on the horizon

i ask myself
who will see it
who will notice those cries heard in the night
as companions to the crimes outside our door?

will ours be a voice trembling 'neath a dimming bulb

warning that the light we see is truly dark?

totalitarians love war as if bread for their tables
blood, red wine slaking their throats.

when people disappear, they'll make then hide

cause crimes against the struggling are cause for more.

we'll shake our heads when the warning sirens wail
hoping that the enemy will learn the we are right.

who imagines our sincerity to be tainted?

nothing is more natural than knowing God's on our side!

when we smell flesh as the rains upon our heads
will the silent torture of convictions spew vomit on the streets?

when The Bomb, our bomb sprinkles the lawns behind our gates

will then a whimper rise enough to explore the rumbles of despair?

when bodies return wrapped in their symbolic flag
will it be too late to redirect the movies in our dens

to cancel the show about dandelions on our lawns

and show the faces which horrified the dreams of our parents?

are we to salute or weep the dead murdered at our hands
for they'll be our brothers, our children
our neighbors slain upon the carpeted earth?

then the airy transparency of our majesty

will lay crumbling like a yellowed constitution

released magically from its isolated tomb.

who will see it?
who will notice
complicit in the crimes outside our door
as oblong clouds stretch across the azure sky
as if pillows awaiting heads to rest patiently
upon lungs possessive of suffocating themes?  



God is not an extra in a movie.  God is the movie and we're the screen upon which God is viewed.  God must be seen in a new way and that way is love: love of self and love of the other as self.



*I beheld the working of all the blessed Trinity, and in this beholding I saw and understood the three properties: the property of fatherhood, the property of motherhood and the property of Lordship in one God.  In our Father almighty we have our keeping and our bliss as regards our human substance, which is ours by our making without beginning.  And in the Second Person, in wit and wisdom, we have our keeping as regards our sensuality, our restoring and our saving: for he is our Mother, Brother and Savior.  And in our good Lord the Holy Spirit we have our rewarding and our recompense for our living and our labors which will far exceed anything we can desire, owing to his marvelous courtesy and his high plenteous grace.
-Julian of Norwich

 

I kneel in prayer without words, blankly looking at and seeing nothing. There. The patterns and wrinkles of the sheets stare, wonderingly, at me who cannot say, "I came to do your will" because it will be a lie. I can muster only, "I long to do your will" because I know my sin, my weakness, my failures which throw any promise to You back into my face, regretfully.  So, I kneel in silence, espying nothing, perhaps looking for You before I'm jolted by my inactivity to say something banal and common, trite and memorized because my words are still as my heart is searching.  To be loyal to You is my desire in spite of the lies of my life. I know what I want, perhaps, even what You want but I fail in the execution and, hence, am silenced and kneel down this way.

* Can Jesus, a male, be a savior for females?  Is the Christ figure a valid symbol  for women, fostering in them a healthy integration of personality and acting as their chief help in experiences of God?  Or has Christianity so identified the maleness of the historical Jesus with normative humanity that femaleness automatically falls to second-class citizenship in the community of God, a status we have seen historically translated as barring women from priestly office and power?  Have women by virtue of their sex alone been excluded from full

 representation in Christ's ministry, a sex that is somehow less important than the male in creation and redemption?  Is Jesus' maleness so precisely identified with the divine Logos that femaleness is excluded from divine status and participation?

-Ann Belford Ulanov

 *Hatch

what 

the winged life

wants

is 

to be

outside

in the open

commerce

of hearts

where 

nothing

is

bought

or 

sold

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

 

with blood in the eye

the marines are coming

the marines are coming

the guardians of freedom are running

with guns drawn, they are shooting

the people of the land in the name of freedom

they're squelching dissenters

lest fear trap the loyal in movement and care

rallying 'round god cloaked in red, white and blue

they capture strange folk skinned in black and brown

as their children kill friends near the cottage gate

for blood has moistened their eyes

and their hands are red from weeping

the land must be defended in the time of crisis

though we be the crisis whose time has come

Flee the gods that whip you.

