. 

I see fragmentary visions of empty rooms - vast chambers inhabited by memories. I see desiccated rats at the bottom of the elevator shaft. I hear rattle of insects with no subtlety. I hear the whisper of ten thousand slaughtered children half way around the world. 

Falling further now. Faster. I am descending through the earth or hell. Waking or sleeping and ill advised. I am descending. Falling. Beneath mountains. Beneath shadows. Into oblivion.

The Apostolic Blessing (a song)

 The pastor at my church made an off hand remark after the service this morning about having started to cycle back through the dismissal songs that we regularly use to conclude our worship times. So I came home and wrote a new one to share. 

It’s drawn from the Apostle Paul’s blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14

I’m Gone (It’s Too Late)

 Another song i wrote a few months ago. I think I was consciously imitating Dylan… 

Notes for a Future Travelogue

The oceans, the heavens, and the narrow space between life and living - I’ve seen it all. Sophisticated and experienced, a man born of a woman. Assume the

world and reality shudders. 

Now something is out there. No voice, no familiar voice. A stranger beyond. Happy reflections in a mirror. A sudden illusion makes everyone a stranger. 

Rattled and knocked. Surprised again by his heart bursting forth more breathlessly than before. Rattle, adapt. Try to understand and nothing will surprise for very long. 

This is interesting and magical, but wait and see. I’d like another change.

Through the Clouds He’s Lifted Up

I wrote a short hymn to share with my church yesterday, Ascension Sunday. And now I’ll share it with you.  In the video the song starts at about the 10 minute mark. 

This the day when Christ ascends 

Space and time around him bends 

Through the clouds he’s lifted up. 

Down from Heaven he condescends  

The grave and hell now transcends 

 Hymns of praise be lifted up. 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us. 

 All our error he amends 

 Lonely people he befriends 

 Let his name be lifted up 

 The weak and poor we’ll defend 

 The grace of God we’ll extend 

 In our lives we’ll lift him up 

 And if we falter here, 

 In our weakness and our sorrow 

Still he will receive us.

The Precious Irony of AM Band Preachers

I was scanning the AM radio band for something to listen to when I heard the preacher say, “the end is coming soon, my friends. Christ is coming and it won’t be long” 

I listened as I drove home from work and was alternately amused and irritated

by the preacher’s description of the ‘depravity of the godless left with their cultural Marxism and their evolution and their religion of tolerance.’ He continued to describe the ways in which this all pointed to the immanent return of the Lord and the rapture of the faithful. 

And because one must exit through the gift shop, even in a radio broadcast, the preacher invited his listeners to go to his website and purchase the illustrated end times timeline that he had written. He said, ‘It will be a treasured resource, one that you will consult for years to come.’ 

 Oh, precious irony.

In the Night (I Was Dreaming of You)

The other night I had a strange and terrible dream about my ex-wife. It left me unsettled. Not sad. Not angry. But … on edge and ill at ease. Discomforted.

I shared the dream with a friend of mine and he encouraged me to maybe write her a letter (even if I had no intention of sending it to her) about the dream and how it made me feel - as a sort of therapy I guess. Or at least an exercise in self reflection. 

I didn't write her a letter (she wouldn’t respond even if I did). Instead I wrote a song about it as I carried the mail and delivered packages. 

There was more to the dream - it was long and complicated, full of absurdities (as dreams usually are.  But this was enough to make me feel better about it  

The World So Dark

 

Together Forever? Why Not?

A quiet hallway and a ticket to damnation while killers hid behind the walls chanting dark incantations. Bucolic neighborhoods filled with small town prejudices and a smoldering breeze while he waits. She is gone. She is gone. She is gone. But he knew it would be this way. 

Stay together and break the psychic connection.

Together forever? Why not? 

And after tomorrow all the concrete blocks of sweet pain and all the bricks painted luminescent against the blackening sky would come down around him. It was time to go home. No more emotional fantasy. No more butterfly picnics. Only a balance of hope against promises as empty as the county road out of town.

Stay together and die to deepest desire. Together forever? Why not? 

A Song for the Eclipse -A Dragon Swallowed the Moon

After today’s eclipse I thought it good to share a song that I was involved in creating. 

A Dragon Swallowed the Moon

Ready Now To Live

 This is a song I wrote last year with a new final verse. 

