No one
to love me
ever
again.
No one
to hold me
skin
to skin.
No one
to show me
the meaning
of love.
No one
to know me,
redeeming
my trust.
These are the fears
that haunt me at night,
cold, naked demons
not afraid of light.
These are the thoughts,
one hundred years old,
bubbling in my cracked pot,
leaching life from my soul.
No one
to mend me
when I am
ill.
No one
to defend me
when I am
still.
No one
to Shine
a love light
on me.
No one
to pine
when life
I leave.
These are the demons
that speak to me at night,
cold, naked fears
not afraid of light.
These are my secrets,
one thousand years old,
growing in my sore spot,
stealing sun from my soul.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Monday, April 11, 2011
Friday, April 08, 2011
Bob Seger Said It
Life is a series of
calculated compromises,
uninformed choices,
and terrifying crises.
Navigating unknowns
and savoring vices,
stark disappointments
and pleasant suprises.
Bob Seger said it,
I no longer regret it,
"those are the memories that
make me a wealthy soul."
Love is a mystery
without any heroes,
a storybook history
of losers and zeroes.
Marriage catastrophes,
and divorce court dramas,
deadbeat dastardlies,
scheming baby mamas.
Bob Seger said it,
I finally get it,
"those are the memories that
make me a wealthy soul."
Death is involuntarily engaging
the emergent process of aging,
and walking steadfast into sorrow,
averting eyes from a final tomorrow.
A series of illness and healings,
of perpetual burning and peelings,
until the skin of our soul breaks,
rendering death no longer opaque.
Bob Seger said it,
I no longer dread it,
"these were the memories that
made me a wealthy soul."
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
of losers and zeroes.
Marriage catastrophes,
and divorce court dramas,
deadbeat dastardlies,
scheming baby mamas.
Bob Seger said it,
I finally get it,
"those are the memories that
make me a wealthy soul."
Death is involuntarily engaging
the emergent process of aging,
and walking steadfast into sorrow,
averting eyes from a final tomorrow.
A series of illness and healings,
of perpetual burning and peelings,
until the skin of our soul breaks,
rendering death no longer opaque.
Bob Seger said it,
I no longer dread it,
"these were the memories that
made me a wealthy soul."
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Monday, April 04, 2011
A Father's Heart
How like broken glass,
a father's heart, a father's love
ground underfoot until it has
turned into shards, turned into dust,
leaving only gritty remains
blown into the eyes of
unsuspecting strangers.
How like a hummingbird wing,
the laughter of children,
the patter of small feet,
beating as fiercely as
a father's heart
as they run away with time
in a thousand different directions,
leaving only empty spaces
inside a life once filled
with only their concerns.
How like a sacred story,
the tears of the father
whose prodigal son goes seeking
in a world of wrong turns and vices,
whose only daughter goes weeping
in a world that holds no new surprises
for a parent who has contended with
all of its evil and tempting ways.
A father's heart,
a father's love,
as certain as the morning sun,
still as vanquished as the light
by every certain turn
of the world on its axis,
by every passing of the day
into ever encroaching night.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
a father's heart, a father's love
ground underfoot until it has
turned into shards, turned into dust,
leaving only gritty remains
blown into the eyes of
unsuspecting strangers.
How like a hummingbird wing,
the laughter of children,
the patter of small feet,
beating as fiercely as
a father's heart
as they run away with time
in a thousand different directions,
leaving only empty spaces
inside a life once filled
with only their concerns.
How like a sacred story,
the tears of the father
whose prodigal son goes seeking
in a world of wrong turns and vices,
whose only daughter goes weeping
in a world that holds no new surprises
for a parent who has contended with
all of its evil and tempting ways.
A father's heart,
a father's love,
as certain as the morning sun,
still as vanquished as the light
by every certain turn
of the world on its axis,
by every passing of the day
into ever encroaching night.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Monday, March 28, 2011
Love Times Infinity
When I tell you
you're the most beautiful woman in the world,
you know it's a lie.
The truth is you're not perfect,
and bless you,
because nor am I.
But it is the truth when I say
you are the most beautiful woman
that I get to see,
naked,
and laughing,
as we cuddle and tease.
Shivering under covers,
when it is cold and dark,
speaking in whispers
and sharing our hearts.
This, then, is love
as God meant it to be.
Blinded by love's beauty,
and blessed by love times infinity.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
you're the most beautiful woman in the world,
you know it's a lie.
The truth is you're not perfect,
and bless you,
because nor am I.
But it is the truth when I say
you are the most beautiful woman
that I get to see,
naked,
and laughing,
as we cuddle and tease.
