A Day to Play the Blues

 A Day to Play the Blues

(“And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning, and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.” Job 30:31)

It’s a day to wear a long black coat that covers you full and low,
from your knees to your feet. It’s a day to pretend to walk the dog
and leave home with just the leash.
It’s a day to hide your tears from the many who would never understand.
The sun has little to do with it, high and bright,
or
hidden and cloud. Wanting to see a friend take to new heights,
but they tremble, glued to the ground. And the sounds of music
they hear, the soothing chords,
are merely morse code for liberation.
It's a day to shake like exhaustion, to feel the cold you hoped had
finally melted in your soul.
It's a day to hide your pain, you’ve carried it too long anyway.
(Or so friends and experts say.)
Wanting to share coffee with a friend, but they demure,
certain and unsure like the first flickers from wet logs in
a campfire.
It's a day where sitting silent would be good, if there was someone
to sit with.
It’s a day where sitting alone feels more like abandoned.
The sky has not answered back and neither have the distress signals
flared toward the sun early in the day.
It's a day to play the blues, but you need two. No,
you do.
It’s a day when the ghosts of those who have walked away
refuse to leave your heart, your shoulders, your brain, your tears,
every muscle fiber, and you would be rid of them if the replacement was not expensive.
If it would help to spend it on yourself, you would gladly shop all afternoon.
But this is a day to walk incognito in the world and hope that someone
recognizes you tomorrow.

The Polytheistic Blues

 The Polytheistic Blues

(“Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it.” John 12:14a)

I’ve got too many gods to choose from
and it used to give me the polytheistic blues.
From now on I will make up my own:
a conqueror, a colonizer, a warrior, an executioner,
a man. Amen.

And if he (or they, I do not mind pluralities) met my
strict requirements and stuck to my
national boundaries, and only spoke my native tongue,
I might be persuaded to offer obeisance.

Perhaps you can help me fashion a few new
objets d’art we can put next to our american flags
to remind us we have manufactured them ourselves.
Look at all we’ve done: catapults, gatling guns,
atom bombs and remote-controlled drones. Look
at our power to unearth the planet we stand upon.

We can gild our icons with gold if only everyone tithes
what they cannot afford.
Feed the poor?
Sure, we have a potluck once a month. We can
bottle our time, sell car washes and cookies
to support the new chandelier that highlights our deities.

Don’t give me a god in a hippie van,
mine has an army of tanks.

The Instant Blues

 

The Instant Blues

(“Lord All-Powerful, the place where you live is so beautiful!” Psalm 84:1)

I’ve got the instant blues, the indigo that wraps around my
head like a fog.
I’ve got the instant blues, the claustrophobic morning, smashing my
head like a rock.

I did not invite you here, you’ve laughed at me since childhood;
I did not invite you here, you broadcast your bait like a fishhook.

I’ve got the instant blues, judged immediately but never seen.
I’ve got the instant blues, treated like a heretic, unclean.

I only asked for eyes to see me,
I only desired a wink and a nod.
You never answered, never darkened my door.
You never asked me, never asked who I adore.

I’ve got the instant blues, I stay in bed and wish it was longer.
I’ve got the instant blues, I’ve lost hope, and my heart is conquered.

Why did you take up arms against a pacifist and a peer?
Why did you take up arms against a court jester in the clear?

I’ve got the instant blues, I ink my heart and hope someone sees.
I’ve got the instant blues, I sink beneath silence every Sunday.

I only asked for a card in the mail,
I only desired dimensional scale.
You never offered, never asked why I bleed.
You never called me, never asked what I needed.

I’ve got the instant blues, and the beauty I cried for fills my
heart like summer.
I’ve got the instant blues, and the temple within me is
like no other.
And it fills my heart like a friend,
like a lover.

These Days the Blues

 

These Days the Blues

(“And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, ‘Here are My mother and My brothers!’” Matthew 12:49)

These days the blues pursue me
just two steps behind my slower pace.
I’ve remanufactured time, an endless loop,
an arpeggio designed to keep me within soothing
distance of smiles I miss,
wine we’ve dispensed,
and arguments we’ve left to evaporate
once the sun makes its rounds again.

Once I wanted less pressure,
once I sought more leisure,
now I look down the driveway for
another soul, a dead ringer for
day trips on dewy hills.

Once I was impressed by counts
and recounts,
filled chairs and noise,
good reports about a preaching machine
now grounded without wings.

These days the pain recruits me
just behind my older face.
Please call me, my brother;
please ride up and remind me
why I once called you sister.
Oh mother, of father, oh family
who ate vegan spaghetti and bread.

Now I’m impressed by doubts
and dropouts,
question marks and silence,
good transports that carry my heart
on prayer and a wing.

listening to "yer blues"

listening to “yer blues”

(“Say to the prophets who prophesy from their imagination: ‘Listen to the Lord’s message!’” Ezekiel 13:2)

Listening to “yer blues”
I’m reminded I’m not of the earth or sky,
I am of the universe, and that is what I’ll use
to decide the barrage of words that pass as
god-talk from people who just have no time to wait out
patient love.

(I’m so musical even my yawns sound like a song.)

You just cannot bring god down,
and you cannot just call him up from below.
You cannot make the fire fall,
and you cannot make a spring of water flow
from a rock.

(I’m so logical even my snores are antiwar.)

Why are you uncomfortable with silence,
Why do your god-words sound so much like your-words,
Your announcements are no better than palmistry
reading the wind.

(I’m so comical even my scars can spin a yarn.)

There is preaching in the zero syllable breeze,
there is gospel in the clapping branches of the trees,
the message is as certain in a stranger’s hug
as if Jesus himself stood among us unplugged
like a gardener.

(I’m so spiritual even my pores are open for more.)

