Rocks and thorns got wind of it,
the city council,
the zoning commission –
everyone up in arms.
Who was this man,
and what would come
of what he’d sow?
Tag Archives: poetry
Jungian to the Manichee over nuts and cocktails
Two wrongs don’t make a right,
but two negatives
do make a positive.
Go figure.
Walk in the light,
but God also made the night,
so yeah, Hello?!
We’ve got to get back to the Garden,
but can’t because history is linear.
Great!
I’m gonna put it all in a bag and shake it,
and see what comes out.
Prob’ly a calico cat.
A member of parliament proposed
A member of parliament proposed
that when we’re ready, when we’re ripe,
we might have another do us in.
All we’ll need is a
“durable,
well-considered,
intrinsic
death wish.”
Serving us will be the
“end-of-life facilitator,”
a fully-equipped and professionally-trained
practitioner of the art of the new humane.
We’ll have to be 75, of course,
and there’ll be meetings involved –
bureaucracy will have its day –
but wish we may and dream we might:
the government will give us night!
The needs of the needy
The needs of the needy
swallow our prayers,
piling up faster
than pleas can be sung
What’s for dinner?
Everyone everywhere
always wants to know
Wick in wax
You’ve lit me and I’ll go,
but take my time as I do.
Your having me is me having you.
That I’m gone when you’re done
is you all the more.
How could I not live in this world where I speak to the dead
How could I not live in this world
where I speak to the dead and
they speak to me, and intercede –
if I would, if I pray –
even if I never knew them?
How could I not sign on for angels
and parted seas and tents in the desert,
and the last prophet who was the greatest,
but less than every child still to come?
How could I not want every chance repeatedly
to see and forgive – to tap out deeds of love
and be propped up – to pick up my mat and
soar, dammit, in a sky of mercy?!
I could not not turn to you
or live in any other world.
This is the world,
and I claim it.
Outwitting dying
I shook off dying
and was left undying,
but how was it other
than what I already was?
Ode to Willy Loman
Oh, we’ll fix the car and the shower –
the car that lurches, the shower that leaks –
and clean up the piles
of crap we don’t need.
And I’ll remember my wallet
before I bike to the station,
and my hat won’t be lost
for the twenty-third time.
But and yet still
thy will
won’t be in any of it
(or will) as trains pass
and doors close
and faces watch
the city aglow.
Pressure on the line judge
Of course we know which way we’re going
when we’re in the game, but step outside
to see the ball fly free from the scrum
to cross the invisible line, and hear
the eager calls and know no
answer from deep within to
pleading, pleading eyes
Utrecht Journal 