No help wanted
“No Help Wanted”
posted on the main vein
punctured like the night sky.
Can’t understand me
for you had a cause– back then,
so you told me when
I was thirteen
unaware you believe you are aware,
because you are not.
Crying, torturing myself–
you won’t help;
I’ll never let you.
127 Questions
A Beamer with a fish cut me off,
but I call speeding passing and
yearn for risky drivers ahead when
traffic is the 127 sale.
Do you expect me to drive
and not scribble verse on crumpled receipts?
Should I leave earlier to let cars ahead of me
or smash into walls so friends will collide with you
tearing down walls as uncomfortably as driving
on a sunny, cold day? Heat or air?
Me, a renegade artist?
Me, a renegade artist?
Swinging into a life, letting go?
Only seeing crying in my mind’s eye,
justifying pain with self-denial.
Late nights, passion, mystery,
gone for you?
Tell me, who is me–no, should be?
Before I am who I am enduringly.
Do you see us topple, again
Do you see us topple, again
when we promise never to walk down that road,
again?
Give me a new song and sign
that doesn’t meander down trails I care not to backtrack:
memories pounded into my head?
into light;
I scurry into the shadows.
The red chord
Horns herald a rumbling resonating below,
dust bursts in the window as stones fall from the sky:
our half-gone wall through our half-gone ceiling.
Patron gods stumble off the table to the floor cracking
as I crouch with my three daughters clenched tight,
unable to protect them from screams of half-gone family and
friends begging in the street for their children’s lives,
as Yahweh’s people cut down our sons and daughters.
The door remains motionless till the screams cease and
their old chieftain hobbles through on blood-stained sandals
casting the spies’ red chord to the floor.
When on the mountain
When on the mountain,
I know I am living for You
just maybe, not everyday.
When in the valley,
suspect, dark, done for
just want to pronounce Your name.
On that knob, hallow to my heart
I cried serving–undeservingly
washing familiar sandals that walked close by,
begging, “Come tear my bread today.”
Walking home
My foot crushes a dead leaf crunching,
Wind whispers between my legs and pants in my ear.
The chill chides my choice of one shirt rippling?
Dreaming of warmth walking home,
Shaking at the thought, shivering at the cold
Walking home.
Laughter on a wedding night
Laughter on a wedding night
Thank God, no professionals
for this is a covenant not a job.
How do we use these things?
Oh well, a lifetime to figure out. . . .
Easy as 1-2-3 CD Creator
These bytes eat me up inside easy as 1-2-3 CD Creator
And we pass them along and burn
Bumps on plastic discs, bumps on a moral road;
A digital dilemma of legality as we share our data.
Didn’t Mrs. Jordan tell us to share in kindergarten?
As we justify . . . it was on the radio . . .
And file-share our music on the campus networks.
But for the journey
Admiring the gymnast on her yellow roadside balance,
turning to me smiling, arms outstretched–
longing to feel her pulse next to mine,
chest to chest– lost in her shoulder’s scent,
comforting me with clenched embrace–
gripping blades and smalls,
walking not for the destination, but the journey,
breathing little clouds in winter air–
sparkling, crystallizing, her and me.