A PARADOX IN THE PARADIGM: THE LIE OF THE MODERN ERA

The happy man only smiles insofar as his brain

encounters the right happenings of today and tomorrow

he only wields a laugh when stimulated to do so

his hope is a mountain range of emotion destined 

to erode and change after he realizes that the world

is not so much sunshine and bliss as it is hard and trying,

this man is to be pitied because he has no rock but

the faulty foothold of quicksand that he calls purpose,

imagine a life where man’s chief end is to suffer the weight

of that entire mountain held on your back and then tell me

if in the end it was worth finding your worth in the temporary,

look to nature and see that no ground remains the same forever

shift happens and quakes bring to rubble security and stability;

now the happy man is no longer smiling anymore.

The successful man is satisfied only when his pockets are full

with the right things –– stuff stacked on stuff on stuff on stuff ––

so full that he knows nothing but plenty and success and excess

he desires that which is revered by his contemporaries, like

competition and performance, outward accolades and trophies

stored in huge glass closets and display cases for the world to see

but truly that man has locked his heart in a safe somewhere

where no one can touch it but, God is that dangerous

his body is so cold without that heart, he lives for 

the future, the complexion of a looking glass while he is
weighed down by the medals hung around his neck,

forcing a downcast face, in fear that he will shatter any second

because the grades and wealth were never enough, so

he falls down the ladder and now the successful man is on the ground, broken.

The moral man finds his worth in being a good person

making it his goal to leave the planet better off than it was,

to contribute new ideas and new means of sacrifice

a presupposition that man isn’t evil and that full faith in humanity

is full faith in goodness where all are completely welcome,

this man accepts everyone, a universal bridge that leads all together

for him all roads lead to Rome, whatever you deem that yourself

but poor man he is, because poor men are his lot, war is his problem,

injustice is his agenda, tyranny is his to solve, discrimination his issue

and his back breaks as the suspension cords snap because the totality

of immorality in the world exceeds his carrying capacity,

the lie that virtue is relative yields chaotic patterns in his mind because he always

acted as if it wasn't, though he believed that it was, a paradox in the paradigm

that he called humanity self-reflected in his own vanity, altruism 

subverted in egoism, a bridge that ends from where it extends, 

from one hand to the other, a traffic circle with signs of virtue in every direction,

he cannot save the world because he cannot save himself;

now the moral man jumps off his own bridge and drowns in humanistic ecstasy.

If the meaning of life is happiness, hope you never feel depression,

if success, hope you never lose your job or face failure,

if morality, hope you can rest in the peace that you can create world peace, but

if you yearn for a joy predating this pain, then please seek the eternal,

where your identity is to be fully known and fully loved anyway,

a place where you can be weak and inadequate, where you can

be dependent and not feel discarded, wrong but not be judged,

a place where God meets man and says, “Your heart ––

I want to take it away and give you mine so that you and I

can sit at this banquet table for forever and together dine,

oh my beloved, be loved and become my invaluable son.”

CUBISM

Imagine that these words form 

a three dimensional prism

spliced onto a two dimensional surface

like the world arbitrarily

stretched into an oval.

Envision bodies that look

the same from every angle

no matter how you twist them or

how you alter the seems.

I want to see the universe re-

fracted like it’s submerged underwater,

where up is down and East is West;

where snow will be white hot and even the

trees will be made of bricks.

Let us create this puzzling place and

call the land a collage and the sea 

a paper machete.

Help me begin by fragmenting our ideas

into newly shaped blocks and together

let us wash away the order into 

newly instituted borders.

HONEST QUESTIONS

What is Christianity full of passivity?

What is community with people of complacency?

What is joy dependent upon happiness?

What is sending if it is sedentary?

What is forgiveness with forgetting?

What is love when it’s only reciprocal?

What is sacrifice when it is easy?

What is praise if it isn’t prayerful?

What is commitment along with compromise?

What is discipleship without discipline?

What is baptism when you keep breathing?

What is life without constant dying?

ROMANCE PART 2

You realize how austerely trivial it is 

to change your outfit twice and again

and so unnaturally significant that you

always have to move across the room

You hate a clock since it sometimes stops

and jumps hours at a time and time becomes

arbitrary like it does in eternity

as you compete with modernity

You want to dream out loud so that all

can hear how great it is to be awake and you

hate to sleep since it robs away

the precious banters of the day

You want to pour over two coffees

at a café and never stop speaking because 

you never have to worry that you will

become steady, bored, tired or still

You are truthfully waiting to lose your mind

because you fully embrace your folly

as you position a final stance

when you experience your first romance.

