early morning quiet, cheap motel
     watching, praying, waiting
        work begins again today
              JMU in the CAA . ..

  The Colonial Assassination Association

There's no way to know for sure
Have to trust when I can't understand
Also need suspicion
Also need to hold your hand

Music makes me happy
I know very little Thai
This is what it sounds like
When Doves Cry

He said he saw Prince in Spain
Best show of his life
Summer of 69
Cuts Like a Knife

I like those 80s ladies
Even in 2022
Her hair is wavy black
Her eyes are ocean blue

   We are the Dukes of JMU!

tired, long and lonely
grateful for the rest
ambiguity
even at my best

European trains
Sunlit Italy
Latin, a little Latin
Shakespeare's tragedies

                JMU

Camus at JMU
19 years old
       Absurd

Curious coincidences.

Not much going on in Harrisonburg
A good place to study
William James, Josiah Royce
Meister Eckhart, Albert Camus

Took a class on Dante and Milton
I was too young for it
Female Episcopal priest
Fondly JMU

                       ' tis true

be ignited or be gone, wrote Ms. Oliver
I was hired at JMU by George Toliver
       for me philosophy’s dawn

O Mary, help me be ignited before gone.

Probably it doesn't make sense
But I still pray
At times
Even when I can't believe in God

I like Albert Camus
My favorite French atheist
Unde Malum?
North Africa. Berber Mother.

Me at JMU
Lonely as the rain
Her boyfriends studlier than I
Might place Life of Pi

The Shinkansen is impressive
Chesterton aggressive
I tend toward confessive
Like Augustine. But still shy.

               Thank you, Ry.

Dr. Thomas was quite charming
And funny. And courteous too
Gratitude for him
Gratitude for JMU

                  And for Camus

staring at Guernica, focus on the flower
no man knows the day or hour

but for my friends and country I will try
prayers above Seattle's starry sky

Fr. John Grace, help me be true
decades later, I still remember you

                                             Amen.

When I heard the learned ethics professor
Proclaim "There are no moral facts"
Quickly I sat up, my ears attentive,
My mind focused and even frenzied.

I listened to him lecture, turned in my paper
And then walked into society
Where I gazed in perfect silence
At all of the passing people.

UCF XGF ACX AKGW
EHAEBW WKGW
JMU KL BXM LEKH
BXU'HH FOFZ QZFOEKH

I can't quite find it
Always out of reach
About to get my car
Might drive to the beach

Taipei 101
Restaurant in Cary
At times my father's voice
Deep and loud and scary

Ravenstory stamps
Carolina Inn
Get me through till Sunday
Monday begin again

I miss you, Dr. Thomas
Duke Divinity
Sweetly Southern charm
Help me Barthly see

           Mail my destiny

I’ll never figure it out
Why don’t I just accept it?

I lay her in sweet silence
And still try to resurrect it

Think I’ll sleep till noon
Maybe dream of Susan Meek

I took history with Dr. Yoon
Little Latin, less Greek :)

All men are created equal
But all women are definitely not
Buddhamind in Bangkok
Tremendum at Angkor Wat

Me at JMU
UVA was Scott
Ry is Virginia Tech
I post and play and plot

Just a few rooms
I do not own a yacht
Als Ick Kan
Give the best I got

      2037. What?

2:37 a.m.
    Thinking of Dr. Thomas again
             Gratitude without end


                        Mozart
                  and Barthian.

My son turns 18 today
Pride. Worry. Pride.
I'm amazed by him
I like Malahide

Keep him going forward
Maybe JMU
July 12, 2006
I give thanks for Q

               I truly do.

Asia in my life
Rice. The Buddha too.
Thai iced tea
Merton at JMU

Hunan vegetable
Korean grocery store
Bangkok in the rain
4044

San Francisco Zen
Two years in Taipei
Lost in Translation
Still I say xie xie

Encounters with Chinese Hermits
Red Pine's Road to Heaven
A little won ton soup
3837

Albert Camus
Now we have Plague too

Fascism
With an American twist

I rebel; therefore, we exist.

19999
Waking Ned Devine
Some other time
Guilt, but I still climb

Never right without the woman
Therefore, never right
Carolina Inn
2 flights 1 night's delights

Fire on the patio
Bipolar fascination
Heraclitus more than Thales
San Francisco meditation

A Man Called Otto
Me at Angkor Wat
JMU, Albert Camus
Mi hermano Scott


      The Old Man and the Sea

                  Si. I taught.

Dr. Thomas was very caring
Years at JMU
Eine kleine nachtmusik
3032

I'm a mess of contradictions
Carolina blue
Hath the rain a father?
Monsieur Albert Camus

                   Absurd!

