What Does Heaven Look Like?

To most, it seems, it exists

Only as a dream—

An unhappy utopia

Where white clouds cushion

Handsome harp-playing heroes and harlequins

Whose hearts haven’t held hate

The way it’s lodged in my left ventricle—

Where boisterous laughter is a sin

(As are lazy eyes, uneven breasts, bad jokes,

And the tendency to seek divergence).

A growing population favors the other end—

When our bodies rot,

Riddled with worms and mushrooms,

So too do our souls,

Our essences, which get drunk

Up through the roots of, say, an oak,

And we are no longer Zach or Tom or Melissa,

But rather oak or birch or evergreen,

Until fire or time wears down once more—

That goodbye is the last thing we ever say.

But maybe it’s a virtual reality

DVD controlled by us, the deceased—

A decathlon of memories best

Where we might say,

“Let me love her one more time”—

Masterstroke of an omniscient statistician,

His remote in our hands

So that we might re-experience,

Might achieve life’s failed goals.

Then again maybe heaven’s a lot like here—

Minus all the assholes.

Good Intentions with Bad Results < Bad Intentions with Good Results

People get focused on the wrong parts of the Bible, on how we are sinners, and they start talking about repentance and judgment and unworthiness.

Acknowledgment of sin is important; it keeps us honest, reminds us to be humble, and helps us think twice before judging others.  But at least as important is faith in Christ as the redeemer of our sins.  If we have that faith, then there is no need to waste all our time worrying about what vile creatures we are; we are forgiven for that.  Do you think God really wants to hear his creations constantly bemoaning how ugly they are?  I think he'd rather us try, while remaining humbled by our imperfections, try to show him how beautiful we can be.

Don't fixate on the Old Testament.  It gives history for the sake of understanding (it is not an extended allegory), and it serves as a pretty good guide for what not to do. 

The guide for how to live comes in the New Testament, comes with Christ.

The number one tenet of Christianity: Love your neighbor as your love yourself; love God above all else in heart and soul and mind and strength.  Never forget this.

Intelligent Living

One major factor in living well is seeking to know/discover as much as possible while also mastering the art of selective caring.  You cannot care about everything; you don't have the time to devote to all of it, and your body cannot deal with being constantly and intensely emotionally aroused for an extended period of time.  So for an intellectual, emotional individual to be happy, the trick is to learn and experience as much as possibly and care as intensely and about as much as possible without becoming crazy-- which is to say without worrying incessantly about every negative thing in the world because there are a lot of them, and you can't handle being hurt by that many things.  But you can choose certain things to care about more, and these things are allowed to hurt you, and that is healthy because these things also bring joy, and even when you're hurting, it's almost in a good way because of the beauty of the intimacy that gives that hurt meaning.

Dis-Inspiration

I wake up
Or part of me does,
The gut-check, knee-jerk reaction part
That comes alive when I drink
Too much; it happens
These days when, whilst pressed for time,
I seek release
From both rhythm and rhyme,
My best friends
On whom others staple masks
Of evil, deceitful boredom--
The type that induces
That age
Old question:
"What else?  What else?"
Which is followed by twenty-seven
Text messages
That accomplish nothing;
The only evidence of something
Transpired are the bloodied,
Murdered minutes
Which we cannot see, though
Our bodies feel them down
Deep where the giant squids lurk
Along with our childhood enemies
And last year's birthday cards--
The messages more brief
Than those of the previous year's,
Which were read in transit
On the way to a copy of a copy
Of a copy of another night's drunken binge.

Advice for Music Snobs

1)  Variety is the spice of life.  If you can't respect a wide variety of things, your relationships will all be limited and redundant.

2)  To speak in absolutes is to ignore the complexities of truth.

3)  Classic rock does not necessarily equal good rock.

4)  To say a band has sold out when it goes from little known to popular- this is ludicrous.  You can't blame someone for being successful.

5)  On the same level, you can't get upset when a band changes its sound.  Can you imagine how boring it would be to never try anything new?  To play the same sounds year after year?  If you listened to only one band for the rest of your life, you'd go crazy.  Well the same goes for the people in the band; they don't want to play the same songs the same way for the rest of their lives.  People change.  When those people are in a band together, that means the band must change too, and if it's not flexible enough to do so, it breaks up instead.

Business Ventures and Other Such Eccentricities to Be Perpetuated if Ever I End Up with a Large Sum of Money

A)  I would start a video rental service with no aim at profit.  I will have money enough to not have to worry about making money.  Instead, this business will be more about sending a message.  We will rent out movies, but only good ones.  We will not distribute shitty movies no matter how popular they are or how good So-n-So says they're supposed to be. Only movies I approve will be allowed in my store.  If I don't have something you think should be included, you can petition for it.  If I watch it and like it, then you win a prize for bestowing goodness upon me and opening my eyes.  But if I watch a piece of shit for you then I charge you a penalty for wasting my time.