Shivering under covers,
when it is cold and dark,
speaking in whispers
and sharing our hearts.
This, then, is love
as God meant it to be.
Blinded by love's beauty,
and blessed by love times infinity.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Sunday, March 27, 2011
America's Obituary
The United States of America was found dead today inside her home. She was 235 years old at the time of her passing.
Investigators have not yet released a cause of death, but indicate that foul play is suspected. Historians performed an autopsy, but results have so far proven inconclusive. Their preliminary report stated that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, John Boehner and John Roberts, the four individuals last entrusted with her welfare, should receive the lion's share of historical suspicion for her death. Textbook writers are scrambling to print new editions including the nation's demise, and recording the four men's ignominy for future generations.
Meanwhile, independent investigators, working without the authorization of the American estate, continue to raise questions about all parties involved with the health maintenance of Ms. America. They point not only to the care giving teams, but also to the lax oversight provided by representatives of Ms. America's press. They cite questionable reporting and editorializing by many members of the press, referred to only as pundits. The independent investigators reserve especially harsh criticism for foreign owned press reportage, citing in particular one Rupert Murdoch. They note that collusion between the Murdoch press and the Bush/Cheney care giving team appeared especially suspicious, since it coincided with the initial diagnosis and rapid progress of Ms. America's health decline.
It should be remembered that Ms. US had been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Political scientists were never able to definitively pinpoint the type of cancer plaguing America. It was believed, however, that the cancer was caused by several contributing factors, including corporate and individual greed, an invasive militarism, the constipation of justice, and the corruption of religion and governance. Regardless of the cause, the cancer she suffered was quite aggressive, and was attributed with causing dementia and erratic behavior in the final few years of her life.
Ms. America is survived by over 300 million citizens. At her peak, Ms. US's estate was estimated to be the largest in the world. In her declining years, however, her estate had fallen into severe disrepair. The amount of income she was dedicating to her own maintenance soared as she grew older. In recent years she was devoting large sums of her estate to health care, banking, and energy supply industries that provided her with fewer and fewer sustaining benefits. The current value of her estate is unknown, but it is expected that her 300 million survivors will receive little or no inheritance. The independent investigating team has noted that the health care, banking and energy supply industry leaders, those receiving the bulk of the American estate in her final years, have since moved offshore and overseas, taking most of the American estate with them.
Funeral arrangements are pending as the official investigation continues. In lieu of flowers, representatives of the estate are asking for donations to help cover the expense of closing her estate. A very large donation has already been provided by gun manufacturing industry leaders, as their business has soared since the announcement of Ms. America's death.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Investigators have not yet released a cause of death, but indicate that foul play is suspected. Historians performed an autopsy, but results have so far proven inconclusive. Their preliminary report stated that Barack Obama, Harry Reid, John Boehner and John Roberts, the four individuals last entrusted with her welfare, should receive the lion's share of historical suspicion for her death. Textbook writers are scrambling to print new editions including the nation's demise, and recording the four men's ignominy for future generations.
There apparently was some disagreement among the investigating historians, however, as a minority report also was released. The minority opinion placed blame for America's death more squarely on George W. Bush and Richard Cheney, the two caretakers in charge of her keeping prior to the current team of caregivers. The minority report noted that America's health began a rapid decline during the Bush/Cheney era, and pointed to the rapid depletion of Ms. US's bank accounts as evidence of fiduciary malfeasance and suspect behavior. The majority of investigators, however, dismissed the minority report as reckless and dangerous speculation, noting that both Bush and Cheney have retired from public life and have since moved to private islands they acquired during their tenure as caretakers. The prior caretakers, say the majority of historians, do bear some of the blame, but primary responsibility should be given to the current care giving team.
Meanwhile, independent investigators, working without the authorization of the American estate, continue to raise questions about all parties involved with the health maintenance of Ms. America. They point not only to the care giving teams, but also to the lax oversight provided by representatives of Ms. America's press. They cite questionable reporting and editorializing by many members of the press, referred to only as pundits. The independent investigators reserve especially harsh criticism for foreign owned press reportage, citing in particular one Rupert Murdoch. They note that collusion between the Murdoch press and the Bush/Cheney care giving team appeared especially suspicious, since it coincided with the initial diagnosis and rapid progress of Ms. America's health decline.
