I Dub Thee 'Little Boy Blue'

Of all the things the Army will not let me to tell you, let me tell you, I will dig for the substance and rename the surface. Like the clink of a treasure hunter's shovel upon metal at the bottom of his hole in the sand, so might my fingers connect with the keys to send waves of mystery resonating through and beyond my grasp.... We are perpetually waiting on "the word." The Boss has plans for our future and we are all poised for action.

In this climate, Recess is not just outdoor fun and games but a lesson in the cruelty of the elements and the consequent necessity of hydration. Little Boy Blue and his hungry squad prepare for battle with an invocation of holy testosterone and heavy drinking: the elixir of life... H2O. This country drinks your sweat to wash down the urban rubble served for dinner. We are all seated at the table in anticipation....

The Abhorred Shears

A little more than two months of infantry garrison with a unit infamous for raising hell and national publicity and what's left of my intentions is a skeleton of ideological naivete. Whatever honorable notions of service and duty I might have been loosely functioning under have steadily, with each passing celebratory weekend, been stripped down to the bare bones. We've tipped our glasses to our departure and dipped more than a heel in our depravity. Leaping headlong at lascivious impulses and streatching out our hides to be seared in the flames of fleeting indulgences.... I am left to believe that my service will be one of penence.

Alas! What boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely slighted Shepherds trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse,
Were it not better don as others use,
To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,
Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of Noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair Guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears,
And slits the thin spun life. But not the praise,
Phœbus repli'd, and touch'd my trembling ears;
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,
Nor in the glistering foil
Set off to th' world, nor in broad rumour lies,
But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes,
And perfect witness of all judging Jove;
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed.


From Lycidas by John Milton

faith in the fire

I'm throwing these words like a fistful of gravel. Without aim or intention. I don't want to hurt anyone, but for each stone there is a memory. And lately, my memories are more like wishes... moments of beauty cemented in time. A fistful of love and no target.

The distance between a memory and a dream is as far as you are from yourself. Sometimes I wonder how life can get better. All I have is a rough sketch of what I want to happen and that rough sketch is no more than kindling.

soup on a plate

I just realized that I'm standing on a trap door...you know, the type that opens beneath you when your belligerence before the court has pushed the right buttons. When you truly feel the weight of your impending exit and embrace it like the sting of a winter wind when you left your fleece behind in spite of better reason. It's on you. Embrace that. For whatever reason, I am free to spew architectural bull shit like urban sprawl...to serve up soup on a plate.

There is a very safe place where everyone is sleeping and I am alone and free, enraptured in a world of limitless beauty and possibility. I could step out into the starry night and follow a nameless logging road up the mountain and into the pines to find myself in a clearing searching the valley below like an aimless gust. How long are my arms? What is my reach? Not enough to touch my dreaming family.

Maybe I could convince myself that I have to wake up tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. I'll set my alarm even though I have tomorrow off. When I hear it beeping like, "wake up, wake up, wake up little slave," I'll open my eyes just long enough to realize that I've successfully fooled myself and then savor the moment I turn it off and roll over to burry my face in the pillow and dissolve into exctasies.

a line in the sand

As my existence here in Germany stabilizes and I settle into my new skin (digital camouflage), my civilian self still surfaces like hungry little fish at dusk to feed on what bits of nourishing life might alight on the water. My starving little personal-space-fish rushes from the murky depths and rises to devour a single unsuspecting and indifferent hour of aloneness in the laundry room to read and be still. Another lonely and kind fish weaves in and out of the roots of a tree flourishing above the undercut and nibbles on the moss of a few rare and edifying conversations. A school of memory fish move as one and glimmer and reflect the long rays of another sun rising and setting in my dreams of the past and visions of the future.

All in all, I am still here, though at times divided against myself. A line is being drawn in the sand by a uniformed soldier challenging a warrior of the spirit to simply take a step and join forces...to move forward as one with an uncompromising purpose: Seek the will of God and destroy the false being within by His power.

Bird On The Wire

Like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
Like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If i, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If i, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.

Like a baby, stillborn,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
And by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
He said to me, you must not ask for so much.
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
She cried to me, hey, why not ask for more?

Oh like a bird on the wire,
Like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

~Leonard Cohen