Rentals will be cheap, a dollar a day.  None of that goofy stuff Blockbuster pulls.  Our country spends far too much on entertainment.  I might even make the place more like a video library than a rental store.

The store will will be divided into a few sections: one for great movies of high quality on a number of levels, and another for quirkier/not for everyone movies that have some aspect that makes them worth at least one watch.  If other people manage the store for me, each manager as well as I will have a section of our top picks.

B) I'd also like to have a cafe called The Sleepy Walrus where there would be a number of comfy chairs and couches in addition to hardback chairs with tables and counters with stools.  Actually, scratch that last one; no isolation is allowed.  People will commune in my cafe, which will also have a fireplace.

C)  I'd walk around with five grand in my pocket at all times so that whenever I see someone go out of their way to be nice to someone else, I could reward them extravagantly and anonymously for being a good person.

D)  I'd like to get my own NBA team, possibly one which I'd name the Cincinnati Yak Fighters.  Then whenever I'm watching sports I can literally have my own team to root for.

E)  And because I'm not a saint, I would use my money to impress and seduce women.  I would have money to spare for things that are worthless in the most direct of senses to me, but that women seem drawn to.

F)  I may or may not get a bar/club called A Moment of Indiscretion.

G)  A concert venue would be a must.  I'd use it to attract the bands that I want to hear.  It would be a moderately small indoor venue with mostly (if not all) standing room.

There are a great many things one can do with a large sum of money.  Many people just think of what they would buy, what they could GET, but that is too small-minded.  Money is meant to be USED, not spent, and definately not wasted.  It's about what you can do with it, what you can accomplish.  It is a means, not an end.

A lot of people forget that about money, that it, by itself sitting in a great pile, is worthless.  The value lies in the possibilities that are opened up AFTER you've used it and it's gone.  That's why I never understand rich criminals, white collar crime.  What's the difference, really, between having ten million dollars and a hundred million?  If you invested one million dollars, you could live comfortably off the interest alone.

I guess once you get a taste of something good, you just want more.  Maybe money is like heroine and you just get hooked- or like how once you've seen one women naked it becomes important to try and see the rest of them naked as well.

Let's!

Let's do a crossword puzzle together
Because together we're twice as good.
I'll take a clue and you'll take a clue,
Or you start a word and I'll finish it.
In a world where all is black and white,
Let us add meaning,
Meaning through words and subtexts and alternatives,
Synonyms and elaborations and riddles and details
(There is magic in the details).
Let's make mistakes - in ink - and not even worry.
Answers are coming.
Let's have our solutions intertwine,
Yours easier to find because of mine.
And regardless of whether or not we attain completion,
Can claim rightness, can demonstrate mastery,
Regardless of all this,
We'll have added something
Where before there was only white space.

Sad Things My Students Say

"What's the point of paying attention if I don't get it?"

"You teachers is ignorant!"

After 2 straight weeks of working with nothing but fractions: how to find common denominators, how to simplify, how to add and subtract them:  "What's a fraction?"

"Is this one mines?"

"I.D.K:  I don't care."

"I don't feel like reading the question... I'll just guess!"

"I can't tell you what I was doing out so late; I'd be embarassed..."

"I'm sorry for being me."

"Why does my writing have to make sense?"

To Not Be Alone,

People will drink substances they find intolerable.  They will go out with people they don’t even like.  They will call phone sex hotlines.  They will join fanatical organizations.  They will agree to suicide pacts.  They will stay with husbands who beat them.  They will profess religions they do not practice.  They will fork out boatloads of cash for counseling sessions.  They will slander, backstab, butcher, and destroy.  They will root for a team full of strangers in a sport they don’t care about in a city they don’t understand.  They will send information into the limitless expanse of the internet hoping that someone else will catch hold and respond.  They will tell stories over and over, revising and re-telling, trying to get it right, hoping that one day they will reach someone.  Someone who gets it.

Frustration

            Peter Wozniak has masturbated 1236 times.  You can tell from the way his eyes are always glazed over, mirroring the club’s green lasers.  Reflecting more than they should.  He’s here tonight, his hair spiked, at the edge of the dance floor.  His friends, sporting popped collars and long-term girlfriends, are over at some table away from him, but that’s okay.  He kind of bobs his head a little bit.  Sort of shakes his leg a little bit.  Thrusts his pelvis out a little bit.  Just waiting for DJ Diamond to play something good.  Just scanning the crowd looking for the target. 

