Why do I find you so compelling?
Your every breath and movement disgusts and
Betrays that which was created to be beautiful.
Instead you flail pompously, screaming... hoping
To gain interested response to your actions,
Mistaking lustful greed for respect.
And for what I ask you?
For pleasure so over-rated and blissful that you
Encourage us to do the same?
You offer us not a helping hand, but a handful of lies
Which will ultimately lead to destruction.
So go ahead.....sing your song of lust.....
Sing your song of moans and temptation, for
I see through it all!!
With every lie you cut to the core of me,
Leaving me naked and bare, bracing myself
Only for another blow.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Walls of Shame
The night has come and closes around me.
A cold and dreadful chill runs up my spine.
The only thing that covers me is
The humble shame which more than likely
Will not dissapear or vanish.
My heart pounds with nowhere to turn
As I sit in silence contemplating
This case which I have made against myself.
It seemed like a good idea but now
I'm not so sure, wanting to go back but
Turning only to run head on into a brick wall.
While my walls of shame close in around me
I find peace in my one and only hope:
That I will soon wish to have no part in
This hypocrisy which I willfully attend,
Becoming bored with that which I have become.
My mind wanders, no rhyme or reason,
Looking for justification but none found .
A voice pertrudes from the darkness so soft
Yet so powerful that it could shake the foundations
Of this place which we prideful beings call home.
It speaks of peace......peace......so compelling and persuasive
That I have no other choice but to believe......
This too shall pass....This too shall end...
A cold and dreadful chill runs up my spine.
The only thing that covers me is
The humble shame which more than likely
Will not dissapear or vanish.
My heart pounds with nowhere to turn
As I sit in silence contemplating
This case which I have made against myself.
It seemed like a good idea but now
I'm not so sure, wanting to go back but
Turning only to run head on into a brick wall.
While my walls of shame close in around me
I find peace in my one and only hope:
That I will soon wish to have no part in
This hypocrisy which I willfully attend,
Becoming bored with that which I have become.
My mind wanders, no rhyme or reason,
Looking for justification but none found .
A voice pertrudes from the darkness so soft
Yet so powerful that it could shake the foundations
Of this place which we prideful beings call home.
It speaks of peace......peace......so compelling and persuasive
That I have no other choice but to believe......
This too shall pass....This too shall end...
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Selfless Love
"I have cancer."
The words hit me like a two ton brick. At first I didn't want to believe what I had just heard, but the look on my mother's gentle, frightened face scattered any thought of disbelief. You could have heard a pin drop in the silence of the moments that followed. Sitting with sweaty hands clenched tightly, my thoughts went blank. After all, what could have been said in that situation. In my mind, there was nothing that I could say that would be benificial to my mother's health at that point......so what was the use? I tried to stop the tears from coming but it was useless. As I cried, the damp drops which rolled down my cheeks seemed to cut so deeply and painfully that I thought I had a disease of my own. In that instant, the pain was so great that I wouldn't have cared.....not even a little..... if I took my mother's disease upon myself. It wasn't the pain itself that made it so unbearable. It was the anger that came hand in hand with the pain. Through that anger.....that channeled anger.....I felt the devil. I heard him creep up beside me and whisper in my ear my innablity to do anything at all. I heard his coarse laugh, as if mocking me in that one ounce of hope that my mother would be cured. I saw his jagged finger, pointed directly at me. I felt him in the deepest part of my soul, attempting to gain a foothold of control.
And he almost succeeded.
But it was in this moment......at my wits end......that something amazing happened. It was in this moment of agony and pain that the foundations of my world were shaken. My mother, with tears in her eyes, stood up out of the chair across the room,and walked over to where I was sitting on our pale colored couch. She sat down next to me, and for the first time I was able to look directly into her glistening eyes. I felt ashamed of my pain as I realized the agony she was enduring was far worse than my own. With a soft stroke of her finger, she wiped the burning tears away from my cheek, after which she kissed me ever so gently. I felt as if she kept her lips pressed against my cheek for minutes on end. I didn't care. The release of her lips from my cheek was quickly replaced by her warm, comforting embrace. Everything changed. I'm not sure if it was simply a mother's touch, or if it was because in that instant I loved the one who gave me life more than anything else in the world. I honestly cannot tell you which it was. Mabey it was a combination of both. Whatever it was, the doubts and fears which had occupied my thoughts beforehand were instantly vanquished. The change was so sudden that for a moment I lost my breath. I sat quietly in my mother's arms. It was as if.......for just a moment.......there was no sense of time. I could feel the thoughts of worry attempt to enter my mind, only to be quickly chased away by the love which my mother had for me.
