Saturday, April 21, 2012
Desperation
I am angry, my bones are brittle with contempt and failed dreams. My heart laments its existence with every beat. I am downcast and broken and my dreams are haunted by demons that leave me no peace. I used to fight, to brawl until knuckles were bloodied with insurmountable passion and zeal. I was a whirlwind blowing from the south, consuming every trial with a twisted grin. The seated boxer was my hero; my jaw was set like marble and I was not to be stymied or stopped, I was not to be contended with. My dreams were the womb of sustenance that saturated my being with solidarity and hope. Now I am lowly, I am deplorable. My voice of beckoning has become a whimper in the dark shadows of twilight. I am angry, I am hurt and I am very much alive.
I have heard the wise talk of journeys and the transformation that happens before the end, in order that one might achieve that end. Here I am in a cyclical force of endless walking, of wandering from desolation to desperation and back again. I do not pretend to wise, or naïve. I know that in a single moment I have attained both wisdom and foolishness. Here though, I have become a fool with no redemption evident. I was foolish enough to believe, until my dreams were ripped from my chest and I lay down at night with a cold hollow in my soul, with want to be hallowed. I am a faithless man, born of bitter defeat.
I have wondered if this is my event horizon. If I have past the crest of relative existence and I am being swallowed by an absence of light, doomed to be compacted into an existence that defies natural law, or law born from Theos. I am a wounded son, bearing my lacerations to my world, letting my screams ring clear as I walk into the sea. With every cold wave, every salt filled molecule of water, I have hope and a pain so deep that I would not pretend to define it. This dichotomy of hopelessness and promise is difficult. I want to let go, to lay down and accept the fate of ritual and purposeless life, I want to admit that I was wrong, that It is all a lie, but I cannot. Even in my want, in my angry and absolute distrust, I know that He is not a man that He should lie or the son of man that He should repent. I know that I am wrong. I know that in my state of rage and unfulfilled desire that He, He is so much more than my faulty belief. I know that this hope in me is not mine, some ill-fitted armor created in response to defeat, it is not some false notion of coping or a defense to make sense of everything. It is wholly everything that I am.
I am not seeking council or consolation; I do not want words of affirmation or platitudes due to some sense social propriety. I am not screaming “look at me,” I could care less. I have found the midnight hour, I have found Ichabod. In all of this, I have found a burning bush that is calling me to away from something safe and established: away from the ewe and her lamb, down into the pits of Sheol, where there is no chapel bell to ring, no sound of church and no icons to find solace in. There is a whisper behind me, causing my every fiber to resonate in disbelief and fear, to fall flat on my face and scream, “though He has torn me, yet He will heal me.”
I am angry and I have hope that the bright and morning star doesn’t mind my furor. My bones are brittle with contempt, but He is a healer. My heart laments its existence with every beat of muscle, but His words are life and truth. I am downcast and broken, my dreams haunted by demons that leave me no peace, but His gaze steadies my wavering peace…
Monday, April 16, 2012
lunar longing
The tumultuous thumps of chaos have left me in an exacerbated state of emotion. Details aren’t important, at least not the methodical and dutifully categorized ones. My details are that of breath and life, of color and storms. I have loved quite deeply in all manners of the word, just as shallowly as well. Of all that is love, it is the deepest, the purest and most beautiful, that can and will wound you into the fiber of your soul. “I have friend, one that I love, her name is the moon…”
My nights have been missing their moon, missing that glowing satellite of spatial mass. My tides have lost all crests and pools, my oceans have turned in sorrow as the rhythm slowly dissipated and I was left in stillness, in silence; A quiet so deep and so absolute that the echoes of sound crumble like Granite Mountains. I was told to stay away from the ocean, but who can really do that? Deep calls to deep, right?
I kept hope when I lost it, on nights when I was dreaming of my moon, the shimmer that happens in the chasm of your mind, where synapsis fire like pistols and electricity rumbles through the smoke and like phantoms, figures emerge, my moon emerged. I awoke to the waning of hope. There was a cry in my silence, a roaring whimper that took a subtle prick at my heart. I leapt from the scattered smoke as reality bruised my body, scraping against door and wall as I made my way out.
The slow scraping of water against sand left me in shock. Tides? Here, now? The ocean was reflecting rage and there in the sky was a waxing moon. Brilliant white light pouring down in a frenzy, then like a snuffed flame, it was gone.
There is hope in me again, deep hope. My wounds are still raw, my heart still faint, my ocean is still silent and my night is darker than ever, but I know that “having hoped contrary to hope, in hope he believed…” I believe too. I believe I can do this, that It can change, that the horns of the alter are in my hands, I will not let go. I will be given audience and my petition will reach through a brass heaven and echo out like the cry of the ocean roaring against sand, roar like deep calling to deep.
My nights have been missing their moon, missing that glowing satellite of spatial mass. My tides have lost all crests and pools, my oceans have turned in sorrow as the rhythm slowly dissipated and I was left in stillness, in silence; A quiet so deep and so absolute that the echoes of sound crumble like Granite Mountains. I was told to stay away from the ocean, but who can really do that? Deep calls to deep, right?
I kept hope when I lost it, on nights when I was dreaming of my moon, the shimmer that happens in the chasm of your mind, where synapsis fire like pistols and electricity rumbles through the smoke and like phantoms, figures emerge, my moon emerged. I awoke to the waning of hope. There was a cry in my silence, a roaring whimper that took a subtle prick at my heart. I leapt from the scattered smoke as reality bruised my body, scraping against door and wall as I made my way out.
The slow scraping of water against sand left me in shock. Tides? Here, now? The ocean was reflecting rage and there in the sky was a waxing moon. Brilliant white light pouring down in a frenzy, then like a snuffed flame, it was gone.
There is hope in me again, deep hope. My wounds are still raw, my heart still faint, my ocean is still silent and my night is darker than ever, but I know that “having hoped contrary to hope, in hope he believed…” I believe too. I believe I can do this, that It can change, that the horns of the alter are in my hands, I will not let go. I will be given audience and my petition will reach through a brass heaven and echo out like the cry of the ocean roaring against sand, roar like deep calling to deep.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
The brave and the snake
The brave and the snake
There was an old Indian who lived down the road from me. He was an alcoholic. Actually he wasn’t, I just like to lie. He was a hardworking old man with hair as white as the insides of a coconut and skin as brown as a leather belt. If someone skinned him he would probably make the strongest belt any man could ever wear. I liked that old Indian. He told stories all the time, some were funny. Like the time he told me about how a 50 white men were scalped by 6 Indian women who put peyote in their coffee because they had raped and made them slaves. Slavery was a new concept to me, but having a woman you owned that you could have sex with anytime of the day you wanted didn’t seem like a bad deal; it sounded just like marriage.
He had another story I liked, it was about an old man who lived for over a hundred years, he was a medicine man who had watched all his friends die, and most of their children die until he was left alone with no one who really knew him, he prayed to the great sky spirit and he came and took him to a mountain top with other spirits, once there he cried so hard and long that a river formed and that is why we have the MISSY-SIPY river.
I always thought there was a moral or some shit to that second story but I could never figure it out. All I wanted was to be an old man and live on a mountain top with spirits; I couldn’t give two licks bout being lonely.
