The Weight of Bright Sadness (a Song for J, T, and B)

I remember the nights when sleep felt like death
and I couldn't decide if that's what I wanted. 
Isolated from all that I wanted to love, 
those winter nights felt haunted. 

Sleeping alone in bed next to her
I could hear the wind outside.
Or alone in my car in a hospital parking lot,
I could feel the wind blow through me. 

I was tired of life, but afraid to die; 
I loved, I hated, and I feared. 
I remember this well, look inside me and see
I was surprised by my own fear. 

But you are the dawn 
and you are my home. 

I could go away, sail across the sea. 
I could live on an island far away. 
It's a strange place but I'm learning to live
with the weight of bright sadness. 

What is withered in me will flower again
and all my illness be made well, 
and what is flowing and wasting away 
will regain its shape again.

For you are the dawn
and you are my home. 

This is a song I wrote recently for my friends J, T, and B - though it uses some of my own history and much of my own thought. The concept of "bright sadness" seems paradoxical, maybe. Is there such a thing as joyful mourning? Or bitter joy?  Melancholic celebration?  It's a truth that seems to defy logic. And it's a phrase found in the writings and prayers of many in the Orthodox church, especially during this season of Lent - a time of reflection on both suffering and death as well as hope and renewal.

I've also cribbed, somewhat, from the Confessions, of Saint Augustine - from IV. 6 and IV.11 in verses 3 and 5 respectively. For, as Augustine himself wrote, "often... while turning over haphazardly the pages of a book of poetry, one may come upon a line which is extraordinarily appropriate to some matter which is in one's own mind, though the poet himself had no thought of such a thing when he was writing..." (Confessions, IV. 3 - translated by Rex Warner 1963)

It Was Spring and It Was Lent

It was spring and he struggled against the wind as he walked his route. A storm had blown through recently and the lingering winds still buffeted. There was trash and debris in the streets, empty pizza cartons tumbling across yards and fallen tree limbs across the sidewalks. He stumbled occasionally over broken bricks and dislodged chunks of concrete. These things, however, would not keep him from his appointed rounds.

It was spring and it was Lent and somewhere overhead a hawk was screeching. Was it a warning? He thought about the passion and the pain that waited in the next few weeks. “Not everyone can carry the weight of the world,” he said to himself and was reminded of a song.

He thought of T. and of J. and C., his friend, his colleague, his brother, all of whom had reached out to him in the past year to say something of their struggles with life and their wrestling against death. “How can I carry that weight,” he thought to himself and he remembered his own occasional suicidal contemplations. “I can barely handle my own.”

He’d always felt like the family failure – with no college degree and two failed marriages. “How can I carry this?” He shifted the load he carried and stretched. His neck popped twice. He stretched again and his back popped as well. He sighed and continued along his path.

J. was there along his route, out for his regular morning walk. “How are you, J?” he called out to him. 
            “Not too good,” J answered in his halting manner. “I’ve been thinking about God and it hurts.” Then he let out a long and warbling wail. “It’s not been a good day.” He offered what solace and comfort he could to J. and promised to see him again the next day. Perhaps things would be better then…

Somewhere overhead the hawk was still screeching. Was it a warning? Was it a comfort?

Later, as he neared the end of his route, something triggered the memory of the way old Mrs. D. would play the piano in the lounge area of the nursing home. She kept her foot constantly on the sustain pedal so all the wrong notes – and there were many of them – continued to ring. And he remembered her singing through the dissonance:

“Let peace begin with me; let his be the moment now.
            With every step I take, let this by my solemn vow:
            To take each moment and  live each moment eternally
            Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

It was spring and it was Lent and he had miles to go before the end, but he would walk. He would carry what weight could shoulder and he would talk about the passion.  

Let There Be Peace on Earth – words and music by Sy Miller and Jill Jackson
Talk About the Passion - words and music by REM 

The Lenten Prayer of Saint Ephraim

The Lenten prayer of Saint Ephraim is said by Orthodox and Eastern Catholics during the weeks preceding Easter. 

Oh, Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, faint-heartedness, lust for power, and idle talk. 

But give the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to thy servant. 

Yes, Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions and not to judge my brother. For you are blessed unto ages of ages. Amen. 

 

Screaming into the Void 3

 Does it seem like the void is growing at an alarming rate these days? As if the void were an all consuming void engulfing the whole of reality?

Scream louder. Scream louder.  

But also do something nice for your neighbor. Donate to a good cause. Give of yourself. 

