Songs of the Third Culture

         Noel K. Anderson 

The Bauble Spear

Beneath the contempt of the incumbent king

the joker/philosopher revels in blasphemy,

shakes his fist at the gods and their faithful followers,

wiggles his staff in crazed, maniacal provocation—

a convulsive, gut-busting paroxysm of ire—

as if to exchange the meet hunger of many souls

for a plather of palaver, colorful derisions,

and vacuous, flatulent laughter—

skimmed like scum off the frothing, septic souls 

of his odious audience.

His rod, the bauble spear, is his rule,

befitting the soul of a profligate fool.

Alit in his glory, he eats (as he gloats)

the laughs he sucked from the guts of these goats.

A comedy of noisome, empty despair

played out in anger—in perverse non-repair—

a negation narration minus substance or joy

delivered tout sous le mépris du roi.

Disenchanted

How long must a people walk deluded?

We invested too heavily in a promising scheme

which has returned nothing, yet we believe. 

We believed because we believed in belief.

We believed because we were a believing people.

Yet we believe beyond the beliefs.

How long until our disillusionment?

Sold a bad product, a false system—

told it was wisdom and truth—

we paid with our birthrights,

our livelihoods, our fortunes; 

we jumped in with all we had.

Something so costly had to be true;

it was far too expensive to deny.

Yet this light—this false dawn—fails to see day.

Shame dawns: we were deceived.

All that money, all that heart,

all our children and schooling squandered

on a hollow idol, a sweet-surfaced, packaged lie

as old as Eden:

“Surely, you will not die.” 

Athens

What powers above seal our fate?

Mind of minds over us,

made in our image

and the images we choose.

We imagine, reimagine,

give voice and expression 

to the pulse and pulsion, 

the magicks of fertility,

the power and pump of drive

to pull, compel, or cajole 

Fate’s force this way, that—ours.

In sacred desperation 

we worship our ends

which are one.

In sacred desperation

we proclaim with our lives:

all is death and vanity.

We wait and await a word from the Logos,

we wait and await a word from above, 

we wait and await some release from our fictions

grounded in beauty, in truth, and in love.

The truth is beyond us, betrayed in each breath:

all fate is in emptiness,

all fate is in death.

Deconstructing the Word

We read in blindness (the distortion resembles a murder).

To believe in the Word,

the word behind the word

that dare not speak a word,

is to believe in true reading—

reading beyond filters and flavors—

a true that is truly heard

like music long-remembered.

The Word commands.

The Word is law like gravity,

like the singularity

with an event horizon rotting at the edges.

The final figure of Man (not woman)

bound to the cross of cruelfiction or cruelfaction,

emasculine and addlepated,

vilified and calumniated,

proves a depravity completely consummated.

Killing the Christ, crucifying the text,

piercing the Word, word, and words,

the readers lead the readers,

pulling together to mount a last chance resistance;

selling sex fictions, race fictions—raised up in the monstrance

and worshipped as the golden yoni of the mother/son. 

Fools empower the panzers,

a map of Africa their Shroud of Turin

(We will not read that way).

The Suicidal West

Worship of self is death.

Whitman’s song:  a degenerate, desperate whine

sinking slowly into a wormy grave. 

“The Wasteland” is eclipsed by “Highway to Hell,”

a pithy, pulsion-powered matter-of-fact—

the sad truth simply stated from a power-grinder of urge.

Goodbye to print, so long to civil discourse,

enter ubiquitous critiques—all sexy sophistry—

seeding a cloudy cosmos for a much-merited storm.

The blind lead the blind, claiming no more than blindness.

The best of the best decry the violation,

but outrage erodes to whimpers and sighs. 

There is no authority left in their authority

and no authority left in the West—

all are despised, rejected, or repressed 

by the omnipotent cult of self, of Death.

“The Snuffing of Europa” plays every stage on the globe.

John Wayne, elbow on the bar, boot on the footrail,

quaffs his hemlock. 

The ambitious quest of the now-ubiquitous West—

a slow sociocide—death by our own hand;

the spirit of Elijah is lost from the land.

Transgressions in the Emptiness

Fallen to the floor, bed-fumbled,

I awake, suddenly quick-witted—

sparked to urgency by a reveille of remembrance and review

of the night’s epiphanic dreams.

In an excessively spacious hotel,

a palatial lobby filled with finery—

furniture nurtured—

a sparsity of gathered, ghostly elites

float at a distance.

A pop goddess, above a golden table

presents hermaphroditic genitalia

to a bored college of voyeurs.

The once-eager peepers, now eclipsed by over-barrage,

carouse unaroused.

“They’ll be cutting priests in the quad today,”

says the she-man shaman, brandishing a plastic Priapus 

as zhe sashays past the concierge.

“Who is in charge?” I ask the air.

“There ain’t no authority higher than desire,” 

cheeps a pink-eyed monkey bird. 

“Tohu Va Bohu,” answers the air as the chanting begins: 

Revulsion is repression!

Repression is oppression!

Revulsion is oppression!

Progress:  a doxa of rights

I am emptiness.

I am as I am—

I am who I am by my say so.

I have rights—

I am right to have rights.

You must tell me so—you must make it so—

but you do not make it so well enough.

You insult me, you oppress me.

I am who I am, I am who I say.

I grant me the rights inherent in me.

I grant you the obligation to share in my rights

and my self-sacred identity.

Freedom for me is freedom for you,

I proclaim.

I am emptiness

and my right is right.

Art After Chaos

Art as defiance of norm,

defiance as liberation from repression; 

Art defies humanism as the loathsome warmth of the herd.

Art: ever proffering false promises of apotheosis

beyond the stale plane of conformity.

Art as the thunderous No! to every divine interdict,

Art as atheism and anti-theism,

Art as new, better gods,

Art as defiance of family and tradition,

Art as newly-constructed truth above all false forms of truth

(and all are false enough),

Art as dispenser and disposer of the worthless and pointless,

Art as death to the stale and boring,

Art constructs truth at will,

Art as no boundaries, contracts, or confining promises,

Art taps the primal energies of personal and animal nature

for their unfettered expression,

Art as drive, want, desire, hunger, and passion,

Art as pulse and pulsion, 

Art eats reality,

Art takes all things into itself for its own enrichment

and defies or denies all readings,

Art as life and art as the end of life,

Art as afterlife,

Art ends life—even its own—at will,

Art as fulfilled in the glorious beauty of non-being,

that voice from the deepest, darkest depths

commanding us to end it all.

Nebuchadnezzar’s Statue

They set up a great, golden statue

to honor our glorious humanity

and created a ritual for all the people. 

The worth of the statue (beyond all dispute)

merits the worship of every tribe and nation. 

The band’s overture signals the call: 

      All shall bow down low (and the people love it so).