Flee the gods of Desire.

Mouth open, fly 'cross the fields

fly and don't look back.

Run on the edge of death.

You need not be a whippping child.

All gods are passing-powers

fragile as their bended knees, pursuing.

Ready yourself for laughter.

Their fall is at hand

for other gods pursue as well 

amd these will be made the less

for all giants fall and bow to Death

have an end you know full well.

So, flee the gods that whip you.

You need not be a whipping child.

Flee the god within you,

the one with whip in hand.

There's always someone smarter than you in some way.

 

 a rapper's delusion

mixed images snaked through my mind:

couples hugging as in embrace;

faces bound in colored stripes;

spent sperm swimming briskly;

Van Gogh's ear being re-opened;

rappers mouthing karaoke

not knowing what else to say

because booty and booze never cut a record

nor placed bread on another's table.

this was the nonsense seeking meaning

at a venue near a boutique cafe

in hopes a coveted music-maker

would stop to hear me thoroughly through.

but it's silly to wait much longer.

it's now a quarter to nine

and the gas-lamp lighter is roaming

through alleys making outrageous promises

while listening to my mental meanderings 

on a night when day hangs longer and longer.

it's time to move on.

hop a train and find a bed.

rest the rhythms circulating round my head

as they await the night when they'll be heard.

a tear, downtown

his hand was stretched

'twas food he sought.

i asked him who he was.

Danny was his name.

i was the first of 50;

none others cared to stop.

"will you shake my hand?

dirty, i know it is."

off slid my glove. 

it blew his scandalized mind.

i grasped his hands

and he praised God.

we shook each other warm.

he didn't label me a bum. 

Land-mine martyr

I felt the fireworks;

carried the torch in my body.

They thought it fun;

this wheel-chair I won.

Look, God

I was there.

I was playing in the jungle

midst the bursting of bombs.

 

empty minds

dying from a pornography of bilious suppositions

an incessant supply of tortured words

we collapse like fattened whores

drunk on the wine of debauched dreams

hoping for release from programmed fears

that hold us captive to junk food mush

coursing the cells of our striving selves

our wills flattened by laws and courts.

to live or be larger than narrowed whims

passed on to us by our gaseous heads

we die at their hands

by suicides hatched by the dim witted

a people too blind to think, reflect

having lost the truth of ourselves.

thus we gaze into glass coffins

hoping to spot the next coming

we'd life to be when discovered

when uncovered by studious researchers

buried with our empty minds

and they assessing who we are.

elegy for a dead ken

rush to my funeral

you would be brothers

come, marching in

bouquets in hand

lay them at the foot of my coffin

peer into the box

protecting my remains

speak your words of praise

while thinking thoughts of shame

i'll listen

won't budge an inch

fear not

jesus won't awake me

hand me back to you with tears

years to come

when you're free as me

buried with the dead 

neath stones chiseled with steel

our names etched and forgotten

we'll meet to fuss, to cuss

to begin again

learning to love each other

for once

*One of the points of the Adam story is that we are not born in Paradise.

-Fr. Thomas Hopko

woman ascending a staircase

his eyes scoured the night

searching for eyes to heed him

to watch, yet unnoticed his switch

a secret wish his lips held tight

of a woman under wraps of fear

in his masculine cauldron of shame

but, as from a shadowed edge

a place beyond the stage of dance

i caught the play-act of his heart

the one his buddies did not catch:

his woman, free for a moment's glance

as she ascended the royal stairs 

*...what the modern human being cannot accept is forgiveness and grace.  We would rather take our punishment, as it were.  And the Christian God says, "No. I forgive you whether you like it or not."  That's the only fire of hell-this loving forgiveness of God.  That's why Jesus says there is only one unforgivable sin-the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.  And what is that?  It is the unwillingness to be forgiven and to forgive.  The proud cannot accept grace.
-Fr. Thomas Hopko