Today Was One of Those Days

 Today was one of those days when my feet felt heavy but my song was light. My hips ached a little maybe. My heart … my heart was somewhere in between, but what can you say with the world the way it is? I walked through glass, broken glass, following someone else’s memories. I tried new keys for unknown doors. This allowed me to improve my performance. 

I ventured, unaccompanied, into questionable places , into the lair of untrustworthy forces. Ring the bell and a gun appears. I was insulted from a great distance. The words came clouded but I could hear them - mostly/ “That Jeff Carter is a … loser!”

There were infrasonic wind chimes too low to hear; the vibrations were felt, not heard. I paused for cats and played with dogs. I spotted owls. I walked in and against the wind. 

Today was one of those days…

Backstage

 

Some Related Problems

 

Screaming into the Void 2

 It is time again for screaming into the void -  that vast, unknown, and frightening darkness that engulf us - a darkness for which  we are completely unprepared. Whoever screams into the void should see to it that in the process he does not become a void himself. For if you scream long enough into the void, the void will scream back at you.

Reflections on Forgiveness Sunday

 

The echoes of paradise still ring 
memories of a place I've never been
from the garden they were thrown
still trying to find my way back home again, again, again. 

You went missing years and years ago
and where you've gone I could never know
I've seen your face a thousand times
but never in the New York Times, oh no, oh no, oh no. 

The mountains loomed so large out there
when I was breathing in the desert air
I would call to apologize
and to forgive your lies but you don't care, don't care, don't care.

I'm happier than I was before
since she walked through my front door
but here's a great mystery 
that the shape of you is still in me, oh, oh, oh. 

She is sleeping now so whisper
but when she wakes I will kiss her
in the noon and twilight times 
I will sing in broken rhymes for her, for her, for her. 

I wrote this song as I was delivering packages yesterday afternoon - on Forgiveness Sunday (also known as Cheesefare Sunday in the Orthodox Church) - the last Sunday before lent. 

Crucifixion

 

Is this Glory?

It's dark, but it's time 
get up now, get ready. 
Don't let the day slip by
not tomorrow but today. 

It's all been said before;

say it again so they can't ignore.
The paradise of the rich 
is built on the hell of the poor. 

Is this glory? Is this pride?
Have we our love denied? 

They want us to close our eyes.
They want us to believe their lies.
But we won't bend the knee
or salute thier tyranny. 

Is this glory? Is this pride?
Have we our love denied? 

A Trump is blown in the city
but the people there are not afraid. 
The prophet spoke of the mercy of God
but the citizens would not be swayed. 

Is this glory? Is this pride?
Have we our love denied? 

- with thanks to Victor Hugo, the prophet Amos, and Bishop Budde. 

My Shadow

 As I was out and about with the mail today I wondered what it would sound like if country musicians wrote horror stories.  This was what I came up with:

In my head it sounds like a Willie Nelson song…

At the Airport with No Shoes (a dream)

I’m scrounging for change, picking up quarters in the parking lot of an abandoned video store in this town where the air smells like a smoldering cigar. 

I’m at the airport with no shoes. 

I’m attending a birthday party for dreadlocked children I don’t know. I’m greeted by a woman I never knew. 

You spray me in the face with a can of mace after I apologize. You embrace me and kiss me on the lips, but I know that this, even this, is another of your lies. 

I’m making mistakes- simple mistakes- so I’m retracing my steps to correct what I’ve done. 

I’m at the airport with no shoes. 

Screaming into the Void

 It’s that time again - it’s time to scream into the void. It won’t respond. It won’t change. The void doesn’t care. The void will not be held accountable. But we are compelled to scream because the void is there.  

Too Late

 In those later hours

cloudy with no rain

listen for your missing voice

are you still the same?

Disappearance on the bridge that morning 

Cross the water, it’s too late. 

Trust the vision and the dream

go on down the hill

if I do not see you there

just keep waiting until

electric voices in the air

call to say that it’s too late.

Our Prayers

I wrote the words for this song back in 2015 for a book project that didn’t ultimately come together. I have revisited them again over the last several years. They can also be sung to the hymn tune - St. Columba

Our prayers are rising smoke and dust

Our prayers are ash and cinder

But still we pray 

For mercy more

As we to love surrender.

Our prayers are silenced by the wind 

Our prayers by floods are swallowed 

And still we pray 

For mercy more 

To rise up and to follow.

