Big Ben

On the one hand, 

We pass this way every year.

Just about exactly right here in this spot,

Just so far from the sun,

At this angle,

And all of that.

On the other hand,

Where in the hell is the sun going,

And how long has it been since it has been home,

Or even written its mother,

And how much farther will it lead us this way,

Before going home?

It would be nice to know,

How far.

Crisis in Jordan

In the Valley of the Travelers,
Along the King's Highway,
The Lord has set a banquet for
All the birds of prey.

Sweep down from Black and Caspian,
Rain down down Tabriz and Turk.
The fire from His mountain will
Declare Jehovah's work.

Look back upon Ezekiel,
And hear the Son of Man.
Behold the Prince of Glory who
Holds judgment in His hand.

Be baptized in the fire that
Flows down through Jordan's streams.
Repent, and turn from wickedness.
Obey the King of Kings.

There is one year remaining, yet
Before the Son appears,
Walk through the Doors of Mercy
And be ransomed by kafirs.

Bend your knees like water now
Before the Lamb of God,
For all is reconciled when
Hell's fire rips from sod.

Babel

We're all different.
Blame our parents,
Or society,
Or each other.

Some people just keep smiling.
Others throw things.
"That's a good person," they said.
"That person is messed up," they agreed.

People try, most of the time.
Many are very well meaning.
Nobody understands it all.
However, some have made agreements.

Look, here's a flower, Jesus said (paraphrased).
Look, here's a bird, Jesus said (paraphrased).
What are you worried about? Jesus asked (paraphrased).
But then he got angry with those money changers and got killed for it.

Some people are creepy and shouldn't be trusted.
Some people are very, very kind.
Some people draw attention to themselves, and we want to be close to their charisma.
Some people like sitting alone in their bedrooms.

Eventually, people grow old and die,
(Though sometimes they don't even bother with growing old),
And then, the rest of us talk about those people,
Estimating the value of their lives.

Then, we look at ourselves and say,
"Boy, what a waste!"
Or,
"I think I'll build onto my garage."

Having wrestled with all of this for some time,
Here's my advice (for the individual):
Try to live at peace with yourself,
Which means, mostly, that you should only do things that you can feel good about.

Here's some more advice (for society in general,
Which also includes the individual
To whom I already gave advice):
Be patient with everybody else.

To that girl who flat-irons her hair
While watching Teen Mom reruns on Netflix,
I say:
You're good. It will be okay.

To that boy who is trying to figure out how to install Ubuntu,
And is reading through all the forums, trying to figure out what command to use after sudo,
I say:
You are creative, and you matter a lot.

The thing is,
Some people don't know how to talk to each other.
God made it that way on purpose,
So we would have to try.

Uzzah

You cannot help the Lord, oh no,
       The Lord brings help you.
To keep His ark from falling is
       A stupid thing to do.

You cannot drive His chariot,
       You cannot pull His train.
You can't presume to help Him bring
       More glory to His name.

To wait in stillness upon Him
       From us the Lord requests.
Who submits to the Master's plan,
       The Master honors best.

If the oxen start to fall,
       Then let the oxen die.
Who helps the oxen pull His weight
       Pokes Jehov' in the eye.

Uzzah, you were a wicked man,
       Now lie down in the dust,
For glory you sought for yourself,
       And Him you did not trust.

The Lord does not need us to help
       Him do his perfect work.
Be bridled by the Spirit and
       Submit unto His yolk.

We need no holy covenant
       To keep Him to His word,
But only this: to trust in Him
       And let the Spirit work.

Grow there, fine blade of grass until
       The oxen on you feeds.
Fulfill the purpose of you life:
       The Lord no savior needs.

Stand there, tall oak, until you fall
       And saw blades rip to dust.
The Master Carpenter has plans;
       In Him now place your trust.

We wait upon the Lord, at rest;
       He does not wait on us.
Be not a stumbling block to Him,
       Or by Him you'll be crushed.

Our Salvation

ألم       
In the flesh.

ألم

Rose from death.

ألم
God with us.

ألم

In Him trust.

ألم
He is Love.

ألم
From above.

ألم
Let us die.

ألم
Crucified.

ألم
Then we live.

ألم
God's true gift.

Adam Clarke Speaks of the End

Twelve hundred sixty days were said to pass
Before the Lord in timeless peace should reign.
Pope Francis, at the end on holy dais,
Will you then abdicate or still remain
Upon the throne reserved for Son of Man
Who from Ancient of Days was sent to judge
The earth from Mercy Seat as YHVH planned,
In Dan'El's priestly place, or will you budge?

He opens Mercy's Door for all who dare
To pass through and be judged by Prince of Peace.
Though certain death be earned, the sword is stayed:
The Word of God won't pass through thief His blade,
But opens Heaven's door for such as these
Who bow before the Son of Man in prayer.

Tuleps

Yes, daughter, let them bloom.
     Plant them in the fall.
Let them sleep in frozen sod
     Deep beneath the pall.

There in icy winter's seize
     Let the tulep sleep.
Wait for spring to thaw the ground
     While cold winter keeps.

Blooming comes when blooming comes,
     For but half an hour.
Most our time is spent in rest:
     Death before the flower.

Plant the tulep in the fall,
     Stay through winter's course.
When the sun in spring comes up,
     Look for life to burst.

Hard the lesson, hard the ground,
     Frozen in Death's grip.
Soft the soil sun uncoils
     Through which tuleps rip.

Then, daughter, watch them bloom
     As your spirit sings.
See them rise to kiss the skies
     When from death they spring.

Holy resurrection, there:
     Find faith in a flower.
Life and death, blood and breath
     Teach us holy power.

Yes, daughter, let them bloom.
     See them in the spring.
Plant them in the fall, then wait.
     Winter, first, is king.

In the Beginning

Don't you know
You are not yet alive?
Though you breathe,
You're dead until you die.

God is here,
In was and in will be.
Now is all
A mortal eye can see.

Close your eyes,
And rest your beating heart.
Lay down fear:
Give life a chance to start.

Trust in God
Who was and will be, too.
Die in Him,
And He will live in you.

Keith Waclena

Did you know you were born to speak of God
When time had passed, and time, and time, and time?
Did what Ward Cunningham provide for us
Place you transfigured on the mount with Christ?

Of God, of God, of God, of God, of God,
"An immortal supernatural being with great powers."

How can your prose describe a Holy God?

You messed up my sonnet, Keith.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=God&oldid=331545083

Kitten

I watched a kitten eat meat from tin can

Set down outside refrigerator box

That sheltered there a sickly, homeless man

Who wore no winter coat, no shoes, no socks.

The man--gaunt, thin, and pale--was cold as death.

The kitten, thick and fat with fluffy fur.

The man in cough and wheeze still fought for breath,

The kitten, young and spry, from belly purred.

I wondered of the two, which most still lived:

The man with sallow skin who choked with wind,

Or little beast who upon flesh did feast.
Though man approaching death, with life still strived,

The kitten, belly fat, still fed from tin

And life and death considered not the least.

Unplugged and Plugged

There is nothing I want to write about.

I got sick last week.
My daughter threw up in the hallway and I had to clean it up with a mop,

A big splash of pink and beige with pizza roll bits in it soaking into the oak floors.

It smelled like vomit.
It was vomit.

She lay on my bedroom floor all night.

She vomited six times, on the hours, into a small bucket.
She turned 13 in October.
She really is growing up fast.
What could I do for her, anyway?
We've all been there, with our faces in the bucket.

Except, I did take the bucket away each time she was finished retching.
Flushed her bile down the toilet.
Six times.
Well, five.
The first time I had to mop it off the hardwood floors.

I felt so bad for her,

Because, I've been there.
I would have traded places with her if that were possible,

But, since it's not, I just didn't see any reason for me to get sick too.

I kept waiting for the onset of nausea.
The back of my neck got a little warm and achy.
I had a headache right behind my eyeball.

My joints felt weak.
I swore I had a fever.
I lay in bed all day, waiting to feel like vomiting.

But then nothing happened.
Except, in the morning, I had diarrhea,

And then again in the afternoon.

After that I didn't feel like eating for about a week.

But I ate anyway,

And I just kept feeling bloated.
Then, Thanksgiving came,

And all my brothers and sisters came down to visit,
Bringing vanloads of kids to my house from all over the Midwest.
A couple days later everybody was vomiting, and having fevers, and making diarrhea.

