something new

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

the un-raptured ev'ning falls upon the heated grass waiting
for a fire to set the night ablaze with drifts of love
but nothing moves sitting still on the lazy fields at night
except words screaming grief or pain or a fragile joy

a moment of peace or hope or suff'ring calls long
for something more refreshed and growing old and on
to another plot of life in the human storm of brewing scents
longing to be et for once by any who passes by
hungry for something new nurturing calming for open hearts
sitting with tears beside the ocean blocks crying for something

new

*...Pope Francis has said he would follow JohnXXIII's motto which was, "See everything; turn a blind eye to much; correct a little."
-Living Faith

*Everything Depends

on being

in

on eating

 what is

within 

yet beyond

not being 

up

but down 

wardly

mobile

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

looking back

looking back

looking back

looking back for the moment

the place

the pleasure

the peace

the experience of joy in the moment gone

gone since the Then

when all of me was flying high

on a cloud of "always"

of "when-ever"

of "again and again"

but now

memory attempts a recall

of "when i was"

oh, how i sulk o'er the garbage of ev'ryday

o'er the thrust of "must and can't"

o'er "my-way and wants"

o'er the drudgery and dust

as i stare back to Then

"the moment"

the pace 

the joy

the pleasure

the peace

that's gone 

our days are normal

grabbing the Now off the breath of your mouth

how strange an orgy is life on the fly

like rabbits hopping from leaf to leaf

to sustain their litter while drinking milk

o what a helluva dream for partridges to flock

pretending to be other than what their feathers proclaim

standing at the edge of a field of grain

as rabbits fear bones left by gray wolves afar

we spot the honeysuckle crawling along the wall

and dismiss the gun leaning on the thorn

bedraggled questors

we drag our rag-covered selves from one beggar to another

hoping to touch comfort

or

find an answer to our quest

we are  bedraggled questors longing for satisfaction

struggling to live from this moment to the next

we're a parade of hobos decorating local streets

clothed in the vesture of ministers of shit

filthy, funky, faint

walking ahead

moving toward the Light

I need to rest

its' not as if I need to lie down

as if to sleep

but to set aside the crush of mush

that stirs outside

inside

in me

as the earthen globe turns

through the non-sense of deaths and doubts

as wars sprout about the universe

in hope

yes hope

for some peace some day

in some way

in some manner of trust

without fits and kicks

or abuse and lost

or distorted love for this or that

or various twists of monied strings

that bind us in knots of destruction 

on this dot of green and blue

(if we'd notice)

it is to laugh and cry

and await the day of our hearty good-bye

to escape yet welcome again

our life ever after

the Surprise that will move us to hum 

worn-out

the woman in me is worn-out

tired

dragged by a life of grumbling and dour-speech

plopped

sat upon

questioned and trust-lacking

the god in me

reaching the top 

like all races of rats and bats

smiling

pretending

pampered like brats

like all pretenders of The Other

The One we strive to seduce

collapsed at home with a slow-flow of tears

scrubbing the god we seem to be

for one eternal second

dead

moving no one nowhere

but down

where all walk across you

praising you for the decent life you strove to live

for a second

there is no money for my friends
and  would weep, if I could
but can't. can only
think about the absence
the empty space 'tween words of nothing
...and absence.

I wish I could cry for them and me
and all those who stare through filthy frills
and curtains hanging cross hungry windows
waiting for the sun or money
or something to feed them for a moment
with some thing to nourish their gut, their spirit
but no "thing"

arrives.

yet they stare
wishing I could send something like sunshine
but offer a distant smile with words
saying "nothing".

notes flow where once darkness had fallen
into the head of a wandering minstrel
singing song from a time of confusion
from a time when it was thought

that music could save the world..
but now it's known that guns enable destruction
and the missiles of nations hold automatic power
to lock down the miseries of miseries circling the insane

and those in power with nations to burn
bargain with fright with the enemies of the people
with the insane brokers of faltering power
and death squad leaders whispering the night

there is no money for my friends

and I would weep, if I could

but can't.  can only
think about the absence

the empty space 'tween words of nothing

and absence.

