Boxed

The lone ones crawl through tunnels searching for light

repeating the routes the brave ones traversed

With heads out front and unsure of their footing

they move on their knees to what the journey presents.

As their eyes suck in the darkness

night weaves a wrap for their retinas to hold.

Their voices long for ears other than their own

and silenced-sounds surrounding their thrones.

Unaware that their freedom is a few bends ahead

where fresh-air pours in under the canopy of night

they stop to die in the box that's home

gift-wrapped, bowed and parceled, Sent.

*Jesus is the trigger in the trap that brings down those values and principles upon which our systems stand. He forces us to re-think our relationship to the divine, religion and the state.

*Silence can be such a sweet sound.



*Democracy cannot be "promoted" on top of a a mountain of corpses.
-Asef Bayat

Blaming escapades

We'd like to save ourselves

but can't

We blind ourselves to our escapades

escaping, if possible, our original dis-grace

We fall deeper into the ancient hole

dug eons ago while fleeing first

It's tragedy we long

Responsibility we set aside

Felix culpa we sing at Easter time

yet quickly suppress the message therein

wrapping all in blaming tones

unable to listen to our own

With difficulty we accept ourselves

and the pathetic state of our kind

but if we would responsibly say Yes

our present stumbling would occasion grace

*Studying your own experience demands more bravery; you never know exactly what you might discover.

  -Carol Shields

*I just think too many women, and men too, arrive at old age without having touched their authentic self.

  -Carol Shields

*I think love is the basic building block.  It's your basic molecule.  Why else would we make an effort to be sort of good in the world and with one another, if it weren't for this kind of mystical connection that holds us together?  Why else would we do it?

  -Carol Shields

A hole in the heart

There's a hole in the heart

where dark secrets keep

a cave where ghoulish tales hold.

Sin stalks the bat-caverned way

with fecal droppings perfuming the air.

There, Jesus huddles, stoking a fire.

 *We human beings are so intent on proving ourselves to be gods and goddesses that we end up proving ourselves to be devils.

*Living in the illusion of our professional importance.

*Humanity was before humans were.

*He just finds life too wonderful to give up easily.

  -Timothy Findley

*I think you reach a plateau of spiritual contentment through love - and only through love.

  -Peter C. Newman

*Spiritual strength among employees will be invaluable if businesses hope to become competitive, productive, and happy places....Standard full-time jobs and traditional corporate culture are disappearing.  People who work will need to find spiritual resources within themselves if they and their businesses are to prosper. Workers will have to find contentment in themselves, rather than simply buying into the corporate race.

  -Peter C. Newman

*I don't know  how pursuing a more spiritual life is going to work out in the end, but it would be absurd not to try.

  -Peter C. Newman

annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Martin

the shrine's been built 

the banners are out

they're cummin'

the media's cummin'

they're cummin' with exhalation's ecstasy

orgiastic reportage in praise of the dead

ev'ry niggra hidden is set on stage

before the ev'ning news, 'tween 9 and 10

preyed upon to bolster pride

a display of guilt for Negroes to see

ancient murders recast to stir us to "when"

displayed, held captive

Eminem stands chanting their praise

while Tupac's discontent is quieted for the weak

but all imperialism of talk strangles us

we're shadows dancing on the walls of exclusion

expats parading in a massive charade

demonstrations of solidarity as the structures collapse

affirmative action proclaims our day is done

the scaffolds dismantled that helped us on the way

thus we are yet niggers

slaves inflating on the American Dream

for all is falling at the sound of each clap

the mule and 40 still taking their nap

*...would you want to go on being yourself forever?

  -Robertson Davies

*You should never rule out any possibility.  The scientists are always discovering something is possible they didn't think was possible.

  -Robertson Davies

*Curiosity...is one of the great mainsprings of life.

  -Robertson Davies

Stark-naked primitive

earth child frighteningly free

scouring the ground for betel nuts:

a hairless mute

with his butt toward the sky

sniffing about for freedom.

The hum, the buzz

the odor of the common distracts him

long-sighteningly shuffling for food

like hogs rooting for grub.

