I am.

I just need you, my river.

They were all laughing and making sex jokes, and Susan was doing her best to laugh along with them. When she saw me approaching the group, her face went “ashen.” It was almost like she didn’t want to remember what she was like twelve months ago, and she certainly didn’t want the boys to know that she knew me and used to be my friend. The whole group got quiet and stared at me, but I didn’t even notice them. I just looked at Susan, and all I said was,
“Do you ever miss him?”

-Charlie.

November 1, 1838

"And my purpose is to tell you how I remember your warning. How you told me that your kiss was as the kiss of a siren who steals sailor's hearts. How once yours touched mine, my heart would lose all inhibitions. How it would become your property. How I would long for you at night when I sleep, and in my dreams construct our fabled togetherness. How I would refuse to comforted by other women. How I would become a mess. I am not comforted by the thought of passing time, or of oceans between us. I am only interested in the desperate thought that what happened long ago between you and I was not so bad after all, and that I would not rob myself of the memories of you for the trade of my life. Your warning was correct."

-M.J.

"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."

lies, lies, lies.

Columbus's First Voyage

The Captain says, “We’re fine. We’re sailing right on time!”
But to us, the Earth is flat and we are sailing off the end.
There are mythical water-demons constantly haunting the depths around our boat.
And I just saw a whirlpool take shape a knot or so back there.

“We’ll reach the New World, yet.”
But his assurances don’t replace our lost pounds with bread, don’t dull our boredom.
They don’t change the fact that we are tired and scared;
That we have lost our perspective.

We are two months out of Spain; no one has ever come this far.
It is early October, last I heard; no one has ever known the storms that we fear.
We grow closer and closer to the water’s edge; no one has ever been guided by these stars.
No birds, no dolphins, no driftwood is near; no has ever come back from here.

He cannot make us without fear.
His words are increasingly meaningless.
If we don’t see a bird or stick or sign of land soon, there’ll be hell to pay.
We won’t die at sea, won't allow our bodies to be given up at the end of times.

If the sea is just a building lesson in fear and deprivation, than we want no part of it.
If there is no happiness, and only miserable lessons at sea, than we want no part of it.
If there is nothing here but miles and miles of empty water, than we want no part of it.
We have lost our perspective; we do not remember the feel of dirt.
If this is the sea, than we want no part of it.

You give me miles and miles of mountains, I asked for the sea.

The Lecturer

I see into their eyes.
A roomful of pairs, pointed my direction.
The audience sits across a multi-tiered auditorium, and every face is turned toward their academic father.
I am addressing them, and they all know “me”.
But I am afraid that they know more.
That they see past the pair of brown lies that pass for my eyes.
I am afraid that they can see plainly what I have seen plainly.
To my mind they are judges, and like God they sit on their thrones and question me.
Only God has forgiven me, and these watchers cannot.
“Liar! Adulterer! Murderer of Christ!” their eyes say again, again.
“We have seen what you have witnessed in the shadowy corners of the ghetto.”
“You are unworthy of love,” they tell me, as if my memories were branded upon my skin like red scarlet letters.
This is my fear come true.
Needless to say, I cannot make eye contact.
I cannot come clean or make myself known.

So I remain a distant lecturer.
I speak at them, and not to them.
I teach them knowledge, but not wisdom or hard won realizations.
I do not impart my devil’s visions to the classroom.
I remain a distant lecturer, and this forever I will be.

I feel like I know you Mr. Dylan. You are a master of english.

We Can Be Glad That We Don't Understand Her Allusions

"I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks,
the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips aglow in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,
he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don’t do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it."

-Sharon Olds

Logic is my armor.

That’s not what I am looking for.

