The Brotherhood

A member of this fellowship, I find
The hope that stirs in me belongs to us.
I know full well the urging of my lust
And yet retain an easy state of mind.
Among these holy men we’re all one kind.
We feel both movements of the flesh and gusts
Of Holy Spirit’s mixing all the dust
And mud of earth in living water signed.
How can I fear that God will not be kind
To all my foolishness? The stubborn rust
Of sin he scrapes with fellowship, and I must
Only give my life to ties that bind
Me in a company of living men
Whom I regard as kin. They call me Ken.

Her Auburn Hair

Her auburn hair descended like a cloud,
A golden iconóstasis to shroud
The touch of trembling lips upon his feet.
Her tears like rivers stained with nard and myrrh
Washed the calloused soles and horny nails.
Her sister Martha stricken like a stele

Of salt in fear, a bewildered stele
She sees without seeing, eyes clouded
By memories of foolishness, but nails
Had ripped her dreams of late, and pallid shrouds.
Aromas of her kitchen smelt of myrrh
A taint of death, disease and rotting feet.

The prophet felt the kisses on his feet,
The hot salt tears. They spoke of knives of steel
In local villages, an ominous murmur
That trailed the hero’s path, a dusty cloud
Of discontent. Beneath her auburn shroud
Of grief the woman prophet’s lacquered nails

Unconsciously portended savage nails
Which soon would stab the prophet’s hands and feet.
No brilliant canopy of light would shroud
Him from the glares as passing strangers steal
His nakedness. O’erhead the passing clouds
Like senseless grazing cows will neither murmur

Thoughts upon his plight nor smell the myrrh
And aloes of his tomb. But slugs and snails
of darkness drawn by putrefaction's clouds
and fumes will be the first to witness feet
Transfigured as the God of All steals
Into the corpse. A sudden shroud

Of glory lifts like sails aloft on shrouds
Of grace. The quaking earth and seas demur
With loud objections as the Son’s Day steals
Across the land. His hands retain the nails
of pain and ghastly wounds still mark his feet
but glory rising radiates the clouds.

The dewy clouds of morning bless the feet
Of woman-prophet bearing myrrh. The shroud
And nails remain with useless swords and steel.

Judas Iscariot

Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil. Then Judas the Iscariot, one (of) his disciples, and the one who would betray him, said, "Why was this oil not sold for three hundred days' wages and given to the poor?" He said this not because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief and held the money bag and used to steal the contributions. So Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Let her keep this for the day of my burial.
John 12:3-7


The house in mordant stench of sudden death
Fell silent as the woman kissed his royal
Feet I could not bear her body’s love
Her carnal show of sobbing fiery passion
A weeping play of woman-purity
And face to floor her hair like holiness

Descending like a cloud of holiness
Upon his feet as if the knell of death
Had sounded through her purity
And stirred up this unseemly show a royal
Waste it seemed to me a foolish passion
Of bestial need and imbecilic love

And yet he gazed on her with manly love
A smile making mock of holiness
Betraying as I always knew his passion
For the lovely girls who’d suffer death
Before the splendor of his royal
Glance I wanted in my hands her purity

You say I lusted but her purity
Aroused in me a longing for such love
I would surrender any royalty
Despite his proof of godlike holiness
And I'd pursue into the jaws of death
A woman who would stir me to such passion

Despising righteousness he shuns the passion
I can offer him and turns to purity
Of virgin girls inhales the scent of death
Delights in smelling sinful woman’s love
Extemporizes on her fallen holiness
And vows to raise her up in royalty

He’ll have his throne too soon his royalty
Will reek with fumes of grief in a passion
Of disgrace her rancid holiness
Will stink like myrrh and her purity
Will putrefy with fetid love
This fatal woman soon will mourn his death

I owned his death despite his royalty
Her fevered love was true her passion
Holiness I lusted purity

to Mary of Bethany, Lady Chastity II

Sit here quietly I pray
I offer you my hand
I know you will prefer to stay
To company this man

I offered you my hand
As more to follow than to guide
To company this man
Simply biding at his side

I neither follow nor can guide
Without the touch of flesh
I need to stay here by your side
In quest like Gilgamesh

Bereft the touch of flesh
Of carnal Enkidu his friend,
The pious Gilgamesh
Would even deities offend

With Enkidu, his mortal friend
He wrestled night and day
And even deities forfend
To mediate their fray

They wrestled night and day
Till loathing morphed to amity
Immediate their fray
Resolved intense affinity

And loathing morphed to amity
And coped with earthy lust
Resolved intense affinities
Found goodness in the dust.

You coped with earthy lust,
Your tender hands to hold and bind
Find goodness in my dust
And heal the jaded eyes gone blind.

You tender hands to hold and bind
And soothing touch my face
They heal the jaded eyes gone blind
I look upon your grace

And soothing touch your face.
I know I must prefer to stay
And look upon your grace.
Sit here quietly you pray.

Pygmalion

Startled when a living eye appeared
To gaze beneath the polished marble stone
I stood enthralled, astonished. Then I feared
My eager tools might ravage facial bone
Or sacred flesh within the supple layered
Features of this rock. The monotone
Of day in day out prayer had persevered
On God who said this unsexed haggard crone,
My stony privacy, should yield to grace,
A muse called Chastity. Her gentle smile
Should bring me comfort still. And now a face
Of neither cynicism nor of guile
Accompanies my solitude; and eyes
Aglow with blessings solace yestersighs.

