3.31.10

i speak to no one but myself.

although i do listen attentively to myself, and sometimes i give good advice and often consolation sweet.

but is there no other? is there no one to know me? my master would say i must let this go. is this the price of this other life? that all interactions with other humans become so mundane, so distant, so meaningless, so painful?

now i know why i wear the spiritual chador, it is not so much so that i cannot be seen, it is so that i can see as few others as possible. for every person that i see, i love with painful love. and my family, i begin to worship them even as they are weights around my neck that pull me to the ground.

o god. which is better? the ignorance of this inner life and its ecstacies? or the knowledge that it brings, the hyper-clarity of all i see; the clairvoiyance which no man of any intelligence would want, and yet i did. for now i see all things, know all things, all things are brought into myself. and it makes me want to die. no. to die 10 times. for one death would not be enough to expiate all of the pains and dregs and evils and frightful truths and loves of this life.

o god. you have made me a freak among men. how then can I earn a living with normal humans? i despise all but my prayer closet and my journal. my journal now is my salvation; for without it the truths which thou givest to me would swirl in my head mercilessly.

thank you for the pen! vellum! ink! praise and highest praise!

but yet, o lord, you have given me the sentiments and temperament of a gentleman, but no inheritance, no money of my own, i live from day to day with my wife now realizing the perils we are in on the financial plane.

is this not why you also made me a magician? so far, I don't feel like a good one; but i don't feel like a bad one either. maybe i need to do some seeking under rocks.

heaven knows that on that other plane my arms are raised, my robe of glory falls around me and covers me and yet billows with the fire and maelstrom of thy divine wind buffetting me. yet i stand. and i see myself as the wind touches me---my hair and nails and bear grow to the floor and whiten before my eyes, then they shrink and i am a boy, then a child, then a toddler and my power increases with every metamorphosis. and then i am an angel, a demon, a wind, a tree, a lion, a cougar, a dragon, a man, and finally myself.

the heavens have changed their constellations. where have we been moved to o god? and when? and in what place are we. the star are all wrong, and they large, as large as moons. and each gives the light of ten moons. yet i stand, arms raised. and my valets rush to hold them up.

3.23.10

Could we not all come together in some sacred grove and sing and pray and talk together? Heads on shoulders and sighs and joys. Why stopped is discourse. Why frozen our loves? Why crippled our kisses? The world hangs by a thread--but perhaps your next embrace will save us all.

3.23.10

i shall go, then, back to the counting house. but i swear an oath enjoy it not. for if i allow myself to enjoy this labor that takes me away from you and from my prayer shawl, i shall hate myself as i do now. but if i do it as i would as if a slave, then i can accept it, do it as a servant should. a servant does not serve out of pride of service. a servant serves by merest demand and necessity. the master is all, and the server must adopt an air of resignation, of passivity, of blankness, upon which the master sees his own stamp and not the servant beneath.

and that it what i shall be. i shall be a stamp, faceless, unloved. but i will still have the respite that god grants to all creatures, blessed sleep. and in my blessed sleep, i shall dream and live with the almighty. blessed be the name of the lord. for this is the promise of heaven; no future reward, but the reward within, the reward that gives hope and strength to plow with the whip-master but feet away. as i cannot love the world, please allow me to submit or god. for i fear penury, and cannot bring my children to beg, or to make myself a burden upon my poor parents. and perhaps, perhaps, i shall become a slave-king. with scented robes and oiled hair. but one that lays flat before the sultan in abject fear nonetheless.

3.23.10

we are seedcakes, then, but of only one seed. if we wish to feed more, then we must be reground, reformed into dough, and added to---more DIVINE must be added, stirred in, 1/2 cup at a time. and once the batter has been added to 1,000,000 times god to one part 'me', then, we will be ready to be baked in his sacred kiln. and brown we shall be removed, flat, enormous, sweet--enough to feed 10,000 times 10,000.

