Heartstrings

Barefoot on asphalt,
Another rainy night,
An empty cup, a fitting song,
I played for passers-by.

"It's midnight at the crossroads,
A six string by my side.
Come listen to the heartstrings
I play to ease my mind."

I wanted better songs.
I wanted better strings.
I begged and I received
A lesson from the master.

She came, and tapped my shoulder.
Three times she tapped. I stopped.
I gave her the guitar
And then, she gave to me

The heartstrings of the world
My fretboard strained to carry,
Put magic in my voice,
And fever in my fingers.

I couldn't keep it all
The tunes were way too much.
I played what I remembered
To more and more applause.

I got The fame and money
So fast, I thought it endless,
But one song's not enough
To keep applause forever.

And then I played for whisky.
My stage was three AM,
Where ugly women danced
For men with too much money.

In strip clubs and arenas
I saw the same blank faces;
Where once they came to listen
They come capture hope

With music of their youth,
But they won't find that here.
They'll only find their past
Reflecting on their future.

With a little less glamor
And a lot less cash,
They try to find the love
That music gave so freely.

They'll only find the harlot
Who taught me how to play.
I helped her raise the prices
and made the bounty less.

I'm now a little wiser.
I'd like to play for whisky;
It's cold, my jar is empty,
No money left for shine

I still play all the songs,
But no one likes the hits
They've heard a thousand times.
They all want something new.

I give them what they want:
A song they haven't heard,
The music of my youth
That sometimes pays for liquor

"It's midnight at the crossroads
A six string by my side
Come listen to the heartstrings
I play to ease my mind."

Gravelman

scattered like gravel
emotions, words, esteem
meaningless alone
trod upon in whole
little bits of me
taken, broken, ignored
impossible to gather
or capture in my eye
with outstretched arms
i wait . . .
She’s never here
i’m standing at the crossroads
scattered in the gravel.

Distractions

Today was horrible, but I placated myself with distractions. Warhammer continues to be a good outlet for me. I glue. I paint. I play.

Promises

I promise too much. I guess I'm gullible to dispensers of kind words. When people pretend to care just long enough to hear about my struggle, I assume too much of them. To start out with, it's all kind words and curiosity. I'm so eager to make new friends, that I lose sight of the realities of my situation: I'm not getting better, and nobody gives a shit.

Once you've heard the grim details, you do what everyone does: you avoid me. I understand how difficult it must be to know me well. I'm a nice guy most of the time, and it's hard to say to me exactly how you feel. Once you satisfy your curiosity about me, how many of you follow up with a phone call or an email? Emails trickle in on occasion, but those slow to a halt after a short time. Phone calls are rarities. My struggle changes for no man, and if you've heard it once, you've heard it a thousand times. Who wants to hear a mantra from Prester Bane's mouth? Who wants to read a poem that revisits the same trials over and over again? Most importantly, who would stand with me against the weight on my shoulders?

I'm an easy person to read, but I'm not an easy person to know in the flesh. It's got to feel terrible to tell me exactly how you feel. I can see it in your eyes. The relentless assault is too much for me to bear alone, and you're not a fool for wanting to stay away. When every day's torment is the same as the next's, the truth comes out in your eyes, and says one thing no one wants to admit:

"I'm not your friend; I just don't want to feel like an asshole."

Car Accident

I just found out that my eight-mile-away friend was in a car wreck; she's out of the hospital now, so I can't drive there myself. I might go visit her later if I can bum a ride off my parents or someone else. I wish her a speedy recovery.

Daily

Every damn day, they hound me. They turn around in seconds; no moment is safe. There's no crime or cosmic injustice behind them; they simply are. I can't explain them to you. They sing only for me. I try to capture them in words and verses, but their patterns remain puzzles to everyone else. From Legion to lycanthropy to teenage angst to psychiatric diagnosis, they remain the same. Your reactions changed, but your understanding hasn't. Some of the burn is out of the Auto Da Fe, but that's why we have suicide by cop. Authority must engage us at some point, most of the trouble is in deciding where. I'm bitter about my driver's license, but it's better than inhaling smoke to avoid the worst horrors of an Act Of Faith. Some days are better than others, but every night leaves me more confused: how much of them is in me? How much of me is gone? Those are two questions that don't deserve answers, but I know I change. Sometimes, all I can hear is the laughter of the people I've loved, stronger every day in my ear, but not in the air.

No Wheels

As many of you know, Maryland restricted my driver's license to a five mile radius. I can't go see my friend eight miles away in Germantown, MD, but she stays in touch. More distressing to me are the friends that live closer than five miles, but don't talk to me now that I don't have a set of wheels. Prester Bane calls me a chauffeur. He's usually right.

I wanted to go see my Brother come back from Cancun, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to. Two months ago, I could've driven him from the airport to his house, but that can't happen now. This state is run by a bunch of power-tripping thugs.

Jose Luis Castillo Disgraces Himself

I'm sure you are all sick to death of my boxing-related posts, but I like them. I see parallels between my struggle in life and a boxer's struggle in the ring. As long as I behave how a fighter is supposed to behave, I'll be ok. There's no shame in getting knocked out by the better man; Everyone loses, except Rocky Marciano. The shame is in quitting on the stool. You are my corner; you're not there to help me quit, you're there to help me fight. Fight, I shall.

I'm watching boxing right now. It's a good featherweight fight. Both fighters made weight, and are there to fight. Castillo, on the other hand, is a disgrace to the sport of boxing. He signed to fight Diego Corrales at 135 lbs., the lightweight limit. The lazy ass showed up at the scale at 140 for a 135 lb. World title fight, and this is not the first time. Last October, he didn't make weight, either: Corrales' titles weren't up for grabs because of his opponent's weight, and he was knocked out in four rounds by the blatantly overweight Castillo. I want Castillo's license suspended; he cheated every boxing fan, not just his opponent.

I signed for one weight class, and got another. I'm not going to quit on my stool, but my overweight opponent has a clear advantage. Still, I'm not here to quit, I'm here to fight. It's not fair, but there are other schizophrenics out there with even more inequity. I must behave how a fighter is supposed to behave: I must fight, no matter how unfair my life is. There's no shame in losing to a monster like schizophrenia, unless I quit.

Three Today and An Unknown Tomorrow

My memories caught up with me. I can evade them for a few days, at best. However, they always find me. Every moment I spend in dread of a thought, a vision, or a phantom voice is spent digging through my memories. They always follow.

I understand why you avoid me. I know why you don't call, and why you shuffle off messenger as soon as I come on. Knowing me is like knowing an asbestos blanket lined with lead. I can extinguish fires, but I lay heavy, and suffocate anyone stupid enough to get too close. This is the way I've always been.

Gaming helps, but it can't be everything to me. At some point, I want a life away from the pewter, plastic, paint, and odd-shaped dice. The trouble seems to me to be that life away from the games shop doesn't want me around. I can struggle with words to say things other ways, but in the end, I'm right, aren't I?

I'm sending out poems to literary magazines and other outlets. It seems like the thing to do: they will know me by my writing, and not by my voice. It should work out just greatly, just as long as they don't hear me speak.

I try to live happily, but they always find me. There's no where for me to hide: I have no refuge from myself in here. When I'm around people, things get better for me; as much as I feel better, I see the rest of you feeling frustrated, exhausted, tired, and short of breath. It's obvious.

Every night, I stare down a lethal dose. It's close now, and I feel the tug. Why do I stay? I stay because I promised a whole bunch of people, most of whom avoid me now, and my mom that I wouldn't go until time takes me. I keep my word.

Before I end this post, and take my medication, let me ask you a question: if you had two minutes to spare, a bottle of Jack Daniels, and a phone right in front of you, would you drink the whiskey or talk to me? It's ok to drink; if I were sane and had those options, I'd probably take the whiskey and be on my way, too.

Gaming

I love gaming. D&D, Warhammer, Warmachine, and a few others are my favorites. Most of my friends from gaming break the usual rules for knowing me. My gaming friends can hear my voice and not avoid me. I don't know if it's the competitive atmosphere, a prowess for the game, or just the kind of people that congregate at the friendly local gaming store (Other Realms). For reasons I don't understand, I fit in fairly well there. I like to get up there every day I can drive; it's within five miles of my house. Lately, those days have been few and far between. I want to go there tomorrow or Saturday, so I'll be eager for a good day. Gaming helps keep my sanity.

Revisit

My problems with weddings persist. On Saturday, my brother got married; I was his best man. We weren't five minutes into the ceremony before I saw the Many Armed Knight outside a church window. His robes crept into the sanctuary through the seams of the glass windows, the eyes of the Pastor, and out of my tuxedo's cuffs. I'm sure I flexed my left hand as I often do during a hallucination. My choir drowned out the ceremony, but oddly enough not the singers in the church, and sang only a single high note. I couldn't hear the preacher clearly, and much of the audience was covered in the long, black robes of the Many Armed Knight. Needless to say, it would be a disaster of a wedding if I showed obvious signs of distress, so I bottled everything up, and tried to keep up my end of my brother's matrimonies. The rings were tied together, and I had a hard time picking apart the knots; I kept missing the strings that I tried to grab. The ringbearer was a little kid, so I couldn't let him see my eyes: I didn't want to frighten him. The last thing an eight year old needs to see is the eyes of a madman; they rarely understand mine.

I'm too strange for most of you to understand. You might protest, citing my ability to write of my experiences, but how many of you that read, listen, and how many of you that listen, read? There are two types of people in my life: those who read me, and feel sympathy for reasons they don't understand completely, and those that have only listened to me, who avoid me for very good reasons. Mixing the two never works out quite right. If you don't believe me, just think of the last time you heard my voice. If your answer is never, you probably think I'm ok. If you've heard me within the past month, odds are that you probably avoid me on purpose. Don't think that I don't notice. There are a few exceptions, but most of them spend vastly more time reading me than talking with me.

It seems I revisit the same hallucinations every time I'm in or near a wedding. I burn over it; I'm not sure if it's the happiness evident in the bride and groom's eyes, the desperation of my own situation, or my psychosis tearing open a period of profound silence. Regardless of causation, I don't think I'm cut out for normal social interaction, especially weddings.