His is the culture of masters

humused pilgrims vying for India

Puritans assured of new field-findings

bringing Jesus bound on the ships of England

a pressing a desire to imitate Christians.

Is this the faith of imbeciles?

There's an echo of longing therein

a lurching for some lost dream

some untame-able vision

that's here beyond words

or the clothing of the righteous.

The naked truth at the tip of his nose

the dung-yard dirt lacing his nails

these repeat the tale of pilgrims

of those determined, trekking to Compostela 

of reclaimed nudes begging at the Gate

where Lazarus gazes sadly at Abraham.

Is ours the faith of imbeciles?

Where's the tip of our nose

the echo in our soul?

Will we show India our filthy nails?

Will Lazarus greet us at her door?

What will we say?

What will we be?

Will we be...

Yes!  Yes!  Yes! 

 for what?

*...humans won't ever understand everything.

  -Robertson Davies

*Too many Christian churches focus on social work and too many religions behave as if humans are  Lord of Creation and everything else is subject to them.

  -Robertson Davies

*An excess of zeal to do good to others is bad stuff.

  -Robertson Davies

he leapt into ecstasy

fire drawing Francis into Itself

Love wrapped him in red

seraph wings fluttering bright

as if a discov'ry entered their heart

thus they danced into swooning

the embrace of Christ piercing his flesh

signing him a crucified

*...confession is good for the soul.

  -Evelyn Lau

*...it's observable that a bad background doesn't necessarily mean a bad outcome.

  -Robertson Davies

*...evil is like a force that can act through a person.

  -Robertson Davies

*Christianity has had very remarkable effects, and has worked very well in certain ways, but I think the time has come when we've  got to recognize there's a side of existence the Christian church has been shutting out for 2,000 years: half the human race.

  -Robertson Davies

*...humans won't ever understand everything.

  -Robertson Davies

the burden of conflict

i'm sick and tired of conflict

conflict tears my soul

my head knots and pulsates

an ache shivers my bones

anxiety pressures my heart beat

and the beating feeds my fears

my vision grows distorted

and distortion twists my heart

nightmares disturbs my sleep

no sleep frazzles my nerves

my mood shifts to sour

depression has found a friend

antsy becomes my response

which begins to taunt my mouth

and before i know what's happened

i'm fighting, baring my fists

angry with myself

i'm angry with the other

and the fear of pounding another

drives me to harm the cat

i see that this is madness

the cat, the man, the fight

transference clouds the issue

the issue is myself

so i dump the plot of victimness

take my crap into my hands

bear the burden of my weakness

leave the conflict for the dead

the circle of life gets vicious

each one has problems enough

and one more conflict won't help us

conflicts can tear us apart

TALK!

*Our personalities and individualities, with our dysfunctions, make life interesting, frightening and humorous.  No wonder God loves us.

*When Sister Death arrives, we'll be ready.  She's the only way to go.

*All of our heroes have mud on their feet.    

witness

i.

working for Pentecost

with its "bitter" words off fiery tongues

from dross burners of withered dreams

is to await the Dove at midnight coming

pounding at the door of our encrusted hearts

cracking the walls around our precious life

Blood will look for blood

wanting ev'ry inch, ev'ry breath we take

to slit open our gut for a covenantal sacrifice

emptying our heart of the brazier of life

God'll whisk us safety-free for the Church's sake

to hum flaming music into waxened ears

to proclaim in symphonic loony-tunes the sacred word

corrupting the values of the surrounding crowd

like mused, shredded and discarded notes

a misfit desperado off'ring the illusion of health

they'll toss us out like a disgraced doll

defamed disciples of Incarnate Love

ii.

will God be revealed when you spread-wide the Dove

if the illusions you unmask are good for ones health

serve then the paradoxes of the Subversive One

set free the slaves to the salves against health

iii.

staying healthy will slay us, living we will die

the health of our living is in the living we allow die 

Some words of Laurence Gough:

*The most selfish thing you can do is forgive.  I think freedom's found in forgiveness.

*With parenting, everyday is a wonderful opportunity to fall flat on your face.

