carpe poem #6

does art point to something? or can there be art for art's sake? there can almost be, for an artist who finds something beautiful or exceedingly terrible and does her best to plaster a patina of nice words to say things she doesn't really mean. if art didn't point to truth or beauty, or some ideal, why would someone make art? art isn't practical; art is ideal. And even if it was practical, like a hammer, that would only prove that it was made for something: hammering.

here is another poem. please take and eat like a scone.

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Aware

The sunrise splashes magma on the night

and I gaze to glean some light

as I drive on the thoroughfare,

this is prayer.

Frosted freckling on the glittering ground

crunch as I hear the sound

of cars turning with care, 

this is prayer.

My breath, like incense, white and heavy,

hovers by the Mr. Coffee, 

and the cream and sugar I prepare,

this, too, is prayer.

Now I sit at open table,

listing all I'm able

to do in this day's affair,

this is prayer.

And the approaching rush of self-rebukes,

of all my fakery and flukes,

strip me strengthless bare,

this is prayer.

Then comes distraction of distant fantasy, 

admired by fictive company,

doing that which I would not dare,

this is prayer.

Fidget of my chair and under watch by my boss, 

my legs I cross and recross,

I take a deep breath of air,

this is prayer.

This is prayer, to begin in foothills rough,

this is prayer in daily stuff,

in wherever I am made aware,

this is prayer.

carpe poem #5

I admit I have been slowing down. I've been distracted lately. It sometimes takes too much to try to write a poem, and it sometimes comes pouring out as easily as spilling water. Here is a poem I had worked on before. Thanks for reading.

---

Worm

I was sorry

to disturb the pale

body as I raked 

the overdue leaves.

Having made its bed

in the wet dark,

it had snacked on earth in secret

and earth, passing, covered it.  

Imagine its surprise

in being suddenly illuminated,

gasping like a root

green-shooted and denuded

to the unbearable atmosphere

that I commanded with my task. 

Imagine my surprise

in being thus discovered,

my appetite raked

up by His gardening work,

breathlessly squirming under

the saturated sky. 

Disposed to disposal, 

as dust is to dust,

in what earthen vessel

could I compost a most

fertile burrow while He, bending 

down, knuckles like mountains,

bowed His sun-face into my horizon,

and divined the number of my segments?

carpe poem #4

A happy new year to you all. Thanks for reading.

---

Scope

My father gifted me

with a microscope 

when I was young and curious,

the kind that used a mirror to shoot

light up through the slide and eyepiece

illuminating small letters of life

into galactic epigrams:

the bristles on the cricket leg:

a grove of trees after the snow has melted.

The vascularity of an oak leaf:

a cartographer's conundrum.

The glinting scale of a goldfish:

the gilded shields of a phalanx.

Little did he know, as did I,

that I was learning poetry

which I later studied by looking

at sonnet-slides under microscope

where a single line was a city,

a single word a home, 

and a single line break

the universe. 

But before I had studied,

while I was still bright-eyed, 

a friend graciously let me squint

through her telescope

one bright evening

this time at things which were so large

they gave off their own light

illuminating lens and my eyes

and this world,

breath-taking to see 

the numinous so near

fitting into the cradle of my palm

the abstract condensed with personality,

a star perched like a bird on a manger.

And when I wrote, and when I write,

I have one eye in the telescope

and the other in the microscope,

which explains why poetry at times

feels like vertigo, rising and falling, 

and trying to step away from this observatory,

I take a walk, muttering half-madly

into the wind that 

poetry is life

and life is a word.

carpe poem #3

Consciousness and conscience.
I have been reading lately Foster's book on Prayer, and I find that the prayers I tend to avoid are those that look inward. I like every other room in the house, except my closet space. Why is that? And when I do peer inward, sometimes it is so messy that all I want to do is throw everything into an incinerator. Other times it is easy to justify my room. But what if God speaks through you, to you? What if the most significant patterns of God's love are woven into the fabric of your own life? God wastes nothing.

----

Couch

I sank in cushions

shushed in light incandescent

from three lamps on the periphery

of this couched enclosure. 

I did not feel lazy or drowned

in drowse that mid-afternoon showers

incant when winter descends

hushing the suburbs

dousing the hubbub.

There was, instead, a liveliness,

an ecstatic cling of peace

cradling me in its sling.

While I was fitted hobbit-snug

with book and coffee mug

I was unfocused of them

as though someone had sown

a question and my response

had just begun to grow.