She knelt down next to me

She knelt down next to me in a church one day,
A gothic structure old with ancient prayers
And spectral traces of forgotten cares.
I had withdrawn into a quiet bay
As much to hide as seek some other way
To pacify the troubling, awful flares
Of envy, lust and rage, the anxious fears
And passionate desires that seemed to crave
Attention night and day. I might belay
These fierce emotions and climb the stairs
Of quiet piety beyond the glares
Of my own righteousness if she would stay
A while and add a prayer to my Amen….
I thought. I never laid eyes on her again. 

Mail Order Bride

I went down to the post office one day
A few years ago and the postmaster
Said you Ken Bartsch that's me yessir I said
Well something here special delivery
Great I said Christmas in July although 
It wasn't July and I wasn’t expecting
 
Anything waited a while expecting
A parcel or box of some sort the day
Grew long I wasn’t in any hurry though
Cause I was pretty much my own master
A woman asked special delivery
Yes ma’am I been waiting a while I said
 
She smiled real nice and here I am she said
Well I thought cute but I’m not expecting
A woman right now I’ve been delivered
Enough problems already for one day
I’d like to hear again what the master
Says then go about my business though
 
I’m frankly not yet sure what that is though
When it comes I’ll know it and then she said
I’m it your mail order bride the Master
Sent with a message you’re not expecting
And didn’t especially want but the day
Of sunshine comes when you’re delivered
 
So now I'm sent special delivery
Your own best friend as a blessed sign though
Mostly unwelcome and this is the day
The Lord has made that’s well and good I said
I’ve been waiting a long time expecting
Some encouraging word from the master
 
But you see I don't hear from the master
And that's okay since he troubled to deliver
Me I have settled down and don't expect
Surprises she cried out surprise although
You didn’t ask for me I’m here wow I said
But I didn’t know she was my lucky day
  
The master sent Chastity special delivery
And as she said the sunshine of my day
Though I expected something different

to Mary of Bethany, Lady Chastity I

I should not start my letter with that word
Especially as I think of whom you love
Entirely and forever your preferred,
A man, another lover, far above
 
Especially as I think of whom I love
Commanding with a beauty unsurpassed,
A man, an able comrade, far above
My simple needs and longings all amassed
 
Commanding with a beauty far surpassed
They want to shine like stars in darkest night,
My simple needs and longings all amassed
But rising to that sky’s ascending height
 
He sparkles better than the stars of night
As you sit listening wondering at his feet
While rising to that sky ascending height
And can I dare to hope that you would meet
 
As you sit listening wondering at his feet
With one whose needs are greater than his charm?
And yet I dare to hope that you will meet
In quiet conversation to disarm
 
The one whose needs are greater than his charm
My common sin, I covet someone’s wife
And hope by conversation to disarm
Although I know the end is endless strife 

My hidden sin, I crave another’s wife
I see in her an answer to my dreams
Although I know their end is endless strife
A tangled rat’s nest maze of stupid schemes

I see in her an answer to my dreams
My longing and my heartaches all fulfilled
A love’s nest vision glazed in harmless schemes
Where wanton passions finally are stilled

My longing and my heartaches all fulfilled
Until the dies irae dies illa
Of wanton passions finally is chilled
And I am found in alien boudoir

When the dies irae dies illa
Exposes me for playing such a fool
And when I’m found in alien boudoir
Amid the blushes of her reticule

Exposed to all for playing such a fool
I cannot answer or explain my case
Amid the brushes of their ridicule
For I have sworn to be forever chaste

I cannot answer or explain my case
When language knows no sexualizing needs
And I have sworn to be forever chaste
Of thoughts words and forbidden deeds

Where language knows no sexualizing needs
What explanations can I hope to give
Of thoughts words or forbidden deeds
Within the scope of my life’s narrative

What explanations should I try to give
To Chastity who dwells in spirit pure
Within the pages of my narrative?
Your soulful gaze on him suggests allure 

To one who hoped to live in spirit pure.
I’ll bring a troubled past before your eyes.
Your soulful gaze on him presents a lure 
To follow him who keeps you as his prize

He knew my troubled past before his eyes
Came down to rest upon your lovely face 
You followed him who kept you as his prize
And I could only follow in my place

And learn to walk before his dazzling face
Entirely and forever my preferred,
Because I have to follow in my place
I shall not start my letter with that word.

