I will fear no evil,
for you are with me.
-David
If you walk South on
Sheffield 'til you get to
North and walk
West 'til you get to the
old steel bridge that
trains used to use to
send out chopped
pieces of flesh, the
bridge that's over the
back channel of the
Chicago River that
wraps around Goose
Island, and if you go
there at night, in
Summer, and dangle your
feet to feel the green
steam between your
toes, you can breathe
in your own sweat and, if
you close your eyes,
see the city
with your nose.
Follow me there sometime. I
go to watch the moon in
water sink 'til it disintegrates,
spewing blue clouds like smoke
from a smoldering wick to
dance while the grey sky
turns spectrum colors in
accordion fashion, then
pushes itself onto the
skyline, to path Apollo’s way.
I go there because
I get afraid sometimes—
I’m not sure why.
Would you come and
dangle your feet
with mine?
Monday, February 8, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
the midnight mob
Every night after
twelve-thirty,
campus side-street,
street-mob custodians
from the underground,
emerge from an
apartment underneath
the El tracks.
Their grey heads bend and
bobble in foreign murmurs and
raspy giggles. The old women’s brown eyes
set deep, like my father’s,
the men’s balding heads on
cross-beamed shoulders
like my grandfather—the mountain-
man from Montenegro who
worked the mills of Gary,
dreamed of Hollywood.
I followed them from a distance—
a caravan passing around
a styrofoam cup, each steaming
with cigarette in mouth, to begin the
mid-night toil. As they came to
the university grounds they broke,
each taking a building—Levan,
O’Connell, Richardson, locked
doors, turned on lights,
changed into pale blue shirts,
took out the machines that
clean the floors and rolled out the
carts that carry the cleaning goods.
Standing in the street, like gerbils, the building
windows their back-lit glass shadow boxes in
blackness, I watched as they smiled about the
old country, before communism and world
wars, genocides and Kosovo.
One of them, from inside, said with her tongue,
My mother knew Gavrilo Princip. I thought from
the street, What about Franz Ferdinand?
But I’m sure her mother didn’t know him too.
I went up to a door,
asked her if I could
come inside.
Cracked the glass, snarled,
crackling elephant cracks in
her face, said, Bog is dood.
But said it again—Ljubav Bog.
Closed the door.
twelve-thirty,
campus side-street,
street-mob custodians
from the underground,
emerge from an
apartment underneath
the El tracks.
Their grey heads bend and
bobble in foreign murmurs and
raspy giggles. The old women’s brown eyes
set deep, like my father’s,
the men’s balding heads on
cross-beamed shoulders
like my grandfather—the mountain-
man from Montenegro who
worked the mills of Gary,
dreamed of Hollywood.
I followed them from a distance—
a caravan passing around
a styrofoam cup, each steaming
with cigarette in mouth, to begin the
mid-night toil. As they came to
the university grounds they broke,
each taking a building—Levan,
O’Connell, Richardson, locked
doors, turned on lights,
changed into pale blue shirts,
took out the machines that
clean the floors and rolled out the
carts that carry the cleaning goods.
Standing in the street, like gerbils, the building
windows their back-lit glass shadow boxes in
blackness, I watched as they smiled about the
old country, before communism and world
wars, genocides and Kosovo.
One of them, from inside, said with her tongue,
My mother knew Gavrilo Princip. I thought from
the street, What about Franz Ferdinand?
But I’m sure her mother didn’t know him too.
I went up to a door,
asked her if I could
come inside.
Cracked the glass, snarled,
crackling elephant cracks in
her face, said, Bog is dood.
But said it again—Ljubav Bog.
Closed the door.
Monday, January 18, 2010
the thumb condition
1.
If it’s our opposable
thumbs that make us,
then make me a new pair.
Mine look stupid, too
short and stumpy.
2.
When Orpheus was coming up,
he looked back, then roamed fields
singing Regret. I’ve heard doubt
leads to belief. For me, doubt
comes more easily.
3.
