My Last Post About Never Posting

Writers are neurotic.

We all know this.

We all want to, like Jeremiah,

Shut up…

But we cannot.

How I wanted to put away the pen several thousand times.

Life would be easier if I could go work at a warehouse for a little above minimum wage.

Live in a little shanty hut like in Rio.

 

What made my writing chaff

Was that the Aliens and Sedition acts were passed by Congress.

A long time ago, like 1800’s long,

But essentially,

It precludes me from free speech.

But, I’ll challenge it.

Never knew Madison was a tyrant;

But, you know, I have to criticize

Otherwise we all might end up like Rio.

I like having options.

I like that I can make money on my writing.

I like that the guy at Panera Bread made 30 cents an hour

And became an obviously rich man.

I just think it’s a lot harder these days,

If not impossible,

To follow in those footsteps.

I’d like it to be available to everyone,

Not just a privileged few.

 

I was having a conversation in a dream

With a “King”, and he said ya’ll make 30,000

Dollars today’s money—the poorest—

If we diversified the markets.

So ya’ll could make money writing

Painting, cooking, carpentry.

I thought to myself that 30,000 dollars today’s money

Could buy me a nice life;—

And I wouldn’t have to go into substantial debt

Nor work like a dog to get it.

Rather, to eat off of your own labor

And to be free.

That sounded like Capitalism to me,

And it sounded fair.

Thou Kings Against the LORD’s Anointed Shall Not Prosper

On my bead you make my heart twitch

So my blessing to you, yes, even to you:

Prosper wherever you go.

Win your wars,

To spare my beloved.

Save him from corruption.

Have the world, the whole of it.

“In my hand is the power to shut up kings

“To loosen the bonds of the slave

“And to set the captive free.”

This is what my LORD had said.

 

Do know, I am not ignorant of you

And your so called power.

What am I to you?

Quiet in the land, a voice crying in the wilderness

Whom nobody hears.

Yet, the floods shall reach you

If you continue to strike the prophets

And to hurt the saints.

 

You are not the beast…

No… ones greater than you

For being more petulant and evil.

You, I have seen in vision are a great king.

Yet, I speak this to you:

O, do not try to entrap me.

You will get trapped.

 

I speak this, because none know who I am.

What is it to you if I live?

What is it to you if I die?

I am allied with the LORD on high

And with my words I do fight.

Not with powers or mysticism.

Just with the convincing thought

Of my pen.

 

Decreed against you

Is this by Daniel the Prophet.

I cannot change it.

Against me is nothing.

For I know the plans you have against me

And they shall not prosper.

For I am one, and there is another,

And another… and even fourth and fifth.

Many are we.

 

The LORD bless you with the world

To protect my beloved,

Who has a good heart.

A good heart has he,

And the world belongs to you

O king of the North.

Yet, another more fearsome than you

Has raised his head,

And cast his lot.

Do you not understand?

That Wymrbeast, Yehonason.

In my vision I see him.

 

The LORD bless you with great victories

For these you already know.

Then one more thing I bless you.

May you find the treasures of the deep

And plunder the treasures of the deep.

May the storehouses be opened to you.

 

I say this once, and only once…

The LORD Loves me.

That is all that’s needed for salvation.

I pray for you, and you have felt my blessing.

You have felt the strength of my prayer.

For as you cursed, and made my very heart twitch—

Make it so twitch and kill me,

If I shall be killed, and hide me in the LORD’s shadow—

I have blessed you.

 

One more blessing I give to you.

Rightfully, you are heir to a kingdom

I cannot dispute it.

Though I do love the one you hate

More than you even

I cannot dispute your title.

Rule benevolently…

Yet you would not.

You would rather strike the prophet.

 

What is my gain from either of you?

One has been decreed to lose many battles—-

It has been said before, so do not think I speak on my own behalf—

And the other is unrighteous.

Therefore I will wait upon the LORD.

Though I do love the one you hate, even more than you,

I, through impartiality, am blind.

 

Let this prophet alone, and fight your wars

Your glorious wars.

I want nothing of it.

Send me no peace offering.

Send me no help.

Just lay your forces to the south

And do what God has commanded.

Let him lay his forces to the north

And do what God has commanded.

As for me, I am a sprung plot against you;

Not by him, not by me.

No, by the LORD my God I have been sent here

To be a thorn in your side

Should you ever impede on my strength

To preach the gospel to the poor

And to the needy

And to the weak at heart.

You had not impeded me.

