I Am Haunted

Howling in the midnight hour
Chains rattle at the rising sun
Showered with tendrils of phantom seed
Daylight specters attack the senses

I am haunted

My mind cuts loose but for desire
To run with the phantoms
Becoming not alive, not dead
Useless, thoughtless, heartless

Left with naught but my perversion

I am haunted
By the ghost of my own making

It is in the making
In the scratching up
In the spirited clay
I am made in flaw
I am made to break myself

I am made to be haunted

Sulfur and Brine

Brothers
Now gone bitter

Paths chosen
Bargains broken

Shame in your right hand
Shun in your left
You seek what you need
In the place you most fear

Could not a brother been a brother

And indifference tastes most foul

I will answer one day
For when you were hungry
When you were thirsty
I gave you Sulfur, I gave you Brine

For The Moose

We walk not alone
You and I

The fire melts our soles
Touches our souls
Yet we speak, we touch
A familiar word, an unstrained smile

Odd as comrades
Tied strong as brother-bond

We walk not alone
You and I

With ash in our mouths
With stones for bellies
We smolder and blaze
We sink, we drown

We walk not alone

Hope and Honesty and Rebirth

"...we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is decaying, our inner man is being renewed day by day..."

Somebody Loves You - The Eels

woke up with a bang
and a bug on your face
it crawled in your mouth
and gave you a taste of the good life you left behind
but i think you're gonna be fine

somebody loves you
and you're gonna make it through

this nagging malaise
is more than a phase
it feels like a job
but no boss ever pays you to lay there
and think how you'll die
while the tears start to well in your eyes

somebody loves you
and you're gonna make it through

one more saturday
all alone through the night
you've got to be sure
when you turn out that light that it's going to turn on again
you've got to be your good friend

somebody loves you
and you're gonna make it through

Apologizing For The Sap In Advance

Love has been on my mind, I guess. Since last week, I've come across several things that have kept me thinking about this honest yet hopeful aspect of love.

"At sunrise everything is luminous, but not clear. It is often the same with those we live with and love and should know: they elude us. Yet you can love completely without complete understanding." - Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

I think that having someone in my life who loves me completely without complete understanding (and often what she does understand isn't pretty), spins me back to God. Maybe its easier for me to believe in a God who can love like this when she can. Or maybe I don't believe that this kind of thing comes naturally, and so therefore I stumble into the supernatural. I don't know, but somehow, she spins me into Him, and He spins me back to her.

What a wierd and wild dance that is somehow making me. Making us.

It doesn't hurt here, it hurts right here

I've been hanging out with my kids all day today. I've been reminded of a few things.

1. It's so much fun raising kids.
2. It's so much work raising kids.
3. Kids are not self-supporting - I keep wondering when they are going to start pulling their weight around here.
4. Kids grow up way too fast.

A few years ago the boys, then five and three, were quietly tucked into the same bed. The Queen Mother and I were enjoying the peace that comes after bedtime when the quiet was shattered by the cries of the younger one.

I ran to his rescue. With red eyes and wet cheeks he blubbered, "Jackson bit me!"

I turned my best "you are in deep now mister" look onto the accused when he exclaimed, "He told me to."

To which his brother agreed.

5. Kids are brain damaged.

Living Between

I had this discussion last week with a few friends about marriage.

Our discussion focused on how a couple can commit to each other taking in the good and the bad. There are things in each other that we respect and there are others that are anything but respectable. "Do you accept your partner not expecting change, or do you see in them the possibility of a better person?"

Maybe love is somewhere between. To love someone honestly - accepting the truth about their screwed-up-ness. And to love them hopefully - being someone they know believes in their ability to become better.

This is what it like to live with the Queen Mother. Having hurt her more than anyone ever, she has forgiven me and my faults more, and yet she always sees in me a better man. With me, she lives somewhere between honesty and hope, sin and redemption, the devil and the dream.

I can't help but love a lady like that.