Quotables

"As academics in a university we don't have to confront religion if we're not religious, but in the world, they will have to." -Alison Simmons, a Harvard philosophy professor who co-chaired the committee which added "Reason and Faith" as a required course at Harvard

Ah, the poor bitter masses, clinging to faith in a just God, unaware that the professors have done away with the need for justice. The answer to every broken heart is not redemption, but apathy.

A pocket guide to Life at a Desk

no matter what time of morning, afternoon, or evening,
coffee is the greater good.

Begin the diplomatic dance,
spin away from anything that
suggests mankind is at fault,
or sin is possible, even though
the very music you are dancing to
is full of broken harmonies.

The Established Politician

Out of my way, you drooling, dagger-clumsy fool!
Your squalling insults perturb me less
than your squear-eyed, catkin'd brain can comprehend -
I'm off to battle with real men.

Stop your prating - your ideas of justice are dwarfed by mine of power.
You are unsuited to the fray - the stakes are higher than the heights of your most moist,
miserable, fantastic dreams. Step aside.

Are you familiar
with the slicing edge of a thinking man's tongue? STEP ASIDE!!!
Or is annihilation not resident in your vocabulary?

Fie! My blood lineage alone ought to quell your advance! Shame, you churl-spawned beggar. You yet proceed with mock-challenges to war? You have the manners of an Englishman, the breeding of a cow, and the intelligence of a dreamer.
Move on.

What? All men equal? All gold? Bah.
Step aside! Down! Heel!
In one month's time
I'll put you in your place
six feet underground.

[two awake is more than one alone]

Come, my beloved, let us go up the shining mountain, and sit together;
we will watch the sun go down in beauty from that shining place.
We will sit there till the Night Traveler rises in beauty above the shining mountain;
we will watch him as he climbs to the skies.
We will watch also the little stars following their chief.
We will watch the northern lights playing their game of ball in their cold, glistening country.
We will sit there on the beautiful mountain while the thunder beats his drum.
We will see the flashes from the lit pipe of the lightning.
We will see the great whirlwind race with the squall.
We will sit there until all creatures drowse.
There we will hear the great owl sing his usual song: "Go to sleep, go to sleep," and see all animals obey his call.
We will sit there in beauty on the mountain, and watch the small stars in their sleepless flight.
They do not mind the song, "Go to sleep"; we will not mind it either,
but sit more closely together, and think of nothing but ourselves,
on the beautiful mountain.
Again it will be heart: "Go to sleep, go to sleep," and the Night Traveler
will come closer, to warn us that everything is sleeping
except ourselves and the little stars.
They and their chief are coursing along, and our minds go with them.
Then the owl sleeps; and his call to sleep sleeps; and the lightnings flash
from a long way off; the great pipe is going out; and the thunder
ceases to beat his drum; and though our bodies urge us to sleep,
we sit in beauty, very still, upon the shining mountain.

- ABANAKI SONG
from the translation of John Reade
(adapted by Robert Hass)

9-11-2010 (it gives me sight and makes me brave)

Age After Age - Sandra McCracken

On the edge of the river, the mighty Mississippi
Two boys spent their summers on the banks of the levy
When the waters burst and broke the dam
they were swallowed in a wave of sand
they pulled the younger one out by the hand
from standing on his brother's shoulders.

One nation under God, young and proud she stumbled
With a trail of tears left by those who were outnumbered
She said, "This land is your land, this land is mine, unless you are an Indian"
But a higher ground we have tried to find
standing on their shoulders.

Age after age
of heroes and soldiers
it gives me sight and makes me brave,
standing on their shoulders

One man in the shadow of the white-washed cathedrals
Weighed down by the system through the eye of the needle
To his conscience bound he would not recant for the freedom of the Saints
And truth is truth is truth
and we are standing on his shoulders

(chorus)

To the ones left behind who are picking up the pieces
of planes, bombs, and buildings of innocence and evil
'Cause when the news and noise and flowers die,
and you still wake up alone
There is a God who knows every tear you cry
and this world is on his shoulders

Age after age
of all the heroes and the soldiers
So why am I so slow to change
when I am standing on their shoulders?

Age after age
of (all the) heroes and soldiers
God, give me sight and make me brave...
as I am standing on their shoulders.

(this song is a good song...http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/best-laid-plans/id178801149)

I want to BE the NEW LIVING VERSION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sabbath rest, the rest of completion,
God has made a world.
creation cavorts, swims, sleeps, sub-creates;
the two smooth-skinned humans wake,
and discover love.
God has made a world.

Discord, stony earth, blood - the chaos of interruption,
Satan has made claim to a world.
creation snarls, rapes, cries, and destroys,
the two skin-clad humans flee,
and discover pain.
Satan has made claim to a world.

The Recluse

Toadflax and asters, nightshade and burrs,
These are the neighbors that my heart prefers.

Cowslip and birdfoot touch and flush pink--
spiderwort whispers and snapdragons wink.

Queen Anne’s lace lady, hair in a bun,
minxes with larkspur in the afternoon sun.

Milkweed and cockles, bluets so vain,
sour pink blackberries clean from the rain--

yes, I adore them, thistles and all,
for they never come visit - no, never at all!

(weeds are better than cats, and cats are better than Joneses)

Our wildflower backyard - jcp

Chicory morning, blue from the window,
red clover corners meet day-lily lines.

Finch-thistle thickets, brightest at midday,
uprightly scornful of shade-clinging vines.

Now doused in sun’s set, ablaze with fireflies,
clusters of asters are stars, or star-signs.

i'm afraid you won't see the sun
i'm afraid you won't taste the summer
i'm afraid you won't feel my heart
beating next to yours.

i'm sick of all the lies,
i'm sick of too much talk,
i'm sick of everybody saying
that there's not enough room.

so many empty arms.
so many vacant hearts.
so many of us dream about you
and would die to hold you.

so

i will go to war for you.
i will not give up on you.
i will not stop burning for you
or weeping.

thoughts to conquer doubt

and for this poem
let me briefly state the truth:
love is not hate disguised,
not merely a passion put to use,
or the redemption of a lonely soul.
No, it is the point of all the battle-wit and grief,
else pain's foil were not so sharp;
It is the purpose of our measured days,
for we need it like drowning men
crave air.
The word is beaten, formed and molded for
unsterling uses, but LOVE is not
anybody's plaything or a dog to call to heel-
it is untarnishable, untameable, unconjurable and deep.
As blood would not be red without iron,
so the vibrancy of love depends, not on
fate or chance or beauty,
but on the health of the soul.
For whoever trys to master love deceives himself:
Love only enters in the clothing
of
a
servant

