A Murder Of Crows: Blog

The Void

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:53:17 GMT

Where has my heart gone

In emptiness I now dwell-

The breeze has gone still.

Where have my dreams fled

That which propelled me forward-

The silent waters.

The stars have gone black

My course no longer matters-

Adrift and alone.

A moment of sight

And then there is nothing left-

Was it ever there.

...

To re-awaken

To breath deep the crisp cool air-

Come again to me.

To hear your laughter
Or to understand your pain-
To share and to heal.

But this cannot be
The earth accepts its burden-
I dwell in the void.

***
***

It has been several months since I last posted anything and I was, for the most part, taking a breather as I decide my next course in the crossroads and while I have been silent, I have been watching. Yes, I admit it, I am a LURKER.

This Haiku string is a result of reading a post from one of my favorite stops; The Gav Menagerie.
This particular post really touched home as I remember a friend, who when faced with a very different and difficult crossroad of his own, decided to take the path that would end his pain, but one that would create a void for those of us he left behind.
After all these years, there is not a day that I don't think about him and wonder the what if's:
What if I had been a closer friend.
What if I had a chance to talk to him before he stood at that moment of decision.
What if
What if
What if

But I don't know, I can only guess. The Haiku string above begins with his voice and concludes with mine.

And I still feel just as empty.

Tonight I Sail

Wed, 28 May 2008 14:07:52 GMT

Last night I dreamt a dream of life, as I have but once before;
I dreamt I stood at the great earth's edge; upon a rocky shore.
The ocean stretched out far and wide; a deep and gentle blue,
Waves crashed upon it's boundaries end; forever trying to break through.

Three ships anchored just beyond the crashing surf, and safely out of reach;
Two with sails unfurled, and pointed towards the beach.
Upon their decks, unfolded sights familiar to my eye:
Of people who have walked within my life, and events from days gone by.

The first ship, showed me things as they were at the dawning of my days,
These events that I had long forgot, yet knew them all the same.
I saw my parents smiling down at me; safely tucked in their embrace,
Of childhood days exploring life, and the future I would chase.

The second ship, reveled my days as a young man on my own;
To reap the harvest of the earth, that God and man had sown.
I saw then too my wife and children; these greater parts of me:
They who grew and then flew off, and she; yet so young, taken by God's decree.

I saw the years of happy bliss; I saw the years of woe;
I saw the rekindling of earthly love; I saw my children's children grow.
I saw the sun begin its slow descent, beyond the horizon of my time,
And as if on cue; I saw the third ship's sails begin to slowly climb.

Unlike the two ships facing me, which were anchored beyond the beach;
This smaller ship which stood facing out, now stood ready and within my reach.
All that it was waiting on, was for its masters foot to meet the deck;
To claim the rudder and the wheel, and to chart its brand new trek.

For two nights now, I have dreamt this dream, and know the time is nigh;
For when I dream again tonight, my foot shall not be shy;
I will climb aboard and take the helm; chart the course; and loosen rope from rail;
And let the wind of true loves breath, journey me beyond the veil.

Tonight my love,
Tonight;
For you, tonight I sail.

Painting by Caspar David Friedrich

I Dream - A Rare Explaination

Sun, 18 May 2008 16:17:38 GMT

I have never done this before, but at this particular juncture in my life, I feel the need to do so.

Get a new car?
Get a life?
Get over mid-life crisis?

No I've done those things already. What I need to do here is to explain my poetry; or at least my last entry, 'I Dream'. I have had many comments from family and friends about this particular piece and a lot of it is on the worrisome side.

No I am not feeling blue, black or any other color. My brothers comment pretty much sums up the rest of the comments in general; 'do not give up hope', 'Carpe Diem' and all that. Siobhan commented on the page and then asked, “Did you have a birthday or something?“.

Well Yes.

And No.

