Pagan Wisdom from the Bible Belt

With voice heavy in the sultry air

Or clear in the cooling crisp

Gods and goddesses speak,

As is their nature,

Through stars, signs, and seasons

Barely heard in the disintegration of a meteorite

Or fall of a leaf,

And so easily eclipsed

By digital billboards.

Our longest day is brief

The shortest briefer.

Live each moment expecting to hear

The voice of an immortal

Lengthening your soul

With at least a brief glimpse of eternity.

By a pagan Christian who cannot deny the existence of other gods and who loves Jesus Christ because he departed unto a mountain to pray (and because he took to his grave the bloody sacrifices).

Prompted by Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Light and Dark.

The Heaviness of Thirteen

Four haiku on the heaviness of thirteen:

Superstitious weight

Convenes Friday with full moon

A witches’ coven

Atomic number

Of most abundant metal

Aluminium

Amendment Thirteen

Abolished the slavery

After civil war

Thirteen is heavy 

Another hole but more glaze

A baker’s dozen

Prompted by Poets United Midweek Motif ~ The Number Thirteen

Hades' Flower

Like meat cured
Packaged and preserved
Labeled 100%
Of what it is not
You are cured
Only there is no cure
Only preservation
Postponing the ultimate
Reservation made by worms
As recorded in Job
One wholly at ease and quiet
And one in the bitterness of his soul
Alike in the dust these lie
And the worms taste both
These states of mind.

 

This forgotten ground

The shape of this mound

Where Hades' flower blooms

A feast for the eyes

A cure for winter's gloom and doom

Despite knowing another banquet

Here was held

Sweet dirt the crumbs

That nourish life

And cynicism.

Prompted by Verse First ~ The Cure at Poets United.

Sunflower

one

sun

a world

united

living cohesion

an expansion of creation

wave of wonder to concretion from a word spoken

patterned paternity in maternal matrix of hanging gardens hinged by spacetime

seen in single spiraling galaxy of sunflower seeded Fibonacci sequence pollinating one honey drone's ancestral tree

Prompted by Verse First ~ Fibonacci Poems at Poets United and for love of numbers.

Now

It comes
One last breath
And does not remember
Birth, the first breath taken,
Or all the breaths in between.
It takes us from breath to breath
Whether we notice or not and teaches us
From cradle to grave there is nothing to learn,
For knowing is neither created nor made it just is
The weft and warp of worlds woven or unwound around bodies.


Prompted by Verse First ~ One Word At A Time at Poets United.

Submission

Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice,
A booming dirge of angelic warning!
To a soul of indecision left to choice,
Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice,
Any direction given is a cause to rejoice.
Freedom of will begins with mourning
Waiting for a god to speak in still small voice
A booming dirge of angelic warning.


Submission, a triolet.
Shared in the Poetry Pantry.

Memories

some are cold and blue
the proteins formed
crystallized points
never forgotten
slept upon over time
an acupressure bed
of stored energy
released recuperatively




Prompted by Verse First ~ Icy at Poets United.

In Whose Image Build We Fences?

If I were homeless,
I would find a big box.

If I had an old car,
I would roll up the window.

If I were a subdivider,
I would fence my yard in privacy.

If I were a rancher,
I would use barbed wire.

If I were an emperor,
I would build of blood and bone a wall.

If I were a god,
I would warp time and space to keep me in and you out.

But if I were One,
I would not want any fences.


Prompted by Verse First at Poets United.

Dreamland

Dream
Realms
Entered
Alone
Myriad
Lands
Are
Now
Discoverable

Dreaming a
Reincarnated
Escape
Again
My
Love
Appears
Now as
Demigod

Dream
Rhymes
Evolve
And
Music
Listens
And
Neither
Despondent


Posted for Poets United Wonder Wednesday #17 Wonder. . .  My eighth wonder of the world would be Dreamland.  You never know what you're going to get with your ticket to go there.

Bent, Blocked, Split, and Broken

Before sun, moon, and stars
Were set in the sky
To be our timekeepers,
There was light.
This is the first light
The spirits of trees reflected.

Shadows on a sundial
Spell time.
Time is the absence of first light;
The empty shadow is death.

In a 3,000 year old forest
First light reflected here
Penetrates the temporal body
And the aura of a soul is cast,
A spectral refraction
Of one imprismed
Outside the garden guarded
By the flaming sword
That keeps the way
Of the tree of life.

The forest destructed,
Is a reflection of inhumanity,
But there will always be a forest,
Somewhere.

Reflect on that
While peering on inverted worlds
Reflected on the surfaces of water.
Water,
The first face
The spirit of God moved upon.

Ask
If created in the image of our gods
Would we destroy any forest?
Pollute any water?

Or don't ask.
The tree of knowledge is our downfall.

Under a forest
Or under water
Questions cease
And we can be
Outside of time
Our own godly reflections
Of worm meat and body dust
In drops of dew
Bending back blades
Of bitter herbs and grasses
And let the stars we are made from
Shine of their own accord.

New Year's Day Miracle

Arriving to work in my mud-splattered truck,
Crossing into the sterile field of sanitized concrete,
I feel like something the cat dragged in,
Until I see the doctor chewing gum
With his hair sticking up uncombed;
And by the time the kitchen serves up
Black-eyed peas for luck,
I know the day is growing better
Despite the illness spreading everywhere;
And when the patient with dementia
Smiles and says my name,
I believe this could be a year of little miracles.

