The Shack by the Sea

A place made special from the inside

Waking in the sand, he remembered her vivid beauty

An involuntary smile comes to his lips

The grace of her words, the comfort of her convictions, her clarity of mind

What a woman! A port of calm harbors in a stormy world

Only in the human heart can true sanctuary be found

A shack by the sea their Secret Place, a Holy of Holies

Private little jokes among private little smokes

Sprouting between them: a Rare Understanding

In starry eyes they spoke of the velvety sea, gazing on its glistening waves

In outrage, they fumed of those who dumped their toxic troubles in it

In silence they spoke as knowing waves splashed gently ashore

During the day he whistled as he walked in happy rhythm

Carrying the shack within him like a fresh carnation

To friend and foe he showed off the delicacy of his new flower

"Have you seen one such as this? It's a beauty from the ages."

While others talked news of the world, he thought merrily of times in the shack

The shack by the sea, for friends meant to be

Is this real?

But his soul knew not truly the sacred sea

He loved the sea, revered it as all life and his faith was doubtless

But he refused to venture into its life giving waters

Was it pride? Was it fear? Or a vanity yet known?

She excitedly told her tales of oceanic exploration in wide eyed discovery

He parsed tales from the lives of others heard

Could he truly love the sea having never trusted it depths?

To fly with the angels, he manufactured stilts

And yet he knew the sky they created

"What to do? What to do? When there's no boat for you."

Forming in the shack's foundation, a rot of untruths

He told her he couldn't come anymore

But to see the shack and not go in...too much

Yet every return dripped further dread into the floor

He couldn't go in, he couldn't stay out...

Storms originate in the souls of men

She observed his growing agitation, saying nothing

She hoped he'd understood their covenant by the sea

"Be who you are in the world, be who you want with me."

This gift he could not give to himself

He wore a sailor's uniform having never sailed a day

As she spoke of distant shores, his guilty feet never left dry land

With grinding teeth he wondered her believing him, rarely she blind

He'd perfected the art of telling, absorbing his life to the task

On another road, his talents bring the wealth of the world

On this road, he twisted talent to buy friends

But ever taxing the perversion of purity

And in the end, all things revert to inevitable form:

His talents claimed by the world, his heart by a girl

In his soul a twisting typhoon, blowing the shack to pieces

Nature had spoken, Her voice only silent for a time

The pair never spoke again, the trusting boards all washed to sea

In haunted footsteps, to the empty spot he still walked

Hearing laughter of the past, feeling bright pain of the present

Strangers sneered as he sadly sat on the unmarked grave

Some sympathized, not knowing he'd authored the destruction

But he knew

He knew the Shack By The Sea

We were cool on craze

Beyond the Living Light

In the wind, the Devil's breath...

Deified demon slams shut the cell door, asking, "Who wants to live? Who wants out?"

Anxious human hands stretch through barring bars, begging for release.

"Never!" laughs the demon. "Never to be free!"

Medieval stone sweats in ancient rot, the prisoners in a place long since standing.

The outside world moved on in ages past, seeking still life's glory.

Forgotten souls were they, doomed ever to live for the Devil's lacking.

Lying inept in darkness of yore, not a single ray of Living Light.

Like a fisherman scooping swindled souls, cut off were these floundering fools.

To the demon's domain whisks the wish for no love.


Time lasts not forever, but this time the demon's unbreakable own.

"Tell me your dreams! Tell me your talents so that I might tax them for my toilets!"

Clawing the sides of agonized cells, terminally trapped humans wail for their worth.

Faces turn grey in realized plight, flickering desires ghostly whispers in the night.

Back to the shores of slavery once shorn, the iron chain choking once more.

Bondaged bodies yoked to desires not their own, shackled thirsts die in the desert sun.

Toxic toiling seethes in fury of feeding the demon's despair.

"Speak ye of Heaven, speak ye of Hell, but this world is mine!"


In hope's mockery sit dignified demons of court, ruling against all appeals, decision final.

No hand stays the demon's hand, no heart holds it in check.

Pleasing prisoners plead prayers to the demon god, in words never heard.

Like lemons squeezed, bodies drag over burning coals to the humanoid scrap yard.

Thoughts of justice rob them of...

Thoughts of freedom rob them of...

Thoughts of love rob them of...

Defiant hands clutching bars in anger slowly melt into nothingness.

"Who are you?" taunts the knowing demon. "Who are you in the dark? Who are these children of God?"

