Contagious Rhythm

It’s been said that life is a dream
or a stage
but that’s not true

Life is a song
the harmonies are complicated
– sometimes even discordant –
and the words are hard to hear
– whether because the are too soft, or too horrible –
But the rhythm
oh! that rhythm!
That infectious, contagion of a rhythm
The steady bu-Bum bu-Bum bu-Bum
Which seems to spread that virus we call life from one medium to another
Awaking in art
in nature
in philosophy and science and the farthest reaches of time and space
That pulsing beat keeps grabbing my attention
pulling me back to this viral tempo
and reminding me why I sing

The song can be painful
The notes feeling either too low or too high
The tempo raging ether too fast or torturously slow
Sometimes your words get lost in with the rest
Sometimes you can’t hear your own voice
and when you make out your lyrics
or the lyrics of those around you
sometimes you wish to God you hadn’t
so you could continue thinking that the song was always beautiful

Despite all of this
Nothing lasts forever
Your part in the music could be done
Maybe today, tomorrow, or pages and pages away from now
Or maybe that high descant you barely noticed
Will have vanished
and no one else will know the notes for it
Or else the quiet drumming under your feet
will lose timber as the earth shifts
and it’s never quite the same after those drums

Music is ever changing
Ever swelling in mercurial arcs
Crashing like sound waves against the sand
the crescendos and decrescendos will never be the same twice
and what you hear won’t last
whether you loved or hated it

So while you have the opportunity
Right now
before you have all the notes
Before you’ve figured out your harmony line
Before you’re sure if your voice is worthy of the song
or if your fingers are talented enough to play the piece
Before that rhythm fades
Right now
Right now, Jeanne:

Get up
and Dance

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Ignorance Is My Bliss

If I had known, when I was younger, the paths life would take

I would have tried to prepare myself

I would have coached myself for all theses failures

I would have tried to avoid the slip-ups and missteps

I would have done a million things differently, and gone a very different place

Saving face

Losing grace

Being prettier, braver, more successful…

Looking at my failure of a life, and all the things I’ve missed, and the fool I have made of me:

I’m glad I didn’t know

Because I wouldn’t change a thing.

Finding Benjamyn

“I want to show the world I see…”

“I feel like there is something special inside me…”

“Oh! If you could see the world I see…”

So many time I’ve said these words. So many times I’ve failed.

How can words express the world? How can You see through my eyes?

But what is stranger, better, worse, more tragic, more perfect:

The person who took the longest to see…

Who took so long for me to convince of who I am…

The person who I spent my lifetime trying to convince

Was Benjamyn.

Was Me.

Zero-Sum

You move forward, and I have to fall back

I advance, and you’re forced to retreat

When I smile, you frown; When you’re healed, I’m hurt

You fall, I rise; I live, you die

You climb to new heights, and I sink like a stone

Always in check; Always in balance

Still our grand sum is zero

The Man of Silk

I saw a man all made of silk

I didn’t see him bleed

But he was marked with stains of rain

And every aching need

I saw a man all made of silk

All rough and fine and fair

He had no bones just sticks and stones

But didn’t seem to care

I saw a man all made of silk

And wondered if he flew

But when the wind and rain they came

He only stained anew

I saw a man all made of silk

And broken pottery

With bland white silken eyes he cries

But doesn’t notice me

I saw a man all made of silk

A dingy memory

I wonder when that thing will bring

My father back to me

(Apologies if I had posted this poem before. My father has slipped back into his alcohol dependency, and this piece has been only mind. If it’s a repeat, thank you for your patience.)

Bleeding Between the Lines

Words can be cruel

Words can be violent

Words can cut like knives, and bruise like stones

Words can tear into a person’s mind, playing over and over again

Words can take away your freedom and your dignity

Words are painful

… So why is it that your silences can hurt me so much more?

Ash Wednesday

We are dust… And to dust we will return.

And yet in every human heart there is a truth, a voice, a thing they need to say: a thing that no one else can say.  In every human there is a glimmer of some divine thing, shining from within and burning its way out… there is a distinct voice, a singular faith, a light that has never shone on this earth before, and never shall again once it is gone.

So this is our unavoidable truth: we are. crushed and broken remnant of the greatest of all lights. We are all dust – yes – but oh! what dust! This stardust, burning so brightly, and so insignificantly across the cosmos: so small and yet, so many… So little when compared to all the stars, and yet so precious with our ephemeral light.

So understand: when every grain of sand, and every particle of dust, and speck of dirt has some great truth to tell, and some transcendent light to shine… what wonder must our world contain?

We are dust… such dust… and to this dust we will return.