 

awaiting liberation

who'd say  it
who'd say that word "liar" out
clenched behind false teeth

biting themselves to avoid release

for it is a lie
spoken with such grace and deliberation
that the detractors fool by the trembling in their throats

what assurance!

i am betrayed
and sulk like soaked peas waiting to be thrown into the pot
a pris'ner of incompetent words and thoughts

a diagram  of dismembered smarts

words were said
their stiletto-style stuck to  subjects without verbs
incomparable sounds against truth

but it's truth i desire

that longs for freedom now
bound in the throats of liars
diverting it to the killing fields

where the lovers of death yet dwell

zombies fixed on harm and shame
and the burden of gross falsification
while i lay here

a bound body

sweating beneath the heat of breath
filled with untruths that slay with skill
awaiting the liberation that truth would bring

even though in prison i die

 

while nigglets clown

i.

we await Bethesda-waters to churn

that we might dive in and be healed

but no angel appears to stir the stagnant pond

the pool beside which we stand

we need a hand, a body to drag us in

our crippled limbs too heavy to bear

ii.

we journey as if on the dark sie of the moon

where craters bleed and sand dunes blow

pushing the heat from our cooling hearts

forming the chill in our trembling chest

shivers of silence encompass our poisoned minds

iii.

a little balm, some simple care, a spark of joy

would brighten the gray side of our minds

guiding the pain of hist'ry hobbling our feet

into that dark mirror we peer

into shadows bouncing black upon the glass

probing the faces that have molded our truth

iv.

the multiplication of sorrows soon forgot

rise behind the strained-glass of emancipation-lords

enjoying the circus while nigglets clown 

prison of the mind

the prison in our mind     it's that that draws us round from cemetery to cemetery     from tomb to tomb where our stinking pasts are laid

we long to douse the smoke-clouds hov'ring above the smoldering of our deeds     the garbage pit that yawns as we watch     here we stood attempting to burn the rubbish that taints us     the refuse of sins thought long discarded      in the dump we called "home"

we're like fools in dunce-caps      facing the wall of rejection     twiddling our thumbs waiting for some trapdoor to spring     hurling our vision into bas-relief on the wall of lost grace

like dour virgins posing for a date     we sit staring into cameras that hold our image without a soul     seated and staring into the coated glass     hoping our Mate will ring and lead us to Spring

but will we remain stuck on the hinges of old queries     trapped in the questions that philosophy can't solve as we travel the road hungering for Light 

*Bread

when 

mature 

unforced 

to be 

just 

bread 

but 

a way 

to the heart 

of the other 

then 

bread 

swallows 

me 

breaks 

me 

into 

one

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

 

a person in five phrases

i.

held in the vise of despair without visions of hope

nails sharpen into swords and the stomach sours

becoming a volcano of spite. yet i walk about normally

with the abnormality of insanity crying for dead dolls

washing their dirty faces to see in a clearer light.

but can Pepto-Bismol coat the sorrows

that already make me blush, that flushes wholeness

into the life i bear, to muster whatever laughter i can bundle

like a hyena after a kill?

ii.

i reach through the fog that sits at the center on my mind

and touch whatever of  limbs limp toward the earth

stretching to touch a caring one somewhere in this universe

a prisoner shackled and manacled upon the torture floor

waiting for the CIA to enter and smash the dead soul of me

into some meaningful life so that questions arise.

they see not blood nor hear the stream of screams.

they bruise not humans with a name

but immune, beat those with answers that kill

some self more notable than i

some other more barbaric than they

they say.

iii.

the one-color world bothers me.

i look into the eyes of grey and see darkness.

all about are smiling faces with glued expressions

and i am frightened by the sincerity they bring.

the tenor of their conversations is noise

unhealthy at the end of all.

iv.

a humming in the atmosphere reminds me of a lost butterfly.

somewhere between a need for freedom and healing

the spir'tual and the mental fall apart.

it needs to return to the flow of life

unable to maintain position o'er the mythical sea.