I will never forget, as long as I live, what she said to me. As I left her warm embrace, she looked at me with her loving eyes, and she said "Everything will be ok......we just have to have faith". It was then that I realized that no matter what might happen to my mother, everything would be all right. This was a woman who would never give up. In this woman's eyes I saw a determination that would stop the devil dead in his tracks. This was a woman who was so full of love that it frightened and comforted me simultaneously. This was a woman who was so full of love and compasion that she was able to look past her own pain, and love and care for me when I was the one who should have been holding her instead. In this love, I felt peace. In this love, I felt strength. In this love.......I felt God.
The words hit me like a two ton brick. At first I didn't want to believe what I had just heard, but the look on my mother's gentle, frightened face scattered any thought of disbelief. You could have heard a pin drop in the silence of the moments that followed. Sitting with sweaty hands clenched tightly, my thoughts went blank. After all, what could have been said in that situation. In my mind, there was nothing that I could say that would be benificial to my mother's health at that point......so what was the use? I tried to stop the tears from coming but it was useless. As I cried, the damp drops which rolled down my cheeks seemed to cut so deeply and painfully that I thought I had a disease of my own. In that instant, the pain was so great that I wouldn't have cared.....not even a little..... if I took my mother's disease upon myself. It wasn't the pain itself that made it so unbearable. It was the anger that came hand in hand with the pain. Through that anger.....that channeled anger.....I felt the devil. I heard him creep up beside me and whisper in my ear my innablity to do anything at all. I heard his coarse laugh, as if mocking me in that one ounce of hope that my mother would be cured. I saw his jagged finger, pointed directly at me. I felt him in the deepest part of my soul, attempting to gain a foothold of control.
And he almost succeeded.
But it was in this moment......at my wits end......that something amazing happened. It was in this moment of agony and pain that the foundations of my world were shaken. My mother, with tears in her eyes, stood up out of the chair across the room,and walked over to where I was sitting on our pale colored couch. She sat down next to me, and for the first time I was able to look directly into her glistening eyes. I felt ashamed of my pain as I realized the agony she was enduring was far worse than my own. With a soft stroke of her finger, she wiped the burning tears away from my cheek, after which she kissed me ever so gently. I felt as if she kept her lips pressed against my cheek for minutes on end. I didn't care. The release of her lips from my cheek was quickly replaced by her warm, comforting embrace. Everything changed. I'm not sure if it was simply a mother's touch, or if it was because in that instant I loved the one who gave me life more than anything else in the world. I honestly cannot tell you which it was. Mabey it was a combination of both. Whatever it was, the doubts and fears which had occupied my thoughts beforehand were instantly vanquished. The change was so sudden that for a moment I lost my breath. I sat quietly in my mother's arms. It was as if.......for just a moment.......there was no sense of time. I could feel the thoughts of worry attempt to enter my mind, only to be quickly chased away by the love which my mother had for me.
I will never forget, as long as I live, what she said to me. As I left her warm embrace, she looked at me with her loving eyes, and she said "Everything will be ok......we just have to have faith". It was then that I realized that no matter what might happen to my mother, everything would be all right. This was a woman who would never give up. In this woman's eyes I saw a determination that would stop the devil dead in his tracks. This was a woman who was so full of love that it frightened and comforted me simultaneously. This was a woman who was so full of love and compasion that she was able to look past her own pain, and love and care for me when I was the one who should have been holding her instead. In this love, I felt peace. In this love, I felt strength. In this love.......I felt God.
Sing With Us
***This was our Performance Studies class final project
Performers were Ben, Biz, Cori, and myself (Phil)
ALL: This is the one song everyone would like to learn;
the song that is irresistible:
ALL: This is a hymn
BIZ: When you hear me singing
You get the rifle down
And the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
But you always miss
And when you set out the poison
I piss on it
To warn the others.
You think: That one’s too clever,
PHIL: That one’s too clever
BIZ: She’s dangerous,
BEN & CORI: She’s dangerous
BIZ: because I don’t stick around to be slaughtered
And you think I’m ugly too
Despite my fur and pretty teeth
And my six nipples and snake tail.
All I want is love, you stupid
Humanist. See if you can.
Right, I’m a parasite, I live off your
Leavings, gristle and rancid fat,
I take without asking
And make nests in your cupboards
Out of your suits and underwear.
