When I Was Skating On The Thinnest Of Ice (just before it cracked)


I looked to the western sky at sundown and I saw it as the Canvas of God.

I stared into the deep infinity of the night sky and imagined every star a pin-prick in the fabric of the black horizon, offering tiny glimpses of the Light on the other side.

I came to realize that heaven was to be found in the moments after sleep consumes the intellect and just before dreams tease the spirit.

I feared inner peace and sought distraction to the point where distraction took the place of inner peace, and I was content with it.

I sought to deny myself thoughts, beliefs, experiences…to sacrifice them to a code I thought prohibited them.

I tried to do the right thing when most of the time I hadn't a clue what the right thing was. I learned that "the right thing" has more to do with luck than any result of good motives.

I celebrated diversity and sought to tear down the walls of intolerance. I firmly believed that you should do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

In regards to how others lead their own lives I added this amendment" "Mind thy own business".

I closed my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love darkness.

I opened my eyes and thought "This is all there will ever be". And so I taught myself to love light.

A guru led me into a place within myself that was neither light nor darkness and he told me "This is all there will ever be". He told me that if I wished to find it again I must empty myself and surrender to the Supersoul. It was then that I realized I knew nothing.

I wanted to be a philosopher. I wanted to be a priest. I wanted to be a hero. I wanted to be a famous rock star. I wanted to be a mentor. I wanted to be a scholar. I wanted to be a Marine. I wanted to be a champion. I wanted a lot of things. Too many things.

I listened to a great man's words…."You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need." And so I tried.

I noticed that the numbers on calendars never went backwards.

One morning I saw a storm brewing in the eastern sky and I gave God a high five.

I was told that "good things come to those who wait"…I'm still waiting to see if that's true.

I willingly lost myself in the dreams of others, then felt used and manipulated when the credits began to roll.

I satisfied my soul with poet's nonsense.

I was content with someone else's song.

Memories kept me from believing that all the things I thought were real were vapors all along.

I spent all my life searching for the meanings of some things I was never meant to know.

A strange thing, that the more I really loved someone the less inclined I was to tell them how much. As if "they should know by now" was good enough." Many were the times such logic turned against me and proved me an idiot.

I proposed that loving someone grants them entrance into your heart, where they will dwell until the day you die. I like to think that, of all the foolish notions I've entertained, this one is an unshakeable truth.

in REPEAT mode REPEAT mode REPEAT


Whenever I hear that song I'll get a lump in my throat
The size of a grapefruit
It will be your voice I hear gliding through the melodies
In my mind's eye I won't try to hide
Your head tilting back with the high notes
Your own eyes closed, squinting, holding back
A look of pure ecstasy and passion deep as any
Union remembered or forgotten
You sing and you make the song your own
So it is your own and I would not take it from you
Even if I could
Even if I wanted to

The sound drowns and I won't turn it down
It fills the room to overflowing
I fall back into your favorite chair and watch
You skim the waves
I color the empty space blue to give you something to sink into
When you fall
Sinking as the noise subsides
Reaching for my lifeguard arms
With the first line of the second chorus
I pull you down and draw you near
Ease you into your favorite chair
You won't mind, we can share

I've got the song in "repeat" mode and it's played 6 times now
Every single spin my head begins to swim
Doesn't get old, just sinks in deeper
A knife, a nail, sharp enough but painless
It's just a needle for my weakest vein
Injects the feeling I had the very first time I heard it
The first time I saw you hold a microphone to your mouth
Saw you move to and fro to the beat of the music
Already lost, five minutes and nine seconds out of time and space
All of the world's existentialist quandaries forgotten and powerless
You took me with you
Or more like you let me follow, by the tail, hold on for dear life
Knowing that when we burst through the other side
The words and music would be branded into our brains

I could leave it on "repeat" all night long
It never gets old

Still, the next song on this playlist is awesome
You really should hear it

VIEW FROM A KEYHOLE

I see you hiding beneath
Old shirts and memories
Dirty jeans and worn-out shoes
That have walked a saddening mile
Weakest armour of cloth
Ripped and torn by cruel adolescence
Cursed with hate or blessed with indifference
I see you in there


Surrounded by toys
Some broken, unneeded
I see you and I know that you want to play with them
But time seems to have withdrawn permission
Or maybe you're frightened
Of how happy they once made you
Reluctantly believing they will never again make you smile or laugh
For they have become little more than fodder for the garbage heap
You find yourself beneath


On the other side of the locked door
I bend to peek through the keyhole
Expecting no more than shadows on the wall
But I see you


I've watched you walk in...
(you didn't know I was there...sorry)
...and it broke my heart
To see how swiftly you ran to the door
To behold the look of relief on your face
That broke up and melted the death mask of grief
Saved by grace
When you stepped in and turned the lock
A beaten veteran getting off a plane, whose salvation is the tarmac beneath him
You kiss the dirty carpet and call this place "home"


"How can a man be born when he is old?
can he enter the second time
into his mother's womb, and be born?"
Behind a locked door
You found the answer
Discerning flesh from flesh and spirit from Spirit
From the crowded confines of your mother's womb


I wanted so badly to see the look on your face when you emerged
Refreshed and ready to battle demons
Or downcast, crestfallen for another day
It would have been worth the waiting hours to bear witness
To the power of this basement haven
Alas, sleep was not as curious
I could not risk your discovering me
Where I was not meant to be
Fallen from my hands and knees
Best to settle for forbidden glimpses through a keyhole
Best you didn't know I'd stolen a tiny part of your soul


I see you there, hiding from the light
Books on shelves half read or dog-eared to the very ends
A hardback Bible, the binding cracked, it's pages would spill out on the floor if not for your curiosity
66 books held tightly in your grasp to hold them together
In order
Camus, King...Baldwin, Irving...tattered paperback
Koran, Augustine...Srimad Bhagavatam, L. Ron Hubbard...sturdy hardback, spines still cracking
Barnes & Noble books unnaturally pinched between mold smelling garage sale bargains and bulky Salvation Army bookends (Webster's Dictionary, Complete Works of Shakespeare, Bullfinch's Mythology, Asimov's Chronology of Science & Technology...anything thick and sturdy enough to squeeze in a row of lesser volumes)
I see all those books but I don't see you reading them
Still, I don't wonder why they are there


I only wonder of you
Why you lie like a skeleton
Beneath piles of junk


I only wonder how
You find comfort there
And not in the arms of the ones who love you