Domesticated Lion
A lion snarled and loped into the lounge.
The other regulars peered over their steins,
they smirked and kept their eyes and heads down.
The lion twisted into a booth and reclined.
The waitress came and cleared the debris,
set down a glass of his usual highball.
The others heard him purr contentedly,
his lidded eyes looked dull, unfocused, small.
He slurred, “You guys, you used to fear my roar,
you used to see me – and cringe with dread.
But now you just ignore me and think I’m a bore.”
The wildebeest looked up and cocked his head,
he turned to the fox, “Remind me . . . what’s his name?” —
“Oh he’s forgotten too, he’s let himself be tamed.”
Big Catch
Who did you think this was, Peter?
You’d seen the crowds pressed around him.
You’d heard the buzz from other towns,
but told yourself, ‘he’s surely out of my league.’
When you made your way back to the boat,
and saw him sitting there, did you think to charge a fee?
I bet you never thought he’d pay so soon.
You listened while you put your nets away.
You heard his voice amplified across the sea.
You saw the sea of faces rapt – every eye hung on his robes.
Did you let your admiration grow?
And when he finished speaking and the crowds had thinned away,
and yet he stayed, did you wonder why?
Would you’ve rather caught the sleep you’d missed last night?
And then he spoke, this time to you,
“Let’s launch out into deeper waters for a catch.”
How hard was it for you to be polite?
And when you cast your net, freshly scrubbed,
like you’d done at least a thousand times,
how long before the schools of fish had crowded in?
And while you knelt to scoop and toss the fish
by armloads onto land – your tunic folds caked in mud –
how soon before you turned to linger at his feet?
But then you said, ‘Leave me Lord, for I’m a sinful man’ —
a wave washed over the deck; he grabbed your arm
and jerked you up and looked you in the eye.
Then, did the dreams of denarii float away?
Could you finally see who’s worth enough to leave it all?
When did you grasp the fact that it was you he’d caught?
Safe
I need to tell you that I’ve got my stack
of journals put away. Each page and line
is crammed with scribbled thoughts of a ‘maniac.’
And in those reams of words reclines
a secret – it better not escape – but just
in case, I’ve slipped it in my safe.
If anybody had a trace of impetus
they’d find the myst’ry’s a man, no epitaph
just yet. He’s lying there, between the lines.
The shadow man, of course, is me — unmanned
and suffocating, claustrophobic, confined.
The books are squared, their leaves like folded hands
are poised for when it’s safe to take them out,
and peruse what my life was all about.
Sleep Sphere
Tonight I’ll go to sleep and disappear
and pay a visit just beyond the stratus
of my bedroom’s atmosphere
and go submissively unconscious.
Contorted, curled inside a bubble sphere,
where all I see are seas of darkened dreams,
a world inside – I’m lost and can’t see clear.
In panic mode, mouthing silent screams,
with eyelids shut and paralyzed,
I scan the walls for phantom doors.
Underneath my eyes roll side to side,
until another sphere comes ashore.
From within, he bursts his bubble with a stake
and then bursts mine. I suddenly awake.
Tableaus off stage
Surrounded by my family and friends
and lots of snacks and drinks, enough to drown
the worst of all my sins and griefs and lockdowns.
We entertain ourselves, here at the end,
at least, we’re always told that to so pretend.
But in the crowd, I’m a soul alone,
though other faces smile I know they’re down
and blank and no one really comprehends;
seems no one really listens when they’re warned.
Tableaus off stage; my script, it reads: ‘exit and fade
behind.’ So leave the lights for paths unworn,
and hear the Master’s call, unafraid;
and walk through jungles, wild with snares and thorns,
descending “sunny peaks” to valleys of shade.
Lost at sea
The ocean glitters and gleams divine.
He waded out to sea to see
it, it luring him to swim beyond the line.
The waves battered him unmercifully,
then dragged him down into a liquid hell.
The shoreline backs away then slowly dies.
His eyes barely bob above the swells,
and no one sees – no one hears his cries.
He tries to swim against the tide,
he’s undertowed till finally he resigned.
He’s lost at sea, a speck in endless blue.
He’s tough but way too small to save his pride.
The question is: what did he think he’d find —
seeking the shadow and not the true?
The Last Exhale
Remember, when I last exhaled,
an angel smiled and took me by the arm,
and rushed me through the roof, and past the veil.
