The Divine Liturgy

"Blessed is the Kingdom..."
and the ship that is the
ark of salvation slips its
lines and embarks on a
timeless journey through
storm-tossed seas
of deep mystery and
translucent creatures
whose luminous eyes
frame mouths full of silence.
Incense rolls out over
the water and envelops
the candle-lit vessel
pulsing and floating
like a numinous cloud
on the eternal now.
Angels, winged and
terrible in their beauty,
circle the ship crying,
"Holy, holy, holy,
Lord of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth
are full of Thy glory."
The Father's protection
and the Mother's embrace
are made palpably present
through the five senses,
a gentle jostling of living icons
in line for bread and wine.
The ship returns to the
shores of time and
the passengers disembark
wide-eyed and blinking,
cup of coffee soon in hand.

De Profundis

Floating on the surface,
surrounded by the detritus
of unbridled passions
and quiet indifference,
burned by sun and
buffeted by waves.

Even so,

there are moments
of moonlit uncertainty
when I feel the
call of the deep.

Breathing slows
and deepens in
anticipation of the
rare dive,
fear and awe,
a beckoning from
what lies below.

A kick splash
signals the descent
into utter darkness,
enveloped by the
stillness of the
mother's womb,
hearing the heartbeat
of the world,
feeling the brush
of impossible creatures
traversing unknowable spaces.

Until,

a bone-crushing
melancholy wells up,
my weakness
drawing me back
to the surface,
where I once more
find myself bobbing
amongst the litter of my life.

***

"Rainball" - a photo essay

The Heart's Eye

Beauty blooms 

full for 

the heart's eye* 

to see.

* ὁ νοῦς

A Gift from Dad

I'm driving home from work listening to Terry Gross interview singer-songwriter Mary Gauthier on the radio.  She sings "Another Train" while playing her guitar and as the chorus glides in on a wave of melancholy, something magical happens in my car on this lonely Ohio road. 

I'm surprised to hear my voice join in with a piercing tenor line that cuts through my heart like a honey-dipped knife.  It's like some kind of spiritual harmonic has welded our voices together, resonating inwardly and outwardly, bigger and fuller than it should be considering I'm using a falsetto voice to catch those high notes. 

It was my Dad who taught me this little bit of magic, the ability to hear the harmony lines to a song and add my voice to the weave.  It started with him inviting me to sing with him in the church choir in my early teens, standing beside him as he pointed out the tenor line and I tried to follow his lead until I could do it on my own. 

The other harmonic lines soon followed and I have added my voice to the likes of James Taylor, Neil Young, and Natalie Merchant, sometimes while washing the dishes and other times while driving my car.  I can think of few things more precious that my Dad could have given me in this short life, certainly not monetary wealth or other coarse offerings, but the gift of joy in the making of music.

"Another Train" by Mary Gauthier

My Son's Closet

My son's closet is as big as it needs to be,
full of books, toys and misplaced articles of clothing.
If one were to clear a space to sit and ponder,
closing the door with an expectant push,
it would expand to encompass
all that is worthwhile in this short life.
The darkness, a comforting presence,
surrounded by familiar objects infused with joy and laughter.
Time would skip along the surface of fond memories,
then sink into something deeper still.

Listening to Arvo Pärt's "Kanon Pokajanen"

***

When I pass,
time will no longer
have a hold on me.
My spirit will
find this place,
this circle of voices,
inhabit it 
and be transported
to where 
love is all in all.

***

Times Square

It's the antithesis of a monastery,
assaulting the eyes and ears,
trying to draw me out, but instead
forcing me to retreat into myself.

The music pumping out of the
sunglasses store is so deafening that
customers must yell to be heard.

Adults are wearing mismatched
superhero costumes that a precocious
three year old could see through
while tourists and ticket sellers
pair off in a sidewalk pas de deux.

Broadway billboards boast of
being the best in some particularity:
longest running, newest, a Tony
for this and a Tony for that with
hyperbole from the New York Post.

The smell of honey-roasted nuts
mix with cigarette smoke and
the grilled meat of street vendors.

It’s overwhelming and underwhelming

all at the same time.

Rust in Peace

***

Sometimes I tire
of driving this tank
peering out of
the periscope's
finite field of vision
turning this torso
lifting these limbs
these lead pipe legs
trudging through
too many muddy ruts
seeking solid ground
to gain traction
to move forward
through life's battles
hoping to find
a flowering field
to rust in peace.

***

Irish Pub

He sits with his back to me,
blue jacketed and tieless,
likely in his mid to upper fifties.
I see his face because of the
mirror at the back of the bar.
I can't help but notice how
slowly and deliberately he
reaches for his glass of beer,
as if he could miss it if he
is not careful and reach
past to where it is not. He
stares too long in the mirror.
He closes his eyes but a
slight wobble pops them open.
It's afternoon at an Irish Pub
in Midtown Manhattan.

Ghost Train

The F train wasn't running
due to a malfunction
and New Yorkers knew to
find a different mode
of transportation this
particular Sunday morning.
I am not a New Yorker
and the F train was my
only route to Liturgy on
the Lower East Side.
I stood by the tracks
at the 42nd street station
oblivious of my ignorance.
After 10 minutes the train
arrived and I boarded
without qualm or incident.
Emerging at 2nd Avenue
a man quickly bore down
on me to ask if the F train
was, in fact, running now.
I assured him that it carried
me to where we now stood.
After Liturgy the priest said
that many were missing
because the F train did not
get running until after 10am.
Having arrived at 8:45am
I couldn't help but think,
"What the F?"

Inviting Vikings

The Vikings came, but by invitation.  The peoples of what is now Northern Russian needed assistance to bring order from chaos and turned to their Nordic neighbors for help.  The ancient crumbling fortress of Izborsk stands as testament to that dark time.  It sits on a flat hilltop overlooking a long valley that runs into a lake fed by twelve springs that pour out of the side of a hill like mortal wounds. 

