Where the name comes from

Supposedly, I'm a writer. Or, I guess, I used to be a writer. I wrote a lot in high school and college. I won an award in high school for a poem with mixed metaphors that talked about feeling put down on by people. I even won an award in college that had an attached scholarship for a short story I wrote about being a waiter at Zio's, the place where you get to write on the table with crayons. It was autobiographical from when I worked at Zio's myself. All the details were real, but the situations were made up. It was a long juxtaposition between waiting on tables in this enclosed place, and waiting at a cold bus stop in Belarus. I think the line that won it for me was when the protagonist says, "And they frosted the windows, and you can't even see it rain." But it was a good story overall, even without that line. I'm sure I've got it around somewhere if you want to read it.

Part of the reason I was never a good waiter (they call it 'server' in the industry) was that I'm not a very good liar. I couldn't pretend to be happy when I wasn't. And when I was tired, it was hard not to act tired. Sometimes I succeeded, and I got better tips, and sometime I didn't and I still got decent tips because I looked so haggard, maybe. I wonder, then, how it is that I like to write stories. I think that all the best storytellers are the ones who tell lies so the reader can see the truth, and I don't lie very well. Maybe I'm not a storyteller, then, just a writer.

Anyway, I've started a blog here so I'll write more. Every writer's supposed to write every day, at least, that's what Strunk and White and Stephen King say. So, I want to write every day to get better, and maybe get published, and maybe get rich. I think this is the dream of every writer, deep down. Even the ones who just write maudlin stories in notebooks where they are the main character and Seven of Nine loves them, and they never share the story it with anyone else. But I really haven't written as much as I'd like of late. I've got a couple of toe-in-the-water-started novels, and a kids story about an elephant and a little brown mouse going with my sister Amanda, but I'm pretty lazy, and out of practice

This certainly isn't the first time I've tried blogging. Diaryland, Xanga, Myspace. Been there, dallied with those games for a while. And failed. I mean, some of it was really good, and some of the posts that I wrote those places was really, really important to me and to the people who read them. The one about how I'm not a teacher is really good, I think. But I was never very consistent. Maybe a Google-searchable blog will be better. Like a real bloggeur. Or maybe just a fresh start will work this time. I hope so.

I've named the blog Cloudthreads after a line in a poem that I wrote recently. It's the first poem that I've written in a real long time and I think it's good. Let me tell you the story of how I ended up writing a real poem for the first time in years. After church on Sundays, we're totally inspired by Tim Keel's latest message, and my group of friends usually gets together for food. Eric will say, "Tacos," or I'll say, "Spaghetti" or something, and we'll all be inspired by this food suggestion, and then we'll find the ingredients at the store, and make the food, and eat it. We sit around in our house on the couches, and at the counter, and on the floor. We should have a table, but my wife Jill and I like hosting, and we're never motivated enough to get a big enough place for a table. We need to, though, as often as we host things. But we're not moving until we have kids. So if you hear that we're moving. That's probably the reason.

Sometimes Adam prepares food ahead of time. When we're at his house, (called The Freak Show, because Adam is a freak, and his roommate Sam is a great show) we have tables, usually, because their place is bigger. Sometimes Adam makes meat (beef for tacos or whatever) or starts chili, and our inspiration comes from his preparation. I'm not much of a preparation person myself. But Adam's an engineer and he's good at getting things ready ahead of time. And planning.

There's another guy at church, and maybe you've heard of him. John Raux. He has a dot com of himself, and paints, and plays the bass, and skateboards, and hikes everywhere, and has got one thing that you haven't got: a great bushy beard. Ha ha. Anyway, we're sort of distant close friends. The kind who, I think, I would a grand and lifelong friends if I spent any real time with him. But that's just another part of my laziness, and we really don't know each other that well. John is the sort of person who paints fifty beautiful and tiny abstract paintings and then holds a show where the visitors name them on an adjacent note card.

A while back, John hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs all the way from Mexico to Canada, or, I suppose, the other way around, if yo'd like. But he started that the Mexico end. But before that, he used to have a whole group of people who,on Sundays after church, ate at the house he was renting, and they'd have good conversation, from what I hear, and talk about Jesus, which is pretty much my favorite thing to do, even though I'm not very good at it.

My group of friends never went together, though. Partially, I think because John Raux is such a cool guy, and we, as a group, don't really want to be cool if we can help it, seeing as how Jesus wasn't very cool. Of course, that's hard to do, because the more you follow Jesus, the cooler you end up getting. that's irony for you, I think. And partially because I knew that he had a small place, that was already really full, and I didn't want to intrude. And when I make a choice on something, the group tens to follow me on it. That, I'm not sure about at all.

But then John went hiking, like I said, and the group couldn't meet at his place anymore because he was just renting it. But after he got back from his billion mile hike where he was so alone that he got out of practice talking and it felt weird to have to communicate out loud, his group was still going. Only instead of being a mostly talking and eating group, now they were a playing music and eating group. They liked to jam on the steps of the Nelson Atkins Museum, which is a great and free art museum here in Kansas City. They have the best Thomas Hart Benson collection anywhere. At least, until it got cold that is, and then they moved indoors.

