twice. optimist and oak...

From: "john brusseau" <@hotmail.com> To: kahm47@yahoo.com Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:41:41 -0500 I was looking through all the poems you had posted on the 20th century site, and I had intended to give a interpretation, of sorts, of all of them. I still may go over some of them, but when I got to your Old Oak poem I sensed there might be an unusual opportunity there. It looks like the Old Oak is the story of how your family experience shaped your relationship with the intrinsic aspect of your life (meaning things like God, meaning, purpose, destiny, and identity, etc..) Your preoccupation with suicide is natural under the circumstances. No doubt depression is an old friend, without a healthy sense of your identity, your purpose, and your life’s meaning. This story, although not perhaps consciously written by you as an autobiography, is in fact an essential contextualizing of the most significant issues of your whole life. There is a degree of detail in here, which if I have even come close to defining it accurately, should surprise you greatly. Some of it may be news to you, like the stuff about your dad, but I suspect not. Anyway, I hope this is a help, not a hurt to you. You don’t have to do anything about this email. But if you would like to ask anything of me, or wish to state anything, or bring anything up, feel free to do so. God knows, I certainly felt free in offering this to you.

Old Oak

His forest now a park,
that forest = your heart which was once natural and limitless is now groomed and defined by civilization. So far, this is the way life goes for all humans. We grow up, and get with the societal rules. Instead of all of the pristine naturalness we know as a child, our heart becomes constrained, or even imprisoned by society’s rules, and values, until we come to look civilized.Old oak stands broad and tall.
The oak is an Idea (probably your God idea) which spans generations (which has been in your families belief system for generations), and is yet is viewed as having strength, and as being of high esteem (tall, and broad).

Now-a-days, this is what your interaction with your inherited belief system/God idea involves

Boy sprawling amongst twisted oak roots, Daydreaming and mind playing.Boy = an undeveloped sense of what you desire. Daydreaming= you not thinking clearly (This means, you don’t actually know what you really want in life. So you are daydreaming your way through your life instead of living out what you want. What you have always thought you wanted to do with your life is not what you’d truly like to do.)
Youth, haunch squatting, amidst twisted oak roots, Youth= a slightly more developed sense of what you desire (in other words, there is something you are relatively ore conscious of desiring, and it is to be ...) Squatting amidst twisted roots = you are not sitting, resting (which would indicated belief). Instead you are squatting (which indicates you are pondering). You are pondering the partially hidden, and perhaps evil (twisted) foundations (roots) of your inherited God idea. Absconding lessons, smoking stolen cigarettes. While you are busy pondering the twisted roots of your God idea, you are also busying yourself with avoiding learning truth. No doubt, the twisted roots of your god idea have made you fear finding out that there is no truth, so why bother learning it. Also, you smoke stolen cigarettes (which is a symbol of speaking in harsh, burning judgmental language, that is not how you truly feel, you stole these from others)
Young man loitering around twisted oak roots, A young man= a desire you are even more conscious of having, that of desiring to experience a lover in the context of the example of the evil roots that have founded your idea of God. (You find yourself drawing from this twisted example in your relationships with a lover) I think it’s interesting that it is a POTENTIAL lover. This is an objective term for an inherently subjective, personal, situation. Awaiting assignation with potential lover.
Father leaning, back to trunk, feet on twisted oak roots, The Father (probably your father) is viewed as leaning on the tree (that is, depending on his God idea for some kind of support) and all the while his feet (his walk, his actions) are walking out the twisted evil deeds that fucked up (twisted) your idea of God to begin with. Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. {I guess, if I am wrong about this, then I’m gonna be monumentally wrong, aint I}Watching his family at play. Your Dad stands by and watches you play at living life, knowing He is probably responsible, and not saying a word to you of what he did.
Old man standing, staring at twisted oak roots, I am not sure, but maybe this is your Grandad. I need to know if your Old Man is staring at the roots in fond reminiscence (in which case He too would have been involved in evil behavior), or in sad disappointment (in which case He may have been a past positive link with the original, untainted God idea in your heart)Flashing glimpses of times past, rolling through befuddled mind.
A fond tear falls from cheek, to feed twisted oak roots. dittoOld man wanders on, half smile hanging from sagging flesh.
Boy sprawling amongst twisted oak roots, Daydreaming and mind playing.
Old oak watches another generation flash past, His forest now a park. Restatement. The outcome of the twisted roots in your god idea is that the forest (your once natural heart) is now a civilized park (a showy place). In other words, Because you were made distant from God by means of some family evil on the part of your Father, you are now likewise distant from a sense of Gods’ destiny, purpose, and meaning for you. Thus you can’t discover, or believe in the true you, and you thus long for death. It is the death of that version of you produced by the twisted root that needs to die however. If it does, you will find your true self, and be alive for the first time in your whole life. By the way, don’t let shame over your own misdeeds keep you from getting this healing. We all have sinned.
This little poem is the true story of your life. Why do you think God gave you the stuff to write it? I think God is trying to undo the damage done to you in His name by your father. And He is doing this because He loves the real you. Give Him a chance to show you He isn’t as advertised. Make your own contact with Him, and work out the personal issues that are required for the two of you to become one again.

Your bud in Nashville, TN, John Brusseau.

P.s. I can't ask you to be my MySpace friend because your settings don't allow bands. You could maybe add me though, I'm not sure.