Cross around my Neck

Anybody who knows me well could probably tell you that, for the majority of my life, I have worn a cross around my neck.  Which I guess is weird because if you know me well enough to know that, you also know that I am not at all a religious believer.  Somebody at work asked me a question today, that I have been asked before, and I finally think that I know the answer.  They asked me why, if I don't believe in it, do I wear the cross around my neck?

I think there are 2 reasons why I do this.  Reason 1:  I was brought up to be Christian...I say Christian because, let's face it, I was brought up around 2 churches that believed the exact same things just were too stubborn to admit it...but nonetheless both Christian so I've had a cross my whole life and started wearing it because when I was younger I did believe in it.  Then I guess I got used to wearing it.

Reason 2:  Which I think is the most odd reason, but probably the most prevalent of the two.  I cannot, in my right mind, believe in Christianity...or Islam or Buddhism or Judaism or any other Godly religion I could name because I can't bring myself to logically believe that those things laid out in each one of those good religions could possibly have happened.  That is just the way that my mind works.  I can't believe something just to believe, or because my family and friends believe...or even because it would put me at ease about answering difficult questions in life.  There must be proof if I am to devote my life to a way of thinking.  But what does this have to do with that cross that is wrapped so lovingly around my neck?  It is there because I really do hope, every single day, that my belief is wrong...even if I don't think it is.

I find that I constantly get lost in my thoughts, trying to answer life's unanswerable questions...I don't understand why I try because I know it's in vain, but it is who I am...and what I have found in trying to answer these questions, besides my occasional sleepless night, is that I am able to connect dots about myself...I'm able to discover a new feeling that I didn't know I had...I will never answer those tough questions but maybe one day I'll have the solution to who I actually am.

The Mess is Gone (poem)

After the sliding door of the mini van closed
I remember feeling my heart twist.
My eyes followed the car until it was no longer.
An empty room now, was all I had
with white walls, bare, waiting to be smothered

using posters to cover an emptiness; meaninglessness
never meant so much. 
Bands, supposed heroes…stuck
to shield me from the pale blocks which I laid up against,
curled.  Having clutched my phone—my last connection

to what filled me.  Parents replaced by teachers
in crescent shaped cathedrals of knowing
and I had related. 
A brother swapped for friends
whose stamina ran on alcohol.  Boys who made sure
that a weekend elevator ride back to a poster-covered room
was vomit-soaked and I was left to question

if this was better.  Each weekend spent in a desk chair
rotating from xbox to computer to phone
all the while thinking of that mini van’s door closing
and picturing the concrete driveway where it would stop,
the door torn by the scratches of frenzied dogs waiting
impatiently for it to be thrown open, the stairs
leading to a room made warm by pictures, and books,
and memories of fist fights and arguments over toys
that still rest in the closet.  A room that was finally
clean to a mother’s liking.

And while my new friends howled songs drunkenly
I wondered if someone was in that old warm room,
wishing it was a mess again.

Who the hell am I?

I met with a Professor here at Syracuse last week who gave me some advice on getting into a creative writing masters program.  He said that what he looks for in poetry is "voice."  He looks for the author to be present in his/her poetry.  He looks to see if the themes obviously mean something to the author and that he is being genuine about what's being written.  He wants to see the poet having chose his direction and is moving down that path.

I know that I have a few themes I like to write about (my quirks, my need to solve every problem and be correct, my home life, my views on religion..etc.) but I don't know if I show through in my work or not.  I hope that people can see me in my poems...and perhaps see something in themselves because what good is writing if you are the only person that you are writing for?

Anyways just contemplating as to whether or not I come off as genuine or fraudulent, and also if I'm good enough to do what this professor is asking.

*I am going to be totally late for work now.