A thought from Evelyn Lau:

...confession is good for the soul.

a long question

one more faithlessness!

one more faithlessness!

is it hope against oneself

against ones taste for self-destruction

against You and ev'ry peace offered

against prohibitions we rail against

and ev'ry drop of Life pouring

through our vows of repentance

against Your bottomless gift of grace

and all Love that is You

against The Against toward which we run

though its nothingness is obvious

even as we thrust ourselves against You

falling into wretchedness

mocking goodness as control

stumbling in our search for You, The Good?

O Most For Me and All

snatch us lest we fail again

and be against You and our all-against

again and again forevermore

*The Emerging Mystics(con't):

-I like mystery.  But I don't like secrets.

 Sylvia Fraser

-You put yourself through mental gymnastic so you can go to the performance with as clean a    psychological state as you possibly can.  But I actually cannot make a spiritual experience happen.

 Loreena McKennit

-I believe in God in probably the same way my dog does.

 Farley Mowat

-We're living on a a continent where we are obsessed with being in power, rather than being in love.

  Barry Lopez

-Some notions of divine creativity seem to be images of something that comes from above, with some  kind of magic wand.  I much prefer the idea that it comes from an earthly place that is full of  sexuality and sensuality.

 Nick Bantock 

-I read a lot of existentialist literature in the fifties...  One of its ideas was the concept of the absurd,  that things didn't make sense.  That is completely repugnant to me.

 Alex Colville

-Love is the basic building block.  It's your basic molecule.

 Carol Shields

Niggers

We have arrived

but no one knows where to

just that the press about us is tempered

with other news swirling about us.

There's always something wrong

some suspicion that'll attract attention:

too good, too rich, over-sexed, too Black

acceptable with and edge to be trimmed.

Our men merit prison still

while DNA's confess us innocent of crimes

violent one committed before justice became scientific

but well after the jails were built.

Who'll expose the victimized of then

or hand these the last paycheck owed to them?

Our Condoleezza's and Powell's deflect our niggratude

toward something akin to fashion, American-style.

In forty-years we've made amazing strides

enough to disclaim their kind from us

each standing on her own, Clarence Thomas at their side.

An amazing group we are

to slave decades into nothin'

that no one owes us nothin';

having reached the top

that murder's our path to the bottom.

Our deaths are often violent

practicing what our genes learned long ago.

The Greeks knew nothing of comedy

for our tragedies are the humors of the court.

We praise the Lord for His goodness

cause once the tide has changed

we'll recognize ourselves again: 

great entertainers with humor

niggers till our dying day. 

*The emerging mystics:

-The new spirituality will be first and foremost an experience of creative energy and inspiration.

  Nicholas Berdyaev

-You get this overwhelming sense of how small you are in the Arctic.  You can't ignore the fact you're only a part of a vast whole.  And it wants you.  It's not there for you.  We're there for it.

Timothy Findley

-The idea is not merely to believe in spiritual intuitions, but to rely on them.

  Peter C. Newman

-In ritual space, the competition disappears.

  Robert Bly

-I would like to end up sitting on the end of my grave and saying, "Well, I didn't win the Noble Prize, and I didn't win the Pulitzer Prize but I won the Refrigerator Award.

Robert Fulghum

What do you gain by winning the world but destroying yourself?
-Mark 8:36



gargoyles watch the corners of our lives

1. Home-front

vigilantes guard the empty streets
with guns in hand, poised to shoot the shadowed ghosts

creative initiators of  group think

their "secret" codes summon comrades to arms

their eyes watching strangers passing by

insiders pass inspection by winking their eyes
(they're the ones with guns fixed at your head)

big brother peeps o'er our shoulders without shame

eyes staring at us as a warning, trained

to pounce on words deemed illegal and claimed

ready to drag enemies to the cages of the condemned

it's freedom that must be preserved at the price of condemnation
freedoms founded on judaic-christian imperialistic codes
laws, once decent, now packaged to exclude
with selective suppression to preserve the status quo

2. War-front

bring home the bodies aerated by bullets
informing the nation of their noble cause
they died to break the systems of demonic dominance
confronting the enemy to view life through their eyes
unaccepted were their efforts at promoting equality
they sealed their efforts by firing their guns