I wish I could have stopped it all.

I felt sorry for everyone,
But at least it went easy on me this year.
Last year, though.
That was a different story.
I lay in bed for eight straight hours,
Feeling at every moment that I was going to die,

And vomiting yellow bile into a bucket,
On the hours.
Ram Dass taught me to be present in my illness,
To accept it as a teaching, a psychedelic experience,
So I did.
But my head hurt really bad,
And I had a bad case of the shivers.
(But, "Be Here Now.")
So, I did.
Which helped,
A little.

Today, I have a little drainage in the back of my throat,
And I think I'll probably have a cold until Christmas.
Maybe I'll buy some zinc lozenges at the grocer's before work,

Hoping that will stem the tide a bit.

Earlier this week, I couldn't get out of bed for three days in a row.
I almost didn't get up in time for work one day.

But I didn't feel sick,
Not nauseous, at least.
Now that my throat hurts, I couldn't sleep all night,

So I got up early and wrote this.
I haven't felt like writing, though,

Not for a couple weeks.

Still don't.

Dan’El

Dan’El is born!
Look to the East!
God's judge has come
To slay the Beast!

In the Black West
The Bull will die
As arrows from
Diana fly.

Follow the star,
Leo's Tribe,
Toward the west
As dawn arrives.

Cronus rises
Beneath her feet,
The scales are set
And time complete.

The end is here,
Beginning, too.
Day has dawned,
Night is through.

Into the west
The bull's been chased
By the lion
And replaced

Night with day
As sun doth rise.
Death is swallowed,
Hell despised.

East, toward Eden
Virgo sings,
Star of David,
Peace now brings.

Dan is Judge

New Wine

Skin the skin,
Skin the soul,
Empty out,
And fill it full.

Skin the temple,
Flesh and blood,
Pour new wine,
And tie it up.

Let it bubble
And ferment,
Stretch the skin;
Let it vent.

Skin your body,
Skin your bones,
Skin the temple,
Empty tombs.

Put it in,
Blood and oil,
Set aside,
And let it boil.

Skin the body,
Fill with wine,
Set aside,
Give it time:

Forty days
And forty nights,
In your belly,
Safe from light.

Let the crushed grapes
Steep until,
Your new skin
With wine is filled.

Go to Jeru,
Go back home,
Wait until
The wine is done.

Then pass the bottle,
Pop the cork,
Let it out,
Get to work.

Fill your wineskins,
With new wine,
Pass the bread,
Give it time.

Four Stories

There was water and something else.

Things came after. 

This is the story of creation. 

There was someone

Who heard another voice.

This is the story of revelation. 

There was a man and a woman.

They died. 

This is the evil story.

You may not fear,

And you may rest in peace. 

This is the good story.

Tau

Stop thinking in terms of two
The mind in false union creates.
Stop thinking of me and of you,
That thought is our primal mistake.

Don't separate this and that
A circle in radius is made.
Though now we may cut it in half,
In time the diameter stays.

See Virgo rise over Sol
And Sol over Scorpio rise
Watch Libra still holding her scales
When darkness has covered both eyes.

Then look to the West and watch
As Nath to his deathbed retires
And Regulus leads Venus and Mars
To march through the heavenly fires

Of day from the rising star
That shines in the nearest east
Close chased by the poisonous tail
Of Syria's poisonous beast.

Osiris will watch the play
From his seat in the southern coast
While Auriga in his chariot leers
From the north with the heavenly host,

And Nath to his chamber retires
To sleep in his tomb through the day,
And death from the east will arise
When Scorpio seizes his prey.

Time is the Lord of All,
Who makes all things pass in His way.
One after one after one,
Day after day after day.

Parthenos

Why does the blessed virgin
Rise o'er the rising Sun,
Chasing Mars and Venus
To give birth to the one

Who brings to all creation,
Who brings to all new life,
Who brings to all the seasons,
Who blesses man and wife?

The woman takes man's spirit
Into her blessed womb,
She buries living water
Within a living tomb.

There grows the Seed of Jesse
There grows the Lamb of God,
There grows the Son and Daughter,
Within her living sod.

No man will stop his yearning,
No woman cease her need
To carry all creation
Within the Blessed Seed.

There joins the Holy Union,
Becoming two, One Flesh,
Reciting God's Creation:
"I am, in life, in death."

Rise up, you Holy Virgin,
Rise up, you Son of God,
And conquer death's destruction,
Who tears life with Man's Rod.

Now bleed upon the pillow
And bleed upon the floor,
And bleed into the waters,
Till death is death no more.

You carry in you spirit,
The Son of God, I am.
There join in man and woman,
Where two make one in Am.

The Son of God, I am.
Of God a Daughter, too,
The One who comes in sunrise,
Who makes all one with two.

Rise up, you Holy Virgin.
Rise up, you Womb of Earth.
Rise up, and bear the Spirit
In death, bring life to birth.

A woman made of man.
A man of woman made.
I am the God of Union
Where death in life is laid.

Rise up, O Blessed Virgin,
Bear now the Seed of Christ
And give birth to the Spirit,
That makes of death new life.

Orion's belt is fading.
Diana's light is out.
The Bull falls into darkness,
As Virgo walks about

The sky joined with Apollo,
Who rains the earth with fire.
These two, who reign the heavens,
Have conquered man's desire

To chase the Light of Venus
Into a black abyss
And stroke Orion's penis,
The arrow of death pierced.

Put off your old corruption,
Of me and my desire.
Submit now to the Spirit,
That burns with Holy Fire.

Lie down in dust and ashes,
Put Ego in the grave,
Rise up, you Blessed Virgin
To bear One who will save

Us from our mad desire
To one and two remain.
Unite us with you Spirit,
Where two your womb untwains.

The Holy Ghost is brooding.
The time has come, tis now.
Unbirth your Holy Burden.
Your planted seed unplow.

Rise up, O Spirit, quicken
This dead flesh, now unite
The Two, the Man, the Woman,
The Light who conquers night.

Bearer of the Body

You must bear witness to the Cross of Christ:
She'll be your suffering and your reward.
The life you bear is filled with stress and strife,
But Heaven evermore is your reward.

You must bear witness to the whips and cords
He tied inside the temple when he came
To drive out all corruption and discord
And on his back bear it, instead, to save.

You must bear witness to the empty grave
Your body will be fertile soil to to fill,
Where soul unleashed, the Spirit that He gave
Will find a land of freedom by His will.

You must bear witness to these things you see,
The Spirit lives in you and speaks through me.

The Unsung Hero of the World

Abram's mother,
Heaven's dew,
Lamb of God,
Who knew you?

There he suckled
At your breast
As your lips
Upon him pressed.

Holy Mother,
Abram son,
Lamb of God,
Holy One.

Mary, Christ,
Chosen Lord,
Seed of Jacob,
Your reward.

Father Abram,
Father Christ,
Father Spirit,
Mother, nice.

Where was Mary?
What was Eve?
On whose breast
Did Abram feed?

Hear the story:
Melchizedek,
King of Salem,
Abram met.

What transpired?
What things said?
From Prophet's mouth
To Abram's head?

What was shared
Of the Divine
Between these souls
With bread and wine?

Holy Mother,
How prepared,
Abram son
To meet Him there?

To face the Lord,
And bend his knee,
And offer son
On burning tree?

Lamb of God
Who bore this son
And fed him where
Your milk flowed from,

How did he learn
To trust this man
Who brought this news
Of Divine Plan

To make of him
A nation great
Through David's trust
And Prophets' faith?

Through Ismael's cries,
The Prophet's woes,
From Abram's staff
Two nations rose.

The Unsung Hero
Of the world,
The one whose arms
Did Abram hold.

The Ancient Gardener

There is an Ancient Gardener,
Who wants my seed to grow.
In fertile ground, he in me found
A space for faith to sow.

And then the Ancient Gardener,
Upon me poured his tears,
He wetted me, and set me free
From death's cold choke of fear.

Then light the Ancient Gardener,
Did send down through the soil,
To warm the earth, and from it birth
A root from seed uncoiled.

Go down, the Ancient Gardner,
Did speak unto my root,
Find water there, and then prepare
To from your grave up sproot.

It's dark here, Ancient Gardner,
The spirit in me spoke.
But blessed me, that within me
A spirit, too, awoke.

