Word Pieces VIII

Love

N'even the mightiest book
(closed or open)
The unwritten poem or
The flip side of Beethoven
can e'er replace
Breathing the same breath
Thinking one another's or
(least not)
Touching the soul of each

Hangman

is it proper in a stickfigure world
to draw a heart in the middle
of meaningless lines
is it right to clothe the bottom
of wasteless man
will it turn into hangman
if flesh is drawn on wooden arms
and bright colors of life are painted figure on
figure
if no one ever tried
figure if no one ever dared to care
whether wooden parts
would ever touch
take the chance and risk
co-painting flesh tones on
figurestruck worlds
even if you are hung
one blank left
swinging alone on the
gibbet of
despair

Patience

Are we there yet
Have we made the journey full
well knowing that we will cry
impatient to arrive there
wherever
however we are
slow to know
that we all travel the camel
at our own rate
But do we know yet
how this all really works
the way, the truth
the life saving health of our
redemption
Do we believe yet
in the possibility
that mustard seeds and mountains
can move and men can too
Do we love yet
a neighbor who is not us
a friend that we can trust
a job that we must
Fulfill in our life time
a Job of patience
knowing that we
must arrive at
the place of the skull

Old Side

something is plainly wrong
in wanting to know everything right
away in the hill right now there is someone
asking a way that only a stone
knows how to listen
why is there you and why is there me
(why are we fondly different)
is it right to act wrong
(or is it never wrong)
where is a somewhere where men can fly
up and put a flag and say now
we are good now
we have arrived now
because we are doing a never thing
crossing over ignorance to find:
asking proved questions
flying up proved down
turning over a new
proved old on the other side

Cross Studies

Cross studies
(obscure theological dance steps)
soothe a guilty heart
for not being
what
we say
we are
empty hard bound copies
which no man can count
pages of blank
verses of more
Cross references
to a silent wheel chair ballet
to lines in the staging of mute plays
to notes never heard or written
to vacant heart canvasses (all)
waiting for the Michaelangelic
touch of life on the face of Adam

Ascension

somehow God is
gone up
you say
how
can He
time and time again
come and save
how
can He endlessly give
how
can he return again
to be a victim
and rise again
an ignorant people
simply stepping
on old wounds
who only say
thanks
and come again

Journeyman

journeyman awake arise
dust off your camel and
go to waterless spaces
in the universe
go to places where
nothing is even asleep
where no thing is even

the summer season ends now
shepherds and angels sing
gloria in excelsis thinking
there is happiness there
fools then and fools now
adore for just singing or
just for an alleluia

do not slow down when
shepherds stop tearborne
heavy in the moment of
believing in nothing

pick up you pace then
pick up your face then
and run open armed to the
new jerusalem beyond the
lightless airless void
of the journeyman himself