The gods may grant petitions
to endless years of prayer;
not lay too strict conditions;
in that granting, be fair;
but it is not sedition
to think them often cruel,
seeing naught but perdition
in their lessons and schools.
Think of it as remission,
when one’s blessings, like disease,
or shadows of suspicion,
do not fulfill, but tease.
13 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged ae freislighe, daily poems, deities, fate, illusions, Irish verse forms, poetic forms, prayer
If you asked a Buddhist monk
who fled the monastery
as it burned down to the ground
if he would miss it very
much, I think he might reply
“Some mornings, in the winter,
purple clouds would split the sky
into bright colored splinters.”
10 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged acceptance, balance, Buddhism, daily poems, detachment, peace
A single shelf sits untouched by the rubble,
its contents unmolested by the storm;
while mold grows from the walls like razor stubble,
and walls and ceilings crumble beyond form.
Below, the room is nothing but destruction,
appliances and desks upturned and smashed,
displaced and wretched by the flood water’s suction,
strewn through the house and turned to worthless trash.
Along the ceiling molding where it crested,
a gray mud line demarks the surge’s path;
yet that shelf seems pristine, and calm and rested,
quite unaffected by Katrina’s bath.
On that shelf? Kali and Shiva, destroyers,
look out into the chaos of the foyer.
08 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged daily poems, destroyers, destruction, Gentilly, Hurricane Katrina, Kali, New Orleans, Shiva
H elpless in the laughing face of elemental change
u nloosed as a pointed reminder that we each exist –
r eally, at the mercy of the Mother’s loving hands, the
r ight extending blessing, while the left removes our veiled
i llusions of reality. When humans pause and
c ontemplate their permanence beyond wild theories
a nd religious dogma it really comes to this:
n othing last forever except
e nergy, which we can only borrow for a while.
K ept too long, without knowledge of its purpose, it
a trophies, or seeks to be released; we see this shift as
t rauma, without sensing the balance that is
r ighted by a ruthlessness that makes our lives seem
i nconsequential, even meaningless, when compared to
n ature’s awesome bent for self-renewal
a nd will for preservation of the whole.
09 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged acrostic, catastrophes, daily poems, helplessness, Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, weather
The telephone is ringing;
The assessor’s on the line.
He wants to avoid meeting us,
and asks us if that’s fine.
In essence, he wants us to lie
and say his job is done;
He’s three hours from New Orleans
and the drive in is not fun.
Of course, we need to meet him,
to settle our affairs;
some closure, so we can pretend our
mortgage holder cares.
Official now, the verdict:
what we had is wholly gone,
and if we’re lucky we may get
nothing to start upon
instead of owing thirty grand
for something we can’t use:
a toxic spot of swampland
and a use for rubber shoes.
The telephone’s stopped ringing;
all those promising some aid
are pondering our paperwork
in bureaucrat charade.
We found some friends who made it out,
like us, they’ve lost it all;
but now we’ve got each other
when there’s no one else to call.
Some said they’d help, and didn’t,
others took us by surprise;
you find out who your friends are
in such times, and realize
of course, there is some clarity
to be gained from all this:
the next time we’re on fire who we
can count on not to piss.
06 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged daily poems, disappointment, FEMA, governments, humor, Hurricane Katrina, pointlessness, relief
Believe it … poetry can heal wounds;
of course, an awkward, ill-set bone
will sometimes need to be re-cracked,
and soft illusions that so gently cradle us
to bind the flesh beneath, must go.
And often, language is so poor
a conduit for what needs said
that poetry, to remain true,
must eschew words and simply ape,
pretending to be civilized.
In drunken rages, curses slurred
and spewed into a sewer’s maw,
a poet finds epiphany;
and if not driven to reveal
that underbelly, often pawns
off lesser dreck to pass as art,
or spends their time in all-night shops,
dissecting life with coffeespoons.
Let he who is well understood
explain such mincing words. Pray tell:
What inner demons exorcised
conduct themselves with grace and charm?
The world needs screaming, now and then,
and herds of pigs snorting, pell-mell,
beyond decency’s cliff.
04 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged Charles Bukowski, exhuberance, living, poetry, power, sacrifice, words, writing
Come, dig the grave, but not too deep;
the eighties were a shallow time.
We spent a decade just to learn
how to maintain appearance’s sake
and delve with questions, off-the-cuff,
in cocktail conversation bluffs.
Come, dig the grave, the shovel’s mouth
will gouge the earth enough to serve
as depth-gauge for the swollen corpse;
besides, the scavengers we bred
in boredom need not work too hard
to find in us their daily bread.
Come, dig the grave; it’s only death
that by necessity is born
and like a cancer spreads throughout
the tender tissue we have formed
to shield us from the sunlight’s glare
and make believe there’s nothing there.
Come, work the soil and lay the sod;
the garden must be fed anew
lest what fruit has escaped the rod
be left to rot by morning’s dew.
What harvest plenty still remains
is just enough to clog the drains.
Come, dig the grave, but not too deep,
lest toil and sweat destroy our youth.
Let future generations weep
that they’ve no gravestone for the truth.
Besides, it’s almost happy hour —
we should arrive by our own power.
for Jim Morrison
03 OCT 2005
Posted in Poems
Tagged commercialism, culture, daily poems, history, ignorance, Jim Morrison, music, substance