Posted for Poets United Wonder Wednesday #15 Chicken Soup for the Soul.  Just remembering someone's name is a kindness.

Paltry Words

Sometimes when I read another's words

I have my words knocked out of me

And taken to this higher plane

The breath of God rushes in

And I no longer need 

My paltry words to sustain me.

How can I,

A humbled poet,

Open my mouth after this?

So that when I die, I might be carried 

On at least one worthy word of mine

That might pass the lips of God

And on His breath 

For an eternity rest.

Simple Faith

Via Wonder Wednesday #14
For Poets United poets
I give this gift:
The Poet's Simple Faith,
by Victor Hugo.

          You say, "Where goest thou?"  I cannot tell,
          And still go on.  If but the way be straight,
          It cannot go amiss! before me lies
          Dawn and the Day; the Night behind me; that
          Suffices me; I break the bounds; I see,
          And nothing more; believe, and nothing less.
          My future is not one of my concerns.

          Translated by Prof. E. Dowden

View from the Top of a Postcard

Posted for Poets United Wonder Wednesday #13 Postcards:

HALF DOME is the ANSWER

Start early

For you have several steps

Some treacherous

To take.

Bow down

On awestruck knees

Feel the mist

On your face.

Climb

And keep climbing

Steep

Then steeper.

On the steps 

Of vertigo

Don't be fooled

Into turning back.

Turn back when

Rock is wet

Lightning is striking

Or handholds not installed.

Grab hold 

Of steel cables

Lean back a little

And haul yourself up.

Walk the top

Crawl to the edge

And reel into

Gravity.

Look down

The northwest face

See climbers

Suspended.

Retreat to middle ground

Meet world hikers

From Israel, France, Romania, Australia.

They all speak English.

Try

To not share your lunch

With begging

Marmots.

Scrooged

How many will hang themselves with tinsel
This caroling cacophonous December?
Not me!  I will not set foot in their malls
To offer my neck to the creditor's noose.
And even if I had paper money
I'd burn it in the fire before buying baubles,
Because I have tried to warm myself
With this Christmas candle
But not being of strong imagination
I have failed.
I am a scrooge, with nothing to give.
My children will go hungry
Without their school lunches.
My mother will reminisce on golden years
When her country and its children were strong.
I only will be blessed
To get to go to work that day
And not to see their want.

The resilience of my family flies
With the reindeer.
He will carve wooden spoons and walking sticks.
She will sew scraps into imaginative uses.
Mother will cook a Christmas dinner
I know not how, but it will be there.
It will be after dark
When I step inside my Christmas snow globe,
But in that theater I find the way to thrive.
So with the vision of this future in my mind,
I'll find a way to provide.

Bridge, RN

Clock In
          Lower the drawbridge
          Bring it on, I am ready
          My hands are steady.

Dehydrated Patient
          Suspended saline
          Catheter into his vein
          Bridge to bring him back.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
          Fighting on the bridge,
          He threw a Lego grenade
          At the CNA.

Cancel the Code
          For it is ordered
          Do not resuscitate him.
          Let him cross the bridge.

Break Time
          What about a break?
          You're kidding.  Not in this place.
          Not here to play bridge.

Performance Evaluation
          Nurse who eats her own
          Sabotaging healing place
          Go jump off a bridge.

Teamwork
          All of us working
          With respect for each other -
          That's building bridges.

Clock Out
          I do love my job,
          But still the best bridge of all
          Is on the drive home.

Tegan

The greatest gift I ever gave
Keeps on giving.
It was made from my heart
And my womb.
The gift is you.
A selfish gift
Given to myself
Wrapped in a
Newborn's blanket.

The gift I gave
That winter day
Is growing!
And not just a mother
Basks in your worth.
Stray dogs and puppies
Follow you.
And your oft too gloomy
Dungeon master
Brother laughs
Because you tame the cave bear
In the blueberry patch
To rip his monsters to shreds!

Teachers admire you
And tease
When you earn less than 100%.
Old folks remember
How to smile
When you play your fiddle.
Coach has praised
Your hustle.

Tegan,
Beautiful philosopher,
My greatest gift of all
Shared.

Fractal Geometry

Look at fractals' forever
Deep edges delving
Into layer upon layer and see
Nature shrink to infinity
And give birth to a star.
Then with the speed of light
You must return to the other side of your brain, but you
Will not remember anything unless you
Understand that love holds all secrets of the universe.
Everything creeping, crawling, swimming, walking, flying, climbing,
                                                                        falling,
                  seeding,
                  rooting,
                  reaching, searching,
                  thirsting, hungry,
                  grinding,
                  growing,
                  collecting sediment is so much

Better than a new t. v. and a
     Baby Einstein video.

In Whom Do We Trust?

Poets United asked what do you think of when you hear the word:  WICKED.

In Whom Do We Trust?

The root of all evil is

Wicked.

And you know you

Want it.

So does everyone else.

That's the problem.

Evil spelled backwards is

L-I-V-E.

You can't live with it or without it.

You don't have to be Solomon

To solve this riddle,

But if you were you'd have lots of it.

Even God wants 10% off the top.

But does he listen to your 2 cents worth

When that's all you have left?