Category: Poem

What Hurts the Most is Seeing the Thing You Want

What hurts the most is seeing the thing you want

And not feeling like the moment to grab it is at hand.

Some strange distance is between us…

The girl at the ____________ register

Myself.

Sure, I can talk to her about Yawning.

I can tell her about my theories on time.

What becomes difficult, however,

Is working up the nerve to flirt.

I don’t want to

Because the situation is wildly inappropriate.

I don’t like flirting.

I want a steady conversation.

 

As a youth, there were those I played with

And it just clicked.

Rare were those encounters,

Where I just clicked with someone else.

The play was fun…

They got me, I got them.

There was an ease of knowing them

Like I had known them my entire life.

All sincerely cliche lines,

But we still all know the feeling.

Precious it is, it’s how I met all of my best friends.

 

Why one of them wasn’t a woman;

There’s always been a strange fear of them for me.

A fear of obtaining them;—

I have that fear of getting to close to them

On the chance that they would find out what I was really like

And walk away.

 

But on rare moments, I could be just myself

And similarly find myself at ease with them.

I suppose I want conversation more than anything.

I want agreement, even if I’m dead wrong.

I want resistance on moral truths;—

Not intellectual ones.

I feel there is a strange chasm between me and the woman at the ____________.

Perhaps if we met at the book store.

Perhaps if we met anywhere but there.

But then again, I am quite unimpressive.

 

A woman wrote a poem about Echo and Narcissus.

I felt like Narcissus.

Perhaps I am becoming him…

However, I don’t like peering into the mirror

To look at myself. I am hideous.

Rather, I have been taught to love myself by therapy…

I would like the _____________ employee to unlearn me

Of all those tricks.

 

Therapy seems to colden and deaden you to the harsh realities of life.

It seems to put up walls,

It says, “Don’t trust anyone.”

And soon enough, you live, can wipe your own ass,

Can eat and live off of work.

Just, something is missing in life,

The more important part.

But I have the pressure of family

Telling me all life is about wiping myself.

Wiping my mouth, my butt, putting soap on my hands

And cleaning out the nether regions.

As if that is the only joy of life.

That, and doing labor I am not willing to do

To serve a purposed end of what exactly?

Did I forfeit my happy life from two crimes in youth?

If so, maybe I don’t want to take care of myself

If this writing cannot earn me enough to win bread.

 

So… I twirl about two desires

Being an author and being in love.

I want to be an author for the purpose of wiping myself.

I want to be in love for the purpose of having something beside

Hygiene to live for.

If you could understand my families indoctrination,

Life is all about cologne, toilet paper,

And eating. Pleasures to be derived

From the excess of bodily functions and their expressions.

Of course, I became angry at one of them in particular

When they said, “Let the TV raise your kids.”

It had never been their philosophy of life…

One of the things I appreciated most was how they nurtured me

And cared about me when nobody else seemed to.

But, life is all about liquids.

It’s all about dopamine.

Meanwhile I stand quite helpless

Not wanting my life to resemble it.

The girl behind the ____________ counter could have fixed it…

But, truthfully, was there a chance at bonding?

None whatsoever.

She had a job to do.

I had a job to do.

Anything extraneous beyond that

Would get her in trouble.

As, that exact life is what I despise.

We could have been soul mates

And the de facto laws of business

Kept us apart.

Somewhere, I’m looking for a life

Where you just meet the girl in your tribe

And fall in love with her because you don’t know any better,

Marry her, and then grow up and have children.

You’re never taught to covet beauty,

So even when someone more beautiful arrives

It’s not this immediate lust and gravitation.

You simply don’t know any better because there is no sexual desire

Except for the one person you found it with…

That woman you met in your village.

Yet, there were old maids then, too.

So, I have no surmise,

Except to say that I didn’t want to flirt

Because I felt a boundary.

When I find the right woman

I want there to be no boundaries.

Rather, if she shows up at two AM,

Or I do, we’ll be none the callous for sleep.

 

In laymen’s terms

I want a friend I can have sex with.

I think that’s what everyone desires in a mate

As there is nothing else in this life worth obtaining.