Somehow I knew who I was going to see.
The day had finally come . . and what would he say to me?
Would I be ushered down a stately hall
to genuflect before his throne?
Or sit and wait for hours my name to be called?
Or shuffle, or stand and wait in the longest line?
From the deck I saw him standing on the beach,
a fire of coals at his feet, windblown
his hands shielding the sun, he looked out
and shouted, “David, I’ve waited so long for you!
Come and sit; rest and be renewed,
we’ve got so much to talk about.”
Father’s Day 2021
Dear children, how are you today?
As Mullins said, there’s really nothing new to say,
but the old, old story bears repeating,
and the plain old truth grows dearer every day.
So how do I say the things I want to say —
the things I’ve learned along the way,
the truths that seem t’have been forgot,
the ways that now I know we’ve lost,
and what’s left behind – my failures and cries,
my ‘what ifs’ and ‘why didn’t I’s?’
Yet despite my sins, you’ve grown and become
the men and women I admire and love.
But looking back I could’ve only
sown and watered so much anyway.
He’s still got you and I’m good with that.
And, when you find something worth believing
well that’s a joy that nothin’ could take away.
Immensities and Immanences
As far as I can see,
and then if I could see
beyond, it still goes on,
the ocean tides roll in,
in endless waves of waves.
The starlings surf the skies
in clouds of murmurations,
mimicking schools of cod.
I stand on the sand,
a solitary man.
I form my sentences
to try and transcend,
but the waters’ constant roar
drowns my little words,
I try to see the end,
just over the horizon,
but cannot understand.
And yet in the end
I still always know —
I gladly bend and kneel,
in the surf and sand,
to worship only him,
whose immensity
and immanence I sense,
and yet I cannot see,
but who condescends
to me, a human man.
Purging the temple
I surely wouldn’t want to be
a temple guard that day —
a fiery fury in your face,
you stormed the temple, but not to pray —
you purged the merchandise and thieves,
your Father’s house of its disgrace.
You drove the sheep and oxen out
and flipped the tables up and over
and poured their money on the floor.
How long had you seen their thievery?
How long had your prayers been stalled?
How soon did you decide
that you were not just going to grieve?
How quickly did your anger rise
on seeing people’s eyes of light
turn disillusioned at it all?
The sale of worship did you in.
But there’s no need to apologize,
for you alone have every right
to name the thing that drives us down,
to evil normals acquiesced by all.
You cleared your Father’s house,
and made it whole again —
a sanctuary filled with awe.
The end of the road
My destination must be close —
the road behind me flowed,
’twas relatively flat
and straight and smooth and long,
but lulled me half asleep,
it dulled my eyes and now
the day is nearly done,
the light is almost gone,
I strain to see the turns.
I’m feeling quite alone.
My eyes begin to burn.
I tell myself there’s just
a few more miles to go,
m’eyes keep closing down.
I simply cannot trust
myself to stay awake
and get myself back home,
It’s a race against the clock.
——
I spy another man
on foot, he’s on a path
to cross the only road I’ve known.
I stop the car right there,
get out and start to walk.
A Coal Waits
The tiny ember contemplates his loss,
remembers days of golden glows,
his camaraderie with maple and oak.
And yet he mustn’t forget the burn, the pathos,
when flames had peeled his skin and clothes,
the days he felt the existential woe.
But the fire had started so long ago,
his sap had long since ceased its flows,
his ash-bed now pulled up and around,
he joins his fellow embers with no regret.
They sink themselves, and there interred,
buried underneath the ashen ground,
cold and looking surely dead, and yet
they patiently await the wind to stir.
The Race
The younger runners pass me easily now,
the finish line is lost in haze.
My legs grow stiff, I’m slowing down,
I hope the end is not too far away —
I don’t resign, yet barely keep my pace.
The road’s incline climbs gradually
as sweat beads and dribbles down my face.
My lungs coerce my legs to walk, but awkwardly.
But if I stop to rest, would I rise again? —
I loll into a dream – to lounge and watch TV.
If only I’d endured more discipline!
So, must I accept my mediocrity?
Now at the top, I spy my prize is still not won.
I stop, then break into an all-out run.
What to do with rage
I buried rage beneath the debris
of my unsaid words and passivity,
my acquiescence and timidity,
and raked the soil until it smoothed.