ROMANCE PART 1

When the motivation to wear your best tie

is tied to the reason you always go to sleep late

and why you gravitate to one side of the table

instead of staying where you were first able

When hours can both slow down and speed up

in your time together because you think of each

movement like the right step to a swing-dance

and every touch like an opportune chance

When dreaming is no longer a depressing topic

that you are ashamed to speak of but is that

which you must reasonably consider because

reality is no longer bitter

When you look for every common thread

to talk about despite its irrelevance and you

consistently consider competition a threat

to the attention you strive to get

When you are truthfully unaware of how to act

because you finally feel warm and happy

and are pummeling into an emotional trance,

you are finally experiencing your first romance.

UNDER-STANDING THE REAL WORLD

Belittled by rejection of 1 Timothy 4:12,

The maturity of my face weighs more heavily than

The size and nature of my heart,

Whether it has known scorn or joy seven times over for

I’ve barely turned past a few chapters and

Each momentary page is not that weathered.

In fact the years that I have passed are considered a

Prologue or skippable prelude to reality, the main story;

I have been told that they are not real, like an introduction

That’s fiction for a make-believe story that’s a biography,

Which is frightening because I thought I was the author of my life

When apparently I’m just among the stage direction.

It seems that being two or three years elder

Makes one two or three feet taller, since

Each page is not marked by my stylistic fingerprint,

But by the tread of a heavy footprint:

Staggered, jagged lines that I try to read

But must be too youthful to heed.

What is my purpose if it is solely to grow older,

To add age upon page until I’m recognized as legible or

Credible enough to beckon thought when

My spine will then tire of the weight of pages bent and

My memory will be lost like page 43,

And I simply become the epilogue?

I would rather live as a child and crawl

On all fours, smearing the ink ordained norms

And demean my image with insulting stains

Than learn to walk upright and commend the younger

For upholding the table of contents of the older.

I want to toss away these doctrines and stories and

Ask the greatest writers what the point of life is

If our hearts are only paper thin.

A TEAR IN THE PAGE

I dream of open hearts that are open journals
where imperfectly crafted thoughts are
thoughtfully transacted crofts that sit in lots
for different minds to excavate and till.

Yet today I find it hard when all I see are hills
that mask my clarity and birth disparity until
I am sure that I can never sleep because slumber
makes me stumble down the steep spiral binding
of this page off unto some incoherent writing.

For the words I publish are dismissed as rubbish
like barren land laden with weeds that fail to represent
the deeds of an overworked farmer or meticulous gardener.

Is this then the nature of collaboration -- desperation
for communication that transcends the self
unto the shelf amongst the univocal sound of other farmers?

It seems unsafe for me to think of such a harvest
because the ink on this paper is so heavy it sinks
past the brink of reason causing my eyes to water
the script I sought to author.

Now my journal is closed and my mind grows tired
from speaking dire words that remain unheard so 
I drift off and grow numb to these cold winds called 
winter.

WHEN THE TONGUE LEFT THE CHEEK

Our mouths do all the talking

They’re the most powerful being in the body

The tongue that is

Surrounded by the walls of teeth and gums

The tongue is the strongest muscle man has

But experts are wrong if they stop 

There because the tongue also has a brain

He says what he wants when he thinks it

Moreover has he a stomach as well

Craving all sorts of things like a meal or another tongue

Even a pair of legs too, since he speaks words that

Take man down past paths and future roads

The tongue always wants to be satisfied 

And what he wills will be satisfied because

When he’s hungry I eat

When he’s thirsty I drink

When he’s tired I yawn

When he’s inspired I sing

When he’s mad I swear

When he’s sad I wail 

When he’s confused I question

The tongue is my master and he says he is lonely

And I don’t know what to do when he is lonely

Other than all these other things.

So I’ll eat and drink and yawn and sing and swear and wail and question

Until the tongue is satisfied by what I give it to taste.

