Quiet Phases
Words flow in a drowning flood, then cease suddenly
And I am here during the noise and the silence
Busy with no real purpose, more time ticking away
I simply wait
Wait until the rains come again, so I have words to speak
Spending the silence watching, hearing, feeling
Collecting pieces of the world for a later puzzle
Sometimes the wait is long
The Devil’s Confessional
Bless me Father, for I am sin, it has been an eternity since my last confession. Not that I intend to start now. I will tell you a story instead, a true story, and maybe that will count as a confession. Are you listening? I wonder if he is listening too. Don’t fool yourself, he doesn’t listen to everything. Like all males, he has very selective hearing and he’s been ignoring me for a long time now. But you are here, my captive audience, ready to be enlightened.
The first thing that I must tell you about myself is that I am no angel. Forgive my devilish sense of humor, but it is true. I was never even a fallen angel. I was his mistress, his love, his equal and together we existed in perfect accord, alone in the world before the world. We created your world together, each of us adding something to it. It seemed like a good idea at the time, we needed a hobby. Everything was balanced perfectly, the land, the air, the water and the things that inhabited our beautiful universe. Then Adam. The narcissist just had to create a little miniature of himself that he could watch play in our world. I knew this stupid toy would ruin everything, so can I be blamed if I went into a rage? He did not even ask me first!
Adam was like a paper doll, it may have looked like him but it lacked any power, any substance. It was ugly. The more I watched this ugly human crapping on my hard work, the more incensed I became. Instead of just removing the offensive being, he thought he could pacify me with a gift. Eve. I still cringe when I think of that pitiful thing wearing my face. Trust me when I tell you, Eve has been highly overrated. You can understand, of course, why I argued with him. How can someone omnipotent be so idiotic? Well, he wouldn’t listen, he acted like I was not his equal anymore, he wanted to keep his toys. When I saw how submissive and passive he made Eve, I understood that he expected me to behave that way. I don’t do passive.
So, I left. I came here to play with you people instead, starting with Adam. Don’t believe the propaganda, I did not show up as some talking snake with an apple for Eve. Your repressed priests have totally corrupted the events. I was the proverbial apple, and it was Adam that I tempted, not Eve. He gave Adam free will but not the intelligence to use it properly. He made Adam love Eve, and geared them to breed with each other. The moronic toy did not even realize that I was not Eve. I made sure that we were seen. I wanted him to watch his little human touch me, have me, he needed to witness my betrayal. He almost ripped your whole world apart with his jealousy, trying to force me to come back to him.
When that did not work, he sent those gossipy angels here to tell your holy men lies about me, as if I am capable of shame. I simply do not care that you blame me for all sorts of evil. His toys do far more evil in our beautiful world than I ever could. He tried to make me jealous once, believing that if he screwed a human too, that I would want to return to him. That did not work either, but you people are still absurdly fascinated by the result of that misguided copulation.
He has mostly given up now, I think he has become resigned to our new living arrangement. Occasionally he will try to get my attention again, do something to make sure that I know he is still there. When he does this, I have to send him a response so that he knows I have not changed my mind. That’s why I am here, telling you our story. Because there is only one thing that I can do that will still hurt him, one thing I can still take away from him. Let’s not misunderstand each other, I am not here to confess, I have no soul to save. He only gave those to you, I still don’t see the point of it. He cares a great deal about these souls he gifted you with. It may be the only thing he does still care about. See, I am not here to cleanse my soul, I am here to take yours.
The Lancelot Lie (an excerpt)
Premise: What if the most famous love triangle of all time had been a lie? The truth would have destroyed it all, but the lie immortalized Camelot.
Audience: Young adult
The boredom was clearly setting in, he looked more like a trapped animal than a king waiting for his queen. Arthur never enjoyed sitting still for long, and he loathed excessive pageantry. Everything was certainly excessive tonight. It had to be. This marriage could save Arthur's reign, or signal the end of it. The hall was awash in all the finery that existed in the kingdom, resulting in clashing colors of opulence. Major and minor nobles were jammed in alongside merchants and landholders, each straining to be one inch closer to the center aisle. No one wanted to miss the grand entrance procession that a queen of such standing was expected to have. Her father was a wealthy king, from a wealthy country, and it was obvious to anyone who had seen the escort caravan arrive. It was the presentation of gifts brought by this caravan that now had Arthur so restless. He did thankfully remember to show appreciation for each gift as it was announced by the emissary.
