Oswalt

Stoned


The going rate for going broke
With wide-eyed stares in curling smoke
And graveyard shifts in drowner's moats
Only keeping in the desperate.
Our feet are bound by twisted sheets
Soaked with artificial heat
Damp with manifested bleats
For death, for dawn, for drifting.
Harnessed in our fabric gallows
Hands sniffing out every shallow
Flicker, jaundiced lungs are sallow
Yet awake, flirting with destiny.
Garden handcuffs, fly-trap stains
Flowers decked with wistful chains
Petals laced with acid rain
Sifting across our compass,
Plucked and sown in sleeting spar
Picked and strewn in melodic bar
A fleeting wish on green-stemmed star
And we watch it float away.

We've Never Done Nothing, How Can We Be Something?

Contrivances


They said she said he said that
We said somebody said something
Passed along in sidelong whispers
Perceptions, rumors . . . flings
Shoulder to shoulder . . . tap, touch, tap
Fibonacci patterns code
Hand to fingers, nose to nose
Exchanged, inhaling gossip.
Chew then swallowing the rap
Drinking the isotope connect
Becoming caricatures
Of ourselves, straw people
In straw houses of sand, assured
Of mutually contrived
Misrepresentation derived
From deaf certainty, demurred
The ambiguous, amorphous sheaf
The collective teeming masses
Breathing sighs of blind relief.

Farsighted

Paper Bags

Hell's high-water mark is nigh upon us
Upon our knees, our bones . . . our souls
There upon the cash-strapped tree
Stripped of whatever dignity
We thought our right to own.
The slow decay of bramble
Into human ash
A world of fire.
Our collective work redundant
Mere mockery of complacency
Incapable of even that, fingers pant
Fulfillment.
And all creation groans in wait
A crown of incapacitation
Upon our feet, where higher wattage bows
To mere conductors, pianos of the mind
Strings and sound and triumph's score
                          Swelling inconsistencies.
The re-warmed brooks no reduction
Forever fleet of heart
And the original scopes the ceiling's fade
                        Arches loft the dead seduction
The quest to deny the wonder.

Tequila

Somewhere There's Rice in Her Hair


At the dark side of noon
Roiling, roiling, toiling
Perfection feels like failure
Faith is just an easy sell
Attraction reeks of hate
Above a cresting dell
Toiling, teething, seething
Cut our gums on milk and wine
To mask the taste of brine
Inane, terrain, indiff'rence.
Vacuums filled with substance
Ignorance feels like need
But fatal marks a diff'rent breed
Sliding, grinding, leeching
Just at honesty's impeaching
Love looks much like absence,
And damning with faint praise,
With browner grass to graze.
Salvation seems surrender's tell
Sometimes grace burns like hell.

Jesus

Jesus.

The word is obscene regardless of context. Those who use it as profanity offend those who use it religiously. Those who use it religiously offend those who it casually. It never ends.

Who is He?

What did He actually come to do?

Ask a self-proclaimed evangelical and you will usually get either a cliche, a slogan, or a long-winded response that ultimately is similar to "cow spit". Jesus did this theological act. He did this soteriological act. He freed us from this particular sin, that particular struggle, etc. He came to establish particular redemption for His glory (by the way, if anyone actually knows what the hell that means in real life, let me know).

Exactly.

Wrong.

You see, the real genius, the true brilliance of Jesus is that He came teaching a new application of old truths. He didn't come establishing new doctrines left and right. He came applying old doctrines to new life, using old doctrines to create new life.

He did not come to introduce a new religion. He didn't come to save us from particular sins, from general ideas or improper doctrines. No.

He came to do what nothing else could do, what no one else could accomplish.

Any religion, properly applied, can free a person from greed. Any religion, properly applied, can free a person from pornography. Disease can render certain sins impossible. Injury can render certain sins impossible. Surgery can render certain sins impossible. Any religion can fix the particulars, can change general ideas. Any religion can establish, enforce and manipulate doctrines.

But only Jesus can save us from ourselves.