My time at Izborsk was part of a day trip from the Pskov Caves Holy Dormition Monastery where I'd been staying with my three traveling companions.  We had arrived by bus over roads that nearly jarred the teeth out of my head: three Russian seminarians, a monk novice, and me, a lost American.  Just inside the gaping hole that used to be the main gate sat a small Orthodox church with a graveyard.  The tombstones had distinctive Scandinavian  shapes, darkened and  worn by centuries of weather.  A nun carrying a basket of blackberries greeted us with a lovely smile, her face peeking through the opening of a once black head covering that had faded to gray. 

We dropped our backpacks in a simple one room house that she made available to us.  A thick blackberry preserve was offered and shared amongst us five weary pilgrims.  The sweet sticky mash renewed our vigor and brightened our spirits.  In the midst of our simple feast, one of our company suddenly jumped back in surprise and pointed at his backpack lying on the floor.  It was moving!  He poked at it with a stick as we all held our breath waiting to see what would happen next.  A curious kitten stuck its head out of the open flap and laughter poured out of us like soda from a shaken bottle.   

We then took a long hike down to the lake to see the "Spring of the Twelve Apostles" and passed through a large forested cemetery outside of the fortress walls.  At the entrance was a large flat-topped boulder with three concentric squares chiseled into its top.  I was following the lines and intersections with my finger while sitting on the boulder when an epiphany struck.  I knew what this strange configuration was!  I called my Russian friends over to see what I'd discovered.

I explained to them that it was an ancient Viking game known in England as "Nine Men's Morris", a game mentioned in one of Shakespeare's plays.  They were dully impressed. I knew of it from a program I had on my computer called "Games of the World" that included the Chinese game Go and the African game Mancala along with Nine Men's Morris.  Each game was prefaced by a multimedia history lesson that explained the game's origins.  I remembered it showing a photo of an excavated Viking ship that had been found with a Nine Men's Morris board carved into its deck.  And here in Northern Russia I'd found one on the top of a rock.

We continued on through the countryside until stopping at a spring bubbling up into a small pool under a tree.  We knelt and drank some of the water, water that was so cold it was like a slap in the face.  My seminarian friend informed me that this was a blessed spring, famous for curing those with maladies of the eye.  I immediately thought of my friend back home, Kevin, who suffered from poor vision due to having had retina blastoma as a child.  I felt compelled to get some of this water to him but was unsure of how to do it.  I asked the others if they had water bottles, but no one did.  They found a nearby farmer's house and explained the situation to the man living there.  He disappeared into his house and came out a few minutes later with a glass bottle and a cork.

The day was spent like that, exploring this obscure part of Russia with deep roots and great beauty.  The memories are only fragments now as they happened fifteen years ago over a twelve hour period and I am only just now writing them down.

                                

                                 

Being Kurt Vonnegut

I don't know doodley squat and here is the proof.  We have been staying at the Resident's Inn on the canal in Indianapolis at least once a year for the past several years when we are in town.  We were there just last week for part of Elias's Spring Break, as a matter of fact.  On our first full day there we visited the zoo, took in the dolphin show, and drove around to other familiar places from when we used to live there before kids.  Upon our return to the hotel we swung into the back parking lot entrance off of Senate Avenue, but not before Jennifer said rather nonchalantly, "Hey, there's the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library."

"What did you say?" I asked, trying to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

"The window of the building we just passed read: Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library."

It seemed too good to be true.  Really?  Something like that right under our noses and I never knew it was there?  I quickly parked and Elias and I ran across the parking lot, skipping around the corner acting silly.  And there it was!  I was positively giddy.  It seemed too much to hope that it would be open on a Saturday, but the door was unlocked and we stepped in expecting the unexpected, though in retrospect I do not know how unexpected it could have been considering the name of the place was pretty much self-explanatory.

An exceedingly pleasant lady greeted us and a quick glance around revealed we were the only ones there.  She explained what the museum was all about and showed us around the smallish interior that included multimedia presentations, artwork by Kurt, his typewriter that he used in the 70's (under glass), a life-sized replica of his writing study, and other paraphernalia associated with his life.  I shared with her that I was currently reading Breakfast of Champions which I thought was queer considering it had been many years since I'd last picked up any Vonnegut, though I had read a memoir by his son, Mark Vonnegut, a few years back.  His son is a pediatrician and suffers from Bipolar Disorder.  The book is "Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So", probably the most brilliant title I've ever come across, but I digress.

She shared about her connection to Kurt Vonnegut which was through her uncle who was Kurt's best friend and best man at his wedding.  I shared about my recent efforts at writing with an eventual goal of banging out a novel (likely after the kids have left home and arthritis has set in).  She persuaded me to sit in Kurt's chair in his replica room and I persuaded her to capture the moment with my phone.  I was hoping that his writerly blessing might fall on me in that moment as my posterior touched the padded vinyl seat and I leaned forward to place my fingers on the typewriter keys.

The next day we had some more downtime and Elias asked to return to the museum.  It was once again open and a younger man was now running the place.  He explained to us that the typewriter I'd posed with the day before was not only functional, but had paper in it for people to type whatever they'd like which would then be tweeted on their twitter, and so on and so forth.  I pulled up a Vonnegut-pertinent Facebook status on my phone that I'd posted only a week or two prior and clacked it onto the white paper, "Kurt Vonnegut has just revealed to me that I am an unwavering band of light and for that I am grateful."  It was a reference to something I'd read in Breakfast of Champions.  Elias was fascinated by the whole typewriter *clack-clack-clack-zing* thing.

Before we left the museum that final time I visited the small gift shop.  I wanted to purchase everything available to include a Kurt Vonnegut doll, but I didn't want to offend Kurt's spirit which had so sardonically skewered American consumerism, so I settled for a black baseball cap with the museum's logo on it.

