The moment you're standing at the urinal

and you realize your underwear is on backward,
the fly is in the wrong place,
(or the right place, if you were in the stall sitting down,
instead of standing at the urinal
which is where you are).

You fumble around in there until your best friend
sidles up,
realizes you're having trouble finding your penis
and laughs--
makes a joke about tweezers
and a microscope.

And it's not like you can explain to him
that your boxers are backward
even though you've known each other since you were boys,
sharing a urinal in the neighborhood park
swordfighting,
and it's not until now that you think about how weird that was
and how weird it is that it wasn't weird
because it would totally be weird now,
wouldn't it?

You're already in the eleventh grade,
and boys aren't supposed to play like that
(with other boys)
anymore.

Those toys are for
the girls,
even though you've only been to second base,
that one time in the dark closet,
when your friends dared you during truth or dare
(and you can't back down from a dare,
and you don't want to anyway)
and you both sheepishly walked into the closet,
knowing that you wanted the lights to be on
because you had never seen what a girl
covers up with her shirt
and she had never seen
what you tuck into your swimsuit.

The bell rings and you're late for class,
so you fumble some more,
your friend still laughing
his ass off,
even though he knows you're bigger than him,
and you rush out without washing your hands
or saying goodbye to the memory
of swordfights and dark closets.

Bitterness

A single mug of coffee
steams from the table
the smell of morning drifting through
an empty household.

A lonely soul sips the bitterness
of the day ahead
scowls at the bite, then smiles,
for something has prickled his ears.

The mug reflects a distorted desk,
a small lamp, laptop,
a cell phone ringing all too infrequently,
friendships sliding down the table,
through the floor,
into the very body of the Earth
where they can be easily forgotten,
ignored, vilified ...

We can dance on the graves
of our memories
until sooner or later the pipes burst
and worlds once separated--
by cold metal words
fences or righteousness, glory,
or conflict or peace--
flow together as one
to carve out the rock
into the pattern of our lives.

A single cup of now-cold coffee
lingers, lonely on the table,
for an alert and bright mind
has left the building,
and dropped into the fleeing river
the distorted desk and computer,
in a world made slightly less bitter.

Fame

All of the beautiful art in the world
can't compensate for a broken heart
beaten down by dejection,
degradation a daily routine
until the straw breaks.

Face it:
we want to be shared
we shout spurts of wisdom
tweet, blog, digg, and stumble,
and we build a reputation,
build a nation of believers
in snippets of understanding.

So I will continue to shout,
140 characters at a time,
from the rooftops;
continue to publish 500 word essays
adding, ever so slightly,
to the digital body that records the human experience.

*Thanks to twitterfriends.org for inspiring this piece of corporate art

Together

All the honesty I ever need
is written on the face of a criminal
caught in time
stuck with the clock's tick-tock
and the rock of the floor
when the warden click-clangs closed
the door to an adjacent cell.

And the smell is horrendous:
the stench of rotting days
and wasted time, of burned potential
and burdened families coping with
the incomparable loss
of faith in one's own loved ones.

People are all created equally capable
of committing countless horrors,
the chilling reality that we are most defenseless
against the depravity of our own minds
and strangers light the way
for other men to reach their end.

Until there is a
stop
to nonsense,
and dastardly deeds no longer need undoing,
when love replaces lust
and the last star is burned to dust,
can we rise together and face the world and say:
We were Here,
and We changed Something.

Yom Kippur Is Late

The elders say that tonight is a special night,
for tonight our God on High
seals the Book of Life,
the record of all those chosen for life,
happiness, good spirit, love, wealth,
poverty, hate, war, famine, lust,
greed, honesty, gluttony, peace,
until not even God knows
how to separate the Heavens from the Earth.

But what if our high god
becomes frightened of the awesome power
and dread unleashed?

And how can we know what kind of happiness
waits in store for us?

Perhaps it is the joy that comes
from the discovery of a new idea,
or the excitement upon discovering
a new source of love,
or perhaps the glory of basking
in the beauty of the Earth.

Perhaps it is the kind of happiness
that comforts a mourner
in the calm, dark hours after the tears stop falling,
or the pride in having overcome great odds
to make a difference to a single person,
or perhaps it is merely the comfort in knowing
that even the deepest of tragedies
has a greater Purpose.

Come Watch The Sunrise!

Why is the alarm clock
so loud this morning?

And why do sneakers squeak
so loudly on the pavement,
pondering the persecution of souls
in far-fetched fantasies,
distantly wondering
how to believe in a god
who believes in Damnation.

And who could believe
what was witnessed today?

Spiritual fitness is hard to come by
when the remains of ragged
rugged memories,
like handcuffs that tighten with time's grip,
threaten to pull the Dreamer
into the Pits of Hell.

