Psalms For Now2

REVELATION

Thumbed rides,

From sea to sea,

East to West,

Across the country.

Sun setting,

Disolving in a smokey haze

Circled by hills ablaze.

She sat at the shore,

Wrapped in dirthy towels.

God's country,

Each county revealed,

At a bend in a creek,

Or a plush field.

On a summit or cloud,

Tiaras of sunlight,

The Lord's blinding presence,

Barely concealed.

Every word they spoke was true,

And every brook sanging it ,too.

How the roadway flew,

Years and lives too few,

With each Eden I would choose.

This is the shore,

There is no more,

I told the vagrant girl.

Spare brief life that is yours,

Do not cast it in tthe sea,

Or lose it to memory.

Sweet cascade of chimes,

Runes of rhyme,

Supple and entranced,

As the grass in rivers grows,

And dances virgin's dreams,

With the waters flow.

Wings unfolded as she stood,

She took my hand,

And I was led,

Across the sand.

Not a word did she ever speak to me,

For all the seas were her eyes,

Where love and death never die,

Their combers ever echoing,

Psalms of grief,

Bearing no relief,

Save the beauty in creating,

All that is ever to be,

Love outliving mortality.

Foundling by the sea,

Through the mirroir she drew my hand,

Into poetry.

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SKILLET CANTATA

Powder blue sweater and blue pants,

His aim was to ease anxiety in his clients.

He offered a cup of coffee.

But I had given it up,

And tea as well,

And flapjacks,

Bathing in maple syrup.

A couple nearby,

With full breakfast plates,

Seemed quite lost,

As anyone from sleeping tossed.

What could be the use,

Of bacon and eggs,

Orange juice chaser?

The juice is fresh,

Eggs and bacon just slid from the grill.

Neither draw them to sip or bite,

What is appetite?

Maybe sleep,

Had not been deep,

More clammy and riddled,

As those in the middle of the ocean,

Sea sick from the motion.

And now this colorful commotion!

The sand paper rasp and rusted joints.

Why this alarm to breach gassy buoyed back,

From the deep blue washing to black?

He was the host on a drunken ship,

That had yet to leave the slip.

Construction was in progress,

Or was it meant to be archeology?

Ribs laid bare,

In biological plan,

To cross a watery span.

Cashmere smooth,

Accent of the foreigner,

Whose language had the single word,

For nearly bored,

Becalmed between,

Forgotten shores.

My dad, two decades dead,

Interry cloth srtipped shirt,

He wore when rowing me in the park,

Searched the diner's ticky-tacky cabinets.

Reached for a tin placed to high,

I handed it to him,

Bending eye to eye.

He riffled through license and cards,

Paper Mandarin on the fly.

What endures while others no longer stir?

Shall it be white light,

Without heat,

To frozen squint,

For the sin,

Of letting love in?

Oh, that tin,

Where recipes are kept within.

Was that which launched my reverie,

Sweet Madeline.

This Easter Sunday,

That my dad smithed,

In the skillet,

Bacon frying.

On on it skated,

Yolk and marrow,

Today and tomorrow,

Was his creed,

Not reigiosity.

And all the living ever need:

Eden's fruit and its seed.

Sabbath peace ,

For the human family.

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STATIONS OF THE CROSSTOWN

These stations through bowels,

And limbs.

The rigs and ruin,

Wresting form and grace from the Angel,

Exile, mortality and labor.

Faces of emperors,

Heft and sloop carriers,

Menial labor,

Singing avatars,

Into creche and cradel.

Mendicant with infant,

Homeless, no money for rent.

Their eyes were the harvest of Ottoman Orchards,

Ripening in the shadows,

of the canopy.

Eyes of Eden,

Depthless pools,

Forgive by empathy.

Facing me I see,

A haughty angel,

Looking down her nose,

On all the world beneath.

The hosts are falling,

Down here there is no belief.

Was prayer suspended them impossibly,

And now downward they float,

Slowly as a leaf.

Another beggar with a sign:

"Man and puppy,

Hungry, need help"

Through brilliant strategy,

Silence as a courtesy,

And another mystery in the car..

For the puppy is a chimera, Russel Terrier,

His head a lemur,

From Madagascar.

Cruel Darwinists,

Exiled sinners must struggle to exist.

So the dissecting scientist,

And the sexless economist.

Attend the lemur's,

Levitating leap,

Limbs upraised in Sufi prayer.

On this he floats in the air.

He does not see us,

His eyes are replete,

With innocent, tear brimmed stare,

Sharing sweet fruit,

With creation everywhere,

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MOTHER

The plumbing is leaking,

And so is the sea,

Only tears can overflow,

Their quantity.

You couldn't miss it,

If you walked the plain,

Oil lathering your boots,

With black suds.

A ring of derricks,

Ciricled the bullseye,

The nexus of their radii.

Blinded and love gutted by greed,

The bit found the mark,

Salt geyser fountained.

He had pierced,

The heart of the buried sea.

Eager, eager was she,

To breathe blue air,

Freed from her dispair.

The moon in tarred bridal veil and train.

