existential angst is for pansies

 

When they sing, I hear heaven and hell collide; mountains are born, cracks sink into canyons, and out rings the buzz of every order of angel.

 

My face was grizzled and my beard was thick for want of shaving.  Circe’s hands were oft-nestled there, combing loose peppered strands into place.  Her love remains something divine and doting.  Some girls will laugh at anything I say.  But all the while, I thought of you, Penelope.

 

I was a man sent into battle, naked, cold, and cupping my manhood.  I mustered a war cry and it came forth with a cat’s meow; I was captured and tied to the stake.  The swarthy firing squad marched heartily; the martinet’s song rang in my ears. 

 

It was lovely.

 

Four perfect measures, gentle and sweet.  Dripping slow like a humid day; they winked at me.  The message was that they didn’t care but if I were so inclined, they’d not mind the company.  It was a shared glance that left me wondering.

 

Then, it was lemonade with a spoonful of sugar.  Patently sour, my mouth recoiled, my face twisted, I grimaced.  The pain was of saccharine variety and I took it down in gulping dregs.  Shaking my head with animation, my jowls flap-flapped, my shoulders were made taut, and I waited.  And then, there was release.

 

I tapped the bar for another and another.

 

It burned going down and with each sip, the drink became something stronger.  It very well may have been bull piss and vinegar but head swirling, my vision blurred with trailing images of you and everything was pretty.  I’ve been gone for too long, babe.  I’ve done too many things you’d rather not see or know.  I’ve seen my share of dying; I’ve seen giants of singular vision, eating my friends and men with a focused certainty.  The sloppy marrow of living picked clean and swallowed with an ogre’s lazy mastication.

 

Sirens.  In their hands, I was a weary, bearded embodiment of broken will.  Far from home, and thinking only of it, unaware of the grumbling prattle of lusty suitors lounging in our home, their song was ecstatic, warm, inviting, sincere and rife with everything I missed.  Their harmony was evil and a trap but with every note, they offered a glimpse of you.

 

I strained against the ropes, cursing the day I was born.  With every ounce of being, I flexed and pushed but couldn’t break free.  The bastard men around me stared dumbfounded and for some – I was convinced – amused. Wax absorbing the brunt, they heaved at the oars, their sweat glistening on brows.

 

I’ve hidden among sheep, scampering among bovine legs at the cost of friends.  Often humbled but ever resilient, I’ll make my way home.  I’ll don a disguise and face every challenge, dodge every arrow, parry every blow.  The postman rings but once and when you open the door, it will be me.

 

I’ll be alive again.

 

——————-

 

Imperial Warrior ( Hung Liu)

 

—————-

 

marcus aurelius

 

Serenity of temper and courtesy

Came by way of my grandfather,

Verus.

 

Verus lived in a village

By the sea

Sprinkled every

Midmorning with sea

White.

 

He’d find the shiny gloss

Of abalone a ransom

For my affection.

 

Fearing visions:

 

Watching barbarians

Piled in heaps

Somewhere in Germania.

 

————

 

Good morning!  I’m thinking: doughnuts…

Matt11:28

—————

 

e pur si muove!

 

The pursuit of truth is something stark

Revealing and per definition,

Naked.

 

We stumble focused through our day

Unclear and we’re consumed

With calories burned for work

Books and different ways of being -

Seeing that we’re all busy with

Birds and bees or the pursuit of

Good pairing.

 

But one day, you wake

And peel back lids like

Orange peels and leave them

To exposure.

 

It’s the bawdy song of the cabaret

And you’ll hear the raunchy sax

Hitting the bottom of an already base

Register.

 

Knowledge need not pander

But that’s the only way it hits me -

Oscillating hips and

Wordy, flirty lips

Mouthing come hither and

I’ll show you something.

 

Truth may arrive provocative

But sometimes lumpy

And you’d wish belts were in fashion

Because skin itself is nothing new

And not necessarily helpful

For drowsy living.

 

Think

Or don’t

Of Plumber Butt –

Fat and unsightly,

Frankly unnecessary.

 

It’s epiphany displayed

With a fleshy

Amateur sway and still,

Truth be skinned,

I’d rather not see it

That way.

