Shopping for God

“… how many men have copied dew


For buttons, how many women have covered themselves


With dew, dew dresses, stones and chains of dew, heads


Of the floweriest flowers dewed with the dewiest dew.


One grows to hate these things except on the dump.”

—Wallace Stevens, “The Man on the Dump”

Mend the hole, make me whole —

Miuccia, Giorgio, and Domenico.

Tag me and label me.

Notice me. Give me life.

Stitch me together and embrace my limbs.

Let me walk each step 

And be reminded of craftsmanship 

And elegance and quality.

Heap it into bags 
Bearing your blessed names

And stuff my closet till it runneth over.

I cannot fill it fast enough.

I lay down my offering at your altar.

Bestow upon me the bounty of what will

Tear, tatter, stain, fray,

And turn to dust.

I shake, ecstatic, before you.

I am made in your image.

So fleetingly happy, I kiss

The one I am with: Pure joy.

Tell me, what will a man

Give in exchange for his soul?

Dress me up in the finest leather,

Silk, silver, and stone, the genuine article.

Thank you, God, but first I must thank

Diane, Allegra, and Donatella.

As I have loved you,

You must love one another.

Sunrise

Tilt on the turning zone of all things,

Where your blazing arrow seeks its

Bull’s-eye in flight, in slo-mo,

Into my eyes — keep heading through

The tumbling summer air,

Honed and aloft now above the horizon,

With dappled, watery light fish-scaling

Orange and blue that lifts to grow fiery wings

That flap night into dawn —

Emblazoning consecutive zones,

Marking each a new horizon,

Breath by breath, ray by ray,

Babies cry, old men wheeze, dogs bark,

Pulled away in one place

And pushed toward this:

Sky flying by too fast,
Now past —
Rise again.
Amen.

Home

Now lives
Behind the eyes,

In memory:
A city Sunday,

Sheets of rain

Against the windows,

Rivulets on glass,

In a silvery light

Long ago.

Time drifted

To a sweet nap,

And you held her

And she held you.

And nothing ended

And nothing began.

As you sunk into

An undertow of bliss

Amid shouting gusts of wind

And hot stale breath,

But warmth all around.

No matter.

A pause in the din,

Tight together,

Because time would not wait.

We melted. We slept. 

And when we awoke,
The windows

Had all gone black.

Dry Words

The bucket goes to the well yet again,

And draws up sand, gravel, and mud.

The mind, so crystalline and honed at times,

Sputters along on dusty, desiccant thoughts.

Aphasia sets in — and the way forward

Is a wind-swept place with sand storms

That sting the eye and pulverize the mind.

Keep digging along the vein.

You will find the source again.

It will not flow to you —
You must flow to it.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Dumber than a sack of hammers,

Ignorant enough to make you stammer,

The front porch light flickers

In some folks quicker.

They think they know —

And it’s all ego.

O, the Universe will repay

(A grinding down by the day).

They think they’re smart

Yet have no heart —

And in this din

They'll never win.

Vanquished

Falling to my knees.

Crushed to my very essence.

Grind me to dust.
Scatter my elements.

Empty me of me.

Divide me into past and future

In the netherworld of now,

Until nothing remains.

I will grasp
Only at the void.

Buffeted by gales of opposition,

I am now a bare branch

On a wild ocean,

Stripped of bark,

White as bone.

I drift and search for safe harbor

In the tempest, but know I must

Find it in the placidity of myself.

Nothing external, nothing,

Can help me now.

I search crests of

Waves and horizons

For divinity and pray

Between the heaves

Of storm.

In my mind, I see
The star inside the cut apple,

The shimmering stone
In the shattered geode,

The shaft of sunlight in the breach.

One drives hard into life and splits open.

One shifts and morphs

Into shapes not yet known. Disaster? Perhaps.

Yet the elemental murk from which

You sprang remains.

The Godhead speaks:

Compassion and Truth

Will guide you, push you
Down the coast,

Provide comfort in this cold, blue light.

Grind me down.

Scatter me

To the elements.

In my dissolution

Will come my salvation.

(October 2010)

Quest for the Quotidian

You will go back to basics —

Stacking wood,

Making the bed,

Breathing sea air …

Back to doing laundry

And flossing your teeth,

Raking the yard,

Kneeling to pray.

You will return

To the day to day

— the ironing

Of shirts and the crunch

Of leaves underfoot in

The woods. God never left,

And works within.
Still, the clock keeps ticking.