Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for you still have much to teach.
Though my palm be turned up at last,
I have yet to learn to reach.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for you have done so much for me,
perhaps you have yet more to do,
if so, then Lord, do not let it be.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for you are the last of a dying breed.
Love of Justice, Goodness, Truth and Beauty,
the meaning behind ritual, prayer, and creed.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for you are loved by the many,
perhaps it is your time after all,
for beauty cultivated, you have plenty.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for the word is of life, the breath
And I would dread if you did pass,
to some part of me it would be death.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for then I should shed a tear.
How selfish I can seem to be,
when it's nothing more than fear.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
for you have taught me how to live.
If I should be left to pass these things on,
my inability I pray you'd forgive.
Do not let 'death' yet touch your tongue,
Lord I know I said death is a time of joy,
it's not his passing I lament,
but the lack it shall leave in mine.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Whisper Before You Return to Dreams
Nights are spent at the same bar,
crafted by my father and I,
staring at a fishing net,
on a blank canvas.
Decorative yet empty of meaning.
As good a place as another,
to work on submitting bothersome emotions,
to a troubled mind.
I am not fit to love.
My heart awakens brief moments,
only for quick shocks to keep it alive,
then resides back into its peaceful coma.
Alive but inactive.
Preserved by a doctor who demands reason alone.
When he finds the patient has awakened,
he bows down to whisper into the patient's ear,
"Remember what you did? Remember what you are?
You are better off dead to the world."
The patient nods with a silent tear,
and bears his chest for the shock,
ready to return to his dreams.
Training has been complete,
and I have overcome lust.
My body no longer aches for touch,
nor do vulgar images fill my mind.
I either see Beauty or some empty thing.
And more often than not I'm learning to see the beauty.
I have been cleansed.
And yet I fear it is a facade,
and I am an old, dumb dog,
who thinks he can learn new tricks.
As if a mask I wear,
that will slip off at the first sign of sleep,
that I shall awake to a monster in the mirror,
once again.
I flee from slumber.
I watched a girl find God today.
Her voice still rings in my head,
"logic and Christianity are contradictory."
Religion major, stuck in between worlds--
raised by a Confucian, educated in Taoism and the westerns,
lost and lonely, confused and frustrated.
For once I realize I'm capable of empathy,
and not just sympathy.
It began in reality, on "reality,"
whatever that meant at the time.
And my mind's homunculus began to watch,
steering my thoughts, my smiles, my answers.
Her expressions going up and down like the tides,
the ebb and flow of realizations and further questioning.
By the last piece of her iced cake,
she asked questions of "God" with great curiosity--
as if she knew Him.
I was called wise for the first time today.
If only she knew I am but a jack-in-the-box,
full of surprises,
but still needing someone to wind me up,
so that I can even function.
And all the knowledge I have,
is bound up in a box,
sitting quietly on a curb, alone and forgotten,
on a desolate street.
Until some wanderer happens to rotate its lever,
and it pops out with a surprise,
glimpses Beauty,
only to slink back into its small, familiar world.
Two acts occurred last night,
that I prayed for.
the first within a ten second span,
the second within five minutes.
I'll never know,
but probability of coincidences,
drops to improbable levels at times.
And I find myself talking to God,
in a way never known to me before.
I wanted to pray for the impossible,
but stopped myself.
A prayerful mind bending the supple knee,
before thee Lord, in a chapel of statues.
The connection to the intangible suddenly-
seems more apparent,
than connecting to the tangibles.
Automatons marching around,
works and words constructed from gears and steam.
The motions capture the best of us.
I hear bells now,
like sirens calling me to the depths of slumber,
they would have me dragged to the darkness,
to feed on my sorrow,
taking glee in my panic,
and my outreached arm towards the surface,
as it slips into the unseen.
Bells, bells, bells...
If only life were like honey.
Immortal and sweet.
Good for health and pleasurable.
Fulfilling all needs and wants,
to some good end.
But I suppose someone must capture the bees,
harvest their work,
and then I find myself praying for the impossible,
give me something that must be given freely.
Call the doctor, the patient is awake and raving mad--
needing his sedative.
But things seem more like smoke,
beautiful clouds drifting in dance,
but when I reach out to make it mine,
it is lost, and I destroy what beauty was there.
I don't know what I'm saying.
Seems to happen a lot lately.
I think I shall go somewhere tomorrow,
far away from here,
and read.
Go back to my medicinal textbooks,
now that the patient is quiet,
and I can forget the end of my art,
and focus on the means.
For the patient would fancy to make the doctor-
as mad as he is.
It's been a longtime since I couldn't sleep.
I've taken to exercising,
work takes up most of my time.
And yet something remains to be drained,
crying out for fulfillment,
and it won't let me sleep.
In the dreamworld, I fear who should rule.