Aside from listening to that Old Indian there wasn’t much to do around here. I skipped rocks on the pond until I could skip 8 beats on one throw, then I got bored with it. So I went on to making things, I would make paper boats, planes, turn a two-by-four into a bat and smack rocks at the wasp nest above jenny’s house…that is until she would notice and tell her mom who would tell my mom who would tell my dad and he would whoop me harder than a hammer striking a nail through oak. After enough beatings (and by beatings I mean butt whooping’s, my pa never hit me like some of these poor folk do their kids) I left well enough the hell alone and focused my time on skinning rabbits and trying to make a pouch to hold my bb’s for my Red Rider BB gun I got for my last birthday.
I used the hell outta that muthafucker, at least, that is what I like to think. That got taken away from me soon as I shot out Miss Maybell’s window. I spent the next month mowing lawns to get enough money to pay for it. My dad didn’t take any shit or lip or lipshit from nobody, and everyone had to pay for their mistakes, he would tell me. I did all right at school work, I didn’t mind it, and it kept my mind busy. When I didn’t have nothing to do I would start getting antsy and my mind would run faster than one of those black people at the Olympics.
I liked blacks sure enough, never understood why my pa hated them so much. I was even starting to fancy Miss Judy’s daughter; she had eyes like fire and skin the color of tilled earth, exactly the kind of girl I wanted to marry. I am still working out how to keep my pa from finding out though. When I’m old enough I won’t have to hide it, I’ll walk right up to him, plant my fist straight in his jaw and say “This here is MY wife and you will take her as your daughter, and fuck all that hating blacks bullshit.” That’s what imma do…soon as I’m old enough.
Sheryl—that’s my ma—she don’t like me cussing so much but I figure I gotta grow up sometime and seeing how my mouth works faster than my body I figure it outta grow up first. Still though, I try and mind my mouth around my ma, she is a saintly woman and I swear if anyone deserved to go to heaven it was her.
That Indian told me that in his culture that a boy was considered a Brave when he could grab a rattle snake by the tail. I kept that in mind in case I ever saw a rattle snake, it’d be a sure fire way to grow up fast, at least to that old Indian. He was one of the few people around here who were different. I mean everyone is different, like snowflakes, that is what my Sunday school teacher told me anyhow. I believe her though; everyone seems to do different things, even if it is the same thing. Like when you fart in a crowded room and everyone has this ugly look on their face because it stank something awful; they all are making the same face you know, but everyone one of them faces is different. That Indian is like that, he is a person, but his awful face seemed almost from somewhere else. He was like looking at a piece of history. He lived in a teepee and did war whoops on Sunday because his holy day was every day. He would make bows and arrows and shoot black bears and cougars. He would dance around the fire late at night chanting a song that made me feel like I was looking through a window into another world.
GOTCHA! What Indian in their right mind would live in a teepee nowadays? If you fell for that you sure are gullible. He did make bows and arrows though, and he did chant by the fire some nights. He never war whooped though, I guess there just isn’t any war left in his old bones.
I spent more time with that Indian than my pa liked, he didn’t mind Indians as much seeing as how they were here first, which made me wonder that if we was in Africa if he wouldn’t mind blacks so much. That Indian told me all kinds of things, his stories were great, but he would tell me some shit I didn’t know what to do with. I mean a story is a story, but when someone tells you that people used to be able to change into wolves and bears, and they pissed faced serious? How you supposed to believe that? In any case he told me that a long time ago people used to be able to change into wolves and they would run through the woods and howl at the moon and they knew to respect the wild because they were wild. That was before men became tamed by laziness and greed, that’s what he told me anyway.
I was ready to dismiss that bullshit until I had a dream few nights back that I was an Indian. Me and my friend were trying to become Braves and were hunting to find rattlesnakes, I found one and grabbed its tail, just as its head flew past my arm I yanked it so hard its spine snapped. I was hooting and whooping and hollering all kinds of shit I couldn’t understand. I reckon my friend got kinda jealous ‘cause he pulled back a rock to find another rattler and he reached straight down to grab it and got bit. He fell over and we were far from our Indian village. I knew he was going to die. I remember starting to run, I a ran so hard and fast that as my feet hit the ground they changed into paws and with one jump over a log I started running on all fours. I felt the feel of my tongue hanging over my teeth; I felt the wind blowing through my fur and around my ears. I felt my body drumming in rhythm as I ran over moist earth. When I reached the village I felt my chest swell with air, I let my face stretch up toward the blue sky and as air pushed its way through my neck and came out in long and full howl. All the medicine men came out and followed me back to my friend. The dream started to fade when we got back to him and I remember feeling like everything was going to be all right. I had changed back into a human, rain started to fall on my face as I was laughing a deep, like when your whole body feels the laugh. I woke up right then in my bed with my dog Jimbo slobbering me to death. Damn dog. He’s always there when you don’t need him and never around when you do.
You know, most mornings as a kid are all the same, you wake up and you feel groggy, rubbing your eyes, hankering hard for a bowl of cereal and some cartoons or wondering how many tadpoles you’re going to catch after school. This morning was different; I think it was an adult morning. I woke up tired, weary maybe—I heard my daddy use that word after work one day. I was wide awake but I knew something was different. The light spilling through my window was so yellow it was almost gold. Dust was falling through it; we sure do breathe a lot of crap in every day. My old writing desk was halfway in the light; I was staring at it hard because I could see the wood grain coming through the cherry stain. It was like veins beneath skin, all preserved by some color and a clear coat. You see a space a thousand times and it always looks the same until, at one point, you just really notice every detail. That is when you really see it, when it comes alive to ya. I guess that is why city folk don’t like living here so much and why most of us that live here don’t take a liking to the city. City folk haven’t seen a cool November morning, when the sun is rising over the wheat field; the breeze blowing through golden stalks making them dance like a billion people all coming out of the ground and stretching toward the sun.
I made my way down our old gossiping stairs into the kitchen, they were always making talk with each step. My pa and ma were sitting there looking like death had come and shit on their faces. They obviously heard me coming down the stairs because they was looking at me soon as I round the corner. Pa looked up at me and told me to sit down; I was worried that a beating was coming, I started trying to remember if I had broke anything, nope; back-talked, nope; smart mouthed some adult, nope. I hadn’t done a damn thing and I told my daddy that.
“Dad, I aint done one damn thing wrong so you can’t give me no beating; I been respectful, aint bullied, hit, back-talked or broke nothing.” I crossed my arms and looked smug. My Pa opened his mouth once, nothing came out though. He closed it and then opened it again—looking like a puppet moving its mouth with no one talking. “Son, I know. Just be still and listen to me. I got some bad news for you. Jeff (I forgot to tell you, that Indian was named Jeffery) has cancer, I know you two are fond of each other, and he has taught you a lot about trapping and what not, but he is going to die soon. I figured it is better you hear it from us than from the grapevine. “
I didn’t quite understand what my pa was saying to me, I know cancer is bad and people with it usually die, but it just didn’t seem real. Cancer is one of those things you can’t touch or see, you don’t notice it like a cut, bruise or scrape. You only get to see what it does, like when Gertrude Laurence had cancer, that old woman must have been pushing into her nineties. She was always a hefty woman, but then she got cancer. It was like it was eating away at her from the inside out; she just shrank and shrank until there was nothing left. I wondered if that is what it would be like for Jeffery. He didn’t have much fat on him anyway so I figured it wouldn’t be that long before he shrank away. It scared me a little. That old Indian was probably my best friend. Damn cancer, if it were a person I would beat the shit out of him.