The gun nuts and the Trumpfucks
Freedom to destroy
In Thailand I rode an elephant
Buddhamind? Nitnoy.

Reading of James Madison
2/22/23
Watching the Two Towers
Oxford. Xie Xie ni.

Philosophy at JMU
Learning from Dr. Wiles
San Francisco Zen Center
The Buddha gently smiles

Religion at JMU
Dr. William Thomas
Wagering with Pascal
Help me keep my promise

                  Amen.

I took Existentialism at 19
First told of The Plague

Fascism is a foolish thing
Certain in this world so vague

The French language sounds so
                   beautiful
   The cathedrals astonish too

I know that life is often Absurd
   But I wish joy to be with you

               Monsieur Camus

From Mr. Markson and Mr. Eliot
I learned the Way of Allusions
Kinda like a game
Pick out the profusions

Dylan does the same
I believe I'll Dust my Broom
Never been to Notre Dame
Do not talk on Zoom

Been to South Side Chicago
Been to Wrigley Field
Ben Stiller's Quinlin
My son too New Dealed

He plays Magic the Gathering
And also Destiny 2
Thailand for the Jai
James at JMU

               2040 blue

The music has to be right
So the punishments will be right.
That's what Confucius believed
I stop by Mason Nation
I am very well received

JMU is purple and gold
For me, Albert Camus
Chicago is Maroon
I'm also Carolina blue
She's UNCW

           American Cosmic!

I majored in philosophy
Religious studies minor
Carolina Inn
Nothing would be finer

I've got an atheist in me
Albert Camus at JMU
Also got a monk
Also Pondicherry Zoo

Grey day blues today
Kiss her once for me
Once Toledo, Ohio
3333

                    Si

My God, Todd, you've become a liberal
Dr. Thomas said to me
I was reading Meister Eckhart
Long before my 3

JMU was nice
But I couldn't see
Monsieur Albert Camus
Ah! Absurdity

81 South
Camus at JMU
Absurd Theonerd
Pondicherry Zoo

DC metro train
She's dressed in black
I'm too shy
Too shy, Jack

6066
Centuries have passed
Come Sail Away by Styx
Hey Now! Everlast

          
                Susan!

The isolation is frightening at times
I reach out but do not reach
You should see the girls
Who live in Satellite Beach!

Shared privacy, One love
Hablo un pequito Espanyol
Vegetarian burritos
80s Rock n' Roll

I like those Taoist Immortals
I climbed Yangmingshan
Thin Red Line
Scifi Gamla Stan

The marriage is Disaster
But she gave me the gift of travel
The World's Greatest Detective
The Riddler too unravels

All the King's Men at JMU
She calls him Jackie Bird
I rebel; therefore we exist
One man against the Absurd

                    Word!

I'm gonna lose my memories
But will I be remembered?
I promise I will let you in
When I'm soul Septembered

She sits in the bleachers
A little to my right
We talk in her dorm room
Her wedding, then moonlight

Exoplanets spin
Extrasolar water
I have 3 sons
She has 2 daughters

I've been desperately seeking
I remember JMU
5 minutes in Denver
Eternity be true

                I love you.

I am not sexually attracted
To the male body

But I notice I am deeply attracted
To the gay male mind or spirit:

A.E. Houseman
Dr. Thomas (my favorite teacher at JMU)
Richard Rodriguez
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Cardinal Newman
Ludwig Wittgenstein
George Santayana
Etc...

I like universities
But just to walk around
Play a little basketball
La bibliotecha alone

I'm socially awkward
Even at 53
I miss her like the rain
Fr. Foster in Rome

Dorm room at JMU
I share my loneliness
She listens very well
Exiled from my home

Travel is travail
And the thrill of Otherness
Her beautiful pink dress
Om mane padme Om

             La Florida ...

Sometimes silences for centuries
Unexpectedly emerge
In Greece like a whisper
Within the Demiurge

Sometimes silences for centuries
Emerge on foreign shores
After rains the sun
Songs from civil wars

Invisible threads connect
Her email makes me wonder
Lightning over the Atlantic
In Reno rolling thunder

Rocky Mountain Higher
Jokic on the break
JMU for two
Lady of the Lake

      Please do not forsake

Probably I've written too much
But I can't seem to stop
On my way to the psych ward again
Handcuffed by the cop

Some of the police are racists
Some are real protectors
Many vote Republican
I'm in favor of defectors

Less religious in the hospitals
Adjust my meds and go
Thomas Jefferson came to Justify
Abraham Lincoln to Overthrow!

Dr. King studied in Boston
At Harvard Cornel West
Dr. Boykin Sanders at JMU
I did alright on his tests

     Hold your picture to my chest
                (and I feel fine)