Love's Hallows All...

In the cold November night
She had given us a fright
So we ran arm-in-arm away
Running towards forgotten days
And the sorrow of that
    woe-begotten light

We had told her what we'd done
And she'd said I'm not her son
Then we'd bolted out the door
Left your bootprints on the floor
And were gone before she'd
    leveled out the gun

The shots rang high and loud
And I swear that we were proud
To have made the Beast so pissed
To be the Devils atop her list
Of all the evil Hell hath spat
    on this gray shroud
  
Into the Night we ran and played
For we had met our Judgement Day
Burned it down with light and love
Killed the monster, came the dove
And forever on we knew
    we'd have our say

There's no one could tell us "No"
If our Way wound to or fro
Our life at last was ours to live
And Death our gift to give
So we'd return for her at sign
    of year's first snow

And return for her we did
Deep in the cellar where she'd hid
Her thrusting cross and sobbing loud
"In Jesus' name I cast you out!"
For all the good that useless
    trinket never did

She wept and screamed and prayed
Hoping she'd at last be saved
From this night that wouldn't end
And her faith that wouldn't bend
And these children with their teeth
    like razor blades

We ripped and tore and fed
While she cried and shat and bled
Until her flesh began to cool
Her life now just a crimson pool
Puddled under her like Satan's
    marriage bed

We left her there on that stone floor
Behind us closed and locked the door
Our mother's blood across your face
Looked to me a veil of lace
In all our endless life I've never
    loved you more

Genetics...

At the Great Frederick Fair, there is a tent down by the tractor displays that sells old-fashioned candies.

And every year, I go there and buy a roll of Butter Rum-flavored Lifesavers, because they remind me of you.  You used to keep a roll in your car, and sometimes you would give me one, and so they remind me of you.  The version of you that raised me, and loved me, and schooled me hard, and whom I thought of as Father, with all the meek adoration of an ascetic at the feet of his Creator.

As silly as it sounds, I have to get them every year, and I love them, and would be wounded if I couldn't find them, because those little sweet rings of amber candy remind me - they remind me that I am your son.

Chromatic Wake...

the Colors came today
Red Yellow
Orange Brown
taking the Green away
back to where the Colors sleep
to hibernate another year

I've been seeing hints and peeks and signs of
their Arrival
for weeks now
I knew to expect them
soon
but today they were just
there
suddenly, and all at once
bathed in copper gold light
against a blue slate sky
exploding all around me
surrounding me in the beautiful dying of my world

every time this happens
every year this day comes back around
they take a little bit more of me
drawing the light out of me with their Colors
to join them in their sleep
leaving me lighter and less
but also denser and more
their Beauty a little death
to bring life back into focus
to remind me of all the wonders I'd forgotten
to deliver again that delicious Ache
that weighs heavy in my chest
yet floats me off my feet
as if waking to the memory
of a Love lost in an opium dream

so I can no longer sleep.

The Other Boy's Father...

As a young boy, I belonged to a tribe in the Indian Guides.  Think the Boy Scouts, but with a Native American, rather than Pioneer, theme.  Instead of merit badges, we received various colored and decorated feathers for fulfilling specific tasks.  Instead of "dens" and "den-meetings" we had "tribes" and "pow-wows."  It was run by the local YMCA, and looking back on it now, it was actually pretty racist.  A bunch of suburban white boys and their fathers dressing up in feathers and war-paint, beating drums and pretending to be Native Americans, back when we still called them "Indians" and thought nothing of it.  Though, at the time, I was too young to notice any of that.  I just loved getting to do all of the crafts, coming up with my Indian Name ("Howling Wolf"), collecting feathers for my coup-stick, and especially, getting to spend time with my father.  He worked two jobs and went to night school, so any time we got to spend together was very special.  But what I loved the most, was when we would go camping.

A couple of times a year, our entire Nation (a group of local tribes) would rent out a campsite somewhere, and we would spend a long weekend out in the woods, making crafts, telling stories, cooking hotdogs on sticks over campfires, and other typical Boy Scout-type things.  Over the years, I grew to be good friends with all of the boys in my tribe, and their fathers, and I would look forward to every opportunity we had to get together.  They felt like a second family.  And the weekends we all spent in the woods are, to this day, some of the happiest memories I have of my childhood.

I remember one night in particular when I was around ten or eleven, as we were sitting around the fire after our hot dogs and beans, and after our s'mores, and after the last ghost story had been told, and long after most of the other boys were asleep in their bunks, I was trying to stay up late, to be with my father (whose Indian Name was, tellingly, "Night Owl").  I must've started to nod off at some point.  I don't remember exactly how it happened, but for some reason it was another one of the fathers, Tom, who carried me to my bunk that night, rather than my own.  Tom was tall and gangly and rather nerdy, always funny and good with us boys.  I remember he was also very handy, good at fixing things and such.  He was a plumber by trade, and owned a local plumbing company.  I'll still pass a truck with his name on it on the road every once in a while.

The cabin was almost completely dark, filled with the soft sound of sleeping young boys.  Tom carried me almost effortlessly down the dark, quiet cabin, toward my bunk at the far end.  It felt strange, the way he carried me.  My father would carry me almost slung over his shoulder.  But Tom carried me cradled in his arms, like a mother would carry her baby.  When we eventually reached the back of the cabin, he very gently lifted me up and laid me down in my bunk.  Because I was on the top bunk, I was lying down almost as high up as he was tall, very nearly face-to-face.  After making sure I was situated properly in my sleeping bag, he reached out with an enormous right hand, and cupped my head very gently.  He lightly brushed the hair off of my forehead.  Still holding my head in his hand, he softly stroked my cheek with his thumb, and then whispered, "Goodnight."  