Only the love of Jesus is capable of freeing us from fixating on ourselves, from being our every waking thought, our only true worship, our only waking desire. Only Jesus is capable of letting us see life beyond ourselves. Only Jesus is capable of freeing us from the mindset that we are the most important thing.

Only Jesus can save us from our need to save the world.

From our need to always be right, always correct, always certain.

If we are always right, then He is not. If we are all-knowing, then He is not. It is the nature of Truth. Either we can be the truly Great One, or He can - but never both.

Certainty in life is not the perfection of faith - it is the absence of faith.

This is the beauty and brilliance of what Jesus did. He saved us from ourselves by saving us from needing to be the Savior. He saved us from ourselves by freeing us from the burden of having to be absolutely certain, absolutely correct and instead He allows us to trust, to rest, and to believe.

That is the true measure or grace and redemption - they are always bigger than the scope of our imagination. They are bigger than what we can fathom. They are limitless.

And this is what Jesus did that nothing else could do. No matter how far we extend ourselves to assert our dominance, no matter how far we retreat within ourselves to preserve ourselves - He is there. Grace extends beyond the boundaries of our capabilities.

It surrounds us, hems us in from every side, isolates us from ourselves, and removes us from ourselves replacing us with the person we always thought we were and hoped we would be. A person who looks a lot like Jesus.

And that is what no one else could do, no other religion could accomplish - the redemption of the self. The newness of all things.

Jesus came to save us from ourselves, because no other Savior could.

Clock Tower

Clock Tower

We are clockwork
Carefully measured deconstruction
Inextricable
Mostly inconsequential . . . with perks,
But occasionally lights and sound
Combine to Morse the message
Embedded in a subculture
The stoned have yet to drown.
Noise without frame of reference
Beauty lacking footnotes
And depth less its citations
Gold, myrrh and frankincense . . .
Lights, sound and clockwork
And insubstantial meanings
Pain with transitive verbs
The promise lingers, the forgotten lurks
At the periphery of flatlined
When the effervescent clicking stops,
The memory burns both white and red
And only death can read the signs.
Lights and sound and clockwork.
Lights. And sound. And shame.

Moon and Whiskey

Black Hole Supernova

Cracks and fissures form, colliding
From the expanding contraction
In the heating and cooling of a blush.
Someday the somber drains away
To find another's face to flush
In reprimand, remorse, or glee.
Beneath the flash of melancholy
Mischief flutters pretty eyes
Every time you "loved" me . . . lies
Pupils sliding down and left
While my face wore a lover's smile
Not that you would glance to see it,
Chance to meet it on a dare
A chill falters through the air
Daily severing the human . . .
Confronting who we are
But not enough to chafe the mind.
Shackled by grandeur's hubris
While squalor lurks behind the blinds
And after shocks contorting grace
To form tomorrow's about face
A black holed supernova.

We Are the Ocean

We Are the Ocean

We are untamed violence with a poet's soul
Insurmountable potential in a harlot's bed
A seamless garment of fractured wholes
Unassailable in our disbelieving faith
Light and dark are the fire and ice in our veins
Contracting and recycling our breath
Forging and remembering the strains
Of the refining song the Singer sang
To purify our ash out of nothing.
The singer blinks above the deep
And pauses draft across the sky
To part the everlasting sleep
And impossible dreams above the dreamer
Where speaking into abscess brings about the keeping
Of the song of soul and psych
Where we are the ocean
As the Ever-Burning One ignites the night.

Tango

The Dance of Nightmares

Snowfall against a midnight sky
Breathing like teardrops
Swept across the madness of the gods.
Currents of torment, flakes of certainty
Funnel into wind tunnels and swirl
Eddies of prophecy
Three parts confusion, one part hope.
And stone by stone we raised it up
Brick by brick we tore it down
Voices raised in silence, united by the sound
Of whirling wishes, flickers in a stream
Sputters of anointed flame
Against the wings of serendepity
And the stuttering of the gods. . .