Whenever Abe looked up he
saw the still-burning shards
of what was blown apart. He took
it as a sign—love is the blackness
that keeps the pieces in place.
4.
Samson and Rapunzel’s
glory was their demise. I’m
loosing prematurely to follicle
recession and the cognitive
dysfunction of sleep deprivation.
5.
While in fields alone David could
sing of love and glory. On his
roof alone, he forgot how to sing
and chose to steal and kill and—if not
for grace—ruin his story.
If it’s our opposable
thumbs that make us,
then make me a new pair.
Mine look stupid, too
short and stumpy.
2.
When Orpheus was coming up,
he looked back, then roamed fields
singing Regret. I’ve heard doubt
leads to belief. For me, doubt
comes more easily.
3.
Whenever Abe looked up he
saw the still-burning shards
of what was blown apart. He took
it as a sign—love is the blackness
that keeps the pieces in place.
4.
Samson and Rapunzel’s
glory was their demise. I’m
loosing prematurely to follicle
recession and the cognitive
dysfunction of sleep deprivation.
5.
While in fields alone David could
sing of love and glory. On his
roof alone, he forgot how to sing
and chose to steal and kill and—if not
for grace—ruin his story.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
naked bears and trampolines
I used to keep track of the years of my life by what gifts I got for Christmas.
My first Christmas, from what I've been told, I got a large bear without fur. His name is Jumbo Love. Someone explained to me that we got him because no one else wanted a naked bear. I used to put his blue bellybutton in my mouth and carry him around by it. I still have him, but he’s in pretty bad shape, sits on top of one of my bookshelves with his left arm half attached.
Another year was a blow up trampoline that my grandparents got me. It took over two hours for my sister and I to blow it up. After jumping on it for ten minutes it deflated and we realized it had ripped on the bottom from a stray Lego.
When I was nine, everybody pitched in to get me this build-it-yourself motorized helicopter. The box said that it was for ages eight and up. It took my father, grandfather and I from morning until dinner-time Christmas day to finish.
We had moved out of the church my father built, no more services in my living room, and lived in a real house. After a year we moved back into the church. It was like we had built this magnificent sand castle—running our thumbs to make spiral towers and padding wet sand until the walls with finger-dents for windows rose knee-high above the surrounding mote--but right when it was finished a kid running after a kite, not paying attention, smashed it.
Money was tight then so we decided not to travel the three hour Christmas pilgrimage to the grandparents. While setting up last year’s two-foot tall plastic tree, I remember my parents fighting about not spending too much on gifts, of telling us that there wouldn't be anything under the tree. I remember being surprised to see shiny metallic paper of nativity-patterns around different sized boxes Christmas morning, of ripping the paper open, of seeing the logo of a PlayStation console, of not being able to talk for awhile, of feeling bad about ripping the wrapping paper. I looked at my father and he was watching me grinning and his eyes looked like they had been rubbed and poked at.
A couple years later, I remember a Christmas at my grandparents, of getting something not so memorable but practical, I think it was a blanket, and taking the trash out after dinner and looking up at the Indiana night sky and seeing stars dancing like the lit parts of a massive pupil and I remember realizing for the first time that a gift doesn’t have to be something you can hold in your hands.
I've been thinking about why we give gifts at Christmas. I think it's because this year I have no money to buy anyone anything. I think gifts are reminders, reminders of love, of renewing old and solidifying new relationships. We think long and hard about what to give, save up, because we want people to know how much they mean to us. It's a tradition that turns the wheels of this economy. It's a tradition that tries, as naked bears and trampolines do, to communicate what words fail to.
Christmas gift giving, I'm reminded, is all partaking in the ripples of an echo, in a song that stars gathered together to sing Glory to. It was a gift that explained the love we all want and are searching for, a gift you can't hold or buy at a department store or rip shiny paper off of. It was a gift that communicated, communicates I so love you. If you want, love me too.
