| Sacrament
Posted: 8/29/2009 6:44:47 AM | In the sacrament of life
the highest priests
are the most humble parishioners,
their surplices
the scrofulous, torn rags
handed down to them
by the servants of the rich,
their bread and wine
stale and foetid
when they can get it. | |
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| Now
Posted: 9/14/2009 6:36:44 AM | Have you ever wondered
about the character of any one
particular moment? Like the one
when you decided
not to become a doctor, after all? Or,
after months of thinking about it,
you finally fell in love?
Not every moment in life
is as sacred as any other.
Except for this one,
now. | |
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| Now
Posted: 9/14/2009 11:16:50 PM | the definition
was according to percy
something jazz like
faith
something that went like this:
"What's my definition" Percy Faith | |
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| Tiny Infidelities
Posted: 9/19/2009 11:46:04 AM | Let’s talk about small infidelities...
Actually, there’s no such thing
because even the tiniest of them
is a rupture
in a fabric that’s useless
unless it is whole.
You negotiate with yourself,
close and tight; It’s not as if
I slept with her a second time...
Or Actually, I didn’t actually sleep
with her, not really...
But it’s as if a single thread
had come unstitched from the cloth
and you pull to get rid of it,
that tiny, tiny part of the whole. | |
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| Tiny Infidelities
Posted: 9/19/2009 8:38:14 PM | At the end of many years
this line I crossed had something
to do with you, everything to do
with forces I ignored.
This tiny fabric will go down with me.
Never you. I bear myself, never you.
My need to confess is never greater
than the reluctance to confront you
with the missives we both created. | |
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| The face of many a child
Posted: 9/28/2009 5:56:53 AM | The face of many a child
is a manifesto of hope.
They are posted, like beacons,
at strategic points around the world
where you and I can see them
and wonder. | |
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| The face of many a child
Posted: 9/28/2009 7:55:00 AM | Care and Feeding of my Man
I tried for love, failed every time
turning over rocks and logs; even
came up with cute frogs
and some damn fine dogs.
In the end
they were part-time pets
and we were all wounded strays.
This year I found you, after a lifetime
of straying, how do I keep a man of my own
and do I really want to?
Sometimes no, somehow always yes;
I want to learn, if he'll teach me.
Deep and true; check.
Never this good before; check.
Longing if we're apart; check, check.
Can we love each other; an infinity of checks.
If we fight I become a ghost
and haunt our home til he returns,
erasing the burden, the cobwebbed
dream I've been living.
Feeding on his feast
I welcome him in again.
In the curve of his palm
I rest my heart, with his touch
my spirit calms to tranquility,
and I am whole once more.
Sorry if my last poem was worrying you Jer. It takes me time to process and I didn't write for almost a month. Too many lows in my life right then. It will come out eventually but it takes me time. Love you my friend.
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| The face of many a child
Posted: 9/28/2009 8:40:34 AM | | Re: "Care & Feeding of My Man" - Indeed, a manual on the need for and the preservation of love! I loved it, thanks. | |
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| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/5/2009 6:55:59 AM | You’re reading this novel
and you’re at the point
where the narrator is falling in love
with the woman who, you know,
will later become his wife
and you’re in love
with the two of them
–no, you’re in love
with them falling in love with each other
as if they were doing it for you.
You go, boy! you want to say:
You go, girl! As if the world,
the Fall, the flood, all the wars
were just the backdrop
for these moments between the two of you. | |
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aka,om
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Joined: 12/6/2008
Msg: 310 | |
| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/5/2009 8:39:04 AM | ^hey, put that Harlequin down!
```````````````````````````
The October rains
search for shadows
like water on a street
making its way
through fall
`````````
oh, just fooling around, is all ...;/ | |
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| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/5/2009 2:03:49 PM | The October rains
search for shadows
like water on a street
making its way
through fall
And as for the "Harlequin," the book in question is "The Book Against God" by James Wood, mentioned in an interview by Marylinne Robinson.
Hey, my daughter-in-law's work will be on display Oct 15-Nov 15 at the David Kate Gallery, 1092 Queen Street West. She'll be there IN PERSON Sat. Oct 17 2 - 5 pm. Say Hi to her from me and maybe meet my son, Adam, & their children at the same time! | |
|
aka,om
|
Joined: 12/6/2008
Msg: 312 | |
| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/5/2009 6:09:59 PM | Cheers to that^^^it's a stones throw.
and to quote Neil Young, 'If I had a book like them, I haven't read it".
 | |
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| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/6/2009 9:20:32 PM | So it could be the smell of the man
the turn of her lip, the way her eyes
avoid you when she finally smiles
and the way he carried himself
the first time he drove you anywhere
was a long time ago, so long that things have gone
into the eternal trash can and yet when he walks
with the years directing his way, you smile
you remember how slinkily he sauntered
in the youth that was his temporary kingdom
she seems to given up on you, but if you are fortunate
she will look without her educated, abused eyes
remembering the smell of the man, he was what she chose. | |
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| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/7/2009 11:04:26 AM |
So it could be the smell of the man
the turn of her lip, the way her eyes
avoid you when she finally smiles
and the way he carried himself
the first time he drove you anywhere
was a long time ago, so long that things have gone
into the eternal trash can and yet when he walks
with the years directing his way, you smile
you remember how slinkily he sauntered
in the youth that was his temporary kingdom
she seems to given up on you, but if you are fortunate
she will look without her educated, abused eyes
remembering the smell of the man, he was what she chose.