Success, glory, honor,—

It seems too much like wiping myself.

Rather, when I’m old,

Maybe my desire is for there to still be someone left to wipe me.

I Don’t Think I Can Love

I don’t think I can love

Like I used to.

I’ve become jaded.

I would like someone to penetrate my walls.

I would like someone to peer into my heartache

And draw from it something choice.

 

But, there is some resistance in me.

I cannot, as it were,

Draw happiness from another person.

It’s impossible.

It does not come from the self, either.

Where does happiness come from?

 

I suppose it comes from a clean conscience,

Knowing we had not done wrong.

I cannot have that,

So I look for the palliative of a wife’s mouth

To sooth me, both with her kisses and her kind words.

We all desire to be loved.

Each of us.

It is why dogs make wonderful pets

Because we enjoy the enthusiasm of the animal

Always wanting to be near us.

Cats, too, that they are exclusive

And we do not have to feel jealous of our friends

When they come by.

Horses are great pets because they are bigger than us

And teach us to overcome our fear; we tame them

Who can easily overpower us.

So much trust is needed for a horse

That the animal can kill you at any moment

But you still overpower it with force of intellect.

 

The cattle skip in the field

The fish loaf about, happy to eat and be big.

The birds sing their melodies.

Animals are such a wonderful kine

To the human soul.

I would like to define kine

As family. It means “Cattle Herd”

But we, ourselves as a family,

Are like cattle that roam here and there

Following our families to hither and thither.

We are kine, and I would like to have a blessed kine

Of loved ones;—which gets me back to why I need a wife.

I want my little pack of children to run about

And keep me company until I am old.

I want a cat, a dog and a horse.

I want a wife who is loyal, loving and affectionate.

It’s amazing how this cliche want is in every dating profile.

Yet, how many of us are deserving of love?

I’ve thought back to my crimes in youth

And see myself committing felonies.

I say to myself, “It is this reason I do not deserve love,

“But could I please be forgiven for it

“As the gospel promises?”

The answer comes to me,

But in my heart is could be either “Yes” or “No.”

I lean more toward the “No”.

It is why I’m afraid.

Not of death, just of living.

Life scares me, as it is an impending obelisk of looming catastrophe.

I cannot get a reign on it

Because some force greater than my will does not let me.

Who that is, I cannot know.

 

So I wish for a wife, children,

What I see is obstacle after obstacle

Preventing me from obtaining my earthly award.

Which I say “Award” not “Reward”

Because it was not earned.

How can I earn anything with such depths of sin?

Hidden to myself, maybe?

I do not know.

If there is any sin hidden from my eyes

I cannot know, but I want to awaken from the possibility

And live in the reality that other men take for granted.

Not speculate on all my past crimes

That never were committed

Because of two flagrant ones in youth.

 

But, back to the meditation.

I want a wife. Plain and simple.

And I will get one. Either here

Or in the afterlife.

Existential Structure

A story needs to feel long

Even when it’s only a few minutes.

I don’t know how else to explain a good story.

The good ones always feel longer than they actually are.

 

The shorter a story is,

The less it feels like it is long…

It could be 500 pages, and still feel short

It’s not very good.

 

I’ve seen it in modern movies that

There is more action than story.

But it’s not so simple as that.

A good story connects well

It moves from sequence to sequence

Making sense in existential structure.

That is a term meaning something’s coherency

When time is being explained.

As, a story is just writing with time woven through its element.

You want to make a story that feels long

And connects from point A to point B

Logically, and sequentially.

 

It’s what makes a good story.

The longer the story feels;—

Even if it’s only a couple hundred words—

The better the story often is.

Because it can, as a matter of fact

Connect well with its audiences,

And bring them coherent ideas

In a structure of time.

That is called “Existential Structure.”

 

Modern movies suck for this reason

That the structure of the stories don’t make sense.

There is no moral, there is only plot.

No thematic elements.

The story moves, borrowing new archetypal materials

From previously established fictions.

It assumes we’ve already watched the hours worth of material

Needed to understand the plots fully.

 

This is why people enjoy Television more.

It works slower,

Connects plot points slower.

