Easter

The world. The things around me. All the things. Things. None of this makes us truly happy. They are constructions to allow us to cope. Where do we find this happiness? How can someone be happy with nothing? I do not know. I sit in church and I look at all the faces around me. Do they listen? Do I listen? Do they understand or simply allow the words to go into the ear and plop down in the emptiness that is their heads, piling up sayings and quotes they know nothing about. Do I?
      I know a few things. I know God is real. God has made it abundantly clear in my personal life that he is real. Perhaps that's the problem, I now have responsibility for my stupidity. Paul wrote in Romans that the law allowed him to understand what was sin. It also, he wrote, killed him. He now knew right from wrong, but he also now knew he was doing the wrong rather than the right. Perhaps that is what knowing God is there means for me. I do the wrong even though I know the right. And I know he's watching, and I know he knows...
      I go to Church. Sometimes. I sit in the pew, I bow my head and try and respect God's name. I sing the hymns, sometimes with more enthusiasm than others. I take the Lord's Supper, even though I know I am estranged from God. I do believe -- I simply know I can not give up my life for God. I want my life. I want to make the decisions and learn the lessons, hard or easy, on my own. But I also do not want this pain in my heart. My soul. My being. I want to stop looking into my heart and weeping inside over its ugliness. I want to smile, be happy, and I want others to be as well.
      But I life in the world. The world rotten with sin and corruption. And I won't give it up, not completely. I know I must, but I can not. I can not pretend to, either. I do try, however. I try my best. I try to love others, I try to forgive others. I try to understand my anger and work it out. I try to love my enemies, turn the other cheek, and do all I must. I fail, however, and I know I fail. I fail and I know God is there, so that only makes my failing worst. The law allowed me to understand sin, Paul wrote. And then he died. Died in the sin. Slowly, I hope, I am beginning to understand what it means to be born once more. Born out of the death that we've all experienced.

Happy Easter folks. May God be with you and bless you all.

posted by Pacer 3/31/2002

Saturday, March 30, 2002

Concert

The sea of faces swirled around me like any sea of faces I had seen at concerts before -- with one difference. I, my humble and lowly self, was the old one. Well, perhaps not the oldest by any stretch, but older than most nonetheless. And not just the "Wow, you're two years older than I" older, but 7+ years in some cases. This happened when I traveled from the safety of my peer-grown town of Athens, the wonderfully "college-age haven" up and to the east on the highways of the state. There you feel comfortable -- it is when you leave you suddenly realize how homogenized the age groups there are. This had happened once before -- at an Elliot Smith concert -- but I had forgotten how much it unnerved me. So many people not in my age group, not in my peer group, so many people not experiencing the same things I experience. That other time it had been 30- and 40-somethings. I am not sure which I prefer. Perhaps I am growing older, I think it is the latter.

posted by Pacer 3/30/2002

Friday, March 29, 2002

Library

Sitting in the library, trying to pay off my omnipresent late fee, I kept thinking of how comforting libraries are to me. The "clunk" of the date stamp, the smell of old books, the rows of old books, and the quiet noise level. A noise level in which there is not silence, simply quietness. Shuffled feet, whispers, dropping pens, coughs, sneezes. Nothing concrete but an enormous amount of activity and noise just under the surface. The clunk of the date stamp brought me back out of my revelry as it became my turn at the check-out counter and I stepped forward, wallet in hand, to ensure my ability to register for classes this coming week with no flags on my record.

posted by Pacer 3/29/2002

Wednesday, March 27, 2002

Paper

It's sunny outside
I want to go out and play
It's sunny outside
I want to go out and play
But I'm trapped inside
With nothing left to say
In a paper I hate
That's not worth a bit of hay
It's sunny outside
I so want to go out and play

posted by Pacer 3/27/2002

Tuesday, March 26, 2002

Co-Ed Conversation

Sex sex!
Sex sex!
Sex sex sex?
Sex sex sex sex. Sex?
Sex sex sex. Sex sex sex sex sex sex sex?
Sex sex sex sex. Sex?
Sex, sex sex sex sex sex.
Sex sex sex!
Sex, sex sex.
Sex sex sex sex sex.
Sex sex, sex sex sex.
Love?
Sex.

posted by Pacer 3/26/2002

Monday, March 25, 2002

Holding Hands

when my hand CRASHes
into YOURS
my heart simpLY
stops and i SCREAM
inside my HEART
and my loins
AS my head starts WHIRLing
i can't GET
enough of YOU
with your soft LIPS
and
and
and
AND
those fingerTIPS

i begin to SIGH
and I get quite HIGH
off your lovely LIPS
and those silky THIGHS
i begin to SEARCH
something so diVINE
and i can't deFINE
this feeling that I
i
i
i
feel
FEEL

but it is so SWEET
and i feel comPLETE
as i hold on TIGHT
and lost in deLIGHT
we begin to FEEL
closer than is REAL
and i search your EYES
for some big surPRISE

so i GLAZE my
eyes OVer and set
IN the rhyTHM
of life AS we
meet AND parlay
IN sacred SPEECH