And how could I answer

anything without being so reposed

in living room, nooked in felt

sling, furling in understanding,

slung for schemes sprung

stones flung and verses sung 

versus these toweringly uncertain

titans and curses?

How could I begin but being

idle before I dole and mete 

out un-mittened, smitten

demolition

of these gods and idols?

carpe poem #2

Let poems be what they are, speak into context-less contexts, blank pages of life. I think poems are context-creating things, putting frames on life, which is why I think so many poems are about nature, because nature frames us these days. How many of our forests and groves and copses now border our neighborhoods and city limits? Bodies of water? Okay, poetic rambling ends here. 

Here is another poem. 


----


Stronghold

I have set its hedges down

where you would trip,

dug the moat where you would 

drown and muddle in diplomacy,

and if you were far

off, I have poised the trebuchets on your

position, reaching into old tensions, 

so that if you advanced,

weakened with that volley, I could signal

the indefensible archers emoting from intelligent

parapets bearing impossible standards, 

and if you rammed close

so that I could see my name on your lips,

my bowels would be moved, cauldrons

of scoria slagging over so consuming that 

even my defenses begin to char and change

out of desperation, knowing the condition

that this castle's keep will not, cannot, keep

and what I cannot keep, for some reason,

without end, without reason, I will die to defend. 

Daily Poems

For the last few weeks, I've been trying to do what I did in college for a quarter: write a poem a day. Of course, maybe only one of out five poems are actually worth reading. But they all have been worth writing. So, I think I may post my favorite poem of the week, once a week. Here goes.

Carpe poem.


----

Recital

At night, if I can hear past 

the static of traffic, the vehicular whooshes, 

I can perceive the leaves warming up wood-

wind wayward warbles, susurrus fast,

now slow and low beneath the tender twine tunings

of maple, apple, pine. 

They are rehearsing for the morning concert,

performing ordinances set before time, when time

signatures held their authorial sway and way, 

way before it was called night and day. 

There was a Voice in the seasons

that sung into motion stallion clouds, clung

dew to trifoliate clover, flung the constellation

into sky-sea, rippling melodies from rain-drops

that have fallen on my thinning hair, clods of hair

pointing out my anointing.

In these songs sung without tongue,

but hummed in heart, what part 

will I harmonize with, with what end

shall I start as though I had never started,

never ended, never parted?

So at night, as I distinguish these sounds, 

distilling them into coherence, hearing

the mild breathing and stirring of the woman

you have given me, herself warming up for her

tomorrow, the silence before the silences, 

perhaps this night, my heart has had its last rehearsal. 

buffet or potluck

I love potlucks. It's kind of like meeting your neighbors. You're never sure of what you're going to get, but there is always some serving of mac salad or mashed potatoes. And, the containers! From tupperware to foil, to someone's grandma's favorite casserole dish inherited from her uncle. It is a smorgasbord.

Don't get me wrong, though. I also love buffets, although I tend to feel obliged to overeat at them. Everything in limitless supply before you, and there is usually something for everyone. These days, it isn't uncommon to see a buffet that has everything from sushi to sliced roast beef.

But I wasn't trying to talk about food or the social gathering around it. I mean to talk about the church and our membership within it.

I would like to think that what draws a lot of people to a church is what draws a lot of people to buffets. Great selection. Fantastic presentation. Seemingly endless supply of resources. Accessibility. A little something for everyone. It could even be multicultural.

But the primary difference between a potluck and a buffet is not necessarily the food or the selection, but it is what you bring to the table.

I understand my church to be more like a potluck. Actually, every church is a potluck. This is to say that the health, growth, vision, and character of a church community isn't something that is catered to them, but rather is what they--the individuals--bring to the table. How I prepare my own walk and devotion to Jesus is what I will be, in a sense, bringing with me to the congregational feast.

I freely admit that I have been a free-loader, coming to churches in times recent and times past where I just want to marinate in the steam that arises from the spiritual buffet trays. I've experienced retreats where some gifted preacher and praise team has prepared for me a sumptuous dish of spiritually spiced meats. And I've gobbled it all up.

But buffets aren't reproducible. And church then becomes a few head waiters cleaning up after the masses. So is it a wonder that when many of us expect a buffet--to fill up on what we ourselves failed to prepare--come to the communion table and find the spread meager and wanting? Our own personal devotion, our own practice in His kitchen, tasting and seeing that He is good--this is what is missing. We forgot that it was a potluck, and so everyone guiltily crowds around the mac salad and chips, and we go home still hungry.

What are you bringing to the table?