I let my pa try and explain cancer and when he was finished talking i just got up and walked away. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have anything good to say so I kept my mouth shut. I made my way to the pond to try and think about everything. My daddy told me more than once that a man needs time to himself to clear his head. And what better place to clear your head and get some catfish for dinner than a lake? I spent about an hour out there before I got my first bite. It was a big old heavy whiskered cat fish. He was a bull to pull in and even harder to handle. He must have weighed bought 9 pounds. That’s almost one-sixth of my weight. After I got that big old boy I didn’t have much use for staying by the lake, I gutted him and cleaned him out and started walking back home.
I was just about there when I decided that with Jeffery being sick and all he would probably like someone to bring him some dinner. I ran the rest of the way home and hollered at my ma that I was going to make a fire in the back yard and fry up some fish. She HATEs the smell of cooking fish and ever since I was little daddy and me always had to make it in the back yard. Well, after explaining my intentions to take Jeffery some fish, my ma said it was probably the most mannered thing I had done in a long time. She didn’t know that last week I took a bunch of her tulips from the flowerbed and took them to Mrs. Maybell—my ma gets real protective of her flowers—it was mannered, but she would kill me if she found out. I started my fire and grabbed the corn oil and some spices from the house. I laid strips of catfish in the oil once it got hot. They crackled and popped as the oil soaked in and cooked the strips of meat. Jeffery told me once that hate is like oil, unless you keep your soul clean, the hate seeps in and cooks your heart. He said it stops it cold, that the people that live after that happened are called demons. They no longer celebrate life and beauty; they wallow in hate and evil and are like poison to people. I prayed every day after that story, to make sure my soul was clean.
Jeffry’s house was an old one. It had cedar shingles on the outside. They were cracked and faded with flecks of paint being huffed off by the aromatic wood skeleton beneath. The roof was a quilt of shingles, all different colors and sizes, brought together by years of leaks followed by repairs. Jeffry had a spotted pony tied up out front. He told me that years ago he went up to Colorado and trapped a wild horse and broke it in a river. He loved that pony. He always said it was his brother and that there isn’t a big difference between animals and people when you get down to the soul of things. I stepped up onto his porch, that thing talked more than our stairs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say when the door opened. Jeffry was standing there with his coconut white hair and deep brown skin. He was wearing a faded yellow long sleeve shirt. All the buttons were undone save the three at the bottom. Sitting around his neck and square on his chest were the bear claws from his first bear hunt. He looked like an Indian and talked like one two. He had that accent that they all have, when they grow up somewhere away from white people. The only thing that wasn’t Indian about Jeffry was the faded tattoo on his forearm of a naked pin-up girl. He said he had got it in prison with ink from a BIC pen and a needle made from an iron splinter. I never understood that damn tattoo. I mean Jeffry’s bout as Indian as they come, believing in his animal spirits and chant whooping, he even caught his own spotted pony for Christ’s sakes. (I forgot I’m not s’posed to say that.)But there in the middle of all this Indian tradition and life is a naked white woman on his forearm.
Jeffery enjoyed the fish and told me I should salt it next time and hang it by the fire to smoke-cure it. I said I would. His couches were awfully uncomfortable and I told him that. “Your couches are really uncomfortable. You should probably get some new ones so you can enjoy when you sit on them.” He looked over at me and said just above a whisper, “Couches…are…for white people.” His face was set like stone just after he said it and I stared at him so long my eyes begin to ache, but then that smile creeped across his lips and we both laughed so hard I’m sure they could hear us in China. He told me all kinds of stories that night. These weren’t his usual crazy ass Indian stories though, they were real stories about him and his life, his friends and family and how being an Indian was about Mischief. He told me Mischief was in their blood as much as murder was in mine. That the true part of being human is to never let what is in you, own you. I laughed so hard that night my sides ached the next day. He told me how his brother and him broke into a gas station one time. They had smoked some kind of special tobbacki that makes you feel like you haven’t eaten in days. They saw chips in the gas station and just busted the window with a brick. They ate and ate and then passed out. They woke up to a fat bellied cop handcuffing them; they waited till his back was turn and ran away. He told me how that cops belly jiggled like a fat bowl of jelly as he ran after them.
He told me that the best night of his life was when he was camping with his dad in the Red Wood forest; that the trees made him feel like a newborn baby, naked and hollering out but not understanding anything around him. He told me about his ex-wife and how I should never marry a woman with a crooked grin, cause chances are, she is crooked too. I stayed way longer than I should have, but Jeffery kept telling stories and I just kept listening.
This went on for a few weeks; myself going to his house around dinner and hearing everything he had to tell. My pa didn’t say anything ‘cause they knew he would be dead soon—and so did I. Jeffry never talked about the cancer, never talked about death, until the last night. I went to his house as I had been for the past few weeks. Jeffry was outside standing next to a fire, the sun was setting and twilight was creeping on like a hazy grey ghost. Jeffry had a deer-hoof rattle in his hand, along with a small hand drum and stick in the other. I thought I had seen all his Indian shit before but this was something else. He was wearing leather trousers with beads dangling all over it. He was shirtless with a bone breastplate dangling down from his neck. He had bracelets and necklaces on even turquois and copper earrings. I could tell he had been waiting for me. I hollered as I walked over, “What the hell is going on old man? You dressed up fancier than chief Sitting Bull.” He just gave me a dead stare and spoke, “Actually I look more like Redcloud. Sit down and let me teach you something.” I looked around for a log but there wasn’t one so I pulled a bucket off the ground and flipped it around then sat square on my britches. “Jonny, you know I have cancer, you know I’m dying. Tonight I’m going to teach you what it means to be a Brave.”
Jeffery walked around to the other side of the fire and picked up two bowls; he dipped his fingers down in them and wiped them on his face; the red and white running parallel underneath his eyes. I stood and walked toward him as he waved me over. He put paint on my face and a rattle in my hand and told me to shake with the rhythm he would set. He shook his rattle once, then again. as he shook the rattle he begin to beat the drum, the dull thud, thud, thud growing louder with each hit until it became steady. His breathing started matching the rhythm of the drum and the rattle. His chest moving in slow, steady motions until his neck twitched and he started to chant. I stood there not knowing what the hell was going on. I was even scared to move. I just watched Jeffery chant and chant until my eyes got bored and I started looking around. I heard somebody walking up behind me as their feet was crunching against the gravel. I turned around and there was another Indian standing right behind me, then another on the other side of the fire and another. They all walked up and formed a circle and started chanting with Jeffery.
It was one of the strangest damn things I had ever seen. Jeffery was Indian, but I didn’t know he was THAT Indian. One of the strangers grabbed my arm and pulled me gently into the circle. I stood there as they all chanted, the voices echoing down into my bones. I shivered once or twice, not because it was cold, but because something was going on. It was reaching out to me and grabbing my innards like my ma does a Christmas turkey. The chanting went on and on and I was trying to pay attention but my legs hurt from standing so long and it was getting late. I kept shifting my weight and I was about to sit down when they stopped chanting. Jeffry stopped beating the drum and the rattles came to a smooth resolve, as bits of bone and rock scraped against the inside of the hoof one last time.
