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."