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.”

Misquoting It - And Badly

     “I know the truth of it. I know what is real and what is required,” she said to me in the hall where it smelled of sweat, and stale cigarette smoke, and boiled cabbage. She cornered me, trapped me in the hall and insisted that I listen to her as she told me a series of stories of divorce heard second hand and strange tales of invisible, two-headed children at play. “You’ve heard the stories,” she asserted. “You’ve heard the reports of sinners, and satanists, and sexual deviants.”

    I nodded, not knowing what to say.

    She began again, stepping closer. I could smell her sour breath. “We live in an assassination culture…”

    “Cut it out, Hazel. I’ve warned you about this.” The booming voice of the landlord echoed through the hall. “Leave that man be.”

    Hazel turned away from me toward the unseen voice. “But…”

    “Now I’m not gonna' tell you again. This is your final notice.”

    “But…”

    “Your final notice, Hazel. Your identity – your finances will all be transferred.”

    This whole conversation was making me uncomfortable. I just wanted to deliver the mail and be on my way. I had a route to finish and a supervisor monitoring my time. “I think I may have compromised…” I started to say.

    “Compromised,” The landlord repeated. “Yes. That’s the word. The true word.”

    I nodded, not knowing what to say.

    “She’s alive, right?” the landlord sneered.

    “Well, I don’t know…”

    “Alive, but genetically modified. I mean, look at her.” He grabbed her chin and turned her face toward me so I could see her. Take a better look. “Look at her. That building, that body’s been vacant for months.”

    “And you’re still charging her rent?” I demanded.

    “You know what they say,” he sneered. “The sorrow of the world is death. The sorrow of the world is death.”

    “I know the reference,” I told him. “And I know that you’re misquoting it. And badly.”

    I looked at her again and she smiled at me. “We see your open and palpitating heart. My ears and my heart.” She laughed. “These,” she said pointing to the landlord, “are the manifestations not of doubt, but of deliberate, willful disbelief. This is the sixth hour darkness of hardhearted, soft-headed politicians.”

    “Hey, hey, hey,” objected the landlord. “I don’t wanna’ hear no more of that. I’m warnin' you.” But he turned and left without a word or action more. Hazel returned to her apartment. And I continued along my route.

Faithless, Hopeless

Another day of sweaty desperation
and psychotic spirals
twelve miles more and I’ll be done
till tomorrow when it begins again.

But what about now?
a faithless, hopeless future
only love remains.
Maybe that will be enough.

Suffer Till Someone Else Takes Over

 

Now we find ourselves living in a state of death
in this mere mortal homicide homeland
we are isolated in an endless universe
and gravitational collapse seems imminent
the emergency preparedness test sirens
blare through our hymns and prayers.

Why all the lies? Despair is an insult to God
but give me the benefit of the doubt
I’m broken. Try me. I’m still somewhat functional
let me suffer. suffer. suffer
till someone else takes over
there’s nothing left to plunder.

6:30 Mindful of Time and Late

     6:30 mindful of time and late – as if we were the last, lost souls beneath the throne of glory – in a small diner where a woman was killed. Call it a misunderstanding over a cup of coffee. Was it murder? Assault? An accident? The question is still lingering.

    Why, just yesterday they were driving combat vehicles through these streets to crush “the threat of civilization,” they said. A global war of destiny sparked and fueled by their own unstable emotional impulses, led by the noise and blinded by the sun, the sun, the blinding sun. There were fascist actions in Oklahoma City. Fascist actions in Des Moines. All the fanatical, fundamentalist righteousness of people devoid of empathy. We fall apart and burn in a hell of our own making.

    Please. I can’t stand to be alone. And I can’t stand alone. We are in this together. My agnostic friend is desperate enough to talk to God, if you would believe it. I do. I’ve been there myself. I’ve not always believed, so I understand. And I tell him so, but he doesn’t believe me.

    This malnutrition. Apathy. Atrophy. Beaten and sore abused. Burned with cigarettes. Like a battered car. Broken down and crippled under the archway in a puddle of urine. Now which is worse – you tell me – if the urine is mine? Or if the urine belongs to someone else?

    This is the fifth chapter. Apologies. This is the fifth mystery – divided – where the music (and the world?) ends abruptly. But how did it begin, you ask. How did it begin? It began with the Why. Not how are you? But Why are you? It began with the word and the word was Why​?