I wish that I could still believe the lines
that feed the young and nourish childhood dreams,
the reassurance everything is fine
despite the raging chaos it may seem.

I wish the world would confirm to my will
when I am sure the course the world should take,
but what I want to move often stays still,
convincing me such wishes are mistakes.

I wish the course of my life was less blurred,
and that the path ahead was much more clear.
But often truth and logic are obscured,
and what seems plain is not what it appears.

I wish that the religion of my youth,
the vanity of hope I held so dear,
would have ten years ago revealed the truth:
that who you are is not found in the mirror.

I wish, and then for wishing want an end;
instead of dreams, to just touch solid ground,
and in this world, that often seems pretend,
to be at peace with what small things I've found.

But wishing is a habit hard to shake,
a tool that serves its purpose for a while,
resisting all attempts one tries to break
its hold, to seek for substance rather than its style.

I wish instead of wishing to just be,
and in that state to become without fear;
to loose the chains of whimsy and stand free.
When faced with being, seeming disappears.

26 FEB 2005

The thread that holds the edges of the fabric
that forms the warp and woof that is our life
is tenuous at best, so thin and fragile.

The tapestry we take so much for granted,
whose boundaries extend to memory's end,
is but a million of these strands and slivers.

That it remains a whole is quite surprising,
considering how little work it takes
to cause a snag, or worry loose a seam.

The pattern fades, and shows its age in places
where time and stress have worn through either side;
through these holes, often, come epiphanies.

For as where surface thins and turns transparent,
the world beyond our isolated realm
makes faint connection to our sense of known;

In those quite rare and brief enlightened moments,
when balance becomes difficult to find
yet despite danger we must seek the edge

and look to the abyss that lies beyond,
we find within ourselves the fabric's mending,
or pulling that loose thread, unravel all,

because in truth, we are just as connected,
though each from separate spools we trace our start,
as the fine strands that seem nothing of themselves,

but can together form a thing of beauty
beyond the ken of isolated minds.
If just an inch is lost, we are no more.

24 FEB 2005

When I try to convince someone that my way is better than theirs, I don't stand there and tell them their glass is dirty, and as a result they're drinking dirty water. I just stand quietly, drinking my clear water from a sparkling clean glass, and let them draw their own conclusions. -- Malcolm X, paraphrased

for Malcolm Little

We still drink dirty water
although forty years have passed,
and despite decades of struggle
have yet to be free at last

from the misguided notions
that served us to some degree,
but lay the blame at our own feet
at our hypocrisy

Equality? That's just a word
that draws the softer vote;
and even then, you hear it catch
in politician's throats

when they survey the ghetto
from inside their limousines
on their way to a better home
than most have ever seen.

It's more than just a color bar
that splits this land apart.
There's a flaw in our base logic
that divides the mind and heart:

if we don't believe we're equal,
at the core built just the same,
then what good are politicians,
save for dividing the blame?

If we simply clean our glasses,
but still draw from dirty wells,
the sole use for spit and polish
is reflecting the same hell.

23 JAN 2005

for Hunter S. Thompson

A life in isolation breeds its own brand of malaise,
that the respected classes just ignore
and seek instead on worthless causes to heap shame or praise,
with their good sense, naming such moods a bore.

The paranoia of the underdog they call a sham,
not worthy of their time, a waste of ink;
the causes that disturb the peace are just not worth a damn,
or dangerous, if they make people think.

And who would dare innoculate the tough, unfeeling side
of such a beast, except a man possessed
with his own brand of madness and a sense of civic pride,
when noticing the emperor's undress?

Beyond the limits of good sense, and often at great risk
(where reputations are built on mere whim)
who is to say where genius crosses into wild hubris?
The line between the two is faint, and slim.

But madmen are the world's redemption; there amidst the cracks
in grand facades, under its public face,
they toil to bring to our ennui the honesty it lacks,
and see beyond our masks, to our disgrace.

When leaders bend reality to disguise or deceive,
cloak their ill intentions with a winning smile,
despite volumes of evidence they cannot be believed,
are any sane who hold back on their bile?

