embarrassingly overwrought musings
from a moderately prolonged adolescence
from a moderately prolonged adolescence
Good News (1989)
Night comes long in daylight’s guise
To those absent compass and sail
Still the sun shines and stars give counsel
As the ocean carries and swells
Up from the crow’s nest suspicion looks out
Scanning the sea to find a way
Afraid, accused of his mutinous bout
By the incessant heat of day
A cure for this maritime traveler’s fault
His course made straight from above
In bowing the right to rudder and wheel
To find his bearings in God’s love
Night comes long in daylight’s guise
To those absent compass and sail
Still the sun shines and stars give counsel
As the ocean carries and swells
Up from the crow’s nest suspicion looks out
Scanning the sea to find a way
Afraid, accused of his mutinous bout
By the incessant heat of day
A cure for this maritime traveler’s fault
His course made straight from above
In bowing the right to rudder and wheel
To find his bearings in God’s love
Screwtapian Verse (1990)
Divide and conquer is our trump
Dissect a man within himself
If rightly done a soul is won
Keep in mind their foe is sin
And if your prey is dense enough
We’ll have him bottled on a shelf
Patience fiend, it’s not too late
You’ve only been estranged
Solicit at the devil’s gate
And everything will change
Devil’s gate, flesh of man
Doorway to the soul
Oh, to feed upon his need
Entice him to the fall
Quietly exploit his nature
Make good use of gravity
And always, ever be quite sure
To feed your man on leaven
Bar concord with heaven!
For the most delightsome kind
Is a man stone blind
In a God-less morality
Divide and conquer is our trump
Dissect a man within himself
If rightly done a soul is won
Keep in mind their foe is sin
And if your prey is dense enough
We’ll have him bottled on a shelf
Patience fiend, it’s not too late
You’ve only been estranged
Solicit at the devil’s gate
And everything will change
Devil’s gate, flesh of man
Doorway to the soul
Oh, to feed upon his need
Entice him to the fall
Quietly exploit his nature
Make good use of gravity
And always, ever be quite sure
To feed your man on leaven
Bar concord with heaven!
For the most delightsome kind
Is a man stone blind
In a God-less morality
Buyers Beware (1991)
I remember it said one night while in bed as mom spun a tale for me
She said, “Son, you’ll regret ever making a bet with the blessed bumble bee.
If you don’t bother it, why, it won’t bother you, and then you won’t get stung.”
“Ma, that wisdom’s ok for nature,” I say, “But tell me why Jesus was hung.
Did he not understand the modern-day brand of live-and-let-live tolerance?
Or wasn’t he told not to be quite so bold—didn’t he have any sense?"
But now that I’m grown and out on my own I’ve given it all some thought
And in retrospect I’ve come to detect funny notions we have bought
What our tutors exhumed we gladly consumed, it came to us naturally
We just gobbled it up like rationed bread and slop—they made cons of u and me.
Concerts of voices are giving us choices, and it’s plain that we’ve all heard them
Do we live for the truth and risk being uncouth, or suffer a reductio ad absurdum
I remember it said one night while in bed as mom spun a tale for me
She said, “Son, you’ll regret ever making a bet with the blessed bumble bee.
If you don’t bother it, why, it won’t bother you, and then you won’t get stung.”
“Ma, that wisdom’s ok for nature,” I say, “But tell me why Jesus was hung.
Did he not understand the modern-day brand of live-and-let-live tolerance?
Or wasn’t he told not to be quite so bold—didn’t he have any sense?"
But now that I’m grown and out on my own I’ve given it all some thought
And in retrospect I’ve come to detect funny notions we have bought
What our tutors exhumed we gladly consumed, it came to us naturally
We just gobbled it up like rationed bread and slop—they made cons of u and me.
Concerts of voices are giving us choices, and it’s plain that we’ve all heard them
Do we live for the truth and risk being uncouth, or suffer a reductio ad absurdum
Full-Length Mirror (1993)
I am not a slave to fashion
Nor am I very opposed to fate
When the stylish accuse me of party-crashing
I say their opinions are out of date
As a youth I feared the same conventions
From which others sought a vain escape
Then escape I did, the unforgiving shackles
By seeing the small and great of all peoples
Fall victim to ideological rape
Sophistication’s the wheel where’s formed our intentions
I entered this world through the will of another
And I’ll leave it, I’m told, for a higher estate
So, while here I’ll not prize myself too highly
Vanity never succeeds the grave
Indeed, a far better job would surely be had
Of embellishment, there in the rotting bed
Of mankind’s shared finitude
And were it ever otherwise
We’d quickly don a new disguise
Anything less would be plain rude
I am not a slave to fashion
Nor am I very opposed to fate
When the stylish accuse me of party-crashing
I say their opinions are out of date
As a youth I feared the same conventions
From which others sought a vain escape
Then escape I did, the unforgiving shackles
By seeing the small and great of all peoples
Fall victim to ideological rape
Sophistication’s the wheel where’s formed our intentions
I entered this world through the will of another
And I’ll leave it, I’m told, for a higher estate
So, while here I’ll not prize myself too highly
Vanity never succeeds the grave
Indeed, a far better job would surely be had
Of embellishment, there in the rotting bed
Of mankind’s shared finitude
And were it ever otherwise
We’d quickly don a new disguise
Anything less would be plain rude
Words (1993)
Words, multiplied words, could never define
The love that is shared between your heart and mine
So I'll try hard to keep from such labored verse
That subjects miracles to science and heaven to earth
Words, multiplied words, could never define
The love that is shared between your heart and mine
So I'll try hard to keep from such labored verse
That subjects miracles to science and heaven to earth
On Preferring the Truth (1993)
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Then why are we bent on conformity?
