Stone Soup, and all that:An Argument in Favour of God

Having just watched, with a certain amount of intrigued interest, as an artist, an internet interview with shock rocker Marilyn Manson (who also happens to be an extremely talented painter and visual artist), I could not help but muse rather quietly, while driving home from work the other day, about a vehement debate about the "viability" of God in today's world.

What was supposed to be a learned and somewhat scholarly sounding older gentleman kept quite vehemently pointing out the "implausability" and "presumable inviability" of what he termed, for want of a better term, the "Christ Myth." The term, in and of itself, is an oxymoron, for we know that Christ Himself, is not, in fact, a myth at all, but a documented person who lived, breathed, and completed His Work in this world, much like Ghandi, John Paul II, and any number of respected and venerated persons in history. In using the term "myth", one simply must ascertain that the word "myth" is used, in conjunction with Christ, to make a sweeping assessment about the body and life of His work, and the various disagreements about the depth, scope, and clarity of his Relationships in doing so, "miracles" and all. What is real is that this work is "documented", much as the supposed scholar kept trying to skirt around....Thus, the word "myth" itself, is inaccurate, regardless of the scope and measure of the work itself, and what it involved, miracles, et al.....

And this, as they say, is the conundrum....

What I found most quietly entertaining about the vehement denial of the "Christ Legend", as I like to call it, for those insisting upon myth as a descriptive word, without realizing that Myth, rather than story, is misleading, literarily speaking, is the ease with which the supposed scholarly gentlemen, bound and determined to refute Christianity in general, managed to contradict himself - not once, but twice, in attempting to construct his argument.

Ultimately, what it came down to, was the fact that, like transubstantiation misunderstood and misexplained as simply a physical repetition of a process fulfilling a simply physical need in the act of Communion, rather than a sacred ritual celebrating the simplicity of Spirit, and its Presence, in the simple act of sharing and breaking bread with one's brothers and sisters, and all of the legend, tradition, and responsibility inherent in allowing that Presence to work in one's Life, and its continuance in renewing that Life by the act of sharing Bread and Wine, was that the man thought on only one level: physical.

And what I say in response is, simply, this: when you are moved by Christ, in even the simplest way, you have allowed that Spirit to work in you, and around you, and within the Greater World in which you live, and have an impact. Certainly, from a scientific standpoint, no little green man lands on you, like Gazoo, bonks you on the noggin, and says, "Get to it, bucko, or you're up shit's creek"; one is simply moved, after contemplation, like Wordsworth's explanation of The spirit running through all things, and connecting us with the Greater Creation of which we are a part, and a product of, with respect to the Greatest Artist of all time: God. To be moved, then, by a Life that spoke of the deepest connection with, and the deepest reverence for, each other, as a part of that tapestry, makes "Myth" the greatest misnomer of all - even if you are simply speaking "etymologically."It is a denial that one is a part of a part of that work; that we are alone, and apart, and completely disconnected from everything else that moves, and breathes, and functions around us, be it flora or fauna. Certainly, disconnectedness emotionally and intellectually is a product of our inability to, or painful withdrawal from, hurtful examples of this disconnectedness, but it is a huge disservice to one's self to deny that one can still be moved, and, thus, to have an effect upon, either one's self, or upon another situation.

This is Being Moved, just as the Breath created the first movement of matter in the Heavens by a force inexplicable, but omnipresent, even in the idea, simply, of collision, scientifically. We are not simply void, and when we reconnect with That Which Is, like Yoda, what we accomplish in His Name is greater than we can hope for, or imagine...a kind of "Pay it Forward" that still speaks of possibility in the face of chaos, patience in the face of rage, and tranformation, personal evolving, and new beginnings, after pain, loss, disappointment, death, and brutality at its ugliest, emptiest worst.

It is hope, unextinguished, in ourselves. Surely, there is nothing about "myth" in that, but, rather, a gentle miracle, every day, in the embrace of it, in ourselves.

Makes the story of stone soup a smiler, in retrospect, notwithstanding......

Throat Hum Beginning We

What is this ice fire
That spins and whirls my breath
Into the night sky, spilling like tears
on a void
With eyes?
There is matter: and mattering,
Awakes, blinking suddenly into
Fusion of silence
Linking us to each, and we to our
Magnificently, softly, sadly, savagely, tenderly;
Breath on breath, repeating,
Under each other's, over ourselves' and themselves'
and long forgotten pain
Struggling against
Expurgation:
Oh....speak with just a hint of sound
So I may close my eyes, feeling the movement of your throat
laying on mine, in a moment of
Shared bird song, and
Kiss my surprised rounded lip beak, trilling and thrilling,
The remembrance of snow and fur and
Fire, stroked and stoked into
Usness. I shall forget I am supposed to be
Old, and you will
Smile again.