Would Shakespeare cringe, listening
as meth-dazed kids discuss Hamlet's great sorrow?
With words so battered and grooved, slang so
casual they puzzle over slow revenge and the complexities
of love and madness. It almost does not seem like speech,
but rather the pre-articulate thought process
of some amoeba-cluster still millenia from evolutionary progress.
No, but if the Bard himself sat here,
methinks he would not protest. Rather, with a
small smile above that stiff collar, he would
start writing a new play....
"The upstart youths do tarry, and we call them knaves, but surely they do see the stars of heaven with their eyes...."

go up and fly
leap up into thunderous airs
far from my eyes
leave me planted
on trembling legs.
i would not be so small-souled
as to begrudge any creature
the chance to fly.
go up and greet the morning
in the sky.

anagram

Forget it. Seriously,you don't owe me anything,
really. if only i could make you understand how
i love helping you, and how
every chance i get to be with you is
never enough - i want to be with you always.
don't you see,
silly. We're friends.

England is a (Single) Man's Land

by Cate Pilgrim
Written in memoriam of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881–1975)

There are times when a man’s soul craves refuge from the woes and sorrows of the world in solitude, and there are times when what he wants most is a pint of bitter surrounded by his fellow man. Tonight was one of the latter. I had been working like a galley slave for weeks as undersecretary for Lord Widders, editing his publication England is a Man’s Land. My soul was feeling pinched. A spot of olden golden at the White Swan was just the thing, and I’d just sent my man for an overcoat when the telephone buzzed.

It was Archer Campden, asking a favor. Young Archer is a decent specimen, but he has one significant flaw. He’s the sort of chap who loses his head over long-lost brothers, stray dogs, and damsels in distress. His mother’s friends say he has a beautiful soul. I’ve never seen it, but I have seen his Robin Hood routine land him in some devilish tough spots on several occasions.

From what I could gather through the static, he had encountered a beleaguered damsel on the train, and promised to assist her. “Bruton, old man, she’s a striker. A peach. A doll. All of merry England rings in her laughter,” he began, and I thought wistfully of the White Swan, and the low table in the corner that was lamentably empty of my lankly, masculine form. I decided to be firm. “All of merry England? Archer, she sounds like a public menace. In which I am not interested. But if you are, I wish you the best. Good nig….”

Here, Archer cut in.

“She’s arriving at Tenbury Wells on the 4:15, and dash it, Bruton, be a man. Meet her at the station and take her to dinner. Remember our days at Bewdley Primary in Wribbenhall?”

There are many notable forms of unsportsmanlike behavior: kicking a man when he’s down, drowning kittens, and swindling widows out of their mites. But chief of all is dredging up old debts of honor, especially those long since paid, in order to get a chap to entertain a female stranger. With the phrase “Remember our days at Bewdley Primary,” Archer had me. The ancient code of the Brutons forbade me to ignore his request, as he had once rescued me from mortal peril (in the form of Headmaster Cradleblood). “Tenbury Wells, eh?” I barked, pained at the thoughtlessness of his parents, who had somehow failed to strangle him at birth. “Right. Tenbury Wells. Bruton, you’re a godsen....”

With a low cough, my man entered with my overcoat and trilby. He must have noted the abrupt termination of my conversation with that loathsome thing Archer, but he said not a word. Nor did I. I shouldered on the coat, affixed my hat, and exited my flat with my face set like a flint.

In November, the weather is beastly in Bewdley. Villagers do not stir, save to go to church, or visit the hallowed premises of The White Swan, the Horn and Trumpet, or the Woodcollier Arms. And here I was, exposed to the elements all for the sake of some idiot female.
The spirit of chivalry was not dying naturally, I reflected bitterly, thoughtless girls were killing it in their spare time.

An hour later I was gazing into the deep brown eyes of Claire Talbot, a true English rose. Although an authoress, Claire was slim, charming, and entirely enamored with Lord Widder’s dashing young undersecretary. She clucked over my overworked state, and sympathized with the dangers of the modern work ethic. Her clear laugh rang out over the soup, and by the time the waiter served the fish, we had got through weather, politics, aunts, and were moving into poetry. Tennyson had just surfaced when there was a crash at the table behind ours.

I craned my neck to the north, just in time to get a face-full of orange marmalade. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a day when nothing has gone as planned, but if you ever find yourself in one, beware orange marmalade. It’s very unpleasant to the optic orbs. Once I had cleared the stuff from my visionary region, I found myself watching a scenario, which, as Bert at the White Swan would say later, was “rum indeed.”

Lord Widders, my sober and responsible employer, was crouched in a defensive posture behind the table’s decorative centrepiece, while a well-endowed blonde was hurling condiments and cutlery in his direction. Although the code of the Brutons also frowns upon eavesdropping, I couldn’t help but overhear what the blonde was saying, partly because she was booming like a steamer in full sail, and partly because she had run out of missiles and had crossed to our table and begun launching our condiments.

“You pompous, arrogant oaf! How dare you criticize The Ladies Home Gazette in your nasty newsletter! We are a force for good in this country! Do you feed the poor?”

Here she seized a plate of small pickles, showering them down upon Lord Widder’s collar.

“Do you minister to the sick?” Next went the bowl of olives. “Do you shepherd the souls of young girls into the mysteries of womanhood?”

At that, Lord Widders shuddered, although it may just have been the result of a blob of mayonnaise connecting with his left ear-lobe. “You said female literacy was responsible for the erosion of common sense,” the blonde shrieked. “Philistine! You and your aristocratic Neanderthals would have all of England’s women illiterate, would you?”

Up to this point, I had, like Banquo’s ghost, watched with a mild sense of wonder and bemusement. It did not reflect well on me to be undersecretary to a man mostly covered in gravy, and I turned back to Claire, to reassure her and perhaps talk a bit more about the blighter Tennyson. You needn’t imagine my surprise when a second dish of marmalade made contact with my person, because I will describe it. I was surprised.

Shocked may be a better word.

My eyebrows traveled to my hairline.
My mouth opened.
I gasped.
I gaped.

And then I crouched behind the table centrepiece as the lady Talbot stood, flung back her head like a war horse and started howling at me. “Sexist swine! You work for the author of England is a Man’s Land? Hanging is too good for you! Waiter, more marmalade!”