All labors leading nowhere

The Last Five Questions Of Jesus

"What meaning truth?"

The intense throbbing pain never subsided, his energy bleeding unfettered into the universe - energy that would never be seen again. Floating out from him were dreams of paradise known and found, for his love had only grown brighter with time. His life had been one of mending walls and building bridges but now had come a time for washing all that away. There was a point to this?

"How can the truth not suffice?"

Mixed among the pain: confusion. Yes, he knew the sorrows of sin would always be though having never broken his own fidelity. But why sin in the first place? How can illusion win the day? Where is the reward in killing me? Can I do their living for them and life still have meaning? I can find no sense in any of this.

"Why make music for those without ears?"

His songs brought the joy of never-ending life. They danced in helpless bliss at the sound of his words, a healing light judging no man, cleansing dark hearts. Madly touched with desire and filled with frantic hope, crushing crowds followed the man from Galilee. But what of it now as they silenced his voice as a man who shutters sunshine from his home? Would they still kill him had he brought pain instead?

"How can love not be the Way?"

Who does not dream of it, hope for it, pray for it, live for it? Love rules all life from beginning to end, alpha and omega - no place stands outside of it. Who can not see to make love work? I led no one to the desert, only to life giving streams. Can hope be found elsewhere? Has anyone ever found death in love?

"Am I not you?"

A human of the human race? One who lives in the world's mercy by choice? Have I done any deed beyond what can be done? Is not my own fate tied to theirs? Must I not live my own life? Can my love live without also giving it? Why don't they stop this before it's too late? Soon, I will be able to do nothing to prevent their pain.


"Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

And unstoppable tears streamed down the face of Jesus, he loving them more than they could know, a giving soul to the end. Please, oh please let me help you!

And darkness came over the land until the ninth hour, for the sun had stopped shining. At the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And when Jesus cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and rocks split. When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and wailed, "Surely, this was the Son of God!"

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I'd love to turn you on (but I didn't)

High Plains Banker

He's one holy roller

He came rolling into town driving in Italian super suave style, an earthly god of spectacular virility and wealth. He had Rod Stewart hair and J Paul Getty disease. As his English custom shoes touched the ground, women competed bare-breasted to tie his Armani shoelaces. Men openly wailed in anguished jealousy and yet fearful rejection. Life would never be the same after the High Plains Banker stormed into town!

"Who are you??"

It was the one question no one dared ask him. After all, he was the Perfect Man, and what if he asked the same question of you, a lesser being? He pulled out his guitar, seducing them with songs of golden avarice and velvet ribs, fur-lined sinks and suicide sex on mountains of countless cash. "Baby, we were born to cum! Baby, we were born to fund!" In the end, no one really cared to ask him anything, they just knew his undeniable desires were their undeniable desires. To the High Plains Banker they could refuse no request - for his was a taking life worshiped from high to low.

Yes, the High Plains Banker wore his sunglasses a night - he saw the townspeople too well already. He himself had once been poor, working in a faceless fish factory with eyeless money guards and crippling crimes of the heart descended from a town who loved their god with all their heart and all their mind and all their soul. When they spoke, the blood of Jesus dripped from their tongues as they propagated His love for their misspent vanities. But this fisherman of souls claimed his worldly worth: a dreamer among zombies, a snapper of men's chains to kill the jackbooted joys of society's saboteurs.

Towering words of truth of the fisherman binded them with the light - and these ties they carelessly cut. Into the streets he was thrown, to proselytize to the dogs and cats and rats, for no human had ears. Wandering warlords of the street in fruitless hopes of ill-gotten glory and power-laden puke, chased him down every blind alley. "Pretty, pretty people we be!" Passing by in stolen Mercedes, believers of blight whipped the fisherman with god's own poverty, cackling as his speaking teeth dropped out and his healing heart dreamed ever fewer beats.

And for the fisherman's honor, no soul came walking in to hold the line. A Doubtless Decree was issued as Holy Law, giving its perpetrators godly goose bumps: "His is a death that must be, forever be and only be, so help us, god." For all of this time and any times after, this Holy Oath shall give a god's blessing of goodness. The last sounds of the fisherman were drowned by the victory clinks of crystal glassware and greed gone wild.

Until now...

Eyes on the prize?