CHOOSING A NEW VOCATION: LOVE

I will tell you a few words on love

love is not an emotion nor is it a feeling

it is not how you react based on how your day is going

or how many people smiled at you on your way to work

it has nothing to do with how happy or sad you are

how much you laugh cry sing or 

get laughed at or cried with or sang to no it is none of these

this non-emotive love depends itself on nothing

that you can touch with your hands or see with your eyes

loving is true when it hurts you back because its unfair 

as unjust love is the only kind that exists

since there is no pride in love there is no expectation 

for it to turn around and love you back

for it to say well done good and faithful and

give you a medal with a trophy and a hug with a kiss

love is what you do with your time and it must

be accompanied with action surrounded with intention

rooted in patience and kindness 

akin to submitting submission without apprehension  

love is a man denying his instinct to give up when the

going gets tough or the same old gets old

it is a bondservant working so his master can have more

when we try to bring love into politics that is when

we emasculate it of its heart which is nonsensical as

there is no love without the organ which gives it life

therefore love is not dying for what you believe in

but staying alive for what is noble and true and right

despite the pain of a breaking back bent over in on itself

because surely the man who stumbles forty times over

practices love better than he who walks straight in line

with a wife by his side with curled lips for an entire life

love is the only key to joy that you will ever find

no matter what height you have found from feelings

however when you have scaled that summit then jump right off

pummel till you lose the hope of surviving the fall

and when those close seem to fade from view

and they start to fall right along with you

love enough not to let them go but

love enough to let them know

that you are falling for them.

CONGRATULATIONS, SON

My greatest fear

is that I will achieve what

I have prepared for

this entire life. 

my greatest fear

is that this entire life

has not been the real world

but just childhood. 

my greatest fear

is that childhood

has left forever

and now I have to grow up

my greatest fear

is that I will drive a nice car

and work in a 50 story building

or the pentagon

my greatest fear

is that I will wear a suit

with a leather briefcase 

in the suburbs

my greatest fear

is that I will be comfortable

and not worry about mortgage

or savings or paying bills

my greatest fear

is that I will see 6 figures

in my white picket fence

praising my success.

FEVERISH

What if I said she was a lioness?

That her mane was 24 karat gold,

Sunlight spilling over her shoulders

And flowing out the horizons.

She offends the sunrise because

When the sun’s at its highest

It is faint next to her complexion.

She insults the sunset because 

Even its orange glow

Is but embers to her eyes.

She winks stars from their place

And her smile laughs planets from their orbit.

And I laugh too, since I am Pluto,

Stuck in Platonic love,

A beast inside Plato’s cave,

Praying a wave would reveal my dove.

What if I told you she was that dove?

Sifting through my dreams of wispy

Whispers that I mistake for water vapors.

She is the grape harvest, a female Dionysus,

Dyin’ to be the horizon’s lysis.

She is brighter than the sea or

A thousand mirror shards,

Blinding even light from her igniting sight.

She wears the sun around her neck,

Nature’s shawl falling from her head,

An avalanche of light by her sides.

And I swam in her eyes,

And got drunk in her waters,

And I fell cold in her warmth. 

VICARIOUS RECIPROCATION

I struggle with self-degradation,

Internal humiliation.

My pride erodes in distortion,

An eloquently granted proportion.

The pain from cerebral abrasion

Follows limbic invasion.

My heart’s supplication,

Is only fickle propagation.

I have no hesitation

Towards playful penetration,

So I sit in mesmerization

At my somber inclination. 

Into such tumulting immersion

Begets but mental perversion.

First falls protection

From apical inflection,

That is emotive aggression

Against proper discretion,

Then comes what lacks expression:

Episodic depression.

DEATH MOCKERY

I was spawned in death on earth

Born with a heart that births pain

And I have lived all day long alone

My chest is a furnace and my heart is the fire

The world feeds me coal and bellows cries in this pit

Screaming tongues of flames in my frame

Charring my bones and singeing my flesh

I cough out the ashes and choke on the embers

Yet my soul is a spring, streams into steam

What life is left over is kindling an alter.

The past ashes stored in my present urn

Turn out not to be vases but cisterns of water

I thought the flames scorched my cornea and tunneled my vision

When really a blanket of water clouded my sight

While I am submerged six feet under, plundering deep

Torrent, flood, flash, rain

And then I realize the coals aren’t rocks,

They’re seeds and the flames are trees

Now I forgot to breathe!

Anchored to what ground I can’t find, I swim

Limbless, limp, I’m crying a wimp 

But the tears aren’t mine and the walls are skin

The stern of the boat (my impending death)

Is flint that's fluttering, white curtains in light

Gasping, air, open, breeze

Heaven’s doors break open and my heart comes alive

Life.

I’m alive and the fire’s a furnace

Refining my sword and welding my bones

These flames are my fuel, ignition for mission

I laugh at the fighters and extinguish their lighters

I shout, “how can your flames wield power

When you cannot sting this strong tower?” 

