When I lived among you, I too
Used words
Your words.
When I lived among you, I too
Was filled with talk.
The long and short dialogues
Filled
With their little imprecise creatures
Inferior characters,
Manipulable,
Untruthful,
Sometimes out-right deceivers
Now I rely solely on silence
Filled with feeling
Or music filled
With the notes of pictures
“But what is this you write, if not words?”
“It’s a way of reaching you”
Special Words from a Special World
Not uttered from the realm of the present form
Poetic marks, syllables from the soul
God’s messengers from the other side
Sign posts of Mercury
Vestments of angels
Constructed in a more perfect structure
Searching out to you
To pull you in
Into the silent world outside your present heart
And mind closed by sin
Outside of your present reality
Epilogue
Once beyond understanding
Now understood
Without words
In a new sonata form
Transformations
Of opposites
Inversions
Of error
Transmutations into
Silent feeling
Musical song pictures
Containing the structure
Of final LOVE
Within a new sonata form
Rooted in a timeless garden
Of divinity regained
.
uh minute 'go
i found cover'd
Pleasant
'Most
Necessary
'tiz thuh holidayz
and
5a.m. eggz
did i mention
triplets
y
eve'z 'ready percolate'n
dark roast
y
sop'n
buttery
jam'dup
toast
,)>
Cornfield aluminum recycled communion wafers.
We drank Gatorade wine from a stolen lunchbox,
sat Indian style in the irrigation ditch,
reciting Tool lyrics as scripture.
My IPhone had a cracked screen,
Her Android played only static and KORN.
We smoked straw wrappers,
wore hoodies like vestments.
God, in the form of a substitute teacher,
glassy eyed and smoked menthols.
She named a dead bird “Ezekiel.”
Buried it with her wedding ring
underneath the bleachers behind the gym
where someone graffitied “THIS IS NOT A revolution”
the snow didn’t remember our names.
Just a pager in her pocket,
still blinking after the apocalypse
A Beautiful Collection
Artistic. Brilliant colours. Dainty embroidery.
Fragile golden hues in jewelled kaftans.
Light multicoloured needlework on patchwork quilts.
Rich silken tapestries
Unusual vestments with xstitching. Yarmulke & Zucchetto.
Sometimes you have to let
the morning have its way,
set out its wide sunlit spaces
like a tablecloth upon your silence,
speak to you softly in the sound
of leaves, bright with the flush
of spring. There is much to tell,
the stories of its winter dreaming,
waking to a warming sun,
desires erupting in flower
and fruit.
As a child I listened
to the almond trees clack
their naked limbs all winter long
until late august when the first
blossoms broke into the chilly air
with their white whispers
and perfumed breath hushed out
of pink throats. It was my eucharist,
trees donning their green vestments
plump with promises.
I must make space in myself
to receive the sacraments of creation,
have a reverence for what comes
forth to speak a name
in all that is born, lives and dies
and reflects a beauty
to which I can be blind to
in the bloat of myself.
The vestments of Aaron the High Priest stood out
Their striking beauty brought about
heightened expectations from the hushed crowd
as the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies in a cloud
of incense, carrying the names of each tribe on his breast
seeking G-d’s pardon, that His people He bless…
trembling, humble – though dazzling in appearance
Aaron pleaded Israel’s case with iron-willed perseverance
________________________________________________
Above is a stylized description of the entrance of Aaron, the
High Priest, into the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle, on Yom
Kippur, when the Tabernacle was carried from place to place
during the forty years that the Israelites' sojourned in the
Sinai Desert. (3,300 years ago).
I dreamt I was in a church,
I was walking up to the candlelit altar.
There were clergy garbed in vestments,
whether they were Catholic or Episcopal,
I don't recall.
A mourning Mass was about to begin.
I approached an open small mahogany coffin,
an infant lost to abortion was lying in it,
instead of the bassinet it deserved to be
born into.
I placed my hand tenderly on the
lacy-robed babe.
Suddenly, the baby stirred and came to life,
gently cooing as many babies do.
The Life Dream,
sweet omnipresent Christ,
our prayers for unborn and born children.
Your infants of the ages,
of the earth's mother's receiving bosoms.
Our sorrows become our joys,
we saved through Your grace-
more of Your precious ones today. ~
Neither in the cavernous cathedral
nor in the minister’s glittering vestments
But in the anguish of the widow
the outstretched hand of the beggar
The loneliness of the orphan ~ There
you will find it, if that is what you truly seek
Yisro was a pagan high priest; Midian, his home
Hearing news that the Red Sea split, and about Amalek
He turned in his vestments, gave up his place on the throne
Through the hot barren desert did Yisro trek
To hear it all from his son-in-law Moses firsthand…
We can all learn a lesson from this remarkable man
‘Amalek-types’ scoff, “I heard about that; I needn’t move a muscle”
But those with aspirations, off to hear ‘Moses’ they do hustle
_________________________________________________________
This Saturday morning, the Torah portion read publicly in synagogues is
Exodus 18:1 - 20:23, in which the 'Ten Commandments' are given to
Moses and the Israelites.
