Poems-95

Awe

Cast away, prideful moon

her boastful beauty, plaintive

on the arm of night

her lip's breath halting and indulgent.

Turn deliberate away

from gallant sun, giver to us

the presence of bright,

where light touches and moves

silently mocking creation.

Sing praise then, of the Invisible

unlike his ashen movement

her glowing dullness.

Praise of what is felt but ungrasped

whose absence of material

speaks humbly volumes of greatness.

Do not entrust in dipped wisps of white

cluttering above both day and night

nor the one with heat consumes 

and while alive sustains life

(unlike death, which is the price of life)

but rather He who raises death

"come forth!"

sweeps its threat aside

and suffered us His suffering more

laid beside night,

awoke with the gallant sun

one times three times one

and saved us from ourselves.

A Better View

The Bible says “do not be conformed any longer to the patterns of the world,  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).   Transform and renew.  Do not live in the world, the world of narcissism and conceit,  vanity and pride.  Live separately but cohesively.  Be a Samaritan in a world of Levites.

 A tall order for the likes of me.

 I do not consider myself a nonconformist in any sense of the label.   But perhaps it is something I aspire to be.  By this I mean true uniqueness.  Is it possible to live in a way that totally breaks the established mores, norms, and values of society?  To be a true and complete entity apart from the rest of humanity? Yes, there are people who eschew the morals and boundaries of society, there are those who wear green pants with red striped shirts, there are those that listen to obscure music and call themselves nonconformist.  But are they really? 

 In Japan, conformity is the rule.  Businessmen wear business suits,  girls and boys wear uniforms to school, grown women cover their mouths with their hands when they laugh.  Young women and men wear trendy clothes and chat or text on the ubiquitous cell phone.  But on Sunday,  in Tokyo, these same women and men, in the name of nonconformity,   make a statement about their identities and their existence in the safest and sanest possible way.  On Sundays,  on a busy downtown street,  there can be seen people dressed in the most outlandish garb.  Women in white bridal gowns and bright red lipstick.  Men with spiked green hair and leather dog collars circling their necks.  Cat costumes,  clowns, and those who prefer the all black scheme.  All this because of the suffocating, drowning, fading feeling of being a very small voice in an enormous choir.  It must feel as if no one can hear you no matter how loud you try to sing.  Better to sing off key than to blend in, unnoticed.

 

But this is not the type of nonconformist I strive to be.  I gladly wear the same clothes, watch the same TV shows, and eat the same (comparatively) food most of my family and friends do.  The nonconformity I strive for is nonconformity of the mind, the heart, the spirit.  Like Jesus at the well.  Martin Luther and his 98 Theses.  Plato and his theory of a “round earth”.  Martin Luther King on the steps of the Washington Monument.

 Now, this is not to say that I am comparing myself in any way to these who have shifted the paradigms of the world.  I am saying that “if I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”.  I am the first to admit that I am an extremely small voice in a very big choir.  But perhaps by emulating those that came before me, I can find a way to make my voice a little louder, a little stronger.

 Perhaps someday I can even sing a solo.

Poems-1995

I wrote these in a frenzy in the spring semester of '95 when I was at CSU Fresno.  

Lightening lit his pallor

and thunder followed as scripted

line by line

and slowly

he lived his life as meant to be

Mr. Majors did not fly

only drove

passed all manors of distinction 

and lived his life as meant to be

His run slowed to shuffle

as blackbirds and rain

dented once a myriad 

of defenses

He depleted stores 

of normalcy

Mr. Wiggles pointed fun

and flaunted paper dolls

both whole and torn

but dolls nonetheless

He waggled and shook tail feathers

secure in the knowledge 

that he knew the all and everything

in his mind he made lightening cower

and thunder follow forked treble clefs

but never lived his life as

he meant his life to be

Mr. Majors met Mr. Wiggles

one day among ten million

and peaked curiosity 

circled each,

sniffing

both convinced he

of the vibrant bloom

or thick cocoon

lived the life of 

Calvary

Excerpts from "How Prince Eldridge Got His Own"

I wrote this back in college after reading William Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying".  I had never heard of "stream of consciousness" before, and I had to try it.  These are a few of my favorite characters.  The story is of violence, race, and redemption in a small southern town.