attacked like children chasing a fleeing ball

it's a slab of flesh destined for abuse

to be chewed upon, then vomited into a trough.

it's how i feel, atrophied: gnawed and discarded.

what is the death in me? regurgitation?

an attempt to reclaim a life

before the surgeon arrives to apply the knife?

v.

i'd like to film the world with water and light

with clapping and exuberant laughs

but my limbs fall limp and my spirit faints

feeling lost among the lonely

fumbling in search of meaningful land. 

eulogy for our dead sons

sound taps! ring the dormant bells! 

wail aloud! burn the buildings down! 

pierce heaven's shield with mourning.

  gather 'round the corpse of the slain 

powdered and painted for a party 

clandom's day of remembrance 

the familiar curse of tears to shed

our cold heroes sleep past dreams; 

froze in the youth, they lay dead.  

all promise ceased with their heart 

hope vanquished at the hour of their passing.  

God hears the weak fists pounding

sees revenge kick ass about town.  

the brothers' lives survive on blood 

rivulets of life dried on a curb. 

tiny notes appear in the press: 

young man killed outside his home.

a numberless death counted by the FBI 

for a report on crime and statistical health.  

fire, then, the shots that "honor" these dead 

and bear one more to the funeral home.

 

Mirrored Man

Look, ye, frightened, mirrored man!

Spy  upon yourself in the glass, starkly,

turning your way and another, away. 

Catch yourself in the course of flight. 

You are many questions running, hiding.

your ghosts won't harm your smile.

Kiss then that you may radiance beam.

They long to hold you lest you scream 

yet fail to because you will. 

Riddles twist within your upright frame 

and upright, your spirit faints at its faults. 

These are the mirrors of your love, 

exposing the shadows of your life.

Notes to a mother whose daughter may marry an Afro-American man

Theirs is a life they have to make together.

The first moth is sex, the rest of life is learning to live with each other.

The couple needs to put each other at the center of their life even or, especially, when children arrive and depart.

In problem situations, talk and listen, listen and talk but don't presume.

Family members should "never" be models for how the couple chooses to live.  They are the only ones who can live their life.

Be true to and with oneself, always.

No marriage is perfect even when they have similar issues.

Blessings on the journey...and forgive.

 

tears know me

not as cascades

but sighs

as moist corners

of glands seeping

yearning to scrub

both eyes clean

clear of dust-filled years

of deep-piled mem'ries

binding emotions

which like muzzled dogs

strain to bark and romp

upon the lea

in freedom's form

chiseled on the heart 

of me

 

sign on a boarded-up building

*There is an interaction between seeing and being.  The kind of person you are effects the kind of world that you see.

-Simon Tugwell

prison of the mind

the prison in our mind   it's that that draws us round from cemetery to cemetery   from tomb to tomb where our stinking pasts are laid

we long to douse smoke-clouds hovering above the smoldering of our deeds   the garbage pit that yawns as we watch   here we stood attempting to burn the rubbish that taints us   the refuse of sins thought long discarded in the dump we called "home"

we're like fools in dunce caps facing the wall of rejection   twiddling our thumbs waiting for some trapdoor to spring   hurling our vision into bas-relief on the wall of lost grace  

like dour virgins posing for a date   we sit staring into cameras that hold our image without soul   seated and staring into the coated glass   hoping our Mate will ring and lead us to Spring

but will we remain stuck on the hinges of old queries   trapped in the questions that philosophy can't resolve  as we travel the road hungering for Light

 

What's happening to me?

Why does she hold me like this

treat me like her lover?

I am frightened by the feelings

rushing through my veins

a flare of fire burning in my flesh.

I sweat

and my skin tingles to the touch.

Set me down

lest I pee upon myself

lest my flow should become milk

and I shout in pleasured pain.

Spare me, my future.

Curse me not with doubts.

Let me be child and wrestle

in the grass but not in mind

or upon a troubled heart forever

in search of meaning forever

forever in search of why.

Release me.

Spare me, a child.

