do i pray
on this day
or the next?

and

if i do pray
what,
what shall
i say
accept
when
will you
take this
dragon dark,
and
lean in
to slay?

personal
is my
need
for
St. George

America sits alone and waits to be discovered,
silent with no invitations sent abroad
excepting hope sent in silent airmail envelopes
at night when no one can see

America sings alone wanting an audience
to come and dance to the tunes that drift through the fog,
crossing seas for eyes that do not come;
not a Celt, not a Viking, not a European or African or Asian;
the world hides in homes made of far-away
while America wonders why the loneliness won’t go

in this beautiful suspension

of water blended in the air

where rain is only a promise

all is perfect and in balance

beneath a quiet stillness

what is this poet without a world
who spins madness in a vacuum
like a painter spitting paint into the sea
waiting for the waves to bring beauty
instead of watching it wash it all away?

he is Bukowski in a drunken rage
living full and warm in a palace in the sky –
no one and nothing to beat bloody
but the latest satin pillow beneath his head;
he is Jeremiah exchanging tirades for tears,
the empty revolution of a rebel without a cause,
just a bystander bent in paralysis
screaming in an empty room

for that one bright spark
that hovers in this dark,
the phosphor star inside
that flares in odd moments,
that holds the great flood at bay –
my heart, my soul, my life
for that one bright spark
that rises in the oddest moments,
of wrestling with son,
or embracing my great love;
in laughing with daughter
and of seeing the day
in a strange new way
let me give
my voice, my god, my words,
for that one bright spark

in the distance
we are but dark motes
in one-another’s eyes;
small sunspots
expected to revolve
out of view…
surely nothing to worry about

during the eclipse
i forget
that the moon is there
and am lost
in the absence of silver
mourning myself now gone
and fearing my return

relentless am i that keeps coming on
as a rapid, as a river, as constant pressure;
moving, moving, moving,
always pressing … f o r w a r d
pushing, pushing, pushing,
till every good stone,
every great supporting rock that stands,
is worn down, worn away, to rubble;
to little pieces sent tumbling in my current
spinning to some sand filled estuary…
a buried landmark of broken bits
that i carved myself in the insanity of me

lost, and lost again upon the sea
from having wondered to often
where o’ where and what has happened to me
that i would have fallen too fast for this,
this average mortal eye to see

now adrift between peak and valley
lifted away from death to struggle toward the lee
only to fall back again to more shadowed, quiet places
sheltered amidst the dull and raging ever-present roar
yet still alive in a way that expresses some twisted infinity
as if i can breathe beneath the sapphire waves,
as if i can believe until that blessed sleep overtakes
and lets me drift in a dance like a leaf to the ocean floor

The ultimate failure of human judgement is that it must be dispensed from a vantage point – and in the instance of people that vantage is inescapably our own.

All judgement is based upon some sense of what is right and what is wrong. Further to this judgement has its own inertia that demands some sense of justice in response to its being exercised.

It is for these reasons and many others that we are terribly inadequate at exercising judgement and, thankfully, we are incredibly obedient and leave judgement to the powers that can and should handle it (sarcasm alert).

Unfortunately, being the small gods that we are we often fail to recognize that there are some things we should not do.

As has been said, judgement requires a vantage point from which to be exercised. The trouble is that the vantage required is one from which all points can be seen…more to the trouble is the fact that when we exercise judgement we do so from the same plane…from the same height as everyone we judge…and it never works – ever.

Really what we are supposed to do is look to one-another with the recognition that, while we all stand in different places not a one is standing higher or lower than the other. With this awareness comes, not judgement, but solidarity, compassion and grace.

From where we stand…that is our role.