what is love?

baby, don't hurt me...

i hate that song so much.

but, the question is a valid one. i have imagined love is like many
things, but at the same time, like nothing else also. it seems
paradoxical, like strange and familiar at the same time. as i recall,
it's like a dream, or like dreaming maybe, while you're awake. eyes
far away, a blissful smile on your face, the feeling of floating above
it all. but what do i know? if i call something a word a lot of times,
the thing won't change, though the meaning of the word might, to fit
whatever i am referring to. so i'd be right, but in a very lame way.
this begs the question, is what i've been calling love not really love
at all? do i even know what love is? in a romantic way, i can't say
that i do. obviously i've been mistaken a time or two in my life. but
as a father? yeah, i know what love is.

a friend and i were tossing this around the other night. her idea was
that love is like madness, because she considers madness like a waking
dream for those unfortunate souls suffering with it. i suppose i could
see some elements of madness in love, but i really think love is
sanity itself. instead, i'd say hatred is madness.

what is love?

i'm sorry. i was trying to answer that simple, infinite question, but
it seems all i've managed is to walk around in a circle. love is a
paradox is all i've got for now.

i'm sure this will be continued at some point. not today though. i
hope today is treating you well.

ghost

do or do not, there is no try.

i am alone. one.
if i take wing, will i fall?
saint or fool, i leap.

ghost

nightmares

i think even lions have nightmares, something dark and unnamed. i
sometimes dream of horrors even nightmares cannot imagine. sometimes i
believe i'm touching the same world h.p. lovecraft visited. twisted
monstrosities filling every shadow, and i am always prey, fighting not
just for survival, but my very soul.

i always wake with the worst feeling, like i am filthy and oily and
unclean, inside and out.

ghost

just be

sometimes there is a calm. sometimes i get a brief rest from the
constant movement of my head, the constant consideration, maneuvering,
the infinite cycle of self deconstruction. in those moments, nothing
disturbs me. i'm not thinking about anything, not trying to solve any
problems, puzzles, or quandaries. it's something that just comes over
me from time to time and then passes. small things can trigger them.
a timely text. i phone call. one of my kids coming up and giving me a
hug for no reason. sometimes the moments go by unnoticed, made clear
only by the flood of chaos that comes next. they're not really moments
of clarity, just a sense that whatever is going on in my life,
everything will be all right. they're quiet nature is so that they are
merely segues between one chaos and the next.

they are not pools of deep thought, but moments of pleasant lightness
instead. they are quiet hopes strengthening themselves among the
bustle and hustle of daily busies. they are your heart taking over
from your head, if only for a moment, telling you to relax for a
second, that things tend to work themselves out, sometimes better than
you can imagine.

i get stuck sometimes, in the crunch of everything needs to be done
yesterday. these times unstick me, when somehow, i don't need to make
sense of things, and to just be is enough.

ghost

hell

last night i dreamed i was watching tv when my regular scheduled
programming was interupted and the newscaster reported the end of the
world. there was a flash in the back ground on the screen and through
my window. i ran outside in time to see smiling evil overtake cities.
i died burning, with the horrible knowledge that not even in the
fringes, not even the wilderness areas, not even the children were
spared.

i woke and went outside to make sure the world hadnt ended.

ghost

i'm alive

i want to be. i want to live. thinking back, i realize that might not
have always been the case. there have been times i wanted out. i have
wanted an escape from pain a time or ten in my life. i have felt far
too heavy hearted for my legs to hold me up. i wanted to sink into the
woodwork, wanted to just lose definition and become nothing more than
a stain on the sidewalk.

of course, i've also wanted to fly. there has been that dichotomy in
me, the desire to sink down and rise up at the same time. i remember
thinking i could do anything and yet, accomplishing nothing. it is an
almost overwhelming frustration. all that seems to be gone for the
time being, though. i want to be here, where i am, doing what i do.

the three laws of dynamics are, you can't win, you can't break even,
and you can't get out of the game. sounds like those would apply to
life as well. whatever happens, entropy and chaos will increase. but
then there's this little miracle we call life, and at least there, on
a local level, is a decrease in entropy, and and an increase of order.
in the big picture, i don't think i can break even. chaos increases in
the world at large, but in pockets, like my life, i think i can do
better than break even. i win, i think, just in being, just in sitting
here breathing. and maybe that's a glimpse of the bigger picture.

that's how i feel today. i win. despite "their" best efforts. one day
i will die, but not today, i think. today, i win. and being a thorn in
someone's side is really all the motivation i need.

ghost

morning is my time

it was nice out this morning, not too cold, not too muggy. my
neighborhood was quiet except for a few kids making their way toward
the bus stop. the wind had picked up over night, though, and i could
hear tree branches brushing against each other in my back yard. i
could hear the distant sound of kids yelling. the velvet ambient fog,
the aural subliminal voice of the neighborhood, was talking to me.
whispering to me. the small bird in the branch chirping it's little
song was telling me "I AM HERE!" the dying tree in my front yard
groaning in the wind is much like me, i realized, a rigid structure
containing the magic of life that occasionally feels creaky and tired.
i turned off the car radio to keep the mellow flow. this is my time.

