Rain
somehow feels
like starting over.
Waters over the earth
reconnecting
with those beneath.
Do I need to step outside?
Inhaling
the original air.
Tag: poetry
We’re all stuck on hold.
The pioneers thrust out
with their usual
armed vengeance,
no clear purpose
except to recreate
the old world
in the new.
The rest of us wait
The empty
Can you not see
that the hurricane
is not
about you
but
around you?
It is not
being done to you. You
simply happen to be
in the midst
of it.
As
…
As the pastor began to speak the absolution,
I stood up and
interrupted the liturgy.
“Anyone who looks into their hearts
and acknowledges what they find there
also finds the power
to forgive
themselves.”
To the woman on my right
I said,
“You can still make love
…
The world groans.
She cries out under
heartless regimes
propped up by fearful,
hungry people.
The powerless
are driven into homeless exile
in the very battlefields they fled.
Broken,
with their children
stolen from them.
Other ages were more hopeful.
But ours
sees only end times
and flails back
…
אֵלִ֣י אֵ֖לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי
When Jesus utters the cry
“Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?”
It is the cry
Of Job, that is,
the cry of every sentient being,
“Why am I dying?”
The only answer that comes back
from the universe is,
“Because you are mortal.”
… What is it
I’ve decided I can’t
cope with
that hasn’t happened
yet
That I’d rather
lock my jaw or
pluck out my eye
than face?
A day?
Two? Three?
Before either I
see through to it or
can no longer
There’s something wrong with
how we do winter, making it
the busiest time of year. Our calendar
Is all wrong. Yes, the sun
starts back
on the solstice,
but that just means
we should be rolling over in our sleep
and waiting for spring.
Why—though the empire insist—
do we stay above ground,
scurrying around
as if
everything has to
Waiting for Quaker meeting
with a fence of white jasmine
behind me
and the
sun
a bit too warm
I hear from across
another wooden fence
opposite
the shout of the
morning-sobered plumber
stumbling from his
trailer:
“Alright! The first lily
has bloomed!
Fuckin’ yes!”
…