Self-Centered

Yeah, I'm arrogant. I walk a fine line between brazen arrogance and extreme humility. Writers and especially poets need to think their thoughts are somehow better than everyone else's; why should anyone read your poems if they don't express something both unique and important? This hubris must be accompanied by another: writers must suspect, even fear their work is garbage. Without this trepidation, we never see the flaws of our work; poets are especially vulnerable to bad writing because we're often considered above literary convention and rules. Personally, I believe poets should break any rule they wish, but should know that rule and have a reason to break it. The rules exist for good reasons.

On a very deep level, I fear my readers. I don't write this stuff for my own personal gratification; that would be pointless. I write for you. I must express myself to you, and I must do it well. Without readers, my writing becomes just another set of emporer's new clothes.

When I review other peoples' writing, I treat it with the severity I love to hear of my own work. If I don't like someone's writing, and I know they just want blanket praise without the intention to improve, I'll say something like "Nice Write" and leave them alone until they decide to be serious. Even if I do like something someone brings me to read, I'll often give cursory comments if the author doesn't want to hear anything but praise. If I give lots of comments, and nit-pick, it's because I like the writer enough to assist the learning process. Any reader is a good reader; I don't write my stuff for a rigidly limited audience. I want anyone and everyone to pick up one of my poems, read it, and like it. I don't exclude anyone from my desired reader pool. My ideal reader reads, thinks, and comments.

My poems are boring, long-winded, and over-stylized. I also have problems with browbeating my readers, preaching, repeating myself unneccessarily, and writing didactically: I have all of these issues with my voice and social interraction. People tend to have a higher tolerance for them in writing.

Talk to me! Negative comments are as welcome as positive ones.

Last Night is This Morning

Last night is this morning. I can't shake the voices. The Choir chants loudly in a language I do not understand. I went to a Church gathering on Friday night. It was ok, but I still felt out of place. Nowhere seems to fit right, at least to me. I'm still consumed by what could have been me instead of consuming myself in who I am. Every night I remember my glances at the summit. I was close, so close I could smell the moss gathering at the very tip of the very highest spire. I felt like I'd climbed Jacob's ladder, but I just felt the slip instead. I watched myself go from Demosthenes the Modern to a stuttering, fixated, obsessive, paranoid joke. My pen is the last option I have to explain myself. Furthermore, it is the only part of me worth explaining anymore. I cling to it; it's all I have left of who I was. I know it can't save my ideas, though. The pieces, be they poems, blog entries, or essays, always take on a life of their own. I meant for this entry to be about who I was before, but I've forgotten so much that I can only expose what I am now. I don't know why I think someone willing to share with me can make me better, even if I'm happier. Every impulse tells me that I am alone. We'll see.

Sleep

Sleep beckons like a long lost love. She cherishes your memory, if only in the fiction of your desires. There's nothing I want more, but she evades me. Perceptions change in slumber: all things are possible. As soon as I wake up, things are as they will be, regardless of my desires. The morning promises little except a few hours of a journey that never approaches the promises so sure in sleep.

Karyatid Nike

My karyatid angel
Now gone for quite some time
Still haunts the quiet moments
While stalking prayers and dreams.

For each day spent alone,
For all hours and seasons,
I miss a gentle touch.
I miss the warmth now cold.

The strength I thought she gave me
Is fiction, like the rest.
I hold my temple's roof
On very weary shoulders.

The fiction drives my questions:
Will there be another?
Can any pillar last?
Is weight like this attractive?

Suspicions outweigh hope.
I think my solitude
Reserves the weight for me.
No Karyatid Nike

Will help me,
Love me,
Wait.

Wednesday

I didn't write on Wednesday because I had a good day for the first time in a long time. I hoped today would follow suit, it hasn't. I slept a lot; yesterday's optimism helped. Still remembering yesterday's feel, I hope I can string together a good week; my brother gets married soon. I don't get much respite from the Choir and the rest. Today they've been on-and-off, not the constant din I've come to expect. I miss yesterday already. It's like a distant memory only several hours old.

Boxing Villains

I like boxing villains. My favorite heavyweight fighters are Larry Holmes and Jack Johnson. Both, I believe, are far better fighters than the public assumes.

Jack Johnson's history with villainy is storied. I love the way he fought; no matter how old he got, even sixty years old in his last fight, no one could lay a glove on him. My favorite part of Jack Johnson is his sheer defiance of a racist world that hated him, and most other Blacks. The whole world, despite raising a worldwide search for a white fighter to beat the Galveston Giant, threw every white boy fighter they could find at him for seven years. Jack Johnson beat them all. It took a huge Kansan fighter named Jess Willard to knock out the great Jack Johnson. Jack Johnson won the first twenty five rounds, but finally succumbed to fatigue in the twenty sixth. Another Black fighter wouldn't be allowed to fight for the Heavyweight crown until the Brown Bomber Joe Louis won the title won the belts twenty two years later.

Larry Holmes fought Gerry Cooney, a white Irish-American fighter with heavy hands and a smaller skill set than Larry Holmes. A still racist America largely supported Cooney. Larry Holmes beat Gerry Cooney, and nineteen other fighters in the greatest heavyweight championship reign since the aforementioned Joe Louis. The American public hated every minute of it. The boxing powers that be didn't like it either. Larry Holmes never lost to Michael Spinks in my observation. He beat that guy up for thirty rounds, and didn't get either decision. After his second loss, Larry Holmes callously said that Rocky Marciano couldn't carry his jock strap. That's not a fair statement taken out of context, and it made Larry Holmes an even more hated fighter. However, consider that the champ has just lost two obviously terrible decisions with no real purpose behind them than to deny the black Larry Holmes the white Maricano's 49-0 record. After the Cooney debacle, if I were Larry Holmes, I would hate American boxing fans, too. Personally, I think a prime Marciano versus a prime Larry Holmes would be an awesome fight; I think Holmes would win a close decision with his incredible jab, the best I've ever seen.

Larry Holmes became a villain largely because he knocked out Muhammad Ali. Muhammad Ali wasn't a villain, but he played one on TV. Jack Johnson was a Black heavyweight champion first. Joe Louis captured the imaginations of American fight fans of both races first. Come to think of it, he wasn't the first of anything except for the first guy to beat George Foreman. He also wasn't the last of anything. He wasn't the last Black champion to irk a racist American fight fandom in public. Larry Holmes upset white American fight fans when he fought Gerry Cooney long after Ali retired. I put Ali number two behind Jack Johnson on my greatest of all time heavyweight list largely on the opinions of others; I know when my judgment is clouded by emotions. However, Ali was never invincible. He had losses, a lot of them, in the prime of his career. He also received bogus decisions, an accommodation never given to Larry Holmes. I don't think Ali ever beat Ken Norton. He most certainly never did so decisively. Ali also lost to Joe Frazier, Leon Spinks, and Ken Norton. I think the reason I dislike Ali so intently is the image he fabricated for himself. He got away with saying horrible things to Joe Frazier, and draft-dodging because people were afraid to say anything against him, or were so enamored of his image that they'd follow it into defeat in the ring and worse. If a whole country loves you enough to give you decisions in fights you don't deserve, cheers for your every word, no matter how ridiculous, and unquestionable admiration after your last meaningful win in almost thirty years, you are not a villain. You're a popular fighter with too many fans.

If you don't believe me, post a comment on this blog explaining how much you loved Larry Holmes. Post a comment on how your great grandfather cheered for Jack Johnson in Reno against Jim Jeffries. Count those before you post a comment on how much you love Muhammad Ali.

Top Five

My top five most important people in history:

1) Christ: He changed the way people see religion worldwide. I'm a Christian, so he has special meaning to me, but he's important enough to be at the top for secular reasons.

2) Alexander the Great: He changed the world; without him there are no conquerors spreading ideas as well as tax collectors.

3) Aristotle: Alexander's tutor and the man who separated religion from academics. People still seek his wisdom on how to argue and how to think.

4) Muhammad: He changed religion again. He mixes Alexander and Christ in an intoxicating mix of promises, power, and prayers.

5) Charlemagne: His grandfather stopped Muhammad's followers from taking Europe, but he and his progeny were the glue that held Europe together against the Muslims from without, and the chaotic barbarians from within. Like it or not, Europe became the most important continent; none of Europe's success would hold without the secular and religious alliance of the Holy Roman Empire.

Honorable Mentions:

Napoleon
Shi Huang Di
Julius Caesar
George Washington
Martin Luther
Khufu
Rameses II
Moses
Ghengis Khan

There are more, but those are my top five; don't ask me to rate the others.

Lucid

I'm going to take a lucid moment today to thank all my supporters, especially the ones who comment on my blog. I feel great when people read the words I write, and find them compelling enough to reply. I've got great friends, and a great family. I want you to know that I appreciate you even in my darkest hours of doubt, psychosis, and depression. Much of my life is not worth living, but the hours I find that shine, only shine because you provide the illumination. Thank you for keeping things straight and clear, especially when I cannot.

Paranoia

I set out to write this entry about something with merit. Instead, all I can manage are thoughts centered around the friends and family who seem to be avoiding me. I keep telling myself that it's all in my head: they're fabrications from somewhere inside me.

I doubt as much as Thomas the Apostle. I need to see things to believe or disbelieve them. Please help me.

Haiku

I don't read, write, or speak Japanese. I think the idea of Haiku in English is quite silly; do Japanese people write poems imitating Shakespeare's sonnets? We have plenty of good poetic forms and guidelines native to the English language without trying to imitate the poetic modes of a people quite alien to ourselves. Could the same be said for my Petrarchan sonnets? Perhaps, but English borrows heavily from Romance languages through the Roman and Norman connections. A Japanese Daimyo never conquered England in 1066 or built a wall to separate the civilized world and the barbarians in England.

So why do English poets write Haiku? I partially blame Ezra Pound. However, I think the blame is best distributed on Free Verse poets who like to pretend they're writing in forms. Seventeen syllables in three lines has no prescribed rhythmn, no rhyme, and no shape aside from extreme brevity. I'd rather see a quatrain in Iambic Tetrameter than a so-called "Haiku" in English.

