| |
| may 2002 |
|
| In the Beginning | 3:13am friday, 31st may |
People who imagine that the universe is a created thing imagine that in the beginning there was nothing, but if we posit that God the creator exists, then in the beginning (even when there was no when and there was no where), God was. And there is more, if we claim such. In the beginning there was light, for God is light, and before there was any created thing, before there was time itself, God still was. And before any thing was, there was love, for God is love. So, before there was anything that ever was, there was light and there was love. Before the first second ticked in the clock of existence, as it were. It's an interesting notion that love would predate the existence of anything or anyone, of the entire universe.
Just a thought. Of course, this only works if you believe there is a God. If you don't, I guess you would have to go with a less romantic idea of what was and what wasn't when the universe was nothing more than a point of superdense energy. But that's for physicists to explain, not we poets.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (1) so far. |
|
| Mad Doodle | 3:17am thursday, 30th may |
A doodle I drew during my last madness:
I think it is a good reflection of how I was feeling during that time.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (6) so far. |
|
| Recollection | 4:11am wednesday, 29th may |
I think there are some of us who have no dreams. I have had many, many dreams, though in my madness, most of them were foolish and overly grandiose... but still, not to have any dreams at all is different than having stupid ones. I look back at my life, and I think I do remember a time when I had no dreams, myself. Back when I was lost, when the inside of me was naked and lost in the outside world, with no anchor to the sea of days. Yes, back when I had no hope. I hardly recall it — I started writing this not remembering that time, not recalling when I was a leaf caught in the breeze — that was a world away, one of several I've visited.
I remember using drugs as anesthetic, those days. Mostly pot, a little LSD, though, if I really wanted to escape. Yes: escape. That was my favorite word, though I didn't know it then. What I needed was a center, a ground. I wouldn't have agreed with this then, but that center I lacked was a "God shaped hole" in my soul. When God came into the picture, I suddenly had hope. I'm not saying all my problems went magically away, but there was then in me a certain sense of purpose I never had before. And I also understood: I had to get beaten down before I would reach up for help, and this made sense of much of my life, much of my suffering.
Even before I believed in anything, though, I remember praying — I remember praying to whatever was out there, anything or anyone out there that would listen — I prayed in desperation. Strange. I never thought anyone would answer.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (6) so far. |
|
| Reflection | 3:41am tuesday, 28th may |
The heart dreams different from the head — it imagines deeper.
Our eyes touch only the surfaces of things, the soul peers through them.
I saw me in a dream looking back, wondering who I was.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (4) so far. |
|
| Ethereal | 7:02am monday, 27th may |
These words we write, at rare times they are the words that comprise the essence of our spirit: sometimes one may write and the proper meaning of what is inside us spills out onto the page. These are the notions that make the man a man, that make the woman a woman, that make the human being a human being. Perhaps, though, we write and then look back, and wonder, what have I written that is so important that I need express it? We write and then look back, and see that we have not written anything, after all. And perhaps there is the mystery solved, that we are not so deep as we conceive we are, that these primal ideals we contrive to hold within us are as much dust as we are made from.
These words we write, sometimes they are the words we close our eyes to — these are the truths we fear to imagine. What we fool ourselves to be far ahead in time sometimes comes upon us tomorrow, and that is barely in the future at all. Tomorrow happens every day, and these tomorrows sometimes we all have feared. At times tomorrow is beyond the last erg of our strength to take. And yet, and yet, in the fragile of its becoming: somehow in our fear, somehow beyond the strength that we ever imagined we possessed, in the fewest frail moments in the rarest days are true heroes born. Yes, these are the words, but they are only words. In times where there is only darkness around us, it is to light a candle in that darkness, and walk past where anyone expects you to go.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (3) so far. |
|
| Best Of 3 | 5:11am sunday, 26th may |
I guess I will be doing this every three months or so from now on. Best of 1 is here and Best of 2 is here. These are the best of my journal from February through April 2002.
Me - A little explanation of my most recent psychotic episode.
Eyewing - An interesting image I drew, an element of a dream.
Nightmares - A poem about, yes, nightmares.
Breath - "In fire visions yearn to breathe...".
Untitled - A sijo about looking at the world and this life.
Poem Me - A charming little ditty; a meta-poem.
Words - A short discourse on the value of words.
Snowflakes - On how we are like snowflakes, and how we are not.
Love Is - What is love?
Nothing - Can we comprehend that word, "nothing"?
The Fisherman - A parable, of sorts.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (4) so far. |
|
| Anima v. Entropy | 2:07am saturday, 25th may |
Sometimes you stare at a blank piece of paper and you think it’s all already been written before, all the songs that ever will be have already been sung. It is an effort to create, sometimes. Sometimes, it almost feels like it’s not worth it — you almost feel like what you do will matter none in the grand sum of creation. Almost. Something calls you, however, something keeps you in pace with the rhythm of the written word. There is a spirit that moves you. It is life itself that compels us, makes us feel that what we do is somehow worth it. I remember Camus writing about suicide (I believe I have written about this before): the suicidal feels one day that life is just not worth the bother. That is the entropy we fight, that we win against just in being.