Too many sane, respected souls stand silent and do naught,
while freedom, trust and liberty are sold.
It is the madmen, in these times, whose minds cannot be bought,
that shock us into breaking from the fold.

They ask why should such things take place, in language coarse and rough,
and whisper their dissension in our ear.
What's more, they make us wonder if we're paranoid enough,
or numbed by false pretense and hollow fear.

Truth lies somewhere past the lines that we've been taught to see,
those boundaries of someone else's dreams.
Too often, we accept as gospel such insanity
that even madness is not what it seems.

21 FEB 2005

I chose to walk a path of wildness;
though these modern city streets are paved
and seem to revel in a blindness
that believes the urban sprawl has saved
us from what nature could remind us:

somewhere beneath all this black and gray,
behind the masks that progress may wear
as it fumbles through lines of a play
it has not written, and does not care
to find meaning in what those words say,

there is an rough edge to our control.
Beyond that border the feral earth,
that patient presses diamonds from coal,
in each single instant gives birth
to the strange chaos that feeds our souls.

Where the sidewalk ends and turns to vine
is never clearly marked on a chart;
and your map is not the same as mine,
even if we would pretend to start
from the same place at an exact time.

What's more, both paths may appear the same
(if anyone still took time to look)
and like gods often bearing false names
to confuse those who insist on books,
will merge at times; they are not to blame.

Instead, it is our pride that deceives;
we do not seek to balance, but rule,
and as a despot king we believe
our road divine, and others for fools
unfit to share the glory we perceive.

But it is there; the wildness can't be tamed,
nor trimmed and manicured for too long
before it tires of such polite games
and flexes its muscles, lean and strong,
to escape the gilded picture frame.

I would go after, where it now stalks
amidst the dark, thickened underbrush;
sometimes just at dawn I hear it walk
right under my open window. Hush!
Can you hear it too? It likes my block.

18 FEB 2005

I will never deconstruct another poem
in search of hidden metaphor, by line
eviscerating some writer's creation
to satisfy some professor of mine.

These exercises do not help the reader
connect to what is said, or truly why
in given circumstance one word is better,
or how one's own perspective may supply

a wealth of connotations beyond measure.
Too many now who read seek just what caters
to their limits of taste or frame of mind;
and would have poets soft and built for leisure.
Why use the stairs, when there are elevators?
Because some things are NOT a waste of time.

17 FEB 2005

One of the biggest personal challenges I face as a poet is striking a balance between form and function, or between pose and purpose.

What I mean by this is that as an artist progresses in their technical ability, in their experience with the creative process, and in the journey of self-discovery that ultimately results in maturity (or vintage) as an artist, we often say they have found "their voice". To experience someone who has found their voice is to listen to the sound of a tree, to know that what sound comes from them originates from unseen roots in the soles of their feet and radiates upward and outward. Such voices rumble with a kind of authority that masterfully, yet without effort, blends the personal and the universal into a single stream of consciousness that, even if you don't agree with the flow, you cannot help but be affected by when you hear it. Some artists never quite achieve that level of sophistication (although sophistication is not exactly the right word here), and you can sense it. They put on a great show, and to most observers they appear to be something quite special. But to other poets, I think, the distinction between a Voice and a Stage Whisper is apparent. A lot of people sham at having a Voice. They speak as if they had one, or as if trying to convince others they are someplace at which they have not yet arrived.

The problem is, of course, that the destination changes. And like any relationship, the voice and the words it finds to speak are often troubled by the little things. The two questions, "where am I going?" and "who am I going with?" always seem to be asked in the wrong order. As a result, the line between message and medium is often blurred, or lost altogether. I don't think, for example, that Sylvia Plath's intention was to inspire legions of pale, depressed, overwrought and hyper-sensitive ingenues who dwelt forever in the house of sadness and tragedy. Or that TS Eliot really wished for everyone who followed in his footsteps to mimic his worst traits (overbearing and perhaps a bit poncy and academic) and somehow forget his playful side. But that's the way it goes, particularly when those who TEACH poetry approach it from an academic standpoint and by necessity must focus on only a small part of an entire persona in order to come up with a punchline for their Doctoral theses.