Finally, the end of the long line of chests, wagons, performers and servants was reached. Now the aisle stood empty all the way down to the hall's closed wooden doors. Arthur seemed to regain full focus as the emissary spoke again. "Good King Arthur, I have been charged by the High King Leodegrance to present you with one final gift of the greatest value. The King sends to you his only daughter, Guinevere, in the hopes that a bond between your two kingdoms can be forged in friendship and love." Arthur stood up so fast that for a moment he looked as if he was about to charge an enemy. A split second later, barely noticeable, he settled into a formal stance on the dais and nodded towards the emissary. The great doors opened as the crowd hushed and turned to lay eyes on the new queen for the first time. A single figure could be seen standing in the wide gulf of the doorway.
After an hour of the vibrant and busy procession of gifts, the quietness of this lone figure was a shock to the system. The onlookers fell completely silent in confusion. Then she began to walk, slowly but with intent, her eyes never leaving Arthur. This was not the queen that was expected, there were no jewels dripping off extremities, no fine gown flowing behind her, not even a crown on her head. Instead, she wore a simple shift of pale cream that seemed to barely dare to touch her skin. Long fine yellow hair flowed loosely down her back and greedily caught reflections from the torches for it's own purposes. Even her feet were bare. The servants in the hall were more finely dressed than this queen, but no one would have mistaken her for a servant. She seemed more goddess than queen to all that saw her. Confidence without arrogance, strength without cruelty, power without harshness, a nobility that was deeper than just a birthright.
When she reached the base of the dais, she knelt on one knee as a knight would have, looking up directly at Arthur. He had the look of a man lost in a daydream, seeing only her. "My dearest Lord and King, my father has sent you many riches and treasures in thanks for our union. I have no such treasures of my own, so I come to you with only what is mine to give, myself." She did not shout these words, or whisper them, but spoke pleasantly and clearly in such a manner that all in the hall heard her. This was not a frail princess thrown into marriage, this was an equal for Arthur. For a moment no one breathed, no one moved, not even the king. One heartbeat, than another and still another went by with everyone locked in this perfect second of simplicity. A very slight grin from Guinevere broke the King's frozen state and he reached down to take her hands, raising her to her feet. The hall erupted in loud cheering and applause, dozens of the women in the crowd brushed away tears as the king brought his queen up next to him. Arthur and all of Camelot fell hopelessly in love with Guinevere.
As the cheers rolled over them both, Arthur knew with certainty, he would tell her the truth. He would tell her everything.
In Less Than A Year
Wild child in the extreme, young and unbound
With a habit of burning my world to the ground
Reveling in constant chaos without ever looking back
Until the moment a simple little test knocked me off track
Given less than forty weeks to to come to grips
Have to plan, prepare, watch as the sanity slips
Bought a crib and a cradle, time ticked away so fast
Not ready to relegate my freedom to days in the past
Spent all those months disconnected, unsure and numb
A flash of pain woke me, suddenly the reality had come
A whirling vortex of hospital scrubs and beeping machines
Trying to cope but releasing several loud cursing screams
In my arms in an instant making everything else fade away
It all changed completely and we were both born that day
I’d rather hurt, than be like you
Do you feel? Is it possible for you to understand pain?
So flawless, protected, always kept safe from injury
Can you conceive of being tattered, left to remain?
How are you supposed to even comprehend me?
I strike at you with words intending to move you
Yet you stare mindlessly indifferent while I scream
Do we all bleed the same? I don't think that we do
Life comes with hurt, you have no idea what that means
It Crossed My Mind
In a hurry, groceries loaded, already late
Heading home, desperately in need of a break
Then the radio decides to play that old song
And I feel myself travel back as it goes on
That one night, sitting on the hood of a beat up car
As he sang it softly to me and played that used guitar
We were so intensly alive and amazingly free
In those few moments of perfect simplicity
Reminding me of things I seem to now lack
No rush to return, I'll take the long way back