Transcript of the shadow
Tag Archives: poetry
Jehovah’s witnesses
Their eyes apologized as they spoke,
two earnest men, smiling,
backing away as I opened the door.
We’re having an event, we wanted
to invite you.
When they were gone I read of loyalty,
God’s to us and ours to Him.
I saw the next door
and the next eyes.
Monogrammed champagne glasses on a fridge in a dorm
Later you figure things out,
you can’t blame her for fearing to lose
what you’re hoping to gain.
At the time, however, on your monk’s bed,
you believe having promise is enough.
Where you come from, that’s more than almost anyone’s got.
But there you go.
That’s how poor people think.
You have hit the jackpot
By reading this poem.
Or actually, no, sorry,
by reading this you’ve in fact injested
poetic cookies, which are non-material,
semi-nutritive enzymes that excrete a
phosphorous-like substance in the brain.
While benign, these cookies do produce
occasional light shows in the cranial cavity.
If you are against cookies –
if you are really sure you really
do not like cookies and will not
accept out cooky policy
(but who doesn’t like cookies?),
then you can remove them by simply
returning in time to before
you hit the jackpot.
God knows every manner of suffering
It seemed like a fine plan,
writing Himself into His own work,
to taste and be tasted –
descending in scarlet,
sinking to flesh –
but who knew the life of man
was a brutal current turning,
slow and wide
then swifter and deeper
till the sky
became
a little white circle climbing
Poetry is my protection
Poetry is my protection against terror.
It fortifies no wall but collapses the one
behind which I find myself cowering.
I’m embarrassed to find myself there.
Poetry is every word in the question,
What are you afraid of?
It leads me outside.
The wind strips seasons from the year
My love has held nothing in place –
and has itself, some of it, gone
to where love and time decompose
in a field of stars and glass.
Another of her secrets she shares
You’re not made of sugar, she says
when it’s raining.
She can see me not melting.
Parasol, or Britain leaves the E.U.
Judgments crowd the heart
where chastity would dwell in privacy.
She would be magnanimous in isolation,
making no hard choice of the spirit,
but having instead her lake,
her begonia, her tea.
Her footman will dispatch
the stranger at the door,
and shade will beget
no dark fantasy.
Of God and L’Oréal
How wonderfully wearies the Lord
the ego, filing countersuit
after countersuit
against our vanity, depleting
with blemishes and disappointment
our reserve of can-do and
will-do – Oh I’ll get this
and I’ll get her, I will and
I will – taking His time
(He’s got all the time in the world)
while we chase our crooked schemes
of self-help and maintenance.
He reminds us we’ve better things to do,
but we don’t hear because our eyes
are fixed on our face
going up in wrinkles.
Utrecht Journal 