a poem

We used to know each other by name
now I see you sitting there
in the café as I walk in
almost a complete stranger
perhaps it would be social of me
to rekindle our acquaintance
and rescue my memory of you
from its fading twilight
or perhaps that would obligate each of us
into forced pleasantries
momentarily popping each of us out
of our minds grooves
like an old vinyl record player
for better or worse
I let your face fade into oblivion
and let the sun set on our acquaintance.

Bus Stop On the Way to Eternity

(another poem about transportation for your amusement)

Waiting for a bus on a schedule that yawns

Even speeding on unknown freeways,

it moves like a lazy burro.

“2:30 at Workman Mill Road”

is written somewhere on a scroll.

And chronos is bent into inertia in my mind,

where split moments and infinity are united

by an unknowingness that defies all plans.

And rationality is pressed beyond the mundane,

beyond philosophy even, to where

all meaning converges at the bus stop –

by now, a pulsating icon

and a portal to other momentums.

All this, lest bus and bus stop

become a mortar and pestle

that turns recycled plastic benches into destiny

(or a long walk becomes a long wait with the illusion of motion).

The Freeway

(a poem for your amusement)

What a fertile, paradoxical name,
where the idea of a promised land,
of dreams fulfilled
and of a charmed and gilded path to get there
is so profaned by the experience
of actually driving on the Freeway

Its lanes,
beaten and frayed,
are pummeled endlessly
by those who are now harnessed to their dreams
and can't easily turn around and go back.
And as it takes, it gives.
Trannies slowly give of their lives in metal shavings,
oil burns and drips like blood,
and every hairpin turn is a memorial to a tragedy.

And concrete,
cracked and carmelized,
reflects the glitter of dreams
only for those who can see it from a great, great distance.
For those who are stuck on the freeway,
the glitter is subsumed
under the grime of daily, gladiator commuting.

I resolve that the next time I am caught in traffic
I will reach down
and pick up a piece of loose concrete as a souvenir
to be held in the hand
of a dreamer thousands of years from now,
long after the freeway has crumbled into ruin
and ancient Los Angeles
is remembered only in myth and relics.

By then its glitter will have turned into pure gold.

The Smallest Decent Act

To perform the smallest decent act
when no one is looking
requires a great vision.

It requires that one be able to see the ripple effects
of one's actions across time and society
and to grasp the full sphere of one's influence accross the ages
It is to be a citizen and not merely a consumer
It is to know that the world must be made better by the doer, now
and not by others that the doer must wait for
It is to recognize that the joy of the smallest decent act
is the substance of a life worth living that is worth more than diamonds
It is to live in supreme gratitude for the present moment
and not to pant with ravenous thirst for an ephemeral future
that is always just around the corner
It is to "live the change" as the Diggers once spoke of

To perform the smallest decent act
when no one is looking
is to be a revolutionary

On Skeleg Michael

On Skeleg Michael

God,
what is this white martyrdom you've called me to?
One would never know the Skeleg Michael that I live on
unless they paid close attention.
At least the ancient Irish monks
gained fondness in distance
as people of the day were eventually drawn
to their beautiful crucible of rock, grass and wind.
There, the ancient monks had aloneness but not, in the end, anonymity.
Here, in this city of Los Angeles,
I experience an even purer and harsher form of aloneness.
Like an ocean full of water I can't drink,
this city of Los Angeles
is full of people whose company I can't enjoy,
whose bosom isn't home or anything close to it.
It is a city
of disjointed, competing buildings and fractious cultures,
and yet, it is a city, more than any other,
that still has enough liminal space in its margins
for me to walk with God
on an isle of my own identity.

And so my thoughts return to Skeleg Michael,
where I could wake every morning
and see God's unvarnished reflection
in the mist of waves atomized against the rocks.
Here, in this city,
I must squint to see God's reflection in a 7-11 strip mall.
On Skeleg Michael,
I could live in my uninterupted thoughts--
interupted only by the churning of physical survival
and a vague void within me for companionship.
Here, this city is always trying to intrude on my thoughts
with its unchangeable channel of advertisements
and glances that invite me
to join the fleeting, empty approval
of a vast, ephemeral community of people
who confront their aloneness
with disposable products and disposable thrills.