Finally, our virtue—this movement toward alignment,

harmony, unity, justice, and enlightenment—

      All must belong, all must agree,

      All must submit and bow down to be free.

The expansive, boundless fulmination

of expression—the harp dance, paint and clay—

ecstatic submersion and sexual destruction, 

the growing pageant, a tidal wave,

a holy juggernaut emerges from the sea,

rising in great steps onto the land.

A great Apollo, a greater Gaia—

a glowing, compendius god and messiah--

      How happy our people

      How pure now, our land

      Let’s minimize those who won’t dance to the band.

      To the den with the lions

      To the kiln and the fire:

      A fit sacrifice to instruct and inspire.

The good gods they think they know themselves to be:

good in their minds, good in their own eyes, good for themselves, 

but bad for all who disagree.

Mendacious Muse

The Church du jour, replete in self-assertive, 

tradition-trashing, present-proud entitlementality,

presenting forth the primacy of the pray-er, the prais-er,

the pietist as prayer artiste

in place of the object of piety.

Artisinal spirituality:

the muse adored,

the creaturely crutch lauded:

both source and object obfuscated.

Salomé drips in the spotlights:

glowing, rapturous attendants

gather her skirts in exhibition.

The emasculate king of pretense,

donning robes of the old order,

kneels at the edifice lingham. 

The center has not held.

the gyre, widened to exhaustion

awaits the Second Coming.

Turn, return, Oh Israel.

Newspeak

Resistance is unkindness,

dissent is immoral,

the refusal to celebrate the victor’s domination

is a hatred to be expelled.

All who defy obedience are evil:

the refusal to align amounts to degeneracy

The freedom of conscience has limits—our limits—the limits we say.

Disagreement is oppression,

and refusal to advocate for our dominance

is fear, hatred, and immoral recalcitrance.

Our holiness is godless

but the god is on our side—

our progress made perfect

via holy theocide.

Goat Song

Heed now the new song from an old tune emerging:

we eschew the shame-based stage masks of old

to brandish the source of our urging.

Flesh unfettered, unhindered, unhung—

all urge and pulse revealed and sprung.

Full like the satyr, wan as the faun,

boundless and borderless—all manacles gone.

I am : vital essence, 

antithesis of death and soul senescence. 

To Hell with the cloister; the world is my oyster!

Leave the old and cold dispute

of what is fit or right;

take audit of every double-pleasure

and seize them with all might.

Trade the old, sad violins

for pipes and a golden horn,

blow them with elan vital,

awake as one reborn.

We play ever-uninhibited

un-naked even when nude

our horns are here exhibited,

our Panic pipes renewed.

We celebrate our sin and worse,

we blaspheme for real as we rehearse.

Come join us in our penché perverse:

We desecrate Olympus; We Jerusalem curse.

Sand for Stone

Stone is no good:

it functioned well enough in the past,

in a simpler era with simpler thoughts,

but today it just won’t do.

It is too hard—too rigid and inflexible—

unyielding to present needs and the rising consensus

of hope in all new possibilities.

Stone is impossible, impassable, and practically unimpressible.

Consider sand:

it pours like water,

molds itself around every obstacle,

fills errant spaces,

and levels itself by itself.

The smallest child can lift it in her hand

or shape it into a castle of her imagining.

We can melt it into glass with perfect transparency—

while stone sits thick and dumb,

perfect only in its opacity.

Sand is superior; sand is the future.

Now wisdom demands supreme plasticity—

endless possibilities without boundaries—

Sand is our sure foundation 

for building the enlightened future.

Decalogue  (E Vietato Vietare)

1. Why not despise God and become God yourself?

2. Why not design a better version of God?

3. Why not use God to change the world?

4. Why not defy every so-called sacred ritual?

5. Why not rise above our mere biologies?

6. Why not end pointless lives to promote the general

     flourishing of greater humanity?

7. Why not gratify the flesh without boundaries?

8. Why not redistribute wealth for the greater good?

9. Why not support whatever narrative that advances

     human flourishing?

10. Why not follow your bliss, your dreams, and the

       desires of your heart?

Pop Religion

All praises be to the nothing;

May nothing be glorified. 

(except for the glorifiers)

To nothing let us live,

serve, and sacrifice flesh.

Nothing is the center, the source, and soul 

of all that is or is not. 

Nothing is our birth mother goddess,

Nothing our murderous fathers,

Nothing is worthy of our all in all.

There is no nothing other than the nothing,

and any other nothing is a counterfeit, a lie. 

There is only one nothing; there can be no other.

Come, let us give ourselves in truth,

let us pour all we have, all we are, 

and all we hope to become into it.

Let us lead all peoples into its truth.

As we give ourselves, we give them—all others—

over to Nothing.

Peoples of the world,

give your all to Nothing

for we all come from Nothing

and to Nothing we all return. 

The knife that cuts you is the knife that cuts me.

Nothing is real, and Nothing is free.

All glory, laud, and honor to nothing

for Nothing saves us. Nothing is real.

A Liturgy to Death

Oh, Holy Death!

Death the storm, Death the drug,

Death, the holy center we serve and love

through fear and avoidance— 

the Almighty, All-powerful, Eternal One,

perfect in reason and all-comprising aseity—

to the be-all end-all of all:

we see you, we ignore you;

we serve you by ignoring you.

We honor you by fighting you.

We worship you by cursing you and doing all we can

to thwart you and your influence.

Our fight against you proves your perfection.

You alone are truly real, and so we confess,

unmindful of your ubiquity,

that we only exist in you and toward you. 

In hating you we love you,

in defying you we lift up your name.

We exalt you in proclaiming no other gods,

for you—you alone—are eternal and perfect,

Your plan is visible and revealed in the heavens.

You are all.

All is in you and taken into you.

None can escape—all is mortality—

absolutely, absolutely all. 

A trillion years is nothing in your sight, 

for you will judge the cosmos.

When all is still and cold, your reign is just begun.

In truth, you will be all in all. 

All things unitied-in-you shall be forever--

forever cold, still, and perfectly dark. 

Your reign will last forever.

Your judgment is perfect 

and all that exists will soon not exist in you.

Your power is insuperable,

its extent ineffable,

and all shall become you. 

You are the unifying center of all that is

and all unification that is to be 

is found in you and you alone. 

Here we  praise temporality: for Death comes!

Oh, Death, Death, Death!

We wake only for today and live these few moments,

but you, Death,  are sure and certain—

our hopeless hope—

Death, you are Lord!

The Dreams of Peter Abelard

Dreamed cities are imagined cities,

built, altered, destroyed at will.

Buildings stand along impossible streets

crossed by impassable rivers—

all morphing to non-existence

the Augustinian pair.

Here, a familiar corner,

a spot known from childhood,

changes out of its familiarity

into distorted caricature

and we feel ourselves lost.

