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.

Excuses and Abstractions

Excuses and Abstractions

(“David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly by doing this! Now, O Lord, please remove the guilt of your servant, for I have acted very foolishly.’” 2 Samuel 24:10b)

Call me foolish; but not like David. I have forgotten the numbers
and so, for now, write unabated.

The ink has not dried; the smoke still circles
the inkwell where the last shootout transpired.
We hoped emerging sounds, cries of the stricken,
prayers of the dying and pistols whipping up the air
like last year’s carousels would

Once

And over

Wake the lazy thinker snoozing in the clover
and turn his mask around to see, eyes properly adjusted,
that freedom is busted when everyone locks their doors and
electrifies their opinions. Let us be clear, the numbers are stronger
than Saturn’s rings; the answer clearer than Dylan sings:

The excuses were buried in the mud and come up
when the tide rises. Now Abel’s blood recites the latest
chorus to add the next verse to the blindman’s dirge.

We could offer freedom, if we were free;
we could save the water, if we would see
the blood on the streets, the blood upon the walls,
the blood upon the white tees, the blood upon the laws
and order, the hoarders and the spenders; if the next time

We see the menders binding wounds, owning slurs,
and spending dimes on candles to guide surgeon’s
hands; all
we ask, all we seek, today, this minute, not tomorrow and
next week;

Black Lives Matter (how many eyes does it
take to be opened, before we despise our own jealousies).

I am far too quiet, too far removed. I will not count
the numbers, fear the decaffeinated mood of anyone
(thus far in this bit of writing I’d say)
I will not steer clear of mental paradoxes used by
proper instructor meant to
steal younger minds from thinking if

Jesus appreciates our excuses and abstractions
to miss the opportunity in

The middle of the road.

Before Fitful Sleep

Before Fitful Sleep

(“Even the one who has strength of heart like the heart of a lion will be afraid.” 2 Samuel 17:10a)

It was the last thing I thought before fitful sleep,
the last wheelbarrow that kept cycling from load to load,
and my breathing followed the pace, my heart left little space
for calmer dreams to prevail. I knew I was certain to fail;
all I thought had been accomplished over ten or fifteen years
was upended as the gunfire encroached from every direction.

I liked my pillows flat as tortillas once,
for years in fact, since I was a kid I slid my hand beneath
the cold pillowcase and listened to the pulse thumping in my head.
But now I need them fluffy. I cannot pinpoint the date or the year,
but I think it started when I discovered thin pillows were
fragile defenses against the armaments of recycling thoughts.

Long thoughts with no side streets, no turn-offs to a quieter avenue;
wrong thoughts with no return or redemption, a sorry state for weary mind;
strong thoughts with no silencers, so loud I’m sure my eyelids twitched morse code;
thoughts that did not belong to my quieter wishes. Rarely, sparely a
plainsong of space between breaths left enough calm
that I could sleep without feeling the hypocrite.

I’m older than the fitful nights, and stay up later because
once slumber greets waking I’m met with shaking pain that
has nailed my head dead-ended so I stumble before getting out
of bed.

None know my pain (oh, I must remind myself, and any reader,
I am no whiner, no self-repeater), my face sometimes shows the pain,
but mostly it has grown back to its original dimensions; a thin smile and
eyes slightly bowed. I admit my feet have slipped from the pedal,
and my life and my work coast hazily, and my life and my work
appear to lazily pull to a stop along the shoulder. And my life
and my work
have suffered from so many miles without attention
and a cracked head that has lost all compression.

And so you know, a bit narrow, or more obtuse,
the harrowing tale of a lion-heart that hid well
the dreams of night and the schemes of day;
and who hates excuses, and sings the blues by heart.

But my final stanza, (for the safety of my readers)
still glorifies the Lion who roars in Love-and-Truth,
and will, in fortune’s reversal, soon remove the thorn
that has beset my soul, while the small circle of friends
is found unbroken. 

Not Quite an Hour

Not Quite an Hour

(“When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready.’” Luke 16:17)

I had hoped to find you there, maybe in a corner, sitting with no one,
and catching up on every done, every right and wrong. We would
laugh at our serious adolescence, condole upon our misshapen dreams,
wonder at wisdom that left our coffee bitter,
some friendships, and some others, that started to the letter and
ended not answering the phone.

You would tell me of your husband’s passing, the one love you found
that took all of you, the full of you, and befriended the broken heart
you had finally come to understand. But he was older, 15 years or more;
but he was stronger than the teenage crushes, more settled than
the bad boys who usher in adulthood like a customized playground.

It would be not quite an hour of soft words, and the first tear forms.
The water rest, a captured bubble, filling in your lower eyelid, and
like me, like you, like many others, you do not blink, for as soon
as you do,
it will break the surface tension with the heavy tear dropping from
the icicle warming and settling like a mountaineer upon the crest of
your cheek; the frame of a face that denies forgetting.

I would mention my loves, remember time in 80 or 81 we
heard Terry Talbot sing his ballads to Jesus. You never flushed
nor squirmed and even joined our hands as pray floated from
the gymnasium floor to the ear of the Father. And, perhaps
a God who calls himself Father was the chief hurdle for your faith.

