The Gateman
“What did you learn then by her?”, the gateman riddled.
“To live and let live, was one lesson”, I replied.
That love is not always reciprocal.
That doves, and harpies, must fly.”
“What favors did you offer then?”, the gateman queried.
“I thought that love was enough,” I answered.
But, love on Earth is rarely Love Divine.
I gave her departure, hers and mine.”
“And now? What do you know now?”, the gateman quizzed.
“I know that now is all we have.
Here and now is where our memories live.
To truly live and let live, one must forgive.”
“You may pass,” the gateman said, “but keep in mind,
There is another gateman at the other side
of this bridge.”
Land of the Red and Blue
Because I don’t salute and cheer,
Because my brother takes a knee,
Doesn’t mean that I don’t know the score.
The competition is divisive.
The game is rigged, erosive from the core.
We are broken into hostile camps.
Into Divided tribes we fall.
Raise the flag for which it stands.
Not yours, but mine. Not mine but yours.
Long may it wave!
Land of the red and blue,
Home of the sundered brave.
The ruling class fans the fear.
The patriot carries the spear.
As the front exists between us,
The soldier must survive on hardtack,
The surf must eat stale cake,
The slave must serve the master,
And the elite will feast on meat.
If the struggle is not united
On all sides of the wall,
If we are divided by the trenches,
If we heed not the common call,
Then we are doomed to our devices,
Enslaved by the propaganda stream.
If we cannot identify our brother,
If we relinquish to corporate greed,
If we cannot identify the enemy,
Then the revolution of we the people
Will fizzle in the street.
If we carry the battle to each other,
If we are one only in our defeat,
Then the enemy is really us,
And the vultures enjoy the feast.
I Hear the Buddha as He Passes
Listen.
Hear the voice of God.
The thunder of his demands.
Sacrifice.
Sacrifice to him.
The son of Abraham.
The lamb.
I used to hear the call.
I hardly hear the distant drums,
If I hear anything at all.
Listen.
Hear what the Bible says.
The fire and brimstone that it declares.
The sounds of sin and pain.
Prophecies of doom and flame.
And, just out of reach,
The promise of impending peace.
I try to keep the faith.
I barely hear the distant bells,
That toll for our fate.
Listen.
Hear the words of Christ.
“Forgive them for they know not…”
Lord, give us bread and fish to eat.
Teach us Master, how to be.
Hear the hammer hit the nail.
Hear the drops of blood that fill the grail.
I try to remember how to pray.
I can scarcely hear his distant cry.
“Why hast Thou forsaken me…” I think I heard Him say.
Listen.
Hear the sounds of Man.
The incessant noise within his brain.
The register.
The register as it rings.
Make divisions of everything.
Divvy up! Stake your claim!
I used to know the lyrics to a song.
I barely hear the music through the crowds.
The crowded streets of Babylon.
Listen.
Hear the weeping of the Earth.
Eden struggles to survive our pace.
Gold and timber.
Coal and oil.
Each grain of sand has it price.
Each acre of land is worth the fight.
I try to imagine before our birth.
I hardly hear the wind blow through the trees.
The air is thick with filth.
Listen.
Hear my spirit try to rest.
I feel ill from the perpetual test.
Sacrifice and sin.
From dust to dust.
Load that barge boy!
Lift that bail!
I try to recall when I was young.
I scarcely hear the rhythm of my pulse.
Yet, something remains undone.
Listen.
Hear the Buddha as he passes.
The tranquility as his feet touch the grass.
One hand claps.
One carries water.
At rest with God.
At peace with Self.
I wonder if Jesus knew him.
I hear the calm and quiet OM.
Within…within.
Before the Trap
I yearn for someplace peaceful
A place of no attack.
Back to the virtue of children.
Before we were caught in the trap.
Before the embittered Lyssa,
The affected Narcissus,
The ill-tempered Eris.
Before the Algea came down.
Before the odds were stacked.
I yearn for naïve imagination.
Perceptions of amity on Earth.
Before Azazel’s rejection from Above.
I envision no need for a covenant.
I pray for Kindness and Love.
Eden was a Fantasy
One wall…
Another Wall.
A wall within a wall.
A wall of walls.
The great wall.
To keep them out…
To keep us in.
To keep us out…
To keep them in.
One wall ends…
Another wall begins.
One Wall…
Another wall.
As we venture out.
We remain within?
A Little Math
All of my teachers used to profess,
that if you can add, you can divide.
Now that I’m older I must confess,
I never believed they could be right.
Since this attraction has come about,
I’ve seen a few ways I could get out.
Yet, I dream of a thousand more ways
to coincide.
A Fantasy
If you were the Earth,
And I was the sky,
I would touch each mountainous height,
And search every crevice of your body
With simultaneous delight!