I took a strong look around at all of them standing there around the fire. One man had real high cheek bones and eyes like Chinese. Another one looked like a woman, but I couldn’t be sure and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna ask. All the others looked like Indians you would see in school books. They all was wearing leather and moccasins and had all kinds of beads and colors on them. If I took a picture and showed it to someone they would swear it was taken years ago maybe back before we stopped fighting the Indians; back when white people still got scalped for raping Indian women, back when we made them walk the trail of tears, back when we condemned their culture to death by smallpox infected blankets. Right now, looking at all these brown men with black hair, they looked brave. Every crease and line in their faces was a piece of history and I wanted to know all of it. I looked down at my own white hands and I felt out of place for the first time in my life, that must have been what Jeffry felt like most of his. One old Indian surrounded by a bunch of poor southern white people, who were too angry and bitter to care about anything but themselves. I wondered what it was like to be a Brave then, to really be a Brave. These Indians had hunted bears, wolves, coyotes, they had stories that were old by the time my great, great, great grand pappy stepped foot in this place.
I looked over at Jeffry and I was sad for the first time in my life. I mean really sad. Not upset about a lost toy or pocket knife, not pouting because my but still stung from a whooping, but the kind of sad that leaves a whole in your chest. This man was my friend and when he dies I wouldn’t have that any longer. I wouldn’t be able to laugh over fried fish and ride a spotty pony. I wouldn’t be able to hear stories that were better than any damn book I read. I wouldn’t…I just wouldn’t be anymore. I knew that when he died I was going to change, be a different person. I knew it and I hated it. Water started leaking from my eyes, pouring really. Jeffry looked over at me and nodded. I don’t know why I hell he would have nodded at a time like that, I wanted to punch him in the face.
Jeffry stepped forward and the circle closed behind him. From the other side, one of the Indians stepped forward with a pot. It looked purple by the fire, it was prolly more pink in daylight, it looked like clay. He kept walking ‘till he was about 8 feet from Jeffry and squatted down. He slid his hand to the bottom of the pot, supporting its whole weight in that hand. With his free hand he grabbed the lid and in one motion quicker than a wasp sting, he removed the lid and flipped the pot upside down. He stepped back and pulled the pot away but held it between him and what was under it. I heard the rattle start as soon as he picked up the pot. The snake was coiling on itself and that rattle was shaking worse than one of those Pentecostal people. Jeffry hunched down and stretched his arms out to his sides, his eyes glued to the snake. He slowly walked forward and gave a “WHOOOO WIP!” Everyone in the circle did the same thing and then started chanting again. The he/she Indian picked up the hand drum and hoof rattle and set the rhythm. Jeffry circled the snake. He looked like a hawk; his arms wings and fingers talons. That rattler was pissed something awful, he hissed and lunged at Jeffry twice. Jeffry came in close and put his head down low about eye to eye with that rattler. He waved his left hand out and like lightening; his right hand came in and caught the snake just below his head. It was hissing and wrapping itself all kinds a ways around Jeffry’s arm. That naked pin up girl was covered in scales and snake oil.
Jeffry took out his knife with his free hand and rubbed his thumb down the edge until blood started dripping off his finger. He held it up above the snakes open mouth and let the blood drip down into its throat. My face was hotter than a metal slide in July. My breath stayed steady and the tears did too. I was going to miss that old Indian, more than I had ever missed anything. The chanting suddenly changed and it was getting faster. Jeffry started dancing around the fire with that snake on his arm. He let out one last “Whoo wip.” And put that snake’s mouth right on his hand. Its jaws stretched up and bit down hard. Jeffry let go and it dropped to the ground and coiled up on itself. I yelled out but no one did anything. I was angry, at those damn Indians, at Jeffry and at that muthafucking snake. I ran right at it and it lunged at me; I jumped to the side and grabbed it by the tail and swung it hard up and around until its head smacked the ground, then I did it again. The snake’s body went limp and I stomped on its head. I looked at Jeffry who was lying on the ground, his body shaking like that rattlers tale. He had that small grin on his face. He pushed himself up and spoke to me. “You’re a Brave now Jonny.” I ran over and put my head into his chest. Crying and mumbling, “And your nothing but a dumb old Indian. You’re going to die now!” He looked at me and lost that smile, “We all are going to die sometime. I’m a Brave; I won’t let a ghost eat me from the inside.” Jeffry pushed me off of him and struggled to stand up. He looked up at the sky and drew in every bit of air his lungs could hold and let out the loudest howl I had ever heard a man make. Then the coyotes howled back. Jeffry joined the chanting, circling the fire and chanting until he fell down in the dirt and that rattle snake venom finally seized his lungs.
I looked up at his house, his old blue 1950’s Chevy, at his spotted pony and finally at the woods behind the fire. I saw something flash at me from the woods and looked harder as a wolf walked out, sat down and howled. He howled until the fire died down to embers and the chanting had changed to sobs, all Jeffry’s Indian friends making a new trail of tears as they walked home. He howled until the night broke and dawn started creeping on the horizon. I didn’t think that old Indian was so crazy after that; I didn’t think his stories were bullshit either. I knew they were real and I know he understood what it was to be a Brave. I saw him change into that wolf and if any muthafucker wants to tell me I’m a liar, I’ll beat his ass.
There was an old Indian who lived down the road from me. He was an alcoholic. Actually he wasn’t, I just like to lie. He was a hardworking old man with hair as white as the insides of a coconut and skin as brown as a leather belt. If someone skinned him he would probably make the strongest belt any man could ever wear. I liked that old Indian. He told stories all the time, some were funny. Like the time he told me about how a 50 white men were scalped by 6 Indian women who put peyote in their coffee because they had raped and made them slaves. Slavery was a new concept to me, but having a woman you owned that you could have sex with anytime of the day you wanted didn’t seem like a bad deal; it sounded just like marriage.
He had another story I liked, it was about an old man who lived for over a hundred years, he was a medicine man who had watched all his friends die, and most of their children die until he was left alone with no one who really knew him, he prayed to the great sky spirit and he came and took him to a mountain top with other spirits, once there he cried so hard and long that a river formed and that is why we have the MISSY-SIPY river.
I always thought there was a moral or some shit to that second story but I could never figure it out. All I wanted was to be an old man and live on a mountain top with spirits; I couldn’t give two licks bout being lonely.
Aside from listening to that Old Indian there wasn’t much to do around here. I skipped rocks on the pond until I could skip 8 beats on one throw, then I got bored with it. So I went on to making things, I would make paper boats, planes, turn a two-by-four into a bat and smack rocks at the wasp nest above jenny’s house…that is until she would notice and tell her mom who would tell my mom who would tell my dad and he would whoop me harder than a hammer striking a nail through oak. After enough beatings (and by beatings I mean butt whooping’s, my pa never hit me like some of these poor folk do their kids) I left well enough the hell alone and focused my time on skinning rabbits and trying to make a pouch to hold my bb’s for my Red Rider BB gun I got for my last birthday.
