Too much like death
You lived in
silence. I can’t abide it.
Too much like death. Even while
lying motionless and mute
in the casket
You’ve so lovingly
fashioned for me,
my mind is stubbornly
asking questions,
roaming the known
parameters.
I climbed in willingly
enough.
Made myself
comfortable.
I don’t regret it. But this protracted interment
is as stylized and boring
as any funeral ever was
and still I haven’t the
courage
to clamp down the lid
long enough
for You to sink the
nails.
You came not to teach but
to awaken.
Lucky for me – because I
never seem to learn.
And, instead of holding
onto Your damaan,
being dragged pell-mell
into the Infinite-Eternal,
I hold tightly to the ragged shirttail
of this wanton, roaring
world; the sad
and flustered illusion of
my false self.
O child of God, hold your
tongue and let
Meher’s silence become
your last triumphant shout.
The powers that be
My house is lonely
tonight.
I step into the backyard
–
fenced in, sub-divided;
stars fixed above the
trees,
the moon turning its cold
shoulder.
I feel small,
over-looked, left behind
in the vastness. After a time, I notice
the moon shadows crossing
the lawn –
I am getting
somewhere –
in spite of myself.
The earth turning me,
hurtling me
around the sun, also, on
a journey
toward its ultimate
destiny.
I might seem inert,
broken down,
stuck in an ineffectual
rut but,
eternal forces are ever
rushing me,
in their own sweet time,
toward a rendezvous.
My choice – to have faith
in the benevolence
of the powers that be
or, lack faith and
despair
as I languish behind the
high, sturdy fence
I have erected for
myself.
O child of God, don’t
worry, be happy.
Despair, in any case,
will gain you nothing.
(drawing by Rich Panico)
Enter the desert
Enter the desert a
wanderer,
uncharted among the
dunes,
under the stars; shaped
by pressures
only hinted at,
half-guessed,
gestured toward; suitable
to your nature,
without respite, witness
or glamour –
to be a lover is to go it
alone.
Swaying upon the bridge,
the temptress sings;
the sculptor at the
monolith, hewing away.
Caught up in a terrible
game of words,
the poet grapples for
whatever
endurable term might bare
a slice of the loneliness
that constitutes a human
heart.
Hewing away at it alone –
that’s what we are
and the truth of that
is the truth of God
to be elaborated upon,
the one and only Truth –
God alone exists.
O child of God, brave the
lonely perils;
seek the truth of the One
and Only.
Make good
All my words hang on a
promise I cannot make
and cannot keep – a
vanity of imagination,
breath and blood, if the
promise has no maker;
if the promise has no
keeper.
Shall I continue, o Lord,
to tap out
Your timeworn promise on
my alphabet board?
Grace, love, salvation –
fine sentiments!
but, paper-thin words,
and – through my throat –
without substance or
luminosity;
indistinct stirrings in
the half-light,
the nether-world, the
darkness
of ignorance mixed with
the darkness of faith;
yet, my poems praise the
promise
and the
Promise-keeper! Lord, don’t leave me
twisting wordlessly in
the wind
at world’s end but,
gather me sweetly
in Your arms and make
good, make good,
make good Your
ancient-given promise.
O child of God, what the
Beloved requires of you
is faith, forbearance,
obedience and attempted artistry.