Chopsticks are not ideal for pizza

Orbitals, Spheres

I woke while drifting toward a feeling
Startled I continued reeling (in)
A fantasy lest it fade to haze
And count itself among the razed
The grind of years have rendered.
Toil endured made a peasant spender
The moon a change of phase
Human course marks the passing ways
In teardrops on a ceiling
The seasons spiral, ever stealing
Away. Fly and fly away you say
Count me in each yesterday.
There I can only gape and stare
Chance a glance at something fair
There, be swept away from me
By this tonic, static sea
Till my ember sparks the bloodless coal
To sapphire eyes I give my soul.

A Christmas poem and a poem about death. I'm so well balanced. Don't touch me.

Are We Having Fun Yet

A blue-eyed child with ruddy cheeks
Wonders what it's like to die
Secretly, I ask the same . . . no, not I
I ask in jest and beg for lies.
Will death knock, then turn the key
Or seep under the cracks
Will death barge in and break the latch?
At first knock I will tremble
As I silent towards the door;
At second, tear drops on the floor
Rivulets on my cheeks, knees are weak.
On the third knock I will answer
Standing, laughing, spitting
Crawling, weeping, lashing, hitting
Sighing either way.
So I will offer my bravado
And demand it be enough.

Listen Closely

Here and there a weary word
Turns to cross a bridge of death
And then travail at some behest
A helmet made of thrones
In a hallway lit by stone
As kingdoms fade in golden ashes.
Foot-sore hallelujahs
Straggle toward repletion
And until its near completion
We dwell where we destroy.
In fields of fleece and slumber
While keepers nod and number
Sleepers drift and start anew
Patchwork spirits ere the mornin' dew
And frozen comets in fiery hues
Punctuate each turn of phrase
As Hosanna's first prophetic rays
Paint Gloria 'cross the night.

When I Rule the World

- All Bible college graduates will be forced to spend a year working in an urban setting before applying for seminary or church jobs.

- All university and graduate school presidents will be forced to eat all of their meals in their school's cafeteria until they learn to serve their students good food.

- People who make the same ridiculous statement at least 3 times will be forced to act upon their statement. For example: "Every time I see Obama, I feel the need to throw up." (Actually heard today). Upon uttering this statement 3 times, the speaker will then be forced to vomit every time he/she sees Obama, or until they learn to keep their mouths shut.

- Drunks will have to attempt at least half of their boasts.

- People who hold religious and political views that allow them to preach racism will be forced to wear clothes stating their views at all times, in all situations, around all people groups.

- Guys who cannot aim in the bathroom will be required to pee sitting down.

- People who refuse to wash their hands will be sent to Dirty Jobs, forced to work, and then given lunch with no opportunity to wash.

- Anyone who refers to homeless people as "lazy bums" and "thieves" will be required to trade places with them.

- Anyone who roundly condemns all forms of contraception will be required to raise all the children produced by people who are not mentally and financially mature enough to raise them.

- The complete works of Shakespeare will be required reading for everyone. Romeo & Juliet will be surreptitiously removed from all copies and hidden until my death, and hopefully the world will forget its existence.

- Sopranos will be required to own very large houses.

- There will be baseball. Lots of baseball. And tacos. And pound cake.

- People who deliberately misrepresent other points of view will be arrested and forced to listen to their own view dismantled for 8 hours a day for 6 months.

- People who base their opinions on other people's opinions will be subjected to the real thing, and forced to campaign on its behalf.

- People who own cats will not live within 100 miles of me.

- All alarm clocks will be manufactured without snooze buttons.

- Chaos will still find a way. So will Jesus.

Infinitives

Conjunctions

And so they placed rocks . . .

Built as reminders of mercy
of gratitude for the gift of turmoil,
As we become who we were
at our moments of birth
naive children of unbridled promise
with wings of unabashed hope.

Unaware that the intentions of pain
will carry the chorus.
And the parts we will play
Will be loud and off-key
understated and reviled
overstated and overplayed
and sometimes poorly drawn
To make an unnecessary point.

Unaware that the story will move without us
Breathed by another tongue
With lines from another's hymn
At the moment of triumph . . .

And that someday we will pause
Between the interstates and the fields
And build an altar of faith
With the cinders of grace in the grass.