AND
I
CAN'T
GET
E
NOUGH
OF
YOU
OR
YOU
OF
ME

BUT real life comes back
AND you slow down with
ME and I with you
AS all this comes to
AN end. for now. now.

posted by Pacer 3/25/2002

Saturday, March 23, 2002

Ansley

Ansley was a fanciful girl
Who went for a whirl
Upon a magical winding slide
And as she came to the end
She said "Let's do it again!"
And off she went with a smile.

posted by Pacer 3/23/2002

Confusion

Confusion reigns
And I am found
In Confusion's center
With the world all around
While my thoughts swirl,
Both vibrant and sweet,
In the Confusion around
And are lost to me

For I can not arrange them
So that they might make sense
With the feeelings that I feel
And the happiness
Which I should steal

But the darkness envelopes
And Confusion reigns
While my heart flits and flutters
About the window pain

posted by Pacer 3/23/2002

Thursday, March 21, 2002

Chapter 22
Melting Margarine

"So I love you, and you love me. And we've both figured it out." She said.

I opened my door and there she was. My heart flooded with compassion and love before I slammed down the floodgates with my self-control.

"You're back." I said, surprised she had returned and trying to hold my feelings in check.

"Yes." She said and, for the first time, she looked me straight in the face. I could feel her eyes search out every nook and cranny and I fought off my self-conscious fears.

"Are you okay?" I said to her.

"I don't think so." She said.

There was an awkward pause.

"James," she said, looking me straight in the eyes for the first time, "you love me, don't you?"

"Yes, Amanda." As I said this the weight I had carried for so long came off my chest.

"James," she said again, "I love you too."

My heart imploded in upon itself at that moment and I was speechless. We both stood there in palpable silence. What happened next is still a blur to me. From what I can remember I reached for her just as she reached for me and we kissed.

We both became lost in the arms of the other, the warmth from the other's lips, and the kiss went on for what seemed like an eternity -- or perhaps it was that we both had waited for this moment for an eternity. Not this moment exactly, perhaps, but a moment like this. A moment when two souls touched, and embraced, and became lost in one another.

And as I held her in my arms on my doorstop, when the eternity was over, I looked in her eyes and she looked into mine.

"So what do we do now?" She said.

"I don't know."

posted by Pacer 3/21/2002

A Villanelle

Shifting upon the midnight star
        I float up high in the sky above
I look about and stare afar

And decided this pain is part and par
        For the course of life and love
Shifting upon the midnight star

While staring at the world so far
        I shelter my pain, and as a dove
I look about and stare afar

And my pain does mar
        The perfection of
Shifting upon a midnight star

While I reset the bar
        To worldly standards, ignoring His perfect love
I look about and stare afar

Knowing I will create no Avatar
        While my life I will not give a shove
Shifting upon a midnight star
I look about and stare afar

posted by Pacer 3/21/2002

Wednesday, March 20, 2002

Class

Something drops from
                The teardrop of my
                Mind
                Eye
                Thought
And I watch it
                Hit
                The table
                The chair
                The ground
As my mind dulls with
                The long needle of
                Anesthetic
                Boredom
                Sleep
While I sit in my seat
                Riveted by
                Screws
                Rolls
                Parents
And my mind slows its turning
                Turning
                Turn
                Grind
                Halt

posted by Pacer 3/20/2002

Tuesday, March 19, 2002

Walk

I walk along the midnight sea
And watch the world float under me
As I wander through the caverns of my mind
And watch the madness that I find.

I spread my wings and start to fly
And free my heart from the lies
As I soar through the image of my life
And escape all the horror and the strife.

I let the sun wash over me
And take a dive in its golden sea
As I smile and seek to be found
And relish the warmth all around.

posted by Pacer 3/19/2002

Monday, March 18, 2002

Sigh

It's one of those days
Where all I want
Is to curl up in a ball
And shut the world out

For I am a failure
Of that I have no doubt
And I shall continue to fail
With failure throughout

So I lay in my bed
With covers drawn tight
And consider my life,
All the people without

Who I love, who I hate
Who I give nary a thought
And I am overwhelmed
So with depression I fought

No reasons, no rhymes
For my feelings within
So I sigh and I pine
For the happiness in Him

For my soul is heavy
While my heart is lead
And only through perfect love
Might I have peace in bed.

posted by Pacer 3/18/2002