I am writing now

For twenty seven years, since the age of eighteen, I have been walking along, not looking back, in order to deal with a certain amount of instability, knowing I will not be staying put for long.  I have now been living in one place for five years this Spring, which is the longest I've lived anywhere since I left home for college.

I am writing now and it is as if I've finally found the courage to look back, from a more stable place, a slightly higher place, that allows me to see much of what has come before.  It is a wildly varied terrain with little continuity, though I believe there is a unifying force holding it together, maybe the sky above or some deep underground river.

It seems that I have lived long enough to finally be able to see these things and how they relate to who I am.  My traveling companion of fifteen years has been an invaluable part of this process.  Like a powerful magnifying lens, she has helped bring difficult things into focus.  Some glimpses give weight to wonder while others fill me with a kind of dismal despair.

But if I can begin to try and make sense of it all, maybe I can change the terrain that is to come, making it something better, something higher, something deeper, something richer and more full of life as a lead-in to the world to come.

The Curve

It's a white balloon that floats from place to place through time and space.  The string remains firmly tied to my corporeal self, but my memory goes where it will, buoyed by the lightness of immaterial thoughts.  At present there is a name scrawled in blue marker on the balloon, "Angela."  She is my older sister by two years, two years that might as well have been twenty years in terms of maturity when we were growing up.  The balloon with her name on it descends on a hospital in Southern Indiana and winds its way through well lit corridors to find a particular exam room.  A doctor is entering that room and the balloon bobs down under the door frame brushing his crew cut as he shuts the door behind him.

She is twelve, maybe thirteen, wearing pants and a hospital gown partially open in the back.  I am ten, maybe eleven, and I am there with her and my mother listening to the doctor explain what concerns him.  He has my sister bend over while standing so that her arms dangle below her.  The gown is tied at the bottom and her bare back rounds up out of it like a smooth-shelled sea turtle.  It makes me a little uncomfortable, but things like this are possible in a doctor's office where body parts take on a peculiar significance.

He uncaps a blue ink pen and does something remarkable. Starting at her neck he draws a line on her skin straight down her spine, only it doesn't quite work out that way.  Somewhere around the top of her shoulder blades the pen travels out and away from the center a good little ways before eventually making its way back to center, crossing the line again slightly, and then back to the middle.  It is a visible gesture so that even I understand that something is not as it should be.  As it soaks in, the friction that exists between the siblings doesn't seem quite so tangible as it did just a moment ago.  The balloon floats out through an open window and heads South, forward into the future a bit, drawn on by a stream of thoughts and emotions.  

She has moved on to Louisville, an hour or two from home, to stay at Kosair Children's hospital, by herself, off and on for weeks at a time, for an entire year.  It is an old and sprawling building, built at a time when some thought was given to aesthetics and not just pure practicality.  From a ten year old's perspective it appears to be a giant castle with wide verandas,  stonework, wooden beams, and sharply angled eaves.  As an adult I would recognize it as resembling a very large Swiss chalet.  The front grounds are expanses of grass dotted with towering trees.  I flew a kite on those lawns, played tag, and even set off fireworks with a cousin who came along with us on the Fourth of July that year.  I see myself crawl under a pine tree and hide on a soft bed of needles.

The balloon floats through the front doors and bounces along the high ceilings.  Below are children wearing contraptions on their arms, legs, or torsos, some shuffling along with the help of crutches and others in wheelchairs.  It is a place unto itself, where things have gone terribly wrong and need to be made right. The balloon finds my sister lying in a hospital bed rigged up to what appears to be some kind of medieval torture device. Surrounding her ankles are leather straps connected to a pulley at the foot of the bed off of which hang weights dangling in space.  Around her head and under her chin are more leather straps connected to more weights hanging off the back of the bed.  She is being stretched, a week at a time, and body-casted intermittently throughout the course of a year.

When she is able to be free of these constraints she joins us on a second story veranda where I see myself running with a large soap-saturated ring making elongated bubbles.  The balloon enters the ring and makes its way down the bubble's interior.  Floating down this thin walled tube it passes my father, my mother, my four year old sister, and Angela, all comically distorted through the warped surface.  I feel it pop and watch tiny droplets spatter over my freckled face.

She has a roommate named Wendy, like in Peter Pan.  They pass the time sharing stories while staring at the ceiling, strapped as they are, only able to see the other through the corner of the eye.  Their chins are always chafed and red from the pressure of the straps.  These markings leave my young self with a sense of disquiet tinged with awe.  It is a concrete sign of what my immature brain cannot really even imagine and makes me shudder even now thinking about it.  The balloon hovers over Wendy's bed as she is telling a story, a story of when Baryshnikov was in Louisville for a performance and she acquired a beer bottle that he'd drunk from, fished from a trashcan if I remember correctly.  She treasured it as a sacred souvenir, having touched the lips of one of the greatest ballet dancers of all time.  She herself went on to become one of the greats in dance, this preadolescent girl who is better known today as the recently retired Wendy Whelan.

The balloon floats forward in time to a scene in my early married years as a Medical Student before kids have come into the picture.  My young wife and I are watching a program on PBS.  I am intrigued because it includes jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis in the process of creating music in collaboration with a choreographer. I am a lover of jazz music; my Father and I both played trumpet.  My wife is intrigued with the dancer because she had danced when she was younger and knew this particular ballerina from the dance magazines she had consumed as a teenager.  The dancer on the TV screen with Wynton Marsalis is Wendy, though I don't make the connection until some time later.

Time flashes forward again and now I see myself as a young psychiatrist at a conference in downtown Louisville.  Nearby is Kosair Children's Hospital and out of curiosity I wander down the street and into the front lobby.  It has long since moved out of its old building on the outskirts of town and instead inhabits this glass and steel structure amongst other glass and steel structures.  Inside there are brightly colored banners and large stuffed animals to make it more child friendly.  The balloon fits right in, but there is not a single blade of grass or even a solitary tree here. Practicality has won out.  This is a place to fix the human machine, a realization that makes me feel blue.