Jeremiah

When I found your words, I devoured them;
They became my joy and the happiness of my heart,
 Jeremiah 15:16

You didn’t set out to be alone
But arriving there
You found annoyed and paranoid 
Convictions
That someone anyone no one
Meant to hurt you
Including the Big Guy Himself
Who’d called you aside
In the first place
But left you standing
In the middle of nowhere
With an angry crowd
Closing in.
So why did it have to be you?
You didn’t want the notoriety,
But you loved the attention of God Almighty
And you thought it wouldn’t cost you? 
You should understand 
Or have figured out by now
The one who stands alone --
The so-called individual --
Stands in public scrutiny
Saying things no one understands
From some mysterious place
Where no one lives.
You must suffer carping criticism
And eccentric accusations 
Because you have stepped into
An airless vacuum of
Intergalactic space where nothing breathes
And no life flourishes. 
When you speak no one listens
For there is no sound in the emptiness between us. 
Silence spoke to you;
And you like a fool
Dared to open your mouth
For no other reason than you could not
Contain the word of horror/beauty, 
Intense and passionate truth
That gleamed blearily through your city’s polluted skies
And sounded foggily in cockcrow congregations
Who had not yet their morning coffee
And didn’t much care what their songs might mean.
You spoke with acid voiced accuracy
From your own peculiar heart a killing word.
How dare you? 
And now you want my sympathy? Forget it. 
Your solace must be the silence
Of a dead zone in your heart
Where kernels of thought
Perish in airless dessication.  
The ignorant sky will suck your final breath
And on some distant day it might
Remember your name
And tell your story
And claim you for its own. 

Approaching sixty

I should be slowing down a bit,
Not chewing up the miles;
But my knee feels great out here
Climbing hills;
Eyes focused on the road ahead
Body weighted evenly above the pedals
A fluid, economic motion.
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a bicycle.
Why so painful climbing stairs?
No body’s perfect,
My yogi says,
You do what you can.
Each day I learn to stand on one leg,
Eyes pinned to my right mirror’s eye
Toes cannot grip the flattened matt
But strain, relax, search, find, and lose
The centered gravity in the gut
Above my foot.
A body in motion
Adjusts with each breath,
Parturient in part
And poised in process.

The Catfish

Exploring the depths of Barren River
With a silver spoon, a hook and line
I searched and waited a shining sign
A tremor or quake, a glance or shiver
Of life beneath the silver plane;
When action struck and a lively cat
Took up my spoon and a fierce combat.
We struggled awhile on edge to gain
Until she lay on the floor of my boat.
I called my closest friends to say
Of my good luck, O what a day!
But my big chance to boast and gloat
Arrived on the day of their first grandson.
My poor catfish! I guess they won!

A Letter to Emily Gould

What a briny prickle you’ve created of yourself!
It’s a sorry tale I’ve read from you, your life upon a shelf
Of public scrutiny. Where will you go from here?

Might you remember Rostov’s charging the French Army,
His sudden realization that I mean no harm,
My friends love me;
My family would be sorely grieved
I am a really nice person;
So why are they shooting blazing guns at me?
My God I’m like to die!
Retreat! Retreat!
And yet they called him a hero, fool that he was,
And he was never quite the same,
A wiser man, and somewhat more sedate.

It’s time to quit Emily.
Quit being Emily.
Perhaps you think I’ve not been you
And should say nothing.
Yes, I should say nothing.
I’ve said nothing to you
Because you don’t exist, Emily,
You’ve lost it.
You wanted fearless adventure,
Free love and
Faceless friendship;
Virtual reality and no real virtue.
They’re oxymora, Emily.
Like you they don’t exist.

Go away now,
Retreat to no place
Where no one sees
And no one cares.
It’s a nice place actually,
Restful to a point,
Healing.
Give it up Emily.
Quit trying,
Quit trying not to try,
Quit quitting.
hush

Now just breathe
for a while.
breathe.

Notice if you will
The emptiness within
A chest of emptiness.
A space, a place
Where nothing is
Within your chest
Beneath, behind
Unnoticed breasts
Close by an anxious heart,
That fills with nothing
More than life
And just as quickly
Empties of itself.
It’s yours, it’s you,
That space where nothing is.
Do not notice now
The fullness of all living things,
Their panting, gasping, respirating
Breath;
The flow of waters over gills
The leaves of porous trees
The crawling worms
And creeping bugs
And microscopic things
Within this microscopic sphere
Of life on earth.
Do not notice your
Communion with silent earthlings
In an envelope of air.
but hush
you don’t exist
you are not here.
When you arrive
You’re welcome.

Father's Day

Let me sing about myself, or rather
Let me tell you something of my father.
He was a good man, first of all, the best
In numberless ways, from Portland, the west
End of Louisville. A worker by day,
And husband/father by night, my stay-
At-home mother’s best friend; and disciplined
To work and duty, faithful to church, deepened
By hard military experience,
A Marine, not given to prurience
But not without humor either. Unschooled
Like men of his time, wise and rarely fooled
By salesmen or shop girls. I will not disclose
His shortcomings. Allow me to keep them close
To my own heart for once, and not to speak
Of his secrets. What were the highest, the peak
Moments of his brief life? Perhaps my mother
Knew them. She admired the man, her other
Half, as they used to say. When he died at
Fifty-five, my life abruptly stopped. I sat
In a psychiatric hospital for
Six weeks, or paced its hard terrazzo floor,
Wondering how I got there and where should
I go from there. My greatest fear – he could
See me now, wherever I turned. Whatever
I did he oversaw. I could not sever
His spirit from me; it was many a year
Before I knew there was nothing to fear
From his knowing or his omnipresence;
Nor should I have been awed by his radiance.
My burden was to live with his good name,
To honor his memory, and hide the shame
That clogged my thinking. I often recall
Hamlet, "He was a man, take him for all in all,
I shall not look upon his like again.”