More to come later.

I'd find some peace if I just had more time;
quite often now, this notion comes to me.
Not as a nagging fault, but more sublime,
suggesting an impossibility.

But peace is built on just a second's span
and in that tiny jot of life finds form,
requiring no deliberative plan
except to seek some shelter from the storm.

We think it so elusive that we chase
its shadows, stirring endless clouds of dust,
perpetuating our madness and stress,

instead of calmly waiting in one place,
not worried that our steeled resolve will rust,
or that we'll give our lives a moment less.

And those great projects we cannot delay,
that we, in endless barter, trade and sell:
these too must pause; their bluster must give way
to quiet lulls and contemplative spells.

For peace cannot be found until the soul
finds in the chaos a low quiet song,
the words of which may seem mundane and droll
to those still lost in the wild, howling throng,

who judge those not in motion as great fools.
With progress, they would manufacture peace
and for a profit, offer it for sale.

But nothing will become of those whose schools
instruct in only war. Until they cease
to use the name of progress, they will fail.

16 FEB 2005

Over at Goddessing, the question was raised, "Are there any pagan proverbs?"

Because I see myself as a pagan constructionist, as opposed to a pagan reconstructionist, I find myself having to create my own proverbs. Sometimes, I find they have been referenced by others; and often in surprising ways. Because I also think as a poet, often the distillation of a thought that is required to create poetry results in aphorisms or pithy memorable quips that can serve as proverbs. Many have found such memorable lines in my work (often to my surprise), such as the Druid Animal Sonnets, which I wrote to clarify in my own mind the lengthy text provided by Phillip Carr-Gomm in his Druid Animal Oracle.

Others come upon me quite by chance, like the line: "We are not lost in these woods, nor are they lost in us", which describes my feeling about Druidry. I think part of what is lacking in Paganism is a sense of liturgy (which would include scripture, proverbs and hymns). Often the rituals are obscure, or overly complex, and do not directly connect the observer to the observed. As a result, there doesn't seem to be the immediacy and connection between the mundane and magickal that devices, such as proverbs, offer other religious practioners.

Some suggested pagan proverbs might be:
"There is no mundane"

or Gandhi's famous quote:
"You must be the change you wish to see"

or to borrow from St. Exupery (and I seem to be doing that a lot lately):
"What is essential is invisible to the eye"

I would also think that the Irish triads, and probably the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, qualify as pagan proverbs.

The problem is that there is not a single stream of "pagan" tradition. By its very nature, each tradition is more or less insular, and relies upon its own particular history for its inspiration. In some cases, that history is convoluted at best; in others, there really is NO history to speak of, or that history has been, to some extent, invented. But certainly there are many primary and secondary sources that contain pearls of wisdom that could be thought of as proverbs.

I watch my daughter grow. She finds the patriarchy's walls,
once comforting and so secure, now quickly closing in;
and the consumer culture, bred in bright and shiny malls,
begins to question her reluctance to wallow in sin.

The icons, once so well preserved, expose their peeling paint,
and what chivalry she sought and took for granted
has now begun its slow campaign to try her as a saint;
rock solid faith by doubt has been supplanted.

She still retains naivete: that goodness will be found
behind even a callous smile, despite a hurtful word;
and yet behind her youth's bravado, a glimpse of profound
and growing disillusion a keen eye may now observe.

So soon she plans to leave this place of shelter,
not knowing much, if anything, about the world outside.
Like Icarus, despite a father's warning it will melt her
wings, she thinks it bravery, instead of suicide.

How much the world remains a swirl of danger,
her magazines don't dare to publicize.
Instead, they speak inanities and fashion,
and only growing old they criticize.

My daughter. What this world of men empowered
will teach her, if she has the strength to learn,
is sadly, you are valued 'til deflowered,
and then, if you're not careful, you get burned.

But still, to claim your self is worth the struggle;
to know, to dare, and keep a silent tongue.
It must be so, for in this world of Muggles,
what secrets are worth keeping, keep you young.