ALL: You’d do the same if you could,
If you could afford to share
My crystal hatreds.
It’s your throat I want, my mate
Trapped in your throat.
Though you try to drown him
With your greasy person voice,
He is hiding / between your syllables
I can hear him singing.
PHIL: I am the heart of a murdered womana
Who took the wrong way home
Who was strangled in a vacant lot and not buried
Who was shot with care beneath a tree
Who was mutilated by a crisp knife.
BEN: This is what you changed me to.
ALL: There are many of us.
PHIL: I grew feathers and tore my way out of her:
I am shaped like a feathered heart.
My mouth is a chisel, my hands
The crimes done by hands.
I sit in the forest talking of death
Which is monotonous:
Though there are many ways of dying
There is only one death song,
The colour of mist:
It says Why
BIZ & PHIL: Why (Phil continue on with poem)
CORI: Why
BEN: Why
PHIL: I do not want revenge, I do not want expiation,
I only want to ask someone
How I was lost,
(beat)
How I was lost
I am the lost heart of a murderer
Who has not yet killed,
Who does not yet know he wishes
To kill; who is still the same
As the others
I am looking for him,
He will have answers for me,
He will watch his step, he will be
Cautious and violent, my claws
Will grow through his hands
And become claws, he will not be caught.
BEN: This is what you changed me to:
A greypink vegetable with slug
Eyes, buttock
Incarnate, spreading like a slow turnip,
A skin you stuff so you may feed
in your turn, a stinking wart
of flesh, a large tuber
of blood which munches
and bloats. Very well then.
CORI: Very well then.
PHIL: Very well then.
BIZ: Very well then.
BEN: Very well then.
Meanwhile
I have the sky, which is only half
Caged, I have my weed corners,
I keep myself busy, singing
My song of roots and noses,
My song of dung. Madame,
This song offends you, these grunts
Which you find oppressively sexual,
ALL: Mistaking simple greed for lust.
I am yours. If you feed me garbage,
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.
CORI: This is a cry for help
(small beat)
In the arid sun, over the field
Where the corn has rotted and then
Dried up, you flock and squabble.
Not much here for you, my people,
But there would be
If
If
In my austere black uniform
I raised the banner
Which decreed Hope
And which did not succeed
And which is not allowed.
Now I must confront the angel
Who says Win,
Who tells me to wave any banner
That you will follow
BIZ: Therefore sing now…
CORI: For you ignore me, my
Baffled people, you have been through
Too many theories (others whisper “too many”)
Too many stray bullets
Your eyes are gravel, skeptical,
In this hard field
You pay attention only
To the rhetoric of seed
Fruit stomach elbow.
You have too many leaders (others whisper “too many”)
You have too many wars,
All of them pompous and small,
You resist only when you feel
Like dressing up,
You forget the sane corpses…
BIZ: Pray for me,
Not as I am but as I am.
CORI: I know you would like a god
To come down and feed you
And punish you. That overcoat
On sticks is not alive
BIZ, BEN & PHIL: There are no angels
But the angels of hunger,
Prehensile and soft as gullets
Watching you
My people, I become cynical,
You have defrauded me of hope
And left me alone with politics…
PHIL: We have been underground too long,
We have done our work,
BIZ: We are many
ALL: And one
BEN & CORI: We remember when we were human
BEN: We have lived among roots and stones,
We have sung but no one has listened,
CORI: We come into the open air
At night only to love
Which disgusts the soles of boots,
Their leather strict religion.
BIZ: We know what a boot looks like
When seen from underneath,
We know the philosophy of boots,
Their metaphysic of kicks and ladders.
ALL: WE are afraid of boots
CORI & PHIL: But contemptuous of the foot that needs them.
CORI: Soon we will invade like weeds,
Everywhere but slowly:
The captive plants will rebel
With us, fences will topple,
Brick walls ripple and fall,
PHIL: There will be no more boots.
Meanwhile we eat dirt
And sleep; we are waiting
Under your feet.
ALL: When we say “Attack”
BEN: You will hear nothing
(beat)
ALL: (whisper) At first.
Performers were Ben, Biz, Cori, and myself (Phil)
ALL: This is the one song everyone would like to learn;
the song that is irresistible:
ALL: This is a hymn
BIZ: When you hear me singing
You get the rifle down
And the flashlight, aiming for my brain,
But you always miss
And when you set out the poison
I piss on it
To warn the others.
