Left Out America

Blame it on birth, the last born gets leftovers,

the hand-me-downs that continue into adulthood,

always the poor relation watching discarded TVs

and driving worn through cars. Only the food is new—

who eats gently used food? Not that you haven’t

tried to find a way, gullible to the lies from teachers

and, in Fourth Commandment* awkwardness, other authorities,

as if right guides to find a life better left behind.

Their dreams aren’t yours, but the courage that heals,

promised by Jesus, lies far away. Cast them off your back

like a harness too heavy before you’re left to bear the guilt

while muttering the hymn, “Heaven is My Home,” the solace

of the put-upon because without it you’d collapse

like Job, bearing on your lips the curse of being born.

*From the Small Catechism of Martin Luther:

"The Fourth Commandment: Honor your father and mother. What does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not despise or anger our parents and other authorities, but honor them, serve and obey them, love and cherish them."

How Far

can a poem go when set free

from the end of my graphite scratching

to inchworm in search of other eyes?

Does it hunger freedom,

or am I the master, kicking

it out of bed too soon,

a chrysalis torn from cocoon—

ugly and half-formed,

a useless thrash of words,

a pitiful and hideous attempt?

Can our hopes match father to son

without the comfort

of the Holy Ghost?

What if shyness stops the poem

in two dimensions—height and width,

never allowing depth to dry

its wings of pages and so glide

freely across open eyes.

In the Morning

Yawns widen the limits of tight-muscled night jaws

clenched against the confusion

of dreams peopled in unkempt memories

cascading out from their closets and storage bins.

Imagination has its way of turning chaos into light—

declaring the day good. You’re leery to trust

after years of promises broken

like the wine glass tipped off the table,

dangerous in its shards

eager to nip the soles of your feet.

Store your feet in the darkness of shoes.

Why should toes greet the light that spills

dreams out of God

and arranges them on the shelf—

private collectibles that whither

like a jumble of yesterday’s words?

I Wouldn't Mind

Some other creepage, like vines, up my legs—

gentle tendrils massage their telluric message

under skin, through muscle, into marrow—

keeping me  earthbound.

Flesh’s crimson desires bleed

yearnings for unfettered eternity—

the passion of tongue

and eyes and ears and touch,

the blessed touch of fingertips

seeking home within your softness.

O Bindweed, ignore my prayer for freedom;

cling me to your earth, feed me

chlorophyll delights like a lover

who plunges into her anointed embrace

and perfumes me with sated sleep.

Beyond Destiny

Yesterday closed its box with thudding dullness

that escaped the ears of another room; ears

caught the tumult of tomorrow, not knowing

the still-born traits of repetition—same old,

same old, the aged like to say, squawking out

memories of new-found wisdom, astounded

over the prophetic voice clutching throats

in the final clasping expressed before the second

day has passed away, the trail of grave clothes.

How we’d relive those shuttering days, so we say,

voicing lies the ancestors spoke when they

passed on mistakes for us to catch in pools

opened by the mutant twist of destiny

bearing the plan of God that lies a finger’s

width away from touch—a foretaste

of Zeno’s arrow that never hits the mark.

The eternal “almost” thuds tomorrow.

Easter Forgotten

The doors grow wings and fly

their handles out of grasp.

Windows refuse, and you,

on hands and knees, search

inch by inch and corner to corner,

examining entrails of an escape that isn’t--

an augurist looking for signs

that never were, nor will be,

forever and ever. Amen—

Truly it shall be so.

You hate the Truly

more than the room,

so you sit on haunches and suck

the convenient route,

the bottled television path,

chewing down clocks

until bed where you destroy

restless hours in contemptible tossings.

Somehow you forgot

it was Easter Sunday.