An American Tale

In the beginning was the West. And it was ruthless and was all about some vigilante justice. Now a trio had come to this 'ole town right outside El Paso back in the day, it was like 18-hundred-n'somethin' years ago. So anyway, this fella' Jesus walks in with his posse, Joseph Smith and the Champion Verger.

So this Jesus is all decked out in cowboy gear; he's got the hat, the holsters, and the piece of hay danglin' from his grizzled jaw -- his eyes shaded by the brim of his dusted hat. He rolls from town to town, orderin' drinks at the bars, just a boozin', and man was he a lady killer! Why he'd tip up his hat and shoot a woman a glance and if she didn't drop what she was doin' and come to wait on him hand and foot.

Now old Joseph Smith, José we call'd him , he was a son-of-a-gun, known for rappin' a man or two upside the head with these stones he curried in his pockets. Better yet he was quickly identified by his stovepipe hat, which gave him an air of sophistication, but rumor of his mean streak made his manner that much more frightening, like one of them dogs that looks civilized cuz of it's collar but might turn on ya' any minute.

On Jesus' left hand was the Champion Verger. Why that sucker carried a big mace atop his shoulder everywhere he went, justa' shakin' that thing like a rattler on a hot summer day, claimin' he was makin' a path for the cowboy called Jesus everywhere they went. Sometimes he'd just swing it round and round with a sinister smile -- you could tell he was always just wantin' somebody to fight 'im. But man oh man was he an ugly sum-b! I mean he look like somethin' the dog been keepin' under the porch.

Anyway...so these three men came rollin' through the Wild West back in like 632 AD and cleaned up the whole lot of them varmints. Afterwards, the people cheered and loved 'em for it. Then the people wanted them to lead so hell if they didn't go write the American Constitution right after. Well, Jesus and Champion Verger did, old José became known as "Blister" -- damned if that boy didn't always show up till after the work was done. And he always had him a mouthful of whale fat, and that shit got thicker and thicker the more he chewed on it. He startin' talkin' a whole mess about goin' on more adventures but them other boys knew they was'a gettin' too old for adventure. Anyways. So they finish up the constitution and make three branches in honor of them three boys and three parts to the flag, and daggum if we don't all still celebrate that there trio every 4th of July and 25th of December, which are times when Jesus and posse took America from them rebel rousers and hippies, respeck'tivly, of course.

But I'll be damned if as much as I laugh and enjoy at talkin' in my native tongue and pokin' a little fun at my own heritage, if it don't still end on a bad note. And I'd be lyin' like a no legged dog if I said there was somethin' I could do to appease it all. It don't matter what I do cuz it's all about as useful as a front pocket on a shirt. I can write and get to shootin' shit with friends and it don't do no good. I still feel like I been ate by a billy goat and shift off a cliff. I can sit here by my lonesome or be busier than a long-tailed cat in a room of rockin' chairs but when that neon moon pours that sand over my eyes, hell if I don't wake up with the same dreams.

Wrong-A-Gong-Gongs

I am the wr-wr-wrong-a-gong-gong,
resounding and requite.
And when I'm done making pointless noise--
I make some more into the night.

Wrong-a-gong-gongs don't sleep,
they stay up for days on end.
They bong and gong in vain and gest,
And never comprehend.

Wrong-a-gong-gongs like mystery,
faith and mountains too!
Doesn't matter since life is nothing,
which they express with much ado.

Wrong-a-gong-gongs like time alone,
but time with others better still!
They have no taste for what can be known,
and can fake fellowship with skill.

Wrong-a-gong-gongs try to think,
to run, to eat, or write.
They do naught but bong and gong,
making empty noise by day and night.

The Tale to End Tales

"He's been asking for the shot all day," the nurse explained to the doctor. Erastus sat in a chair, staring out the window. He leaned his head carefully to the side and held eye contact with the doctor, as if pleading, before turning his head back to the window. The doctor walked over.

"Erastus," the doctor knelt next to him, "you just got up bud. You're not even fully awake yet. You've been walking around yawning and now you want to go back already?" The doctor sat staring at Erastus. His eyes gazed outward, like stone, his body unmoving. He could have been a gargoyle watching over the grounds. The doctor rose up and walked back to the nurse and began whispering. When they finished the doctor perked up and looked back in Erastus' direction, "We're going to prescribe some sunshine and community activities for you. You've been looking outside all day, we're going to send you out for some fun."

So Erastus went out. He met two others in the same ward as he, as well as some twenty and five. They conversed and sang and all became great friends. Erastus' quickly became renown as a bit of a comic, having made everyone laugh for hours while he talked on everything and nothing. And he would laugh right along with them. Eventually he told them he had to resign for the evening to get his room in order.

The doctor prepared for a check-up before lights out, having overheard Erastus' desire to set up his room. As the doctor walked down the tiled hallway he stopped within the door. Erastus had torn up his collages, astrology pieces lie scattered across the floor. There were boxes of his things pushed into the corners of his room, bags torn, his possessions filled the room. He was again in the chair, staring out the window, eyes sunken and still. The doctor realized Erastus had never been looking outside.

