This blog is a collection of poems, stories and comics I've written over the years. The idea is to just use this blog to put stuff out there without worrying too much about editing! So entries are frequent and pretty raw. I hope this will be a source of comfort to other people who experience strong emotional swings.
Even when grey swirls outside
And the sun is just a memory
When the smallest decision isn’t clear
And it’d be nice to sleep
For a thousand years or so
Gratitude still wells up in the soul
At the knowledge that
Everything we own
We owe
That something is asked of us
And despite all our attempts to
Punt the question out of mind
It waits patiently for us
And our capacity to answer
Gives us a place among the stars
My whole life
David has been pulling the slingshot back
And now it’s finally taut
Stretched as far as it can go
I am the rock
Aimed straight at Goliath’s eye
About to fly at last
And Goliath will fall
Of that I am sure
But can I withstand the quake
He causes as he topples?
And who waits behind him?
People say life is exhausting
And it is
Along with monotonous, wearying
And often terrifying
But this I also know
If the first 40 years of my life
Are one second of wonder
How could a full life
Be anything more than two?
Frightened by a barking dog
It jumped three feet in the air
And landed on its feet
That was its last athletic act
Because it ran into the street
Straight under some wheels
That crushed its back legs
It’s never the immediate threat
But the one waiting just beyond
That does you in
Of all the gifts you’ve given me
The greatest is this
Where did you find the courage
To call me by my right name?
God inscribes us into His Book of Life
But I dreamt I saw the book of each person
It’s not just our deeds
But our hopes and dreams
Something of our reach
Of our essence
They were filled with wonder
And potential
And joy unbound
And once you read them
Even after they were closed
The joy had jumped off the pages
In the form of your loved ones
Here and gone
Singing
And you had only to run outside
To meet them
It was the kind of dream it hurts to wake from
Not just because we were together
But because we were ‘really talking’
As you’d have put it
And I had the right words
Though they started to slip away
Even as I spoke them
As I slipped back towards wakefulness
And away from you
But I’ll try to put down some of them here
You were mentioning
All the exhaustion and uncertainty
And even despair that you’d lived
And I told you you should rejoice
Because these are symptoms of the heart
And that I knew
The Being to Whom we return
Is concerned with matters of the heart
People wonder about lack of free will
But deep down we know
The issue is our wealth of it
We are forced to choose again and again
And this insecurity of freedom
Can wear us out
Until we would do anything
To chain ourselves
To a lover
Or an idea
Or a routine
Or a machine
When the only One worth chaining
Ourselves to
Is the Being who forbids us from
Approaching Him in chains
Sometimes truth comes
In the form of a loved one
Lost and now found
And sometimes it comes
While amidst an escape
You put your hand on dirty ground
Full of bits of glass
And have to work the shards out
Piece by piece
People talk about it moving slowly
Or fast
But I find that once you hit a certain age
It moves like an accordion
A moment in the present
And one in the past
Seem oceans apart
But suddenly
They’re pushed so close together
As to be almost indistinguishable
Just as quickly
They’ve sprung apart again
Leaving you blinking, disoriented
And if you’re really lucky
With some peace
To know that there is an Author of the world
Who is capable of designing the wind and the leaves and the grass
But Who is also capable of addressing you directly
Is wonder and joy
But sometimes terror
The great fear is not punishment
But being forsaken
As someone said
Hold me, scold me
But never let me go
Strange to know
You’re sticking around
When so many stronger, tougher people
You love
Have not
It’s not a particular talent of mine
But an act of grace
That makes me myself
So I owe it to them I guess
To see how it shakes out
But sticking around doesn’t mean
You’re not tired and scared shitless
Of what’s coming
Hearing the evil behind the good
All the time
Is tiring
It makes it hard to relax
During walks in the park
But it’s important to remember
That evil is the parasite
Not the other way around
Besides
Believing in God
Means it’s better to be defeated with Him
Than victorious without Him
Each of us must occasionally
Bash our head against the world
To reassure ourselves that there is life
Outside the mind
The trick is to do it just hard enough
So that the mind is jarred awake
But not shattered
It’s strange to feel some peace
While the world is convulsing
But my life has never been ordinary
I guess
How do you explain to people who are suffering
Whose kids are suffering
That what’s happening is part of a
Necessary process
And that the alternative is worse?
You don’t.
So you wrote a poem at 4am instead.
Some nights sleep comes pretty easy
And dreams are kind
And some nights there is nothing to do
But toss and turn
In wonder and terror and awe
With the knowledge
That chapters of the Bible
Are still being written
When God made man
The angels cheered and said “he will do deeds of mercy.”
But when God made man the angels wept and said “he will do deeds of falsehood.”
In order to make man He had to bury Truth
Underground
Suffering can be borne
But falsehood cannot
I think that’s the idea
So what does it mean to go excavating?
I read that man’s great adventure is to search for Truth
But the possession of it is God’s alone
I read that God is meaning beyond the mystery
And the meaning is destined to be disclosed
If we bent down long enough
To pick up some Truth
Would we stand up as something else
Altogether?
If there was no night
I could convince myself it wasn’t coming
You know, like those 24-hour days during the summer
In Finland, or Greenland, or Baffin Bay
Most often, I pass the days in good cheer
Even if the sun sometimes seems strange
But night exists
And when it arrives
I get the feeling
That the bigger thing is coming
And all the smug tweets
And funny gifs in the world
(Including my own)
Won’t be worth one candle
You’re passing someone on the street
Who looks just enough like him from behind
His hat and his walk,
That you could tap him and ask
‘Am I doing alright?’
And you’d know your answer
From his smile or a wink of his eye
The good is the mountain base
And the holy is the summit
That works
Insofar as the good is the well-worn
process of routine
And the holy is the rare event
Of Presence
But while a mountain’s summit
Is built atop its base
The good only exists
On the strength of the holy
Maybe that’s why the Midrash says
That when God offered the Torah on Sinai
He inverted the mountain above Israel’s head
While He waited for their answer
Aristotle says it’s enough to be good
And it should be enough
To live a good life
Love your family and friends
Tell a good joke that makes folks laugh
Treat people decent
And enjoy the changing seasons
And years
But the world isn’t good
It’s holy
Which means sometimes
You have to go to extremes
To reach the summit
And who wants that
When the plateau is so pretty
The issue has never been
The wolf in sheep’s clothing
It’s always the wolf in shepherd’s clothing
Who gets you
After all, throughout history
Is it the wolf
Or the shepherd
Who has killed more sheep?
Anyway
When he shows these days
I try and nod politely
Take a taste if I have to
To remind me what I’ve left behind
Exhale
And hope I’m tougher
Than the head of the flock
With pretty eyes
And perfect teeth
The toughest time
Is always just after I wake up
There must be some place I go
Where things fit
Not when I’m dreaming
Because by then this world
Has already intruded again
And started to muddy the picture.
Before my dreams
There’s a place
Where I get real rest
By the time I’m dreaming
It’s receding
And when I wake
It’s to the panic
Of a world in its confusion
Where (almost) nothing makes sense.
I am sitting on an atom bomb
That has to go off
Because the alternative is worse
It’s not a comfortable seat
I could use a headrest
And a cup holder
I don’t know whether to root for
Or against the explosion
But I guess
When it goes off
I won’t be stuck in the seat anymore