july's nuclear drEam

The sky was once blue
Now its a gray ashy hue
And its burned on the memories
Of everyone I knew
Gone are the abbeys
The parks and the bars
Gone all discussions
Of Venus and Mars
Everyone's gone
Or near enough, anyway
Time to start over
If I can just find a way

Did we really think heaven
Would forgive us this day
Or forgive us tomorrow
Have you nothing to say?
Silent as a tombstone
And dead as the sky
Who's now left to ponder
Every dream's dying sigh
Cause I can't find a reason
Or an answer just the same
Why I should stand here living
Amid the dead and the flame

Color me pessimistic
Color me a fool
Things could be better
Wading my feet in the pool
Where the bodies lie floating
Or to the bottom submerge
While the shrill keen of missiles
Sing their hideous dirge
I'm just hoping for something
Some substance I cannot see
Looking for the evidence
Of a greater faith in me

Only I can stop this
I could wake from this dream
Beat my swords into plowshares
Cast my fears in the stream
And let the waters carry them
To rivers and to seas
Give my life to understanding
to flowers and to bees
Show the world I love them
Not in word but in deed
There is nothing in these weapons
We should ever want or need


ELAshley
071211.112535.1

Not my best work. Not by far.

dEarest Mary Angel

I saw her today for the first time in five weeks. She smiled and hugged me; she was genuinely happy to see me. I complimented her, told her she looked beautiful. She asked if something was wrong with my eyes. I told her she was a sight for sore eyes. And I told her she WAS beautiful. And she was.

We were to have lunch last Friday, but she couldn't break away from clients. We were to meet yesterday, but she was stuck in Enterprise awaiting a transmission repair. We are to meet Thursday, and it is my hope nothing will prevent our meeting.

I like her too much. Far too much. I will only get hurt in the end, but I do not care. I have to try. You can't spend your winnings unless you buy a ticket, right? She knows I like her, but she doesn't turn me away; she continues to encourage me. She's said things to others that indicate she is interested. Or was five weeks ago.

I had a conversation with the other Eric today. Prescott. He laughs to see how bad I have it for her, but he understands. He's not mocking. He listens and offers advice. He says she knows how I feel. And to be patient. I confided to him that even should nothing come of my infatuation-- should she and I never advance beyond the occasional lunch --I would still rather have that relationship that the one I now have. At least with her I feel alive and valued and listened to. I feel alive around her. I can speak my mind. I don't have to hide who I am; I can speak freely without fear of laughter or rejection. She likes who I am... enough to share the occasional lunch with me.

I want to ask her for more... a movie or dinner. But I'm not free to date. Not until I'm on my own. We were supposed to see a movie last month but never got around to it. Just as friends. She hates to see movies alone, as do I. I could use a best friend, and I wouldn't mind if it turned out to be her. Even if that's all we ever became.

As I said. I like her too much. But I can't help myself. I waited twenty years for one woman to say 'yes.' And in the end she has made it clear she doesn't want to marry... not me, not anyone. I want to belong to someone; I want to be happy. And as I said, even should nothing develop us, at least with this beautiful and vibrant woman I'll learn once more how to socialize-- how to befriend and be befriended.

I finally feel as though this ship I'm on can actually get somewhere; that winds will actually fill its sails, and its prow carve a path across this seemingly interminable sea. I've been a long time rocked upon its merciless surface, and I'm looking forward to dry land. I'm looking forward to someone who won't balk at one day putting a ring on my finger-- whoever and wherever she may be.

God be with you and yours,

All my love,

Eric

e's yEar-end brain dump

It has been a year of epiphanies. A year of hope. A year of change. It has been a year of desolate heartache and a year of light. It has been a candle floating upon a turbulent sea, lit in spite of the storm because no storm could ever put this candle out.

It has been a return to dreams and dreaming; something I've not done in a very long while-- not that I remember, of course. I've begun to dream again. And what better way to ring out the decade? After all, it has been a dark decade and it's getting darker still, but in the midst of the darkness is that candle. Hope... and the promise of change. No not the kind Obama promised, but rather real change; the kind you know is real because you effected it-- You set the stage, you set the ball to rolling, and the top to spinning. Not some ephemeral promise that things will get better, but instead the change you make for yourself.

That is where I find myself on the last day of this year.


I spoke just now of dreams? I had a dream two weeks ago that is still playing in vivid living color... I dreamt she held my hand. I dreamt I reached for her, and she took my hand and did not let go.

You can't imagine how wonderful that was, to wake up and remember that, even though a mere dream, someone thought enough of me to hold my hand. The trick now is to make that vision a reality. I don't know who she'll end up being, but I know she's there.

* * *

I've changed twice now in little more than a year. Same company, different posts therein. If anything, I can attribute my new ability to dream, in no small part, to these changes. Sit in one place too long and walls begin to climb about you. You don't see them but you can certainly sense them, they're the sure knowledge-- understood as such or not --that you're being penned in, that some force is keeping you from being what you were meant to be. Think of the feed lots, how the cattle are confined and forced to dine on a diet contradictory to their nature. That's you. Taught to eat from a trough when you were created to graze freely. That's the way I've felt for good many years.

But that all changed this year. I've been thrust out of the lot, and made to roam... so to speak. I'm not yet comfortable with my new station, but I'm getting there. I've had to make adjustments; some painful, some absolutely delightful.

One, both painful and a bittersweet (at present) kind of joy, is the decision I made to get out of a relationship of 20 years; one that has gone nowhere despite all my efforts to see it bear fruit. Knowing she doesn't wish to marry me hurts more than I can ever express, but I also feel at peace with my decision. I'm out of practice socializing with women, but I'm looking forward to it. I, like everyone else on the planet, just want to be loved. And if one woman doesn't want me, there's someone else out there who does. I just need to find her.

I've become more introspective this year, which is either an utter amazement or extremely distressing depending on your point of view, since I have already been a deeply introspective person for these past thirty-five years. I'm not sure what that portends but it's been a personally noticeable change. There's more of a determination than ever before to build a bulwark of personal honor and self-determination; to project strength in who I am in relation to the rest of the world. There was none of that twenty years ago. None whatsoever.

How this will stead me in the months ahead? I can't say. But everywhere I turn I get, and am given, encouragement... inducement to keep moving forward. And that's what I'll do.

For now, I need to begin work on my New Year poem. I've thought about it all week, and now it's time to begin writing.


i will find
and you will find
and we shall find together here
underneath the bunker...

But that's not really how it goes, is it? Like the song to which you thought you knew the lyrics, only to discover you had it wrong all those years.

i will hide
and you will hide
and we shall hide together here
underneath the bunker...

--REM

I like my version better.