I used the hell outta that muthafucker, at least, that is what I like to think. That got taken away from me soon as I shot out Miss Maybell’s window. I spent the next month mowing lawns to get enough money to pay for it. My dad didn’t take any shit or lip or lipshit from nobody, and everyone had to pay for their mistakes, he would tell me. I did all right at school work, I didn’t mind it, and it kept my mind busy. When I didn’t have nothing to do I would start getting antsy and my mind would run faster than one of those black people at the Olympics.
I liked blacks sure enough, never understood why my pa hated them so much. I was even starting to fancy Miss Judy’s daughter; she had eyes like fire and skin the color of tilled earth, exactly the kind of girl I wanted to marry. I am still working out how to keep my pa from finding out though. When I’m old enough I won’t have to hide it, I’ll walk right up to him, plant my fist straight in his jaw and say “This here is MY wife and you will take her as your daughter, and fuck all that hating blacks bullshit.” That’s what imma do…soon as I’m old enough.
Sheryl—that’s my ma—she don’t like me cussing so much but I figure I gotta grow up sometime and seeing how my mouth works faster than my body I figure it outta grow up first. Still though, I try and mind my mouth around my ma, she is a saintly woman and I swear if anyone deserved to go to heaven it was her.
That Indian told me that in his culture that a boy was considered a Brave when he could grab a rattle snake by the tail. I kept that in mind in case I ever saw a rattle snake, it’d be a sure fire way to grow up fast, at least to that old Indian. He was one of the few people around here who were different. I mean everyone is different, like snowflakes, that is what my Sunday school teacher told me anyhow. I believe her though; everyone seems to do different things, even if it is the same thing. Like when you fart in a crowded room and everyone has this ugly look on their face because it stank something awful; they all are making the same face you know, but everyone one of them faces is different. That Indian is like that, he is a person, but his awful face seemed almost from somewhere else. He was like looking at a piece of history. He lived in a teepee and did war whoops on Sunday because his holy day was every day. He would make bows and arrows and shoot black bears and cougars. He would dance around the fire late at night chanting a song that made me feel like I was looking through a window into another world.
GOTCHA! What Indian in their right mind would live in a teepee nowadays? If you fell for that you sure are gullible. He did make bows and arrows though, and he did chant by the fire some nights. He never war whooped though, I guess there just isn’t any war left in his old bones.
I spent more time with that Indian than my pa liked, he didn’t mind Indians as much seeing as how they were here first, which made me wonder that if we was in Africa if he wouldn’t mind blacks so much. That Indian told me all kinds of things, his stories were great, but he would tell me some shit I didn’t know what to do with. I mean a story is a story, but when someone tells you that people used to be able to change into wolves and bears, and they pissed faced serious? How you supposed to believe that? In any case he told me that a long time ago people used to be able to change into wolves and they would run through the woods and howl at the moon and they knew to respect the wild because they were wild. That was before men became tamed by laziness and greed, that’s what he told me anyway.
I was ready to dismiss that bullshit until I had a dream few nights back that I was an Indian. Me and my friend were trying to become Braves and were hunting to find rattlesnakes, I found one and grabbed its tail, just as its head flew past my arm I yanked it so hard its spine snapped. I was hooting and whooping and hollering all kinds of shit I couldn’t understand. I reckon my friend got kinda jealous ‘cause he pulled back a rock to find another rattler and he reached straight down to grab it and got bit. He fell over and we were far from our Indian village. I knew he was going to die. I remember starting to run, I a ran so hard and fast that as my feet hit the ground they changed into paws and with one jump over a log I started running on all fours. I felt the feel of my tongue hanging over my teeth; I felt the wind blowing through my fur and around my ears. I felt my body drumming in rhythm as I ran over moist earth. When I reached the village I felt my chest swell with air, I let my face stretch up toward the blue sky and as air pushed its way through my neck and came out in long and full howl. All the medicine men came out and followed me back to my friend. The dream started to fade when we got back to him and I remember feeling like everything was going to be all right. I had changed back into a human, rain started to fall on my face as I was laughing a deep, like when your whole body feels the laugh. I woke up right then in my bed with my dog Jimbo slobbering me to death. Damn dog. He’s always there when you don’t need him and never around when you do.
You know, most mornings as a kid are all the same, you wake up and you feel groggy, rubbing your eyes, hankering hard for a bowl of cereal and some cartoons or wondering how many tadpoles you’re going to catch after school. This morning was different; I think it was an adult morning. I woke up tired, weary maybe—I heard my daddy use that word after work one day. I was wide awake but I knew something was different. The light spilling through my window was so yellow it was almost gold. Dust was falling through it; we sure do breathe a lot of crap in every day. My old writing desk was halfway in the light; I was staring at it hard because I could see the wood grain coming through the cherry stain. It was like veins beneath skin, all preserved by some color and a clear coat. You see a space a thousand times and it always looks the same until, at one point, you just really notice every detail. That is when you really see it, when it comes alive to ya. I guess that is why city folk don’t like living here so much and why most of us that live here don’t take a liking to the city. City folk haven’t seen a cool November morning, when the sun is rising over the wheat field; the breeze blowing through golden stalks making them dance like a billion people all coming out of the ground and stretching toward the sun.
I made my way down our old gossiping stairs into the kitchen, they were always making talk with each step. My pa and ma were sitting there looking like death had come and shit on their faces. They obviously heard me coming down the stairs because they was looking at me soon as I round the corner. Pa looked up at me and told me to sit down; I was worried that a beating was coming, I started trying to remember if I had broke anything, nope; back-talked, nope; smart mouthed some adult, nope. I hadn’t done a damn thing and I told my daddy that.
“Dad, I aint done one damn thing wrong so you can’t give me no beating; I been respectful, aint bullied, hit, back-talked or broke nothing.” I crossed my arms and looked smug. My Pa opened his mouth once, nothing came out though. He closed it and then opened it again—looking like a puppet moving its mouth with no one talking. “Son, I know. Just be still and listen to me. I got some bad news for you. Jeff (I forgot to tell you, that Indian was named Jeffery) has cancer, I know you two are fond of each other, and he has taught you a lot about trapping and what not, but he is going to die soon. I figured it is better you hear it from us than from the grapevine. “
I didn’t quite understand what my pa was saying to me, I know cancer is bad and people with it usually die, but it just didn’t seem real. Cancer is one of those things you can’t touch or see, you don’t notice it like a cut, bruise or scrape. You only get to see what it does, like when Gertrude Laurence had cancer, that old woman must have been pushing into her nineties. She was always a hefty woman, but then she got cancer. It was like it was eating away at her from the inside out; she just shrank and shrank until there was nothing left. I wondered if that is what it would be like for Jeffery. He didn’t have much fat on him anyway so I figured it wouldn’t be that long before he shrank away. It scared me a little. That old Indian was probably my best friend. Damn cancer, if it were a person I would beat the shit out of him.
I let my pa try and explain cancer and when he was finished talking i just got up and walked away. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have anything good to say so I kept my mouth shut. I made my way to the pond to try and think about everything. My daddy told me more than once that a man needs time to himself to clear his head. And what better place to clear your head and get some catfish for dinner than a lake? I spent about an hour out there before I got my first bite. It was a big old heavy whiskered cat fish. He was a bull to pull in and even harder to handle. He must have weighed bought 9 pounds. That’s almost one-sixth of my weight. After I got that big old boy I didn’t have much use for staying by the lake, I gutted him and cleaned him out and started walking back home.