3. Church-front

upon cathedral corners sit gargoyles sporting smiles
grotesque and comical, inviting a quest

why do the nations rage, sending their young to war

while the initiators of conflict rest blanketed in their beds?

though wars are won one dead soldier at a time
the knights are guarded by gargoyles of stone
their names erased as we trod upon their graves



*The New Ancients

-For nothing worthy proving can be proven
nor yet disproven; wherefore thou be wise
cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt
and cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith
                                   Alfred, Lord Tennyson

-There are no rules. This is what gets me in trouble with certain members of the Christian community. I really don't think it's about rules.
                                                Bruce Cockburn

-I don't want a God who is a parent who might kick me out of the house.
                                                                                           Lynn Johnston

-I'm weak on my own.  I think everybody is.
                                            Susan Aglukark

-The gospel is about trying to incarnate a love which is both radical and not stupid.
                                                                                                             Ann Copeland

-I'm not here just to while away the time.  And it's a waste of time to just chase money.
                                                                                                              Tony Hillerman

-What is it that makes a human being go?  It is energy. And the physicists tells us that energy never vanishes.  So when the body is worn out and dies, where does the energy go?
                                                                                              Robertson Davies

When people are saying, "Peace and security", then sudden disaster comes upon them like pain upon a woman in labor, and they will not escape.
                                                                                                                                                                                               -1 Thessalonians 5:3


i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom

a copy-cat mickey-mouse way of living

where ev'ry mall repeats another

and we kill ourselves striving to look alike

"God, spare the world this imitative curse"

i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom

informers with a patriotic scent

stir toilets to analyze ingredients therein

where ev'ry enemy of mine will be theirs

and I'll be suspect when i finger their friends

i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom

protective pulp circles the fearful seed

and like religious kitsch fills its emotional needs

moments of humor are primed by sitcoms
the last laugh for all being History's ghost

i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom

the poor are snuffed, intellectuals spurned

the arts are targeted as corrupters of youth

the military machine drives the minds of most

distinguishing not between friend or foe

i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom

peace and security no one can give

when your mind's not free and your spirit's chained

for fear smothers freedom, love frees one up

the kingdom of the human always tragically ends

i pray against empire
against its pledge of universal freedom



*Thoughts of some doubters:

-Modest doubt is the beacon of the wise.
William Shakespeare

-It doesn't seem to me that doubt is the opposite of faith.  Doubt is an integral part of faith.
John Irving

-I don't want to believe if it's not true.  I want evidence.
Paul Verhoeven

-I don't want to come across like a saint here - because I'm not, I can be a jerk - but I think the best thing you can do is to forgive.  The most selfish thing you can do is forgive.
Laurence Gough

-I take issue with poets who say some days it just descends from the clouds in inspiration.  I really dislike the idea that you're just being a conduit for a larger force that is doing all the work for you.  I mean it is such hard work.
Evelyn Lau

-To witness sane and in every regard respectable individuals experiencing direct rapport with the divine fills one with either fear, which finds its natural outlet in disbelief, or envy.
Wade Davis

-I can't imagine life without curiosity.
Douglas Coupland

i sit here funky
in a not so easy easy-chair
tried, back aching
thigh pulsing, bowels un-moving
waiting to awake enough
to read or stand or walk about
while thoughts and problems
pester my mind

i'm tired more that an ox circling an immobile stake
grinding corn of which it cannot partake

am i sick of conscientiousness
conscious enough to do something like
form a club, write a letter
go ballistic, be depressed
something on a Monday afternoon
listless in the summer heat
listening to myself complain
about this and that

where is God when you need God
as if needs the only use for "being God"?

perhaps i'll feel better
once my constipation's gone
and i am up and about
spirited again



*Thoughts of some atheists:

-That which has been believed by everyone always and everywhere has every chance of being false.
                                                                                                                                            Paul Valery

-In a sense all my work is about a search for values, or a code of honor, that one can live by.
                                                                                                                       Mordecai Richler

-The only thing I hold against my dad...is that he was an atheist until he found out he was dying.  Then he turned into a major coward, and went back to the Catholic fold.
                                                                                             W.P. Kinsella

