Eyes burn,
Throat

Ever since I read "A grief observed", there is so much I cannot get off my mind. To know that CS Lewis experienced the things I have experienced; To know that he could put into words the things I couldn't put into words. The things that I have been the most ashamed of; the things that have been the most painful to me; I was in a place, that I knew in my mind, no one had ever been before. I was experienceing things; I was going through a spiritual battle that had never been fought...And yet, here is this book, that chronicles the same battles, the same experiences, the same feelings, and offered me insight, that I couldn't gather in my own raw pain and emotion and honesty. I was deluded and arrogant.

   My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? When Christina died, when she was...gone,I fell to my knees beside her. Her lifeless hand in mine. I abandoned my Soul to the Lord. I collapsed to him, and to everything. All the strength and presence of mind I had mustered for my children,  her parents, and her friends, I laid it down before God, an offering of sacrifice and my pain, and my loss...And what escaped from my mouth in that cry was a poor reflection of what escaped from my spirit.There were no words or thoughts, but therewas something eternal in that choked sob of a scream that said "Lord, what now? I've fallen into this, Now I rely on you. Catch me. Sustain me."

   There was no answer.

   My God, My Father, I have spent my whole life worshiping, praying to, humbling myself before; trying to serve, trying to become less human and more Christian; to embrace him to do his will; the God that has mystified me in his patience to me and his love for me, The God that was there to pray to on those cold, lonely nights, when you're just a speck of life on an insignificant rock hurtling through infinite space and infinite cold, and all you can do is to be mystified as to why you are there. What is purpose and why in the world would you feel it if it wasn't real, and you know it's real, it's not some abberation of the mind that every man just happens to experience, it's not some trick of evolution, some sleight of hand of self-awaremess...But here. Here on this rock in space...The only rock with life on it and there you are the speck; so inconsequential, that time immortal passed before your presence and time immortal will pass after your presence ceases to exist and you have a purpose and DAMMIT what is it? That God. That God that we seek out for those answers. I threw everything to him with abandon. Because I had nothing left.

   And there was nothing there.

   There was nothing there. Jesus on the cross...What did he have left? "My God, my God, WHY have you forsaken me?"

   I can remember driving around, weeks afterwards, alone.And I would just lose it. And I would scream and I would cuss and I would cry and I would shake my fist at the sky and I would shout "GOD! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME? I have given up my wife. In faithfulness

There is this rock hurdling through space. One of a number of rocks between two infinite variables of rocks hurdling through space. This rock has been hurdling through space for at least 37 years as far as I can tell, and probably billions more besides. It will continue to hurdle through the infinite void and vacuum of space for at least the end of this article, if I happen to live this long, and probably billions of years besides. But, If I don't make it through the end of the article, as far as I know, the longevity of the current measurements of time I adhere to make no difference to me whatsoever. But I digress... (Who the Hell really says that?)

   An examination.

When water comes to life.

I love the Cloud Cult song, When water comes to life. The first time I heard it, I was a shamble of shaking emotions and tears. In fact, EVERY time I hear it, I am reduced to shaking, choking, sobbing, pathetic tears. And I like it. I love it. God, I love it. Here is one song that brings forth perception of the beauty and tragedy of death free from sentimentalism but full of love and pain and...real eternal concepts we can never understand as human beings.

   All you need to know,
Is you were born of water,
You were made of water,
You are living water, water, water...

We are living water.
We drink water. We live in water. Our planet, this hurtling rock through space, is water in approximately the same amount of water as our bodies are water. I am not pretending to be some authority, but hey. This rock...

The perfect combination of heat, light, radiation, the lack OF radiation, water, minerals, acids and caustics and blah blah blah...Remember the old sci-fi serials from the '50s and '60s? We were so enlightened with our probes and theories and speculations...Venus has an atmosphere of Ammonia. We're not talking Mr. Clean here. We're talking melt your freaking face off ammonia gas. But I digress...

This ROCK. Full of WATER. Right here, at this EXACT altitude from this EXACT sun. With this EXACT composition. Is full of the most impossible thing in the Universe itself that defies all laws of physics that govern said Universe...Life.

I have been over this ground before...The second law of thermodynamics. Entropy.

Entropy. Homogeny. The equalizing of all things.

Turn on your heat on a cold winter day. Open your door. Will the heat not work harder? Will it not expend more energy?Of course it will. Because that air right outside your door that is cold starts to entrope (verbed that, entropy) with the heat inside your house until you will say " For FUCKS sake, I an't afford this. I get it. There is more cold outside than I can afford to heat..."

But there is not so MUCH cold outside. Just an entire Universe at three degrees above absolute zero pressing down from the North of the planet and forcing it's way into your home. Perhaps you should have invested in a larger unit?

Recovery

I have been sick.

   I cannot begin to articulate the places I have been the last six months. The entire time I have stressed and assured those around me that I was really OK, I was so far from it. I was lost. Destroyed and really teetering on the verge of insanity in so many ways.

   I can hardly begin the labour of putting it into words. I will try...I'm still not entirely sure why. If for no other reason just because putting it into words helps me to reflect and to see where I am and where I have been, and hopefully, give me some indicators of where I am headed.

   Since I don't know how or where to start, or exactly what to say, I'll just start from the beginning, as best as I   am able. First let me say, I have never, besides our children, loved anything or anyone the way I love Christina. I say love, because I am still deeply in love with her, and although I realize no one knows what the future holds, I always WILL love her. Just like with my children, Christina holds an unfathomably deep place in my heart. Her absence from this Earth can't change that. I am fond of that place. When she died, and people would tell me it gets easier with time, that would anger me and frustrate me so badly. I guess what I understood them to really be saying is that I would forget what she means to me, or that I would love her less, and sometimes think whistfully about her occasionally.

   In a way, it is more than that we were two people that met and fell in love; I know it sounds so cliche', but I always really felt that God brought us together. In fact, in spite of it all, I still do. Never would I have thought it possible for two people to mesh so completely with each other from the moment they met. I know some have to role their eyes, for Christina's sake if nothing else, and some must think, "Oh, what pitiful stuff" and I know the melancholy sounds as from the remembrances of some slipping old man. But the simple fact is, for those that REALLY knew us, we were always madly in love with each other, and the desire of our hearts were for each others company above all else. If one was close to God, the other would strive to be there; and one would fall away, the other would grow colder, not by design, but simply because we were kindred, and the sin of one was inextricable from the other. If you could never understand how Adam could take that proferred fruit from Eve, I could. As much as he feared God, he was tied to Eve so much more closely. God was what he feared and did not understand; Eve, though...He knew her smell. He buried his nose in her hair, and when she held him, he could feel his rib calling to knit within him once again. One flesh they were, and as one flesh they would fall. 

   Except that, even though it HAD been that way between us, it was becoming not that way, the last year of our marriage. I was on the road SO much, and my faith was cooling, to say the least. Christina's constant miscarriages, and the fact that I had spent two years imploring God to find me an income and insurance so that I could be with my family again had taken it's toll. The dark holes of lime kilns and the cold and impenetrable passes of boilers became cozy and familiar to me, and laying in bed trying to wrestle a few hours of sleep from the daylight before I had to enter back into that myopic and surreal world had done little to help me to see the spiritual side of things. God's answer never came through. The only answer I got were a few more soul crushing miscarriages and the bravest woman I knew try to keep her sanity and faith through it all. And she never broke. 

   Then October happened. Its a previous post, and I will not revisit that, the darkest of times I have had. Needless to say, my grip on reality, or at least my metaphysical grip, was beginning to slip. (OK for perspective, I traveled across much of the Southeast with our dead frozen Son. I would work all day, like nothing was wrong, then at night I would pull him from the hotel freezer and bawl for hours.) And then, as a result of that last fateful miscarriage, my beautiful,most precious wife, blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh, was torn from my arms and this Earth with no warning or ceremony whatsoever.