Fictive vistas,

artfully de-created, disassembled,

edited out of all recognition,

or invented only for recognitions 

to be forced upon them.

The city Episteme,

constructed in hypnogogic speed

to bolster selfhood or vaunt pride—

a Polis of Dali in a melting nation,

a functional folly

with no real foundations.

The puppets of intellection

formed from the clouds of unknowing

reveal a known course of direction

against the chaos of knowing.

Good Friday: Arbeit Macht Frei

Jesus weeps for Jerusalem, 

a city unmoored, a temple disconnected,

a tenable promise fumbled and eroded

through the predilection for inversion—

the love of, the drive toward death.

The great crowds, led astray

by shiny baubles and promises of quick release

pack the streets, line the narrow avenues, 

Ravenous for a self-spun justice

and the delusions of pleasure 

from poisoned desserts.

The Quest to Become a Sacred Self

I would write myself into the Bible

as Elijah’s successor

or Jesus’ best disciple.

or sip scotch with the New Atheists

winning their admiration

with salient skewerings

of the Church.

I would lay myself down

as a social justice martyr

giving all of my public self away

(in the media eye)

outpacing the pop ascetics

in emerging ideals.

Perhaps, as a tech tycoon

I could lead the lost

to new hopes of a faster,

more efficient, cleaner, cooler world.

Or, as an artiste, I could reveal

the cosmic, mystical splendor

of my special consciousness,

spinning in mastery the mysteries—

an indecipherable spray of me

for the plebes to ponder 

and by which they may sift their despair.

And all in all,

all is vanity, all is loss. 

I am emptiness in emptiness

building Babels—

a baubel stick, a bobble-head—

a miniscule nit sounding in the darkness—

a bad Bic lighter

grinding sparks without flame.

All is lost

All are lost

All is dark and helplessly separate

from the True

from the Whole

from the One

All this race

a swarm of selfish, swollen gnats

thinking themselves gods,

a noisy mosh pit of writhing cocks

grasping for blasphemy,

killing for vanity,

entirely missing the point.

Magdala Fringe

She skulks through crowds

blood-red with humiliation,

draining life, seeping soul

with no clean place to lay her head

in a world of hatred and superior sneers—

no chances, 

no knowledge or science, 

no hope

amid the loveless misery.

I am ugly beyond description.

Who would receive my love?

Not even the most lowly,

though I am willing to give to any,

and I will love, I will give,

I will do what I must to be able to give.

Somewhere are those who will receive.

I owe to them the best I can do for myself

for their good as for my own.

I will give my best.

I become in my giving

beginning in emptiness.

I will take what I can; I will get this for myself.

If I can but touch the fringe of his shawl,

Just the the tip of his wing,

I shall be made whole.

A Riddle of Blood

A riddle of blood and a problem of pain

delivered in blighted recurrence and shame:

It rained in Jerusalem the night of the flood

when the death of the innocents eclipsed us in blood.

A feverish derision, a blasphemous curse

for self-absorbed reprobates, wickeds, and worse.

The wine flowed incessant like blood in the streets

drunkening the arrogant among sad defeats.

Whose blood is this I think I know

which stains the wood and earth below;

it smells like wine and tastes like bread

and by its flood all souls are fed.

New Jerusalem

The grand yes from the skies that sounds like a no—

the start of knowing God.

Uninvented, unimagined, sovereign God self-revealing.

The noes shape love. 

The noes surround a greater space

where all is yes and peace. 

The Lord is God, not us. 

God saves, not us. 

In gratitude we love

and life is eternal.

A Poem for 2185   (for Howard Storm)

Finally, conversion.

We live to love God, one another, and ourselves.

Good riddance to vain technologies, personal possessions, 

and the smothering landslide of unnecessary stuff 

which obsessed us for so long.

We talk without speaking and listen as the deaf listen—

to the heart’s intentions behind the words. 

Yet poetry lives as prayer and praise.

It turns out we need so little to thrive.

Together, gathered, we sow and reap in abundance.

Together, gathered, we avert all the storms.

We live where we live, raise our children, 

and travel for wonder and insight.

We know souls who live so far away we could never bodily visit. 

They are like us—so very like us—growing toward God in every age. 

And here, just right here,

we grow into loving God more—

the fullness of our days crowned by beauties inexpressible

but experienceable.

We live an image of life we cannot make for ourselves.

It is as though we are being lived through

by life and a Spirit not our own. 

Not our own, yet our own,

ours to enjoy, to know and be known by,

to know the secret name of the Word behind the word

as Lord and God of all.

All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

PRELUDE: OF UTILITY

Out of focus: those burdens I bore ten years ago

(though I still feel their irrelevant weight).

Into focus: the present reality with its burdens and blessings

(only the bearer is bit better-balanced).

These years, like heavy pages of a large, old book

turn and fall with an imminent rhythm –

a steady, unavoidable regularity of writ and loss –

a ledger of moments invested or squandered.

We are left wondering whether we are writing quickly enough

or will the pages in time close us out.

These scribblings feel so hasty –

perhaps they always are—

with limited time between pen strokes

and anxiety chewing our backs from behind;

It is amazing we get anything done at all.

Our life and loves are spilt in black—permeating paper—

a partial consciousness scratched out

with the most meager of hopes

that someday, someone

may seek even here

a little insight.

A LITTLE BIRD WITH A DAMAGED WING

A little bird with a damaged wing

showed up at church one Sunday morning.

She cheeped, cried and pleaded with us, but communicated so poorly

we knew neither what she wanted nor needed.

“Maybe she’s fine,” we thought, “Nature will care for her.”

We brought her in and fed her as best we could,

but we didn’t know if the food was right, or enough.

We held her and spoke tenderly to her

without knowing whether she recognized compassion.

We were ready to see her fly away (truth be told)

we felt we had cared for her enough

despite her need for greater care.

There is a place there—

between caring and having to care in costly ways—

where we teeter between

self-satisfaction and guilt,

between mercy and fear of absorption,

and as we balance there

we face the face of crisis.

When we returned from our deliberations

she was gone—flown off perhaps,

or hopping under a shrub—

or bodily assumed into Heaven.

THE FINAL JUDGMENT

The final judgment

will be like waking

from a fairly sweet dream:

we shall either wake to find

that we are at home

and all is safe and well,

or that the whole house

is completely on fire.

TEN WITH TARA

I know her movements

like the ticking of a clock.

I see the beauties she

cannot see in herself

and my enjoyment of them

is immeasurable.

Marriage writes the narrative of

The Trials of a Shared Heart.

When one is pained, both hurt,

and there is no telling

who hurts the more for it.

Marriage is empathy training,

patience boot camp,

wherein we learn the laws of love.

We trade the comforts of selfhood

for the sanctification of ongoing humility.

And I know she is worth it.

She is known and unknown:

I still woo her in fear

and win her with pride

and nothing can soothe my amazement

over the mysterious endurance

of the mystery of her otherness.