********

I believe I have already observed that at times a man’s soul craves refuge from earthly tribulation in solitude, and at others he wants a pint in the company of his fellow man. Fellow man, not feminist authoresses with egalitarian ideologies and homicidal tendencies. As, somewhat stickily and smelling strongly of citrus, Lord Widders and I slid into the low table in the corner of the White Swan, I sighed. "Lord W, it would appear that England is a single man's land." Bert brought two foaming mugs. I sighed again, more contentedly, and began imbibing that liquid balm of the soul. With the first sip, a pleasant thought occurred to me. “I’m going to kill Archer Campden.”

Song of Songs: A Note

"Indeed, A. La CoCaque and S.D. Gotein point out that the woman speaks 53 percent of the time in the Song, while the man speaks 39 percent of the time." - Longman

Shakespearean Sonnet: 101

When in the chronicle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest wights,
And beauty making beautiful old rhyme,
In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,
I see their antique pen would have express'd
Even such a beauty as you master now.
So all their praises are but prophecies
Of this our time, all you prefiguring;
And for they looked but with divining eyes,
They had not skill enough your worth to sing:
For we, which now behold these present days,
Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

I woke up and fear said good morning,
drank my coffee and put on my shoes.
Thinking him a guest, I said nothing,
but i wondered who'd invited him in.
he lounged, he chatted, and he ruffled
through my desk, flipping the pages on my calender,
a small smile playing about his mouth.
I said nothing, thinking perhaps he was an old friend
whom i'd forgotten. Nervously, I smiled, and gave
him the key to the attic when he asked.
Instantly i regretted it.
As he ascended the stairs, I called after him;
he ignored me.
A sort of wild madness beset me. In the kitchen I found a knife.
I could hear footsteps above me.

an open stretch of sand and sky,
an island meets the water
I'm standing in the silver cold
and I'm the ocean's daughter

the scallop shell can never tell
how vast and wide my home
nor catch the sweetness of my song--
it is lost among the foam

storm and snow cannot deter
my travels through the deep
last night i heard a baby seal
crying in its sleep

i found it moaning on the shore
alone in spotted fright,
i led it to a little cove
& it swam away alright.

[engaged]

Thrilling to the sound of snow
melting; of sun on skin
and February thaw -
all within sings for briar rose
hedges, thick green for the birds,
lingering twilights,
and hours spent walking beside you barefoot,
you, my own true love,
my own June bride......

ME=OW

Robert Wager found a coin
lying on his mother's grave;
gravely, Robert took the coin
coldy wagering within
that doing so was not sin.
Thus engaged he did not hear
a black-clad figure drawing near.
"What have you done,"
the figure cried,
"that coin has been there since she died.
If removed, she swore to come
and haunt my sanctuarium."
Robert grasped the coin still tighter
"I found it here, you wretched blighter.
I'll bet you want it for yourself,
but I have bloodright to this pelf."
The stranger gave an awful yell,
"Your mother shan't disturb sweet Hell!
Put the coin back, you spiteful brat,
or I'll turn you into a three-legg'd cat."
Robert laughed, but Old Scratch cursed
and shortly after Robert burst
into fur, then shrunk, then mewed.
Ever since there's been a feud
between Old Nick & the feline breed.
Be warned, and do not yeild to greed.

To the DORK QUEEN OF MY HEART

I hate your blubber guts,you squirrely girl.
you drive me nuts; i want to hurl.
sugar and spice and a head full of lice-
i'd rather lick mice
than look at you twice.
what's up with your hair?
is it supposed to grow there?
And those boats...are your feet?
When you laugh its a bleat
like a sheep with TB.
If you're allowed free
then incarcerate me.
A pug is a poodle
compared to your noodle;
A glance at your mug
is a near-lethal drug.
You make Munch's The Scream
a pleasant daydream.
You're God's one mistake
(those warts are not fake)
If I was your beau,
I'd find an ice floe
and go, go, go, go
until death did us part.
You make lettuce seem smart.
Oh,
by the way,
it's opposite day :)

yes. i actually used "hark." it's legal in poetry.

Hope never dies

The day was an arrow from a warrior's bow
the night was a feather dropped by a crow
Sunrise, that songbird, was welcome and sweet
while dusk traveled slowly as a weary man's feet.
Tomorrow, a stranger, is journeying near,
bearing its burden of joy, aye, and fear.
Dawn brings the day, and day brings the night
sure as the arrow spins in its flight;
sure as the raven croaks as it flies,
love is eternal for hope never dies.
Whatever shall hap with another day's sun
thou art beloved. What is done has been done.
Farewell the arrow and farewell the wings
but welcome the future and hark! how it sings!

Sleep (for A.F.R.)

Finally, you've fallen asleep.
Now, I can look at you,
ice-eyes lidded & peaceful,
and the bow of your mouth unstrung;
you look like a child.
You've thrown your arm out now-
unconsciously touching mine.
Something strikes me,
hard;
Love, full force, arrests my heart.
There is only one question in the universe:
How can I ever look away from you?
Golden, midnight falls upon you
but you do not stir. Even your hair is resting.
Is this how your mother felt,
watching you sleep?
Did the same fierceness overpower her demurity?
For, though a moment ago I murmured gently in your arms,
now
I find I am a lioness,
hot-blooded. Willing to tear the throat out of
anything
that threatens you,
my young love.
Perhaps it is always so for woman, but
somehow I think not, for surely if there were others thus transformed,
the wide world would be a Serengeti
and every husband's dreams
peaceful.

Drought is a bad neighbor.

The entire prairie is ablaze -
from a hundred miles away, smoke dapples the sky.
Deer, buffalo, and all the small fry
are on the move.
And so are we.
Goodbye, Father's farmland.
Goodbye, Mother's washline.
Goodbye, Plum Creek & Stoneford Farm,
and all the places our rag-dolls love.
Orange sun, orange flame, orange goodbye--
burn
burn
burn.
My heart is saying goodbye to Home
with all the pathos
of the mewling kitten
which Mary's holding in her apron.
Run, deer and buffalo.
Run, mice and shrews and muskrats.
Goodbye, golden land. You are being eaten
by the hungry orange
of prairie flame.

{the art of disappearing isn't hard to master...}

 

WWII

pin-striped skeletons walking east of Dachau
black and white bravery, circa 1945.
confusion, hysteria, and FREEDOM,freedom everywhere
Stars and Stripes and freedom,
pouring out of jeeps, startling as grenades,
handsome, well-fed,
bold as brass.
all yelling
to hell with the blockade,with the guard towers,
with the smell of death,
freedom's coming, freedom.
he looks at me.
that was a bright word in a grim time -
he looks at me and says,
girl,
that was an era of heroes.

snow snow snow

my sister came in from the tundra
murmuring a man's name & smiling at Death.
we laid her by the fire. My father cut
off her frozen boots
but
she wandered far in her mind.
A clear coldness was in her face.
My mother did not cry.
The eagle must fly or must fall - such is the way of it!
I have never seen my sister so beautiful
or so strange. Her blue eyes showed a winding path
through the heart of another,
& lostness.
she had lost the path & could not track it through the winter snow.