Once upon a time, I was required to write five Haiku for a creative writing class in college. The results follow:

Haiku

I.
wasted thought, life, breath
with the amber eye open
but the good eye closed

II.
the phantom fumbling
through the silken silence
night falls on madness

III.
twisting the sharp knife
against tablature of ribs
played like a guitar

IV.
horsemen fall westward
like lightning through a thick cloud
a tempest in their hooves

V.
thoughts without logic
twisting with the lover’s wind
nothing but questions



I wrote them half as a joke. Unfortunately, no one saw the humor. There are two ways to look at Haiku in English:

1) This guy has the right idea, but is a bit dismissive

2) For the more serious writer, this explication should serve as a warning to all people crossing vast cultural lines in a very culture-specific field like good poetry.

Write a sonnet, or a quatrain, or even a limerick. We borrow a lot in the English language, but I think Haiku are best left to the Japanese.

Bubbles in the Water

Bubbles rise to the surface of my watery lair. When the hours add up during a day, they unleash sometimes worst at night. I'm trying to sleep and pray, but it's not working. I never wanted this, and most of me can't continue. There's no imminent danger, but my suffering continues. A problem in your reality would be easier to explain; you don't live in here with me. I doubt anyone could. I know one thing: I could use a friend.

Tuesday's Gone

The events described in this post happened a long time ago. Too long for me to remember them as vividly as I do, but that's me now isn't it?

My life doesn't go as planned. When I was in high school, I became enamored of a woman. I used that as a spring board to verses: high verses. Epics, cantos, quatrains I wrote to what I called love. I didn't even know the meaning of the word. For too many years, I held on to that idea and never let it go. I almost gave up on the idea of love for me to the near-monastic nature of my poetry. Everything seemed set, and I thought I had something real in my poetry to show for it. Every line traced into every other line; I wrote and I wrote beautifully. It takes a long time to get someone so down that good poetry comes of it. Even Mr. Keats struggled with his Fanny Brawne poems in the beginning. I wrote in that tradition. I aspired to Petrarch and his punning with Laura. In Italian, that name shares a sound with the wind and gold. The name of my object of near worship didn't have a pun, but it was surrounded with sunrises, fire, milk, and bright blue like the ocean I'd never seen.

Then everything changed. Someone I've known for quite a while and I got together. The feeling of love that I had was not equal to my poems' aspirations, it even surpassed them. How stupid am I? I didn't consider that putting someone in here with me could hurt, but it did. I can't stand it alone in here, why would putting someone else there make for happiness? The thought never crossed my mind that I was no more able to love than the lonely Petrarch I so long imitated. He and I shared our first love's motivation to write. With our firsts, it was almost totally without lust. Petrarch and I were in a lonely fraternity of poets and artists who let the art get ahead of everything else. We both wrote to the exclusion of life in general.

For a while I wrote her badly. It takes time and practice even for the most important things to get the poetry to work. Near the end, I developed a way to write her beautifully, but like I said, it was near the end. It turned out that she never loved me. I fell hard for her. For years, I'd given up on love for me. I thought it would never visit upon me, and I would be alone. I would be alone with my poems to someone I invented that never resembled the person I wrote for and to. While everything changed, I developed a taste for her and a taste for love. Not the kind of lustless love Petrarch and I came so close to perfecting, but real love. Love with human features and contact ruled my imagination. I couldn't go on without thinking contact is essential for love. I loved holding her, kissing her, embracing and caressing her. Every ounce of my being said "Yes!" from every corner of my writing to every spire of my dreams. Those were my dreams, and my being. She never wanted to be with me for me, or for any other reason I can see.

Now that I have a taste of it, I can't let it go. I go from dream to nightmare to hallucination to poetry to prose to this blog and everywhere else my words can travel, and I can't stop wanting love anymore. I came so close to a perfect and balanced monastic life. I would write, and write more, all with the determination to see myself as something, someone worthwhile. Now I know the truth of it. I live as the worst of my doubts insisted. The same arrogant loudmouth I used to cover me for so many years could continue, but the little guy with his poetry became untenable. He was, is, and will always be alone. He sees his early work as pointless, and his later words as absolute failures. He writes this now, knowing that he might garner a reader and a comment or two, but most likely none of either. Petrarch finally failed me, but the demons in my head always said he would.

I can't go back. I can't erase the things I've seen, or forget the quivering, shaking fascination of every touch. I want to, but I can't. I want so badly go back to my room and write for hours on beauty as I wrote for so long, but all seems pointless. Why should I write? The old ways mean less to me. I mean less to the people of the present. I go ever onward into irreversible madness, and the stigma that goes with it. How many women are looking for a madman with the urge to write that can't even drive more than five miles away from his home?

So I fade. Every day, I get closer to total madness. My relapses are longer now, with less time in between. Happiness and love were there for me once, even if it was only in my own head. Now, those memories of happiness are distant. They've acquired their own mythology. But the memories of touch are as close now as they were then. Every day, I find a reason to go on without that touch, but those reasons are becoming as scarce as my sanity. Every day there's a little less to pull for inspiration, and a little more to lament. I don't think it would bother me as much as it does if I didn't stare into the eyes of finality every time I think about love. Knowing what I know now, there's little reason to love me. Actually, I see none. Sometimes people wonder if I had it all to do over again, would I stay with Petrarch, and make my life monastic? To them I can only say that my life would feel as incomplete without the heartache of knowing that I will never be loved as it would feel with only verses to the distant past in sympathy with Petrarch.

Love is worth the efforts of life. Madness is not. I don't want to go away into the Void and never come back. Unfortunately, I seem to have no choice.

No Complaining

Nothing like that will be in today's entry. I have a friend going through a rough time, and that friend doesn't need to hear my crap. I usually try to hold onto all my friends because I value them highly, especially this one. I'm not going to bring anyone down, or complain about my condition. Sure, life still hurts, but I've got different priorities today that don't center around me.

Under the Wire

Looks like I just made today. Tomorrow doesn't promise much.

Spent

I don't know why I try. Some things will never change. Words don't do a damn thing, and they're all I have left. Madness follows me wherever I go, and it doesn't matter what I say on my way there. I wish for happiness at the end of my verses, but I can't seem to even put together tonight. Every ounce of my energy is spent tonight, and I'm tired. I'm tired of writing. All I get out of it is heartache and misunderstanding. My verses drive me, but I don't know where to take them. I want my weapon back; maybe then I could do what I want.

I'm dead to most of you anyway. What the hell does the rest matter? Life is pain; is it so damn wrong to want some relief?

Lurk

I lurk in water. Drowning, swimming, what's the difference? I drown; I live. I swim; I drown. Every moment is suffering in a world with no danger. That's the best way I can explain it. I am grateful to you all. I don't suffer from want, but I suffer none-the-less. Everything comes from within. It seems like the only way I can find happiness is to inflict myself on everyone around me. My struggle will get more dire; nothing holds it in place. The best chance for me is to distract myself as much as I can, and try to feel useful for the moments in between. There's no end in sight, and no way out of the water. My life is pain; I can only live it. I shouldn't make you watch, but hope springs from this blog and my writing. Solitude hurts me, but I don't know why. If I was alone, bang: no hesitation. Every moment asks it of me. In a world filled with those questions, I deny them as well as I can by lurking in the water.

Heart and Head

My heart and head often serve cross-purposes. Tonight, my heart chooses Oscar de La Hoya over Ricardo Mayorga. Mayorga is disrespectful of Oscar, and a whiner about his money. If the contracts say two million, you get two million, no matter how much your promoter promised you. However, my head thinks Oscar lost a step. He looked horrible against Hopkins and worse against Felix Sturm. Intellectually, I have to go with Mayorga by late knockout.

In my own struggle, my heart and head differ also. My heart yearns for peace, love, and understanding. I keep writing this blog at my heart's behest: I don't want that piece of me to die. However, my intellect says that nothing will come of my writing, or this blog. My head keeps telling me to take it logically and notice inevitable patterns: I will stay alone, loveless, and at war with my own reality.

Tonight, we'll see about the boxing. I don't think anything will change with my struggle, though. Perhaps I'll just stay consistent: I'll see more patterns and feel a little less.

It Doesn't Matter Anyway

Sorry about the last post. Everything caves in on me. I can't stand it anymore. Someday soon, I'll take the only steps to end this damn thing, but I have to make sure I'm right first. I'm too damn blue to write more.

Long and Lonely Walk Through Hell

Every step is pain. It would be better if I thought someone out there reads my stuff and understands, even empathizes. Happiness seems tied to others with me. I can't be happy on my own. If I had no one, I'd off myself in the soonest possible moment. As it stands, I have my Mom, my Brother, and my Dad. I encounter a few others with sympathy on this long and lonely walk through hell, but I still feel like I'm being carried. The people that beat me in my childhood, ruining my youth, have everything I want: success, love, understanding, and dignity. I've lost success in this murky haze I call perception. Requited love seems more distant than even my early past. Dignity is still in the balance; I'm a second class citizen, now, so I expect for that to collapse; most everything in my life goes down anyway.

This is my hell. I'd ask some of you to walk it with me, but I don't think anyone with sense should stick around. I'm too down. I'm too blue. I'm too much the same no matter what happens. I can't inflict myself on any of you in good conscience. It's not fair to you. I only write this as you carry me from round to round, beating me to within an inch of my life, because it helps you gauge your fists.a

Normally, I'd pray for guidance. However, if I kneel, the Many Armed Knight will attack. It doesn't matter anyway. Any thoughts I'd put out would garner responses to protect you more than help me. Tomorrow is another round. Keep carrying me, it seems like good sport to most of you.

Tired

I was surprised that I haven't used this title yet. All my posts have different titles; usually I think it's to give a fresh look every time. Perhaps because so much of my problems are the same as when I set out on this blog, I can't admit to myself that all I do is repeat myself. I might say some things that would seem out of character, but I'm too damn tired to care.

I'm pissed off. Call it fate. Call it fatigue. Call it the inevitable conclusion of twelve years of paranoia and misery. Or you could call it the unpleasant truth. I'm pissed off at myself. In a world that's brought me so much freedom and food, I can't feel grateful. All I feel is hatred for what brought me here. I look back at twelve years of this, and I wonder what the hell did I do wrongly? The pain of not knowing has me ground to powder beneath my fractured knuckles.