He thinks, why do all the girls always have to dance in groups or with a guy?  Can’t there ever be a girl just there, having a good time by herself, just hoping to have an even better time with some new, respectable gentleman?  Or better yet, a girl not waiting around all night because how pathetic is that?  Instead she picks out a guy from the edge of the floor and comes right up to him.  And she’s a beautiful girl of course, with dark hair and a huge rack, and tan legs with those thigh-high stockings and a mini-skirt maybe, actually scratch the mini-skirt because that’s trying too hard and you don’t know what kind of STDs girls like that might be carrying around, but leave the thigh-high stockings, and maybe add a Japanese school-girl uniform and a tongue piercing and nipple rings that you can’t see through her shirt but that you can feel when she embraces you.  And she does embrace you immediately, comes right up close and says, “Hey guy, wanna dance?” and then doesn’t even wait for a response because she knows what she wants and she knows what you want and she’s not afraid to make that happen so she does.

But after three songs of this not happening, Peter takes matters into his own hands.  DJ Diamond’s playing “Hot in Here,” and Peter dances up to a group of five girls.  He comes up behind one of them and gently puts his hands on her waist, so that the two of them start swaying together.  The song goes: It’s getting hot in here (so hot) so take off all your clothes.  She really seems to be digging it.  He closes his eyes and moves in closer, so that they’re grinding a little bit. 

He does not notice the side-to-side glances she fires like signal flares or the subtle slashing motions her friends make at their throats.  What he notices is that all five girls exit the dance floor without word or gesture or sidelong stare.  They only giggle and power walk over to the shot girl who wears a tight black t-shirt that says GOOD CALL and accentuates her breasts quite nicely.

Peter stomps off the dance floor.  He saunters toward the bar, hands in pockets, and signals Good-looking Sam.  She comes over and says nothing, just stares.  All business.

“I want a real shot of life,” Peters tells her. 

“I’ll bet I could give you that,” she’ll say in his mind later.  “Meet me by the red Chevy out back in five minutes?”

She really raises her eyebrows and says, “What?”

“Shot!” he yells, and holds up his thumb and forefinger a couple inches apart.  “Surprise me!”

She gets a crinkle on her forehead and goes off to get him God knows what.  His eyes never leave her, and his hand never leaves his pocket.  One leg is shaking so you don’t really notice it, but his hand moves ever so slightly.

“Seven bucks,” says the good-looking bartender as she slams the shot down on the bar.  “This is what I’d drink if I wasn’t working and I had money.”

Peter holds the drink like a best man.  “Here’s looking at you, kid,” and down the hatch it goes.  He pays her ten dollars, and as soon as the money’s in her hand she’s gone.  Peter goes to the bathroom and locks the door.

1237.

Peter returns to the dance floor.  He spies a very beautiful girl, a short voluptuous brunette.  He dances his way right up to her and shouts, “I like your style!  What’s your name?”

“Monique!” she shouts back and smiles.  Sexy, sexy!  She dances like a pixie, she’s like a dolphin in the water, her hair cascades down her face and she pushes it back again, her body writhes in perfect harmony with the melodies, and Peter starts doing what she’s doing.  They dance like this, her creating and him echoing for a couple minutes, and he actually starts to enjoy himself.  He isn’t thinking about grinding on her or scoring with her; dancing is good enough for now.  And damn it if she isn’t smiling at him the whole time.  He’s in love.

And then the guy comes.  The fucking guy, there’s always some fucking guy.  She turns toward this newcomer and immediately favors him with her smiles.  He grabs her and they start dancing close, very close.  Peter almost walks away, but then this guy, this fucking guy, glances at him for a second, with this shit-poker face, this look that says, too bad man, tough break, I win.  And then he looks away into that beautiful smile, that shiny brown hair that Peter ought to be running his hands through later.

Peter walks up to the guy and pulls on his shoulder.  Hard.  “How bout you find your own fucking girl!” he shouts.  And there’s more to the exchange than that, but it gets lost in booze and melodies.  It ends with Peter cocking a fist back at the guy, and someone else coming up from behind, putting Peter in a headlock. 

All Peter can see of the guy are his arms.  They are covered in fire.  Tattoos of flame, orange flames shooting down from his shoulders, raging past his elbows, and licking at his knuckles.  Peter is vaguely aware of this man, this burning man, telling the bouncer, “Don’t worry, Mickey, I got this.”  He is vaguely aware of the jerky sensation of being dragged up a flight of stairs and through the orange gauntlet that is the club’s entrance.  But mostly he’s aware of the fiery noose around his neck and the matching pain inside himself, the burning, which does not come to his cheeks, as in embarrassment, but rather flares up in the dead center of his brain, and it is this pain that will take the longest to heal, longer even than the bloody gashes that open up on his elbows and wrists when he is hurled out onto the street by the burning man, who then goes back inside to receive cheers and drinks and praise and women.