I do not think my brothers understand
why ice crystals remain all over me -
and I do not walk with them
over the tundra.

you say your love is free
wind on the sea
a new galaxy
an ocean
a bird
yet,
i hear
just a word.

you call your love strong
to right every wrong
some mystical song
a forest,
a sword
yet
i doubt you, Lord.

Make the waves to rise in me.
Make the stars to shine in me.
Make the eagle fly in me.
Make the song to sing in me.
Make the trees to grow in me.
Make the warrior fight in me.

You made Grace real,
permanent seal,
a power to heal
a gift
from your Son,
so
the work is begun.

. . .learn it. They must learn to love. - german poet Rainier rilke

“New Love”

I am telling my hands
not to blossom into roses

I am telling my feet
not to turn into birds
and fly over rooftops

and I am putting a hat on my head
so the flaming meteors
in my hair
will hardly show

- Eve Merriam, from Fresh Paint (1986)


so,
i knew about
the blossoming roses,
& the birds over rooftops,
secrets & meteors & flame
but
nobody mentioned the clarity
of moral purpose
or the constant singing that fills my house.

A Shaft of Sunlight

Three deer in a western cornfield
appear - my glance out the window turns into a poem
and i forget to curve. The craterous pot-holes of Telegraph Springs Road
snicker as my poor tires scrabble along, my car
a silver rag on a dirty washboard.
I down-shift absently, still trapped in
a shaft of sunlight,
breathing softly & flicking my white-tail.

Driving in November can be hazardous if you have eyes.

A sinner-saint? A gutter-heir to grace?

Adoption? O Christ, what bloody love is this,
When I betray you daily with a kiss?
Yet you are not changed; your love
Like to yourself cannot be moved,
Again by grace, healed, I turn to you.
By grace I serve you & by grace I grow –
deliver me from weeds & worms,
And let me stretch & yearn for thy sweetshine,
nor forget thy shelter
In storm or dark October days.

Un-earned grace bewilders all the world—
A stumbling miracle, divergent from our debt.
As if the Sun did shine at night, His light burns strange
Unto our eyes & hearts.
Proud merits cast but short shadows in His Sun.
We are undone.
Richly stores of treasure I do keep
Seem poor & gray.
I weep.
My Lord,
Bewildered and amazed you find me here,
a wretch deserving death, judgement, fear.

Increase within me, Love –
expand the corners of my narrow heart to make a spacious plot
For thee to plant with all things good & green.
Seek the Son, o everything of mine,
loyalty, affections, & estate be granted to the king.
To him I pledge each acre of my soul,
& in his hands the harvest shall be whole.

A sinner-saint? A gutter-heir to grace? Indeed, i say,
thus is my state, and though strange it is the only way.
for grace forgotten bewilders even more,
and is unlikely as a rainbow without hue.
Protect my soul, Lord Christ, when in my mind I stray from you!

for morgan s. & aubrey c.

"And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God...and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.

This is the second death."

death haunts you, as does the apathy & arrogance of men. You think that somewhere, somehow, there has to be somthing valuable to latch onto and love, but all their philosophies and stories end in nothingness or kitzche. "There HAS TO BE A POINT to life, and the beauty and suffering of each small heart. Otherwise its not right."
Oh, why are you weeping and breaking my heart!
By merely existing, you make my silence cowardice
yeti'm uncomfortable knowing the ending of the story
when you don't -
embarrassed, like i looked in mom's closet before Christmas & i know what we're getting.
How do I tell you without alienating you? It's better than we ever imagined.

Lord,
for tomorrow i ask
for humility and a tongue
frozen till your Spirit loosens it.
i have two ears and one mouth,
one mouth and a patched-up heart
one heart and nothing there whatsoever to glory in
except the presence of your Son.
Lord,
for tomorrow i ask:
let me remember

Eternal & right-here God i praise you - i asked for a mouse hole and you broke down the door!

Midnight

you've had these nights too,
burrowed down into unkindly wrinkled sheets
trying to forget that tomorrow
you will be a soldier again
in an invisible war.

i'm in the middle of one of those now
in combat with a fear
of the unknown future.
i don't want a soft song,
i don't need a loving word
i don't need a story and a glass
of warm milk:
i need a coming victory & an assurance of valor in combat.

I know I’m not alone. you've had these nights too,
hungering for violence & the rage of battle—
wishing there was just enough light to glimpse the whites of their eyes;
nights where you crave an external reality
as sincere & bloody as the one contained within you.

i’ve tried ignoring the bugles and counting sheep.
i’ve turned off the lights & torn down the red banners.
i’ve unbuckled my sword & propped my shield against the bed
but the battle goes on
& the pain goes on
& the fear of the unknown goes on and on and on

and right at the breaking point,
when all hope seems lost & I’m filled with deserter-longings;
at that deceptive crossroads
where Christianity intersects with insomnia
My commander speaks quietly
and reminds: it’s the invisible things that make soldiering worthwhile:
love & hope & the resurrection of the dead.

I hope you’ve had these nights too

Such small syllables of praise as i can, i will. (Cannibal Joe)

"So they cried with lovely voice and clear
and I wished with all my heart to hear
and commanded my friends to set me free...
Instead they bound me with more chains."

-Song of the Sirens, The Odyssey, XII, 185-196

For Gabrielle-the-Princess-head

You walked past the pillars
and the foyer brightened
even though you were wearing black.
you're just like that.
October's getting colder,
and it rained all day,
but even when your hands are cold,
i want to hold them.
you're just like that.
Everyone else sits around on Friday night
petulent,looking for thrills
or movies or somehthing.
so do you, but you're cheerful about it,
because...
...because you're just like that princess
in the fairytales
locked up in a tower
hemmed in by thorny trees
trapped...but singing so loud that the forest
echoes
with sweetness.
Don't worry baby. One day the right horse-backed boy will
ride down the trail
and hear your song.
then you can let down your princess hair and sing louder.
BUT UNTIL THEN
keep walking out of the dark October rain
and into my life
because
i need you
just like that.

I am trying to remember red to a painter blinded by cataracts:

Blanche: Oh, Grand-pére Claude! There are dozens and dozens of little red flowers spurting out of the cracks in the sidewalk – I’ve never seen these before! Please, a moment. I shall press one into my planner and find out its name when we get home. So! They are red!

