Stories

           On every street corner there stands a story. Stories brush past you on a busy sidewalk. Stories hand you your groceries on a Saturday afternoon. Stories come knocking on your door, trying to sell you life insurance. We are surrounded by stories, yet how precious few do we ever really know? We may know our own story, we may even think we know the stories of those closest to us, but think of all the innumerable stories that we do not know and will never know. Which stories may be like our own? Which are complete contrasts? Which stories will the world remember?

With every day that we open our eyes, take in a new breath, and allow ourselves to be swept further along the current of life, we are effectively picking up our pens and etching another chapter in the narrative of our lives. Each action, word, glance, thought, emotion, reaction, attraction, repulsion, decision, indecision, and anything in between marks another addition to the ever-extending drama, comedy, melodrama, horror, and mystery that is us. It goes without saying that no two stories are alike. What might need to be said, however, is that even the same story is different depending on the audience. The beauty of our stories is that fact that they are not mere words on a page or typeface in a book, they are an infinitely complex assemblage of remembrances, feelings, emotions, and occurrences that come together in a uniquely definitive progression of what we have so simply named life. And while we may be tempted to believe our stories are immutable and unchangeable in the ways in which it is understood or ultimately viewed, I think we can all come to the realization that this is just not true.

The audience of our lives is not the audience of a book. They do not read the same words; they do not even see the same cover, title, or author. Our audiences and the part of our story that they experience is as varied as the very DNA of the human race. With each new pair of eyes, with each new set of ears, and with each new pair of hands, our story is seen, heard, and felt differently. Our audience rarely, if ever, gets the whole picture. Most often, they only get a glance, a fleeting picture of the long, rich storyline of our lives, and yet, this is all they will ever see. The members of our audience are not merely audience members either; they are authors themselves. In experiencing even a part of our story, our audience is compelled to add a few lines to their own work in progress; if not in exact detail, then in an impression, shade, or mood. In this way, even our most basic interactions represent an intermingling of two astonishingly intricate narratives, and the result is a breaking off, a sharing of one story to another. No two stories can come into contact without affecting the other.

This interaction is something like writing on a thin surface on an impressionable surface; whatever is written while on this surface will leave an imprint, even after the writing is finished and removed. In this way, we are all like a sea of impressionable sheets, constantly writing our own stories and imprinting them on others while simultaneously being imprinted. These imprints may not be perfectly legible, perfectly understood, but they are impressions nonetheless, with lasting, real effect.  

            What are we then? Are we authors, protagonists, antagonists, or audience members? Are we the story or the medium on which the story is written? Are we the writers or the written? To the best of my knowledge, and to the fullest extent of my intellectual probing, I can only think to answer this question with: yes. We are all of these and so much more. We are the experience that makes a mystery intriguing or a comedy hilarious. We are the tears that make a tragedy sorrowful and the fear that makes a horror terrifying. We are the fire and tenderness that makes a love story infatuating, and we are the love and longing that makes a journey home worth every step of the way. We are stories, we are inseparable, and in the end, we are a part of something so much larger than our own story. Our stories are not isolated and self-sustaining; they are fueled by the stories of others and the experiences we share with them. Our story may only be one of many, but they are no less important or significant because of this; our story touches a myriad of others, whether we know it or not. What we are left with, then, is life. Life and all its nuances, peculiarities, and similarities, all bundled up into each of our stories, beautifully and sometimes unwittingly interwoven into a masterful tapestry of “good mornings,” “how do you do’s” and “I love you’s.”

            This is the story of all our stories.

Remember Well, Remember When

Remember well, remember when

The tone of Arcady rang in our hearts,

There was a time when we were men.

When we chanced the storms most brazen,

When we bent the lightning’s arc;

Remember well, remember when

The well of virtue knew no end,

From beauty we did not depart,

There was a time when we were men.

Whether on salty shore or shady glen,

We reveled in nature’s finest arts,

Remember well, remember when

No deceptive shadow could touch us then,

We fought them off with iron’s spark,

Yes, there was a time when we were men.

But a faded story can be told again,

With whispered words we softly start:

Remember well, remember when,

There was a time when we were men.

Seven

Hey ya'll, this is a short one and may seem insanely simple and straightforward, but there are a couple of subtleties that I found to be enjoyable myself. Anyways, just wanted to give you the heads up that there's more to this one than meets the eye, combining form, construct, and overall meaning. Enjoy!

Seven

Love

Descends

From above

To make amends,

To make right the wrong,

And heal the brokenness

Of the widow’s weary song.

And They Say

And they say she never got old,

Only younger at heart

And rejected the cold

Of nights of regret,

Her character bold,

If you saw this girl, you would never forget.

She’d dance and dance,

She’d whirl and whirl,

No age could touch

That lovely girl.

They say she never learned to hate,

But with open arms

She would always wait

For better days

And brighter years,

And found a way

To conquer fears.

She’d love and love

With no thought to self,

Her heart more precious

Than the finest wealth.