Soup

Ambling bulwark contemplating,
Desire Eloquence First.
Graciously, Honestly, incapable, just
Knowing Love means New
Omnipotence persists
Quietly.
Relegating silence, thusly,
Undulations vie
With Xavier's
Zephyrs,
Alphabetized.

Good Work, Quoth Comfort

Oh, workaday, how blessed I am,
Embroiled, like this, in Thee:
Sweet Bean juice filled cup, waking eyes,
I blink, stretch, look....still Me!
The rhythm, pacing, stretch of Time,
I leap across, face first,
And think, with quick wit, thought, and pause,
Of when I did my worst.
Not often; ethic drawn upon, Two Stalwart Stocks
With dour looks, and tempered smiles
Made short the momentary guile,
Responded to with sheepish grin, and clean white smocks,
...with maybe a sigh or two; too real! A human bean,
Reaching skyward, still.

Oh, my dearest,
It is the Fourth of July.
Today, you would be 49.
With laughter, I light all the candles, twinkling a spirit light
Path to join me in silent celebration, and think of
Your story of confused youth, wondering why so many
were celebrating
Your birth.

There were fireflies this evening;
I sat in the twilight's gleaming, as the sky poured watercolours upon the garden,
And I imagined you breathing with a certain hesitance.

In a quiet moment, when I could not help myself, there, in the dark,
With the slight mist of eve, and tumbling seconds of years and thoughts
Bringing the dark and the lanterns into a kind of gentle swaying,
there, in the silence,
I sipped sweet wine's nectar, dreaming of your lips brushing mine,
Softly in the kind shroud of twinkling lights.

The dry cling of pressed grapes, and my closed eyes
Brought them closer, and the fireflies approved,
Glinting suddenly near my misted eyes.
I was sentinel, and queen, at once,
as you ordained.
The palm trees only made it again so,
And the eyes were dark, and near mine,
And wanting me, again,
Beautifully,
At Last.

How soft, the question. How sweet, the answer.
How gentle, the night, amidst the velvet of blanketed stars
Twinkling their sighs, and clasping prayers,
Amidst the passing years.

The sleep seems a kind encasement, dreaming.
I shall not mind waking, tomorrow, remembering.

What do I think of You?: Answer.

I like this roundness. Said so simply, but...
It seems solid to me, the way it curves around my hand, when I press into the skin
Gently.
Such a gentle peak, that rises and smiles and points to the sky.
Is it me?

Surely, I cannot be that high.....
But perhaps I'll try.
Pity: I cannot fly.

I guess, then, I will make
You sigh.......Ah....(a quiet laugh, here, then)

Morning, awake! This tired rhyming, (an impatient contempt, at self and such) when
I have pressed the mountains of your Being
Towards Me,
and
You Tremble at
The Being with
Me, shuddering to be
My
Complete.
Oh, beat, Heart, beat!
(What a thing to say to me,
Coursing through the rocks of Time....)
And then, she just smiles, quietly, at last,
Moved.

Roads to Carry You to Better

This dust is me.
I blow out, across the universe, leaving specks of my thought, moments of my touch,
Pieces of my smile
Amidst the gardens of others.
If I am myself, I help them grow into their beauty, strange shifting shells,
as I see them; and
As it bursts and blooms, kindly, stretching outwards,
instead of lying curled and quiet,
Small pea seed of self, hiding. Strange Mother Being, then, Despite Void Status;
But I am just Dirt, at last,
Without myself,
Blowing quietly, Within, to the
Without that waits,
Wanting.

Mac Box set.

Here is a Mac box, which you present to me with a flourish.

"Your favourite", you say, simply, tearing open the box, grasping the plastic coated toffee, standing there in front of me, maddeningly, and warming the package between your hands.

Thinking the entire moment completely unfair, I stand still, saying nothing. My mouth is watering madly, and I remain rooted. A tiny bead of sweat has formed on my upper lip: tasting caramel, wanting caramel, needing caramel...and yet....I only stare, longingly, thinking you momentarily cruel.

The feeling is intensified, as, breathing softly, you shift the toffee parcel to one hand, bending it, slowly, slowly, slowly, and staring into my eyes, to show me how pliant it has become.

We stare at each other. I worry that a sheen has formed on my face, making me look amazingly like a plump girl, sweating in front of a really attractive man waving toffee in a kind of "you might get to be a fat girl again" moment...and after all those bloody salads. I wince, ..and say nothing, struggling.