The spring
arrived in town
with her face washed,
with her flowery vestments
and her a child's heart...
Now in the spring city,
you breathe the country air.
In the city now who's in charge
are the airy butterflies,
visiting all houses
.proposing tenderness...
The birds singing
are heard in the four corners
in enchanted corals
sprouting blissfulness...!
Gone like September
from the wind
Gone like the Robin
from its wing
Gone like a child
from its laughter
Gone like the memory
of Spring
Gone like the Priest
behind his vestments
Gone like the hours
from the day
Gone like the waves
atop the ocean
Gone like the months
that lead to May
Gone are the reasons
from excuses
Gone are the moments
trapped in time
Gone is today
from tomorrow
Gone is the magic
left behind
Gone are the memories
from recollection
Gone the beginnings
from the ends
Gone every joy
from every sorrow
Gone what you broke
—but couldn’t bend
(Dreamsleep: June, 2022)
What grows integral
shows up cooperative,
not competitive,
Like communion
transcends capitalism.
Earth knows cooperative co-investment
expands informed sacred vestments
stretching co-empathic communication
Mother Eartha
verbal WestHemisphere dominant communion
and nonverbal EastHemisphere intuitive
self/other reunions
seeking Me/We bilateral resonance
for 7 regenerations
potentiating full and whole-sum octaves
of green resilience
Growing integral
cooperative
communing networks
of warm-felt
capitally nutritious value.
ideals to inspire soldiers
when 9/11 spewing black clouds meant a
complicated revenge
defeat terrorists, take out bin Laden
remake a country in democratic vestments
golden good intentions that lose their way in
an undertow of violence
the bones of wartime, bullets of combat carnage
Taliban insurgents hide and seek in Pakistan
militants wait to impose their laws
as a regime falls, unhinged by corruption
unwilling to fire a shot
swift capitulation like jaws snapping shut
US departure, flawed
dangles like severed wires
refugees stampede
flee the bondage of remaining
evacuation - a spreading blood stain, chaotic
Afghanistan intervention, no sound preconditions
for success
in an end game that had no ending?
just more of the same?
achievements of 20 years
seep through outstretched hands
like heated wars
storms of desert sand
that fixate on what cannot be changed
Poem composed September 5/21
For Afghanistan Poetry Contest
Sponsor: Kai Michael Neumann
It Comes Without Trumpets
No fanfare, no golden light that we know of.
It comes without a pale horse.
Sometimes silent during the night,
perhaps peaceful but perhaps not.
No one knows the dreams at that time which could presage it,
Leaving behind only silence in the morning forever.
Sometimes in a crowded busy space
surrounded by strangers rushing past,
who then hesitate, starring at the crumpled, inert form.
Or sometimes perhaps alone without any eyes to see.
Or sometimes in a surgical suite
where unexpectedly you recede from time and place
floating as masked people rush
to staunch the flight of life
as the futility timer blinks inexorably,
until everything vanishes, and there is only muted silence.
Or sometimes in the comfort of home
surrounded in your bedroom by children and grandchildren and vestments.
As you embrace, the embrace, of who comes for you.
Surcease from pain, tears of beholders.
There are no trumpets,
No pale horses, no boatmen.
You merely retreat from the book of time,
Lingering, then, only as a memory in others,
Who also share a common destiny.
Written in their own book of time.
David Holmes
April 27 2021
Uniforms
By Franklin Price
(inspired by Joe Price)
06/01/2020
Uniforms, what do you think?
Better yet, what do you see?
We're most often what we're wearing
Life is uniformity
Think about it for a bit
Very few do not comply
These uniforms, from day to day,
Are the ones that catch your eye
Police are the most evident
Prisoners who are in the jail
Guards who work to watch them
The judge who sets their bail
Military who protect us
Ones who put the fires out
Chefs who cook our food at night
Servers running all about
Athletes on the field of play
Refs who make them toe the line
Doctors, nurses, in their scrubs,
Airline pilots looking fine
Priests in all their vestments
Business men in suit and tie
Do you ever wear a uniform?
Did you ever wonder why?
Uniforms define the job
At least, provide a guess
I believe that life without them,
Would be a further mess
Still plenty of confusion
Who's a friend or enemy
You'll find them in the uniforms
Of everyone you see
Have a realistic attitude
Of the uniforms out there
Don't think there's someone, that there's not.
In the uniforms we wear
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