People seem to be happy with damndest things. They go through life going from job to job, starting at $7.25 an hour working to $350,000 annually. Even if it’s not all about income, then it’s about equally unsatisfying things. It’s about having a fashionable career, or an old house in a quiet neighborhood. It’s about having a marriage, even when all partners die. It’s about bodybuilding, or being emaciated enough to go to the beach. It’s about being the most involved in church, so that everyone can see how good you are. It’s about finding the right words to make any woman in the world melt. I’ve seen our entire species pursue things that aren’t worth as much as a well-stained wooden board because they will not one of them fulfill man’s purpose. I don’t want enough income to spend on a forty-thousand dollar SUV or porn or daycare so that I won’t ever have to see my kids. That won’t make me happy. I don’t want just a quiet life in a safe suburb fifteen minutes from the city with a backyard that I can lay in. Financial soundness and a backyard that I can sleep in and feel safe would be fantastic, but what happens when I leave it at dawn and go to a job that I despise with writhing passion? I don’t want to rot in alcoholism and lung cancer. Where is the happiness that these things bring? They will damn man and prevent him from performing his innate function.

I want to glorify my maker. I want to show off the artisanry of the master artisan, the adventurous spirit of the ultimate adventurer. I want to love like the creator of love. I want to drive down an unfamiliar street and look not with contempt upon the homeless, but instead see only opportunities to serve the weak. I want to love a companion, and everyday show her the love that God has placed in me for her. I want to educate all, not with a sense that I know more, but with a sense that the Teacher has entrusted me with an understanding of the things that shape our world to share with and enlighten others. I want not to impress my own will upon my miserable little life, but rather I want to act upon the Lord. I want to avoid silly religious clichés and glow with the genuine. I want to avoid my innate and almost overbearing cynicism and believe in the reality that God has promised me. I want to listen to Yusaf Islam and not judge his religious subscription, but glow with pride that God has blessed the world with his sounds. I want to write; but not for just the sake of stringing words together. I want to overcome my biological inhibition and express because with written words the free thought that Christ has blessed me with. I want to sit in a coffee shop and not judge the children, but revel in the fact that God has created joyous life in their noise. I want to live for my purpose; I want to bring glory to my Father. I don’t want to just live for the eternity that he has promised. Even if he hadn’t, I would still seek his interest. I don’t want a meaningless middle-class life. I want to subscribe to realism, and abandon pessimism. The glory of Jehovah is the only worthwhile reason to live. I don’t want the things that I am not looking for. I want this.

This makes our days bearable.

Oh, You.

What is it that we do to make our days bearable?

Do we fill the time with pointless things, like making cash and cutting grass? Cash only lasts for so many drinks, and the thing about grass is that it grows whether we cut it back or not. So pointless tasks of this or that really hold only immediate significance, as they must be repeated over and over to achieve even a little result. Do we embrace our vices, saying internally that “the end is really freaking nigh, and no one can give me a significant reason of why I should not seek happiness in pleasurable activity.” Problems result here as well, because no matter how much sex or how many cigarettes, none of these things bring true happiness. While they may help pass the time, and may make unbearable days even a little bit more exciting, when those activities end, the days become even less bearable than before. Even less bearable than before, with the added bonus of becoming an addict who cannot be happy with anything, not even his drug. Should we pour ourselves into thought and ponder of the deep abyss, of the philosophical subscriptions that perhaps are making us unhappy in the first place? No matter how much “enlightened” thought man may project, he cannot think himself past despair and into happiness. Solomon and I agree here; correct thought on the deplorable conditions surrounding our race and the destructive internal drive of man himself leads only to the conclusion that nothing is good, and that nothing can be happy. Trains of thought cannot make men or women happy.

So what then is it that we do to make our days bearable? Where is this fountain of youth, or joy, or whatever misnomer it goes by? Youth does not bring joy; no, youths want only to be older. Joy, where have you been?

I couldn't have continued without saying that.

I was coming out of my skin.

"I'd take you all the way to Alaska if I didn't have an 8:00 mass."

Why should I choose between the man and the Maker?

Better ways to do this are few and far between.

Yes?

