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freakyJesusmusic
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Name: Drew
Gender: Male
Interests: Music, Young Life, college ministry
Expertise: Music again
Occupation: 5th grade band, freelance musi
Message: message me
Member Since:
6/27/2006
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| Take a picture of yourself right now. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair, just take a picture. Post that picture with NO editing. Post these instructions with your picture.
Ha, I love it -- it's like the exact polar opposite of imvu.
Thanks to Da Greek for passing this along. | | |
| I read last night at the Belmar. A whole pile of my short poems and a longish one (for me) that showed up over the course of the last few days. Before I read I gave a little banter, to calm down mostly, and I gave a shout out to Joe Weil for putting a literary spoon down my throat and bringing all this out. (I also apologized for most of my poems being wicked short, and said I was putting together a chapbook I would call "Wicked Short Poems", or "How I learned to stop worrying and love Joe Weil". I tend to run at the mouth a bit in these situations.)
Tons of people clapped and hollered and congratulated me. A college kid told me a father's importance is constantly underestimated. A girl showed me my own words she had written down in her notebook. An older biker lady told me it was great that I had the courage to get up there and do it. The featured poet even told me he liked the last one, a sentiment echoed by a lot of others. A sweet girl named Brittany told me it's the experiences we live through that shape us into who we are, she appreciated my sharing, and to keep at the writing.
But for me, probably the best moment was when I was actually reading. I hit the first two lines of "dog":
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But "I fucking HATE you" comes pretty close
And it got -- of all things -- a laugh. I wrenched out an extremely painful personal experience, and it got a laugh.
And I laughed too. It's freaking absurd; it should be laughed at. Damn good stuff.
So here's the longish one, which I haven't posted yet. I actually put some work into tying it together and making it complete, unlike the others, and I enjoyed doing it. Still ugly, but let's call it art.
Snarling Beast
The note on the door
Explains the missing kids
With something about “somewhere safe”
And a strange cell number.
The beginning of the days of a long week
Of not knowing where my children are.
The dog is still here,
still howls and reeks,
The dog she begged for us to adopt
And then left behind
Is now truly this man’s best friend.
I am angry
I am frantic for their safety
And she will not tell me where they are.
Because, she says,
I am angry.
A perfect circle
Of unreasonable reasoning.
She says safe.
I say kidnapped.
She says, he says.
Now it gets legal.
Ah, the 3 ring circus of the family court waiting room
This one shows, that one doesn’t
Hatred and grasping prevails
and I wait in an uncomfortable chair.
She arrives tightly clamped down in a business dress
Her lawyer is with her
And seems surprised not to be looking at a monster.
The judge, the kids’ lawyer –
My kids have a damn lawyer –
Are similarly surprised.
Where is the snarling beast,
The raging tower of violence
this poor woman was forced to run from?
As I am there instead, the judge gives me my new orders –
Pick up your kids after school.
Today.
And the nightmare is over.
But a new nightmare has just begun.
This one comes with schedules,
and boxes,
and people I don’t know coming into my house
while I am not home
and taking things away.
And it comes with empty, empty, empty rooms.
And silence.
The next time I come home from family court
I stop and buy a motorcycle.
It is an unruly snarling beast
and it is mine
and it suits me.
One of Mollie Kat's poems had the line, "I wish that I had nothing to say". I literally kissed her hand for that. But what the hell, at least I'm saying it -- better out than in. | | |
| This post has been rated  - Parent or guardian approval required for minors under 18. | | |
| I went to a poetry reading last night, for the first time in a long time. The prof who arranged it was a profane little troll named Joe. We talked about the Cubs, and the Indians, by way of not talking about the Yankees, and good names and bad names, and he read a piece that blindsided me with its poignancy.
this morning, as expected, I woke up with a slight hangover. Not expected, I stalked around the house spouting free verse. Nothing of great artistic value, I'm sure, but last night was a finger down my throat that brought it out. It's a crazy handful of emotions I've boxed up on a shelf for a while, but the first one convinced me to just throw them all out there.