The Banker's vengeful eyes sparkled in champagne reflections, weaving wealthy woe with plans to steal from the poor and give to the rich. Men of proud paper found erotic ecstasy in such rapacious wrath. "After all, unprized peasants would rip our horny plenty if they could!" And of those of worthless work, the Banker religioned a credo of savored slavery sold as salvation, an honest day's work for a dishonest pat on the hollowed head. "Oooh, you make greedy fun!" squealed the piggly classless. Puffing on a succumbing cigar, the High Plains Banker blew sarcastic smoke on their spellbound sins. "To hell's home for all!" And the hearing ears grew nearer.

Vampires of the day they'd be - for not even the exposing daylight can kill such wonderful wickedness! Hateful howls are the word as the knifing knives shear the sheep but who can hear when so powerfully possessed? "Save my life I'm going down for the last time!" - but not even its victims dare refute the universal love for the Doubtless Decree, from which all goodness flows. In guilt's guidance, fleeing sheep line up for the hangman's noose hoping fiduciary fidelity prove them worthy in the Banker's eyes. The Banker laughing spreads his wings, "There's no answer but my answer! There's no voice but my voice! There's no dream but my dream!"

Fanned by fault-finding fiends, the Banker hangs the relished relic of a dangling dollar over the side of a hard-hearted cliff. Seeing this, the comely cattle dive off head first hoping to grab electric boots and mohair suits. Even as death became them, the puzzled participants wondered how the drifting Banker held such a godly grip on their silent souls - serving the Banker even unto defeated death. "What are words for when no one listens at all?" Only during the certainty of the fateful fall of folly does telling truth will out: the banker's ways are a deliverance to doom, an illusion of life. Giving up on the demands of good dreams that must be dreamed, the "pretty, pretty people" design their own demise.

We Are Not A Serious People

Headed to the candidates' debate

This whole healthcare reform debate is a microcosm of our society as a (w)hole. A serious issue addressed in a non-serious way. All sorts of mindless assumptions and assertions are being made both for and against reform. And it's not really about bringing a competence to the situation but rather winning the argument. Winning arguments requires no accountability - so that's where the fun is in most people's eyes.

You can find some really detailed columns on reform, breaking down the nuances in a very serious tone of a 1,200 page proposal. Some others take stances of absolutes of either it's all good or all bad. We talk of compromise and pragmatism and the politics of it all. Mostly, we contort the situation to fit into whatever fantasy we like most. One thing I hear very little talk about is actual healing.

When Johnny breaks his arm, are we then going to sit around and yap about "compromise" and "pragmatism" and "politics"? Judging by our actions, the answer is yes. And who among us when sick wants to be taken to an insurance agent for healing? Judging by our attitudes, everyone. So who wants to talk about a solution that truly provides medical care to all? Judging by our words, nobody.

Be practical! Don't fix it till you find the profit!

And so it is when a silly people take on any issue of import: entertain us with suicide right on the stage. Tell us how the world is going to die and how you're going to prevent it. Tell me about your "insightful pragmatism" of how saving our environment is not economically feasible. Tell us there's a way to life without speaking the truth. Tell us we don't already know the answer.

Solutions That Do Not Solve® - never looking at the bottom line. It's all about the appearance of responsibility without actually taking any on. It's about making coherent, intelligent arguments that speak to the surface of a situation - but never question the fallacies of its foundations. It's not the words you say, but the conviction you say them with that counts. Bullshit, bombast and buffoonery hold sway in hearts that stand for nothing.

We are not a serious people. We are a silly people, a sad people, a sick people.

And I say this to you while sitting here buck naked, smoking a joint, with a raging boner and surfing the net for porn.

Behold your voice of reason

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Love, It Does A Body Good

"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore."

Dark, faceless warrior -
the 21st century human ideal

As a planet dies, so does the social fabric that holds it together. It has forever been man's folly to believe in the power and force of his will. Leni Riefenstahl understood this very clearly in her Nazi propaganda film "Triumph of the will". But it's not just Hitler who wanted his will to triumph over the world, there are many who follow in his footsteps to this day in one degree or another. In fact, I'd peg it at three out of every four. But that sort of bravado is short-lived in the time of the universe and at some point will vanish from the earth forever as we become one with said universe.

But the battle of wills is not one between man against man, but rather man against nature - a battle that cannot be won. We love to make defiant speeches and impassioned pleas that rally the crowds against what we perceive as nature's injustices. But that's sort of like leading a rally to make the earth flat. So until we realize our folly, war will be the norm and peace considered the insane. And the longer we war with our nature, the more it consumes us.