It's hard to be a dreamer
when the alarm clock is buzzing
so loudly this morning,
when the pools of darkness
collect silently together
and the heaviness falls on the eyes
and the eyes see through the World;
where exhilaration at the prospect
of impossibility
crashes into clouds and kings and kangaroos
who tell tall tales about adventure:
love Life
and God.

The clouds gather,
a storm brews
hot tea on a winter morning;
waiting to overwhelm the world
with the whistle of boiling, downpouring water:
a whistle that cannot be perceived
over the persistent nagging noise
of an impatient alarm clock.

The Astronomer

In the beginning,
there was darkness:
the ultimate ignorance of the Universe
exploding with white light
expanding infinitely;
definitely;
resolutely;
everything that is, that ever was
that ever could be in range
of a telescope
or an astute eye scanning the Heavens.

The limited vision of the astronomer
digitally enhanced upon a screen,
the lights deflect, reflect,
dance upon his face,
and now he is crying out to the Universe to save him,
but the Universe cannot hear him.

So instead he sits alone,
scrunched between a desk chair
and an illuminated rectangle
that contains all of the secrets of the Universe
if only he can learn to speak Her language.

The more he works,
the farther he seems from his goal:
will we ever unlock the secrets?
Why are we here, and how in Heaven or Hell did we get here?
Can you make someone love you?
How many stars are there in the night sky?
Is there a Creator?
What happens when we die?

Overwhelmed by the questions,
the astronomer falls asleep,
his mind begging for rest,
but instead creates a hazy sub-world
where demons play tricks from the clouds
and nothing is defined by the laws of physics:
a pure anarchy of the mind,
as he sees a ladder before him
and climbs
and climbs
and climbs
without knowing quite why
or how he reached the top cloud
and there is the Angel
waiting to wrestle.

And He knows what he doesn't know
and nobody knows why
they're on the top of the cloud
grappling, screaming, writhing
hoping, wishing,
praying for the victory.

But there is no end, no blessing,
for the dream is over before the astronomer knows
what has happened to him
and he continues to explore the depths of the Heavens
and the skies continue speaking to him
as he tries to learn to listen:
What happens when we die?

Whoa! He speaks!

This is probably the first time I've ever written in prose here.

And it will be my last post at this address. This site has given me a wonderful creative outlet, and it will stand as a body of a lot of the personal work I did during high school. This was a place where I could write anything; sometimes, a select person even knew what I was talking about. It's been an absolutely wonderful ride, and I continue to try to evolve as a writer and as a person.

But the years of the Flying Goat have faded, and I have combined my prose and verse into a single blog at Time Undone. Thanks to everyone who has visited here and commented; I hope the new site continues to please.

***UPDATE: 9.27.2009***

As you can see, I've begun publishing to this website again. It was easier than starting a new one. I hope that we'll watch some of my writing evolve as my life does.

Imperfection

Each sunrise,
dark reds and purples penetrating black skies,
fleeting in beauty:
a daily loss.

For, though perfect as we were,
we know not how to capture
overpowering hues of red.

How much I wanted one instant in time—
one soft, reflective cloud,
to hover,
and not burst.

Alas, though memory and photograph
reflect one instant eternally,
a continuous moment in time,
the wind must blow;
the sun must rise.

And yet—we may still find the sunrise beautiful
though only in distant memory,
so too are we a remembrance
on gray, sunless days:
perfect memories the silver lining
in a darkening sky.

Breaking Chains

A muted TV mumbles
behind a door
as if from a motel
empty but for weary bodies
looking for repose
and fleeting pleasure.

A preacher, fearing divinity,
the early morning creeping up,
red ready to streak the unborn day,
witnessing countless immoralities
through the blind camera lens.

Lest we forget why
we are groping the dark walls
in existence's cave,
we extend meaningless banter
and poorly delivered speeches
beyond rationality
and selectively forget phrases
we wish to ignore.

Regardless of sorrow,
apology or joy,
or simply intolerable attachment,
we lose that which we try hardest
to protect and prevent loss.

O, how irony surrounds us,
the human mind fickle:
a deceptive villain,
hiding behind Reason and Conscience
and the fallacy of the heart.

Subject to the whims of synapses,
we drift between happiness and fear,
never remembering the question
while groping desperately for an answer.

Mutual dependence:
a single-sighted beast,
beating Reason into submission,
failing to understand the more complex,
animal instincts,
inborn desires reign
leaving only two answers.

Can we continue down a path
of rocks and tar,
a road paved in pain
and pocked with teardrops,
lined in white,
dark uncertainty creeping inward?

Or must we swerve,
leaving behind rocks and tar,
shattering the bright lines of Conscience,
and asking the most basic of questions?

No, no.
We do not dare break Love's chains
for they,
like Satan to his Maker,
define Reason and Conscience.

Then must Conscience
become like a muted preacher’s picture,
delivering a predictable, silent message
to the masses of conflict and pain
that invariably dwell within.