I have, forever, hated my birthday, soon arriving after the turning of clocks backwards lengthening the dark.

Recalling the barren trees of Connecticut. An occasional yellow leaf dourly lingering; the next rain, frost or wind to take.

In those years before my enslavement to mom and dad, their business affairs, I’d be recently returned from heaven, the haven of my maternal grandmother’s love, near always unconditional save for the time I fell off the pew back during the Wednesday night, bug light, prayer meeting. At Ripley Methodist. Dim bulbs hung by skinny snakes dangling from the dark above.

She mouthed the letters forming: “M U R D E R” -- followed by an oval -- “U” No exclamatory mark required. I pinned by shock upon the church floor looking to heaven for help. Afterwards during the walk back, three blocks, in the dark I danced chanting; “Oh Mama Lu, I love you” over and overs circling her steady march. Upon entry into the dark of her kitchen our only ingress she embraced me laughing and I held in reprieve and a kiss.

Seemingly so long ago, yet reprise in my lust filled eyes for another woman; imagining sanctuary. Never held for long enough or adequately to ever be safe. Come hither go away. Or stony silence. No affirmations or acknowledgment. Friends no benefits. You’d think I’d have learned by now there is no room for me anywhere accept in my cave with Annie.

Love it seemed was conditional at best political in the sense of reality pragmatic and I held captive beneath a steel submarine net staked in rock. I often in retrospect wonder was it me or her? Who destroyed the bond so fragile. In loving God, who is more responsive than anyone I’ve ever known, why would I need a woman? If God loves me and knowing this experientially why I see the embrace of another woman is perhaps, just to know the world safe for love? In community and communion. We know no value until it is lost. Irrevocable.

I called her this afternoon asking after her well being wondering had she made the change and accepted the implied or hopeful prospects? Yes! Two Thousand miles east and northerly in Vermont where I once skied Jay Peak. Our ‘affair’ centered around two who were near death. One is gone the leaving day left behind my career besmirched by administrative snarl. The other remains very much alive fearful that she will be expelled for the same reasons. Alive. And attempting to reconstruct that which was taken away from her so that she could die in peace.

It was wonderful. She who knew my burning passions and compassion so formed around the halls and patients we’ve both abandoned. Not so much by choice, but merely that there is a breaking point. Both had gone far beyond the point of no return without protest or violence until there was no reason to stay masochist.

Oddly I’ve wandered into the explosive point why I run away and/or otherwise would “Go Postal” flipping out and destroying indiscriminately anyone or thing in my path: going berserk, running amok. Such love sought and found freely given comes only from God.

In a time and culture of consumerism everything and everyone one is a commodity. I lost the one woman who thought and taught me to be who I am now. But in that love I remain since it is love that matters not it’s source save for God. Her providence lingers still driving me to beat the keys . . . a i above all know the fabulous life i’ve lived and am well blest in that and that is enough. To fill the long lingering nights unto death this winter promises alone.

To close. I found in a thrift shop a Moon mounted on a pedestal with a votive socket behind it. Thinking of Randy’s, Merton’s and my maternal grandfather's death anniversary: 10 December I will burn the candle and weep for joy this next, perhaps last, Christmas knowing the gift of God inherent in the celebration--Christ Mass--birth and the coming death then resurrection sure.

I may never write as well as those I read, especially Annie Dillard. But oh Dear Lord do I enjoy her and knowing that I too walk the same planet for now.

Be well, if not. please invite me to walk with you for a time together; both getting better.

121103 18:43 MDT arriving fall
© 2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved

Awoke with a certainty that all beauty, as wealth, is relative and dependent upon the eye of the beholder. Then rushing into the light this next and never to be repeated day discovering myself rebutted not refuted in what I published before retiring for the rest I sought.

I remain in free fall from hospice seeking a new configuration the wings of my attention. While doing rolls and turns breaking the barriers implied moving past the speed of light it seems now I move not at all . . . an attempting to read Annie Dillard want to remain silent the rest of eternity. Add to her Lao Tzu. Both carpet bomb my mind leaving not ruble but flower of light exploding. I sense God laughing at and with me as I attempt to define The All nakedly invisible with Post-It notes.

My free fall becomes more explicit moment by second. Seeing it is not healing others but merely creating myself. And horror of horrors I’m fulfilling, albeit unconsciously, my random rouge ideal of rewriting the Bible in today’s advertising language; sans lies, but truths available experientially. Sadly aware that so few and fewer read. However there is hope since nothing is inconsequential to God; no lie is every hidden like the child in a gingham dress dismembered and covered with lye or acid to hide the guilty from prosecution eventually. But my knowing of myself indicates even those beyond redemption have crucified themselves. The Real Deal, The Judge awaits, patient and invisible.

There is no safety, nor harbor of tranquility accept to accept it all and everything as given without resentment being robbed blind, striped naked, raped, spindled and mutilated more better kicked aside as litter to those who do so.