The siren of hysteria wails louder as we continue the hopeless struggle, drowning out words of reason - or compassion. It's not the man with the open heart we revere, but the man clad in black armor carrying the sniper's scope - for in him we see true salvation. "What would we do without him?" we ask. "His guns make us safe." Which makes a man of peace an implied threat to us all, one to despise and disdain - and ultimately to shoot. But I ask you, have you ever healed a broken heart with a cold, metallic gun?

Patton, the famous coward -
he'd risk his life but never his love

"For every boot of the booted warrior in the battle tumult,
"And cloak rolled in blood, will be for burning, fuel for the fire."

Another part of our social fabric disintegrating is that of our daily interdependence on one another. I read the story of a woman suing her university for not providing her with a job after she had completed her courses. It's a ridiculous case but her contention points to a larger issue: we all make a social contract with one another in order to survive. If we fail to honor that contract, then what have we? Any society at all? Are we nothing but bribed savages waiting to show our true faces?

If we say a job must be required for living, then it is incumbent to provide that job. You say I must earn my food, therefore you create a de facto contract to provide food if I'm willing to earn it. But it doesn't work that way. We play a game of musical chairs: we require everyone to have a chair to survive but the number of chairs always comes up short. What sort of insanity is that? We bribed savages look the other way as long as the bribe keeps coming - but we sing a different tune when all the chairs are taken and are left in the lurch. Some plan, that.

As the illusion of an economic social contract ever existing comes to light and we reveal ourselves as the every-man-for-himself savages we are, the more blatant is our disregard for the suffering of our fellow man. We instead turn to the hope of the triumph of the will, that each person can make it on his own, needing no one. This puts all the blame on those who die. But I ask you, does a dog-eat-dog world truly serve the common good?

In a savage world, one's morality
is determined by whether one lives or dies

"In that day I will also make a covenant for them
"With the beasts of the field,
"The birds of the sky
"And the creeping things of the ground.
"And I will abolish the bow, the sword and war from the land,
"And will make them lie down in safety."

It's the illusion of love, isn't it? Love is the only true social fabric, all else destined to tear. Let me describe to you a people whose fabric is disappearing: they are increasingly edgy, growing in fear and hate and desperation (and their music sucks). They withdraw from reality into blind bubbles, hoping against hope the truth will never find them. Their hearts and minds become closed and conservative, never trusting in themselves or the life provided to them. Sound like anyone you know?

Though we fight to make the earth flat, a dominion of our will molded as we see fit, the truth of its roundness resides in us still. And though we know the one human overriding desire is love, we fight against that as well, failing to build on the one rock destined to last. I can certainly say - and others will loudly chime in - I have not been one to honor love well. But love is the only game in town, so what choice have I but to make it work? When we were first put on this planet, it was a paradise. That dream still exists as well.

In the end, it's the inevitability of love. The triumph of love. That which is the illusion of love and that which is truly love will be revealed forever, a shining truth no one can hope to deny. Dreams will be admitted for what they are: realities of love yet to be, unforsakable as water to a body. Hope will lie in the joy of knowing we work in mutual cooperation, never ordained but never disdained. And the future will be that of a flower that lives forever, the beauty of growth and self-discovery, unlocking ourselves as the planted seed. I ask you, do you truly have faith in anything which is not love?

It will be the dawn of a New Beginning

"And the work of righteousness will be peace,
"And the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever."

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Terminator Damnation

Trust me, this is NOT where you want to end up in life

I'm in the parking lot of a cheap motel, the kind you only see on the edge of town, never on prime parcels. From long habit I've strategically placed myself with both an exit and a vantage point covering all incoming angles. Nighttime means nothing to the Terminator but it helps me feel safer with the cover of darkness. By virtue of my necessary positioning, I'm forced by the dumpster and the stench of its foul refuse forces me to tolerate it to the point I become one with it. How fitting considering the trash my life has become.

My hand shakes as I pour the nutrient powder into the half-filled glass of water. I don't try even try to stop it anymore after all these years. Especially after yesterday, having spotted the Terminator still on my trail of nineteen years. It's lone sentence to me echoes still in my disheartened ears: "Because I will never tire". Long ago, when the chase first started I asked it from the safety of the opposite bank of a river shore why it was so sure it would catch me. Its matter-of-fact reply has weighed on me ever since, dragging along like an increasingly weighted ball and chain.

