A Christmas Poem

This poem, one of a collection of similar poems, takes its first line from a Christmas song. The song is noted at the end of the poem, with the artist whose version I listened to. I'll post a few more of these between now and the New Year. Expect to see more of these next year.

----

Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining,
but we’ll profane this day tomorrow.
Somewhere in the hustle of Capitalism
Baby Jesus was lost.
Bless the food that we torture our bodies with.
Gluttony and sloth are our Christmas offerings
to God, but He will forgive us because He is love.
The next day we will look on our gifts with ingratitude
and exchange them for money,
because we never appreciated them anyway.

(Oh Holy Night-The Fold) 

Deference

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
-Proverbs 13:12

You’ve never been off-putting
even though I’ve put off
being with you for three years.
We’ve both wanted the same thing:
each other’s arms, each other’s eyes,
each other’s heart.

When those appendages and organs
are in proximity,
it hurts to move them apart.
Like magnets
they want to come back together.
But the distance makes me sick
and it hurts when I speak.

Someday our hearts will be entwined,
and when they are, my dear,
we’ll have a giant tree.

The Indian on the Canvas

I never believed in art
the way I believed
in poetry, literature,
music, and film.
I acknowledged it as the sister
to my own work.
I never said it wasn’t worthy
I just never understood.

That oil Indian on the canvas
showed me meaning,
the emotional claws
that gripped my stomach
and twisted
when I saw the tattered flag
and the Purple Heart.
He wouldn’t let me look away
from the past of our nation.

I’m a child, and like a mother
she showed me technique,
the detail and precision
of a surgeon’s scalpel,
more time, and attention
than I could ever muster
for the most detailed
sonnet or sestina.
Ten thousand lines
that I didn’t notice
until my face almost touched
the painting.

Leaves of Me

Pull it off the branch,
rub it between your fingers
and the green will cling
to the ridges on your fingers,
seep into your pores
and take you with it
as it decomposes.
Leaves don’t climb
back onto trees,
but I want to climb
back into your arms.

Makeup and Sweatbands Don't Cover Enough

Love is not like anything
especially a fucking knife.
-I’m a Fake by The Used

Small snags and snarls along
the way pushing me further
further further away
from my friends family and God

Small snags and snarls like
mosquitoes buzzing around
my head, that I use a lighter
and a can of aerosol to kill

Small snags and snarls on
my arm that if you paid attention
you’d realize they were
knife marks.

You’re too busy watching
the way I move and do my hair
while the small snags and snarls
scream, Look at me, look at me now.
I’m a fake. I’m a fake. I’m a fake. I’m a fake.

Tunneler

I’ve been digging holes since you’ve been gone. 
If I had your hands to hold, would I drop the shovel? 
Or would I keep digging, making the distance between us 
that much larger? 

I’m willing to cut my legs off at the knees 
to be deeper in this whole where I tell myself I find happiness. 
About the only thing I can say for myself 
is that I’m sober.

Be Careful!

I. Be careful little hands where you go, 

you just might kill a man,

with fingers like knives 

aimed at all the vital arteries.

II. 

Be careful little mouth what you do, 

you just might judge a man 

who is holier than you 

and by doing so, throw yourself down the stairs.  

III.  

Be careful little ears what you touch, 

you just might infect a man 

with the venom that pours into 

every fang like ear.  

IV. 

Be careful little feet what you do 

you just might break his ribs 

while you kick him 

over and over again.  

V. 

Be careful little eyes what you see 

you just might be found out 

for looking at exposed skin, 

and be kicked to death by your victims.

Avoidance

I’m doing my best not to notice you 
sitting across the hall, your back turned 
trying not to notice me. 
I knew you’d be coming up those stairs 
in this building, to this hall, to that room, 
but I had nowhere else to go. 

You ruined my rendezvous 
with your good friend. 
We had planned to meet for coffee 
for her and nothing for me, 
to talk and see how each other were. 
The two of us arrived at the same time. 
She saw you first. 
You saw me next. 
I never saw you. 
It doesn’t help matters 
that we both haunt the same places. 

I avoid eating lunch, 
because if I eat, 
I’ll eat alone. 
You and all our friends 
on one side of the room 
as I try to hide on the other. 
How do you hide a private pain 
in a place as public as a cafeteria? 

Our city dodges hurricanes 
like bullets fired 
from the African coast. 
I dodge the glances 
I hope you give me.

With Turkish Delight

The Queen lures me into her castle, 
and like a child I want more more more. 
Nothing matters but that desire 
for the tender meat of sugar 
mixed with starch. 