-Raven is the force that keeps the world turning.  Raven is a demigod who does nothing inadvertently.  He goes through eternity turning over rocks to see what's underneath.
Bill Reid

-I think love is the obligation you have to give relationships meaning.
                                                                                               June Rule

-I find the whole pageant of life and evolution just wonderful.
                                                                          Robert Munsch

on the horizon

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

will ours be a voice trembling 'neath a dimming bulb

warning that the light we see is dark?

totalitarians love war as if bread for their tables
blood, the red wine coating their throats

when people disappear,  they'll help them hide

because crimes against the struggling are cause for more

we'll shake our heads when the warning sirens wail
longing that the enemy would 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 dust rains upon our heads
will the silent torture of convictions spew vomit on the  streets?

when The Bomb, our bombs sprinkle the lawns of our villages

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

when bodies return wrapped in their symbolic flag
will it be too late to redirect the movie
to cancel the show about dandelions on our lawns
and show the faces that horrified the dreams of our parents
now possessive of our lungs as a suffocating theme?

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

then the airy transparency of our majesty

will lay crumbling like a yellow constitution

released finally from its vacuumed tomb

who will see it
who will notice
complicit in the crimes outside our door
as oblong clouds stretch across the assure sky
as if beds awaiting heads to arrive

pretending they were alive?

*...even the most avowedly nonreligious person still, in their deeper being, shares in a religious oriented behavior.

-Mircea Eliade

*The unconscious activity of modern humans ceaselessly presents us with innumerable symbols, and each of them has a particular message to transmit, a particular mission to accomplice, in order to ensure or re-establish the equilibrium of the psyche.

-Mircea Eliade

*...it is through symbols that humans find their way out of our particular situation and "open ourselves" to the general and the universal.  Symbols awaken individual experience and transmute it into a spiritual act, into metaphysical comprehension of the world.

-Mircea Eliade

NOT

sometimes

i would NOT like to feel guilty o'er a tragedy

as sweet revenge enters my heart

dominating my emotional state

i recoil, ashamed for a moment or so

as a surge of mem'ries feed my thoughts

coaxing the lingering rage against suppression

pay-back-time caresses me

addicted to long forgotten hurts

oh, to be evil for a flash

to know its lusts purring like a cat 

having captured a rat

oh to be rotten to the core for a moment of crime

to believe i'd be happy in this state of soul

"it's life, in her justice, beating the children

with the visitation of crimes their parents obliged"

however faintly my conscience bothers me

then the children of the next generation rise before my eyes

mirroring that adage long spoke down the times

"what goes around, comes around"

comes through my door

making visitation upon my children

for the crimes i adore

my thirsty revenge tempers its lust

my smothered conscience recovers its shame

*Every human existence is formed by a series of ordeals, by repeated experience of "death" and  "resurrection".

 -Mircea Eliade

*...the majority of people "without religion" still hold to pseudo religions and degenerated  mythologies.

 -Mircea Eliade

*A purely rational person is an abstraction; they are never found in real life.  Every human being is    made up at once of their conscious activity and their irrational experiences.

 -Mircea Eliade

"Be careful"

Why do you alarm your kids, 

"Be careful!"

when you enter into my neighborhood?

Don't you see
I've lived here all my days

through its dangers, trials, toils and joys

or are we more alike than thought

'cause in your neighborhood

I watch for the boogieman too?

*Death is natural.  Each day is only itself.

*Our great temptation is to not accept being the Father's child and living as one.

*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 of the other as self as well as  God.  

Don't know

O God what is it I want:

You or some other substitute

some creature needing faith

while blocking You from the frame?

I don't know at times.

I feel lost and abandoned

out on some prairie

with tornadoes whistling round 

to suck me into their mouths

bearing me where I would not go

with You not being around.

Where should I go to expect to arrive:

to a heaven annexed to hell?

I don't know.

I feel companioned

like a psycho talking to himself

or whatever self can be found.

Touch me as I cry.

Let me know You're around

that I might grab some hope

some pole with a flag of truce

white like people who've damned me

assigned me to non-personhood

those year when that was chic.

