Forming and emerging darkness
a not so distant cloud
shades of gray morphing into blackness
climbs the sky
blotting out the sun
igniting the fury of the wind

The future folds back onto itself
a turbulent past leading to a future
once promising
now threatening
to suck the breath of promise…
of hope
hurdling us blindly
into a quicksand of suffocating blackness

Once there was a promise…
an anticipation
of rainbows…
of golden streetways…
of synchrony of sound
of meaningful prose and enlightened passions
of a relationship
of mutuality of being
seems now a fading memory
replaced
a sentence pronounced.

Extinguishing your light
extinguishes mine
beings not of separate souls
but one of unitary breath and heartbeat
clinging together
dreaming
imagining
laughing
the presence of God within us …
all around us

I fear much without you
my lighthouse
guiding me from
my excursions down rabbitholes
I tremble at the banality of existence
without your play on words
I am terrified at the deafening yawns
the muted flatulence
the comforting numbness
of existing
without you

I know God is with me…with you
but why is God not with us?
in relationship
are we not formidable?
are we not a beam of light in swirling darkness?
yet, humbled
limited and laid bare
by a sea
of pumps, tubes, pokes and prods
tears and fears
saturating the air

Is there a Hell or Hades?
A physicality of thirst and dust
of barrenness and pain
if so … this storm cloud brings it
I fear
it so
encountering
promises that can’t be promised
and
blessings disguised as curses
…
without you…

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I get so disappointed
In myself as a human being
My time is fleeting
Yet my willingness
To sacrifice
A vast portion of my soul
For fragments
shards
And
Thimblefuls of
Fragrant smoke
Blown
Lapped up
As I eagerly
Grab my ankles

I get so disappointed
In myself as a human being
Frightened by so little
Oblivious to so much…
Eager to define my reality
Sacrificing possibility
For the numbness
Of satiated
Mindless
Comfort…

The remaining years
Of my life
Are but a sniffle
A gasp
A pochmark
In the cosmic fabric
In confronting
The expanding specter
of my death
I should not cling
To pieces of comfort
That choke the sun
Love
Is the embrace of discomfort
Grasping for the
Unattainable
The windmills
Gasping, clutching, scratching
To escape
The barreness
Of safe and predictable…

I am what I live
X plus y equals z
Mathematically defined
Sin crouching at
The same doors
In the same 4 wall houses
Deafening
In its repetition …
Controlled
But not generalizable…
Maddeningly so…

I get so dissapointed
In myself as a human being…

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furious, frustrating…
finitude?

Notification!
not so much . . .

Irritating and irrelevant

annoying anal orifices!!

putrid, pitiful, pus…
pushy?
positively!
pestering…
perpetually
pervasively…
prompt?
preposterous!

relief
restitution? No..
resistance? Yes..
reliance…puzzling
recognition…emerging
resolution?

No!

see furious.

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He couldn’t sleep
At least not through the night
He would sink
Into the foam
Eyelids cemented shut
With exhaustion
Only to wake hours
Sometimes minutes later
Wide-eyed
With a start
Locomotive Conversations
Steaming
nay roaring
Through his head

His outer demeanor gave no clue
No foreshadowing evident
Of the child
The frightened
Shell-shocked child
Screaming inside of him
Clawing and struggling
To escape
The horrors heard

Read about
And documented
Discussed
Minute by minute
Hour after hour
Day by day

He thought laughter
An effective armor
A giggling knight
Nonchalant…
Dispatching
A fire-breathing dragon
Rendered harmless by a sardonic shield
Slayed by a rapier wit

Alas…
He was but a fool.
The armor … the shield … the wit
Held no countenance
Against the glowering savagery
Of a boundless terror

For the child could not
Begin to understand
Its precious naivete
Its desire for hope and love and harmony
splintered and shattered
By the bestiality
Of a humanity it revered
And wished to admire

The dismembering rapes
The brutish sodomies
Crushing legions of genealogies
Souls and psyches
Stacked and piled and cast aside
Like driftwood
Estranged
Tormented
Forgotten
and pissed off
Again
Stacked and piled and cast aside
Again
With no light at the end of the tunnel

And the child within him kept screaming

He couldn’t sleep…

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They buzzed about, swarming the space
rendering it bilious
their fumes of noxious interaction
drifted, rapidly rising up his nostrils
nauseating him.

