Modern Parable

The evil one

believes that he alone

lives in paradise.

He sees his gold and marble halls

fat tables groaning under

feasts unshared,

worships the idol

in the mirror

and he smiles;

whereas the saint 

labors in hot vineyards, 

wipes brows burned by 

the risen sun, 

creases the fertile earth

and with wrinkled hands

fills the bowls

of the poor,

and God smiles.

(2014 March 23)

 

Magnificat

The poor still wait

for bolted doors to open

hunger to be filled

and concern to replace

the deep scorn

of the rich, who believe

God is on their side,

who offer golden chalices

and cathedrals of crystal

to purchase

eternal life

with God, who remembers

the poor 

will fill their every

need

but sends away the rich

with nothing

no things to carry

in their powerful, sleek cars

to their empty houses

silent houses 

stony, soulless

mansions, 

nothing

but their names

on fine marble 

engraved,

yet the poor watch

and still wait.

(24 March 2014)

Hamza al-Khatib (We must not forget why there's war in Syria)

Hamza al-Khatib,

smiled sweetly.

Was he thinking of school

and soccer, or friends

waiting to play

when they caught him,

roughly hauled him into their white van

took him to their station, and demanded

confession

from his glistening tears,

from his tender face flushed

with confusion and fear?

They would make of him

an example

of what happens to those

who pursue happiness

in Assad’s Syria.

But you, weeping parents,

you-tube us your tortured child’s

distorted face, gaping chest

torn arms,  dishonored genitals.

Show us how

Assad destroys your future.

O parents of Syria, rise up

and send Assad 

to cower before heaven’s gate

as Allah

gently cradles

your slaughtered

children.

(7 June 2011)

  

(Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Hamza_Ali_Al-Khateeb)

After Viewing Helnwein's Epiphany II

Enraptured

mouths agape,
they gaze.       

They don’t see her ivory breasts.

Gleaming virginity

eludes Aryan dreams

as she presents them with their

Destiny.

With shadowed arm,

in the harsh glow of

klieg,

he teaches them to 

submit.

They cannot know

how quickly falls

night's

blackest pall.

(14 July 2014)

____
Image: Gottfried Helnwein, Epiphany II, deYoung Museum, San Francisco

The 1%

blaring train

declaring right-

of-way,

elephantine, cyclopean, 

crushing our lives

with money,

bloody truth

strangling the sighs 

of the repossessed  

as wall street swells

with the cries of

the dispossessed.

Birther's America

Sit in dark rooms

as Fox news

complains

that the President

is really from Mars,

hell-bent on preventing

our Saturday-nights

from being

special.

We have the Constitutional right

to carry death

like a flask

in our hip pockets.

But this foreigner

wags his black finger

and calmly spews

sense

like spit

on our red necks.

So the plan is to wait

patiently

until the day

all these bleeding hearts

are dropped, one by one,

by lone

assassins,

and in the end,

alone in our darkness,

we…will…win.

(9 April 2011)

Assad Visits Homs

Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. ... Our noise, our business, our purposes, and all our fatuous statements about our purposes, our business, and our noise: these are the illusion.

Thomas Merton.

He came to visit today
with cameras firmly fixed
on his perfect
hair. 

He came with his selected throng

to acknowledge their 

devotion

as he surveyed his

demolition.

Those old buildings were such a blight,

rabid rats, full of the noise

of rebellious children,

but now, city leveled, he can see

how beautiful it all will be.

Bright new buildings soon will rise,

and scrape death from the acrid sky; 

and everything will be 

first rate!

....but just out of al Jazeera’s frame

black smoke pours over

Baba Amr;

incinerated hopes;

dark stain.

(27 Nov 2012)

Headline NY Times, 17 Sept. 2016: 

                                    His Grip Secure, Assad Smiles While Syria Burns

Advice to the Candidate

Everyone wants to

be heard! Speak louder than the

rest, fill raucous rooms

with your rancorous

thunder, flail all resistance

to the ground. Your lies

will win the night; but 

in the clear morning, be still.

Listen as small birds

rest lightly on sway-

ing branches. With piercing song

they paint a new day.

(5 Feb. 2012)

The Proud Man

Photo: Sunlight Through Dirty Window

David Barrett

(used courtesy of artist)

The humble man receives praise the way a clean window takes

the light of the sun."  Thomas Merton

The proud man 

is like a dirty window.

He cannot permit to pass 

the morning's glory;

whereas the humble man

dissolves in the light

of the rising sun

like a freshly scrubbed window.