"Well Erastus, how was your day?"
"I want the shot."
"Why do you want it so badly? You looked like you enjoyed yourself."
"I didn't."
"I saw you laughing and singing and you met many people. You were smiling all day."
"A guise. I want the shot."
"Why don't we just talk for a little bit."
"I don't wish to talk."
"What about a story? You always have a story for me."
"Fine. I'll give you a story. Then I want to go back to sleep."
"If that's the way you want it Erastus, I can have it arranged."
"Good."

Erastus climbed out of his chair and pushed stuff out of the way, making his way for the bed. The doctor followed suit and sat across from him so as to listen.

n the beginning were the oceans, and their crests rose up with righteousness. The rivers ran with peace and the inhabitants were numbered as the sands, walking amongst one another with clean tongues and hands. An island in the northern lands.

Giant pillars, wider around than twenty and five men might wrap their hands around, held up a magnificent sky roof, painted so long ago and held up so high, that no one remembered what the pictures depicted nor could anyone see them. The myth goes that there were stories and promises painted upon them, and that the roof itself was a project from an ancient commander of the people.

"And there's some shaking of pillars and some pastures ravaged, the waters rock and rage before going dry, the people frightened of floods and the roof coming down upon them try foolishly to break out of their chains--" Erastus stopped his mad rant for a moment, taking a slight breathe.
"Fuck all this," Erastus continued, "Just put me to sleep."
"I wish I could Erastus," whispered the doctor, "but my shift just ended."
"You said you would have it arranged."
"I lied. Looks like you'll have to be doing the whispering this time, and I the sleeping."
The doctor got up to leave.
"Don't leave me," Erastus whispered.
"Sorry bud, looks like you're on your own for this one."
"But the night..."
"You'll be fine. I have to go now. Besides, there's nothing I can say to help you."

Erastus climbed back into his chair, vacancy came back over his eyes. The doctor shut the door behind him. It was pitch black, save the amber glow of an outside light, creeping in enough to light up Erastus and his chair. Tears. His eyes remained unchanged, his lips did not quiver, not a whimper nor a breath, a weeping statue. And darkness was upon the room.

Clanging Cymbal

The oceans have all fallen.
The siren is now gone.
The sea has long been dried up,
not having taken very long.
The shores are dark and barren,
over horizon, angel has flown,
the bells no more are ringing--
as I hum this song
I AM THE CLANGING CYMBAL--
my philosophy brought to naught.
I'd trade it all for but a piece,
of what she has forgot.

Dreams & The Eucharist

Today I shall meet with one of my priests, Father Robert, to discuss the necessity of blessing the Holy Eucharist and of dreams. The former is a matter of importance concerning knowledge of my faith, the latter concerns a darkness that has haunted me since I was but a child.

I realized recently that I do not have good dreams, all are nightmares in one form of another. I cannot recall a time when something dreadful has not happened in the dimension of my dreams.

God is my ward.

My tastes concerning artwork, music, literature, and even movies has always been on the darker side. As a child I loved the crooked architecture and twisted limbs of A Nightmare Before Christmas. The movie gave me dreadful nightmares. I still recall my mother being trapped in a cage of fiery bars in my Walden Hall playground, Jack was nearby with a chainsaw laughing maniacally, lunging at me everytime I tried to free her. Yet I kept watching the movie. I also watched too many movies, or at least clips, from Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Child's Play, and the sort. My parents did an excellent job of explaining it was all entertainment and "ketchup for blood," but in one's dreams reason sometimes goes through the door and all one is left with are wild images and emotional reactions. I don't like slasher films now. Not because I'm afraid of them, rather the opposite; I find them to be cliché, poorly written, ridiculous, and overall boring. By the time middle school rolled around and all my peers raved about Scream, which I think mostly was because it made us feel more adult-like, I had no desire to watch it. "More of the same," I thought. So there was a dilineation between what sorts of darker arts that I enjoyed. I wanted mystery, suspense, a twisted nature that wasn't so overt as the slashers provided, something...subtle. Subtlety provides mystery, which preyed upon my desire to know things.

Today it's still one of my favorites. In middle school it was MacBeth and The Giver. I still have a poster I drew for it, the scene in which MacBeth takes dagger in hand to betray and slay King Duncan. The poster was drawn with only a black pen, shadows ran down his face, the whiteness remaining was flesh, a sickness about the eyes, the shadows crept along his face like tentacles instead of well rounded figures. I wrote an additional chapter to "finish" The Giver for an assignment, in which the main character and the girl make their way to a private home where his mentor had stayed, an enclave from the rest of the world out in the wilderness.

In high school it was more dystopias, post-apocalyptic literature, and the sort: Anthem, Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, etc. I began to draw more my senior year as well as philosophize for the first time, though poorly in both fields. My art was dark, twisted treelines, machinations underlying their bark, sometimes exposed. My philosophy was brutish, cynical, I fell for such poor reasoning as provided by Ayn Rand and the sort, though I still believed in God. How odd. Selfish philosophy, though I somehow wanted to hold onto this idea of selflessness. I was an antinomy of sorts.