Rise up to Ancient Gardner,
The spirit in me said.
Though dark you see, you'll find in he
A path up from the dead.

Though dark and cold and buried,
This seed in dirt, deep down.
It trusted still, the Gardner's will,
And sprung up from the ground.

Then saw the Ancient Gardner,
A sapling that did hear,
The Gardner's voice, and had no choice
But live in trust, not fear

That still this Ancient Gardner
That called up from the ground
A seed, once dead, with leaves now spread
Will still his will unbound,

And give these roots more water,
And give these leaves more light,
To finish what the spirit bought
To raise from death a sprite.

The roots will drink on water,
The leaves will feast on sun,
And bear this fruit upsprung from root
Till Gardner's will is done.

I hear thee, Ancient Gardner,
Send rain down to my roots.
I'll grow for thee, and blessed be,
And for you bear my fruits.

An Hour in Observation

Let them be for signs and seasons,
And let them speak to us,
As Venus and Mars stand side by side,
Following the path of Jupiter,
While Luna marches boldly forward
Into the lightening dark,
With its face turned brightly backward
To witness the rising of el Sol
On dawn's horizon.

Let it light the way forward,
And let it speak to us,
As you and I stand side by side,
Following in the footsteps of Moses,
While Eru Ilúvatar shines past Dian's face,
Into the emptiness of space and time not yet filled
With glory stretching endlessly in all directions
To bring hope to the hopeless
On the red mountains of Hades.

Let there be no distance between us
And let emptiness be filled by love,
As we look to scriptures written on stones,
Following the knowing inscribed in the orbital dance,
While light cascades past your face
Into currents of life unforeseeable
With a message to carry from the daughters of Jacob
To proclaim the birth of a child
On the soft, rich beds of upturned graves.

Let Truth shine on our faces,
And let us reflect its glory
As man and woman move silently through the heavens,
Following a path we may not resist,
While gods and goddesses run before us 
Into the voids upon which the Spirit of God rests
With all knowing in this:
To see light reflected
On stone.

Before I Change My Mind

Now, LORD, is where I am.
Send Pilate with with his armies.
I wait for a place you have prepared already,
Buried with Mercutio
In the mouth of Satan.

Here, LORD, is when I am.
May Pharoah chase me across the angry sea.
I will walk to meet you on the other side.
Standing with Polyphemus,
Crying sabachthani.

Time, LORD, has chained me.
Let Hirohito's bomb find my house.
Unlock the moon from its orbit,
For I am tired of spinning in circles
Around these troubled waters.

Is there yet hope, LORD?
For I am still breathing,
And this couch is comfortable and coffee sweet in this warm cup.
This skin more elegant than robes you have stained for me
In rainbows of blood.

Call the executioner, LORD.
For I am on a darkened stage with song rehearsed.
Rouse the director to take his bow.
Turn off the lights.
Tear these curtains in the temple of your holiness.

McLuhan in the Present Perfect, A Work in Progress

Marshall lies east of Casey,
Where the small town southern men live,
Whose greatest contributions are the ones they leave behind.

I spoke to Jack at table,
When I was at a crossroads in my life.
He spent some time near Gary.

It was Thanksgiving,
And between the noodles and pumpkin pie,
I wondered who this man was,
So I asked.

He said that he got a job.
He said he married Cherry.
He said they built a house.

That was about it.

I won't forget that rainy October morning,
Something new was born,
When I left in the dark, just after 6: 00 a.m.
To go from one nursing home
To another.

Nor how you opened your eyes
When the preacher said,
"Amen"
And breathed your last.

I have never been as thankful for Jesus
As today.

You have been going home all along.

It is not death to die.

Leslie Talia

Let me tell you:
This girl I'm with
Has turned me into Jack Nicholson,
The one who asked,
"Is this as good as it gets?"

Here I am,
Alone in my apartment,
Which is a hell of a place to be,
When you're by yourself,
A hell of a place to be.

Then, I remember
That scene from The Green Mile
When the old Tom Hanks sneaks out of the nursing home
To take a piece of toast to that mouse,
Onto whom the breath of life was breathed.

Heaven, baby.
I'm in heaven,
Breathing your breath between the sheets.
Sucking in disease,
Breathing out life.

I've got another story to tell,
About a man and a woman,
About a person and a rat,
About ribs of clay
And temples of holiness.

Melchizedek

Nostalgia for a previous day,
When shamans stepped from smoky huts
To survey the sun chasing Venus
Into the lightening welkin,
Leaving a tangled pile of skin and hair,
Twisted like a ball of serpents,
Lying upon the brown coat of an ox,
As sperm heads whipped themselves madly inside brown-haired priestesses,
Toward fertilization,
Pulled by a force incomprehensible,
To rise up and become human,
Stand on two feet
And build machines that fly past the red ice mountains of Pluto
And send back pictures,
Is merely the pain of memory,
The curse that enables us
To consider what was,
To observe how things are,
And to suffer the courage,
As a child sitting in the passenger seat of a car,
To put out a hand
And touch the wheel of his father's car,
As they drive onward,
Further from Eden.

Predators

We project an image.
We do it using words.
We want others to see us.
We need our voices heard.
We get the wrong attention.
We make you make mistakes.
We cry out, and you listen.
We look for things to take.
We give away our voices.
We help you lose your guard.
We dress ourselves as Jesus.
We sneak into your yard.
We rob you of your treasure.
We take it for our own.
We fill ourselves with pleasure.
We listen to you moan.
We need someone to watch us.
We want it to be you.
We love to see you love us.
We rob your cradles, too.
We know we're on a mission.
We fill the world with good.
We put you in a prison.
We feed upon your food.
We do not need your friendship.
We only want your love.
We thank you for your worship.
We leave you made use of.
We have nothing to give you.
We only want to take.
We steal from you and leave you .
We are your worst mistake.

Good News for a Poor Man

Those stamps of Caesar rubbed between your thumbs
The man in pin-striped suit has tinked inside
That copper cup that you use to drink from
When you've saved twenty quarters to buy wine

Will never be enough to break you free
From prison, where you live within your mind,
Though liquor, Sudafed, and THC
Distract you from the present, you are blind

To bigger pictures of what is and was
And will be, too, if you give pause to think,
For pleasure can't be sold, nor bought because
The goal is freedom from these metal chinks

That hold your writs fast to the wall until,
Your breath leaves from your lungs, and you lie still.

Conversations with Mathematical Precision

The math teacher is a bully
Who gives you only a few symbols
To tell your story,
And he already has the answer ready
Before you even get a chance to answer the question,
With the rules you were given,
And in a language that is not your own.

To the rational mind,
The kind of mind that divides this and that,
Into 1s and 0s,
There is no way to see the answer,
Except,
In systems that allow only for
Answers
With 1s and 0s,
In a language
That nobody understands,
Especially not math teachers.

Listen,
If you don't get that Math
Is no different than Greek,
Or Latin,
Or English,
Just another language built
By some dominant class,
With a lot of self-righteous rules,
Of control,
Of power,
Of enterprise,
Of capital,
Then you don't understand,
That to be a math teacher,
Is NOT to give a man a tool
For liberation,
But a tool
For taking captive his fellows.

Abel was the second murderer,
Let's not forget that.
The first skin was taken by the LORD,

And methods developed for food,
For morality,
Soon turn themselves inward,
And before you know it,
We are all dead,
Bound up with the Law,
With quadratic formulas,
Running our satellites out into the solar system,
Looking for another brother to kill.

Let's not delude ourselves:
We seek war, not peace.
We divide.
It's in our DNA.

I'm this.
You're that.
Punctuate that sentence.
Be over there,
And keep both sides of the equation EQUAL.
OR
You won't ever get the damned thing balanced.

Listen:

I've had enough of this nonsense with the numbers.
I've got a lake to swim in,
26 letters,
A comma, dash, period,
And--every once in a while--a colon.
It keeps the sentences together in a way that periods don't:
Don't ask me how.

So,
Mr. Math Teacher
(Whom I respect, deeply.)
(Really, I do.)
(I mean, my father taught Chemistry, for Christ's sake,)
(And for the sake of his eight children,)
(And our beautiful mother),
Here is what I'm asking of you:

Acknowledge this:
You have limited the conversation
With your arbitrary rules
That have made so much possible,
That have made so much sense out of so many things,
And these limited ways of having the conversation,
Do, in fact,
A lot of good--for example:

I saw those pictures of Pluto, for example,
Just this morning.
I saw ICE MOUNTAINS ON PLUTO!
Thank God for that.
I mean, wow.
And not so long ago,
I saw my first picture of A FREAKING ATOM!
And I thought the pictures of dust mites
Taken by Scanning Electron Microscopes
That I saw when I was six,
I mean,
I thought THAT was cool.
But this business with Pluto,
And whatever Hell that satellite is gonna show us next.