   All the things that happened in that hospital I don't know if I'll ever be able to revisit, at least not out loud. I CAN say there was a spiritual battle there. And I am not entirely sure, or at least at the time, wasn't entirely sure who won it. 

   But it is not what happened there that broke me. It's what didn't happen.

I took communion last night.

For the second time in three months I took communion.

   Exactly what I did not want to happen, happened. As stood there, praising God, seeking him with my heart, the Holy spirit passed through the room. I could feel the presence of the Spirit come close to me. I could feel the terrible dread and fear as some far sense of Holiness, so foreign to me, passed near me. I was terrified. Like a wretched thing, my soul inside of me cringed and scrambled to make fast it's escape. My body visibly shook. I had cold chills and started to feel a little sick.

   I left the service with the dreadful sense of just how dreadful and rotten and just evil that I am. I slept with it. I awoke with it. Somewhere throughout the day, as I made busy, the sense of it faded somewhat.

   I have a tooth broken below my gums. This happened the year Esther was born; it predates her. So that makes it seven years ago. I had a horrible abcess. God it hurt SO bad. I didn't have the time or money to get it taken care of. I took boiling hot water and poured it on the tooth. Then I'd take ice cold water and pour it over the tooth. I did this over and over until the tooth shattered, the infection was drawn out, and the nerve died. It was the single most excruciating pain I have ever been in. But it worked, and that corruption was taken from me and I was healed-sort of. Like four towers of some forgotten ruin, the four corners of the shattered tooth protruded my gum. Like a setting with a missing gem. They stayed razor sharp and white, and in a weird way I liked them. I would always cut my tongue on them, and I liked the taste of the blood. And the tooth was like a trophy to my perserverance of pain. I assumed eventually those four little pinnacles would wear away, and the gum would heal over the entire thing.

   Just in the past couple of months, the whole thing, all four corners have turned black with corruption. Now it aches me, and I know it is a matter of time before I will have to go in for some tooth surgery. Even though I prevailed against the corruption at a terrible price, the root of it was still deep within me, no matter how small. That little bit of evil festered and spread until now, in a mouth of teeth, it gets my attention fully.

   My little bit of corruption. I liked to scrape myself on you. But in the end, you turned on me, and now you rule with your ruin.

   Thats a weird analogy. But the little corruptions that existed in me, my God did they fester and explode when Christina died. I have heard so many testimonies of people that stood solid in adverstiy with Jesus. I am not one of those. My little corruptions were my undoing.

Part 2

I think I can write again. What is weird is I often want to, but when I approach it; or even dive headlong into it, I freeze. Not freeze, exactly. I lose it. On the inside, my thought process will only go so far, then my mind falls into a sort of catatonia of self preservation. I cannot cross certain thresh holds, I imagine; there are houses into which I am not privy to enter.

   I have been dreaming of Christina nightly. Sometimes the dreams are very familiar, as if she is with us. In one dream she had to go, and it was very upsetting. Even now, saying that, I can feel my will and ability to write starting to dissolve. My limbs feel weak. Most of the time, I dream about her in flashes and images, wondering why, why, why. I awake and tell myself it is good that I am dreaming. When my sister Jeny's baby died, I had the most horribly dream about eight months after he died. I dreamed I was in a darkened surgical theater, filled with the towering and looming figures of robed doctors. They would appear out of the darkness in angular movements and threatening trajectories, only to melt again into the shadow. A general murmur, ominous and inhuman, undertoned the and entwined with the suffocating darkness. The darkness was a dusty silver grainy like an old movie darkness. Then there was a spotlight in the middle of the theater. There, one doctor held Drew tight in his arms, and turned and walked quickly away. Drew grinned at me, incessantly. I called his name. He disappeared into the crowd of lurching figures. I awoke screaming. I woke Christina up. I told her about my dream while she held me and rocked me. She told me that the mind will dream when it is trying to deal with things on the subconscious level. That made sense to me. I never had that nightmare again. It scarred me, though. I sleep in constant fear of when my subconscious will start to try to deal with those last few days in the hospital.


 

A new beginning

Where to go from here?

   This is probably going to be difficult, and I don't know how to make it through it. I have sat down several time to write this post, and each time, I have had to stop, a certain self-induced fuzzy feeling overtaking my sentience and making it impossible to continue. I have vowed to myself that aq1) This would be IT for this blog. This would, complete or otherwise, quantify my grief, at least in this arena. and b7l) If I cannot finish this, then this is ALL you get. At least here, in this setting. There will be another blog. There will be a beginning to what has ended. And this post may constitute a novel, more so than an entry. It all depends on how cohesive I can fit the pieces of a shattered mind; historically I have done well enough to keep us alive and put food on the table. We shall see how well that translates to the world of blog posting HAH!

  As I walked  through the yard, earlier; tiy rivulets of sweat tickling behind my ear and into my beard, I spotted the rigid and brittle stalk of a poke berry plant. Ah, the mysterious and yet oh so common poke weed. How many times I have LONGED to consume its poisonous leaf; that enigma of the south; to feel, or at least believe,  in the panacea of it's magical liver healing leaf. But fear has time again driven me back. There the crisp and moist stalk grow; and goes untouched for fear that those blood maroon veins there impart death to those who consume it...

   And that is just it. I am not a hardliner any more. For a while, I was a hardliner believer that I would be consumed rapidly by death, in Christina's wake; as some sort of penitence to being consumed in her stead. (That part I never got, and still don't . The better is taken, and the remnant of the things it helped create and sustain remain. Namely, me. he second law of thermodynamics is immutable, perhaps...) As a hardliner, I truly believed that the inner sanctum of faith I had left was ultimately the sublimation to death itself. AS I earlier stated, in penitence to the fact of my remainder here on this planet. Following her death, recently, I would have readily consumed of that prof-erred leaf, on the OFF chance that the contents were detrimental to that physical system which sustains me. It would only be just, when I could believe in those things. For there is a failure of rectification here; rain falls on the good and the evil. That is how I explain her death. At the same time, if you juxtapose that with justice, then rain does not fall on the good, and there is an intrinsic fault in the system I invest in. A little help here?

   But I digress. I am NOT a hardliner anymore. I do not believe it is my lot to immediately follow her into death. I have thought long and hard on this. After all, I often wondered how her very WILL could have let her loose life into the unknown, knowing that the very fate and the faces of her beautiful children and thier happiness and peace resided in her safe keeping. Later I had to come to the conclusion that I lived under a delusion instituted by wishful thinking and Hollywood. We have been preyed upon by a necessary illusion. That through strength of will, want, or love, we can prolong or even change that which the physical world deals to us. And we cannot. No one has loved anyone as I love her. It changed nothing...

   I am not a hardliner. I do not deserve death, any more than she did. I take that back. I deserve it one thousand million times more than she did. Every cross word or evil action I have ever had that she had to deal with makes me deserving of demise. And I WILL have it. But compared to me, she did not. But the fact remains, here I sit in this dirty house, basqueing in the chill of the AC, ignoring so many pressing duties, dealing with my insignificant head trauma, and she sits on my shelf in one of her teapots she loved so much; an urn, and to me a shrine, and she experiences nothing. She does not know the darkness that has engulfed her ashes, and she does not know the light each morning as I open that vessel, to tell her good morning, and to think dreamily about bringing her sentience somehow into each new day... But I digress...

   I noticed the plant. I noticed the warmth, and the trees, and somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew of pleasure. Some kind of awakening is happening.

   Recently, an acquaintance told me of a man that tried to commit suicide. This man went to a hotel, put a gun  into his mouth and pulled the trigger. I laughed with my acquaintance about this man's pathetic attempt to take his life. But I am convinced I was laughing for different reasons. I have been there. I have felt the pathos; the void. I have seen that elephant far too many times. As one who wanted to live, I have seen death approaching and as one who wanted to die, I have seen the ponderous march of life keep rattling on. I laughed at this poor pathetic man because of the silly way in which he tried to kill himself . A hotel room? A gun to the mouth? If I was THAT conventional and predictable, I told myself, perhaps I would muck it up too. No, if I were to do it, I would steal an airplane, jump out of it with a silk chute, and land in the Congo and hunt down some ethnic cleansing bastard and kill him and as many of his followers as my hands and life would allow. Because, you know, if you are to die, assume God's role, and become the arbiter of who is to live and to die, right? Set it all right. Accolades in Heaven, just like a good Muslim. I guess I couldn't do that either. I guess, when it came down to it, I would end up in that hotel room, with that gun, that cold and oily metal pressed against my palate...