In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle, oh, nevermind, that's just my roommate snoring

Dumpster Prayers


We stand on the subtle edge of a knife
. . . but haven't we always?
One mistake from achievement
One success from fiction's endings
And we number the days
As notches in our belt, serving little
Growing bitter, meaning nothing more
Than a piece to bear the weight of time
As it passes like a mime
Silently, with frantic motions of fury.
Oh surreptitious knife
Cleaving spirit and leaving the strife
Of our years of theatric pretending . . .
Am I a soul shipwrecked in skin,
Or a fully autonomous being of dearth
Of purpose, meandering worth,
A journeyman of starlight
Longing for the sun?

Frustrated

For the first time in my life, I'm doing things right.

I'm going to church "religiously" - to make a bad pun. But seriously, I've found a church I really enjoy and I'm going every week.

I'm doing my homework as it is assigned, rather than as it is due or after it is due. My Greek homework is always done by Saturday night despite not being due until Tuesday. I take my quizzes the first day they are made available instead of the last, which means I am up to date on all my quiz reading and study material.

I am completely neat and tidy. I find things to clean because I am so bored.

I'm not dating a sociopath. O course, I'm not dating anyone, but that's a step above my typical alternative.

I'm not turning down opportunities to be with friends, to be social, to get to know random people.

I'm eating lots and lots of salads and fruit - primarily because our cafeteria food would kill a whale.

And I feel worse than I have ever felt in my life. My body hurts constantly. My ribs burn, my stomach hurts and bleeds, my chest, shoulders and knees ache constantly. I've had multiple kidney stones and I seem to randomly run a fever every other week.

Yet when I ate primarily pizza, never went to church, never did my work, was completely anti-social and dating a sociopath, I felt great.

Is this the lesson? That when we get our lives together, we die? Why do I always feel like hell?

I am frustrated.

Birthday

So yesterday was my birthday. I am 25. Thus, I have had 25 birthdays. And I cannot remember one stranger than yesterday's.

I don't make a big deal out of birthday's. I ain't special, so the less fanfare, the better. The only nice thing about a birthday is hearing from people and realizing you matter to them - and even that didn't happen yesterday. But here again, it's not that big of a deal, just a mild disappointment.

The whole of the day was just a series of disasters. Apparently my grandfather had chest pains during his morning walk, so he drove himself to the hospital. And even better, he decided not to tell his kids. I found out when my grandmother called to tell me happy birthday - and being the talkative worrywart that she is, she told me all about it. That placed me in the awkward position of having to let other people know that their father was in the hospital and he hadn't felt the need to tell them. I eventually decided to pawn that task off on my mom. I called her with the news and probably ruined her day, and let her tell her siblings.

Then I ate some questionable food for lunch and got the squirts for the rest of the day. I went to all my classes with a glazed over expression, and was so tired by the end of the day that I fell climbing the stairs. And my computer crashed as I attempted to load some music on it.

But I did get some homemade rice krispy treats from a friend.

However, the moral of this story is: thank God birthday's only come once a year, or I'm not sure I could live through them.

Hip Yip Skooray

Gongs, Cymbals

A gently resounding chaos
Enigmatic and contained in tense
Allowed yet unforsaken
Forgotten in the perfect sense
Of a sound both quiet and loud
A fire both white and cold
A surge now unabandoned
Future stilled, foretold.
Whisper with an echo
The blinding dark of sight
A flame with eyes eternal
Consumed but never sold
And never growing old.
With a spark across a smile
Yet commanding all the while.
Consuming fully in the whole
Yet no ash corrupts the gaze
No scar diverts the blaze
From sustaining its reprise.
Caressing with a bend and sway
Yet lashing and unleashed
Duty, punishment, warring peace,
I saw the voice of God today.

Jacob, Joseph Squared

Entrapped by gloom,
Else bewitched by rapture
Another mile escapes
To the clicking of my tires
The flipping of my shoes
Against the grating on my nerves.
Another mile disappears
In the race to reconcile
Echoes of faded glory
With the consistent urge to forget
Some fools cry repent
But I will not give up this chase
To remember to forget your face.
Why'd you have to throw yourself away?
All you did was throw me away.

Bigotry and Bullshit in the name of God

I just had the supreme misfortune of having lunch with stereotypical "Christian" America.