 

———————

By the Rivers of Babylon (Hung Liu)

————-

 

Eureka

 

Things are quiet here at work and I just ate a nice chicken sandwich. The meeting room offers a great view of the city, looking all gritty with her smog and humid haze. If Los Angeles were a woman, she’d be big, imposing and attractive in an unconventional way. Everything is spread over long distances; a true commuter city.  We’ve got diversity and personality.  The Los Angeles basin boasts a larger economy than every state other than Texas and New York.  North to south, the state has the fifth largest economy in the world.

 

Sure, the state’s got problems but hey baby, I ain’t ashamed.  Schwartzenegger could be our next governor; that’s still a step above a former pro wrestler.  Eh, if you squint your eyes and dim the lights, maybe.  But Grey Davis is like cardboard.  That talks.

 

(If the Democrats can delay the recall til the BIG campaign hits CA, the Republicans will be weep for bad timing.  Then, it should be an easy Dem win for both races.  It’s a dark blue state.)

 

So, we’re a mess.  But still, I’ll never understand folks who categorically knock the place.  County to county, you’ll find such variety. 

Running through downtown, I tried to keep my heartrate up and waited for the light to change.  Nearby were the Hare Krishnas in tangerine robes, skater kids, and some Ernst & Young folk.

 

I hear people say, California girls (or guys) aren’t for me.  I think, What?!?  We’re bigger than most countries, man!  What they mean to say is, the people at work (or church or school or the bars I hop) aren’t for me.  As any Californian can attest, the people and culture often differ dramatically from one area code to the next.

 

But man, I’ve avoided some pretty crazy drivers lately.  I’ve cheated death twice this week.  So, I wipe my brow and I’m thankful.

 

——-

 

 

——-

 

Now listening to:

 

 

Cheer them on.

 

CA is all screwed up.

 

My Mind is Playin’ Tricks on Me.

 

…

worth reading

 

 John 8:32

 

 

cowboys & indians

With the wolfish intake
Of sticks of cancer
We’ll lean on boredom.

In steel-beamed wigwams
We’ll forget we’re young
Living in the broken
Backsliding
Fattening middle.

Pour out cynical
And when the smoke clears,
We’ll freeze the moment
For pending posterity and
Nothing new.

We’ll pass the pipe,
Scrap the war cry
And scratch with fingers on
Chalkboards where once

We scribbled
Caricatures of
True believers and teachers and
Played tic-tac-toe laughing.

—————

Five Seated Figures (Juan Munoz)

———

“Dirty” Harry has roamed this part of LA for the past ten years.  With a rusty shopping cart and maybe five teeth, he wears a thick glove on his left hand.  The dogs go berserk when he’s at the gate.

He comes off and on.  When we first met, we struck up a semi-coherent conversation and I tried to laugh and keep it light.  In the end, I brought him some snacks and a few bucks and off he went with his perpetually swollen leg (a dollar short of gangrene).  That was years back and he keeps coming.  And every time I see him, the inward roll of my eyes gets uglier.

He comes drunk and full of demands.  I spoke firmly and found it hard to smile.  He told me lies about money for surgery and pleaded for two dollars.  I didn’t feel much Christian love at the moment.  Gritting my teeth, I went inside and grabbed some money and some food and put it in his hands.  I forced a grin and I told him I had to go.  He lingered for a few moments and stumbled away.  He’s gotten a lot of money over the years and each time, I find myself giving less.

I was resentful.  Mostly because he comes drunk.  I like to think I’d be more positive if he’d be honest (and sober and gracious) in his asking.  You know, I’ve worked with homeless groups over the years and some are just so full of love and good humour.  You can sit and chat for hours and leave with a hug and full bellies all around.  But that definitely isn’t the case with Harry.

Living on the streets can lead people to expect rejection and snobbery.  Maybe that leads to depression and lies and alcohol.  Christ spent the bulk of his time with the lowest castes.  I might sleep better knowing that they were good folk, simply oppressed and unfairly marginalized.  But I’m sure it was a mixed bag of mottled lepers, sweet widows, orphan boys, nasty ol’ bastards and tax collectors.  I see Jesus somewhere down the road and I’ve got some ground to cover.  But be it Harry or me, it’s all grace in the end.

——–

—————–

> Coffee Break. <

Matt11:28

lax

I’m asking permission
To take your hand
For a sip-slap conversation.