"It was revealed to him that he had been a barbarian, a beast. He had fought like a pagan who defends his religion."

And if that's not irony, I don't know what is.

Wolves Should Avoid Poisoned Prey.

And I just stood there, panting like an old wolf. It was silent out, even in the forest. Trees can’t talk. I had to keep reminding myself that trees can’t talk. Even though they had eyes, swayed in the breeze, and saw everything that I had been; they still couldn’t speak. They weren’t going to confront me. No one would ever confront me. I had done the thing, and no one would ever know, unless you would count the silent trees from a silent forest. I had been a true wolf, a real hunter; and I had gotten away with it.

After a few minutes I could breathe again. I started to walk aimlessly through the woods, occasionally kicking a dead branch with my absent footfalls. I was lost in thought, and thought is dangerous for someone who had just been where I had been. So dangerous. I knew that no one would know, would ever confront me, minus the sullen brown forest men and their sullen green forest eyes. And they couldn’t even talk.

But I couldn’t help but think that I belonged in Andersonville, or San Quinton, or at the depths of the burning, knawing Lake of Fire with the Evil One himself. Or in solitary confinement in a watching, swaying forest. Everyone was watching me, and they all wanted me incarcerated. Everyone, everyone, and all of these hateful ancient trees. Only, I knew no one was around for miles and miles.

I have heard some people say that immediately after the fact, they can’t remember the reasoning or the decision process leading toward their sin. That isn’t me. I knew exactly what I wanted, and I did what I needed to get it. I thought out what I had to do, made the necessary preparations, and acted. Exactly like an old, grey, hunter wolf. A hungry hunter wolf.

As I walked along aimlessly, mixing enough internal fear of being caught and reasoning to know that I wouldn’t ever be, I saw something that looked sharply like where I had just been. Like what I just done. It must have been a merely coincidental resemblance, surely. But still, in the back of my mind… Was this some kind of a trick? A sick joke? Was my conscience betraying me, or was someone who had seen my act toying with me? No. No, No. This couldn’t be real, could it? I couldn’t walk any farther, couldn’t turn my back and run away like the swift wolf that I had thought myself. I had just done this, and known that I wouldn’t be caught.

But there it was. It was more than graphic. It was every single related thing that I had ever felt or planned for, lain out in excruciatingly clear definition. Suddenly I was in a packed movie theatre, listening to the shocked crowd’s gasps while watching myself on the big screen from stadium seating. I was reading my New York Times bestselling non-fiction account of every sin I had ever committed, and then told the world all about. I felt like Claudius, watching the players pour poison down the king’s melting ear. Like Raskolnikov after he butchered the pawnbroker. I retched. I collapsed. I could see myself doing it, over and over and over. I had had the fortitude to carry out the deed, but now it seemed that I could not carry out the baggage. My intestines burned as I became sicker and sicker. I had not counted on this. I had not thought of this minor detail. The perfect sin, committed by the perfect, calculating sinner, was all in vain, because I could not bear to relive the gory glory of my actions. And I thought, “This is what it must be like to eat poisoned meat out of a wolf trap.” To taste the flesh, and then feel the metal teeth dig their way into my snapping legs. I could not live with this. No. The festering knowledge of my sin eventually would have poisoned me, and I had not planned for it. And as I retched the blood and the mucus out of my stomach, I realized that I was going to die. That the perfect, consequenceless sin that no one had seen me commit, was going to kill me; for I could not live like this. It didn’t matter that trees couldn’t talk, because I could not even bear the slightest reminder of my action, much less their wordless whispers.

I didn’t think that it would end like that. I was supposed to walk away, supposed to bury my memory, save for the sweet sensation of the successful moment. There were supposed to be no consequences. No one saw me, minus the sullen brown forest men and their sullen green forest eyes; and they promised not to say a thing. But, oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God. I should have realized… God damns the wolves who hunt, and accidentally eat poisoned, helpless people.