I don't want to bring faith, theology, or God into this blog very much . . . but sometimes it is unavoidable. However, this really isn't about God. It's about people. Or to be more specific, it's about stupid people.

When someone at a seminary lunch table says "I'm having a quarter-life crisis because I'm twenty-five and the world isn't mine yet", there are three appropriate responses. 1. Laugh. 2. Ignore them. 3. Roll your eyes. However, Mr. Super-Christian-Captain-America did not laugh,but replied "Well, just keep getting closer to Jesus and that desire's going to go away."

Seriously, pull my teeth out with pliers.

When Mr. Super-Christian-Captain-America started talking about how America always has protests going on, I thought he was making sense. But then he continues by pointing out that the rest of the world doesn't do this because if they open their mouth, someone might "blow their brains out." A bit of a stretch.

Then he takes the plunge. "What we really need in America is more violence. We need to start doing the same thing. It's not taking away freedom of speech - it's just making sure people are willing to die for something before they start talking about it."

Umm, isn't good, rational discussion the best way to prevent NEEDING to die for things? And isn't good, rational discussion a great way to decide whether or not an issue is important enough to die for? And isn't stupid, pointless discussion preferable to brains and blood spatter on the pavement?

Ah, but we weren't done yet. "And we might as well do it anyway, because it's gonna start happening to us real soon. People are gonna start killing us when we speak up for Christ publicly."

And congratulations, thanks to all the hot-air you've been spewing, you just created a mouth-fart with enough lift to create a whole new level of stupidity.

The end of the world has been coming since the apostle Paul. Everyone thinks "this is it." Everyone thinks "in my lifetime, people are going to start killing all the Christians in the world/my country/my area/etc"

It hasn't happened yet. Christianity is swelling in the Southern hemisphere (not the Southern Baptist or Southern Seminary hemisphere, the real Southern hemisphere). Since I was eight years old Christianity has supposedly been on it's way out of America. Yet every four years since I was eight, every major presidential candidate has tried to convince America of their strong Christian faith. Obama was no different.

And in 2012, it will be no different. We are years away from "being killed for speaking up for Christ in public." Sure, there are nutjobs who will shoot you for speaking up. But they then get prosecuted for their actions.

This is why war is always a matter of theology - because theology is populated by us all, even the bigots. This is why people are consistently raped and murdered in the name of God - because the world is populated by morons who can't keep their damn mouths shut.

I'm going to say it once, loud and clear, and I am appalled and ashamed that I have to say it at all: Hurricanes happen because of the weather. Tornadoes happen because of the weather. All disastrous things happen because of sin, and we are all sinners. God does not sit in heaven using weather patterns as target practice to pick off particular sinners.

God does not rape and murder people. We do. God does not start wars for land, democracy, or politics. We do. God does not stand outside and protest. We do. God does not kill stupid people, bigots, sinners, or unbelievers, and we should be thankful. We don't do that either. We are the stupid, bigoted, sinful, unbelieving people.

Because every time we open our mouths, there is no God in our god. It's just another redneck who thinks he's the king turd of shit mountain. And unfortunately, right now, the world is our mountain, and we're the biggest load.

God forgive us.
God save us.

Magnify

A speck on fire, a lens, a lair
Feet on hills, an itch, so human.
Magnify, magnify
Oh rose desire, sapphire
Azul and black the skies
Magnify or die
Magnify and die.
Ants beneath the sadist's scope
Survivors on a burning rope
With hands and eyes and skin
But nothing so distinctive
As the plume by which we burn.
Magnify, magnify
Oh magnify his name we cry
And wash away the majesty.
So the parchment seared
A blue of Poseidon's hue
Tarnished by the same
Oh burning, dying flame
Oh misbegotten lens
Of an unforgiving ire . . .
Kill the fire.

Heroes Are The Real Monsters

Prologue

I am a thief, and a murderer. I am a saint, and a sinner. I am a drunk, and an addict. A preacher, and a savior. I am that moment when you first wake up, when the lines between dream and reality are gone. I am you. This is your story.