Half a lifetime later, I miss the man.
He is still my hero, judge and standard
Although I am today less enamored
By his Greatest Generation code.
If my biography were named an ode
To my father’s decency, then I should
Think my life well-lived. He fathered a good
Man – myself – and nine others. Now let him
Rest and add his voice to angelic hymns.

I set out some time ago to tell
You of myself, but soon distracted, fell
Into an abyss of reminiscence
On my father, an icon, a god since
My earliest life. That’s enough for now;
I’ve said already more than he’d allow.

Alien Encounter

You greet my deities with disgust
My gods and fears are strange to you
They cannot charm or be discussed

If I’ve found ways to tame my lust
And loathsome habits now eschew
You greet my deities with disgust

My gods have ways you call unjust
Their famous mercies all too few
They cannot charm or be discussed

Before your votive lights a bust
Siddhartha, Christ, or Lao Tzu
They greet my deities with disgust

Their ears are stone, their eyes have dust
Their aging skin a sickening hew
They cannot charm or be discussed

Between us grows a hardened crust
There’s nothing fresh and nothing new
You greet my deities with disgust
They cannot charm or be discussed.

Horror and Humor

Horror and Humor
In the world of entertainment
Are sisters.
It’s all they can do,
The implausible monsters,
To keep a straight face.
Damsels in distress
Screaming their tonsils out,
Laugh hysterically between shots.

Elsewhere Horror and Humor
Never speak to one another;
They live on separate planets.
There’s really nothing funny
About hunger, rape, or ravaging armies.

Sexuality often joins her sister Humor,
They live and work together,
Share picnics and family fun,
Office parties and vacations;
But they never pray.
Nor do they meet in church
With Sister Faith.
She goes alone.
Men and women may laugh
With delight at their nakedness,
Its touch and sight and smell,
But there’s no kiss and tell in church.
If Adam finds no suitable partner
In his menagerie
his straight man –
God –
Doesn’t laugh knowingly.
Nor does the congregation.

But Sex and Horror tryst
And not only in slasher films.
Children defiled try to sort out
The sordid, tangled strands
Of love, anger, hate, affection, loathing, fear.
Adults too renounce affection
When they find it in bed
With Force
Coiled like a snake around its waist.
We wait for peace to no avail;
For a time of healing, but terror comes instead.

Speaking of which:
I notice Faith is often unwelcome.
Mine is pretty silly --
All that praising and thanking --
And the groveling.
I wish I didn’t grovel.
It lacks dignity.

Thanks for bearing with my religion;
I’ll try not to pray too long.
I know it’s tiresome.
It’s just the attempt
To speak the unspeakable
Explain the inexplicable
Unscrew the inscrutable
Unleashes a barrage
Of words and they keep coming.
“INCOMING!”
Perhaps it’s more like a deluge.
“MAN THE BILGE PUMPS!
HERE IT COMES AGAIN!”
Sometimes ideas flow too,
Incoherently.
I see connections everywhere.

The crucifixion, for instance,
Horror or humor?
Wasn’t his rout of the demons pretty damned funny?
Didn’t you laugh at their bare
Butts disappearing in the distance?
Weren’t you glad at your relief?
You find no humor at all
When you recall your fears and doubt?

How many times did he tell you
Be not afraid?
But you feared and now
You realize how groundless
Were your fears.
God was always in charge,
If only you had believed.

But it was horrible too.

A man’s dying on the cross –
What is beautiful about that?
How can you say,
“What a beautiful crucifix over the altar?”
It’s horrible.
But not half so grisly as
The man’s body stretched
By uplifting nails
And the downward dead-weight
Yank of gravity;
His flayed flesh;
Yellow, brown, red filth
Streaming from every orifice,
Shoulders, elbows, arms unjointed,
Head upside-down
Hanging helpless heavy.
The stench alone was unbearable.
The crowds jeered, of course.
What else could they do?
The sight of his bestial nature
Stripped them of human decency.

There is no comedy there.
Is it decent to remember
Or imagine
Or describe?
Is it better left unsaid?
If you dare you will find
Even sexual abuse in this
Passion Narrative –
His nakedness, the taunts and jeers,
The leering eyes of strangers,
And his helplessness.
What did they feel in their loins,
What stimulant,
As they stripped, tortured, nailed
And raised him up?

But we will laugh on Sunday
Tears streaming from our eyes
As we hear the good news.
Free at last, free at last,
Thank God Almighty I am free at last.

There is healing in his wings
Even for children.
Love and truth will meet;
Justice and peace will kiss.
The wolf shall be guest of the lamb,
And the leopard lie down with the kid;
Horror and Humor will sport together
As Faith and Sex slap hands. 

