Untie Me

Written June 2008. Spoken Word. Performed RETRO Revolutionary Open Mic.

I am the first to fail at this:

                Live selflessly, and you will find bliss.

I am the first, I must admit

                to serve, until it gains me nothing—then I quit.

I am the first to be the one that holds out a hand toward the homeless,

                not to ease their burdens, but to ease my conscience!

                                Not to help them,

to help me…

I am the helpful hand that helps itself

To whatever it can reach upon the shelf.

 

And yet I loathe Crime!

I despise Corruption!

But, ye who are untruthful,

                are the first to hate untruth,

and the last to make it true.

 

Look at me, just look!

Can you see that,

                even as I accuse,

                                I am the crook!

Look, and can you relate?

                From within me,

                                flows that which I hate?

 

I would live for others, if I could,

                to right the wrong and trade ill for good.

But it’s a beautifully tragic realization to which I come

                that my twisted soul,

                                ‘tis a knot that cannot be undone.

 

I am a poetically simple manifestation

                of the infestation within us,

                so how do we come clean?

                How do we turn just?

                How do we repent,

                                when we are fallen thus?

 

If there was one—one!—who did not live as we

Who never hated, never wronged, spoke ill of, unlike me,

Who never lied, never hurt, nor, what was not his, retained,

Never trampled, nor worshipped himself, nor himself maintained,

I think, then, we’d be O.K.,

we’d call it good, or even a day.

But who knows such a man?

Surely not you or I,

for all the best whom I have known have failed by farthest cry.

If humble, they know it,

                if prideful, they deny,

We yearn for the perfect, but the standard is too high!

 

Utopia is a myth!

It holds no pith,

                Nor Meaning Substance, with

                                Which to cure these ailing bones that barely hold us up!

You may call this Life a glass half-full,

                but it’s still not a whole cup.

 

But I know one! One, yes, I know one,

Who, against our own inadequacy, has won!

One who won our hearts when he won our battles,

Making One what was broken, and silencing what prattles,

When he did what need be done and loved how we could not,

When he reached within my twisted soul, and—swift!—untied the knot.

When he lived among the dying, and for them then chose to die,

 

And now lives.

 

There is nothing quite like a Savior who comprehensively gives.

Packing Paper Makes Paper-Cuts

Written February 2008. Spoken Word. Not yet performed.

Once I packed a wound away

Like a monster in a cage, and bid it stay.

            In words both command and plea, I prayed,

            Plunged it into the water,

                        Watched it sink beneath the waves.

I was relieved to see it gone, I guess,

Thought it never really left,

                        but only dwelt,

a tingling menace,

            subdued to a corner of my consciousness.

Like a vampire, I loathed its light,

                        but it’s candle would never melt.

 

All it took was a trigger, I must reflect,

One I’d hoped I’d never meet,

But our luck is never that good, in retrospect—

Our fortune never so neat.

 

So there I was—now

It emerges from the depths

            where it was forever to be kept,

                        when all at once it leapt

                                    in giant bounds both quick and deft.

And I had two terrifying roads to travel:

            To cling and suffer,

            Or let go and be ashamed.

Choose wrongly,

            I’d unravel—

I’d already been clinging,

            so to the latter one I aimed.

 

I must confess

            as I progressed

                        to confess

                                    what I transgressed—

            expiating angels of the past—

that when my fears aside were cast,

and my guilt had left my side,

no more selfish hate to fuel my pride,

I felt as if I’d died,

            and lived again.

 

It’s funny how our little gods are more like slaves

            that hold us captive to our sin.

Set them free,

            and you’ll be much, much closer yourself

                        to being free.

No More Dark Define

Written January 2008. Spoken Word. Performed at RETRO Revolutionary Open Mic, Vision16 Mocktail, UCU Java Night.

...

Once ago, once ago

I flew the Himalayas, and watched

the sun streak over them in rising

I have been to championships,

I have met the humble and the chastising

I have toured in a taxi with a terrorist,

held my baby teeth within my fist,

I have an adopted little Indian brother,

I have cussed at my own mother,

I have worn two pythons around my neck

and felt like an idiot writing my first check,

I have broken my nose four times,

and gone on adventures,

            just to adventure

                        sometimes;

I have seen a man shake in utter fear,

I’ve stubbed a toe and wiped a tear;

I’ve declared to a girl that I’d be with her to the end—

I’ve won a heart,

            I’ve lost a friend;

I found a dead jellyfish on the shore

and got lost in a grocery store;

I rode an elephant once,

I’ve built a scarecrow and had it lit,

I’ve even gone to watch a concert,

and ended up playing in it.

I’ve known famous people

and prayed beneath a dozen steeples;

I’ve seen a Nepali woman furious at exercise yoga,

and been complimented by a Buddhist monk,

I’ve spoken Latin and learned how to say “toga” (…it’s… “toga”… in Latin)

I’ve run from a skunk!