Life on the run is the same as running from life. There's no settling down, looking to build a dream or start a home. Thoughts such as those are but a faint footprint on the shores of eroding sands of time. I can see the world, but never be a part of it. Sometimes when the cyborg was near, I mixed in with other human bodies to disguise my body heat from its infrared detectors. I can remember the smells of life and what old feelings it brought back and I wanted to stay with my planetoid compatriots in eternal harmony. But with a shameful Terminator on my trail, my place could never be among them - or anywhere.

In blackmail we trust

It's 1:31 AM, waking after two hours "sleep" spent tossing and turning in fitful dreams with the Terminator's unstoppable hands reaching around my neck to finally choke the life out of me once and for all. I can't get these visions out of my head! I have no safe place to run to. No human can help because only those chased by the cyborgs admit the cyborgs exist and thus only we know their true destructive power. It's a secret that even if told cannot be heard. Foolishly, I did try long ago, hoping to find reasonable ears but mine was a story no one wanted to hear - a story of a force of death unacceptable to human aspirations of vanity.

There's a yin and yang to the run, times when you almost believe you're safe and times when you believe the truth. It's times like now, having spotted it still on my trail with my very eyes that shatter any idea I can escape its relentless pursuit. Stomach pains like dancing demons with manic pitchforks stab me uncontrollably. Food turns to acid, rising up in my throat, boiled and churned in my frantic worry. Over and over I ask myself, "Where is safety?" but the answer never comes. I tried praying to God, I tried hating God, I tried ignoring God - but the Terminator is the god in this world and its say is final.

I'm withered now, my youth sacrificed in the chase. I was an idiot to challenge the Terminator and its worldly masters. Does any decision made in anger not bring regret? But how could I have not been angry? How could I have not resisted to live in a world insisting on chains? I thought I could be free on the run, never realizing the running brought its own set of chains. In small consolation I note at least these chains are of my own making and not theirs - but it was a fateful day I ran from the Overlords' domain with no real plans for survival.

The life unlived

Here I am again, helpless and alone in the world with no ties that bind - and no ties of support. Looking back, I can see provoking the Overlords' anger was unavoidable if I were to grow. But where was my love? I kept it chained in my heart as well, crying for freedom just as I do now. I refused to give in and too late I see that was my only path to freedom. No matter how unjust the fate of the Terminator may be - no matter how cruel or sick and even eventually self-defeating for its makers - I don't see how I can escape its fate while alone.

Do you know what it's like to never sleep in the same place twice? To have every footstep always be one of trespass on another's property? To look over your shoulder in every meal, knowing the distraction of eating could be fatal? I'm more alone than can be explained, it is for me alone to know - even if never completely understood. This life is all I know but surely there's a better way.

The Terminators were invented to control the people. We were not to be trusted to do the right thing - a suicidal belief shared even by us. So in our wisdom we silently allowed the making of the controlling cyborgs, a "necessary evil" we vainly hoped. But whether for better or worse, all living things must grow and we found ourselves consumed with an insatiable need for more and more of the machines to keep our way of life going. Those still comfortable remain stubbornly blind, clinging yet to the religion of Terminator salvation - but it's not hard to see where it's going to lead us.

Dawning of the true force of the Terminators

I see billions of humanoid skulls stacked as mounds in a landfill, the pseudo-sight of the Terminators undistinguishing between man, woman and child as eyeless drones slaughter the helpless humans. Fires will blot the sky in oily smoke to poison human breath. Rage will overflow into the streets decrying a death already chosen yet only then coming to fruition. The folly of human power will collapse in on itself in a dearth of love or compassion. As it's happening, the words "It must be this way, there is no other way" will be spoken and agreed to and the Terminator beasts hailed in last ditch desperation and fear. These things will happen because we said they could never happen - allowing us in our minds to then engender it.

What have I done? Betrayed by own mad hand yet again, pouring poison into the well of love. Only a deceived soul could do such a thing. The nightmare began with a lack of self-trust so maybe that's how it will end. Those who can trust themselves will survive, those who can not will not. We will see in the end whose decisions can be trusted. What is the path to self-trust? I do not know first hand, I see it only in my art. Like the cyborgs, I'm missing a vital human component. Maybe that's why we secretly built them: as one gigantic expression of our inner selves.

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"If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints."
Revelation 13:9-10