italy inspired:

i wrote this stuff over the last month i spent in italy. it's a bittersweet place, equally inspiring (as far as writing is concerned,) in terms of the beautiful and the not so beautiful. also, i seem to be bad at titling anything.


III.

i came across an open field, with an orchard there
olive trees and vineyard leaves
and 'cross the ground were mounds where
ants walked in single-file all around
and up and down an olive tree,
still they marched

on who's orders, who knows
but i would not call them free
nor the bumble-bee; who
heavy on the air with wet wings from light
rain trudged on through the breeze.

and i stood and pondered the hive mentalities versus the way i stand on the same ground:

how i may plant the seed, but i don't make it grow
how trees deciduous turn green to brown, then back to green, the changing colors being the shadow of the deeper unseen mystery
how evergreens stay evergreen
how i long to hold the Master's hand
who invisibly tends life's mysteries

are You the air i breathe? the muscles that make my chest rise and fall?
You are life!
live in me!

and on an innocent red flower in the middle of pressed down dead grass
waited a small spider;
clever spider, under the petal he hid

who taught him how to hide?
my God! the world is too beautiful to dwell upon too long, or i'd never stop
singing and dancing, and smiling, the joy of creation, the JOY! of creation,
it shouts it's words in a language
i can never speak but understand
and so in this way
i only hope to convey
the slightest glimpse
of the beauty i
realized today.

(written after a day exploring in Pesacara)

II.
i've lived a thousand days in my own head
and haven't found fulfillment there
i have no answers
on my own i render my life meaningless
God, i know You're the answer to everything
but i need more than just to know
What is it between You and me, that i never really seem to hear You? Where is it that bridge is barred?
I've beaten my head against a wall trying to find it. I still haven't found it.
Lord rescue me away to You.
i'm not going to keep walking,
for i don't know the way.
i'm going to close my eyes
and wait.

* * *

i have found peace here
birds and breeze and leaves
and the harmony in their relationship
...but already the moment seems gone.

* * *

but wait!
like the tide is pulled away from the shore,
so the peace returns.

(written over a period of time and places i forgot)

I.
how thirsty it is here
though at every turn there seems to be a fountain;
it goes ever-on unquenched
and though trees still bloom in their proper time,
and though the grass grows mostly green,
there is still a thirst.
the spirit here is dead.
advance! victory! persecution! beauty!
age after age, history's stories upon stories shellac the city's face into unrecognizable broken concrete sidewalks and cobblestones and
monuments and cathedrals speckle the bird's eye view;
the bird who's stay outlasts the average man's.
like a landlocked tourist beach town, a swarm of strangers own these litter-ridden streets
buildings and the smaller sculptures are aerosol-tainted by the bitter paint of annoyed teenage minds
there's no feeling of home.
nature is not given her deserved reverence.
there's piss in the water
and paint scribbled on trees by men who are like children
it's not only pleasure the generation seeks
defacing rather than creating.

Rome, oh Rome, how long must your birds carry your song?




*(an explanation of this poem- i don't hate Rome, it's just i was in the second of two parks over a course of two days there, and both were heinously filthy. i was just bothered by how much beauty in that city is covered up by the messes of men [and that is not an intentional reference to mewithoutYou, people are quite literally just messy] that's all.)

How I long to be free
from the wickedness of humanity
like a camel in the desert
like a cat in his jungle
a bird upon the air.
Their troubles sure are there
How to get food, how to get water?
How to not become the prey?

The human claims he is a civil breed
separated by beast with a wit, intelligence and art.
But I don't think a fox can make another feel more alone than any other fox.
And I've never seen an animal purposefully take it's own life.
And man can kill another's soul with his biting sword of a tongue...