When I was in fourth grade, and time to time from there, the popular crowd chided me for reading my Bible during lunch. I turned the other cheek. Pastor Updike baptized me when I was twelve; that was a long time ago. We've barely exchanged words since then. I prayed through seventh grade, then had a major crisis of faith: I hated the laughter and derision that came with being the little budding Bible boy. That mindset lasted for a while. I decided to give true Christianity another try in tenth grade; I was reborn. Chapter and verse seemed familiar again. It was like returning to an old friend, and a friend it was. I read Matthew, and thought I understood. I loved the Lord, and I thought the Lord loved me. Through years of madness, forty two consecutive voluntary days at a mental institution, heartache, longing, and writing, I persevered. I determined that I would feel better about myself and my surroundings if I believed, so that's exactly what I did. I didn't do it thinking the world would change around me, but that I would change around the rest of you, and find comfort. I was wrong.

The one circumstance in recent memory that brought me happiness discarded me for all the right reasons. I'm unreliable. I repeat myself constantly. I have more passion in my writing than in the quiet moments alone with my favorite person. For a while, I believed she discarded me and avoids me because of my condition: the first two words out of her mouth were "Your disease." That seemed reasonable enough. Prester Bane ruined things for me in my past, and I wasn't surprised that he caused me to lose my happiness. I was upset, but not nearly as upset as I would become. Slowly, I learned that the illness was not an issue. I found out about my inconsistency and outright failure in life. I found out about the constant string of repeated language that comes out of my mouth, even when I intend to say something new. I found out about my perceived lack of interest in the physical side of love. That made me blue. I found out that Prester Bane wasn't my problem with love, quite the opposite; he is the loved one. I'm the Monster from deep water. My kind of clinching, annoying attention will never work, but that's all I seem capable of doing at any given time. Even when I set out to not think that way, it always comes back to the same.

Then came the death blow: I found out that the worst part about me was my faith. The faith I maintained, despite mental intimidation and emotional exclusion from the rest of you, closed love off to me. I even took savage beatings from my Dad and another close to me to maintain the facade of a good, Christian household. Many years before I took the Smith and Wesson to myself, I heard a voice the night I loaded the Smith and Wesson, lifted the barrel, and thought only of ending the injustice by killing both of them. What the voice said was actually right. I thought it might have been divine intervention for my benefit, to save myself from worldly punishment. However, the motives as I see them now are much clearer. Hindsight is always 20/20. If I had killed Gary, there would be no Gary to complete Quinne, his fiancee; there is no such bond anywhere near in sight for me. If I had killed Dad, I would have made my Mom's extended hospital stay after her heart arrest in 2000 impossible. So, the goal wasn't to save me, it was to save them, so they can complete the lives of the people around them. God has favorites: Jacob now Israel, David, Enoch, Elijah, and a few others. Circumstances evolve favoring his favorites, including the notorious actions of David: He killed a man just so he could marry the widow. Still, David wrote psalms, better than any of my poetry, and led the life of a King to remember.

Perhaps my crime was the crisis of faith. A few isolated years in a sea of faith are still absent of faith. David never doubted God's existence, his authority, or challenged God's supremacy to himself. If I'd done the same, would the outcome still be this endless, maddened misery?

So I've lost love and happiness to my religion. For religion, I lost understanding from those who might try by posting these thoughts so far away from acceptable Christian behavior. Peace hasn't been an option in over twelve years, Prester Bane argues loudest when I pray. The faith doesn't seem to help me. Sure, I'm alive and there are plenty of times I shouldn't be, but it feels right now as if He's carrying me. Just like Jim Jeffries versus Jack Johnson, He's hurting me badly at every opportunity, but not enough to knock me out. I feel like I'm being carried for the audience. Nobody wants to see a first round knockout by quitting; people want to see drama! They like to hear little, day-by-day Improvements, and eventually, a knockout in the twelfth round as time expires. I can't punch, so my fall is what entertains. If I'm destined to be forever cursed with this affliction, is it a little bit too much to ask for an ounce of happiness to go with it? The answer, it seems, is yes.

Just Another Post

I forgot to take my meds last night. Therefore, I felt tired, nauseated, and weak all day. I'm on way too much, but less is not an option. I won't make the same mistake two days in a row.

Monstrous

Am I the monster that I fear? Is every day spent in denying what cannot be described as untrue? I feel like the struggles that I take upon myself by not ending what should be done are just as useless as my unread thoughts strewn about the bits of paper in my typhoon of life. I can't stand being like this anymore; every day is a little worse. When I scream at the night with the words "I am not mute!," how many hear me? Better yet, how many care or should care? My voice is loud, but it seems no one hears me. Sometimes I marvel at the sheer inconsequence of the feelings that I must let others feel through my pen. I never find what I seek, and what I seek never finds me. I'm worse than Palomindes and his Questing Beast; I suspect I'm deep water a monster who will end up at the tip of society's sword.

When this started, it seemed ok. I thought I could handle it. Twelve years later, that idea is obsolete. I can't control the input, and I can barely control my once-free will. It's a contest for prominence: the two camps divide me. I know what Prester Bane and his camp can do: they provide my indifference, my crooked smile, my pride, and my strength. They don't know the meaning of the word quit, and won't stop until they have it all. What I don't know is the poet. The words provide my ambivalence, my true smile, my compassion, and the small bit of me that thinks it knows love. The poet wants an end: love can be found at the bottom of an empty inkwell. Is that love requited? Prester Bane says never, and bids me follow back to the ranks of the loud, infamous and hated. The poet says not now, and bids me follow down another row of seemingly failed verses that leads to more uncertainty and pain. I want to know whether those uncertain verses can end in what I want, or will I always be alone with only Prester Bane and the rest to keep me company? Right now, I only hear from two friends who doesn't know me well enough to stop talking with me, so if you do answer, please answer my questions honestly. Will you be there? Are my words as ugly as me? Am I worth knowing well? Is love out of the question? How much more hurt should I take?

Gloves

I used to wear gloves in High School. Then as now, they were a barrier to the aether. Now, they take a different form. Lately, my gloves are mine, so much mine that nobody else can see them. They cover my hands in something halfway between velvet and oil. As the evil spreads on my hands, the gloves hide the taint from my own eyes, but not the eyes of others. I want my old gloves back sometimes; they were real to everyone.

I see people avoiding me. I wonder if it's the gloves.

Zahir Raheem

I want to see more. He's awkward and slick. When Zahir Raheem steps into the ring, he gives it all he has. He doesn't slug and he doesn't brawl. Every moment of a Zahir Raheem fight is full of tension and indecision. Raheem's goal is to win those tense moments that can go either way. I have to admit, I like a hard-fighting style as much as the next guy, but this man strikes my fancy. He doesn't block punches with a good high guard, slip away like greased silk, or stand and counter punch, but I've never seen him hit square. Referees don't like his out of control, nervous style that invites his opponents to clinch. Judges don't like a fighter who doesn't bother missing punches just to show he's in the ring. Zahir Raheem fought through the adversity of coming up in Philadelphia, a city infamous for its gym wars. He fights obscurity in a sport for larger than life characters. Honestly, I have never seen him lose. I've seen him robbed by judges, and buffaloed by referees. I've seen him outfight Eric Morales, the best fighter to ever come out of Tijuana in dominating fashion, only to be passed over for a title shot in favor of the same vanquished Mexican warrior.

Saturday night, I saw him clearly beat an over rated Acelino Freitas only to be denied his victory again by judges who counted thrown punches instead of landed ones. Zahir Raheem isn't always pretty, and is rarely overwhelming, but he never quits. In a sport where willpower matters more than strength, speed, or size, Raheem just finds a way to win. His style is almost wasted on the casual fight fan, but I still want to see more. He has my respect despite the anonymity that follows him around like a shadow. Good Show, Zahir, good show

Elegance

This post lacks elegance and efficiency in words, but I'm too damn sick to care. I spent this afternoon with my Dad. He's a cool guy, but doesn't know or understand my problems at all. Partially, that's because I haven't told him in a way he can understand. The blog is a big part of my efforts to explain myself, and maybe find some sympathy or friendship along the way. I don't write this just for my own satisfaction; everyone's understanding is important to me. I tried to explain the lines to my Dad today; it was a miserable failure. I also tried to explain how a hallucination or a delusion differs from just sensory input. Any description of a hallucination is a compromise between your reality and mine. It's not exactly what I say it is, but the rest of the world cannot understand the closeness of my psychosis or the undeniability of its presence. Seeing the Many Armed Knight isn't like watching someone goof off at the Renaissance Festival. He stalks me, not the rest of you, me alone. He's a part of me and knows that only I can see him, knows that only I can feel his breath on the back of my neck. He knows himself and me completely. Every fear, every uncertainty, every anxious moment, and every spare moment he is there. The choir is not like a church choir. It goes deeper than that. It's a group of voices all saying different things while holding a note. They don't sing for you. They sing only for me. The sound doesn't enter my ear, it comes around inside the ear, and occupies my hearing in the spaces the rest of you don't take. Prester Bane is more than a faceless man in my nightmares. He knows me better than any of you. In many ways, he's my best friend. He never ignores me, and we converse more than anyone else bothers to say to me. I made bits of him myself, and he's done the same. We're intermingled, just like all my delusions and hallucinations. I can't tell where they end, and I begin.

Ends and Means

For a long time, I've hunted the Questing Beast. We never quite know the Beast when we start the hunt, and I doubt will never know its true nature. Some abandon the hunt when no meat is forthcoming for hunger as their motive: with food, they find comfort beyond the hunt. Some, like me, struggle for years with the hunt on borrowed means. Most people end the hunt with success that so often seems accidental. Some people find the Questing Beast in their first words! Others have to wait for a first true love, a first child, a first novel with their name on the cover, or even the scattered remains of a foe cleaved with an unlikely weapon that just feels right. In those words, loves, children, works, and victories we find a place, not often comfortable, but we find a place for our memory that fits.

