This world flowing over
into the next
Tag Archives: poetry
Advanced Dutch
“Lekker zonnetje.”
“Wat maakt het zo klein?”
“De gezelligheid.”
Like candy
What I first saw of the finger, what it
did do, was push a bike like the bead
of an abacus from high on the right
to the opposite corner. The rider knew
nothing of this, but I could see it clearly.
What the finger didn’t do, later in the day,
which I also saw, was swipe leisurely
through the pollen across the top of my car.
The pollen was green and would’ve tasted like candy.
Not a fixed-ghost lump of sugar
Not a fixed-ghost lump of sugar,
but sugar rejoicing, rising in tea
I pity my compadre
Don’t strike the snake
I thought as I struck
at the root of my sin.
Fear not but pity
weighed my spade as I cut
earth with my thought.
For the serpent, too, a creature is –
rise thus he must –
and the first to fall waits longest of all.
Yes, by God he’ll rise. I say it is just.
For what better blow
to the little man’s pride
than to give what he hates
and wants all along?
Tantum ergo and the dousing of the lights
Altar stripped this
God in retreat
Dear St. Joseph
When I think of you,
I think of your troubled sleep
and many hard choices.
I see you at night
in the desert,
getting Mary to safety.
And later, again, the three of you in flight,
pyramids looming in the distance.
In all the Gospels you never once opened your mouth.
You didn’t have to. Your actions said it all.
For you were, as all could see,
faithful in all things.
You know I’m not, but would like to be,
so I ask, meekly, that you pray for me
that I might be
in more than just my mind.
A falling, her falling
Into space
wings extended
what’s left of her past
still unknown
An epic of little things, or, In the sun and out of the wind
With nothing but where I am, home,
for my destination, I forgo foes and
calamities for mild
surprises: ice and reeds and
sliding fowl,
a family afoot,
two dogs who join and guide me.
Mercy was a schoolyard word
Mercy was a schoolyard word,
the key unlocking the grip of the bully,
something I saw often enough
but normally (neatly, nimbly)
dodged myself. God did thus
himself a disservice, putting
his good word first in the
mouth of the enemy who demanded it –
of his victim no less.
And this was part of a larger pattern,
I saw, God betting on the wrong horse,
dumping his treasures in the mud,
thinking all-screwed-up might make
the good, the true and the beautiful
self-evident.
Oh I’ll admit:
I never see the truth better
than when I’m wrong
or love purity more
than when I’ve sinned.
So maybe this is just the way.
But why?
Why must dark
dress up our day?
Utrecht Journal 