Oh, our green

Ever ripening earth,

This drunken search,

To ravage the corpse,

Of all that lives and births.

The sea with patient hands,

Pulls boulder, pebble and sand,

To its breast.

What is told by time in rhyme?

Naked she dropped her ripped gown,

And he will take,

The maiden he has longed,

And in his dream,

That polished stone to verse,

He will wake.

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REFUGEES

A gimpse of orange,

The siren of breakfast in the air.

Buddah belley globe,

By dawn robed.

Light that is eaten,

Bread of the pauper of Galilee.

Morning, dreams and waking,

World in the making.

Through desserts they arrive,

The scoured more alive,

Than the guards,

Who wager on the crowd,

Their rags,

Would be their shrouds.

They quarter in the house,

Of many rooms,

Cupped hands of water,

Always offer,

Singing prayers,

Forgiving acts jaded in dispair.

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HAM AND ANGELS

Skin rich caramel,

Voice sweet as mollasses,

Orange shirt and black slacks.

Sunrise edges the horizon.

From fruit and vegetables,

He breathes fragrance into verse,

Spatula snare on the skillet,

The maker from Jamaica.

On the delta,

Bringing spiritual news,

From ska to scat and the blues.

On a roof top,

Pigeons wheel,

Geese fly in free song.

And from the project tower,

The children are leaping,

Arms and legs spread,

Like flying squirrels.

Oh, this waking dream,

The wonders the soul has seen,

Playing in inspiration,

Forever green.

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JERUSALEM

Over the Pole,

To the Promised Land.

Any would be,

Freeing me,

From the black, cold sea.

Over Stygian and Jesuit tides,

Niether gold coins hold the lids,

Or Last Rites,

To prove I died.

I walk this night in Jerusalem.

A chain link fence,

Within a kennel.

Wolves and dogs,

Pace and flounder on the floor

The city's aboriginals,

Transformed through metaphor.

Ajar, chain link door,

Droves of cats on the floor,

Who knew the fountains,

And gods of Rome,

Pouring favors,

On this, their home.

And what wings are these,

Luffing and puffing,

The canvas canopy?

This is a Holy City,

Surely, it is the hosts who knew eternity,

And carolled light,

Into the heavens at night.

What measures have here been taken,

Postponing to the end,

Admitting love for a friend?

Oh, the flood of light,

Meeting a soul in ouer transit,

As the heart leaps,

From penitent night ,

Into radience.

There is no weight in grave or gravity,

Is love and longing,

In all that be,

And joyously

Celebrate our mortality.

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TREE OF LIFE

Calling from the Christmas Tree.

She tip-toed breathless to see.

Was the wind on evergreen limbs,

And the stars vibratto,

Sailing sable, Sparkling embroidery.

Your great coat and ship,

To make the trip

Said the fairys,

Where the water is singing and the light dancing on its verses.

She joined in song and dance,

With all life and myth had been or dreamed,

Or flickering had seemed.

With all the world,

Beyond the creche,

That celebrate the silent eve:

Our Mother singing in the trees.

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HOLY GHOST

I ran through the halls,

Ecstically,

An infant,

Perfectly achieved.

Thump, thump, thump,

My dying heart regained,

Thump, thump, thump,

Racing and outpacing,

What had been my end.

In the house of dementia,

I broke free,

My soul at liberty.

The world glistened,

Words were quits with me,

Oh, but songs now swept me along.

So solid,

The thousand petal lotus,

Where an angel has built her nest,

Woven of feathers,

Nedd moored from the skys,

Blue pastures and carpets of stars.

The nestling looks out,

Beneficient love in her eyes.

So is the soul nurtured,

And like fledgelings,

All eyes in the nest,

And angels imagined,

Will take flight,

To the light.

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OUR FLOATING WORLD

The old marineer,

So he turns out to be,

Though only once has he sailed the seas.

The Promised Land,

Liberty's torch raised high.

But he has painted,

A  four masted,

Square rigger,

Bresting wind and sea.

A portrait of the soul flying free.

Strange as it seems,

He will tell you unasked,

Tongue in cheek in an avid pant,

Never room his wings to spread,

He is in training for the marathon.

Madcap energy,

Owed the golden trophy,

Before he's dead.

Conspire with me, Come see,

The newspapers caulking my guerney.

Events illuminated ,

In black and white.

Pole to pole I sail,

Winter to summer light.

Navigating the tides of history,

Current events.

You see,

Trade winds draw the self-same moon and stars;

Set and rise,

I forecast the light,

As I dissolve,

In the night.

Those on the steepes,

The gyering hawk,

Sets the lodge poles.

In winter horses gallop from the snow,

And souls,

Where the stars are spirling,

High and low.

In the sea,

The bird rocks,

Geysering spume,

Scimiter wings,

Screeching calls,

Harpies for the lost at sea,

Fond in absence,

By these retrieved.

To suffer again,

Scouring in parting,

Rending their skin.

We dress ourselves,

In flocks and hawks,

And gowns of moonlight and stars,

Fished from the sea.

Ghosts and dreams,

What is or seems,

And spooling them round,

Silken threads,

Our souls emergewith wings.

