VigilantePoets

now what?

2005-12-22T14:57:00.000-05:00

Four

it's time . . .i have been so lost, been so confused about what awaits me; hurting from the wounds of all my failures; and hurting from the most glaring rejection: hers.

it's time to head off into solitude and collect the shards of whatever remains of my heart and attempt to put it back together. i may find not much of it is left, but i have to see; and that is why i must go off into the wilderness.

i need to get separation from things which remind me of her and of my failures. i will be gone a while, who knows how long?

i need to find out what is lurking deep down in my soul; what am i made of?

so long, for now _ but not forever.

Now What?

2005-10-05T15:39:00.000-04:00

three

You know it hit me the other day as i was watching a football game and a Pepsi commercial came on _ it’s always odd things out of television commercials or asides in a sitcom that get my attention _ that she never has said even as little as: “let’s just be friends.” As infuriating as those four words are to a guy (or a girl) who is totally crushed out on somebody, it still serves some strange _ and perhaps twisted _ purpose. Those four words, trite and silly and annoying and false as they are give a person something to hold onto until you are ready to really cut the cord yourself. And that’s what we all want to be able to do: cut the cord ourselves rather than have somebody else cut it against our will.

i’d have to say that even though i know those four words would be false and vapid, such that i couldn’t hold onto them anyway, i would give anything right now to hear her say them.

i am so lost.

Now What?

2005-09-16T09:23:00.000-04:00

Two

i don’t claim to have all that much clarity of insight these days, what with all the emotional turmoil i am experiencing, but i think maybe the problem is this: i need some distance yet i cannot get any.

i cannot get any distance because, i think, Katy still has my heart. When she broke up with me, as in all breakups, she was supposed to give it back _ and she probably thinks she did. And to be fair, maybe she actually did give it back, at least on her part _ to the extent she was able…and i don’t think she intended to keep it.

But i think she still has it. i gave it away too quickly, or _ perhaps _ i gave it away appropriately and she just wasn’t interested. Or, maybe…i don’t know. Like i said, i don’t have much clarity of insight these days.

Now What ?

2005-09-07T09:42:00.000-04:00

One

i got back into town late last night, reluctantly returning to school the night before classes started today; i really don’t feel like being here. At least it’s the last year at State, i really don’t think i ever believed i would get out of here in four _ all my friends seem to be stretching out their college experiences. Somehow i am actually going to make it. But then what? i really can’t say.

This year starts amidst so much strangeness, it’s almost too much to try and explain it all. But if i don’t nothing else will really make sense; there is a definite backdrop upon which this school year will be painted, i feel it already.

When Katy broke up with me last spring it was devastating. i understood her reasons, and some of them were even good ones _ truth be told _ but it still sucked. i spent the end of last semester wallowing, hoping the summer would help me forget and move on _ whatever “moving on” means; how it’s different from denial i don’t know. And a good dose of denial would actually suit me fine right now if i could just get her out of my head.

Anyway, the summer was sheer torture, and in some ways i only have myself to blame. With all of our common friends, i knew i would see Katy some during the summer, but i wound up seeing her way too much. i would be having a decent week not thinking about her, then i would be at Rachel’s house and Katy would show up. To drive the nails in a little further, she oftened talked about the new guy she was seeing _ Todd, or Tim or something. It was infuriating.

Just a couple weeks ago Katy and i had a long talk, late into the night as we sat at the kitchen table at her mom’s house. i’m not really sure why we were talking, nor what it started out as, but we wound up talking about our relationship and the break up. She was doing that thing, that sweet and inviting thing while she simultaneously told me i still had no chance with her. i just sat there, strangely drawn to her and the pain. Somehow i couldn’t pull away and just leave, which i should have done.

Even as i write this i feel angry and frustrated and also so defeated i could just die. i don’t understand what’s going on. The only thing i can say is it’s good that she graduated last spring so i can be here at school without running into her. Maybe i can get some distance, and get a life.