Therefore, I say this that no curse of mine rests on you;

For rather than curse I bless you with what you already know.

 

A mother and father are strong

And we do love them both.

Strong are you, to win your justice.

Yet, the one you hate is more righteous than you.

This he knows…

I give you his steak

Is that he would want to rule benevolently.

My steak is that I am neither a king nor a prince

Just a champion of the people

And I simply say heedless wars do not prosper.

 

Cast me in prison, it will be both your undoing.

That word “Both” I heard from the LORD.

For you will not, because I am but a pest

A little flea hanging on your mongrel.

Sincerely, I do not curse either of you.

Like a ram and goat, you must butt heads

As is decreed about you.

I have my prayer. I shall be hidden

And so with the others of the LORD’s people

Here in Moab, which neither of you will conquer.

 

LORD My Enemies Cannot Win

LORD, establish the word of your servant.

Satisfy him with long life

With long life satisfy him

And peace.

Let him drink from his cisterns.

Let him win his war against his enemies.

His enemies are numerous,

LORD, surely you know this.

What has he done to incur the wrath of kings?

What has he done, LORD?

Has he spoken what was folly?

LORD, surely you know.

LORD my enemies attack from the east,

And from the west,

And from the north.

Surely, you shall be my defense.

LORD, why do you forsake me?

Why am I left in their hands?

LORD, why do they continually attack your servant

And set traps for him?

To. to drink from the wells of salvation

This was my request.

To have the simple pleasures of life

And yet they seek to torture your servant

And to bring him down to the grave.

LORD, do not let him prosper against your servant Israel.

For, I am a quivering rabbit in the brush.

I simply stand, and feed upon the lilies

And drink the waters of the wells.

LORD, look at my enemies.

How they haughtily scheme against me.

LORD they shall not prosper.

Burn them with my lips

Oh LORD, take them down to Sheol.

Have kings fall in indemnity

Over the safety of your anointed.

Yet You would not,

To be glorified, kings must die

And be destroyed, and your servant

Is the bait.

They perish, and altogether are like chaff

As your servant waits upon You for an answer.

Answer me from the winds,

And bring upon them swift judgment.

Tear down their bulwarks, LORD.

For I know their thoughts against me are for mischief.

 

Yet, I have this to say:

“They shall not prosper

“For you are my rook

“You are my castle.

‘LORD, who are they to spite the anointed of God

“And to refute the Cherubim?

“The word shall go out, I shall not see your wrath

“Yet the king of the North shall fall.

“Already there is one mightier than he

“Going into his kingdom.

“Hiss for the fly

“Bring forth the mighty wasp

“Array your chariots for battle,

“LORD, strong Chariots

“For now is the time for the king to falter.

“As he has done to this prophet, let it be done doubly to him.

“For I shall not be silent,

“But shall, as the prophecy command

“Fight on behalf of the South for my own safety,

“LORD, that I can bring the little ones to Christ.

“So I can taste the riches of salvation.

“LORD, Jeremiah has prophesied on my behalf,

“My foot has stomped seventy time seven times

“In mighty praise of you

“In the presence of men who sought to seek my life.

“Let Babylon be forsaken

“And the king of fortresses stricken from this land of Moab.

“LORD, the little peoples are stirred in his kingdom soon,

“For I have heard it.

“One mightier than him in magic goes to the land

“With one even mightier than he.

“LORD, this king of the north is a sly dog

“But the ones who go into his kingdom

“Are even greater,

“Enemies too wicked for even me.

 

“LORD precious is the blood of your servant

“And precious is my life in your hand.

“Give it to me as a booty, as promised

“And give me the delight of kings

“She who is like a snow in Zalmun.

“I shall be satisfied by her,

“As the northern king falls

“Like a stubborn ass he continually assails your prophets.

“Now… he has left his kingdom without its ruler

“And seeks me, your very servant.

“Yet, great spoil awaits the one

“Who has assailed him.

“The one who is greater in wickedness than even this king.

“One who hates me with fervent hatred

“Because I was his beloved friend

“Yet would not conquer the kingdoms with him.

“LORD, let it be known…

“Great floods await that nation

“Which despairs your pophets Israel.

“LORD, assail them, divide their tongues.

“Let your precious one escape.”

Yet You would not.

So, therefore, kings indemnity shall they fall

And your servant is safe,

Yet why does he still pine?

Did he not stomp his feet like the kings

Only so many times as to beat back Babylon to even

Silly victories?

Yet You would not.

 

So here is the Word unto this prophet:

“Cease maligning the king!”