Nobody says it like Andy.

Seven Months.

August is upon us.

I will see the woods someday.

Rain washes more than just your skin.

Why I Am No Republican

If that didn't kill you, I should convey with my utmost that I am no dirty “Dem,” either. Frankly, and perhaps this is too idealistic of me, I find that by constricting my free thought and intellect to the molding of the dogmatic platform of any party to be all too similar to defining my entire body of spiritual beliefs by the edicts of a pre-renaissance western pope. Both are obstructive to free thought and innovation, oppressive to my personal rights and liberties, and therefore wrong by principle. Even if my ideas, those that evolved with help from information, data, and rational thought, do or ever did one-hundred-percent line up with a party’s platform, I would still not call myself a Republican, Democrat, Marxist, Libertarian, Texas Secessionist, Power Ranger Reform Clan, or blindly subscriptive member of any other party. I prefer to think my own thoughts, as opposed to swearing by the rants of the honorable Mr. Limbaugh, or worshiping the first black President of the United States as the savior of our species. Therefore, to amend my attention-grabbing headline necessary for your reading pleasure, I am as equally not a Democrat as a Republican. So don’t write off my words as propaganda, because they simply aren’t.

Introductory caveat aside, I understand that without parties, or groups of likeminded people banded together to combine political power in pursuit of favorable legislation, and their platforms, perhaps our political system would be too weak to function. It would be potentially even more divisive, even more cutthroat without alliances. Imagine if every single Representative and Senator were unable or unwilling to work with any other Representative or Senator. Even an increasing-in-size-and-entropy universe with uncounted multitudes of potentially colliding galaxies is not a decent-enough metaphor for the melee of divisive legislative combat that would haunt out “United” States’ political system and turn it into a non-functioning Athenian-style democracy. Not to mention that these Congressman and Senators would have a hard time even managing to be elected without the support of a party. This is no perfect world, and I understand that.

Still, I can’t help but be appalled at the divisive nature of party politics in America. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green Party; very, very few, if any, members of each could easily be found that would be willing to ‘share’ power. Protest the fictionality or not, Gandalf says it best, “There is only one Lord of the Rings, and he does not share power.” I cite, for example, President Obama’s recent attempt to pass the Economic Stimulus Package through the U.S. Congress. I lend neither support not dissent to the President’s much-hyped plan. I present only the plain fact that the package received literally no Republican votes in the House, and only three votes from Republican Senators (New York Times). In understand the perhaps every single Republican representatives and all thirty-seven Republican senators actually read the package all the way through, and found some legitimate faults. It is possible. But compared to the likelihood that the Old Elephant instructed its body parts how to vote, this chance is very slim. The debate over the Stimulus Package was no isolated event; this is standard operating policy for both major parties. This is why such importance is vested in the number “sixty”; for with sixty senatorial seats controlled by one party, currently the Democratic Party, any filibuster or hope of genuine, intelligent opposition can be bypassed in the Senate. Put the dots together, and the Democratic Party, which now has a Presidential seat and a Senate majority, and is generally quite unwilling to work with Republicans, not controls the Federal Government. That party’s standard operating procedure of issuing a platform, and bashing whoever and whatever goes against that platform, especially the Republican Party, is set to seriously divide the already unintelligently divided America even more.

I am no Utopian. I do not think that a human utopia is fully attainable. I understand that people, as defined by human nature, want what is best for their individual selves, as opposed to what is sacrificing their wants for the betterment of the larger group, generally speaking. This explains the lack of a functioning global community. This means that people do not and will not by nature ‘get along’ well enough to peacefully legislate all of the time. And I know very well that critical thinking and tough questioning, both seemingly absent in blind platform acceptance and violent party politics, are invaluable to good decision-making. But argument purely for the sake of spiting the Democratic or Republican Party or their platforms is unacceptable. I would not tolerate it in my household, and I will not tolerate it in America. This is, in part, why I subscribe to no Party platform. Blind acceptance of party platforms means blind slavery to parties, which leads to a divided America.