Gifts

2005-09-01T22:38:00.000-04:00

I have a son. I'm not used to saying it, so I'll keep practicing. I have a son. He is ten days old. My week has been filled with millions of seconds of elation. Each one of them I wish I could hold onto, but I can't. People keep telling me "they grow up so fast", parents of six-month-olds get a far away look in their eyes and say "I remember when I had one this small." It seems that in most of my happiest times I've often felt the little sadnesses that come from watching the clock. As if I'm trying to beat the rush on post-holiday depression, or post-accomplishment letdown. Its as if the realization of the fleeting nature of a moment somehow diminishes its potency or worth in celebrating. Part of me would argue that its not true, but that little feeling is always there. Life is a series of tiny moments, some of them fantastic, but all of them flying by in rapid succession. You can no more hold onto them than you can grasp the wind. I wish I could take one of them, pin it down like a butterfly, save it somehow. Keep a smell, a touch, a moment of holding my little seven pound boy and preserve it for a far off moment int he future. As it stands, though, the moments continue to slip through my fingers, and I know no solution. I've heard that some men drink to forget. If I was to ever drink, I mean really, seriously drink, I would drink to remember.

I pull my mind away from the sorrow of the future, and engage it fully in the joy of the now. This moment is a gift, and the next one. There will be other gifts, other joys, but like gifts, we do not control when or where, or why they are given. We only recieve.

Update

2005-08-08T09:31:00.000-04:00

it was brought to my attention that in a previous post there was a faulty link to funkstille, which has now been remedied.

the post dealt with ruminations on the life of the late Pope John Paul II.

Elusive

2005-08-03T13:48:00.000-04:00

The Poet, the Artist,
The Yearning Heart speaks _ or makes a feeble attempt.

Fragments and phrases;
Blurred word pictures;
Elusive insights and such fragile dreams just out of reach.

Percolating, anticipating,
No end to the waiting.

Beauty and confusion mingle;
Questions linger;
Grasping vapors while the Poet spills his ink.

Confessions

2005-07-28T10:21:00.000-04:00

Sometimes e-mail still amazes me.

No matter how busy I am, the idea of acquiring and learning a new instrument is enough to distract me from whatever else I was supposed to be doing.

Hearing that a friend is getting married is a very unique but undeniable kind of joy.

Everytime my wife stirs in the middle of the night, I think she's ready to go into labor.

Sometimes a cool breeze through the window while I'm drinking my morning coffee and reading Tozer can change the outlook of my whole day, even more than the reading or the coffee.

Even if the music is strange, getting new music from a friend is likely to cheer me up.

Simon of Space

2005-07-15T12:19:00.000-04:00

A good story, perhaps a great one, released in serial format here on blogspot. I heartily reccomend Simon of Space.
Make sure you use the archive and read the first entry first. You may be hooked. In fact, to make it easier, click this.

Food For Thought

2005-07-14T07:22:00.000-04:00

This is a bit dated in that it goes back to the spring when the world was mourning the passing of Pope John Paul II, but i just came across this post from funkstille.

i include an excerpt as something to ponder :

How does Karol Wojtyla become John Paul the Great? John Paul the Great. . . Ayn Rand would say he'd been cut from the scarlet cloth, I suppose, there's no other way. But despite cutting a Fountainhead-like figure, Karol Wojtyla would never have had a place among Miss Rand's modern heroes. After all, Karol Wojtyla became the head Witch Doctor. Forget that.

So was he JP II from birth? Or was his greatness contingent upon some of those little brush stokes in life, the moments and the people we'll never know about that kept deflecting the slider down into the slot, again and again, until it was all set up for a Babe Ruth swing.

After watching the world express their thanks to John Paul, I wonder in what exact directions John Paul would have wanted to extend his thanks, assuming that The Pope could recall, or even fully know, all of the inconsequential moments that were responsible for dragging him beyond the life of Karol Wojtyla.