I was just about there when I decided that with Jeffery being sick and all he would probably like someone to bring him some dinner. I ran the rest of the way home and hollered at my ma that I was going to make a fire in the back yard and fry up some fish. She HATEs the smell of cooking fish and ever since I was little daddy and me always had to make it in the back yard. Well, after explaining my intentions to take Jeffery some fish, my ma said it was probably the most mannered thing I had done in a long time. She didn’t know that last week I took a bunch of her tulips from the flowerbed and took them to Mrs. Maybell—my ma gets real protective of her flowers—it was mannered, but she would kill me if she found out. I started my fire and grabbed the corn oil and some spices from the house. I laid strips of catfish in the oil once it got hot. They crackled and popped as the oil soaked in and cooked the strips of meat. Jeffery told me once that hate is like oil, unless you keep your soul clean, the hate seeps in and cooks your heart. He said it stops it cold, that the people that live after that happened are called demons. They no longer celebrate life and beauty; they wallow in hate and evil and are like poison to people. I prayed every day after that story, to make sure my soul was clean.
Jeffry’s house was an old one. It had cedar shingles on the outside. They were cracked and faded with flecks of paint being huffed off by the aromatic wood skeleton beneath. The roof was a quilt of shingles, all different colors and sizes, brought together by years of leaks followed by repairs. Jeffry had a spotted pony tied up out front. He told me that years ago he went up to Colorado and trapped a wild horse and broke it in a river. He loved that pony. He always said it was his brother and that there isn’t a big difference between animals and people when you get down to the soul of things. I stepped up onto his porch, that thing talked more than our stairs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to say when the door opened. Jeffry was standing there with his coconut white hair and deep brown skin. He was wearing a faded yellow long sleeve shirt. All the buttons were undone save the three at the bottom. Sitting around his neck and square on his chest were the bear claws from his first bear hunt. He looked like an Indian and talked like one two. He had that accent that they all have, when they grow up somewhere away from white people. The only thing that wasn’t Indian about Jeffry was the faded tattoo on his forearm of a naked pin-up girl. He said he had got it in prison with ink from a BIC pen and a needle made from an iron splinter. I never understood that damn tattoo. I mean Jeffry’s bout as Indian as they come, believing in his animal spirits and chant whooping, he even caught his own spotted pony for Christ’s sakes. (I forgot I’m not s’posed to say that.)But there in the middle of all this Indian tradition and life is a naked white woman on his forearm.
Jeffery enjoyed the fish and told me I should salt it next time and hang it by the fire to smoke-cure it. I said I would. His couches were awfully uncomfortable and I told him that. “Your couches are really uncomfortable. You should probably get some new ones so you can enjoy when you sit on them.” He looked over at me and said just above a whisper, “Couches…are…for white people.” His face was set like stone just after he said it and I stared at him so long my eyes begin to ache, but then that smile creeped across his lips and we both laughed so hard I’m sure they could hear us in China. He told me all kinds of stories that night. These weren’t his usual crazy ass Indian stories though, they were real stories about him and his life, his friends and family and how being an Indian was about Mischief. He told me Mischief was in their blood as much as murder was in mine. That the true part of being human is to never let what is in you, own you. I laughed so hard that night my sides ached the next day. He told me how his brother and him broke into a gas station one time. They had smoked some kind of special tobbacki that makes you feel like you haven’t eaten in days. They saw chips in the gas station and just busted the window with a brick. They ate and ate and then passed out. They woke up to a fat bellied cop handcuffing them; they waited till his back was turn and ran away. He told me how that cops belly jiggled like a fat bowl of jelly as he ran after them.
He told me that the best night of his life was when he was camping with his dad in the Red Wood forest; that the trees made him feel like a newborn baby, naked and hollering out but not understanding anything around him. He told me about his ex-wife and how I should never marry a woman with a crooked grin, cause chances are, she is crooked too. I stayed way longer than I should have, but Jeffery kept telling stories and I just kept listening.
This went on for a few weeks; myself going to his house around dinner and hearing everything he had to tell. My pa didn’t say anything ‘cause they knew he would be dead soon—and so did I. Jeffry never talked about the cancer, never talked about death, until the last night. I went to his house as I had been for the past few weeks. Jeffry was outside standing next to a fire, the sun was setting and twilight was creeping on like a hazy grey ghost. Jeffry had a deer-hoof rattle in his hand, along with a small hand drum and stick in the other. I thought I had seen all his Indian shit before but this was something else. He was wearing leather trousers with beads dangling all over it. He was shirtless with a bone breastplate dangling down from his neck. He had bracelets and necklaces on even turquois and copper earrings. I could tell he had been waiting for me. I hollered as I walked over, “What the hell is going on old man? You dressed up fancier than chief Sitting Bull.” He just gave me a dead stare and spoke, “Actually I look more like Redcloud. Sit down and let me teach you something.” I looked around for a log but there wasn’t one so I pulled a bucket off the ground and flipped it around then sat square on my britches. “Jonny, you know I have cancer, you know I’m dying. Tonight I’m going to teach you what it means to be a Brave.”
Jeffery walked around to the other side of the fire and picked up two bowls; he dipped his fingers down in them and wiped them on his face; the red and white running parallel underneath his eyes. I stood and walked toward him as he waved me over. He put paint on my face and a rattle in my hand and told me to shake with the rhythm he would set. He shook his rattle once, then again. as he shook the rattle he begin to beat the drum, the dull thud, thud, thud growing louder with each hit until it became steady. His breathing started matching the rhythm of the drum and the rattle. His chest moving in slow, steady motions until his neck twitched and he started to chant. I stood there not knowing what the hell was going on. I was even scared to move. I just watched Jeffery chant and chant until my eyes got bored and I started looking around. I heard somebody walking up behind me as their feet was crunching against the gravel. I turned around and there was another Indian standing right behind me, then another on the other side of the fire and another. They all walked up and formed a circle and started chanting with Jeffery.
It was one of the strangest damn things I had ever seen. Jeffery was Indian, but I didn’t know he was THAT Indian. One of the strangers grabbed my arm and pulled me gently into the circle. I stood there as they all chanted, the voices echoing down into my bones. I shivered once or twice, not because it was cold, but because something was going on. It was reaching out to me and grabbing my innards like my ma does a Christmas turkey. The chanting went on and on and I was trying to pay attention but my legs hurt from standing so long and it was getting late. I kept shifting my weight and I was about to sit down when they stopped chanting. Jeffry stopped beating the drum and the rattles came to a smooth resolve, as bits of bone and rock scraped against the inside of the hoof one last time.
I took a strong look around at all of them standing there around the fire. One man had real high cheek bones and eyes like Chinese. Another one looked like a woman, but I couldn’t be sure and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna ask. All the others looked like Indians you would see in school books. They all was wearing leather and moccasins and had all kinds of beads and colors on them. If I took a picture and showed it to someone they would swear it was taken years ago maybe back before we stopped fighting the Indians; back when white people still got scalped for raping Indian women, back when we made them walk the trail of tears, back when we condemned their culture to death by smallpox infected blankets. Right now, looking at all these brown men with black hair, they looked brave. Every crease and line in their faces was a piece of history and I wanted to know all of it. I looked down at my own white hands and I felt out of place for the first time in my life, that must have been what Jeffry felt like most of his. One old Indian surrounded by a bunch of poor southern white people, who were too angry and bitter to care about anything but themselves. I wondered what it was like to be a Brave then, to really be a Brave. These Indians had hunted bears, wolves, coyotes, they had stories that were old by the time my great, great, great grand pappy stepped foot in this place.