Ms. America is survived by over 300 million citizens. At her peak, Ms. US's estate was estimated to be the largest in the world. In her declining years, however, her estate had fallen into severe disrepair. The amount of income she was dedicating to her own maintenance soared as she grew older. In recent years she was devoting large sums of her estate to health care, banking, and energy supply industries that provided her with fewer and fewer sustaining benefits. The current value of her estate is unknown, but it is expected that her 300 million survivors will receive little or no inheritance. The independent investigating team has noted that the health care, banking and energy supply industry leaders, those receiving the bulk of the American estate in her final years, have since moved offshore and overseas, taking most of the American estate with them.Funeral arrangements are pending as the official investigation continues. In lieu of flowers, representatives of the estate are asking for donations to help cover the expense of closing her estate. A very large donation has already been provided by gun manufacturing industry leaders, as their business has soared since the announcement of Ms. America's death.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Friday, March 25, 2011
Beats Per Minute
Thirty seven million heart beats,
each of them for you;
one point six million minutes,
not knowing what to do.
The quandary you gave me,
Dirty laundry you saved me
With your quiet, secret love.
Heartbeats per minute,
times minutes by years,
equals thirty seven million,
the sum total of my fears.
Are you the last love
ever I will taste?
Are you the last witness
of my mortal disgrace?
Can ever love save
a fading wretch like me?
Shall I give up hoping
for what should never be?
Thirty seven million heart beats,
and each of them for you.
One point six million minutes
not knowing what to do.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
each of them for you;
one point six million minutes,
not knowing what to do.
The quandary you gave me,
Dirty laundry you saved me
With your quiet, secret love.
Heartbeats per minute,
times minutes by years,
equals thirty seven million,
the sum total of my fears.
Are you the last love
ever I will taste?
Are you the last witness
of my mortal disgrace?
Can ever love save
a fading wretch like me?
Shall I give up hoping
for what should never be?
Thirty seven million heart beats,
and each of them for you.
One point six million minutes
not knowing what to do.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Leftward Ho: Ratcheting Our Nation to the Left
I had an interesting conversation with a faculty member yesterday that had me thinking all night long. He is of the opinion that our nation is, contrary to current appearances, moving ever leftward, toward liberalism and not away from it. I, of course, expressed a lot of skepticism. His outlook is a lot more optimistic than my own.
The examples he offered to prove his point seem unassailable. It took a civil war, but we ended slavery. We had prohibition, but we repealed it. We had deeply divisive McCarthyism, but we overcame that. We had institutionalized racism, but we enacted civil rights reforms. We had a deeply unpopular war in Vietnam, but an anti-war movement ended it.
In the long term, our nation may become a liberal paradise, where people like myself feel welcome and appreciated. In the short term, I'm betting we will see more instances of McVeigh-ism: violence seeking to overturn and up-end any strides toward a more liberal democracy and society. In my opinion, the only real unknowns are when it will happen, and how successful, damaging and destructive the violence will be. The depressive realist in me believes it is not inconceivable this nation could very quickly and violently turn toward a much more strident, assertive and aggressive anti-liberalism. After all, those who peg their identity to the term "conservative" seem much more amenable to cracking heads and shooting guns than liberals like me.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
The examples he offered to prove his point seem unassailable. It took a civil war, but we ended slavery. We had prohibition, but we repealed it. We had deeply divisive McCarthyism, but we overcame that. We had institutionalized racism, but we enacted civil rights reforms. We had a deeply unpopular war in Vietnam, but an anti-war movement ended it.
His said our society is prone to pendulum swings, that we make progress, but then we take some of it back. Two steps leftward, one step right. But taken in the long term, he said, our country has been slowly ratcheting leftward. After all these years of hearing conservative voices bitterly complaining that our country is tilting toward liberalism, this professor was actually offering evidence that it is true. I remarked that his argument seemed to validate the conspiracy-theory world view of militia movements and Tea Partiers. He tenatively agreed.
The professor said that he believes we will have tighter gun controls at some point. Not necessarily the "take them all away" kind that the NRA and Gun Owners of America uses to scare its members into action. But logical, sane, gun restrictions that make our country a safer place to live.
Most of the night, I was pleased by his contention that our country is trending ever more progressively liberal. Then, unfortunately, sober reality returned with the cold light of dawn. Rachel Maddow presented an exceptional program on Monday night. The whole hour (now viewable online at provided link) was devoted to Tim McVeigh, the blower-upper of the Murrah Federal Building. The program centered around hours of audio tapes that McVeigh made after the bombing, an agreement he made with a journalist to tell his side of the story.
At one point on the tapes, McVeigh quoted a famous bumper sticker that says, "When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns." He said that he preferred more direct message:
"When guns are outlawed, I will be an outlaw."