The roles of doctor and patient become blurred,
and I wake up with the sun:
visibly shaken, disturbed, broken.
"I'm just tired. Long weekend," I'll lie.
"It's the patient keeping me up," I'll mutter to myself.
The bells ring again. It's another 5am night.
And once again I'm over the patients bed,
like some nights before,
forcing him down.
He kicks and shrieks as I try to speak reason to him:
"What you want you are incapable of having.
You would see it destroyed you monster.
If you won't fight so much I will live for you,
and tell you of its beauty before bedtime.
So at least you can dream of such worthy things.
But you must not be allowed to rise,
for you are unworthy to have such things.
Heart, you must be quiet now.
You had your chance to rule,
and I grew tired of your corruption.
Now lay there, and I shall tell of what you desire,
so that you might take comfort in the times--
when you are awake,
and not dread returning to your dreams.
Perhaps one day you will overcome your sickness,
and I pray for you when you sleep.
Hush now, and fall into the rhythm of the bells,
and I shall tell you of a beauty that will give you rest.
It shall have to be enough,
until I or another can fix you.
crafted by my father and I,
staring at a fishing net,
on a blank canvas.
Decorative yet empty of meaning.
As good a place as another,
to work on submitting bothersome emotions,
to a troubled mind.
I am not fit to love.
My heart awakens brief moments,
only for quick shocks to keep it alive,
then resides back into its peaceful coma.
Alive but inactive.
Preserved by a doctor who demands reason alone.
When he finds the patient has awakened,
he bows down to whisper into the patient's ear,
"Remember what you did? Remember what you are?
You are better off dead to the world."
The patient nods with a silent tear,
and bears his chest for the shock,
ready to return to his dreams.
Training has been complete,
and I have overcome lust.
My body no longer aches for touch,
nor do vulgar images fill my mind.
I either see Beauty or some empty thing.
And more often than not I'm learning to see the beauty.
I have been cleansed.
And yet I fear it is a facade,
and I am an old, dumb dog,
who thinks he can learn new tricks.
As if a mask I wear,
that will slip off at the first sign of sleep,
that I shall awake to a monster in the mirror,
once again.
I flee from slumber.
I watched a girl find God today.
Her voice still rings in my head,
"logic and Christianity are contradictory."
Religion major, stuck in between worlds--
raised by a Confucian, educated in Taoism and the westerns,
lost and lonely, confused and frustrated.
For once I realize I'm capable of empathy,
and not just sympathy.
It began in reality, on "reality,"
whatever that meant at the time.
And my mind's homunculus began to watch,
steering my thoughts, my smiles, my answers.
Her expressions going up and down like the tides,
the ebb and flow of realizations and further questioning.
By the last piece of her iced cake,
she asked questions of "God" with great curiosity--
as if she knew Him.
I was called wise for the first time today.
If only she knew I am but a jack-in-the-box,
full of surprises,
but still needing someone to wind me up,
so that I can even function.
And all the knowledge I have,
is bound up in a box,
sitting quietly on a curb, alone and forgotten,
on a desolate street.
Until some wanderer happens to rotate its lever,
and it pops out with a surprise,
glimpses Beauty,
only to slink back into its small, familiar world.
Two acts occurred last night,
that I prayed for.
the first within a ten second span,
the second within five minutes.
I'll never know,
but probability of coincidences,
drops to improbable levels at times.
And I find myself talking to God,
in a way never known to me before.
I wanted to pray for the impossible,
but stopped myself.
A prayerful mind bending the supple knee,
before thee Lord, in a chapel of statues.
The connection to the intangible suddenly-
seems more apparent,
than connecting to the tangibles.
Automatons marching around,
works and words constructed from gears and steam.
The motions capture the best of us.
I hear bells now,
like sirens calling me to the depths of slumber,
they would have me dragged to the darkness,
to feed on my sorrow,
taking glee in my panic,
and my outreached arm towards the surface,
as it slips into the unseen.
Bells, bells, bells...
If only life were like honey.
Immortal and sweet.
Good for health and pleasurable.
Fulfilling all needs and wants,
to some good end.
But I suppose someone must capture the bees,
harvest their work,
and then I find myself praying for the impossible,
give me something that must be given freely.
Call the doctor, the patient is awake and raving mad--
needing his sedative.
But things seem more like smoke,
beautiful clouds drifting in dance,
but when I reach out to make it mine,
it is lost, and I destroy what beauty was there.
I don't know what I'm saying.
Seems to happen a lot lately.
I think I shall go somewhere tomorrow,
far away from here,
and read.
Go back to my medicinal textbooks,
now that the patient is quiet,
and I can forget the end of my art,
and focus on the means.
For the patient would fancy to make the doctor-
as mad as he is.
It's been a longtime since I couldn't sleep.