I wish I could cry for them and me

and all those who stare through filthy frills

and curtains hanging 'cross hungry windows

waiting for the sun or money

or something to feed them for a moment

with some thing to nourish their gut, their spirit

but no thing arrives.

yet they stare

wishing I could send them something like sunshine

but offer only a distant smile with words

saying "nothing".

watched

watched

peering through Pollock's Abstract No. 1
the Black guard moves
to keep me in his eye

figures peer out
warning me

i saw them
one after the other
peering like friends
companions
through their black lines of eyes

content

they were the gentle face
of those gone mad
like i've gone mad
midst the crazy squirms of life gone mad
Pollock-mad
longing for peace tween green and beige
soft'ning the madness of Man-made madness
in the midst of the madness of Man

the Judas syndrome
"...then all his disciples abandoned him."
-Mt. 26:56

i. the accursed

been screwed so much
a hole's drilled in my heart;
no sex, no pleasure
just the after-flow of betrayal:
the fixed rejection
the denial of worth
the nauseating vomit
the emotional blank

ii. the accused

we smile and swallow hard
locking into emptied bellies
awaiting the day when all's released
when the canvas of our lives
reveals the red of our heart
the blue of our soul
our purpling passion
a flaming desire
cooking within our heated bile
simmering toward revenge and violence
saying, "Fuck you!', then moving on;
buying a gun to blow the mothers apart
miters and balls, "for the love of God"
as they abandoned us, "for the love of God"
clothed us in bars, stripped of grace
assigned to hell, burying our souls
in their stock-piles of waste, for the love of God

thus they betrayed Him, for the love of God
those righteous Judas-children, lovers of God



*No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that the others are behind the time.
-Martha Graham


*Don't accept your dogs admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.
-Ann Landers


*Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.
-Unknown

the kiss  comes slow

the kiss comes slow
somewhere after words
after a hawing that's cautious
like a fox sneaking through the grass
surveying the prey before springing

it's a dance with hesitation:
a gleam in the eye
a breath off the lips
a reach beyond the waist

so what does one do in-between
in the pause
the hesitation to move in either direction
between the "yes" or "maybe"
the 'if"
the cautious "if" of not knowing where you'll go
if the look is "come"?

i watch the mys'try unveil:
Salome bursting with lust to distract the king
to drop his guard before the truth hits home
and he's fallen over himself
to suck the eyes that beckon in




*When we become aware that every stranger is gift, strangers need no longer go through a gift-giving ritual to be accepted.
-Brother David Steindl-Rast, osb

*The crucial question is: How big is our family? How wide is the reach of our belonging? Can we stretch it to the furthest reaches of Gods household? Will our care and concern embrace all members of this Earth Household-humans, animals, plants, whom we now consider strange? The survival of all of us may well depend on our answer.
-Brother David Steindl-Rast, osb

*Carry

it does not

matter

so much

how well

you carry

a note a melody

but how

consciously

you 

carry

this

instrument

of

presence

of mystery

you

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

Spring sings forever

rev up each day, fresh

bearing the scars of yesterday

heading for the sun

with antsy feet and dancing heart

be as strange as freedom allows

you're as weird as God

what difference does it make?

if your challenge is  calling

keep walking

sin or no sin, God forgives 

forming wonders out of nothing

keep moving

the Parousia appears soon enough

unexpected, o'er the rise

with a toll, under stress

flowers bloom and winter melts away

Spring sings forever

listening for the Silence in English

close your mouth for the length of a breath;
listen to the spaces between the air;
breathe in the surrounding sound;
relish it like prime rib expertly cooked;
rest your eyes till darkness becomes your friend;
sit shrewdly, noiseless, like a fox poised for prey;
then spring still while the wind floats by
and you are lost in the bowels of night
and every fiber of you is an open womb,
ready, receiving, when the light walks in;
then breathe as if air was something new ,
a fragrance never known, expected, brewed
like Maxwell House that warms your palms;
quietly, quietly, quietly become a sound unheard,
lively with the freshness of morning dew,
for the renewal of you, the silent, silent you.



The courage it takes to receive life even under the image of death-that is the courage of faith, the courage of gratefulness trust in the Giver.  When one approaches the altar to receive the Eucharistic bread and cup, this is an act of courage.  It is a gesture by which ones says, "I trust that I can live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, yes, even the word that spells death."  All that remains is to translate that act of faith into daily living.  And this is done through gratefulness.  Eucharist, after all, means "thanskgiving."  As we learn to give thanks for all of life and death, for all of this given world of ours, we find a deep joy.  It is the joy of courageous trust, the joy of faith in the faithfulness at the heart of all things.  It is the joy of gratefulness in touch with the fullness of life.
-Brother David Steindl-Rast.

