whimper and roar

silence,
having wrapt
itself tight
around
a closed book
and growing
outward
envelops
the entire room,
ceasing
the mind
of the
erstwhile
reader.

my dear,
there is
here
nothing
you could
hear
that you
do not already know.

...and why not

a lot has been going on for me lately, from the large (going back to school), to the small-ish (just doing my thing, settling back into quite simply being me), and it feels to be adding up in some never-ending math equation to something i am quite happy with. to even attempt to articulate how i have been feeling the past few months would be a moot point since i no longer feel those ways, but being as there is no time like the present, i will share a bit of how i feel as i sit in a computer lab on Temple University's main campus at 3:26, september 14, 2009.

- my birthday was last weekend and, although i woke up the next day to a not-yet-eradicated cold, i had a great day. beginning at midnight with the final hours of a marathon hang with my boys Brian Dwyer and CVA, i enjoyed a salmon dinner and some beers. sleep ensued, followed by coffee with my dear friend Marlee and her magical daughter Olivia in the morning, lunch with great friend/roommate extraordinaire Michael Heneghan, a birthday Boh and some episodes of Deadwood. the low-key afternoon was followed by a delicious dinner prepared for me by my best friend Kim Hall and her wonderful boyfriend and the evening culminated in my (at this point usual) gathering of whoever does not yet have plans on my birthday. a good crew of folks although it was interesting to note that none of my core was in attendence (more on them later). not bummed in the least by this, but thankful to see those that came by, i enjoyed a very relaxed and pleasant end amongst friends...a perfect end to a day that was composed of this spirit throughout.

- the general settling down of my life into fewer people that i feel truly close to is a process that began probably a year and a half ago, with my conscious brain kicking and screaming against letting go of anyone that meant a lot to me at the time. through the joys of psychotherapy and personal work, a natural trend began to emerge and i find myself currently caring about many but trusting/sharing/sticking with only a few (which i have historically referred to as 'my core'). this distillation of those that i open myself up to enough to hurt me has been beneficial for me in so many ways and, given the aforementioned birthday, i feel like more of an adult in realized that I am viewing my place in the world on a smaller and more manageable scale.

- being back in school has been a trip. since the planning on this originally began in July 2008 (thwarted by my missing the deadline for FAFSA registration), it has been a long road since I last attended university in spring 2004, and reining my brain back in to the focused paradigm of learning what/as i am taught (as opposed to just thinking in however large/abstract/wrong ways i do when left to my own devices) is still not complete but i am settling back in pretty nicely. the entire process of getting my ducks in a row to be back here found me walking to Temple on numerous hot summer days, waiting for hours to sit down and talk to many different people about my re-enrollment, and even beginning classes 2 weeks ago not fully knowing if my financial aid was all set up the way it should be (i still have not received my financial aid money, which was supposed to show up in my account last week...i suppose i should speak to someone about this). all told it has been good so far, and i am glad to be back in classes, pursuing something, even if it is that piece of paper i so vilified upon my departure from college some 5 years ago. lesson learned: to have a goal and work towards it has generative merits and proves to oneself not only what one is capable of achieving but THAT they are. one encouraging thing about getting back into school was that, upon entering the hallway on my first day heading to my first class I saw my friend Brooke, asked her what class she had and she said 'Intro to Lit'. thus I re-began my schooling with a friend to sit next too. it was (not-so-)strangely comforting and reminded me that, while I am back in school for myself, I am not alone and I know many others on a similar path. Also, i transferred out of the one class i was particularly NOT excited about into a class with Joshua Grace, so that is/has been awesome. I am nervous to get the first paper that i turned in back, but we will cross that river when we come to it which is, i think, in 20 minutes. [note of bummer: i slept through my first class of the day today and missed a quiz...Brooke said it was really hard so i don't even know how i would have done. alas.]

- being free of and moving past things that have been heavy on my mind and heart the past few months came with less effort than i thought they would take, but did involve a lot of letting go and trusting God (which I, admittedly, am not very great at). however, the peace and re-focus that has come back into my life in quite simply being myself has been a great re-awakening. many things that I want to do/be are occurring very naturally and the whole world is still turning as it does. sure, there are some things i still feel to be lacking but i am not reading this in the self-deprecating way I have for most of my life, but quite simply that I currently have the time and context to focus on being me, doing my thing, being in school, and preparing for that which comes next. I cannot express how grateful I am to my friends that have been with me through this...they certainly know who they are, so here it is in all its cyberspace sincerity: thank you all. i love you. (i think you already know this.)

anyway, there is a general update in case you wanted to know.

a poem about someone else

after birth, he came home
to the house he would live in
for just shy of twenty years.
in that time,
the natural course
of everyone occurred,
to him as it does
to others -
innocence.childhood.
friends.adolescence.
pets.change.

knowing something was off,
something not quite in line
with what he wanted -
'and shouldn't everyone get
what they want?' -
he left,
away from the ever-shrinking pond,
in reality the third
largest city
in the third
most populous state
in 'this great union',
he would not recognize
the shrinking
was the result of myriad actions,
opportunities, relationships,
what could simply be reduced to

his life up til then.

off he moved to the city
whose very definition
hardly describes how life
is lived there,
yet in this place
he found himself a home.
as any home that has ever been,
it has change with time,
it's character
developing
with little consideration
for his desires -
'and shouldn't everyone
get what
they want?'

the tension was no less
six years upon making
this place his home,
and his greatest fear
was a cliche:

'the only constant is change.'
how does a man get used to this life?

