Go to the Park

My first poem, from November 1995. Click image to enlarge.

the sever

the tentacle of desire has not reached the root.
it has been severed.
there is no mystery, how it moves,
it aims, and goes
for the shoots.
ready to starve what might hint at growth, say,
something green. and I do mean the green
of joy.
i have taken sides and chosen wisely,
that is to say I have
seen.
and the sever of what would have choked me
did not hurt nearly as much
as misplaced hope,
springing, unwieldy.
i have never won a battle. ever. i have never lifted a
blade in my own strength,
yet the death-grip is severed.

Thistledown

i feel cracked. the spread of my life is so thin
i can barely taste it, disappearing in each crunch
of crust. am I crusty?

my hand shook as I ate my lunch of ramen
the girl in the cafeteria let me have hot water from the carafe so i waited 3 minutes for it to cook and the noodles slid down.
i still feel habanero like a scorching braze.
after waiting my life long for the free movement of
fingers
and toes
I realize i forget the expectation as I sleep
in indecision.
there will be mistakes.
there will be breakdowns/ups. redirections, diversions.
I will return. I will always be restored
to float
like thistledown.

smoke chill bow rise repeat

The smoke from the south has ruined the view
of foothills that never offend.
I live in their shadow and try to ascend to the
mood and thought they foster. Benevolent foothills.
It is Halloween and my toes feel a chill. Winter comes like a whisper
and I await morning dew on my sill; the condensation a herald of the
season. Life is change.
Even fixtures change. Erosion breaks, chips, slips.
Entropy wins battles, but not wars. (God wins this war, my dear.)
And I can sleep every night. My eyes close in the thought
of Glory so near to my pillow; on it, around it.
I turn out the light.
Glory is here.

Rich 070929

One day when I get money I will buy a few things,
like a framed print of the Himalayas to hang prominently and plain.
Every time I see a mountain I feel small. As I am every day but I
forget like people’s names.
I need you like I need a pot of decaf to make me feel at home.
Like I need 25 hours to make a day. I see you like an
ant crawling through the hair on your arm; like I am crawling
through a field of wheat
to find a treat.
One day when I get money I will buy a house to put you in.
The doors will open silently and the walls will not be thin,
but thick enough to keep us warm and thick enough to stand your
kicks against them in the dark. There will be a room for books that
we will try to read. You and me.
One day when I get money I will not work at all. I will serve the plans
of perfection and hope any way I can. I will be as I am now but only more.
Until then I will think and act as if I am. And I will be. Independent of want or plenty.
I know few better ways to be free.

Sometimes I wish I were a dog

I would bark at the night loudly

I would keep you up with my pleas for attention

I would lie on your feet and lick your face.

Sometimes I think I know exactly what I want,

more than a mug of tea or a photograph.

But most times I don’t have any idea

and I am happy just to feel your fingers in mine.

I fall over myself again, tripping in the bedsheet

of my imagination. There is no way out of here but up,

and up I go. Ascending like a weightless pebble or

a current of air, I am hot on top of cool, undaunted

by atmospheric pressure. There is no fear in love and I rise

up to the love of my life: Life,

my Hope and Consolation.

September 6 2007

As I hang out my laundry I am reminded

of how I do not comprehend You.

The heat of the summer recedes; my clothes

are still damp. Unlike the gnats, swarming

and dying in the light, I am living a long life.

And I plan to live it with You. No self-serving

cloud can obscure the joy of being poured out

in a circle of something that highly resembles love.

In that circle, You are in the center, as You should be.

September 5, 2007

I woke up in my room like a little girl

This morning was so new

I ate an apple and found a leftover view in

leftover rays

The ones cast off from yesterday

I pulled on my shirt and it slid across my face

And I wondered what I had forgotten

And breathed out a hallelujah that only one heard.

I ran to class and did not miss the significance

Of your goodbye, like an umbrella over my head.

Do you know that conscientiousness is a song

I try to sing with a clear conscience?

Now is the end of all day, lit by a bulb, efficient and ugly

My shirt slides off and I bathe.

No one else knows my day.

Gloria.