pigeon on a parapet

the pigeon stood still
staring with cocked eye on the rummaging crowd
digging for bodies neath the rambling ballast
digging for sounds or a grasping hand
digging for a twitch or a breath straining for air
digging for trinkets from a home no more
for neighbors whose voice is silence in the night

it peered past the night-fire watching
catching strangers foraging for life squirming
neath the crumbled brick, the shattered glass, the kitchen
no longer warm, the abode hut, the residence lost
to the madness of theophonic might

pacing the parapet as if on guard above a treasure
curious and disturbed, it searched for children
that chased it, for the old who fed it, for the bench
that perched it in the daylight before
death dwelt everywhere, wailing in the night

it longed to move on, tale flight but how
when destruction wails against the buildings' brow
when what shapes fam'ly sits weeping aloud
searching for their dead with revenge for blood
searching for shards of bread or manna precious
like honey from the rock...when a blast tears
its parapet apart, turning it white
like a dove in fright

*...silence is not the absence of sound, but something infinitely more than sounds, and the center of a harmony more prefect than anything which a combination of sounds can produce....There is a silence in the beauty of the universe which is like a noise when compared with the silence of God.
-Simone Weil



cheeba

with a start my heart jumps

the howling pup struggles
pounding the cage blocking reach of its exertion

felt like me, blockaded
shut within some confining prison
somewhere in a  coffin dying

its struggling fueled my hidden fright
yanking at some past isolation
some solitary confinement long forgot

my breath labored

my heart raced to avoid entrapment
fleeing the once boxed and tortured hurts

empathy redeemed me

reaching for the crying pup
opened a door to free my repressions

cheeba, cheeba, hampered mutt
unbound the power of past abuse
off'ring hope for uncaging me

it was as if speaking with a leaf
coaxing it to break loose
and set sail for mother-earth
falling, floating down
inch by inch
dropping to the ground
feeding the earth
with its red ocre breasts

when i awoke to the dawn
and exited the dream

BLACK

BLACK!

what does it mean?

not much!

we've disappeared again:

inter-marriage, inter-sex.

inter-mingles, my friend.

my neighbors, my favorites

my "want to be like".

we glance past each other

begging not be seen.

no acknowledgement

nor "how are you?"

just a "do i know you?"

"you're none of mine."

"where're you from?"

"you  know what you can do."

"this is anew day."

"change is in the air."

"go where i want".

"do what i do".

"no more needing you."

until, until...

indictment

he wished to lay naked
bare as a board laying beneath his bed
with sun and wind and sea swells
lapping upon the shore of his thighs

he wished to walk naked
so naked that shame was just a tissue
steering the breeze, flowing warm
like the sun when the snow falls

he wished to play naked
shaking every part of him with glee
in the sand or climbing a tree
making love and wishing for more

he wished to pray naked
that God might see him thoroughly
and all puritans would flee for Rome
sailing back to Merry Eng-a-land

then you, o Christ, could come bursting in on the scene
and find him lounging as if in a dream
for he loved figments, not persons
as if there is no passion beyond dreams



*We are only absolutely, infallibly certain of the will of God concerning the past.  Everything that has happened, whatever it may be, is in accordance with the will of the almighty Father.....The future also, whatever it may contain, once it has come about, will have come about in conformity with the will of God.....We have to desire that everything that has happened should have happened, and nothing else.  We have to do so, not because what has happened is good in our eyes, but because God has permitted it, and because the obedience of the course of events to God is in itself an absolute good.
-Simone Weil

i don't know why i fight God
perhaps She reminds me of my mother
who beat me again and again
who  yelled and screamed at her husband
and me, a substitute for the man called dad

i don't know why i hate the gods
all those no-gods that plague my life
the mean the sneer the noon-caring monsters
with other peoples' fears and mindless smears

some fault me for my heightened angers
not caring to bear the revelations in pebbled sounds
but perhaps i curse not the God that is real
as much as the minor gods who believe themselves
more real than the Hidden Ear there for every sound

i don't know why i tear when beauty clears my head
when the burdened color red smears across the plain
or ripen fruit in soft vestry resting in bowls of blue
or stretch themselves across a table-top like a prayer
resting like Eucharist on the tongue of an open sill

i dig for answers hiding beneath the shoveled snow
grovel through garbage piles at the city dump
search for treasures that will free my heart
but the stench of the Fall gathers me in filth
as i flee for my life about to be buried over my head
neath the drainage off the rotting smiles of the wrong

but God's here somewhere somewhere waiting somewhere
in a leaf a pear an apple strong-red somewhere
and i walk on picking at some sign of Presence
amongst the orange the pear the  people before whom i swear
everywhere somewhere somehow somewhere
awaiting the day of discovery that's behind the search somewhere

no words.

perhaps there are no words

the Spirit uses to call direct 

throwing ones life into a tizzy.

i hear nothing

waiting for something

to tap on the drums of my ears.

silence only.

silence.

full silence 

invading the heart of sounds

circling my flesh

my me

kneeling beside my bed

waiting

for Something to whisper

I'm here.

