Christmas Morning at the Church I

Some years Christmas falls on Sunday
So I am at the church early, unlocking doors today
When all the world is cinnamon and slumber

It’s supposed to feel like work, but it doesn’t
There’s too much joy in the quiet of the building
The way it echoes when I’m alone, flipping lights
And too much interruption of the normal way of things
Not to feel somehow sublime, the mind climbing out of ruts

But I feel the work of unlocking doors, I do
Mostly because I couldn’t find my keys
And left the damn annoying things in some pocket

This thought then interrupts my reverie: that we still need keys
This, despite Christ’s coming
Keys, to protect our things
We who are waiting for the liberation of all things
Peace on earth, good news to men
And let it ring and ring and ring

But practical enough, wise as serpents still,
To know that we are waiting
And still bearing that weight that precaution claims on souls--
The weight of waiting
For gates without a portcullis
A town square without stocks
A Jerusalem without locks

If This Were a Movie

If this were a movie we would have looked, both of us, at each other, at the exact same moment
But as it was
I looked, and you were looking out the window

I was laughing because the man on the radio was so absurd
On film, we would have turned towards each other like dancers in rhyme
And time would have been split open like a piece of fruit for us to chew on

Instead, I looked back at the road, smiling something which quickly faded to a sigh
Thinking about how much of life is timing 

Poems about Poetry

I.

I used to think that poems about poetry were the lamest
Like writing a song about singing, but worse

Now I realize those poets weren’t writing about writing
They were talking about how life finds us
And how we learn to abide it--
The no-more-hiding
The being lost, then being found by what matters
And the way our soul stands stilled and stranded, surrounded by it
Afraid to look full at it

II.

Which reminds me of something I heard recently:
That good thoughts--
Of love and mirth and family--
Are like Teflon butterflies bouncing off our brains
And that grungies are like Velcro, latching on like coffee stains
(Beautiful thoughts elusive, like hackneyed butterflies
Now, that makes sense to me)

So,
If you want to be a bowl for beauty
You have to pause and warm up your circuits a bit
You have to stand and stare at the beauty around you
Fifteen seconds, that’s the length of it
And the butterflies become a balm, to cover and smother your sighs

It’s not unlike how I stand in my driveway
Staring through the cold of my breath each morning
As my scooter whines its way to life, ready to ride

I stand there and let the motor oil up
And, in the waiting, through my deep breaths I see again
The leaves, bouncing in a dance line,
And the little line of clouds along the hill-rise
And I call to mind the verse about God riding the sky

III.

We are blessed
Or, rather, the blessing finds us
When what needs finding finds us
Comes to us as truth which will become its lesser self, as we handle it:
A poem,
A thought reduced to page and pen and line or rhyme
The great big void of perfect sky and sea which,
On the page,
Becomes a key-hole
Opening to the great hallway of beyond

VI.

So, of course there are poems about poetry
As sure as sight finds a blind man who, for a moment, sees

The Heroes in Black and White II

We read the stories and know reality
That these are often children taking the stage

It would be hard for any of us, with so much gold in the holds of our ships,
To expand outward towards horizons beyond our shore of self

Are they conceited? 
Sure
But with so many adoring, it would take a great soul to know there’s anything more--
It comes so close, after all
To being known
Such a strong narcotic to feel the drip of so much drug
Almost like a hug, just barely falling short of close enough

But then they create
Like a dragon, the genius is unleashed
And it’s poetry and symphony

Suddenly they are their best selves, drawn out without pretense,
A phoenix
Participating in something so much bigger
And burning bright as light and right

The music is not something they make
But something that makes them,
They just dance in it
It came before and will endure after

So for a glorious golden moment,
Like a child in a toy store, playing
They are truly free
In harmonies, they discover the line by which we all dangle
During our long fall

They are great, after all
These poets who burn a trail of freedom
Our collective better selves, whose songs we sing 

