Halved

Every emotion is split in half
Inhaling I cry; exhaling I laugh
I used to drive down this road
The lights were all green
Neither green now nor red;
Something in between
This bittersweet world
Once a dazzling blue
Has dissolved into gray
With the specter of you
Once above was below
Staring up at the clouds
Now the days fill with snow
And I live ‘neath a shroud
Better to veil
The impossible view
Better to live with my murmurs
Remembering you
Every emotion is split in half
Inhaling I cry; exhaling I laugh

From Death Row

In this place of absolute changelessness
I endeavored to change
Seeing flowers in the iron
Angels in the solitude
God upon the ceiling
Sunshine upon the cement
Vast forests in the salad
Freedom in my dreams
Truth’s straight line within the needle
I was not myself when I did those things
You are not yourself when you do this thing

Dying to Go

He was not a man of suavity or grace
This clipboard-bearing white-jacketed monolith
A cancer himself
“You are going to die”
Words stark on the night
Naked, weighing tons
Instead of protesting
I transmuted the lead
Turned the words inward
“I am dying to go….
Dying to go where light is
Dying to go where the sound of the water is
Dying to go where my body weighs nothing
And the angels are holding my soul”

Necessities

There are times, I suppose,
When even God, love, food, and medicine must wait
Another day, another year, another life
As we stroll through the Superstore arm in arm
A speck of memory may linger on Darfur
Bloated bodies huddled ‘round a battered tin of beans
Impending death blow hiding ‘round blind corner
Wails and shrieking women drowned in gunfire…..

Express Lane, speedy checkout:
Five items or less

Everywhere

I am here, I am there
Dreams are jumping everywhere
Snowed in cabin in the woods
Snowcapped mountain neighborhood

In the ocean, in the sea
Current rushing over me
Coral hotel, fierce stingray
Quicksilver I flash away

Desert cactus pricks the spine
Searing heat this heart of mine
I am heat and I am cold
I am too young to be old

Thoughts evolving over war
Revolving through another door
I am here and I am there
Dreams are jumping everywhere

Clean Again

A little lyric about redemption that recently came to me:

All these black marks on my life
Love in vain and work in strife
And followed ‘round by pain

And I see you over there
Freedom running through your hair
How I’d love to be clean again

Clean again
Water rushing over me
Till the end
Blood spilling into the sea

I was born with both hands tied
Blindfolded and mystified
And scouring the stain

Beholden to a gentle wind
You sail to me I take you in
How I’d love to be clean again

Clean again
Water rushing over me
Till the end
Blood spilling into the sea

Counting My Blessings

One of my favorite pleasantries of etiquette in the English-speaking world is the familiar “God bless you” that follows a sneeze. It’s a random act of kindness that was invented before the concept of random acts of kindness was even conceived. For many people, saying a good-natured “God bless you” is a reflex, as automatic as picking up a ringing phone. But such well-intentioned, automatic blessers lose touch with the actual message behind “God bless you,” which I’ve always taken to be the wish for good health despite a symptom of illness in someone with whom you share physical space.

This is an era in which one driver will shoot another who cuts him off in traffic; people steal one another’s identity just to access riches; and kids blow up folks on video screens in the name of entertainment. Yet “God bless you” is a gift to all sneezers that remains with us, a vestige of an earlier time when it was a good thing to smile upon your neighbor and perhaps even let him in front of you in line. According to social mores, anyone can say “God bless you” to anyone—even a convict might say “God bless you” to a sneezing cellmate.

Granted, as the influence of the church has abated over the years, “God bless you” has largely been secularized into simply “bless you;” but its spirit remains for the believer and atheist alike. My friend Vance, a contentious type, doesn’t like to say “God bless you” to sneezers. Ironically, Vance is a devout Christian—but he doesn’t throw God around loosely. However, he doesn’t say “bless you,” either. As much a word parser has he is a churchgoer, Vance feels there’s no reason to bless a sneezer. A more appropriate response, he argues, would be to say “Congratulations.” He’s read that when you sneeze, your heart actually stops beating; so really what we should be doing is congratulating the sneezer for getting the heart to beat again. Now Vance also questions the validity of “How are you?”, but that’s another commentary.

I know others who don’t bless. My wife doesn’t bless me anymore, either. I suppose familiarity breeds non-blessing.

“Bless you” has its equivalent in most languages. The Spanish, perhaps more pragmatically, say “Salud!” to sneezers. It means, simply, “Health!” But the Japanese, interestingly, have no sneeze response akin to “God bless you.” Japan is a country in which there’s little organized religion. Could it be organized godlessness that makes these people uninterested in blessing sneezers?

I’ll bless anyone, anywhere. It gives me an opportunity to connect, at an airport, a doctor’s office, a funeral. I love when strangers bless me, too. I feel a little awkward, I admit, when I sneeze two or three times, and I press the limits of others’ beneficence. But if I sneeze repeatedly and someone blesses me in kind, I know there’s a heart beating in sync with mine.