Monet: (Laughing) Well, it is summer! But what kind of red, Blanche? Explain, explain...s'il te plait.

Blanche: Fresh red – very vigorous, monsieur. Little sidewalk weeds the color of straightforward glory. The flowers themselves are small & vulnerable, but…compelling.

Monet: Continue, child. You are doing well.

Blanche: (Thinking hard) Grand-pére, remember the way Danielle had as an infant? If I waved my hand out, he would seize my finger and not let go. This red is the curl of his fingers. Unexpectedly strong for a beauty so small. It has the little warrior grip of an infant – warm and moist and tight. It is a warm color. Baby Dani and this color both remind me—my heart pumps real blood. No tinge of amber or purple – the red life in these flowers is bold. Beauty transposed into human terms for human eyes.

The Betrayal Play: You'll be shocked at the Injustice of it all! Don't miss the drama!

--

PAIN IN AMERICA

--

i'm not quite sure why Amanda & I chose to burn this book, since i've never read it. But it was a wild october night and the fire was hungry.

A Christian is an impregnable person. He is a person that never can be conquered. Emmanuel became man to make the church and every Christian to be one with him. Christ's nature is out of danger of all that is hurtful. The sun shall not shine, the wind shall not blow, to the church's hurt. For the church's Head ruleth over all things and hath all things in subjection. Therefore let all the enemies consult together, this king and that power, there is a counsel in heaven which will disturb and dash all their counsels. Emmanuel in heaven laugheth them to scorn. And as Luther said, `Shall we weep and cry when God laugheth? -sibbes

WOE (for sanger)

"the expectancy and rose of the fair state"
ripped from the womb,
life, the very mould of form
blasted with an ecstacy of freedom
leaving
us
"of ladies most deject and wretched"
quite,
quite
down

take that, AYERS!

maybe its the sun through the window on my new blue shoes
maybe its the books on my desk or ignoring the news
it could be july, or the last piece of pie
or this ironman feeling like i'll never die
whatever it is, i'll give it to you
out there in... CO with so much to do;
i'll bet you're swell, and workin' like (ahem) -
but i miss you and want you to know:
I LOVE YOU MICHAELA!!!!

hehee

circus horses parade in plumes
attended by pink-suited grooms
peacocks serve the ladies drinks
as men play golf out on the links
leopards pad around the town
at the order of the Crown.
The dryad's are at their quilting club -
across the street there is a pub
filled with buffalos who've lost their wings
and owls who explain hard things.
Siamese cats are in the salon
complaining because the salmon's gone.
The moon jumped over my neighbor's cow
but i'll say goodbye with a chinese bow.

BRIGHT STAR

FIRST LOVE BURNS BRIGHTEST

A review of Jane Campion's recent film, Bright Star

by J. Cate Pilgrim

He'd come back to her changed. Korea had been...something. She could see it. He'd been a 19 year old in a fine uniform when the war started, but now he was twenty, a war hero with an empty left pant-leg to prove it. Walter Reed was taking care of him, he said. He didn't meet her gaze, but watched her eyes stray to the crutches and the one shoe on the floor. "You don't have to marry me, Francis. It's okay."
Her head jerks up, eyes blazing, and she grabs his shoulders.
"Don't have to? Shut up, Carl. I'm IN LOVE with you. I wanted to marry you, not your leg."

After watching Bright Star, I want to tell Jane Campion about my grandparents, and what they thought first love was all about. Campion obviously doen't understand its power. Her 2 hour biopic, Bright Star, struggles with the romance between poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) and his young neighbor Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish). Although both the cinematography and acting are superb, the film itself is hollow. Keats and Brawne profess undying love for each other, and then proceed to do so again, and again, and again. Then Keats sails to Rome and dies of tuberculosis. At random (and frequent) points, both characters stare off into space and start reciting fragments of poetry. Often they are ankle deep in flowers. If Campion is trying to usher us into the presence of the lyric Muse, it feels pushy.

Keats, played by Whishaw, comes across as a fragile artist, whose poetic genius excuses his indolence, poverty, and friendship with odious scotsman Charle Brown (Paul Schneider). Cornish, Fanny's character, has more depth - she's an 1820's Juliet with a penchant for fashion who must battle the restrictions of an England that expected love to play second fiddle to marriage. Unfortunately, the restrictions win out. Fanny balks at all the wrong moments, allowing herself to be hustled from Keats' sickbed and maintaining perfect calm when he sails to Italy to die. In one scene, the dying Keats turns up raving feverishly under a bush in the back garden, calling for Fanny. She rushes to his sides and collapses next to him, screaming for her mother (Kerry Fox) to bring help. Their entire relationship is built on what they say to each other, not what they do for each other. Keats does not marry Fanny. Fanny does not go to Rome with Keats. Yet nothing formidable seems to prevent them; they are trapped in a weird coccoon of inaction. On film, this inactivity is weirdly synonomous with tedious boredom. When Keats' finally coughs himself into the next world, relief, not grief is the predominant emotion in the theater.

Is the Great Ideal of Romance us Philistines should aspire toward? Should we emulate the moody Keats, who travels to London but can't bring himself to visit Fanny because his love for her is such a burning thing? Or strive to be like Fanny, who fills her room with butterflies when Keats sends her a letter, and then slits her wrist when he doesn't? It all looks very pretty on screen, but living it would be so...impractical.


It's a biopic, you say, based on historical facts. Facts are facts and Campion had no choice. Wrong. In 1819 the real-life John Keats bared his soul to eighteen year old Fanny, won the sympathy of her widowed mother, and courted her with the vigor of a normal, red-blooded male. No fields of daffodils. No roomfuls of butterflies. Within two years they were engaged to be married. During this period he composed three of the most beautiful poetic works ever written: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" "Ode to a Nightingale" and "La Belle Dam Sans Merci." When Keats began coughing blood, and Fanny was forbidden from visiting him, she fought through and nursed him tenderly during his final months in England. Their love deepened, even as he was dying. As he waited for death in Rome, he never put down the oval marble she had given him. In the same manner, Fanny wore the ring Keats had given her all her life, even after she married a Mr. Lindon. Both of them were selfless, doing what was best for the other; both of them were in love. Actively.

Honestly, Campion shouldn't need the story of Carl and Francis Pilgrim in order to grasp the magnitude of first love. She just needs to go back and read what really happened between Fanny and Keats. Then she could've put in a scene where John says, "You needn't marry me, Fanny. I'm dying, and I'd understand." Then Fanny could grab his shoulders, eyes burning, and say, "Needn't? John Keats,I'm IN LOVE with you. I want to marry you, not your lungs."