   I notice the plant. I have the cold and smooth metal of a gun held loosely in my left hand. I begin to pull the trigger; I want to see that milky mist of shattered chlorophyll and plant blood dissolve through the air. For some reason, I have always and would like that. I stop and think; I would like to parboil and eat those leaves. I would like to just once know what they are. So much I don't know. PART 1

The beauty of the death of a Christian woman

God hardened pharoah's heart so that he could break it against His will through the death of pharoah's son. After the breaking, pharoah was free to do as he would. Pharoah hardened his heart against the will of the God that would destroy his Son, his wealth, his nation, his people. Can we blame pharoah? Absolutely. God's will is absolute, and will not be subverted.

   Christina died, and I hardened my heart against the Lord. I sinned. I turned away from him, from the sweetness of his creation, from the beauty of life, from the dynamic and divine gift of my children; I was David camping with the philistines.

   Now, I prostrate myself before the Father. Jesus, you gave what I love more than anything eternal life. You gave her more than that. You gave her meaning in life. What greater gifts than these? You, Father, forgave all her sins, you brought her heart to you. In her final days, you moved in her; deepened your relationship with her. Thank you so much for that Jesus. You loved and cared for her in ways I could not. Truly, you are a merciful God, beautiful in your care, exquisite in your love. 

    Right before she died, she finished the one year bible for the first time. She read the whole thing. I remember her telling me how much she learned about the Lord, reading it through like that. I remember being SO envious that her relationship was quickening and deepening and becoming personal. Yet, I was too lazy to follow suit.

   I think of all the things I have thought or felt since she died, these are the hardest. It is hard to think that it is really so much better for a Christian to die and be in eternal communion with Jesus than to be here. It is so hard to think that this hurts so much because it is my unbelief and unfaithfulness grating against the reality of it all. It hurts to think that the best comfort I could offer her in this world of hurt and sorrow and pain is completely shattered; a dead illusion and a so very poor reflection to the beauty and completeness of Christ. It hurts. But in a new and different way. It hurts in a way when you find that instead of a man and a giant you are just a fool banging on a pot in the desert, your delusion dissolves, and you know you must seek water or die. And I don't mean physically. 

   I was so mad he took her. Now I am mad that he deserves her, and I don't. On some weird level, I am jealous of Him. He loves her more than me, and I still love her as much as I can love. But, I am SO grateful he does have her, and I can only pray one day he will have me too. All of us. All his children. Her, my children, and maybe me too, if he can forgive me for my insolence and arrogance. 

   I relinquish her to you, Lord. Til we meet again by and by. Take the jewel of a beautiful Christian woman that was tarnished and dusted by being in relation to me, and let her shine with the beauty she is. Let her relfect and refract your light. Let her shine brighter than the morning star. Let her newfound beauty stagger the Earth in awe of it. Let each tear of regret that falls from my eye bring me closer to you and to her. She has become eternal with you, and you both are something I cannot comprehend now. I know so much more through her death, and it is to only know that I know SO little. 

   If there is a man out there who has a wife, and her heart is true to her lover, her  children, her home, and her God most of all, she is above Rubies, and her value cannot be known by you. Be stupid, man. Bend your back to labor, and bend your knee to the Lord. Only lead in leading to Christ, and follow the heart of the treasure the Lord has given you. 

Rockwood

I look at your picture, and my heart overwhelms with grief. I still cannot accept it. I know that it is real, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, I still hold out some kind of dreadful hope that this has not really real. I am on the road today, not seeing clients, but working. I am in Rockwood, TN. So much intersects, here. I am putting brick in the number 2 kiln. The last job I did before I came home the last time, before you died.

   Today, I tried to tell myself this is just a place. Just a job. It's not. It's personal. I feel like I am going to leave here, and make that long, tired drive home some sleepless morning, and come stumbling in exhausted from the road, to your waiting arms. To your beautiful smile. To those fathomless brown eyes. I expect it. I yearn for it, more than life itself.

   I want you more than breath; more than existence. I cannot comprehend that, out of all the people on this planet, YOU, Christina. You, that perfect, childlike, beautiful mother, could be dead. What has meaning now?

   I want our children to grow up happy. I want them to be good mothers and wives. I want to start over. I want one more drive to Cloudland Canyon to listen to Bob Dylan's dreams and talk about midwifery and homeschooling. I want to reach across that van and feel that perfectly fitting hand in mine once more. I want the only person that understood why I could fall into the most peaceful sleep while they rubbed my face.

   I want your stress, I want your joy and pain and anger and laughter and depression. Anything and all. I lived to serve you, provide for you, to make you happy. My God, is there no mercy in life? How can a man fall this desperately in love and have that perfect twin of a soul stolen from him with no warning?

    I try to not be angry. I try to find meaning in it all. All I find is lonely desperation that I do not want to end.

   I am old now. Joy is something I cannot understand anymore. That body that always could give more so much feel tired, and the will that you thought so strong only wants to recede to quietness. Those steady hands tremble constantly. That quick smile is forced from politeness. I sympathize with those I used to pity. I fear for those that can't

   God, whatever you are, I force myself to bend my knee and lower my head. I paint pictures of you in the clouds. I speak for you in my mind. I find meaning for life in my thoughts. None of it comes automatically anymore. I am living to pass time, and life has lost dynamics. I find humor in the absurd, and sour at what makes sense to others. I cry like a baby when alone, and laugh like a fool around strangers. I mumble and talk to myself and carry on and fret...I am more lost as time passes. I will spend my days, weary, and haggard. I do not look to the future. I pass time...

Spent

A spent casing
Ricochets from the floor below.
A tuft of heavy smoke
Lingers, a finger, drifting and curling defiling the air
With its smell of...
Spent power.

A sound unlike sound, that kills ears
Make them ring make them ring and eternally sing
Their swan song...

Smoke curls and lingers
Like some pantomimic
pipe smoke....

A spent casing.

So much in so little.
And now it has exclaimed
And nothing is left
But blackened, cooling brass.
And the sharp sting of a memory.

I can't write right now. There is so much that is coming and going and evolving and devolving in my mind and spirit, nothing stays cohesive; nothing stays static long enough to even make it through a single post. Let me just say God is good. Today he reminded me that in my worst of times, he was there for me in so many ways, through his people and through his provision. I feel stupid and selfish that I have turned my mourning for Christina into some shrine of arrogance and ignorance against my Father.

   I did write the other day, of which I will offer a little excerpt, because I think it is pertinent here.

"It would be wise if I had not moved. I was always one for action.

“I finesse with a hammer,

And tune with a scream.

No, it is not done right,

But it is done.”

This is how I have lived, a marionette of thunder and lead,

Controlled by the whims of the wind and spirits.

Where I stumbled and leaned, there was destruction and abandon. And the Angel of the morning smiled. He smiled. I made his work easy. With a heaviness and the breath of the grave I walked through the door of life and fell about the place.

“Be still; and know that I am the Lord”

Count your breaths, Son. Everyone a blessing. Your knowledge is spent on the empty numbness of wine, and your wisdom diluted in the anarchy of your spirit. Be still, and learn again. Learn why there is God in a green leaf, and why the smile of a child is more precious than gold. Be still. Lest Satan realize his quarry, and hit his mark...