I try valiantly to make my eyes look hooded, not really knowing what that means, exactly, except that it sounds very mysterious, and possibly the result of something illegal, watching the bendy movements in the toffee with a tormented, furtive glance. Raising my gaze, I am intercepted, and you smile - a trifle cruelly, I think to myself....I sigh. Oh, toffee, torturer...when, oh when, hast thou become tormentor to me! Ah...such........bent love, really.....

"Come here", you say, with a kind of gravel in your voice that has made my toes curl. There is, in fact, a newly formed cramp in one, even as we breathe.

I take one step forward, lurching slightly, due to the cramp. It ruins the drama, somewhat, but I manage to stamp, although I want to...to get rid of the cramp. I control it, stupidly, and will pay for it, later, I know, with a huge throb in my arch.

Madly, you tear open the toffee, rip off a piece, stick it between your teeth, move towards me - and abruptly thrust my end between my lips. I close my eyes, as the caramel hits my tongue, and our lips meet.

"Mmmmmmmm." My God: we've even said it at the same time. Oh, ecstatic caramel passion, I embrace you. I would say something - but my lip is stuck to your moustache. Oh, happy sticky thrill! I feel wonderfully wicked, and wise....

Star Secret

There is the ink, reeling above me; void black page of melted night sky,
My mind's secret sable, seeking imprint -
And here I am, standing;
Suddenness: dragon star bursting unexpected glacial, temperate, celebration fire, lighting the buoyed above seas with twinkles, gleaming, and at peace;
Mirthfully shaking,
And I feel
You fall,
Smile sighing.

Table Setting

Luscious, this day, with fruit of grape, the juice of new knowingness staining lips with
Flush, and such:
Even the fullness of this skin cannot kiss the fullness of an orb containing, and not
Smile.
Fullblown, Fullsweet, full bodied, ripe with life and Fire...
Zero sugar, zero briques....
Sturdy-legged, clinging to the blown round edges like
Silk Grassed nectar, appled and dipped,
Sliding toward your eyes, and
Taken in with a
Sigh.

Melded Art

I awoke to two glimmers in my universe, shaded by the lids of Time.
Absorbed into Space in this Way, I sought to Touch the Universe, within it,
Finding, within the Ebb and Flow of Movement
The Warmth of Its Being, cradled in a
Haze of Smile.
Heartened, thusly, image became Itself, and I -
Possessed by Thought, and Void-Longing -
Its Complex Cubist Half,
Fitted.
What so, within the Confines of Picassoesque Layers?
Sinew, bone, and skeleton, all?
Wave upon Wave said Nothing, Breathing, except
Ah.

A and B...(and C, and D..etc..xo)

Ah, first flush, when skin seemed but a thing to be explored
A journey that never ends, as it changes, with time;
To see the ebb and flow of life within its shelter in thee
Brought a different reason to be me, perhaps, they said:
And then, time; time with different views, time with different news:
Of Power, and Others' Pain, and Shared Love of Possible - Time, and New "Us" es,
Beyond What We Have Become, to What we Can Do.
Such Realization!
The Humility a little shocking, even with the Power, but they turned, and there were
The Each's Other's Eyes, Sharing, and it was ....."Of course, Still to Do...Right?" And the nod.
And the knowingness of admiring the skill of the other - even when no one else did;
Even in the small successes, beyond the Obvious Ones: there, and there, and...there.
What Joy!
Finally, then, like a Garden Blooming with Love Flung Far and Wide
A Celebration of the Formality of It, Uniquely. Oh, Hurry, Day! More Smiles.

P Funk

I recall, and am recalled:
Seconds in a crisp fog of breath, where the lip clung to mine in the blank
Of iced air, warmed and chilled within that same breath;
Press of finger on burned arm, browned by sun, and wind, and earth, pained white;
A fleeting smile, beneath the swirl of wool, before the cool of autumn teared
the blurred vision of fleet and flight of feet, met;
Choked in smoke and smirk of clubs and clubbed, vilified and verified,
Having supported and, crutch-like, become a wooden stick wielded not for
Higher Mountains travels, but welded men, and wilder egos;
Bid farewell in strange heat of regret and recognition, inconvenient, and
Misunderstood, within the larger scheme of patience, and the Importance of Being Earned, in Earnest;
Saddened, trilling New Age Grace's Amazing Solidity, amongst the Remembering,
Organ accompanied, stopped by imaginary lumps, and invisible throat lumps,
Inexcusable in the Controlled, and
Unimportant, even as I counted the steps the bearers were supposed to take,
As it appeared on Paper.
One cannot ride that
Sheet.
How dry the comfort.How smug the Pointed. How
Sharp the Edge.