I planted grass and walked away;
I left no marker there and so forgot,
and thought my rage forever gone.
But restless and untended, soon
the thistles and kudzu swallowed it all,
until it morphed into a jungled copse.
I hacked and pulled and sprayed
and tried to make it go away,
but overnight it all grew back.
So, helpless I raged: ‘Why can’t you die!?’
Exhausted, I laid my head to rest
and slowly the vines entwined me.
—————
A gusty wind stirred the air –
it bore a single seed aloft,
though no one paid attention much.
It nestled there, at the heart of rage
and sent its roots down, underneath.
—————
The morning sun brushed my cheek.
I woke and smelt the lilies’ strength.
‘How can this be? What is this place?’
The sun burned higher in the sky.
I rose and turned my head and smiled
and let the breeze caress my face.
Down the stairs
I hear a voice
that calls my name.
I look and there
on the lowest stair
is Jesus with
his back to the door,
his hand outstretched.
His eyes – so full
of love, they call
me down the stairs.
“I’ll be right here
each step you take.”
Each step I take –
one step, one stair –
my deepest fears,
they dissipate.
And even though
as I go down
into the gloom,
my eyes are filled
with light from him.
No other route
that I can take –
I can’t go back.
It’s only he
who has the key
to open the door.
We must go down
to get out.
Keeping our eyes on the road
Our conversations meander in the car –
unlike our eyes, as if in a trance,
they track the road and only here and there
we stop just long enough to catch a glance
of the other’s eye – we’re going way too fast.
A hundred times we’ve made this trip before,
and yet the traffic, like a snake unmasked,
emerges and recoils, ready to strike and score.
I dodge the holes and grip the wheel to drive,
and watch the signs appear and disappear.
To cross six lanes of I-sixty-five,
I deftly brake . . accelerate . . and check the mirror.
Yet, though the traffic slows we rarely show
our eyes – can’t miss the second we can go.
Hands
My hand, once free to open and close,
to clothe a thousand words with stroke and loop,
my grip, dexterity and fine control,
must stop – I hold it open palm side up.
The splintered wood feels rough against my wrist,
I’m tempted to ignore the call until the end,
my fingers curling, try to make a fist.
But then another hand gently bends
them ’til they slowly free its captive slave.
That other hand smooths and holds
and points the spike – I try to be brave.
The other hands have ragged holes.
Why should I think myself too good,
a servant is never greater than his Lord.
Cathedral of Trees
To hear the quiet now,
and feel the breeze across my arm;
to see the scurry of the ant
and the oak branches wave,
the subtle gestures of the page —
I’ve missed you,
though you’ve never left.
I recollect your rhythms now,
I’d grown deaf to your whispers,
hypnotized by the din
and flashing lights, the adrenalin.
Arouse the sleeping giant.
Break the spell of the arcade
that spins and drums and thumbs
me around the stage.
Seat me in a cathedral of trees,
and form me, conform me to
the posture of their limbs and leaves.
Questions for Peter
You roamed the back alleys, head down,
dark and cold; you pulled your tunic tight
and looked to warm your bloodied hands
around the fires, their hooded faces aglow.
What distance did you think was safe, despite
their laughs which pushed you into shadows?
There, few would recognize your eyes.
But had you noticed Judas’ vacant stares?
What errand made him leave so soon?
And did your nap allow you an escape?
Or did you crawl into some dark cocoon?
And yet you had to open up your mouth –
you couldn’t hide your Galilean brogue.
What did you swear by in your vulgar oaths?
What kind of fear induced such unbelief?
Had you forgot the trial would last all night –
until the rooster crowed?
Then did you think you’d gone too far?
that you deserved a gory Judas-fate?
Where did you go at sunrise then to hide?
Or did you contemplate your suicide?
Before they seized the Rabbi with a kiss,
he saw right through your blustered words,
he saw you do your worst before you did.
He heard your hurtful words before you spoke.
How quick you stumbled, groping the abyss,
and yet he also woke you seeking prayers,
there in the Garden of Gethsemane.
You saw the fast-encroaching wall of doom,
but when your eyes met his again,
did his embrace then mean that he’d forgot?
When did you see that he had not? —
How could you know he’d leave the tomb?
Dormancy
November air dreads
another early dusk. The oak’s naked arms
reach out in vain.