Sept. 4 2007

This land is nothing like heaven
but stayed in a separation of soul and soil
I see the cloud of sky that drips
with the waste of our toil, as this land serves
us and our profaned imagination

And like the mountains that guard the valleys
I do not comprehend or know why
I crest above but I have no sigh
that will right the wrong I bleed into
the greatness of our sin

Time is not on this land’s side,
but on mine, and I cannot help
but cry

Sept. 3, 2007

Crash

the stone like a cannonball
was unstoppable
splintering trees and sky
to collide with that which could not
hear its approach
now flattened.
life stops with a roar.
nature's force will enforce
the fall.

Bliss

in the shadows of the day
I know not what to say
so I listen to the stories of your sighs
your hands illustrating
like the gnat as it flies
orchestrating
the elegance of silence.
elegance unbroken
in the high altitude sky
in your amber green eye
in me
hailing incarnate beauty
in pines spied
or sunroof framed
neck craned to gaze as we drive.
haunted by heat I flee to meet
the cape of coolness and I,
once upon a time I remembered
the face of God in the grace
of green
in what is seen I see.

shape

In the quiet of the night
as my body starts to melt
I submit myself before your light
where my questions are not quelled
not pushed aside, not patly answered
I can trust you for the truth
that cuts me down in my own strength
with an arsenal of proof.
You’ve never seemed concerned
you’ve never creased your brow,
not anxious by an open end
that rules can't allow.

Your open palms before my eyes
won't shield me from the wind
that robs the moisture from the
membranes I should not unlid.
There are no secrets in your sphere
I give up, as I enter,
to vindicate, eradicate,
or white out my ledger.
It’s open and embarrassing
and yet there is no answer
this is the question I’m asking, God,
I know there is no answer.
I must leave it where it stands,
not pick it up again,
I must lay down my futile plans
to edit out the sin.

I have your palms over my eyes
and when they’re down I see
your sphere, exposing all there is,
has swallowed all of me.
My hands are empty, this ledger's white
and logic tells me something
now clear and free I have the right
to hold my heart unyielding

But logic’s overruled by my deeper soul
to God, my God, who makes me whole.

December 3, 2006

breath o' life

the air i have breathed for nineteen years has never changed.
i will in ha le ex ha le as you do
until i die breathing with you,
and all who came be fore
the ex hal ed breath of every child, the girl, the boy
every child birthed here

that breath is in my lungs
the breath of christ, of tut,
of earhart
of zinnia, sequoia, tapir
of god
i breathe with paul hewson
the breath of aung san suu kyi
you in ha le, i ex ha le.
we don't agree.
but we breathe.

i have no victims
to apologize to, i have yet to
oppress, to take
life, kill
breath
but i breathe with the breath of the martyred,
exterminated, forgotten,
the marginalized.
they breathe
same breath, same room,
with the oppressor,
in, out, in.

i use and use
not reused, tossed,
but i breathe the same.
in water and wind the dirt will find you -
see, i share
i breathe,
and breathe.
together, with the mute,
communicate unlike
i do
but breathe the same, in ha le ex ha le

the lungs fill,
seatmate.
in, out
closer than we know
what touches me touches
you
the same
inside.

Shakespearean Sonnet

it is mercy, a gentle rain that falls
from my mouth when I see you, that lets
me look at you, and hold you close in all
your hateful things you wrought and spent.

a battle: I will not say the things I think
to say. Here, at first sight it is hate,
not grace, but of grace I choose to drink.
I choose to not explode. I choose to wait.

and in the quiet mastery of my will
I am crying, aware how close I was
to destroying, yet may reach it still,
but for mercy falling upon us.

I am thirsty, always, under everything,
I thirst for justice, but really, for mercy.

for bishop desmond tutu

Italian Sonnet

the auction room floor, thick with old dust
stirred up on Saturday by farmers, men
who know a deal when they see one, then
let a grin rest on their cracked lips and trust
that the die grinder works despite the rust.
the man with the pipe stops, looks again
through vanilla smoke to the dim dead-end
through the chaos, through the auction room dust.

what this farmer sees is not up for sale
so he shuffles, creeps into the dark
the man reaches back and steals the art
to hang in his kitchen and tell a tale
with oil daubs whispering thief and liar
he thinks he's glad he obeyed desire…