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.