(22 Feb. 2013)

Nothing but Light

“In perfect humility all selfishness disappears and your soul no longer lives for itself . . . . it is lost and submerged in Him and transformed into Him.” Thomas Merton

The proud man
looks into his mirror
and sees bright shiny lies,
power, pleasure,
possession,
and cries “all mine!”

until, at last,
in the honest, good night
sees in his mirror nothing
but light.

(17 February 2013)

Second Death

In the darkness of noon

proud souls decline

from glittering heights

to October's stark truth.  

Sacred fire ignites

their hopeless, sad flight

into sin and self-

separation.

(20 Oct. 2011)

The Terrorist

“People who know nothing of God and whose lives are centered on themselves . . . . can only conceive one way of becoming real: cutting themselves off from other people and building a barrier of contrast and distinction between themselves and other men. They do not know that reality is to be sought not in division but in unity, for we are ‘members one of another.“ - Thomas Merton, from New Seeds of Contemplation

Je suis un parisien!  14 Nov 2015

Carry your anger

in a heavy bag

filled with nails

and sharp shards -

hate honed to

hard edge of

murder.

When you see

their bright smiles

you will know

it is time

to ignite

your Inspired

device.

(28 April 2013)

Air Show

Cloudless thunder                                                  

splits the sky

as white planes rise

on red fire.

Vertically

to apogee,

they rocket

then fall

screaming

back to ground-

zero

to soar again in glory

as the cheering crowd

shrieks for more!

From my backyard,

I see small birds reel,

made awkward  with fear

when the fighter steeply banks

just past my line

of defiant trees. 

The afterburner’s thrust

can both exhilarate

and annihilate.

Proud simians,

faster than eagles

dropping like

thunderbolts,

we are perfect

raptors -

we are masters

of gravity.

(3 May 2014)

Ego-trip

Locked inside

where only I can be

lonely cries echo,

deafening me.

I peer through sockets

through skull

and soft flesh,

blood coursing

nerves enmesh

electric thoughts rocketing

through bone-strapped brain,

lightning revealing

God's face once again.

With muttering thunder,

the sad world declines

back into empty

personal night.

(22 May 2012)

The Elders Are Confused

You call us unruly children,

but you confuse us!

First, your cousin came,

eating insects, drinking honey,

preaching re-thinking,

shoving stubborn heads

under cold Jordan's

waves.

Clearly possessed!

Then along you came

laughing, eating, drinking,

with sinners consorting,

singing songs of paradise
to prostitutes.

So what's it to be?

Mourning

to John's dirge?

or dancing

to God's piper?


****
ref: Mt 11:16-19

(8 Dec 2011)

Edge of Extinction

*Reinertson, Neptune's Daughter, Ceramic photo credit:Scott McCue* Edge of Extinction Ceramic Sculpture by Lisa Reinertson Pence Gallery Davis, CA April 26 - June 14

When the pelicans fall
my throbbing heart will erupt
into hot rain, cloud-burst
to drown your dirty towns
fill your black lungs
‘till, clean at last,
you will feel
the pelicans’
pain.

(7 March 2013)

Lost Soul

“Just as it is impossible for a man to see his face in troubled water, so too the soul, unless it be cleansed of alien thoughts.” Thomas Merton

Soul without light
he screams in anger,

curses his mother
for carving his dying flesh
from her course blood.

His darkness is complete.

He will not see
the sun
though it streams golden
through his open
door.

A prisoner,
he can only gaze
on blighted shade; he cannot stray
beyond the constrained
cell of his narrow
self.

(11 March 2011)

On a Razor's Edge We Live

“Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love.” 
― Thomas Merton


Gazing into bright desert space
we see endless highways, distant
mountains we never reach,
sharp hills, steep cliffs
receding
as we move closer,

closer,
to the pacing sun
creasing dark canyons
casting amber light
into the gauzy sky,

yet our dark dreams trouble
the faint stars and reeling planets
throw wide nets over
haunted, lost souls

when, morning at last,
we begin again
pursuing the tumbling edge
of this turning globe

and we believe that
it will never end, will never
end,
will never
end.

The Next American Idol

Is it true that all my motives have meant nothing?
Is it true that all my desires were an illusion? Thomas Merton

I want to ride the wind,
feel the rush of pride
as I stride front and center,
to  become the next
American Idol!

My flame rises high into
the summer night sky.
Garish and bright
My eager stars spread
the heat of grandeur
the light of illusion.

But in the soft dawn,
in the morning rain
only smoldering
lies remain.