A Bit Sobering

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The Wood-pile

Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said, “I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.”
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went down. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year’s snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s or the year’s before.
The wood was grey and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

-Robert Frost

Night to Me

deep things seem to come alive as night deepens. in spite of civilizations monumental obstruction of darkness, there is some indefinite urge that awakens, some deep fear of the unknown purpose, seductive and deadly, that lurks behind the treeline, that shifts behind my eyes. the struggle for the last blessed memory that left my conscious mind when the sun still shone becomes that much more poigniant in the hours leading up to sunrise, when the earth seems its darkest and weeks of daysleep and light deprived monastic watches begin their long familiar suffocation. what good is it to dance for rain in the dark? what hope is there to hold when all the world around you is on the deathbed? the blank stare of loved ones, enthralled with the humiliation and debasement of a poor dillusioned singer, a young man who breathes free air a thousand miles away in a studio and who placed his hope for a moment in this disinterested phantom of a dream. it tears my heart to see my own wasted ambition, my cyclical, sytematic self-destruction and deception. im forever drunk on my own dreams, these seething apparitions of joy and wonder. ageless, i live a moments whisper of a fancy. how many ages am i? how long have i been? change begets change but the sun passes in the same place it did three hundred and sixty four days ago a million years in a row. new of the old, i am, yet was not always and with each letter become yet again another. for what? will i ever come to rest? strange, these voices. the signal of a dying battery chirps at me from downstairs, like somehow i owe it something? did i create my sisters cellphone? am i its keeper? Chopin writes music still, did you know? and i am listening to one of his sonatas right now, but i forget which. the battery beeps again. Friedrich Chopin cried many tears, i can tell; he percieved these nights as cantilevered notes high to the right of the keyboard softly tipping and weaving like stars and never falling, but never coming to rest. face down on the bed i can concentrate better. i can pick apart the world and arrange it on the floor as i see fit. i am the god of it in these late hours, a child counts them and its crushing wieght is too much for me, this half-man can’t hold. desperation quickens the unbled drops of courage from a white face. facing the cieling tears roll laterally to my ears, facing the bed, they soak into my pillow in stifled cries. these are the hardest decisions. how many times have i layed my hand on the head of others, ones who first began to cry these nights, trusted by proxy because i too have driven miles. cold comfort, once my gain, now nothing to me.
now the sun is rising, in the east, as always. do i follow it? sleep eludes me once again, a hollow light, so far away. i’m not destitute, i’m not a desperate man… not yet. there is hope still, unseen and on the rise, though i cant tell which direction it will come from.

An Essay on Man (an excerpt)

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan,
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between, in doubt to act or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little or too much;
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused or disabused;
Created half to rise, and half to fall:
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

-Alexander Pope

Tyler Park+Lousy Digital=

Sabbath Thoughts

On what earth is laid to rest the passing things?
The sun torn tapestry of clouds sees and prophesies
and barren hearts breed children of machinery.
The dead owe nothing. The dead keep nothing.

In the twentieth year he fell silent, as I would, and
Wasted away. Now shadows rise and the concluding
notes of grace fade…

Weary stranger, come rest guiltless;
Holiness sells for tears and shaken voices.
He will take you to the unreachable places,
once time has been fulfilled.

I Work the Night Shift

buy velvet night in yards, the crescent
moon hung low about the waist of morning,
illumination forming ancient syllables with
rising blue in the east. and i with heavy
lidded familiarity defy the dawn,
donning a night-time of my own imposition.

Security of Sound

Hold me, ghost of an action,
to oaths taken in silence.
Cast me to the sky
with the last leaves of
autumn and the falling
strains of the horizon.
Sing me the lullaby of becoming.

Thoughts on Creativity

I want to put myself down for a while. I want to give up my pride, for tonight at least, and claim nothing but Christ. Does writing become an escape, like staring at your shoes during conversation? Do I confuse that vast, white space of the page with eternity? Do I slip away into the eternally numb potential of paper simply out of insecurity, to exist with nothing but the pulse within my veins? Faith has infinite copies, a no for every yes. I grasp myself so tightly that I can’t breath. I crave control, but need release. Sometimes you have to put down the pen and just let go.

A Song

I narrate to you, my gifted,
Stone walls, warm blankets and
Cold blue sky. I shout dawn
To you from the rooftops,
Whisper through the keyhole,
“Come with me.”

I come to you from deserts,
From the bosom of the earth, its dark heart.
I come to you alone through the mountains
Smelling of wildflowers and great wet forests.

I knew the words and drew them
From your lips to the palms of my hands,
With a cry. Before
The sun broke upon the first day
Of the world I did this.