3.22.10

i escape from my counting house and flee to the mosque.
i pray at the appointed times and in between.
the imam passes me by, his rustles comfort me.
if only i could be as other men.
who revel if clinking coin. who swell with pride at their task master's smile.
to me, all clinking is but pounding and all smiling is grimace.
but how, o lord, can i be as the great ones? those who take the mantle of the world.
i shudder not at holding worlds--but they must be those of my own creation; or of the gods within me.
for to me to pray is to live.
to bend the knees is food.
to weep in my presence my wine sweet.
o ineffable. the world is but a drop in the ocean of all being.
yet you call us the apple of your eye. blink not!
for rather we are a single tear. wipe us not away with your silken robes.
o god. were it not for wives and children, all men would leap off cliffs, throw themselves before chariots.
now i know why men love war. it keeps them as close to death as possible, yet they are praised for bravery rather than ridiculed.
for we who pray and weep and wail for thee, we are fools. yet our desire for death is no less.
and yet we face our worldly lives with a degree of decorum.
this is why, o lord, our moans mus be kept behind our beards; our hearts stilled beneath our robes, our laments choked, our prayers cut short and our hands put to work odious. for are not our hands flat the better to worship on thy marble courts?
o god. find a way through for me. through this veil to thy courts heavenly.
save me from the counting house. for i know it is your will that we refrain from sinking daggers into our hearts---you reserve that pleasure for yourself.

so then. i must leave the coolness of your temple and return to my counting-house. o! how i hate the hearty smiles of the selling men! how i wrtech to see the counting men hunched over their counting tables. how i groan endless groans at the abacus before me, the papers and scrolls at my bench. the calls to the wealthy to beg a crust, but to beg in rags of finest silk.

is there no way for me o lord? here i am. much of my life-stands are spilled. can i even yet live a life of honor? i was rejected by the imam for study. even the heretics in their mud and wattle huts full of cries and gesticulations; they also reject me for i am not yet insane enough. what then? what then?

3.22.10

twinkling brilliant dazzling light
flitting, flitering, falling
all is silence but for the raucous heartbeat pounding
silky cold and clear
the world never looked so wondrous fair
and i must kick up
or let my lungs empty, filling with the formless deep.
a twilight of soul; 100 years in one moment
i tarry. and even the gods pray when they see the boatmaster.

3.20.10

you are the lamb. you are the priest. you are the acolyte. you are the GOD.

and you are the dread dagger.

hold it in your hands; read the runes there; weep.

for your sad, short story has been foretold and lived before.

the moment is now. act without thought.

3.16.10

the answer comes. the great no that allows all other yeses new life.

bewilderment, pain, anger, peace. all so quickly.

and now we shall see what we shall see.

and now there is no longer any desire for any yolk other than my own. perhaps this is the lesson.

but i must follow my way, alone, again, as always in this life. i must no longer seek any guide, any protection, any institution, anyone to blaze or authenticate my trail.

i must walk it. with markers strange and in unknown script. the sky my companion.

Waiting

my soul cries out to god. yet am i not he? how is this possible? how is it i can feel such human pain---and pain on the spiritual/emotive level, when i know in my heart i am united to god, united with no barriers?

i don't understand or, rather, don't want to. i want to be a child again. ignorant of the world, ignorant of myself. happy and trusting in the world and my parents. suddenly, being a grown-up seems terrifying, dread, hideous, a horrible lie within lies wrapped in rotting, moldy parchment covered in facecake.

what is this life but a seeking to re-enter the womb? and yet, i feel that i have re-entered the womb of god----and yet, how can pain reach me here? o god, why must i become like unto thee---full of power and grace, yet capable of supreme pain and supreme angst? o god, this life is as slab upon my back. i walk on unbending stone and upon my back, yet stone, and ahead, only a crypt. and, if successful, i'll be able to carry the stone to my crypt and fall into it, complete.

why??? why??? why must we live beyond age four? why must we become beings of passions and lusts and drives and beauty and power? and yet there is no solace in death either. for do we not die and die and die and die--not only in sleep, but the agony throes of our daily grinding?

o god. i cry out to you. be just! be merciful! release me. i thirst. pierce me and let my blood and water flow forth and in the name of god put me in the crypt. perhaps after hell there shall be a respite.

i cannot face my own life. i cannot face it. i find solace only in prayer and in making this perishing flesh beautiful. my one consolation. and little enough. o god. i die one thousand times a day. there is no relief. why do you not save me o god? why do i dangle? let me touch the hem of your robe!

i cling to your legs! i spend all i have left and buy nard and break it over your head! i dry your feet with my hair. kissing your feet is my food and drink. embrace me now or let me die.

cruel lover!

3.10.10

We have another SF Orthodox saint (I'm afraid to say he was martyred at the hands of RC priests. A hideous, but unfortunately not unique event). He is honored here today. "Peter the Aleut, Martyr".

just listen

last countertenor post, but really, this is amazing.