Salvation Town
I’ve been searching all night for a point where the light comes down.
I circumnavigate the globe for Salvation Town.
Somewhere the trumpets moan with a distant, eerie sound.
As I try to bury my faults deep within the ground.
There’s a line across the sky where the change occurs.
In my dreams I fly so close that it burns.
“Help me Holy Son,” I summon from within.
Raise me from my incarcerated skin.
There’s a witness in a tent just down the road.
So full of pious venom that he might explode.
His paper wings reveal memos from the gods.
Place your bet into his hat and take the odds.
Murder in the name of God and Christ, Mohammad and Allah too.
Claim the right to rape the Earth beneath your shoes.
Build a fortress around the hole where black blood flows.
Take the path of most resistance to the gold.
I see a mirage across the sands where one grain moves.
A holy choir of angles sings the blues.
An old man with a weary heart turns around and around,
As he searches through the stars for Salvation Town.
Lost One
The lost one seeks a shepherd
To gather it back home.
It did not consciously wander
Into the beyond alone.
The lost one seeks a beacon
To light it’s way ashore.
It did not intend to drift off course
It never had before.
The lost one seeks a signal
To direct it through the night.
It did not choose the darkness
That absorbed it’s lonely sight.
The lost one seeks a commander
To lead it through the war.
It did not want to fight this fight
It was forced into this gore.
The lost one seeks a lover
To suck it’s emotions dry.
It does not want to lie alone
To live a vicarious life.
The lost one seeks a constant star
To navigate it through space.
It did not ask for endless distance
It was born into this place.
The lost one seeks a shepherd
To gather it back home.
It was never intended to wander
The world alone.
Must I Repeat
Your inclination to assume
that all my moves are planned…
an obscure smile,
a slight change in style,
a surreptitious glance,
is indiscreet.
Your accusations of
a secret rendezvous somewhere…
another lover,
undercover,
an incognito affair,
are way off beat.
And, your supposition
that I’ll be waiting there…
upstairs,
downstairs,
anywhere,
is obsolete.
How often must I repeat,
“I’m shooting pool across the street!”
Insensate
You didn’t see the blind.
You are elite.
But, they saw you.
You didn’t hear the deaf.
You are elite.
But, they heard you.
You didn’t speak to the mute.
You are elite.
But they spoke to you.
You didn’t feed the hungry.
You are elite.
But, they fed you.
You didn’t heal the infirm.
You are elite.
But, they healed you.
You didn’t comfort the troubled.
You are elite.
But, they comforted you.
You didn’t learn His name.
You are elite.
But, He recorded yours.
You didn’t open the door when He knocked.
You are elite.
But, He opened His Gate to you.
Jazz Within
All that jazz and laughter is in there.
The blinds are drawn,
But a thin light dances through.
Dim and smoky blue.
It is nearing dawn,
And I’ve been compelled
To listen, and wonder
Nearly All night long.
Doesn’t appear to be a care
In there.
All that concern is out here.
But, I can’t locate the door.
It doesn’t seem to open here.
All that jazz and laughter is in there.
What you do is seen.
What you say is heard.
What you think is known.
Rectitude or deception,
You cannot obscure the Word.
Perception is a thespian
exhilarated by applause.
But, the role you choose to play,
you play alone.
Would that I could explain those vulnerable times
When my foundation sometimes quakes.
The fault line runs long and deep within
and the tectonics occasionally shift and shake.
But I dare not reveal the passageway
To the inner sanctum of my soul
To those that would happily dig my grave
And lower my body into that hole.
Now, don’t misconstrue this as morbid thoughts
Rather as caution among friends.
A seismographic calculation of where the cracks begin.
More Muses
I looked into the sky and cried for help.
There was a vacuous silence there.
The crucified Earth replied,
“How may I help. I am here.”
“It’s trending, it’s trending, oh my, it’s trending
It’s trending, it’s trending, oh my!”
Shouted Alice to the Twitter Tweet.
“Why, oh why does it matter,
Why, it doesn’t matter at all, thats why.”
The Twitter Tweet replied.
“What matters is only what matters,
And what trends is no matter at all!”
Catch that train and go,
Clickety clack, Clickety clack…
Take the Western track.
Don’t look back,
Don’t look around,
Leave Bullshit Town.
Don’t look back,
Catch that train and go.
Clickety clack, Clickety clack…
Come in peace, leave in peace, or don’t come by at all.
Speak in truth, not in chicane, and let the pieces fall.
I Don’t Understand
I understand that I never understood.
I know now that I have never known.
The Lord works in mysterious ways.
There was an angel there to break my fall
Many years ago. That I know.
I have gone on since, step by step.
Stumbling sin by sin. Searching for who I am.