I've taken to exercising,
work takes up most of my time.
And yet something remains to be drained,
crying out for fulfillment,
and it won't let me sleep.
In the dreamworld, I fear who should rule.
The roles of doctor and patient become blurred,
and I wake up with the sun:
visibly shaken, disturbed, broken.
"I'm just tired. Long weekend," I'll lie.
"It's the patient keeping me up," I'll mutter to myself.
The bells ring again. It's another 5am night.
And once again I'm over the patients bed,
like some nights before,
forcing him down.
He kicks and shrieks as I try to speak reason to him:
"What you want you are incapable of having.
You would see it destroyed you monster.
If you won't fight so much I will live for you,
and tell you of its beauty before bedtime.
So at least you can dream of such worthy things.
But you must not be allowed to rise,
for you are unworthy to have such things.
Heart, you must be quiet now.
You had your chance to rule,
and I grew tired of your corruption.
Now lay there, and I shall tell of what you desire,
so that you might take comfort in the times--
when you are awake,
and not dread returning to your dreams.
Perhaps one day you will overcome your sickness,
and I pray for you when you sleep.
Hush now, and fall into the rhythm of the bells,
and I shall tell you of a beauty that will give you rest.
It shall have to be enough,
until I or another can fix you.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Wisdom Gave My Love Fruit
Philosophy is my first love.
But allow me to explain.
For the truth is in the word.
The word is dyadic,
Philia and Sophia.
The former meaning:
a brotherly or casual love,
and the latter meaning wisdom.
So the love of wisdom is my first love.
But what love do I mean by my first love?
That of all my philias, it is the foremost.
Just like of all my stergos, familial love,
my parents and brother are foremost.
It gives me a taste for relationships,
it gives them meaning, direction, a telos.
Wisdom gave my love fruit.
How is it that I am so casual with wisdom?
What is wisdom is perhaps the better question.
An art that questions its very existence, how strange.
And yet, it makes me want it even more,
Knowing of but not exactly makes for mystery,
one of the strongest driving forces behind my desires.
A desire that seeks to understand its object,
and why it occurs, if its worthy, if its legitimate.
Thousands of years pass,
our love remains fervent,
the wisdom remains hidden in part.
A white rabbit, leading us deeper,
into the wild and bizarre world we live in.
The more we become lost,
the more our interest in piqued.
I know some path to whatever it is I seek,
Philipians 4:8.
Now I'm nice and deep in the woods,
as I was as a child,
and once again, I find myself loving it.
I'm where I want to be,
yet some desire persists,
for I'm there, but I can't understand it,
so something remains unknown.
And I suppose I transition from philia to eros.
I went from casual desire to desire realizing some lack,
just like that.
So it goes.
"Oh no no no... thank you, but-
but I just wanted to ask you which way I ought to go."
"Well, that depends on where you want to get to."
"Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as I c..."
"Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go."
Fast forward through many a year,
philosophy is a cruel lover sometimes.
Her solace was brutish and short.
But we came to love one another,
through frequent visits,
she came to enjoy my company,
and I hers.
1 Corinthians 1:24.
And now she sends me out into the world,
a little green behind the ears,
but young and idealistic,
ready to suffer injustice,
reminding me not to commit it,
shows me her telos,
what I sought wasn't in her,
but she made for a lovely teacher.
She was but a path,
and I have become her in some way,
yet the desire persists.
And Phillipians 4:8 remains.
She taught me agape.
And for that I shall always love her,
cherish her, and defend her.
But she pushes me out the door now,
waving in excitement,
like a mother ready to see her boy off and grown.
And so go my travels,
in the world of today.
I have Philia for Sophia.
I have Agape for Theos.
I have Stergo for my family.
But to whom do I have Eros?
I'm Platonic on eros,
so I believe the telos is of Theos too.
But it begins with a person.
Eventually, the object of our desires,
consumes us,
and we will do anything for it,
to achieve it,
even if that means negating our other desires.
We will come to Agapao for someone or something.
The more I delve into Love,
the more I'm convinced
all roads lead to Rome.
1 John 4:7
Each is Love, Love is Each,
yet they are different from one another,
"how fitting," I smirk.
But I do not leave her forever,
just like my family,
I plan to return,
with something to add.
Philia from Philia, Stergo from Stergo,
Love seems to breed more Love.
There must be someone to whom,
I will have all four,
if I'm ever to come into the oneness of love.
Perhaps then some English words will make more sense,
to my...fragile...state of mind.
It's about time, for me to do some more growing.
I need a new Sophia,
not superior to the one of 1 Cor. 1:24,
but a conduit to it.
Truth comes in propositional form,
Good in reflection of the justice in one's soul,
visible in their actions,
but Beauty, why, Beauty,
you afflict others with your "poetic madness,"
blessing for sight of the supernatural.
