Intro To My Version

Introversion is my language
I talk too much and eat too little.
Just ask my seminarian friends
about the piles left on my plate
at the end of our communions.

Yet, at the end of the day
I escape to my den, sometimes of iquity,
and listen to the languages
of ubiquity, of voices beyond my own,
Strange, yet strangely known.

Shallow Waters

Standing on the edge
looking at the safe swimmers
I slipped, I slipped.
Slimy rocks, covered in stagnant waters
I went under, water filled my mouth.
Hands reached down, reaching down to me.
They pulled me up, he or she I do not know.
All I know is that I breathed again
Terrified, but alive.

Water surrounding me
The Dismal Swamp is what we called this pond
I never did learn to swim.
I still fear these tepid waters
filled with loss and life.

Blades of Grass

Sometimes the soil beneath my feet
is as hard as sun drenched soil
like souls devoid of rain pained by
calloused soles unfed by rain for years.

Yet on other days I speak
of soil drenched with blood
seeping and seeking after
after my sinking soul.

It's all the same after all
the infertile soil standing
unsteady after the fall.

It's all the same after all
the infertile soil standing
unsteady after the fall.

But the grass still grows
soil notwithstanding
tall, my feet standing a top of them
crushing the blades beneath my soles.

Sometimes My Skin Bleeds from the Inside Out

The scratches come from within. They always have.

That itch? Yeah, you know the feeling. That feeling that never fully goes away, no matter how much you try to drink it away, it stays, it lurks in the corners of your psyche.

You.

That fucked up complicated reality that's who you are, who I am. Who we're trying to be.

Shh, I say, constantly trying to quiet the voices shouting in silence, trying to explain who I am to my many fractured self. Trying to...I don't know sometimes...

I want to know me. At least I think I do. At least I think I do.

IF?

IF?

Such a short word. Such a seemingly unimportant word. Two little letters, asking a truly monumental question across the ages. This utterly simple word "IF" is made up of two little letters and yet it asks the deepest and most dangerous question of all.

"What if?"

Questioning basic ascertains is a dicey game. Questioning the assumed certainties is always dangerous. It opens you up to accusations of infidelity and even heresy, no matter the prescribed orthodoxy, religious or secular. Asking "if" amidst the self assured assumptions of the masses can, and often does, put you in the cross hairs of the Thought Police of whatever Orthodoxy you're questioning.

I was an ideological pilgrim looking for some sure epistemic footing. My familial and religious as well as epistemic background was utterly chaotic, a truly Hebraic "אי סדר" or "Tohu Va-Vohu". Out of the swirling mass of spiritual and emotional gyrations which were my youth in my mental and emotional childhood, I sought after certainty, utter certainty. I needed absolute metaphysical certitude.

Therefore epistemic and religious fundamentalism became my home for well over two decades. I needed it. My world was filled with quicksand and I needed something a bit more solid, both physically and philosophically. And for many years it served me well. I needed that certainty. It helped me navigate many difficult years in my life.

It gave me ground to stand on. Again, I needed that. I bounced around different fundamentalist churches in NYC and later in West Michigan. They ALL had their "certainties" one and all. Whether Baptist, Reformed or otherwise, or Nazarene, or Plymouth Brethren or OPC, they ALL knew they KNEW the TRUTH. And, in a sense, they did. But, like us all, they, and I, look at the truth from an acute angle, we saw this truth, but rarely from outside ourselves.

Part two happens soon...

Sweet Tea

Your voice is sweeter than sweet tea.
If I listen to you any longer
I just might get diabetes.

Just listening to your twang
and the lilt in your voice
and my Appalachian heart
ain't got no choice.