The ear of my heart
is where I hear
the sound of your say
outside my fear.
Yours is the voice
in silence here
I know your call
so close and clear.
-
NEW GODS of technology
you make no apology.
INNOCENT PLASTIC shiny metal
we created you to be
a harmless tool with grand potential
blind to a fault we failed to see.
BELOW IN COOL deception
hunger fed a baser need
seized by novel attraction
awakened so our social greed.
WILL THE GOOD ever equal
your vain and clever evil?
YOU ARE LIKE those ancient idols
ruling above their hapless makers
carved and cast in gold,
you in texts and tweets and videos.
EAR BUDS ENTOMB in sound
casting silence all around
eyeballs stuck on slick distractions
always blindly aiming down.
YOU DUMB and deaden
numb and leaden.
EYE-CANDIED games of chance and choice
bring relished death and violent voice,
altering reality in a realm so thrilling
with wave after wave of habitual killing.
LOST IN VISIONS of empty power,
hour after hour after hour after hour,
once promised to bring us cheer
now threaten compulsive fear.
AND SO, the endless needing
held in desperate waiting
for life-sustaining friending
what if it doesn’t come?
IT DOESN’T come
doesn’t come.
AND EVEN WHEN IT DOES,
we hurry to count our friends
wallowing in the never-satisfying sum.
WORSHIPING while walking
obediently bowing.
HOLDING us in captive hands
cuffed to starving souls,
following new gods with new demands,
listening to whispered commands,
going blank and blanker,
whenever wherever forever.
THESE NEW IDOLS like the old
cost a deadly price,
what came from human handiwork
calls for human sacrifice.
SO MANY RICHES we so wished
to end now so impoverished.
-
Death Unmasked 2020
Life suddenly hushed
Death uncovered on each face
Our masks now obvious
Where can we go?
We see and fear the end.
Both free and bound
Between gravity and flight
Called beyond earth and sun.
Virus and vitriol
Break out and break down
To kill and be killed
Unleashing raw power.
Truth wrestled over
Captured by culture’s force
Cowed and crowded
By the loudest voice.
If we could heal ourselves
We would.
Instead, we pay dearly
Choosing isolation.
One unsuspected feeling
Leads to the next
Like desperate and delightful
Winds coming and going.
We are more than
Mere planet walkers,
Beast lords,
Our souls cry out.
Help! Our masks reveal
To live is to risk each breath
Closer to the test
To face the one who loves and faces
Everyone.
-
Imagine a black spot
Floating on a borderless page
That stretches into infinity.
Consider, if you will,
That speck is absolutely all
You will ever possibly know.
The boundless space outside is what
You will never, ever know.
Standing now in knowing not
Rest within the wanting dot.
-
It took a stumbling dark search
Before I realized I could never see true light
Without looking through real eyes.
It required me to see beyond the false light,
Past the dark light posing as my light.
Free to see what is simply true —
And never what is simply true for me.
-
Harvested at peak and put away,
Cribbed safe and stored until
The price rises in the need of winter.
Hopefully up, but held too long
The crop will miss the high price —
For no one wants moldy old corn.
Even the cattle spit it out.
The good farmer harvests in the sunshine,
The poor farmer gets distracted,
Goes fishing on sunny days, and then
Late on a cold rainy day in late November
Pulls his tractor into the muddy field.
Cornstalks bent by the October rain,
Ears down too close to the ground
For the corn picker to glean.
The lazy farmer now hurries, trying
To make up squandered time,
Spinning his wheels, spinning to a stop,
He blames the weather, when it was he
Who wasted the warm spring rain,
Free summer sun, life wanting to live.
All looks lost, is lost
When his neighbor comes.
The good farmer risks his tractor —
Hitches — cranks — pulls
The helpless farmer out of his mess.
They finish the work together taking
What corn they can. The muddy farmer
Sells it all wet and heavy for a down price —
He needs the money now.
The corn crib spends the winter empty
Holding nothing but drifting snow,
Waiting for God alone,
To do all the neglected work next year,
Knowing his farmer may not change,
Hoping he might see the worth
Of filling his soul with golden corn.
It seems like eternity, the wait every season,
And it is.
Corn Crib 