My Barbaric Yawp

Light the way, ye writers, 
battle the grey imps of mundanity
whilst traveling on wheels of your creation
Raise high the hammer and shout:"I am the Wordsmith!"


Stoke your fires, heat your steel, ye troubled souls
Craft cupric lanterns, bronzed blades and arrowheads
Even horseshoes and chariot rims if need be,
Whatever carries your heart about the Universe

Bend the (s)words bright and true,
red-hot sigils of Vulcan hammered hard
to become beacons of Truth and Beauty
(of which Art is their intersection)


Forge dream-gates, the bookends of Janus
unlocked that your heart may unfold
and opening wide that your horses
leap free and loose upon the wor(l)d!


Argentine clang! clang! clang! of runic
hammers beating time of your quickening hearts
and voices ringing out from the page,
Challenging the sooty din of an indifferent world


Take the pen in hand, smooth your page,
ye who would craft their own Logos!
Release the hounds from within your heads,
go forth and pound the anvils of your keyboards!

Hiss

Sitting alone in my living room, listening to the white noise of my cooling mind, I am seized by the notion that my skull may be filled with hydrogen. Hydrogen, in certain energy levels, is surprisingly noisy.

Back in the 1930's and '40's, a bunch of brainiacs discovered that our galaxy was making noise. In essence, the Milky Way has a radio frequency, a background hiss, that varies on a regular cycle but is always there. Astronomers refer to it as the "hydrogen line", to be found at 1420.4 megahertz on the cosmic radio dial. With the right equipment, you can tune into it. Which, it also occurred to me, is the same way with God. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the right equipment. If I do I am just not seeing it.

The hiss of the Universe fills my brain and I close my eyes to focus more on hearing. The hiss, its always there, I know it. Most days it gets drowned out by the din and clatter of modern life. I sometimes think myself fortunate, that I don't have to listen to the background hiss of my mind. Tonight, I am reminded that I think that because it means I am being distracted from myself.

Sitting alone on the couch, with only the random scraping of buttons in the dryer to keep me company, the hiss comes back loud and clear. It reminds me of two things: loneliness and God. Might they be one and the same? Or is it really that God is just a magnificent solitude, free of the demands of body and mind?

Or is it, as I fear, a sign of an overwhelming emptiness within? This is why I read so much, think so much, rest not nearly enough. Sitting still and quiet allows too much of the Void to creep in and threatens to swallow me up. It reminds me that I am far, too far from nearly all of the people whom I truly love.

The background hiss of the galaxy: God whispering in my ear of too much time and distance.

I read once that a definition of Hell is to be eternally separated from God. I would expand on it in another way. Many have posited that "God is Love", and if this is true then another working definition of Hell is to be eternally separated from Love. This is undeniably tragic.

Another sip of ginger tea, I swish it around in my mouth on the way to swallowing. The bubbly squeaking of liquid around my teeth and gums drowns out the hiss, ever so briefly, but then it is on its way to my stomach, hopefully to be calmed, just as when mom would administer ginger ale to me when I fell ill in childhood.

Closing my eyes, the hydrogen line appears in my head, a bright silver arc stretched across the Milky Way of my brain. One endpoint caresses my heart, the other...the other disappears into the inky black of an interstellar night. The parallels with the arc of my heart are too strong to ignore, and I shiver. I may not be in Hell, but I am close enough to the walls to feel its presence.

There may be tremendous distance between my heart and God/Love, but I don't want to be eternally separated from either. Out there, in the hiss of my mind, I can sense the faint calls of both. The task left to me, then, is to open my heart and start walking.

The journey, my friends, must begin.

Moons of Jupiter, So Close...

It was G-maw that made me want to be an astronaut. Not a "Going to the moon" type astronaut, mind you, I mean a full on balls-to-the-wall (or balls-to-the-bulkhead) strapped to God's own bottle rocket, out past the orbit of the Earth around the Sun kind of astronaut. I wanted to fly to Jupiter and poke it in the Great Red Spot. All because G-maw had a telescope...

I have a telescope myself. A new one, it was a gift. I asked for it because I used to have one when I was a younger Gumbo, but that one didn't survive my jaunt to college and subsequent moves from the nest to apartments to a house. My old one was a refractor, my new one is a reflector. Appropriate, because mainly that what it does and makes me do: reflect.