They grated and tore at his psychic skin
with jagged and bitten down banality
their voices dragging, scraping, twisting, screeching
down a chipped, beaten down
chalkboard of his persona

With clenched jaw, eyes turned upward
counting the holes and uneven ceiling tiles
he drew deeply into himself
the world fading away
the conversations blurring together
yet detached held together by a membrane
of relevance

A blackness washed over him
like a velvet, silk pudding
soothing, yet rendering him helpless
He wanted to leave
but couldn’t
He desired to sleep
but wouldn’t
not here, not now

Because when his eyes creaked open
just a slit
they were still there
He wished them vanquished
but
of course
they were still there
grating, irritating, grinding, picking, braying and posturing

they … they drained him, sucking him dry
licking their lips
pushing, prodding, poking, pleading
for him to perform

Please dance
Please twirl for us and make us laugh
We wish to forget
We desire your mirth
We hunger for your wit…

They fail to understand, he thought
I desire the freedom of space
the exhilaration of loneliness
the knowledge of angst

For today
at this moment
at this juncture
I am but an alien
to your chaos
to your insecurities
to your insipidness
For today
I am but an alien
observing from a distant place
a solitary constellation
of myself

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What is this fear of nonexistence
that churns the stomach
and grips the intestines with vise-like power
the sweat flooding the pores?

Perhaps it is the Valley of 5 Seconds
the clarity of understanding
blanked by realization
a union of senses and thoughts
filling the void between dimming light and forever darkness
until the eyes roll back…

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All that is known
but not believed is this…
we wish for life
but believe in death

Death is a simple dish
of pain tossed with anguish
mixed with chaos
and wrapped in darkness

Life is a casserole of endless labyrinths
of glimpses of light
with promises of rainbow colors
of smells basking in
swirling and tangled textures

To live
is to travel through divergent pathways
mushrooming, multiplying
exponential possibilities
delighting and deflating
pungent and painful

Death
is but one road
comfortable, sure, and predictable
a given destination yielding
only treasures not
pursued

You don’t live unless you’re living
but you die but once
The blue pill offers
unimaginable pain
The red pill renders
you
comfortably numb
Beware the choice to be made

I am confused
for I wish to find truth
but discover only riddles
I fear death
yet
I am terrified of life
Light frightens me
but
darkness haunts me

In the morning…
every morning
after the sun burns off the mist
there is a fork up ahead…

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O Narcissus what do you see?
a world defined by “me”
of the image of your face
with nose, mouth, and hair
glorifying the heavens
by its mere presence

For what is a work of art?
outside the context of “me”
a snapped photograph
with gray tracings and outlines
of dreary past cultures, of civilizations long lost
thirsting for your likeness

Fear not O Narcissus, you are not alone in your quest
you have friends
from the four corners of somewhere
irrelevant and unknown
for the backgrounds are fuzzy and blurry
and with great relief
for their imago dei
like yours
swallows them whole