Not that Nanci Pelosi or Sarah Palin will read my editorial, but, were I one of their constituents, I would be on the phone with my government’s headquarters leaving voicemail after voicemail of condemnation of the overriding party bickering that haunts America’s governmental halls. I urge anyone who cares about himself or his neighbor to cease pointless bickering and the blind consuming of Party politics, or pointless bickering and party politics will cease the working functionality of America and paralyze our way of life.

Driving to See the Greatest Plants Alive.

I imagine it is quite like a plant. There are dead ones and live ones. Thorny ones and delicate ones. Ones with strong roots to last the storms, and to get the water even when very little is to be had. There are rootless ones; and when the wind comes it will pull them apart. There are those that frequently sprout, like weeds in a country field. But the ones that sprout too often cannot stand the years, because when too many plants crowd the earth, they all die. Then there are the Giant Sequoia's. My God, the ones that last the years and occupy the coast. They grow and grow, sometimes producing thirty-cubic feet of beautiful wood a year. The kind that everyone drives two-thousand miles to see. Young kids wonder what it's like to grow roots like theirs; and old folks are comforted by their presence through the decades. Romantic ladies dream about having one to call their own, and all grown men really want is to be a part of the family of trees.

We all want it. Every one of us. Love as big as a tree.

I once argued with my 9th grade literature teacher.

She told me that people could not live alone; that humans were not capable of being, of existing, totally by themselves. If you can read the foreshadow, you know already that I vehemently disagreed.

I was right. Even in 9th grade, I was a literal child. I knew it then, and I know it now: people don't need other people to be alive. To have oxygen and nutrients flowing through their hearts and arteries. Babies don't need their mothers, and men don't need others. The novelty of being alive, of rapidly responding to external stimuli, isn't sustained by human relationships. Christopher McCandless can live in a van in Alaska and survive on wild plants and squirrels. Robert Neville can live alone in an eight-million corpse steel graveyard and survive the outbreak. And God knows I could sit alone in my apartment, eating two meals a day out of a microwave, while my heart still contracted and relaxed.

Still, even while being correct, It's funny how off I was. She did not mean what I thought she meant; she did not say what I thought she said. Granted, those particular muscular contractions that formed those particular words that made up the offending statement did come out of her mouth and vibrate through the air matter between us and into my ears. But I absolutely failed to read between the lines. I heard what she said, but didn't realize what she meant. I became so invested in the literality of her words that I ignored the deeper statement about life and human relations. Had I not done that, had I read between the lines, I would have prematurely learned a great lesson, one that kings would have killed for.

People cannot live on their own. They can be living, be existent and responsive to external stimulus, yes. So yes, I did literally argue the correct response when I heard her collection of words. But I was stupid. There is no way I could truly live alone. And I pray to God that I won’t have to. Human beings need other human beings to truly live, to truly be. That's the truth between the lines.

And I didn't believe her.

Oh.

Six Months Today.

You know, that happened to Oedipus too.

And he gouged out his eyes.

You never know what will happen when you kill a man.
He could be a king or a cheater.
But once he is dead, he will haunt you.
My God.

Do you think we write anything ourselves,

or does the story just happen to us?
Calvanism is completely anti-climactic.

Everytime I see a defibrillator, I see a field and a miniature horse.

Everywhere.

But what have I to lose?

Rien.
Partir en voyage.

Me, Dad, and 1971.

"There's a lady who's sure all that
glitters is gold.
And she's buying the stairway to Heavan.
And when she gets there she knows
if the stores are all closed.
With a word she can get what she came for.

There's a sign on the wall.
But she want's to be sure.
Because you know sometimes words have
two meanings.
In a tree by a brooke there's a songbird
who sings sometimes.
All of our thoughts are misgiven.

There's a feeling I get when I look
to the west.
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke
throught the trees.
And the voices of those who stand looking.

