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december 2003

Madness' Call4:47am tuesday, 30th december
The madness called to me, and I answered, "Yes, I am here."
...I remember the cacophony and distortion, the chaos...
The madness called again, and I answered not a single word.

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Impossible Dreams2:00am monday, 29th december
Are dreams always impossible? I have heard only in stories where someone's dreams have come true, only in fairy tales. Have you ever known anyone who can say that about their circumstance — that it happened, just as they imagined it would? I myself have known no one. Perhaps I ask too much, that these dreams dear to me, that they come to life as if meant to be, become more than just imagination's figments. Perhaps dreams, at least my dreams, are impossible.... Or is it that I have too little faith? I cannot tell, one way or another, but my striving to fulfill my dearest wishes seem always to be face first into a harsh wind, to be blown back to the beginning of my journeys again and again — to start again, struggle on again from zero.

But my dreams: sometimes I feel as if I have nothing else. Nothing but to struggle from naught, if the fates would have it be. I have to think that it is all somehow for the best, that perhaps it is in the attempt that character is forged. So, I will try again, to climb to where no one has climbed ever before, to dream impossible dreams that no one has ever seen in the full light of day. I will hope, still, even be my cause hopeless — if it is a fool's hope, I say to you that I am a fool, and will always be one. And if what I dream now is ever taken away, as long as I am alive, I can dream anew, new impossibilities, new reasons to rise and meet the day.

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The Rose5:36am saturday, 27th december
The rose of my dreaming blooms in harshest night, when all stars have blinked out of view. The rose of my dreaming is red with the blood of those who have fallen chasing after impossible hopes. I cannot imagine that the rose of my dreaming is any sweeter than that of any child, though to them it is a new fragrance, and to me it is the familiar waft of old fantasies.... What is there to do? This rose haunts me as I walk on through this living, lets me not be when I desire some moments of unburdened silence. The rose of my dreaming I wish sometimes would flower in some other man's heart, though I am afraid should it ever leave me. This rose blesses me with a curse, curses me with a blessing — but sweet agony, let me never forget how your scent led me out of darkness.
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The Comedy7:00am friday, 26th december
Life is the comedy where
everyone dies. You know the one.
And who of us will die
laughing, do you think? I
for one hope to pass from this world
whispering a final prayer —
and let everyone wonder what I said.

Life is the comedy that's funny
at the oddest, most embarrassing
times, and often, the joke's
on you. I for one do not feel
that I laugh enough, so why not
laugh at myself? Why take life
so seriously — it isn't permanent?

Life is the comedy where
you wonder just what everybody's
laughing at. It's that joke we
don't get, the one the world
is setting us up for all our lives.
And the punchline? You
find out that it's actually worth it.

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Christmas Prayer5:30am thursday, 25th december
Christmastime, and so, I must a prayer: Lord, there are still times in my days when I conceive that somehow, all is lost, that I have been defeated in my goings. There are perhaps some with faith enough not ever to feel so, but I am not one who is so invulnerable. Sometimes, my heart breaks and I do not know why. Sometimes, there seems no point in anything I do. Lord, give me strength — strength I never knew I could possess; Lord, pull me through the harshness of life, even if I kick and scream that I do not want to go on a step farther. I know very little of Wisdom from above, but in me is a whisper that there always is some meaning to any pain I may experience. Let me know from time to time that You are with me, that you indeed carry me in my most desperate hours.

I often feel I will never reach the place where I am meant to go, that I will never be what I am meant to be, but let this never stop me from doing what I ought. The road I am on can seem too hard to travel, and the steps I take seem too feeble, that I will never reach to anywhere that purpose shows itself — but I must press on, nonetheless: that much I have learned. Grant me the desire to achieve some measure of goodness and light.

I know I pray not often enough, Lord, so that You might help me through; and I need more help than I let on. As always, thank You for having gotten me this far, for I have some distance come. This Christmas, let me understand a little of why, and wonder a little of why not. Let me never lose what little faith I have, let there always be hope.

Amen.

