Stars

You asked me what I thought of when you said stars,

I said,

Switchfoot "When I look at the stars I feel like myself

When I look at the stars I see someone else."

Fun "When I see stars, when I see stars that's all they are..."

He's like having a crisis of faith, losing his faith.

David Crowder has a sort of worship song,
"You should see the stars at night..."  It's a really

Beautiful song too.

When I think of the stars I think about my mom and her

birthday the Perseids always peak around then one time in Cantonment

We sat out in the field with the T's and I was running for something

But we all saw it, some blasted piece of comet skipping across the sky

Leaving a blue flame before it burst in two and exploded. 

I think about my Father and when we camped with my brother on Mount Hood and

he was busy fiddling with the packs while my brother and I watched the sky turn day-bright with

a passing rock, dad's shadow fell on our sleeping bags, but he didn't even notice,

and we were stupefied that how he could've missed something so bright.

I think about my sister and how she got bit by a raccoon because my dad was feeding

The raccoons regularly even bought a dozen goldfish for the fountain on the back deck

And in the morning all but one scared timid fish was gone, anyway,

She loved those stars, and a raccoon bit her and she had to get rabies shots,

Running in Mexico beneath the stars was beautiful, and I needed it, but STUPID dogs,

I didn't get a rabies shot, but it's been six months now so I think I’m not dying.

I wrote a set of poems called "Wander the stars" about how when I die, I just hope that God lets me go wander through his art gallery, that if he’d let me look around through the galaxies and quasars that'd be awful swell...tell you what God, you let me do that, I'll write you some real poetry.  My Father's not the poetic type, he was a Major in the US Marines but one night I remember I was out back with my bare feet feeling the cracks in the paving stones like I always felt when I talked to Bethany and he came out and I asked him if God would let us, if he'd wander the stars with me, and he said he would, and well, I think of all the things a dad could do for a boy, that one was awful swell.

Remembering how I wrote those poems makes me miss something.  When I used to look up I used to lose my breath.  I remember in Ensenada Kyle and I spent a whole worship service not paying attention, we were just looking up and talking to each other about how beautiful the stars were, about how awesome it was that God made them.  I like that, I think that was one of the only real worship services I've ever participated in.  The thing is, near the coast, the marine layer and the humidity clouds the stars and it's hard to appreciate when you're used to Arizona or the Mountains...in Payson we'd sleep out on our grandparents' back porch and we'd count satellites, saying we'd have to see 10 or 20 before we went to sleep that night.  One time we slept out Kate got bit by so many mosquitos we thought she had chicken pox.  But the stars were worth it.

Now I spend much more time with the computer screen, and it seems like everything I was and had is something that I'm missing.  The stars' lost sheen, God's night air breath inside of me, Bethany's voice next to my well-worn pacing feet.  On the worst day of my life I looked up and desperately asked God if he would let me talk to her, just for a few minutes.  It was the end of my rope, and a hurricane had knocked all the cell towers out.  So a star blazed across in front of me and after that my phone got signal for ten minutes, and if that didn't save my life, it certainly let me know You're there and well, probably saved my parents the heartache of searching for a runaway.

The stars are like poetry, I've been running from them, I've been running from me, I don't know, they're just stars right??  Destiny is scary, love and heart scare me, poetry scares me, and the stars might be far away but they're ablaze and although I'd like to swim through them they would destroy me completely.

Last August my parents and I went out to the beach at about midnight for the Perseids, I fell asleep pretty quick but I saw seven or eight, I was sitting there wishing you would be there with me, that I could feel breath at my cheek, I fell asleep daydreaming.  We went to Giruliai a fateful evening later the next week...but no stars and an open car door almost took my head off, anyway, I wanted to say thanks, because tonight, even though I haven't left the building, the stars are burning brightly, you helped me see, you helped me sing.

 

Poet Boy

Poet boy,

You get your ass in gear and get going,

You won't have many days like today,

When you feel that fire in your belly,

Don't put out the wind,

Ya gotta write, or you’re gonna die.

You only get so many,

So many star-filled nights where the air

Fills you like a racing hot air balloon

Only so many shooting stars

And only so many of her soft smiles,

Before that pen of yours is no more.

And there will be plenty of days to get your work done,

Plenty of movie-watching days,

Put together that blog, and do your lesson plans,

Plenty of days where that soft mind of yours

Will lazily pick the path of least resistance

Speaking three languages, you've half a start in four more,

But poetry is the one that you've worked the hardest for,

And boy if you don't claim that bride of yours,

She's gonna leave you fast,

If you don't breathe this stuff, your stuff won't last,

So get it out, exhale while you still remember the words,

Exhale before you exhale no more.

food dye 473

her body reacts to something...we don’t know

what it is, but it makes her flinch,

it’s comic almost, tragic, she can’t control it,

sometimes she can’t sleep.

my friend’s mom, she got headaches for years,

until she realized it was msg.

my new friend, they gave her medicine, it stripped her

stomach, we went out and she couldn’t eat.

my friends warn me about eating the plants i pass on the street,

and perhaps, with the cars and feces and other stretch marks of

humanity, they’re onto something, but somehow i think, perhaps

it wasn’t so bad, to taste the trees,

rather than wondering what side effects,

might come from food dye 473.

Greensleeves

I don’t want your dollar sign,

I’ve travelled halfway around the world, trying

to get the smell of green weave off of my hands.

When I pass the trees, I try to rub as many leaves

as I can, sometimes, I pick up stones, just to feel

the grit on my hands, because the clean I can’t take

how clean everything is.   And inside is dirty.  This world is a hypocrite,

the lights telling you it’s always daytime when it’s not,

the straight roads trying to deny the interwoven textures of

God as patched onto dirt and rocks you’re sexy but you’ve got

so much so much makeup,

I’m not sure what’s you and what’s made up,

Your face is a pyramid scheme, your conscious clothing,

Trying to please,

Like a politician, please, plastic surgery, they act like the world

needs plastic surgery, straighten it out with concrete and golf greens

I think I need to climb up a tree and read like I did as a boy

When the purple “glue flowers” fell from the tree,

And I feel I’m stuck, I feel I’m sticking,

A needle carving the same vein old repeat,

My profane livéd liturgy.

You need to understand I will never be your prince or saint,

You can think what you want, but you can’t think that about me,

Sure, with a flash bulb and maybe some paint you could erase

the pimples and lines on my hands and face,

But that picture would only do me disgrace,
I’m a man, please don’t forget that,
I’m a man trying to be a boy again,

A boy trying to convince someone he’s a man.