RIPPLES

Tags

poem, poetry

RIPPLES

ripples
waves
gravity
levitate

I cannot
figure out
the physics
of walk on
water

or imagine
what is was
to ride
the burning
certainty of
that tidal wave

but they
have killed that
sea, poisoned
the water

fishers of men
now netting just
things of jelly where
not even a sense
of ash
or of bone

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DEMONS

Tags

poem, poetry, satire

DEMONS

the choir was
singing loud
had to get
louder

for the demons
outside were
beginning to
get close

was here for
their souls (they
believed) and
only hymn
could save them

from such terrible demons
(not demons
really
just people they
had demonized)

TRIPTYCH

Tags

poem, poetry

TRIPTYCH

you are both inside
and outside the poem

no metaphysical conundrum
schizophrenic condition
trick of
alchemy or
quantum physics

just a case of is
what it is
of poetry
the nature, of
words the reality

absolutely necessary
to our theology
(that three into
one, portrait
as triptych)

UNDERINSURED

Tags

poem, poem poetry political moral, poetry

UNDERINSURED

this poem
is underinsured

against such things
as sadness
and naked sunlight

full of the Sun
once I ran
fast as a
steam
train (and
here you are
expecting “legs
like pistons”)

Oh sadness
I have drunk so much
of that stuff they say
I’m a bona fide sadoholic!

the more

scarcely the merrier

unless you
are right
Madame T

and I secretly love this lead-gray heavy heavy
want all the dark energy in the Universe
to gather up
in a Prufrock ball,
steam-roller me

but who are you (whom I
sort of remember from
another Eliot poem)

from birth
it would appear, you
have been shadowing me, getting
me to judge myself impossible
by your ultimate standards

“sadness” you say
“try this for size and we
will talk sadness!”

my fingers finding
wounds and
stuff

and blood that won’t wash off
still warm and wet (thank God)

nothing in my policy speaks
of cover for any such event

SUNDAY BELLS

Tags

poem, poetry, satire

SUNDAY BELLS

the Sunday bells
ring for a
second serving

Oops! Sorry! I meant
to say “service”
(easy to make
that less
than sublime slip

between Church and
fast food sadly
these days
so many parallels,
metonymic connections).

ELEVATION

I carved
tiny crosses
into my flesh
so that I might
bear them better

wrote over all my tattoos
the words of St Francis

but not
my picture
of you

my soul’s
elevation.

OUR HANDMADE LOVE

our handmade love
we
knocked

the nails in
ourselves

long, long raking nails
blood red

SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING

SMELL OF NAPALM IN THE MORNING

it’s victory that
does it for us

has us on the rim
of the galaxy seemingly quarantined

but in that word
the secret of T
price and
meaning

of true
Victory

MASTERPIECE

you tore the masterpiece
during the first
few brush-strokes

for its life thereafter,
the canvas would not heal

and some will say
that is how
it is with
perfection:
even
the sacred blue
cloth of sky
hung by nails