The balloon labeled "Angela" finds its way back to me sitting here at the dining room table typing these words, back curved over the keyboard, touched by what I've seen, finding it hard to believe I was ever the age my son is now or that my sister had to go through such a thing as a young girl.  Life threw her a curve, as it were.  I should call her.

The Gesture

"WHAT'S YOUR INTERPRETATION?", a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

The giant hand
gestures at
the homeless man
as if to say,
"See there,
a person in despair,
who must firmly grasp
his shoe straps and
hoist himself
into the air."
He is unaware
of the hovering attention,
the condescension.
The "invisible hand"
offers little
in the way
of a plan
that he can follow
or understand.
She pulls away
as if to say,
"You are not worth
the time of day"
and shoves up
her sleeves
to do nothing.

***

Re-Entry

Life is a fall
from a great height,
a star-heart birth
and journey through
endless space.

Meandering in the void

until picking up speed
with mounting terror
as temperatures rise
in the middle years.

A growing realization
that the extreme heat
is burning away
impurities of the soul
until a final plunge…

into the cool ocean depths of death.

***

Purple Foot

Purple Foot, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
left foot forward
right to the rear
a quick counter-clockwise
spin of the torso
arms flung outward
holding the hips still
as long as possible
until the tension
is too great and
the right foot lifts
from the ground
whipped around in
an arc of unwinding
energy until meeting
a piece of piano
with an abrupt halt
and the failure of
vascular integrity
accompanied by
a rush of pain
***

An Utter Fool

***

My son is asleep in his bed
and he is beautiful.
He sleeps soundly,
at peace,
because love
tucked him in.
Watching him breathe,
my mind winds its way
back to a troubling past,
the days before I was married
and had little thought
for my own safety.
Seeing him lying there,
his life dependent on mine
both now and in the days
prior to his birth
for the sake
of what was to come,
I shudder in thinking
of the numberless times
I put myself in danger,
without a care,
on some adventure,
giving my physical wellbeing
over to chance,
whether here or overseas,
with friends or alone,
and I feel like an utter fool.

***

Medical School Dropout - a cautionary tale

Somewhere in the back of his muddled brain he seemed to recollect he'd been a medical student once, before the cognitive decline, the skin problems and the muscle stiffness. When he could still put more than a few thoughts together he had speculated that he must have come into contact with some exotic disease in the tertiary care hospital on campus. He should have sought medical attention at the first sign of symptoms, but he was someone who kept to himself, always in fear of being called out or considered a slacker. He was not one to self-diagnose like many of his classmates who were eager to utilize their newly acquired knowledge. He made do even as his grades plummeted and he began to sneak into the gross anatomy lab late at night for a little snack.

There was a time when the idea of eating brains would have greatly disturbed him, he was not ignorant of the risk of prion disease after all, but that was before the hunger began. He'd been studying in the medical library one Fall evening (a futile endeavor as he could retain little) when a picture of a brain in his anatomy text triggered a growl in his midsection. This was quickly followed by the thought that the anatomy lab was only one floor above him and maybe he would just put in a little time working on his cadaver. The books were doing him no good, so why not some hands-on work?

He put his books away and shuffled through the door and into the darkened hallway. He held his arms out in front of him because it felt right somehow, though he told himself it was just to feel his way through the dark. The elevator was an old fashioned affair that could only hold a few people with a metal-cage door that folded to one side with a tug. He stepped into the center under the sickly hue of the single light that cast shadows over his eyes.  He turned awkwardly then pulled the cage door shut.  The elevator jerked and rattled upward. A blank stare mirrored a growing single mindedness.

Standing over his assigned cadaver he clicked on the low hanging fluorescent light above his head illuminating the dissecting table. His eyes kept wandering up to the head before he forced them back down to the dissected abdomen. The brain dissection was not for a few more weeks into the curriculum, but his own pre-frontal cortex appeared to be misfiring. An impulse had him reaching for the bone saw and plugging it in. A flick of the switch and its half-circled cutting blade buzzed to life with a kick in his hand. He found himself breathing quicker as he applied it to the forehead and pressed downward. Flecks of skin and small bone chips began flying off into the darkness of the room.

It took some doing, but with the help of a small crowbar-type tool he was able to eventually pry off the top of the cranium as the arachnoid mater separated in web-like strands. He paused and took in the sight: a shiny grayish beige surface of what appeared to be intertwined sausages. A pleasurable shudder shot through his body. It was a welcome sensation after what had been a growing sense of numbness over the past few weeks. He pushed down on it and it pushed back with a kind of rubbery resistance. He pushed harder and his finger broke through the surface, buried to the second knuckle. He retrieved his finger and placed it into his mouth. It was a little bland, but not too bad.

The next few days he noticed that he had little appetite for his normal fare and was not visiting the cafeteria or making his typical late night Taco Bell runs. His thoughts kept returning to the anatomy lab where he'd made a few more trips taking thin slices of the brain before carefully replacing the top of the cranium. He'd discovered that the slices tasted even better when laid on a Ritz cracker, yet something was missing. This was quickly becoming his sole source of nourishment and he was growing paler by the day, preferring to come out only in the evening hours. He also began staying in his apartment less and less, hanging out instead behind an abandoned dumpster in a back alley that he could crawl into for shelter when needed.

His clothes were getting a bit raggedy and hung loosely on him. He couldn't remember the last time he'd changed them and he didn't seem to care. His main preoccupation had become one of trying to figure out how to get fresh brains which he was sure were much tastier than the formaldehyde scented slices he'd come to depend on. Before he'd descended into what appeared to be a premature dementia, he'd had the wherewithal to put the bone saw in his backpack which he kept behind the dumpster near a covered electrical outlet that was conveniently located on the alley wall.

