Review

she cringes from her former eloquence - the essence of love can depart so quickly from letters!

i'd rather burn at the stake/than dream of your face
it's dark interspace/without you real
pour on the oil/pile the dry wood high
don't wanna dream of you girl/i'd rather die

ohooohohohooohohooooo memories on fire smoke & waver/prayin' to be free from her black forever


don't light up night, don't strike a match
i'll be all right if you don't watch
all flesh & bone and all time will pass
if it's gonna hurt this bad, i may as well crash down
down...........

(songwriting: 5 am)

You should've been born
when life still held some mystery
You should've been born
before the demon's wrote our history
Within the circle fell the day
you entered time and had to stay

i'm sorry for the way it happened....

you should've been born
when kindness walked upon the earth
you should've been born
with stars that had a different birth
you coulda been, you would've been, you shoulda been, you should've been born

onward.

"I want" -
how often writers start that way
expressing not so much eternal truths
as stating
the centricity
of
human need
for a provider.

i want to write poems into being
unleash them onto an unsuspecting world
catapult verses through the bewildered pupils
of the tired eyes
of my friends.
i want to be friends with all of creation.

I WANT TO GO HOME!

"We who live in this nervous age would be wise to meditate on our lives and days long and often before the face of God & on the edge of eternity. For we are made for eternity as certainly as we are made for time, and as responsible moral beings we must deal with both.
"He hath set eternity in their heart," said the Preacher, and here he sets forth both the glory & misery of men. To be made for eternity & forced to dwell in time for mankind is a tragedy of huge proportions. All within us cries LIFE and PERMANENCE, and everything around us reminds us of mortality and change." - a.w. tozer, knowledge of the holy, page 41

Questions:
1. WIll man have a perfected will in heaven?
2. Why do we pass up the beautiful intimacy of prayer for human whine-sessions?
3. Where are the other hungry Christians?

W H E R E (written because i had no idea these were all words!)

wherefrom the songbird?
whereupon the night?
whereat the songbird
whereto in flight?

wherein the sorrow
wherewith the tears -
whereby Time ruffles
wherethrough the years.

Kipling's Ladys

We have seen better days & worn better hats,
spoken brilliant words to smitten diplomats;

We've paraded down the Strand & dazzled it with style
we've argued for our pound of flesh & won our golden mile.

We have had better courage & won better wars
rescuing dinner parties from old British bores.

We've lit the stove of scandal & helped the flame of love
We have given timid Cupid many a gentle shove.

We've laughed through rain & sung the Season through.
scorning High Society when scorn was due.

London, don't you miss us, exiled out here?
But soon we'll be returning. Milliners beware!

A LETTER

Dear lord christ,
this world that holds together in the
glory
of your true unity with Father God -
this world is bound in decaying subjection to Time.

oh lord christ! this world is hungry
&
it feeds on patience & gulps down endurance
until
the table of my heart is bare & only crumbs remain to offer you.

it seems like everyday i rise early to prepare
your favorite things;
before the sun rises i gather spices for the wine &
i never forget to add salt to the meat.

As soon as everything is cooked, i ring the dinner bell to call you in....
but somehow
the hungry world
shows up
first
and the table of my heart grows bare & only crumbs remain to offer you.

i apologize, lord christ. this world is hungry
& I haven't learned how
to
bar the door against its appetites.

but i will try again.
You are cordially invited to dinner tomorrow, March 26.

Love,
cate

P.S. perhaps, & i ask this humbly, you wouldn't mind doing a potluck?

the timeliness of grace & sun
has left my bitter soul
undone.

i thought God dour, sword in hand
yet spring's a song of his
command.

Lord of lovers? Lover of green
paid sin's price with sorrow
unseen.

what manner of a God is this,
granting foolish girls such
bliss?

Where is the empty Christ the world gives up?
He's gone.
Instead the Bridegroom holds a brimming cup.

I would have come he said, but i woke up when i got out of bed
and
it threw off my groove.

but it's my party

duck down and hide, O trembling soul,
avoid the rays of dawn.
let not sweet morning greet thy face
let God not find thee in this place
where willfull sins thick feed on grace
and profane hands his Words erase
keep quiet, soul, and out of sight
walk in th' shadows 'til next night

[march]

i contend
nothing so new, nothing so tender
nothing so spring-like the day can render
as a tottering calf on tender green grass,
big-eyed with wonder at clouds as they pass.
He's indignant with raindrops & stays by his mother
and this is the best part
of spring
in
its
wonder.

Delivering a pizza

don't you DARE be ungrateful
i
done used a waitress smile on you,
and
ain't nobody gets fractious with a waitress smile.

imperfections

Tangling with faith
edgy
or heavy-handed
.
both palms up, yet labeled
untenderly
an alien & stranger

they see

a quixotic caricature
of
an eager penitent
drawn out
visible

mene mene tekel parson
but
fear is a social construct
long
deconstructed

The Lord looks after his own.
He is not slow as the world counts slowness.

A Plea

Watchman, what do you prize?

What in you seeks improvement?

Distinguish yourself, man, with truths beyond these miserable walls. Raise our thoughts to higher heights, transport us far from these squalid scenes of misers & beggars & fools--please. What is worthy of notice in the other sphere? Render yourself to reflections on freedom, & Life & the real. It's airless here, and the darkened sky seems to be influencing our companions. Retrieve these moments from the brink of destruction!
Oh! Let your expressions fill up the gap, let your words battle the creeping despairs that besiege me in this place of sloth & licentiousness - TURN THE CONVERSATION TO THE ETERNALLY BEAUTIFUL!

Thursday morning: Easton, PA

piano notes & footsteps up the street
March day in Easton
where the houses sit patiently
on the hill
and watch the train trestle-bridge
rise.
MONARCH FURNITURE STORE just got a customer.
It's business as usual, red trucks and red bricks
and the red eyes of
the old man outside our hotel
who keeps trying
to steal a cup of instant lobby coffee.
Pennsylvania, your trees stand tall in the weak winter sunlight
but
your people are trapped in the shade
of
grey grey grey buildings.

honestly, she said, if i can't kill orcs i want to write poetry

cliche

he said to make a long story short
my lips are sealed
& she nodded but she's worn her heart on her sleeve for ages.
it's been years since i've had a square meal, she said, &
i'm skin & bones inside
but a penny saved is a penny saved
&
love conquers all.

you can lead Trouble your horse to Waterloo by burning bridges over still waters running deep but be ready to pour oil and don't throw the baby duck out with the hell-or-high watermark