Gut
It roils around in my gut
Down in my bowels
Like a bad fart
Better out than in, my father in law used to say
When he could still say things like that
When he could still laugh, and fix cars, and carry a conversation
Better out than in
Grieve
I have fallen to my knees
and wept face to the floor
and cried out my God my God
and beaten out empty songs
to an empty room
in an empty house
reaching for an empty bottle
until I go for another,
weaving slightly
To the Youngest
to the youngest
whose hand I held when we first met
to cross the parking lot
and whose hospital bed I stood by
and wept silently
her life brought to her in tubes
our charge to keep watch but not to disturb
and now she is well and whole
and I am
gone
No Rubberneck
I am no rubberneck
put me in the car
suicide seat
breakneck speed
and the dashing smash
bone to metal
metal through bone
but not, no, not the shaking head
driving by in the passing lane
give me the sweet oblivion
put me in the car
I am no rubberneck
Thanks for NOT calling suicide intervention, if that were a question frankly I would have done it by now. I'm pretty damn okay, really. Sometimes I just gotta get the ugly out.
***EDIT***
Another one to add -- apparently this ain't over yet.
Picture
I am reminded of my grandfather’s farm
dusty stacks of old berry containers.
Emptied of juicy succulence,
then stacked and kept
rows of leaning towers
What the hell was he keeping them for?
Taking up the space
Maybe prompting memories
of summers past and juicy tartness
but there is no explosive sweetness of blueberry,
no smacking tang of blackberry,
just stacks on stacks of dust and emptiness.
I look again to the wedding photo on the wall,
take it down and put it in a drawer.
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| I just finished a bit of a pilgrimage to Young Life's Saranac Village. I am SO refreshed.
I don't know if I have ever had just 24 hours that so affected and rearranged me like this before, but God timed it and knew what He was doing. He was really speaking to me the entire time, and I haven't had my heart sing like this in a while.
The sheer beauty of it all had a lot to do with that -- I hope you enjoy the photos, and I'm adding nature photography to my list of things that feed me and refresh me. I just LOVE capturing this stuff. There's more on Facebook.
The weekend had a theme of sorts, "spiritual cairns" -- places where you have left a marker in your life with Christ. Saranac Village was referred to more than once as "holy ground", and for me that's right on.
This rock is where I first met Christ for real, and I've been back since several times as a YL leader and I always get a spiritual boost from wherever I've been at in my life. And I want to continue "retreats" to Saranac, and the Adirondacks, for my own self. Just because Bryne no longer wants to be a part of that will not put me off from pursuing the places and activities that feed my spirit.
Mike Terranova was our speaker -- he used to be our regional director when I was heavily involved in Young Life, and now he's moved down South and works with a church. Right off, one of the things he said hit me between the eyes -- he was actually slightly misquoting CS Lewis: "What we really want is Jesus Christ, if we can only remember what we really want." Bryne has been the center of my life for a long time -- I've forgotten what I really want. All I want, all I need, it's in Christ. I prayed at the end of the meeting, we had "20 minutes" -- kind of a YL trademark thing, everyone is just totally quiet and goes out to be alone with God for 20 minutes. I prayed on that same rock, and God and I hammered a couple things out.
I need to trust Him more for my needs. I can put down a lot of grief if I do that. So I told Him I'd be taking some of my grief and pain, and tucking it right under that rock. It's not doing me any good to carry it around. If I ever feel the need to pick it up again, I'll know right where it is.
I don't really need for God to give me peace -- he HAS given me peace. I just need to choose it, and accept it. And yes, that means accepting that Bryne is probably gone for good, and going on with my life. I can hope that she will still come back, but I can't hang my chances for peace on that. If I don't actively choose peace, I will never be able to leave the pain and grief behind. It's from the place of peace that the change must come, whether she comes back or not. And Saranac is still there; Mount Colden is still there; Christ is still where I am. I have everything I need.
Mike closed us up with Luke 15, where Christ says he is sending a friend in the Holy Spirit so we won't be alone. And then he had a "say-so", YL speak for when you get up and share how God is working in you. I got a Holy Spirit shove like I haven't in a long time, so I said so. I said where Bryne and I were at, and how I was seeking peace and just had to be in it because it's already there. And of course I cried through the whole thing. So many people prayed with me, and hugged me, and encouraged me to keep on. Mike just held me and prayed, and he said afterward he remembered in his hard times when the realization that he'd make it through went from his head to his heart. That's happening in stages, to be sure, but it's definitely happening. And I need to bring my peace with me wherever I go from here.
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