The days passed and the lonely former medical student became increasingly depressed as his slow movements frustrated attempts to acquire what he needed to feed his hunger. The occasional nighttime passerby easily eluded him. He was dismissed as a mostly harmless and malodorous drunk by those who found their way down his alley. This went on for quite a long time as technology and human habits began to change, changes that resulted in an upturn of his fortunes.

He would never forget that first time (though it was quickly forgotten). She was likely a college student or may have even been attending his former medical school. She was using the alley as a short cut and was thoroughly engrossed with a glowing rectangle of some kind in her hand. He watched from behind his dumpster in dumb amazement as she approached, her face and blond hair cast in a bluish light from the thing that she held. He stepped out and she almost walked straight into him as he closed his hands around her throat to cut off her scream.

From that moment forward more and more distracted persons made their acquaintance with his bone saw and ended up in his dumpster. He learned to use their small devices by tapping them with his mottled finger until the batteries were dead. He no longer had to feel the anguish of hunger and their glowing boxes provided hours of mindless entertainment inside his darkened dumpster. He did not seem capable of introspection, but he thought he might be happy.

***

High Street

Driving home
'round midnight
on High Street
steady rain falls
putting a thick
shine on every
conceivable surface
the lane lines
barely visible

floating sensation
like a small fish
skimming along
the back of a
Killer Whale

neon lights from
Tee Jaye's create
a psychedelic slick
on the street
colors running together
over the washed windshield
puddles sending out
splashes of synesthesia

NPR's "Echoes"
on the dial
ambient music of
Tangerine Dream
flowing from the radio
like liquid sound

a pseudo-experience of
sensory-altering substances
striking the cortex.


***

Watching the Wheels

"People say I'm crazy, doin' what I'm doin'..." or so sings John Lennon, a man and his music that I've grown to appreciate over the years. This has been especially true after becoming a father myself and seeing the positive changes it made in his life after Sean came into the picture. It didn't hurt that in my college years I grew my hair long and wore circular spectacles for a time. Those were the days of the occasional comment that I resembled the former Beatle which helped solidify the affinity.

This phenomenon had its strangest manifestation when I was living in Korea. One of my friends during that time was a Korean man who went by the name "Paul". The first time I saw him was at Seoul Union Church, barefoot and sitting Indian-style on a side pew with his eyes closed. He wore all black and had a large wooden pectoral cross hung around his neck. We went out after the service to a coffee shop where I learned he was a Catholic attending a Protestant church because "I'm learning about all different kinds of spirituality." He was a peculiar fellow, fancied himself a monastic of some sort and never without a lit cigarette on his lips.

He had a part time job at a Catholic bookstore and was always broke, which he reframed as a monastic virtue. We spent most of our time together hanging out in coffee shops with me picking up the tab, but on one occasion he took a notion to treat me at a small restaurant near his neighborhood. He was very excited about this and ordered a good amount of food that I slurped down gladly. We were there for what seemed a very long time and the restaurant owner was becoming increasingly impatient, asking Paul if there was anything more we needed. Finally, he came clean with them that he had no money but assured them that he would return by week's end to cover the bill.  What could they do but agree to this atypical arrangement?  I did not have the money to cover the tab or I would have paid for the feast we'd just indulged in.  This, as I was to learn, was par for the course when hanging out with Paul.

Another incident involved one of the ubiquitous coffee shops which cover Seoul like a pleasant rash.  These establishments must top the list of Korea's entrepreneurial endeavors as there are so many unique offerings and so few chains.  I must have visited at least a hundred of these places in multiple cities and towns. The one I'm thinking of was very dark with no windows and low lighting.  Either side of the room had booths lining the walls and running down the center were tables and chairs separated by chest high wooden dividers for a sense of privacy.  Paul was chain smoking as usual and complaining about his extreme sinus pain. He said that he needed just fifteen minutes to sleep and laid down in the booth with his dirty bare feet sticking out into the aisle.  The female owner eventually saw this and came over to tell him he couldn't sleep here.  She looked very stern with hands on hips, but I held up my hand to keep her from shaking him and told her in Korean to please not do that, he was not feeling well. A waitress had come over by that time to see what was going on. The owner's stern look broke at my attempt to intervene with minimal Korean language skills and she gave a little forced laugh. She then directed the waitress to help her move one of the wooden divider walls and they placed it in front of our booth so that people couldn't see Paul sleeping there like a homeless person from the street.

He had a way of exasperating people who weren't in tune with his oddness. It definitely made things interesting.

After being in Korea for two years, my tour of duty with the Army was up and I returned to the States to finish my senior year of college. That last year at Indiana Wesleyan University I befriended the six or so Korean students there and when I returned to Korea as a civilian I met up with two of them at different times to hang out, one in Seoul and one in Pusan. I met the one from Seoul, whom I'll call "Ki" because that is the half of his name that I still remember, at one of the many coffee shops I'd frequented during my two previous years there. We were sitting at a window booth on the second floor overlooking the front of the building.

By that time I'd grown my hair down to my shoulders and carried with me some retro green tinted sunglasses, very different from my military cut and look of the previous year. Ki and I were reminiscing about the good times we'd had the past year at IWU when I glanced out of the window and saw a man staring up at me from the street, fixed in place, eyes big as saucers. It was Paul. He broke into a huge grin and started waving frantically. My Korean friend looked at him and then looked at me with a distinct WTF? expression. As Paul hurried to the front door I quickly explained to Ki that I knew Paul from when I was last in Korea and that he was a little strange, trying to prepare him for what was to come.