The sugar dusting 
sticks to my fingers 
as I sit in a kitchen jail cell 
under no lock, no key, 
no guards at all. 
I’ll sit and eat and eat and eat. 

By the time my siblings find me 
the sugar will hold me together, 
the sucrose covering my skin 
and internal organs, 
making me just as much a statue 
as the stone ones the witch creates.

Gumbo House

I draw your thoughts in the sand 
Using shells to dot “I”s 
and sticks to dot “T”s 
I remember every word 
of your softshell oration 
About how this house was coming back 
even if you had to pry it 
like crab meat from the shell. 

From front porch to crawfish tail, 
this house is old like gumbo. 
The mother sauces 
hold together the roux, 
grandmother Phillips 
holds together the house. 

Six generations of family 
have picked shrimp 
and shelled oysters here. 
They shelled so many 
the driveway was made of shells. 

The kitchen knows its work. 
Its inundated in seafood 
so much that you can smell it 
in the walls.

Rabbit Ears Aren't the Only Thing With Poor Reception

I’m not receptive
to spending time
at the afterparty
of a marriage ceremony.

I’ve never been to the marriage
of a friend, or relative
that I love.
It’s always been my parents
dragging me along.

Chocolate waterfalls
couldn’t make it up to me,
much less this piss poor fountain
and clearly frozen strawberries
my father offers me.

It takes two bites
before I realize,
one day this could be mine.
There will be fresh strawberries
and a damn huge fountain
at my reception.

The Sound

You keep smiling,

wear it ear to ear.

If we can't use our mouths,

we can show off our teeth.

It's been nothing but silence for so long.

It's been one week so far

but it feels like so much longer.

I Know You Know

It's ok to cry little girl. 
I know you know your Father cares 
About every hair on your head. 
How much more does He care 
About the strings in your heart? 

All of the pain you feel, little girl, 
Is not for nothing. It’s taking you somewhere. 
You may not be able to tell where, 
that’s the pain covering your eyes. 
I know you know why the pain is here. 

Examine your heart little girl, 
If you find a picture of me, 
let it serve you well. 
I know you know I’ll do the same 
And then we won’t be as broken anymore. 

If you think of me, little girl, 
I know you know I think of you, 
Think of our Father first, 
Because He cares 
About the strings we tie around our hearts.

Wouldn't God Reward Two Faithful Ones?

What if two people prayed for two years? 
Wouldn’t God give them what they wanted? 
If they stayed faithful to their ideals, 
never compromising their belief in God, 
or each other, 
would God smile at them? 

Or would God have something else in mind? 
If He did, would their prayers be less worthy? 
Would what they felt be any less 
if they waited two more seconds, 
two more hours, 
two more days, 
two more weeks, 
two more months, 
two more years, 
to become one? 

I think that if God wanted them to wait forever, 
they would. 
And that would be their reward.

Amputated, Amateur, Actor

I can’t stand on my own two feet.
Greater love has no man
than that he should lay down
his life for his friends.
What about a man who would
cut off his leg?
How is he supposed to stand?

Doctors
aren’t allowed to treat themselves.
Dentists
don’t pull their own teeth.
Psychiatrists
don’t evaluate themselves.
I can’t go on without a sounding board.

I want my leg back.
I try to hold on to her
but she doesn’t hold back.
After all the times I’ve played
doctor, psychologist, pastor,
no one will play for me.
I want my leg back.

Poems are brave things

Full-body Church Service

She pays lip service to God
and head service to her man.
I don’t want to judge,
but it’s inherent in opinion.

I don’t want to judge,
for that would remind me
that I am the least of these
and the same as them.

For where they give their time
to their hands and lips,
I give my time to my eyes
What does God get?

A poem in German

With apologies to my German professor.

I will Understand You

Ich will dich verstehen.
Ich sehe dich auf der Straße
Ich sehe, dich sich von jeder ab wenden.
Alles ist dieses fur dich.
Ich erinnere mich an dich.
Ich weiß, warum Sie sich drehen.
Ich verstehe dich.

I Would Not Change a Thing

Que sera, sera, Autumn.
If you remake yourself
for every boy
there won’t be anything left
of you.

I’ve seen you change yourself
and throw away the best parts
to appease a fickle man
who chases dresses.

You bifurcate yourself to death.
I fear, if you don’t quit soon
there won’t be anything left.

I remember Mississippi Mudcake....

I remember Mississippi Mudcake.
I remember how the icing was sun dried
and the rest was moist like the river bottom.
Paddle wheels turn like forks
making a continuous circle from plate
to mouth.

