Dark Angel

My dark angel arrives
In the nick of time
On raven wings

To be with me on the edge
Of the abyss

Standing beside me
She holds my hand
In a death grip
And says

Hold on and look down
For I am with you

Let us dive together into
Oblivion

And I say

I will die with you some other day

But today
I love you more than death

And then I say

Chinese take out and a movie?

And my dark angel says

Yes.

Love Poem #3

lucky you to be loved
by a fool

and lucky me
to be a fool in love

and lucky us

to be foolish
and in love

Love Poem #2

There are no hours slower
Than the hours between
The hours I spend
With you

Love Poem #1

Your eyes
Smile
Like
Your smile
Touches me
Like
You touching me
Feels
Like
You
Feel
Like
Home.

Harper on Tedium

The days are hot this summer and there is no rain. I water my lawn on occasion, and my neighbors water their lawns every day, and the only difference between our lawns are subtle shades of yellow and beige. Our yards are gone except for the weeds, which are flourishing, now that all of that annoying grass is no longer choking the life out of them. They are slivers of green isles in the midst of a grassy dead sea.

Today, in a heroic effort, I mowed my lawn and the clouds of dust rose, and my home became an Oklahoma farm in the midst of the Great Depression. The process of mowing the lawn accomplished nothing but it was full of rituals. The ritual of applying sunblock to myself and getting dressed in my yardwork clothes. The ritual of pulling the mower out of the garage and getting it ready to run. The ritual of saying hello to any neighbors and commenting on the heat. Surveying my lawn as if I have any idea what I am doing. Running the mower and cleaning the mower and putting the mower away. Undressing. Showering. Redressing. Dozens of things to do. Chained together, these rituals created an illusion of productivity and I am searching in desperation for a sense of productivity because it keeps the tedium at bay.

When I phone Harper and tell him about my experience he says my obsession with tedium is pathetic and he calls it a "first world problem", which is not a Harper phrase, but it is accurate phrase. Both of our houses are too hot to continue a phone debate so we agree to meet for an early dinner and talk in a dark, cool corner of our favorite restaurant.

I say, "Help me understand what is wrong with me."

"Okay..." Harper says, "What is wrong with you?"

"I don't know."

"Then...I know what is wrong with you."

"You do?"

"Yes," Harper says, "you are ignorant."

This is a typical Harper logical response. The argument is tied up in an elegant little bow that looks pretty and accomplishes nothing. I try my best to look very annoyed and Harper sees it.

"Of course," Harper says, "People don't want to be ignorant, they want to have opinions because no one wants to look stupid, although "stupid" is a word often substituted for "ignorant", which is not the same as "stupid". If you did not know this, you are not stupid, just ignorant. If you are insulted that I just called you ignorant, as people often are, go look up the definition of the word "ignorant", because, if you don't, and you continue to believe that I just insulted you by calling you ignorant, you are being stupid."

This is typical Harper emotional response. He probably isn't insulting me but I am never completely sure. I try my best to look more annoyed, simply because I don't know what else to do.

"The good news," Harper says, "is that we all can address ignorance by putting in time and effort, and utilizing the proper resources, to reach a well-informed opinion. Before doing that, however, we need to take the time to decide if we really are passionate about an idea. If we don't care about an idea, we don't have to have an opinion. I know it feels like we should have an opinion, but we really, really don't. We need to accept our ignorance and truthfully say that we really don't know."

"Harper?"

"Yes?"

"Can you help me or not?"

Harper thinks for a long time. He strokes his non-existent beard. He thumps his temples. He grimaces and shrugs and winces. All for my benefit.

Then he says, "You don't need help."

"Why not?"

"Because your problem is that you are human."

I say, "There's not a lot I can do about being a human."

"That's true," Harper says, "But you can stop looking at being human as a problem."

"What do you mean?"

Harper says, "Humans spend so much of their lives trying to understand all of the big questions. Sure, we spend plenty of time and effort worrying about what shirt to wear in the morning, or how our children are doing in school, or whether or not the current traffic will make us late for work, but we have also spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on philosophy, theology, and psychology as well. We worry about the absurdity of the human condition, the finality of death and dying, the existence of God, the essence of reality, the origins of the universe and time and matter and energy, to the detriment of living. Do you understand what I mean?"

"I'm not sure I do."

"Maybe we should break this down into specific pieces. What is bothering you right now?"

I say, "I guess I feel ambivalent."

"Could you possibly be any less specific?"

"I don't think so."

"Then you probably should be more specific."

"I don't think I can. Questions about my emotions are difficult to answer. Not that I have a problem with sharing how I feel...on the contrary, I am often too blunt...but I don't always know exactly what it is I am feeling."

