Sunday Morning

I thought I head You whisper to me this morning.
In between the plucking of violin strings and gentle drum beats,
to melodies that have lost their fragrance, but not their charm.
In between scripture, greek vocabulary, jokes about old cars.
These age old truths and freshly decorated principles stuffed in goat skins ready to explode and spill out all over the newly mopped floors of the old, trendy Baltimore warehouse.
Just a faint, small voice.
It didn't sound like my normal, doubting self.
Soft but assured, confident beyond my wildest dreams.
Even as my faith fails me, the age-old questions rediscover themselves again and again.
I commit and doubt, re-commit and take another step toward candle lit alters.
But it always feels like several steps back into the mist, damp and humid.
It's like condensation on the windows of my soul.
Every time I wipe it clear, it just fogs up again.
The voice draws pictures like the finger of a child.
They were silly images and ideas floating about my soft, impressionable brain.
Intimate homes amongst grand cathedrals.
I am speaking Words I barely believe in,
to crowds I am typically captive to by impression and reputation.
But as I speak, the Words come to life,
and I am not afraid.
I feel full, connected, and integrated.
My tenderness and sensitivities are strength.
The crowds build bridges upon them,
to one another,
and to God.
Seconds later, the vision is fuzzy again.
As I doubt my doubts again and again.
How long will I ignore this?
How long shall I doubt?
How long will I flip these possibilities over?

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A Prisoner's Love

"Throughout all these years that I have lived without freedom, our love was full of bitterness imposed by outside circumstances, but as I savor its aftertaste, it remains boundless. I am serving my sentence in a tangible prison, while you wait in the intangible prison of the heart. Your love is the sunlight that leaps over high walls and penetrates the iron bars of my prison window, stroking every inch of my skin, warming every cell of my body, allowing me to always keep peace, openness, and brightness in my heart, and filling every minute of my time in prison with meaning. My love for you, on the other hand, is so full of remorse and regret that it at times makes me stagger under its weight. I am an insensate stone in the wilderness, whipped by fierce wind and torrential rain, so cold that no one dares touch me. But my love is solid and sharp, capable of piercing through any obstacle. Even if I were crushed into powder, I would still use my ashes to embrace you."

-Liu Xiaobo, "I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement"

Nonsense

13 murders since the new year began within 485 square miles
these numbers mean nothing
statistical nonsense
the police shoot one another on the streets outside the club.

1.12.2010

today
death and all of his friends
are still very busy
the earth shakes
i remember the children buried under schools
the rescue workers collecting their backpacks
again, and again, and again… it shakes
but I barely feel it
I sleep through it
a year ago today, the most desolate of lands became more so
how long will it take to recover from 47 seconds worth of terror?
the palace is tipping over
the holy places but a facade
they were as good as dead anyway
they were already dead to me
no matter how much I wish they weren't

Poetry & Love

"Everybody can write poetry, just like everybody knows how to make love."

Gao Xingjian, The Other Shore