I would have thought my heart

to have settled-in by now,

but I am still being remade—

still getting used to being married—

and just beginning to learn

true love, true faith;

and just beginning to explore

the smoky, mysterious depths

of interpenetration of persons.

BIRDS OF PRAY

A flock of blackbirds

swept up into a budding, spring elm

to rest there like odd fruit—

like musical notes on an exponential staff

or a hundred commas at the ends

of a hundred phrases of praise.

Suddenly, like seeds from a giant, black dandelion,

windblown across a coarse brush of landscape,

the music, the prayer, scatters.

If I had prayed for such a thing to happen

as a sign from God of divine power or presence,

this would have been a complete answer.

Then, for the joy of the thing,

I knew that this was the answer to prayer—

one I didn’t even know I’d prayed.

PSONNET

That psalm is a song in the depths of my hardened heart

a word from past passages of ancient souls

becoming my own as I own each part—

The words, my words, as the spirit controls

the distance between its first utterance and today,

dissolving before the light and heat of the spirit.

Our hope is that these words may yet relay

our sickly souls nearer to the throne, to fear it.

As into a warm bath, I enter the song:

It holds me, cleanses me; it fits me quite well.

The Psalmist sings, my heart sings along;

Immersed together, our souls together dwell.

As I adhere in heart to every line

The miracle occurs: the words become mine.

ABANDONED BUILDING

What once was an asylum

and later a private school

(a college for Catholics of obedient rule),

where bookish girls in tartan skirts

filled the halls with caterwauls

of hormonal anxiety

and the collective scuffle

of a sea of saddle shoes,

now abandoned for twenty years,

holds haunts of memories and yesteryear’s news

a school for vandals

and graffiti’s ignorant desecrations—

a canvas for a crude knowledge.

The time has come when more than a smattering

can keep the work of saints from mattering.

A shout down the ragged halls

calls out pigeons, possums

and the odd, gentle, anonymous interloper

or the ghosts of old teachers—

professors and priests, nuns in their habits

like black-and-white beasts—

the shelves in their heads sag bent from overstacking

distempered and warped—in danger of cracking.

From every school and every college

all the folderol of this long-accrued knowledge—

a great weight of paper, a head filled with books,

a stacked attic, packed to the rafters

with the smallest of volumes crammed into its nooks—

all falls and flays on insolent fools

where petulance plays and insolence rules.

The time has come when more than a smattering

can keep the work of saints from mattering.

We all grow grand in the architect’s shape;

no longer abandoned, we may yet escape

the ever-turning wheel of this foul and feckless condition

as we submit in love to Love’s relentless manumission—

that means of mercy may meet in the streets

and deal their redemptions among sad defeats.

The time has come and that time is at hand

to leave the old buildings and make a new stand,

freed from the shackles our sins once displayed

to reclaim the land where the innocents prayed.

METANOIA

The world could use just one generation

that refuses to lose its innocence.

The unrepentant are irresponsible.

Life is not an exam

for which we must find the right answers;

it is a puzzle designed

to aim us at God.

Knowledge is overrated

and wisdom serves us a necessary meal:

the constant reawakening

to our own foolishness.

THE MATH OF CHARITY: 7 SUMS

1. Humility + Generosity = Charity

When a humble one gives and loves free

the humble heart is crowned with nobility.

When humility freely and generously gives,

infinite treasures are tapped

and the humble one will lack for nothing—

always giving out of a miraculous abundance

like a king or a queen in common disguise

2. Temperance + Charity

When Temperance adds Charity,

it looks to the world like noble sacrifice;

as though one, like Jesus, has bread others can’t see.

The more they give, the more they seem to have,

as with the loaves and fishes.

They are never hungry, never concerned,

and every meal becomes a feast,

a spiritual banquet of lavish helpings.

3. Chastity + Charity

When Chastity adds Charity,

the world sees lovely mothers and fathers,

brothers and sisters

reflecting warm care and tenderness

that feeds every soul and heals every wound.

All become lovers who give a better love

than anyone could expect—

a mature, complete love—

a love that gives and lifts up,

a love that makes beloved children of

every churl and hardened heart,

a love tat makes gods

of every God-beloved child.

4. Kindness + Charity

When Kindness adds Charity, we become healers.

Ennoblers (not enablers) empowered to lift up the lowly,

help the blind to see, the deaf to hear, and the lame to walk.

The gentle word, the soft correction and the helping hand—

all welcome rescue from distress.

5. Patience + Charity

When Patience adds Charity,

the world sees the persistence of love:

a father who never rejects his rebellious children,

a shepherd who seeks every lost lamb.

With love, the turned cheek becomes

an unspeakably-powerful witness

to the perseverance of grace.

6. Diligence + Charity

When Diligence adds Charity,

the world sees purposeful lives driven by generosity.

To them that have, more is given

because more is certain to be given away.

Love drives work to boundless energy and joy.

7. Charity = X x 10

Charity turns every virtue

from an inner discipline to an outward practice—

every self-control into shining witness.

Charity is the salt and light

that seasons and preserves the world.

Charity completes every virtue,

and grows, mysteriously,

at its source.

MID-FIFTIES

So suddenly, the big, big future

slips beneath your feet

and you know you are now

on the backside of the wave.

The endless summer is over.

It takes some getting used to.

It’s hard reality to accept.

You don’t want to believe it.

You feel the same inside—

the same awakened child you always were—

but the playground has changed

and you will no longer fit

on the merry-go-round.

In the same all of a sudden,

from forgotten rooms in the back of your head,

all those questions about consciousness, mind and meaning

shed their outer garments as idle playthings

and emerge stupendous and red—

great, threatening figures

moving into your home to stay.

No need to worry:

though they appear vicious and powerful,

they may be made friends,

and then, ah, the joy

of such engaging good company!

And how pale and papery—

tiny and tinny—

seems that old playground.

THE RULES

(because God is good)

1. Stay calm

2. Share food

3. Help others

4. Spread joy

MIDLIFE NUN

Another year older,

more hair gone gray,

her head bowed, palms pressed together—

but she can’t silence

the old New Wave song

as she fights to focus her soul

into the ancient words of the prayer.

As the nostalgia of the new

threatens to eclipse all immediacy of attention,

the older, more blessed remembrance

runs deep and undeniably fixed.

The new is chattering water,

the older stone.

She navigates for stillness

and as she sinks through the busily roiling rapids

onto the stony bed below

she finds her bliss

in the assurance

that the habit still fits.

EPILOGUE

The day is aflame

with the breath of many angels.

Their misty presence

pervades all thought and action.

So long we waited

for the stars to shed

even the least light

on our anxious puzzle

only to discover the light

that had been there all along.

Would that we might live one day—

just live this one day—today

seeing, living and loving by that light,

perhaps to make the angels sing.