Leaving aside questions of McVeigh's psychology -- whether he was a narcissist, a sociopath, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, or was scarred by bullying in high school or by his parent's lousy parenting -- the sentiment he expresses above is still valid. That determination to resist any attempt to take away or control guns, that suspicion of the motives and direction of government, that worldview that says he and others of like mind are the only true representation of the intentions of the "Founding Fathers," are the very same things we seem to be hearing from many in the Tea Party movement ... indeed, from the entire Republican "conservative" apparatus.
Even if it is objectively provable that our culture is moving inexorably to the left over the long term, there is no guarantee that the trip there will be easy or without violence. There are many instances in American history where resistance to change has become violent, and the outcome of change was uncertain. The Civil Rights movement is an exceptional example of that, as we are still waiting for the promise of change to be fulfilled; for the dream to be realized and not deferred.
I believe there are those in our nation who will go to any length to resist and thwart liberal change: health care, gay rights, gun control, economic reform. Telling them that our nation will continue moving to the left will only further enflame their passions. And there are also selfish, power hungry, greedy, dishonest and insincere politicians and journalistic prostitutes who will stoke the fears and hatred of that element for their own political and economic gain ... the welfare of the nation and its citizens be damned.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Lady Bug on My Knee
The office I work in gets invaded by lady bugs several times each year. Look up at the light in my office and you're likely to see at least seven or eight lady bugs, some alive and active, some dried out carcasses. The live ones buzz around our heads during these invasions, sometimes flopping on the desks in front of us, or flying bang into our computer screens.
Today, I spent several minutes watching a lady bug crawling up my pant leg. My legs were crossed, and I watched in fascination as the insect crawled to the top of my knee, the highest point it could reach. There it crawled around confusedly for several moments, down one side of my leg and back to the apex of my knee, then down the other side and back to the top again. Several times it would perch on the highest point of my knee and unfurl it's delicate wings, then launch itself into space. It would fly for only a fraction of a second, landing scarcely an inch or two away from the place it started out on my leg. It did this several times, as if uncertain of it's own ability to fly.
I stared at the unfolding process in wonderment, pondering what might possibly be going through the mind of that little bug. Why didn't it just throw itself into space and fly away. Why did it keep failing to launch, only to try again and again?
I realized that I could never understand what that bug was doing or thinking. And it struck me how metaphorical the situation was of my own relationship with God. Is it possible that God sits upon high, staring at me -- at all of us -- in puzzlement and wonderment? Do we appear as uncertain and unsteady in our flight as that little lady bug appeared to me? Is the lady bug really that different than all of us, reaching the highest point we can find, and then jumping around in blind confusion, making futile attempts to take flight? What help can God render to a being in that condition?
Finally the lady bug managed to launch itself into space for a longer flight. This time it managed to stay aloft for about three sustained seconds, all the while spiralling downward to the brown carpeted concrete that is the floor of my office. It landed with a thud on the floor and sat still for several moments. I thought it was dead, killed by the vicious impact it had sustained. I was just reaching to pick it up when it started crawling slowly across the carpet.
I saw my own life flashing before my eyes.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
Today, I spent several minutes watching a lady bug crawling up my pant leg. My legs were crossed, and I watched in fascination as the insect crawled to the top of my knee, the highest point it could reach. There it crawled around confusedly for several moments, down one side of my leg and back to the apex of my knee, then down the other side and back to the top again. Several times it would perch on the highest point of my knee and unfurl it's delicate wings, then launch itself into space. It would fly for only a fraction of a second, landing scarcely an inch or two away from the place it started out on my leg. It did this several times, as if uncertain of it's own ability to fly.
I stared at the unfolding process in wonderment, pondering what might possibly be going through the mind of that little bug. Why didn't it just throw itself into space and fly away. Why did it keep failing to launch, only to try again and again?
I realized that I could never understand what that bug was doing or thinking. And it struck me how metaphorical the situation was of my own relationship with God. Is it possible that God sits upon high, staring at me -- at all of us -- in puzzlement and wonderment? Do we appear as uncertain and unsteady in our flight as that little lady bug appeared to me? Is the lady bug really that different than all of us, reaching the highest point we can find, and then jumping around in blind confusion, making futile attempts to take flight? What help can God render to a being in that condition?
Finally the lady bug managed to launch itself into space for a longer flight. This time it managed to stay aloft for about three sustained seconds, all the while spiralling downward to the brown carpeted concrete that is the floor of my office. It landed with a thud on the floor and sat still for several moments. I thought it was dead, killed by the vicious impact it had sustained. I was just reaching to pick it up when it started crawling slowly across the carpet.
I saw my own life flashing before my eyes.
© Francisco G. Rodriquez, 2012
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