There,
The window seat is
An offering for view -
You’ll see baggage passing
Calloused palms
Piled high on rusty bed
After bed.

Damaged goods transfer
At Grand Central
Where they’re inspected for
Scratches and scuff
Marks and
Ownership.

They’re snaking through the terminal.

They’ll tumble down the chute
Onto an ogling line but
Some pass more hands than others.

They’re blurred alike but only one is mine.
How many are yours.

Regardless and so,
We’ll have a sip
Or I’ll take over
Where they left it.

———————–

Fall of the Cowboy (Remington)

Temperament

So, my bill hit the floor but it just isn’t the right time for something like that.  The recall measure is in full swing and Standard/Poor’s just issued a warning for the state.  Man, trouble.  Still, it’s the first bill of its kind (esp. on the state level).  It’ll resurface later.  The formula is actually pretty innovative (if you’re asking me… ha!).  Good stuff. 

You know, I had an epiphany a few years back.  I woke up in the middle of the night, staring at the ceiling, terrified.  The rat race gets pretty tempting but I’m trying to stay above the fray.  Somehow, I’m hoping to live life with purpose.  Sure, some days are a grind but that’s to be expected.  But those days need to be a means to an end rather than one second of a lifelong drone & buzz.

That night, I saw a fat, middle-aged and balding me, sitting at a desk.  Successful, maybe.  But looking back on years lean with meaning.  It’s a slow, quiet slide from point here to B.  And it ain’t easy going back.  So, I resolved to live differently, to hold my ground.  Maybe part of it is disposition but a good portion is just choice. 

It’s a good afternoon.

But man, it’s hot.  Eye-of-the-Tiger: I’m going for a run.

—————–

Now listening to:



ahhh yeah.

“or your mattress is FREEEEEEEEE!“

——————-

               Amazing grace.

Matt11:28

Sleep

New developing patterns.  I’ve been sleeping late and waking extra early.  Strangely enough, I feel pretty lively.  For those in the know, life has thrown a few curveballs my way but nothing bad, just unexpected.  Still, the pieces are all falling into place and I’m still looking outward.

And when I hit the sack, REM shoots her veins and I dream deeply.  I’m up way before the alarm.

I’ll tell you one thing.  At nights, I sit outside my doorstep and enjoy the moment.  I bumped into an old friend at the local coffee shop and I haven’t seen her in over 8 years.  The reacquaintance was pleasant and good.  I didn’t even recognize her at first. 

And it might seem quaint but there’s nothing sweeter than your labradour pawing at you for affection at midnight.  They’re just big babies – sweet, happy babies.  Happy can chase tennis balls ’till the break of dawn.  Brownie is just a charming lazyass.  And Bear is as likeable a dog you’ll ever meet. 

No drama in this life.  God knows I think a lot (and often) but when it comes down to it, things are simple. 

Room by the Sea (Hopper)

we are in love

Introspection.

When we’re dancing
We are most alive,
Pushing through the ring
Of clapping folk
Willing to break the mold.

When we’re dancing
We’re laughing
Looking pretty
Breaking a spat of
Tasty groovin’.

It’s toothsome and well,
Ephemerally
Gladhandingly

Nice.  We know how
To have fun
Earnestly and like strobes,
Imploringly.

We are thinkers
And we’ve come to
Grind
The heavy yolk
That holds them down.

Introspection is a plumb
Line.  Plumb tuckered
When we’re dancing cheek to cheek
In my tux,
In your gown.

———–

Now listening to:



The Mirror Conspiracy

———-

I’m with Haynes.

Avs sign Kariya and Selanne!  Shoot.

———-

*** Go to google.com and type in Weapons of Mass Destruction… then click “I’m Feeling Lucky”  ***  Try it.

 Garrison Keillor!  Matt11:28

and they’re off

 

Language is ultimately art.  And art has bled itself into reality.  And now we swim in the simulacrum.  Ask Baudrillard and he’ll agree.

 

Hi, we’re naked.   But it’s not what you think so let’s start from the beginning.

 

Adam sits on a rock and does a little philosophizing.  Staring out over the vast green of Eden, he plucks a tall weed of grass and chews and spits a la Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn.  Of course, his is the world of truly original ideas and his life follows no course presaged by the movies or books.  Bereft of language, you might wonder how he speaks.  Does he done have good grammer?  Oh, I dare say, the clouds are quite the spectacle. Jolly good show!  You see, language is all about structure and representation.