Riff on a Nightmare

...O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low….
from Ode to the West Wind, Percy Bysshe Shelley

 
fleeing an army
in hiding eating uncooked 
fish their defleshed bones.

in a muddy ditch
enemies pass over head
fish their unfleshed bones

eating fish their bones
unfleshed in muddy ditches
skeleton uncooked

armies of night fear
now dread passing overhead
their bones unfleshed fish

overheard armies
fish for me and unfleshed bones
in a muddy ditch

fish hover overhead 
armies forage passed ditches
cartoon skeletons

 
fish eyes stare exes
inked in cartoon skeletons 
as armies forage

bony skeletons
ditches of dead eyed fishes 
foraging armies

armies search the night
in muddy ditches hiding
eating fish-eyed bones

armies search and find
in a child’s cartooned nightmares 
his skeletoned bones 

armies overheard
forage for eyeless fishes
in dreamscape ditches

fish bone pattern leaves
displayed in windblown ditches 
splay like skeletons 

The Lord Ascends

The Lord ascends to shouts of joy,
A blare of trumpets for the child
Whose coming the powers-that-be annoys;
He’s far too pleasant, far too mild

And trumpets blaring for the child
Will shatter windows, tumble walls
As pleasant springtime airs and mild
Invade our cubicles and stalls

Reopen shuttered airless halls
To free our mind and open eyes
The silly cubicles and stalls
That tried so hard to hide our lies,

To keep our minds and blind our eyes
Evaporate before the boy
Who tries the harshest, hidden lies
And dumps them like discarded toys.

Elaborate before the boy
The nation's proud display their deeds;
He dumps them like discarded toys
He turns instead to find the seeds

The nations' proud despised as weeds
His father planted years ago
He means to find and tend the needs
Of all who suffer lives of woe.

His father planted years ago
A garden rich with all delight
And those who suffer lives of woe
Will never need to take to flight

From gardens rich with all delight.
The powers-that-were no more annoy
And humble folks need not take flight
As God descends to shouts of joy.

We will come and dwell

When I came and saw your home in Nazareth,
Where your dear mother lived by Joseph’s grave
In tranquil prosperity since his death,

I wondered why you would not choose to save
And guard this unexpected paradise.
It seemed so foolish to ignore the certain waves

Of politics and war, poverty and ice
And drought and parching heat that always rise
Despite our rosy schemes. No plans suffice

To guarantee security. Despise-
ing all precaution you abandoned kith
and kin and village to evangelize

an ancient world, already tainted with
the proffered blood of human sacrifice.
Could your bold retelling ancient myths

Persuade your co-religionists to splice
New ideas to prehistoric ways?
Often did you tangle with teachers of precise

Traditions, laws, and customs, but unfazed
Every man “went unto his own abode”
and no one saw the ending of his day.

The way you looked at me, I felt my load
of worries lightened on my back. I had
to drop everything and follow on the road,

because -- if for no other reason -- you bade
me come and see. Where this would lead I dared
not guess. A sudden, baffling urge -- so glad

My heart felt reassured I could be spared --
Set me toward an Eden far away
You called your home. You said your Father cared

And whatsoever we want, we need but pray,
And God will answer you. But I want more
Than I would dare to ask. Should I just lay

My common concerns at your most holy door?
Remembering that you harrowed the pits of hell
And sprang from death to life to give us more

Than we could ever dream, I am prepared to sell
My soul with everything on earth, for well
I’ve heard you say “With you we’ll come and dwell.”

John 10:14

“The Father and I are one.” An oath; no further
debate; finality slams the table. And
I thank you for that. I’ve looked and found no end
of my uncertainties. They whine and mutter,
resisting every assurance, then build another
round of crumbling barricades and sandy
banks to defend my half-assed plans
against the ocean storms and a world of pothers.
Collapsed by your profession my druthers
quell in silence. You rise to take your stand;
Your crown of thorns declares you competent;
Your empty tomb reveals your only father --
The One who judges every land --
And no one snatches from His hand.

Acts 2:24

God raised Him up and freed Him from the throes
Of death. Above the sky’s angelic choirs
He governs earth and pacifies the foes
Of life. Distressing, dross-consuming fires
Of Hell surrender now and demons glow
With blest relief. They raise reluctant gyres
Of praise; their knees are bent; their endless woes
Complained with less conviction. On Earth the Mire
Despondence renders to the Easter wind
Its fetid reek and blossoms sweeter smells.
The Virgin Hope awakens. And predestined
Joy signals to the church’s bells
“Our God has raised him up!” And their determined
Voices smack the skies, “EVAN-JA-LELL”

I Corinthians 15:28

This is the work of God, believe the one
He sent. The work of science, believe the facts,
Those slippery things we learned in high school texts.
Weapon-hard they shatter old illusions,
But not content with victory’s easy wins,
Fight on like immune systems run amok.
Assuming airs of godliness they suck
The air of ecstasy from buoyant lungs.
They bludgeon opponents of common sense
And proponents too. They must retire the field
Before the regent Charity, and yield
At last to a gentle, more serene presence
When everything and all things under Him
Obey the One who chastens even them.

John 6:29

God’s work; believe the one he sent.
The work of science: believe researchers’ words.
Suppose that nothing is except which they
Explain, demonstrate, predict and prove.
Then grope in darkness, which
hangs over head, a deepening cloud

of certainty. Within, beyond that cloud
of knowing hangs the faint, suggestive scent
of mundane mysteries, for which
we have a million and one thousand words.
Confirmed beyond a doubt and useful, they
collapse and fail to prove

themselves against the yet unproven
God whom we remember wrapping clouds
of obfuscation around every theory
of intelligence. Of course we resent
the intrusion. Fair enough. But abusing words
and sad reminders of witches

burned cannot so readily force a switch
from verities to arguments that prove
only how little we know. Defining words
with better education might well becloud
further discussion, but a lingering sense
of awe in all abides till pseudo theories

undermine our best and proven theories.
Then suddenly we wish aloud for witches'
mystic powers and common sense
makes no sense at all, and none can prove
to anyone’s satisfaction that cumulus clouds
are not oracles of cryptic words.