The Heroes in Black and White I

They, too, were surrounded by all the sad weight of afternoon sunlight
When you can't quite engage the gears of your heart or mind
Or be the person you want to be
And so instead you just keep running towards the night

We look back at how cool they were, their strong arms loping over the fence,
Staring slant-eyed at the camera, all cool
A cigarette dangling, restrained by soft hands, manicured

That’s what we want
To bear it all like Atlas, this weight of us
And play chicken with it, unblinking

But after the shoot they also went home and felt all the places they could not go
The person they could not be
And the charade of themselves in which they were now encased

All the life happening around them on highways they could not drive
Lined with houses and “normal people” living lives
Who adored and extolled them
And weren’t any different,
Grinding their infinite desire on finite stones
Trying to put some fine point on it

No wonder so many of them went crazy--
Drowned in a bottle or a pool
When you’re supposed to have it all and can’t make sense of it
You’re the greater fool

And when money only proves to gorge but never fill you
And regrets pile up day by day by day
As you discover how far the image is from something strong and real
That you could have a seat and rest upon--
It’s all fool’s gold

All any of us want is so simple, really
A hand to hold that holds us, not because of the sheen or shine of us
Or a diamond resting entwined on us
But the beautiful mess so near to us, which has real weight
And can truly hold and kiss and make love

They were heroes, yes, perhaps,
But not how we thought
They, the martyred ones, sacrificed
Like pyres burning, warning us to take a different path
Or at the least, to walk wisely, discerning glitter from gold  

Though we all line up, still
And drop a bill to watch their progeny on the screen
For a moment, to feel that thrill
The wise know all the while
That life’s weight is mostly held unheralded
And very rarely are they filmed or screened--
The unseen heroes of this world  

Finishing a Book

The last pages
The last page
Paragraph
Sentence
Words
Word
Period
The pang and sting and the sitting

And then I feel the holy hush of the morning rumbling
In the air outside the window
Holding its own weight with such delicate balance
A hippo on one foot on a high-wire
Like you’d see in one of my children’s books
The sun the stars, the moonlight and galaxies pressing down on the morning
While the faint freeway hum moves through the ether like a serpent
Reminding me the world does not stop
The world keeps rolling and the trucks and the longing roll along with it

But this room has become its own holy place
The bush burning one more moment
And another
And another
As long as I will not turn the page
As long as I can sit and feel the pain
And the ecstasy that is almost touching the place
Where broken shards become one whole piece again 

I sit like Moses holding his staff against the seas
Holding it
Holding it to keep the waters at bay

Then shutting and standing
And the sound of many waters rush back in
And inside me
This density of human person and the weight
Of stars burning, longing to burn free
And the great mystery that we will walk around today
Poets all, who have no time to set in pen
All this longing
Even the writers unable to write the best of them
For having to make things work
Having to make it all work, before the end

Inside us, these tomes and poems, written in blood and bone
Which we will each hide away, to do our work
Sitting implacably pale and placid
Fierce and furious, on the freeway

Overheard IV

I don’t know how to thank God for it,
But I know that eventually, I’ll thank God for it, you know?

I mean, with a little perspective, we always see that things--
They have their shape

But…everything?  Her friend asked, interrupting
Unable to believe the sentimentality
I mean, Auschwitz?  I think you’re forgetting
The children
Like that Russian, Ivan, that--
Always forget, starts with a D—
Wrote
What about the children?

I know, but yes, everything, or none of it has mercy in it
It’s all or nothing, right?
But the thing is, the only thing that makes anything make sense
Is God suffering with it
With all of it
With us
That’s why you can thank God
Not because the horrible is somehow beautiful
It’s not
But because he flips it all over like a dirty mat that’s clean on the other side
And he’s already been dragged through the dirt and mud of it

Hmm
Her friend murmured, stirring her coffee, unconvinced
The warm all about them broken into pieces by the wind

Anyway…how was your day?