 

He sits on a rock and names the animals.  Eh, llama.  Eh, platypus?  He jumps in the water and goes for a skinny swim and as he shoots water between his teeth, he stares at the sky and though it was already there, the world as we know it begins to take form – albeit vague.  What permits meaningful thinking?  Bertrand Russell puffs away on a pipe a few millennia hence and slaps the cracked palms of a smoking Heidegger: La Langue!  Wittgenstein wants something more specific: The Structure of Language.

 

Flash Forward.  The scene is Vienna and the coffee is syrupy thick in dainty cups.  Carriages zip along both sides of a cobblestone street and somewhere over the fog of horse breath and morning haze…

 

H:  If meaning comes from language, where does language come from?

W:  Forget the origin of language.  You’ll find the meaning in its function as a SYSTEM.

The Horses:  Oh, that we would be free to roam the emerald hills of our foalhood!  Get off me, foo’!

 

And back.  Now, this isn’t lewd.  But there’s Eve.  Daaaaaamn.  She’s naked too.  They’re both naked.  But there ain’t no misbehavin’.  Adam thinks of Eve and Eve alone.  His worldview is of the make-it-up-as-you-go-along sort (with a few dietary guidelines).  No need to act like you didn’t notice the Victoria Secret window as your lady watches you out of the corner of an eye.  Like a hawk!  The way it should be.  Woman = Eve.  Naked lady = Eve.  Wife = Eve.  Friend = Eve.  “Heidi Klum” = Eve.  His definitions were limited and good (enough) for him.  When I was your age!  kids these days!

 

And for all we know, they may have been an ugly couple.  But life is form or it’s just messy.  There’s meaning, not just sensory perception.   But form is married to meaning and that gives birth to language.  So, the maybe ugly couple – our Parents, really – presses against a tree and finds that bark leaves grooves in the skin, an imprint.  They giggle.  And hold hands.  And they grunt a few phonemes.  First: Oh!  Second: Oh!  Together: I love you!  I lov eyou.  I lo veyou.  I l oveyou.  I’ll ove you!  I love you!

 

And it was good.  Simple.  Their introspection ran about an inch deep; correlation ran in short chains.  Likewise, epistemology came by way of sensation and a Big Booming Hebrew Voice.

The Platypus:  Quack?

 

“Art is about the episteme as a whole, an allegory of the deep arrangements that make knowledge possible.”

 

—————

 

 

———————-

 

mazel tov

 

I would like to dance with you

A slow affectionate waltz

Played by a big band

Of angels

Cheered by our hope.

 

I would like to hold you

Near me

When I’m blue.

 

My first kiss was with

Hope

And a better tomorrow

Light refracting and twisting

Off gutter puddles.

 

A mole digging a hole

Climbing

A mound upside-down.

 

That’s where you wait.

 

‘Til we swim with the fishes

And five loaves of bread.

 

————-

 

 

I’m going places, baby!  Soon enough.  Long-term goals.  Long-term goals.  Where the people lack vision, they perish. 

Have yourself a great week.

Russert ate him for breakfast! 

 

and… Matt11:28

 

the elevator is a sanctuary

————-

Bear

Here’s a mugshot.  A real troublemaker (and charmer).  I don’t imagine she’ll grow more than 50 pounds heavy.  Love the dark-rimmed eyes and I’m thinking of renaming her Tammy Faye.  She’s a fun dog.

—-

Shoot.  Weekend was a blast.  Congrats to Soojin and Peter!

———

White Towels
(Richard Jones)*

I have been studying the difference
between solitude and loneliness,
telling the story of my life
to the clean white towels taken warm from the dryer,
I carry them through the house
as though they were my children
asleep in my arms.

* Jones’ poems appear in recent anthologies (Poets of the New Century, Poetry in Motion, and his own collection, The Blessing: New and Selected Poems).

…

This Day This World
(Stanley Kunitz)+

My architects, forsaking me,
Submit designs for a bombproof mansion;
My scholars of the fourth dimension
Complain they starve to death in three;
My correspondents write all day
The business of the enemy.

Tapped of their useful energies,
My soldiers pace the mind’s frontier;
Engine recoils from engineer
And strikes at the courage in his eyes.
When shall my swarthy workmen rise,
Demand the power and the keys?

