the life

We are lost amid a sea of ourselves
Our ambitions
Our desires
Our accomplishments

Lost – we seek shelter
In the comfort in our mothers arms? or…
In our drugs
In our beer
In our cheap cigarettes and midnight clubs

Are we a generation without purpose?
Or with twenty million purposes
To end hate, poverty, sin, intolerance, genocide, addiction, environmental degradation, 
Or to be wealthy, happy, wise, successful
To hold that degree, that job, that fellowship, that medal, that girl
To be known, to be mysterious, to be desirable, to be loved.

Is God crying out? 
Are our souls crying out?
Are we too tired to hear
From soccer practice, ballet lessons, meetings, training, work, play, groups, discussions, and yes –vacations

Vacations from what?
The home we built?
The family we wanted?
The wife we … loved?
The job we went to school for-
The loans that paid for the school we attended to get the job
That we take a vacation to escape from?

Is our future bright?
Or is it muddied-
With news clips, e-mails, that other woman, that other man, the friend, the boss, the neighbor
The neighbor we don’t know
Or we think we do
Or we think should mow his lawn 
Or take better care of his kids

We buy magazines – and never read the articles
We buy newspaper and use them in our bird cages
We subscribed to 200 channels and watch one or fifty for thirty seconds
And we say “there’s nothing on”

Or is there too much on?
Our lights are on
Our sprinklers are going
Our car is running
And it’s out of gas
And it’s out of oil

We need three cars
We have two already
We probably need another TV
For the kids room

We just don’t have any more time for those kids
They take up so much time already
Driving them to tournaments, to haircuts, to awards ceremonies in the gym
The gym where’ll they sit in thirty years
Watching their kids
And thinking about the car needing oil

Or maybe they won’t
Maybe they won’t have kids
Kids are too expensive
College cost 50 grand a year you know
And clothes 
And don’t forget books
And that new car

Maybe if they don’t have time for kids they’ll have time to work
Work for themselves
Work for their pet Chihuahua with worms

Maybe while they’re working they’ll find the answer
Or maybe they’ll just have all the new questions
Because there are always questions
Questions Questions Questions

And where are the answers?
In his book or hers?
In the bible they gave to you at 15?
You know – the one on your nightstand
The one you read last week when you couldn’t sleep

You read “I am the resurrection and the life”
And you thought-
Ohh isn’t that nice. Maybe I can get to sleep after all.

world of words

intertextuality, the subconsciously collective conscious:

words tied together forming the fabric of our perceptions,

metanarrative, the grand, sweeping historical arc 

composed of the marriage of all our lives and stories-

where Homer bleeds into Joyce, &

Dickens with the New York Times.

your high school prom meets Chaucer;

Washington embraces Gilgamesh. 

all the words ever written form a net to support us;

simultaneously binding us as well.

we cannot perceive how we would perceive

if the web were not around us.

we could not leave it if we tried, it runs through us.

it is the blood of our external life.

it is in our eyes and the way we see.

it is in our ears and the way we hear.

it is in what we speak and what we mean.

without it we would be voiceless.

our every conversation

depends on the unconscious connection 

to the intertextual web of the metanarrative.

and so all our lives are sitcoms and slasher flics;

we become the archetypes we know.

each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, 

a basket case, a princess, and a criminal;

and one of the hero’s thousand faces. 

intertextuality, the subconsciously collective conscious :

words tied together forming the fabric of our perceptions,

metanarrative, the grand, sweeping historical arc,

the voice made of ten million voices-

like the atoms which make up your body

from a distance as great as heaven-

all our stories are one,

and when the bell tolls, 

it tolls for us all. 

City of Graceland

Memphis, City of Graceland, where has your voice gone to?

In cities to the East they speak only of your poverty and crime.

Have they forgotten how small they are in the stream of time

When held against your pillowed bluffs, drenched in history?

Surely when our Republic's day are done,

Memphis' name will remain, strung throughout the stories,

The songs and ballads of our people, the legends of our heroes.

Memphis, you are the great American crossroads.

You are always a stop along our national journey. 

People come to Memphis with reason: to listen and to learn.

Your songs and stories give us comfort,

They tell us who we are, and who we are to be.

Memphis, you have always been a city of deep contrast. 

The stark divide of black and white has almost torn you apart.

Sorrow and joy run down your streets like blood and wine.

But is human life itself not an exercise in contrast?

Are we not born somewhere between angels and animals?

Within your constant struggles we can see ourselves,

The good, the bad, the hideous, and the noble.

Surely this is your blessing, and your curse.

I believe that the American soul is a battlefield.

Our heroes and villains are forged in wars, both real and imagined.

And Memphis, to how many battles have you born silent witness?

Yes, you baptized the Forrest whose anger lit the Southern nights

With flaming crosses and the moans of your disinherited children.

But how many heroes have ennobled your streets?

Did you not crown a King of Hearts, and still hold him in his tomb?

Did you not bear witness to the selfless death of another,

There with an evil gun shot, upon a cold steel motel railing?

Is that prophet's dream now forgotten among your children?

Memphis, you have always been a city of song.

You do not whisper of days gone by like Charleston.

You do not scream to be seen and heard like New York.

Your voice, once deep and powerful, was heard across the world.

From Tokyo to London, men still sing your songs. 

The energy of your Rock and Roll has made us dance.

The power of your Soul has made us love.

The sorrow of your Blues has made us weep.

Memphis, raise your voice again to us now.

Our nation needs your songs,

To light our nights, to lift our hearts,

To tell us we are not alone in our loneliness and sorrow.

Memphis, sing to us your songs; sing to us our songs.

Remind us where we have come from, and where we are yet to go.

New Mexico

west on 40 from Tucumcari 

this is the open road

this is the best road 

nothing but the sky and the broken back mesa landscape 

the occasional navajo gift shop offers fry bread and green chili cheeseburgers

the sky is wide

the sky is blue

the sky is wide and blue in the way it only is west of the big river

in the high desert

where there are few trees

and still fewer people

in Farmington there is a fine little Mexican restaurant in the airport

nearby

Shiprock stands like a sentinel 

overlooking trailers hogans and kachina stands

in the valley of the gods the sun bounces off dry red rocks

a cool wind blows through the blood of Christ mountains

here, 

in the land of enchantment