I've witnessed Death

  yours and mine 

and Ours throughout Time.

I tremble at our deed 

curse the will that chose the path: 

our path 

our will 

our burden upon the Land 

laying deep in spirits now 

struggling to revive 

to know 

The Hidden Who walked us 

called us in the Garden

giving us Light supreme.

We've killed ourselves 

and them 

and that 

which nurtures us 

for now we're lost again 

a fleeing mass of Want.

Hold me till the New Dawn breaks 

and we birthed 

in Yahweh's Paradise.

Detail from a painting 

The cross at the side of the house

i.

The cross at the side of the house 

stood straight against the madness within 

a sentinel of promise against the curse   

of Adam stumbling o'er rocks, hiding from God.

Bursts of mea culpas seeped through its walls 

where the mother stood, child 'pon her hip 

awaiting conversions of practice to practice 

lest hope be buried 'neath the Blood of the Lamb.

From the empty shell of a man grown old 

questions arise struggling for answers 

like wasted seed among the weeds on the road 

trampled by hurts and poverty's foot.

Like propped and stunted dwarfs 

their dreams dangle on tomorrow's limbs 

awkward and misshapen visions of must.

ii.

The friars vested in virgin faces 

process in green feathers to the altar of God 

celebrating Life in the Theater of Thanks 

dancing with those with a cross in their yard 

and lift up the shadows encircling them 

as the Spirit kisses Bread to nourish the poor.

*The Notice of Always

Within the circle of now

the movement ripples

quietly, to and fro,

washing the past

of pointlessness

cleansing the future

of fear

waking me to notice

always

what is

here.

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

Edwin, girl

Awakening to the face of yourself 

we brush at the door of our meeting 

you shiver at the emerging prospect 

the claims of truth indwelling 

of something found while fleeing 

a treasure of frights rushing toward the light

Death to suicidal illusions

 you've been stabbed enough  

Your room's been aired 

the drapes pulled for the light 

go to your mirrored boudoir 

enter and peer upon yourself 

snap the image while 

crying hold the yes and weep for joy  

Accept your state with gratitude 

know love encoding you 

from knees bruised while doubting 

look up; catch grace dripping from the cross

God has eyes bright open 

reflecting back yourself 

stand then before his mirror 

naked, grateful for the gift 

the feminine smothered within you 

then kiss her; you'll kiss yourself

 

detail from a painting in Detroit

into my eyes a door opens

into my face and heart it swings

that into my soul the Breeze might roam

that something fresh might blow  

that the mote of closed-ness fall

 into a ball of nothingness 

that Light burn the hidden dust 

the musty mounds in the darkened space:

reclamation by the Mothering Now 

for habitation by the Eternal King

 

from the street

yank

yank down the doors and nets of your biased generations

open wide the walls that out-closed innumerable folk

build new reputations on your derogatory inflammations

 and let fresh air experience an unpolluted clime

we're sick from your massive influenzas

your abusive crimes, your employment of demons

the end of the depression is bowing before us

the people long suppressed by "democratic" elections

it's time to forsake your petty term selections

of yourselves as the gods for all "colored-kind"

the souls of the suppressed have escaped being hostage

to your "untainted" minimizations, your inherited lust

let go, let go of the noose around our necks

as you strangle your children who lay down and crawl

how many loved-less ones

are chasing aft affection

where e'er it might be found

in the closet 

on the stage 

in the booby-traps that have been laid

tell me

tell me

where e'er they have hid

fear not

i shall not harm them 

if we meet in the mud

nor curse the lineage of their oblations

to the slime and the grime

or imbecilic crimes

quickly

hand me the ledger with their names and fame

i wish to know them

to pass them on

in time

mine's a strange occupation

i know

like the strange aberrations

any one of us holds

strutting about the streets for an instant of fame

15 seconds of nothing

blown with the winds

live Life

live as best as you can

this is all that we have                               in our fabled fairyland

 

 

Detail from an unknown artist

*O Death, you come when I had you least in mind.
-Korngold


*Fighting for peace is like fucking for virginity.
-Anon [on a wall]


*A work of art has no existence or function apart form its effect on human observers.
-Marshall McLuhan

 

No Black Indians in the museum

As only America can do
the Indians appeared as colored shades of white
pure and uncontaminated

Is it possible that my ancestors changed their skin

while greasing their hair?