And when the fork clinks on an empty plate
I want to go back to the river.

Pride Trumps Patriotism

Deal another hand.
We play poker all day and avoid frivolous ceremony.
We fly the flag at half mast,
and our fireworks are when Eddy swears
because his three of a kind lost to a full house,
in much the same way Jackson, Longstreet and Lee
lost to McClellan, Burnside, Meade, Sherman, and Grant.
We don’t celebrate that damn Yankee holiday here in Vicksburg.

Grant just had to win on July 4th.
He must have prayed hard to take us on that day.
Then again, God wouldn’t be so cruel
as to damage the honor of a southern city like that.
Unconditional Surrender Grant was in league with the devil.

Rather than firecrackers and picnics.
we wear mourning clothes and go about our day.
This year it’s a Saturday so no one works.
We sit in the tavern, getting drunk, and losing money.
The house always wins.
The White House that is.
Southern Gentlemen play cards for fun,
and that’s just what we’ll do.

We got dealt a hand of Fourth of July’s
But we fold and quit playing
because pride trumps patriotism every time.

But what about Georgia?

There are blue bacteria swarming inside of her.
We haven’t invented germ theory yet, but I know it.
Sheridan was convinced
that rapists should be shot out of hand.
We are gentlemen after all.
But then why did we rape Savannah?

Don’t ever attack a lady.
That’s what they taught us at West Point.
You can burn her house, take her animals,
and kill her husband if he fights back.
But by God if you touch her you’ll be shot.
We’d let any Atalanta beat us in a fair fight,
so why did we rape Atlanta?

Oh! The Scene!

I Navigate the Hardcore Community
like Donald O’Connor and Gene Kelly
Dancing with Concrete Shoes

You could stick your entire fist through that gauge
in his ear. If you did he would breakdown
and punch you in the gut. Fighting
is just as much a staple of the hardcore scene as dancing.
Pay the fee, aquire a wristband,
that’s your ticket to punch someone in the face.

First band, three incidents, two bleeding faces.
Bodies collide with the force of a shotgun of considerable gauge
The only constants that mark competitors are wristbands
and the fact that they choose to be present for the breakdown.
All these kids look like Gene Kelly with their dancing
they just don’t know it. They’d rather be fighting.

They go at it tooth and nail fighting
not afraid to take a kidney shot or kick each other in the face.
No tap, salsa, ballroom, or waltz dancing,
just hardcore. I step back to try to gauge
the crowd. The positive vibe suffers a breakdown
and Mikee helps make someone else get their own hospital wristband.

An hour before the show in a garage a dozen kids make fake wristbands
and sneak in to the show. The promoters nearly start fighting
but cooler heads prevail. Reason, rhyme, melody, and harmony breakdown
only while the bands play. At least they should. Face
the facts, this is the scene. The only gauge
suitable to tell who’s who is how hard the music plays and how much the kids dance.

I wasn’t lying when I said that when the kids dance they dance
like Gene Kelly. If the scene watched Singing in the Rain they’d exchange their wristbands
and two stepping for calmer pursuits and take their ears and un-gauge
them, become peace makers and priests instead of fighting,
and really love each other instead of breaking each others face.
Gene Kelly has the potential to single handedly make the scene breakdown.

It isn’t likely though. All the musical parts in his movies don’t have breakdowns
which is well known to be the only way to a scene kids heart. No amount of dancing
could ever make up for that, not even the prettiest face
on earth could entice the warrior wearing a wristband.
They’ll keep showing off, one uping each other, and fighting
and we’re still tempted to put our fingers through that gauge.

Stand back, gauge the momentum, watch structure breakdown
but continue fighting for relevance as the kids continue dancing,
wristbands on hands and troubled hearts while they punch each other in the face

This poem may come across as being irreverent

but be assured that is not my intention.

-----

The Great Commission

She is preaching the funeral of God.
I want her anyway.
Missionary dating leads to missionary death.
I’m ready to evangelize.

Another Freud poem

Freudian Sisters

Violin music drifts on the air
as Yente strolls with an old bald man in her purse.
Mamma says that if you want hair, marry a monkey.
But we’re hoping that Yente trips and dies
because the thought of that forty year old
underneath the sheets with me at night
is not kosher. I want a better match than that.

---

Tzeitel grew up with a man destined to stitch
and sew for the rest of his life. Tzeitel and Motel
gave each other a pledge. Unheard of.
They gave each other a pledge. Unthinkable.
They kept it quiet, even as Mama and Yente conspired
to wed Tzeitel to that bear of a man named Wolf.