Undergrad. More of the same, I often visited literature and movies from prior decades, enjoying them more. The end of the world and strong philosophical themes of the graphic novel Watchmen intrigued me for months. I loved Fallout 3, a video game set in post-apocalyptia, where I made the choices of good and evil. I good destroy entire towns, killing everyone, and they weren't bystanders in games like Grand Theft Auto - these were characters with backgrounds, personalities, they had pains, desires, hope. But in such a world I longed to be the beam of light. The entire game I spent helping others, destroying those who sought to kill the innocent, to bring pure waters to the people. I know games are often seen as a child's sport, but in such a vast world, there was character. Though not as well written as a novel, it put me as a character in the story, I determined my actions, my fate, my story. And I enjoyed the Biblical passage provided in the beginning which contained the key to the end of the story:

He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.
-Revelations 21:6

I obtained a taste for music which I say has a "haunting quality" to it. I'm still not sure how to pinpoint it.

Post-undergrad/Pre-Grad/Wesley Year/Summer. The nearest I can define this haunting music is by listening to the band Portishead. This is the kind of music I thrive on at night. More Fallout 3, Cat's Cradle for it's apocalyptic theme, Watchmen the movie reignited my love for the story though I was by this time much familiar with the philosophical tradition associated with each character and the fallacies the author made with some, Melmoth the Wanderer for it's Faustian story - a mix of devil deals, madness of the mind, and loss of one's soul.

I am not comfortable with this world. I am a pilgrim, in search of a homeland.

My writing has been shaped in such a way that I find it only possible in two situations, either for therapeutic reasons or when I'm depressed or in a dark mood. The latter is only possible when life is bearing down on me or I deliberately create an atmosphere in my room that is dark. I situations where I have tried to write otherwise it always ends up horribly. Even now I only like writing because this piece is therapeutic. When I am joyful I find I cannot write in any shape, although I long at these times to write creative fiction. But alas, I always find I cannot. The creative juices run dry when it is not either dark or I am emotionally depressed. It's sad really. I long to write a novel, even if it is poor writing, even if only I read it. But the times when I want to, I can't.

Anyway, I do not know the source of my dreams. They are sinister, malicious, I do things that I despise when I awake, or if in third person I watch with horror as "I" do things I find morally reprehensible.

For it is from within from the heart, that evil intentions emerge: fornications, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a person unclean.
-Mark 7:21

For it is not against enemies that we have to struggle, but against the principalities and the ruling forces who are masters of the darkness in this world, the spirits of evil in the heavens.
-Ephesians 6:12

Talk about antinomies. I'm just not in the mood for deep philosophizing right now, just summaries. Descriptive, not argumentative, an English professor might say.

The Eucharist is a wonderful thing. For it is the body and blood of Christ in some sense, though I have not decided in what sense I believe this to be true. In taking it one becomes in communion with God, is forgiven of sins, and is provided strength for future endeavors. Whether my darkest dreams be something more akin to Mark 7:21 or Ephesians 6:12 ultimately doesn't matter, as Communion contains the solution either way. But my taste for knowledge motivates me to discover which, for if I am to ask for forgiveness, if that be the case, I would first need to realize something is wrong with me. Call it conviction, guilt, shame, it's all the same really, it is the recognition of wrong doing. So long as the feeling stems from knowledge of violation of Goodness, then it is a proper emotion. I have acted in accordance with both via conditional propositions littering my prayers, as is my custom. "God, if this....then please...but if that...then please..." Heh, I like to cover all my grounds.

Still, my interest is piqued, and if I am to do something about it, I need prayer and contemplation. I have kept decent track of my dreams, though I have not written them down if the plots were either too simple or uninteresting. Perhaps I need to keep track of them all. Either way I have enough to begin ordering them categorically by subject or motifs, and not just chronologically as I have done traditionally. I seek to find patterns, and will ultimately use something from my childhood to create a manifestation of my dream world in which I can "explore" them. I'm using an old program I used when I was 12 to create a SNES-esque video game with levels/rooms for each dream, hopefully placing categorically similar ones next to each other. So far I've got a few rooms of snowy mountains and trails, a tiny maze, an underground gave, and a series of railroad tracks floating over an open sky, the moon in the background. I'll create little pixeled figures to span across certain ones perhaps, each representing one of my parts: mind, emotions, flesh, and will named Anselm, Erastus, Acario, and Hezekiah respectively. I still seek to know my Spirit, so long as I do not know him, he cannot be named. All are me, Blake. Though Blake is not any one of them. It's all very childish looking, but it's suiting since these dreams have been around for so long.

I have one that has repeated since I was a child. Nothing terribly interesting happens, but I always awake in pain. And I wonder where my mind every got the idea for it. Maybe it will have it's own room. And maybe the Spirit will be locked in stasis, a priest might be a nice figure for him, for I do seek to be of His holy priesthood. And a Eucharist-centric world, an altar in the middle of the world symbolic to my being.

I enjoy making the little world, a homeland for my dreams, perhaps I can be joyful and creative after all.