Reduced to bare bones
The skeleton of love plays as a child
On a toy xylophone
All wooden mallets
All precious notes...

b

Theology

"No, the serpent did not
Seduce Eve to the apple.
All that's simply
Corruption of the facts.

Adam ate the apple.
Eve ate Adam.
The serpent ate Eve.
This is the dark intestine.

The serpent, meanwhile,
Sleeps his meal off in Paradise -
Smiling to hear
God's querulous calling."

Ted Hughes

By Me

November 8, 2010

 

In twilight we see
What youth rarely shows
The walk through a desert
Where truth often goes

Our gods are all demons
And our angels all sin
While saintly men die
Their killers just grin

For ethics sustains them
In labyrinths of care
We institutionalized them
Then forgot they were there

Politicians cheat us
And our faith is abused
By an old constitution
Professionally misused

The devil quotes scripture
Far better than priests
Who molesting our children
then blame it on beasts

The world's an illusion
A dark horror show
A tormented delusion
Tainting all that we know

Some say they hate you
That they want you to die
They are too blind to see you
And this makes you sigh

But trust in the wind
And believe in the moon
You know even time lies
For it passes too soon

So rely on the sun
And rejoice in the rain
Until mother Earth's arms
Embrace you again

The Methodist and his Method

Underground in the cemetery
my grandfather preaches to the other corpses.
They clap inside their boxes

nicely arranged in Sunday clothes
in long rows like pews.
His words stir hope

that conditions may change.
Each man has been given his row boat,
he says,

to lie back in and watch the sky
braiding and unbraiding its light.
No one is safer than we are.

 ~ Chad Sweeney ~

 

TORNADO
by Dorothea Lasky

I remember he was bent down
Like a whirlpool
I was yelling at him
He looked scared and backed away
Another time, I squinted my eyes to see
And he said I looked ugly
The funny part was when
My sister asked me where he went to
And I just didn't know
He just disappeared one day into nothing
I am rotting and rancid
Each day, rotting, but I am water, too
I am a watery nymph that is hot and wet
Like a wetted beast
I saw the man walking, hunched over
And thought it was him
"Father!" I yelled after the man
Who was hunched, he was going somewhere
He turned but the face was green
It is a black life, but I don't want to die
I don't want to die, I don't ever want to die
God damn you, don't you shoot me in my sleep
Let me rot on this earth forever
Like a carrot I will be everything God can't see
Oh, what do I mean
God can see everything
I mean the angels, I mean the half-gods
I mean the flowers, don't ever let them see me live forever
Don't you ever let them see
That I am all root here in the ground

Mormon Missionaries Pay Me a Visit
by Ken Hada

I'm sitting on my lawn
enjoying a nice blunt cigar
watching children ride scooters
up and down the street
twilight gently falling,
swallows circling,
Mississippi Kites high overhead,
tree frog, sounds of sweet shadows

Then I see them in the corner of my eye,
two bikes slow
they can not pass a lost soul -
I'm too conspicuous -
I don't want this feeling, I want them
to pass me by

Good evening sir they say
I'm Elder Hansen says the first
I'm Elder Olson the second chokes
and then they wait
but all I can think to say:
You're kind of young to be elders, aren't you?
They launch into their sales pitch
about Restoration and Heavenly Father
while I recoil in smoke, then interrupt
If I convert do I have to give up this cigar?
They are not sure
but soon get back on track
like a loose wheel wobbling
until they finally bid me good evening.
I watch them roll away
and wonder
what gives them the audacity to interrupt me
while I am at worship

 

Your Punishment in Hell

Someone will douse a cobra in gasoline,
light the sucker, and shove it headfirst
down your throat. It'll speed straight
through your esophagus, unfurl
its hood to fill your stomach
then begin to strike and strike and strike
and strike and strike: fangs pierce
your stomach, venom pours in,
the little burn of incipient ulcers
grows quick, paralysis sets in.
Your lungs stop before your brain,
before your hand, which lifts
to your mouth the plastic-lidded
paper cup holding the caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar that was made for you
slowly, while I, already running late,
waited behind you for a simple,
already-made black coffee.
You will lose all motion before
that drink reaches your mouth,
but you recover and the drink,
strangely, has vanished, and barrista
and cobra-douser-slash-lighter do it all again
and again. I know this because,
for my angry impatience,
I am behind you in line in hell
forever, the pot of black coffee
behind the counter steaming,
turning, I know, bitter. 

 ~ Gary Leising ~

by Ebon Lupus

October 25, 2010

 

Alone With Everybody
by Charles Bukowski

The flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,
and the women break
vases against the walls
and the men drink too
much
and nobody finds the
one
but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

 Ebon_Lupus wrote: 


"Day after day, alone on a hill, the man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still..."
 ~ The Beatles ~

 samiyam wrote: 
Well... they can make you feel bad... but not about yourself.

You are a wise creature, Samiyam. No wait... we are all fools.

 Ebon_Lupus wrote: 
A person can never make you feel bad about yourself unless you let him.  If you keep in mind that what he/she is reacting to in you is what he/she hates about him/her self.  We are all children in the garden.

 samiyam wrote: 
I guess I should thank you for your courage... or indifference to the paradigm of contempt.

 Ebon_Lupus wrote: 
How very honest...

Honesty
by Ebon Lupus
October 24, 2010

Honesty — people wish it, or so it seems
just one, among many, of humanities dreams
alas, when we know it, or so it would seem
it's oft wished we'd kept the mere dream

The reason I write this may not be so clear
for honesty finds itself amongst many a tear
for day after day, week, month, and year
revelation quite oft summons anger and jeer

This, especially, must be the dire case
once conventional label is put in one's place
and many a mind's eyes are blinded by haste
of unfair indictment and iniquitous distaste

Thus to be safe, it is truer to lie
dishonesty is truer than hate's battle cry
for anger oft kills the truths it despise
history hath shown this upon many reprise

An excerpt from Henry W. Longfellow's "The Building of the Ship."

Long ago,
In the deer-haunted forests of Maine,
When upon mountain and plain
Lay the snow,
They fell,—those lordly pines!
Those grand, majestic pines!
'Mid shouts and cheers
The jaded steers,
Panting beneath the goad,
Dragged down the weary, winding road
Those captive kings so straight and tall,
To be shorn of their streaming hair,
And, naked and bare,
To feel the stress and the strain
Of the wind and the reeling main,
Whose roar
Would remind them forevermore
Of their native forests they should not see again.