Gravity

Kind of like God
Gravity just is
Beyond Einstein’s reach
Beyond the stars
Pulling the substance of life
Into an eternal river
Are you ether?
Are you blood?
Are you the Creator’s plasma?
What pulls you to me
And me to dust
This dragging down
Of all I love and trust
Gravity rending my clothes
And my life
An astronaut on the moon
Whose module has departed
I and my gray matter
Will be this dust
Someday

Water

Water
How I love you
Warm on my body
Cold in my throat
Miracle of life you are
I just a boat on the sea
Floating endlessly on water
Every cell of my body
Is filled with you water
Before the factories and wines
Distilleries and machinery
And all the convoluted systems of man
Spinning in constant turmoil on the wine-dark sea
There was water
Forming
And rushing over
Me

Everyone

So much in a soul
Is impeccably crafted
The Creator’s hand drifting
Inside everyone
Nuance and feeling
Wild imagination
Each an uncharted island
Awaiting exploration
Every one with a story
Every one with a song
Here where shadow dances
Eternally with light
Tell me how can anyone
Hate anyone?

We Don't Like to Think

Tidy little squares of ham stuck in plastic
Curlicues of turkey all squiggled in rows
Patties of burgers stacked neatly in freezers
We wolf all these down in one week of our frenzy
We don’t like to think of the world behind Wal-Mart, it seems

“It’s a horror!” “It’s appalling!”
Shoosh! It doesn’t belong
Better to savor the world we created
Because we know we are superior
Within our minds and our walls

Satiating our palates and sluicing our pennies
We cover all needs in one romp through the store
We don’t like to think about it at all
We don’t like to think
Better leave it alone….

But the machines go on slicing
And dicing the rest
And their lives are spent looking at steel blades coming down
In cages just big enough to move the key limbs
We don’t like to think about it at all

Move in another pallet
Appease another palate
And fire up that grill
We don’t like to think
We don’t like to think

We don’t like to think about it at all

We don’t like to think beyond the Wall

A Trophy

The boy was presented
For Christmas a paper
His father’s picture
A long black box
And then a shiny heart
Background of peculiar royal hue

Hangs from a trophy

Hands and feet
Later appeared pictured in odd places
His mind hangs on a trophy
Little league champion
Soon a rifle will be
In those hands where the bat is

Beautiful Exception

Be the exception to my rule
Make me feel like less a fool
See I’ve been going to all this school
And learning
The wrong things

I see you span your wings
I hear the way you sing
You make me forget everything
Beautiful exception
To the rule

With every object falling down
Like the moon, you stay up proud
Breathing with no oxygen around
Beautiful exception
To the rule

And when the stars have all worn out
You will shine there without doubt
The light the world can’t do without
Beautiful exception
To the rule

For Ken

So often I wonder how
The Judge arrives at these decisions
He is more a surgeon:
Incision in the bloodline
Took you away too soon
You so blessed with grace
You so bound for glory
You so missed by the world
Because you gave so much too it
You are dancing on the clouds
Painted happy like the man in the moon
Laughing at these questions
Singing a new song
Meeting new judges and new angels
Or resting, now, perhaps