Sweeter than roses, indeed. I want this sung at my funeral Mass. This too.

3.7.10

freedom. i had the chance. i had escaped twice from the grip of soft hands, stifled passion, firm lips. i had put on the collar in my heart. but not my body. i had taken a number in the ante-room of freedom. and i waited, but no one called my number. i could have complained to the clerk, pestered at the counter, but instead, i sat straight, while a soft hand grasped mine. And I fell.

And now, freedom is an internal working. but then, perhaps i had been in the wrong line to begin with.

I've chosen a new line. I have my number, but I will wait little. If not chosen, I will seek another place. And if the divine cannot control his servants well enough to harvest me, he should beware. i may set up my own office. and i shall take all comers. and my greatness may become the greatness we sought for.

the fields are white. There are few workers. Do we need a thresher? Shall i be the miller and the stone and the pay collector? And from the chaff, perhaps I shall spin gold for vestments.

3.7.10

skimming. scraping. i'm the cantaloupe of god. he scrapes and scrapes my fruit away. seeds and pulp long gone. i'm little more than skin. dry. dusty. not worth fodder for swine. soon, even it, i, will be gone. feast over. scraps gone to mulch.

i am truly nothing. a vapor, a spirit, ghost of a ghost. with nowhere to haunt. i look at the banquet set for others. the king enjoying the last of my fruit. he does not bother to wipe his beard of my juice.

and i swoon. a forgotten puff of dust on a rough plank floor.

3.4.10

beautiful and terrible as the dawn!
Tempestuous as the sea!
Stronger than the foundations of the earth!
All shall love me and despair!”

3.4.10

pippin: I didn't think it would end this way.

gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.

pipin: What? Gandalf? See what?

gandalf: White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

pippin: Well, that isn't so bad.

gandalf: No. No, it isn't.”

3.4.10

Roots. Leaves.
Two trunks.
One breeze.
One rainfall.
One sun.
One life.
I look to the hills, and she to our garden.

3.3.10

Go thou into all the world.
A thousand shall fall at your left, ten thousand at your right hand.
The meek you shall raise up. The mighty you shall throw down.
I have smitten my enemy upon the mountaintop.
I have come through fire and water.
Ask me not then questions unless you ask as a child. The concerns of men I step across as one does a puddle after the rain.
I stride across nations. Ask me not why. But come. You shall be useful.
Death? I don't concern myself with such trivialities.

3.2.10

Hard to believe, sometimes, that I still have the ability to fear. Yet I do. I would have thought that I would have see enough to burn it all away. But it seems a new crop grows each morning that I must mow down.

Life is about to get really, really interesting. Well, more interesting even than it is now.

3.2.10

Shall I reach, O Lord?

Shall I send forth my hand, my hand, thick and weathered and tough and knotted?
My hand who before always held a spade, a hoe in gardens of dirt and roots and stones.

Shall it awaken? Will it remember some seed of memory from another time and grasp now a sword? A pen? A scepter?

Or shall I turn my back again to the Sun, and bend, bend to my garden patch of brown and black?

My arms fall dumbly at my sides. For all the roots and stones have sprouted, and now lilacs, tall, fragrant, have sprung up. My spade and hoe lost into the earth. And my hand of its own accord grasps for the sword it knew long ago.

And I, forever now the sun upon my face through green and purple, lidless to your eternal stare. Thy chariots thunder.

3.1.10

The many; the few. Even the masters give no guidance.

So pearls by millions are cast into mud and filth.
Millions more into forests primeval, mountains barren,
Moors desolate.
Hearts brittle.

Go ahead. Take one. Seize it. And show it to no one.
For their eyes are as mud. They are of filth and thus see only filth.
Let them not despise you. Polish your precious gift. Hide it within your cloaks.
And if you meet an open heart, allude to the beauty.

And if they consent to share blood with you, perhaps give them a glimpse---
But let them hold it not; it is for you alone.
Let not the shaman know of it. For he will covet it and waylay you.
And if he does, though you care not for your life, care for it. For he will grind it up into powder
for his sinister potions.

Keep it whole, pure. And as you die, take it from the folds of your garments, and swallow it.
It shall be your pass, token of the pass and ticket to the court of the gods.
and you shall weep no more.