+ Kunitz was Poet Laureate of the US, 2000-2001.  A recent recipient of the National Medal of the Arts.  He’s a favorite, striking a balance between outward simplicity and inward mystery.

—————

Listening to:



Christopher O’Riley’s True Love Waits
Yeah, baby.  Looping track 4, Karma Police

Physics is Phun:  Matt11:28

Akin to the Wife

 

The sirens light up like strobes and the colors paint him with a garish red and blue.  Mystery men have warned you so it comes as no surprise.  Cleaning day; you’re in their way.  So, you make a decision; it only comes once.

 

Run.  Over the chain-link fence where you’ll topple down and put rubber to asphalt.  Ignore the shout of angry men over bellowing loudspeakers.  Don’t be daunted by the conspicuous dance of chasing, tapping loafers.  Time to go for broke.

 

Run through the park.  Make quick work of park benches and hurdle for good measure.  Weave through trees and feel the muffled crunch of damp, piled leaves.  Dive into the bushes and listen while they pass by.  You shan’t be so lucky again when they let loose the dogs.  Listen to yourself breathe and smell rank aftershave or maybe that’s the smell of fear.

 

                     

 

Get up and run.  Make a dash for downtown but lo and behold, they’ve been waiting for you.  Bowl him over and keep your sprint.  Contort your body and narrowly avoid the grasping hands of justice.  Into the convenience store you go.  Stand in awe of the beer girl, cut in lifesize cardboard, holding escape in a can.  You’re wistful.  But here they come so hide behind a rack of postcards, left of overpriced beef jerky.  Grab a bag of pretzels and throw ‘em at angry faces.  Brownbag carbs coated with salt of the earth.  Now, salt in their eyes!

 

Through Bus 19 and right back out again.  Apologize to the lady and smile at the kids with the boombox.  Bop your head, ah yeah.

 

Through the corner grocery and weave a maze through the aisles.  Shelves tumble like dominoes.  Crash through the back door.

 

Through the one hour photo.  Smile for the masses!  Snap, Warhol.  Snap.  Back out again.

 

Through the church but no, you feel bad enough already.  But sorry, come thou fount, you’ve got to plough onward.  Raise your joys and triumphs high!  But hold off because they’re still in hot pursuit. 

 

Just in: At the halls of justice.  Run up an Everest of marble steps.  Teary-eyed, they’re none too pleased and they’re only a few huffing steps behind.  God, you’re out of shape.  But thank God, they’re more so, weighed by jiggly butts full of stale doughnuts and drip coffee.  It makes for a funny scene on late breaking news: authorities in freeze-frame chase of one man in slow-motion escape. 

 

Listen to the sirens, a strange whiny tune.  Whistle and run to the rumbling beat of helicopters circling above.  From up high, you’re nothing but a scrambling dot with arms pumping.  Beads of sweat trickling down your neck, you decide you’re tired and it isn’t as fun as you imagined.  Still, your adrenals are churning out the good stuff.

 

The sky turns toward dusk as the sun mixes her light with the smog and monoxide of clogged commuter life.  Above, clouds give way to fiery colors – pink, orange.  The day spills over the brim.  Skyward, a fat Boeing drifts by, packed full of aching joints and blue peanuts.  Out those triple-pane windows, eyes bore through a city that stretches from congested middle to suburb to suburb to suburb.  And then, the sea.  The plan is to run, strip to your skivvies and take the plunge - float away, smooth like cellophane.  You win!

 

Late and Breaking:  Feel their breath, singeing your neck like brimstone.  Turn to the side and there’s hard charging Blue!  Run and jump.  Over the railing, straight into the fountain where you’ll scrounge for quarters as they wring you from the deep.  All those coins will buy a lot of smokes come Thursday.  Hello, Miranda.  Baby, you look great!  Look at you, looking all sly in county orange.  Shoot.

 

They rain down blows like baton fire, knocking the split-levels and mid-rises of your mind senseless.  Steve and Gary sit waiting; they’ve suffered the brunt.  Should’ve kept running!  But at least you’ll never see those two again.

 

                      

Eight by ten: slobbering over a harmonica next to Davy Jones’ deodorant.  A solitary pillar, always looking back.  Singing that jazz: Nobody knows what you would do for some Rold Gold. 