Turn toward me.

Kneel beside me at the bedside

there where angels weep

and the moon floats by before i sleep 

in hopelessness

awaiting another day.

Kneel near me and breathe for once.

I need You "to be"

even when I doubt

to break the neck of suicide

as I slide toward hell.

Kneel behind me now

and breathe down my back

like the Spirit who cares.

Thomas Who?

Who are you Thomas Flood

Thomas Floyd

Thomas Fludd

who sired three kids

with Sophie Stuart

Native-Black

mother-shunned

loved or used?

Where did you hide

that you could rise

to sire a child

when sex was desired?

Did your fam'ly know your underside

or had you learned from their wiles?

Irish they say you were.

 Did you speak with a brogue?

I'll never know.

Did you jump ship

to buy a slave

or is your hist'ry fixed

in Virginia's armament?

Your grandchildren

never saw your face

sat on your lap

played at your place.

You never visited

their alleys shacks

their Georgetown flats

their burial plats.

You disappeared Thomas Flood

fled to havens that kept you hid

but ever on their minds.

Your children hardly knew you

though bearing your name.

I've searched  for you

but found no trace

though it was your red

that covered my head

when I was born

your seed that lightened my flesh

making me "yellow" at birth

bringing Mendel's law full-bloom.

Thanks great-great-great grandpa

your legacy has stretched quite far

your hide and seek has birthed a freak

and a burden in my being. 

If I won't talk

then I choose the non-spoken

letting life be

not mumbling 'bout what is or isn't

The still-word will die

and I'll die holding it in

Mine is the choice

I will die staying the course

*Thoughts of Mircea Eliade [syntactically modified]: 

  -For Judaism, time has a beginning and will have an end.  The idea of cyclic time is left behind.  Yahweh no longer manifests God's Self  in cosmic time (like the gods of other religions) but in a historical time, which is irreversible.  Each new manifestation of Yahweh in history is no longer reducible to an earlier manifestation.  The fall of Jerusalem expresses Yahweh's wrath against God's people, but it is no  longer the same wrath that Yahweh expressed by the fall of Samaria. God's gestures are personal interventions in history and reveal their deep meaning only for God's people, the people that Yahweh had chosen.  Hence the historical event acquires a new dimension; it becomes a theophany.

  -Christianity goes even further in valorizing historical time.  Since God was incarnated, that is, since God took on a historically conditioned human existence, history acquires the possibility of being sanctified.  The illud tempus evoked by the Gospels is a clearly defined historical time - the time in which Pontius Pilate was Governor of Judea - but it was sanctified by the presence of Christ. When a Christian of our day participates in liturgical time, they recover the illud tempus in which Christ lived, suffered, and rose again - but it is no longer a mythical time, it is the time when Pontius Pilate governed Judea.  For the Christian, too, the sacred calender indefinitely rehearses the same events of the existence of Christ - but these events took place in history; they are no longer facts that happened at the origin of time, "in the beginning."  (But we should add that, for the Christian, time begins anew with the birth of Christ, for the Incarnation establishes a new situation of humankind in the cosmos).  This is as much as to say that history reveals itself to be a new dimension of the presence of God in the world.  History becomes sacred history once more - as it was conceived, but in a mythical perspective, in primitive and archaic religions.

  -Christianity arrives, not at a philosophy but at a theology of history.  For God's interventions in history, and above all God's Incarnation in the historical person of Jesus Christ, have a transhistorical purpose - the salvation of humankind.

yellow tree

standing in the failing-fall light

you are the sun against the steel-grey fog of morn

nowhere to go but shine

a promise

awaiting the brilliance of the large light

*Democracy cannot be "promoted" on top of a mountain of corpses.

  -Asef Bayat

*Historical information is always after the effect and rarely makes a difference.  Sometimes it becomes more brutal as a corrective of the supposed or actual wrong.

*Jesus is the trigger in the trap that beings down those values and principles upon which our systems stands.  He forces is to re-think our relationship to the divine, religion, the state...and one another.

*Silence can be, at times, such a sweet sound.