And it's whispered that soon if we all
call the tune.
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn for those
who stand long.
And the forests will echo with laughter.

And it makes me wonder.

If there's a bustle in your hedgerow
don't be alarmed now.
It's just a spring clean for the May-queen.
Yes there are two paths you can by.
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on.

Your head is humming and it won't go - in case you don't know.
The Piper's calling you to join him.
Dear Lady can you hear the wind blow
and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road.
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know.
Who shines white light and wants to show.
How everything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When we are one and one is all.
To be a rock and not to roll."




Drums on the steering wheel. God, I miss that.

Somebody's going to have to pay for your sins again.

He got his kick in the teeth.

Running down the driveway, running full speed away from her.
Sin and irony always did run his life, anyway.
But it's still funny how you never do find those things on residential drives.
He had his chance; he could have come clean.
It's just that confessions for sins don't come easy.
So she chased him with kitchen cutlery and her intent to kill, but the steel and glass beat her to him.
The trees saw everything: how he cheated in their bed with the window open, and then how he denied three times. They even heard the rooster's scream.
"And finally, he even got his," the oak said to the pine.
Yeah, he got his kick in the teeth: the only bus related death in his nieghborhood that year.
He ran from her revenge strait into a city bus.

Nobody hates history,

they just hate thier own histories.

How sick is that?

"It's cathartic; I need it. God, I need it."

What's the point of asking a question if you aren't looking for something in return?

An answer.
A reaction.
A challenge.
A dispute.
Or some emotional ammunition.






So, no, 'just a question' is a lying phrase.

This really happened.

212,938 times

See, our minds are like forests.

There are these things, these big things, called trees.
And they only get bigger.
The bigger the trees get, the more they take from you.
And sometimes it takes a fire to clear them out.

So, Solomon. What is the point after all? We seem to come to the very same conclusions up to this chapter. I wonder how this book ends? Do you ever find a point to life, or are you still chasing after the wind? God, Ecclesisastes and me make a great team; we are both cynical to death.

The Day They Ran Away

I walked out the door and there it was.
Oh my God, I saw the apocalypse.
I saw the wind and the rain and the end of the world.
The sheets of clouds where as unreal as the unlatched gate slamming into its frame, again, again, again.
They were not where they should have been.
Not at all where they should have been.

I ran out the gate and slid through the same mud that they did.
The asphalt was my destination, but it took years to get there.
I’ve never seen a slow motion scene in my front yard since that storming hell of a day.
I watched them fly toward the street; the rain-slicked street and the only car of the hour.
I was 30 seconds from catching them.

Things had run away before, and things will run away again.
But nothing is worse than watching your dogs die.
Forty-miles-per-hour and a canine’s momentum can scar a kid for life.

I Have Become a War Correspondant

I hate photography. Let’s be honest about it. I am tired of dancing with sin, but the music never ends. We’ll just wheel around the room until I die; that’s when I’ll pay for all the moves. I’ll just spiral and spiral, and shuffle and swirl until the lights are out and it’s time to pay the tab. God, I am a slave. I am little more than a man on a chain. I may wear the suit of a gentleman, but my master is no gentle man. He is a demon; a soul born of curiosity and misintention, refined with lighting and an artistic vision. No, I never meant to end up in hell, but a darkroom and a camera can bring you to places that you wouldn’t imagine.
I was just a boy when I found the film. It was the worst mistake I’d ever make, but boys can’t appreciate foreshadow like a man can. Film and hell, film and hell, film and hell, and film and where I’d soon be. I picked up a camera and photographed what I never should have seen, and now the pictures are too vivid to be thrown away. They have taken on a life of their own; a fabled existence like the plates of the Great War, complete with gas and death and bloated horses and trenches. The pictures are the thing, wherein I caught the depravity of man. That depravity has become embedded in me; my master, my owner, my slaver, and my Satan. Those things never should have been captured in a still frame, save for the curiosity and potential skill of tempted child. Photography is not a lost art, buts its patron’s are lost artists. It took me to the battlefield, where I was never meant to be. It showed me the things that I was never meant to see. Film will someday send me to hell, for that is where my camera points. The rest is history.
And so I’ve become a gentleman. A well dressed, well spoken hypocrite. I pretend that my photos have a point. I can preach against the war with my black and white snapshot commentaries that I publish in the papers, but the work never lies; no, it always holds true. I must enjoy the depravity. The war is a dance. It starts out slow, with well dressed men and their demonic partners. The gunshots are the music, and the men soon see what men were never meant to be. Well dressed men in suits become slaves on chains, with the devil god of photography holding the key. Why do pictures have to be worth a thousand words? The pictures that I have taken are worth a thousand views, and I am doomed to see every single one. I am doomed to document the demise of man, the stunning downfall of every hand. The dance started out slow, but for every viewer it picks up a beat. I first viewed the war at age eleven, that when the music first claimed me. I will dance with the sin of war until all the men are dead, including me.