* * *

So what is this jungle we've created?
We've come out of the desert too fast
moving ever further forward past the thought of the children suffering the consequences of father's and grandfather's sins

We live in a machine of a city, don't we?
it moves unceasingly
it sways, somehow palpably
though it's walls and walkways are all concrete.
Concrete we've shaped into the most orderly of dens
the most orderly of food stores
Silo's, and silo's full
consuming and exploiting mostly ourselves above all

Are we not slaves to it, this city?
Slaves to it's sex
Slaves to it's drink
Slaves to it's drugs

How can there be a God?!
When I'm so fucked up on coke I can't see past two inches in front of my face?
When I'm so drunk I blackout and wake up in an inch of my own vomit?
When I wake up with a stranger in my bed?
And I'm slave to the money that pays for this and no matter how long the full relapse of this lifestyle takes, it's circular for sure.

Come out of it friends!
Come out of Babylon!
She will surely kill you
She will turn you on yourself
You will sacrifice yourself to her
and She will slit your throat

Come out of her all who are weary!
Leave her in the dust!
For there is no peace for the wicked;
your eyes shift ever back and forth
while you commit your evils.
Do you not know the Lord sees you plain in his sight?!

Repent, repent O' Babylon and I say to you surely,
the God Almighty will show you mercy in great abundance!
How can you despise His love?
How can you despise his mercy?

Come out of Babylon and be free!

* * *

Isaiah 48:20-22

"Leave Babylon,
Flee from the Babylonians!
Announce this with shouts of joy
and proclaim it.
Send it out to the ends of the earth;
say, "The Lord has redeemed his servant
Jacob."
They did not thirst when he led them
through the deserts;
he made water flow for them from the rock;
he split the rock:
and water gushed out.

Curious, timid, skiddish bird of a woman
pigeon roosting 'round the city in what safe places may be found
the short solace of an inhaled burst
of roasted white powder
and the madness induced
no man to defend her
no man to defend her
small white rocks are her shield from
the pain of life
it numbs her from the men in the night
whose malicious lust robbed her heart long ago
so she'll scurry around
'til she's found or she's not
praying to find a corner to hide in
to polish off the bottle
and fall into the sorriest excuse for sleep
waking up to the early AM hosing down of the sidewalk
or maybe being too drunk, will simply wake up wet
and the next day will be the same
and the next day will be the same

Sister take heart, rise up!
for thus says the Lord:
"Not a sparrow will fall to the ground outside the will of the Father. So don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows."

you've been a storm now for some time;
grey and gloomy
carrying an innocent heavy burden
we all carry from time to time
and you gone-done and spilled that storm
you've poured yourself out
and i know (as far as clouds go)
that they don't really choose where and when to burst
so don't get too down if it all
goes down some drain;
ends up in the gutter.
the water gathers itself
and gets lifted up by some will other than it's own
give it time
to gather up again
til you fall on fertile soil

a series of poems from winter quarter poetry chapbook

I.
Empires and empires
Kings and kings
Build upon this capstone earth

Toil and strife
Paving and conquering as they see fit
Constant progression towards...what is it?

Civilization they say,
Freedom they say
But how civil are they, how civil are we,
And what constitutes civility?

With childlike mentality
to see a shape, we imitate
assuming, knowing it's ours to build upon, perfect.
The trees our father felled reached once so high,
Now reach no more but lay flat in a kind of box
And we live inside.
A camp which so unnatural, nature doth destroy;
Waters rust and moths destroy.

II.
The pebbles cast the smallest
shadows as
the pit-pat of ragged shoes sound
past the picket-white fence
The vagrant's footsteps pause to scratch to
scratch his itching foot;
notices the one piece fallen off and cast into the lawn
by some long gone hand
Brother if you ask but for a hand with which to mend this broken fence
This man he's a-knockin' and you'd do good to let him in.
But each house passed
might as well be boarded up,
doors, shut up like clams, brother tell me
what's that pearl you guard!
Pride and shame,
Pride or shame.

III.
(this one i've already posted so i won't bore you with a repeat)

IV.
You were comfortable
like a familiar chair
like the one that used to sit here in this corner
but more like the one in the tenderloin
and they've since remodeled here anyways
and they changed the paint
and I want things to be how they used to be;
comfortable like that chair.
I saw a recent picture of you
and you had your hair cut short again
like you did back then.

V.

A simple little point to be made,

a thought to be observed;

how while mothers and fathers

spoke indoors of things over

papers with pens like a negotiation

their sons and daughters ran and played in the grass.

i'm writing again

To People Who Already Know What I Mean.