Beauty, I am familiar with you, having seen you many times,
I am a child of yours and hope to help you beget more of your kind,
I long for you with the eyes of a romantic lover,
I'd die for you.
I pray to behold your Beauty,
send she who is worthy to portray such works.
I beg of you Theos, oh Lord, God of the cosmos and earth,
I know I am unworthy of such a thing.
So I do not ask for something I could not do Justice to,
but I ask that you would use me as a vessel for Justice,
so that I may at least participate, glimpse into your face.
For what I may never have fully, but is worthy,
I will settle to serve.
And in this way,
my desire shall never leave,
and I shall forever be, faithful.
But allow me to explain.
For the truth is in the word.
The word is dyadic,
Philia and Sophia.
The former meaning:
a brotherly or casual love,
and the latter meaning wisdom.
So the love of wisdom is my first love.
But what love do I mean by my first love?
That of all my philias, it is the foremost.
Just like of all my stergos, familial love,
my parents and brother are foremost.
It gives me a taste for relationships,
it gives them meaning, direction, a telos.
Wisdom gave my love fruit.
How is it that I am so casual with wisdom?
What is wisdom is perhaps the better question.
An art that questions its very existence, how strange.
And yet, it makes me want it even more,
Knowing of but not exactly makes for mystery,
one of the strongest driving forces behind my desires.
A desire that seeks to understand its object,
and why it occurs, if its worthy, if its legitimate.
Thousands of years pass,
our love remains fervent,
the wisdom remains hidden in part.
A white rabbit, leading us deeper,
into the wild and bizarre world we live in.
The more we become lost,
the more our interest in piqued.
I know some path to whatever it is I seek,
Philipians 4:8.
Now I'm nice and deep in the woods,
as I was as a child,
and once again, I find myself loving it.
I'm where I want to be,
yet some desire persists,
for I'm there, but I can't understand it,
so something remains unknown.
And I suppose I transition from philia to eros.
I went from casual desire to desire realizing some lack,
just like that.
So it goes.
"Oh no no no... thank you, but-
but I just wanted to ask you which way I ought to go."
"Well, that depends on where you want to get to."
"Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as I c..."
"Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go."
Fast forward through many a year,
philosophy is a cruel lover sometimes.
Her solace was brutish and short.
But we came to love one another,
through frequent visits,
she came to enjoy my company,
and I hers.
1 Corinthians 1:24.
And now she sends me out into the world,
a little green behind the ears,
but young and idealistic,
ready to suffer injustice,
reminding me not to commit it,
shows me her telos,
what I sought wasn't in her,
but she made for a lovely teacher.
She was but a path,
and I have become her in some way,
yet the desire persists.
And Phillipians 4:8 remains.
She taught me agape.
And for that I shall always love her,
cherish her, and defend her.
But she pushes me out the door now,
waving in excitement,
like a mother ready to see her boy off and grown.
And so go my travels,
in the world of today.
I have Philia for Sophia.
I have Agape for Theos.
I have Stergo for my family.
But to whom do I have Eros?
I'm Platonic on eros,
so I believe the telos is of Theos too.
But it begins with a person.
Eventually, the object of our desires,
consumes us,
and we will do anything for it,
to achieve it,
even if that means negating our other desires.
We will come to Agapao for someone or something.
The more I delve into Love,
the more I'm convinced
all roads lead to Rome.
1 John 4:7
Each is Love, Love is Each,
yet they are different from one another,
"how fitting," I smirk.
But I do not leave her forever,
just like my family,
I plan to return,
with something to add.
Philia from Philia, Stergo from Stergo,
Love seems to breed more Love.
There must be someone to whom,
I will have all four,
if I'm ever to come into the oneness of love.
Perhaps then some English words will make more sense,
to my...fragile...state of mind.
It's about time, for me to do some more growing.
I need a new Sophia,
not superior to the one of 1 Cor. 1:24,
but a conduit to it.
Truth comes in propositional form,
Good in reflection of the justice in one's soul,
visible in their actions,
but Beauty, why, Beauty,
you afflict others with your "poetic madness,"
blessing for sight of the supernatural.
Beauty, I am familiar with you, having seen you many times,
I am a child of yours and hope to help you beget more of your kind,
I long for you with the eyes of a romantic lover,
I'd die for you.
I pray to behold your Beauty,
send she who is worthy to portray such works.
I beg of you Theos, oh Lord, God of the cosmos and earth,
I know I am unworthy of such a thing.
So I do not ask for something I could not do Justice to,
but I ask that you would use me as a vessel for Justice,
so that I may at least participate, glimpse into your face.
For what I may never have fully, but is worthy,
I will settle to serve.
And in this way,
my desire shall never leave,
and I shall forever be, faithful.
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