Where Night is Not Black

Sitting in a quiet area of the library on a Tuesday evening meant deep reflection. The quiet area attracts thinkers, doers, dreamers. People who want to have their deepest thoughts explored without the normal interruptions of cell phone calls and texts and the bustle of humans talking.

One such young man sat down on this Tuesday evening. Reflecting on a hard paper, considering the turns and twists. As on mountain trails, his mind wandered about searching. It was amazing to him, the adventure of searching out answers, finding his way using a map he made. The story, the work was captivating.

Except for a few souls who had sat down and begun to mumble, the room was quiet. The few burly students talked without much consideration for their surroundings. It was as if this place was not really for those who were seeking solitude and quietness but merely a place where anyone could sit and discuss frivolous things. Their minds were almost too simple to understand and bear the quiet place.

The young man who sat contemplating looked over at a fellow contemplator who shared his discomfort. It was like bumbling ogres had wandered into the paths that they were so carefully creating in their minds. They stared at these buffoons but with no effect. The perplexity with which these monsters wandered about quite baffled the young man. His fellow contemplator looked back at him. They exchanged so many meaningful thoughts in those short stares that would have left the buffoons baffled. Their situation was like people playing at the edge of a fire and always in danger of slipping in. They are so caught up though in something quite silly that to ignore the fire is stupidity.

That is what these people were. Stupid. The fellow sufferer and the young man exchanged glances. Then the sufferer got up and left, moving away from the tromping fools. The young man waited hoping that they would understand what was happening. But they were now as children being burned and yet unaware. They continued to play, and so the young man moved away, hoping to find greater understanding and plow new paths away from the blundering movements of those too loud to hear their own folly.

What was amazing remained the closeness of the young man and his fellow sufferer. Never having exchanged a word in their life, they shared so much more. How much more would these loud mouths have understood could they only have contemplated a minute more and spoken a minute less.

Anyone ever written a Eulogy?
Looked into the sky’s astronomy,
But got some unintended radiology,
Burned by your depraved scatology.

I have sinned.
This is love. That he loved us.
Please Lord! Give me. Give me new and renewed life.
Lord, I give myself to thee.

Mindless wandering of penniless students,
Debtors one and all, drunken miscreants,
Families sending the profits, the profit consumed,
Vomit the receipt, and little wisdom imbued.

And we are lied to, told to enjoy,
Finding joy in another state happiness employed.
Yet our happiness is vacant. Empty. Cavity.
Our lustful hearts, with lust, debauchery, and depravity.

Lust of men and women, of drink and food,
Those who abstain are mocked, “Pussy, Prude!”
They who read, who work, are alone at times,
As the midnight bell lets out its Poeish chimes.

To have someone come back from exile,
Walk back into your life after an exodus so glorious before,
Clothes so different, skin turned dark like the ground,
Its as if fire has consumed the clothes,
Ashes have replaced the natural hue of pigment,
But I still see the smile, or maybe an imaginary figment.
Take off the smile, and you are all gone,
As the wind scatters the ashes of a great fire,
The omens have all been right. And here you are.
My mind sees you and begins to bud with thoughts.
I cannot understand anything, like countless lines of DNA code,
And I’m a psychology major, and I’m having a clairvoyant breakdown.

If one person needs to understand what races through my head it is you,
The pulsing of thoughts about you, around you, with you,
My heart almost stumbles as it tries to beat with you,
As you are so far away, so far away,
As you are so far away,

If I were to tell you my thoughts, my love for you, dearest,
I would start to pour out a series of indescribable sounds,
My feet would move closer, approaching nearest,
Looking into your dark brown pools,
Seeing your soul clearest.

My arms would hold you, draw you into my heart and tasting,
Pulling you closer, then pushing you up against a wall,
My lips your beautiful mouth and neck touching,
Your heart beats now like a battle drum,
Soft sighs, tingling, mind rushing.

Let go of yourself, be let loose, strip off your inhibitions,
Take off anew together, in our own love traditions,
Hold my hand, and I’ll show you my love,
Liberating your wildest ambitions,
Confirming suspicions,

Inhabit your wildest fantastical dreams dream,
Traverse the cold deserts of uncertainty,
At my surprise let your voice scream,
Bathing together in this stream,
Licking the whipped cream.

When in the midst of a building a fire is lit.
The man has thought he will warm the building,
The stove needs to burn wood to warm all within,
And the fire burns, and touches the walls around,
And the structure starts to lean.

The firemen come and fight back the flames,
They fight them back, from all the walls.
The toll is heavy,
Thousands perish in the flames,
Many are scarred,
But they are trying to save this sacred building,
The gods from across the seas have constructed,
The thought of letting it burn has yet to enter their minds,
And so hundreds continue to run into the flames,
Limbs burned off, faces charred the color and texture of coal,

And the fire is under control, the people rebuilding now,
But the stove is still burning, and the old man now comes back in,
And puts back the wood to burn away again.

Insanity is doing the same thing as before and expecting a different result,
Are you mad?

Have you lost the sanity that lets you rebuild and change, remove the curse that will only cause more suffering to all, to rebuild a new building, obfuscating fool!

Yes.

In an evening alone in Distantburg,
The hallway empty, all others gone home,
Going out to the town, my hunger to curb,
With a few acquaintances, we walk.

Into a bar, rings of smoke, calm,
An old TV, ancient Mario’s game,
The music sweet and methodical psalm,
A place of peace and without shame.

Playing chess, dragging tropic thunder,
Laying back on a couch, calm, cool,
The thick smoke calms asunder
The clouds of fear, playing on so cool.

Five victories, one draw, no lose,
Sitting back, three hours later,
A man next to me, sits, reads, brews,
And here we are all calm, no hater

I love you dearest,
My heart is an unbound book,
I lay it before you, please pick up and read
Lose yourself in the pages,
Be dazzled by on what your eyes look,
And find yourself happy in my red heart bleed.

I love you beautiful,
Take my hand in yours,
Let my hand touch your chest,
And your heart leap into it,
Like a child jumping from the shore,
And tired falling into the sand sit.

The night has come over, the great battle rages on. The channels dug for men to hide in are now channels of life, the flow of crimson water stains the clothes of those coming up. The sky is darkened by the smoke. In all hearts is dread. In all hearts is the realization that love is lost. In this place life means death. You must take life to preserve yourself. The shells land and kill a dozen in an instant if perfectly placed. In one salvo as many as twenty die. The soldiers march on, their officers behind, ready to gun down those who turn. They look back often, hoping to see the officers gone, but God has his hand over them. They face better chances in the teeth of the enemy than the palm of their own officers. The fear they feel drives them into the very pits of hell. They have passed the gates many miles back. Into the abyss of death they run, hundreds die, and thousands run onward. They run and reach the enemy line. In fearsome wrath they tear apart the enemy. They become like wolves, starved by a winter’s famine. They rip at the flesh of the enemy, beating in skulls, tearing out the organs, twisting their blades and finding solace in the screams of terror and horror that overcome the enemy. The enemy fall, retreat, run. The salvo of artillery rains down once more. And the feasted army is torn apart. A man stands up without arms, screaming. Others run back, but turn at the sight of the officers, and back into the new pit they go…And here the counter attack.

The enemy approach, misery painted on their faces. They carry with them great anger. They attack, hundreds dying. They repel those who worked so hard to take this channel of life. And those who had taken their fill lumber back, the officers running back.

The next morn, another attack rallies out. Hundreds more die. The ground is retaken before the day is done. And this process is repeated day after day, night after night. And after millions have died, the plan is changed, and repeated with same effect.