thump

two lovers meeting
in the middle of a road
in the chill
of a late autumn night
dark, silent
mere whistle of a breeze
a season’s courtship
culminating tonight
each highly aware
of the subtlest notes
of the other’s scent
strange, expectant,
sweet pheromones
this is visual
chemical
and about to become
a physical
consummated
fact

he clears the corner
half-aware of the road
mostly mindful of dinner
and the music
he has 2, maybe 3, seconds to react
to the spectacle rushing toward him:
one gray-brown, motionless lump
just about even with the right tires
road kill? a mole? no—possum
another one, alive, in the left lane
rolling, writhing, tail whipping
quick swerve left to pass cleanly between
feel the tires bump something
he considers going back to finish it
but the thought is gone as quickly as it came

morning
driving to work
a light frost blankets the riverside,
the grass, passing cars,
and a single mangled carcass
now pushed to the roadside
no sign of the other
or clue to its end

November 2008

facebook

I never intended
to attend a class reunion
the odds are slimmer now
with Facebook
to keep us all
thoughtfully at bay
deceptively close
never face to face
it’s a grand, instantaneous
voyeuristic connection
we can know without knowing
see without seeing
update in an occasional line or 2
LOL w/o making a sound
boast ever teeming lists
of friends we don’t really
for the most part
have or know
and remain
in the chosen darkness of our rooms
touching only keyboards
I don’t want to know you
I want to know about you
with few exceptions
it is an unsleeping
vigilant
cyperspotlight
enabling us to, very privately,
discretely,
before all the curious and ambivalent world
compare our life trajectories
with all those
we let slip away
and will again
despite our apparent
friend status

November 2008

kenosis

looking backward
at the path we have made
over the older, footworn paths
of those before us
we see what they likely saw
when they examined
their now expired lives:
that all these things
we have amassed
along the way
sometimes become the way
mostly get in the way
and amount to very little
yet we have spent so much
to accumulate them

in the darkness
of our well furnished rooms
we take no solace
in a single piece of furniture
we lie awake
wrestling with ghosts
rehashing every relationship
we ever mangled
and wish we’d spent more
on those things
we never could touch
hoard
or hold onto

why does wisdom crest with age?
we were better off
young and poor and without
devoid of all this distraction

we need to lose all this
give it all away
find a better use
of it
and us
and become about far less
we need to be emptied
of all this fluff
and filler
and embrace a decisive,
complete, deliberate, sacred
kenosis

this is, perhaps,
what the Prophet meant
by becoming like a child
by being born again:
first you must grow old
then thoughtfully wander back
a choice made
with a full grasp
of its implications

November 2008

miss dependable

she looks left and right
and mostly up
for a champion
for some one
the One
that can lift her head
and she feels sheepish
for wanting things
so badly
and in the end
having want

the cup she asked for
is not the one she got
and now
she simply would have
that one taken from her
this cup is no trophy
no chalice
no symbol of victory
or achievement—
at least not what she set out to achieve—
this cup is earthen
poorly shaped
its contents bitter
sorrowful
and cold
and, peering in,
she cannot see the bottom

she dreamed of good things
and asked her Father
knowing of His love to give them
but the response was a ‘no’
of unmistakeable silence
He dangled it
showed her the catalog
read to her glowing customer reviews
and then, inexplicably,
declared it out stock
indefinitely

did she err in dreaming?
in asking?
in being hopeful?
in listening?
in trusting?
in being crushed?
did she err?
the deafening quiet
is more convincing
than a thousand voiced platitudes
and predictions of blessings

she sighs
heavily
resigning herself
to what feels like
downright inevitability
weary of living up
to a superlative
that she has never relished,
and now feels to her sour,
hollow and mocking:
Most Dependable

the irony.

November 2008