...whispering

from the hollow in the room

I'm here.

*(The person) who treats as equal those who are far below (oneself) in strength really makes them a gift of the quality of human beings, of which fate had deprived them.  As far as it is possible for a creature, (they) reproduce the original generosity of the Creator with regard to them.

-Simone Weil

*All the humankind is capable of admiring is possible with God.

-Simone Weil

*...the existence of evil here below, far from disproving the reality of God, is the very thing that reveals (God) in (Gods') truth.  On God's part creation is not an act of self-expansion but of restaint and renunciation.  God and all (God's) creatures are less than God alone.

-Simone Weil

*Satisfaction

nothing

satisfies

nothing else

-Jerry Schroeder, Cap.

blue taffeta

covering herself neath blue taffeta

laying upon her quilted bed

she dreamt herself a Mary

a virgin announced to by God

but no Gabriel stood at her side

to view her available or decide

so she shivered herself into a tsunami

till common-sense reoccupied her mind

*God created through love and for love.  God did not create anything except love itself, and the means to love.  God created love in all its forms.  God created beings capable of love in all its forms.  God created beings capable of love from all possible distances.  Because no other could do it, God himself went to the greatest possible distance, the infinite distance.  This infinite distance between God and God, this supreme tearing apart, this agony beyond all others, this marvel of love, is the crucifixion.  Nothing can be further from God than that which has been made accursed.

This tearing apart, over which supreme love places the bond of supreme union, echoes perpetually across the universe in the midst of the silence, like two notes, separate yet melting into one, like pure and heart-rending harmony.  This is the Word of God.  The whole creation is nothing but its vibration.  When human music in its greatest purity pierces our soul, this  is what we hear through it.  When we have learned to hear the silence, this is what we grasp more distinctly through it.

-Simone Weil

I feel the isolation of God
barred behind head-trips
definitions and words
caught and left hanging
like some game
strung and gutted
dressed to be roasted
as if understood
deciphered like a code
interpreted by the few

God would be mad
sitting in solitaire
if God weren't so creative
imaginative enough
to dream of freedom
escape and union

God's inventive

God's Spirit slips through bars
with a smile-brightening life
no sun can block

Death doesn't frighten God

Having outlived every effort
God hangs on

God's resilient
and I wish I were

Perhaps I'd learn something
hanging by Gods' side

God spoke one Word
and our feelings are mixed
accepting It

I say
I know how God feels 
but who knows but God's Spirit
even when served in chocolate shells
with a creamy center



I needed this time to be "Me", simply Me, with my Self, by myself with the dust, the ants within this room, wrapped in the furniture, caught by the bed,  naked, with  tiredness as a companion and the phone able to listen to itself, without me as its slave, its lover, for once.  Even the sounds of the day don't matter.  They talk with themselves without my ears as receptors to their chatter, disturbance to my soul. I am simply here from light to dark, with my light and dark, from one night to the next to another day, perhaps.  The time is mine to waste, relish, enjoy, love, disturb, be.  Thank God - and me for being this wise: to recognize our need and relish it.

Letting go

Old sperm

I see my sperm lying still upon stale urine
and I know that I am old

They longed to live like beer-foam
fluffing up for nothing

I stare at their attempt to maintain hope
then flush them away gently



...sex, that cursed gift from God
-ken stewart

pf

how could we ever love each other
with ten-foot circles encasing our minds

forever in a danger zone
we bumped each other at the edges of our circular rounds

smiling at distances wider than sewage bins
we couldn't feed from the garbage
pigs gobbled in our heads

some wonder how some went astray
the sexual roaming beneath their skin

we starved for the human, the scents of flesh
an occasional embrace, conversations without suspect

a pat on the back and dialogues on love
would have protected us for Jesus
as we were crucifying the flesh

but we killed him while trying to discover ourselves
keeping him good and dead within circles build around shame



The risk with prayer is that God may answer me, giving me what I need instead of what I want.  God may take me where I would not go but only to where I can go and do what I can do.

Prayer is profoundly dangerous and revolutionary.   It can change me, killing what is not true about me so that I may be truly myself.