Television plots out points over several episodes

Making it more enjoyable to watch.

 

With reading, it is doubly important.

Because with reading, one must follow the event patterns

Of rise, fall, rise, fall, climax.

This simple structure builds the most enjoyable stories.

However, better than that are slices of life

Where there is only the story of life…

A reader has to be cultured to dare it.

Many people do not understand the enjoyable nature of a story

That is about life in her complexities.

Complexities, simple day to day life is healthy.

War and Peace, Anna Karenina, Pride and Prejudice,

These stories are ones filled with ideas about life.

It’s interesting. Especially to pleasantly reverie among

The author’s moral suppositions

But our modern readers find it boring because they do not agree with the morals.

Often, the morals prove themselves accurate.

 

As, it is really the moral of a story that makes it feel long or short.

A good moral can create constancy among the whole work of art

Fusing it together with sensibility,

And well thought out patterns.

It is unhindered, uncensored,

Yet, the ramifications prove themselves true.

Funny thing, is that most families remind me of Anna’s family

In Anna Karenina.

It offends the atheist not because it is “False”

But because it reflects back at them something unflattering about themselves.

The truth that the moral situation caused by divorce

Resembles that of Anna’s and her superficial entourage.

It becomes clear that in the household of divorcees

There is a falsehood being lived out

And it attracts strange individuals

Almost parasitic.

A good moral does this,

Where it is held true because it is true.

The disagreement is that it offends.

Nothing more.

But, without that offensive thing we call a moral

The tales we spin are nothing more than schizophrenic messes

Never making heads or tails…

It becomes incomprehensible.

Which is another proof of moral,

How when we have bad ones,

The story seems to dishevel itself because it had not entered through by the gatekeeper.

It feels shorter.

Waco Texas

He thought himself to be Christ…

Claimed he was the “Fifth Angel.”

The Fifth Angel is not Christ.

So, his doctrine was false.

 

It was good that the tanks encroached.

It was good that the people were killed.

Why? Because Christians are not to disobey lawful authority.

We are not to fight.

 

Everything with regard to Waco is an example

Of what Christ did not want.

The Government wields the sword

And when it unsheathes, it unsheathes for good.

 

 

We Christians are to be martyred,

Have our possessions stolen,

Have ourselves put in prison,

And die; Not fight against authorities

Because this is not our kingdom.

 

Should our government turn upon us,

Let ourselves be killed.

For, our time is come, and they kill us

Because we will have no more pleasure on the earth.

 

It is wickedness that a government martyrs its Christians,

But the people who call themselves by Christ

Are to allow themselves to perish.

For, those who wield the sword

And kill with it must be killed by the sword.

We are not to fight in man’s wars.

We are not to get caught up in revolutions.

 

Let yourselves be a living sacrifice for Christ.

IF you shall die, die ministering the Gospel.

Do not resort to bloodshed, as that is a sin.

Satan will be judged.

The governments who have Christ’s blood on them

Will be judged. Let their own hand’s blood

Set them on fire.

 

We martyrs are kindling which set the world ablaze.

In Logic

In logic, “P” is a rule of inference.

This means, as it stands alone,

It can be reasoned true, therefore acceptable as a proof of validity.

 

Where my writing comes from,

Where my whole breadth of knowledge comes from,

Is thousands of “P”s…

Some moral and others extant.

 

If I had said “Green Day” is God’s favorite band,

I suppose I must have meant it.

The band could foresee the futures.

Are they God’s favorite band?

How am I supposed to know?

I truthfully don’t know.

But the fact is I might have said it in passing

To my brother;—

Someone might have heard it

And called me “apostate.”

 

I reason up to larger principles from established facts.

Green Day says the F word;

So did I.

Green Day is a little rowdy.

So am I.

Green Day is scathing and mourns.

So do I.

Green Day could predict tomorrow.

So could I.

I am not one who can judge them;—

I understand them.

Genius, with the ability to see into the future

To draw from it possibilities.

I understand that madness.

 

Their dystopian albums showing genocide

And religious wars;—

Their skepticism might be what the LORD Jehovah

Wants in the world.