14 FEB 2005

If we rely on calendars and ad men
to prompt us into thinking of our love,
and on one day a year make feeble gestures
to compensate that love for our neglect

(the endless days of noncommunication,
illusions of control based out of fear,
a slow loss of respect for one another,
the taking all for granted without thought)

do we expect that one day makes it worth it,
that souls, despite starvation, can endure,
or hearts, wracked with a lifetime's hairline fractures,
are still willing and able to respond?

If you would love me, do so in the open.
Do not in secret build devotion's shrine;
and if by Valentine's I have not known it,
there is no point in saying you are mine.

14 FEB 2005

The flame the muse ignites inside the artist,
who would in service wish themselves consumed,
their dreams the fuel that feeds this beauty's fire -
how bright are even sparks from this great pyre!

Against such light what chance has meager daybreak,
that would impress by merely ending night
yet fades with such indifference into evening?
'Tis but an ember to devotion's glow.

Its mad destructive urge will turn to kindling
all thoughts that wander from its candle point,
transforming those who seek it into marytrs
soothed only by the balm of its scorched hands.

The ardor of this radiant connection,
one soaked with inspiration's kerosene,
the other wisps of smoke that feed on love,
cannot be comprehended from without.

Against such heat what show make giant bonfires,
their Beltane furnace lit for merely hours,
when lifetimes come and go in the brief instants
that muse and artist meet and share their souls?

12 FEB 2005

If you've been reading this blog, you're aware that I am in the process of organizing my poetry using del.icio.us keyword tags. I'm only about a tenth of the way through all the poems in this journal, and already I'm a bit overwhelmed by the number and variety of tags that I've come up with. That's what comes, I suppose, from letting a poet identify the themes in his own work. However, it started me thinking about the whole tagging process. The goal, I believe, is to create a set of tags by which similarities and common subjects in posts can be identified and grouped --- so that if one is looking for entries related to George W. Bush, or blogging, entries with those tags will show up on a search list. However, one thing that I've noticed is that there is a great disparity in the way that people tag their entries. My own range of tags shows a level of nuance that probably will escape most people. But as an example, peace and calm are on some levels related, but in other respects, they represent completely different things. By that same token, to infer a level of Newspeak here, peace and war are not necessarily polar extremes. In other words, war is NOT unpeace. Likewise, alternatives are not necessarily choices. One might have an alternative lifestyle, propose alternatives for energy generation, or serve as an alternate juror. You wouldn't necessarily say, however, that you make an alternative. You make a choice, by choosing an alternative. You see where I'm going with this?

My fear is that by limiting yourself to "popular" tags, or "common" tags, you are by definition limiting the range of your expression. Further, what is one's perversion may be another's entertainment or even alternative lifestyle. As my father used to say when working for the Detroit Department of Sanitation, "it may be shit to you, but it's our bread and butter."

So don't let yourself be too duly influenced by the tags that other people assign to their entries. Sure, it would be nice to get a lot of hits based on a shared keyword, but if that keyword doesn't really describe your zeitgeist, at the very least include additional tags that further define your vision.

Remember, illusion and disillusion may be related terms, but the experience of one is quite different from the other. The use of tags is more than an exercise in sharing common parameters. It should also be an opportunity for expanding the awareness and vocabulary of the community. Because, as George Orwell proposed in 1948, once a word disappears from your vocabulary, the concept it represents has a limited future in your culture. The goal should not be reduction to an "essential" set of tags, no matter how sage and seemingly well-intentioned the creator of that set may be. Because what is essential, to quote St. Exupery, is invisible to the eye. The power of any word, including social tags, lies in the connotations it brings to the table that stretch beyond its mere dictionary definition.

The tags that you use illustrate the breadth and depth of your experience. They represent the range of connotations, mythologies, experiences, tangents, references and frame of reference that makes up who you are. They are a convenience, for sure; but if they force you into a conformity that denies the essence of your variety, that convenience is not worth the price you're paying.

To coin a phrase: Tag. You're it.

I read the news over at Jill's Poetry Hut about Jimmy Smith. As a keyboardist myself, I have a space in my heart for Jimmy --- both because he was absolutely inspirational, and because listening to him convinced me that I'd never be quite good enough. He was incredible.