I'm too much unlike you. I can speak, and be heard, but not understood. I can love true, to me but not to others. I can write a canto to everyone I know, but I feel I've written nothing. There are those like me who have maps detailing our hunts, stories oft repeated that seem to have meaning, and scars that many assume as signs of success. We are the veterans of the hunt; we pretend to guide, but we only have our meandering experience to show for our lifetime of labor. Truth be told, I despise many of you. You can abandon the hunt for a few days, a few years, or on your lunch break, only to take it up again after a quick jaunt in the field of questions I call home. As soon as you're finished slumming with the madman, the Questing beast waits on a silver platter. The more I hunt, the further I seem from the prize. There's no happy accident or gifted silver platter ahead of me, there is only the borrowed means to a questionable end justified by madness.

The more I hunt, the more I crave. I crave you. I need your success. I need you to validate me beyond the voices in my head that never relent. Please tell me you need me sometimes in return, no matter how useless I am. Your words can even be a lie, so long as I can believe it for a little while. Help me stretch moments together so I don't abandon the hunt for Hell in hope of peace at the tip of my own weapons. You mean that much to me. You are the Questing Beast.

Doubts About Another Wednesday

Everything is caving in. I'm trying to distract myself, but I can't get out of my own head. The flames constrict my vision, and the choir erupts in my ears. I don't want to be this way, I never wanted this. I want peace, love, and understanding; these things are no closer today than twelve years ago. My fate is measured and cut; I can't dodge fate. I try to keep my eyes and ears occupied, but they always find a home in my quiet moments and on the inside of my eyelids. I don't know what to do. Twelve years in hell give me no answer to the flames and no command of the choir; every day in hell, it gets a little worse. I would ask for help, but I don't want to get my hopes up against my troubles and my solitude.

Flows Into Today

What started yesterday flows into today. Questions haunt me as the choir taunts me. Their song is loud. I've only seen the Many Armed Knight once today, but I haven't looked for him. My efforts are simply to stare at my screen and the television; I can't seem to do much else without their interference. They even interfere with my typing. I have to check everything and read the lines I write twice: sometimes, I will read or type the wrong phrase. It takes effort to write this. No moment is quiet or quite my own. The rest of you can't see, hear, or smell them, but I can. Sometimes they're all I can see.

Wanted

Today wasn't bad until just a short time ago. No day is without its struggles with madness. I'm through asking for miracles and portents. The end is not in sight; no divine authority intervenes. I'm left with demons not of my own choosing, but from my own distorted imagination.

Questions abound. From a simple "why?" to a more complicated "how do I deal with this?," my questions never seem answered. For now, the foremost question in my head is "when am I wanted?" It seems to me that once a person who knows my writing gets close to me, and sees the rest that I can't communicate with my pen, the reaction is always distance or flight. The few that know me first by my face or my voice never quite see the writing as a match.

Some might protest, but ask those who know me best. They will tell you I'm a nice guy, but I'm weird, I'm arrogant, I can't shut up, I'm sad too much, I repeat myself (again and again and again). They'll tell you I can be a good friend, but I don't understand anything about anything else; on that they are probably right. Those of you who know me by my pen would balk away from me face-to-face. Those who know me by my face, never seem to understand my pen. I raise my pennant as a poet, and watch it taken down as a person. I can write my way to hell and back, but I can't drive more than five miles away from my house.

I just don't see the upside to continuing like this. I am alone; if I am not, it seems that way. Verses flow to a wide audience and are welcomed. However, when I stop presenting the poetry as itself, and try to show Thomas the person in conversation or correspondence, I lose the ear, eyes, and understanding of all audiences. It leaves me back at the beginning: when am I wanted? Not in my verses, not in my blog, not in my writing, when is Thomas Jackson wanted? I ask those who know the poet and the person, when was the last time you thought to yourself I miss that guy, where is he when I need him? Blaise Pascal and I will play dice in the meantime.

Larry Merchant

I just saw the replay of Wlad klitschko vs Chris Byrd. Hats off to Wlad with the difficult last name; he knocked out Chris Byrd with a brilliant right hand after dominating the former champion for six and a half rounds. Wlad had a great fight, and showcased his talent excellently. Larry Merchant, the ringside HBO analyst, got on my nerves, though. He insulted the intelligence, and the courage of Chris Byrd. Chris Byrd decided to take on a natural superheavyweight, and one of the most powerful punchers in boxing; Byrd's olympic medal is for middleweights (160 lbs), while Wlad's is for over 220lb fighters. Larry Merchant derided Chris Byrd for this decision, saying that Byrd only took the fight for the money, showing more greed than guts. Chris Byrd could have taken lesser fighters for a few more defenses, earning more money in the process. Instead, Byrd showed the courage in his heart to fight the biggest and the best. Larry Merchant, no fighter steps in the ring against Wlad Klitschko, getting the worst beating of his life just for a bigger pay day. Chris Byrd had the guts to fight the best in a division full of otherwise questionable talent that would make for great, padded title defenses. The same cannot be said of Nikolay Valuev whose best opponent was John Ruiz, who previously lost his title in lackluster fashion against two former middleweights, Roy Jones and James Toney. Hasim Rahman's toughest fight in recent years was against the aforementioned former middleweight, James Toney. Where is Larry Merchant's venom for the other heavyweights, especially the 43-0 Valuev whose opposition is a line of stiffs and John Ruiz? Please, Chris Byrd is a brave fighter, a tough fighter, and a dedicated fighter who never shows up out of shape. He deserves our respect, not chiding derision from a self-righteous old man that likes to hear himself speak. Bring on Max Kellerman; not much could be worse than Larry Merchant.

Minutes to Hours to Days

The hallucinations and delusions show no relent. I can't stretch an afternoon or a morning into a good run; there's always something in my ear, it seems. Voices interrupt the quiet times, and the choir makes concentration impossible. To top it all off, I've acted like a total jerk to my friends. I can barely write this, how am I supposed to seize the rhythmn of my life into poetry when I can't even write this prose? I could use a friend, but I don't see any way into a more metered insanity or a scrap of happiness anywhere around me. Everything ends. I want the next end to be mine.

A Week? A Month? A Year?

Everything ends. Last year, my birthday party sucked. I'll be the first to admit it. None of my friends share my passion for Samurai movies, and all I did was show one or two movies with hot dogs and ice cream. It sucked, but they were there; I was happy knowing that they'd endure my rather strange taste in art, and stick near me anyway.

This year, I planned the thing for a month. I wanted to start a Trojan War role playing game, in which they all seemed to be interested. I bought miniatures, made up rules, and constructed custom scenarios. After the game, we were going to go to the Peruvian restraurnt next to the game store, and get some good food. I was determined not to repeat the rather crappy time of last year. This year, my birthday happened on a Tuesday, so I scheduled the party for the following weekend, this weekend. They all bailed on me, with the reliable exception of Nick Benz. My oldest friend is still my best. Thanks, Nick.

I shouldn't be surprised. I don't drink, and don't offer it at get-togethers I host. In vino e veritas, no? Well, I think I'm gonna go take meds early. Maybe I'll take that tranq I've been longing for all day. Tranq up and tranq out; it sounds good to me.

Remind Me

Remind me to take my medication, maybe if I take it twice, it will go past damaging my short-term memory, and start taking out some of the old memories that still haunt me.

Remind me of 1997, maybe I'll remember why I set it down when Prester Bane asked me if I wanted it to jam.

Remind me to ask the odds, maybe I'll stop playing dice with Blaise Pascal

Remind me to lie, cheat, and steal, maybe it will work for me, too.

Remind me to not repeat myself, maybe it will stop costing me so much.

Remind me to hide my love poetry, maybe it will stop looking good to me.

Remind me of my distant past, maybe I'll remember how it felt to be human.

Remind me of each time I broke my knuckles, maybe the pain would stop seeming so sweet.

Remind me when I'm wrong to make it right, maybe then I would pay penance

Remind me what it feels like to pray, maybe then I'd be able to distinguish it from my demons

Remind me of fearing hell, maybe then I'll stop thinking about when I'd get out.

Remind me what if feels like to have a prayer answered, maybe then I would stop questioning my place in hell.

Remind me of peace, maybe then I could find it.

Remind me why I'm here, maybe then I won't want peace so badly.

Remind me of how scared I was the first time I wrecked a car, maybe it would stop tempting me.

Remind me what I did to deserve this, maybe I'll stop feeling wronged

Remind me how I lived through the pain of solitude, maybe then I wouldn't miss you so damn much when I'm looking for reasons to continue.

But whatever you decide to answer, remind me when I get out of control, maybe I could stop making stupid lists.

Bootheels

The bootheels of my Legion stomp the rhythmn of my life. I'd tell you how it sounds like a song you might know, but there isn't one. That's why I'm obsessed with classical meter. I've always hoped for a bit of understanding from the sounds of the words I choose. Unfortunately, I am a miserable failure. They march on, with no harmonies besides the dust of English that crowds around their Roman feet. I've lost much in my attempts to synchronise my readers with the measured pounding found only in my head. Nothing seems to work. I can't translate the thoughts I have into a meaningful format. Nothing is as quiet as the great cat, and nothing is louder than the screams of my youth under the Legion of bootheels. The accented quiet moments mean nothing to you, and you're all so far away from my Legions that you can't hear their approach or their retreat. You seem to sympathize with the pain of my dead and swallowed youth, but I can't seem to tell you about the masticated moments, when Legion's bootheels crush my memories like a thousand molars crush a two-dollar steak. I can only show you the pictures of my youth, forgotten and departed, compared to the chewed entrails of my present. I scattered those entrails over photographs because without the square, the blood, and the rest, all cameras lie. Reassemble my alterations, and you'll find me. I'm screaming to be heard, not even seen or loved, just heard. My poetry can't communicate the rhythmn of my Legion's bootheels that conquered my life.

Back

I'm an official second-class citizen. The papers restricting my licence to a five-mile radius arrived. Coupled with that, my head is totally out of control today. The war is on, and my choir won't stop singing. I cover it well, though. My friend is feeling better, she did not deserve her stressors or the way some people treat her. Now that I think about it, all my friends are doing well, even the friends in Tulsa. I hope Kris is ok, I haven't spoken to him in a while.

