PREDATORS, PREY AND PERFECT ORDER
The survival of perfection
or the sweet imperfection of inequality and sadness;
It's a tune set in azure tones--
it's light peering into secret coves
and more and more,
it's darkness visiting venues--public places and private spaces--
points once reserved for special graces.
Ah, the pleasure of dawn--
yet the pilgrim awakes with a startling revelation,
knowing this was the day declared of modern holiness,
a day,
for someone to be executed.
ON THE FIRST PERSON MIMICRY OF PERFECT ORDER
Sometimes I'm so enthralled by the easy mastery of mystery
I'm speechless;
The prophet's light burning all over me--
shining like it did the years I mined easy street,
skipping stones and skipping steps--
seeds and fruit inseparable,
no threats,
nothing,
nothing but sanguine sunshine and comfortable sunsets
strumming chords,
streaming sorrowful searing soaring--
saving souls in near alliterative allusions,
illusions in warm sundown time signatures.
Oh how it goes,
(quickly and silently says the legend)
but lambs always suspect the slaughter.
For those among the faithful
who thought they'd never play this game--
Did you think you'd play any game?
Let me rearrange the places where subjects kneel,
places where penitents hesitate on bended knee.
Thus now will be the sunsets--
did you expect this when you first breathed deep from the storm
of the freedom wind?
THE RULES OF HOSTILE ENGAGEMENT
Being afraid to look in the glass,
fearing the image of an older Richard Cory
--such things of astral dimensions
abstract to the point of absurdity or denial--
confusion of the motherland's patriotic wail,
added to the depth of mindless progression,
first fruits born in contemptuous labor,
a side show, run now and hide show,
ten thousand fools claiming legion as their god,
a million words dashed as scorned lover's hopes.
So the wise dance in hopeless helplessness,
sons and brothers of the war mausoleum
doing a lock-step march, a garrison swagger.
Thus it is easy to ignore the dying victim of circumstance,
child of Patmos crying and setting sail--
a shipwreck in the making,
match stick form dashed on Petra shore,
mind child ever the manchild father of creation,
tears running in tired creases,
sardonic wrinkles searching places to hide,
a refugee with time and place forgot--
for the lord who said love,
came running,
a warlord in sheep's clothing.
THE AMAZING DEPTH TO WHICH GRACE SATISFIES
In this age sunshine kills,
water poisons and calm wind destroys,
Ain't it amazin'?
Ain't it now a magic confounded in rotting seas
and acrid summer snows?
Pearly petals fall just as blooms wither,
thorns guard thorns
and bandits now wander the bazaars
where truth and beauty once guarded each other.
AN ANCIENT WEEK OF MODERN REALIZATIONS
So we know so much more than long ago,
--some of the answers are said even to work.
All that remains important seems to be,
how to acknowledge mysteries
while juggling hopes and dreams.
An ancient voice of wisdom shouts most loud:
"Play the hand you're dealt"
but if you look closer you will surely see,
he's the man who owns the casino,
just as once he also owned
the money changer's table.
THE PROPER INSPIRATION OF SCRIPTURE
Justice's grand denouement--being waylaid
by invisible things casting big shadows,
so much better to be enthralled by what we do not know,
to long for what we still may see.
A generation has seen stars and moons and marketplaces
--waded deep in churning fears,
and for want of wonder has considered the night,
being careful to smile at the blind
and speak with compassion to the deaf.
HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN
CREATES A STONE TOO HEAVY TO LIFT
When the ones called prophets say: "Lastly and most importantly"
--all would be wise to take cover.
Their truths are devised from splitting elements,
their laws are the dreams of men in dark suits.
When you emerge from hiding,
you'll find they own more than they did before,
and have options on most everything else.
WINDS OF SUMMER SLUMBER
The undirected feast of barren flight,
all hail the patrons of lost causes,
the saints salute the saints
while the fools come marching in.
The reality of the imperceptible odds against permanence
or any form of survival--
one million times one million--
and still the chances shrink
and still the thirsty seek.
It's dashed hopes at best,
dashed hopes being ever the loving parent of no hopes,
and false hopes
and all so many things that arrive in the night.
Hymns and psalms,
formalized laments,
unexpected cries and worried glances--
crashing travails of the multitude's lost loving hopes,
these and all remnants of forgotten dreams
and stolen wishes.
Hapless hopeless forms stumble,
hopes spring forever for direction,
even light,
and through it all
not even an angry god appears.
Signs of the times hang everywhere,
like so much crepe,
like so many sad clouds--
easy winds swallowed by cross currents
sad winds--
lost hopes mixed with last hopes
dying winds
hidden sunlight
and sounds forever silent.
THE FLEETING STATE OF GRACE
How we longed for your sweet embrace,
how we prayed...precious times we prayed.
Amazing traces etched across a starlit sky,
well desired grace,
out of reach and never found,
dearest life broken low at every turn
by pain and hurt,
by deepest strife.
Old sweet song
how sweet it sounds,
like love and peace blowing across the field,
and like fields and forests of long ago,
painfully forever out of reach.
THAT SCIENTIFIC SEASON
Poles converge in senseless propagation of absurdity and despair,
pilgrims shuffle, eyes shielded, quick steps to no avail,
Alpha and Omega melt together and run through the gutter,
scorching and destroying,
leaving seared hollow beings pointing and running,
disappearing in burning mist.
TAKING FLIGHT
---A Lateral Phase Of Discontent---
A generation that took a stand while running at full speed
headlong lunging helter skelter
careening
pinball angling,
speed of light slashing through glaring stares
of feigned daring deceptions.
A generation uncomfortable with comfort---
the myth of plenty multiplied against delusional skies.
Magnified mystified maddening scenes,
treasures to be gleaned and panned:
THIS IS AN OLD BACK ROAD AROUND THE FLOODS
I GREW UP AROUND HERE
I REMEMBER THESE THINGS
BUT NOW THE WATER'S
COMING FROM PLACES I DON'T RECALL
I DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW THIS HAPPENED
A generation where leaders lead by diversion and division
yet the prophets speak of love
and sanity smiles through the cacophony
of soft sold hard sells.
A generation finds peaceful calming quiet
cannot be known without first knowing
the torturous noise of an age of the absurd.
INTERCESSORY PRAYER
From his mouth
--they said--
came a two edged sword.
We were instructed
--after we were told we were unworthy
to touch his feet--
to kiss his footprints.
Some saw them so easily
but I wasn't ever sure I saw tracks
--even after I was told I wasn't
worthy to question--
Amen.
Holy holy, the Lord is holy,
this was the season we learned of boundaries
and what righteous saints fought to keep and keep out.
This will be the doctrine or many will die
and most will suffer.
Holy holy, the Lord is holy,
this was the time when crowds gathered,
chants came as prayers,
faith and hope vied and tumbled from pious lips
and the greatest of these was the sword.
the risk of stupid gestures
and the clown's clouded mind dwells on rain
but he writes of
smiles and silver dollar skies,
things that have
no relation to truth
or the section
of the road he's plying...
of course it's a joke,
that's why it
costs so much,
that's why the
fools salute it,
and the wise men
die laughing...
nobody cares,
'cept me and you
and
the other fools,
the lost ones
listening to night sounds
while waitin'
for frosty mornings...
nobody cares
or knows,
'cept the people
without the sense
to come in out
of the pain,
people with
knowledge of times and seasons
and meteoric
brevity...
and the clown's clouded mind dwells on blue skies,
he paints his
face and performs his falls
and hides his
secret smiles...
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