†

All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

The Congregation

The congregation expands into the light-speed universe:

Friends meet in a restaurant to discuss their days,

Others drive the freeways listening to new music

Or talking on mobile phones;

Old folks worry about their bodies;

Young folks fret over emerging personalities;

A middle-aged banker sitting on the cool, bathroom tiles with the flu

wonders what life is all about as his brow goes clammy;

A sensitive girl in college deeply contemplates her fear of death

And its ultimate reality for everyone she loves;

A German man drinks and plans to pick his first fight;

An Asian family at worship will go out to eat fish—the youngest son

Will think of Jesus eating fish long ago;

A round, sad mother angrily clucks away in Spanish

To her sister about the son who left home;

An Indonesian man in Yogjakarta, Java drives his bike-taxi

For 10,000 rupiah this evening—the competition is stiff

And business slow;

A farm-boy in Iowa burns porn after pleasure to clear his

Searing, fundamentalist conscience;

The Hassidic father in New York begs God

For explanations over the loss of his only son;

A wealthy daughter of prominent parents

Has just discovered that she is, in fact, pregnant

And feels her world collapsing and future dissolving;

An African-American attorney eats crow after mercilessly

Overstating her case;

A gay, Catholic priest fights hard not to act out on his feelings

For a boy in his parish: today he will win;

A nun in Spokane prays God would forgive her gluttony;

She took the larger piece of cake after dinner.

The Masai chief dreams of extra wives when the parrots wake him;

The arrogant realtor in Westwood suddenly suffers a moment

Of severe self-doubt: it’s okay, it’s gone now;

Invisible demons reach in, creep in;

A handsome man with a beautiful wife and three good children

Chews salad and wonders “What the hell is going on?”—

His wife will think he’s seeing someone else;

Mary’s brain suddenly and inexplicably tells her

That her violent and abusive ex-husband is better for her

Than her kind and loving husband of three years;

A twelve-year-old girl, alone in her bed, discovers

The pleasure of flesh. She is scared, guilty, and feels

She has no one to talk with;

An old man in a hospital bed sees an angel hovering

With inexplicably-colored robes.

He smiles and his eyes widen.

Cotton Candy

He holds the Bible like a conductor's baton —

Like a long, narrow, paper cone —

Spinning thin, pink sugar

Like sweet, sticky spider webs:

A delight to the eyes, sweet to the tongue,

Insubstantial and vaporous —

A mere mockery of nutrition.

Everyone thinks he is wonderful.

The Other Nun

Okay, so she's not Catholic

and never took any vows

but her life is lived enduring the same sexless solitude

arranged through searingly potent pieties.

They used to call them spinsters and old maids.

Dowdy discount clothes, sad choice of eyewear

And a constant stream of rationalizations

Against the growing grief

Over bygone opportunities and former importunities.

Here: a post-menopausal, never-married, plain Jane

takes her place in a church too large to care.

She sprays the boundaries of her territory

With snap judgments and censorious hostilities.

Like a she-eagle: gliding, soaring through the air

she rides amidst the divine presence in prayer,

looks down to see her floating shadow cross

her empty nest down below.

Fighting Adulthood

Watching Mother waste away

and Father lose his bearings

(without his knowing his gears were going)

We stepped up to turn the leaf

like a mob usurping the king.

I waited in the bushes,

watching the castle towers erode,

ever saying to myself,

"It's no so bad."

"It may be okay."

"They'll come around yet."

Tidal Wave

Unexpected changes

delivered in derision, monkey-fisted,

based in fey intrusions and settled in non-conclusions.

There seem few discussions left,

all blasted, all wasted —

A buried inheritance in indolent service —

all has become superior sneers, hyper-hubris,

and the stylish insolence of stylish insolents.

The tidal wave favors their course, and we few

who stand in protest face humility –

a feint of praise on our lips –

as we kneel in the descending curl's shadow.

Imminent eclipse would seem to loom certain

but we are counting on something more

than just gravity and the moon.

Message

Stuck over in immediate tidings of immediate regret,

the arms of the betrayer opened wide

to receive the inveterate Messenger.

"It has not happened," said the angel,

"Your hopes remain complete in immanence."

The arms of the betrayer closed across his chest

as he glared over a sneering smile.

The Messenger looked at him as if to say:

"It all counts for you as well!"

But the former returned no gestures

indicating appreciation or acknowledgment.

The message brings hope for those in reprieve

but regret to those who fail to receive:

the immediacy of the present,

the expectations of past assumptions,

and the divine promises of future good

sealed in the blood of innocence.

Walking Without Envy

Whose homes are these? I think I don't know.

The mansions of this wealthy neighborhood,

like the ones from the dreams of my youth

recline under rich, spreading live oaks

like kings at a table or great ships on parade.

I walk to cool a fire in my heavy head —

heavy from dreams and youthful expectations.

A Tudor house with argyle windows

nestles groupings of overstuffed furniture;

a spreading, western ranch with luxurious eaves

windowing warmth, oak and a cowhide chesterfield;

a spanish mansion with thick, stucco walls

strewn with black, iron filigree fences and framings —

each a set for fulfillment and joy.

Nervous boredom in my chest

Drives me ever out of rest

Fit and lovely, every one — happy in their fortresses —

these loving families with their lives of plenty

playing out win after win, ease upon ease

like virtuous royals in a perfected world

(I imagined this for myself as well).

Any one of these houses would be fine enough

but today I live in a backhouse — an old lady's house

with the old lady's furniture, though she died years ago.

Jack, the owner, at 86, is a good and kind man, but I am not.

I am a small church pastor, and have a roiling fire in my head.

I walk better streets and for the moment feel better about myself,

reminding myself that I am very well-educated with sophisticated tastes.

I rent. I own little more than my clothes and my old car.

Had I taken a priest's vows, I'd be in the same place

only more secure in my calling to poverty,

but I did not choose this; it chose me.

When young, I knew, I too, would rise to the top.

I knew, that I, too, would live in houses like these

and be a happy family.

I don't know who lives in these homes

But I know, many are not homes at all

(I envy only my own imagination).

An easy breeze crosses my path,

caresses my furled brow

and stills me in my tracks.

Until I walk without envy, my praise is all in vain.

Praise and praise alone constructs a true home

Repeated praise — every heartfelt phrase —

detoxifies my covetous ways.

Taking a non-possessive delight

in the particularity of every thing

subjects my heart's longings

to a superior, divine ordering.

Walking without envy is the only lasting peace

gained amidst the riches of this lavish complicity.

That yearning should fail and covetous lusts cease

seems grace enough; or that Heaven's host of pardons

in their divine mercies would take a moment of pity

for the temporary, fallen caretakers of these gardens.

Mea Culpa

I sought relief from that which I sought

I wished to leave the things I watched

when I was unhappy—to dissociate

from painful associations.