The Bond (poem thingy...not sure what to call this or if it's done)

Thoughts make us similar; not that they are the same in all, but only that they are had by all—the stem of every idea rooted through a thought.  However, a thought cannot be if it remains hidden in the dark, never surfacing, because of a frightening appearance or the timid nature of the beholder.  Release.  Thoughts connect us with one another, causing us to confide, creating a tangibility of both: originalities from the mind and new physical interaction.  This sharing makes a person readable, relatable; letting loose what is available within…to bond.


*Not really sure what I was trying to do here...just kinda thinking out loud and typing.

Monotony (poem)

Routine is nothing more than repetition.
Whether it begins with the best of intentions
or starts out of necessary convention,
it always leads you in the same direction
and devolves from sure procession
into a chaotic depression.

A quiet collapsing
of
your own world
around you.
It's a sneaking
claustrophobia,
slowly stealing
your breath
to the point where quiet screams
can't even escape
and only
your thoughts
are left.

Compassion

After reading some really disturbing things about what people are saying on the subject of mosques being built in this country (the particular one in NYC especially) I feel quite disheartened.  I am under the impression that Americans have lost all compassion towards fellow Americans and other members a part of their own human race.

The beautiful thing about this country is how open we COULD be with our beliefs.  If I were to slaughter an entire building full of people that would be wrong to just about everyone in this country.  However, if every "white" person who came after me walked into a building after that he should not receive hostility for my lack of respect towards life.  The people who killed thousands on 9/11 died in those planes...they are not building mosques in New York.  For us, as a people, to have a problem with this means that we as a collective nation do not stand for the beliefs that we say we do.  When we find out the horrible things other countries do to Christians, or women, or any other type of religion, we throw America in their faces.  BUT, here we can burn the Qur'an and believe that we are being patriotic and defending our country?

We as Americans have done just as many hateful injustices to the muslim people as they have done us...none of it forgettable...but at some time we must learn how to live with each other and make our past actions forgivable.

It grieves me that some people cannot feel for others.  That might sound lame, but it really does.  And I believe if you are one of those people who cannot then you have truly made decisions in your life to make yourself bitter and unhappy...and for that I am sorry for you.

A Pointless March (poem)

Are my looping lyrics worth a good read?  Nothing is worth the time and study if it doesn't, somehow, change you.  My words cannot compare to such things as war or any force that takes weight on a global scale.  Perhaps I am a General, my soldiers...my words.  Three come together to form a team, the opening of my poem, the lure I cast to cause your eyes to drift over to my territory.  If I make four sets of these I'll have a line, my first squad is complete.  With three more of those I'll have my first poetic platoon at full attention, the first stanza complete.  Onward, with a few flicks of the wrist and the point of my pen.  I stand now three stanzas in, a whole company waiting whimsically to grab hold a reader.  Just in case you aren't caught in my syntactical trap yet, let my battalion role through.  Twelve sets metered...beating you, boxing you in.  And if that isn't enough for your white flag, I still have my brigade; three times the amount of lineal language lifting your conscience, or perhaps making you feel as if doom looms within. 

At the end though, your choices pick the locks of my success, not my force.  I am a fool to think the war I've waged could mind fuck you as much as the real ones you've seen.

Estrogen Injection

Today was a kinda weird day.  It all started with my girlfriend and I taking our cat to the vet...harmless enough.  Then I went to go see Eat, Pray, Love.  I did not want to see this film at all but at the behest of my girlfriend I had to go (because I did not go see the Sex in the City movie...which I assure everyone I would have rather set fire to a puppy orphanage than watch that movie).  Anyways, to my complete surprise, I really enjoyed the movie.  After the movie was over we proceeded in going to the craft store, where we bought some frames, looked at fake flowers and cross-stitching patterns.  And then I came home to cook dinner for the two of us.

Ok doctor...I'm prepped and ready for my new vagina.


Tomorrow I am going to see The Expendables because I feel that I have to.

