Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Ends
I've got a tattoo of a highway atop my right shoulder. The broken white lines meet my skin. When I feel tired at work I'll rub my shirt across from where the tattoo begins to where it ends. People ask me why I do that so often. I tell them I injured my shoulder when I was young and my fingers help the pain. Sometimes I wonder if there are secrets and lies in all of us, if a highway touches all our skin. I wish, too, that each of had a tattoo we could lay down--and drive to where dreams come true.

Monday, April 27, 2015

Eternal
Take me to the open flame
To the brightness that burns eternal
Illuminate me
Radiate me with your warmth
I am cold
I am in darkness
Give me your life fulfilling heat
Give me your brilliance
Take me on,
Lead me by your steady, burning beacon
Guide me as if you, the sun, were my shepherd
Never extinguish
Never die
That is for mortals
Our souls may belong to you and live in us
If it is true the soul exists
And only if you the flame burn eternal

Saturday, April 25, 2015

Stupid
I saw an old fighter tied to his bed.

It was late at night and I couldn't sleep so I went to the emergency ward, not because I was sick, but I needed to get better. I needed to see the realness of human suffering. Not the way they die in movies--bright white skin, beautiful hair; the wide eyes of those who are loved and who can love back. I needed to see the hurt in others. Those who suffer their whole lives and who die alone. I needed to touch them. Comfort them. I wanted my sleeplessness to go away.

The old man tried to lift his frail body. His eyes were vacant. His mind was gone. No one was at his bedside. I saw him clench his fist and roll his shoulders as if he were trying to throw a combination of punches but the ropes knotted around his wrists held him back.

I said to the nurse: "Who's that?"

He said: "Some old club fighter from the fifties. He's punch drunk. He keeps thinking he's back in the ring. Stupid sport, if you ask me."

The nurse went to his bed side and pulled the ropes tighter. I heard the old man give a painful grunt.

"I thought you were maybe a relative?" The nurse asked me.

"No," I said.

"Then you don't belong here. You gotta go."

"Sure," I said. "I couldn't sleep, that's all. I'm no relative."

I walked out of the ward of the dying and rolled my shoulders. I was no fighter, but I threw a few small punches and thought: "What a stupid sport. What a stupid sport that nursing is--to tie an old man to his bed and no one knows your name."

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

Large
I hate the pettiness of happenstance
The Astral smallness of all of us
The Human Cry!!
The remote chance of evolution among burning stars?
The tiny randomness of life
The death of the barely known
The Human need!!
Paint me bright like the burning star!
Oh Lord, find me
Paint me bright!
Take the pettiness of happenstance to another world
I will worship thee, Oh God
Guide me into the temptation of something
Make me and us as whole as the universe is large
God, I will embrace thy Word!
Take me there; the shores of your eternal happiness

Thursday, April 16, 2015


Dream
Inside this rancour I know a broken heart leads me
My mortal feet along blackness to death as a friend
Oh, my eyes!
Spare me,
The decaying, sightless, Godless night in sadness
I pray to the morn to give me life, new direction
All will be better
The sky will clear
Wings will lift me
I will be as whole and beautiful as a dream

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Ebb
I was at a Chistmas party once as happy as a song when a mysterious doe eyed girl spoke to me of a sadness in her life.

"My husband left me,"she said. "Weeks ago. I have no one now."

I told her some people drift together, the same people drift apart. It is called the human condition. The ebb and flow of life.

She smiled slightly then disappeared into a woven crowd. I never saw her again, though I have thought of her often over the years. Her beautiful soft eyes. Her voice as sweet as Christmas sugar. I wonder if in time she's drifted to a sandy shore.