I look at my sins and realize

my sins have the look of sins

that are looked at.

My spine bends back before the face

that bends me.

Kyrie Eleison!

"Lighten up," I hear from a voice

outside which speaks inside,

"Your sins are of no significance."

Such an offense to my morose dignity

undercuts the severe gravity of my penance

(and oh, how I so treasured my holy remorse!)

all now here blasted, all wasted, all spun up

and dissolved in an instant

like an angry tornado that changes its mind

and immediately dissipates — the sun shines

through the ashen tufts of ragged cloud

and the word spoken is the word completed:

I am lightened up.

Sacrament

I stepped out on the scaffolding to talk to the panicked man.

His pain and desperation, like sweat smeared in his eyes,

blinded him from seeing what was inside.

Inside, downstairs on the ground floor off the sidewalk,

his Diner and employees awaited his return.

So we went in, and he served me coffee and pie.

Sister Pam

She never wore a habit

but it makes little difference.

She wore her backpack like a parachute

just in case she should fall from the skies.

Pam was simply Pam,

her inner peace veiled by excitability

and an urgency for what is right

which held fast her focus—she was a tractor-beam

for correctness as she understood it.

She kept her phone in her ear

in fear of new laws prohibiting drivers

from using hand-helds.

Although she wasn’t driving, she was obedient.

She had her own place to sit in worship,

with her fanny-pack of snacks for the ride.

Sometimes she spoke aloud during sermons, answering

rhetorical questions—dialoguing freely through the event.

It will be an effortless joy for me to remember

her smile, her energy, her awkward, intermittent hugs,

and the constricted wings in her shoulders

held back by the straps of her parachute.

Cleaning the Pool

I used to think the walls were painted

light blue to discourage photosynthesis

but the walls are white—always have been—

and the water is truly blue.

Water is truly blue, perhaps bluest when most pure.

I sweep the algae off the pool walls

in long, steady strokes of the brush

like a gondolier carefully steering

the canals of Venice.

The sweep and glide propel a movement

awakened by the sun on my head

and the occasional fly on my leg.

As unsettled as I can be—

as restless and horizon-hungry—

this is as close as I come

to feeling at home:

Just this: cleaning the pool and knowing that

at its purest, water is truly blue.

All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

Organism in Weird Relationship to Its Environment

Too much modern information bombards potential enlightenment.

What ought to be simply lived compulsively seeks explanations,

and though those explanations are not to be 

too seriously believed,

they hold the place of real belief 

as real belief is no longer believed.

Intricacy and subtlety are ignored 

by those who take pleasure in both.

    What is becoming is no longer becoming.

All our lives see the triumph of entropy—

the vilification of virtue and the championing of perversion.

Advocacy Pharisees flaunting golden chariots

    Lord, let there be a sea too for these Phariots.

More is known about this season’s kings

than seasoned kings or reasoned things.

Time may be out: this may be the end of things.

Girl on a Swing

This old park playground

built in the 50s for the children

makes the news yet again

as a habitat for perverts.

A sturdy swingset overshadows

the giant slide and furious, steel, merry-go-round (both since removed for the children’s safety).

Seven-year-old Mary was taken here.

Her house faces the park; she merely

crossed the street to play on the swing.

The joy of the motion, the to-and-fro

like a simple song, the wind on her 

innocent cheeks—all beneath a blue sky

and the rhythmic groan of old chains—

she could only see no evil. 

Lean back and kick, kneel forward and bow,

lean back again, rush forward and meet the sky,

fall back where you can’t see,

change positions and kick again.

From the park’s public toilets

came the shadowy footsteps

across the green grass.

Here, all Eden turns to thorns.

The pulsing heart of a community’s dream

vanished in one ravenous gulp

with nothing to show or hear but

the old seat waggling to a halt.

In Heaven

In Heaven all the flies are friendly

and all their manners mind

They never pester gatherings

of the souls of humankind.

In Heaven flies are intelligent

and obey you when you speak.

Should you ask them please buzz off awhile

they will away until next week.

The bees up there are friendly, too.

No longer having stings

They spend their days in playing hymns

hummed from their little wings.

And yes, they still make honey

in hives high as a hill

and the heavenly bears who amble in

may happily eat their fill.

At a Table

The blue dining chairs (vinyl over chrome)

catch the fattened rears of the overfed.

Though the chairs are easy to clean,

the messy eaters carry their stains

away from the table:

A spot of grape juice on a white blouse,

sweaty hands wiped dry on blue jeans,

bread crumbs hanging on a fuzzy sweater—

Christ is carried onto the patio,

beaming over styrofoam cups 

of the poorest coffee.

From there He climbs into sun-baked cars 

heading to the pancake houses and life 

in a billion homes 

and half as many hearts.

Boredom

The church leaders

buying lights for the sanctuary

sought to avoid trendy forms

like so many other churches

with ugly lights—

    spindly, brass chandeliers

    with faux-flame bulbs,

    mid-century saucers—

once standing for the sleeker future

now reflect in dimness

the clichéd optimism of former generations.

“Timeless” was the look they wanted,

timeless like the Church herself

but those who can’t afford what is truly timeless

tend to settle for the mediocre

and light the sanctuary in utter boredom.

Valley Fever

I am driving home to lay down my head in sickness.

Streets shine wet with rain, and darker with rain.

I don’t even know if my lights are on;

I can’t see lines right in front of me.

Light fails to return in straight lines

and I am nagged to annoyance

by the narcissistic prince—

never finishing his examinations, 

never secure in diagnosis—

he paces his territory

in endless analysis.

Through brow-sweat and swollen glands

I make my appeal to the King,

begging for mercy at every hearing. 

Feretevneh

They call it the new asceticism–

monastic purity sans sacrifice or piety.

Resplendent simplicity is a hit,

as is all bulimic reductionism. 

The grinning, aging model, 

floating along on gorgeous emaciation,

vomits out the crucifix she swallowed

with a shrug of insecure indifference.

Through the language of mad convolution 

she reveals (for those that will see) 

a tongue that serves 

collectively nothing.

If these words mean whatever we say

then this is the Bible, and we have become

our own narcissistic supply.

Dream Poem

Billy Kidd

Clips his nails

in the pool

and he says: 

“SEE-EEEEE-EEEEEE

          HOW 

      EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED 

                    

 

                                      I AM!”

Old Plow

Bereaved but ensconced 

in endless dreams of diurnal persistence,

I set my hand to the worn wood

of an ancient plow,

Spur the emaciated mule 

to its unimpressive plod, 

and cut the filthy rind 

of cold hard mother earth.

I would hold the line, 

but like Lot’s wife ask “What is life?”

and strain to go astray–

to listen for the echoing footfalls

from the forbidden garden,

to look back into the face of God’s fury,

and veer from this appointed line

I pursue with disastrous potential. 