Geesh.

Don't get me wrong:
I'm thankful--

But I'm also impatient for more knowledge,
And I'm tired of the kind built on Good and Evil,
This and That,
1 and 0.

You will never find the answer you are looking for,
Because it won't fit inside the language you've created.
The one with too many rules.

Jesus Christ! Do I have to tell you the answer?
You want me to show you my work on the back of the paper?
Here it is:

Proposal for Integrative Common Core Math Problem

10,000,000 - Anne Frank equals how much injustice, approximately?

Evidence

My heart broke, once.
Call that one.
It broke again,
Call that two.
Two heartbreaks.

I had a child,
Call that one.
I had two more,
Call that three.
Two times three is six.

My heart broke two times,
And it became six.

Afterwards,
Someone did kindness to me,
And made my heart feel better.
Call that negative one.
Now my heart broke less.
That's called a subtrahend.

Two and six and negative one
Is,
Quite clearly,
Seven,
And I am using these commas with intention.

Here's another equation that works really well:

10,0000,000 - Anne Frank = 9,999,999

Or this one:

Tigris + Euphrates = Baghdad

Here's one more:

Displacement of a 302.594 degrees-kelvin solution of dihydrogen monoxide with a volume of 14.56869 cubic hectare-meters by an object of 168 pounds and volume of 66.4 liters with a constant temperature of 98.572 degrees Fahrenheit, measured locally, in an environment of 47.777... degrees centigrade feels damn good.

This is what we call data.
This, and only this,
Should be considered.

Suffer the Naga Sadhu

Amen.

In Photos: India's Holy Men Wash Away Their Sins

I saw two sadhus naked
While walking down a street,
Their balls beneath them swinging,
Hung high above their feet.

And as these naga sadhus,
Both confidently strode,
The crowd who saw them shouted,
"Those two men are unclothed!"

The sadhus still kept pacing,
With eyes fixed straight ahead,
As if, although still waking,
They were already dead.

It's suicide by walking
With skin bared to the world,
The men are hung by stalking
The streets with junk unfurled.

Their skin is pierced by daggers
Of glares from passers by,
For every step they take is
An insult to the eye.

The sadhu has no reason
To walk through world unclothed
Except to show that he is
No more than we suppose:

A man with rod and testes,
Two nipples and two beards.
Though everyone is equal
The sight of them is weird.

It's rude, yes, they do protest
To us that we are wrong
To raise our voice in insult
And on them put upon

Our vices and our virtues,
Our judgment and our stones,
Our sense of what is decent
As others walk alone

Through streets, not wearing clothing,
In gutters without food,
In basements, chained with shackles.
Who, then, now is rude?

These men who walk streets naked,
Who hide no ugly truth,
Are these two who will summon
A righteous mob to move?

Still, too, I think these these sadhus
Are no more good than me,
They, too, they have their reasons
For baring more than feet.

Perhaps they feel too guilty,
Perhaps they need my love,
Perhaps they, too, are broken
By broken hands that shoved

Them to a life of penance
In which they have no choice
But walk through streets abandoned
By mother's loving voice.

Let's kill them and not worry,
For they have robbed our time,
It took me half an hour
To get so far in rhyme.

It may be thirty minutes
Is more time than they're worth,
For I have more to do, now,
Concerning my own birth

Than think of two nude sadhus
Who, naked, walk through streets,
Eliciting these judgments
From all those who they meet.

Let's kill them, like that woman,
Who slept with many men,
Surrounded by an angry mob,
Till Jesus did step in,

And said, yes, you're a sinner,
Yet these are sinners, too,
Who hold these stones in judgment,
And soon will throw at you.

Sadhu, who's the sinner?
Yes, I think you know.
It's wrong, I think, to judge you,
But wrong to naked go

Through streets to stir reaction
From people who must view,
The truth that you are showing
That must be seen in you.

There is a problem, Ego.
It's there, too, yes, in me.
I know: I wrote this poem.
This isn't hard to see.

I see you walk by naked,
And if you've read this far,
You see, that I'm, too, suffering
From sins that have left scars

Upon my naked body
And on my naked soul,
And though the naked truth is kind,
It hurts others, too.

Be who you are, yes naked,
But guard the things you say
To people who are naked, too,
Though clothed in fine array

Of vestments and status,
Of virtue and of vice,
For humans all are covered,
With dead skin, and with lice

That crawl across our bodies
And feed on flesh and blood
And give to us each other's
Diseases, clothed or nude.

What is the point, these sadhus?
What is the point, this rhyme?
Is it that we are naked,
All of us, all the time?

Or is it that, though naked,
We have compassion, too,
For angry, violent Muslim,
For stingy, greedy Jew,

For selfish, righteous 'Murcan,
For stuffy, gin-soaked Brit,
For cold, abrasive Russian,
Dumb sadhus, without wit?

These words are worse than bullets
That fly through flesh and bone.
They pierce through thicker clothing,
Than robe by sadhu sown.

These sadhus I saw naked,
Though troubled, they may be,
Have taught me how to listen,
And be a better me.

I worry that these sadhus
Will never find their peace,
But I'll give them my blessing
As they walk through my streets.

El Sabaoth

Assemble the Gods of Canaan,
Assemble the Kings of Thebes,
Assemble the Lords of Eden,
In whom all men believe.

May all the Hosts of Heaven,
Turn to the rising sun,
May Cronus, Ra, and Brahman,
Be unified by one,

Who holds all time and knowledge,
Who makes both life and death,
Who raises life from stardust,
Who breathes and gives clay breath.

Behold, the time is coming,
Behold, the time has come,
Behold, the time is passing,
Behold, the time is gone.

There is no new tomorrow,
Nor is there hope to come
That life o'er death will conquer
More than's already done.

The resurrection happened,
I saw it come today,
As Vishnu danced through Utah,
And Quetzalcoatl played

With soldiers from Olympus,
Who drank both rum and bark,
Boiled in the fires of Prometheus,
Sent from a cave man's spark.

Surrender to the passing,
As you were meant to do,
With all the Hosts of Heaven,
Who all surrender, too,

To one which hath no meaning,
To one that has no name,
Who sent a sign to Abram,
And to you sends the same.

Your sons will raise your daughters,
Your daughters raise your sons,
And all the Hosts of Heaven,
Will praise the only one,

Who set this wheel in motion,
That you won't see to stop,
For he who climbs a mountain,
Will never reach the top.

A something rises higher,
A something smaller goes,
A something becomes bigger,
And never can be clothed,

In lowly robes of language
Though dress it as we may,
In words of law and justice,
In which our spirits play.

So all you Hosts of Heaven,
Wherever you may be,
Assemble now to reckon,
Upon your bended knee,

Or show your mighty power,
If there be one who can,
To summon to attention
Yourself in mind of man.

God Grows a Seed With No Water

King Tut,
You died on a cross,
Reviving a body,
That we thought was lost.

King Tut,
You slept in a tomb
Thirteen hundred years,
Then appeared in a womb.

King Tut,
The doorway was closed,
No phallus of man
Could inject your repose,

King Tut,
With the spirit of life,
But billions have tried,
As a man knows his wife.

King Tut,
When did your kingdom come?
On a hill we sit waiting
For the rise of the sun.

King Tut,
When will you come again?
Which rule is fiercer:
Mind or body of man?

King Tut,
Did the Messiah see
That when stuffed in your tomb,
You were waiting for me,

King Tut,
To proclaim that your life
Resurrected in morning
When Osiris' wife,

King Tut,
Brought her womb to be filled
By a destructive man,
Who with metal blade tilled,

King Tut,
Into your flesh and soil,
Spilling out the fine seed,
Meant for life or for oil,

King Tut,
Is it crushed or implanted,
What't the difference to man
Who by death is supplanted,

King Tut,
By a child who grows
From his father's fine phallus,
Dressed up in clothes,

King Tut,
By a mother who feeds him,
From the milk of her breast
That gives wisdom,

King Tut,
That the earth where you reign
Is the biggest illusion
That has carried your name,

King Tut,
Down from Moses to David,
Down from David to Me
And this idea we play with,

King Tut,
Is that King Tut is me,
And is Jesus,
And forever will be.

