Lacking Heaven

It’s as good as any—small change excuse

to waddle through the white

noise of crickets and cicadas capture

morning ears that fail to blot

out the city noise of garbage

trucks that beep and distant broken mufflers

that join Clinton Street commuters a half—

mile away. No escape. Not even the pitiful

cry of the lonely hawk can erase

wanting another place, some other place

that got pinned to a distant map

like the heaven Jesus promises; too bad

he gives rooms in a mansion.

You wanted a cottage by the lake, made quiet

by the still waters. Put up with the angels,

eternity’s choices are few.

Weatherizing Emptiness

The glumness follows your weather

patterns after your fogged brain—

self-inflicted like the haze you used

to escape into the nether parts of sunshine,

as if cheering lights could ever help.

They’re nothing like you expected

when you slipped your mother’s womb.

You’d wring hope out of the clouds

if that could bring the caring back

before the unspoken anger claps the hands

of storms that silence the parting light

with the moldering flash. . .

Unheralded Effects of Climate Change

Weather’s too nice for Indiana—

all conversations have ground down.

Who can complain about sunshine

and highs in the seventies? This is August,

for cripes sake, and August should make dogs

have their days with mile-long tongues

and half-naked old men pumping sweat

over mats of gray chest hair while mowing

brown-burnt lawns. Not this year.

Maybe the climate changes paradise

the Midwest into California

dreams—if only the ocean would lap

rust-belt debris under its waves.

Weather’s too nice for Indiana,

but wait an hour, as they say,

it’ll revert so we can take comfort

under winter quilts of complaining.

Heaven's Dust

You slept through the meteor shower again—

never a time you didn’t and only half

the desire lodged in the echo of memory,

not enough to make it work. Why wake

to see burning bits of stellar space

declaring the heavens are filled with dust—

the clumsy untidiness of housekeeping

gone awry like the house you live in?

If heaven is your home, it shouldn’t mirror

where you live with the litany of chores

that sing demands for attention—cracked

plaster, chipped paint, sticking doors.

Jesus promises rest, so let the angels

with feather wings chase the dust bunnies

until they fall from the floor of heaven

to burn through their passage by Perseus.

Internet Interlude

The open window steals signals

off the router, sending my wireless

around the world—a Marconi trap

of internet foam, intricate bubbles—

steel-coated, roiling around graceless,

packets of synaptic solitude

with no binding tongue to connect.

Babel's confusion curse perfected,

self-created without the voice of God,

speaking the swirling sounds unheard

except to self, words of self, alone to self—

beyond the breath of angels leaving

private prayers known wholly to none.

Aches of Morning Knowing

Morning aches the day from the hollows

of the bed, yearning, and you lay, lingering

the crept upon dreams of stillness

that stood like that young German translator,

fresh from college that you never knew, but wished

you had when she came unbidden, like Jesus

through the locked door—you swore you knew

them both despite the plain impossibilities

of common knowing. Gnosis is the word

that toys along the trails of your brain,

casting sparks among the synapse

like the Fourth of July child waving reckless

sparklers in both hands, a dervish

of delight in the spinning chaos, filling

the hollow spaces with quiet explosions,

soothing the aches of lingering yearning,

translating Jesus into possible prayer.