Monday, March 06, 2017

Life Story

Some people
front-load
their condition in life

The what could have been’s
the almosts

The man who reaches
across to me on the train
needs connection with me

Some people play pretend
paranoia of public transportation
but I listen.

He passed on a way
to dribble the ball
on university nickle.

Many an ex-athlete
shares this story

An alternate life
parallel existence

of almost military discipline.

5 March 2017  

Sunday, March 05, 2017

Quote of the Week



By religion I do not mean outward things, but inward states, I mean perfected manhood. I mean the quickening of the soul by the beatific influence of the divine Spirit in truth, and love, and sympathy, and confidence, and trust.-Henry Ward Beecher

Saturday, March 04, 2017

Paintbox



Last night I had too much to drink
Sitting in a club with so many fools
Playing to rules
Trying to impress but feeling rather empty
I had another drink
Drink, a, drink, a, drink, a, drink

What a way to spend that evening
They all turn up with their friends
Playing the game
But in the scene I should have been
Far away
Away, away, away, away, away
Getting up, I feel as if I'm remembering this scene before
I open the door to an empty room
Then I forget

The telephone rings and someone speaks
She would very much like to go out to a show
So what can I do, I can't think what to say
She sees through anyway
Away, away, away, away, away

Out of the front door I go
Traffic's moving rather slow
Arriving late, there she waits
Looking very angry, as cross as she can be
Be, a, be, a, be, a, be, a, be
Getting up, I feel as if I'm remembering this scene before
I open the door to an empty room
Then I forget

Friday, March 03, 2017

Gonna Get Ye All

eight years of
unmedicated schizophrenics
on public transportation

this is only
bigcitylife

eight years of
extensive documentation

electronically
notated

to be preserved
forever

waiting rooms
blood pressure cuffs
quiet raps upon the door

the legacy I leave behind
at my death

will leave behind me
ample historical record

any biographer who wants
to know me

should know my doctors
first.

3 March 2017

Thursday, March 02, 2017

Scattered

I arrive in confusion
and I leave in confusion.

blessed are
the confused

today I stumbled in
three seconds late

the procession was
five steps from its beginning
two men in lockstep
and liturgical robes

i lost my place
i lost my place
i lost my place
again

outdated editions
create problems

the oldest amongst us
hardly need reminding
repetition is their friend

this foreign language
desperate for my learning
as any immigrant in a strange land
must do for themselves

time for shaking hands
the minister trips slightly
on folding chairs
extending himself to me

There is quiet here
Noiseless reverence

2 March 2017

Wednesday, March 01, 2017

New Style


Readers,

I didn't post here for about a month and a half. Now I'm trying an experiment. I want to publish working drafts of poems here. You can see for yourself the progression of editing from draft one to the concluding draft. Be part of this exercise in creative expression.

Cathedral

winding my way
through spirals of gray

to embrace a message
that led others to wage wars

militarist language
opens just a crack

in the liturgy

my knees hurt constantly
kneeling on uncomfortable benches

is this part of the penitence?
To be as uncomfortable as possible
while prostrate before the Lord?

what is my purpose in all this
I am clumsy and easily confused
in this labyrinthine space

I ask for a blessing in the end
The rector has no oil
but says a prayer on my behalf
for my health

once a blonde-haired Australian woman
anointed my head with oil
in the sign of the cross

pulling from a small, circular box
that looked a bit like cylindrical chap stick

it was sticky and covered my forehead
I did not wash it for a week.

I have knelt to accept's Christ's sacrifice again
This I did early in life many times,
but without real wine and real bread.

Wafter and grape juice
and songs sung in Sunday School on record players
of biblical heroes

even the Old Testament.

I will return again tomorrow
to wind my way through another
journey through the book of common prayer

more mysteries
more copying of others who
have the system down much better than me

Sticking Together, Glue Like

I meet , daily, at 11 am, with a group of four
Grim, unsmiling people.

one of them, the lead
wears a priest's collar

and I wonder if he's judging me
negatively because I don't attend Mass.

Shades of orange
Their auras, I suppose
wrapped around laptops

I felt like the
chairman of the board

leaning down the table
hands extended

and I didn't like it.

In their capable, authoritarian hands
Much went on behind the scenes.

In the meantime
I get to see what people do in prison
to pass time

I could see the criss-cross cut
of self-harm on one patient

and the girlfriend too young
to understand adult caretaking

At least I was not the couch-stuck posture of
the clinically depressed

I’m tentacled to a hospital staff
Their recommendations determine my fate

And I shuffle impatiently
Waiting for an answer

Bodily, restless
This is medical purgatory.

1 March 2017