Crayoned Heaven

think of the worst book

Each page, each word, each sentence 

Awful for a long time until

They are re-written

With the simple line drawings of a child

Obscuring words and pictures of 

darkness, evil, or moldy and stained 

garden-varietal venality

With the loveliest trees

Birds in flight /charcoaled nimbi

Outlined halos

Their feathery heads tilted

Ever-so-slightly-quizzical

Asking why are you sad?

Each page of darkness 

Transformed by this

Ferociously tender

Child-

Light, where there used to be all those

Terrible monsters

Crayoned over/ into heaven

By this poet-redeemer

word spoke to life.

The Lost Cause

I looked it up,

The thing about rainbows…when none are in sight

What do you do with a fallen, broken

Rain-drenched world?

Ignore the indirect saturation of light (filtered through heavy 

Clouds)

Put ineluctable 

Signs in the sky

Sometimes vivid, others spiraling, concentric

Insinuated into ordinary

Sunsets

Sure, I got it–rainbows

The unfortunate companions of unicorns

Neither make the boat…

Or as I prefer to think–both

The misunderstood rhino

The glinting prismatic light 

Or more importantly–James Baldwin, evoking

Saint Peter…

Fire the next time

His anger, his dungeon, his elegant use of fire

As both a noun and a verb

I can barely look straight at

That kind of righteous rage

Much less the real

God

Who raises a Son

To rudder, anchor, mast, and sail

The one and only vessel

Which could

Will

Has

Sailed the sea of fire…

the next time.


Break my bones

middle page of something 

My words to you 

unnailed, unpierced, still love

Disconnect.  Disconnect 

these broken 

Bones, sinews, ligaments 

Teeth and bones become 

Rebellious things in the house

Unknit, unswept, unmade

Until…

what is left?

When I cannot walk to you, run to you 

Reach the limit of the horizon 

Lie awake old

Teeth, old bones 

Grind out hours in the dark 

wondering where was

Ezekiel’s army beneath

integumentary sand

Old bones 

No longer insanguinate

They lie down, sleep children cuddled beneath

The coverlet of 

God singing His 

Bruising love song

Lullaby in the place of the skull

Has, is, will

Sing to the dead

Broke-bone army

Spoke to life

Grip the blade,

Fit to fight

Trace

what if it was perfume

or acorns stashed in my pockets?

Bits of things remind me 

of you

Lost to me for now

I trace all the 

Alternate 

timelines of our

Would-be existence together

How did you 

sprint past me, Dear?

Leaving perfume, acorns

emptied from the inside out

This pocketful of 

Birnam Wood in my hands,

in my hands, this forest floor

Dirt, mulch, fallen leaves, roots, baby trees…

Saplings, timbers, interlacing 

Limbs outstretched toward the warm 

Light of God who takes away the sins of the world 

…the story we will be.

The Faraday Box

Close to 

La noche de Los muertos

I open the

Faraday box

Keep one leg out, door ajar, 

Bit of light

Lent by a friend

You inhabited when

The world was still

An old wine skin

Blood and Spirit

I tell myself this 

New litany of 

Places for the dead

Who will all 

rise

Because of you

They kept it 

sealed for centuries 

Told ourselves we could 

be tourists there

Run our mortals’ hands along the stone

Ledge, trace rock, and DNA

Rise 

Rise 

Unshrouded Light

Already Rome.

I am not much of a pro-sports fan, although I try sometimes for the sake of my partner.

I feel less inclined to try now that the famously laconic Gregg Popovich had words for this recent election and the folk who voted red.

So many things you said worth noting Mr. P, but the one that stuck out the most?  Like if I could only pick one thing you said to comment on–You are afraid we are Rome?

Long been Rome, I would say.

 We have not only tolerated legalized infanticide for the last 43 years through Roe v. Wade, we now allow the concessions which provide the service of salting, vacuuming, dismembering, and dehumanizing small, voiceless humans through the months of their development in the womb both federal funds and deep privacy in order to abort and also harvest the bodies of these exploited children.

If you were to ask an ordinary person, say a woman or a disabled  person–would you rather be verbally belittled or carefully vivisected for spare parts?

Belittled, thanks very much.

The latter-death by legal and medical caveat.  Pretty disenfranchising.

To be clear, very clear–we, the citizens of the United States, have long been Rome.  Infanticide is infanticide is infanticide, Mr. P. 

How many millions of female, minority, Muslim, immigrant, disabled American voters did not vote in this election because we legalized their murder years ago?

No words will bring them back.

Minimum

He says

The least of these in the language of childhood

Neither emperors nor governors nor bards

Gather the little ones

…least of these

Army of small

Wanderers in the world 

They look for a Savior

Older Brother King

Who can 

Calm the storm

Speak peace to the wind

And tell all bedtime stories

With hope at the beginning and the end

Of each hard letter 

INRI

The  least of these-

M.

Roll the stone away

Jesus of Nazareth, King of the…

Minimum.

Sacrament

the tape is a blur of

ordinary splendor

songs sung loud in a messy 

house vivid patchwork 

some mention of a circus

close to the tear in the hand-made quilt

I touch your brow

tell you

take your medicine before you go out to play

Round, pink, chewable analgesic 

as you lift your head to receive the pill

Eucharist in the living room,

old and beautiful 

Words for “good” and “grace”

So close to your already liturgical

Beautiful like…

A rose

A ruby

A diamond

A butterfly 

A boy in flight

…if we had a fort..

Weighted Blanket

in a fit of unease 

she has an out-of-body experience 

Rising above the squalor

Imagining what it would be like

To live inside the perfect house

Instead–she dusts the counters and all the edges

with cinnamon to deter the sugar ants

Beats the air with questions

Washes and re-washes clothes, stones, teeth 

Delays bodily functions  

To search for

-The weighted blanket-

Surrogate mother/synthetic comforter

Lyrics/verses 

of a lullaby sung softly by the

Real One