So I must count pleasant moments
that are afforded me by way of
fleeting moments of connection
with motley, unexpected people.
In a laugh with a co-worker,
in a polite interchange with a stranger,
in an occasional, wholesome glance exhanged with another,
in a pleasant conversation with a neighbor
whose name I won't long remember,
sparse moments of connection occur
with fellow city-dwellers
who hail from the other sides of vast cultural seas.

And yet,
even these fleeting moments of connection
are part of my white martyrdom.
On Skeleg Michael,
I would confront my void of human companionship
as a strong but vague urge
that hoisted itself into my consciousness
as an ever-blurring imagination
of being with people who were blurring in my memories.
In this city, however,
these fleeting moments of connection
intrude on my aloneness
with a tang and sharpness of unimagined realness,
as each moment of connection
reaches beyond the defenses
I have had to construct against the siren calls
and makes me confront
my unsatiated longing
for a genuine, lasting communion with others.
It is these fleeting moments of connection
that put the long moments of aloneness
into the sharpest relief.

Before I get too enamored of them,
immediately after allowing me
these fleeting moments of connection,
God, in my spirit,
reels me back to the Skeleg Michael
of my heart and mind,
wherein
I cannot hold onto these moments of connection
as being anything more than moments,
and, in the many long moments in between,
I must gather my bearings
and find peace walking the rocks alone with God.

Prayer in the Atom Smasher

Another poem,

Prayer in the Atom Smasher

In the wrecking room
that has become the space inside me,
I am convulsing with something
far deeper than mere displeasure.
No, the very nature of matter must change
and Time must be ripped a new ass

So I whip the fibers of my mind
until they are stripped of all inertia
and let the fury of my rage
rip away any remaining links
in my consciousness
to the realm of all that is banal
so that the Pnuemosphere
of God's spirit,
that is omnipresent yet invisible to Mundane Man,
will have room to traverse dimensions
and enter through
the oscillating membrane of my consciousness
and winnow the fabric of space-time
at its sub-atomic level

And just as the toxic acid
generated from this combustion
is about to cut the linings of my innards like glass
God leaps off of the pages of history and memory
and alters the nuerochemical matter within me
through an intimate miracle
of peace

And, in that moment,
I know, with a sentience that comes before knowing,
that God has altered space-time
and tilted history
just enough to let the fury
of this conation within me
rest
until the next time
I'm compelled to pray
in the atom smasher

Clearing

Another poem

Clearing

In desperation
I put my forehead onto the hard-packed ground
to let God plant a seed
beneath muted rage and concrete

It was in that moment that I looked up
and saw the haze
of joyless pleasure and ennui all around me
as a pall of sickly yellow
that made the sun overbearing
and made the city a suffocating hothouse
as the sun cast shadows across sullen faces
making their profiles pass darkly
over the concrete underfoot

It was in that moment
that I saw God's spirit
as a clearing being made in the haze around me
and I saw through the air
as it became fresh and crisp
as the sun shone straight from heaven
and onto the crusts of hardened hearts
and gave odd patches of grass and trees
--that push daily against the city concrete--
the purest hue of dazzling green

I was in that moment
that I felt the air on my lungs
as fresh hope
as God began to clear
my heart and my sinuses

Times Change

Another poem

Times Change

In these times
too many in the world
have become part of the Supercomputer
commonly known as
"the times"

wherein:
sexual titilation
is treated as a cocoa leaf--
something to be chewed on
to give a continuous nip of pleasure
to boost a dull day,
people seek freedom and individuality
consuming products
that erode contemplative space,
"Who's to say?"
is the philosphy
that can make an ignoramous sound wise,

When I tried explaining to them
that the "times"
were not necessarily changing for the better,
they simply deferred to the wisdom
of the supercomputer
(that is sorting it all out for them -- besides who am I anyway)
saying, "times change"

So, now,
all I can do
in these times
is to lie in my room
like Jonah
in the belly of a blighted age
and give birth
to a new vision of the world

Green Zone

Yes, I'm still working on my essays. Another poem for this week.