Overheard III

I used to beat myself up for it, but then I realized dysfunction always finds the weakest place, like rain finds the valley
It’s like pressure finding the broken bolt in a ship, folding the entire metal sheet, boom!
“We’re done, your trip is through!”

It was inevitable
And it was a gift really that things blew apart
We had so much of it--
The pressure, I mean

He had such chaos growing up
Then all that stuff is still within and you try to meld to someone but at some point it’s going to find it’s way out
It always does

Anger becomes depression
Or numbness
Or addiction
(He buys thing,
I drank a bottle of wine a night)

The sex was good, but you could feel the desperation beneath it
Like, my God, are we going to keep choosing this? 
Can we trust that?
And beneath it, all this sadness

He was like a deer always rushing to stay one step ahead of the hunter
It’s always sadness beneath it, driving everything
The next purchase, the next drink, the next wild bout of making up
Trying to stay just one step ahead of the hunter

Does this…?

I mean...you know?

A Constant

Sometimes it seems the constant in my lank life,
Flickering forward through memory,
Bringing me back to myself,
Pinching me
Is the sound of a jet on the afternoon
Its whine limping forward in undulating pitch
Its lips
Just barely touching,
Sounding an Fff or Zzz in the key of C

Then suddenly the day is still
And I hear, breaking through my work
The dust falling on the grass outside
The children playing trains down the street
Their voices choo-chooing across the yards
And somewhere a street away, bricks being unloaded in a steady
Scrape and clink, the weight of worlds being re-made
And the laughter of the workers over (I imagine) some lewd joke
That breaks through the sweat with smiles

While above me, the drone begins to fall away
The last ember glow and smoke of firework
As lives buzz through the skies
And a man with his eyes closed, sighs
Feels the plane shimmer all around him
The sounds of the earth so far below

Return to London

The day was crisp when I came here, a young man,
To London
To Bill and Blake and the Bulldog
The whole world on the threshold of my hostel
A new flannel shirt to keep me from the cold
The leave-less trees of London stirring in Atlantic wind
And on my face, the indomitable grin of youth
Bouncing like a blown-up punching clown
As my footfalls echoed down Baker street
Despite my awkwardness
My inability to negotiate the tube

I went three stops too far on the wrong line
Before realizing I was headed far afield of Covent Garden
I swept into people’s way on the street
I asked for a pint of Bombardier, rhyming it with Perrier,
(The barkeep placed it down and said,
“That’s Bombardier, mate…like dropping bombs, eh?”)

Now, I walk more secure, either more mastered
Or more mature at masking
Aware of how to hail a cab and flow through crowds
Though
Something is lost in the exchange
The world more behind me now
The thrill over each hill a bit dampened

Good God the crisp air by the Thames as I paid my ticket
Scrambling to figure out how much each coin was worth
Then striding down to the Beefeaters and the great glorious Tower
Real as brick

At Oxford, I said something that offended my tour guide,
But here I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut,
The faces of the past welling up like Trafalgar on the tide
As the cold wind swept tears into my eyes
(Or from them, who could tell?)
And the great city opened all the past
And all my future flowed before my anxious feet
Like the Thames rolling to the sea

 

The Pilot Comes Down to Earth

When the pilot came back to earth
It was all mirth, for a long moment
A slap on the back, a smile
Cut short by what comes after

The drive back from the tarmac
Hive activity in the hangar
Paperwork

The mundane removing of the flight suit
And the bumpy desert road trip
Back to the base

Where his bosomy wife watched a soap
And told him he was blocking her light
And would he bring her a glass of water

Which he did
Pouring it at the sink
Looking up at another test flight
Which left a long trail of white
Across a perfect sky

Pastoral III: Alabama

The old growth is all but gone
Cut down to make
Backyard altars for the autumn
Decks on which pork is sacrificed
And pigskins worshipped