Don’t preach when lunch will do just fine,
Don’t predict, conjure, invoke everything that enters your mind,
But walk in sackcloth, put on ashes, sit with the silent
whose words were stolen when the expectations of violence
became the sermon of the day.

(I’m so hopeful even my feet tread heels-over-head.)

When I Listen to James Alley Blues

When I Listen to James Alley Blues

(“Let Bezalel, Oholiab, and every other skilled worker whom the Lord has given skill, ability, and knowledge for the work of building the sanctuary do all that the Lord has commanded.” Exodus 36:1)

Play the music within, the rhythm, the one step, two step;
run your fingers, slide them from fret to fret, hammer down,
bend the strings, the portamento of meadow birds seeking a mate.

There is no audience, there is no band,
the chairs are silent, the club stands at the bus stop in
the middle of another white choking blizzard. All the snow
has been shoveled, one corner to the next, and piled high in front
of every venue’s door.

No one can make it in tonight, no one is leaving home;
only those trapped within tonight, will sing and man the phones
that will not ring; midnight until gray dawn.

Play the music again, the ivory as yellow as granddad’s dentures,
the keys full of sidewalk cracks. The blues is invented on nights like these,
the grace notes on granite uprights are more good-natured with the oil
of a thousand fingers anointing them from smoky goodnights until
unexpected hellos.

Honestly, I would rather sneak up and play with those who stay behind
and find the songs that mother taught mother once her aunt and uncle
passed down the tempo that history insisted upon. I had heard it all speed
and trap; they played it lazy and snapped just behind beat number three.

And I sat there, relearning the songs I thought I discovered back between
Berkeley and Haight-Ashbury. Instead it was Carolina and the Virginias
where the skilled workers passed the simplest movements down through
vinyl and time.

Please Play

Please Play

(“Let us look for someone who can play the harp. When the black mood from God moves in, he’ll play his music and you’ll feel better.” 1 Samuel 16:16)

Please won’t you play another song from your memory,
a song that grew from candle rooms to coffee houses,
the lilt that learned the notes (by note) without rote repetition,
the decoration like the fragrance at the highest tip of nouveau perfume.

Please slide the bow across the strings, let them sing like homesickness,
please begin with the melodies we both know from childhood,
the words that stir within us, the comfortable stew we always knew
we would remember.

Mouth the words as you play the tune, a cadence for kings with
faraway eyes.

Please sing the passion that drove us to smile,
please renew the reels, jigs and blues,
pick a shanty of ships at sea,
improvise it handily, help my heart repeat with you
the stories from work and companions who never penned
a word or note.

I will not play this time, nor attempt to follow the designs,
the rhymes fool me, the changes escape me,
but your virtuosity schools me, your phrases reshape me,
and I would lie upon my wooden floor, back and head
unpillowed,

and stare at nothing but the memory that a single afternoon
may still my stormy imaginations. I would travel a day
and another, and return just the same,
to hear you play only for me once again.

All in my Head

All in my Head

(“…if by some chance they soften their hard hearts and make amends for their sins…” Leviticus 26:41b [The Message])

I meant to lose time, grow wings, fly high,
paint the sky of which the eagles sing
without the least pressure to rhyme their verses.

I meant to smile big, stand straight, hug true,
erase the blues and pain we blamed on fate
and finally trim the wick the exact quarter inch
which I was taught (more than once) would prevent
the candle’s tell-tale smoke.

I turn at every straightaway, look back and wonder what
is taking so long. The wings have not sprouted, the words are
pedantic, the help I promised is grim, and pain an excuse
that keeps me locked inside my own prison.

I miss every possible turn, the choices that might burn away
the rust and mould clinging to the slow-foot creep I call
my journey.

I can admit every misstep, I have, I will; I am willful
as all; why, when I desire wings, then, does the dust
not fly like a rooster tail when I leg the runway,
slight headwind and a clearday,
the tower giving me the ok,
but I never leave the ground; my old feet are leaden,
my heart saddened, and my tears over sins come unbidden
once I think forgiveness has healed me from the fall.

I will not forget Love, I promise. It rings like yesterday’s bells.
I will not cancel Faith, I refuse. It hides like the oyster’s pearls.

I must tell you the truth, the hope I keep dreaming,
the silence that still awakens me, has shaken me
so sleep is no solace, and day a harsh sentence.

It is all in my head, I know. That is what I dread.
Still, if I could grow wings…once more…
I would fly this time even though
I knew not what the flying was for.

The Blues I've Used

The Blues I’ve Used

(“Our warriors have fallen in the heat of battle.” 2 Samuel 1:25a)

Take these words with you, pass them up the ladder,
carry them paper-flight beyond the roofs, along the arch
helium balloons take unaided by the wind.

Find another chapter to write, quickly lay down the think in ink,
comment on disorderly, wrestle with logicality that
death comes dying to the young to the young who
we thought would battle in the sun in the sun
until they came back home, our very own,
our warriors, our victors, our daughters and sons.

Mama died too early, Father could not face too soon,
too soon perhaps as well.
Me, I’m left writing like I did in school,
leaving off rhyming, limping odd timing,
trying to start out bright and yellow until
the sunny hues are stewed in an instant and
words revert to the blues I’ve used over and over
and never learned to play very well.

Sis is on the mountain, and Sis is in the heat,
Brother is waiting in the windy city,
and I never miss a beat of wondering why
I put off reunions for one more year for cost.

No one dies early, some die barely alive,
No one dies early, we all die on time.
But the battle takes the much too young,
the battle takes the prime and elite,
and I still write like I did in school
pouring ink on the fibers instead of tears,
looking for subscribers to apprehend my fears,
(not of dying, or dying too soon,
but of living too cautiously, venturing only
a day or two from the womb).