ISAIAH 50

Adultery is my biggest crime

I sleep on a deathbed and call it my haven 

When it puts me miles further from heaven

I hide in the rose bushes and get caught in the thorns

Unable to follow and unable to see

To marvel in awe of the awesome seven seas

Asleep in my infidelity in dreams that I hate

I am wrapped in your swaddling clothes, a corpse in my grave

And I am too far under to hear your instruction

So I’ll let this casket be my destruction 

To shield me from the spit of the crowd that

Waters the roots of the roses above me

I am dying a widow and killing another

As I leave my loyalty for liminal recess

Depressing deeper into deafening depths 
While now I hear you cry, “My bride I envy your life”

A SABBATICAL FROM THE RHYME 

We used to be friends that traveled,

Up the mountains and across the plains,

Flying with planes,

Sometimes we cried together,

Me sharing with him and

Him hearing from me,

Or we’d laugh together,

A joke in jest or quick quibble,

Harmless tonight, harmful tomorrow

I remember the coffee we drank,

The forts we built at night

When we stayed up far too late

While I would try my hand at cursive,

He would cross the t’s and

I would dot the i’s

My cursor would blink,

Vehemently holding a cup called “speech” 

While I was too tongue-tied to read between the lines,

Even the talks that we had,

When he’d sort and file my passion

Into what we thought were sound arguments

All became Webster’s words not mine,

And I can’t remember if I created him,

Or if he made me up

But I know we can’t make up

I need a break from his (kind) gestures

So that I won’t be forced under rhythmic pressures.

ECHO WOOD

My heart is a violin

It is soft when it’s quiet

It is loud when it’s fierce

It is a part among many

It is strung to be plucked

But she didn’t use the bow 

She didn’t play along

She stripped it of its roots

And cracked the hollow bark

And the song wanted to be played

The chorus wanted to be sung

But she just left it there

Infinitely mute

Paused

Forever

GIANTS 

I walk alongside giants

A path amongst the tallest

With those whose 

Torches burn the brightest

The ones whose

Arms stretch the farthest.

I walk alongside giants

And fear I’ll be found out

Or smothered in their goodness

Or silenced by their shouts 

Or caught up in their greatness

That I miss the places we go.

I walk alongside giants

In halls amongst the highest

Where trees overwhelm us

Stars overshadow us

Great suns shine upon us

While together we walk.

And I have grown amidst the crowd

And I’m a leader of the path.

IF I WERE GAY

Oh if I were gay, how you’d have known it all along.

I wouldn’t hide it, deny it, tell you lies about it.

I’d scream it in your face, I’d write it on my arms

I’d bring it to the church, I’d bellow happy songs,

I would laugh at your disgust, joke to all your friends, 

And say that I lie deeper than my skin.  

But there is no fault in how I’m made,

Perfect like my God who sits in outer space,

Whether I am a man or have a hand with a man,

I’m your son, and I will not run any different race.

You cannot condemn, pretend, or descend to thoughts

That you are greater, you are cleaner, you are better. 

But for those that are, I’ll end your gross havoc,

And wrap my arms in a colorful straitjacket,

Because I’m the same despite the pain of your disdain

That lives inside your pious hide beneath your walleyed snide. 

I could rate your hate among hypocritical deadweight,

But I was told to love so I will love all despite their ways.

LIES BEHIND OUR FEARS

This great society is void of variety,

Because amidst a tragedy, we see our own propriety.

We indulge in satisfaction and drink our own reactions.

We cash in our action for sociopolitical factions.

We couldn’t care less about lives while our words remain as knives.

We don’t hear our own child’s cries or the adolescent suicides.

Our lack of presence is our culture’s greatest weapon:

Pumping red lead in dead men, our dramatic armageddon.

Because we are the terror, our own cup bearer,

And when we crowd the streets, the news repeats,

As the mute fall cold at our feet.

ABSOLUTELY

The meaning of life is not how you define it.

Wrong is not right no matter what thoughts you have behind it.

God is not a product, nor a means of production.

Rules do not exist for your satisfaction.

You are to love despite the politics.

You are to exemplify despite the hypocrites.

When I say truth is black and white,

It is the difference from day and night.

And when it comes to humanity,

Please do not be stuck up in your vanity.

Because when you're racially blind 

And yet have crystal clear sight,

You will find that we are all one,

For which the same is battle won.

Death is real but you were made in love,

Not by religious robes, church stained-glass or a peaceful dove,

For you are brought home by Jesus' blood.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH FALLEN LOVE

I searched for love but got lost in my thoughts,

I sought invisible hearts that have wandered off far.

I have fallen in love with fallen love.

When I gasp for air I ask the trees above my hair,

Don’t you care, my lungs to spare?

When my throat needs rain I see the clouds,

But see not that heavenly drop.