Something

Is really messed up with my internets.

My background is missing.

Mind Under Matter.

Or under the influence, at very least.

see more pwn and owned pictures

Location, Location, Location.

So where were you when the Devil visited?
Where you at home, all alone? It’s where he visits most.
Where you at school, in the halls? Surrounded by our science?
In the mall, where it’s all circumstance and commerce?
Where you at church, surrounded by the “sacred”; forbidden territory even to Lucifer himself?
Where the devils are hidden by the angelic hosts’ images and icons,
Where the Reverend’s sermon casts away the spells,
And the atrocities are merely hidden until after close?
Candles and saints and old ladies and stained glass
can’t be seen when the lights are off, and only the janitors are around to keep each other company.


You were in the library; surrounded by the dusty thoughts of dusty men’s dusty dreams.
Beside them on the casket shelves sit ancient ideas and ancient pens; they make up a graveyard of sin, for he even visited men then.
He came from a thought on a page, from a word now engrained
as an idea in your veins; a fire sparked from the oh so flammable dust of ancient sinners.

How ironic; a graveyard visit from the king of the dead.

Actually

I really hate this thing's url.
"Handwritingandpencils" sounds so crappy.

45 and Such.

I have about 45 books of various nationalities, all waiting for my reading cap to be on.

They won't stop staring at me.

Crisis on the Water

I’ve seen them depart.
1,2,3, and 4; now I’m here alone.
Overcast with a window view; it’s raining outside and inside.
Here it’s cold and wet, like the beach in Nassau County.
I’m under the ocean in my living room.
Alone on the couch, I’m resting beneath a mile of water.
Sunk like the Titanic, my ethics were her sister-ship.
Thought to be “unsinkable”; or hardy to say the least.
But I ran upon an iceberg, it chilled me to the core.
I tried to save the passengers, tried to save the ship.
The water rushed my head and buckled my bulkheads.
And even with the life vests, they all drowned alone.
The strong have all died; died like what I believed.
Now I rest alone, a mile under the Atlantic.
With no evidence of my shipwreck still floating on the surface.
And no governments looking for my corpse; no one even knows that I sank.
They think I still haunt the sea, with a boat, a crew, and passengers.
But I only haunt the ocean floor and my living room, with no ethics and no passengers.

They call them rogues, they travel fast and alone.

One-hundred foot faces of God’s “good” ocean gone wrong.

Feet First, and Heart Behind Rationality (Warning Signs)

I slipped in a rush and then down some stairs.
I slid with my back, now it's under attack.
My body, it screamed and my heart, it leaped.
My eyes lost the count and my ears sowed and reaped
the discord of my feet that weren’t underneath
my two legs, my two hands, or my two heads.
My two lungs lost the time and I felt in my mind,
I am falling, falling, falling down to disaster.
So there I did wait for the crash, for the break.
For the shatter, for the moment, for the ache, and the hate.
My leg is in two, and tidal of pain
is all I can see; except for the bone, the other bone, the blood, and my grief.
And that’s when I knew that the stairs and the concrete
and the handrail and the caution signs
were all for a purpose; to keep me on my feet.