Peter takes a bus home, checks his fantasy football stats, then goes to playboy.com.  1238.

He plots his revenge, all of the embarrassments that the burning man must suffer, all of the horrors that other fucking guy must experience.  Those tattoos of fire on the man’s arms will turn to real scar tissue, the teeth will no longer be present in that fucking guy’s smile, they will both be castrated and pissed upon, and then they will know what it feels like to be Peter Wozniak.

           But first… 1239.

On Life's Problems and Their Coexistence with Happiness

A man in anguish is 9 times out of 10 at war in some way with himself.  He may or may not realize that he is his own problem, but if he does, he will despair all the more, for how can a man rid himself of himself?  Usually he needs someone else's help to simply start living outside his own mind. To do this, to get out into the world and get his mind thinking about other things... this will seem to him like running away.  But what he's really doing is discovering that life will always have its problems, that problems are much more easily created than resolved, and that while its not right for him to completely ignore his own issues, he does not have to be dominated by them. 

Prove Me Wrong

If forced to admit
The secret bloody depths
Beyond my endorphine producers,
Beyond my cardiopulminary wall,
I'd have to say
That you're dumbfoundingly beautiful
Like...
Like nothing I can name or describe-
I guess because I'm dumbfounded.

Please give me my words back;
They're all I understand.
Or even better, replace them-
Render them useless-
Press your mouth into mine
And leave it there forever.
Maybe pull away just long enough
For me to see you smile
And then come back to me,
Make me never need my vocal cords
To speak again.

Simple Ways to Spice up Life and Affect People and Simply Have More Fun on a Day to Day Basis

A)  Join some organization where you don't really belong.  If you're white, join the African Student Organization.  If you're straight, join the Rainbow Alliance.  Etc.

B)  Dance while you walk.

C)  When you enter a room, do so while singing.

D)  Talk to strangers.

E)  Wear obsolete clothing.

F)  Find a way to complement (earnestly) every person you talk to.

G)  Spend some time working, studying, or reading in a place you don't usually go.

H)  Explore a new neighborhood.

I)  Ask someone out.

J)  Flirt with a member of the service industry.

K)  If you don't drink, spend a weekend doing it.  Let go.  Release.  Give yourself the permission to be temporarily stupid and silly.

L)  If you do drink, spend a week having fun sober.  Notice the natural beauty in the moments.  Get high on life: the things you do and the people around you.  There are so many options in this world.  Try them out.

M)  Stay up all night.

N)  Call up someone you haven't seen in years and have a legitimate conversation doing absolutely everything in your power, however extreme, to avoid small talk.

O)  Have a conversation with a homeless person.

P)   Try giving a sermon to a street evangelist.

Q)  Buy a CD by someone you've never heard of.

R)  Develop a new walking style.

S)  Give yourself an unusual goal for the day and put it above everything else.  E.g:  Make 5 strangers laugh.  Visit 5 different parts of the city.  Win 30 dollars gambling.

T)  Cook something for dinner that you've never made before.

U)  Tell someone you love them.  Mean it.

V)  Destroy something you don't need.

W)  If you're not religious, go to church and abstain from making judgements.  Sing.  Meet people before and after the service.  Talk to the pastor about his sermon.

X)  Write a poem and post it somewhere people will see it.

Y)  Sneak in somewhere you're not supposed to be.

Z)  Make up an alter ego and go to a bar as that person.  Have some fun.  If you end up making friends, don't worry that they may think you're someone you're not.  Chances are they drank enough that the switch won't be a big deal.  And your alter ego would be a facet of you regardless.

Really just interract with the world.  Keep renewing your spirit.  Keep your heart fresh, your mind flexible, and your eyes open.

Take My Hand

Despite the practicalities of others;
Their delayed gratification;
Their fear of risking complication,
Fear of getting personal,
Fear of the messes,
Fear of exposure, which, as a result, becomes
Fear of elation;
Their customs, their plans, their dreams;
Their; heart-shaped yield signs;
Their friendly gifts
Of disease-covered blankets
(Though they are so soft and warm);
Their USO dances, their letters,
The ammunition, the shields,
The photographs, the memories,
The histories, the futures,
The best-laid plans
Of mice and men;
And all the developments of civilization:
From farming to deforestation
To paved roads, from workers' guilds
To labor unions to corporate buy-outs,
From cottages to pagodas to skyscrapers;
Despite all their attempts to cut us
A straight path over rivers and through mountains,
I want to walk through minefields with you.