Green Zone

In this moment
if those around me in this city vanished
I wouldn't miss them

I would walk among fresh ruins
and take a deep quiet breath
to lay to rest concrete buildings
before they began to softly crumble

I would allow the morning sun
shining on weeds and asphalt
to gently bake my inert core
Later, in the early afternoon
I would hear an owl
sound a call across empty lots
to signal the beginning of the day's death

In the evening
I would hear crickets on four lane boulevards
and I would hear the quietest patter
of coyote paws on the sidewalk
At night, I would stretch out on cool asphalt
in the middle of a forgotten intersection
under a galaxy split in half
by a flickering traffic light,
an ember of another age,
as I pondered the feng shui of its arrested energy

and I would allow the hush of the quietest breeze
to rebuild my core
without the ravenous churning
of survival and desire

and, in the moment,
before the age that I had left behind
came rushing back into time and space to confront me with a blast
I would have carved a space,
a 'green zone' in my being,
to be a vantage point
where I could see the coervice forces of the city,
as these forces,
manifested in ravenous people surrounding me,
tried to penetrate my consciousness

and, in my 'green zone',
I would allow my vision of the city as it lied empty and still
to be the backdrop
on which I super-imposed
the city as it now confronts me in all of its fury
so that its fury would never seem
to vast and too omnipresent
for me to see beyond

In Search of a Miracle

Another poem. A snapshot of the angst that often accompanies the of life of faith.

In Search of a Miracle

A Jesus more available than ever
and yet not

2000 years ago, I could, maybe
have boarded a boat
and met him face to face
and, maybe
have received my miracle
(and have my personal world shaken to its core)

Now, I must access Jesus
with a heart
that must cut through
a thicket of modernity, daily
so that the Holy Spirit
can shine on my mind's eye
for me to see that I am
recognized by Jesus
as one waiting in the line
that lepers once waited in (and still do)

and trust
that the momentary breakthough
--this momentary vision of Jesus--
in the midst of working through
all that my heart must work through
is the miracle
penultimate to any miracle that may follow

as the light
in this new vision of Jesus
illuminates a new direction
for me to look toward,
and as it illuminates
some aspect of the circumstance
of my waiting
that has a utility
in its present existence
in shaping a transformation in my soul,
the Lover of my soul
sees to it
that no lesson is left unlearnt
as I wait in the line, alone
as sees to it that no aspect of my transformation
is left undone

So I wait
in the midst of this
indefinite fast from certainty
--with fury and restlessness punctuated with peace--
for the miracle
as all manner of spiritual growth
is drawn from the circumstance
like marrow sucked from a bone
and as dreams deferred
become the poles on which
hope hangs and grows like a vine

a pilgrimage

It's been a long, tiring week at work, so I'm offering another poem instead of an essay.

A Pilgrimage

The Spirit of God
called an old man
in Etheopia
to carve Coptic churches, alone,
into the rocks
of a distant mountain.

Perhaps
these temple-caves being carved
are like arks
that are being readied
for an ominous, unwritten destiny,
an Armageddon
that will drive Christians
to find shelter in remote altitudes.

Or, perhaps,
the destinies of these temple-caves
are intended
by God
to be blank and pure
until they are claimed
by the sundry few
who are driven to them
for sundry reasons.

Or, perhaps,
a part of God's Spirit
was feeling pinched
and required room to breathe
by communing with an old man
whose spirit
is now resonating
with a solitude
only found among distant rocks
carved into the ancient, reverent form.

Longing for that solitude,
and longing for that communion,
I let my spirit travel
on the wings
of imagination and yearning
to one of these unclaimed,
empty, rock-hewn churches
to rest.

There, I found solace
in its dust, wind and shadows.

you are a radio

I am stalling for more time to complete further essays, so I am offering you one of my poems this week:


YOU ARE A RADIO

Whose circuitry can be positively or negatively affected

according to which station you're attuned to

You have no off button

and you are always attuned to one station or another

You have the power within you to change your station

to one better and healthier

There are powerful forces at work to keep you

from understanding this choice

by enslaving you to expedient pleasures

making Stillness the enemy

as they offer their wares

as the antidote to your boredom and restlessness --

all the while selling these wares as essential

to your liberation and "individuality"

(liberating you from your inner life

and the conscious capacity you might otherwise have

to master your "radioness")

so that you will be uwittingly attuned

to what these forces want

while they avoid the scrutiny that they

would otherwise have for your circuitry

or the competition they would otherwise have with

other, healthier radio stations.