A few thoughts

The world (fear) is too much with me

The temporal aspects of the world cause fear. We don't want to lose what we have, whether it be the money in our pockets or the respect of a friend. Thus we cling tightly to what we perceive is ours. God, and his divine glory in us, is eternal. In him there is no fear because there is nothing lose, only change or movement. God is everything, so as long as we are in a relationship with God we have everything. That everything may change, but no matter what possessions or honour we may lay claim to it is all God's and will continue to be God's when we can no longer lay claim to it. Everything is available to us through God. It is no less, or more, available if it is in our hands or at the other end of the galaxy. All is God's. Thus "whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it."

The Prophet as scapegoat

All prophets, whether secular or divine, are maligned. That is the risk or speaking Truth. Lies consistently make their way to the top. Lies give gain to their creators. Lies put people over people and allow them to make claim on other people's work. Lies allow people to step on others, to lift themselves up in balloons of hot air. By speaking the truth it takes the life out of the lies that have been painstakingly built up to benefit those in power. That, however, does not necessarily convince anyone that the lies are lies. The truth must be bashed into people's skulls. It is violent and unpleasant. The prophet therefore takes the pain of society onto him or herself to make the truth known in hopes that future generations will see the lies as lies and will be able to move forward. Therefore the pain of the prophet is equal to the truth s/he speaks.

Some feedback?

I remember when we first met. It wasn't that memorable of a meeting so I'm sure I've embroidered it along the way, polished it up after it was tarnished for the first few years. You were unremarkable then. We were unremarkable then. The bar springs easily to mind, as I frequented in those days. I can feel the heaviness in the air, hear the jostle of the young crowd, feel their shoulders bump up against me as I push towards the bar. All that is clear from repeated viewings, but then the night took a very small turn. An unremarkable turn, except for you. I didn't know it then. You were talking with June, probably trying to get into her pants. It's all you thought about those days, you admitted it to me yourself. Her face is of the time, but yours always comes from later on in our relationship, some anachronism from the future.

            It was June that waved to me, no doubt trying to escape your attentions. So I came over and we talked. You introduced yourself and I promptly forgot your name. I remember I forgot your name because the next time we met I did my best to dance around your name so my ignorance wouldn't be revealed. But that first night, when I came over to talk to June you quickly faded away. I smile when I think about how young you were then, how easily deterred. I can hardly imagine what you were like then, a boy fresh out of high school still enamoured with the new world that bars had opened up to you. You were in love with the mess of people I think, and the loose morals that the liquor required. To think of you this way seems almost heretical. I know you would protest the word but it is the closest approximation I can pull out of my brain.

            I don't remember how you came to be in our group. My guess is, and I apologise if I'm off, but my guess is that you just started to tag along because you thought we were cool. We were after all upper-classmen. We could, and quite often did, quote Nietzsche, and Marx. We had read Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Some of us were even writing poetry that had been published in anthologies. I can see how that would have been impressive to a young man fresh out of high school.  I remember you on the outskirts of our little circle well we drank absinthe and smoked our clove cigarettes. And talk until we got kicked out about all manner of 'intellectual' things. Hell, we were infatuated with ourselves and we half knew the lie that sat under our intellectualism. I can see why you found us attractive, as straightforward and sincere as you are.

And when you got back from that trip, oh that trip. What it did to you I'll never know. Not just because you won't tell me, but it scored deep. Somewhere so deep I can't, no maybe won't, go. It scares me sometimes. It scares me that somewhere someone touched you that deep. It scares me to think that someday someone will reach down there in me and touch me too.

            The first time I saw you after you came home: that is a meeting I will never forget. This time the setting is hazy. Once again we were at a bar I believe. I was there with some of my friends and I saw you come in the door. Even from that distance, sitting half way across the room, I could see that you changed. I wasn't sure how, but I knew. It wasn't that I couldn’t put my finger on what had changed about you, like when someone gets a haircut and there's this nagging thought in the back of your brain saying something has changed, it was that the change was so big that I couldn't comprehend it. Not in the first five minutes anyway.

Does it catch your imagination?

clickety-clack

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack
A train rolls in and
heels tap out the rhythm of movement in time with the
Clickety Clack
"All aboard"
The halls resound as people scatter and gather
The fire erupts and the speed picks up
clickety-clack
back into the countryside
Conversations roll with the hills
Clickety-clack
"tickets, tickets"
The conductor shouts over the wailing horn
as his heels drum out their tattoo
counterpoint to the train
staccato laughter rings out of the window
and it's all forward
as the engine begins to glow
the smoke pours out a single dull grey rail against the sky
and the noise of movement swallows up the pastoral sounds
of the birds and the bees
Clickety-clack
Likesome typewriter writing poems of movement across the face of the earth
between cultures and countries and colours
with the same noise that invades skulls to bounce around and around and
click
ety
clack
us into a new world and a new time until we're suffused with knowledge
and we
clickety clack
back out once again

Change

Summer unwinds us from it's soft, stifling embrace
leaving hot skin exposed to cool air.
Soon she'll be gone for good,
her side of the bed cooling with the breeze
from a window that was left open
and the door she didn't shut.
The melancholy emptiness of Autumn
will steal over in unwatched moments,
until the breeze blows cold
and you flip up your collar
and move on.

Take me he said, smiling at the beast. You can have the breath from my lungs, but no more.

A falling out

I've had a falling out with the day

Night and I have separated

because of an ongoing affair with my computer

and work that occupies my time at all hours

Each excursion marked by the awkward pause of my exit,

a surprise meeting with a recently left lover.

"Hello sun" or "Hi moon"

I cast my eyes about

squinting, trying to get my bearings

I don't know where to look,

what to say…

What topics are out of bounds?

Do I ask if she's doing well?

Common courtesy escapes me

I lower my eyes, my brow shading my eyes

and forge ahead. 

Nothing is forever

The city is crumbling. Friends fall away, creating little avalanches of memories tumbling to nostalgic irrelevance. Companies and travel pluck off both enemies and acquaintances to parts unknown. Towers fall taking favourite restaurants and communal wells until you stand alone on a mole hill that was once a mountain, surveying a new world. So you pull on your boot and head out into this new jungle and create again what you once had.

Makes clowns of us all

In compliance to the machine
I clothe myself as a clown
burying dignity under
yards of polyester,
individuality under
swathes of rayon.
And stretch to match,
tooth for tooth,
the smiles of coworkers

Hands out for tips
I beg with
cloying conversation and
put on friendliness
I perform for you
because you are money
and I the worker.
You the mark
I the grifter.