John's a sly one, he is, and one time he invited me to go to join them at the place where they were playing. So I brought my whole group. He knew this, but he didn't tell anyone else, I think. They were meeting at this communal house over on 31st and almost Paseo. We were a bit late, but we brought sandwiches, which took a few minutes to acquire, so we thought that it would be a good peace offering for barging in like that. We got there, and it was kind of dark, but Steve had been there before, so I walked in, and through a vestibule, and into the living room where a bunch of people were sitting around and jamming. They let out a bit of a cheer, tiny, and warming. Like I was welcome. The group likes company, I guess. I knew some of the people, like John, and Rachel, who has this transcendent singing voice, like an angel locked in a cave for years and years. And as the next person come in behind me, the cheer got louder. And louder with the third person. I don't think they expected any more people to come, but by the time all ten of us piled in, they were roaring. What can you do, but cheer when you get ten more people in your living room than you expected?

Anyway, we hung out for a couple of hours while they played music together, and we had their soup, and they had our sandwiches (and hummus (thanks Steve)). And it was really beautiful. Steve even played the xylophone with a pen. Rachel's brother Kyle showed up, and we met this Tim guy, who's a real solid musician, and being with all of those cool people, and hearing them be so creative, I wanted to contribute something to the experience. But I'm not a musician, and I really can't sing, so I was at a loss.

Now, I'd started a poem in my journal back on Easter in the middle of the night at the vigil whie I writing in the balcony at church. I had about 10 lines. Some of the stuff you'll see in the first four or five stanzas. But, I'm a bad journaller, so I never got back to it, more than a line or two.

But I really wanted to bring something as a gift to these people who were so welcoming, and so artistic and creative. We didn't get back with them for a few weeks, things came up as they do, but I worked hard on finishing the poem at work (I've got a kind of cushy job some days), and I finished it at a the Office watchign party at my sister's place. I shared it there, and after more revision (my favorite part of writing is revision), shared it with the musically inclined group later. When I did, John said he really liked the line about the cloud strings. It was cloudthreads, but close enough. I really appreciated that he liked it.

So, the poem inspired the name of this blog here that I'm going to try to write in every week day. And I'm going to try not to be one of those bloggeurs who just posts links to crap, nossir. I want to just write content. Like a writer, even.

I don't want to just tell you what 'cloudthreads' means, but I think you'll get it anyway. Unlike most poems that I write, I wrote it to be read aloud, in a group. So if you want to read it aloud to yourself, I think it would sound better. Anyway, here you go. Here's the poem:

Judgment

(Reflections on The Story We Find Ourselves In. Easter vigil, 2007)

Chapter I

In an oak's nook, reading, warm November

I catch glimpse of my faerie princess,

skin white as a throne,

parting thickets as easy as oceans.

The trees drop stained-glass cathedral shafts

as she pads, too holy for slippers, among them,

hair angel-lit gold.

And as the shafts moult
to grotto lights flickering,

wind remembering its business,

I see her face.

She's gathered meadowfresh us-upon-a-times

and together-whens,

plucked riverbank who-am-I-nows

and our-first-kisses,

then split and woven the petals

into cloudthreads that web her fingers.

They stream and flutter as she twirls

and loft and languish,

wisp and curl,

taut through her fingers

and trailing behind her.

She's harvested them from our spring planting,

and how do I tell her

the darkest of threads

come from my summer sowing?

I had forgotten her face

as she solitude sought in hills

and the mountains.

How long did she search for each lonesome petal,

and how fierce were the nettles that scratched

her hands and feet and sides?

Through the cloudthread web she smiles,

eyes purple fire like dragons, and so quick I'd miss

if I wasn't listening,

they winkaflash,

not closing, and

I lose sight of her;

no rustle betrays her scamper

as red leaves glide to rest in her wake.

This is our oftendays game

though long since we've played it

and I set my face like flint

to crook her waist in my arm, swing

her low to the heavens and

steal a kiss.

My book tumbles and dives beneath leaves
as I dodge trees after her,
a wolf with a bead on a doe;
or have I that backwards?
But her steps are not my steps
and a wispy curve of her back
(satin, even at distance)
is all I see before I've lost her.
The woods and everything in it are hers
so eye corner glances are all I am granted

for an hours long stretch

that seems as true as steps in a brook.

And while I think I am chasing, she

before me becomes she

behind me,

and as she

draws on me

I run as a doe.

Panting for a river,

I dive beneath a tree fattened by time,

a spring's storm bystander.

And just when I think

she passed me over,

she pounces, knees on my elbows

her lips to mine.

Chapter II

As quick as she planted, she leaves me bereft

with a laugh and a wiggle.

And now that she means it,
although I sojurn,

searches are fruitless.

Roughsmooth lips

loiter in memory.

So I find my book in its leavery grave,

(the oak distant and beckoning)

and take back to reading. Until,

(shafts stolen by long shadows)

a ram's horn note,

distant but thick in my ears,

calls me home. And like a blink,

in a clearing, her fire is blazing;

the haze of smoke is growing and fleeting;

she stretches the darkest of cloudthreads

over the fire

and opens

her palms.

I dive to save them;

I've spent so long forging,

alone

in the forest;

the darkest of

groves.

But her eyes whisper

she knows

as she brushes her fingers firm to my sternum

and waits for me.

The threads that I planted crumble and waver

I'd expected they'd keep,

though the fire is bursting and I feel

them burning

as wires woven in muscles.

I gnash my teeth.

But surely the threads waste away

like hot August grass

and I cannot remember

what it was burning

there in the fire.

Chapter First

Throne white neck,

she's parting my arms as easy as oceans

and the fire lights her hair angel gold

and as the grotto lights flicker

(from where come these scarscratches?)

our kiss lasts much longer.