Even ordinary words
like love and marriage disintegrate until they’re
redefined by quacks and clowns.
But not to worry. The Holy Spirit, which
abides in low and high, will finally prove
by pure simplicity His word makes sense.

There was a man sent from God whose words,
as plain as day, describe a way which,
proven true, abides within a cloud.

Pentecost

Like a bell it rings,
The hour has come.
We heard it first in Cana,
It might have been a distant knolling
But it sounded only once.
We hardly noticed its toll
Over the merriment of his prank.
“You numbskull!” the maitre d’ whispered,
“You served the rot gut first,
and saved the best for last!”
We might have laughed
But no one titters when the Gospels are read.
And was that a bell knelling in the distance,
As he said, “My hour has not yet come?”

No one laid a hand on him when
the soldiers came.
His hour had not yet come,
But the hour would come to pass
from this world to the Father
For he loved his own in the world
And he loved them to the end.

The hour sounds closer now,
Ominous, inexorable,
Ordained from olden time.
We know that sound
As if we’ve always known
The hour must come.
The hour has come
Give glory to your son.
Who would ask a friend
To greet such an hour?
Who would trust
A Deity who leads by tolling bells?

How sad its sounding in their ears –
To the Witness and the Mother --
As he takes her to his home.

But now the bells ring
As the hours sing
And we’re scandalously drunk.
He has made our bitter sweet,
Our joy complete;
And our tears are lovely drink.

Sestina for Low Sunday

Well, I’m sorry; it’s true. We took to our heels
and ran like scared rabbits. Rumors
said they were looking for us so we hid.
What would you do? We were scared stiff, frightened
half out of our wits. And he hadn’t a ghost
after his arrest. Enemies appeared

everywhere, it seemed to us. They appeared
as curious children or idle men. Heels
in the streets chased us like tormented ghosts,
like wind-blown scraps of paper to this room.
Remember the room; the Supper? Still frightened,
we trusted women to feed us. They could hide

in their veils but we could show neither hide
nor hair of ourselves. We heard of appearances
of dead people. The city was frightened.
What did it mean? There is no healing
From death. We sat and stared, ruminating
Until Sunday afternoon when a ghost --

what else could it be but a ghost?
-- jumped up before us; everyone shied
like caged birds to one corner of the room;
and he glowed with every appearance
of good health and happiness, his wounds healed
though they gaped like open mouths. “Frightening!”

that’s all I can say. And we were frightened.
And then he smiled and spoke to us, the ghost,
I mean, spoke to us and something like healing
came over us, and there was no need to hide
anymore. Just like that. And the room
with his breath smelled wholesome. Holy! He appeared --

It was Jesus, you see. He appeared,
and he wasn’t at all dead. “Don’t be frightened.”
(Easy for him to say.) Then the rumors
came back to us. The stories of ghosts
walking in daylight, the soldiers hiding
as the sun rose, and all the people healed

Trust me, the Man heals; the rumors are true;
No more hiding for me, nor being frightened;
Not since the ghost, the holy one, appeared.

Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday

Aloft in the blue sky morning a solitary crow
circled idly overhead on that March
day like a bewildered palmer.
The soft, spring weather lent
the Sabbath dawn expectancy. A gusty wind
beneath his soaring wings twisted

the arcs of his errant path. Beneath the bird’s twisted
meandering a raucous, belligerent cockcrow
sounded through the streets that wind
the city, itself a dreadful, long disputed march
of earth and sky, saints and sinners. The walls’ benevolent
mass greeted chanting palmers

who finished their pilgrimage and palmed
the ancient stones. Their twisted
braids blessed the holy ground. The raven, hanging indolent,
ignored below but eyed by circling crows
from Beersheba to Dan, heard a sudden marching
sound of drums and screeling winds

announce a coming day whose blasting winds
would shatter stony walls, yet leave the bruiséd palm
unharmed, fresh and green. An eager mob marched
from the city through the open gates, their twisted 
faces grinning. Despite the humble ass and foal they crowed
at Herod’s pikes and Roman spears, and lent

their coats and tunics to the dirty streets, for even laws relent
when a populace hears a divine renewing wind
driving under gates like a crowbar.
Maddened authorities emptied money bags in open palms.
Suddenly reborn as criminals they twisted
schemes, and called for protest marches

to halt the invader’s coming. But the ruthless march
persisted as hosannas sounded, crowds clamored and the silent  
mare and foal advanced. Dust devils danced and twisted
on dung-grimy streets, and tongues of stone sang as the wind
stirred the feathered ferns and spiny palms,
and overhead appeared a murder of crows. 

On this Palm Sunday the twisted crown
And black crows hail our solemn Lent,
as at our backs a mighty wind propels us into march.

Holy Week, 1993

I holy weeked in a hospital bed
And saw the services
From below the surface of my suffering
On a TV screen.
I wondered at those men
Who walked on the dry land of comfort,
Who sang songs
And read readings
And kissed crosses,
But could not speak to me
Beneath the surface of my suffering.
They seemed like men
On an island
-- or a continent –
in the middle of a continent --
far from the vast waters of pain
that gird our world – that washed over me.