The hardest part is waiting but he wants to come back

A long time dead - he’s ready now to live 

He gasps, his heart begins to beat

Oh, oh, oh 

All these chaos reactions are sometimes self aware 

See how the light dances in the air 

I won’t speak, not even when I’m  dead 

Oh, oh, oh  

Moving forward now like waking from a dream 

Rising up into red light 

This is motion, this is mystery

Oh, oh, oh

No more time now, the worst has come and gone

Still I try to wish you well

He gasps, his heart begins to beat

Oh, oh, oh

Oh, oh, oh  

We Have Incriminations

There was nothing more. No one suspected anything. Nothing. What was there? And no one asked why. It was reckless but no one cared. This trip was different. It was strange, but he was glad to be free. Natural.

The roar of his ego telling him, “You’re beautiful.

You’re bright.” If he screamed, it was unheard. If he screamed again, it was thrilling. The roar telling him, “Make your millions; drink your champagne.” Slowly he moved from the corner, out of the shadow, out of the smoke of a furnace funhouse. 

There was more to it, of course. The smell of secret money inextricably entwined, enmeshed with every aspect of his private life. Love and mercy disguised. Call it spiritual legitimacy but it’s nothing but power. Take advantage. Get even. Double life. Double standards. Predatory addictions will not let go. We have photographs. We have incriminations. Behind the savage scenes. Subtle hints and controlling forces, blinded and blinding. He has a lot to hide. 

All This Was Done To Fulfill What Had Been Spoken by the Prophet

In the silver shadowed evening I am returning home. It is late. Under the mirror, under the eerie ambiance of flickering fluorescent lights I am losing myself, like any one of the many millions suffering from demonic and unclean spirits. A sense of rushing through a darkened tunnel. Pale face and half again. 

The plastic power of indiscriminate destruction, psychic visions. Pain is pain. Deeper sleep and everything lost through insecure violence. But with a word, one passionate, joyous word and the vibrant sounds of laughter. 

All who were ill, all the nausea, all the lethargy and memory lapses like fat flies buzzing back into the void. All our weaknesses, all our disease - from the crotch, the belly, the spine. We were clinically dead. Spiritually dead. Drowned and fired. Now new light. Now new life.

The Kingdom of Heaven Is Hers

 

How blessed are the poor in spirit; the kingdom of heaven is hers. 

She was one of those lovely things I’ll always remember - a beautiful girl with deep chocolate eyes. When she would laugh it was always too loud and she was always reluctant to speak. She left her apartment just after dusk and she never came back. 

How blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. 

Fast beat driving - heartbeat slow and irregular. Snatched from the street. Unmelodious chords in the parking lot. Friction sounds. Grinding telephones and no answer. 

How blessed, the meek. They will inherit the land. Her mother told her, “Be careful out there,” and “come home safe.” Now she refuses to take solace. “Prayer never works.” She stands at the mirror in a curious combination: half in a trance, half aware. There are only doubts and goodbyes. Cold black holes that never go away. 

How blessed are the ones who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, for justice. They will be satisfied.  

You can never forget the way blood glistens in moonlight. Do the dead stay dead? Is this the way the world ends? With unanswered questions? 

How blessed are the ones who show mercy for they will have mercy themselves. 

Something has changed. Power rising. Red roses, white, yellow, pink. Eyes full of light. But still the thorn, the prick, the blood. The investigation continues. We don’t know and what could we say? 

How blessed are the pure in heart; they are the ones who will see God. 

From November to January we wonder. Dreaming. Imagining. Hoping. Fearing. Freezing. It’s all too much and too hard to bear. I don’t want this, any of this. No relief in nightmare. No weal when I wake. 

How blessed the peacemakers; they are the daughters of God. 

She was weak and unsure. Too delicate for this world, more suited for the next. This was the flaw in her beauty: she was afraid of her voice. In a flash, open slightly. Two paramedics in a whistle. Alive, now dead against a background of twilight stars. Ethereally beautiful, eternally young. 

How blessed are the tormented, the persecuted, the beaten and abducted. The kingdom of heaven is hers.

I Was Possessed by the Devil

 

So it was a nightmare, that moonless night just after we’d moved into the house. Strange things. Demonic things. The sound of children speaking vulgarities in the dark. I remember my mother leaning over the bed as I was rapidly shaking. Shaking harder than before. 

I was possessed by the devil. 