The Lord left me for a bit, and I was not still. I set to my own devices. I took into all the infinite variations of all of time, and space and man and God and all things unknowable and drew my conclusions. I concluded that all there was is madness and malice and I proceeded forth accordingly. I set a feast before me of retch, then engorged mysel

Read CS Lewis' "A grief Observed" last night. It was good to be able to relate to SOMETHING. I don't think he had any main point, but it was reassuring to watch his thoughts crystallize into some kind of cohesion. There was nothing there I hadn't experienced. The only thing I didn't necessarily agree with was when he touched on his beliefs being tempered by his wife's death. Not that I'm sure it's not true, but it seems as if he starts from the position that was the reason FOR it, and then works out from there. On the other hand, he comes back later and confiscates many of his own positions; discarding some altogether and reworking others with more clarity and rationale.

   It is painful to lose a loved one. But I don't think there is any pain like losing a child or a spouse you are completely invested in. I think that pain must be similar on many levels. I feel that one day my in laws and I will share a strong bond. In a sense, we have understood pain on a different plain. You cannot invest love in anyone like you do your child. You can, over years of devoted love and care, and having children of your own together, begin to love another human being on that level.

Post traumatic stress from October

I have been sick.

I have had a head cold, that has been slowly fighting a nightly battle deeper into my body. At the same time, I have been fighting another battle. Ever since the October post, a slow sickness has been creeping into me. Complacent disregard. I am doing it again. Drinking too much, not sleeping, not taking care of things, hardly caring to...This is a bad place.

   I know what it is. It's just sheer depression. No panic. I DID spend a night in the hospital. Again. A 3 am jaunt up to the infirmerie' to have an ER Doctor tell me what I already knew. Shredded nerves, adrenaline coursing and mixing with the caffeine and alcohol and nicotine to create me into a racing engine pressure vessel of emotion. Why did my physiology have to be so strong? Where is the breaking point? I cannot describe how guilty I feel, spending my entire life tearing my body apart, only to be told "You're fine. Go home." One perscription later for a sedative I will NEVER take, and off I go, a clean bill of physical health, to start destroying myself once again. Relieved and yet wracked by absolute pangs of guilt that I, the bad one, the irresponsible one, had to be the healthy one. I begin to hate myself for it. There is no justice in this world. I should be dead. She should have lived.

  I will never take the sedative. I do not even bother to get it filled. There is one thing I hate more than the torturous constant stress, and that is peace, and happiness. It always came naturally to me. Quick to smile, quicker to laugh, and to make others laugh. I learned to be introverted over the years, so as not to downright embarrassing to my family with my goofy and loud nature. Now nothing produces more pain than a good day. If it is all under control and running well, on the inside I feel nauseating mundaneness. I have become addicted to the fractured; the insane. Nothing is done except in an emergency, on the edge of panicked failure. It makes time pass quickly, and keeps me occupied.

   The first two weeks back here at the house were the worst. God, I spent two lifetimes in what had become a museum of past lives lived waiting for something, ANYTHING to happen. That was a new level of insanity. I would check the news daily to see when the world would end. And when it became apparent God and I were on two completely different schedules, I adopted my own for a while. Didn't work.

   I feel like a once proud man o' war that has lost it's main. All of the things that used to be so important, the lines and tackle that held the world in place now tether me to what pulls me under. I am lost with it, and lost without it. What has not snapped from the strain is unraveling. Some of it I hack away at mercilessly; a madman. And what then, when this sea anchor of love and pain and distress and...then, I will be adrift. Crippled, shattered, a rent remnant of what was and what should have been.

   And people want to have a chat. I need more platitudes, I suppose, to clear my head, and adjust my perspective. And the whole world can heap all the drugs and talks and prayers and warm feelings or just stay the Hell away, and what will be the difference? What's done is done. These are the things that shatter lives. Am I too good to go down in history as a destroyed man?

   I find a strange, bitter pride in it, too be honest. Keeping a lone vigil, holding ground on a forgotten field, smelling the smoke of a battle long forgotten. Take that from me, and you have taken everything. I don't have the strength to strike out again. I was not wounded, my frame was warped. Sinew and bone and mind and will were committed and in end the end pitched against the will of God almighty and defeated. I have succumbed. I have prayed and asked to be forgiven and repented. But to what end? I am Jacob's hip. The spirit touched my whole life to remind me daily of my defeat, and Satan gnaws at the bones of my destroyed will, cavalierly tossing aside the carrion of care and resolve.

   I am depressed, and don't even care to fight it. Right now, anyway. All I care to do is to make it through the rest of this life without causing pain for anyone else by my actions or lack thereof. And that really doesn't seem possible. Maybe the obvious thing to do is to shut the Hell up and smile big. Everything is going fine. How is life treating you, Dear Sir?

October.

October.

There has never been a month I have hated or loved so much. October. October, and you KNOW winter is on it's way. You can't deny it anymore. That first chill...that first press of that arctic jet stream falling like silk from Alaska brings the brace of air...Not air. The cold brace of the pressing of space falls on your face and reminds you that outside of this little stone hurtling through nothing there is the lack of energy and breath and it eats up light and it is three degree from absolute zero where movement stops. There is no movement.

No Movement.

   And October....You taste that for the first time in a year. And you know another year; another one of your years, is drawing to a close.

   October. She was 16 weeks along. 16 crazy, stressed out, sleepless weeks of guarded conversations, where every word hangs suspended as if spider webs fall with words; gossamer threads hanging every word in the air with weight and worry.

   What did we talk about, but what would we name this baby? Could it possibly be a boy? We would love just as much if it was a girl; maybe more. But what if? She wanted that so so much. And 16 weeks. She had never gone that far and lost one. She had been to see all the Doctors. The specialist. The high risk. All she wanted was a baby.

   It was October. I was in Barnwell, SC. Funny thing about that place. Every time I was gone for long, I always had a premonition I would die on the road. Lonely nights in boilers and kilns in God forsaken nowhere blips on the map because that's where they put facilities that burn toxic waste and such. Making people that hate you do things they don't want to do and you don't want to do and they are all felons and thieves and drug addicts...Like a prison guard without a gun, with no support, in desolation, in the middle of nowhere. And I did it all for her and my girls and I did it twelve hours a night and day and sometimes 24 and sometimes 36. And no matter how tired I got, no matter how weird I felt, I did it because I did it for her and my girls and our family. And that warm little cocoon was always 400 miles away and I would get done here and just drive there and they would be warm and well fed and happy....But Barnwell. I knew I would die THERE. I always had the worst feeling about Barnwell. I spent six months there between 2009 and 2010. Six months from my wife and my children. 1/8 of the time Naomi has been on the planet. At the time 1/4. It would eat me up inside.

   I went to Barnwell to brick a dam in the kiln. I was on the second to last day. It was October. My phone rang. It was Christina. I had her under my phone as Babydoll (long story, there). I was in the middle of one of the most pivotal projects of my career at my employer, and it was not going well.

"Hello?" I said (all business. Even though I knew who it was)

"Are you busy"

"A little. What's up?"

"I lost the baby"...

...

...

" I can recall the rest of the conversation, but I am not going to. Still too fresh; too raw.

Jesus F CHRIST

16 weeks. I am 400 miles from home. We have paid through the NOSE and seen 2000 FUCKING doctors and we have lost the baby.

I finish the job that day. I drive home.

   We go to the hospital. We have the baby. My blood runs cold. Same old hat. A day at the hospital. A friend is there with her, one of her Doula friends to make her feel better. She delivers and...it's a boy.


    Just now it comes crashing back to me. We have picked out a name, cause she knew it was a boy. She knew it was THE boy we had been waiting, hoping for. Jonathan Christian Hooker, the second. I would have NEVER named a Son that. I just don't have that much ego. But she would. I NEVER figured out why she loved me like that...

   So there is was. This discolored, little wrinkled dead bundle of broken promise laying in a stainless tray over in the corner of the room. The white elephant; the most important thing of our lives, lying there absorbing the cold of space as the heat of my living, beautiful wife left it. And it was my Son. And he was SO beautiful. And October had come in my life.