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Secret I Keep7:05am tuesday, 23rd december
Speak to me low a secret, and I will keep it best I can. To some it is a torture not to tell, but I am not one such as that. I think no one will know that I know — my face will not beam with the holding of it, whether it be of the good or of misfortune. Trust is a hard won thing, not given so lightly as the trees give their leaves in autumn. Tell me your hidden thing, and it will be like you told nobody at all. I hold of this holding it be a dear prize, and I shed a layer of my own heart if I tell of it, a fragment broken from my soul thrown away. I have always desired that I could be one as a keeper of an unknown flame, that someone find in me strength enough to be a guardian of its fire. Tell me truth, and true I stay — let not any demon promise make me spill loose the cup of your trust. Speak to me low a secret, and I will keep it best I can.
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Lever5:05am monday, 22nd december
With a big, huge lever, Archimedes could lift the world.
I saw him do it once: the Earth moved up a fraction of an inch.
I thought it must be better to lift one man a thousand feet.

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My Daylight3:30am saturday, 20th december
My daylight shies not away from shadow. It is a herald each morn that something wonderful approaches, and cannot be stopped. It floods into all spaces, thirsty for the darkness it swallows in great gulps. My daylight penetrates my imaginings, until my dreams float in a bath of light, until my most distant corners of thought awake. It is the sky wondering at the world, it is the defeat of all gloom, it is beams of holy architecture in the structure of the grand Purpose. My daylight understands the reason of all being. My daylight is a stream pouring down from eternity to lift the mortal heart from every gravity. Come, and see my daylight: for as it shines on, it shines on all: it shines on you.
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Tired — My Bent7:11am friday, 19th december
Why do I tire so easily? It seems as if I can never get enough sleep, that I always am functioning in deficit — and if I were left to it, I would snooze for days. I'm getting seven to eight hours a night; that's the norm, is it not? There are those that can make do with five, or even four hours, and I marvel at such a feat. Perhaps I am still used to doing nothing, sitting alone in a room talking to the visions in my head. I remember once during those times I slept for a week, straight, only waking up periodically to eat and excrete. How long will it be before my body catches on that those times are over? When I'm going at it at night doing my AI research, I don't want to go to sleep, and in the morning when the alarm clock goes off, I don't want to wake up. The rhythm of life, of the turning days: I just can't seem to get used to it.

I have in the last half of my life been a night person. Though in my youth I was never a morning person, it was no problem at all waking up close to the dawn. Then came the college years, and I believe this is when the change happened: skipping class, sleeping in every day, doing nothing most of the time except smoking pot and listening to music. I guess it is my lesson to be learned about habituating myself. Be careful. Some of these habits that we pick up, some of these rituals — there are places in our brains where they have worn grooves, and escaping these routes of our bent means a long, hard struggle out of rut. The patterns don't break easily; they must be picked at, little by little whittled down. We must remember this, any habit we may to begin.

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Shy7:07am thursday, 18th december
In my goings, I have much
shied away from the light, away from
sight, away from opinion. I did
rather they thought nothing of me
at all than something foul —
as if I didn't exist at all, never
walked before them that they could
form the negative conjecture.
I enjoyed the crowds, where I could hide,
where my face was faceless, where
I was lost in the masses. And too,
aloneness has been my home,
to be a solitary wanderer, an urban
hermit. But there does come time
when one seeks out life: where
one needs that some else one
cares. There is much pain in our
existence, and one needs hear,
"There, there," that elsewhile you
have suffered, another has felt that pain,
too. I have much crawled into
my own corner of this universe, but
sometimes — sometimes, I have to
turn around, and look: the world
has many such corners, and
many such as I, who have been so
very solitary, scarce remembering
the sunlight, afloat in a limbo,
forgetting... how to matter.

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My True Love7:07am tuesday, 16th december
My true love will whisper secrets to me that I've kept from my own self. My true love will wonder why I wonder, dream dreams for me, see so much why in me that she will question all my questioning. We will wander the streets in the pouring rain together, and never be lost no matter how far off the path we go, drinking of the sky — for the heavens have come down to us. We will not swear anything eternal, as forever happens every day to we two: time is as meaningless as clocks to a cloud. We will still not know what love is, for no one may know such a thing, but we will never ask, either, what it may be. My true love is a careful snowfall, alighting upon my senses with the faintest touch, shrouding me in the sweetest quiet. We will dance upon the sea, fall into the moon, and roll grapes down our bare bellies as we smile knowingly, understanding what it has been that the Mona Lisa was thinking all this time.
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The Rhythm7:03am monday, 15th december
Once, the rhythm had my soul. Peter Gabriel's (arguably) best album, Security, starts with the song, "The Rhythm of the Heat". It's much like a long incantation. Once, I was listening to this song while I was tripping on LSD, and something quite incredible happened to me. Twice in the song, Mr. Gabriel says the phrase, "The rhythm is inside me / The rhythm has my soul". On the second such time, he really hits it with the word "soul", a long, intense wail: "soooooooouuuuuuul": and then the drums kick in, an extended percussion jam. This particular listening, I let go utterly when he thus howled, and my body began to convulse — to the rhythm of the drums. It was wild, to use one of my favorite phrases. At the end of the song, it ends with a final, thump!, and when it finished, the convulsions quit, and I had control of my body again. I was numb. I was tingling.