As Pappa spread the news and Mazal Tov
swept our house, Tzeitel and Motel double-teamed Papa.
From behind the door I heard Pappa yelling,
Then who is it? Who is the match for Tzeitel?
Motel quaked like he stood before a pillar of fire.
Who is it? Who is it? It’s me.
More yelling.
Even a poor tailor is entitled to some measure of happiness!
And then we planned their wedding.

---

Hodel loved a revolutionary.
That’s not as respectable as Tzeitel’s tailor.
Revolutionaries don’t have sowing machines.
Revolutionaries have alternate interpretations
of the Good Book, and dances from Kiev,
and pretentious brown eyes not afraid to stare down
the Rabbi. Pappa said that Perchik was crazy
for hating wealth. Pappa came around
when Hodel and Perchik informed
him about their engagement.
They decided without parents,
without a matchmaker
But then again,
Did Adam and Eve have a matchmaker?
Yes they did, the same one as Hodel and Percik.
Then Pappa said goodbye at the train station.
Pappa, God only knows when we shall meet again.
She fell into his chest and his arms wrapped around her.
Then we shall leave it in His hands.

------------

This poem was inspired by the movie The Fiddler on the Roof. I highly recomend it.

The Melting Point of Gold...

The Color of Gold

Gold should not be allowed to rust on its
own. The perfect gift from man to wife melts
at the same temperature as sex. Bits
and pieces flake as ‘johns’ undo their belts.
Eliot Spitzer melted his wedding
ring many times with many other wives.
Did he realize while in the bedding
with her that he was connecting the wires
to an infernal machine to destroy
his marriage, his reputation, and wife.
What went wrong with the former altar boy?
Did he mean to cause so much discomfort?
Why would anyone want to destroy gold?
He took the gift and ruined the mold.

Inspired by a dream...

He Fights like the Waves

His six year old frame crashes
with the wave against the sandy bottom.
When he breaks the surface his cheeks
look like they have been victimized by sandpaper.
He stands up and trudges on the sandbar,
approaching the point where the waves break.
He miraculously passes the drop off. He swims
into the deeper water. Eighty pounds of nerve
against eight hundred pounds
of crushing force in each wave.
The current doesn’t help. Every inch of progress
should be three. The lunar force pushing the water
has conspired to kill the boy.
The wave upends him and tumbles him to the shore.
He lays on the beach, bleeding from his mouth,
lips, and nose. The boy is polka dotted
with bruises. He stands to try again.
I have to hold him to stop him.
He fights just like the waves.

Red Light Epistemology

Red Light Epistemology

What if I ran the red light
because I can
and because I drive a Hummer
and they drives Camrys.
I’d be fine,
they’d be flat.
We could even outrun The Police.
Sting doesn’t drive a Hummer.
Sting is a pansy,
he probably drives a Volkswagen
van. The ones that used to be for flower children
but now only creepy old men drive them.
The only way I wouldn’t rev
the engine and go on red
is if there was a Corvette
or a ‘pimpin’ Cadillac
in oncoming traffic.
It’s the American way to covet
your neighbor’s wife, house, boat,
but especially his car.
America doesn’t want Jesus
to bring us the gift of eternal life.
We want Xzibit or Lil’Jon or Chamillionaire
to bring us a blazin’ high grade ride,
sittin’ high on twenty fo’s.
The only acceptable alternative
to blingin’ and ballin’
is a 4x4 with more mud
on the under carriage
than an actual mud road.
Bonus points for a rifle rack
and John Deere’s logo
and a giant antenna for the CB radio.
You need that tricked out Cadillac
the mud running four by four
or a Hummer like the Govenator
to drive in style
unless you are a soccer mom
carting kids around all week.
Odds are your soccer mom-mobile
will be a tan Honda minivan.
I think most soccer moms
use their Honda as a vehicle
to carry out hypocrisy.
“Baby on board: Drive carefully”
Then she cuts you off in traffic
and flips you the bird as if it were
your fault she’s running late
and couldn’t get Starbucks
and still have time to take Jimmy
to soccer practice and April to
ballet and May to softball and
Augustus to football and I
don’t care that she has an honor
student and I’m glad
she ran out of months to name her children.
It would suck to be named November.
When she does stop at red lights
the eight kids in her car
will throw their trash onto the hood
of yours and moon you through the window
and laugh and cry when you honk at them
and mom flips you the bird again
and if it’s Friday she’ll really be in no
mood for that crap and she just might get out
of the van and go over to your window and
pull out a can of mace and then you’ll be sorry
that you had to go to the grocery.