   We got home that night, and I was supposed to bury him. We didn't HAVE to take him. The hospital would have disposed of the remains. But I have crawled through medical waste incinerators; I have seen a man die at one. No, I would commit my Son to the Earth myself. Like all my little daughters I have buried before.

   Christina was on all kinds of pain medicine. She fell asleep, exhausted, as soon as we got home. I got drunk. I cannot describe that night. For the first time, I lost my mind, entirely. I went out to dig one more tiny grave, and

   I couldn't. I took that little body of my baby Son and put it in the freezer. And in the morning, I left to go back to Barnwell, SC to finish what I started. And I intended to bury my Son where I spent so much time away from my wife and daughters.I was going to bury him where October marked the calendar of my life.

   Every day I would lead my crew in their repairs, and every night I would lay in the hotel room, talking with Christina on the phone, and cradling my dead frozen Son in my arms. Yes. I lost my mind. And every night I would promise myself I would bury him tomorrow, and would place him lovingly back in the freezer, and go to sleep. Drunk and lost and laughing and crying harder than I laughed at the same time...

   And the job ended. I never told a man on my crew, not my closest work friends, what had been going on, or what I had been doing. They had no idea I had just lost a child. They had no idea that when I rushed to my room every night it was to cradle the corpse of an unborn baby. The job ended, and I went home.I was going to stop on the way, and bury the baby. But I didn't. 400 miles to Lafayette, Ga. I rode, with a preemie diaper in my arms; a frozen stillborn baby cradled deep in the bottom of it. I can still see every feature of his face. I can still see those tiny frozen fingers, clutching nothing....

   I got home. I don't remember how, but I brought him back inside, and hid him in the back of the freezer. At this point, I was starting to catch on that perhaps my behavior was a bit odd. From an outside perspective, anyway. I had to go to Decatur Al. My last job. I had turned in my notice while I was gone out of town.

   While I was gone, she found the baby. She called me.

"Where did you bury the baby?"

"Yeah..."

"I found the baby. Why didn't you bury him?"

I told her the whole story. She was the one ONE person on this planet I couldn't lie to. She was the one ONE person I gave a SHIT what she thought of me. When I got done, hot tears streaming down my face, she said

"Only you, Christian. I love you"

Those words are etched into the fabric of my being.

I came back into town on Sunday morning. We had Mimosas for breakfast. I cooked eggs and stuff and we sat outside in the uncomfortably warm October weather, kids scrambling around our necks. She was wearing her handkerchief and her old navy pullover. I have the pictures to prove it, Goddammit. Monday night, we lay in bed. I was still exhausted from the road, and so so tired. I asked her to rub my face (its a Christina and me thing) She sang so softly to me and rubbed my face til I fell asleep.

   Tuesday she died....

It was October the 18th.

The dream...

   I went to Charlotte for business this week. I had the opportunity for a free night out of town, so I thought I'd try to have a little fun. The manager at the hotel, a very nice black man named Fred, suggested I go to the Double doors, a blues club in downtown Charlotte.

   I followed his suggestion. (This part is not the dream, btw). I sat at the bar, had a few beers, watched the band tune in their instruments; adjust the sound board, etc. I was there way too early. By the time people started to show, and the music started, I had a little buzz going. I am a huge fan of live music, even crap live music. I have a little respect for performers, and a huge amount of contempt for their usually perversely enormous egos. I love to watch some ageing, pony tailed, beer gutted singer/ guitar player that is going to make $300 this week strutting around some dump of the bar impressing all the golden girls in their snake skin boots. You go, man. You're the cock of the walk buddy.

   Anyway, the crowd filtered in, and the band got started. It sucked. The music, the crowd, the bar. What a load of crap. The crowd consisted of senior barflies and aging wanna be musicians trying to hook up with them. Then there were the bevy of barely 21 college kids, looking nervous and cliquish and trying to look like almost retired barflies. There was enough snake skin in the place, the crocodile hunter would have shed a tear.

   And I sat at the bar, sucking down canned rolling rocks, and started to do what I almost inevitably start to do in a public setting; Introvert and draw observations. And an old, familiar feeling came to me. I loathe and pity these folks. These bleach blond women trying to look like they are not past their prime and swaying to awful not quite garage band music. The beer gutted, tight pants men, swaggering around looking important and self-righteous. Not one of them with a clue. That 30 something guy that doesn't fit in anywhere, playing with his phone like he has something better to do than to be here. (oh, crap. That might have been me). The early 20 somethings that are there for fresh meat.And man, I was just LOATHING all of it. I didn't want to meet these people. I have known them my entire life. While they are fascinated by smoke filled rooms and filtered light and 2.00 beer night, they have pissed away their entire life on some faux slice of minuscule Hollywood and America, and now that their lives conclude into seniority, they don't even have the self dignity to acknowledge THEY HAVE WASTED THEIR ENTIRE FREAKING EXISTENCE ON DEPRAVED SELF GRATIFICATION AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!!!!!!

   Then a friend of mine texted me:

Friend: Praying for you

Me: Why? What did I do?

Friend: (this is not verbatim) I don't know. What DID you do? (I think the 'this time' was implied)

Me: I don't have it in me to be bad....

So the conversation ran, to the conclusion of, basically, my life ended when Christina's did. I am just a body with an unwilling ghost, basically, fulfilling duty until my time comes, and I can leave this cesspool of a world behind and start MY journey.

   Except, for the day before. Dr. David Jeremiah, on the radio. I haven't been really into exploring God recently. Something about being mad at him, knowing it is wrong, and not caring a whole about being wrong. Just mad.

   Anyway, David Jeremiah was on, and I had just had another all out with God, about his will is his will, but I don't HAVE to like it, and I don't HAVE to live in it, and I have these huge tears streaming down my face, and I am in the middle of nowhere, and I wonder if I die right now, what? and here is David Jeremiah.

   Faith is not about always doing right or being perfect, faith is HAVING FAITH IN GOD'S FAITHFULNESS. Oh crap. I didn't lose faith in God. I knew I was a horrible sinner that deserved death WAY before Christina died. But what he said, it struck a chord. I didn't lose faith in God's promises. They were there, take 'em or leave 'em. I lost faith in God's faithfulness.

   God is faithful. It didn't matter I was shaking in fury and daring him to burn me to a crisp and erase my name from the book of life. It didn't matter I had watched the most beautiful woman I ever met die at 35 in a horrible battle that culminated in my mental disintegration. God is still faithful. And when I heard David Jeremiah say that, I felt God's hand moving inside me. He wasn't angry, he wasn't vengeful; he was waiting on me to finish my rage and anger and accept that Christina died, yes. All people do. But Christina died, and God was faithful to the promises he made. And that is the entire relationship. And for the first time in three and a half months, my mental house was in order.

So, anyway, the band sucked, the bar sucked, the people sucked. I cleared my tab, and headed out the door. Back at the hotel, I knew I was in for a rough night. I'd had a few, and the AC didn't work (crap hotel) and I knew in a few short hours I would wake up hot and hungover and uneasy. But I didn't

   I dreamed, and Christina was there (this IS the dream, and it DID happen). She was beautiful as always, and we played and kissed and talked. And then we just lay there and held each other. And then, I was waking up, and I could feel someone laying there, holding me. I was in a place I have not been in so long. I felt her arms wrapped around me, holding me, comforting me. I knew as I slipped into wakefulness, she would have to go away, and I could not stop it. I awoke, and lay there, and for just a few seconds, her presence lingered in the room with me. I could feel it. And then, I was awake, alone. But not alone. I knew right then, Jesus had been faithful, and Christina was safe, and I have had the first peace that I have had in weeks.

   I know it seems romanticized sappy crap. I am not like that. I could feel it. Physically. Anyway, there it is. My dream, if you will.

   Oh, also, on my way OUT of Charlotte, I pulled over on the interstate. As I left the city, I saw the BIGGEST, MOST BEAUTIFUL, and most complete rainbow I have ever seen. And it was just like a huge billboard in the sky, shamelessly advertising "God is FAITHFUL".