Say, brother, have you heard the news?
Down at the church of jazz
they're still as statues in the pews;
their organist has passed.

He built that church from sweat and smoke,
with churning Leslie sound
and worked that Hammond 'til it broke
to pieces on the ground.

The cat was bad. He swung the beat
so hard it bent the ear,
and pushed the limits so complete
that others ran in fear.

If you grew one more set of hands,
had legs that whipped like rubber bands,
and overworked adrenal glands,
he'd still destroy you, understand?

The label virtuosity
is often placed amiss;
but one man earned it honestly.
His name was Jimmy Smith.

09 JAN 2005

How long have I been down, immersed,
a Dunker left beneath the wave
whose new birth was to wash away
my meaningless and lost before?

And whose strong hands upon my head
still hold me under, when they swore
to offer help and kind support?
I recognize those hands,
that seemed so weak and hesitant
to grip my own in fellowship
when both of us were dry, and I
not gasping, weakly, for some air.

I see that smile refracted through
the water now between us;
and somehow, those straight even teeth
are now misshapen, ugly fangs.

Now waterlogged, with burning lungs,
I wonder: were you too baptized,
and left, a mewling helpless babe
dependent on some unseen lord?

Or like me, did the wash not stop,
while weak-kneed saints, unsatisfied
with their own empty, whitewashed space
poured into you their excess bleach
and took upon themselves the chore
of monitor and supreme judge,
in firm belief that what they heard
in whispered voices was their God?

Along some rough Damascus road
a Pharisee believed
the voice that spoke to be the Lord.
Perhaps he was deceived.

07 FEB 2005

When Beauty stands alone at last
upon the wretched reefs of time
and watches as her suitors sink
beyond the pale horizon line
where tied to masts of providence
they've closed their senses to her charms
and set their sextants to new courses
far from her beseeching arms,

no matter then how sweet her song,
when each note, lost to swells of surf,
is but a whisper on the wind,
a worthless seed in barren earth,
and even in her own soft ears
will sound like scratches on the rocks,
a cackle from a passing gull
who sees in this no paradox.

Then bitter, she will turn her head
and swim back slowly to the shore,
her salt tears mixed with brine and sand,
and come down to the beach no more.
For Beauty needs an audience,
despite her bold and showy ways;
even the proudest actor fails
in time, without applause or praise.

And Beauty, how we keep apart,
in careful boxes locked and sealed,
her essence from her mind, and heart,
and with that care, is hate revealed.
For we would have her, just for that
which titillates us and our lust
and not be bothered with her soul,
though have a soul, she does, and must.

We drive her off to lonely shores
or high in towers, where she pines
to share a dark and loveless cell
among the dead, like Prosperpine.
For 'tis the trophy we would claim,
the right to Beauty for our sake;
and care not if the heart we cage,
without our love, can only break.

06 FEB 2005

What good was in the world has gone
if we proclaim with innocence
that justice has escaped our grasp
while our hands show no sign of fight,
and at the end of stiffened arms
held at our sides are soft and smooth.

And if those cloaks with which we hide
ourselves from other seeking eyes
do not after long years of wear
reveal at least a trace of mud,
perhaps it does no good to claim
our journey long and filled with strife.

Our eyes, that show no signs of stress
from endless nights by candle flame,
but still reflect an inner calm,
their focus fixed upon ourselves ---
how dare we claim to see the prize
that others seek as merely dross.

With honeyed tongues, we speak of pain
as if it were a passing whim;
and would say it miraculous,
an intervention of the gods,
that our great struggle for the right
to live as we choose has found its end.

How smug and righteous we've become,
to think the universe so small
that it will measure its success
by how our fickle fortunes fall.
If we would claim all but us wrong,
what good was in the world has gone.

05 FEB 2005

I never have been a big fan of loud, drunken crowds. Even when I am feeling loud and drunk, being surrounded by potentially out-of-control people gives me the willies. And this is the time of year in New Orleans when loud and drunk go together like purple, green and gold. Those colors in combination generally make me feel queasy, but during Mardi Gras, they give me a headache.