Yes, I am 11 days from my 50^th Birthday and No, it has nothing to do with the poem. I approach each birthday the same as the one before it; it is just another day that I need to pay the bills. I do not feel any older than I did 20 years ago and I am blessed with the physique of a Greek god (that has seen better days). True, there are many things in my life that I wish I had done differently and boy, if I could just turn back time...

But that is part of life and I embrace the regrets the same as the triumphs, as long as we grow and pass along our lessons, we live a fruitful life.

'I Dream' was about just that; Dreaming. Dreaming of better things, better ways and new beginnings; even after we have shed this mortal coil, I believe life in some way continues. I am not going to argue the concepts of religious theology, New Age philosophy or any other 'ogy or 'phy. I do not have the answers, and neither do you. But I have a faith in the unknown and while we cannot conceive what what awaits us beyond this life, I know that life does not end here.

But I will admit to a measure of sadness in 'I Dream'; that brief moment of regret we may feel about our failures in life and that what we were and did will fade away until it is totally forgotten. A leap of faith is always tinged with doubt.

I look over the photographs of long ago ancestors and strangers and look into their eyes and wonder at the life that was. I love old movies, but when I watch them, I can't help but wonder at seeing the animated form and hearing the voices of people who are no longer among us and think, 'how can this be, they are right before my eyes'.

Yes I am weird, but I have never claimed otherwise. I have always had this sense of the people who have come before us. I can go into an old house and stare at an old scratch in a tabletop or long ago worn out steps and feel connected to those that made them, in that bridge between them and me.

When I go to cemeteries to photograph the headstones (see Through Her Eyes ), I cannot feel but touched at what is the last earthly statement of these people. Many people, including close friends are creep'd out by cemeteries and think that I am nuts. They are afraid because they have doubts. I do not.

My fascination with the dead and death are not a morbid fare. I look at death as a celebration of LIFE, even when it is brief and tragic. When I look into a faded and yellowed photograph, I wonder about the lives that were touched by the eyes that look back at me, and if they were in my ascendancy, I wonder about what part of them exists in me. When we have children, we pass along a piece of ourselves into the recipe that is forever, a work in progress. We are made unique by the very people who came before us and the ones who will follow.

Poetry should do one of two things: it should either paint a picture as clear as a photograph, or it should have a separate meaning for each person who reads it. 'I Dream' is of the latter and for each person who reads it, my hope is that you will not worry about what I am feeling, but that it will have a special meaning for you. The month of May, outside of being my birth month, has always been a favorite time of year. It is a time of re-birth when nature has shrugged off the slumber of winter and we humans get out of our protective enclosures and enjoy the outside as it blooms and sings. This is the time of year when I usually go into poetry mode,and my subject matter will be for some, on the 'morbid' side. This is far from the truth.

So if you stop by and read my poems, my hope is that they will have some meaning for you and at the very least, that you will enjoy the brief moment in the reading. Some will have a sad note to them because that WAS the way I was feeling at the moment and from this side of the perspective, but like I said, that is how we grow and how we embrace the life we have here; not worrying about the hereafter, but the 'here and now'.

Of life, I have have some experience, But on the after life; I Dream.

I Dream

Sun, 04 May 2008 17:55:21 GMT

I dream.

Between the mantle of my love and the armor of my hate,
I dream.

Between the sword of my needs and the quest of my desires,
I dream.

Between the truth of my knowledge and my faith in the unknown,
I dream.

Between the sunset of my age and the memory of my youth,
I dream.

Between the counting of my days and the immortality of my end,
I dream.

I dream.

And when I can dream no more, because my days have come to pass,

My body will be covered,

My love will pass away,

My memory will fade with time,

My works will be forgotten.

And yet, within that quiet cradle,
I'll dream.

Rolling Out Of Bed

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 00:06:19 GMT

“If you miss the train I'm on, you will know that I am gone, you can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles”

~Lyrics by Peter, Paul and Mary

“Most people never feel secure because they are always worried that they will lose their job, lose the money they already have, lose their spouse, lose their health, and so on. The only true security in life comes from knowing that every single day you are improving yourself in some way, that you are increasing the caliber of who you are and that you are valuable to your company, your friends, and your family.”