i don't know what your friday holds for you. i hope its full of magic.
i'll be the person ten feet away having a paradigm shifting aesthetic
experience just losing myself in the color of the sun through the
clouds.

i believe quality of life depends a lot on depth of focus.

ghost

epoch

i found this written on a chipotle napkin in one of my novel
notebooks. it had a phone number on it for a person i never called.
there was also a stain i can only imagine is the result of wayward
tabasco sauce.

i am a poem writing itself.
unfinished, some days i go hanging
upon a half phrase, sometimes
without meaning for an hour.
i dream to be of epic things, teeming
with angels and devils and heroes,
but i do not know more than the
words written here.
i think it must be nice in the stories
outside my little window, but
i am satisfied merely to have begun,
and to know i have an ending
that gives me a reason to be.

ghost

trust

i was in my backyard a few weeks ago. the sun was shining and it was
rather warm, even for january in texas. i was cleaning up the toys
left by my little ones when i heard a snap in the tree above me. i
looked up in time to see the flash of a bird standing on a branch as
it broke and fell, arcing down with the bird still holding on. there
was a frozen moment as the bird began its backwards dive, then his
small wings caught some air, slowed his descent, then furiously
reversed the fall into a graceful ascent. it was stunning. it was
magic.

that was trust. the bird had trusted the branch would hold, but it did
not. as a result, the bird used what he had learned, his skill of
flight to avoid hitting the ground. new trust was born in that moment,
trust that he would not fall. and he didn't. that is the greater
trust.

such is faith, i think. when the branch breaks under you, look to your
wings, the wings all of us have.

today i'm doing something that feels a little like spreading mine
again. it's been so long.

ghost

play that funky music, white boy

i love movies. i've mentioned that before, i'm sure. some of my
favorite parts of movies are the soundtracks, and often while im
watching some piece of cinematic brilliance that would be less so if
not for the music highlighting the scene, i wonder what it would sound
like if someone put a soundtrack to my life? to my movie? to yours?

every life, i imagine, would span several genres. contemporary pop on
a first date. classical epics when solving some difficult situation.
heavy metal when we're revelling in some excess or another. perhaps a
jethro tull flute solo when we're laying in the bed in the wee hours
just thinking. i wonder when our favorite song would play, if ever.
what songs truly define who we are?

our songs are not alone either. they join in the tunes of others.
there's harmony when we're in agreement. it's a cacophony when we're
at odds. and sometimes we can hear some of our own tunes listening to
the music of others, in the way they laugh, the way they cry, the look
in their eyes when they wonder. it's been beneficial, at least for me,
to listen for the turns in melody in others that i've heard in myself,
and i hope that i've been able on occasion to kindle in others the
uplifting songs i've heard in my own soul sound.

in the end, i think a lot of us are singing the same song, just maybe
in a different key.

ghost

join me

i think it might be a good thing that we can't undo the past. if we
were able, would we ever move forward in time? or would we be forever
attempting to perfect our moments, going back again and again,
changing this and that, continually tinkering, unsatisfied with the
course of our lives? it's like all of those time travel movies. one
moment undone in innocence throws everything else out of kilter. who
wouldn't go back, if he/she could, and try to change our mistakes? our
embarrassments? i'm sure most people, like me, couldn't be trusted
with that kind of power. we see too little and think it's the whole
picture. we are entirely too self centered.

it's better to find a purpose for what has happened, i think. this is
also fraught with the dangers of myopia, though. we snap up any
reasons which fit our wants and viewpoints. it's also little comfort
when your heart has been torn out and stomped if someone tells you it
is meant to be. because f*ck that. you know? perhaps the healthiest
(and hardest) thing to do is move on, and not dwell. if there is a
purpose, it has the habit of revealing itself at the oddest times, and
we are forced to see how small our picture plays in the grand
choreography of this life. forcing the picture never quite works out.

so, join me in my attempt to take my own advice. let go of the past.
it won't go anywhere. what good is it to count your bruises? it is in
us to persevere, and sometimes we don't know why. all we can do is
keep one eye out for the future that's always rushing toward us, and
the other to the sky should a sign ignite.

ghost

what you got, Monday?

overwhelmed

i've been doing the impossible with so little for so long. twelve years. but...

it has caught up with me, and now it is all too much to handle with so
few resources. i hate to, but it's time to pull the trigger.

f*ck everything.

ghost

five minute writing: channeling

logic, most unkind,
mocking my mind,
hiding in the current of my thought.
my dreams, they disappear.
even when they're near,
some have trouble staying caught.
words i don't really mean
insert themselves midstream
when i'm talking nothing again.
yesterday has passed,
at least, out of my grasp.
still, i hold to what i knew back when.

ghost