   Thank you, Lord. You have been with me. You are with her. Forgive my insolence and anger. I don't understand your plan, I can't comprehend your will. But you are faithful. Like the Newsboys sing, I surrender all, to the promises you made...

How deep can this grief get? Every day, I am happier and happier, and I have more energy. Not a day passes where I do not cry like a terrified child for her. And everytime, it is deeper. I thought I had reached the bottom of my soul and heart, and had given it all. But there is just a fathomless feeling that this grief goes down to the roots of life and the end of it. And I want it. I possess and embrace and adore this grief. I hope that in Heaven she can experience how completely broken I have become. I hope it only gets worse until I am in her arms again. I used to seek joy and pleasure. Now, I look forward to this time of hot tears and shaking and sadness. It is my love, my passion.

Why

I just felt like someone, anyone should know. I wanted someone to know what I was going through. I wasn't just being weird because I had the opportunity to do so. I was legitimately losing my mind. Correction; my mind had legitimately been scrambled. I don't know, maybe I let that happen. I sure as Hell didn't care to prevent it.

   The first days then weeks after Christina died, I couldn't love. I could only perform for other people and for my children. I could only do what I knew I needed to do; what they needed my to do. But I could not feel love., just overwhelming sadness, depression, abandon.

   Today I woke up, and just held little Naomi in my arms and stroked her face. I lay there and loved her, just to love her. I feel it again. I know I am getting better. I know that is what Christina would want. Sometimes, it makes me angry. I don't want it to get better. I fight it. It just seems wrong for it TO get better. On the other hand, I pretend I can think about it from Christina's side now. I can firmly believe she would want me to get better. I always wanted her to. And I know she wants her little girls to be happy.

   I talked to a friend of mine, and she told me how her sister died when she was so young, hit by a car. She told me how her therapist told her she was probably depressed her entire life, because during those formative years (2) she never saw happiness, joy, smiles. I don't blame her Mother and Father. Who could? I am sure they gave her what she needed. Except boundless, joyful love.

   Somewhere I have got to work all this out. And no fail safe, pedantic answers. "Look at the beach, there is only one set of footprints..." None of that. We all live and breathe and love and die on this mossy stone spinning through an incomprehensibly vast Universe through time out of mind to an end that we cannot conceive. And yet, everyone of us KNOWS there is a reason for it. And of course, we have been given evidence that there IS a reason. Show me a culture or civilisation that does not have a system of beliefs that there is a reason for this beyond we eat, breathe, copulate, reproduce, die, and that is the point. "Here the Universe randomly produced sentience so that it (the sentience) could immediately become the most self-serving douche imaginable, but it can't do it, so life pretty much is unfulfilling for everyone, and oh, by the way, at some point you get sick and hurt and die. And you will have the irritating and unavoidable feeling that it is not supposed to happen that way, but you can't define why, and you never will. Merry Christmas." Really, Atheists? You must be so fun at parties.

   However, I also don't think the reason is to walk around like a bunch of smug dicks because you are a Calvinist and pretty and  (white) have a degree and so therefore you were chosen to look down on and all those poor unelected little starving bastards all over the rest of the world. If that is what it is about, you can keep it, and I want to be on the other side. The side that didn't get picked and sits around dirty and uneducated and starves, because I can't go to your school of thought, friend.

    And then, you lie in bed, and in spite of whatever happened in life, and whatever happens, you love a baby, your baby, because you love. You don't need to, and any baby would do. You stroke their face and their hair, and you think how you need to get your shit together NOW because my God, there are children to take care of. And you need to, and you WANT to. And if you do that, then you die, then life is good enough. And if you can go to "Hell" doing that,
 
   I know right now, someone somewhere is crying "Oh what piteous stuff" and chalking that very feeling up to instinct. Ok let's go with that. If it is instinct, then what? Why?

   Why would the Universe randomly compel us to perpetuate our species? A good floor show, perhaps? And then someday we hurdle into the Sun as an encore? Because, you know, that would mean the "Random" Universe is sentient, and has imposed will on us, so it is not, it has will, and there IS right and wrong and OH MY GOD we are right back here.

A conclusion is where someone got tired of thinking.

done

Its weird. I am done with this for now.

Lyrics to When Water Comes To Life :

And when the angels come
They'll cut you down the middle
To see if you're still there.
To see if you're still there.

And underneath your ribs
They'll find a heart-shaped locket,
An old photograph
Of you in Daddy's arms.

And then they'll sow you closed
And give you back to the water
From where we're all born
From where we're all born

And you'll feed the ghosts
And you'll feed the living
You will be a stranger
And you'll be a friend

You'll be the leper
You'll be the healer
You'll be the hero
And the tragedy

And when they sow you closed
They'll give you back to the water
From where we're all born
From where we're all born

When they burn your body
All that's left is sand crystals
Two tiny handfuls
All the rest is water, water, water

All you need to know
Is you are born of water
You are made of water
You are merely water, water, water

All you need to know
Is you are born of water
You are made of water
You are merely water, water, water

schism

Numb. 

I have found things.

Objects and resurrections of insignificance

Indulgences and schisms

Latin and flannel...

Italian and Broadway...

Ceremony and cream.

Anything to add to life, to dilute.

To bask in the moment of forgetful ignorance,

And occupy...A tired mind.

Purpose becomes a distraction,

And convolution a pattern of being

easy....

This as I sat here, wondering what to say. I feel this blog will not last much longer. It loses it's purpose rapidly. No longer a mirror, now it is a sounding board.

Must be a red letter night for posting. Guess there is a lot on my mind. Crystallization. Saturation, if you will (I never spell check, ha). I know a secret. That was a hard one to go through. Boy, I know that one HAD to bother some people. :(

  I guess, if  could make a commentary on my own work, I would frame that poem in this light; that I  certainly was not a perfect person when Christina and I met, and she was just NOT perfect enough to love me for it. We were real people, to be sure. She was real, and imperfect, and we had two glorious years of being the bestest of friends before love ever became a topic. Not that we weren't, cause we were. It's just that we were so close, and enjoyed each other so much, that whoever else we were 'with' didn't matter. We were wide open. Wide open. Can anybody follow that? Convention didn't have a place in it. We knew each other through and through. There was no putting on airs for each other. By the time we fell in love, we fell in love with each other as HUMAN BEINGS. As incomplete and needy sinners. And we loved each other for it.

   You know what is weird, is I keep telling people I value honesty above all else. At the same time, I regrettably hold back the truth from them. Man, that disappoints me about myself. But I guess, you have to meet people where they are. I will someday learn to accept that most people are closed in. They cannot be honest with themselves or others or with God. Who would want to face that monster? Christina did. And underneath, there was this really beautiful wife and mother. The kind that milked goats and home-schooled kids and would rub her husband's face in the dark because it made him feel safe. That was my wife. Now she's gone. I knew the best and worst of her and  I am proud of every DAMN bit of it and no one better try to take any of it away. Nobody better put her on a pedestal or look down on her. That is the secret. I suffered all of her short comings, as she did mine. I rejoiced in all of her boundless beauty. She saw something in me I don't. God, she was something awesome. And it pisses me the Hell off when anyone tries to detract from any side of her. The secret is this: I am who I was and she is who God intended her to be and I am in love with every bit of it.

   I can't exactly look God in the eyes right now. For one reason, he let Christina die. Yeah, he did. He could have changed that, and he didn't. I try to understand, and probably never will, and I know he is all good, all the time. I get that. But do I have to like it? He hurt me, and he let me hurt. And he let me be in the worst places I have ever been, and the sky stayed blank. Even when I dared the Holy Spirit to come and consume my arrogant ass with fire, the sky stayed a stony grey. When the Angel of the morning came, it was just him and I. I don't like it, and I won't. But hey, could I be more honest with Christina than God? Cause I would have told her all of this, and she has told me similar things. We weren't always the birds of paradise, us to.