Did their pigment slide off after their bath?

Is it possible that their tales were a mirage
as they looked toward the Mason-Dixon line
while marching west toward Nebraska?

Even the naked Amazons were displayed in shorts

lest their brown pricks offend the host

No Black Indians blurred the surrender of Geronimo

in his favored place near the Great White Chief

America must be pure

Keep Blacks far from the History Show

less the casinos remove their support

O God look

Behold the wild-child

now trapped

now tamed

now trained

I weep o'er the caging of him

longing for some wildness

for the innocence of his heart

 

Shades for an evening sun

Like a Black Madonna in a chapel nook 

the black night blends me within itself 

'till I am one with her in her solitude.

The night and I, brothers in our darkness 

as shadows mesh to blacken the spot; 

identity one via the Moorish sky.

Silhouettes shaded for an evening sun 

black lights shining 'gainst the morning rays. 

what drama laying with the Muse of life;

a gray dawn gleaming in the dark, dank site  

with the black words firing on a branding iron 

like ravens jetting toward the Indian corn.

Charcoal smoking in the ordained furnace 

making pitch flow smooth before the eboned altar 

(and the black night's baby in her solitude).

Jazz and a spring bulb

Tombed (Fall!) in the sterile womb 

and dead life from the winter scene-

blanket'd o'er with a fluffy quilt.

Star light and moon light and 

sun light; coolness and chilly 

with the warm heat - 'neath a cancer belt.

Footprints painted on a paper cup; 

and transmigration at the seasoned time 

but dopish, sleeping in the new spring time.

Ambrosia drunk (the god's own dew)-  

staggered - and ermined in the 

Tabor splendor: garmented bright.

"It is good for us to be here."- Voice 

and thunder clouds on a windy day; 

marriage, love and pregnated earth.

Partition! Break and quiescent pain; 

lab'ring joy - (stretched up, a limb); 

this late resurrection - Resurrection! 

 

Dis-spirited

Your carcass lays dispirited
emptied of life
like the bottle in your hand
searching for the Spirit
amidst highs that drown
that cloak your suff'ring
and dull the nightmares
strolling by

You swill with a similar someone
that laughter might rise
and your garbled talk supply
what's missing all the time

Now laying drunk on the ground
you witness to your flight
and the shallowness of brotherhood
bottled against the Light

If Tired were tired

it would fall asleep.

Why do I fight my friend?

When the winds blow

the sand travels on:

those ever-changing dunes!

I drive o'er your shadow

and wrestle with your shade;

I embrace the vapors of your phantom

and kiss the wisp and fade

 

Is freedom a return to bondage?

When from our exile 

we run screamin' and fussin' 

it's not because we hate living 

but that the barbeque is gone.

We sit at the empty tables 

staring across to hollow faces  

wond'ring what happened 

on the fields of the slaughtered.

A depressing state of aloneness

 longing the abandoned Massa 

while starving in the savannas 

near food surrounding water 

awaiting a motive to claim it 

permission to want to live.  

What might we be in Egypt 

where Nile rivulets run sweet 

where frog legs abound for breakfast 

and the Massa makes us clean?  

Is this a place for vision?

Is wisdom worth seizing here? 

Is freedom a return to bondage

when the Lord has set you free?

There is power in that moment 

when truth might cause you bleed 

when visions are looking forward

toward unimagined lands.

Pilate, where are you hiding with washed hands?  The crowd wants blood.  You supply it in abundance as you slip back into the palace.  The guilty may be these but others hide theirs behind the quartered flesh of others.  Is it better that one or two or more die than that truth prevail?