Amos Lackey

This morning the sun was as bright as fire.  It seared the sky coming up and burned into the clouds, frying them white and black.  Never had I seen a sun so fine, so perfect, with the colors of temptation and purity roiling and twisting together so that the intensity hurt the eyes.  

Never had I seen a day so hot, so fine.

The dust was beginning to crust up around the bean plants so I took the watering can to them, in accordance to what my Betty instructed.  I always do what Betty instructs because she knows how to work the garden.  Sometimes I'd have to say the Lord himself would come down and take up some of the work of her hands, if He ever did taste anything from that plot.  Her beans are like candy, so sweet and crisp; if you pick just one from the vine and break it in two you can smell the crispness and hear the life the water provides in that one strong snap.

Water provides for us all.  It chases the thoughts of struggle from the mind, it cools the body as it floats from the skin and it distracts from the problems of the farm, from the dryness of earth and of heat.

Here in the middle of summer the dogs pant for a respite from the aching pulse of this devil season.  My babies do too, in their own way; my oldest, James, he lays without a shirt on the field grass in the mornings, soaking in the coolness of the night before, waiting with me for the sun to rise and burn the dew from the leaves.  You can see Will with his head under the pump at any time of day, squinting his eyes shut against the cool flow on his neck and the back of his head, his hand and long arm working at the pump with the smoothness of a heron's wing...pump...pump...pump.   

Keesha sips sun tea with her mama on the porch.  They cut the lemons into slices and float them thick on the brown and amber liquid that sloshes against the sides of our cut glass pitcher.  I know when both are coming back into the kitchen when I hear the clink of ice against glass, and if I listen closely I can hear the crunch of the stinging hard water between teeth, and I smile because I know the feeling of a cold mouth on a hot summer day.

Little Kitty is the anomaly.  She doesn't run to the water, if anything, she runs away from it.  She drags her feet through the dust of our road, she chases the chickens with Red and Temperance, the dogs, until sweat beads up and shines on her face.  I hear myself tell her, over, and over, that the heat will keel her down, but she just likes to look at me with her baby browns and say, "I don't care, Daddy, I like the sun, I do."  And then she runs again.

So when my eyes fell upon Little Kitty dragging only her left foot through the dust of our road behind her like some fallen angel, the brown bag heavy in her hand and her head crooked to one side like it was too heavy to keep up straight, you might want to believe I felt that cold, itching drop of uneasiness trickle up in the back of my throat.  I waited for her to come closer, and sent the dogs up to meet her, and when Red's tail drooped between his legs I knew only the worst must have happened to my Little.

Betty knows I don't stand stock still in the middle of the day for no good reason so she came out of the kitchen, actually leaving the canning jars empty and the boiling pots unattended to stand next to me in the white hot heat of the summer afternoon to whisper in my ear, "What is it?  Amos, what's happened?"

And I was thinking the same thing in my head, what is it?  Amos, what's happened?

And when I saw the white kerchief with the dark red stains I didn't do anything for the space of a moment.  Then what I did finally do is burned into the canvas of my brain like a wicked spell, clear and terrible, a beautiful song not sung in tune.

I turned my back to her and stepped across the field grass to the barn.  I left her there, too selfish and weak to show my own broken heart to the girl, trusting my Betty to comfort and cradle the poor baby in her strong, black, capable arms, leaving my littlest to fight her fight alone and sad in the dusty heat of that fine, red summer day.

Exhale

Writing is an exhalation of the mind.  If breath is held, the heart pounds, the trapped air presses against the larynx and all is panic.  After seconds, minutes, open your mouth and release.  Air escapes with a rush and a joyful hissing; the spasms of the diaphragm cease.  

And as thoughts build in the mind, emotions build in the heart, and passion builds in the spirit, an exhalation is needed to cease the spasms of self expression.  Write, and release the air.  Write, and relax.  Breathe deep, and focus.

Exhale.