You omitted "have" in "she seems to given up" but otherwise what irresistible, spontaneous-seeming flow there is to this, as if "So" already contained the rest of that line which contained the whole of this magnificently fluent poem!!!!!!!! | |
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| Vicarious Love
Posted: 10/7/2009 8:56:22 PM | | Thank you and I knew I omitted "have" but...excuse, excuse, excuse....I did not want to go back and edit. Thank you again. | |
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| Sanctuary
Posted: 10/12/2009 4:48:48 AM | I run, from sanctuary
to sanctuary - the cafe,
my home. It is the in-between
places, life, that threatens.
Even in my dinged-up old car
I'm not safe.
The 8 or 10 blocks between
each sanctuary contain a myriad
of opportunities to go wrong.
Once, racing an amber light,
on a rain-washed street,
I braked, hard, to avoid a young man
crossing, but hit him anyway.
He slid halfway up the hood, limbs
every which way, then fell back
on to the street... but I could,
instead, have been seized
by the apparition of some alien God. | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/18/2009 7:17:35 AM | My powers grow weak
as my needs remain strong.
Life wields a shoddy scale.
Money can’t buy happiness
but the poor get their misery
wholesale. | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/18/2009 10:06:21 PM | | Alyosha drove his car . Stopped the car, got out, he has done this numerous times but today his mind was filled with the finite. With the temptations to downgrade his existence. Now that is very easy to do. Within the realm of what he imagines the infinite. But we are finite and sometimes a real treat. I think Alyosha has forgotten that he is indeed a treat. The infinite always proceeds. And if he can't concur...well... let it be, let it be. | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/19/2009 7:22:47 AM |
Alyosha drove his car . Stopped the car, got out, he has done this numerous times but today his mind was filled with the finite. With the temptations to downgrade his existence. Now that is very easy to do. Within the realm of what he imagines the infinite. But we are finite and sometimes a real treat. I think Alyosha has forgotten that he is indeed a treat. The infinite always proceeds. And if he can't concur...well... let it be, let it be.
What are little girls made of,
went the old nursery rhyme, and
What are little boys made of, but
it never told us what
real friends are made of
because it preferred
to let us discover that,
one act of of love and friendship
at a time!!!! | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/20/2009 9:49:01 PM | In grade two I chased Daniel
he had red hair. I swear his eyes danced
every time he smiled. So, too, his freckles.
I did not understand that Daniel
was also a free message
appreciate those who point you towards free, then wide.
Love needs wild, tantalizing, scintillating ground. | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/21/2009 3:59:15 AM |
In grade two I chased Daniel
he had red hair. I swear his eyes danced
every time he smiled. So, too, his freckles.
I did not understand that Daniel
was also a free message
appreciate those who point you towards free, then wide.
Love needs wild, tantalizing, scintillating ground.
"Daniel
was also a free message..."
is both a great line and a bit and a wonderful insight... | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/25/2009 10:16:17 PM | Why do sidewalks pause something in my being?
Why do I see beyond into the past.
Why do sidewalks never cause me to stop caring
this foot, that foot, my foot, the seasons
why do I care for those before me
why do I care for those coming?
Why do I see the day they laid down
against a hot summer day, this concrete pathway
Peter had tanned, sinewy, delicious arms.
This is December, this is way past the time
this sidewalk appeared intact.
Why do I care. | |
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| Life wields a shoddy scale
Posted: 10/26/2009 5:23:39 AM |
Why do sidewalks pause something in my being?
Why do I see beyond into the past.
Why do sidewalks never cause me to stop caring
this foot, that foot, my foot, the seasons
why do I care for those before me
why do I care for those coming?
Why do I see the day they laid down
against a hot summer day, this concrete pathway
Peter had tanned, sinewy, delicious arms.
This is December, this is way past the time
this sidewalk appeared intact.
Why do I care.
That opening line was already a poem in itself, but of course also that which made it compulsory to read on, and as the questions mounted and I felt drawn closer and closer into the mind (and heart) of the questioner, I waited as eagerly as any child on the eve of December 25th, for the answer to the question Will tomorrow be Christmas? Will tomorrow, at long last, finally be Christmas? But there is no hurrying Christmas, there is only the waiting, patiently, for what the morning may bring...
Even though one has heard, again and again, that "Joy cometh in the morning..."
What a glorious poem! What can I add to the richness of being you must have felt as you were writing it? I will save this one to my file of favourite poems, preferably with your name to add to it if you would send me that. | |
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| “The trouble with poetry”
Posted: 11/5/2009 7:07:39 AM | It’s true, as Billy Collins wrote,
that “the trouble with poetry is
that it encourages the writing of more poetry”
as, no doubt, it will continue to do,
like Chinese food, fulfilling us
at the time, but half an hour later
we are hungry again,
hungry for the next poem
and the next one
but, really, searching
for the lost, original one. | |
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| “The trouble with poetry”
Posted: 11/8/2009 9:37:51 PM | ...so lets keep searching. I like this one J. The need is not superficial...at all. Bad poetry is sometimes better than no poetry at all. Sometimes. lol.
Little girl leaves many cold
She is not even three.
"she does not do anything!"
Let me politely disagree
She looks up from beneath her lashes
The gaze packed to the brim of her lashes.
Blue light in her eyes...such a slow smile
let her ride, I am not surprised at the depth
she carefully releases.
Had you not a child, this one teaches you
profound respect for the love she elicits
In the fortunate who know
that the child who is loved.
Is the child all wish they were. | |
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