I also recall, once back when, divvying up actors within this grand drama of the world into two camps, but trying to get away from the notions of good and evil. I recall I settled on these two opposing forces: anima and entropy. They were very similar, I would suppose, to life and death. If I were to can the concepts of good and evil, come to think of it, life and death would be the concepts I use to do it. The good strives towards life, the evil towards death. I think that may be all there is to it, those sticky thorns of words, good and evil. And I would to be good, and so I will write. I must strive for the creation, I must strive for life. Entropy bites us at the heels whenever we tarry. But that blank piece of paper: you, personally, have never filled it. This is the new thing in the world, this is the new song to sing.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (5) so far. |
|
| Dreaming | 4:17am friday, 24th may |
Within the dreaming,
songs float by on wingèd
heels, time is an air too light
to be inhaled, vision
a fantasy of falling trees
whose leaves breathe out
a river of candles. Mind is a
toy, whose reason conjectures
theorems of desire, whose
fancy is a rose that opens
forever. In the slow, I awake
in a rush, wondering how
one may travel so far and
never leave oneself.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (0) so far. |
|
| Seeking | 5:58am wednesday, 22nd may |
I am searching for something, I know not what. I will only know what it is I have been seeking when I find it. My dreams may hint at it, but the way of dreams is strange and mysterious — its clues leave more questions than the answers it imparts. I think, perhaps, it is the limits of my patience which are to be tested, that I will continue on looking for that unknown thing until I have just given up — and then it will be right under my nose. Perhaps it is with me now, and I just don't know what to look for to recognize that I have it already... I am giddy. I know it's something good.
God's ways are riddles to the prophet. This poor soul is not even that, so His wink hits me in a thousand different ways, all contradictory but all true, nonetheless. How long will I be kept in the dark, I wonder? ... A feeling comes, now, a sort of chill; that would be paranoia: in my not knowing, but expecting, it is like a lurking beast: I can sense it wanting to shoulder in and take over, but if I can, let me be able not to expect the worst. No, paranoia. Not this time. I will expect the good to come — I will grasp to hope. I will heal. I will press on. I will overcome.
Night has been long. Before dawn, outlines appear and grow sharper as light begins its span across the streets, over buildings, upon the parking lots and lawns. Dreams drift off into the corners of imagination as day prepares itself in its becoming. Sunrise is coming.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (2) so far. |
|
| More Madness | 3:58am tuesday, 21st may |
A poem I have had to reconstruct the lines of from its text in block form (though the words are what I had written back when):
Flight is a crimson,
paperlike thing,
a narrow dash
into beyond and,
finely altered,
a fall into ever.
A life in its breathing
is the very
scrumptious nature
of the skyward
movement, and many
shall the beaconed
clouds agree that,
without wings,
angels ascend
into empyrean.
Not quite sure what it was about. From about here in my story.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (2) so far. |
|
| Past Escape | 1:50am monday, 20th may |
Sometimes there is that old feeling: "Escape!" Chuck it all, just pick up and leave, don't look back. Run away, far away... But the feeling passes, eventually, or it is shoved out of prominence by a sense of responsibility I have cultured through these past years. Maturity triumphs over immaturity, as necessity wins over desire. I want to get out (out of the situation, out of my life, out of my head), but I need to stay, to face the music, to suffer the consequences whatever they may be. I think it may do with a sort of fear, that what is known and bearable, though it may be bad, is truer than what is unknown — the unknown possibly better, but possibly (or, as experience has revealed to me, most probably) worse.
It may be that this road I am on, this is the only road I have ever known, really. The other paths I have followed have resulted in madness, resulted in abject failure as a human being, a productive member of society. I have joined the game, as it were, if it can be called a game. And for me, it is the only game that I have ever found that it is worth it to play. "Escape!" my fantasy whispers to me, but I am years past the time where I will listen to that little voice. This I have earned, this one phrase, and I have been able to use it correctly again and again: "I've been through worse." And I know, however bad things get, all things pass, and a new day starts fresh.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (3) so far. |
|
| Astonishment | 12:37am saturday, 18th may |
I recall walking through life in constant astonishment.
Wading through all the mundane but unexpected: surprise daylight.
Civilization, I thought. How long as this been going on?