I looked over at Jeffry and I was sad for the first time in my life. I mean really sad. Not upset about a lost toy or pocket knife, not pouting because my but still stung from a whooping, but the kind of sad that leaves a whole in your chest. This man was my friend and when he dies I wouldn’t have that any longer. I wouldn’t be able to laugh over fried fish and ride a spotty pony. I wouldn’t be able to hear stories that were better than any damn book I read. I wouldn’t…I just wouldn’t be anymore. I knew that when he died I was going to change, be a different person. I knew it and I hated it. Water started leaking from my eyes, pouring really. Jeffry looked over at me and nodded. I don’t know why I hell he would have nodded at a time like that, I wanted to punch him in the face.
Jeffry stepped forward and the circle closed behind him. From the other side, one of the Indians stepped forward with a pot. It looked purple by the fire, it was prolly more pink in daylight, it looked like clay. He kept walking ‘till he was about 8 feet from Jeffry and squatted down. He slid his hand to the bottom of the pot, supporting its whole weight in that hand. With his free hand he grabbed the lid and in one motion quicker than a wasp sting, he removed the lid and flipped the pot upside down. He stepped back and pulled the pot away but held it between him and what was under it. I heard the rattle start as soon as he picked up the pot. The snake was coiling on itself and that rattle was shaking worse than one of those Pentecostal people. Jeffry hunched down and stretched his arms out to his sides, his eyes glued to the snake. He slowly walked forward and gave a “WHOOOO WIP!” Everyone in the circle did the same thing and then started chanting again. The he/she Indian picked up the hand drum and hoof rattle and set the rhythm. Jeffry circled the snake. He looked like a hawk; his arms wings and fingers talons. That rattler was pissed something awful, he hissed and lunged at Jeffry twice. Jeffry came in close and put his head down low about eye to eye with that rattler. He waved his left hand out and like lightening; his right hand came in and caught the snake just below his head. It was hissing and wrapping itself all kinds a ways around Jeffry’s arm. That naked pin up girl was covered in scales and snake oil.
Jeffry took out his knife with his free hand and rubbed his thumb down the edge until blood started dripping off his finger. He held it up above the snakes open mouth and let the blood drip down into its throat. My face was hotter than a metal slide in July. My breath stayed steady and the tears did too. I was going to miss that old Indian, more than I had ever missed anything. The chanting suddenly changed and it was getting faster. Jeffry started dancing around the fire with that snake on his arm. He let out one last “Whoo wip.” And put that snake’s mouth right on his hand. Its jaws stretched up and bit down hard. Jeffry let go and it dropped to the ground and coiled up on itself. I yelled out but no one did anything. I was angry, at those damn Indians, at Jeffry and at that muthafucking snake. I ran right at it and it lunged at me; I jumped to the side and grabbed it by the tail and swung it hard up and around until its head smacked the ground, then I did it again. The snake’s body went limp and I stomped on its head. I looked at Jeffry who was lying on the ground, his body shaking like that rattlers tale. He had that small grin on his face. He pushed himself up and spoke to me. “You’re a Brave now Jonny.” I ran over and put my head into his chest. Crying and mumbling, “And your nothing but a dumb old Indian. You’re going to die now!” He looked at me and lost that smile, “We all are going to die sometime. I’m a Brave; I won’t let a ghost eat me from the inside.” Jeffry pushed me off of him and struggled to stand up. He looked up at the sky and drew in every bit of air his lungs could hold and let out the loudest howl I had ever heard a man make. Then the coyotes howled back. Jeffry joined the chanting, circling the fire and chanting until he fell down in the dirt and that rattle snake venom finally seized his lungs.
I looked up at his house, his old blue 1950’s Chevy, at his spotted pony and finally at the woods behind the fire. I saw something flash at me from the woods and looked harder as a wolf walked out, sat down and howled. He howled until the fire died down to embers and the chanting had changed to sobs, all Jeffry’s Indian friends making a new trail of tears as they walked home. He howled until the night broke and dawn started creeping on the horizon. I didn’t think that old Indian was so crazy after that; I didn’t think his stories were bullshit either. I knew they were real and I know he understood what it was to be a Brave. I saw him change into that wolf and if any muthafucker wants to tell me I’m a liar, I’ll beat his ass.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Seize it
“bro keep in mind that the decision is solely yours, live for the moment, its the last time that moment will be present…”—Mi Hermano; Alejando Bajares
My boy dropped this line to me tonight; It kind of rocked me hardcore…
Opportunities present themselves in a frenzied array of circumstances and chance happenings as we walk through life; Often times we forget them, or miss them completely. With each chance comes a decision: seize it, or let it pass into nothingness. If you’re lucky—or just stupid—some might present themselves more than once; more than twice. For the most part though, those chances come around only once. Too many people live a life of safety rather than risk, it can be admirable for some, and treason for others; I am one of the latter.
So back to what my boy said.
The decision is yours, live life for the moment—this isn’t an excuse to blow off responsibility, it is a meaningful truth; moments are fleeting little creatures, gone before they barely exist. If we are to live a life enjoying them, we have to live in them and recognize what is in front of us.
Somewhere over the past few months I recognized one in front of me, I big one. Destiny is made, not followed; all of the world is conspiring to help us make that destiny. My moment is in front of me and when it comes to a point where it is ripe, I will take hold of it. It might not turn out how I want it too; It could in fact go terribly wrong, but the beautiful thing is: THAT’S O.K. Life is too short to waste moments.
Life is just too short to waste.
So for anyone reading this, listen to my brother, he was born of good stock and breed. Seize your life. Seize the ravishing beauty of it. Seize the love that is bursting from every little corner and crack. When you come to the end of the road you will be able to look back on the vast amount of wealth you laid hold of. It will not be money or anything monetary; it will be the reward of a life lived passionately.
Here’s to taking life and owning it: CHEERS.
My boy dropped this line to me tonight; It kind of rocked me hardcore…
Opportunities present themselves in a frenzied array of circumstances and chance happenings as we walk through life; Often times we forget them, or miss them completely. With each chance comes a decision: seize it, or let it pass into nothingness. If you’re lucky—or just stupid—some might present themselves more than once; more than twice. For the most part though, those chances come around only once. Too many people live a life of safety rather than risk, it can be admirable for some, and treason for others; I am one of the latter.
So back to what my boy said.
The decision is yours, live life for the moment—this isn’t an excuse to blow off responsibility, it is a meaningful truth; moments are fleeting little creatures, gone before they barely exist. If we are to live a life enjoying them, we have to live in them and recognize what is in front of us.
Somewhere over the past few months I recognized one in front of me, I big one. Destiny is made, not followed; all of the world is conspiring to help us make that destiny. My moment is in front of me and when it comes to a point where it is ripe, I will take hold of it. It might not turn out how I want it too; It could in fact go terribly wrong, but the beautiful thing is: THAT’S O.K. Life is too short to waste moments.
Life is just too short to waste.