Perhaps someone doesn’t approve of
What’s held by those beholding me
Do you think it an ugly thing, my love of human dignity?
We laud the seity of individuals
As long as they pass a litmus test
For what the kind cognoscenti say
Is proffered for our very best
But value is not in the eye of the beholder
And I’m curious if it may be true
That your sales campaign is a veiled disdain
For my choosing not to be like you
Maybe we should here discern between truth and preference
Two and two is four, my friend, and there can be no difference
Whereas you may fancy the number two over and against that of four
And I might feel it so conversely as to show you promptly to the door
So, when you attempt cryptic persuasion against my sensibilities
The sentiments I have that are informed by life’s realities
I am left with no recourse but to absent with a hearty laugh
And say, “Thank you kindly, but the truth reminds me
That I’m just gonna have to pass.”
If beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Then why are we bent on conformity?
Perhaps someone doesn’t approve of
What’s held by those beholding me
Do you think it an ugly thing, my love of human dignity?
We laud the seity of individuals
As long as they pass a litmus test
For what the kind cognoscenti say
Is proffered for our very best
But value is not in the eye of the beholder
And I’m curious if it may be true
That your sales campaign is a veiled disdain
For my choosing not to be like you
Maybe we should here discern between truth and preference
Two and two is four, my friend, and there can be no difference
Whereas you may fancy the number two over and against that of four
And I might feel it so conversely as to show you promptly to the door
So, when you attempt cryptic persuasion against my sensibilities
The sentiments I have that are informed by life’s realities
I am left with no recourse but to absent with a hearty laugh
And say, “Thank you kindly, but the truth reminds me
That I’m just gonna have to pass.”
The Harmony of These Fears (1998)
In a lonely wood where passed my youth
I met a boy who was, I think, quite lost when
We found a chest amidst the undergrowth
We greedily exhumed the chest, surely coupled
For just that, and advanced on our discovery
Like two spirits hovering—rather, one at best
The boy entranced, his face pale white
His curiosity, it seemed, was checked
By a terrific fright, and then compelled
By some force unseen, he raised the lid
Thus he did and, without a moment in between
Day gave way to night
That haunted synchronicity doubled fast
Upon my soul as the foul exhaust of
Ages past escaped the chest and rode the wind
Until, at last, the very wind—more, our breath!
Was overwhelmed and swallowed whole
And our history’s vile vaunting came: a dark parade
A molten black, of specters proud and agonized
And in their midst a barren tree, mocking and repulsing me
And I, hurled quick upon my back, in dread
Bade them have mercy, please!
Then with the dying of my words went the night
And its devilries, and in the air the flight of birds
Illumined, and illumining my solitude
The boy was gone; before me lay an empty chest
And I, from my lonely wood, that honest wood
Where passed my youth, saw a truly fearful world
A bastard sphere, this orbed half-truth
Willfully jettisoned, an errant fare, I should have guessed
And now I find I can’t dismiss the harmony of these fears
In a lonely wood where passed my youth
I met a boy who was, I think, quite lost when
We found a chest amidst the undergrowth
We greedily exhumed the chest, surely coupled
For just that, and advanced on our discovery
Like two spirits hovering—rather, one at best
The boy entranced, his face pale white
His curiosity, it seemed, was checked
By a terrific fright, and then compelled
By some force unseen, he raised the lid
Thus he did and, without a moment in between
Day gave way to night
That haunted synchronicity doubled fast
Upon my soul as the foul exhaust of
Ages past escaped the chest and rode the wind
Until, at last, the very wind—more, our breath!
Was overwhelmed and swallowed whole
And our history’s vile vaunting came: a dark parade
A molten black, of specters proud and agonized
And in their midst a barren tree, mocking and repulsing me
And I, hurled quick upon my back, in dread
Bade them have mercy, please!
Then with the dying of my words went the night
And its devilries, and in the air the flight of birds
Illumined, and illumining my solitude
The boy was gone; before me lay an empty chest
And I, from my lonely wood, that honest wood
Where passed my youth, saw a truly fearful world
A bastard sphere, this orbed half-truth
Willfully jettisoned, an errant fare, I should have guessed
And now I find I can’t dismiss the harmony of these fears