I read it wrong

My first, second, and third reactions are often quite different from my long-term impressions. I wish I could convincingly communicate which of the four passions best approximates the real me.

But then who is he, anyway? A contradiction of ideals and rationalizations, ideals and shortcuts, ideals and compromises. A tight rope walker, except he walks 5 at a time, 5.ply far wider than the human foot.

5 times more dangerous? Hardly, not hard at all, it's actually closer to just normal walking. So he cries that he wants you to walk beside him, but his behavior suggests he'd walk away from his shadow just as soon as he could, he'd walk away from whatever comfortable pace you set, and he'd triplicate any sense of cadence.

He's a musician with so much syncopation it's better interpreted as a lack of rhythm. He's layered so many melodies, it sounds more like noise, and he's restarted the song so many times that one is apt to wonder if he has ever finished one.

Right now he's a boy who misses a girl. But tomorrow he might be angry with her. Or tomorrow, he'll forget the reasons he loves her and approximate a near-meaning into full-fledged devotions.

To follow one's passion is to question the psychology of compulsion is to seek humility in that his paradox might teach him some empathy- no one can ever really know how they will react, even if you give them all the time in the world to be ready.

But I'm once again still ready to try this again for now.

5 years later

I have never felt further from God, and that is because everything they say about wealth is truth.

I am your camel, let me see your needle.

Stability is overrated while my value is higher than ever before.

When I pled "Invest in me now" during those dark days,

I was honest;

I was transparent.

Now happier by all worldly definitions and in all the lies I sift through,

Allow me to offer a drop of truth from what little is left: far more valuable than bags of gold (I know this now)-

You should have sold your shares years ago.

Turns out stability is the domain of someone else 

I am Abaddon- I live to destroy.

With no mentor, no curator, the fruits of my labor:

Prickly, bitter, acidic.

I quit the game of gaining self-improvement 

When I started decorating my mausoleum.

The curse of the rich man, I guess.

Maybe I will repent and find myself among the poor.

The blessed.

Maybe this load will break my back,

And I'll dance like the weak.

Right now I would tell the boy I was,

"Be careful what you wish for"

For you may be cursed enough to receive it. 

And nothing more.

With tears,

A tight death grip,

And nothing more.

A good reason,

And the best intentions,

And nothing more.

Tears and sweat,

Crying and shouting.

Everything you ever asked for,

And nothing more. 

Paradigm

The medium is broken
And yet all the while they implored,
"Tell us again what you mean."
As if beauty could hold no mystery.

The colony collapsed
The empiricist under the sun wonders,
"Which direction will it swarm?"
Pretending not to see the shadows.

The heat is rising.
Be sure-footed when the bedrock shifts,
"And the gates of Hell shall not prevail."
Where the seekers find shelter.

How do they get way up there?

I get it.  The rubber soul.  There is a slew of people who hit the bottom and just roll there.  Something about the resiliency, about the composition of a man allows him to bounce back up.  There's an inertia from gravity that literally crushes him at an atomic level, but in his smallest fiber he instantly realigns and changes direction.  He's up, again.  When before he was above you, so maybe this time he's now at eye-level.

These are the types of people who more than thrive on the gravity of situations, they need the force of a collision to climb higher.  Each arc is weaker, unless external agents intervene.  So then I guess the way into the bottom of Heaven is one strong force that cracks all those atoms to the core, and something rockets back up.  I don't know this trajectory very well, but I am enamored by this rubber bullet.  I always thought it had something to do with being hard-skinned; had to do with being unaffected or disassociated with the suffering of the world.  Escaping the rolling seems to be more about shedding some humanity- it's the hard shell that is lost, not the conversation of mind-body, but the loss of it.  The small man, secretly unhinging the locked hatch in the basement.

There are no rubber souls parading through the gates of Saint Peter with trumpets blaring from Earth's highest mountaintops.  Rather, it's the thief in the night, the sneak who creeps through the darkness and finds his way where the world isn't looking.  He's an opportunist, he's on a mission- with a bullet-like intensity his trajectory is to win or lose at all cost.  I love his trajectory; I love his pedigree. I love that he will be caught by the gate keeper who explains the secrets of inertia, how his subterfuge changed the game. The keeper shines that small rubber soul and has him enter the gates a champion, no longer a sneak.

Permission to Go Ashore

I am a ship at port.
Tossing my line to moor- no one is there to catch it.
I am a ship in tatters, with well-weathered crew.
Battle-tested design, reinforced hull.
Steady ballast, ever buoyant.
Each turn the deep keel greets the sky
And has never met her in capsize.

Rickmann, Allan. Scuttled ship. 23 December 2004. Gambia, Banjul Harbor, Gambia.Flickr. Canon Powershot A30. 28 February 2014.

In port, harbor respite.
On starboard, gale tempest.
While far off-chart was a constant concern,
Pointed home, guided terra firma.
The Captain calmed the storm,
Squelched Poseidon's mutiny;
But who to catch the line?

Bobbing in wait.
Absent harbormaster, absent bystander.
I need no expert, I need someone to catch the line.
I need ten fingers, two hands
Two minutes of eye contact,
Ears to hear, time to invest.
Or more provision as I wait.

Friend of Sinners

The devil would have you believe that no one can understand you:
That you must go it alone for the sake of the mission,
That you can only gain acceptance through comprimise,
And the lie that somewhere on that slippery decline,
You'll find footing, reclaim yourself and learn to be.

He was despised and rejected by men;
    a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;
and as one from whom men hide their faces
    he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed. -Isaiah 53:3-5

So what then could I possibly say about understanding?
How does he not cleave to me on this journey "alone"?
Has eternal recognition come to anything but complete submission?
And so what of the lie that I could ever find out for myself,
Who I am meant to be by my own refinements?

First up! 4 December 2004

So this one is from 2004, 9 years ago today:

Ever notice how a lot of things on television and popular culture are not funny at all? Things like "Why I outta" got the ball rolling, to things like "Got any cheese?" or the UPN special, saying "damn" really loud.

I'd say that anything out of Urkel's mouth is not funny.  I know. I watched Family Matters yesterday. "Did I do that?" is not funny. Stop laughing, it brings down the human race.

Dear Kevin,

I like your point. I was assuming this would be a serious blog about girls, religion, and sad-sack political rants.  I'm glad you're just talking about Urkel.  I like that your popular culture references are from the early to mid 1990s.  I'm looking forward to anything else you are going to write.  Do not worry, Urkel is not funny in 2013 either, however CBS is still trolling out the horrible laugh tracks that every 50 year old assumes is clever.  Broad comedy is broad comedy, even if they don't end with Danny Tanner hugs and saxophone solos.

As an aside, unfortunately it is no longer acceptable to climb a tree and enter into your best friend's bedroom through the window.  Sam Anders' body was found next to a fallen extension ladder outside Clarissa Darling's residense years after she moved away for college and after several restraining orders filed by Mr. and Mrs. Darling.  Vinnie Delpino, Zach Morris, and Shawn Patrick Hunter were in attendance at a memorial service held in his honor.

While serving in a federal incarceration facility on unrelated charges, the only suspect, Ferguson Darling, has maintained his innocence by explaining nothing.  He has been observed by mental health professionals muttering and arguing with himself stammering, "na...na...na..na... All right?  Alright!... na...naa...naaa...naaa...  way cool!...naa...naa..nnaaaa...nnaaa. Alright?  All right!" But perhaps most incriminatingly shouting, "Just do it!!!"

Take care,
Kevin