So for anyone reading this, listen to my brother, he was born of good stock and breed. Seize your life. Seize the ravishing beauty of it. Seize the love that is bursting from every little corner and crack. When you come to the end of the road you will be able to look back on the vast amount of wealth you laid hold of. It will not be money or anything monetary; it will be the reward of a life lived passionately.
Here’s to taking life and owning it: CHEERS.
intermission
I have been slacking on the updates. I'm currently working on a couple pieces to post. They will be up soon.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
late night thoughts
Dreamers dream beautiful things
I started out as a dream born in the mind of God
Before time was named, before there was a mankind to save
Without dreams we lay down to death
Crippled by a fractured soul, where hope no longer bleeds ink in the talk story of our minds eye
Keep dreaming, loving and living, laugh deeply and truly
Let the caress of substance fade away as your heart births a truth more textured than silicone make-believes.
Because we were made to believe…believe in hope even when hope is telling us not to, to believe in the what not’s and what if’s as if…they were absolutes, we create in dreams by dreams and through dreams we are a dream, whether it is for the future hand with ring or the broken soul who needs a word of healing…
Sometimes I close my eyes just so I can remember what it’s like to be blind, I left that world behind for a better portion, distortion sometimes invades my eyes while I dream staring at the sky, making clouds take shapes, then sometimes…I just wait, wait for the thousand silk needles that strike my skin to remind me that im in a case of flesh pressed against space and time trying to keep my heart in line, dreams keep me alive and when I have spent my few seconds of reason dwelling on my past treason, I let the windows fling wide and as light illuminates beauty as the prize, tall grass waving, swollen mists begin raining I believe in the audacity of this living painting. I jump into musical ambition splashing fat bass colors with high hat covers, deep beats that create feats of outlandish redemption, yeah he sings to me in my dreams daring me to believe that he can calm the jealous ocean, he reminds me that the strike of white ivory, harmonized with ebony cries holds power to draw water from hearts of stone, and in moments alone there is a beauty in silence that silences the song of the sirens
I spread my arms wide beneath nighttime skies and let the stars hold me close, close like two hearts beating into one loud pulse of belief, streets carry me deeper into the den of lions homeless vagrants devoured by their jaws, lions of hate, loss, pain and the oh so brutal fate, but I refuse to be subject to the whims of nature, I will take her and make sure that I step side by side with the master. The smell of sour wine born from grapes that were picked to early, earthly and surly rambunctious souls that lose control and wont give nail scarred hands the chance to make them whole, praying with lips pressed tight trying to fight the tide of a losing side. Standing firm in the knowing that he will be showing HIMself like a thousand sunrises, the day the sky gets cracked we all will get back everything that was ever stolen, hope for the bride, hope for all of creation groaning for a revealing, sons of light play lightly with emotions, gravity is pulling us down and sound…is telling us the way to behave, tares in the wheat covering themselves like wolves lusting for blood soaked meat, ill stand still as a lamb and despite the ravaging I smile with delight, knowing death wont be the end
I stood like a wayward orphan on the sands of confusion, deluded into believing that I was nothing more than sand whipped by the winds of chaos, trapped in the invisible arms of another non-sentient pushing, stood like the seated boxer, carved from marble and left in a perpetual state of defeat, but somehow your words came down and like hammers they broke the curse of medusas sight, stone breaking and flying, old world dying, and I was crying out in joy, identity carved into my heart like a seal, my makers mark, a few moments of reprieve to let my lungs crack loose and breeeeaathhe, for the first time in a hundred years, my walls of fear came crashing down like Jericho and that scarlet banner that saved rahabs house reminds me of the scarlet river that saved my soul, stepping out to walk on water, you taught me to run despite never having even walked
I started out as a dream born in the mind of God
Before time was named, before there was a mankind to save
Without dreams we lay down to death
Crippled by a fractured soul, where hope no longer bleeds ink in the talk story of our minds eye
Keep dreaming, loving and living, laugh deeply and truly
Let the caress of substance fade away as your heart births a truth more textured than silicone make-believes.
Because we were made to believe…believe in hope even when hope is telling us not to, to believe in the what not’s and what if’s as if…they were absolutes, we create in dreams by dreams and through dreams we are a dream, whether it is for the future hand with ring or the broken soul who needs a word of healing…
Sometimes I close my eyes just so I can remember what it’s like to be blind, I left that world behind for a better portion, distortion sometimes invades my eyes while I dream staring at the sky, making clouds take shapes, then sometimes…I just wait, wait for the thousand silk needles that strike my skin to remind me that im in a case of flesh pressed against space and time trying to keep my heart in line, dreams keep me alive and when I have spent my few seconds of reason dwelling on my past treason, I let the windows fling wide and as light illuminates beauty as the prize, tall grass waving, swollen mists begin raining I believe in the audacity of this living painting. I jump into musical ambition splashing fat bass colors with high hat covers, deep beats that create feats of outlandish redemption, yeah he sings to me in my dreams daring me to believe that he can calm the jealous ocean, he reminds me that the strike of white ivory, harmonized with ebony cries holds power to draw water from hearts of stone, and in moments alone there is a beauty in silence that silences the song of the sirens
I spread my arms wide beneath nighttime skies and let the stars hold me close, close like two hearts beating into one loud pulse of belief, streets carry me deeper into the den of lions homeless vagrants devoured by their jaws, lions of hate, loss, pain and the oh so brutal fate, but I refuse to be subject to the whims of nature, I will take her and make sure that I step side by side with the master. The smell of sour wine born from grapes that were picked to early, earthly and surly rambunctious souls that lose control and wont give nail scarred hands the chance to make them whole, praying with lips pressed tight trying to fight the tide of a losing side. Standing firm in the knowing that he will be showing HIMself like a thousand sunrises, the day the sky gets cracked we all will get back everything that was ever stolen, hope for the bride, hope for all of creation groaning for a revealing, sons of light play lightly with emotions, gravity is pulling us down and sound…is telling us the way to behave, tares in the wheat covering themselves like wolves lusting for blood soaked meat, ill stand still as a lamb and despite the ravaging I smile with delight, knowing death wont be the end
I stood like a wayward orphan on the sands of confusion, deluded into believing that I was nothing more than sand whipped by the winds of chaos, trapped in the invisible arms of another non-sentient pushing, stood like the seated boxer, carved from marble and left in a perpetual state of defeat, but somehow your words came down and like hammers they broke the curse of medusas sight, stone breaking and flying, old world dying, and I was crying out in joy, identity carved into my heart like a seal, my makers mark, a few moments of reprieve to let my lungs crack loose and breeeeaathhe, for the first time in a hundred years, my walls of fear came crashing down like Jericho and that scarlet banner that saved rahabs house reminds me of the scarlet river that saved my soul, stepping out to walk on water, you taught me to run despite never having even walked
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
hapless
Laying down the found
What I see Hope scattered like a formless fog
But im breathing it in
Swelling my lungs
like bags Filled
With seed for the sowing Exhale
Syllables flowing like streams Wash me
Of broken dreams
Redeem me
from
this
hapless
treason
What I see Hope scattered like a formless fog
But im breathing it in
Swelling my lungs
like bags Filled
With seed for the sowing Exhale
Syllables flowing like streams Wash me
Of broken dreams
Redeem me
from
this
hapless
treason
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