when we write songs

i have not written down love. i have made a leaf rubbing of it. turned words on their sides and scraped them across a flat life that’s been stretched thin as paper. such a rubbing makes a thing that is beautiful because it’s an image of love, only an imperfect one. it doesn’t improve the leaf, but it makes the paper a lovely thing, hopefully.

i am twenty-two. that’s the most two’s at one time that most anyone ever gets in life, though i’ve hardly moved past ones. hobbits love elevens, but i am too tall and facial-hairy to be a perian. however, i do share their love for pipes and ales. (although a single Old Foghorn is almost more than this old man can handle.)

but lest youth forget its place, i confess i have seen few summers, and fewer winters, though i seem disposed in mindset to confuse the two. and as a young friend observed, perhaps youth is hope’s most faithful client. hope is a subtle thing. like love.

and the line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift

captain raines

a sleeper

my preferred sleeping location has changed from “floors” to “floor-like surfaces”. that is, i put a piece of plywood on some box-springs (which are on a bed), and i put an egg-crate on that piece of wood, and i sleep on that. this helps calm my fears of violent arthropods crawling upon me as i sleep. specifically, scorpions.

i sleep flat on my back. last year, dr. wight mentioned in clas that people who sleep on their backs are more likely to have nightmares. it’s true. but when you’re 22, nightmares make you more sad than frightened.

ultimate frisbee in conway on sunday nights is the ultimate way to be humiliated because you just showed up thinking, “frisbee, no big deal, right?” whereas everyone else there is training for the olympics. and then at some point each evening, i end up saying something like “actually, i graduated this may”, and then i’m the old guy who can’t play frisbee well.

i think in need to get some really sweet pants.

a crisis of faith. it’s a beautiful thing, really. i have one everyday. i call it relationship.

if i can learn to love a little better every day, it will be a win.

the Captain

a word and a poem

I am sitting in the carport of my friends’ house in Mabelvale using their wireless internet while they are not at home. Thank you, friends. I also played with your doggy in the back.

to anonymous: i like names a lot. and, the RSS thingy should be somewhere on your browser. you might have to enable the satus bar (in the “view” menu) in order to see it.

The coffee business is good. I like to mix my good with my bitter, which makes coffee almost the perfect beverage. (One must journey to the mountain ranges of the Sierra Nevada for a more perfect mixture of sorrow and joy in the summertime.)

Last night, Michael found a scorpion in our bathtub. Then later, I wrote a poem that says nothing outright, but perhaps says a bit in spite of that. And a little before I wrote this poem, I wrote another one which touches my heart nearer, but that is not for here. Here is the other poem I spoke of:

waving
a poem from summerthere are two ways
to get a one-handed fool out of a tree:
the first is the punch-line of a joke.
the second,
which sounds the same, but is real and sad,
is to wave at him.

august twenty-third,
the anniversary of all the august twenty-thirds in my life,
naturally.
the sun threatens to colonize the earth,
dominion of men,
and escaping from the heat,
a diminished scorpion
(whose fathers once walked tall and proud
amidst the sands beyond the eastern sea)
has wandered into the bathtub
of a pair of two-handed fools
who smite him with a shampoo bottle;
and they will wear socks to bed tonight.

the air-conditioner in my space-age car from the year 2004
banishes the heat-demons that sting my face.
i am at a Y-shaped 3-way stop
at the top of a hill,
and as i ponder a street sign which illustrates
children on a teeter-totter
(i am wondering what ill-fate might unfold
to beg a driver like myself to watch for
teeter-totters in the road)
the last drops of sweat at the base of my hairline
disappear in the mystery of evaporation
by which water is spread so thin
that it cannot be seen any longer,
and if I rock back in my seat to the perfect angle,
the bottom of the hill is eclipsed
by the hood of my spaceship,
and I imagine that it all has evaporated,
and I can see only the tops of the trees,
and they are waving at me,

waving at me.

a Family of immigrants

i saw so many wonderful friends this weekend in dallas. i miss all of you already, and i hope to see you sometime this fall. (Joshie, i’ve still got a phonograph record of Russian men reciting poems for you!!!)

i’m awake watching 24, even though I need to wake up in 5 hours because my “bedroom” at the Mablevale house (the living room) is being used as an all-night Jack-Bauer-fest theater. i think i could take him in a fight.

my driver-side window is embodying the “not-yet” reality of the redemption of creation, making paying tolls, purchasing fast food, and withdrawing funds frustratingly difficult. at times my frustration makes it difficult to embody the “already” part. especially when i really need a cheeseburger.

a dear friend of mine, reflecting today upon his recent changes in residence, observed that moving from place to place has proven to him that nowhere on this planet is truly home. i have much less experience in the matter of moving, but i too am convinced that my home is not in this world, as it stands now. today i got a job in litle rock (at the new starbucks at university and markham), so i will continue my period of exile in this little capital city, to the glory of God.

blogging here makes me feel young again!

Lovingly,
the Captain

He who holds the seven stars

i give you images – for a more complete blog experience.

the king has been away from his kingdom for many years. many no longer look for his return. he has kept watch over his people always, protecting them even when they do not know and do not thank him. he passes through the paths of the dead and emerges triumphantly. with the enemy encircling his people and their defeat seemingly imminent, he returns, unlooked for. he restores peace to his kingdom and plants a tree that will not die.

tolkien wrote that story?

the agnus dei, kyrie and sanctus are mostly written. the kyrie is mostly recorded. they are simple – broken chords on a piano. i add pads here and there. joel sings a harmony. i wonder if we will ever have the opportunity to use the whole thing as a worship service. i’d like that.

where i have ripped myself to shreds with rebellion, the Father is restoring me through Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit. all things new. all things new.

let all in the Kingdom prepare with joy.

johnnie