i am bright,
bright as the midday sun
come near that i might,
might consume you

i am night,
night as the one undone
come near that i might,
might undo you

listen to the song,
song in my heart
let it lull you to sleep
dark Morpheus’ lyre
weighs down the eyes

nightmare or dream
what matters
is the mind sings,
sings of ancient things
and the world,
the world made anew

I will not give you all,
all that you desire
all that you deserve

but

I will give you this…
this small thing

I will watch you
walk the aisle alone
between the sacrificial halves
because I cannot

you walk for you
you walk for me
you keep my promise
you give me you
to give back
to you…

sun spills in
like hot honey
sliding slowly ‘cross
the floor
the wall
the table
glazing everything
a gold-leaf relief
warms the flesh
melts soul’s ice
winter’s sleepy dream
of spring’s open-armed embrace

you know my dreams
they’re all about you
but then my nightmares
they have you too

you know my heart
cannot contain grace
you know its hollow,
an empty place

there are these eyes
like windows, stay closed
for fear the world
has decomposed

there is my love
cold Novocain
shuts out the wind
kills all the pain

again and again and again

(NOTE: This is an experiment in quick written rhyme…that’s it…don’t read more into it than what’s there you crazy reader you)

We are monstrous…we humans. In this I feel no hesitation to say what I say…we, all of us, are monsters of one sort or another struggling to hide or contain our various secret, shameful monstrosities. Some hide their monsters better than others because some monsters are socially acceptable. The monsters of hubris, avarice and gossip are practically worshiped as idols.

I have been fascinated with monsters for as long as I can remember. I am not sure why. Perhaps because my life has been filled with them…mostly the human variety.

Monster comes from the Latin word monstrum which means portent or omen. It is a warning…but what do monsters warn us of except impending doom, destruction and death?

The brilliant 18 year old Mary Shelley explores the idea of the monster in her classic novel Frankenstein, also called The Modern Prometheus. In it she tells the story of a man driven to create life from death. To take the tattered remnants of humanity and to shape something he felt would be superior. In the end he is horrified by his creation and seeks only to destroy it despite its life. Frankenstein refers to the creature as his monster. Of course while the book explores many themes including the nature of humanity’s relationship with a creator God it is built around a great irony. The monster in the book is Victor Frankenstein himself for despising his own creation and leaving it to fend for itself becoming a mirror of its own creator.

We are afraid of monsters. I think we are afraid of monsters because monster reflect our own human nature and what we are capable of. They are portents and omens of our own self-wrought doom. We are not afraid of the monster so much as we are afraid of what the monster reveals about ourselves. This is why the monster story is so compelling to people…more than any other narrative form the monster story can tell us about our own broken nature. Modern television shows like Dexter or The Sopranos are simply shows about the human monster…we empathize with the characters because the characters are us…we cannot empathize with that which we cannot identify with.

I often hear people say “you and I – we have been created in the image of God” and it is meant as a comfort and I believe we are all image bearers…however…the image is shattered, scarred and broken. We, like Frankenstein’s monster, are not what the creator intended. Thankfully our creator does not hunt us down and seek our destruction as Frankenstein does.

It is not the dark we are afraid of, it is the thing in the dark and that thing is ourselves. We are alone in the dark, there is nothing else to fear.

I like to write cryptically. I enjoy it. I gave up the idea long ago that anything the artist creates is in any way controlled by the artist once it is released to the public sphere. Whatever the artist intended can only be gotten at by talking to the artist…and even then not fully because the artist changes while the word remains as it always was.

With that in mind I enjoy writing enigmatically because, while I must release control of meaning to the broader world, I can still have an impact by not necessarily approaching truths and subjects straight on but sometimes rather obliquely.

Such was the recent post entitled – A Hint of Things To Come. What is written in there is, in fact, an excerpt from a work of fiction that I have been writing. I presented it completely out of context and with no clues as to its meaning primarily for the sheer sadistic joy of knowing that people would try to puzzle it out. In the end it is not about anything you would know nor am I in the habit of disguising people and personal incidents in fiction. As far as I am concerned truth is truth and fiction is fiction and there can be no fiction in truth and at best, fiction might present truth “through a glass darkly” as it were.

Why do I write this? I suppose because ultimately I care what people think and want to make sure they know my modus operandi when it comes to writing. If I want to say something about anyone I will simply say said thing about said person without so much as a single bush having been beaten around. You, gentle reader, should also know that I am not in the habit of writing about people other than myself in places as public as the blogosphere (unless it’s a public figure who has then invited public discourse)…I consider such things the height of misfortune.

At any rate there you go. You now have some sense of the clown you are dealing with here. Happy reading. 🙂

I can’t believe I forgot to post this to my blog having reviewed this a while ago and posted to Amazon.

The historical biography genre is alive and well in the hands of Eric Metaxas…his book about famous pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer is so fluid and alive that it transports the reader to another world. That the subject matter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is eminantly important is beyond a doubt and Metaxas weaves an incredibly readable and highly relevant biography that captures details that have been missed or downplayed in other sources.

It is something when you can say that a biography is so compelling you find it hard to put down but this is just such a biography.Metaxas writes with a clear awareness of the relevance of Bonhoeffer to our own culture and emphasizes certain aspects of his life and theology such as the question of “what is the church?” Truly a biography for our time.

The author’s biographical skills are not the only thing showcased in the text, his attention to historical detail is also constantly at the fore.

For those who know and appreciate Bonhoeffer you will be very happy with Metaxas’ treatment of him. If you are unaware of him or simply not a fan of biographies I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to check out this book. You will be introduced to a person who will challenge and sharpen you and you will be given a wonderful and unique perspective about a critical period in world history – early 20th century Europe.

I promise you that this book will not disappoint…it will be a measure of what a biography should be for years to come.

He moved secretly and in the dark to a higher perch for a better vantage from which to see the eternal city. The name was a mockery. A final pathetic painful joke told by those who never really knew her. She was not what she used to be. It was like looking at a well preserved corpse that drunken people tried to animate in their own horrific stupidity. An attempt to claim that life was still somehow within. But it was a corpse all the same and the people who lived in her were eating her alive…slowly decomposing her until there would be nothing left. Roma had died a long time ago, betrayed by her own children and left to the ravishing hands of the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals. The rampaging darkness from the north had raped her and stolen her beauty while the strange exotic Mohamadians had stormed up from the south to finish her off. Together they washed away her children and left these lost vagabonds in control. There was only one true Roman left in all the world to mourn her death but there were no tears in him. He could stand here and look out over the pale moonlit bones of his mother and yearn for older days, better days…but they were not to be. Nothing was the same any more and he was as dead as she was…perhaps moreso.

It is amazing that having written so much and with so much to write that I feel like I have nothing to say these days. I do not like feeling like I have nothing to say. It’s not that  I write for the sake of others so much as I write for myself and because of myself. Writing, as I have said before, is like breathing for me…if that is the case I feel as if I am holding my breath.

What am I waiting for, I wonder. Not sure. These days positive versus negative hangs on the head of a pin and can slip in either direction without so much as a nudge.

I am a “glass is half full” person by nature and so this is a good thing. If I am going to park myself anywhere it needs to be in the light rather than shadow if for no other reason than to enjoy its warmth. Still, the tug to “the dark side” so-to-speak, is strong at times and writing brings me process and balance…this is why I don’t like that I have not been in much of a writing mood these days.

Well perhaps the wellspring will burst in the coming days and some poetry or creative ranting will emerge. Who knows?