Category Archives: Poetry

My poetry. Mostly Collects

“Chattering”

Cute nuances bring me 
low again this morning.
The very breath of God moves,
not over watery chaos
but through me, pushing
me out the door to receive
a morning world still not awake.
Books I read last night 
have arranged themselves
on the dining room table,
feasting on leftover peas
and carrots and crumbs
from the food fight I had
with my familiar after dinner.
The question is not about
who wins or loses
as there is plenty of ground
to soak up all the blood
spilled in this world. 
Listen to the heartbeat
of the bird that sings
alone on the wire 
below the crowded 
chattering gathered above.

Vitality Preferred

Remember the play of civilization;
how people treat each other waiting
in a long, summer line for ice cream?

Be careful in the way you lean; someone 
behind you may be making smiley faces
at the little one you hold in your arms.

Does this gathering come about from
reading the message in the soda bottle
or from seeing a fortune unfold from a cookie?

The Help Wanted sign on a desert island
reads, "New Liberator position available.
No experience necessary.  Vitality preferred."

The questions, What should I want?
and, What do I want? refuse to bend
away from the one question they have become.

Tie Us All Together

While crushing garlic, 
I said, "God is not our genie."

She rinsed her hands.
"Either choose to spend 
time or spread time
across different spaces."

Taken aback, I said,
"That's the problem.
Passages for people
shorten perspective."

"Now you're just making 
fun of me," she smiled.

"Not true.  I am simply
prepping my strategy
for finding the best seat."

Taking up my challenge,
and with ease, she said,
"It doesn't have to take
so long, you know,
to tie us all together."

Ode to My 2016 Cubs World Series Trophy Paperweight

Imagine the weight of the world, a serious wait
 for Chicago Cubs fans, one hundred and eight
 years between World Series victories lifted
 that chill November evening in Indian country.  
 The seventh game, delayed by rain after the end 
 of the ninth, score tied after blowing a two run lead!
 Is this the Scrubs of old?  To lose again?
 The Curse of the Billy Goat and winning no more
 proving to be true? No!  Instead, shouts of Yes!  Yes!  Yes!
 A young schoolboy’s old dream of heaven,
 to win it all in the final inning of a game seven.
 And players playing in that boyish exuberance
 more wet from champagne than from the rain
 that dared to stain, no, blemish, no, fail, no,
 not this time, not exasperation again once again.
 Wait ’til next year no more! for on this night
 the Cubbies found it with hits to left, center and right.
 Futility erased.  Beaming faces.  Trophy raised.
      Little copies of the real trophy made.
 Twenty-three golden flagpoles with the pennants 
 of those teams who were not good enough 
 - not enough of the good stuff - to paint
 the winner’s hardware with the team color blue
 and have emblazoned for the first time,
 in over one hundred year’s time, the letters 
 C-U-B-S 2016 World Series Champions
 to sit on the desks of big boys dreaming dreams
 of winning and raising their own trophy to the sky.

Desire for Ourselves

“We desire according to the desire of the other.” - Rene Girard

Anti-septic joy-killers
look for those who have
honest relationships
with their own hearts,
while willfully seeking 
to back persons who wallow
in well-financed ignorance
and thoughtful thoughtlessness.
Mourners remember, others ignore,
the name of the last one
lowered into the ground.
Call on the people of the margins,
those who suffer suffering,
until the wizard behind
the green curtain is revealed.
Only then may we return
to the place where we
can desire for ourselves.

Essentially Expendable

To be saved is to be provoked;
to believe that a message 
is true if it saves your life.
How can you be comfortable 
and still thirst for more comfort?
Which is worth more?
A twelve hundred dollar band-aid? 
Or a six hundred dollar band-aid?
Signs and standing ovations applaud
and promote service workers
to the rare air of being essential.
     (Essential really means expendable.)
We need healers who walk in the ancient ways.

Your Choice

Sensing the poignancy of the moment
I speak into it, "There is a tension 
between exerting control and letting go."

She looks up from the book she always 
reads and says, "Perhaps it is time to tend
to the craft of making faithfulness."

Not wanting to be undone, I say,
"The challenge is to see the text for now,
avoid cliché, and live in the moment."

"Nice," she laughs.  "Heaven 
can be on earth if we dare 
to make new connections."

I pause.  Intrigued. Thinking aloud,
"Radical intricacies come and unfold
in this time and in this space."

She turns back to the book she always
reads, "Your choice: performance
or completion."

Magic Summer

Adults sit on folding lawn chairs
set in a circle around a fire along
the south bank of the Rock River.
Their laughter, the cicada buzz
and the occasional boat throttling
mixed with children shouts 
from joyful jumps off the dock 
into the water create summer 
for me in my mind.

But not until Grandpa poured 
his Old Style into a clear, tall glass; 
not until he handed me the salt shaker 
to tap a few times into the foam;
not until the salt settling at the bottom 
began to work the magic of bubbles in beer;
not until I saw alchemy before my very eyes
was I then free to run and leap into water
endlessly flowing by the party.