Our Earth, they say, should be called Water
And our lives should be called Pain.
But we spend most of our lives
On the dry land of comfort
Hardly aware of those who
Lie beneath the surface of their suffering
And gaze on us with glassy eyes.

John 8: 58-59

You spoke a Name which no one dares to speak
And as we reached for stones, you vanished
Into the temple precincts; and I am banished
Now. What word, what sign ever so oblique
Enthuses men with blazing eyes and cheeks
To rise stupidly amazed before a feverish
Mob enthralled? They listen with intensely anguished
Pleasure, as if the arid sky should leak
And overflow with holy rain. In pain
I wonder what your disappearance means.
Have you, by God’s own kindness, broke the chain
Our father Cain imposed on us? The scenes
Of empty tombs and walking dead remain.
They say you've cancelled all the ancient liens.

A Moment Passes by with Every Breath

A moment passes by with every breath
And the future, channeled through this gap of now
Gives way to a backlog of opportunities
Lost, never reclaimed or rediscovered
Even as an infinity of futurities unimaginable
Eagerly pile up behind this narrow strait.

Dear Aging Heart, we have walked an older street
With anguished time forgot and labored breath
Navigating cycles of years with imagined
Pleasures that seemed so real then, but now
They reel like errant importunities.
Can memories unlimited discover

In rude stories unrued, undiscovered
Airs or gusts of goodness? The straight
Path on which I set out despite the portents
Was fair enough, I think; and yet I breathe
Worrisome belabored stories and I know
That no one – or few – can imagine

The troubles I have caused. But doesn’t Imagination
Work with Grace and Bliss to cover
The past in future glory? And the now
Has a mystic, magic madness that straightens
Twisted, tortured traumas until their breath
Comes easily and their importance

Resounds like blessed opportunities.
No one on this side of the grave imagines
The endless openings that curl and wreath
Even yet around each unrecovered
Moment of the past. An amazing now,
Bending under futures’ pressures straightens

And heals even that most regretted traitor’s
Kiss. It harrows hell and finds unfortunates
Who could not imagine or dream a knowing
Happiness. Their lives lost and unmanaged,
Unremembered shall be recovered
And they will rise up breathing.

Laboratory Rats

These little guys are born to search about
In affluent mansions and filthy shacks
As bitter thoughts rehearsed shut blessings out.
They breed and thrive in crevices and cracks

From affluent mansions to filthy shacks
Their feverish claws and black snouts fierce
They breed and thrive in crevices and cracks,
Through cement walls and wooden floors they pierce

Their feverish claws and black snouts fierce
As angry notions set afire the past
Through cement walls and wooden floors they pierce,
These sordid thoughts that leave my soul aghast

As angry notions set afire the past
The rats they run these mazes in their dreams
Like sordid thoughts that leave my soul aghast
They ruminate on narrow, tortured seams

The rats they run these mazes in their dreams
Commit to memory the twisted scene
And ruminate on narrow, tortured seams
Of lessons hard, resentful, bitter, mean

Commit to memory the twisted scene
Resuming days with angers freshly armed
Of lessons hard, resentful, bitter, mean
And slights, insults, and tender feelings harmed

Resuming days with angers freshly armed
Like rats who memorize in sleep the torrid
Slights, insults, and tender feelings harmed
And Satan from his tortured Sheol is horrid

Like rats I memorize in sleep the torrid
Bitter cup spills through my blood and speech
And Satan from his tortured Sheol is horrid
While human pleasures fading out of reach

The bitter cup flows through my blood and speech
Its stench like putrid odors endless reek
And human pleasures fading out of reach
Until the madness reaches such a peak

Its stench like putrid odors endless reek
And something breaks, a snap within unheard
The gnawing madness reaches such a peak
Their midnight scuffling speaks a two-edged word

And something breaks, a snap within now heard
That even rats can find a better path
Their midnight scuffling speaks a two-edged word
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath”

And even rats have found a better path
As ancient lessons echo from the deep
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath”
For dreaming animals relearn in sleep

As ancient lessons echo from the deep
Synapses firing softly through the night
For dreaming animals relearn in sleep
And morning finds them racing with delight

Synapses firing softly through the night
Beloved dark and labyrinthine lanes
And morning finds them racing with delight
Where sunless dark and brilliance never wane

They love the dark and labyrinthine lanes
And lead me from the world of my disgrace –
Where sunless dark and brilliance never wane
In knowledge of their simple earth-bound place.

They lead me from the world of my disgrace –
My unforgotten misbegotten feuds --
By knowledge of their simpler, earth bound grace
I’ve settled down where gentle kindness broods

Dismissing all my misbegotten feuds
For bitter thoughts rehearsed shut blessings out
And loveliness with gentle kindness broods.
These little guys were born to search this out.

