prelude to 26

andrea fabbiani taught me how to roll cigarettes. rolling cigarettes amongst other things like - how to make bread - how to brew coffee on the stove and - by and large how to be a badass. he taught me how to wait for things. come to think of it, maybe it was the rolling of cigarettes that taught me that but - still i attribute all desire for patience in my daily routine to - his all around ability to make it look so goddam cool. 

we smoked lucky strikes, and would linger at the bus stop after the ride home from class, long enough to roll two or three good smokes to usher us into the prelude to sunset. 

since my twenty fourth birthday - i have called seven different places home; and a month before i turned twenty six, i was just a few days from leaving italy to move back to el salvador. i made a promise to andrea that for my birthday i would write and publish 26 poems. there was this desperate part of myself that needed to gather all the unattachedness of these years and bind it together into something with a spine. 

little did i know that two weeks later, on a back porch in south florida - i would meet a woman who made my heart swell. swell like an ocean - swell like a wave - swell like wave after wave - and day after day, in the years since then we have laughed and we have cried - and like incoming tides - we return, to that desperate part of ourselves that needs to bind it together into something with a spine. 

so call this my prelude - written through cigarette smoke and the fading los angeles daylight. to a promise made over a lucky strike - a promise to a good friend and the glowing mediterranean - a promise i still imagine myself making as i break the surface from these past years with 26 poems i can read out loud. i hope they sound as bright as you all have made me feel. 

saturday in the park, overlooking hollyhock

growing up, my dad was a general contractor. every saturday and during summers, he was notorious for making my brother and i tag along to his construction sites, where he'd give us odd jobs like pushing the wheel barrel to collect all the trash his workers had left laying around. that, or he'd make us load his trailer full of whatever large piles of crap, (tiles, shingles, smashed up concrete, etc.), were piled in the yard. 

when i was seventeen, my dad introduced me to paul simon, and simon has a song called 'so long, frank lloyd wright'. so, on a whim, for one of my dads birthdays, i bought him the biography of frank lloyd wright. it had a cool cover and i had the faintest recollection that wright was an architect, so i connected the dots, and wha-lah! 

but i started to feel guilty about gifting a book i hadn't read, plus my dad is rather conservative, so i was petrified that the book would contain some expletive, or even worse some kind of sexual reference. so the day before his birthday, i read the book - cover to cover. it was the first time i'd ever considered construction - architecture - and the like from a creative perspective. before, it was only piles of broken concrete and empty arizona iced tea cans. 

today my brother is setting off on his own road in design and construction, and he builds some impressive shit. he's always sending me photos of the things he's working on, and it makes me smile to know that even if he calls by a different name, kaiser construction inc. lives on. 

i don't design or build things for a living, but at some point growing up - nature versus nurture sparked a fire big enough to call it all fascinating; and on a cloudy day in northeast los angeles, that's excuse enough to spend all saturday in the park, overlooking hollyhock.

through skid row on a bicycle

i've always thought to myself - poverty smells much worse than it looks. were it the other way around, i imagine we'd be much more compelled to find a resolution to it all. 

we are often content to live with problems we can see, but seldom will we live with a problem we can smell, (at least not quietly anyway). 

everyone has seen poverty on some level or another, and yet there is very little urgency to do something about it. but find someone who can tell you what it really smells like, and i imagine they have a few things to to say on the matter...

loved.

i once said 

that love was never fifty fifty, 

but i was wrong 

to say it so absolutely.

half of love  

is arriving at the places 

where we grasp fully

(after all these years)

that i am not deserving.

the other half of love  

is the entire lifetime 

in proving

to another that they are.  

she draws flowers 

and i write about them 

we are seeds and earth

we are deep beneath the surface

we are gathering our strengths 

and arriving at the places 
where we are grasping fully
that the fracturing of our walls 
permits the roots within ourselves
to spring forth
we are springing forth
like slow motion underground explosions
we are resurrecting
we are taking it all in 
we are not there yet 
but we are the entire lifetime 
in proving 
to each other that we are, 
loved. 