Boxing Day

2005-07-12T10:32:00.000-04:00

In keeping with my recent fascination of boxing, I was pleased to run across this article today. Fellowship of the Ring - Boxing, Courage and Philosophy, by Gordon Marino

By Way Of Belated Introduction

2005-07-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

Another assignment: Describe yourself using one of the magnetic poetry kits. Make your poem and transcribe it to the blog. If you're feeling industrious, take a screenshot of the poem and post the image. Dont make new words, either. You're on the honor system.

Rain, Rain

2005-07-08T11:46:00.000-04:00

Scurrying about, hurried by precipitation
Hiding under cover of brightly colored nylon
Lock yourself up inside the house
Nothing to do but wait for this burden to pass
Why?
Water evaporates, shirts dry out
Droplets gather like dew on my scalp
But soon they are no more
Rain, rain - don't go away
Fall fresh and clean on me
Make me thankful for your cooling touch
And thankful more for days without

Cut-Up Machine

2005-07-08T11:33:00.000-04:00

in response to Luke's post, i visited the Cut-Up Machine. here's what came out:

to audience she sadly say? about be gleefully since all sings at times in wake slumber disappoint; any sings those of to sings future; she will times and she gave or say? away; she wanders she those and never had she'll gave would has about those from was With now all everything will wanders she and of in who enraptured future; cried she'll disappoint; an never the potential by audience has those never and disappoint; loved. since about dry all she Who's for that or an never everything of to she'll sadly those the place luck away; and lost; did now she potential to will away; never

The original text which was inserted into the Cut-Up Machine was:

She sings sadly of the days gone by when all she had was everything she wanted and never did she worry about the future; it's potential for disappoint; her place in it; or whether or not she would be loved. She has long since cried her eyes dry as she wanders back to those times and relives all she lost; all she gave away; and all that will never come to fruition. Who's to blame? Who's to say? With any luck at all she'll wake up from the slumber of the tragic ballad she now sings for an enraptured audience and gleefully forget who she is.

The Go! Team

2005-07-08T10:36:00.000-04:00

Thanks to www.kexp.org for introducing me to The Go! Team. You can hear a couple songs on the band's site, and I highly reccomend 'em. As I listen to song 2 on that page, I'm trying to find words to describe it...garage band/samples/dance/whatever. It makes me happy.

Mad-Lib Poem

2005-07-08T10:29:00.000-04:00

From the site linked below:
half-baked shrub's half-baked shrub

"I burn my shrubs and all the shrub burns shrub;
I burn my shrubs and all is burn again.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

The shrubs go burning out in half-baked and half-baked,
And half-baked shrub burns in:
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

I burned that you burned me into shrub
And burn me half-baked, burned me quite half-baked.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

shrub burns from the shrub, shrub's shrubs burn:
burn shrub and shrub's shrub:
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

I burned you'd burn the way you burn,
But I burn half-baked and I burn your shrub.
(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

I should have burned a shrub instead;
At least when shrub burns they burn back again.
I burn my shrub and all the shrub burns shrub.

(I burn I burn you up inside my shrub.)

- lukas & Sylvia Plath

Words

2005-07-08T10:24:00.000-04:00

Check this out. http://languageisavirus.com/
"Writing is fifty years behind painting. I propose to apply the painters' techniques to writing; things as simple and immediate as collage or montage. Cut right through the pages of any book or newsprint... lengthwise, for example, and shuffle the columns of text. Put them together at hazard and read the newly constituted message. Do it for yourself. Use any system which suggests itself to you. Take your own words or the words said to be "the very own words" of anyone else living or dead. You'll soon see that words don't belong to anyone. Words have a vitality of their own and you or anybody else can make them gush into action.

"The permutated poems set the words spinning off on their own; echoing out as the words of a potent phrase are permutated into an expanding ripple of meanings which they did not seem to be capable of when they were struck into that phrase.