When I first moved to New Orleans, Stardances was an active member in the Krewe of Dreux. For those who do not know, Dreux is an underground Krewe that operates out of Gentilly. They have their own soiree, parade and royalty election, just like your more "acceptable" krewes, but they are composed of mostly locals who are interested in having a good time, drinking and staying out of the general spotlight. Well, hanging out with Dreux to excess can be unhealthy --- particularly if like me you are diagnosed with the potential for fatty liver. So largely thanks to me, our Krewe-hanging and general drunken mischief making has been curtailed.

Maybe I'm getting old. Or maybe I'm becoming more interested in getting that way. But today was Parade Day for Dreux, and we did not attend. It's cold, and the bottom line is while there are a small number of people I miss and would be interested in talking to, for the most part, the element that goes to parades (of any kind) is only really tolerable when both you and they are getting, or already, drunk. And that seems to me to be a poor way to have to maintain a relationship. If the entire fabric of your social existence hinges upon being drunk, or being in an environment where you can get drunk (or high, or anything else, for that matter), it feels like there often is more lubricant than substance to the whole situation.

I'm sorry. My worldview has changed. I used to say, for example, that I didn't want to play in a band with anyone I wouldn't feel comfortable dropping acid with. That's always seemed a pretty good watermark as far as I'm concerned. I don't think I would abandon it all together. However, I might just as easily say the reverse --- that I wouldn't want to drop acid with anyone I didn't feel I could play in a band with. Or something like that. What I'm driving at is this: if I don't feel that you and I would get along when both of us are sober, if I don't think that sober it would be possible for us to have either a good time, or an interesting conversation to say the least, why in the world would I be interested in "loosing up our mutual inhibitions" so that we could, in a haze of illusory bonding, pretend that we didn't need alcohol to improve our relationship?

Maybe it's just me. Maybe Mardi Gras is one time of year I really miss serious drinking. After all, it is a great excuse for doing that, and pretty much just that. I don't need any more beads, and the thought of seeing another set of bare breasts (that don't belong to my better half) is not that high up on my list of must-dos.

What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the streets
Singing songs, and a-carrying signs
Mostly say, "Hooray for our side"*

We have become so polarized. The lines
are drawn so black and thick between each side,
the pickets filled with stark and ugly words
that only emphasize a hate that grows

when one's own thoughts have turned to stone
fit just for use as weapons behind walls,
where in a soldier's stance we fear what change
would come if doubt encroached upon our minds.

Our single drops of rain gather for storms
that we would have directed at our foes;
yet as the skies turn somber and morose,
we each lament, and blame the restless clouds.

Is this the force that would improve the world,
with great lambasting vitriol and spite?
Have we forgotten that the ends become
perverted by such cold and heartless means?

With scorn emblazoned on our barbed wire hearts,
we seek to prove our way the truth and light;
but bury any hope for growth or peace
and for compassion dig a shallow grave.

04 FEB 2005

* from For What It's Worth, by Stephen Stills and recorded by Buffalo Springfield during the Vietnam War

Sometimes, I wonder: if I'd walked a different path
(the one, like Frost's, well-traveled and defined,
perhaps more suited to my demograph
but nonetheless a road that I declined)
and put my energy into some goal,
a measure pleasing to the status quo;
if I pretended to have more control
of what I've had, and lost, or just let go;

would I have turned out more or less the same,
at least as superficial means could sense,
Or would I be caught up in the grand game,
believing it the sole experience?
What might have been that person's might have beens,
those dreams unknown to he who is me now?
Would those who live as I do seem obscene,
mere blots that for some reason, gods allow?

And when I paused to think of hows and whys
in quiet moments between each new dance,
would I conceive a world cut down to size
to fit my purpose providence or chance?
I wonder, sometimes, on the path I walk,
and wonder of the two worlds, which is worse:
to see the pebble dwarfed next to the rock,
or know the rock, lost in the universe.

The knowing that I chose the darker way
through brambles that some might have cleared to pass
has brought me right to where I am today;
perhaps my journey hasn't been as fast
as if I'd walked the straight and brighter trail,
but then again, there is no use for speed
when despite all your efforts, guidebooks fail
to tell you everything your journey needs.