I attended a lecture given by my Dad on the influential American cryptographer, Herbert Yarldey, on Tuesday. My Dad has a PHd from Georgetown in Government, and is defintely one of the smartest people I know. He's a sponge, like me; he's constantly gathering information and evaluating it against competing ideas. I got my thirst for righteousness from him, even if we disagree on what is righteous. His field is Military History and Political Science: both are a far cry from my comparative religion and Poetry obsessions. We both love ancient and medieval warfare, and seek to apply old lessons to new problems. Check it out:

He wrote an article and a brochure on the subject for the Department of Defense before those ideas were new. Links follow:

The article

the brochure

That's information security in late 1999 and 2000

And here's the government talking about it:

The executive order

Notice the heavy use of the word "enclave"

My Dad is awesome. We have our disagreements and old wounds, but he's one hell of a thinker, and I like to think I learned some things about writing from him, too.

Care

One of my dearest friends is having a rough time. My care and attention will be with her, not this blog.

Silent Ben Hur

I'm going to watch the 1925 silent Ben Hur movie; it usually gets me thinking of things that don't hurt. I probably should have watched it yesterday, but hindsight is 20/20. I'm going to try to meet my friend, Nick to play test my rules for Bronze Age adventures in the Trojan War. Nick's awesome; his pain threshold is even better than mine. He has some gut pains and horrible migranes. I can tell he's in pain a lot, but he doesn't complain about it, not even just to show off how much he can take.

We were in 8th grade shop class together, and he cut a piece of wood for a CO2-powered race car as part of an assignment. As usual, I was slacking off, and bummed the other half of the piece of wood; I chose the fast piece. We were acquaintances before then, but when I won the race, I decided that he's a good guy to be a friend. I've been grateful for his friendship and generosity every day since then. Thanks, Nick, my oldest friend.

I Know You

I know you, Blue. You dominated the horizons before the sunset, and in my imagination, before the sunrise. Where once you were framed in gold and a smile never meant for me, now your frame is a cage with me on the inside, not decorated with gold, red, brown, green, nor black with yellow. Your tint is darker, not like the sky, but like a deep bruise; all I see is you. No matter what demons haunt my nightmares or what Legion stomps my memories and perception, you seem always too eager to show me nothing but all of yourself. Stay Blue, and I will know you; the others will, too. Your fruits are in my poems as a road for the Legions. All roads lead to Rome and the Rock, but I can never seem to find anything but the inside of this cage. Yes, Blue is your name and our color. The other colors are too distant and hard to find; especially in the deep water of this home I make my cage.

Joe Frazier is my Hero

I'm watching Friday Night Fights on ESPN2; Joe Frazier is live in the studio. He knows the fight game, and disdainfully addressed the plug and hug style boxers use on the inside today. If someone got close to Joe Frazier, Smokin' Joe would never grab when he could punch. This man had the best left hook in the history of boxing, bar none, and he did it with his left arm shorter than his right. Fighters these days get into the danger zone of boxing, and agree to clinch rather than fight, and then quit in the face of real adversity. Joe never quit. His corner wouldn't let him go out for the fifteenth round against Ali in their last fight. Even now, thirty years later, the host of Friday Night Fights asked Joe to show how he hits the heavy bag. He didn't hit it hard, or even particularly well, but he didn't stop until the host asked the great former champion. I was alone in my living room, clapping and saying "We love you, Joe," even though nobody could hear me. I have to take Joe's example. I've got short tools like Frazier, and like him, I cannot quit. My corner is going to stop me, because I won't quit. I'm having a rough time these days, but if I quit, it's all over. I can't even complain about the crowd clearly against me. Why would anyone want to be around an ugly mug like me? I have a good corner, but the crowd wants me dead, even the so-called-friends who cheerd for me once, but ignore me in my hours of need. The crowd loved Ali, a bigger, stronger, faster fighter. However, Frazier had effort, even when the whole crowd cheered against him. Both my eyes are swollen shut, the crowd cheers for my opponent, and I need a miracle to win. I still won't quit. This might not be the fifteenth round, but I'm hurt and I won't quit. Thanks, Joe. Your courage inspires me.

Speaker for Last Night

Early this morning will speak for last night. I took a tranq because I can't sleep. Too many voices in a large choir sing while flames throttle my peripheral vision. I can't see a way around but sleep. Sleep cannot cure all ills, but it's the punctuation of my life: an intrinsically meaningless symbol that only makes sense as an abstract idea in the context of words. I think this early morning speaks for all late nights when it says "I'm lonely. I'm tired, and may yesterday's events not repeat after the full stop of sleep."

Five Miles

I went to the MVA today for a meeting with the doctor who decides medical limits on drivers' licenses. I can't drive more than five miles from my house. At least it's better than them revoking it completely.

Wrench

I didn't sleep well last night. No music could relax me. No pain could exhaust me. Every moment, I was deeper into my world, my Void. Tomorrow, I've got to put on a happy face; I have an appointment to a meeting with someone from the MVA. They're talking about stripping my liscense to drive. I don't feel happy, and I don't feel well.

I could blame it on my friend in Tulsa, but that would be a lie. The real issue is what he represents. He has women hanging all over him, lies his ass off, and can use anyone for his selfish purposes, including me. I'm not as upset with what he's done as the way he uses me to wrench other people. He lies, cheats, and does drugs, yet somehow manages to have life served on a platter to him with my help. I love the friends he's left in his wake; I wouldn't have met them otherwise. However, this piece of crap has peace, love, sanity, and understanding heaped on his lap at every turn. Never mindful of this, as soon as he's done with one woman or friend, he's on to the next one.

It seems like I've told him a hundred times to straighten up and fly right, and he's agreed every single time. He's just wrenching me every time we talk. I gave him 24 hours to call me; when he does call me, if he wrenches me, he's persona non grata. If he decides to remain silent until after tomorrow, I fully intend to walk away and never look back. He doens't deserve my friendship or my assistance.

I won't keep putting the pieces of his wandering disaster back together forever. I've been a good friend to him for a long time, but he's never done anything but wrench me since high school. It all comes down to tolerance. I can't be around people I know in pain. I just can't do it. However, it seems the people around me have a near infinite tolerance to my pain. I'll always be crazy, but sometimes I wish for a little bit of happiness. None is forthcoming. Peace, love, and understanding make me happy. People throw it away and waste it on my friend in Tulsa, but in my hours of need, I am alone. When people need a wrench, they use me. When I need a hand, they pull back.

I know exceptions to these rules in varying degrees. You know who you are. I won't make a list of you here. This post is not an indictment of you, it's exposition of my general circumstances. However, there is no exception to what follows.

I've spoken before on my drowning man. It doesn't have to be an ocean to drown me: I can drown in a bowl of soup. Watch me.

Music

Sometimes, it's safe for me to relax in music. People wonder why I pace and why I get nervous when I'm around people. It's because I can feel the Many-Armed-Knight's breath on the back of my neck, and if I relax, he and his liege will come to the forefront. Don't worry when I'm pacing or shooting my mouth off; worry when I sit or stay in one place and become silent. Silence isn't something I hear often. If I don't put something in its place, I will hear them louder than anything else. If I shut my eyes, it's often all I see. Right now I'm listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan and typing desperately to keep my eyes and ears occupied against the hell that fills all gaps and creases. Those gaps and creases will quickly become crevasses and lacerations if I'm not careful. However sometimes, the effort is too much to hold them off, and they come. I get tired, and pained, and sick to death of my misery, then I leave. I go to Void, which oftentimes seems the only place I'm truly welcome, and the only place where I am understood. The choir is loud, but right now, the music is louder. The Many-Armed-Knight is behind me, but his robes don't block my vision as I type, for now. I don't want to stop writing. Even as the black silk and velvet close in, the scent of sweat and sulfur surrounds me, and the choir screams in a language I wasn't meant to understand, I try to resist. Misery will join me on this side of my senses; why should I feel unwanted, unloved, and dirty when I can feel the smooth face of pain without the uncertainty of waiting for a new tomorrow that never seems to come? Stevie Ray Vaughan just sang "Voodoo Child." I know at least one way to take the rest of tonight.

Roman Time

Time passes, I change; my poetry changes with me. What was once beautiful is deadpan. What was once true, now seems foolish. I write until I have nothing left, then I look down and see a vast expanse of nothing spread over years of pointless thought and aggravation. Love is my banner, my Imperial Eagle, and the path of my Legion's bootheels. Now, it's all the same. Every word I write to chronicle the Void just makes it larger. Perhaps if I wrote and spoke earlier, things would be different, but now I feel lost. My soldiers of verse crossed the Rubicon, and can't find their way back. I chased Prester Bane's forces to the end of my exhaustion: no Zama lies ahead of me. Signs point to Cannae, from there to the Teutoburg Forest, into the sands of the Collosseum, and all the way past Garibaldi's Redshirts to the Lateran Treaty. My future is well established, but surrounded by a bald, bragging, arrogant tyrant with grand visions of my return to prominence. Eventually, he'll hang by his heels; most will approve, but I will never, ever be the same as I was in the beginning. Aeneas is a myth; Vergil wrote him that way. Caesar conquered Gaul, but is mostly remembered for how and why he died. A good thing came and changed all the rules for me: Lions don't prowl the sands as they used to, but my affliction remains, despite the old wounds now sealed. I have beautiful ceilings, and more gold than Croesus would dream possible, but I've lost the promise of a different tomorrow. Things for me seem sealed at one end: I can't go back. Aeneas could tell you that, but he's gone into myth with Vergil. The rest is a distant memory of greatness and what could have been. Now that the years since salvation outnumber the years before, I've even lost that feeling of normalcy. The same wounds hurt, and seek the same rememdies. Tomorrow is today seen through yesterday's eyeglasses, and obscured by the blinders that block the way back home.

Technically Sunday

Today is technically Sunday, but this is my Saturday update. My best friend in Tulsa continues to be a drug-addicted, irresponsible milquetoast, and a very dear friend here continues to put herself second behind someone who claims to love her. I let someone say "I love You" with a scourge in one hand and a bottle in the other for a long time, too. Violence from a father to a son is a little different than what she's going through, but changing how you treat someone based on how much alcohol you consume is a sure sign of bad things to come, particularly if tears are involved.

