God gives meaning to us
as we give meaning to God
depending on what One means
we are the power and the glory
on Earth as it is in Heaven
forever and ever amen
(June 15, 2026)
Category: prayer
-
I want to believe
magic exists,
that somewhere
the clicks and clacks
of reason drift
free of determined
divination to finally
fall away like leaves.
I want to believesome small gods
dance in scattered copse
and sing such songs
that might save us
from our future fall.
(July 9, 2025)
-
we pour this wine for the earth
that gives us a place to stand
we pour this wine for the airthat gives us breath to speak
we pour this wine for waterwhich gives us life on the planet
we pour this wine for the firewhich purifies our failings
we pour this wine for the etherwhich connects us to the world
we pour this wine as an offeringthat we may survive the dark
that the madness will spare us
and we will return to the light
(February 25, 2025)
-
Becoming too old and short of breath
to climb the ladders myself any more,
the young men working outside nimbly
spring up with growling chainsaws
to cut down the trees and trim off
the tangled branches which were left
for dead after the great Texas freeze
last year in February.
Earlier today on the wayto the bank to withdraw money to pay
the young landscaper, I heard on NPR
an Irish poet pray in a poem to St. Agnes
for his words to be true, cleanly spoken,
and unadorned by the frippery of poetry.
So, I have placed no metaphor here today,
other than what each brings with us to say.
(April 9, 2022)
-
A few days past the winter solstice in the seemingly never ending worldwide pandemic, I am cleaning my house. In between running the vacuum across the rugs, and straightening the cluttered chaos of our everyday lives, I have been making tortilla soup, a tradition for the last ten or more years. Tonight, like last year, there will be no friends and extended relatives laughing over food and wine as we talk about politics, literature, art, and the lives of our kids. Tonight, only our grown children, their partners, and our two grandsons will arrive to celebrate Christmas, a religion I don’t believe anymore than the pagan symbols the Christians co-opted as a sign of hope for a better world to come: a hope, during the longest night of the year, that the sun will return again. I try not to fear for the future: the never-before-considered collapse of the U. S. as well as the fear caused by millions of people dying worldwide from this horrible virus. Instead I hope, a constant prayer, that we can overcome our pettiness and hate long enough to step from this darkness, and find enough joy in our lives, in our children, in each other, to pass back into the light. So, I clean my house and make tortilla soup, in hope that I will do so again. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
-
“lesser christs of dim aspirations”
—Apollinaire
as an early spring front approaches
and dark clouds push across an empty sky
the first line begins the separation
from who I once was to what I’ve become
the slow dissolve from silence
into a momentary resistance
to the callow acquiescences
and the nodding submissions
imbued in these day to day devotions
this moment turns without motion
without thought as though it were
not there as though I was not ever there
as i was not the day before nor after
but only now in a field arms outstretched
the cold rain washing softly over me
(April 25, 2021)
-
The words I have
are enough
to tear
my flesh from bone,
to feed
the ravenous voices,
the hundred mouths
which peck,
and gnaw, and savor
my base
foundations
as if blood.
They are enoughfor this—
(August 21, 2020)
-
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey”(73)
beneath this static
this white noise
silence flows
unnoticed
pervasive
the river’s source
as in prayer i kneel
cup my hands
and drink
(July 9, 2020)
-
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (60)
obsessively the earth gives birth
to its dead rich and fertile
safe inside itself unseen
unvoiced like ecstatic dancers
beneath a moon-bright sky
the earth lifts the rose
the oak twisting and throbbing
into the air so i burrow deep
beneath the black soil a worm
gnashing rocks like prayers
until i find a darker god
and somewhere in the black clay
an old woman natters
lost in perpetual disappointment
and a death skull’s bored laugh’s
trapped in his life’s delusion
(May 7, 2020)
-
poetry is nothing
poetry is everything
poetry is thought
poetry is words
poetry is silence
poetry is emotion
poetry is gibberish
poetry is vague
poetry is ambiguous
poetry is precise
poetry is concise
poetry is babble
poetry is light
poetry is dark
poetry is mind
poetry is heart
poetry is hidden
poetry is everywhere
poetry is pervasive
poetry is absence
poetry is laughter
poetry is tears
poetry is love
poetry is hate
poetry is simple
.
poetry is nothing
poetry is everything
poetry is metaphor
poetry is plain
poetry is complex
poetry is slant
poetry is curved
poetry is bent
poetry is straight
poetry is cubed
poetry is convex
poetry is obtuse
poetry is infinite
poetry is hermeneutic
poetry is occult
poetry is transcendent
poetry is god
poetry is zen
poetry is buddha
poetry is Christ
poetry is religion
poetry is atheist
poetry is glib
poetry is serious
poetry is dirt
.
poetry is nothing
poetry is everything
poetry is earth
poetry is air
poetry is fire
poetry is water
poetry is elemental
poetry is irrelevant
poetry is submission
poetry is dominance
poetry is coy
poetry is rude
poetry is blatant
poetry is obvious
poetry is obscure
poetry is orgasmic
poetry is impotent
poetry is sex
poetry is flirtation
poetry is destruction
poetry is resurrection
poetry is creation
poetry is filth
poetry is shit
poetry is dust
.
poetry is nothing
poetry is everything
poetry is breath
poetry is death
poetry is ice
poetry is tongue
poetry is bowels
poetry is piss
poetry is you
poetry is me
poetry is us
poetry is other
poetry is privilege
poetry is poverty
poetry is gender
poetry is genderless
poetry is cadence
poetry is dissonance
poetry is power
poetry is gravity
poetry is nature
poetry is voice
poetry is spit
poetry is sight
poetry is blind
(April 11, 2020)
-
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (34)
as i drive to work each day
at eighty miles per hour i slip
between concrete meridians
and rattling White Freight Liners
the eighteen wheelers heave
and pitch in the next lane
like fat cattlemen at an auction
on the radio news of war
and poverty of graft and greed
play out like melodramas
without an easy denouement
the girl remains on the tracks
the train bears down the villian
laughs world without end
among the grass beside the road
my ghosts slowly sing in whispers
this is the time we have become
this is our time to overcome
(March 4, 2020)
-
“we are our own prisons.”
–Joel Brouwer
barely audible
tumblers click
into place
–
words turn keys
jam snap off
and trap us here
–
telling the same tale
confident the end
will change for us
–
confident the end
will not end for us
as it always has
–
forever and ever
amen
-
A dove descended
to peck out my tongue;
I gargled the names of god,
and spit blood flecks,
like splatters of ink,
into my broken hands.
I read without words-
the nuance in gestures,
rippled patterns on a lake.
Oblivious to the obvious
writings on the wall, and
without hope of redemption,
I mouthed my prayers
to any statues I came near.
(October 7, 2019)
-
Since I am
no snake
sloughing skin,
I hide my scars
in an imagined other.
Not the obvious,
oblivious sheep,
but one more wary,
who waits
along the edge
knowing fear,
knowing
like rabbits:
one step left,
one step right,
without calculation,
equals death;
and any
volition ends
with a quick flutter
of feathers,
and the talon’s
sharp pang
lifting one
toward heaven
like a song.
(October 1, 2019)
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