For Dan

don't be glum, my sickly chum,
for autumn days are here -
woodsmoke & wooly socks can fill you up with cheer!
feeling rather poorly?
want to sleep all day?
I know just the remedy to chase your blues away!
Walk into October, preferably at dawn,
and ...see the crunchy scarlet leaves sleeping on your lawn.
An instant cure! I guarantee!
Let FALL soak your soul in glee!
Go adopt a pumpkin; bake an apple pie -
maybe they won't cure you,
but WHAT A WAY TO DIE!!!!

the suppleness of language

the suppleness of language
leaves me distracted
coming from your mouth, the meaning
refracted -
like the light
from your eyes.
i do not feel wise.

o! the tangles you've spoken,
and smiled in speaking,
leave me a token
carved from sharp hope.
They're like eggshells unbroken,
or an anger soft-spoken,
like a song & a vow -
but i cannot tell how
to unravel them out
and make them shout.

the suppleness of language
leaves me distracted;
it's a brilliance exacted
from a very plain stone.

please leave me alone

Reinhold Niebuhr:

Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime,
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history;
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virt...uous, can be accomplished alone.
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite a virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.

"It is His very closeness that makes it difficult for us to think of Him. He Who is infinitely above us, infinitely different from ourselves, infinitely “other” from us, nevertheless dwells in our souls, watches over every movement of our life with a...s much love as if we were His own self. His love is at work brining good out of all our mistakes and defeating even our sins.
“In planning the course of our lives, we must remember the importance and the dignity of our own freedom. A ma who fears to settle his future by a good act of his own free choice does not understand the love of God. For our freedom is a gift God has given us in order that He may be able to love us more perfectly, and be loved by us more perfectly in return.”
~ Merton No Man Is An Island 8.1 (“Vocation”)

To a friend

oh my dearest darling,
how the days do fly!
sidewalks lead to buildings
& clouds race through the sky;
dogs chase after tennis balls
moles burrow in the lawn
but everytime i turn around tomorrow is just GONE!
i've been trying hard to call you
(i...'ve scheduled it twice)
but Time's a ruthless houseguest
whose manners are NOT nice.
The long and short, my dearest dear,
is that i love you true
and that will never change at all
'long as the sky is blue

HELLO MY NAME IS
VICTORY
i'm from the top of a mighty tree
and the bottom of the sea.
you'll meet me, occasionally,
but chances are, just briefly.
I'm transient, you see.

when she was young, my mother decided to put
all her mistakes in jars. She
lined them up on the windowsill and on shelves in the cellar
& then grew up.
Once I followed the cat down the stairs and saw those dusty rows of experience,
and it frightened me to
count them out. i want to ask my mother
why she never taught me how to can,
but
something about all those jars
makes me think
i
understand.

I'll bet the moon gets jealous of earth:

Earth and Moon Compared

The Moon has approximately 1/4 Earth's diameter, 1/50 Earth's volume, and 1/80 Earth's mass. Earth is very dense overall (it is the densest planet in the Solar System), but the Moon is light for its size. The difference is partly because Earth has a large core of iron and other heavy metallic elements, while the Moon has only a small core, if it has a core at all. The Moon's surface gravity is 1/6 of Earth's, and escape velocity from the surface is about 1/5 of Earth's.

The Moon's surface is covered with rock and grit that are mostly dark-gray minerals, so it reflects light poorly compared to Earth, which always has highly-reflective clouds. The Moon reflects visible light about 1/3 as well as Earth, and because of its much smaller size, has a visual brightness less than 1/40 that of Earth, when both are fully illuminated and seen from the same distance -- a difference of four stellar magnitudes.

Earth Moon
Mean diameter 12,742 km 3,476 km
Volume 1.08321 x 1012 km3 2.199 x 1010 km3
Mass 5.9736 x 1024 kg 7.349 x 1022 kg
Mean density 5.515 3.342
Surface gravity 9.78 m/s2 1.62 m/s2
Escape velocity 11.2 km/s 2.38 km/s
Visual albedo 0.367 0.12
Visual magnitude -3.86 +0.21


http://www.freemars.org/jeff/planets/Luna/Luna.htm

for Kasey B.

there is sorrow in the night sky tonight
& i feel you are lost to me.
it should not be so, first
because you are human & in pain,
and next because I am only 238855 miles
from the moon
& so are you.
there is sorrow in the night sky tonight,
& i wish you very close to me
for there is peace in my bed -
also books & sand & a purring cat,
but mostly peace.

oh my hippie-flower child, bewildered & beleaguered by the immense sorrows & immense beauties of life, do not be lost to me. We're 23 million miles from Venus, yet she will guide the morning to earth's doorstep. Do not be afraid, even if the circle breaks & the bird dies & the house burns cold. Do not be afraid.

It will not mean the end of love.

Dame Drought

She’s weaving lies on the loom of the skies –
The farmers know.
They know her dyes from old Julys –
The same winds blow.
She cleverly tries to dazzle their eyes
“your crops will grow.”
With hope of rain that will save their grain.
But they’re too wise.
Her shuttles clack but the earth grows black
And cattle die in the fields.
Warp says ‘clouds’ while weft makes shrouds
As she sings always of sun.
The fabric’s blue, no rain in view
Their farming days are done.

copycatting brian andreas

if your heart had a password she said, it would be peach cobbler or something but then he put down his spoon & kissed her. it would be your peach cobbler.

kid sister

sixteen stoplights & a sunset on the windshield
sixteen songs & the cadence of the wind
sixteen streetsigns crooked at the crossings
sixteen summers she's been in love with him

it's no use counting, no use at all
she doesn't see him stumble or hear him fall
she's his stars & sun, breath & bone
but he worships afar & sleeps alone

what's the game here, sister, it doesn't seem fair
what's the deal here, brother, some sort of dare -
it's driving me crazy down this long dark road
nobody's gettin' the love that they're owed

a refuge now in silence, in calm & much afraid
she shatters in the distance (the blueblood price is paid)
she waters all the garden yet leaves the ferry dry
she is a witche's bargain - listen to her sigh

it isn't spain or summertime, that cadence in her throat,
it's something dark & even, that grips with every note.
she's not some gypsy singer, and you won't get her to dance
but, as she's black as moonless hell, you'll long for her romance.

wrists above the table, eyes upon the floor
fire on the hearth & master at the door
run, you moonless river, run and fear no more
for, sure as heaven loves you, you'll reach the farther shore.