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in 

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere 

i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done 

by only me is your doing,my darling) 

                                                      i fear 

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want 

no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) 

and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant 

and whatever a sun will always sing is you 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows 

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud 

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows 

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) 

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart 

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

E.E. Cummings

kathy's song (a cover)

one day i'm sure of it

you are
the side of the scale that always tips in my favor
one
by one
balancing the chaos of my words run wild
you
promised not to rest
until you'd hunted each of them
down
their blood drips from your kill shot
drop
by drop
like brush strokes
without criteria
till all of a sudden
there was space for what i lacked inside the picture you were painting

so,
i'll speak freely
if you promise to keep a sharpened spear
i'll tell stories
if you promise to hold my wine glass

and one day,
i'm sure of it
my songs will make rivers flow from your finger tips
just give me time
enough time to learn how to make rivers flow from finger tips -
most folks seem to get their words right the first time
i always wondered what that would be like - 
so please be patient
my words are mazes
but they do not
all lead to dead ends
there is a finish line
one day
i'm sure of it

until then and ever after
my hopes are yours only for the taking
make them your mast
and my promises your keel
set sail my dear
we are out there somewhere
and i am confident the well inside your desert holds my reflection,
so said the little prince,
"what makes the desert beautiful
is that somewhere it hides a well."

to the church of the unsung heroes

to the front pew sitters 

the back pew sitters 

those scattered about but yet you always know exactly where they’ll be, sitters 

thank you 

to the early arrivers

those right on time 

and all the rest of us 

thank you 

to the hand raisers 

the amen sayers

and the ones unafraid to sing off pitch 

thank you 

to the parking lot traffic directors 

the front door greeters 

and those i count on for a friendly smile 

thank you 

to Orestes 

Carmen, Herbert, Julio

and anyone else who helps to prepare coffee before the service

(a huge) thank you

to the power point makers 

the bulletin printers 

the hander outers 

thank you

to the sound board runners 

the music planners

the singers, the drummer, and the instrument players

thank you

to the announcement makers 

the psalm readers 

and the reflection and prayer leaders 

thank you

to the offering takers 

the faithful and cheerful givers 

the counters, the budgeters, and decision makers 

thank you  

to the preacher 

those are huge shoes to stand in 

on top of everything else that life calls you to

so thank you

to the baby holders 

the sunday school children molders 

those working the spaces farthest away from the spotlight, 

thank you

to whomever makes that magical list of refreshment providers 

the crock pot bean dip bringers 

the sliced watermelon suppliers, the PriceMart donut and sweet bread buyers

thank you

to the tree house builders 

the rope swing pushers

and the church librarian 

thank you

to those departing sometime soon 

those not going anywhere 

those still giving up their own lives to make those of others so much better 

thank you

to the small group leaders 

the youth group overseer

the home openers, the meal sharers, and the ride givers  

thank you

to the elders

and all those willing to lend an ear 

my darkest secrets have never felt so safe, 

and forgiven 

so thank you 

to you whom i call friends 

to you whom i have still yet to meet

these are the moments where we realize how wonderful eternity will be

so thank you  

what i have learned over the last three and some years, 

is that church is not just a building

and that love is not simply measured in our outward expressions, 

rather a church is a family of unsung heroes 

about whom god says i will cause them to love in ways that cannot be found anywhere else on the planet 

and love, is like space that we make inside ourselves for others to fit inside

along with all their imperfections 

thank you for making so much space inside yourselves for me here at Union Church 

you are the flame to my wicks 

and I am 10,000 fireworks 

aglow like the Salvadoran new year 

i have so much reason to look forward to heaven, 

god willing i’ll surely see you before

but if not, we’ll meet there 

you can find me an the heavenly refreshment table 

two twenty one fifteen

there is something admirable

about - 

wearing just the right amount of clothes 

when the weather is cold

it is a balance,

a tipping point 

where 

one can acknowledge their humanness 

yet communicate confidence 

of having dressed accordingly  

yet not superfluously 

it is an art form in my opinion 

because 

i think we all can agree 

that 

there is nothing worse 

than being cold, 

so the tendency would be 

to 

‘better safe than sorry’

yet 

how arresting is she

who is warm enough

without too many coats!