~Anthony Robbins

“SHOW ME THE MONEY”

~Wide receiver Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding, Jr.) from the movie ‘Jerry Maguire’

As I alluded to in my previous post ‘Gone Fishing’, I have taken on another job that takes me 100 miles less distance to get to. After a 20 year career (is that really a word that means anything anymore?) with a company that I abhorred; that was the service provider for a company I hated even more, I took the plunge and accepted a job with a smaller company.

A much smaller company.

By about 10 billion people.

I now work for a company of about – Oh – errr- about – umm – 25 people and my office is right next to the CEO; Big Boss; Grand Poobah.

And he asks me if I need coffee!

Finally out from under the thumbs of a big corporation.

It is the kind of job that I have been dreaming to have for quite sometime and thought it to be too allusive an animal (and yes lets face it, I want to have J.K. Rowling’s Job, but realism keeps getting in my way). It was the mythical ‘Opportunity knocking on my door’ event. To boil it down, I accepted a position with people I had worked with in the past, who knew my work ethic and my computer skills, and who had been courting my services for almost a year. Finally I said yes.

SUCKERS!!!!!!!

No really, all kidding aside, I am a fricken genius.

OK, maybe more a savant.

OK, Idiot Savant

But hey, I got to where I needed to go.

But at a price.

I may have hated the company I was at, but the people I worked with day in and out, were better than work colleagues, they were more like family. I dreaded the day I gave my 2 weeks notice and I won’t even go into my last day there; just thinking about it makes me go wussy, except to say that the walk from that building to my car, was the loneliest walk I have ever taken. I think I stood out in that parking for a least a half hour, just looking back at it.

So where am I now? At a job that is twenty miles from my home. For some, that is a long distance, for others it’s not so bad. For me, it’s like rolling out of bed. I have basically shortened my daily commute by 190 miles.

When I told my gas station attendant that I was no longer going to see him on a daily basis, I think he started to cry. When The big 3 oil company execs heard that I was no longer going to add to the lions share of their bottom line, I believe that they jumped off of their ‘Ivory Towers’ (or a least I hope they did).

*****

It has been a month now since I changed jobs and it has been great so far. This month I figure that I have saved about $600.00 in fuel bills and, I have regained my vision as I can finally see in living color again; no more hazy grey tones. I have kept in touch with the gang down south and even made a surprise visit there last week. It’s funny how the ride there and back this time felt almost like it did when I first started down there: Fresh and exciting.

I have started catching up on a lot of back work here on the ranch and let me tell you, there is a lot of it, which is why you haven’t heard much from me lately. I have been re-introducing myself to long lost family and friends and will even get to see my little sister this May.

I won’t say that life is better than it was, it has always been good. It’s just that now, like when Dorothy stepped from the dreary sepia tones of her Kansas farm house into the Technicolor world of OZ, it once again seems fresh and exciting.

Et Tu Tu U Tu

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 22:15:30 GMT

Just want to wish you all a Happy Ides Of March; a celebration of watching your back (especially amongst your friends).

I Pledge Allegiance

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:24:13 GMT

“If we want our children to possess the traits of character we most admire, we need to teach them what those traits are and why they deserve both admiration and allegiance. Children must learn to identify the forms and content of those traits.”

~ William Bennett

“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man's moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it?…”

~Mark Twain

“We have become so conditioned to the mouthing of the words that we now say them without feeling or even knowledge of what they really mean. These words were meant to be so much more than the start of a school day or the even more faded beginning to an assembly of our government bodies. I believe that we all, from the most common citizen to the one that occupies our highest office, have become cold and indifferent when we begin to mutter the words I Pledge Allegiance…”

~Mark Alexander Oliver

“I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”

For those who need a refresher course on what these words really mean, please click HERE.

For those who believe that they already understand the meaning, you absolutely must click HERE.