"The poets are supposed to liberate the words - not to chain them in phrases. Who told poets they were supposed to think? Poets are meant to sing and to make words sing. Poets have no words "of their own." Writers don't own their words. Since when do words belong to anybody. "Your very own words," indeed! And who are you? "
Brion Gysin, Cut-Ups Self-Explained, in: William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, The Third Mind, 1978

To the VP contributers: Make something over at that site and post it.

conversation

2005-07-08T09:38:00.000-04:00

i had one of those cool conversations this morning over breakfast that touched on gardening, cooking, parenting, exercise, church life, passion and cultural trends, and left me completely energized.

these are the sorts of conversations i crave and are all too rare. i believe we would all be better off having more of these conversations _ among friends, as well as with those with whom we are not yet friends, as well as those with whom we may only have a peripheral relationship.

an earlier vigilante poet post mentioned conversations on front porches with a cup of tea, a beer, a glass of wine or some other taste sensation being enjoyed. i second the value of gathering, conversing and growing; hearts enlarge when they connect.

beauty, inspiration, et al.

2005-07-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

as i was considering the new blog template i have chosen for threshingfloor i was reminded of a conversation with fellow vigilante poet Luke about creating art and the actual artistry of the instruments used to create.

as for the blog template, i believe wholeheartedly that the actual template used will affect the artistry of what i put on it; the appearance of the blog will influence the quality of the posts.

Luke made the corresponding argument to this regarding his Martin acoustic guitar some years back; contending that he created better, more artful music on his Martin than on a guitar of lesser quality. And he was not speaking in terms of tonal quality.

so in a nod to Luke, i agree.

The interdependency of beauty, inspiration, truth and creation in artistic endeavors cannot be overemphasized. There is a symbiotic relationship among the four and they are equally enhanced by one another.

It fits, really. Creation has been designed to function as an integrated whole. We see this as well in humans themselves; and it is one reason God called for us to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

pressing

2005-07-05T07:53:00.000-04:00

why is it always that the days when i have the most pressing deadlines are also the days i find myself doing things like posting to the blog? there is some sort of strange pull i feel away from responsibility even as it bears down on me.

is it some way of reminding myself that the circumstantial reality before me is not the ultimate reality and calling on my life? is it some way of attempting to exert control over a situation which really controls me? is it an attempt to live truly as a VigilantePoet, defying the establishment?

or is it simply a lingering childhood trait i learned along the way?

In The Year 2000....

2005-07-01T13:01:00.000-04:00

What is the future, anyway?

When I was just a young lad, the future was the stuff of science fiction movies and comic books. A land of moving sidewalks, flying cars, sneakers that tied themselves and weekend trips to Mars aboard a shiny silver rocketship. Things would be eaiser, things would be grande... but it wasn't imminent. It was way off in the distance.

Days passed, weeks passed, years passed and I found myself in my late teens, being forced to make decisions about the future. Not decisions about what kind of flying car I'd drive, but real plans about a real future that was creeping up on me with alarming speed. "What are you going to do with your life?" Geez, I don't know. I was kind of hoping I could just sit here on the couch watching The Jetsons. But no, the future had come to collect on those idealistic years of childhood. The future was now, and it was pressing me.

As with all things, that pressure passed eventually. I've made decisions - whether good or bad, only time will tell. A job, a career, whichever. But there's still a future looming bright. The sidewalks might end up moving - not everywhere, but at least at the airport. My car might end up flying - if not in the air, then at least down the highway to a familiar place. My shoes - they don't tie themselves, so I just wear sandals. And that whole thing about a rocketship.... I'll settle for a lazy weekend, laying down & watching a movie. Boring? Perhaps, if you compare it to that little boy's dreams way back when. The only difference between the two is that this dream is coming true right in front of me.