Is it so much?

i am not asking much.
i am not asking for the attar of a thousand roses.
i am not asking for your first-born child.
i am not asking you to climb a glass hill
or vanquish princes or outwit warlocks or sail around the world.
all i am asking is that you would grieve with me
and shed pure tears,
and grieve with me.

Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. ~C. S. Lewis

"Sometimes I feel like Mario when he falls into the room that doesn't have an exit. But from time to time, I have this feeling, almost a thought, that says,"Maybe everything's going to be okay...huh?" - B. M.

SOCIETY!!! SOCIETY!!! SOCIETTTTTY!!!!!!!!!

I would give a lot for a chance at you
in the dark,
under stars, away from bars and cars;
to see the breeze on your face
in an out-door place where i don't have to chase
your eyes all the time.

they could take it all, i wouldn't care
it would all be fair, just to walk with you
somewhere true -
blue breakthrough.
there are some questions i want to ask you:
why & where do you always run? could you dance instead, clear your head, spin and swirl and have some fun, come undone in the summer sun?

(o girl, its time you had some fun!)

break the bottles
burn the shoes
come with me
what's there to lose?

i would give a lot
for a chance to let you breathe real air
beside me.
i'd pay any fee
for a single tree
and you
& me.

my head hurts

Lost kingdom caller
calling,
calling,
come kingdom, come king
lost kingdom, caller
lost,
call lost,
lost kingdom....lost king.

CLOVER QUEEN!

queen of clover with eyes that pierce
clouds, smile, and soak up life at a dead run;
feet splashed with purple marks, purple violets hidden
in white hollows of adventurous ankles -
you are royally alive & i think
you have a secret name for each ray of sun that hits the water,
you have many secret & very green songs
that you sing, sometimes softly,
in praise to the dandelion-craftsman King.

when from afar i watched you wander the further field
spinning harmony with a winsome wind,
i thought "this is april, queen of clover"
and you are,
though april days will soon be over.

The Dark-Named Sword

Ashel named his sword, haft and all,
and it answered to his hand with a silver song.
Blade and blood, death and darkness, brotherhood & beer, Ashel's sword could sing!

battle after battle, the song went on --Ashel's fame spread, and he was invited to feasting halls of great kings. He was given arm rings with jeweled snake eyes,
and his spear often brought down the Devil's boar or the Queen's hart.
And it seemed a sort of peace was in Ashel's hands,
so long as the haft of his dear-named sword was too.

yet peace is not love, and a sword blade is poor company on the cold nights when the rushes shiver on the floor and loneliness leaks through the thatch. Ashel took a wife,
golden-haired and thrush-browed, quick and strong, the daughter of a fighting man. Auri was a woman proud of her husband's silver-song, proud of the sword and swift with the oil. Ashel loved her fiercely and gently;
he lay awake beside her low breathing, pondering the two sides of the world. For Auri, she was fire and ice to him, the sun and the shade, the wine and the thirst. Somehow she was kin to his secret-named sword. There was life & death in both of them, one in his hand and the other in his heart.

battle after battle, the song went on --but among its silver notes crept a warmer tone, the gold of a girl's hair and the warm-orange tint of a hearth fire. Ashel's hand still knew the haft of the true-named sword, but now his eyes saw the blood leaking from men's bodies, and it seemed a steep price for the skald's glory-making.

Ashel lay awake many nights, pondering the two sides of the world. He saw the moon crest the northern hills, and heard the first mewling cries of his son's birth hour. Ashel felt his heart beat with bruising force; an intense longing for the silver days of his clear-named sword came over him, and Ashel reached for the weight of it to hold it once more. But instead the midwife placed Magne in his arms, the warrior-son Auri had hoped for. Ashel looked down at his small red son, and the silver-song was forgotten, and his heart bruised his chest with pride. There was life, life & life in the song now, and his sword hung quietly.

it was battle after battle that Magne asked for, story after story, and Asher growled and grinned his way through many hours, the silver-sword song a dim quiet thing in his mind. the days went on, and Ashel's was not the only gold-haired woman who swelled with child. The whole Skird Valley became settled, and peace grazed with the oxen in the new-fenced fields.
And yet the long-named sword did not forget the song, nor did the skalds lose their heart-hunger for a new tale.

Magne grew older, Auri wiser, and Ashel pondered the two sides of the world less and less, for were they not sitting beside him? His wife & her moon-ways and his son & his boyish wonder - the halves made a whole, and his long-named sword hung quietly.

winter came again, and after it a crow's rumor, barely winging over the muddy plains: tight-faces raiders, barbarians with strange eyes & swift horses. And soon the fences were broken,
Auri's heart was broken,
for Magne fought and fell. Ashel wept apart, and his heart was divided into the two sides of the world. Let the skalds sing his dead son's name -let the glory of his wolf-death glimmer on their lips, but for Ashel, there was a different song.
Both hands remember the feel of it - now he holds his dark-named sword, haft and all.

Blade and blood, death and darkness, pain and parting
it could still sing!
Ashel smiled - it answered to his hand with a silver-song.

battle after battle there was not, but there was one,
and of that
the skald's still sing - it is a long song and true,
woven through with golden-tints and deep ponderings
of Ashel
and his dark-named sword.

pyre

when i found out i wasn't long for this world
i grew bitter
at the stars and trees
and the copper money in my hand -
they would all outlast me
and have a place in the world
long
long after i was murmuring in the earth.

so i caught the stars and melted them down, one by one, and strung them on my daddy's old shoelaces, and hung them on the cat.

and i cut down the trees, one by one, and built a beautifull ship and put it at the edge of the deepest lake i know of.

then i climbed over the railing of my boat and called over the cat. The stars sparked against the dried bark, and my pyre smoothly burned & sank, and i drifted, murmuring, to the soft earth.

what of the money? well, it wouldn't melt and it wouldn't float and the cat didn't want it, so i'd just dropped it, let it slide right from my hand onto the packed-down dirt.

because science may die, and beauty may perish, but greed will outlast us all.

"teach us how to pray"

Jack Grevvner had been walking along in the black dark, humming and watching the flare at the end of his cigarrette. No moon. But it wasn't the dark that Jack found bothersome,it was his complete and total apathy to it. A dog howled on chain to his left, but there was no shooting jolt of surprise to set his heart pounding.

the lack of fear can be a fearful thing.

Promise (rev 21)

for in that place there will be sleep
willingly given
without sweat or tears or terror.

in that place there will be wellness & comfort;
neither stars nor moon needfull in
the vast glory of the lord christ.

for the trinity will dwell triunely
in the hearts of all flesh that believes
father
son
holy spirit.

for in that place there will be unity
of spirit
mind
body.
there, wars will cease.
there, tears will cease.
there, fears will cease,
and sleep will be a gift of soft grace or dire need,
but we will not have to weep for it.