You think: That one’s too clever,
PHIL: That one’s too clever
BIZ: She’s dangerous,
BEN & CORI: She’s dangerous
BIZ: because I don’t stick around to be slaughtered
And you think I’m ugly too
Despite my fur and pretty teeth
And my six nipples and snake tail.
All I want is love, you stupid
Humanist. See if you can.
Right, I’m a parasite, I live off your
Leavings, gristle and rancid fat,
I take without asking
And make nests in your cupboards
Out of your suits and underwear.
ALL: You’d do the same if you could,
If you could afford to share
My crystal hatreds.
It’s your throat I want, my mate
Trapped in your throat.
Though you try to drown him
With your greasy person voice,
He is hiding / between your syllables
I can hear him singing.
PHIL: I am the heart of a murdered womana
Who took the wrong way home
Who was strangled in a vacant lot and not buried
Who was shot with care beneath a tree
Who was mutilated by a crisp knife.
BEN: This is what you changed me to.
ALL: There are many of us.
PHIL: I grew feathers and tore my way out of her:
I am shaped like a feathered heart.
My mouth is a chisel, my hands
The crimes done by hands.
I sit in the forest talking of death
Which is monotonous:
Though there are many ways of dying
There is only one death song,
The colour of mist:
It says Why
BIZ & PHIL: Why (Phil continue on with poem)
CORI: Why
BEN: Why
PHIL: I do not want revenge, I do not want expiation,
I only want to ask someone
How I was lost,
(beat)
How I was lost
I am the lost heart of a murderer
Who has not yet killed,
Who does not yet know he wishes
To kill; who is still the same
As the others
I am looking for him,
He will have answers for me,
He will watch his step, he will be
Cautious and violent, my claws
Will grow through his hands
And become claws, he will not be caught.
BEN: This is what you changed me to:
A greypink vegetable with slug
Eyes, buttock
Incarnate, spreading like a slow turnip,
A skin you stuff so you may feed
in your turn, a stinking wart
of flesh, a large tuber
of blood which munches
and bloats. Very well then.
CORI: Very well then.
PHIL: Very well then.
BIZ: Very well then.
BEN: Very well then.
Meanwhile
I have the sky, which is only half
Caged, I have my weed corners,
I keep myself busy, singing
My song of roots and noses,
My song of dung. Madame,
This song offends you, these grunts
Which you find oppressively sexual,
ALL: Mistaking simple greed for lust.
I am yours. If you feed me garbage,
I will sing a song of garbage.
This is a hymn.
CORI: This is a cry for help
(small beat)
In the arid sun, over the field
Where the corn has rotted and then
Dried up, you flock and squabble.
Not much here for you, my people,
But there would be
If
If
In my austere black uniform
I raised the banner
Which decreed Hope
And which did not succeed
And which is not allowed.
Now I must confront the angel
Who says Win,
Who tells me to wave any banner
That you will follow
BIZ: Therefore sing now…
CORI: For you ignore me, my
Baffled people, you have been through
Too many theories (others whisper “too many”)
Too many stray bullets
Your eyes are gravel, skeptical,
In this hard field
You pay attention only
To the rhetoric of seed
Fruit stomach elbow.
You have too many leaders (others whisper “too many”)
You have too many wars,
All of them pompous and small,
You resist only when you feel
Like dressing up,
You forget the sane corpses…
BIZ: Pray for me,
Not as I am but as I am.
CORI: I know you would like a god
To come down and feed you
And punish you. That overcoat
On sticks is not alive
BIZ, BEN & PHIL: There are no angels
But the angels of hunger,
Prehensile and soft as gullets
Watching you
My people, I become cynical,
You have defrauded me of hope
And left me alone with politics…
PHIL: We have been underground too long,
We have done our work,
BIZ: We are many
ALL: And one
BEN & CORI: We remember when we were human
BEN: We have lived among roots and stones,
We have sung but no one has listened,
CORI: We come into the open air
At night only to love
Which disgusts the soles of boots,
Their leather strict religion.
BIZ: We know what a boot looks like
When seen from underneath,
We know the philosophy of boots,
Their metaphysic of kicks and ladders.
ALL: WE are afraid of boots
CORI & PHIL: But contemptuous of the foot that needs them.
CORI: Soon we will invade like weeds,
Everywhere but slowly:
The captive plants will rebel
With us, fences will topple,
Brick walls ripple and fall,
PHIL: There will be no more boots.
Meanwhile we eat dirt
And sleep; we are waiting
Under your feet.
ALL: When we say “Attack”
BEN: You will hear nothing
(beat)
ALL: (whisper) At first.
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