Saturday, May 11, 2019

Recent poetry, May 2019

Cross: Resurrection

We cover it today with flowers,
Prostrate before it at all hours,
But its secrets won't explain,
Listen: Go against the grain,
It says, and all self-interest spurn,
Reject the world, what makes it turn,
Resurrection lives there, sleazy,
To cover it with flowers is easy.

Stroke II 

I shouldn’t even have a stroke. 
I exercised. I didn’t smoke. 
But it sought me anyway, 
It took a fraction of day, 

For everything to go to hell, 
My body’s like a prison cell. 
It won’t do what I want no more, 
It doesn’t even know the score. 

But even if within this prison, 
I can live without derision, 
Being happy as before, 
This jailhouse not at all a chore. 

Then the blessed secret’s learned, 
And this whole thing is something earned, 
The stroke has done it’s goodly work, 
And I will not be such a jerk.    Eric 

He didn’t sign on for this. 

Without him 
I’d be dead. 

But sometimes when I  
Lie with him. Feeling nearly normal. 

The phrase “my gratitude knows no bounds” 
Becomes as real as any words 
Could be. 

And I silently thank this 
Remarkable person. 
Because words won’t do it.    Spaulding  

Don’t go to Spaulding, Charlestown, 
Yeah, the main one.  No matter what is said, 
By US News and World Report. Their  
Day nursing staff is OK and so is their therapy, 
But the night nurses are straight from hell. 

They made sure the call button was within my reach, 
But then they refused to come 
When I called. 
Because I was more trouble than I was worth. 

They spoke Haitian Creole in front of me. 
Though it’s a language no one understands. 
And it’s nothing like normal French 
Which I can mostly understand, though no one but Haitians know Haitian Creole. 

And they strapped me to a wheelchair. 
And though I begged and begged and begged, 
And begged, they wouldn’t explain why. 

They expected me to die, 
And were counting on it, 
And were unhappy when I didn’t, 
And are especially unhappy that 
I’m alive now. 

Don’t go to Spaulding, Charlestown. 
Yeah, the main one.  No matter what is said by 
US News and World Report.  Their  
Day nursing staff is OK as is their therapy staff. 
But the night nurses are straight from hell.    Eric II 
He wants what’s true and not what’s false, Emotional maturity, he wants it too, That’s rare enough upon this waltz, For me to love him, through and through. 
And, more than that, he stands by me, Through thick and thin and e’en this stroke, That is rare as it can be, I will not love another bloke.    Going to Church 
When you understand the words of Shunyru Suzuki, “There is no God, and He is always with you” You can go back to church. 
Until then, it’s just pointing, and you Can see it from a mile away. You might as well be an Evangelical, That great modern evil, That’s all about pointing. At something not there. But you can go back to church With your new understanding.    Going to Church II  “There is no God” 
Said Suzuki (he was odd) 
“And He is always with you” too, 
The roshi’s words, out of the blue. 

If you get both parts of that, 
Not denying either half, 
You’re ready, then, to go to Church, 
And leave old Shunyru in the lurch. 

From Quaker Meeting’s simple sitter, 
To Eastern Orthodoxy’s glitter, 
Suzuki Roshi’s left behind, 
Along with Zen, but he don’t mind.    Resurrection  

This Jesus was Jewish bloke, 
From Palestine, who somehow woke, 
To the fact that he was God, 
That didn’t seem so rash or odd, 

To say that, when like yeast in cake, 
We swim in words like fish in lake. 
He had to say his something too, 
Like they expected him to do. 

A fine religion he became. 
He caved to it, but who’s to blame? 
First they got it wrong as hell, 
Go read Galatians. You can tell. 

They thought that God was over there, 
A Big Friend way up in the air, 
Who occupied a human life, 
For a generation’s strife. 

And did some magic tricks to prove, 
‘Twas really him so on the move. 
He died, then came alive, directly, 
To save from death who think correctly. 

That view’s a heresy so ancient. 
But they don’t care, with us they’re patient. 
Whether they’re called Appolonian  
Or Evangelical or Estonian. 

They are the blight of our existence, 
With their compassionate persistence. 
We’re, weirdly, ‘fraid of them without, 
And within. I call them out. 

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