"Then you are probably stuck in the middle of a dichotomy."

"What does that mean?"

Harper says, "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and that was the first dichotomy, and ever since then humans have been creating dichotomies of our own, an attempt to derive Order from Chaos, which is a significant part of being human. We created Good and Evil, and Happiness and Sadness, and Virtues and Vices, and we exercised Prudence in order to decide where it would be best to reside within the dichomtomy because the human condition does not live in either of the extremes, we exist in the blended grays in between, and when our dreams and fantasies gravitate towards one extreme we feel the pull of the other extreme because we need balance to keep us from flying off into a cold, chaotic void of space."

Then, he says, "There is another dichotomy between the extremes of Tedium and Adventure, of Boredom and Stress, of Contentment and Excitement, and it measures our movements along these other dichotomies, how fast, how often, how extreme, and you are static, at the extreme of Tedium, in the center of the human condition, at the crossroads of all of our dichotomies, like the spokes of a wheel with you in the center, in the calm dead silence of the eye of the storm, while all around you life rages on, and while you cannot feel life, you are aware that it is out there and this fills you with despair."

Then, he says, "You are in that time between time, waiting for something to happen, and remembering something that has already happened."

"You mean the present."

"Yes, from the perspective of time it is the present, but it is only one kind of present. I mean, it is a present, but it is a destructive kind of present because, within the context of the mind, a present can be reality or it can be something else entirely."

"Some sort of tedium, something like limbo."

"In Dante's Inferno, the first circle of Hell was Limbo, a kind of catchall for people that he liked and respected who died in original sin, and it is very much like life on Earth. So, Limbo is Hell, but life is not Limbo, it's not a waiting room, waiting is a choice, something that we control. You need to understand that all of us have the power to stand up and leave, and that all we ever need to do is to do something else."

"And what is the 'something else'?"

"Presently, the 'something else' is picking up the check for a meal with a very dear friend who has imparted a tremendous amount of wisdom upon you and has, up to this point in time, asked for nothing in return. After that, you are on your own."

Confronted with Harper's infallible logic, there was but one choice. I paid for our meals and exited the restaurant. Then, I went back into the real world and started looking for something else to do.

The Plunger and the Toilet Brush

The Plunger and the Toilet Brush

(with apologies to Edward Lear)

The plunger and the toilet brush stood beside
A beautiful porcelain throne.
Though they rarely were used
They felt scorned and abused,
Their laments, an unbearable drone.

They complained of the bowl
Til the toilet paper roll
Gave response to their miserable plea,
"Stop being so whiny!
I have to wipe hindy!
You will not get pity from me,
From me,
From me,
No, you will not get pity from me."

Plunger said to the brush
"Before the next flush
I've an idea of what we must do.
Run away and be free!"
And the brush said, "Suits me,
for my bristles are smelly from poo!"

So they both sailed away
For a week and a day
Til they came to a tropical strand.
Any humans around
Used a hole in the ground
And then buried their feces in sand,
In sand,
In sand,
Yes, they buried their feces in sand.

As the weeks passed them by
Plunger said with a sigh,
"My convictions have taken a turn.
Though this island's a beauty
I still yearn for our duty
Of cleaning up doody and urine."

So they set off again
With a sail in the wind
Through the ocean and inlet and bay.
Going back to their home
By the porcelain throne
Where the two of them stand to this day,
This day,
This day,
Where the two of them stand to this day.

Harper on Phantom Wings

There are just the two of us, Harper and I, and we are talking in the dark corner of an all night diner where you can still find a waitress who wears too much perfume and calls everyone 'Honey'. I like to talk to Harper because he's the only person I know who is stranger than me. He also loves words and often mangles the English language in pursuit of that passion.

When two people are first falling in love and they form that little microcosm in which only they exist, Harper calls that the "hamster ball".

When a person discusses something passionately, flailing their arms around like Kermit the Frog on crack cocaine, Harper calls that going "Muppet Buck Wild".

When someone feels particularly emotional and is trying to explain how they feel, and their spoken words are coming out fast and twisted, Harper calls that either a "tangly ramble" or "rambly tangle" or "tangled rambly" or "rambled tangly" or a variety of other permutations. He says all these phrases are synonymous and interchangeable because the semantics are far more important than the syntax, and that, if a "ramble tangle" doesn't care about its order or grammar, then the phrase that describes it shouldn't care about its order or grammar either.

Tonight, we are discussing a phrase that he uses quite often and the phrase is "phantom wings".

Sometimes he says, "My phantom wings are killing me."