Perhaps first, you should introduce yourself. You believe in truth much as I believe in lies. There is no wrong I can’t commit, no right beyond your reach. You profess to believe, I profess no such thing – and neither is right, nor are we wrong. You have no future, and I have no past. You dwell in dreams, and I cannot dream. Yet, we’re the same. This is your story.

. . . . . .

I stand alone in a cell, twelve feet below the ground. I’ve been here before. Not this exact cell, mind you, but others like it. Every place the same – near enough to the action to feel it, but not so near as to comprehend it. Forever on the verge of battle.

I’ve always laughed when people say, “Well, at least you aren’t in the battle.” If they only knew. The battle is nothing compared to this waiting game. However, I shouldn’t be surprised – people have always failed to comprehend what truly matters. They fail to understand that there are things far more important than life or death. Battle merely decides who lives, and who dies. The waiting determines so much more than that. It begs every question of Truth, of love, and of hope – its strips away our certainty and leaves us with only questions.

Though I understand this, I still prefer the battles. Questions of Truth and of God are best left to philosophers and theologians. I am neither one. I am merely a gladiator. I do not face groups of soldiers, paid to seek my demise, nor do I face ravenous beasts. I merely face one opponent. Here, there are ways to win without killing, and ways to lose without death, though death is often an outcome. Here, should we survive, we are paid handsomely for our efforts; should we die, we are unceremoniously thrown in a dumpster outback. The sanitation workers receive a king’s ransom for their silence, and as this is our work, our home, and our life, no one asks any questions once we’re gone.

I would tell you where I live, but that is immaterial. My work is generally kept silent. However, what I do takes place in most countries, and even most states, with governments none the wiser. If you should seek to find me, know this: I’m always the last place you’d expect, the last person you’d expect. I don’t fit the “criteria” for the job. Yet, none of us do. That’s why we’re gladiators, because we were brought up to believe that right wore a business suit, and wrong wore tattered jeans. Thus, if you truly seek to find us, look deep within yourself. Then go to the largest city you can reach, to the most well respected establishment you can think of. And I’m sure, if you look and listen hard enough, you will find us there. Every place has its secrets.

I flatter myself that you might be surprised at my attire. I wear no gloves, no armor, and I bear no weapon. In fact, if anything, I carry a briefcase. My shoes are polished, my suit impeccable, and my tie in a firm Windsor knot. It is the attire of the respectable, of the right. But you and I both know that this is no corporate picnic, though sometimes even I’m surprised at what it is.

However, here in this cell, none of that matters. I pace to ease the burden of thought that presses in on me. Impatience threatens to constrict my chest. I feel the rumblings of each successive duel reach me, but the only sound I can hear is the hollow of my own footsteps and the cadence of my breathing. I am quite certain that my heart stopped several minutes ago. I still feel it pulsing within my chest, but the sound no longer reaches my ears. And here, it is not safe to trust only what you feel.

Soon, a man will come to get me. He has been assigned to me for every match so far, and I don’t even know his name. He’ll take me to the action, and then depart. Does he watch from the sidelines? Leave to get the next combatant? I don’t know, I’ve never asked. It seems I’m always rather preoccupied by the time he arrives.

I’ll fight. No more, and no less. There is no pre-amble, no announcer, no stadium. Merely a parking lot, with greedy people betting, pitting one against another. Me, against it, or sometimes them. I am Judas. Oh yes, I am Judas. Thirty pieces of silver might not buy a field anymore, but it still has its uses. I don’t know those that I engage. They could be criminals, they could be victims. I don’t know. I only kill them. Innocent or not, it doesn’t really matter to me. I do what I’m told, and I win. I always win.

Do you recognize me yet? Perhaps not. My name is Judas, to the extent that I have a name. But as I’ve already told you, this isn’t my story – it’s yours. Whether you can admit it or not, you know me. I’m in your reflection. Your morbid smiles at the despair of those around you. You don’t have to hide them from me. I’ve noticed your bank account inflates every time your company makes a donation to charity. It’s ok – I did it too. After all, what’s humanity without at least one appreciable vice?

But I nearly forgot! If I keep up this rambling, I’ll miss your introduction. Your story begins with a crow, does it not?