Cancer?

ick ick ick ick ick ick ick
warm green gel ALL over everywhere
and i was gently spreading it out
when she looked me right in the eye
and said,
"It's made of baby aliens, isn't it?"
and laughed loudly,
a good healthy sound
that somehow made me proud
to be
a
radiologist.

TO my ROOMIE!

On a cold winter day when the snow and stone
somberly sat in the cold all alone
and the wind in the trees
was a whispering breeze
murmuring low in sad cemetaries
I ventured abroad
over the sod;
I was mad
and tad
bit angry at God.
"Why not more snow? Why this dusting disgusting?
If you're really divine, then the sky should be busting!"
And sullen I wandered this way and that,
thwacking thick slabs with my un-needed hat
and thinking dark thoughts about sunshine and school
and forgetting completely the number one rule-
Don't walk through a graveyard reading off names
when you're angry at God. The mind likes to play games
it's the best worst sort of king
you might just find a name with too familiar a ring.
Thus did it pass, while enrapt in my self,
I stumbled and fell. And there on a shelf
of ice and of stone, graven clear and unworn
was the name "Rachel Reiley." I swear and I've sworn
many times since that day
that I saw what I saw and that's still what I'll say.
I saw her fair name cut quite horribly sharp
and beneath it a picture of a child-sized harp.
"Rest now, Beloved, rest and be warm.
Hawaii will miss your grace and your charm."
Frozen I stood, tears froze as they fell.
My roomate? My Rachel? Now like a door-nail?
I fled past the trees, sombre and stil,
I fled past the tombstones as I ran up the hill.
I fled and I fled just as hard as I could,
but it didn't matter, it did me no good.
For no sooner than breathless at home did I get,
then I found Reiley dead. Quite dead.
That was it.

And no matter the days that lie in between
that ‘then’ and this ‘now’, I’m sure what I’ve seen.
People may whisper and preachers may rant,
but this really happened and conceal it I can't.
I know what I know and I saw what I saw.
(yet I think Rachel died because she ate sushi, raw).

pet me, please

she came in and jerked the thermostat over to 80. She didn't look at today's mail or reach for the WSJ, but just sat on the couch by the radiator. She looked so small and cold that I was moved with pity. It would be awhile before the room warmed up. In a leap, I was on her lap. Humans have such inefficient systems - no fur! However, she did not begin absently stroking me. She just stared at the wall.

I began to purr, partly in panic. what was wrong with my human?

• bulle
• t
• poin
• ts

1. s
2. i
3. m
4. p
5. l
6. i
7. f
8. y

unlike colored fonts

Lee’s Mary Anna

______________________________
I buried my heart southeast of desire
far from streams or cities
under a spring green sky.

I could have laughed or wept
but I just hollowed out a little place
and walked away.

There is only one man I would follow blindfold
and his grey-head rests gently
under a spring green sky.
I buried him northwest of sorrow.

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

small windows widen out
to harbors, vistas, long peninsulas
of
time.

vast vast vast is the world of men
and
wide the sky
before we
die

time

Caritas

"Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within." -James Baldwin

Yet love's force is not all liberation.

It's power is not just the power to remove, but to bind.

It is a forged chain of labor that spans both the quiet & the troubled days, and yet it is more.

Love can be facade, or thrive in a cage of smoke & mirrors.

It is an ocean where no ship makes harbor; it is a desert where all thirst and all falter; it is a starless night that somehow still glitters strange beauty, and it is a heavy burden that distinguishes not hours from years, and must be carried from the graveside.

Our love scrapes and scrapes, yet leaves beneath the dull ache of unfufillment - we have not got past ourselves, deep into the inner circles of the heart.

Human love is a helpless sort of thing, confused with drama and petulent, like a child trying to learn to read.

Love takes off masks and replaces them.

Love is a labyrinth that leads infrequently to the sun.

It is a shadow-grail to be sought after, seldom found and only fully realized at death.

King David, a man with depth of heart, says to the LORD alone, "Your love is better than life."

I too praise divine love, and long to dwell umasked & real within the shelter of that mystery.

Thoughts from Sunday

"We must get quickly every day to the inward things, to the soul." - Jerry Alway

Dabble, dabble in the water
order well your skin & hair
daily deck and double check
your outward self in semblance fair
but within you, o within you
slumbers deep your breathing soul
source of all your truest errors,
joys and thoughts and secret terrors-
will you wake it? Will you wash it?
Will you seek to rouse it now?
Raise a mighty-hearted screaming or your soul will stay deep-dreaming,
content with many layered-living, senseless to the God of giving,
slave to petty, selfish grieving.
Call loud across the coming weeks, at every day's new break
Call loudly to your sleepy soul and keep it wide awake.
Plunge it whole into the water,
dabble dabble in the water,
wake it with the real, clear Water
all to clear & cleanly make.
.

We Are Friends

Perhaps when your time is nearly come,
you will finally rest your white head
and we will have time to talk.
I will lay beside you on an outspread quilt
dappled with the sun.
We will both be old.
I will make sandwhiches
while you eat cheese, and we will talk earnestly of love
and loss and the worship of the abstract, and we will talk just as earnestly about
soccer and memories and the proper way to eat a steak.
There will be laughter and
nothing will interupt us there, on the brink of eternity,
except maybe the skyline-sighting of a hawk
or a soft song of silence.

we are friends, you & I.

sep. ar. ation.

Another lucky-penny sunrise.....

....windy day....

thinking of you.

February 9

Re-tar the torches, arrange the incense -
the party is about to start.
Put on your headress
the one with the gemstones -
i've angled all the mirrors to catch the light,
your head will dazzle with the fire of a thousand stars!
you are sure to stun them,
go on.
you're so good at this.

oh my friend, don't you realize,
my retinas will be burned with glory too -
i will not be able to recognize the guests
but only stand aloof,
smiling through the smokey haze,
longing to dance,
but
too blinded to move.
we may drink from different sides, but we all drink from the same goblet.

stockpot: rhymes for later

fair hair
sweet feet
high sky
town gown.

stung tongue
full grown
grand hand
stone bone

cream dream
bird word
leaf grief
room gloom

blurred word
bring thing
brush rush
night flight

fragment

True to form, mirror true
you dye your eyes to midnight-blue.
You tie your tie, you cut your hair
I'd know your falsehoods anywhere.

Black as night, raven-black
I hide from you and your attack
I shut my ears and shield my heart.
Your love is tearing me apart