They say she trusted like a child,

With tender touch

And a manner mild;

Never short on a word of care,

And if pain was present,

She was there.

She’d laugh and laugh,

That spirit of mirth,

Her shouts could touch

Each corner of earth.

Beauty her name, joy her cloak,

Darkness she banished,

The impossible broke;

See her there, hear her now,

If only to hold her,

To keep her somehow.

And they say she never got old,

But waited in wait

For one fearless and bold

To run alongside in heart-beating stride,

If I don’t reach her now,

At least I’ll have tried.

Just to try for her grace,

That will satisfy me;

Just to try for her heart,

And let come what may be.

She’s beautiful, you see,

Brighter than the sun,

More elegant than the sea.

I’d give my life

To break on her shore,

To lay on her sands

And be weary no more.

But such things are too great for me,

I may never taste,

But perhaps I will see

Her smile, every once in a while,

And remember for a moment

That something good can be.

She’d dance and dance,

Her arms above,

I will always know,

That girl was love.

An Encounter With Conscience

And what shall we do with this world,

You and I?

Will we twirl it ‘round our fingers,

Watch the spectacles go by?

See the stars and shapes of

A thousand years

Pass on and out of sight.

What have they to do with us?

We coheirs of the lot,

Yes you and I are all that counts,

Oh yes, you and I.

But wait, there I see the legions

Of mighty warrior’s past,

They conquer and they slaughter,

With civility aghast.

No matter though,

We all ought know,

The bruteness of their strides.

Never again will we fall away

To those turbulent, roiling tides.

For what matters most

Is that I hold you close,

And forget the world of strife;

And in the end you and I,

Yes, we will have the life.

Pay no mind to those pestering cries,

They too will fade away.

Their distress is naught but heathen lies,

Intended to get their way.

Their sorrows are a sham,

Their tears a sick charade,

I won’t fulfill demands,

Nor myself degrade.

For you and I,

We rest above,

This rubbish and this mess.

Their sickly fingers

Stay far away,

And for this, I count us blest.

And see there the words of men,

Whose ideas define the laws,

Of width and weight and collagen,

Of rainfall and its cause.

See there how they change,

With the turn of every age,

Yet their truthfulness not doubted,

And even reckoned sage.

And alongside them, the pondering ones,

Who squint and wonder, “Why the sun?

And why us now? And why he there?

And how does a circle fit a square?”

They point and state, “This is so.”

While another laughs a hearty, “No!”

But enough of that, let’s turn away,

The right and wrong is not to say.

Why do you look distraught, my love?

Why this troubled glance?

You seem as if these specters haunt

A realm where change has chance.

But what will you have us do?

To blast these bounds asunder,

To tear this world in two?

Why break these chains so taut,

Why question what is so?

We’re taught what’s ought and surely not,

Can this not suffice to know?

But I see you there,

Your stare austere,

In a fire moved to move;

To shake the mountains

And release the fountains

Of flowing fortitude.

Who am I to stop you now?

Your mind is set, your head is bowed.

Just know that I forewarned you here,

To seek not what is not sincere.

For every grapple of the world without

Will clutch and claw at every doubt,

But with heart assured, your cost to pay,

God save the fool who’s in your way.

Regardless

I saw you,

I met you,

I loved you,

I left you,

I asked you,

If you knew,

How it feels when something is just really out of place and doesn’t exactly fit,

And do you?

If you knew,

Then would you,

Remind me,

Why you do,

What you do,

And how you,

Remind me,

Of you through

All these little intruding thoughts and memories that really just throw off the flow of things on a day to day basis?

Yes you do,

Pervade through,

My mind and,

Manage to,

Remind me,

Of how you,

Wanted to

Rearrange the structure of my life and completely disrupt my nicely established patterns.

So if you,

Won’t mind to,

Back off and

Just try to,

Resort to,

A brand new,

Restructured,

Life’s worldview

Then maybe I won’t find it so difficult to get rid of your dissonant and non-conformist memories and simply be able to move on with my life.

But then again…

If you go,

And turn heel,

You won’t know,

How I feel.

I can’t say,

Anyway,

In my rhymes,

And strict times

How you so beautifully obliterated my preconceived notions of order and showed me something so much better, so much more.

So you knew,

All along,

It’s simple,

And never wrong,

To tell you,

My darling,

In verse or

In song,

Regardless

Of flow,

Regardless

Of tune,

So long as

You know that

I love you.

A Walk on the Beach

This one goes out to all you beautiful people waiting as anxiously as I am for Spring Break. Enjoy.

A wisp, a wave, a wave abashed

About my ankles dared to crash.

A cave, a grave, a grave brand new,

Opened up to swallow my shoe,

But death, a breath, a breath renewed,

By salt and sand and light anew.

What’s more, a shore, a shore of stars

Sprawled out in perfect silver bars.

A hope, a dawn, a dawn in sight,

Beauty of simple, daunting might.

I start, I step, I step away,

Out of my grave, and on my way.