Paul barreled up the steps and plopped onto the bench opposite me next to Ki. He was like a kid hopped up on sugar. Ki was bemused but also visibly uncomfortable with Paul's demeanor. I should add here that Ki was a "cool guy" who used expensive haircare products and wore fashionable clothes. Paul prattled on in a rapid fire manner and then, rather excitedly, declared that I looked exactly like John Lennon. He wanted me to put on my sunglasses and would not take "no" for an answer. I finally relented and as soon as they settled on my nose Paul exploded into squeals and clapping, "IT'S JOHN LENNON!  IT'S JOHN LENNON! WOO WOO! YOU ARE FAMOUS! YOU ARE FAMOUS!" Ki looked like he wanted to slide under the table and hide from all of the eyes that were suddenly drawn to our table. I quickly removed the sunglasses but it was too late. Ki was caught in a seriously uncool scene and I felt bad for him, but I couldn't bring myself to be mad at Paul.  No one had expected such a highly improbable meeting. Maybe it was just meant to be.

So, fast forward twenty years to last night. I was feeding Poppyseed her bedtime snack at the dining room table. She typically will refuse to eat any bites unless there is something that interests her playing on the iPhone. A friend had posted a link to John Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" on Facebook earlier in the day and so I pulled it up for her. The video included pictures of John in various poses and situations as well as some live action stuff, some with a beard and some without, some with long hair and some without, some with glasses and some without. Poppyseed leaned forward to get a closer look and said very matter-of-factly "Dat's you." She said it again while pointing at a picture of John with medium length hair poking out from under a beret, glasses and no beard, "Dat's you, Daddy." She looked up at me with a funny little smile as I watched the wheels go round and round in her bright eyes.

The Brothers K

The Brothers K, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
I ask forgiveness
for everything
and from everyone
without exception
because the only
evil that matters
is that which
I've contributed
to the noxious mix
of self-centered
wants and desires
that do not
recognize limits
or restraint
where mediocrity
masks as virtue
and suffering multiplies
with my indifference

***

A Family Portrait

A family portrait
of perfect strangers
perfectly framed.
Side by side,
staggered, unsmiling,
staring straight ahead.

A glowing arrow,
disembodied voice
with lovely lilt,
"going down."
The elevator
doors slide shut.

A box of contained
pain, descending
into the depths
of my being,
looking for
a bottom.

The Melancholic Collector

Big Hat, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***

I don't want to build
or own anything new
but to use and inhabit
what has come before,
molding it to my needs,
a Salvation Army store
approach to living,
breathing in musty
smells while rubbing
my hand along rough
and uneven surfaces
imagining who has
worn these clothes,
what has been
in these drawers,
who has read
these yellowed books,
being the latest
link in a long
chain of existence,
feeling connected to
those who have
gone before while
my days play
themselves out
and the next
melancholic collector
wonders about who
I might have been.

***

Power Trio

Power Trio, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

Today I switched hospitals with a colleague for the convenience of going to a doctor's appointment that is located here. The thing I love most about this particular hospital is that it has a medical library that discards books relatively frequently and makes them available gratis. Many of the books are outdated manuals and reference books from obscure medical specialties, but sometimes, when the literary gods are feeling frisky, they are novels.

Today was just such a divinized day. The discard section was lined with brightly colored paperback spines that drew a running gaze from me, head tilted severely to the right. My eyes tripped along several low quality affairs and a shite-load of Tom Clancy titles until fixing firmly on the name Walker Percy. The book was "Love in the Ruins" and for those not familiar with mid-twentieth century Southern writers like Walker Percy, Eudora Welty or Flannery O'Connor, it might have been mistaken for a trashy romance or other some such thing. As it is, the main character is a psychiatrist and the story itself has a faint SciFi odor about it. It might as well have had my name written in it.

Another book that made my eyeballs stop and take notice was Kurt Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions". The last time I'd picked this book up and begun reading was in the early 90's as an overly earnest student at a stridently conservative college. Two chapters into it I had been thoroughly scandalized and saddened that this author whom I'd grown to love and trust for good fiction would write something so trashy and un-American. I stopped reading it in disgust and may have even thrown it away.

This book too was snatched up and put in my cargo pocket. I read the first two chapters while eating my lunch and found myself more than once giggling like a silly school girl. Such brilliant satire! Such scathingly accurate insights! Quirky as heck. Apparently it took twenty years of maturity for me to be able to appreciate what he was doing with this novel.

I met Kurt Vonnegut once, kind of, not really, and managed to piss him off. As a senior in High School I drove up to Indianapolis with some friends and fellow Vonnegut lovers on a blustery winter night to see him give a talk at a large High School auditorium. I had my hard back copy of Cat's Cradle with me and after the talk my friends and I snuck back stage.  As he attempted to exit in the rear I presented my book and a pen for his autograph while partially blocking the doorway. He gruffly waved me aside and pushed past us to leave, burning my friend's hand with his cigarette in the process. If I'd really known anything about him outside of the few books I'd read, I'd have probably known that that shite wouldn't fly with him. But I was just happy to have had my brush with fame, literally (literarally?).

The third book that caught my eye was John le Carré's "Russia House". To be perfectly honest, I have never read anything by him though I was enthralled by a movie based on one of his books, The Constant Gardner. I also recollect that the movie based on Russia House had a beautifully melancholic soundtrack that featured Branford Marsalis on soprano saxophone, a favorite Jazz musician of mine at the time. The music haunted me for weeks afterwards and gave me a burning desire to learn how to play a soprano saxophone.

I even went as far as to buy a soprano saxophone when I was living in Korea, a black beauty with nickel plated keys. I was able to shave almost two hundred dollars off of the price by using the monetary exchange rate to my advantage. The seller refused my offered price in dollars, so I split my offer into dollars and won (Korean currency) that he ended up accepting even though for me it was an equivalent amount. The one thing I learned from that experience is that if you want to learn how to play the saxophone, don't try and start with a soprano. And if you want a good deal in Korea, carry two currencies.