I don't know if he ever meant that to happen to anyone, or if it happens in any case listening to a rock 'n' roll song. It was like a sexual experience done in electricity. I also don't know if I would recommend it to anyone, for it was getting a little scary in the last half of the drums; I had no power over my anatomy at all. I was glad to get my functions back again, at that last thump! But it is what it is, it was what it was — I will never forget the experience, when the rhythm, yes, it had my soul. When I let go into total abandon, when all there was was the beat making throe my animus.

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Clash9:13am saturday, 13th december
We are playing pieces in the clash of heaven and hell.
Sometimes I think it hangs on the decision of a child somewhere:
an innocent choice that echoes throughout all eternity.

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Elsewhere7:03am friday, 12th december
Where is the place we go to when we are mad? For it is an other place: the landmarks are unfamiliar, the language is strange, the people are different. The meaning has changed. Places once visited daily are suddenly sacred shrines, or hellish pits. Someone says something to you and it is as if they hint at some other thing not said, that you can't quite get a hold of. People you've known all your life — they become angels, they become demons, they become gods, they become machines. Somehow, we understand so much more, and we understand so much less. We become part of a myth, we are foreigners never getting accustomed, none of what we think is happening is happening. Where do we go? It is here, but our eyes: our eyes are somewhere else.
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Greatness7:08am thursday, 11th december
It is a fantasy: to do something great and honorable. To paint a picture like van Gogh's Starry Night, to theorize a thing like Relativity, to compose such like Beethoven's Ninth. I always thought I was meant for something great, but whether that was a prophetic feeling or just arrogance, I am as yet unable to tell. So far, it's leaning on the side of conceit — I have not accomplished much, as of yet. I know not, as most of us are like, know not what I am meant for. And I think I must not complain when I find out, and be for something mundane. Also, I think I must be patient. Who knows when it will strike, or if it does a thing like strike: your true purpose may not hit you all at once — it may become slowly realized, instead. I will wait, and see what the wind whispers.

Of course, there is that chance it will not come at all, the Reason to all my reasons. That, perhaps, is not uncommon, that one may die without ever finding out why. Here, too, I must not grumble. I have been given this wonderful thing called life, and I know enough what I should do. I have my faith — at least that – and not everyone has that kind of armor against the winds. And there is, too, that I must guard against the delusional. I think I am not alone in this, to believe we're to be something that we never can be. Best to keep one's head low, to practice humility and of course, do what you can with what you have. If it comes, the Purpose cannot be denied. If it does not, better truly good than falsely great.

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Here7:08am tuesday, 9th december
Here the ashes of the day collect,
in great piles upon the floor, for
nary a breeze blows by. Here the
colors of sunset blend with night
so that you cannot tell where
one ends, and another begins. Here
I dreamed that I could fly away,
that gravity was just my imagining,
that I was lighter than the stars.
Here I wandered inside my own mind,
for days lost in a thought, hours
asking myself the same, unanswerable
question. Here I cooked schemes
not even half baked, bloody red
and raw conceptions, never ready
to be served, to be thrown away or fed
to the dogs. Here have I been
for so long I have forgotten where it is,
or if the darkness is really night,
not just a canopy painted over. Here
I have been me, I think, but no one
will ever know why, nor even
ask. Here, here, here, here, here:
there is nowhere else, not for me.

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We Christians7:58am monday, 8th december
I know what the problem is with we Christians. Some of us for some reason think that our faiths make us better than the man next to us. We become self-righteous without, in fact, becoming any more righteous. We lie, cheat, and steal just like everyone else, and then we turn around and judge other people for these same things. And then there is the issue of intolerance: it seems some of us just don't get along with other faiths, can't seem to handle homosexuality, and again, think we're above it all. Jesus never taught that. He sat down with "sinners", was accused of that, in fact. You who sit in high places, looking down at everyone: it is you whom He derided, not the "sinners". He told us to love one another as He loved us — He set an example of kindness and tolerance. He said, just because you call Him "Lord," doesn't mean you yourself are living as you ought to be living. Don't use the first thing to spite the second.