Gone Fishing

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:44:02 GMT

Ring

Hello, you have reached the office of ‘A Murder Of Crows’. We will be out of the office beginning 2/8 through 3/3, while I put the finishing touches on shocking the gasoline company's bottom line by permanently shortening my daily commute by 200 miles, regain some semblance of a life by getting more than 4 hours of sleep a night and getting reacquainted with the woman I married almost 25 years ago; but haven’t seen much of in two and a half years (I also understand that I have two kids and a dog somewhere in the mix too).

Have a pleasant day.

Beeeeep.

100 Word Challenge - Fire

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 03:40:44 GMT

Go here for details and the rules of the Velvet Verbosity 100 Word Challenge. The topic for this round is:

FIRE

Within your colors I can dream

And see those things undreamt,

You pull me into places new

To places I’ve before now went.

Within your heat I feel at home

By your warm, yet teasing touch,

You protect me with your warm embrace

Keeping back the colds’ grey clutch.

Your light reflects within my eyes

And you are all that I can now see,

Your glow descends down deep within

To become at one with me.

So carry me off to distant shores

And to times forgotten long,

Within my hearth, I watch your dance

And hear your sirens song.

Haiku Friday – Week Of Woe Continues

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:10:43 GMT

A Breezy Interlude

Power is restored

Now move on to the next task;

Save myself some dough

Lay new carpet down

Must hurry to beat the clock;

So far, all is good.

Carpet now installed

Returned the rentals on time;

WooHoo! Who’s the Man!

Move furniture back

Move PC back into place;

But it’s full of dust

Carry it outside

Smart of me; no dirt indoors;

WooHoo! Who’s the Man!

Place it on deck rail

Not to worry; enough room;

Will not fall over

Open up the case

Wow, there is a lot of dust;

Can of air should do

Blow away the dirt

It was a good beginning;

Can is out of air

Still a lot more dust

Go to store to get some more?

Got a bright idea

Shop Vac is at hand

Top converts to leaf blower;

WooHoo! Who’s the Man!

Get it all setup

Remember to grab it first;

Don’t want it to fall

Blower in right hand

Must grab it first with the left;

Guess which hand won race

Air blast hits PC

Physics has a brand new law;

PC’s now can fly

PC on the ground

And what do I worry most;

Anyone see that?

Look around; I’m safe

Bring the PC back topside;

This time holding tight

Explosive dust cloud

Now as clean as a whistle;

Hope it still will work

PC powers up

Works much better than it did;

WooHoo! Who’s the Man!

Daughter is perplexed

Grass sticks out of the casing;

“Yeah hon, that’s normal”

Daughter is happy

And no one is the wiser;

WooHoo! Who’s the Man!

My Week Of Woe - Darkness Falls – Part II

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:02:30 GMT

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary...”

~Edgar Allan Poe

“It's always darkest before the dawn”

~Proverb

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!), but 'That's funny”

~Isaac Asimov

Darkness Falls – Part II

Most people who had Martin Luther King’s Birthday off, more than likely enjoyed a day of sleeping in and lazing about the house or, shopping at the mall and lets face it folks, like all the other holidays that we are meant to celebrate with honor and reflection, most of us do not. I on the other hand spent the pre-dawn hours looking for a house gremlin. This particular mischief maker was keeping half of my house without power and all of me without sleep. Getting up from bed every half hour or so to see if anything new would present itself to my over taxed flashlight, yielded the same results as when I keep returning to the refrigerator to see if anything new to eat has magically appeared.

My flashlight batteries and I both conked out around 5am, in which time I finally was able to get in around three hours of sleep.

Strangely enough, I dreamt of candles.

Luckily for me the day was sunny, so I was able to easily poke around the problem areas without the need of a flashlight or work light.

Hooray for me.

One of the problems that I was facing was that I needed to find and rectify this problem as soon as possible because I was supposed to be installing a new carpet in my daughter’s room and just in case I forgot about this, I had the daily rental of the carpet knee-kick and stretcher to remind me. I needed to return these items back to the rental place by noon time or face another day’s rental. I spent about thirty minutes retracing the wires from the breaker box for the 50^th time in twelve hours, and coming up with the same answer.