Sometimes he says, "Someone should check on her phantom wings."

Sometimes he says, "Stop crushing my phantom wings."

Every time he uses this phrase, as beautiful as it sounds, he confuses people, until he takes the time to explain that the phrase "phantom wings" refers to feeling stressed. This is a sufficient enough explanation for a majority of people. They hang the syntax in their memory banks and hook it up to the appropriate semantics and transparently translate the phrase the next time Harper mentions "phantom wings".

My memory banks don't work that way because my memory banks need concepts and stories to make connections. Besides, Americans have entirely too many unexplained colloquialisms in English as it is and, if Harper gets hit by a bus tomorrow -- which is not completely outside the realm of possibilities considering his inability to pay attention to the external world -- Americans will be stuck with one more.

So I say, "What are phantom wings?"

And he automatically says, "If I mention phantom wings, it means I am feeling stressed."

"Yes, I know that, but why?"

Harper sighs and says, "Takes too long to explain."

But I know Harper and when he says something takes too long to explain, it simply means I have to keep listening until he starts to talk again.

So, I listen, until he starts to talk again.

"In the beginning, there was God and God was the creator and the universe was his Magnum Opus and, when he finished, there the universe existed before time. It was good and the universe was a thing in and of itself, and its purpose was itself, but a work of art is not complete without an audience and the audience had to consist of sentient and rational creatures so that the universe would convey purpose beyond its mere existence. So God created angels as his audience for his work of art. But angels already had total knowledge of everything through their connection with God, so there was no mystery. God was not a Faith for the angels, he was a Fact. There was no conflict and, therefore, no drama, and, therefore, no context of conflict and drama in which a story could unfold through time and this make the universe static. There was only an infinity of praising and glorifying God until the fall of Lucifer and when Lucifer fell, he lost his wings."

"Sorry?" I said, "What version of the bible have you been reading?"

"What do you care? You're agnostic."

"Doesn't mean I don't respect a good book when I read it."

"I'm not being disrespectful. Every good reader who reads a good book sees their stories between the lines. I'm just telling you mine. You want to hear the rest of it or not?"

"Yes."

Harper stared at me, tilting his head.

"Yes!" I said, "I want to hear the rest...sorry..."

"Lucifer was delivered to the Lake of Fire, but hubris is the greatest of all sins, so Damnation was not sufficient punishment. So, God created phantom wings, a remembrance of was it was to be winged and knowledge of was it is to never being winged again and he cursed Lucifer with their bodily pain, carried just above his shoulder blades, as an added reminder of all that he had sacrificed. Lucifer's banishment created the dichotomy of Good and Evil and within those two extremes the angels saw that there existed many shades of gray and they asked God if they could enter into those shades and if they could praise and glorify him with their Faith and without their wings and God was pleased with their Faith so he created human beings as angelic avatars which allowed the angels to experience his universe in a uniquely human way. But, in order to turn God from Fact to Faith, the angels had to forget everything they knew and enter the human condition as a blank slate and God knew that this would cause despair so he gave each human a pair of phantom wings, a much milder form of Lucifer's punishment, to remind them of who they really were."

"And how did you find your phantom wings?" I asked.

"When I feel anxiety or sadness or despair, I dream, and when I dream, I have many symbols and settings and situations that recur in those dreams. Sometimes I think I have an unconscious treasure trove of stress in abstract forms buried somewhere in my mind because many of the dreams are the same. I am late for work, or I can't find my clothes, or I can't find my car, or I have a school assignment due even though I haven't been in school for years. In this dream, all other dreams coalesced, causing two knots of tension in my upper back. And though I don't remember all of the details of the dream, I do remember that it culminated in a scene in a large retail store where I was operating a cash register without any knowledge of how the machine worked and all around me were angry customers waiting for me to finish a complex and unsolvable business transaction. As the crowd threatened to crush me on all sides, the tension above my shoulder blades increased to an unbearable, pulsating pain and then two immense white wings burst through my flesh and muscle, unfurling and flapping with unprecedented power and the crowd was buffeted backwards by the force and I skyrocketed upwards through the ceiling and roof of the store and rose above a cloud cover in the sky until all below me was an endless floor of white mist and all around me was a glorious sunset of reds and oranges and pinks and purples and I felt an overwhelming, giddy joy, an ecstasy, that I knew only as a muted and filtered, human-sized portion of the infinite love of God."

After we finished our food and the table had been cleared and the waitress had brought us our check, I picked up the tab, with no argument from Harper, and I paid for both of our meals. It seemed a reasonable price for the discovery of the presence and purpose of my phantom wings.