The Good of the City

“Work for the good of the city where I’ve taken you as captives, and pray to Yahweh for that city. When it prospers, you will also prosper.” Jeremiah 29:7

Do you feel out of place? As followers of Jesus, I suspect we will experience this more often than not. Most of the world’s values run counter to the teachings of Jesus. Notice I said “world” and not “our society”. I am actually weary of hearing constant complaints about how “our society” is becoming more and more ungodly.

Layers, Decades and Slow Curves

Layers, Decades and Slow Curves

The wardrobe I rode in and out of town
I changed for the eyes that would see me
entering from dinner and a movie or
exiting to the hospital 70 miles east.

I could switch so fast then, wake when asked then,
that the wrinkles hardly had time to mark the angle
of my sitting.

Widows at home; white hair, doilies and tea;
the table set for her son’s birthday impromptu with
cake and Down’s Syndrome grins.
A drunk friend alone; doorbell, phone calls and pleas;
the table riddled with half-empty cans, flies and cats
and I sit with my the gentle again.

Day was early, sometimes fog and frost painted the trees
until noon at least.
But still mid-September the sun could manage a feast near
late afternoon; hours before the first full moon asked
us all to watch north past midnight; crashing breakers
in the air,
green and ghost-hued dances while men talked outside
the North Segment Hall
about the approach of deer season; sighting rifles
and walking razorbacks.

I kept up with committees and new friends,
uninvited popups with questions, phone calls with impressions
(maybe I quivered a bit back then)
and smile and wish they might call me again.

Waking now is a slow refrain, long chords held a full measure,
vamped and waiting the lifting of my head. And, there is a place
I hide

Every single tear

That I am no longer the same man,
no longer ready and aimed,
no longer brain-bursting with another idea to try.

I beg an answer while I dream, and all that seems to answer
is a white screen with soundtrack synched like bad jazz.

On the Intrusive Nature of Memories, Images and Emotions from Decades Long Past

On the Intrusive Nature of Memories, Images and Emotions from Decades Long Past
(Subtitled: Cute Shoes)

Time and its images sang its parade starting
backwards from the day the thought sprang
from fertile soil, sun dark and warmed. No
entry in the line of fire engines and clowns,
marching bands from out of town
and free handouts from the church on the hill
could explain the train of thought that
held every moment captive to days of play
when a child’s world was larger than the
astronomer’s discovery of yet one more
outer boundary to the border no one has yet

Surveyed.

Lifting Holy Hands

“Therefore, it is my wish that when the men pray, no matter where, they should lift up hands that are holy — they should not become angry or get into arguments.” 1 Timothy 2:8

People often struggle with knowing God’s will. You can attend seminars to discover the secrets of finding God’s guidance. Book after book is written to help answer the question, “What does God want from my life?”

Late the Sounds

Late the Sounds

(“Who among you fears the Lord? Who obeys his servant? Whoever walks in deep darkness, without light, should trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.” Isaiah 50:10)

Late the sounds we've held in memory careen
on waves like storm fronts in battle array. A song
we danced to and background conversation meet
in the middle above the microwave beeps and beneath
the four year old screams; no one seems to notice,
staring at the shared-screen movie with sub-titles on.

But one hears, each noise echo off wall and floor at
the same level, the volume building as each source is
added; punctuated by pain above the temples which has
eaten through the filter. All is loud, all is equal,
all is surround, each voice a crowd, every whisper
a personal intrusion into the life that once
played in sound like

a child in a bathtub with water running.

He goes downstairs before his crinkled brow betrays him,
staying as long as he can with each noise that families never
live without. It is the mix of yelps and lapping, the puppies
clicking their nails on the hardwood floor. It is the
“Dr. Who” gladly, the granddaughter proudly, the son returned
from Guatemala, peaking his Peace Corps stay upon the highest
volcano. It is the oldest son with wife, the youngest daughter
wrestling for the place on the sofa with both boys she tells
the entire universe about. Every vibration is celebration;
a family as comfortable as Christmas.

But for the one whose head has become anvil for the hammer,
he hopes no one thinks he loves the noise any less
than former days when he shouted the loudest at guessing
the winning answer late into the night.

Water that Runs

Water that Runs

(“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.” Jeremiah 11:7)

Before I thought about the morning moving on

so quickly and afternoon racing toward the final turn

I could swear I had wasted another day. There is

a pillow on the couch where I lay my head, a case

washed twice a week, and a blanket with occasional shreds

where the quilt has dropped a thread or two. I sleep till

noon, I wish.

When I do not, on Monday most, I choose a movie near 10

and watch till noon. The pillow holds my thoughts, the blanket

my security and the cat, white and black, visits me prone,

nesting upon my chest and, face to face, insists she is queen

of the moment. Who is to say she isn’t.

It is impossible to tell now, lazy or pain. I would rather

putt a green or cycle the hills, the afternoon valve to release

the cooked-up schemes of my swarmed imagination.

See here, the way I trust. The way I used to. A drive to the ocean,

tennis with an ever-drooping forehand, or just hardcopy

and coffee

where the shards of afternoon are pieced on tables of conversation.

Why should I bow to electrons that strangle the proper music and dance?

Why should this phantom (there is neither mass nor matter) make each

thought chatter while outside rivers and sunshine are a chef’s perfect savor?

But the vise grinds and my brain whines at a ghost that hitchhikes my neurons.

The passenger is invisible, the itinerary a drumline from eyeball to eyeball,

cervical vertebra to dura mater; it does not matter that it will not kill me;

the unknown traveler has squeezed my arms past uncle.

Here are the pieces of my afternoon, a few forgotten invitations,

a commercial for shampoo and a movie about a speed jump-rope athlete;

it is all so fleeting, and yet I move through mud with the few thoughts

I can capture,

still (sometimes, some not) enraptured in this drought by

the streams of water that runs from (somewhere, always here)

throne to (all) His own.

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.