1010011010

When you make love
With a computer,
There comes,
After a generation,
A child.

I said to my child:
"This is that."

Later on, the child grew,
Meeting me at a crossroads,
And replied,
"I never knew you."

There's one more thing:
OR
Two.

Here it is:
Put down the damned book!
Stop with the reading and writing!
Machines upon machines upon machines,
And there is absolutely no going back
To Thebes.

For Lethe is fat,
And the Jordan is full of mandrakes.

Like begets like,
And all comes
From nothing at all
More than one.

Moonrise before Sunrise

Evy, there are moons to see, if you pay attention.
Crickets chirp at break of dawn--to hear them, you must listen.
Jupiter, Venus, Moon and Mars are rising in the sky.
Lightning bugs light up the ground and blink before they die.
The waters of a quiet lake rest on a quiet plain.
The fish that swim beneath the wake, there all their lives remain.
The blade that bends from bulbous bug, who on its leaf doth crawl
Is one small plant upon this rock, this Earth, a spinning ball
That rolls and rolls throughout this world we call the universe,
And blessed be you to see these things, but understand the curse
That while you live the LORD has given a chance for you to see
These things that go and live and grow and spin and live and be,
But if you close your eyes and ears and nose and fingers, too,
You'll miss the chance to see this dance the LORD has shown to you.
You, too, are one of these fine things that on this rock doth move,
And those who stop to notice will be blessed to notice you,
Who goes about the world and sees the moonrise in the sky
And makes a light for men to see that twinkles in your eye.
Now thirteen years have come and gone since you were made to be,
And blessed be I that Adonai gave me a chance to see
That as you grow, through sun and snow, the beauty of this world,
Reflects through you and all you do, as what you are unfurls.
So be, live free, and stop to see the moons and fish and grass,
For while you do, life passes through, for your time, too, will pass.
For life and breath are friends of death, who give you time to own
That this fine stone that God has grown from stardust is alone
Among the planets of this world that man has chanced to see
That's filled with all the wonder of this marvelous mystery.
So, see a moon that rises up, and hear a cricket chirp.
The LORD in these things speaks to you, and in a baby's burp.
Like you, when two, did to me do, when resting on my chest,
And baby will, on you too spill, a curdle from your breast.
Raise it to see the moon and be blessed by the LORD who gives
A chance for all who live to see that He in all things lives.

Blood and Bread

Take off your boots and scrape dust in a pot
And plant inside a tiny grain of wheat.
Up from the dirt a blade of green will rise
To bear upon its stalk twelve times itself.

Cut off the head and grind it into dust
And buried under water set aside,
Enclosed in darkened rooms where molds do grow.
There will the seed with new breath rise again.

But life not of itself, but of the yeast,
That dwells within the vapors of the wind,
Attaching to the crushed seed of this blade,
Which from your boots the seed of life upsprung.

Then furnaced by a flame this living dough
Is hardened, as in death, when it expires,
Releasing from itself the living breath
That gives shape to the spaces in itself.

Upon the shelf this loaf of wheat will sit
Until the hand of holy man it breaks
In two, and places it upon brass plate,
To feed five thousand faces who march forth,

Proclaiming that the bread of death they took
Has filled them with new life, from seed upsprung
From dust of feet who son of man has washed
Into a cleansing pot where death collects.

The armies of these bodies who do fall
Into the ground, where space and time do grind
Them into dust, which from new seeds do spring,
Attest that as they eat, they also live,

As dough that wet with water from above
Does fall upon them as they play their part,
And never live, nor die, not as themselves,
But as the spirit, that in all things does.

Broca

Bonobo, where you go?
Hide and show.
Bonobo, who you see?
You and me.
Bonobo, why you lie?
Laugh and cry.
Bonobo what you say?
Kill and play.
Bonobo, how you know?
Man say so.
Bonobo, who your God?
Live in sod.
Bonobo, when you die?
Time no 'ply.
Bonobo, what you fear?
Man come near.
Bonobo, what you need?
Fuck and feed.
Bonobo, who you love?
Sun above.
Bonobo, why you kill?
Cause I will.
Bonobo, what is truth?
Meat and fruit.
Bonobo, what you say?
Go away.

Pepper Lane

Emmy, I forgot to tell you
When we drove out with Aunt Ruth
To that place outside of Parkersburg
With the old, run down barn,
And the trees pushed over in a big pile,
Covering a house that used to stand
Right there in that spot,
That we didn't see,
Just a pile of concrete,
All busted up
In the middle of a bean field,
Already harvested in late September,
As the clouds hung low all afternoon,
Before the eclipse of the supermoon,
That this is where my grandmother stood
When she was your age,
Ten,
With her mother,
Tilly Wynn.

I had never been there before,
Nor your Aunt Ruth,
Nor Natalie.

We went there to see the house,
With your aunts,
And Abram, Teddy, and Max,
And Jack Bob,
But it was gone,
Pushed down into the ground,
Covered up with oak trees and old tires,
Set to be burned up in a fire,
I imagine.

Some poems are written to hold ideas,
Or to say something new.
Others just hold memories.
This is one of that kind.

Remember, too, the bees,
Buzzing into that hole at the base
Of a sick Catalpa tree,
Dead at the top,
But still fruiting long, brown pods
Beneath broad, green leaves,
Yellowing around the edges
At the beginning of Autumn.

There, you stood.
And though I'm sure you don't remember
That old woman with the chickens,
Nor do you know how they tasted,
Cooked up with noodles she rolled out by hand,
I do,
And I can tell you one thing for sure:
She knew your name
As she knew her own.

Faith, Doubt, Reason

There be problem within me,
And I implore your sympathy.
Of these three virtues, I confess,
Doubting I have mastered best.
Faith is hard, and Reason blind
To skewed perceptions of the mind.
I see a ghost, and Doubt appears,
Reminding me to allay my fears,
And force my mind to stop the fray
As Reason comes to save the day.
No apparition do I see,
But a mist of fog, or a hollow tree,
Or a silent walker through a wood
Who means to do the world no good.
A gift of fear does flood my mind,
And summons will to treat it kind,
This ghostly figure I do see,
Who's brought to mind these brothers three.
Of Faith and Reason, I confess,
Doubting I have mastered best.
Guide me further, Lord of Descartes,
Protect my mind, and guard my heart.
I'll place my trust in Faith no more,
Nor rest in Reason's blessed store
Of tempered virtue, patient bliss.
There is no vice in a mind at rest.
I'll give my mind to Natural Doubt,
And let the Cosmos sort it out.

Special Theory

If you take this and put it over that,
The ratio exists inside your mind.
And then within your skin a new thing forms
That could not be at all without this act

Of separating this that in your brain.
Here springs, once one, into two things that make
A third thing now appear there to be, too,
A thing, another, and the last thing, you.

But tested, now you find the third thing goes
Away because the this and that are one,
And third, the other that that you have made,

Does testify that this and that were, too.
The this and that that you suppose to see,
Will disappear when you, too, cease to be.

Gracious Lord, Good Mountain

A book my eyes did see
Lying under glass
Written out by hand
By sages ages past.

Another book did lie
Across the hall from it,
Though size and shape the same,
By printing press 'twas writ.

From Mainz both texts did fly
Across the salty sea,
And now they both do lie
In Washington, D. C.

The power in these books
Did light the world on fire,
Fueling Einstein's bomb,
Jolting Tesla's wire.

The conflagration spreads
With unrelenting heat,
Blazing through the lands,
Burning chaff from wheat.

Will on this funeral pyre,
Both ancient texts be thrown?
Has God, his time expired,
Been buried in his tomb?

Reason says, "Look now,
"To Science give your heart.
"Be ruled not by folk tales.
"From myths of men depart."

"These books were made by men,
"As Athena's temple was,
"Abandoned to the Turks
"And crumbling into dust."

"Like Tutankhamun's tomb,
"Have emptied out their store,
"And ancient stones in sand
"Pay heed to gods no more."

"As Gilgamesh had built
"A house for his Inanna
"So have these books been spent
"Now emptied of their manna."

And now these books do lie,
In temple built by men
To new gods made of words
To whom our knees now bend.

