It’s As If…

 

 

 

It's as if God said,

"I am against you,
you Haughty people,
Your stench defies the Heavens,
Your transgressions are a rising tide,

While you speak of Grace and Sing of my Blessings,
You commit the cruelest evils,
even against your own people,

Like a wild mare, you will take no rider,
Like a proud child, you are as stubborn as steel,
Bending to naught but your own desires,

You have denied your God,
And now you are haunted by idols of every kind,
None more bowed to than Money,
None more worshipped than wealth,
The filth of your obscenities shocks even the rapist, the murderer, and the thief,

The absolute splendor you crush Mankind,                                                    with oozes like poison from your faces,
Stains your spirit and steals your will,

Oh People, you are like the Cobra,
Deadly when it strikes,
But harmless once hypnotized,
Distracted by sights and sounds,

How long, you People,
How long have I tolerated you?
Even now you are murdering children,
You are stealing from widows,
You making slaves of the weak and the poor,
You proudly sail My every sea,
And even my dwelling place you violate with your Sin,

Your tools of war that you raise against Me,
I laugh at,
Your weapons of mass slaughter,
Your idols built for Blood,
I mock and I ridicule,
Compared to the winds and the waves,
To the lightning and the rain,
To the crumbling mountain and the rolling earth,
To the heat of the summer and the cold of the winter,
And every mountain that speaks when I call to it,

Do your weapons compare to Mine?
Foolish Man whose every word is a Lie,
Foolish creation that dares push his head above me,
What death could you imagine?
What slaughter could you fathom,
That I might visit it against you?
But you cannot even imagine,
Your eyes are blind to see it,

I am against you, you Haughty People,
I have raised my hand to smite me,
To drive you from the Earth,
No longer will you desecrate my lands,
Deceive My people,
Reap My worship for your own,
Or make slaves of My People,

Your days are over,
Your song has been sung,
Your friends weep and your enemies rejoice,
No more will you usurp my throne,
No more will your sins rise to anger me,
My wrath has come to you,
My judgment has been made,
And swiftly will I lay you waste."

It's as if...

Going Down

 

The words are thunder,
Their ripples through your skin a bubbling shiver of nerve rolling nerve,
And the thoughts,
Such lightening, the flash,
Of everything at all once,
Then Time,
In stillest respite a breath,
An ease,
Okay, we're going down,
My heart I lasso tight,
Steady that fleeting mirage that is Life,
And carefully close my eyes,
In Peace,
There is nothing more to be done,
Just Peace,
Riding that careening automobile to flames,
What else can we do, really?
But ride the machine,
As we've ridden it, consciously,
Trapped in it, made mere components,
And all is well,
All is in reality,
and
Everything is happening all at once,
Exactly the only way it can be,
Peace...
Going Down-
Peace...
30,000-
Peace...
25,000-
Peace in letting it go.

Duplicity

 

Who is like the Beast, and who can wage war against him?

Straddling continental divides, with her thighs,

and grimly smelling sweeter,

Sparkling avarice in it’s eye,

Licking those chops from the top,

and spitting out from the bottom,

At contemptible fleas with their gnawing needs,

Feeding off wounds it bleeds,

But never a juicy bite,

Just a trickle down,

And they desperately lap at the drops,

It doesn’t stop, the wretched clawing and flames,

Dancing over tribal villages, capitals,

Whisper her name three times in the dark,

And Rambo Martha Stuart appears,

The gun or the tablecloth, who lives to tell?

But everyone is whispering,

In five billion voices plastered over fiber optics,

the whole world crying out through the universe,

“Help me! Help me! Help me!”

Through black spoiled oily waters and diseases,

A city swamped, neglected, forgotten,

Or a nation turned reservoir, starving and lost,

A people tortured, brutalized, and mutilated,

Mountains of deformed babies piled high,

For the crime of defiance, of being Iraq,

Or being Pakistan, New Orleans, and the Gulf Coast,

In reverse order, and that’s where we are,

Staring down the beast, rich and powerful,

It’s shadow cast across the whole world,

In culture, influence, carriers, and nukes,

Who are we, really?

Expecting that God is really on our side,

Really? Given the chilling cruelty routinely applied,

The arrogance, the vanity, the hypocrisy,  the murder?

Who is like the Beast, and who can make war against him?

Rhetorical, it seems, but should it be?