   I guess this is why this blog is here. Christina's death is the worst and biggest  thing I have ever had to face, to be sure. My death would have been so  much easier. But here it is, and the only person I can completely confide in, has exited stage left. Now she is at peace with the Father, and here I am, here neurotic, insane, WIDE OPEN husband with all this crap I would have laid on her, with no where to go. I guess this is the best I could do. A ridiculous blog.

 

An explanation

I know. Disturbing doesn't even begin to approach it. Some of it is downright evil, hateful, and vile. So at this point, I thought it might be beneficial to offer an explanation. I have upset some people close to me with my words, and that was never my intention.

   To me, my poetry is like a snapshot of my emotions. That is a pretty creepy concept, because NOBODY in their right mind would ever tell anyone what they are really thinkinng, especially if it something bad or disturbing or reflects poorly on them. And yet, that is precisely what I am doing. And ONLY pretty much at my worst moments. Fun, Huh?

   So instead of looking at these poems as cohesive, concurrent thoughts, come to them with a different perspective. And that would be, hey, Jon has put raw, unmitigated pain and anger and hurt and confusion into words, and there they are, and I might not understand them, (Hell, why would you read them?), but there they are. His soul got sick and vomited on a page. What a horrible mess. I hope he feels better. And, usually I do.

   The grand order of things.
All of us, I THINK, compartmentalize. We define and pigeonhole and label and organise all of our experiences in life according to a system. Not neccesarily the same system, but I don't think, initially, they get very different. You have Good, evil, comfortable, dangerous, inconsequential, whatever...But we take these things; our thoughts and emotions and experiences, and we label and stack and sort and arrange until we have a tidy little life where we are well fed and have a warm house and great kids and one day we willl grow so old that it would really be better off to just die anyway. And the next day, our spouse will die, cause they loved us so much, and they will write it up in the paper, cause it is SO cute, and we'll be like 99 anyway, and the grandkids will think so fondly of us, while we smile down on them from heaven. And we have ourselves, and inside, these little boxes. All stacked up and arranged and cataloged. And we live by that system, and when life happens, and it doesn't fit in our boxes, when we can't make sense of it, it pisses us off. It UPSETS us, damn it! If life would just co-operate, everything would be fine. We've faced death. You know, like 50 years from now. Its cool. And if the neighbor next door gets mugged or shot or eaten by a polar bear on the way to his car tomorrow, well, obviously, he didn't have his boxes all straight, now did he? Tsk tsk. Should have been a bit more on top of it.

   A tornado called reality came through, and it kind of screwed up my catalogue. Not only did it pick up my little life, turn it upside down, spill all of my boxes, tear off the labels, but hell, some of them are gone all together. I didn't buy insurance on missing life. They won't underwrite it. Now, imagine if you will indulge me, instead of these linear logistical ideals and beliefs and systems, you have a twisted pile of jumbled emotions and actions and memories, and securities, and assumptions, and, well, everything is now good old downtown JOPLIN FREAKIN MISSOURI and if you don't know, google it. Cause that is what the inside of my mind and very soul looks like. The twisted wreckage of things that used to make sense. And now, where the Walmart and the church used to be, where you got your physical and spiritual sustenance, there is some twisted tin, a bloody shoe, and a stray frickin dog wandering around. Somebody shoot that poor bastard and just put him out of my misery.

   And every once in a while, I attempt to get a bag, and go sorting. And when I do, there are a few possible outcomes. I can Get rip roaring drunk for a while (wee.). I can shake my fist at the sky and the tornadoes past and the looming storm clouds, or I can torture all of you people with some really, really horrible Vogon poetry. (If you got THAT reference, welcome to nerd-dom). And sometimes all three. I can just make a weekend of it.

   So, point being, if you read this, and you think "OH my God. Call somebody. He has lost his mind" No, I didn't lose it. I never had it. I had an illusion like sheetrock and stud walls are an illusion of a safe place, and when that dissolved into nothing, I didn't do it. Talk to God on that one. His choice. I am just here to clean up the mess. You know, from an act of God. Ever heard the term before? Also, if you will think back, to unending thoughts, the unholy communion on the rock? The angel of the darkness slipping back into the madness of the man's mind? Well, that really DID happen. I mean really. The third night? after we came home, I spent the night in the woods, and out in the middle of Joplin, that fallen, unholy deceiver came to me, and proffered something. The knowledge of death. And the temptation was almost irresistable. That 'bone grey earthenware' spread before me, that no one can face; that abomination to our creator, had already been in my peripheral vision since October the 18th. All I had to do was to reach out and partake. And I did not. And it was one of the most painful things I have ever had to do to not put the muzzle of a .308 in my mouth and squeeeeze the trigger and try to scratch at the robe of the thief that stole Christina from me as I passed by. But I didn't. And no one was there when I won the hardest battle of my entire life.

   So yeah, upstairs. This wasteland of trash. Good and bad and comfort and terror and shame and honor, all twisted together lie the rusty siding from a rotten barn around a bent applebees sign. A perfect juxtaposition, and just pure junk. There's my emotions, and some of my more bazaare actions. Like putting this on the internet. Weird. It freaks me out too.

   One other thing. There was one thing that DID survive the tornado. Grace. Servitude, compassion, understanding, faithfulness, wisdom, knowledge...crap. But the grace of Christ was there. It was there to keep my from partaking of that cup, that frozen morning when the world was grey. It was there the day three days after Christmas when I woke up and discovered that I had been trying to kill myself subconsciously (And Oh! Stout heart of a man.
I tried.
I tried hard. I did not sleep for days.
I did not eat.
Coffee and Whiskey were my only sustainance.
But I could not do it
I cried and screamed until my throat and bowels bled.
But I could not die in grief.)

And grace was here today, when I was riding down the highway, singing at the top of my lungs to some damn stupid 70's love song, doing 90, tears STREAMING down my face. God's grace is here with me. It was there with Christina when the tornado hit her. God please let it be there for my girls and everyone who reads this. I guess it wasn't in a box. It didn't need one.

   So, I guess, have a little mercy. Indulge my frantic, lucid nightmares of poems. Understand that, I can't look my creator in the eye. I am frustrated, hurt, angry, and confused. Gee, I guess I found those boxes first. But I don't have to. I can lay here a bawl and squall and curse and question...and Jesus hung on the cross and died for it. And for every other stupid insignificant thing I did my entire life. And, he hears me. He knows. All this rage and range of insanity I have felt? The knowledge of good and evil? You think he hasn't gone through this? I don't mean to sound 'preachy', but there it is.

Unending thoughts 5/5

Oh lonely night,
What icon can hold off this now?
What belief, if there is such a thing,
Can comfort me in my misery?
I believe
I believe
I breathe and breathe and breathe...
And softly sing, to comfort a World gone wrong.
As I lay here on a soft mattress, In a warm room,
Surrounded by the love of children.
There are children out there,
Starving, Freezing, UNLOVED
I believe for them.
God, please, You have taken a little mercy from me
Have you withdrawn it from them?
Are we but gentiles and heathens?
That even children are garbage,
And the depression of the tragedy of life
Kills us?
Was creation a canvas never finished?
Singed in a fire? So that it's vibrancy is cracked, blistered, and distorted?
Where is our God,
Who said, "I require mercy, and not sacrifice."?
Where is that mercy? Does it only flow from my heart?
If from there at all?
And yet, where does that flow originate? That fountain; that well?
Are not you the originator?
Push me.
Break me.
I have prayed this before.
Send your Holy Spirit to me.
Take the scale from my eyes, let me see.
Let me see where I walk in darkness.
Make me strong, and, Holy.
Burn me with your fire, and blister me.
Let me know what it is to LIVE, instead of this waking death.
This fun, and entertainment. Like a sad player piano, hammering out some forgotten scroll;
A good time rag, the drunken used to fall about to. Now they are all dead.
And the revelry is silent and hangs,
A rotted tapestry of a forgotten  era. Easily lost to it's own decadence.
Let me be mad. In the stillness of the night, let me stand.
Let me see what walks in the glades, without footsteps.
Let me hear the mournful cry of the godless.
Let my heart glow with spirit and not falter.
Let me be forever veiled, guarded, and not abandoned to my selfishness.
Clothe me in hard love, and set for me a standard I cannot reach.
Deal with me harshly, that I may have mercy, mercy, mercy.
Who can hate the sinner? Who can recoil from the deformed and sick?
Who is clean, now. Are we not all monsters?
Who are these precious children that you let them be born into suffering?
Will they not be your saints?
In the womb, was I not strong enough, not worthy enough to be there?
No;
You give a small suffering; The death of a good Christian woman, full of love,
And I fall into abandon. I am not strong. I do not know it.
Your spirit takes my communion from my lips, and gives it to another, worthy, faithful.
All I can do is throw myself at the foot of the cross, and cling.
Will you look down in your suffering, and turn your head?
I will not meet your eyes. And the cold of your sweat and blood falling on me will be my only warmth.
As the unworthy comes forth to commune...
Shit on the table of a feast; my presence is an abomination.
But where else can I go?
Cleanse or kill, you are a just God.
Do with me what you will.