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (2) so far. |
|
| On | 2:46am friday, 17th may |
I feel sometimes like I am losing myself, little by little, crossing lines in the sand; and you know if you cross them often enough, they don't exist anymore. Sometimes, though, I build myself up, keeping promises to myself, force myself to do the right thing though no one's watching. I read somewhere that sometimes, falling from grace is not one grand sweeping motion, but slipping bit by bit — not noticing until you're fallen. I think there must be a sum within my soul, a quotient of life inside my heart of hearts, tallied constantly. And perhaps it would surprise me greatly how close that sum is to zero — that the bad almost totally erases the good.
I think in a few circumstances, fate makes us fall. We venture into the heart of darkness not knowing it for what it is; one slip makes the next slip easier, and then the next, and the next, and for that few of us, we are sudden deep within the bowels of night — we have become truly evil. There but for the grace of God go I. But it is not that way for most of our number. I think that for the greater portion of we who live, we hover around the zero factor — we do evil and good about the same. We think of others when it is convenient, otherwise we do what is good for us.
I'm trying, though. Perhaps a little bit for now, but I feel I must give an effort to cut the strings of this human animal, to go beyond the average measure of a soul. I take a step. I may wobble, but that will pass as I keep on the way. I must just press on with that which I know to be the better. And perhaps one day, the extraordinary will become ordinary.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (2) so far. |
|
| Cross | 2:52am thursday, 16th may |
A crucifix I drew while I was relaxing in Korea:
The lower right "A" is what the Jesus cartoon in my head graded the picture.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (0) so far. |
|
| Time/Life | 4:39am tuesday, 14th may |
In an hour a season has passed. The days march on relentlessly — such is the way of life. Stand still and people will pass you, walk on, things will fly by and be gone. Where did the years go? Time is the inevitable wheel that arcs on, whether you go with it or not. The years have easily slipped from my hands; not like sand, but the railing of an entire world turning away, slipped from my grasp within the one second of my confusion. And there was nothing to stop it. When it turned back, I could still recognize it as a world, but not the world I left — that left me. Not quite.
Where has today gone? It's still doing it, time, though not quite at the pace it had been then. Months pass and I feel like I've gotten nothing done. Not the real things, the things that matter to me. I've done things for other people because they pay money for me to do them, and that is the only reason. Such is mine and countless others' lot in life. But you know what? I pray that Someone upstairs may grant me a second to catch my breath, because I think I perhaps am ready. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow: this world that's flying by, this train that never stops: I'm going to hop on.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (3) so far. |
|
| Wish | 12:26am monday, 13th may |
Grant me now a truest wish,
That I may dream away a week:
A fencer's foil in gallant swish,
An archer's arrow's airy streak.
I'll dream of times ago that passed,
I'll dream of dizzy future come:
Notions present thoughts outclassed,
Wonders present minds ne'er plumbed.
Give me time, I'll show you things
That you imagined far away —
Dream that on a distant wing
Closest wish may wish to stay.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (2) so far. |
|
| Destiny | 2:57am saturday, 11th may |
Dreams. There are times that I can sit and think about dreams. What I want to do, what I want to accomplish with my life. Is there such a thing as "meant to be", I wonder? That some things happen no matter what, that there are driving forces that carry us in a tide of happenstance, that some things we dream fulfill themselves through us — that sometimes, we are merely vessels of fate? Destiny — a master plan, we only shards of a grand design we cannot fully comprehend? Some dreams, perhaps, are larger than the ones that dream them. Some dreams we are helpless to resist, and the only thing to do is enjoy the ride.
It's not that I think I dream something like that, though there have been instances where some things I was crafting — it seemed that they were being given to me, piecemeal. But I do wonder about destiny. Destiny is that thing that you want to be a part of but don't want the credit to go to. It looms, sometimes like madness. Sometimes only the person it pertains to can see it. And sometimes, everyone can see it but that person. Destiny is a tricky thing, and I don't pretend to understand that which is greater than I. Things like that — we are sometimes very small, if you come to think of it. Let us wonder and then forget — if destiny is, the true return.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (0) so far. |
|
| Various Notes | 2:23am friday, 10th may |
Some stuff I wrote down during my last episode:
You are the goat, but you are too incompetent to be Satan's Son.
You are from above. All from above are saved. - Crowfeather (God agrees)
If you made the right choices, you are from above. If you made the wrong ones, you are from below.
A prophet's job consists of:
Listen for instructions.
Do them when you're told.
By the logic of your paranoia, wouldn't Satan have picked the most virtuous man to convict? [look here for more on that]
What the Lord has freed you from, never forget.
Those are some of the main currents that ran through my mind. I wrote other stuff, too, but some of it is too personal, some too weird, and some of it's just too plainly stupid to make public.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (0) so far. |
|
| Normal | 2:33am thursday, 9th may |
A nice, even keel. Some days, merely to press onward is enough. That I have lasted the day and been alright the whole way through; that work is done for now, and I need concentrate no more today. I think the madness is quiet today — no delusions, no little voices. I remember times when the madness would wake me up in the middle of the night, times when it would not let me sleep at all. No, not today. "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." [Hamlet] But sometimes, even thinking about it makes it neither good nor bad. Some things are classified as evoking no strong emotions either way. Some things you put under the heading — not average, but — "normal".