Justice, Freedom, Law
Do break upon our backs.
Like bombs from drones that fall
On temples in Iraq.

These books, these empty books,
That lie beneath this glass,
Have no god left to serve
But man, who faith now lacks.

Be Thou My Vision

If my parents
Had named me
For a flower
Grown in The Shire
By Samwise Gamgee,
I'd want to know.

But if they found my name
In an tattered hymnal,
An old name
With unusual spelling
In the index of authors,
I'd want to know that, too.

It's true:
Samwise married Rose,
And they had a daughter
Before they had a son,
And they named her
For the loveliest blossom
In Middle Earth.

It's also true:
That your name
Was selected by a dog,
Looking for a piece of cheese
In the living room of a house
That no longer stands.

Your mother and I agreed:
It was a good name
For a firstborn,
And we are glad
It turned out to be you,
Nor have we changed our minds.

Yogic Meditation

I have to learn
To go deeper, longer
And more often,
To hold my breath
With my face pressed hard
Against the bottomless blue mud.

I need to set aside time
To jump into the water
And pencil dive down,
To fall like a bomb from above
With crashing waves beating explosively
Against my eardrums.

I got to exercise
To stay fit, ready
And awake, alert,
To identify the problem
With my mind set upon success
Against all odds.

#Ferguson

#shitmywifesays:

Quit feeling so proud of yourself. It was my idea.

Do you even know all the words like I do?

And if you get time, look up I Wanna Be There on WKRC 1997. It's on YouTube. 

"Bananas, Crackers and Nuts"

From Wikipedia:

In Watching M*A*S*H, Watching America, a sociological examination of M*A*S*H as an illustration of shifting American values in the 1970s and early 1980s, James H. Wittebols cites Sherman's attempted assault on Margaret in this episode as an example of the program's questionable treatment of women in its early years.^[1] Wittebols also notes the subplot of Hawkeye pretending to be in love with Frank (in order to convince Sherman that he is insane) as an example of the series' negative treatment of homosexuality.^[8]

Bananas, Crackers and Nuts. (n. d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved September 1, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bananas,_Crackers_and_Nuts

See also:

https://youtu.be/Dj7LFqqGQqQ

Confession

Freud Died

This relationship is over,
So why is there still a TV in my garage?

In the end,
Tony never existed in the first place.

TVs offer many opportunities
For these kinds of relationships.

-- 30 --

Science

JOY

Audience

Prospectus

An Idea I Had

Between Instructional Periods

Because, there's a bell.
It actually rings,
Bright and deep and metallic,
Painful in the ear--
You don't want to be standing by it,
Out in the hall,
When the darn thing goes off.

And there's a time:
They walk into the classroom,
They sit at these desks,
They expect you to know something about Public Speaking,
They expect you to know something about Working in Groups,
They expect you to know something about Non-Verbal Communicaiton.

Help me, God!
I woke up in Hell!
Or at least Purgatory!
Is this where sinners go to get reformed:
A public high school,
As a teacher?!

Then the bell goes off again,
Like at the Kentucky Derby,
And they are all talking to each other,
Except for the ones who don't talk at all,
Just sitting there in their seats,

With their arms crossed,
Wearing long pants in August,
Or a knit scull cap,
And they don't look up.
And they NEVER raise their hands.

What do we talk about for 80 minutes?
How many times are we going to write
ABCD on a paper,
Or at least fill in the oval,
Or the tiny little white or green space between the square brackets.

Let's see . . . attendance . . . . where is Johnny?
Who? they ask. Johnny Appleseed?
He's getting homeschooled,
They say,
High school wasn't right for them,
Teachers are going to hell,
Or something.

Listen, I didn't make up the rules,
I just have this mortgage,
And I wanted to do the right thing,
So I went to college--
I got a Master's Degree,
In that thing I teach.
(I don't remember seeing any of you in my classes).

But the thing is this: It wasn't hard.
We just had three things to do:
1. Read the book.
2. Come to class and talk about it.
3. Sometimes write a paper.

And the professor would always write on the essay:
Good thoughts!
Develop this
_____________________ !
???
Very insightful.

And at the end . . .

You have done a good job of showing how this character has these traits, but I mostly think something else might be true (you should think about this, because I'm smarter than you). But I will still give you a grade that is this: B.

And I have no idea what B is.
But I got that grade a lot,
In college.
On papers I had written,
That I knew I had put off too long,
And then didn't write as well as I thought I could have written
Them.

What is B, though?
B=Better than Average!
Right?
80%
Or at least 82.47.
Who's gonna give that guy with that 82.47 a B-?
Really?
You gonna do that high school math teacher?
How do you get the .07 part of that percent,
There at the end of the number,
Where you arbitrarily started to stop paying attention,
At the .0nth place,
But mentally,
You understood how a guy would want to round up that 4 to a five,
Then that 2 to a 3,
And that minus to that place
Between the minus and the plus?

And there you are,
In the middle of that instructional period,
When the bell rings again,
And you forgot to tell them about Plato,
That he had a name,
And that he lived in a specific time,
And was REALLY alive,
Not, like, maybe, or probably,
And then you remember how there are people
Who actually think,
That maybe Shakespeare didn't really exist,
At least not as we know him,
Not an individual guy,
And probably not even really that one guy,
With the bald head and the funny collar,
There's some doubt about whether or not that guy
From Stratford-upon-Avon,
Ever wrote a line of poetry,
Or if he really did, he was probably gay,
And wrote all those sonnets to a male lover.
We know that Walt Whitman did that.
There are pictures of the man in places
Where men went to meet boys,
Back in the 1800s,
A time,
Just like the time that Plato was alive,
Who wrote those things down that Socrates said,
Like John did for Jesus,
When he wrote,
In the beginning was the Word.
John was maybe gay, too,
And nobody knows if Jesus really existed.
One guy says he was a metaphor for mushrooms,
But I think that is kind of crazy,
But who's gonna dispute with him?
He's dead.

And then the bell goes off again,
Just like that last scene in the Sopranos,
And another group comes in,
And you try to do it again,
But in a different way,
Again,
With another bell.

Send Judah First

They a wrote a song for Bono,
Who wrote a song for me,
About a man, near Judah,
Who set a blind man free.

He sang a song of Mercy.
He sang a song of Grace,
He sang a song 'bout Adam,
Who on a cross was slain.

He set out over Jordan,
He sailed on over Spain.
He settled in the Midwest,
Proclaiming Heaven's name.

I'll sing this song for Bono,
Who sang me into joy.
Who sang out Oh, for Mercy!
On lips of Irish boys.

So, Bono, oh dear Bono,
Sing one more song for me,
And maybe that Ol' Jesus,
Will sail across the sea.

He'll carry you to Heaven,
To sit on Throne of Grace,
A blessing sent from Adam
To bless the Human Race.

So, Bono, my friend Bono,
Sail on across the sea.
And when you get to heaven,
Sing one more song for me.

Selva Oscura

Within the mind are places to be lost,
Trapped in rooms by one-way doors that close
Behind the wandering thinker as self-made
Monsters torment the lonely traveler.
Inside this prison where the pilgrim hides,
A dozen demons feast upon his fear,
Devouring hope, consuming will to live,
And feast upon the feeble thoughts he thinks.
Who is this man who in himself is trapped
Unable to set free this vagabond
From demons he's invented in his mind?
Shall they the feeble-minded man consume,
To rid the world of cowards who lie down,
Surrendered to themselves, no will to live?

Draw Attention to the Human Eye

Draw attention to the human eye,
Which manifests itself upon the face,
Whilst in communication you and I
Unencumber ourselves, with love embrace,
Pass far beyond the fields of pleasure's bliss
To regions that we've never seen nor heard,
Nor imagined to ourselves, oblivious
In main to the many dangers of mind
This consciousness reveals. Let us depart.
I do not want to conversate with you.
Forget it. You had to break my heart.
Why is it that you do the things you do,
Crazy man? I need another start.
I'm off to Jordan to make something new.

Adam's Stain

I think I'll bear a mark upon my back

That anyone may see and recognize

Before the rational mind (that I do lack)
Will testify my thoughts before his eyes,

To give the passerby admonishment

And let him know that those who don't are torn,

Sliced and diced and quartered, bled and spent
By this fierce tongue who in my face is borne,
Then, I could, too, in gladness pass my days

Without fear of the strife that comes before
My wicked feet, but forward dance upon

The soft sands my rough cut feet do prance on
When music doth arise the soul once more,

And sing songs, I, My Lord in joyous praise!