 

Through Eternity: Thanks, Lot.  But I makes my choice and I lives with it.

 

Genesis 19:26

 

——————

 

   Portal 1 (Peter Sarkisian)

 

———

 

quiet matter

 

Grace covers us

Even at our ugly worst.

 

I’ve been ugly,

Rather, I am.

 

(Rather, damn.)

 

Mercy on me

Though I’m only one person:

 

Grace and mercy

I’m at your both

At your because my

Discretion Indiscretion

 

Ignorant?  Hell no.

Heaven and hell

Beyond and below.

 

The Bible

Just words like

Hello Goodbye but

Less clear because of:

I live in Los Angeles.

 

Christianity as a visceral

Experience

The rational is best left

In the Cold.

 

Tomorrow should be different

Be right with God

But find him first

He knows where he is.

 

—————

 

  Make it so!

 

———-

 

One of the prime movers here in Los Angeles, Eli Broad (one half of the KB powerhouse). 

 

 

It’s late but I need to run.  A good week.

 

 

 

whoa.  Matt11:28

Democracy, Whiskey and Sexy!

NAJAF, Iraq, April 2– In the giddy spirit of the day, nothing could quite top the wish list bellowed out by one man in the throng of people greeting American troops from the 101st Airborne Division who marched into town today. What, the man was asked, did he hope to see now that the Baath Party had been driven from power in his town? What would the Americans bring? “Democracy,” the man said, his voice rising to lift each word to greater prominence. “Whiskey. And sexy!”
     –the New York Times

Quick R.D Kap nuggets to consider:

The world is a gritty, messy place, and there are no perfect solutions.  But the fact is that Third World military men are more likely to listen to American officers who brief them about human rights as a tool of counterinsurgency than to civilians who talk about universal principles of justice… The protestors who perennially chain themselves to the gates of Fort Benning, calling its previously named School of the Americas the “School of Torturers,” are implicitly championing the worst possible strategy if they want Latin armies to take human rights seriously — a strategy of isolation, which cuts foreign officers off from American society and values.
…

As for international law, it has meaning only when war is a distinct and separate condition from peace.  As war grows more unconventional, more often undeclared, and more asymmetrical, with the element of surprise becoming the dominant variable, there will be less and less time for democratic consultation, whether with Congress or with the UN.  Instead civilian-military elites in Washington and elsewhere will need to make lightning-quick decisions.  In such circumstances the sanction of the so-called international community may gradually lose relevance, even if everyone soberly declares otherwise.
…

The media increasingly and dramatically, affect policy yet bear no responsibility for the outcome.
…

…our historical and geographical circumstances would necessitate that U.S. foreign policy be robed in idealism, so as to garner public support and ultimately be effective.  And yet security concerns necessarily make our foreign policy more pagan.  The idealistic shorthand of democracy, economic development, and human rights, by means of which the media make sense of events in distant parts of the world, conceals many harsh and complicated ground-level truths.
…

Remember that even Gladstone’s vision (re: the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan) was more effectively administered by the realpolitik of statesmen such as Lord Palmerston, Benjamin Disraeli, and the Marquess of Salisbury…

And perhaps most dramatic and notable…

The masses “show no concern for the causes and reasons” behind their own well-being, observed the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses (1929), a book that was equally prescient about the Fascist rallies of the 1930s and the youth rebellion of the 1960s.  Indeed, the peace demonstrators last February appeared to have no idea whatsoever that their very freedom to demonstrate had been won by war and conquest in the service of liberty – precisely what the U.S. and British governments were proposing to do in Iraq.  Of course, the masses are uninterested, as Ortega noted.  “Since they do not see, behind the benefits of civilization, … they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits peremptorily, as if they were natural rights.”

+
Snippets from Robert D. Kaplan’s essay (as featured on the cover)
in the July/August Atlantic.  Very insightful and to-the-point.  Definitely worth your time.  He’s the author of Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. 

“We live by ideals; we exist through realpolitik. A disturbing thought but there’s no way around it.” -S.G. 

—————–

!!!  “…Me see ‘em?”

———————

Currently listening to:


RH – Hail to the Thief
“Backdrifts”

—

I know I shouldn’t but I love those pop-up ads from Orbitz.

