surprise snow

it's beautiful here when it snows. the ice and snow fill all the empty spaces with a glittering carpet. it gets caught in my hair and drops of water form on my glasses, turning every light into a squirming kaleidoscope of color. there's a steady sound, as if thousands of ghostly hands are tapping out long letters to people they miss on thousands of tiny toy typewriters, broken only by the occasional hiss of a lonely car on colorado blvd.

i went up onto the roof to smoke a cigarette but now that i'm up here, i don't know what i'm doing. i'm enjoying the beautiful snow as it blows all around me and the tobacco in my hand is a familiar friend. my only regret is that i have no one at 3:30 in the morning to enjoy this with; there is no laughter bouncing between two souls, no warm familiar face to gaze into, and no one to make this tumbling snow globe of a night into a memory.

i am comforted by the thought of home. i'm going there very soon and things will happen. perhaps i will arrive a stranger like a draft in an old home. or maybe a great host of angelic faces will greet me at the borderline. no matter what the reception is like, i expect to discover more about myself and the next turn in this road i'm on.

my heart is tired and i hope that this time away from the maze of faces in denver will help it slow down and burn for what is good and true. there's a lot of potential in the summer for healthy personal growth. i want to spend it with the people that i love, and the people that i love are the ones planting gardens, sharing good food and wine, making beautiful things with their hands and minds, or biking everywhere at all hours of the day and night.

i will see my dad this week. i will see my mom, and even my honorary sister. i miss my brother and might try to see him before i hitch a ride out of town. i really want to spend more time with him and his fiance' but i'm not sure how easily or naturally that will happen. he's terribly busy with a lot of projects and meetings, not to mention a quickly approaching wedding. i'm proud of his tenacity and gumption but do not envy his daily routine. he get's up at the crack of dawn more that most farmers do, and he's surgically attached to a blackberry. tis the life of a modern day minister.

snow is no longer drifting past the window and the wet footprints i left on the wooden kitchen floor are almost completely gone. i am tired and have some things to pack up for this trip out to kansas city. after that it's one more cigarette up on the roof and then straight to bed!

divine inspiration

i see the promise of death in every inch of your beauty. the sweet fruit of your flesh hangs low on the branch. triumphant and trembling, your thin skin holds a deeply drawn design. i can only imagine it's as sweet as it is dark. burning a fiery red, your hair mirrors my desire for you and what i'm sure will be the color of the flames in hell.

the philistine's bane told me he sees the same thing every day. told me he could pick your fruit very easily if he wanted to. i couldn't get any of the words out at the time, but i wanted to shout, "stay away from her if you can! she'll remain on your lips and tugging at your gut forever"

i feel a tug on my sleeve; i turn to see my best man digging a grave. he bums a smoke from me, lights it, and then asks, "but aren't you still looking upon the tree's fruit with fear? this is a pleasure unlike any other, this amber prize! even YOU do not know her sting; not YET at least."

curling up in my pew, i clutch the wooden arm rest, for i would surely float away if it were not there. i turn my eyes slowly, a rusted door hinge back to the front of the sanctuary. my voice escapes violently and sounds strangely like a falling missile. "i grOW more hesITAnt to APPRoaCH thEM, thE mORE THEy APPEAR. i've always been told to chop them down but they keep springing up."

"what if you only kept the ones that grew closest to your window?" a stream of hot acid from the black mouth of romance boils in my ear. "you're always crawling back to the comfortable roots of those dead trees"

i would kick her out if she didn't pay most of the rent, so i patiently reply, "they have ceased to feed me but stand as monuments to my failure...if they were gone, i might forget it all." i watched the window pane shake with the invisible force of the spirit. it blows the few remaining dry leaves off the brittle branches and across the pulpit that stands in the corner. there stands the foreman, in his clean white suit, pointing a fat finger at me.

"take all of that dry memorabilia and burn it, you fool! it's useless nostalgic rubbish, all of it! if you throw yourself on the fire you might even be refined by its flame."

i cannot do anything with these characters shouting in my ear.

what can i do? they're no longer here to help me...

so i walk up to you; the cursed fruit with the skin and the hair and the fiery core, and i take the first bite.