Searching for openings to let the Savior in.
Step by step, day by day,
Two thirds of a century gone.
Onward, on and on
Through the shadow of the night,
Into the light of dawn.
Faith by faith, Hebrews eleven, one.
I know now that I have never known.
I understand that I have not understood.
There is no need to know, of course,
All things revealed in time. Time in vacuous space.
The Mandela starts and stops,
And starts again at the same time and place.
There was an angel there to break my fall.
There is no need to know, of course,
But there is a need for faith.
The Waves Came Ashore
The old Texan looked out on the gulf coast.
A shrimp boat passed by.
He sat on the jetty and kicked sand from his boots.
And thought back on his life.
“I reckon I’ve had my day…”
he was heard to say.
As he tilted back his hat
And faced the sky.
“… I’ve been an honest man, Lord,
But I ain’t been much more.
I’ve walked one step at a time,
But I ain’t done much more.
I’ve loved this life, my wife, animals,
and You, of course.
But I ain’t loved much more.
And I’ve learned a thing or two,
But I ain’t learned much more.
“Now, I need a few years of peace,
Some years of Holy Grace.
Don’t guess I need much more.”
One grain of sand moved
And the waves came ashore.
Stew is Stew
When it all boils down
Stew is stew.
Carrots, potatoes, beefsteak and rue.
All of us. Me and you.
Will there be anyone there when you’re hungry?
Will there be anyone there when you’re running?
Will there be anyone there when you’re hiding?
Will there be anyone there when you’re falling?
Will there be someone there that loves you?
Will there be one? Will there be two?
If there is, what will they do?
If not, what will you do?
When it all boils down,
Stew is stew.
We are what we eat. We are what we do.
All of us. All of me. All of you.
I Believe in the Wind
I have always believed,
and I still do.
But, when I was young I knew.
I’m not so sure now that I do. 
I hear the voices of the choir.
I used to harmonize with them too.
Now, the gravity of my faith
is laden with transpositions in and out of tune.
The profits, the priests, the preachers, the pundits,
they all have their visions of the truth.
So many paths into the woods,
only one path through.
I face into the wind as I so often do
and pray, Lord, what on Earth shall I do?
I have always believed,
and I still do.
To Be or Not to Be
Confidentially,
I am not you
and you are not me.
Now, if it’s all about you
as you tend to be around me,
then what exactly
do you expect me to be?
I mean, I can’t be you.
I have to be me.
Oh, I see,
you want me to change,
you want me to rearrange
my being to be like you,
and you want others to do that too.
Good luck Pal, that’s just not me.
And I know many other folks
would agree with me.
You see…
you’re not someone that
that anyone wants to be.
If the Shoe Fits
It’s your ego that sees your own magnificence.
The more you stop to view yourself
The less you communicate with someone else.
It’s my ego that sees your insignificance.
Dignity and respect
Fades into retrospect.
What can we expect
From an age of get.
Get, get, get.
No regret, just get!
If no one listens, no one hears.
Silence screams.
If no one looks, no one sees.
Cecity shrouds.
From under the rubble it seams
There is no one there in the crowds.
Declaring to my face
That you have my back
Is a mouthful of rhetorical crap.
Claiming to have my six
From twelve, two or eight.
Is a cowardly deduction in your math.
Tomorrow is always a new day.
Rise and shine, and as they say,
It’s the first day of the rest of the rest of your life.
Another day in paradise.
Another day in paradise, so they say.
But, I must ask myself, who are they.
Down on the Farm
Here a meme, there a meme, everywhere a meme, meme.
Here a blah blah, there a blah blah, everywhere a blah blah, blah blah.
Here a yadda yadda, there a yadda yadda, everywhere a yadda yadda ,yadda yadda.
Here a yakety yak, there a yakety yak, everywhere a yakety yak, yakety yak.
Here a prattle, there a prattle, everywhere a prattle, prattle.
Here a drivel, there a drivel, everywhere a drivel, drivel.
Here a piffle, there a piffle, everywhere a piffle, piffle.
Here a hooey, there a hooey, everywhere a hooey, hooey.
Here more blah blah, there more blah blah, everywhere more blah blah, more blah blah.
Here another meme, there another meme, everywhere another meme, another meme.
But, Old McDonald had learned to walk the walk before the talked.
He chose to listen to the memeblahblahyaddayaddayaketyyakprattledrivelpifflehooeymore blahblahanothermeme before he spoke, and quite astutely it seems,
he unplugged, and proceeded to feed his cows, and goats, and chickens, and horses,
and pigs, and sheep, and dogs, and cats, and rabbits, and ducks and geese.
And, as the sun set, he sat on his porch in his rocking chair and listened to the peace.
Blabberjam 