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I thought this entry had posted but due to Internet difficulties in Italy and being a newbie in terms of operating a Motorola Atrix cellphone, the post did not stick.  The post below was motivated by a speaker — Pietro Pacci — who discussed his counseling experiences with immigrant prostitutes in Italy.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The  emergence of African immigrants to Italy presents problems that are similar to those experienced by the United States.  The presence of Hispanic populations in Georgia, for example, present paradoxical ethical problems.  The United States is a country whose history is forged by the arrival of immigrants from all corners of the world.  As such, the United States cultural should be inclusive of all peoples, welcoming diversity and recognizing the unique contributions each population brings to the overall well-being and functioning of this country.  Yet, in difficult economic times, scapegoats are sought.  In the State of Georgia, for example, Hispanics are vilified for taking State resources — jobs, education, health — either away from American citizens or by causing them to pay higher taxes for these services.  This vilification by politicians has led to campaigns filled with promises to tighten the borders the United States shares with Mexico.  The vilification is irrational because Hispanic workers are hired by American companies — usually corporate farms — to perform jobs eschewed by American workers.  In Gainesville, Georgia, for example, Hispanic workers perform jobs that allow Gainesville to be the poultry capital of the United States.   In other states — such as Florida — Hispanic workers allow the cheap harvesting of fruit, such as oranges.  This cheap source of labor — small wages, no benefits — allows food manufacturers to sell food products at competitive prices.  Without Hispanic labor, American consumers might be paying a significantly higher percentage of their household incomes on items such as orange juice, fruit, chicken, etc.  The need to include Hispanic laborers raises an ethical question, however.  The creation of the Hispanic working class in the United States can be seen as cultivating a “slavery class” ironically necessary for Americans from all economic classes to enjoy a wide range of products and services at low cost.  The Hispanic working class arguably are slaves because they do not enjoy the same wages, working conditions, and benefits of American workers; moreover, they are portrayed as scapegoats politically.  As such, they struggle against a hostile political bureaucracy buoyed by harassment by police forces and citizens seeking a return to a more homogenous America.  The hypocracy perpetuated by those in political power should be obvious.

Italy faces a similar paradox.  The exploitation of African immigrants as prostitutes parallels the victimization of Hispanic workers in the United States.  The cultural themes of machismo and patriarchy fuel Italian men to victimize this population.  Italian laws and customs make it difficult for immigrants to achieve access to acceptable occupations, in terms of wages and benefits.  That is, being a candidate for employment in Italy requires social connectivity:  who you know is more important than what you know.  Immigrants are scapegoated, vilified for Italy’s economic problems.  They are objectified because they comprise the majority of the prostitution trade.  Like the United States, the immigrants are slaves.  They do not enjoy the rights and privileges of Italian citizens yet are used by Italian men for sexual exploitation.  The immigrants must submit to such occupations as prostitution in order to survive economically.  The hypocracy of the Italian government is exhibited by a “tolerance” for prostitution that — coupled with exclusive job hiring practices — nourish this practice of sexual slavery.

For both countries, the practice of scapegoating populations of exploited people is scandalous.  The ability of all Americans to enjoy low-cost goods and services requires the exploitation of Hispanic populations.  Similarly, the partriarchal cultural of Italy requires exploiting African immigrants to maintain the cultural values of machismo and objectification of women.  That is, Italian men could treat their wifes as objects of purity while maintaining their machismo through sexual acts with prostitutes.   The maltreatment of Hispanic and African immigrants by the United States and Italy, respectively, reveals cultural dysfunctionality — cultures that require the exploitation and marginalization of specific groups of people in order to flourish.

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We went to see Pisa and Lucca and I found myself resonating to Lucca.  I love the quaintness of the town, surrounded by walls.  The town appeared as a fortress.  Yet, the connectedness of the town in terms of its small size, its architecture, and its pathways that wind themselves throughout the buildings makes Lucca wonderful.  The frustrating thing –  from an ugly American point of view — is that unless you speak Italian, you find yourself looking at statues and paintings with absolutely no clue who they are, what they represent, and how they obviously are relevant.  The people who do speak English…fairly fluently….are the immigrant attempting to sell their wares as you enter cities and other tourist places of interest.  Need a Gucci purse or a Rolex watch?  No problem…

I had a few fun conversations with some of the immigrant vendors who are quite nice…Had to buy an umbrella because it rained off and on yesterday and we had fun negotiating a price — could have payed 5 Euros before the rain…and ended up paying 8 during…oh well, he wanted 10 so it was fun nontheless…I am still messing around with the Atrix in terms of posting pictures so eventually I will post them.  Like I said, however, there won’t be a whole lot of description…

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