a brand new fright

where do you stand when you want to sit

when anything that moves you is still

and the next motioning is toward the edge of tomorrow

toward the edge of the past day awaiting something new

i wonder where to sit from time to time 

where all that moves is a flat grill of chill

and everything that chills is hot

hot with the cold-edge of dynamite still

so i write empty words on crowed papers

on the edge of scraps that seem newly fresh

pretending that i'm the sane biographer

of another genius who was recently lost

unknown to himself or any one else

waiting for release from the insanity bin

go then, go to wherever your int'rest drags you

to the harbor lights where nights get high

on to the daylight's somber attractions

where nothings drawn but another goodbye

seize the appropriate greeting

when whatever arises enters ones mind

when sweet-words seem full of tired urgings

that vomit like spent monies exiting a bank

i don't know what to tell you

when ten flies sit atop some barbecued manure

except that it stinks with the aroma of shit

knowing its the refuse of well-ground, discarded food

on we move while scenery blinds the sun anew

awaiting the rain that with thunder will erupt

awakening light beyond our present sight

into the delight of a brand new fright

*It is in the light of Calvary that we can see what it means for us to confess our poverty and our helplessness and to renounce the attempt to overcome them of our own.  It is there that we accept our suffering and turn it into a compassion with all the pains that people bear, bundled together as they are in the suffering of Christ. It is there that we discover and fortify our charitable earning for all rigtheousness to be reveled, while at the same time tempting ourselves and which we hope to share with all humankind.  And so we come imperceptibly to see everything more purely in the light of God's seeing of all  that God has made, and so we come to be able at least to whisper the truth of the infinite peace of God's will even  in the midst of the storms and contentions of life in this world.

*Simon Tugwell