Here's how it plays out:

drunkard: "Do you think I like hurting you? I love you"

fool: "no, this is my fault"

drunkard: "I love you so much"

fool: "I know"

drunkard: "If you just #insert ultimatum, demand, or excuse here#, everything would be better, I promise"

fool: "ok, I shouldn't have pushed you"

#insert 24 hours#

drunkard: "I never said that"

fool: ". . . but"

drunkard: "that's ok, I don't think it's a bad idea. We'll talk about it later"

#insert 24 hours#

drunkard: "Do you think I like hurting you? I love you"

lather, rinse, repeat

This is the bottom line: whether it's a physical scourge, or an emotional one, point out the abusers, and recognize that alcohol, drugs, sex and the empty promises that go with them aren't good ways to solve problems with friends or loved ones. I'm not saying love isn't real with these people who use, I'm saying that it doesn't matter. When we use these substances and heavy emotional hammers to supress problems between two people who claim to love, love becomes a weapon, not a comfort. Don't put yourself third when you should be equal.

Dodge City

I'm watching "Dodge City" starring Errol Flynn with my Dad. It's a good movie, one of my favorite westerns. There are good guys, bad guys, and the best barroom brawl in any Western. Errol Flynn was a good actor, not a great one, and he's probably my Dad's favorite. I think he was a woamanizing drunken slug, but I like his movies.
"Dodge City" is a complete study of the Western genre, even though it stars an Australian and an Englishman. Technically, Olivia DeHavilland was born in Japan to English parents; my origins are much the same. My Dad was an army officer and my Mom is from Kansas City; I was born on Wiesbaden Air Force Base with a birth certificate from the State Department. It's a fun document to show the MVA when they ask me where I was born.

Thanks for the responses I got from my last entry. It means a lot to me. I'm glad to see this isn't a brick wall. You're all gentlemen, ladies, and scholars; I'm glad to call you all friends.

Plain

I thought I'd be able to write something profound or beautiful. Today, it's not in me. I'm hurt as I'm always hurt, alone as I'm always alone; I just feel plain. I keep checking my email, looking at my phone, and popping in and out of IM desperate to find some company. None is forthcoming, as usual. I don't know why I'm always looking to others; when I was in High School, I avoided people like the plague, and they avoided me likewise. Prester Bane, the Many-Armed-Knight, the Harvester, Scabbard Man and the rest were all the company I needed. It was like breathing twice, once for me, and once for the rest of them. Eventually, that changed. I don't know if I was bored or frustrated, or just tired of the constant conflict in my head. I found some things to fixate upon and write about, but every time I try to plug that hole inside me, I find out it's bigger than I'd ever dreamed, and my items of fixation are never true as I see them. However, partial truths give me hope sometimes, so if you want to IM me, or email me, just say "Hello Plain and Lonely." I'm not much for conversation, but I could use a friend.

My Friend In Tulsa and A Question

I've known my friend in Tulsa for a long time; we were friends way the hell back in High School. That makes it a little over eight years. I've watched him go from a solid believer to a drunk and a drug user to an abusive, lying prick. Right now, he's walking out of a relationship on a second friend of mine. I would call it a troubled relationship, but he is the only one causing trouble as far as I can tell. He's done what he's doing before, and left me to pick up the pieces of a friend. His behavior is that of a drug-addicted, drunken user of women and friends. Sometimes I feel that if I'd done more while he was closer, maybe I could have persuaded him to act differently. I told him a long time ago that I wouldn't give up on him, but now I'm sorely tempted. He's putting me through an emotional minefield, and he's done it before. He makes my life harder than it should be. He has women hanging all over him, and damn near destroyed two of them I'm proud to call friends.

That brings me to my question: How the hell does that work; why do they cling to him? He puts nothing but vice, lies, and emotional extortion into his relationships, and a woman is always there to take him in and love him. I try virtue and honesty. I know I'm a monster, but is my monstrosity that profound?

Slow

Year by year, they take a little away. I wake up every morning with a little slice less. Look at me tomorrow, and you can't tell the difference from today. Track me over years, and you'll see. I saw the mountaintop. I could see the summit; I was so close I could smell it. I slipped a little to begin with, but I powered through, determining not to fall with willpower alone. It worked for a little while; I got closer to where I wanted to be. When I fell, I barely noticed. It's a slow fall; gravity outpaces me. I can flail and strain, but the base of the mountain approaches. The acceleration isn't measured in meters per second per second, it's measured in all things I thought I deserved before the first little slip lost per year per year.

Cezanne's onions grew sprouts. He tried to fix his still life paintings day by day. He didn't even realize that as soon as something out of place grows comfortable in anyone's artistic vision, it takes away from the original purposes of that vision. I wrote and I wrote; I wrote for ten years. The first seven were to explain myself. The next three years of writing tried to explain flaws in the first seven.

It's the slow fall that gets me. I'm furiously painting over onions that hide the rest of the canvas more every time I pick up a brush. I've done it for ten years as I fall with my back to the ground. I don't see the ground approaching; I can only see the sky I've lost in the process. On my way down, I meet you, greet you, and then you say goodbye. After all, who would want to fall with me?

The end of any fall is the ground. In my fall, my back will hit first: I won't see the ground coming. The rest of you will see and count the days until it happens with a litany of empty pill bottles, but I'll stay ignorant of the exact time I hit. Right up until the very end, I'll probably be painting with my poems. Most people will walk by my deathbed, my funeral, and my tombstone completely unaware of what went into my work. The informed few will pass me by and say "It's a shame, the circumstances of his death; he was a fine onion painter. A fine onion painter." The worst part is the knowledge that if a pretty girl asks me to paint an onion for her, too, I would do so happily. I would do anything for understanding, anything for hope, and anything for love, even if that means painting black and yellow onions sprouting stalks shaped like happiness. I don't mind the time, and I'm eager to explain the onions. After all, I want to smile as much as you want to see me smile. I would paint all of Atlas' burden with happily shaped onions for understanding, hope, and love; none of which is forthcoming for whatever reason you give me during every moment I wonder. So'll I paint onions with my pen in still life like this blog until I hit the ground, with a lifetime of sky between where I was headed and where I stopped; I'll be so far away that no one will believe how close I actually came to being the best.

Bronze Age Adventures

When I was a little kid, I studied ancient history with a vigor inspired by passions almost on the level of my inspirations to read the bible. I read about Heinrich Schliemann, Greek myth, and lost civilizations from before the time of Christ. I always had a fascination with Homer and the Iliad. Hector is my favorite character. He's an honorable combatant and the greatest of the Trojans. Unlike the Romans, who tended to villify their enemies rather than treating them as powerful antagonists, Homer had healthy respect for Hector and the other honorable Trojans. Paris is a different matter; we all think Paris is a selfish, cowardly rat. There's no Vercingetorix, Spartacus, or Hannibal, all brave commanders who met the Romans with success, in the Iliad. Sure, plenty of bloodletting occurs when the Greeks finally do sack Troy, but Odysseus was punished by the Gods he angered for his action with the famous Trojan Horse, as was Agamemnon in his homecoming.

I want to bring the feel of Homer to the gaming table, an environment usually soaked in ideas from Tolkien. Don't get me wrong, I love and respect the Tolkienesque feel of D&D, but I think Bronze Age adventures could be exhilirating: No longswords or steel of any type, no magic in the hands of mortals, direct interference from limited dieties, and plenty of chariots are interesting elements absent from D&D as it's usually played. It should be challenging, and it should be fun.

So Far Today

So far today, I've felt pretty well. The morning wasn't great, but I got a call from a friend who read my blog and wanted to hear if I was ok, so that cheered me up. When a friend calls, I get a little boost in happiness to know I'm not completely alone. I've distracted and exhausted myself today with superflous stuff to keep Legion at bay. If I'm lucky, the lucid time will stretch into tomorrow, but I'm not holding my breath. I don't expect or try for sanity any more, that would be futile. A little part of me still hopes for happiness, though. Sometimes my melancholy seems invincible; I can't seem to find a way to break it inside me: I need help from someone who understands and can love me anyway.

Those of you familliar with only my writing might think that not unreasonable, but trust me, it is. The disrupting pressure of my depression and my flood of annoying habits tests anyone's patience. There's a scene from "The Simpsons" where Barney makes an independent film chronicling his condition. Several ladies in the audience lament his torment; one says "he has the soul of a poet!" When Barney introduces himself, the same woman turns to him and says "Did something crawl down your throat and die?" That's usually how people react to me. Something did crawl down my throat and die; most call it Youth.

An Open Letter, You've been served.

The past few days were awful, if you couldn't tell by my posts. Not only am I dealing with my hell, I've had to deal with a friend in Tulsa's. He treats the people who love him like shit, and only garners more people lining up around the block to be with him. He's got the whole world eating from his hand; he has friends who won't give up on him, women hanging all over him, and abuses everyone who lets him lean a little more. Sometimes it seems to me the lesson I've got to learn is to treat the people around me like crap; perhaps then, things will turn around. The people who beat me get ahead and find happiness. I can't find it in myself to ignore my friends in their hours of need; it seems like the nicer and more considerate I am, the more people take me for granted, and the less they want to even be around me. I will scream, I will fall, and I will contend that I'm not mute, no matter how much I'm ignored, or how little people want to hear about it.

Do you hear me, Brick Wall? I'm sorry I don't ignore you. I'm sorry I never lied to you to get at your soft spots. I'm sorry I never beat you until you curled up in a ball and learned to just take it. I'm sorry I never let you beg for my attention while I ignore you, and treat you like you don't exist for months on end. I'm sorry I never took advantage of you. And I'm sorry I never berated you just to get my jollies.

I'll probably always be here for you to abuse. Tell me how much you love me, and tell me how much you want to be my friend. Lie your ass off, and pretend I'm too stupid to notice. Take yourself to the ninth circle, and I'll keep myself here in the seventh. Virgil won't be my guide; I'm too close to Petrarch. Trust me, we can all see from without what is obvious from within. "Cercar no so ch'amor non venga sempre, ragionando con mio et io con lui." That puts it nicely for Petrarch and Laura, but we all know how best to lie to me.