Which I do. A lot. It was about two weeks ago that I came home from work under a clear sky the color of bruises and wine, to notice a big, bright dot hanging out on the southerly side. I watched it as I sidled up the sidewalk to my back door. It didn't blink and neither did I. I recalled that it must be Jupiter, and that unlocked a flood of memories. I stood on the patio, hand on the doorknob, for a good ten minutes watching that golden speck. All the while images cascaded in sheets across my mind: National Geographic, G-maw and me, freezing nights outside all mixed up with blinking lights, dim lit rooms at night and the faint beep of machines keeping my hearts alive while I frantically scribbled in a notebook.

The Voyager probes flew past Jupiter in 1979, and the pictures they sent back were mental manna to an astronomy geek like me. G-maw had a subscription to National Geographic, which had some awesome spreads of Jupiter and a few of the moons. I remember seeing the Great Red Spot (and feeling awe) and volcanoes on Io (and being freaked out: sulfur dioxide "lava"!) and thinking Man, it would be awesome to go there. I had this fantasy of flying in a space capsule, me the Heroic Traveler, and planting a flag on Io under the glare of the Red Spot. I suppose the far-away alienness of the place seemed perfect for the shy loner that I was: better with things than with people. The cold, the dark and the distance didn't bother me. It only made me want to go there even more, to see awesome beauty and wondrous things never before touched by man, maybe only by the hands of God.

I shook my head and went inside. The telescope is just inside the door. I kept glancing at as I ate dinner, and decided to take it outside and try to see the moons of Jupiter. It was while trying to focus on the little bright dot, that the mystery crept in again. I looked up to see with my eyes and not the lens, and found myself on the frozen face of Io, staring into the glare of the angry red spot while tears streamed down my face. Epithets and insults rang deafeningly inside suit helmet as I violently waved my arms and screamed that this wasn't fair and no, you can't do this, no, no, no you can't bring me this far and show me so much great beauty and tell me its mineminemine only to take it away in a violent storm of desperate nights. NONONO it can't be not after all the blood and the tears and the needles and machines, constantly pricked in the heels and tubes shoved down their throats with diapers the size of a cocktail napkin and you even let me touch them, caress their fragile skin crinkling under the glare of the jaundice lamp you let me say daddy is here, my babies and he thinks you are the most beautiful things in the Universe...

...and the bubble popped, I came back to earth with a lump in my throat and images of tiny moons in my hands, fading with a burn as the cold black well of Night drained them of their lives. I had endured a long, hard trek to a place of indescribable pain and exquisite beauty. Seeing my son and daughter there in the NICU, I planted my flag on frozen ground and watched them fade into howling wilderness of an indifferent Universe. 

Watching the little golden light slowly descend to the horizon, I could not help but think that I had indeed been to the moons of Jupiter. It was a shock and a gift, to travel so far expecting rock and ice, and instead finding flesh and blood...and my heart.

Miles Away From Here

Seriously? I don't know what has gotten into me.

No, no...more like I don't know what hasn't gotten into me. Wait, I do know what hasn't gotten into me: inspiration. This is strange considering I am surrounded by inspiration.

You see, my mind has been pulled all over the place lately. Somehow I ended up being busier than ever with Real Life, and Real Life has a tendency to get all up in my grill. My brain feels like a big blob of mercury that has been smacked with a croquet mallet. You know what happens when you smash a ball of mercury? That's right, my lovelies, you get lots of tiny balls of mercury all over the place, and a big mess that is hard to clean up. Not to mention slightly toxic.

So I am sitting here, in a funk, listening to Miles Davis play "Generique" on the stereo. A recent discovery of mine, courtesy of a friend, that piece of music is quite possibly one of the best instrumentals I have ever heard. I'm far from an expert on jazz, but Miles kills on this track. Cool beyond words...

...and that, my friends, brings me to now. I sit here at the table, wishing the words would come to relieve the pressure in my head that has built up all day...I keep picking up a pen, but the story won't gel...

I may never play jazz, but that sound, that tone...the trumpet blows cool and sleek, and I lay down my pen. Better to not force the notes if the music ain't there, everyone will be able to tell. I envy Miles Davis, tonight. I bask in the brassy blueness seeping from the speakers, and give myself up to the ministrations of a master.

Sometimes, doing nothing is the best thing to do. The music will take care of itself.