I find it is a frustrating thing that I must continually apologize for us — no, not all of us, but too many. Why do people not say, "Listen to him: he is a Christian," but rather, "I wish these Christians would shut up"? Why do we Christians not say as we do? And where's the love in all this? I must for myself understand that I am no better than the worst of people. No one makes my mistakes for me — I make them, and I always will. Do you know the distinguishing characteristic of one getting closer to God? He sees more and more his failings, his sins; it is not the other way around. I am a Christian. But that fact in itself does not make me one iota better just to profess it: I guess that's my point, here. And one thing I must say out to non-Christians: we're not all nuts. For all our misgivings, we are only being human, and we might even be better than we seem.

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Language6:12am saturday, 6th december
What a wonderful gift is language. We wonder about the dolphins, whether what they squeak is what we understand as speak, whether we are the only true communicators in the world. How would you live if suddenly you were not able to say what you needed, and if what other people were trying to let you in on passed you by? I know that words are sometimes clunky things, that they don't transmit all the information contained in pure thought, but man, do you ever think how great it is that such information as the Theory of Relativity is at your fingertips, if you would only give it enough study? We who consider ourselves wordsmiths, I think we must marvel at the infinite pliability that language affords us, that we can say such things as, "God is love" — and know the ineffable.
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Wandering Naught7:03am friday, 5th december
Long I wandered the dreaming, found strange and wonderful things.
I emerged with tales that make no sense, mysterious images.
I recall not the way back, nor how I traveled there at all.

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Cool7:23am thursday, 4th december
I tried so hard to be cool. That quality, that word: "cool": why is it so important to some of us? Especially to the young and impressionable, it is the substance of a quality most sought after, most envied, most mysterious. And yes, some of us do "get it", some of us understand without truly knowing what it means to be cool; people used to call me cool — and that, of course, is the only way you know if you are or not. But why? It is not so much anything like a part of the survival instinct, for after all, cool people are among the most self-destructive of any of us. Perhaps to win a mate? But when two cool people get together, those relationships are usually the most volatile, the flimsiest.

Maybe it's a phase. But it's one that some of us never grow out of, I think. I have, or would like to believe I have, at least. It may be a part of growing up, and that's something that not all of us do, nor aspire to. I would like to think that I would sacrifice cool to do good, instead. And women — they like to run around with the bad boys (which the cool types are notorious for being), but they like to marry the good ones. To aspire to goodness: not to worry whether it is the hippest of acts to be kind, to care, to empathize: to truly do this is to rise above the cruel world. One never transcends when one claims coolness; though perhaps at the cutting edge of happening, he is still without the wings to rise above.

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Not the Last7:02am tuesday, 2nd december
I find I cannot live each day as if it were my last. I remember an episode of The Simpsons where Homer was told to do that — you saw him sitting on a curbside crying his eyes out. Funny. I think some people if you told them it was their last day on Earth would do some strange things, things that they only do without regards for any of their consequences. Telling your boss just where he can stick his requisition forms, for instance. It would, in these circumstances, be less than beneficial to live as if no tomorrow existed for you. But even in the spirit of the idea: to seize the day as if there were nothing else ever to be: that seems to me an exhausting proposition. Yes, yes, take care of today, but burn no bridges, and do not light the candle at both ends; tomorrow you shall be needed again, it comes by and by, 'tis nowhere near the end.
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Shadowland7:51am monday, 1st december
Just a note before today's entry: I have obtained employment as an English conversation teacher here in Korea. I have a break between 3 and 6 pm, Seoul time, so I will be posting about this time from now on.

In the shadow of the cemetery trees,
I breathed in the vapors of their darkness.
Time has not visited this place in ages,
nothing has changed in so, so long.
I imagine that this is not a place at all,
that this is the ruin of some eternity,
laid as a trap to those who linger too long
in the nighttime of the soul. Where am I?
I thought I knew how I got here, but
the path I traveled I cannot tell apart
from the trails that lead nowhere. What
shall I do? There is nothing but to
stare at the brooding sky, that hints at
a storm that never comes. Nothing but
to sit and write words that shall never
be read, sing a song that cannot be heard.
I wish this were a dream, but even
dreams have never imagined this place.
In this limbo I will stake my claim
upon the universe, I think, king of a
desolation that is not so much a hell
but the realm between life and death,
where nothing dare breathe lest it
understand too much what nothing is.

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