if i had one wish tonight 

it would be for

contentment 

without excess

only and more beautifully

i don't suppose 

that eternity (or the life after this)

looks and feels anything like we could imagine it to

still 

i want this life

to look and feel most like preparing myself for each of the endless possibilities 

i drink coffee every morning 

first, because i like it 

and second, because it permits me the daily opportunity 

to start out on the note of having gotten something right 

i like to think there will be coffee in eternity 

but if there isn't 

i like to imagine each day, 

(or whatever it is that marks the beginning of everything there),  

will be a constant state of getting something right. 

i love a woman

first, because she is lovely

and second, because she makes me believe that each and every day

really can be as colorful as everything we ever dreamed of;

and yet our love,  

is the slow release 

of all belief 

that blue skies 

are what we even wanted in the first place  

she said

"i want love

to be first place,  

and at that 

to be deeper than the weather forecast; 

because, 

i have seen enough grey skies 

to know that the only thing that matters is the hand in mine;

and the someone beside 

to remind us that we

are stronger than all this;

i need you to be stronger than all this." 

so i say love

is not an acquired taste 

or some learned trait, 

but rather the 

permitting of she

to enter deep enough 

to draw out the eternity in me 

i never knew was hiding inside to begin with, 

so that i, 

can be stronger than all this. 

i once thought love

existed to make life better;

i soon learned that love 

is more simply 

a retelling of life's universal struggles, 

only

and more beautifully, 

with someone alongside encouraging you to keep struggling

i like to imagine that she'll be mine in eternity, 

because i'm certain that love will always be

more simply

a retelling of life's eternal struggles

only, 

and more beautifully 

with someone to bring an end to the struggling 

i don't suppose 

that eternity (or the life after this)

looks and feels anything like we could imagine it to

still 

i want today

to look and feel most like preparing ourselves 

only, 

and more and more beautifully, 

for the love we're certain of. 

i am not so bad at basketball

i am not so bad at basketball 

i am not so good either 

maybe that's what draws me so strongly to the game these last few days 

there is a public middle school near my buddy's house 

with an outdoor court, 

that at night 

i can always make it to 

for an hour or so before the sun sets,

that 

time of night when the beauty of day 

meets the beauty of night

like love at first sight

i shoot

i dribble

i drive down the lane 

and attempt to roll the basketball

gently from my finger tips into the basket,

sometimes i relive the former games i've played

sometimes i dream about the ones i wish i had,

and sometimes I think about nothing but the life before me 

and the life behind

all my rights, 

and all my wrongs,

like wins and losses

and i wonder how i'll ever make the playoffs.

then i shoot some more.

i am 27 years old, 

but it still feels incredible 

when you hit 

nothing but net, 

and the sound of the chains ring out for an audience of school busses. 

maybe that's what draws me so strongly to the game these last few days

I have never been so good at basketball, 

yet i was never so bad either 

maybe that's why coaches kept me around 

i was

about the only player in the history of the game who could

ride the bench with such esteem

to still leave the gym with the homecoming queen

but sincerely, 

i hustled, 

made practice competitive, 

and could perform well enough in warm-ups to make the opposing coach think we had the reserve squad of the 96 Chicago Bulls. 

warm-ups were my fourth quarter, 

and to this day, 

no high school junior has ever made so much of glossy blue and gold tear aways. 

in my defense, 

i did earn a starting spot by my senior year

for at least a game or two

or three, 

and on one of those 

i scored my varsity career high of 11 points in front of a home crowd

but i'll say this, 

any love of mine 

for basketball

and anything else for that matter 

is not paved in my successes, 

my love 

for basketball

for life 

and the women I keep in the deepest depths of my hopeful

is paved in the field between the outdoor courts and my buddy's house

the daily afterwork trek, 

and each of my attempts to make the chains ring out 

for a sold out crowd of the rising moon and last rays of sunlight 

i am not so bad at basketball

i am not so good either

maybe that's what draws me so strongly to the game these last few days