Bedtime Ritual (poem)

For the third night in a row I lie awake with heavy, blood-filled, eyes that, despite many long hours of sight, cannot be pulled shut; they are working overtime to keep images from becoming hazy videos, dreams, casting frightening projections left only up to me to interpret, because, nobody else could possibly understand the thoughts, that I am trying fervently to subdue from action, to rinse, wring and hang up...erased, so as not to be ashamed.  If I just bring my black thoughts to gray that would be progress.


***Finally another poem that I'm somewhat satisfied with.

Hopeless Devotion (poem)

Welcome me,
with your arms
embrace me,
and with your golden
dressings
impress me.
Send out your dove,
from an alabaster sun,
to meet me
and show me
your gilded throne.
Where you
will keep us,
your anxious guests,
waiting
for all time.





**Yet another new poem.


This is the image I was remembering when I wrote this.

Very many of my poems have somewhat of a religious underlying.  I've had a difficult time in my life accepting the validity of any specific view of faith.  I have issues with things that people do because of their faith and I try to express this in some of my poetry.

Life in New York

Well...there are a few awesome qualities I have noticed about Syracuse so far.

First off, you know those rednecks who drive those giant, american-made, pickups plastered with stickers that date as far back to Bush (first time elected) all the way to the inane bumper stickers supporting people like Sarah Palin?...Well today I was behind one of those trucks but it was littered with Obama stickers.  I was alive with happiness in my car and gave the gentlemen a well-deserved thumbs up.

Secondly, I found the supermarket that I will be using for everything here.  PRICE CHOPPER.  It is the most amazing chain of supermarkets ever...EVER.  "What makes this place of purchasing groceries so much better than any other you have found before it," one might ask.  Well you know the 10-20 items (depending on the store) or less signs that are up in every damn store?  They are all incorrect, and being the intelligent person that I am, I know that the sign should correctly say "10 items or fewer."  It should say that because the word "less" should be used only of uncountable things.  To make it easier...things that can be measured, but not separated into discrete units.  For example:  there is less brain activity in Sarah Palin's noodle than inside that of a toaster strudel, or it takes less gas to run that car.  "Fewer," however, almost always follows the rule of usage for counting of items.  For example:  there are fewer cars in that parking lot, or there are fewer teeth in a person from West Virginia's mouth as opposed to a normal person.  The point I am trying to make is that Price Chopper uses correct grammar on the permanent signs they have hanging over their registers; therefore, it is only logical that I can assume someone working for them is educated and is deserving of my money...in order to undoubtedly pay back the mass of students loans that he/she probably has.

And thirdly,  There is a really super cool comic book store here.

Here is one of the new poems I wrote this week.

Did I Frighten You?

Truth be told, it happens easily.

Sometimes a quick gust of wind could do it,

rattling the screen of an open window.

From one room over it sounds like a marauder

crafting a way into my own insecurity.

I’m on the second floor, but adding a basement

makes this kind of the third floor.

The second… third floor corridor leads to my door

and inside that another door to a cave.

I have boxed myself in with bookshelves

except for a small window,

my portal to whizzing cars and life I could call to.

Should I need it…to call out, holler out;

I hope to never find out if they would help out

if those creeks I think I hear upstairs are actually

in here.

All day, without as much as a whisper.

The cat’s purr became the only soothing vocal,

it served as an undertone to the cracking of floorboards

or to the crunching of the crust on my pizza,

until returning to my crude corner to read.

In silence I flipped open a book

to finally see the truth in one of my favorite lines:

“ The safest place to hide…is in sanity.”

And I looked up.

***For those who see this and may not know, I write a lot of poetry and I will be applying to go to school for it this year...So I'm looking to share a bit.

SOMEBODY HELP ME

Ok so...I'm trying to start a blog because I've ran into the last person today that is going to ask me if I have one with my response being no.  I have absolutely no friggin idea what I am doing and what I should put into all the little empty boxes I see on my user page....

ANYWAY...Hopefully I will make posts periodically to display some of the poetry I am writing and to just share the general nonsense that I think about with anybody who cares to read.