My Retarded Social Development

(Stage Direction for Reading Aloud)..."assume a soft, intimate, almost secretive voice while saying this, and include the reader, as ...oh...almost a confidante, really..... Begin by taking a long breath, and close, serious, and committed attention to the gift of God that is literature's road map indicator: punctuation, in all of its rapturous stops and starts. And....go:"

Confessor (don't actually say this, and start again, if you did. This is the character's name, in a play.) :

Apparently, unbeknownst to me, there comes a time in every middle aged woman's life - who has realized, with clanging clarity, that her RRSP fund sucks the boner - or, worse yet, has flown into space with the sadness egg called "I have no life" - when she feels an overwhelming desire, (having been abandoned by both sanity and any known human being who can speak in full sentences)to run screaming into the street, yelling madly of thrilling ends to heretofore steamily imagined sexual encounters.

(Some, over a long period of time, even. Bugger! No offense to those who might assume that it would alway be both thrilling AND successful. Also, no offense to those who actually consider plebean activities like...oh...getting a job, for instance. ...do read the previous bracketed words out loud, but not this part, as its meant to explain the concept of an intimate aside...ahem. Also, don't SAY ahem, just kind of cough, instead.)

And I thought the glamourous world of scrap metal recycling security had people breathing heavily.....where HAVE I been?

Yet another sadly realized example of my retarded social progress, I fear...sigh.(don't say this last word, just actually DO it, in a way that does not provoke or expect any kind of sickening reaction like...pity, for example, which often pre empts vomiting.)

The end. (Don't actually say that last bit out loud.)

Hark the Herald Angels Sing -inciting the drone in you

Ah, sweet seasons of sessions of silent thought!

It's enough to make even the Heralds stop and cease provoking, this Memorial Weekend....and I do mean weak end.

In fact, I'm so thrilled at the prospect of the utilization of a heretofore honourable pastime - writing - to heap scourge upon another artist - NOT - that I have decided to celebrate the true staying power of the "drone in us"....otherwise known as your friendly neighbourhood assembly line worker...or "blue collar Baby jane", as I like to call us, by outlining the positive qualities of said underpinned, undervalued, and underestimated.

The Canadian variety, particularly, boring as we may be, have the self-discipline of the most stoic rocket scientist, the staying power of a nurse, and the patience of a saint, as anyone who has managed to "stick it out" for longer than 24 hours in anything other than blathering on about an outburst of temper tantrum and a lack of work ethic, will tell you at the drop of a hat.

Let us celebrate, then, friends, the successful among us, who move beyond the day-to-day use of both repetition and the musicality of it, to achieve such mortal succesess as: books, documents, operas, symphonies, perfection in piano, equisiteness in line, meter, pitch and rhythm, and delicacy in quality, quantity, and visual beauty in any product produced by two hands.

Even as we share this stoicism, now, with our heretofore ignored brothers and sisters in Mexico, who now will be responsible for erecting the lowly pickup truck, to service farmers everywhere, let us hope they value this "sharing of space and time", even as we strive to maintain balance, ethics, and a decent working wage for the general populace, in tandem with a benefit plan, a lack of destruction of the environment, and the necessity for making a living - plebean as it may be, for those whose lack of understanding of both "robotics" and the discipline required to control one's activities within this infrastructure, so as not to be replaced by the mechanical, ever asserts itself, with a certain ....aplomb.

Ah, Keanu: ah, wind; ah....success. Its quiet self continues on, unabashed, unabated....undaunted. There is a sweet rhythm to it, is there not? If only envy was always replaced by the comaraderie of pride in the achievements of those we love and admire...but, alas, the "line worker" mentality is not for everyone....

Methinks life might do well to consider it, within the framework of an insistence upon itself. But then, Jon Bauer, why would I ever "sign in" to respond to anything I view as incorrect, misunderstood, and immaturely provocative in nature?

Wink....perhaps the Gort in us is freer than we think, if only as a result of robotic restraint.

Kind Regards, as ever...

Proximity Shock

What spark, then? What, the glowing, hence, just there, in you?
Oh, speck of fire in glint of eye
That glows and glimmers with its mirror:
Too soon, too late, too early, eerily, when met - back, apace, leaping recognition:
What of this? What is this knowing, beyond immediate,
Beyond speaking, beyond a seeing...only heat of fire and ice?
Is't so late, that being met of self,
Joined is met, and blend, and spark, and speak, at once?
What, this strangeness? Oh, sweet welcome madness; move, oh tremulous timbred throat, thundering near cadence measured, ever, in trill, and sigh, nearer:
What, this spell of letter, light, and love?
What, of round, and square, and orb, and ear;
How, of in, and on, and of, and us:
When, of is, and are, and be?
What, of we?
'Tis two; 'tis one...'tis three - must be.
No face, no fire could light, myself, (yourself, ourselves,) but thee(mewe), so
Quietly.