It's something in the air...maybe rain?

((Everything is always a work in progress that I will probably never return to. I'll stay some sort of faux-blog personal poetry purist until I go back to school and the 20-year-olds go over my pieces with a fine-toothed comb))

Some days the city
speaks plainly and honestly,
but the wind carries it away
before anyone has the chance
to take a step closer.
The shame is that so many
are used to the volume
of PAs in bars,
drowning out conversation
causing a requisite
twenty-to-thirty
'what did you say?'s
per interaction
therin.

Morning will break each
day around 6:28
with a diminishing number
of bird-songs,
sunrise-watchers,
and night-shifters,
rendering the budding trees
and lonely trains
agitated and insecure.

This place has it's lovers, too,
imbued with the spirit of the streets,
row homes, gestating condos,
blocks called 'parks'.
The cliches that cover
this small corner of a state
choke out the romance,
choked it out before it began
and left its inhabitants
(at least this one)
better off
than the citizens
of such bully and prom-king
cities as

why bother,
you've already heard.


And everyone knows
this isn't New York.
Most of them
don't seem to mind.

can't you tell? - an exercise

He left the house still smelling of the gas from the stove where he stood for 20 minutes attempting, unsuccessfully, to make eggs over-easy for breakfast. At least he hadn't failed at the alchemical process of turning ordinary white bread into 'toast'. He fumbled for his keys as he closed the already-locked-door behind him. This had become a measure of comfort for him ever since last week when he left his keys on the little hook by the door for the third time since moving in the previous month.
The pretty girl from down the street was walking her dog again. It seemed to be some sort of beagle-mix, and he shivered violently at the thought of his childhood dog Marty biting his leg which lay too close to the dog carelessly abusing a chew toy. It wasn't Marty's fault exactly, but it still required 5 stitches. Marty was a beagle.
Mustering a wave to the pretty girl at the same time he began choking on his toast, he turned away before he noticed whether or not she waved back. She usually did, but then again he usually wasn't in a coughing fit. Embarrassed by this foiled effort towards neighborly civility (mixed with an undeniable hope in future flirting - chatting, number-exchanging, etc.), he threw the crust of the toast down on the driveway and removed an empty hand from his jacket pocket.
Time number four.

introductions

these poems are for S.H. and L.C.

In A Poem

my friends are buying houses
to give their roots a place,
my friends ask if I'll visit soon
so they won't forget my face

my friends have joined the army
to fight for all our rights,
my friends are moving on
to sunny days and warmer nights

my friends are having twins
in roughly six months time,
my friends have died a thousand deaths
while I only die to rhyme

my friends have gone before me
and left me in their wake,
my friends have told me it's ok
to ever make mistakes

and my friends ask me how I'm doing,
the ones I see each day,
and, wondering when
they'll end up in a poem,
I don't always know what to say.


Going Deaf

the weight was heavier than
it had been in my younger years
so I prayed to God
to help me lift it.
days later, it wasn't
any lighter
so i prayed louder,
hoping to hear something
if it wasn't going to feel
a different.
still nothing,
then I wondered -
am I just getting old?

a response to the Philly Weekly front page

I was having a conversation with Mike Heneghan after we has both read the PW cover story this week and agreed it was not what it could have been, as the parlance of our times would have it, 'it was what it was'. We agreed that while Wells' writing had an obvious bent to it - look no further than his explanation of his plight in conversation with Aaron, found in the third section of the article - the weakness of the article was that it seemed simply observational. The attention-grabbing introduction just below the title of the article (i looked all over for what this would be properly called and could not find the name anywhere...I need to take a journalism class) prime one for an analysis of what is going on in the city of Philadelphia regarding the counter-cultural church movement, but Wells seems content to merely observe the people who make up this subculture with his own lens and define things first as they seem or are described to him, then apologize with his own opinion, then say something clever like: it all depends on how you look at it. Journalism this is not, and while it was nice to read about some of our friends and see our church mentioned in a widely-read free publication, Wells really missed the opporunity to cover things going on in the city in favor a tell-what-I've-seen-as-the-outsider/foil approach. Admittedly, this probably rubs me the wrong way because I know that there is more going on than what appears to be (and, in all reality, is) happening on the surface of our 'annoyingly self-righteous Christian hipster' movement. I would be curious what questions Wells asked Joshua and Shane, not to mention more context to some of the quotes he used from members of the mewithoutYou camp. Throughout the article, I felt that Wells only used any provocative or edgy language as a means to laugh at the idea of turning the other cheek, some sort of confused, ironic way of not believing anything he was actually saying himself, more the post-modern game of I-will-tear-down-what-you-think-or-believe-without-actually-bringing-a-rational-argument-against-it that so many people seem content to play. All in all, the piece didn't upset me or make me proud to be a part of this thing, didn't really make me feel anything at all. I read what I would have assumed somebody of Wells' ilk would write after spending an agenda-driven amount of time with people that challenge their worldview, a puff piece which says, "we really aren't so different, Christians and atheists, but Christians sure aren't as great or different as they think they are". This isn't injustice or persecution, it's the world we live in: it's blogging on paper.

Knowing that this is the way many people view Circle of Hope (and Circle Frankford-Norris especially) is a frustration, but my prayer is that people would be open to us being who we are, in the same way that we are trying to be open and welcoming to who they are.