My first Christmas, from what I've been told, I got a large bear without fur. His name is Jumbo Love. Someone explained to me that we got him because no one else wanted a naked bear. I used to put his blue bellybutton in my mouth and carry him around by it. I still have him, but he’s in pretty bad shape, sits on top of one of my bookshelves with his left arm half attached.
Another year was a blow up trampoline that my grandparents got me. It took over two hours for my sister and I to blow it up. After jumping on it for ten minutes it deflated and we realized it had ripped on the bottom from a stray Lego.
When I was nine, everybody pitched in to get me this build-it-yourself motorized helicopter. The box said that it was for ages eight and up. It took my father, grandfather and I from morning until dinner-time Christmas day to finish.
We had moved out of the church my father built, no more services in my living room, and lived in a real house. After a year we moved back into the church. It was like we had built this magnificent sand castle—running our thumbs to make spiral towers and padding wet sand until the walls with finger-dents for windows rose knee-high above the surrounding mote--but right when it was finished a kid running after a kite, not paying attention, smashed it.
Money was tight then so we decided not to travel the three hour Christmas pilgrimage to the grandparents. While setting up last year’s two-foot tall plastic tree, I remember my parents fighting about not spending too much on gifts, of telling us that there wouldn't be anything under the tree. I remember being surprised to see shiny metallic paper of nativity-patterns around different sized boxes Christmas morning, of ripping the paper open, of seeing the logo of a PlayStation console, of not being able to talk for awhile, of feeling bad about ripping the wrapping paper. I looked at my father and he was watching me grinning and his eyes looked like they had been rubbed and poked at.
A couple years later, I remember a Christmas at my grandparents, of getting something not so memorable but practical, I think it was a blanket, and taking the trash out after dinner and looking up at the Indiana night sky and seeing stars dancing like the lit parts of a massive pupil and I remember realizing for the first time that a gift doesn’t have to be something you can hold in your hands.
I've been thinking about why we give gifts at Christmas. I think it's because this year I have no money to buy anyone anything. I think gifts are reminders, reminders of love, of renewing old and solidifying new relationships. We think long and hard about what to give, save up, because we want people to know how much they mean to us. It's a tradition that turns the wheels of this economy. It's a tradition that tries, as naked bears and trampolines do, to communicate what words fail to.
Christmas gift giving, I'm reminded, is all partaking in the ripples of an echo, in a song that stars gathered together to sing Glory to. It was a gift that explained the love we all want and are searching for, a gift you can't hold or buy at a department store or rip shiny paper off of. It was a gift that communicated, communicates I so love you. If you want, love me too.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
connection
Separation anxiety. My friend told me that's what he has because after he was born he was separated from his mother. He said that was why. He told me about his intimacy issues--that he broke up with his girlfriend because he felt like he was getting too attached, that whenever a relationship looked like it was about to become one, he broke out of it. He told me that he's afraid to get close but at the same time so wants to be. He asked me if any of what he was telling me made sense.
We live in an age of connectedness. Two clicks and you're plugged into a social network where technology has made friendships more accessible than the cumbersome chore and effort of actually spending time with people. We can be whoever we want to be, screen what we don't want people to see, and portray the "ideal me". We chat and text--an immediacy to communication that a hundred years ago would have been unfathomable. We can be connected to anyone at anytime at any place around the world. There is something daunting about this-- the world at our fingertips.
Italo Calvino wrote a book awhile back about imaginary places called Invisible Cities. In the book, Marco Polo describes to Kublai Kahn the cities of his empire. One city, Chloe, is described not by its architecture or infrastructure but by its inhabitants--a girl twirling her parasol and her rounded hips, an old woman in black with trembling lips, a tattooed giant, a young man with white hair, a female dwarf, twin girls dressed in coral, a blind man with a cheetah on a leash. These people, he describes, walk around the city without ever exchanging more than a glance. No words are ever said, no one ever touches another. He says that the city's inhabitants shoot imaginary arrows at one another to connect, to partake in the collectively created illusion as to avoid all the misunderstandings, the conflicts, the trouble, the pain and regret of falling in love.
Although we are the age of connectedness, we are also the age of separation, of loneliness.
