Christmas Eve

(I originally had a long, rambling post about how boring my Christmas vacation has been, but instead I'll make a post about Christmas itself.)

Well, it's now Christmas Eve. The holiest night of the year. A night when all barriers between men of different creeds, races, and national origins are dissolved, and all mankind is united in the expression of peace on earth, goodwill to men.

I love Christmas because of its message of peace and unity. For one night, people can be united across the lines which normally divide us, be they by class or race or any other arbitrary factors. People can see each other as their fellow man, their brothers.

As a great example, take the Christmas Truce of 1914. For just one night, one sacred night, two sides who were literally entrenched in war, and whose mission was to wipe out each other to the very last man, put down their guns and reached across No Man's Land. They played football together, gave each other gifts of tobacco and cigarettes, and sang carols in the bitter cold together until morning came. Then they resumed their positions, and the war dragged on for another three years.

Yet for one night they were able to see each other as human beings, as creatures with their own thoughts and desires and families, and not as vague phantoms of an enemy.

So this Christmas, let the borders fall again. Let the air be full of carols, and the atmosphere be full of joy and goodwill! And, as Tiny Tim observed, may God bless us, every one!

Merry Christmas!

Road Blogging 2

Out for a walk again. Wind is a bit fiercer this time but I don't mind it.

I dislike walking on the road. Don't want be to hit by a car or anything, so I tread on the soft earth. I like the feeling of soft earth beneath my shoes. Feels a bit firmer, while the asphalt on the road is just hard. No sponginess to it, no natural feeling. Just hard industrialized pathway for miles and miles around.

Landscape round here is rather empty. I've made a note of it in my previous Road Blog, but it's a salient feature of the Midwest, the flatness of the landscape. Empty, harvested cornfields littered with the grey remnants of stalks; little one-story houses dotting the countryside; the interminable stretches of highways that go on and on into eternity; the lonesome road signs; the distant silos that resemble ruined follies or castles; all of these beneath grey cloud walls and a burning red sunset. It's all so picturesque in its familiarity but isolated in its flat expanse. There's lots of land but little else. Massive space between little towns and unincorporated communities, all to vanish into the great mouth of the interstate highways as one moves towards Lafayette or Indianapolis.

I am tempted to wonder why people stay here, but it seems the answer is a trap of nostalgia and lack of hope. When one inhabits a land as flat as that of Central Indiana, how can one hope for anything? It's all been laid out.

Blogging on the Road

On a walk right now. Middle of the Indiana countryside. Freezing weather though slightly warm for December. I like these walks. I love the solitude it brings. Lets me get out more and think by myself. Everything is so distracting these days. Sometimes I just need to stand about in the cold and feel it, feel the solitude of nature, especially barren nature. Winter's a very barren season after all. Everything's been stripped naked or gone into hiding to outlast the chill. Not many people come round here, and that's why I like it. The solitude.

As an aside, I like these blogging on the go type of posts. Will make more of them, since I walk everywhere. I enjoy walking for walking's sake too. I enjoy the exercise and the time to contemplate in a naked time. That's a good descriptor: "Naked time."

What do you guys think?

"Waking Up to Soft Crying, 7:35 a.m."

You need not shiver,
you need not whimper,
you need not let tears fall.

You don't have to be on your knees, soliciting
prayers that can't be given from mute mouths.
You don't have to turn your back on the sun
as it streams down in forgiveness,
for you do not need forgiving.

You do not need to cry,
for tears resolve nothing;
you do not need to run away, your face
twisted and dark in lamentation;
you do not need to turn back in cruelty one last time,
then slam the door in the hot summer afternoon.

Just be still. Be still and be comforted
in the solace of this moment,
in the silence of our bed.

You, my love, in this moment,
need never let tears fall,
need never be good or evil.
Just let the soft soul
slowly warm you, my arms cupping the flame.
You are safe now, in this moment,
like the crisp breath drawn in on a winter's morning.

"Befreit"

At last, at last! The sun has cast
His final rays beneath the sea!
The night wind glides upon the waves
And teases you and me.

The only sound is of the sea;
At night my eyes are of no use;
Yet I can feel your lips on mine,
Trying to pry them loose.

I feel the warmth of skin on skin,
I savor all the labored breath
That shelters me from pitch-dark night
And from the sea of death;

I feel you tugging on my hair,
I crave your wet lips on my cheek,
I beg without a word to say,
My arms and legs grow weak;

We're free at last from daylight's glare
Which so long beat us black and blue,
We're free, with nothing left to mourn
And no days left to rue.

Two souls, two manly bodies, linked
And formless on a formless beach;
I swear I can hear Sirens, singing
And laughing each to each...

About Me

Well, since you're here, dear reader, you might as well know a bit about me.

Background:
My name's Caleb Johnson. I'm a poet. I've been a poet since the age of 13, when I began to read and write poetry as a serious pastime. The first poets I read with enthusiasm were John Keats, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Walt Whitman, and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. I would often write in imitation of their styles, though these first attempts were predictably rather poor. 

Yet these first attempts, however rudimentary they might have been, only served to inspire me to write more and more. I read a lot of Modernist poetry, and to this day I still abide by T.S. Eliot's dictum, "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job." Meaning that even if you eschew traditional rhyme and meter, you still need some pattern or structure for your poem to work within in order for it to make sense and not be just a bunch of words haphazardly thrust onto a page.

Personal Stuff:
I'm bisexual, but I much prefer men, both romantically and sexually. Ergo, I explore my homosexual desires in much of my poetry, and that poetry can be erotically charged, and sometimes more explicit about it than not. If you find this sort of thing objectionable (and I don't see why you would), don't say I didn't give you fair warning first.

I also tend to wax political sometimes. Be assured that I'm not some far-right or far-left loony who thinks everyone to the left/right of me is a demon that needs exorcising from this world. I'm a blend of different ideologies: I share some traditional conservative views, some libertarian views, some social democratic views, and I tend to fall in the center on most of the political persuasion tests I've taken. Political life, though, doesn't really appeal to me right now (in the US, at least) because people are too busy pearl-clutching and moaning in mass hysteria to get any real work or compromise done. Sad state of affairs, really.

Anywho, that's enough about me for now. I hope that you will come to see me as a friend, dear reader, in the course of this blog's voyage to parts unknown and paths untraveled.

Cheers!

Caleb

Hello!

I'm a writer named Caleb, and welcome to my blog! Here I'll be posting mostly poetry, since that's what I love writing most of all, but I will try and include some updates about my life, how my various res cotidianae are faring, etc. I will also sometimes offer commentary on whatever pops into my head at a given moment.

I hope that you enjoy whatever I put out, dear reader. Cheers!

Caleb