Whisper, Gather, Song(a portrait)

 

 

Rolling mist smelling of honeysuckle,

Washes over smiles and dewdrop drinks,

On wide, stern leaves thirsty for moisture,

Whisper of dawn breeze over green meadow,

In lightest sun of storm weathered morning,

To gather on boughs and fruits and remembrance,

Like lavender blush on peach pores and apple skins,

Twinkling sweep of motions, a sparrow on new branches,

Darting to nest to meal and back again for feeding,

Hum of busied creations unfolding in a,

Symphonic crescendo of breathtaking sweetness,

As clouds harry onward,

As chill bows to fresh warmth,

As rivers gurgle and waking life resounds,

From yesterday to tomorrow,

There the ring of majesty rises louder,

There the aroma of dawn and roses mingle,

Unabashed soil against ageless sky,

And eyes gaze long and deep and full ,

Where sleep has ended it’s embrace of twilight,

Here is that whisper sprinkling laughter on soft cheeks,

Here is that melody over young hair and tender smiles,

Here is that breath that fills deep hearts with sugar vibrancy,

Here is that breeze, that fragrance, that symphony.

I Remember Nine-Eleven

Not going straight home after work that day,
But down Princeton Avenue to Cherokee Lane,
That’s what I remember,
It was warm and I bounded up the steps,
Those short bi-level steps like so many times before,
To my parents living room and there on the television,
CNN blanketing the scenes of tragedy, and Mom excitedly anxious,
Not terrified,
Like me a bit giddy at the event that is catastrophe,
That pause on the norm, that escape hatch from the mundane,
Poised on the couch, remote in hand, her eyes so glued,
But commenting casually on the burning buildings,
That’s where I saw Building 7 go down,
In the living room I’d spent eighteen Christmas and New Years in,
Where we’d gathered more frequently in younger years,
And we talked about the attacks and the smoke and the Bible,
About Babylon the Great, the End times, the Antichrist,
Before I took leave to head back up north,
And that’s what I remember about 9/11,
My mother alive in that big green house,
And my family tentatively closer in most ways,
Ten weeks later I’d go on a first date with my future wife,
And weeks after that mom and Don would abandon that house,
A year later she’d be diagnosed officially, 
Though we’d had our suspicions,
Ever since 2000 when symptoms became obvious,
Her condition becoming prohibitive and conspicuous,
She had discovered computers, and the internet, and technology,
Going online to find support communities,
And I was married and had my son on the way when,
We learned she was clearly terminally ill,
So that January of 2004, after three years of fighting,
Two years of chemo and six months of horror,
In the cold of the winter, the war on Iraq,
In the shadow of all that was crumbling around us,
We gathered to lay her to rest from our lives,
Where my second son would be born and not even know her,
Where my sister would divorce and my brother would implode,
And these are the things I remember about 9/11,
Not the World Trade Center,
Not the planes and the Pentagon,
Not Rumsfeld or Cheney or Condoleezza Rice,
But Mom sitting there alive in the house we’d grown up in,
Clever, intelligent, naïve at times, and cruel,
And laughing,
Holding so much of herself in that it hurt,
So different the world, and ten years are gone,
I remember that day, remember the way,
When calamity came, I went straight home,
To see Mom,
To talk about everything that was happening.

Thinking About Jesus

 

Thinking about Jesus and apple pie,

How it hurts to think, and it’s dry

In the morning thanks to unimpeded,

Sun and lack of clouds and moisture,

Time is that chipping paint on the south wall

and termites and,

Frozen instances of comfort

That saunter about the mind,

What of my kind,

Hanging by blood smeared fingertips?

Where do we feed when it’s desolate?

On rewritten fabrications of plagiaries,

Promises copied from then to now,

Out of mouths that hardly imagine their lying,

Just trying to keep us in line with more,

Dressed down monotone radio diatribes,

From specialists advocating money for something more?

Something more than people, it seems,

And a few bucks is still a few bucks,

I’m dreaming of a few hundred thousands,

‘Cause I’m not greedy,

But man, it would sure be nice to believe,

There’s something down that road besides bleeding.

Asphalt

 

Hello old friend on balding hill,

midst pine and struggling moon in shadow,

cold in darkening eve so worn,

missed a bit, but still here, patient,

Deflecting peering lights and questions,

answers gradually offered in time,

like moments, minutes, gambled and cashed-in,

miles borrowed and miles received,

overlooked, trodden-upon,

frequently scarred,

still silent,

balding,

behind,

and ahead.