Turn Table

 

Turn Table

(“My house will be called a house of prayer–but you have made it a brigands’ lair!” Matthew 21:13)

 

We sell our soul, we sell our vote,
we sell our best words and call them hope.
Besides, no one was home when we knocked on the door
that one time six months ago, and now I’ve lost your address
and don’t want to disturb you with a call.

We build our churches, we erect our halls,
we sell rummage and erect our stalls
outside shopping malls in the best part of town.
And when the day is over, we luxuriate in showers
hoping to wipe away every bit of clown paint from our
roles of a lifetime. Most times we’re mistaken, most times
we want another turn down the slide on hot summer days.

Many times, we choose our teams and wonder why
the boys with uncut hair and the
girls with coffee stained jeans
never ask to be in our game.
And when someone cries loud enough, hard enough,
high enough to weep for acceptance…

But that rarely happens since we’ve already forgotten them.
And who wants to be rejected twice? Save your money for
a second piece of pie. No one wants to be forgotten a third time.

How angry can Jesus be? No, really. We awake on Sundays
and crowd into the back of the hall with others who agree with us
on almost
everything. How angry can he be? Every Christmas we find toys
for the poor little girls and boys. Every Thanksgiving we find enough
turkeys to feed a dozen for free. For two months of twelve we
give away to a few and shelve the rest for new classrooms on the
eastern hall.

Some days, when you remember the aching few, do it in a month
that requires nothing of you. Bits and bytes that fly through the sky
are counterfeit coins landing sideways. We need eye to eye. We
need a friend to walk up the driveway.

This Dialogue

This Dialogue

(“Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house!’” Luke 10:5)

If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to open
this dialogue
again.

I do not need to win.

Your eyes showed the fear within,
and naked anger
bursting
from too many unfinished songs.

If we had it to do all over again, I’d applaud every
lyric and verse
unsung.
I would not need the tune.

Sooner than later I’d like to meet you
for coffee and
first rites,
unscripted with advice set aside.

Just after I return, I’d like to swing
my front door wide
open,
and let within every north and south,
every fair and ill wind

that simply needs to rest on my floor,
on my couch, with silence or without.
Sanctuary.

A Mumbled Lunch

A Mumbled Lunch

(“Then he prepared an inner sanctuary within the house in order to place there the ark of the covenant of the Lord.” 1 Kings 6:19)

They turned the dial and hoped it would stem the tide,
Instead they found the show was over, and cried
when the jokers turned around, and joined the clowns who frowned
at the way the whole operation went down.

The prophets and politicians raised their hopes and expectations
with fire and ice, avalanche and imprecise references to
the Day of the Lord, Armageddon, or the Flaming Horse of Red,
or the poet without his hat on. They all missed the boat,
and never bothered to vote upon the gentle waters of northern lakes.

They faked the news, and made up more,
They repay the rich for every endorsement,
While the guests and the poor suffer strict enforcement
of every line in the book,
every book, line and baited, still dangling
from the fisherman’s hand, still tangling.
No one waited to see if
the fish were jumping. The stumps were free
but the stamps prevented the letter from arriving.

I’ve seen you smile like a Christian lad in church,
and follow it, hollow and shallow, with a mumbled lunch
of sandwiches, sandals, and offers to identify the demons
behind the scandals that only happened
once the newspapers lost their business.

Leave the old man neatly dead. I mean fully rotted,
breathless, pulseless and abrupt.
The new wardrobe fits better instead. I mean fully hand-sewn,
tailored, perfect and ageless.

The dial will not fit your hand, the tide will ebb and flow
as it did yesterday, last week, last month, a century ago.
So when you raise your voice, raise it loud; be certain
(oh proud and curtained breath), that all you know
is less than all that is.

Since we must take the taxi (we called ahead)
let us share the seat, spare the chatter and,
turn by turn, ask the driver what is the matter,
and why the widespread gossip has
pulled our planet so far from its orbit.