02 FEB 2005

One of the greatest drives for me, as a writer, is producing for readers. That's the one thing that keeps me writing in a journal, as opposed to channeling my energies into more traditional writing forms (i.e., novels, plays, short stories, chapbooks of poetry, etc.). It's knowing that there are people out there who are to some degree anticipating hearing from me on a regular basis that gets me back to the keyboard on a regular basis. Certainly, if this journal proves anything, that impetus alone has generated a pretty substantial body of work. And to get comments from the otherwise faceless crowd, to share some connection or kinship of a sort --- well, that's icing on the cake. Knowing the audience is out there is the main thing, right?

But sometimes, that's not enough. So there are on-line communities of writers, who presumably share a deeper connection right of the bat --- that is, the Work. You post, but probably more hesitantly in a community than in your personal journal, and get back a bunch of comments about your work. Unfortunately, it seems like most of these comments are critiques, rather than camaraderie. Nits, rather than niceties. Cuts, not connections. It feels like "writing communities" suffer from a disconnect between the Work and the Life. As if, as a writer, it is easy to separate the two. When someone says, in the cold unemotive vacuum of an email, "I don't like this piece at all," it's difficult not to feel an underlying "and I don't care too much for you, either. I don't care to figure out where you're coming from, and that really doesn't bother me a bit." And let's face it, even in a chat room, the lag between preguntar and contestar can be nerve-wracking and not at all conducive to conversation.

Sometimes, you need more. A face to face conversation over strong coffee and unfiltered cigarettes about philosophy, religion, politics and sex (in any combination). The ability to speak at different speeds, to emphasize with an expression, to use your hands ... all nuances that are lost in the world of electronic communication. The palpable feeling of being able to open book, point to a passage and hold it under your companion's nose for their perusal.

Talking on the Internet, be it on discussion boards, in chat rooms, via email, is at best two-dimensional. And you have to pick which two dimensions to use for each encounter. If you choose height and width, you give up depth. If you opt for width and depth, you lose height. In all cases, you only have half of the equation that determines velocity, because you have direction, but the speed is outside your control. And velocity is a key element of relationship growth.

So I wonder, as I put together another two-dimensional journal entry. Without the external stimuli of real conversation, actual intercourse between thinking beings, how much can I really say? And how much can you, the reader (or listener, rather), really hear? As I've said before, there is a point where a dialogue with self becomes a monologue. Is that the purpose of my blog --- to simply be a diary? No. It is intended to be an initiation of a dialogue between myself and whoever on the other end of the wire is affected by what I've got to say --- and is willing to reciprocate. Likewise, I choose the blogs I read to find that spark, that same longing for dialogue. I don't care about the headlines, or current affairs so much, unless I've got a personal take on the situation. Often, I do. But I don't report the facts, so to speak. I don't need more facts. I don't think ANYONE does. There are enough facts flying in the blogosphere without my regurgitating them from too many sources. If you want them, they are out there. Elsewhere.

So how about it? Coffee? A leisurely drag on a cigarette outside, over a stimulating discussion of how Shakespeare would have felt about the "show, don't tell" school of poetry? Hmmm...

As the world wakes up from Winter's slumber,
she starts to shake the sodden snow that lies
heavy on her cloak of gray and umber.
After the long months of silence, she sighs

a slow breath of warmth into the crisp air;
and time, that has hung suspended and numb,
begins again to find its soft rhythm
and heralds new Spring on its muffled drum.

Deep in her fetid womb, where life has formed
in silence through the dark and bitter days,
a season's promises ache to be born
and feel again the nearing sun's bright rays.

Relax and slowly breathe, she says, the wait
is nearly at an end; the world will wake.
Stretch out your tired limbs! Don't hesitate!
The cracked and brittle Winter's bones will break.

Rejoice, rejoice! The world is waking
Winter's hold is slowly breaking;
See him old, infirm and shaking
as new Spring is in the making

Rejoice, rejoice, the Spring will come
its heartbeat pounding like a drum!
Begone, the cold that stings and numbs,
and to the sun we bid welcome!

01 FEB 2005