Electroshock Therapy

Sometimes,
When I start to think of mistakes I have made,
It is difficult to stop feeling bad about myself,
And sadness can overwhelm me.
It takes, sometimes,
A punch in the stomach,
A sudden jolt,
To bring me back from the pit,
Safe from the danger
Of the monster in that abyss.

I touched an electric fence once,
Without knowing how it would feel.
It felt like is been kicked by a horse.
I know this because, later,
I was kicked by a horse, too.
In both cases I learned
To be more careful
Around electric fences
And horses.
Don't stand in their blind spot,
And don't let them stand in yours.
Approach cautiously,
Keep your distance when you don't have to be close,
And by all means,
Don't touch the damn things,
At least not the fences.

I know why that fence shocked me:
It was electrified.
There was a box in grandpa's garage
That pulsed a million volts through the tensile wire,
Supported off the ground by PVC pipes.
The wire went high overhead,
Through the back yard,
And down by the north end of the garden,
And around the pasture where the black-faced steers regarded me cautiously,
Licking their mouths with long, grey tongues,
Blowing snuffs of air through their nostrils.

I touched the fence,
And did again,
Many times.
Though subsequently,
By accident only,
Not ignorance.
I knew the fence was close,
And dangerous,
But I, perhaps,
Walked too carelessly close,
Or was unfamiliar with the length of my growing arms,
Or the conductivity of dewey grass,
Or the strange oscillation
Of three hundred fifty feet of eight gauge wire,
After bumping the PVC post
Ten seconds earlier.

I'm certain my father had cautioned me many times:
Do not touch the wire.
Stand farther off.
Be careful near the pasture.
Back up from the fence.
But I would learn the hard way.
Again, and again.

If you've never felt it,
Or even if you have,
It feels like this:
Someone yanks your arm suddenly,
A hitting and pulling in all directions,
All at once.
You hear it when it happens,
Inside your eardrums,
The throbbing off your heart
Beneath your armpits.
The first time is overwhelming confusion,
And I was lucky to have my dad there to yell at me,
"Get away from the wire!"
He knew better than I why I felt that way.
Subsequently,
I was never confused,
Not by the jolt, at least,
Perhaps by my surprise
That the wire had reached out and grabbed me,
Like a living thing
I thought I had minded my distance.

I am not afraid of an electrified fence.
Nor a horse.
But I mind my distance, now.

At least,
Near the pasture.

Up in Idaho

There's a hell of a story
A man in his thirties wrote

About the comfort of light,
And a little more rum,

To him who accepts nothing
Into his heart,

And receives in double portion
The brilliant light of glory

Bestowed upon him
By the Thief of Polyphemus,

Who sailed 20 years
Visiting the beds of goddesses,

Whose honor was upheld
By chaste Penelope.

"Look at how honorable I am
As I string my bow!"

"Look at how strong this old man is
As he catches this damned fish!"

Find a cafe,
Hard man.

No marlin will take the bait
As triumphantly as you imagine,

Nor lion die without ugly convulsions,
Bleeding on the plains of Kenya.

Nothing easily penetrated
The hunter's thick hide.

Shoot for the head.
Pull both triggers.

Open up the place.
Let in some light.

Song of the Lord

Hear, O Israel:
The Lord is One.
Hear, you nations of the Earth:
The Lord is One.

Hear, you Sons of Gideon:
The Lord is Victory.
Hear, you Daughters of Zion:
The Lord is Refuge.

Hear, O Judah:
The Lord is Mighty.
Hear, O Benjamin:
The Lord is Favor.

Who can turn away from the Lord?
Who can resist His judgment?
Who can live without breath?
Who can make a still heart beat?

Who is the Lord?
Who can sit upon His throne?
The Law of the Lord is perfect.
Of whom shall I be afraid?

I will wake in the morning and know the Lord's peace.
I will take my meal at noontime under the shelter of His presence.
I will lie down in the evening with wolves and lions and fear only Him.
I will lie down with my fathers in His presence.

Who shall fear?
Those who do not acknowledge Him.
Who shall be afraid?
Those who have no trust in Him.

Here are the delights of man,
Here are the the gods he serves:
The gods of his intellect.
The gods of reason.

Make your gods of stone.
Bow down to them.
Offer to them your children.
Surrender to them your gifts.

What can Time do for you, but bring you to destruction?
What can Time accomplish, but lead you to the grave?
Time is the eternal jester of the foolish king,
The rebellious child of man who bears no fruit.

Where does Money dwell, and who is his counsel?
What comfort does it bring to its people?
Money teaches its servants what they do not have,
Picking the pockets of the wealthy.

Sit now with the Lord and dwell now in His presence.
Take nothing but the gifts He brings.
He fills His vessels with delight.
The universe expands within His chosen people.

Bone of My Bones

As that old Zebra walked past Adam's gaze,

He recognized a feeling in his chest

That'd gone without a name since Yahweh'd raised

Him up from the red clay and passed a breath

In through his nose. Still, Adam could not describe

This feeling that he felt between heartbeats

That lingered there just underneath his rib

Till Yahweh closed his eyes and made him sleep.

Alone, he drifted to a dreamy world

Where emptiness inside himself poured out

His chest and took the form of naked girl,

Who wrapped her arms about him and caressed

His bearded face. Then he with sudden shout

Awoke, and named the feeling loneliness.

Poem of Reflection on Anger Expressed

Met with injustice,
I become justice.
The Lord is righteous.
Shall He be opposed?

Which nail shall I receive through my palm?
Which nail shall pass through my feet?
Do you bring offerings to me,
You who bow before Ba'al?

Am I the Lord?
I am.
Am I Buddhist?
I was.
Am I now human?
I will be.

Don't tell me about Atman.
Don't tell me about Je-Ho-Vah.
Do you see the Face of God in another?
Why do you not see the Face of God in me?

God is forgiving.
God is fierce.
The Lord is Righteous
And will remain.

Louisville Slugger

When I was eight years old,
We had Christmas at Uncle Jim's,
Who lived at the end of the lane
Just up the gravel road from Grandma's house.

Beneath the tree
That stood, full bodied, before the north window of the living room,
Surrounded by presents packed five boxes high,
A long, cardboard cylinder, wrapped in green paper,
Leaned against the wall.

"Benny," the tag read.
I didn't know what it was,
But when I popped open the end of that long tube
And stuck my hand in to feel what was inside,
Grabbing the long, hard handle of that wooden bat,
My heart began to beat with excitement.

I pulled,
And out she came,
Twenty-seven inches long,
"Louisville Slugger" burned into the ashen barrel,
White maple,
Varnished gloss.

Who knows how I spent the rest of that day,
Climbing haystacks in the barn,
Ducking under the electrified fence,
Chasing black cows in the frozen pasture?

By the end of the day, I'd forgotten about that bat,
Sleeping in the back of the wood-paneled Buick station wagon,
Where I with my brothers and sisters were packed in our winter coats,
Like marshmallows in a sardine can,
As dad drove down the highway to our home,
Ten miles from the farm.

As days and weeks turned into months and years,
The memory of that bat became much like a dream.
I remembered receiving it, I'm certain,
A gift from my Uncle Geoff.
But I could not remember where that bat had gone.

On trips out to the farm,
I looked in all the nooks and crannies,
Behind the rusty, green refrigerator in the breezeway
Where my grandmother kept a bag of bite-sized Snicker bars,
And dozens of dozens of eggs,
Stacked in cardboard and styrofoam cartons.

On my grandfather's tool bench,
Littered with darkened metal objects
Caked with grease dust,
There on the south end of the two-car garage
Where momma cats delivered their litters in the rafters.

Within a couple years,
Uncle Jim died in January,
An aneurism in the stomach.
He'd been hauling wood that morning, they said.

At the visitation,
I peered over the steel-grey casket
At his white, pointy nose,
And the long slits of his eyelids,
Pulled unnaturally shut.
Thin, purple lips,
Cold, icy skin,
Fingers that would not bend,
And the heavy aroma of Maybeline and roses.

I'd only seen one dead body before.
Jim's wife Helen had died a few years earlier.
I remember the coffin
And the hushed rooms of that tall, white mansion,
The incandescent lights,
The cold January air
Into which both their spirits silently slipped.