It's cold again and it's inevitable. (I've just taken off the gloves I was wearing, not because my hands aren't cold, but because the bulkiness interferes with the pen.) But like i was saying, it's cold again. The cold that makes the sidewalks and parking lots slippery, though I wouldn't call it icy. It either inspires or detracts reality or the stripped down reality of emotions. Emotions like happiness are forced to change. To smile with your teeth is to have them suffer the cold air. So you smile with just your lips. Is it a different kind of happy?
The sky at night, when it has that violety hue, when you know it's gonna snow? It has that tonight. It's gonna snow I can feel it.
So you sit in this coffee place. If you had the choice it's be trendier, maybe warmer (both in overall atmosphere and temperature,) but as long as the coffee's hot. There'd be posters of cool bands, local bands, or bands you haven't seen (heard?) before, something at least other then signs showing you things for sale inside the store you're already in. The art wouldn't be sent from a corporate office but from someones mind/soul direct. And if you didn't like the music they would have, you always have your handy ipod (or discman, walkman, what-have-you.)
And when you look outside (oh to look outside!) it's a piece of living art, the parking lot a live, drive-through nativity. The frost on the trees, the steam of breath, the scarves, the Christmas lights. And it all seems so far away. Like Norman Rockwell and George Orwell had a long talk about dystopia and Christmas in the same sitting. The coffee stains even seem charming.
You think about the girl who still won't have you and convince yourself you're better for it. You think about God and His marvelous winter painting and how you're still alone in it. And of how the fire in the bookstore next door (or any fire really) will die down and leave the room cold all night and how long it takes the embers eons to burn out and turn to ash. The hearth's proximity to the heart. And how it all relates to hope, and hopes mystery. How when you said you loved her she didn't say it back, but it doesn't, can't make it go away.
David Bazan's cynicism playing in your headphones is yours to share. And inspires you to finally pick up that guitar.

P.S.- It just started snowing. Told you.

slow and steady wins the race

stephanie wouldn't talk to me because she was writing a blog so i thought i'd write one in the meantime. so. what's new...not a lot...school's really boring, works ok, life's average. on the whole things are good i suppose. but i feel like i always have in yakima, there's this wierd spirit about the town; like an obstacle in the way of progress in people's lives. it's so wierd. my parents have lived here for over a decade now, and they've had to bust their asses just to keep our family operating and a roof over our heads. most people i know hate their jobs, the others i know don't have jobs, or just go to school. maybe i'm looking at things the wrong way, maybe i just need to move, i don't know what it is. i'm rambling. hmm.

one of my best friends grandmas died a few days ago. it broke my heart. it hurt her and her family so much. i prayed for God to heal her, to full health. (i'd like to think) i had more faith than a mustard seed when i prayed, and it didn't move any mountain. she died the next night. however i also prayed she wouldn't have to suffer, so perhaps it's a good thing that she didn't spend years in pain, i don't know. i prayed that no matter the outcome, God would use the outcome to His glory. i don't know what that looks like, but i still believe He will. death has been something i've given a lot of thought about. a LOT. it used to scare me. every once in a while the idea of my existing eternally would hit me as i was trying to fall asleep and have never been more deeply disturbed. i have also never feared God more. but then i realized that was a bit silly, because He's on my side. death is not the end. if death means the end of life, then death does not exist. death is merely the end of life on this earth. that's a bit comforting, at least to me. this place was not what is/was intended for us. originally we walked with Him in the Garden. we screwed it up. thank God for Jesus (ha...seriously though.) but at the same time, i don't have room to talk. no immediate family or friend of mine has died. the closest being more of an acquaintance. granted, i was deeply disturbed by that, i still didn't and haven't lost anyone dear to me. i'm so grateful for that, but at the same time i feel like i have nothing to offer someone who's grieving, because in all honesty i don't know what it's like to lose someone. it's hard. it's also late. so i'm going to bed. sorry if this is depressing, but it's on my mind.

i'll close with a joke i was told a bit ago:
q: what makes music on your head?
a: a headband