I like to write (usually type) things.
Poetry/Prose
A Joy Raging
There is a joy raging
Cracks on a hard shell
Sunlight thrusting through
Declaring itself, demanding itself
A warmth in cold stone
Softening the rock
Fire refining rust and rot
Until only gold remains
In a world unfeeling, a kiss
Wrong and true
Blood red reeling
Against black and white
In spite of all, a face upturned
Flashing teeth at the sun
Terrible and beautiful
Smiling at death, beaming for life
There is a joy raging
In the heart of darkness
The lowest whisper
The loudest scream
The Big Man
And the man seemed to grow under the single swinging light. His shoulders swelled and his skin turned a darker, truer shade of midnight. His veins rippled and his eyes grew to the size of stars. His long fingers flexed and fell and his chest heaved in a rhythm that was slow and sure. The air around him hummed and danced and the patrons held their breath.
But the room remained perfectly still.
The stage crunched beneath the soles of his feet and the lights flickered in their bulbs. The wood creaked in the walls and the windows shook.
But no one uttered a word.
The sweat of his brow reflected the moonbeams from the stained glass mosaic and the muscles of his arms pulsed beneath the holes in his shirt. And his arms became wings as they lifted up over the crowd and a wordless benediction reverberated through the great raven’s embrace. And as the great beast drew in its greatest breath, it sucked the very color from the crimson carpet and the mahogany walls. It sucked the white from the wine and the shine from the stars outside, and the eyes of the patrons, blue and green and brown alike, were all turned to black.
And the room was silent
And the beast smiled
And turned back into the man
And I witnessed as his voice ushered the world back into tune. I wondered as the man spoke and spat and wept and prayed over us all. Over me. And I watched him shepherd the color back to the carpet and the walls and the wine and the stars outside and the eyes of the patrons, but when the colors returned, they were changed. The hues were brighter, deeper, sometimes different altogether, rearranged to a design of his liking.
Some didn’t like the new colors he gave. They shook their heads and slammed their fists and opened their mouths wide. They spoke and spat and wept and prayed and roared like lions. But their roars were drowned out by the big man’s prayer and so they hung their heads low and left.
But I stayed, and we few witnessed the greatest thing. The big man rose until he reached the ceiling, and his voice grew louder and more potent. And as the earth shook and the people swayed and the whole room seemed it would burst, he stopped and sang the word Amen.
Like a whisper, he sang that word. And we closed our eyes to savor the sweet silence. And for many moments we remained this way.
And when I opened my eyes, the man and the patrons were gone and I was alone. And I realized then it was my own prayer that I had heard.
And as I looked out from the window in the corner of my cell, I smiled and knew that it was all worth living for.
Wealth
Wealth
Doesn’t jingle in my pocket
You cannot lock it in a bank
I do not thank God for money
But it’s funny how we mistake it
For wealth
Family
Does not leave a soul wanting
A house haunting it’s host
With the ghost of a father
Who did not bother to stay
For family
A Queen
Has no crown atop her hair
She wears purple glasses
And passes you more wine
And finds more beauty in a peasant
Than a queen
Love
Is a seat with all of you
A true way to live
It gives his life for friends
And never ends.
The Sun and Her Glory
Give a boy a warm sun on a cool day
With cold light early in the morning
Waking before the first rays hit the balcony and sitting and waiting and shivering in the shade until
Glory, here she comes
Fault lines under eyes crinkle
Cold skin sizzles under new heat
Thawing the ice in the veins
“Same light as yesterday
Same heat as before
Yet today somehow greater
Today somehow more
No medicine heals
No song rests the heart
Like the Sun in the glory
Of new day’s start”
The Old Woman Who Sat Next To Me In A Park In Paris
There is an old woman with a little hat sitting on this bench reading a book. We’re in my favorite place in all of Paris, a little park in Courbevoie, where children run around the fountain and deep green trees frame the skyscrapers above. I come here to read too and I’ve seen the old woman with the hat before. She is at least a hundred years old, with Grand Canyon wrinkles etching a topographic map across her face. She has a plume of wispy, brown hair rippling from under the little bucket hat. She wears small, perfectly round spectacles and, even though it’s summer, a big beige winter coat. She sinks into it like warm bread in soup. Forgive me, strange comparison.
Beyond this, she wears a bright pink scarf and leopard print leggings, which I think suit her well. She made her way here slowly with the help of her walker and now she sits next to me. She reads an old book with a soft cover, too frayed for me to see the title. I like to think that she’s read it before, many times. Perhaps it is her favorite. Every now and then she cracks a grin and humphs as if something in the story reminded her of an old inside joke.
Good lord, I am fascinated by her. I want to know her stories. Did she run and play in the fountains of an older park as these children do? I want to know what she looked like as a young woman. Was she once a great beauty? Did she break hearts? Was her heart ever broken? Did she fall in love? Where are they now?
Was she ever far away from home in a place where she didn’t speak the language? Did she ever walk to a park there and sit down and read next to some other old man or woman and wonder? I wonder.
I hope she is here tomorrow or the next day. I’d like to work up the courage to say something to her. Maybe she’ll understand. Maybe not. But today I’ll just watch and hope that her book is just as lovely this time as it was the hundred times before.
FILM SCRIPTS
(some snippets I like)
Excerpt from my short film, "The Quiet Notes"
Excerpt from my short film, "The Quiet Notes"
Excerpts from my short film, "Buy The Gun"