Carrying song,

With dancing light,

Into the womb and manger,

And the night.

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FAITHFUL TO THE TRUTH

Sixty years of married bliss,

The scorched parts dismembered,

Buried in grotesque trysts.

Loopy as the Blue Angels,

Drunk as a skunk

Farmer John must sell the farm.

Inspired with brimstone chunder,

The family tell to plunder,

Now its all gone to hell.

Fish the earth,

The back hoe will snag,

Three generations of the school of Johns.

And the twig of his severed limb,

Ever sizzling faith,

Hissing snakes prophasies.

Found them locked in love's embrace,

Two champions breathless had run the race,

Or likely,

The screams we'd heard,

In hate inspiring,

Ever green wind,

To see the other fail in the end.

Now its all gone to hell,

No miracle to walk the earth,

The burst graves blather cobwebs,

And the garden gate sings severance,

From rebirth.

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PYGMALIAN

Squirrels,

Puckish,

Clever pirate,

Plummed insatiable curiosity,

In the crosstree,

With an aesthetic of treasure,

I agree.

No seed for me ,

So pleases,

As the acorn,

Color and form.

Pygmalian adoration,

Crafty hand in devotion.

That it was that night,

I awoke to kitchen clatter,

Knowing it was chestnuts roasting,

A continuation of hands in prayer,

Giving gifts overflowing.

"Remember me?" was addressed to me,

By a gaint in the doorway.

Dressed but barely,

In my terry cloth robe.

So, the squirrel he had to be,

Most fondly held in my memory.

The Black Bronk,

I favored over the grey,

All the radiance in his pelt,

Of the Jesuit skeptical orders.

Twixt the bars of the ghetto,

Street wise highwayman.

Lion coughs, elephants sway,

He swifts spoils from soul's grave.

But was a different play on words,

He celebrated.

On prisons of heart and mind,

That threatened my romance,

By surpassing beauty.

Refuge outside,

In Aspen Colorado.

Maidenly tree,

Chimming in the wind,

By the river side.

The slopes of famous flight,

Stacks of trailers hide,

Where too common dreams,

Of youthful daring,

By thousands now reside.

A quadrangle park,

Mendicant beasts,

Scuttle for scraps,

In the unfurling dark.

Who visited eviction on me,

I see,

Is here a wolverine.

Heart of chivelry,

Scales the trees,

Grabs the eagle,

Ever the idol of savagery.

Are these but dreams ,

Of one who would escape compilicity,

By tantrums of sympathy?

How near the very lips I've been,

Vicariously to breathe,

The words rotting in the earth,

Whose sin was birth.

To imagine the young might dream,

Utopias who have yet,

But heart and hug,

With which to mold,

And so forgive.

But might instead,

As they view the dead,

Imagine a hero for revenge,

Or least,

Who claws up the soil,

To disgust the eyes of the sky,

Or the wind to vomit gales,

Not pastel sighs.

Honey badger he has been named,

The sweet toothed wolverine.

Through the loam,

The children's message arrives.

The wolverine reaves its sweetness:

We live,

In all the world is meant,

To give.

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RESIGNATIONS

Done with it,

Can't see past memos and reports,

I'm going to the last resorts,

Leave the grown kids and wife.

Just a screen of pristine nature,

As if there still was hope hope for life.

Thirty years I blamed them for,

This will be my getaway,

No tryst or affair,

No, a chance to dare.

To pretend I did defend,

The earth and its natural beauty,

As suppossed to be our duty.

On a perfect bay,

A lie for me.

I quit the EPA.

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PET scan,

A universe reveals.

Beauty beyond words,

I hear songs,

Can not be heard,

They frail the hairs,

Along my spine.

Sing along,

And love along,

The night is mystery,

And so is she.

The cities in these heavens,

Holy nights of angels' flight,

Announcing soul,

With constellations' light.

Breed whit,

Bleed white,

The saturation of sinful flaunt,

Religion our needles haunt.

Color is livid,

The pathology of all that lives.

And we tack and attack it,

Manichian black and white,

We sliced the cat enters dreams at night,

To study its dead sight.

A bloody sponge,

Couple a pounds,

A ground round.All that I did for grants,

I'll not forgive,

But what in the world will I do?

I laid wasdte the cities and the stars,

And what will be:

Beauty that is prophasy.

I will walk the roads and streets,

Where the wasted children,

I made mad,

Beg for balm.

Night and day,

I will pray.

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I resign the clergy,

And renounce the liturgy.

The music alone I retain,

With out words,

It is Creation's name.

My parish insists.

We pray,

The world and all mankind,

To slay.

In agonies,

I must materialize from dust,

And listen consumed with lust.

We pray not to the Savior I knew,

When I was ordained,

But to the God ordains the end,

The Apocylpse for revenge.

Hurry the day turns wrath to rapture,

Up they rise to pristine pasture,

Gloriously restored,

Witnessing between their toes,

The tortured writhings,

Of their dying foes.

I slipped away,

Beneath the stars,

And meteors from the Pleieds.

An Orpheo with psalm,

Courted love,

At the lip of tears,

To betray perfecting death

And wed what is.

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