Sadly, I sold that saxophone a few years later for a loss in Bloomington Indiana after squeaking and squawking on it for awhile, but getting free books today has helped take away some of the lingering sting of that memory.

Whatever It Takes

whatever it takes

to escape the pain
if only for a minute

whatever it takes

to keep myself sane

or even to admit it

to take a hit
to draw a drag
to punch the vein
to light the fag

to sniff a snort
to slice the skin
to drink it dry
to grind a grin

to give it up
to a stranger's grope
to hang it high
to knot the rope

whatever it takes

to keep myself sane

or even to admit it

whatever it takes

to escape the pain
if only for a minute

***

A Very Snowy Day

A Very Snowy Day, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

A peculiar thing
to see a squirrel
dragging a cut
of cloth, jumping
from branch to branch,
through swirling
bits of snow.
Later, I ascend
the stairs
to a window,
binoculars in hand.
From my warm
perch I spy
the clump of
leaves and twigs
just slightly above
eye level
and bring the
viewing circles up
to take a look.
At once I am,
or perceive myself
to be,
in the nest
padded by a cut
of cloth on this
very snowy day.

Reading about Poetry

Reading about Poetry..., a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
Reading a book
about writing poetry
on a couch
in front of a window
while wind and snow
blow at my back.
My son says,
"Look Dad, it's a
blizzard!" And
so it seems.
***

The Sweater

The Sweater, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

I want to write about the sweater. It has wide stripes of black and red, only some have said over the years that it is dark pink or other somesuch color. The color is not important, though there is some significance to the fact that it was a color other than green. That detail came from how I acquired it in the first place, from friends, on my birthday, while serving as an infantryman in Korea. They were one American school teacher and two Korean students, friends I'd made while teaching English as a volunteer in the evenings in a small town north of Seoul.

They bought it at a shop outside of my military base, a shop among many shops selling cheap knockoff clothes, watches, and anything else that could be stitched or made to look like something it wasn't. But this sweater was different; thick, warm, and roomy. It has been in my possession for twenty three years and it looks like it could have been bought yesterday. What significance the red/pink/salmon whatever color?

My wardrobe then and now is 75% olive drab with the other 25% comprised of mostly earth tones. They were happy to give it to me for my birthday, so far from home, and laugh that they bypassed a nearly identical one that was green and black because I needed something "different" to wear. I later saw the one they passed on and found it exceedingly pleasing to my eye, but I did not buy it.  Instead, I wore the one they bought me out of deference to their friendship, a sustaining force in a hard place in my life, and it grew on me.

I brought it back to the States when my time was served and continued to wear it when the weather permitted, usually with a black or olive drab turtleneck, needing to temper its color with something more familiar, a compromise of sorts. I was wearing this very sweater the night I met the girl who was to become my wife. Accoutrements included a beanie and a man purse that I wore across the chest and called a "pouch." We laugh about it now, such strange ideas, individuality gone a bit awry. It is the prerogative of the single person with all eccentricities at full bore w/o any temperance or tampering by others, significant or otherwise. Somehow it was not off putting enough to disallow the coming of vows and the co-creation of two small but exquisite human beings who fill my heart beyond imagining.

The years have passed and the sweater has followed. It has survived several wardrobe weanings as we've hopscotched from the Midwest to the East Coast to the South and back to the Midwest. I have never been able to part with it, though it has fallen out of favor with my wife almost from the git go and I've ignored it these past almost fifteen years of marriage, sitting in the back of closets or in boxes, touched by neither moth nor decay. Until today.

It was one degree fahrenheit this morning when I let our dog out to potty. Instead of her usual roaming she did her business and returned quickly to the door to be let in. The few seconds of having the door open while standing there in my PJ's was almost unbearable. I made my way back upstairs and looked to my top shelf where I keep my sweaters, digging through the green, beige, brown, and black ones until that odd colored one dislodged itself, unearthed like a pleistocene fossil, the gay coat of a woolly mammoth. I brought it down and unfurled it to take a look, unchanged over so many years, a witness to so much of how I came to be who I am.

It was as thick and comfortable as I remembered it, worthy of a polar vortex. I'd sworn off turtlenecks for decades, nevertheless I dug around and found my old olive drab one and felt the two should be wed once more. Coming downstairs, I found my wife cooking breakfast for the kiddos.  She glanced up at me when I entered the kitchen. There was a hitch to that look that made her eyes hesitate, "You're not going to wear that to work, are you?" I told her it was warm and, ultimately, just a sweater, though in that look I could see that she wished I'd gotten rid of it years ago.

Premature

COSI, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
Perpetually born premature
I live out these tenuous hours
in my incubator of a house
kept alive by the oxygen-rich
vitality of my two children
and a spouse who will not
simply let me go with the
pull of a plug when the
drain of my selfishness
has reached its fullness
***

My Father's Shoes

New Basketball Shoes, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

I found them in the back of my father's closet amongst a litter of 70's style above-the-ankle leather shoes with side zippers. To be fair to my Dad, it was the 70's and I was seven years old. Above my head hung what seemed to be hundreds of polyester suits and a rack of ties, each wide enough to prevent any food from reaching a shirt front. In those younger days I had a habit of exploring every nook and cranny of the house when my parents were otherwise occupied, certain that I'd find something of interest that had been hither to hidden from me. And, by gum, I found just such a thing that day.

I picked one of them up and turned it in my hand to look at it from different angles, heck, I may have even smelled it. It was not like the others and it did not seem connected to my father who was a preacher from a very conservative denomination that was always on the lookout for signs of "worldliness." Its function and appearance did not include anything remotely Sunday-go-to-meetin' and had me not a little scandalized, but exhilarated all the same. What was it? Well, I can only say in retrospect what I did not know at that time. It was a bona fide black canvas Chuck Taylor All Star high top tennis shoe.