But the words had no context and the sounds had no meaning. You know how people will fabricate stories. Try to understand. Try to appreciate the situation. Can you feel those fine hairs on your arms and the back of your neck rising? Tingling? 

“He’s asleep again.” 

“Again?” 

“Still. He’s still asleep.” 

Despite the vibrations. Despite the noise, I am still asleep. Light is blazing in the rain spattered windows. George Bush and Ronald Reagan are on the television whether we like it or not. Permission was given, that is the first. Second, external spirits will infest the place. Then comes the oppression.

Where is the life I had before? I thought it was there, but I was wrong. It disappeared. It fled into the dark as I was sleeping.

Late at night, even now, I still dream comfortless dreams of something watching. Something is there. Nothing is there. Nothing is there except a voice. Voices telling me to go out and to do. Something is there. Eyes that are not eyes. Voices that are not voices. And my pale face in the dark. A garble of voices, still meaningless. 

Instructions for an Auto-Appendectomy

Performing medical procedures on oneself without proper training and equipment can be extremely dangerous and life-threatening. It is crucial to seek professional medical help and consult with a qualified healthcare provider if you are experiencing symptoms that may require surgery or medical attention. 

However... 

The first step in an auto-appendectomy is locating the Sephirot within the context of the inner Tree of Life. Look for a small, tube-shaped organ located in the lower right side of the abdomen.  Warning:Trying to locate the appendix on your own without proper training or knowledge can be dangerous and is not recommended.

Do not take your eyes off the organ. It may shift unexpectedly.

Keep moving. Keep seeking. Always be alert for opportunities where they are least expected. Perhaps you will dream of beautiful women. Maybe you will experience a vision of the future. Be sure to ask many questions. Only when you have received all your answers will your blood be free. Follow all safety protocols for blood cleanup and disposal. 

Cauterize the wound with a plastic, disposable lighter.

The Halfway Point

Twelve people went missing in the night and we just sat there with our phones and our bloodshot, bulging eyes. Somewhere they were weeping, pulling away, screaming at cold flesh shadows. This was the halfway point: there would be no escape for anyone. 

There were mutant, albino rats miles below the surface of the streets. Strange creatures with blind, black eyes and wide mouths full of teeth like whirling blades. 

The hospital was waiting for this, medics bent over us with their faces covered with surgical masks. Pulsing arteries and dropping, throbbing hearts. The whiplash of worry. This was not science at all. It was one of those brief exchanges, full of important and meaning but we failed to understand.

She Says, “No.”

I fall back into the chair, one of those cold, comfortless chairs that you find in any underfunded government agency. I am frozen cold, too cold and I apologize. “I’m sorry.” “There is no need to apologize,” she says. She is dressed in black, black as a raven on a cemetery fence. I whisper again with new urgency, “I am sorry. I am so sorry.” She says, “No.”

The shadows cluster in the corner of the room, in front, forward. Her grey eyes lock in place and fix on me and I know. I know her deformity. I know her disappointment. My palms are damp with sweat. The room is warm and hushed - though I am still cold. The doorway to the hall outside opens and she says, “No.”

 

She slides into the second arm-chair next to me. She wants to co-opt my emotions. She wants to corrupt my sympathies. My pulse is fluctuating: seventy, ninety, one-twenty. Spiking cerebral hemorrhage. I am dangerously high. Sweating profusely. Hypertension blood pressure, danger of stoke. I am swearing profusely. But she says, “No.”

I cannot believe that it is her making these noises, these ominous noises - like a medieval messenger, rocking from side to side. She is speaking to me with some unknown tongue. Her fragile eyes disappear. Vanish. All changes. Dropping, cracking, hitching, shuddering. She reaches out to me once more before she is gone and I say, “No.”

Dislocated in Time and Space - A Transfiguration Event

 

Transfiguration Sunday comes early this year. It seems that we’ve only just wrapped up the Christmas festivities and put away the trees and lights and decorations and already we’re at the Transfiguration.  In a few days, on Wednesday, we’ll exchange beauty for ashes; we’ll trade the joy of Christmas for the mourning of lent (to invert Isaiah 61:3).  We’ll put away our hallelujahs and begin the long trek toward the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.

But that’s the way of things in this life. Life turns quickly. Yesterday the children were born, today they’re grown, tomorrow they’ll have children of their own. Our lives move from one moment to the next in a continual blur. It all happens so fast, everything changes. It’s here and it’s gone, every moment fleeting.

