and so it was

and so it was...

i thought i'd write a poem about hardship's
when the phone called me to its ear , its mouth

i stood listening to the speaker speaking
to me about hellos and goodbyes as we ride
into the corner of another time

for goodbyes there were
goodbyes to the times before i was what i am
to this times hello to all assurances of moving onward
on to the tomorrows that waved to yesterday's so-long

i am sitting here
sitting before this machine with words
wondering if my next days will be pleasant
if tomorrow's rain will wet my head alone

this is a strange degradation
this wondering about the assurance of my flight from hell
from the prison that would have slain me
choked me in the gases, its chlorophyll

but i marched onward onward into the new days lying ahead
accept the blazon banners offered to my hand
to shake fire from their silent reds and grays

onward onward toward the whatever-life-can
to be whatever rises from the dreams and efforts a hand
to go for the gold where shit lay stewing in green mold
and find the vision that sleeps within my hold



we want

we want

some word to say

like Hi

Good-bye

some sound
to block the space

in which we stand

we want something

in this empty

dry

wasted version of air

hanging like a drug infested
polluted bag of goo

we humans

cough out humor-draughts

of nothing

laughing, like suicidal-plentys
where the numb
pack their empty pockets
with hope for something more

we stand
at the edge of humor

waiting for the laughter to rise

and feed a smile

relieve a cough

and be
for a moment

a monumental New

*...it is the sermons we preach to ourselves around the preacher's sermons that are the ones we hear most powerfully.

-Frederick Buechner

*We can love him, we can learn from him, but we can come to know him only by following him-by searching for him in his church, his Gospels, in each other.

-Frederick Buechner