Yet I would not.

So, here is the new word to this prophet:

“By your words you will be destroyed.”

Yet these were my own.

The true word to this prophet was this:

“Well done good and faithful servant.

“Wicked were your enemies, and they have fallen by their greed.

“You have trapped them, yes, even you.

“For they had thought you forsaken.”

 

Yet, I cry out to my King, “LORD I am unworthy to even unlatch your sandal!

 

Great shall be my reward.

Wait upon the LORD, for Israel has fallen by his great iniquity

But he shall arise.

Who is this who maligns him?

Great kings of the north,

And where does Israel’s help come from?

The LORD.

Certainly, LORD you will establish this prophet’s words

Over whores and robbers.

So much more over kings who are not right

And seek to malign the covenant of God.

“Sleep, eat, be merry, for tomorrow you die”

This is the words of the kings to this prophet

For surely he has cursed me.

Yet, here is my blessing on him:

“Cease from maligning the prophets of God

“And I shall not let you fall.”

Yet he would not.

Thus, one greatly to be feared has entered into the kingdom

Will you see it?

You will not.

Explaining God to Richard Dawkins

Rick, if our universe had infinite dimensions

That universe would be a size infinitesimally smaller

Than a planc length, when compared to even the least of God’s angels.

Those Angels would be the size of a microbe compared to

The size of the Cherubim, which are the four creatures

Seated at the throne of God.

Just use your imagination with this.

Those Cherubim are the size of a rabbit

When compared to God.

 

That is the God I worship.

Now, you try to explain Him away with science.

If we hadn’t even discovered a hint of extraterrestrial life

How on earth can you possibly try to say you’ve disproved Him?

Say we meet one googleplex to the googleplexth power alien species.

What is this to a God that magnificent?

And because a prayer for lightning striking you hadn’t been answered

That’d be like a bacteria crying out to the man with a bleach bottle

Who got orders from a Giant the size of infinite, infinite universes

Who got his order from one of those angels, which that Giant

The largest of them,

Is the size of a quark compared to those angels.

But, this same God listens to me.

My Heredity

Simplicity sometimes works.

Sometimes extravagent metaphors.

Me, I like pretty faces

So words have to be beautiful

In the poetry I read.

I’m vain like that.

 

The same cliche wallpaper

Over and over again…

There it is painted in my living room.

But I like it, so I use it.

It’s funny because every canvas hanging on

My wall a family member did—

Every piece of art on the one wall was made by a family member.

The chess table which appears on my covers

Was made by a PA carpenter.

 

I’m inundated with art, and artists

And yet none of them were famous.

One is an impressionist sail boat.

One a winter scene.

One a needle point of two children on a swing.

One a photograph my dad took.

My chess table is a masterwork.

Why so many Pennsylvanians

Master their art, and don’t get paid much for it.

 

My bookshelf was made by my Grandfather.

My afghan quilt—though patterned off of a magazine—

Was hand stitched by my great grandmother. My book shelf

Was hand crafted by my Grandfather.

All expertly done.

My Nanny did a white afghan

Which such expert craft.

My Grandmother made three afghans,

Too, of a much finer quality.

Photographs, I’m surrounded by.

My house is decorated by family…

Either their faces

Or their works of art.

Even some of the music I’ve had

Growing up…

Songs of high quality that my dad had sung,

Great accoustic songs by my brother,

Recipes of family members handed down from generation to generation…

Sometimes out to six.

Even my sports team

Is part of that Family tradition.

Fourth Generation Philedelphia.

 

Our house is decorated by things we’ve made,

My entire family.

It truly is.

I suppose if I were a good writer,

That would be the cause.

And nobody knows any of us.

Dear Marty Sampson

When I am “Geniunely losing my faith,”

I turn off the radio. I stop reading my books.

I don’t even read the Bible.

I go to the state park,

I look at the animals.

I see they are good

And know the Christ;

You can even ask them.

They’ll tell you He is the LORD.

 

We are locked in a world of explanations

When there isn’t one to be had.

The existentialist philosophers came to a notion

That they couldn’t write down.

But Paul wrote it.

“Christ.”

 

I hear, “People need to reason,”

But I think it is the other extreme.

I think people need to face the reality

That Giants assail us

Dragons torment us

Fairies haraung us

And wood nymhps try to lead us astray.

Visceral is my faith

To hold and cherish what is good.

Because what is good testifies to the truth

That Jesus Christ is the LORD.