Poetry is Legend

William Faulkner, James Branch Cabell,
and William Tecumseh Sherman are Legend


Lately, I’ve been uninspired,
disorganized, tired,
and twisted out of shape.
That’s the way men live,
like a railroad tie,
wrapped around a tree.
At every birth,
someone seizes the soul,
and twists it on itself,
so that it can never
be twisted back.
Human beings are only
Sherman’s Neckties in disguise.
A few brave ones
are willing to rebel
against what they are
and twist their spiral
soul to its original shape
and create a world
where lovers don’t remember
where they met
and heartbreak is easy to forget
and no one teaches children to grow.
There is no love in this place,
only rail roads tied around trees.
They refuse to accept this.
The Poets lift up hearts
and hold their hands against
the wounds of the world.
Poetry will be our rebellion
against what we are.

I've drafted this five times now...

Skinny Dipping will be the Death of You

You test the water
to see if the chill is enough
to give you a fever.

You check the waves
for dangerous fins.
The crystal blue water

is clear around our boat.
You slip off your clothes
and step off the deck.

From the shore I see you
displacing the water.
I’m not used to your body yet.

I’m not used to the way
your hair sticks
to your back and neck

after it has been drenched.
I’m not used to the way
water swirls around you

when nothing separates
the ocean from you.
Your body perplexes me

in the sunlight.
I row back to the boat
with my back to the boat.

You float on your back
oblivious to the tangle of
gear beneath the waves.

This old anchorage
holds a dozen anchors and their tackle.
The ropes make a Jacob’s ladder

to entangle you in the coils.
You allow yourself
to dip into the quiet blue.

The ropes snag your leg
and tie you down,
pulling you with the current.

The anchor-weight drags
you below the surface
and threatens to keep you.

You try to fathom the implications
of dying underwater.
I row in a passive manner.

I stow my clothes below deck
intending to join you.
Your outstretched hands

extend just above the water line.
Through the water,
I see the panic on your face.

I grab a skinning knife,
intent to loose the fouled rope.
I jump into the water.

to pull you from the water,
to buoy you,
to save you from the waves.

The Healers

The Healers

walk the earth
They mend lesions
sown with dirty needles.
They are not afraid
to hold their hands
against the wound.

Jurgen-In Poem Form

A Monstrous Clever Fellow

I do not want to be content.
Every time I get what I want
I don’t want it anymore.
I don’t even know what I want.

I’ve been in love with four wives
and three lovers.
Written down they make
seven discontents.
I wasted their time.
I don’t know why.

I’ve been to Hell.
That version of the afterlife
envisioned by my father,
wasn’t all that bad.
Heaven is a product
of my grandmother’s grief.
I don’t know which I prefer.

I only love my wife
because she knows me.
I’m comfortable
because she knows
how I like my toast.

Battle Fog

Death peered through his spectacles
and with little hesitation
cut down the cornfield just north and to the east
of Sharpsburg. Blood flowed in the sunken lane
up to the knees of the few men left alive.
Burnside’s Bridge would have served
a better purpose disassembled
and planted in the ground as headstones
for the dead and the quick to join them.
He was determined to make it out of the lane.
A slaughterhouse was not a dignified place
to give up the ghost. He would much prefer
to crawl back to the lines and die among friends.
Sweat seeped out of his pores,
blood built up around his brain,
the battle fog pulsated with his heart.
No pain, no sensation, no rationality.
No idea that no enemies were chasing him.
She had to promise him three times he was safe.
He believed her and fixed his beautiful eyes
on her face and never turned away
until his breath gave way
the same way an infant’s would.





----------


An excerpt from The Longest Night by David J. Eicher.

"Hannah Ropes, a nurse in Washington tending to some of the Antietam wounded, noted how many of them slipped through a gripping delirium as they lay in pain. 'They young man who was shot through the lungs,' she penned to her mother in late September, 'to our surprise and, as the surgeons say, contrary to all 'science,' lived till last night, or rather this morning.... The pressure of blood from the unequal circulation had affected the brain slightly, and, as they all are, he was on the battlefield, struggling to get away from the enemy. I promised him that nobody should touch him, and that in a few minutes he would be free from all pain. He believed me and, fixing his beautiful eyes upon my face, he never turned them away; resistance, the resistance of a strong natural will, yielded; his breathing grew more gentel, ending softly as an infant's."

What is poetry?

"Poetry is man's rebellion against what he is."~James Branch Cabell