We walk around with our cheetahs on our leashes. We paint our porcelain shells carefully and as beautifully as we can. We shoot arrows at each other. We pretend.
I'm a part of it, this dance. Here I am trying to connect to you.
Because I often forget.
Once I was at this huge event with some twenty-two thousand attendants. I remember seeing and meeting so many different kinds of people, of hearing stories of pains and joys and sufferings. I remember my hotel room every night, laying down into darkness, fixing onto a spot on the ceiling, feeling perfectly alone.
I remember the day after this event, of dealing with this loneliness, Before night, I remember going outside to ask God to show himself to me. I demanded proof that I wasn't alone, that even when I was sick of all my brokenness and neediness, when I hated every part of me, that he didn't. I knew how completely insignificant I was but I wanted to believe he still wanted to be with me. I wanted him to show me. I dared him to.
I remember standing at a clearing in a wet grass-field with my eyes closed, hoping and longing for this sign, a part of me telling me I was being foolish, of thinking of going back, feeling a thud on my leg, opening my eyes to see the smiling face of a small boy with an over-sized head and fat arms stretched up towards me. I remember being confused and picking him up, of him immediately wrapping his arms around me and falling asleep on my shoulder, his faint breathing cooling the hairs on my neck, the gurgling of his snore. I remember a boy's warmth and standing in an open field while looking up at the sun finger-painting the sky before dark.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
We live in an age of connectedness. Two clicks and you're plugged into a social network where technology has made friendships more accessible than the cumbersome chore and effort of actually spending time with people. We can be whoever we want to be, screen what we don't want people to see, and portray the "ideal me". We chat and text--an immediacy to communication that a hundred years ago would have been unfathomable. We can be connected to anyone at anytime at any place around the world. There is something daunting about this-- the world at our fingertips.
Italo Calvino wrote a book awhile back about imaginary places called Invisible Cities. In the book, Marco Polo describes to Kublai Kahn the cities of his empire. One city, Chloe, is described not by its architecture or infrastructure but by its inhabitants--a girl twirling her parasol and her rounded hips, an old woman in black with trembling lips, a tattooed giant, a young man with white hair, a female dwarf, twin girls dressed in coral, a blind man with a cheetah on a leash. These people, he describes, walk around the city without ever exchanging more than a glance. No words are ever said, no one ever touches another. He says that the city's inhabitants shoot imaginary arrows at one another to connect, to partake in the collectively created illusion as to avoid all the misunderstandings, the conflicts, the trouble, the pain and regret of falling in love.
Although we are the age of connectedness, we are also the age of separation, of loneliness.
We walk around with our cheetahs on our leashes. We paint our porcelain shells carefully and as beautifully as we can. We shoot arrows at each other. We pretend.
I'm a part of it, this dance. Here I am trying to connect to you.
Because I often forget.
Once I was at this huge event with some twenty-two thousand attendants. I remember seeing and meeting so many different kinds of people, of hearing stories of pains and joys and sufferings. I remember my hotel room every night, laying down into darkness, fixing onto a spot on the ceiling, feeling perfectly alone.
I remember the day after this event, of dealing with this loneliness, Before night, I remember going outside to ask God to show himself to me. I demanded proof that I wasn't alone, that even when I was sick of all my brokenness and neediness, when I hated every part of me, that he didn't. I knew how completely insignificant I was but I wanted to believe he still wanted to be with me. I wanted him to show me. I dared him to.
I remember standing at a clearing in a wet grass-field with my eyes closed, hoping and longing for this sign, a part of me telling me I was being foolish, of thinking of going back, feeling a thud on my leg, opening my eyes to see the smiling face of a small boy with an over-sized head and fat arms stretched up towards me. I remember being confused and picking him up, of him immediately wrapping his arms around me and falling asleep on my shoulder, his faint breathing cooling the hairs on my neck, the gurgling of his snore. I remember a boy's warmth and standing in an open field while looking up at the sun finger-painting the sky before dark.
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
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