I’ve seen my best friend fall off the proverbial cliff,

I’ve hung with people I’d call loose

and been called “stiff”

I’ve beaten an analogy to a pulp

            and I drank that glass of orange juice in one gulp

I’ve been handcuffed,

            and tasted my own medicine

I’ve seen all sorts o’ stuff,

            I’ve been caught in sin,

I’ve been choked on a school bus,

accidentally wiped whiteout on a teacher’s shirt,

I’ve collected rocks, chased snakes and frogs

and aimlessly dug holes in dirt

I’ve been afraid of dogs

I’ve sat on a sunken dock, and in the rain!

            to watch the drops, like pepper, play upon the lake—

I like to be called crazy—

            I think it keeps me sane

And all in 20 years

of vanilla birthday cake!

Why, I hope to live four times as long!

But now we’re shifting gears….

 

Back then…

 

Then

            I was a little boy

and Life

            was sandbox Tonka Toys

Dreams were commonplace—

As was the mud on my baby-fat face.

And, like some little boys

I had a dad—

I’d beam when he praised me,

            and cringe

                        when he was mad.

Through a long and drawn-out lesson

I’d learn to discern

            between good and bad

In scoldings, time-outs,

            spankings and shouts.

This is my upbringing, like many others.

 

Like many others,

            Then

                        I was a teenager

Arrogant and unsure

I was both Superman and the loser

I was king and I was victim.

There were moments, sure,

When I was void of all delight,

But like every fledgling artist,

            I had my time in limelight

                        Like many others.

                                                                                               

Like many others,

            Now

                        I’m a young adult—

Still I often feel unqualified for the job,

Or as if I’d joined a cult

But always I tend toward thinking

That I know more than I actually do,

We are so young, college students!

But we assume we’re heroes yet unsung.

We have LaRouche, we have Conservative,

Musician, Engineer

            Nerd and Homie-G;

You name it and it’s here!

We have the prideful and afraid,

Theologians and Agnostics,

the bums and the well-paid,

But what’s the difference if tomorrow,

We’re the same as yesterday?

I fear

That we’ll let life get away

Being caught between

Friends and enemies

Between those who uphold me

And those who scold me to my knees;

We have the broken and the breaking, shaken and shaking,

lust-slaking,

peace-making,

            truth-taking,

                        friend-forsaking,

                                    cause-for-headache-ing

                                                thought-baking

We have the

moral-teaching

            love-leeching,

                        shirt-bleaching,

                                    short-armed and far-reaching,

                                                humbly beseeching,

Sports-loving

            push-comes-to-shove-ing

                        innocent-as-dove-ing

Dawg-piling

            endless-smiling,

                        by-fire-trialing

                                    relationship-reconciling,

Propaganda-bellowing,

            way-showing,

                        temper-mellowing,

                                    face-glowing,

Class-rocking and nerd-mocking,

            the stunning and the shocking,

                        hatchet-burying and gun-cocking

                                    open-door and window-locking,

Joyless,

            hopeless,

                        faceless,

                                    heartless,

Joyful, hopeful,

            a face full of laughter

            and a heart full of depth

Here is the secret long best-kept:

I am not invincible—I never was!

Yet I make my choices and when asked for reason

I answer firmly “Just because!”

“I have rights!” I cry, but do I? Do I?

Was I not born? Will I not still die?

I am not a sadist, masochist, nor emo

But “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”—I’d like to know

real life,

I’d like to know

Why the scalding heat of summer always cycles into snow

Why we have those feel-good movies, and then their credits t’ end the show

Why we have sweet songs, and then their resolution chord,

Why there is an end to prince and pauper, both the lowly and the lord,

Why we have love and our beloved is soon lost,

Why we have gain and glory—but always with a cost

Why everywhere there’s white it’s not quite white

            but a mere and imperfect reflection of the truly bright white

Why everywhere there’s light it’s always lessened by the shadows

And, most of all—

            the silencer of tongues!

                        the stiller of our strife!

                                    the sobering truth

                                                that one day ends this life!—

Why we die although we grow

To grow and still die

 

Not quite the happiest thoughts,

No I know they are not

But flip them around,

they take on a better sound

that the freezing winter is always followed by the spring,

that the end of sweet songs means a new lyric to sing

that the poor are justified to meet the same fate

as the rich—the small as the great

that love is never a regret, for somehow it goes on,

that the cost of greatness is never one for which we long

that somehow, by not seeing white, we seek like ne’er before,

and that, though dark descend, we are promised light in one day more.

 

Do not close my childish eyes, as you have closed your own!

I will not be a mimic, sycophant, nor clone!

I will see the light, and not be scared to shine.

I will, too, see the dark, and bring to it the light.

We deny, defraud, defer,

But Truth’s always coming closer,

Let it not be fear that breeds

When I say Truth’s all you need

Let it not be a shaking hand that’s close

When I say the end is close at hand

Let it be only comfort, consolation

that Truth will be there on that day

that takes you from me away

I will feel it and remorse

But Truth will meet you at the finish line

When there is no Blemished White, no Dark Define,

We’ll have brothers, sisters, mothers, uncles, aunts and friends

On this my soul depends

And like back in that sandbox, playset swing

There’ll be no thinking too much, there’ll be no thing

but trust, between you and your Father

Truth will meet you there.

This life is like music.

It’s beautiful.

            But it ends.

I know Truth, and I know Life;

He’ll be there at the end.

On Him my soul depends.