Pantoum

I’ll always take delight
In staying one place not saying goodbye
The cords of my heart are tight
You see, when I go I leave with a sigh

In leaving a place and saying goodbye
A harvest of anger insults
You see, when I go I leave with a sigh
With a scathing list of faults

A harvest of anger insults
The green reminiscence of long ago
With a scathing list of faults
Like bluebottle flies in garbage grow

The green reminiscence of long ago
Somewhere fresh with life
Like bluebottle flies in garbage grow
On the sickly edge of strife

Somewhere fresh with life
Simmers a world of homely dreams
On the prickly edge of strife
A promised land of honeyed streams

Simmers a world of homely dreams
The chords of my heart are light
A promised land of honeyed streams
I’ll always take delight

A Wreath Poem

The leafless black bole oak trees standing mute
Their stand before the winter blast defiant done,
Await the blast of new spring life from chthonic roots
That spring from carboned, billion-layered life.
Their layered leaves have fed the hungry earth
As earthworms plowed the humus underground
And now the ground is rising up in wonder
To wonder-strike the eye and air with leaf.

When she looked at me

When she looked at me I thought she turned her head.
It was the slightest twist, a look of vague surprise.
She caught my eye, perhaps I caught her glance
At me. Another hour the moment would pass
As all moments pass into that River Lethe
As if they never happened.

Really nothing in that silent gym had happened.
I saw her slender form, her blue eyes, and flaxen head
Of hair. I noticed my pleasure in surprise
As if I might yet be worth a second glance.
It might be fun to talk with her, to pass
Some time by the River Lethe.

I wish I could drink from that River Lethe
And forget some things that happened
Long ago. I would turn my life and head
Another direction. I might surprise
Myself with contentment. There’d be no fiery glance
To throw me into confusion. I could pass

My life on quiet gentle trails, explore a safer pass
Through lower mountain gaps and sip from Lethe
Streams both up and down. Whatever happened
Would not be so important. I’d let a wiser head
Than mine deal with the occasional surprise.
I might pause only in the forest clearings to glance

With satisfaction on my life. Once a casual glance
Through a restaurant window – I often eat alone to pass
The time -- sent me plunging for the River Lethe.
A one-time lover, absently staring through the pane, happened
To walk by as I raised my head.
We shared a painful start, a shocked surprise.

In that brief moment of mutual, unwanted surprise
I saw her lovely, familiar face transformed from empty glance
To angry fear. In that same instant my quiet passing
of an evening meal, left me thirsty for the waters of the Lethe,
Suddenly deeply shaken and scared, as if it happened
Over and over again, a curse upon my head.

I’ll turn my head, I’ll be surprised;

I’ll steal a glance as you pass by,

And drown us both in Lethe’s stream, as if we never happened. 

No Man's Land

He’s lost to us he’ll not come home
The church your friends we’re here for you
His family prays in the waiting room.

We hear your cries they’re killing us
Death’s placid stare across the line
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home

Our trenches dug, our lines of prayer
We’ll not back off, our God is good
His family prays in the waiting room.

You’ve got the best care in the world
They won’t surrender you to death
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home

It’s all we do to stay this close
We sanitize each thing we touch
His family prays in the waiting room.

There is no life in the DMZ
And ICU survives on hope
He’s lost to us he’ll not come home
His family prays in the waiting room.

Paperweight Sonnets

1)
I walked along a northern shore and found
A pebble in my hands. This solid rock
Must weather waves and crushing ice that shock
Its razored unrelenting ridges round
Until uncalloused hands caress it. Worth
No more than sentiment, a paperweight,
It idles on my desk; it's likely fate,
To settle as my sediment to earth.
Once formed within a molten core, condensed,
And broken from nomadic mountain stone,
Its timeless, reckless tale it cannot own.
It knows no self. My sentience breaks against
Its surface, slaps and churns, but can’t displace
A bit of mica from its scabrous face.


2)
My desk without its usual piled debris
Reveals a wide expanse of wood, and one
Remaining paperweight. A falling ton
Of shattered granite, milled and ground-down
scree,
Has left this solitary boulder shard
Ensconced upon my desk, like Hector’s stalled
Attack upon Atrides’ naval wall.
Defying time or tempering; it’s hard
Resistance challenges the polished plane
Of lacquered wood. So easy to remove,
But grim, it glowers and would cut a groove
To anchor itself there. It threatens pain
Upon the flesh that one time felt its sting
In ancient battle from a rawhide sling.

3)
The diamond on her finger wakened hope
That slumbered in this paperweight of mine.
This mongrel rock has no distinction fine
But if there were a prospect, might elope
With solitaire of higher social caste.
It bears within its variegated line
Old veins of quartz and granite, flecks that shine
And gleam like stars. Although it has a past
Not lustrous, but of many shady years,
This paperweight forgets his former life,
And dreams of cultured days and pretty wife.
Alas, the lovely gem prefers her peers
Despite the stony heart so sorely smit.
By crystal purity he’s ground to grit.


4)
This ornamental basalt lightly weighs
The piled-up papers on my desk, as if
It never knew its gravity. Adrift
On seas of time, it floats through current days
Without a sigh. A thousand years are but
A moment to this rock; a day not worth
The mentioning. It’s font in fiery earth
And early years in earthen womb – deep shut
In stygian gloom a million years and more –
Are not a wretched memory; nor, carved
By raging storms, has this stone ever starved
For love. It only shudders at the roar
Of wind and rain and fire and quake and blast
That mean it must be shattered at the last.