Subtle miracles every day

And the power of that confession,

Which if you could not,

Consider it is Christ Himself

Hindering you…

Because when I was astray

It could not even touch my lips.

A simple miracle, but it works.

 

Study the divine mircacle that just is.

Don’t try to gain an explanation for it.

Because the world could be flat,

And the whole of NASA lying to us…

We don’t know, truly.

But we do know that Christ lives

Because He lives in us.

Even if you said a word

But make sure to never say those words,

To say to God, “Depart from me.”

Because the faith is real.

The trees don’t move because of our words,

But that they move because they move.

The wind moves their branches

Just like the very Spirit of God moves us.

And in that is power, to tap into it

And to know it is real.

 

To know that unkindness resumes

But know the walking away from the faith

Is what you see in you.

At my lowest,

I know it is my sin that prevents me.

I blame the hypocrite, but

I am that hypocrite.

All my words chiding Christianity

It is really me I’m chiding.

Because I know in me

Is the same false spirit

Enticing the world

And that demon I need to drive from my soul

So when I see the animals praise the LORD

I know that it is men who fall away

And the whole of creation testifies to the name of Jesus Christ.

 

Amen.

The Inspiration Behind the Ballad of Maddok

Carl Jung came up with a concept of the “Shadow Self.” In Freudian psychoanalysis, it’s the same as the id, or the animal self. It comprises all of our violent tendencies, all of our animal like nature, all of our evil. In Biblical imagery, they call it the “Flesh”, or our “Sin”.

There was a verse in Micah 7, toward the end, about our sin being removed from us. That was the whole of the inspiration behind the poem, was our sin’s removal from our body. And in Ezekiel, when declaring Jerusalem’s sin, and in Jeremiah, it has a laundry list of crazy sins.

I have no recollection of committing any kind of sin other than what I have written in Young Shadows. The last poem is the full account of the entirety of my memory about my sins. But, the thought remains strong in me of the sin nature, every thought I’d ever had, every lust, every lewd dream that somewhere in me is that… and that is what became Maddok. The fact that somewhere, this creature called “Maddok” or “Death” is in us. Just having a thought makes our minds capable of doing something awful, every secret thought, every secret desire. Which, leads me to the mystery of perhaps—not a doppelganger, but like Brittos’ Giant Soul—our bodies are capable of such great evil without our will. And that God needs to shave—or circumcise—that sin off of us somehow. Maybe that’s what baptism is, or maybe it’s something else entirely; maybe that subconscious evil in us called the “Shadow” makes us capable of awful things that needs to be physically removed by God Himself.

So, that’s the inspiration behind Maddok. The kind of musing of the “Flesh Self” that needs to be removed from the Christian—or really everyone—in order for salvation to truly occur. And of course I’m Brittos, meditating on this while writing the poem—though not literally Brittos because he represents every Christian, not just me, needing to understand that God saved us by grace.

So, before anyone calls me a “Gnostic” I believe wholeheartedly that this Flesh needs to be removed from the Christian in order for true salvation to occur. That Maddok, who is literal in the poem, is actually metaphorically in every human being, such as the survival instinct. Such as walking to your car with the key stuck between your fist, because you’re ready to hurt anyone who tries to mug you. Or even a canister of pepper spray. Or, perhaps owning a weapon and imagining having to use it. Or, the countless hours of pornography and violent movies we tend to watch. As if all of this culminating in the human being leaves these latent Shadow Selves in us, and it needs to be removed by God in order for us to truly attain the riches of salvation.

That is the inspiration behind the poem, and of course Maddok is a personification of the ultimate sinner because he is literally Death embodied. He is so unwise, that he forgets that he’s the very thing that he’s about to get sucked down into because he’s so deluded to think that he’s actually accomplishing the will and work of God. There are some subtle satires on Christian Theocracies in the poem, too, such as their desire to Crusade in order to bring about punishment on kingdoms, or criminal justice, or in all regard Vengeance, which seems to be the primary pathway to our violence, is the meditation on vengeance and self defense. Which, we can all say we’ve mused, which if anything were Maddok, it’s that. All of the people we had imagined killing, we had killed in video games, we had imagined fornicating with;— Maddok is all of that because he is our subconscious, the shadow that haunts us, the sum of what we’re capable of and the evil we all have present in us, latent somewhere in the survival instinct. As a Christian, we need to have that circumcised from us completely, in order to attain the riches of the Kingdom of Heaven. And nobody perfectly attains it on earth, but the metaphor was a very strong one I mused on for the better part of a year.