A little more skepticism of our actions

Rather than our words.

 

We put too much emphasis on

Predictions…

When Green Day had gotten eleven of them wrong;

So have I.

 

We, Billy Joe and I,

See a lot of Ps and Qs.

We see the irony of how men live their lives

Allowing atrocities to be committed in the name of Religion.

We’re called Apostate for it.

 

Rather, I will not be skeptical of my religion.

I never saw Christians as an example of it.

Only Christ.

I would have that same advice for Billy Joe.

And should he be angry that God commanded wars,

I would tell him that was a time when man was supposed to create heaven;

Now, we are to let the world fail.

 

As, the woman caught in adultery is my “P”.

The sins of the Pharisees are my “Q”

Which were written in the ground as a testimony to their face.

It says that in the Old Testament.

It’s one of the hidden verses that appears to my eyes,

And often they do.

When I read it, I see often that man has censored the Bible

With opinions,

And sometimes I get glimpses into what it actually said.

How clear, even in the Hebrew, that Christ is Christ.

On that miracle, the miracle of good will and kindness,

Believe. As, a world without Christ is a world without kindness.

Slowly we edge toward that world,

Because men do not listen to their prophets.

Sometimes they wear black, and are themselves agnostic.

Other times they are like me, fanatical about their religion

To a point of self harm.

Either or, it is Christ Whose is the power to sustain

The good we love and cherish.

That same goodness that often we look back on

And wonder, “Where has it gone?”

Freedom is Treason

When criticizing your government is treason

All freedom has failed.

When holding them accountable for their actions is treason

All freedom has failed.

When smelling something foul in the air is treason

All freedom has failed.

When dreaming about the Great Man’s crime is treason

All freedom has failed.

When getting a prediction correct is treason

All freedom has failed.

When reading old books is treason

All freedom has failed.

When being intelligent is treason

All freedom has failed.

When every word you speak must be true

All freedom has failed.

When they spy on you for nothing

All freedom has failed.

When they listen to you

All freedom has failed.

When you cannot be prosperous through hard work

All freedom has failed.

When you can’t say what you think

All freedom has failed.

 

Has all freedom failed?

Radicals

One of the things I’ve noticed

Is that if everyone were to pick up an old book

Their misconceptions about today’s specialness would go away.

They’d realize two things.

What’s changed is people’s information,

And how they access it.

 

It amazes me how two years worth of Facebook radicalized the population

While two years worth of reading Tolstoy and Shakespeare had deradicalized me.

Because in books there is vetted information,

Vetted by time and distance.

Where, we can see similar problems emerge in previous generations,

And how they dealt with it always seemed to be the same.

Wars, and rumors of wars.

But, we can certainly realize a special fact that people were a lot more civilized

About their conceptions.

It used to be that Democracy was a radical opinion to uphold:

Greece was the sum of perfection to the intellectual mind.

Now, the intellectuals have Greece in all her splendor

And want to replace it with Babylon.

 

It amazes me, but at least in this generation I get to understand it.

Which, my arcane notions of how the world work;

It proves itself to work.

I make predictions, and they often come true.

Take away my ability to understand how the world worked

I suppose I would be a radical like Robespierre.

But, this opiate of understanding is a good one

To appease people like me,

Because now that I can freely understand what has gone so wrong,

I still fear it, I dread it,

But I do not feel like I have to fight over it.

It is that line where a Democracy must fight,

Must take up arms.

When the people no longer can understand what is wrong with it.

When they claim, “There is nothing wrong,”

Meanwhile Caesar crosses the Rubicon.

 

And, how people crave a tyrant.

How responsible people crave a moderate.

I suppose that is how democracy ends,

As Padme Amidala had put it: With thunderous applause.

People and Dogs

I’ve always noticed that dumb people

Will always say their dogs are dumb.

Smart people will always say their dogs

Are smart.

 

I have a notion to believe

It’s because the smarter people

Reckon to see the intelligent behavior patterns in their animals

While the dumb people condescend to the animal

Recognizing it as their mental inferior.

As, the ancient quote always goes

Nobody ridicules those they feel superior to.

They ridicule those who make them feel inferior.