Good Grief: rimas dissolutas
Good grief! What else did you expect?
A world set suddenly to rights,
some glibly promised golden dawn,
rough places sanded down to plain,
and milk and honey handed out
to both devout and infidel?
Instead, you got a fresh train wreck:
horrific days and sleepless nights,
with conflict that just lingers on
and brings no joy at all, just pain.
Why such surprise when people shout
and damn your policies to hell?
My God! Did you expect a prize
for proudly showing ignorance
of what it means to “keep it real”
or silent, suffer in the dark
while your parade glides loudly by
and celebrates your privilege?
And even now, with “opened” eyes,
you make clumsy attempts to dance,
pretending you can still appeal
to those who see you as a shark.
You’re blind to even your own lies
but still call protest sacrilege.
28 APR 2017
03.6.17
The Threshing Floor: englyn cyrch
Give an answer, if you can,
where doubts plague each fighting man
weighting healthy action down
and distracting from good plans;
where blind fear is laying waste
to fresh brick and mortar paste
shielding helpless, sick and poor,
from the pike and bonfire’s baste;
where to live alone is brave,
which makes heroes from mere knaves
who seek glory for all time
in some lines from poet slaves;
where faith falters, and belief
in war’s leaders and great chiefs
leads to slaughter fresh new lambs
who learn firsthand of despair;
where if love is found at all,
it kneels at the wailing wall
and drags on through endless hours
hoping honor breaks its fall;
’til what lives to fight once more,
taught to win despite the score,
lays its weapons down and dies,
chaff dropped on the threshing floor.
06 MAR 2017
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A flame in darkness
It does no good to mourn one candle
when its flame goes out;
nor to try to keep it lit
when its wax melts away.
It does no good to sit in darkness
thinking of past light;
nor to imagine some bright place
where bulbs go to retire.
Each source is only one of many;
when one flame expires,
you must tend to the others
if you would have light at all.
The memory of dead lights won’t fade,
if they were truly yours;
they burn somewhere for someone else
if they once burned at all.
But those lights that are left behind
will fade out, if ignored;
if you would truly fight the darkness,
feed what fires remain.
29 APR 2013
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What Good to Grieve
What good to grieve a faded hour?
The sun has long since filled the sky
and led to moments come and gone
as filled with life as that passed dawn.
Besides, to mourn what has now ceased,
too long, is to remain in black;
and while the new day’s wedding feast
is still a revel, see its shroud.
What good to dwell on might-have-beens?
One action to another leads,
and just as likely finds the course
that from another deed was dreamed.
Besides, the marrow of the past
makes for a poor and somber dish;
it is a ghost of this day’s meat,
and does not fill up or nourish.
What good to grieve a faded hour
when minutes live but to expire,
and, in their brief and fleeting flower
of seconds, spend no time in tears?
Besides, who would deny the dawn
and cling to shadows that must fade,
while life remains today unlived,
tomorrow’s sorrows yet unmade?
20 NOV 2007
11.30.06
The First Day
If this is the first day of what life remains,
who cares if there’s sunshine or thunder and rain?
Both have their own virtues, each pleasure and pain;
though different, a good deal the same.
If this is the first day of what there is left,
what good is my grieving, or acting bereft
because things so far haven’t all gone my way?
What matters is always today.
Yesterday’s always a moment behind,
tomorrow a moment too soon;
hold on too tightly, and you’ll only find
January turns into June.
Each brand new morning is unto itself,
it needs not a calendar name.
Waste just one moment, and your life is past
with no one but yourself to blame.
If this is the worst day to happen so far,
what good is me blaming some unlucky stars
or looking for answers where none need be found
beyond my two feet on the ground?
If this is the best day that will ever be,
what good is it to keep it locked up for me
when part of the reason it turned out that way
is saving tomorrow for after today?
Yesterday’s always a moment behind,
tomorrow a moment too soon;
hold on too tightly, and you’ll only find
January turns into June.
Each brand new morning is unto itself,
it needs not a calendar name.
Waste just one moment, and your life is past
with no one but yourself to blame.
If this is the first day, and what’s come before
is just one more wave on an infinite shore,
which part of creation should I try to blame?
The end and beginning are one and the same.
30 NOV 2006
for James Taylor
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Nobody Wants to Hear
I could be bitter about all this shit
or at least, start to doubt a benevolent universe;
whine on in rhyme about storm clouds and sunshine
that doesn’t come out ‘cept to drink up the water.
My angst could flower under its own power,
give me at least something to call creativity,
some kind of edifice, beautiful, more or less,
a place to lead willing lambs to the slaughter.
Nobody wants to hear you’re doing fine
Thinking your happiness is just a line
To sell them something which they are inclined
to believe could end any old time
I could be bitter, and perhaps I am;
but Goddamn, what’s the point if your grief isn’t endable?
drown in your own tears, and you die expendible
one more pathetic and troubling statistic.
The blues could cover me beneath a shadow,
give me some shade on these hot summer nights,
some of kind of protection from clear understanding,
but would my demons be more realistic?
Nobody wants to hear that you’re OK
without a care for their cares and dismay
working through your special brand of malaise
seeing both colors and grays.
I could be bitter about how things are;
find a bar serving solace and fade from the light;
sing out the changes in slow minor modes:
let my mood fill darkness around me.
My holocaust could be compared to your own;
let us groan ‘neath these chains here together,
spend our time looking for some life beyond
and pretend it’s all inclement weather.
Nobody wants to know your life is great,
instead pretending we share the same fate,
wanting to think that the reason you’re late
is the same trouble piled onto everyone’s plate.
12 JUN 2006
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