    Servants come, servants go,

    Serving the masters they less-than-half-know.

The stewards of secrets reveal their disease,

roundly denouncing the flesh as they please.

Hard handles under blisters slip,

blood and muscles fail,

all endeavor is by browsweat blinded;

weakened knees, swollen and scab-scarred,

find rest only in falling to the fresh-turned dirt.

    “Kyrie Eleison!” 

Oh, Lamb of God. . . .

His Evidence

To the remembrance of significant waves

we drink another’s glory.

The reverberations of light and sound–

the motions of living flesh passing through

smoky night air in Jerusalem,

still sounding in time’s horizons:

God was with us, and the evidence lingers

not in dreams or stories, but in space-time—

all the proof that He lived, walked,

spoke, healed, and resurrected from the humiliation

of death remains, 

spreading out in light 

two-thousand light years away.

If it can be accessed by any means other than faith,

we don’t know.

For now faith will have to do.

River Walk

I walk the dog along this river

and these moments come around

smelling of sweet autumns past—

smoky melancholy and the compelling charm of nostalgia,

like the remembrance of a feast

not-yet-eaten though the table is set for company.

I would sit and breathe

to make myself ready, but the dog is restless

and will not let me be still. 

But these moments go—

    as they come they must also go—

the river’s steady flow waits for no one. 

My feet are washed and pebbles bruise my heels.

Not this walk, or any other, but something

like the sum total of all walks,

with all their echoing ecstasies and dreary disappointments—

the hours of toilsome marching

in service to the whims of a dog—

all these repeated steps lifted in a compulsory dance

like an adolescent cotillion,

trod through clumsy embarrassments

and panicked desire.

It is cumulative and all-inclusive

like the slow pounding of a nine-inch nail

as the clock counts the score,

a Canon in B-flat.

    Sursum corda

    kyrie eleison

Bread on the water floats with the flow,

with thanks we receive a name 

we may know.

LS

This shimmering, sacred remembrance

made of more than mere memory

reflects a light from beyond

this present darkness.

A golden glimmer in the otherwise void

fractures then splays out in fragmented flecks,

all dividing in the growing glow.

The light is a presence, like heat,

the bright prize of broken hearts,

a certain hope of fresher starts

past fatal pressure and blasphemous lies.

We consume the fiery quanta,

each cell aquiver,

and find our flesh altogether contained in

this moment of suspense

above the river.

Hart Park

Heaven must be like this

like this river

like these trees

like the tall grass near the waters,

dark and rippled by the breeze.

Heaven must be like this

like the sunlight through the trees

that sharpens their autumn colors

burning brightly on the leaves.

And Heaven must have pathways

like these all green and lush

where heavenly dogs chase heavenly squirrels

through thornless underbrush,

Where birds a-chatter on cozy boughs

stretched in the morning light

sing songs of glory and innocence

once all is put to right.

Walking (reprise)

How utterly odd, this pathetic faithfulness–

this toddling toward God,

each step ambling idly,

every stride straying widely.

An awkward, gawky dance we trip, 

over brittled bones and chalk dust well-trod.

With each fall we curse the sky

in fits of spit and hisses.

Our stand is shakily taken,

furrowed-brow-fouled.

Into this walk we lean hard, as into a mighty wind,

accompanied by angels whose wings 

cover their sacred mouths

to stifle their most knowing laughter. 

All poems copyrighted © Noel K. Anderson

Walking

How utterly odd, this life–

This toddling toward God

Each step ambling idly,

Each stride straying widely.

An awkward, gawky dance we step

Over brittling bones and chalk we trod

And with each fall we curse the sky

in fits of spit and hisses.

    We foul our furrowed brow

Take our stand  and yet again lean into our walk

Accompanied by angels whose wings cover

Their sacred mouths

To stifle their knowing laughter.

The Bees

A fellowship of mission

afloat on sunny air

alights on fragrant blossoms

to gather pollen there.

Electric buzzing motors

sing light upon the breeze–

a harmony of sweetness

like honey in the trees.

We will not mind their presence

nor fear their little stings

for better is the liveliness

of song their working brings.

Their work is not a burden:

they do not think it odd

to serve their tiny instincts

as though the voice of God.

Take joy you little engines

as on the winds you play;

we praise your mighty Maker

for shaping you that way. 

We too may learn their lesson

of joyous working days,

buzzing through the fragrance

of gratitude and praise.

Darwin’s Funeral

Darwin spoke of growth

through soft lips:

the chemistries of cogitation

mixing through the fragile convolutions

of his fine expanse of brain.

He loved his wife, say those that knew him.

Apparently, his moist and meaty heart

held more than just the blood

of several thousand

lucky monkeys.

With Tongues

These birds praise You.

The blue ones, the black ones,

The tiny hoverers and the redheads–

With each bite they take,

With every ruffle of feather, song or squawk,

With every preen and scratch

They praise Your name.

The trees, fat with green leaves and

Replete with ants, mites and spiders–

These too praise Your name.

The bushes, heavy-laden  with oranges

Like young mothers, all bearing twins on swollen dugs–

All sing the song of praise to You.

Had You but given them tongues

They would put the whole of humanity to shame–

For they, unlike us, would be constant and

Irrepressible in proclaiming Your name and

Giving thanks for the gift of life. 

They would say to men:  

    Jesus,    Jesus,   Jesus be praised!

Ground Zero

NYC 02.02.02

We dined near the ghosts of the towers

On sonnets and flowers, salting our lives with dismay.

Through the bustle of hours

We hunted the powers that haunt these remains of the day.

The Church stood intact

To impugn or distract the agnostic zeitgeist of the age.

Spectators of the impact

Gather to reenact the encaustic remembrance of  rage.

Sixteen acres of waste

Painstakingly erased leaves a blank empty heart of a hole.

Though our nation stands defaced

Our pride may yet be replaced by God, who alone merits control.

Unexpected Changes

Unexpected changes

delivered in derision, monkey-founded,

Based in fey intrusions and settled with non-conclusions.

There seem so few discussions left;

It has all become superior sneers, hyper-hubris

and the stylish insolence of stylish insolents.

The tidal wave favors their course, and we few

who stand in protest embrace humility–

a praise of God’s name on our lips–

as we huddle in the shadow of a great breaker.

The eclipse appears imminent

but we are counting on a greater force

than just gravity and the pulling moon.

Park Cities, Utah

                    03.03.03.

The dove-gray birch

Months ago relinquished

All feathery apparel.

Here they stand

Knee-deep in snow

Their arms upraised

like a congregation of

gently-cooing charismatics

singing praises to God.

There is a shared glow among their heads:

The color of dried blood tinged with gold:

So suffering and triumph go together

In the midst of a great throng–

Even as a single creature–

Standing in the biting cold

And together awaiting

The sun’s warmth

And a green morning

Coming soon.