But I had been younger,
And did not comprehend death at Helen's passing
As well as I did at the end of my ninth year,
When Jim fell into the ground.

The auction followed,
And I watched strangers bid on wagonloads of dishes, tools, and knick knacks,
Jim and Helen had collected over eighty years.
Scythes, ratchets, hammers,
Glass elephants and corn dishes,
Leather straps, a lava lamp,
Pocket knives, old boots,
Quilts, pans, and silverware.

I ate a corndog slathered in mustard
My aunt bought me from a vendor
Who had set up his wagon
To feed swarthing crowds of avaricious faces
Who circled the wagons like hyenas,
Picking through the antiqued objects
Jim and Helen had left behind,
Estimating their value,
Whispering to their partners,
Summoning courage to part with the paper,
Collected from bank windows,
Folded crisply in their billfolds.

The farm became a place of memory,
As in my youthful mind began
A separation,
A first rip in clothes that were purchased off the rack
A twilight at the end of a beginning.
These were not things, but belongings:
Objects with attachments.
A wrench that was once his, now another's.
A dress that she wore to an anniversary,
Now pieced in a quilt that covers the bed of a couple,
Newlywed in Tulsa,
A gift from Aunt Marge,
A collector,
Repossessor.

These objects were Jim's,
And Helen's,
But, mine, too.
And my brothers' and sisters',
My mother's and father's,
My aunts's and uncle's,
My cousins'.

Our attachments were auctioned to the highest bidders,
These things,
No longer objects to construct a scaffolding of presence,
Here, Now,
But
There, Then.

My grandfather,
Bib overalls, a green Pioneer ballcap.
My grandmother,
Saladmaster pots and pans.

My search for that old bat became
A mapping of memory.
How many boxes explored in the attic?
Old letters bearing two-cent stamps,
A deed, scribed in fountain pen,
Ghosts, now, in my mind,
So many haunting the recesses,
Unwilling to be conjured.

Years later,
As I braved the Angus in the pasture,
Avoiding pies of fresh manure,
To explore the old, rusted tractors, threshers, and discs
Set outside the weathered, grey barn
Where the steers escaped the heat of the summer sun,
Flicking green-headed horseflies with their wiry, tufted tails,
I spied that Louisville Slugger,
Lying in the elevator of an old corn contraption
Where I must have laid it
Five Christmases past.

Grey and weathered from sun, rain, and snow,
I took it once more into my hand,
The handle rough and split,
The luster long gone.
But I took it to grandma,
Who revitalized it with brown stain and a coat of varnish,
And painted the letters B. A. on the bottom
In acrylic red

I kept it in my bedroom for a year or two,
Hanging from rack beside my bed.
Still, today, the bat is gone.
My brother borrowed it to hit baseballs with his friends,
And it was quickly broken,
Unable to perform as a bat,
Left outside too long.
It was not for hitting balls,
But for holding memories of that old farm,
My Uncle Jim,
And my father.

Which memory do I cherish more?
The ecstatic delight of an eight-year-old opening a gift on Christmas Day, 1985?
The hopeful rediscovery of prodigal object, lost and found?
The agony of disattachment, treasure lost in dust and ashes?

With what invisible weight does that bat bear down on me now?
Where are the people who hold these objects?
When will I find them again?

Lake Sara

If you want to remember what it feels like to be alive,
Take a deep breath,
And concentrate on the feeling in your chest,
Just beneath the sternum.

After YHWH formed Adam from the red clay,
He breathed a hole into his inside, and said,
"I will dwell within you,
"Until I do not."

A breath
Is more pleasant than chocolate,
More satisfying than sex,
More refreshing than a cold drink of water.

A year ago today
I slipped with my friend Chad down the algae-slicked boat ramp
Into the warm water,
Where we floated like newborn babes.

Baptized again and again,
Taking deep gasps of air at the surface,
Blowing our cheeks out in big, bulging bubbles
As we floated, full-clothed, in the warm waters of July.

The Supermoon came up from the East,
And I cried in your lap for the first time.
How many breaths have we breathed since then, Baby,
In this new life?

Close your eyes.
Breathe deep through your nostrils,
Go deeper than you dare to dive.
Feel God in the bottom of your bloated belly.

Beneath the still water,
Hear the beating heart.
Give thanks to the Lord
Who dwells in breath and dirt.

Richard Brautigan Is Dead

Richard Brautigan is dead, but I
Am not, but I will be before too long.
'Cuz all of us will die when life is done--
For us, at least, not "Life" in general.

I read some of his stories in a class
I took when I was nineteen years of age.
Now, nineteen years have passed, and here I sit,
Writing this poem on the Internet.

See, here's the lesson that you're supposed to learn
Here at the versa in this sonnet form:
The man is dead, but still we know he lived

Because he wrote a story. Goes like this:
I feel. I see. I love. I want. I need.
I had. I lost. I lived. I loved. I died.

Instruments

A song dwells in a singer's lungs,

Not in notes or staff.

It moves through hands that beat on drums,

Never lives until it's sung.

It plucks the finger, not the string.

It blows through breath, not brass,

It rides through wind on angels' wings,

Can pass through hearts like glass.

It's limited by the measure and rhyme

That lives inside a space

In the moment between the pluck of steel string

And the slap of the upright wood bass.

A song's in the singer, not in the song.

It's held in guitar player's hand.

It kisses a room, as a bride does her groom.

It pumps through the hearts of the band.

A song that's recorded is trapped like a beast

That's held in a cage at a zoo.

Unleash it--and run--or on us he'll feast,

And we will become the song, too.

A song doesn't live in plastic or page.

It dwells in the singer who sings.

It's beauty not measured by the bars of its cage

But how to its freedom it springs.

Approximation of It

The fabric of consciousness holds this together,

Like stone, dirt, crushed pebbles and coarse ground leaves, twigs, bones, pieces of bubble gum, plastic, feathers, hair, sand, clay, rotting animals, dry grass, sapphires, broken bits of pottery, ancient tombs, meteorites, moon dust and many, many, many other things (my mother's first pair of dentures, for example, or dust from an HP calculator that fell from the seventy-eighth floor of the North Tower, a toenail spat from the window of a Corvette speeding down the Pennyrile Parkway, a shaving of coconut meat sunk at the bottom of the North Atlantic in the belly of a waiter of the Titanic, who snuck a taste of cream pie from the plate of a soon-to-die millionaire, taking his first trip across the ocean, though deathly fearful of great white sharks).

There is much in the soil.
Starting from there.
Returning to there.
Trees growing from it.
Cotton.
Oil.
Return in ashes.
Return in dust.
Grow from this consciousness, idea.
Bloom here for a moment.
Consumed, digested.
Many trees continue to grow in Brooklyn.
(Though I never read the book).

Here's what in trying to say:

Good job.
Feel good that you understand the vibration of atoms.
Be proud that you can fathom the multiverse.
Fathom it.
Watch comets stream through the solar wind of a galaxy far, far away
Through telescopes made of melted sand,
With the assistance of electrons captured by some ancient leaf and stored in a coal mine beneath the stomping hooves of trail riding quarter horses that bear their human burdens up the steep slopes of the  Appalachian hills of Eastern Kentucky.

And be so wise to know that you, too,
Will be coal to power machines of knowing,
Black holes of consciousness
In which Jehovah dwells.

Act.
Yah!
Do.
Whoopie!
Make mud pies.
Climb a flag pole and tear town a people's nylon rag.

Our struggle is just.

Water spills over Niagara.
A seventeen ounce steelhead survives the fall,
Stone will not, forever.

The snowflake does not shake its fist at gods it will not comprehend.

There is no struggle.

The Word.
Alpha and Omega.
Beginning and End.

We grow from this good soil,
Ground into dust.
The Lord wears our skin
Like rustling leaves
In garden winds.

Oh, Lord: A Conversation

What have I done to bear this consciousness
That You have set within this living flesh?
What choice have I to think upon, but this:
The thoughts that pass through me, awake, at rest,
Asleep, in dreams, aware, oblivious
To anything that is not on my mind
At the particular moment I confess
These ideas to myself? How can I find
A way out of this: a drug, a lover,
Perhaps a bolt of electricity,
Or fifteen years of psychotherapy
To locate what there is that's left of me
That's not defined by present company
(By which I mean these thoughts)? Speak, another.