I work in the corporate environment and in this environment, we are bombarded with corporate style catch phrases and concepts that on the surface, we proudly proclaim as the way to success, but inside we know to be only good for lining bird cages with. In my 20 years floating in the sea of big business, I have only heard one concept from the Hallowed Halls of Horse Hockey that had any real life application, and that little gem is called ‘Benevolent Neglect’; the act of putting a puzzling problem that you have focused on for too long, out of your mind by focusing on something else which in turn, actually helps your brain to solve the problem because it is no longer straining over it. I have practiced this over the years and have found that it has a highly successful success rate in helping me to solve issues.

And so, I turn to laying carpet down.

But not really.

I am so mad that I can’t solve what should be an obvious fix, that I go no further than to sit on the floor of the room I’m supposed to be applying the brandy-new smelling carpet, staring at the outlet I know to be the culprit. I have tried replacing the outlet and even tried bypassing the outlet, all without result. So now it is just me and the outlet, locked in a ‘to the death’ staring match. I also start to hear the voice of defeat in my head stating that it was about time I called the three-Lexus-car-owning-and-mansion-on-the-hill-with Olympic-size-swimming-pool electrician

In the midst of this epic battle of mind over amperes, my cell phone rings. My daughter calls me on her 1^st day of the Spring Session at college to tell me the good news:

“Dad, my car won’t start…

And the windows and defroster motor don’t work…

And when class ends, I have to go to work…

And then back to a night class”.

I tell her to calm down and that I would pick her up from school and get her to where she needed to go and in the meantime, I will call my auto mechanic and let him know he has a patient on the way. “Don’t worry hon, we will work it out”.

I end the call. It is always very important to reflect a calm, positive image to your children when a stressful situation raises its ugly head…

But there is nothing said that you can’t rip the universe a new anus when they’re out of ear shot!

I pick up the hammer next to me that I had been using to nail down the carpet strips and raise it towards the heavens, roaring upon Devine ears

“OH REALLY LORD; CAN’T I GET JUST ONE DAMNED LOUSY F’ING BREAK FROM YOU THIS WEEK! WOULD THAT BE TO F’ING MUCH TO ASK YOUR ALMIGHTY F’ING HOLINESS FOR, YOU BIG STUPID JERK!!!!!

And like the Norse god Thor, I slammed the hammer onto the bare wood floor just below the evil electrical outlet…

“And God said, let there be light and there was light…”

And just like that, the power was restored to the stricken rooms.

“ALL RIGHT! THANKS DAD”, I hear my son call out from two rooms away.

“And Rocas saw the light, and that the light was good.”

My rejoice although real, was short lived. While I’m not a true blue, bible toting Electrician, I do know enough to know that the household electrical service is not quite supposed to work that way, Divine Clapper or not.

So I did what anyone else with a hammer in hand would do; I looked a gift horse in the mouth.

Wham. I struck the floor in the same spot again.

“Awwwh DaaaaaD”. And what I thought would happen happened; the lights went out again.

Wham. Three times the charm. The lights were back on.

Silence from the other room and I can feel my son silently staring at me through the walls willing me to not repeat my performance.

I go into the basement and locate the area just below where hammer met floor, and lo and behold, hidden on the side of a floor joist close to a wall (where I would not have ever seen it), was a junction box.

Upon later inspection of this newly discovered electrical artery, it was discovered that the wires were a little loose. They were also a little old and brittle. Seeing that this was going to need to be rewired, I called into work and told them that I would be taking a couple of vacation days.

Some would say that in my ‘woe is me’ moment, God took pity on me and literally showed me the light. Perhaps he did, but as I was later to learn that very afternoon, God has a wicked sense of humor and that he wasn’t done with me yet.

“And the evening and the morning, was the fourth day”