But good God, the green

Flying in from the desert, it leaps up to smother you
Like heat
You can sit still in it and hear
The ever-warbling whippoorwill
The bullfrog, the cricket
The cacophony
That makes you believe
Life does not stop at death
Some symphony
Some force,
Some work greater than mystery,
Overcomes the earth, and our dead bones

I can see it:
The earth re-claiming, without a noise
The toothpicks built upon it
Like Gulliver snapping silly cords,
The earth will pull the ramparts down
Without malice or a sound
While spirits soar and take up bodies
And walk the earth once more,
With no need for shelter

So each new pine, planted to replace the old
Is vanguard
Come to proclaim
That the dead will rise again
Even if the wait is far and tarries
Long after each of us is gone

Pastoral II: England

The thing about England is how beautifully worn down the land is
It’s like some monarch whose crown, long since taken, stubbornly stands
His stature taken by so many days, sure,
But still, he’s more dignified in old age than any upstart, yet to be worn by life’s long reign

There's nothing rugged about it now except the moors, where the cold rain pelts down and pours
But even that water runs down into gentler slopes--
There are no Alpine inclines--
Just gentle hills that gather everything until it’s still
And drop the water into quiet pools
Upon which leaves and acorns drop

And by them, in the woodlands
Moles and toads forage and hide
And water rats glide
Upon unassuming waters

And a soul can find the unpretentious shade
Untouched by mountain glory
A place to rest and consider the story
Of all one’s simple days
Knowing there is nothing half so good
As messing about in quiet woods

The Monologue

I dropped my phone in am Amsterdam toilet
I thought the story would be worth it
You know, I did it on purpose
(By the way, did you know dolphins are the
world’s most intentional animals?
Yeah, they do everything on porpoise)

Get it?
Anyway, yeah, I though it would be worth it
A good story, I mean
I was rushing around trying to catch a flight
And plunk, I dropped it
And I stood there laughing, just
Shaking my head at the absurdity
Rushing around to catch the connection
And I didn’t even enjoy a stroopwaffle
Just like my time in Jerusalem
Not one falafel!

Okay, so I didn’t drop it
But it would have been interesting, right?
I’d come home and tell the story
And there would be this morale beneath it
Like a living parable
Don’t rush around, or you might go crazy

The end
Er…c’est finit?
Oh right, oh right
…And scene

Pastoral I: Los Angeles

Sometimes through the concrete, you get a glimpse of how grand the land was
Before condo and apartment swept down over it, covering it
You get a sense of Indians who stood on the shore and looked up at the mountains and fell down, because the Great Spirit knew nothing of boardwalks or billboards or roadside dinosaurs

Sometimes, early in the morning, late at night, you can hear the earth breathing, sleeping, the mountains creaking, unaware of all the late-night blankets now draped over it

It’s all glitter, ready to be shaken off, like a dog shakes off bath-water before it takes a nap

The earth will rise and, like the dog, tremble, unaware of itself, lost in some hypnagogic nod, before stretching its paws and curling up again in a tight, unknowing ball

Praying in the Bathroom

I like to pray in the bathroom
When I shower or run the water
Or make of it the necessary room it is

It’s not a sacred space
Though of course we learn that every space is sanctuary
Everything a burning bush

It’s just that
With my hair askance from sleep
My indefatigable cowlick defiant
And my body bulging with new creases
Showing its age as I sit or stand or wash
It seems so much easier to say, with Abram,
“Here am I
And yes, I have nothing figured out
Not today, tomorrow, or yesterday”
And I have learned to say that it’s all okay
And that heaven then unfurls all around me
Weightless in my unclenched fists

These words—“Here I am”
Make it so much easier to pray
Make it possible, perhaps,
Since prayer’s prerequisite is dropping pretense
And becoming honest
Standing in our nakedness

Harold, Going On

I sit where you would sit
By the open window on the porch

Dale, that damned squirrel, gathers acorns
Where you planted gourds
Pays me no mind, still
Which makes me smile