And then, still cupping my tiny head in his giant, calloused hand, he leaned down very slowly, and kissed me on the lips more gently than anyone ever had before.  It wasn't like any goodnight kiss I'd ever had.  It was unlike any kiss any relative or family member had ever given me.  Even to my young mind back then, it clearly most resembled the romantic kisses I'd seen on TV and in movies.  Lips slightly parted.  Mouth to mouth.  Very soft and gentle.  And he lingered there with his mouth on mine for a long moment.  Then he smiled down at me, stroked my cheek once more, and left to go join the other fathers around the campfire, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and the twisting fear in my belly.

I never told anyone.  I was old enough to know that sometimes men touched children in bad ways.  But I don't think I felt certain enough about what happened with Tom that night to risk getting him in trouble by telling anyone.  Maybe I was afraid I would be the one to get in trouble.  Maybe I just didn't want to risk hurting anyone in my tribe, my second family.  But I remember that I wasn't entirely sure if what he'd done was really wrong or not.  It wasn't actually sexual; just strange.  I know that it made me feel very uncomfortable, but that could've been just because it was so different from anything I'd ever experienced before.  For all I knew that was how he kissed his own son goodnight, too, and he was just trying to be nice to me and treat me like he would his own.  No one but my own family had ever tucked me into bed or kissed me goodnight before.  Maybe the experience only felt strange to me because it was so different from the way I was used to with my own father.

I never thought that Tom was gay.  He wasn't effeminate at all.  And he was married and had a son.  And even his son seemed unusually straight for an adolescent boy.  When another boy from our tribe and I had taken Tom's son out into the woods one night to show him what we did out there by ourselves, and to invite him to join us, he wouldn't.  He just walked away, and left us there, half-naked on the ground, under the trees.  Maybe he'd told his father about what we'd done.  And maybe his father was gay.  And so maybe Tom thought he knew what I was going through.  Maybe he was trying to show me that it was okay, that he understood, that he was like me.  Maybe he thought he'd finally found someone he could share his secret with; this dark and horrible secret he'd been keeping his whole life.  Maybe that night, in the dark, in my tiny eyes, he thought he'd seen some sort of recognition.  Maybe he thought he'd finally found someone who understood him.

I don't know.  I'll never know.

Equal Night...

Twice a year
once for Yin
and once for Yang
We pass the Balancing Point
and hover there for just a moment
hanging in the Black
perfectly perpendicular
aligned with Our Star
Day lasts as long as Night
and Night no longer than Day
We pass this point
and balance on this edge
just as We begin to explode with verdant Life
and then again We balance here
at the other side of Our Revolution
just as We begin to grow cold and die
These Equal Nights are the doorways to Our Two Worlds
light and dark
Life and Death
Yin and Yang
back and forth from one extreme to the other
in Our Endless Revolutions
but always passing through the same
points of Perfect Balance
in one door and out the other
We live and die all the while
swaying to this Eternal Rhythm
and it shapes us
molds us into Who We Are
What We Have Become
And so We hold these Equal Nights as Sacred
Special
Holy
or Magickal
examples of those brief ineffable moments
of Alignment
and Balance
and Perfection
these Equal Nights guide us to seek those moments
within Ourselves
and without
We feel this rhythm
and We see this balance
return again and again
We see it in Our World
and We feel it within Our Selves
and We strive to achieve that perfection
And so do We accomplish
all Our many
Great Things

A Long Weight...

Finally made it back to the gym this morning.  Which is always the final sign that I am definitively over my depression.

I knew it had been a few weeks since I last made it to the gym, but I didn't realize exactly how long.  Here's how long it's been since the last time I worked out:

• the last morning that I left early to make it to the gym before work, I needed sunglasses; this morning, I needed headlights
• the last morning that I left early to make it to the gym before work, I was wearing shorts, and I was comfortable; this morning, I was wearing a jacket and I was cold
• the last time I worked out, the leaves on the trees that I watch through the window of the gym while I "run" on the elliptical were still green; this morning they were every color but
• the last time I worked out, it was still September
• I haven't worked out in a long fucking time, is what I'm saying

Oh, well.  No use crying over spilled milkfat.  The important thing is that I'm back at it.  And with any luck, by Thanksgiving I might be halfway back to the weight I was in August.

fnord

Russets...

It's Autumn
and the World around me
has begun to Die
and the Air is scented sweet with Decay
and the crisp Snap of the breeze
boils my Blood

Life thrown into
sharp, Sensuous relief
surrounded on all Sides
by its inevitable Reflection

Breathe it in
hold it Inside
Kiss it
Eat it
Fuck it
let it Roll down your chin
get your hands Sticky with it

and Remember
that One day
It Will Be You

Fall Weekend At Dover...

Just after we arrived.  Green flag was still a couple of hours away.





Start 'em up, boys!  (Sorry about the wind noise - it was breezy up there!)





The #18 makes a pit stop.  He was out front of the pack all day, but then had to give up the lead with only 8 laps to go in order to pit for gas.  SO frustrating.  I really thought he was going to win it this time!  Oh, well.  One of these years...





I had a video of the opening Green Flag, but it wasn't very good.  This one is much better.  Still doesn't in any way convey just how awesome it is to be there, though.





The Blue Deuce takes his victory lap.  He only led the last 8 laps, but as they say, you only need to lead one lap - the LAST one.

Frednecking At The Fair...

A small taste of my yester-evening.  (And warning - it's loud!)