Matt11:28

Drunken Punch-up at a Wedding:  Hell Hath No Fury

 

Mark of a new day dawning. 

 

A: Watch the bodies fly!

 

One tuxedo coat twirls ungraceful on a ceiling fan.  Below, a fat butt plunks squarely on the slimy feel of white wedding cake frosting.  Bodies sprawl in disheveled heaps at various spots on a dance floor, oblivious colored lights shooting spinning circles of blue, yellow, green, and orange.  Soaked in melting sherbet and red, one particularly burly man sits up in a shaky daze, hair dripping with the gel of spiked Kool-Aid.  Pigs-in-a-blanket pepper the room like confetti – from this day forth, dual-use h’ors d’oeuvres for every occasion!

 

Outside, doors slam and tires squeal as families rush to MacDonald’s for happy meals in lieu of a spoiled lamb shank luncheon.  Inside, tables fly every which way and chairs catapult forward, muscled by the flexed fury of a woman scorned.  Near the kitchen door, a large podium rests on its side where inside, a buzzed fellow crouches frozen with guilt and fear.  With the click of every wrathful step, he hears the dainty sounds of proximal doom. 

 

Punch the Mentos guy who walks through the reception and kisses the bride. 

 

Drunken lunges leave a veiled aggressor dizzy as haymakers hit plain air with every ounce of go-for-broke hoo-ah!

 

Or

 

B:  Same ol’ isn’t so bad.

 

They get married.  The lamb was delicious.  And we tapped our glasses and they kissed.  And we tapped our glasses and they kissed.  And we tap our glasses.  And we.  And.  Let’s watch our parents dance and let’s laugh.  We still believe in love.  Bull or bear, here’s to rational exuberance.

 

The core:  You stare life in the eyes and find it’s full of a whole boatload of crap.  And it’s all for you.  The only godly response to it all?  Get.  The Hell.  Away.  And you keep yourself hoping.  Optimism is out of fashion and it takes a helluvalotta work.

 

C:  The Alternative

 

Pizza and beer with the guys.  It’s sincere, maybe.  But damn lazy!  Don’t say: We won!  You’re not playing on a team.  You’re sitting on a sofa cheering.  Some old fart, wearing a Raider’s jersey, wiping Cheetos on your pant leg.

 

D:  Something Entirely Different

 

Look at her laugh and laugh with her.  Look her in the eyes and wrap yourself fully in the moment.  Forgo the picket fence and two labradours.  Board a plane for somewhere far away and among the natives, shake your two fists at a world that says, hey, this is all it amounts to.  Rhythm tapped through bongos, they’ll dance around the cauldron as the two of you sit uncomfortably in a rising simmer.  Eaten up by savage life but defiant to the end.  Stars up above: two people in honest, simple love.

 

E:  Some of the Above

 
(Though not all at once.)

             Some choices are mutually exclusive.

————————-

——————————

Well, as some of you know, I’ve been doing a whole lot of traveling lately: Las Vegas, Portland, San Francisco, and most recently, Houston.  Needless to say, Houston was humid as heck.  I’ve never walked out of a building with my glasses fogging up.  Visited A Taste of Texas for the fattest steak I’ve ever eaten.  24 ounces of marbled meat, floating medium-rare in a bubbling foundation of garlic butter sauce.  Good stuff. 

Well, the Fearsome Foursome has gone its separate ways.  Not by choice but by circumstance and ambition.  We’ll all continue to see each other in years to come but it’ll be quite awhile ‘til the four of us are together again.  Good, honest friends who shared good times!  Why yes, all Asians wear glasses… because we LOVE math!  <wink>

Dan, Tony, Gina, and Daniel

-————————————-

           The Simpson Verdict (Ezawa Kota )

———————————

Pebbles for a Pentecostal Church Mouse

 

Charity

Was a church mouse

Her home was a hole in the wall.

 

Sunday mornings

Were quite the spectacle

As she peeked through cracks

In thousand years old

Stucco…

 

Where in wonder,

People raised hands

Struggling against the Fall.

 

Charity

Was confused:

Was that oriental discipline

Or did they hold aloft

Their god?

 

Tiny and scorned

Charity squeaked and lived

And to hers

It was good and

Wholly holy.

 

Truly enough
(For a stoning).

 

——————————–

 

                                 Everything in it’s Right Place

 

memories… Matt11:28