Thank you

Thank you for your life,
You did not have to share with me
All of that growing
All of that learning
All of that loving
All of you.  My soul runs deep because of you.


I watched you labor.
I watched you hurt.
And cry.
and...


I watched you die from grief.
And yet, you chose me. 
You chose me to be by your side.
How could you do that?
You told me I had a deep heart,
And that is why you loved me.


Thank you.
Thank you for your life.


Thank you for your death.
That of all the men, of all the messes,
I could be the one, 
The one to hurt this hurt.
The one to say,
I KNEW her.
I grieve for her, the way she grieved.
She taught me.


And Oh! Stout heart of a man.
I tried. 
I tried hard. I did not sleep for days.
I did not eat.
Coffee and Whiskey were my only sustainance.
But I could not do it
I cried and screamed until my throat and bowels bled.
But I could not die in grief.
I know love, because I stood in it's heat.
But you, my love, were the fire I drew near to.
I will never see anything but luminous life.
Because you loved me enough,
To let me share in your death. 
Thank you.











 ²⁰ “Why is light given to him who is in misery, 
   and life to the bitter in soul, 
²¹ who long for death, but it comes not, 
   and dig for it more than for hidden treasures, 
²² who rejoice exceedingly 
   and are glad when they find the grave? 
²³ Why is light given to a man whose way is hidden, 
   whom God has hedged in? 
²⁴ For my sighing comes instead of^[a] my bread, 
   and my groanings are poured out like water. 
²⁵ For the thing that I fear comes upon me, 
   and what I dread befalls me. 
²⁶ I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; 
   I have no rest, but trouble comes.”

Unending thoughts, 4/5


I am a dangerous thing, weak and wounded.
Reeling and drunken with grief
And woe to those who cross my path
Woe to the one that offers a hand of support
Who can support this weight?
Who can pull me up from despair,
And not themselves be consumed?
Fools, Run Away!
A house is falling.
A dream has slipped into waking.
Go, before you are eternally stained.
Nothing can quench my grief.
I become insolent and hateful.
I mock those who try.
I despise the love of others,
Thier attention and affection.
All is desolate in my eyes.
Nothing has value.

Strong and lithe, cold I lie
Trying to think of the things I was supposed to do.
Trying to think of the places I was to be.
I do SOMETHING
Like I always do.
I finesse with a hammer,
And tune with a scream.
No, it is not done right,
But it is done.
Immobile is an option I have never taken.
I will run into trouble.
I will not wait for it to seek me out.
I must seek the counsel of the wise.
I must be wide open.
I must heed the spirit, listen for the sounds
of angels footsteps.
I must not go down in the battle.
I may die, but I must stand strong.
I am not sure why.
But, from my birth, to my end,
I must. I must...

Unending thought part 2 of 5



I need to get away from all this. I can't escape.
Where would I go?
I need to get away from me,
because I remain.
A sad remainder of glorious things

I am a falling apart.
And I can't. I have to be for them.
Not strong, but be.
A custodian of an abandoned museum
No one will visit
See these precious exhibits?
We opened our doors late
The curator is missing
and can't be found
We call for her in the vacuous halls,
The echoes loose dust on priceless pictures,
But no one cares for the arts anymore.
They only like music and paintings and sculptures.
The anti-theatre is dead...

I can't listen to Bob Dylan.

I wake up, my heart in my throat. The heat is too high. The cat, curled between my legs, too familiar.These sleeping angels, now some kind of duty served...I am panicking. I am dying, and afraid of it. Really, Jon? REALLY?! After you called them off? After that last ten minutes? What were you doing? Being considerate of the doctors? Of the people in the lobby? What the fuck were you thinking? How dare you fear anything now?


I waved my hand.
My last command.
My last remains of the day.

They stared through me,
As I let you free,
Thinking things there is no way to say.

You lay there, your blank stare,
offering no solace, no advice.
I looked at the clock, but already knew
The answer that I sought.
You were gone.
Your big dilated shark eyes
Spilled forth volumes of nothing
And told me with no strength
You were not there anymore.
I raised my hand
To my throat.
And
With one swift gesture.
Signaled cut.

The cast and crew
Looked frantic through
All efforts were in vain.
The stage had been set
Before us yet
For one last beautiful refrain

But like a fire,
From a funeral pyre,
The air was robbed from our lungs,
And for what we fought
And fought
Andf hoped,
Came helplessly undone.

Eyes darted, some averted,
Some pierced. Some there percieved.
That all was lost, and I knew that now,
And the burden lay with me.
To release us all,
You least of all, and to let us all go free.

It was a trick that would not stick,
least of all with me.
For still I stand,
One commanding hand,
Poised blade like at my throat
Forever it will demand
To rethink that last command,
That finally set you afloat...

I wrote this a month ago or longer. When it crosses my mind, I begin to crawl out of my skin, a brown and shellaced entity, looking for a blue filter and low lumens to hide in. 

Dao

When her work is done, she forgets it.
That is why it lasts forever.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.

Hope is as hollow as fear.

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

If you don't realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.
When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.
Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

The Master doesn't talk, he acts.
When his work is done,
the people say, "Amazing:
we did it, all by ourselves!"

Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don't care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.

The crawling skin, it happens again;
You were my only addiction
Can a man be exhumed
After being consumed
in a miasma of total dilection...

I use a dirty coffee cup to hold my toothbrush.

Unending thoughts. Part 1 of 5 (crap. That's a lot of parts for one poem)


Does happiness help us to hold onto the trivial things?
Or does it come with the territory?
When we start to slip into the abandon of depression,
why do more things start to seem so trivial;
So easy to let go of?

Paranoia has crossed the line.
It has played it the realm of the real.
How can it ever be separated again?
Were things as they seemed, or as they were
And I just didn't see them?
What can I trust now?

Where is substance?

Hold close, children, and smile.
Smile to the abyss.
Such is our way.
What more do we have,
Than to dance as the precipice looms?
Dance on that sad edge of love's demise,
And bittersweet; our footsteps muffling the tune of a dirge
In the loose soil.


Bone grey the sky;
The world shrouded in the absence of color.
A deathly reminder of when the angel of the morning roamed the Earth.
Was it the color of dead clay that drove him into madness?
When the one color is none? And the world turns to
Burned ash...Charred bone
Breath suspends
And even the birds do not dare to sing?
And a quiet man, alone in the woods,
Waits to see if the Earth will renew herself...

And she does. The Sun comes. The air chills.
The birds startle.
The world takes a breath, and draws in color.
And that void of color fades into fading
And the Angel of the morning slips back into madness
madness, in the recesses of the Man's mind.

And a communion they cannot share,
sits, untouched, on a mossy stone.
refreshed only for a fleet moment
Bone grey Earthenware
filled with unknowable things...