On the Soul of Wit

I have been feeling very poetically impotent lately. I have not been able to write much that I am pleased with. Maybe that is a sign of growth. Perhaps I will rise to this challenge to create poetry that is sweeter and more profound.

Maybe.

Right now, it is just discouraging. I still write every day, but the products often seem tedious or even worse unpoetic. Now, to be fair, I am always my own worst critic. So it is possible that these poems are not nearly as bad as I suppose them to be. Nevertheless, this is the first one in over two weeks that I have felt is worth posting here. It is also the shortest that I have written in two weeks. In fact, it is one of the shortest that I have ever written. I think that is why I like it. Its brevity makes it beautiful.

No Rain Fell

Not today

There are no words today

No words

They tore up the flowers

A green leaf spiraled down

I can muster nothing more

On Management

Why do humans seem to think they can handle living? None of us are equal to the task, but still we try so hard. Sometimes it seems we would rather try alone and fail than seek help and actually succeed. Confound self-reliance and our stubborn self-centredness.

On Brilliance

Today, I saw a man who looked like Albert Einstein.

Then he put on sun glasses and picked up a guitar.

Then he started singing.

I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I am so glad he sounded the way he did. He was definitely unenergetic and off-key, but he was so laid-back, that it was all okay.

It was beautiful.

On Splendour

Angel of Death

I hear her footsteps
Can you hear them?
They are faint now
But coming closer
Growing ever louder
Autumn is coming closer
I feel her in the chill breath of wind
I see her in the patch of coloured leaves
I hear her in those ever louder footsteps
Autumn is coming.
Very soon now
The trees will go up like fireworks
Burst with the colour of flame
Then fall away
Like smoke and ash
For Autumn in all her beauty
Is nevertheless
An angel of death
She is the downward stroke
Of Time's sharp sickle
And all of the leaves tremble
Knowing how soon she will be arrived
Knowing
Their end is near
But it is not an end without grace
For Autumn gives to every death
A gift
A final measure of splendour
Turning every leaf to a treasure
So every eye will note
And marvel at their passing.
This is her greatest act
And I see
The she has already begun
Already started her work
Do you hear her footsteps?
the leaves are changing
Autumn is coming.

On Baptism

Over a month ago, while I was still living in South Bend, I was walking home from a friends house at night when it started to rain. Being a lover of rain, I decided to walk around campus and enjoy the weather for a while. I ended up walking around for hours, and it was quite an experience. There was a storm that was approaching the entire time and the heart of it finally reached mine. I stood in the middle of a cemetery while this downpour battered me, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences I have ever had. The next day, I wrote quite a three page poem about the night. I decide that one was a bit lengthy for a blog post, but this Sunday was Baptism Sunday at my home church, and out of that service came this retrospective poem:

Baptism

What was I seeking
That night in the rain
When I raised my arms to the torrent
Was I waiting to be washed?
Or just to be swept away?
The heavens
Broke
Over me
They descended
I was immersed
In water and fury
And in that moment
The storm and I knew each other
The water running down my face
Touched my soul
I don't know where the water carried me
I don't know what was washed away
But I emerged
In a world I saw for the first time
With eyes no longer afraid
To see

On Confusion

Over time, I have become greatly perplexed by the phrase, "How are you doing?" and its sister phrase, "What's up?" I use both of thse phrases more or less regularly, but they are nonetheless enigmatic to me.
Consider the first: "How are you doing?" Doing what? Walking? I am walking by lifting up one foot and putting it in front of me, shifting my weight to that foot, then repeating the process with the other foot. Breathing? I inhale good air and exhale used air. Oh, you wanted to know what is going on in my life? Why didn't you ask that?
The second is similar: "What's up?" As a child, I was once fond of the obnoxious joke responses such as "the sky" or "the ceiling." For a while, I thought these comebacks were incredibly clever. In fact, I know some people who still think so.
Now, these seem like somewhat odd ways to ask after a person's health and well being, but the part that really confuses me is when a person uses these phrases as a greeting. There are those who ask "What's up?" and not actually expect an answer. What they really mean is "hello." The problem is, there are still a great number of people who ask "What's up?" and want to know what's up, which really means "what is going on?" However, with all these layers of nuance, I am sometimes confused by what a person is actually asking. Whenever I pass someone and they say, "How's it going?" I am forced to guess whether they are actually asking or just happen to be greeting me. Then I must decide whether to answer a question, or just say, "Hello," and move on. The split second I have to decipher the other persons intention is usually a grueling one, and the worst part is, I always seem to choose wrong.

On Identity

I Remember the Day

I remember the day
I realized my father wasn't tall
He always used to pick me up
And I would soar
With the ground so far away
He seemed like a giant
But that day
The other men were looking down on him
And he craned his neck to them all
My father changed that day
At least in my eyes
Like the day I found out that his name was Greg
Or Gregory
Or Mr. Fox
Not Daddy like I always called him
Gregory Fox is my father
But it is Daddy who tucks me in at night

I remember the day
I realized my father was short
I finally stood
Level with his broad shoulders
Knowing I had years of growing left
It was one thing to pass mom
She was just a girl
But to learn that my father
Was small
He changed in my eyes again that day
The he himself had never changed
But you see
Daddy was a great big man
And my father is only five-foot-eight
So I'm a bigger man than he.

I remember the day
I realized my father wasn't strong
He could always pin me when we wrestled
And he always broke my toughest tackles
But it didn't take long
Before I outran him
Before I hit him like a brick
And I realized he was a man
Just a man
Not superman
Like I secretly hoped
And somehow he was different then
Somehow he changed
My father always carried a pen
Never a sword
Daddy was still a super hero
But my father is just a writer

I remember the day
I realized my father was weak
It was the day
I saw him cry
And seeing those tears in his eyes
Changed the way I knew him
I learned
That he was like me
That he felt pain and sorrow too
Daddy was never soft
Never let his emotions show
Least of all to me
I didn't even know he could feel
But my father
Was a broken hearted man
Who tried to carry the world
And I'll never forget the day
I realized who he was

On Observations

The ironies of getting robbed:

A kicked in door looks really cool, until you try to close it.

Police fingerprint kits are cool, but the police don't clean up after using them. So not only were we robbed, but then there was grimy black dust all over the house.

Everyone in the house was subletting from the University of Notre Dame. Nothing belonging to the house (and therefore insured) was stolen, only the belongings of poor college students.

I have a lock for my computer so I can chain it to my desk, but I never used it this summer because I trust my housemates.

At the beginning of August, Best Buy sent me a letter encouraging me to renew the warranty on my laptop in case of accident or theft. I ignored it, and my warranty ran out...four days before I was robbed.

We still lock the house, but we are not sure what we are protecting.