Of all my heroes and heroines Randy and Johanna remain the best since they blest me for a time with their presence and through that gift of unending grace I am fine thrice blest to have ever lived at all.

Of messengers I remember best she whose words, seldom, but blows, kicks and snarled stated the legend of the Stoic boy caring a fox beneath his cloak eating him as he ran to the King. Upon delivering his message the boy fell dead eating by the fox. I won’t tell you my after death experience save to say that she, mom, was god to me . . . LOL . . . fully integrating the two one male the other female and she taught me and how! To do the same. Own nothing not this body that writes nor the mind that drives it.

How to say it? I love Islam as another facet of Abraham family traditions. Each attempting to eat the other for their affirmed and truly revealed favor of God. Or should I say flavor of God?

I have an instinct for God is Good in All Things. Earned with gallons of tears, limitless rage, laughter beyond telling and scars all over my mind. Ask and you will receive more than you or I or all can contain; at least in this life we live. Dancing with The Stars? Absolutely learn to soar to fly from galaxy to others so distant none can be experienced unless in their arms.

Why merely sit at either right or left side of God? Why not merge with The All Right Now this infinite being in NOW.

121102 07:30 extraordinary

To read something grander than that which is published on the outside, The Breakfast of Champions, metaphorically, is to take you head off placing it in a microwave oven and blow it apart.

Possibly this explains the phenomenon of the born dead. Note: Not ‘still born’ but the ones who drive SUVs proudly covered in the flesh, blood and tears of National Guard’s Personnel lead by the virtual equivalent The Congress of Baboons. More or less the Old School of Favor the Idiot you know versus the interest of wisdom and commonweal of all life.

So many threads, so little time, must keep my head on target; eternity not mere entertainment. The reigns on this run-away-maverick have dissolved. Largely through the agency of prayer. Not: “Now I lay me down to sleep . . . “ so much as those thoughts posited upon the threshold of rest from which . . . I love the word trebuchet, not merely as the first instrument of siege introducing chemical mass destruction wholesale but merely forming the word itself in my mind. Then, of course, in my mouth but problematically I start grining and guffawing and sometimes, now, become weak in the knees preparatory to falling laughing down! . . . It once was being hurled from sleep into this activity of annotating my dreams: the multitude, variegated, scintillating my posterior singed from by self-propulsion ignited methane aflame zooming through the ever distant boundary of the far flung outer edges of  Creation expanding into nothing.

Factually, of and in myself, now, having no anthropomorphic image of God as man, woman, child, mineral, water of any kind. Being no longer bemused with the potential of Shape shifter etc. Fearless acknowledging the “Acts of God” not attributable to malevolent intent anywhere near the extent of our killing ourselves with waste of all kinds--the water table comes to mind for merely on example to fuel the foolish vanity of SUV s and heat McMansions upon the shores of seas. Gazing fondly at your pomposity in the darkened glass surround, upon the boundary of what you own and what owns you; reaching into the sanctuary of your supercilious accomplishments and dragging you to drown in the deep soon to die of pollution.

Boys and girls I am not talking about farting in the bathtub and igniting the bubbled gas with matches here. I refer to the fact that fracking will lead to bathing in napalm. But of course that is external; imagine an enema of flame. Or merely belching near open flames, a candle lite dinner for example and cremating your date. Not blowing him or her away but merely making of them a cinder with small inconsequential wisps of smoke idly wafting about in the vagrant thermals of the restaurant. A nearby couple celebrating their graduation from high school both in synthetic attire now in flames screaming leaping and writhing in midair. Somersaulting through the distant overlook from the nineteenth floor becoming comets falling upon the pavement below.

Move over Nostradamus. I think we’re onto something here! Another flood of sorts? Filled with soiled condoms, years and years of New York Times Sunday editions regurgitated. No floating corpses of National Guard personnel self extinguished or retroactively aborted. Born free yet dying because there is no right to life after being born. Becoming cannon fodder for scatocephalic lawyers who define life as a convenience to service their greed for more.

All institutions die of administrative fees applied to the truths once inspired; if not now, when?

What exactly did I ponder up entry the silence of rest? Well. I remember asking why M would wash out her son’s mouth with comet cleanser and then refer to another young man as calling her “mom.”

At this point in my narrative I realize that the entire planet is in hospice dying but not knowing it. Add. My anima, the feminine component of my soul really has no face; nor the illusion of Mary beneath her cowl twice visited in her pulsing pink quartz grotto. Should or could I revisit all her incarnations the nudges and tweaks. Would I know better this beast who now speaks of the end of everything laughing at the prospect.

The beauty of poverty and old age is that one gets to see God in real time. Retaining the ability to tap dance in a red striped blazer flipping your boater straw hat twirling your cane and smiling while evaporating in love. Annie, the rescue cat rubbing my ankles smiling.

I wish one and all a nice eternity though you will wish never having been born you’ll get over it maybe.


121103 02:28 something else altogether
©2012 by Jack Spratt - All Rights Reserved