Mono Lake

This silence is nowhere:

A frozen mirage between deep and depth–

Yet here too sleeps the ghost of the virgin,

The inner peace of the contemplative monk,

The wide dark sphere of genius,

And the distant song of resurrection.

The silence of the dark and still

Breathes the assurance of God’s good will

And these final hours of soul-dark night

Reveals a world comprised by light.

As if we saw an intimate connection

Submitting to Love’s divine correction.

The Grand Absorber

Smiling with open arms and upturned palms

he receives all the junk:

the bile, the sin, the hostility, the resentment,

the self-pity, the fear and perversions–

all we throw at him he absorbs.

Into his skin and into his blood,

even into his heart:

He absorbs the point.

He takes the poison from us.

He is poisoned but does not

lose his peace.

He suffers the pain, and we,

his tormentors, lean in to his face and snarl:

    See how you like it!

He absorbs it all and it kills him.

He takes our poison and death and dies.

We remain

standing over him,

cleaned by his sacrifice,

wondering what we have done.

Palm Sunday

   04.04.04

As a boy in Riverside

I used to pound the palm trees on our parking strip

with a baseball bat.

The pulpy bark gave slightly with each blow

and bounced the bat back pleasantly.

I pounded the bark for hours,

working my way around the trunk

ever working on my swing.

I pounded-out a softened circle and

the bark sloughed off,

scoring a scarry ring all around.

The tree died.

As it was dead, and no one objected,

I pounded several nails into that palm,

just because I could.

Ash Wednesday

These steps belong to the unwinding core

Of anxious thoughts born of frustration and pride.

Each footfall echoes through emptied rooms

Where shame rules the moments’ remembrance..

We walk.  We walk along a line in time

To a tune set thrumming in our hungering hearts–

Each step a forward thrust in a dance

Of unmerited confidence, replete

In clumsy whirls and several falls.

Clouds of dust kicked up from our feet

Cling to our modest garments and stain

What no fuller on earth can bleach to white.

We doff our robes to dance at the altar in shame

And burn our parade regalia in the central fire.

The ashes now smeared on our sweaty brows

Punctuate this season’s labored steps;

We lift our hearts within the dirge

To the God who dies–the Lord of dust

And through His praise our hearts emerge

From endless shame to eternal trust.

Retreated

Through endless dreams of diurnal persistence,

I set my hand to the worn wood

of an ancient plow,

spur on the emaciated mule

to its unimpressive plod

and cut the filthy rind

of cold, hard earth.

I would hold the line,

but like Lot’s wife ask What is life?

and strain to go astray,

to listen for footfalls echoing

from the forbidden  garden,

to look back

into the face of God’s fury,

to veer off this appointed line

which I so readily disappoint.

    The servants come, the servants go,

    working for masters they less-than-half-know.

The stewards of secrets reveal their disease,

roundly denouncing the flesh as they please.

Hard handles under blisters slip,

blood and muscles fail–

all endeavor veers by browsweat blinded.

Weakened knees, swollen and scab-scarred

find rest only in falling to the fresh-turned dirt.

    Kyrie Eleison!

Oh, Lamb of God. . . .

Worshipping

To the rose of fire–

Circling above the brightest stars

Like a thorny wheel adrift in the frame

Of time and substance, mass and matter

Wafting amid chaotic, thunderous clatter

Inherent of nothing and free of desire–

Rises the song

With motive and entropy in urgent ire

Counterpoint harmonies like dancers entwine

Angelic voices through the circling choir

The rhythm and melody flow elegantly braided

As litanies of praises overhead paraded.

We gather as stardust and follow along.

In remembrance we reenact the story

Handed to us by those to whom it was handed

Of pain, death and ultimate glory

We lift up our hearts;

And we are remanded.

Severance

Someday we will again

Share a table like this one

Though not this one.

We are excused and leave this place to separate walks.

Once we walked together, taking many meals in tandem

And refreshed ourselves with each other on the same road.

But the fork parts us and our ways.

On our way we are

On our way to different points.

We walk on apart:

    On, onward and gone.

The rail is split, the coupling released:

The tandem, rhythmic footfalls ended

To echo down separate halls.

I cannot grieve your divergent road

And its final door to wherever it goes;

I only grieve that the garden I enter

I enter without you.

But there are other doors into that same place

And people to meet there.

Once we share in that new fruit

I will not think of you.

I will not need to think of you

I will not think of you as you.

In a Day

In a day He will fix these easy pieces.

For our every baffling puzzle

He will reveal solutions.

Our irresolvable tensions

He will transform to facile reconciliation

and knead again the muddy, blood-stained clay.

A veil draws back to reveal the face of heaven,

a face we have seen on earth but can not name

and yet the bruises pique our memory

of some ancient time and place.

He will reveal the names we have forgotten

and each instance we did mistake

His face for the face of an enemy.

Thanksgiving

One good day, among millions we’ve missed

when stars bent down low

and with great effort have kissed

our hearts as we slept and dreamed

dreams of success–

to wake and live nightmares

of toilsome distress.

One good day, we will awake

and relish the fragrance of

a forgiven mistake.

One day the scales will fall from our eyes

revealing the Hope

we have been taught to despise.

O let it be soon, my Liberty Bell

that your kisses come free

from regret and fare well.

Let our hearts waken

to those stars that bend low

and deeply receive their good will

with good show.

Let us approach this new morning with Joy:

Free from compulsions

to spend and destroy.

Let this Thanksgiving

come from hearts that feel thanks;

Let us return our praise to the light

who shines grace eternal

and sets all to right.

Let us remember with breaking of bread

That life is for living eternally fed.

Starry Morning Bakersfield

“Get up,” she says–I tend to sleep through the music.

The warm darkness of sleep fills the room.

The supple sheets body-heated,

the dog’s slight snore,

the soft curtains closed–

all gently floating peace.

My wife’s blonde hair

spreads over the back of the pillow in glorious wake

like sunlight beaming through the clouds

after a long storm or flashing rapids

falling on the sheets

and the light wakes us.

Out through the front door floats

a soft embrace of still, cool air.

Orion leans back, taking lazy aim

at nothing in the distance.

A tinkling of bells like stars speaking

Call my name.

No, it is only dogtags on a collar.

A wet tongue greets my calf;

Vita stretches at my side,

her whole body tail-wagged.

And I know her movements

as the ticking of a clock.

We wonder for a moment:

        What is this?

She turns back toward the door, perks up her ears

and points her nose at the kitchen.

I too tune in to the needs of the day

listening for whispers of angels at play.

And though I’d prefer to return to my bed

There will be no peace here until she is fed.

As we find our way through this dark house

toward the kitchen,

light the color of angels’ hair

begins glowing through the curtains

And the coffee steams, snoring itself awake.