Our prayers lay bleeding in the street 

Our prayers die without a trace 

Lord, still we pray 

For mercy more 

To extend your hand of grace  

A Strange Neighborhood, This

 When the waking world makes no sense try thinking about it as if it were a dream …

I think I went wrong somewhere- in both time and space. This is the wrong hour. This is the wrong place. A strange neighborhood, this, though I’m sure I’ve been here before. The porches are frozen and the doorbells have been ripped out with all the wires left dangling. 

There was a cat here once, I think. Maybe. A pale and faded fellow, a friendly follower. There are other cats here now - frightened feral things that scamper away as I approach. Unapproachable. Unlovable. 

Cats are everywhere, of course, hiding in our houses and under our cars. Who eats the food left on our porches? Who waits to trip us on the stairs?

There are squirrels leaping from branch to bare branch to yell at me. There are vines without grapes. There are empty milkweed pods and instructions from my supervisor- “make a you-turn at the next intersection.”

The circle has no beginning. The circle has no end. Here I am again and again and again. Make the waking life as irregular as the dream. 

Wake Up Spoiling for a Drunken Fight

 It’s been a while since I did any drawing. I need to do more. 

Like a Daycare on Fire

 It was crowded and noisy inside my mind today, like a daycare on fire. It wasn’t a stream of consciousness; it was a gush, a mudslide, a broken sewer line of consciousness. No symmetry. No reason. Only nonsense nursery rhymes. Two radios played simultaneously. The first played “Stacy’s mom has got it going on” on repeat. Not the whole song, just “Stacy’s mom has got it going on. Stacy’s mom has got it going on. Stacy’s mom has got it going on…” the other played Melissa Etheridge - first “come to my window,” then “I’m the only who’ll walk across the fire for you” back and forth. Sometimes together. I tried to focus. Stacy’s mom. I tried to breathe. Stacy’s mom. I tried to find the mystic selah at the center of the sacred om. But Stacy’s mom has got it going on. - Peel the chicken. Lick the chicken. Peel the chicken. What does that even mean? I don’t know but it wouldn’t stop. Look at me in my old man sweater. Walk across the fire with Stacy’s mom. Are you buying or selling t used cocaine oil? What? Discarded shoes and gloves found after the snows have melted. Come to my window. Eternity is the flame after the candle has been blown out. Who said that? 

The noise in my head settled to levels slightly louder than normal around noon. It was almost tolerable. Stacy’s mom had got it going on. Actually - Stacy’s mom is probably age appropriate for me. Is she still available? 

Dreaming with a Red Hat

 I’m out on the streets 

while the shadows are still long 

trying to recapture thoughts and dreams 

that disappeared before the dawn.

There was a hallway that went nowhere

and I was never there. 

There was the smell of urine 

lingering in the air 

while liberals, Catholics, Freemasons, and Jews

were rewriting the dictionaries

that you disdain to use. 

Someone somewhere

had barricaded the church-house doors. 

Was this dream mine, or is it yours?

All these codes and signs 

read more like yours than mine. 

A thousands words of poison and deceit. 

A thousand words of fraud and treachery. 

And so it seems

I will be stuck,

At least for a time,

with all your distressing dreams. 

Stop Cutting

Stop cutting - you're hurting yourself
but not only anyone and everyone
all of us
all of this must change
all the satanic lies 
from unstable spirits 
and brainwashed devotees 
at the heart of an insecure nation

Is it working? I cannot tell
what is it you think you're accomplishing?
No one's ever so cruel 
as the one planning a population reduction
accelerating the work and danger

The Sin of Empathy - America's Song

 

We are great and we are bold
we will pound you into sand
our legs our iron, our head is gold
the world is ours to command

We won't take no for an answer
we demand and we extort
and what they won't give to us
we'll just have to take by force

So it's down with mercy and out with love
stuff your feelings, we don't care
we're in charge now, that's how it is
you can complain but you won't dare

We are vain and we are blind 
God help us, but we are cruel
we've forgotten our fist love 
and rejected the golden rule

So it's down with mercy and out with love
kindness and compassion are for fools
in the empire of scorn we're building 
spite and pride are the guiding rules

Between a cliff and a burning fire
where the mob calls out for blood
when we call it the sin of empathy
you can't be surprised that we have none. 

Once I Opened My Mouth

 

“I am not worthy; I cannot answer you anything, so I will put my hand over my mouth. I spoke one time, but I will not answer again; I even spoke two times, but I will say nothing more.” Job 40:4-5

She

She seized and cut my still beating heart, left me exsanguinating into the resurrection machine. She was the voice of all the repeated, reheated, recycled, rehydrated whispers in the heavy, heaving air. 