A flurry of leaves, withered
in want of escape, now lay dead in drifts
against the fence chain.
The chill air is suddenly still —
the birds and their trills and songs
feel quiet, restrained.
The mammatus broods dark and low
and threatens another cold
unclimactic rain.
The ground lays bare of summer’s color,
the fallen blooms wonder how they’ll ever
reach the stem again.
All around I see the signs of nature’s gloom
but, again I look and decode
the signs themselves contain —
the seeds of unrelenting hope.
Lost Allies
Halfway ’round the lake, but to no avail,
we found, a little late, that we were lost;
we’d somehow wandered off the trail.
‘Should we retrace our steps, count the cost,
go back until we find the path again?’
The sun moved low in late December skies.
We scrutinized the map and tried to be men;
not sure our next steps, I folded it crosswise.
All the trees stood ram-rod straight, they stared
and mocked our wanderings, blurred our lines.
Our six-queue slowed, we breathed our prayers;
we stopped to huddle in the shade of a great pine.
Then someone said, ‘The trail’s just over that rise!’
We followed bravely, but only as allies.
Pond
I saw a pond
and it was calm
and the sun shone
down upon it.
The twin suns
traveled long
across their skies,
the one, bright,
the other faint.
They finally kissed,
becoming one
in a blaze of red,
and slowly dimmed
and disappeared
back down into
the pond.
Beware: Mysterious Stickiness
She spins the finest silk and patiently stays
far up in ceiling corners or in between
the spaces that never see the light of day.
She waits, still and quiet, behind her screen.
A fly, innocent, buzzes by her lair,
he lands and loiters a little long to play.
His feet adhere (it appears), to nothing but air,
but trips the alarm – she’s snagged a juicy prey.
She clatters over, casting a side-long eye
to calculate the silk she needs to attack,
then paralyze, then mummify, the fly
and pickle him for a midnight snack.
A pity — no one ever told the guy,
how sticky it can get, just before you die.
Finish line
The starting line fades to a fleeting flash –
that day I sprinted off the block a maniac
and thought the lanes were lined for a dash.
But then the runners spread around the track,
with me – stuck in the back and overrun,
not seeing far ahead or too far behind.
The race drug on in dark hallucinations,
a stiffness racked my hips; I felt resigned
and fought the awful craving to collapse.
The bell announced the end in a distant air.
Was I too proud to limp the final laps?
I feared my training too careless and rare.
The Siren songs seduce me: ‘come, recline’ –
Lord breathe on me to get me ’cross the line!
One Part
My moment on the stage is nearly done.
Other actors rise and wait in the wings;
I work to keep my voice from faltering.
I hope to exit long before my lines are gone,
for there I’d play the fool if I prolong
my role with nothing more to say or sing.
I cannot bear the lowered eyes of pitying
as players thunder lines I might have done.
At most, one act is all we have to give,
one part, and only one soliloquy.
And what a tragedy to force a comic air
with motley costume colors, far too big –
to play the parts that others better speak.
How vain to seat myself in the director’s chair.
Bitten Heel
From the shadows of a jagged ridge
He appears to snakes and salamanders,
to wrestle another day His unseen foe.
The tangled weeds blow around His feet,
the condor’s angled eye circles overhead,
the widow spins her web invisibly.
A jaw bone lays half buried in the sand.
His hunger gnaws away until it’s gone.
A serpent speaks in whispered pities:
No one tries to understand your depths.
You must feel an unrelenting loneliness.
Did God forget your humaned face?
If you’re the Son of God, then why such thin regard?
They should have crowned you King by now.
Then Words of Torah thunder down the canyon walls.
The serpent’s tongue is severed with a bitten heel.
Nailing Love
I thought I knew what love must be
and so I put it in an envelope
and affixed its label carefully,
assigned its taxonomy along
with faith and hope and dignity.
But love wouldn’t stay cooped up for long;
it had a way of eating away
at its chains, so subtly, secretly
until it kindly returned the favor and
shackled me, yet I really didn’t mind.
Love. There. But now that I’ve said it
any other flowery words are
plainly way too small and unworthy
of it at all. We barely touch this love
and then it hides – it’s unpossessable.
Like Jesus, a guest in Emmaus
breaking bread, their eyes together
saw him risen – shocked they couldn’t
hold him, but once he’d gone his words
lit their hearts and made them smolder.
