Need of the Real

Occasionally I like to play
human for a day
open my eyes to the world
allow my emotions unfurled
at the end I can see the pain
where my soul has a stain
of course they're stained too
because I always follow through
and I think I could learn
the humans freeze and they burn.

Essential

To strip down
all that is extraneous
would leave
only you. 
How wonderful
would that be
if we
could tear everything else
away?

Out There

Sometimes
I let the sky
envelop me
and expand my mind
like a vast ocean
in which
everything exists
and there are
storms
and there is
calm.

No Change to Believe In

I suppose things only looked like they were going to change.

I was excited when Susan Gwinn was unseated from the Athens Country Democratic Party Central Committee¹, guaranteeing she would no longer chair the party. Naturally, a letdown followed. Establishment candidate, Athens City Council President, and Gwinn ally Bill Bias won the party chair by a 38-26 vote despite the efforts of a reform faction.

In the end, it will be more of the same. I can only hope that the reform wing of the party continues to gain momentum and can accrue enough members to affect real change². Maybe I can just hope that guys like Alan Swank³ will have the balls to say whom he voted for after giving a speech in support of one of the candidates.

I don't know why I maintain my Democrat registration.  I hate this party.

________________________________________________________ 

1 That's a long name.

2 I considered running for Central Committee, but my time in Athens is drawing to a close, and I would be going up against arguably the strongest member of the party in Lenny Eliason.

3 If anyone embodies the elitist, you-can't-be-happy-if-I'm-not-happy stereotype of Democrats, it's Swank. I do not like the guy. I think he's a hypocrite and a phony. Yes, I've told him as much. He was drunk at the time, though.

The Best Sort of Distraction

It takes a lot to distract me from “The Princess Bride,” but there's at least one thing that can do it. While Wesley and Buttercup were negotiating the Fire Swamp, all I could look at was our hands, together, fingers intertwined. This is not new. Often I would stare at our hands, trying to comprehend how it is they can fit together so perfectly, how something so simple can be so meaningful. I don't know if I'll ever be able to completely wrap my head around it. What I do get is why I'm amazed by it. That I understand completely.

Simple

I want to
put a sunflower
in your hair
watch your smile spread
take a picture.

The Enduring Torch

Lord
You light my way!
I can feel
you burning
in my heart
and my soul ablaze
with you
I see
the path
you lit for me -
nothing else
in my vision.