The Problem of Forgiveness

2005-07-01T09:20:00.000-04:00

Grace makes my skin crawl. It rubs against my rugged individualism, refusing to be bought or traded for, but instead insisting on being freely given. Any attempt to earn it, keep it, control it, and it withdraws, leaving me with a need for more. A second grader having his boots laced up by his teacher in front of the whole class knows what I mean. The pain of being rejected, scorned for my own actions almost seems preferable. At least I've earned my lot, and I still have my pride. Grace defeats my sense of control, I am no longer a self-made man. I am a man in debt to grace. Where does a man go whose only explaination is "what I want to do, I don't do, and what I do, I don't want to do"? What claim to fame, what boast or award can he lay hold of? He falls on grace. I fall on grace.

no such thing as mundane

2005-07-01T08:26:00.000-04:00

inspired as i am by my fellow vigilantepoets, i say:

there is no such thing as "mundane."
existence is infused
with Divine Presence
and
though many try,
this cannot be refused.

sometimes we are unaware
yet
reminders large and small
knock incessantly on the doors of our respective hearts,
seeking to impart
Life, Love, Meaning;
a vibrancy of sounds, images and tastes
which connect us to Reality
and
to each other.

Beauty and Truth
will not be denied their prominence.

there is no such thing as "mundane."

Happiness

2005-06-30T15:25:00.000-04:00

Several years and half a lifetime ago -
What I would've called my happiness, were I given the chance.
Now but a shadow;
Words written lovingly in the cover of a book I've never finished.
Time polishing away the patina of truth,
Leaving only the luster of idealistic memories.
Memories sometimes so vivid...
I can almost smell the air of those wonderful days.
But truth tells the story these thoughts cannot compose.

Dreams, Realities, Greatness, and A Good Cup of Tea

2005-06-30T12:44:00.000-04:00

On occasion I've found myself in a comfortable chair, or outdoors on a porch under the night sky, drinking a cup of tea or a cold pint of something from across the Atlantic. My companions in these moments may be smoking pipes, riding skateboards, doing both or just sitting across from me. Conversation rolls into the early morning hours, ranging from art to science to politics to spirituality, and in reality it is all spiritual. The Unseen has fingers and threads throughout, shaping us and causing us to wonder. These evenings are a rare treat, a gourmet desert for the soul, and like any rich food, not available or even practical for every meal, or every day. Still, I would take more.

The reality we are under, however, is that our lives are not like Friends or like any other television show involving a coffee house. My friends and I live in various suburbs, with our responsibilities and blessings of marriage, parenthood, employment, and service to others at the center of our schedules. If our lives were made into a weekly program, it would be three to five episodes of people trying to get in touch, trying to make time for eachother, followed by one week of good conversation. No one would watch it, because it would look too much like real life to make good reality television.

Many of us have images of a perfect world, dreams of the Inklings, or your favorite group of thinkers, philosophers, and writers, wanting to gather with our brilliant friends and be brilliant together. Most of us are not quite that brilliant, however, and we secretly know it. There is the rub. Shall we assemble and lie to each other and ourselves, then, or is the assembly itself enough to inspire and edify us? I believe it is the latter. If one man in a thousand will successfully climb the mountain of greatness, does that mean the rest of us should trade in our climbing gear for better televisions and only live vicariously? Or is it possible that there is something to be gained through our failed attempts? Nine-hundred-ninety-nine men and women being inspired by the one who made it all the way, throwing ourselves up the face of the mountain, being humbled and shaped by the rocks that stand in our way. Returning, broken but quietly satisfied, having gained a story to tell, a scar as testimony, and knowing that we have attempted great things, that we have not settled for less, have not given up without a fight, have not dared and risked mightily?

So for now, we enjoy the times as we can. We write, sing, attempt, fail, struggle, weep, laugh, work, rest, and are thankful for the journey. If it takes us another month, or even a year to find a few hours of quiet to reflect and share, it will still be worth it.

Welcome to VigilantePoets.

2005-06-30T10:32:00.000-04:00

VigilantePoets is an attempt to dig deeper, to see the spiritual in the mundane, to see beauty in ugliness, to be idealist and realist in the same breath, and to escape from the snark and glibness that surrounds us and that, in all honesty, we often contribute too. It will be a cooperation, a confederation, a conglomeration, and a collaboration of invited people whom I believe have something to say and the ability to say it. We are writers, aspiring writers, husbands, aspiring husbands, fathers, and aspiring fathers.
Then again, this may become something entirely different.