Tanka Prose
Immanence
Bare-headed under the storms of God,
Grasping with our own hand
The Father's beam itself…
~Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin
Kneeling at the
bottom step save one of the altar in our church, waiting to
jiggle the three bells attached to their silver handle,
waiting for the priest to hold imaginary Jesus up in the
air. Expectant, as always, caught between credibility and
doubt, between the words we had totally to accept and the
testimony of my senses.
the
traces down
inwardly, as if the sky
could back away
following my eye, went where
I looked as far I looked
an act of will
not something poured like water
I could do it
or not make my mind and heart
to dive into curling smoke
child’s paradox
unconsecrated bread
white paper coins
we stuffed them in our pockets
to eat on the long walk home
Pie in the
Sky
may
came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.
For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea
~e.e. cummings
A social
scientist was speaking from the back of a pickup truck to a
small gathering of the curious. “Who really needs anybody?”
he roared. “Anybody here need anybody?” The crowd of
complete strangers were nervously turning and looking at
each other. Nobody said anything; finally, they just walked
away, each in a separate direction. The social scientist
turned to a man carrying a sign that read, “Unite!” “See?”
the social scientist said. “They like being on their own.”
my
heart’s a brick
I swallowed when alone
no one asked me
where I was going to sleep
what I was going to eat
the air like steel
between us, a prison wall
out in the street
my eyes turn from other eyes
those searching, marbly eyes
where's the doctor
could prescribe some medicine
to help this sickness
my brain’s detached, my body
isn’t right, not really mine
Two of the
audience who were wandering away, just two—a soldier on
crutches and a pregnant teen—wait for the same city bus.
Each totally alone, they wait. What if one could speak,
would speak? “Are you lonely?” she might ask. “Was your war
terrible?” And he could say, “Not so bad, now. But I could
use a friend.” And they would be talking as the bus arrives.
one at a
time
we don’t need a grand scheme
where you line up
and fill out forms, checking
the box labeled, “lonely”
the barrier
is the skin, not knowing
another one
and not wanting to know
what is it goes on in there
talk’s the threaded
knots the oddest couples
just binary
begin with, a mitosis
grows an organism
Simpler
Times
They say
miracles are past; and we have our
philosophical persons, to make modern and familiar,
things supernatural and causeless.
~Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well, II iii
This is an old
story, of course; I first heard it in school. An explorer
meets a tribal leader deep in the forest somewhere, a first
contact, and as they get to know each other, the native
chief grows interested in the explorer’s compass. After
examining it, and seeing the needle move on its own as the
compass was turned this way and that, he declares it
inhabited by a god.
what
could you know
that wasn’t simply told you
by someone else—
the smell of the damp woods
what about loneliness?
better olden
times, complexities resolved
more easily
early deaths always well deserved
holy matrimony lasted
at Catholic school
we learned Protestants would go
to hell because
they’d heard about confession
but stubbornly refused