Maybe I would be more compelling if I were to be cruel. It works for my friend in Tulsa. Tell me how to mistreat you; I know I can be mean, too. This monster of me lives in deep water, and my demons don't sleep.

I Miei Occhi Sanguinarano

I'm not much of a visual artist, but this what I see in the mirror at my worst. It's a long way from the kid in the cub scout uniform, isn't it? Sometime, I'll stop looking for me in the mirror; it brings only more confusion and more pain.

Out of Control

Love is not something I find easily. Usually, I'm in an out-of-control haze when I'm around someone I think I love. Eventually, I found out that the road of love goes both ways, and that I've probably never walked it. What I call "Love" is probably more accurately described as an obsessive delusion. Secrets pass, people get close, but in the end, every result is a pitied friendship not even close to love. My answer is to write; it's a stupid answer. On the outside, it may seem romantic, but it's just as useless and as crazy as I am in all things. Sometimes I write in horribly mangled Italian, especially when I can't sleep.

Avere

Uno puoi vedere
questo terrore
in mio cuore chi
è troppo debole

per t’amore lungo
abbastanza adesso
piu puoi vedere
questa solitudine

in mio cuore
è una grande forte
visione dei tuoi
capelli lunghi rossi

il vento mi fara piangere
I miei occhi sanguinarano
per il suoi amore
che no ho

Grappling

I grapple with myself on my principles constantly. I'm not too afraid of being wrong to admit when I am. I try to stay one step ahead of Prester Bane's indignation. Every day, I try to look at one section of my beliefs and either reaffirm it or consider a change. For example, when I was in high school, I favored Palestine over Israel. I didn't think the Palestinians got justice after World War II, and disputed Israel's sole claim to the area. This got me in a lot of trouble, and in too many arguments to list. I was called a Nazi in open class, and worse behind my back, I'm sure. My position's base was the same base David Crockett used against Andrew Jackson on Indian removal: it's just not right to rob someone of his home to favor a relative or a countryman. I generally proposed a similar response to those who argued with me: "You can go to hell. I can go to Texas."

However, I think the Palestinians received a good offer over Hebron in 1997 with a satisfactory deal in the Oslo II agreement, and believed there should be an end to the contest. I was right about the offer, but wrong about the Palestinians' dedication at the bargaining table. Come 2000, and the offer given by Israel then, I was firmly in the belief that Palestine could settle without bloodshed. It's ok in my mind to take matters to arms at that stage. No one should be able to rob a neighbor of the right to fight over his domicile. However, war offers the victors much better terms, be they Palestinian or Israeli, but it guarantees massive penalties for defeat. I think Israel's offers were more than fair, and that the Palestinians' failure to win in the Intifada puts the situation in that category. Come September 11 and the crowds dancing in the streets throughout the Islamic world with few exceptions, jubilantly celebrating our loss, my opinion changed to stay. Islam can go to hell. I can go to Texas.

I read the Koran, and I thought I began to understand what Islam is all about: submission to divine powers and orders in exchange for riches, respect, and righteousness in this world and the next. That's not how I see my role in creation. I try to turn the other cheek without compromising my integrity. I see my religion as a way to salvation despite my many severe flaws. I want to believe there's some peace, quiet, and justice in being who I am, despite my particular difficulties mentally. I don't want war; I want peace and an agreement to leave each other alone in each of our individual pursuits of happiness and salvation. I don't hate Muslims, Catholics, Lutherans, or Calvinists. I don't agree with any of them. To me, Peter is the rock: his church is the cornerstone to our faith, but not the whole house. I am content to be a fleck in the mortar.

Now I face a similar personal dilemma to the one I faced in High School. Someone I once loved called me a bigot over my view of worldwide Islam, and indicated that was a big reason why I'm lonely: nobody wants to be around me or my opinions. So now I grapple with a world that hates me the same as it hated me in High School. Now I'm not called a Nazi; I'm called an American Imperialist. It seems that no matter what direction I turn, all I see are people's backs as they walk away. The only approaching figures are Prester Bane and his Many-Armed Knight. I struggle with God; I struggle with man; and I grapple with myself.

I might be a nutcase, but I'm one hell of a writer

Is the best compliment I've received in years. I haven't gotten much positive feedback since I wrote "Grumbles for the Grave with Dante," and that was a long time ago.

Grumbles for the Grave with Dante

I cannot be so frigid,
Detached from what's around me
With deep and icy veins
Exposed to only me.

The fury is my heart.
The tempest is my voice.
No glacier is my passage;
There's magma on my way.

The fire burns inside me,
Relentless in its torment.
It scorches shut the wounds
Cut deep by liar's stares.

Don't tell me to relax;
Ten long breaths can't stop me.
I don't need any space
Or time to know the score.

So slash me out, I'm gone.
I cannot turn as cold
To freeze just like the rest.
I'll sooner burn in hell,

And laugh along the way.
With Dante as my guide,
The eighth ring is between
My torment, and worse: yours.

It Would Be Easy

My poetry could be like everyone else's. I can complain about politics using no facts, no evidence, and no burden of truth. Instead of my art striving for this garbage, I strive for appeal outside the typical poetry crowd. All they want is a way to feel better than everyone else because they read a few poems that are obsolete and deadpan before the ink is dry. I don't care how many teenagers and wannabe, 37 year old teenagers at heart want a different man in office, and a different woman on the supreme court. In ten years, all that self-serving, masturbatory political trash will be over, done with and unread. Sure, Dante put Popes in hell, but he did it with style. Most poets I meet these days don't even know terza rima, and can't write a proper sonnet if their art's life depended on it (and often it does). Does anyone write poems about Benjamin Disraeli anymore? His novels are probably more popular than any of the crap poets dumped on his doorstep. I could be part of the crowd, and sell a chapbook primarily concerned with how much print I can make off other people's suffering and sacrifices, but that would be selling out. Someone is going to have to not ride the G.W. Bush bashwagon to save all our work from irrelevancy in 2008. I don't care what side of the fence any poet decides to make his home; I wish we could all just move on from move on and realize that putting ourselves in a litte box with only one open side facing the east leaves us with nothing to write about at sunset.

The Difference

Right now, I hate my imagination. I use it too much as a substitute for genuine emotions, connections, friendships and love. Every time I pick up a pen, I wish for understanding in the results. Imagining connections, I do nothing but write more; it never seems to pan out into truthful human relations. As my desperation spirals out of control, I think the answer can be found at the bottom of a page through the efforts of an empty inkwell. No matter what I write, I find myself alone at the end. That's why my failed tries at relationships infuriate me; when I think I've found genuine understanding and love, I eventually find those emotions to exist entirely in my imagination. I write my feelings furiously, only to find those verses meaningless but to themselves: no matter how I write, my efforts bring me nothing. "Stitches" means nothing to anyone but me.

Without my writing, I feel I'm nothing. Like Rilke says, I must write or I do not exist. Without my poems, and increasingly this blog, I don't sense a reason to continue.

Tonight, my demons will haunt me. I'll lie and say it's ok, eventually. I'll write and I'll live a life in conditions I considered unacceptable in 1997. That's the difference between 1994 and 2006: the writing. In the black expanse of my thoughts and memories between the years live my verses. They are loose collections of depression, obsession, psychosis, and hope that never connect except in my imagination.

My imagination is enough to say that everything on this site is copyright 2006 by Thomas Jackson, so don't steal it.

Endurance

I hoped to get through my cousin's wedding without psychotic manifestation. That hope proved futile. A new shape for an old character erupted out of Void: the Many-Armed Knight accompanied me, unseen in full. I saw only his cloak and blades. The black silk and velvet garment with blue steel sword tips came out of every crack, every vent, and out of the eyes of the bridesmaids and groomsmen. I don't know why the hallucinations take the forms they do, but I'm always wishing for them to be less disturbing. Sometimes, I wish for a talking mirror or a rabbit wearing a vest in my troubles, but the images seem to always come back to darkness, violence, and terror.

Dozen

My cousin will marry into a good family; I met them last night. The best part about them is their unquestionable love for each other; it truly showed during the rehearsal dinner. They also showed great temperance: usually I judge someone's self-control by the amount of alchohol he drinks in an open-bar situation. This family passed with flying colors: I didn't see a single empty wineglass in their table section. I didn't even have to make an evaluation on how well they hold their liquor; the whole section didn't drink.

I hope I don't have to endure my psychosis at this wedding, like I did for my cousin Trace's. I had visual and auditory hallucinations during the whole ceremony, and intermittently through the reception. The doctors all say that stress is a trigger, but I don't believe that: the voices and visions come and go as they please. My stress increases as the frequency and intensity of my psychosis interferes with my life and puts time constraints on me. As my lucid time to accomplish tasks shrinks, everything becomes more complicated than it should be in my mind, and stokes the fires of my fits of depression and melancholy. I feel hopeless and helpless to their fury.

Every morning, I wake up to a world far different from the world before my slumber. My memories change in my dreams, and the disease rules me a little more than it did the night before. I can belie the pain of my condition to those who ask me; they don't want to hear my garbage any more than I want to live through it. Sometimes, I wish I could scream from the highest steeple that my life is hell, and I don't want to wake up to the different world I find certain in my future. That won't do any good, though. Everyone has a life to lead, and they don't need to know the conditions in my struggle, no matter how much I want them to understand me.


ANOTHER POEM I CALL HOME

Every poem has a bit of home.
Texas lurks large in my verses:
A state I could go back to,
Revisit the stage of my youth
When comfort was cacti and freedom
To hear the coyotes howl at night.

But those days and nights never were.
I was beaten and chided there;
The distant days of my early youth
Bore pain and sadness as my fruit.
The same bitter flesh and stale juice
Pass judgment then as they do now.

A New Form for the Last Day of Eleven Years

I hallucinated a new form for my psychosis for this, the last day of the first dozen years. The hallucination starts as I involuntarily focus in on a point in space directly in front of me; flames lick up the walls of my tunnel-vision as a choir sings louder and louder in a higher and higher pitch. For now, the hallucination disperses itself before the flames meet at the focus point.