I wish I could see a glass half full,

But my cup is empty whilst others have plenty!

My embarking heart, in quest of its counterpart,

Has furrowed a hole right through my soul.

And when it returns, to its lifeless sojourn

My hunger hurts with thirst much worse than before.

Cyclical, cynical, critical pain,

When all I wanted was just a little rain!

I searched for love but found that I was lost,

In a hostile thought that love was to find,

When it was given, humble and kind.

WHEN KEYS COLLIDE

Inside this skeleton beneath what’s relevant,

To what you come to mold and try to hold,

I lock my heart and with my chest I guard,

A cage, my rage, fended by smoke and gates.

Outside walkers, passers-by, passing by

Do not climb my fence and from this hence

Are unaware of what ware I wear

Behind walls where my tree branches fall, 

Blocking, breaking halls that hide my pride,

The love that I denied.

Sometimes I wonder if I wander

Deeper waters will I sink, or will I drink,

See blue depressants or incandescent 

Winds that take me high above my lies

To housing nests where I can rest

Without my best or any jest just

Self--pale, stale, tooth-and-nail Self.

But then I think from off the brink

And fall back to halls where

I am led--a light ahead--to doors

That bore in my mind holes that I unlock

And then I see in front of me a choice to go,

Refuse, say no, clear the smoke or hold the choke,

When I feel in my hands a key that brands

Love without demands to go furthermore, 

Find other halls of what’s in store.

From the ground I stand, passing by

Doors and corridors until I hear the sound

That’s crowned behind a wallowed cry.

When I unlock the lock I cannot talk,

For my ribs are broken open for a token--

No, a bronze key that stabs at my heart.

Alarmed, unharmed, I see the skeleton, 

Become once dead, now alive again.

From the ground I kneel, letting,

The key heal, without regretting, me.

Adorned and formed, I am now reborn.

LIGHT FARMER

There is a battle--one before our eyes.

Of night and day, you see the sun and moon

Slaying and praying the other’s defeat.

The dark brings forth a spear and a sword,

Swallowing up any sunlight persistence,

But light fends in deep ends and shields again resistance.

Even when cut to the heart,

Her dying breath spits out the stars to live amongst the dark.

Oh the night, carrying her name,

Ashamed of his act and cast down by this stain,

Cries out crescent moon tears that 

Play songs of forceful harp-strung sneers.

But then color is drained from his eyes as

Color returns to the rolling hills and grassy plains:

Horizon’s spine wasn’t too rugged a climb!

Infrared seas blossom, incandescent smiles shine,

Promising that gold will always invade the night.

Filament dreams never rest unless

The switch is made to wait for nature’s bait.

And let us then not forget,

It is when the dark thinks he’s ahead,

His mark secured upon the bed,

That the flowers learn to grow

And know that light will surely glow.

For we are always told, that you cannot hold a bulb!

Well it is then when you must lease your logic for feeling

And let your fingers find their fluorescent knowing.

If the sun never chose to crawl out of the sky,

Never chose to descend from the clouds way up high,

How then could we find our sight and see the light?

Candle wicks and lamp shade lights

Must be lit for Man to bring what’s right into the night.

You are a fighter, you are a swimmer,

Tilling the sky in seeding waters.

Of falling, the black will lead you,

But of climbing tendrils the white will take you.

Take ahold of this bulb, see to it that it’s revived.

The owl whisper is a sauntered bargainer,

But you will resist, because you are gardener!

COLOR BLIND

I am who I am. 

I exist because I was made.

My character is not the clothes I wear.

My personality is not the things I do.

I am who I am.

I do not intend to indent my future,

To say that I will not change,

To think I won’t age.

Who I am will grow and become.

Who I was will not change what I’ve done, 

My body is not my mind.

My mind is not my soul. 

For I will hold that you cannot judge a man

For the things he does or the places he goes.

A man is a man.

I am who I am.

GAVEL

Man is machine, systems of work gone wrong.

At the tip of the iceberg we function,

So my understanding ends short of this sentence.

Am I just the masses that engulf me,

Or the mental cellar I cannot descend to?

Since the trial of this thought bears more than I turn,

I comply with the cyclical system, I await the verdict,

And I mash the buttons, but perhaps I should just pull the cord.

FEEDBACK

Noise, streams of sound

From faulty cable touch,

Or output-input switch.

The grey fog of dilemma,

The black and white snow of waiting.

Noise.

Static rainfall pouring out in waves,

Pepper on old tv screen scenes,

A clog in a withered wire,

That loose screw in the mixing box.

Unintended, not foreseen shadowed

Screams.