All I know, you were always gracious when at 19 I opened a
can of “Four Spiritual Laws” and spoon-fed it to you without any
thought of even heating it up.

But here we are, and I hope, when the dinner bell is rung, we might
meet you again, we might laugh as silly old friends, mention our
upcoming hip replacements and European vacations; and, with

30 years since placing eyes on each other, 20 years since hearing
as voice,
we might be content to skim the surface, yet comfortable to
open the curtain of our backstage lives, with nothing to lose
and so little time.

Meet me at the banquet, sit beside me at the table,
I expect to have a day full of errands,
but would rather break bread with a friend.

With Canopies Keeping

With Canopies Keeping

(“If then your body is full of light, with no part of it dark, it will be as full of light as when a lamp gives you light with its gleam.” Luke 11:36)

And in the forest with canopies keeping the furled smoke
of a hundred distant campfires just above our heads,
the gray shadows and crackling soot divided the
aspen boulevards and made addresses hard to locate
nearing the last light of day.

There was no fear, no threat, all was contained except

the misguided insistence that kept many from finding
the ring of friends sharing stories and passing songs late.

The smoke stayed well past sunset, and the whole forest was

the same tuxedo black of the shadows just hours before.
But in that heaviness of night forest air is the sweet breath
of pine scent and summer smoke. And though late among
the upright stands the night itself seems to reign, the
evidences of life are magnified; a crackling twig or
a hoot owl’s call are french horn and percussion close by.

And in the darkening night that might turn another away,

the campfires, like lighthouses among the woods, catch
the wanderers’ eyes and lead them by human voice and
eventual affection.

Every circle with friends and new ones warming, is not
simply an invention, but evidence of redemption; a fire
and a song with a final arc of friendship to wanderers
in the night.

The Mighty Chord

The Mighty Chord

(“The apostles left and went from village to village, telling the good news and healing people everywhere.” Luke 9:6)

There is a mass of loneliness nearer may heart than
any other definition or silent wanderer; just like the furthest planet
in a solar system of dustless ions. A planet
because the loneliness is not empty; it is tangible;
a hardwood enlargement of lead-weight emotion
with gravity so strong that nothing stays long but
is boomeranged into its own orbit across the outskirts
where longing and time rarely cross.

It is what I write about because it is wound about my being;
and so many ask when the flowers will appear in my poetry,
the hearts and forests, the hope and choruses of love.

And usually, once someone has noticed the sadness in
each letter on the page,
I force the petal of a rose between the stanzas. Yet it
wilts between the writing and the reader. I was made this way,
because that space, so heavy and so empty, has always been the
first phrase of the next thing I thought or wanted.

And yet, I’ve been asked by the One Friend,
in some way, with some convincing tone,
to lay the good news down like the hook; “The next sound
you will hear is a mighty chord of 9 grand pianos finishing the song.”

I’ve been told He fills me, but my gut feels empty,
save for the solid mass of longing where the loneliness has
made its home.

I once thought there would be a friend, maybe two; and
I watched Joan Baez celebrate her 75^th birthday with friend
after friend after friend, sing their duets with her. I thought there
might be a duet started early that stayed for the last encore.

But the ones I wanted near the end, half have turned their backs,

moved down another road too difficult to navigate now. So I plow
down the path the same way I began, almost convinced that friendship
is not worth the time I took to get it from beginning to banned.

The weight stays nearer my heart than any can imagine. Lonely.
It’s true, I’m a forgiven man, and a healed one, too. But time has
robbed me of the hugs

While space has subtracted.

Come near, please, only if you know there stands a weight between
your good intentions
and my lonesome heart.

On Post Office Walls

On Post Office Walls

(“Yahweh said to Samuel, ‘Listen to the voice of the people in all that they tell you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as the king over them.’” 1 Samuel 8:7)

We cannot survive on silence,
the space between molecules gives us
nothing better than the missing pieces of a
jigsaw puzzle.

Have you ever seen one of those posters hung
on post office walls, or stapled to a telephone-pole?
The picture is a wide-smiling woman, business-casual,
and glad to have been photographed. “If you want to
enjoy your life
like her” it says, “Call the number below.”
You’ve seen them, I know you have. And along the
bottom of the poster tags are cut like a dozen tiny tickets.
Tear one off and take the phone number with you. Only,
this one, the one that caught your eye, the one that might change
your life,
has been stripped of every tag with its magic number.

God, we cannot hold you. You are worse than water to grasp.
We would pull you down like a string on a kite; we would
tug the tail of your coat until you recognized our smallish face.
But we only grip nearly weightless mass as the air passes
between our fingers.

We cannot populate invisible planets. Even if we could touch
without seeing, each step would be dread, not seeing the green, the yellow
or red. Hopscotch would be impossible; prodigals would never find
their way back to the homestead. Most frightening would be the
demagogue who said only he could see.

We do not want your Second, your Administrative Assistant.
We cannot live on mere representations of the only thing
we really want to know. Nations beg for rulers; democracies are
the worst. We expect the one who says she knows you best
will make it all comprehensible; the one who says he’s closer
than the rest…but both remind us of

One of those posters hung on post office walls.