In our gospel reading for today we find Jesus along with his friends, Peter, James and John atop a very high mountain experiencing one of those fleeing moments – a literal mountain top experience that is over all too soon. The glory of the theophany fades and Jesus and his disciples return to the plains below.

But for that one glorious moment, they were overwhelmed by a theophany, an appearance of God. God, who is a separate reality distinct from and unlimited by the word, sometimes embraces the self-limitations of a specific time and a particular form in order to appear to us in this world. God appears as a thunderstorm, with thunder and hail, lightning and torrents of rain. Or God appears as an infinitely burning bush. And there atop the mountain in the glory of God’s appearance, Jesus was transfigured, transformed, changed.

It is a strange experience, dislocated in both space and time. Heaven and earth meet, the past and the future overlap in a moment of transcending present. Time and space are warped, blending forward and backward. And the mountain is the place for this kind of experience. The mountain is the place where one can meet with God, the place where one can leave the world of the natural and the mundane and to ascend into very heavens. Around the world, in nearly every culture, from Israel to Greece, from India to China, from Japan to the Americas, the mountain is a place where the reality of our world touches the divine realms. There is a mystery there – a sense of awe, surrounded by banks of clouds with an expansive view, unlimited vision of both the clouds of heaven and the horizons of earth. The God of the bible is sometimes named El-Shaddai which may mean the God of the mountain. He meets with Moses on the mountain. He meets with Elijah on the mountain. And this is not without relevance to our story today.

The mountain is unnamed in our gospel account; Mark describes it only as a “very high mountain.” Some have suggested that it was Mount Hermon, or perhaps Mount Tabor, but neither of these are especially high mountains. Others suggest that Mark is thinking of the same mountain of the north that apocalyptic authors, like the author of 1 Enoch, described as the place where there would be a manifestation of the divine in the last days. This is a place of mysterium tremendum – a place of strange harmony between fear and awe, a place of both fascination and great danger. A place of wonder and of terrible power.

Jesus was transformed there in front of them on top of that mountain. Elijah and Moses appeared with him and a cloud of glory overshadowed them all. And from that cloud a voice from heaven spoke saying, “This is my son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Here on the mountain with Jesus we are dislocated in both time and space. The same voice that spoke to Jesus at this baptism, speaks again to say, “This is my son, the beloved.” Moses and Elijah, prophets from the past are there to speak with Jesus about his soon coming death. Time and space blend back and forward. The Greek language has two words for time, chronos and kairos.  Chronos refers to chronological or sequential time, the tick, tick, tick, of the clock hands one moment following after another.  Kairos signifies a time between, moments of indeterminate time in which something special happens. Chronos is quantitative and measurable.   Kairos is qualitative and cannot be measured or marked or preserved.  It can only be experienced.

“Jesus took John and James and Peter up the mountain in ordinary, daily chronos; during the glory of the Transfiguration they were dwelling in Kairos” (L’Engle, 93)

Indeed – the transfiguration event has sometimes been interpreted by theologians as a misplaced story of the resurrection. The description of Jesus’ transfiguration shares some similarity with the resurrection and it is thought by some scholars that the events of the resurrection were moved backward in the story so as to help make sense of the inexplicable resurrection event. Jesus had just before this event, told his disciples that he would suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he would be, that he must  be killed – but that after three days he would rise again. He spoke to them plainly about this, but they didn’t understand. (Mark 8: 31 – 32). The passion prediction – not understood in the moment is finally comprehended when seen through the eyes of the resurrection. We didn’t, we don’t understand how death can be glory – not until after the resurrection. I’m not convinced that this is the case – that the transfiguration story is a resurrection account transplaced in time - but it is true that the mystery of the transfiguration event expects the resurrection, and the resurrection explains the mystery of the transfiguration.

Peter’s desire to memorialize the moment is understandable. Time is fleeting. Everything fades. The voice speaks and then is silent. The cloud of glory envelops them and then is gone. The moment on the mountain fades and Jesus and his friends return to the plains below.

'Tis good, Lord, to be here!
Your glory fills the night;
Your face and garments, like the sun,
Shine with unborrowed light.

Fulfiller of the past!
Promise of things to be!
We hail your body glorified,
And our redemption see.

 

Before we taste of death,
We see your kingdom come;
We long to hold the vision bright,
And make this hill our home.

‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here - J. Armitage Robinson

Wednesday is the beginning of the Lenten season – a time of preparation. We only just recently celebrated the birth of Lord and Savior and already we are getting ourselves ready to consider his gruesome death and glorious resurrection. But here on the mountain, in this transfiguration event, we see and hear and experience the fulfillment of that preparation. In the words of Robinson’s hymn, “We hail his body glorified, and our redemption see.”

And with Peter we might say, “Rabbi, Teacher, Master, it is good that we are here.” But Peter didn’t really understand what was happening and he definitely didn’t know what he was saying. He was so afraid. He was sore afraid (to steal from Luke’s phraseology.) On the mountain, surrounded by the cloud of glory, with the prediction of pain and suffering and death blotted out by the awe and wonder of the moment, Peter says, “let’s build three shrines here. One for Moses, one for Elijah, and one for Jesus.” But he didn’t know what he was saying. He was afraid.

But time moves on, and as suddenly as it began, it was all over. Time is fleeting, every moment bleeding into the next. The vision fades, the cloud evaporates and the transfiguration is over.  Jesus and his friends come back down from the mountain and he tells them to keep quiet about it all – until after the Human one, the Son of God, had risen from the dead.  “History cannot be stopped, and we must grasp it significance. The light of the resurrection enables us to see it with hope. The death of Jesus is not the victory of darkness, which is already overcome” (Gutierrez, 51).

Lent is the time of preparation. We’ve had the glory and joy on the mountain, but now we’ll go back down to the plain and begin the long, hard road towards death and suffering and to the wonder and mystery of the resurrection. We may not understand, but we will take that journey.

 

 

Gutierrez, Gustavo. Sharing the Word through the Liturgical Year. Orbis Book, Mary Knoll, NY. 1997.  

L’Engle Madeline. Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art, North Point Press, New York, NY, 1980.

Robinson, J. Armitage. ‘Tis Good, Lord, To Be Here. 1890.

 

 

 

Imponderabilia

It was late and I was tired after a twelve and a half hour shift at the factory and I knew I shouldn’t have done it – but I turned on the radio to listen to the news as I drove home in the freezing rain and the dark. It was a poor choice, tired and worn as I was. The highway was dark and the lane markers covered with snow and ice. Reports came through of the war in Ukraine and more bombings in Gaza with unnumbered civilian deaths. Reports of earthquakes in South America, of wildfires in the south-west, of another school shooting in the heartland.

Everything hurt.

It seems like I feel that way all the time these days. I am exhausted and weary from work and still grieving old wounds. Everything hurt in the cold and dark as I drove through the night, crying alone in my car. Alone and cold in the dark on a lonely road between here and nowhere.

“The world is dying,” I said aloud as I clicked off the radio with its ceaseless bad news broadcasts. “The world is dying,” I said again, “and there is nothing to replace it.” Someone once described this as a time of monsters and I will not disagree. The world is dying and full monsters. The human ones are the worst.

I arrived at home and made dinner for myself but in the process I broke a glass pitcher given to me as a wedding gift. Then I spilt a beverage on the couch which will probably stain the fabric. I tried to put it all out of my mind by watching police dramas on TV until bed, but when I finally slept I struggled with dreams of my ex-wife.

 “I don’t want the world to see me, ‘cause I don’t think that they’d understand,” the song says, but I say, “I don’t want to see the world ‘cause I don’t understand it either.”  I am lonely even in my dreams. Separated and alone and I think that maybe I should go ahead and separate myself from it all. I can’t fix it. I can’t change it. Why not go live out in the desert?

I remembered the stories of those devout men of faith who lived as hermits beyond the fringes of civilized society, or in caves, or alone atop high pillars, relying on ravens to bring them food day after day for forty years. I know it sounds fantastic, but ravens have been known to bring gifts to people they consider friendly, so why couldn’t these avian benefactors bring bread to hermits in the desert? It may be a pious legend, but it could still be true.

I woke the next day, still weary. Still worn, still pondering all the imponderabilia of this strange life. But with a stretch and a cup of coffee I was ready to step out into another new day. As I drove to work there was a carpet of fire across the eastern sky. Maybe the world is on fire but the sun is rising in the east and I think that I can try again.

 

 

 

 

From the Winter Walks

 

I’m a postal carrier these days. I walk every day- in the wind, in the snow, in the fog, in the sleet and freezing rain. Every day, five to ten miles. It’s not much, but it’s honest work. It gives me time to think, time to write, to compose.