His world has gone on spinning
Somehow the worlds have gone on spinning
As I slip from symphony into silence

I pass through the kitchen, with its Maytag in D Minor
A note stumbling to find footing
Between the Black & Deckers, in A and E

I stand now on the porch
Just as the B Flat of the dishwasher, with no ceremony
No baton drop, stops
And makes everything feel of quiet

When something stops, it’s as if everything else,
Even if it goes on, is gone

I sit alone now and hear only the autumn night
Smell lilac
The same night you listened to
With its F sharp of bullfrogs
And its crescendo of crickets

We call this quiet, but it’s not
It’s sound
But then the wind rises up, over the pond
And that feels like the first noise of the night

It sweeps up, unaware of me or the memory of you
As unaware as the moon or the stars or the trees
And it kisses the ground where you once walked
That favorite purple dress swept up by the wind
Of a springtime storm

You puckered your lips and blew a kiss,
Pretending you were Marilyn
Then you laughed as I smiled
And you turned to the woods
Staring into the storm
With its percussive rumbling
Its timpanis sounding some low note that shook your soul
Before the storm became one sound
And swallowed the evening whole

Overheard II

Do you know how, if you go to a vacation at the beach—
Even if you never go to the beach
Say, if you spend all your time at the pool or the outlets—
There’s still this thing:
You could go to the beach?
At any moment, you could get up and go

The beach is there
And this makes everything you do more beautiful
Because you're choosing it when you could be in the water

(Honestly, though, who would do that?  I can’t stand salt
And I detest sand sticking in sunscreen)
But you could
You could walk the two hundred feet to the beach

You don’t, though
You sit and smiled, consoled—comforted, isn’t that what that means?
Consoled…soothed
Because you’re convinced this moment is more perfect
Because of every choice you’re not taking

Choices, yes, that’s what I’m getting at
Choices make everything seem something greater
Makes the grass greener where you are
Makes the desert a garden
When, if there was nothing to compare this to that,
This hand to that hand,
All you’d feel is sand

Overheard I

It wasn’t the names or dates that fascinated me
Chalk all that up to the dumbing down of history
The need for lame testing
You have to get beyond the headline story
To where it gets gory
To the humanity
The beauty and the insanity

It was the dark plots that captured me
How evil embodies itself in each era, mirthlessly
Leaving crumbs that we brush away
Between the boards of a selective, glorified story
But they remain, floating in bygone time and space
Whispering

You’ve heard of H.H. Holmes?
Killed dozens in his home
Built it to terrorize, with secret compartments and vents
Demented
This was 100 years ago

He had that same inward curve
That shows up every few generations
Like a black hole
It sucks in light itself

Evil
Is what happens when you despair of hope
And give in
To the need for endless self-comfort
And become your own god
Since gods are justified to do whatever the hell they want
Power the end all;
Mere mortals beware

Well, it happens in every era,
That’s my point
This humanity
This darkness
Hitler had the keys to it
But other Hitlers go on unheralded, trust me

We look back on history and we remember
The good bits, sweetened like wine--
You know, people kissing on V-J Day and all that

It’s nice

But beneath it, there’s the dark current
The desperation of human hearts
That can slip their moorings
And fall apart

I don’t know how God sees it and allows it all and is crucified by it
Over and over again
And still holds everything together

Animals at the Door

I can't untangle my daughter’s necklace, so I stand
Hidden in the hall
Before the door,
While they wait for me,
The honking of the horn imminent as a charge of bulls

First I must wrestle it from my headphones
Like a huntsman prying open the mouth of a bear

A small bear, but bear is bear
And the hunter is flooded with frustration that flags his agile fingers:
He wasn’t expecting anything but a bright orange sunrise on his way to the day’s work

It’s not urgent; I could just lay it down ‘til evening
But as I think of my daughter’s face
It just seems like such an important catch
A fisherman hauling in the day’s first big prize