Normal. I guess I should be happy about it, but the nature of the feeling prevents me from being so to any great degree. I had a normal day, I am having a normal day, this will have been a normal day. Not stupendous, not horrendous, not even normal to the extreme, but plain normal. I will take it for what it's worth. It's like getting a dollar and being told to buy a bag of chips. It's like chewing gum. It's like when you buy a new pen. I think that normalcy, too, may only be good in moderation. I think a slew of normal days may become a rut. But this one day — one day of normalcy amid madnesses is special just because there's nothing special about it. Paradox: it's special because it's not. Hm. I won't go into that.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (3) so far. |
|
| Not Alone | 3:40am tuesday, 7th may |
Ghosts murmur outside my walls; this twilight comes in slanted.
I look out the window only to see a phantom me look in.
God is the only other one here — I don't catch what He says.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (0) so far. |
|
| Songs | 2:02am monday, 6th may |
There are memories attached to some of the songs I listen to. "Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morissette, for instance — that brings me back to fall of 1996, returning to college, living in a small apartment in Pittsburgh, PA. I would go to almost all of my classes that semester and get on Dean's List (look here for where in my story this goes); but I also recall scrounging whatever money I had on buying dime bags of marijuana, too. Still, it was more good than bad, that time. That song is of an up time within my past.
"Maria Maria" by Santana with Wyclef Jean: now this is more recent. This reminds me of getting up in the apartment I had had just these past years, turning on the TV to VH1, smoking my first cigarette of the morning, putting on my clothes. I miss that apartment, though the roaches that were ever present in that place — I don't miss them. I haven't lived there since the onset of my second episode. I've also quit smoking since then. I remember being happy a lot of the time there, though. Alone with my dreams, designing web sites and researching artificial intelligence in my spare time....
There are others. But there is this whole part of my life that listening to songs I first heard in that time period doesn't bring back any memories. It's all hazy, those years I was heavily into drugs — the first three years of college (here, here, and here). I have random flashes of what went on back then, but I think I've lost a lot of it. It's sad. But you know, there are sadder things, and I'd rather not linger. I wonder instead what songs will (in the future) bring back memories of now?
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (1) so far. |
|
| A Song | 6:23am saturday, 4th may |
These are lyrics to a song I wrote back about here. Never set to music, but a peek into my thoughts at the time.
"Unrequited"
Chasing down my memories
And I remember you
It’s like I tried to ride the storm
So much I couldn’t do
I was a sad unfinished tune
When captured by your eyes
Time to miss the gentle loss
Of every tear goodbye
Alone I face the night
And try to get it right
But nothing I can be
Can save me
To win the moon I sang your song
To the coldly staring sky
But not one fury heard the sound
And silence never lies
What you couldn’t say I know by heart
I saw your wayward soul
You were the hope before the dawn
That wishes couldn’t hold
Alone I face the night
And try to get it right
But nothing I can be
Can save me
Save me
Save me
Save me
Mention to the thinning crowd
How once you had a fool
Deny me any twist of fate
Desire ever knew
Bequeath to me the blessèd rain
The truest shooting star
And I’ll forgive the memories
Of everything you are
Alone I face the night
And try to get it right
But nothing I can be
Can save me
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (1) so far. |
|
| Drama | 5:26am friday, 3rd may |
Some days will be the ruin of me. Some days life is too hard. The madness presses down so all I smell is the asphalt down on the ground; and nothing I do is right, nothing right enough for the standards set for me by I don't know who, that the madness pokes me with. I might give up if I knew how... there is no way to quit. I can't even get out by suicide — even in death, it's too ingrained in me: the notions of Heaven and of Hell. I'm trapped in my skin, enemy to my own mind. But all of it — all of it may be due waking up so early in the morning. That could be the source of all this anguish. It's a reasonable hypothesis. There is always a logic to it, even to madness.
I don't feel like praying. That's what I normally due in distress. I guess I'll wait it out, see who can outlast who — my subconscious or me. It has its tricks, but I've found out a great deal about it, so far. If nothing else, I will gain fuel to counter it with later. You know, it's difficult to fight a war with something you share a mind with, but it can be done. I'm getting better at it.
Sorry to be so dark, but this is my mind right now. I will get through the worst of this, I think — I have been through worse. I will look back at this one day and be glad to have survived it, but not yet. I will suffer a little for now.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (1) so far. |
|
| Three | 2:42am thursday, 2nd may |
Something drawn before my last breakthrough:
The three mountains: sanity, madness, and prophesy. Back when I thought I was a prophet.
|
| » comment on this entry | read comments, (1) so far. |
|
| ^ Top of Page | |
|