This was a part of my father that was a mystery to me at that time. He traveled a lot for his weekday job as a carpet salesman and oftentimes got home late. On Sunday mornings and Sunday evenings, as well as on Wednesday nights, he was preaching. The first time I really saw him in action was when he had invited another pastor from the same denomination to bring some of his church members over to play a full on game at the basketball court situated on a corner of the town square.

They all wore short sleeve buttoned shirts and long pants, not t-shirts and shorts which were deemed too worldly. They had to be a witness to anyone that might pass by and plainly see that they were of a different sort. The Chuck Taylors made an appearance that night on my father's feet for the first time since my discovery. I watched him shuck and jive around that court, run from end to end, and throw up several Bob Cousy style running hook shots. It made me deliriously happy and proud.

Now I am forty four years old and I have a son who just turned nine. This evening we bought him his first pair of high top tennis shoes for basketball season which starts this Sunday afternoon. Seeing those black Nike high tops in front of his closet tonight brought back that memory of a thrilling discovery in the back of my father's closet all of those years ago. And it made me deliriously happy and proud.

Purple Play-Doh

***
It's all she wanted
for Christmas
at two, almost three
years of age.
A consistent request
from which she
did not waver.
The look on her face
when she opened
that yellow cup
filled with the shade
of her fancy.
Who can describe
such a thing?
I won't even try.
***

The 4th Day of Christmas

***

On this fourth day of Christmas our almost three year old was playing with her favorite Christmas present, a Sesame Street playdoh color mixing machine, while standing in her tower at the kitchen island. She was also eating breakfast which was a glass of ice water and a small bowl of cut up sausage pieces.

At some point I looked up from my coffee and saw her using the small playdoh dipping spoon to transfer small amounts of water to her mouth, à la Orthodox Communion.  "Hey Anya, you look like you're taking Communion."

This triggered a huge grin and what appeared to be an actual sparkle in her eye. She picked up the glass and gave it a big kiss. "I kiss da cup," she giggled. She then put a piece of the sausage in her mouth. "I eat da bread."

Elias and I looked at each other and started laughing. High on her imagination and energized by our response she proclaimed in a loud voice, "I take cu-moony-yum!"

***

Children’s Classics

Poppyseed has discovered classic children's poems and songs on her mother's iPhone. For the past several days I have found her listening to them or singing snippets around the house. Today I caught "Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater..." coming from the front room. I later went to investigate and as I turned the corner I was greeted with "Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?"

It's strange how technology is shaping the way we ingest information these days. I can remember these exact same poems and songs in our Childcraft books growing up. I can perfectly picture the illustration for "Fishy, fishy, in the brook..." as well as others that really caught my eye and stoked my imagination. The other source of these children's classics as a kid was the record player with it's quarter-sized plastic adaptor for playing 45's.

I'd recently opined that Poppyseed knew more pop music references than those poems and songs passed down through the generations. Now it appears that she is making up for lost time on a smart phone. And now that I'm living in the new millennia I think I'm going to go on line and find those books on Amazon. Poppyseed's birthday will be here before we know it.

***

Ol' Roy

Untitled, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
It's raining
in December

Ol' Roy
hangs on
our tree
these past
ten Christmas's

painted before
kids came

A young
married couple
far from
their roots
in the
Mid West

He was
my grandpa
and he
loved trains

Still feeling
the thrill
of his
room-sized
train set

A six
year old
boy with
engineer's cap

shoebox-sized
train cars
powered by
electrified rails

A connection
that gets
more precious
with time

***

A Full Moon

St. Elias, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***

My son lies
in a darkened room
the lights out
sleeping
as I stand
over his bed.
I can see him
in the cold glow
of a full moon
its reflected rays
slanting through
his bedroom window.
Three fingers together
two drawn downward
making the sign
of the cross
reciting
a paschal hymn
a psalm of protection.
Let God arise
let his enemies
be scattered.
Let those
who fear Him
flee before
His face.

***

The Desert

Watching the Mud Dry #1, a photo by []Aaroneous Monk[] on Flickr.

***
Still haven't figured out this writing journal thing. I've always waited for inspiration in order to write and having some direction has always made writing easier. Writing w/o direction or inspiration, now that's a different story. When there is no excitement to fuel the writing it becomes a vast desert of unexplored territory. And what to explore? Sand? Cacti? The occasional boulder?

Writing seems to be pure magic. When I can't do it I wonder at those who can. When I am writing and it is going fairly well I wonder at where all of this information is coming from and how I am able to make sense of it all. I've also learned that I'm a sucker for alliteration and it comes up frequently when I write. So much so that I have to edit it out sometimes because it can get comical when I'm not trying to be funny. "The conniving clown cut cautiously on his crusty carbuncle." See what I mean?

At present I am trying to write a story about a crow I killed when I was a kid. I sense there is something powerful and disturbing in this story. I feel a need to write it out, to think it through, and come out on the other end with some new insight into myself. I love the idea of writing as self-therapy. I was made aware of this facet of writing when I was taking pictures and writing poems during a deployment to Iraq. It was so desolate there with no escape to familiar places or a recourse to well known faces. Sitting in my little concrete room at night I could handle the fear, the tedium, and the loneliness by writing a poem and pairing it with a picture.

Another recent example was starting with the idea of "I remember when" which led to memories of visits to a laundromat in the small town I grew up in. When we first moved there I was starting first grade and we were renting a house while waiting for our house to be built on the edge of town. The rental house, I later learned from my Mom, had no washer and dryer and that is why we were visiting the laundromat that first year or so. In writing down that little walk down memory lane I was able to gain a greater appreciation for my Mom. Our relationship was pretty bumpy growing up and looking at this one little bit of our lives by writing about it as an adult brought some understanding and healing with it.

So writing *is* powerful, but you gotta put down the words and spelunk the brain. That's what this journal is all about and this is my second entry, Hurray!
***