She disappeared into the light and shadow, disappeared into the distant police sirens. All of this was her loathing pretense of a loving embrace. 

She exploded on the threshold. She was beyond the door, behind the walls. She was beyond all the crowded machinery, going through other doors to other places.

The Impossible Light of Death

Open this particular wrath 

And open this particular hell

With each proximate breath 

We delay the arrival 

Of the impossible light of death 

Not a sudden destruction 

Maybe not in darkness 

Maybe not today

But unexpected and unannounced 

Even as they are still rejoicing 

Peace and safety and all the good that will follow

Peace and safety and all the good that they promise 

You know enough to know that they lie and they lie 

And will never uphold the law

Peace and safety but they shall not escape

You Called Me Up (a song for Jess)

 Yesterday while I was out delivering the mail, I wrote a song for the second of my ex wives. It’s a country song, apparently. 

The Moon of Endless Failure

 It was a world of competing interests and the ever increasing influence of performative ignorance. This was nothing new. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever did. A world of pretense toward morality and meaning. A world of secret contracts and contracted disease. A world of decaying infrastructure. 

And he hated it. He hated all the strenuous effort required to maintain a measure of daily calm in a world so riven by low men and their rivalries. 

He was tired of public officials and the official public rhetoric. He was tired of their much lauded but never demonstrated love. He was so tired.

As the moon of endless failure rose into the evening sky he knew that they would, given the chance, throw us all into the fires of the furnace for a dollar. 

Epiphany In Uncertain Times

Come now, visit and bless

this house, this home

with a gladness and glory unknown

in dark and desperate days

Show us how to rise up in splendor 

when darkness covers the earth

when thick clouds of satanic deception 

have taken control  and taken the soul 

of people I know and love

Come to make all things plain 

Come to make all things clear

here where our hearts throb and overflow 

with grotesque exaggerations 

and slow suffocation 

The global injustice

and domestic terror

the home grown police violence

of shadow puppets 

and selfish prophets

have obscured the stars of hope

Even so, the grace given to me 

is still a mystery

the light has dawned and the glory come

like justice a flower

Bless all who live here 

with the gift of your love

seeing and being seen

knowing and being known 

20+C+M+B+25

You Cut Me (The Knife Don't Know)

The other day I had the nonsense phrase "The knife doesn't know you cut me," stuck on repeat in my mind. It sounded to me like the refrain of a black comedy country song - and that's what it became. I hope you like it. 

Inanimate objects don't know the things we know
the rocks and stones can't feel when the winter storms do blow
I don't blame the knife you carried; it was completely unaware
The knife don't know you cut me, but you don't care. 

I ain't sayin' I was easy, only that you were unkind
you never let me hear the music playin' in your mind
or was it that you had no songs, no melody of your own 
and that's why you would cut me to the bone? 

You, you cut me, cut me to watch me bleed
You, you cut me, I'd show you the scars but there's no need
Maybe you won't hear it but darlin' I gotta' share: 
The knife don't you you cut me, it's you that doesn't care. 

Your lips were hard as iron, your kisses cold and sharp
you never let me hear the beating of your heart
Every act of kindness, every loving touch I gave
you returned to me like a slash from your blade. 

You, you cut me, cut me to watch me bleed
You, you cut me, I'd show you the scars but there's no need
Maybe you won't hear it but darlin' I gotta' share: 
The knife don't you you cut me, it's you that doesn't care. 

Half Deaf and Unsure

 

Now half deaf and unsure 

if the silence 

or the roaring voice is real 

A thunderous, bottomless noise 

in the freezing cold  

of a windowless room 

The lights gone out 

crushed skulls thrown forward 

knocked out, dead 

oh God, oh God 

Ghostly floating silver 

obsidian sparkle 

lights extinguished by pain 

Blind danger, gasping in surprise 

for all the fumbling frustrations 

all the blood from the mouth, the head 

Oh God, oh blind God 

not this, or anything else 

God, not this

The Shadows of the Dead

It’s time now for stepping out for the shadows of the dead. 

Make a close examination of the brain and of the head. 

Close up the face, close and blind your eyes. 

We’re staring at the stars without looking at the skies. 

The world of the living dead is every day reborn. 

With each resuscitation comes renewed hate and scorn. 

Time passes quickly here, even faster than we know. 

Repeated and recycled, the chaos only grows. 

Do not think about the void, ignore the alarms. 

Let the darkness of the night fill you with its charms. 

There’s life and death in blood and paychecks every week. 

But there’s no light in the counterfeit life you seek.