For generations now the world
has cut and carved their wood and stone
trying to congeal a god of love for all
but all they got were caricatures –
loony ’toons that made us joke and moan.
But little did we know that love
was working all the time
behind the stage, then briefly came
on the scene and stretched himself
for love – finally nailed, on a beam.
Oh, if life itself could be a walk of love
and every stride, that much closer to its shrine,
if I could lay myself upon its altar
and refuse to wiggle off its flame,
then my life would be a fitting, but unfinished frame
for the One who is this Love.
Emmaus Road Revisited
The sun had set, the dusky rose
of summer lay exhausted now.
The lonely road had narrowed down,
the longer shadows fled away,
and I was left to walk alone.
I felt the tentacles of cold.
Then just before the darkest hour,
a bearded man took up my stride.
He asked me if I knew this road —
“I’ve never come this far before.”
“Then stay with me, I know it well.”
A few more joined us at our side —
a measured, steady incline slowed
us and far, far ahead of us,
a snowy summit summoned us,
and girls with tambourines twirled;
they sang a tune I’d never heard.
Minutes, hours and days unfurled,
and though the climb was far beyond
our strength, we felt no loss or strain.
My bearded friend still led us on,
while jays and sparrows sang their tunes.
We laughed and cried and he explained
the answers to my deepest wounds.
I felt the burning of his words.
He stopped to look me in the eye,
convinced me that he’d always heard,
had never left through all my sins.
Now content to walk with him,
I knew we’d some day soon arrive,
relieved my trek would finally end,
at last to be invited in.
Unfolding Time
Time is told
in zygotes
and embryos.
It unfolds
and smooths
itself until it throbs
and breathes
and comes to be
who you’re going to be.
You grow, adapt,
differentiate,
you groove to a beat,
that ticks and tocks,
a calorie-powered clock,
it doesn’t stop
until it stops —
quite abruptly.
But then, like knots
in a tree you lean
and learn to grow
around and into things
that don’t move,
which, in turn,
become part of you.
But whether pearl
or porn, you form
or deform,
with twists and turns,
your senescent face
ascends with grace
or descends into
endless dead-ends,
a permanent scowl,
a mockery of men,
and then, you cut the cord,
you breathe your last,
your bridges burned
. . . to be born
the one you’ll be
forever and ever.
A-men.
Farewell Future
Some time ago I scaled to the summit snow,
but only lingered long enough to trace
my eye across the peaks and endless airs below,
that is, until I started down a different face.
On the way I saw my daughters and sons;
they all were scattered on the mountain side,
bent with packs, their faces lit by the sun.
They strained to breathe the mountain rarified
air, and as I met them, one by one, the two
of us would sit and talk a while; then at last
we’d drop our shoulders as the shadows grew.
They were headed up, but I was pulled to the past.
They moved on, and though I often glanced behind,
still, my feet had to go where the valley inclined.
Lazarus
There beside the tomb, what made you weep?
You knew you could have kept him from the grave,
your groans erupted from the deep
at the stone forever sealed against the cave.
Martha couldn’t grasp who you were.
You had to show how far your power goes —
“I AM the resurrection, the life,” you told her.
Lazarus had to die before he rose.
You stirred and poured disgust on the cold of death,
your voice rang out and hushed the cries of woe:
“Lazarus come forth!” The words hung on your breath.
You brushed your tears away — “Unwind him, let him go.”
The wailers stood stone-faced, mystified.
He steadied, embraced him and standing there, they cried.
Merciful
He stands weak and bloodied,
leaving a trail of red;
the wreath of thorns embeds
itself into his brow.
Barefoot on the pavement,
the scourges bleed in streaks
through His woven robe —
they write a fractal sign.
He turns a red-lined face
to Pilate strolling to seat
himself high in the Praetorium.
His garrison stands in ranks,
polished, sharp, straight,
their faces like a stone.
Jesus still alone,
unmocked and blood-ennobled,
fixes Pilate’s stare.
His voice’s timbre clear,
it echoes down the hall —
“ . . . you’d have no power at all
unless it’s given from above.”
The spiders stop their crawl.
Pilate shifts his eyes
to cracks that line the wall.
Jesus casts his gaze
beneath the weight of Pilate’s
unnoticed despair.
English
Arabic
French
Russian
Spanish
Swahili