Rewarding Investments.

I invest my time in Star Wars literature and thinking.

They are rewarding.

Dusk.

(There is rarely anything in the dark, save what was there in the light.)

We do not actually fear the dark itself, but the unknown that haunts the shadow.

1879 Set My Living Room Free

One-thousand little burning filaments in one-thousand little glass bulbs. One-thousand years of pain and suffering and another forty-nine thousand just for good measure. One little switch releases one little current and the room fills with the sought-after of one-thousand generations. One-hundred-billion fires later with all the third-degree burns in the world and man finally gets the magic light of the gods. All the hard-work that all the hard-working men sparked into flame to hide from the dark, and Edison’s magic fire hides my living-room at the flick of a switch.

You, Sir, are Most Wrong.

(Some things ARE impossible.)

Generation Gap

Noun
Origin 1960-1970


-The differences in customs, attitudes, and beliefs between any two generations, but especially between youths and adults.

-The loss of information between the members of one era and the members of another.

-Emphasis on knowledge that is endeared by one generation but that is particularly not endeared by another.

-Prominent differences between a parent and a child, particularly in knowledge; Often occurs because a parent or a trusted guardian fails to pass along vital information to a child; Often occurs because children blatantly ignore vital information passed on to them by a parent or trusted guardian.

Example: “There is a massive, overriding generation gap between the millions of WWII veterans, who often witnessed unimaginable horrors at the hands of others and themselves, and their sons, who oftentimes were never forced to run other teenagers through in brutal hand-to-hand death-throes.”

Example: “Children would have done well had they not ignored the pleading, begging voices of their parents, who would not have led them astray. The result is a deadly generation gap that causes children to prematurely suffer because of a thorough, blatant lack of knowledge.”

Winter, Winter and How I'll Stay Warm.

I’ll wait you out winter, winter; I’ll beat you.

I’ll sit in my chilly apartment with my chilly blinds drawn down and I’ll conspire of your end. I’ll wait you out until I can’t stand you, and then I’ll wait some more. Evan though my bones will be thin and by beard will be long, I’ll never give in. I’ll bundle my thin bones and I’ll wrap my long beard and I’ll wait. Evan though my knuckles will be chapped and my skin will be sallow, I’ll never surrender. I’ll bandage my chapped knuckles and I’ll wash my sallow skin and I’ll wait. I’ll wait and I’ll wait and I’ll wait. I’ll wait out your uncertainty and I’ll persevere through your snow. I’ll ignore your tap, tap, tapping at my window and your knock, knock, knocking on my door. I’ll put on a vinyl; it’ll drown out your sounds. I’ll place that needle in the groove; it’ll vibrate you away. And when the sounds fill my ears and I’ve socks on feet; I know I’ll be warm inside. I’ll not feel thin and long-bearded nor chapped and sallow. I’ll only feel warm when the sounds fill my ears. Warm and determined.

I’ll wait you out winter, winter.
I’ll beat you yet.

Reasons for the Wilderness.

Carve your own pencils, whittle your own pipe.
Why do men live alone in the woods?

Build your own cabin and chimney; all out of trees that you have hewn and stone that you have carried.
What is it about the wilderness that fascinates them so?

Skin the flesh that you have claimed; killed so that you may live.
Is it atonement or haunting or fear or worse?

Your beard will grow while you sleep alone; there is nothing but survival in the mountains.
Survival or worse.

Not for the autumn leaves or the rushing streams; not for honor or for dreams.
Nor for war or peace; neither God or gods or godly things.

Men live alone for horror.
Horror at what it is their world has become, and at what it is that they have done.