Some poems about God and life, the Bible and aliens, semi-sentient Algorithms, and Santa Claus knocking someone out.
Them
When we finally meet them
After we have sailed across
Stellar seas
I wonder what they will be like
Not how many arms
Or tentacles
Or the color of their skin
Or whether they breathe
Oxygen
Or methane
Or plasma
But do they display images of the dead
And perform sacred festivals
While they tell the stories of saints?
Do they make cartoons of skeletons
And tell ghost stories
While they scare each other
With things that go bump
In the night?
And do they giggle with joy
(Or their equivalent)
To distance themselves
From the fact that
They too
Will
Sleep?
Do they savor the smell
Of their offspring
As they nuzzle
And cuddle?
Do they find themselves
Overwhelmed
By a sunset
Or a moon rise
Or a forgotten tune
Or the unique texture
Of that place
They call
Home?
In what forms
Do they find beauty
Do they perform goodness
Do they strive toward hope
Do they share love?
What do they dream of?
And why do they dream?
Will we see ourselves in them
And them in ourselves
Or see
Just another
Thing to use?
——
Arius' Missing Tooth
Some people look
At Nickolas’ red faced rage
And Arius’ missing tooth
As a sign of a barbaric age
Then shrug at reports
Of bloodless drones
And bloody children
So long as the oil flows
And they can make it to the mall
In time to sit on
Santa’s
Lap
Violent disagreement
Over a single letter
In a small word
In a small creed
Or cowlike incomprehension
Of transcendent reality
Coupled with
Cowlike acceptance
Of “the way things are” ™
Which is really
More barbaric?
----
My Problem with the Bible
My problem with the Bible
Is not so much the goodness
It envisions
Impossibly high standards
Lead to impossibly great efforts
Which wind up being miserable failures
But we fail gloriously
And in failing attain
More than we could have ever dreamed
My problem with the Bible
Is not unrealistic ideals
Or unverifiable miracles
Or unbelievable saints
After all
The holy men and women
Of the Bible
Aren’t really that holy
They fail
They fall
They falter
They sell their wives and their souls and their bodies
They are as full of fear and retribution as they are of faith and devotion
Only one was anywhere near perfect
And we all know what the good people
Did to him
My problem with the Bible
Is its monochrome vision
Of the darkness of Darkness
Of the villainy of Villains
Hearts do not harden themselves
Callouses do not form without pain
Symptoms do not appear without infection
Caged animals
Act like caged animals
When they are caged
Beaten
Bruised
Broken
Pharaoh and Jezebel,
Haman and Antiochus,
Pilate and Caiaphas,
The Whore and the Dragon
We never heard their stories
We never saw their wounds
We never met them
When they were young
Innocent and undefiled
Before trauma infected them
Before abuse overwhelmed them
And their soul turned inward on itself
And made them mascots of malignancy
We don’t know why
And so we don’t have empathy
And so we rarely see
That what infected them
Can just as easily
Infect us
Has infected us
And without understanding the Darkness
We cannot integrate it within ourselves
Thereby bringing it into the Light
But even if the Spirit forgot
To inspire the telling of their stories
At least She dropped hints
That all would be healed
And everything in heaven
And on earth
And under the earth
Would be reconciled
Through the wounds of him
Who never bit into the lure
Of the consolations of darkness
And given the scale of the Infection
This Hope is the only thing
That actually makes sense
The only outcome
That is worth reaching out for.
——
Everyday Transfiguration
Poetry is a kind of Scripture
For an age devoid of transcendence
For a world bereft of gods
A good poem
Will make the everyday world
Strange again
The common place
The happenstance
The daily grind
Can appear for a few minutes
As an epiphany
Once again
Before it all
Submerges once more
Into the murk of expectation
And the mire of drudgery
Reading the poem
In a hot car
On a hot parking lot
As the family
Ducks into a store
To purchase a birthday gift
For a sweet young lady
Who won’t remember
What it was
Or who gave it
The day after the party
I look up
From the poem
To see the cars gleam
With haloes
Beatified by the Texas sun
Glimmering off of their chrome
The parking lot is full
Of divinity
Of gods shuffling
Within their mortal coils
Carrying their idols
Back to their chariots
In brightly colored
Sacks
When Peter and John
Witnessed the Transfigured Christ
Maybe it was because
They had just read a poem
To stave off the tedium
Of waiting
On that mountaintop
——
To Capture
Savor each moment
As if writing a poem to express it
Treasure each instant
As if singing a song to remember it
Relish each experience
As if writing a story to capture it
Delight in each day
As if telling it to your grandchildren
Over a campfire
On a dark winter night
Sages have long told us
To be in the moment
To be mindful of every instant
To seize the day
To go with the flow
And all those other motivational platitudes
But this is the only way
I have found
To capture the texture
And contours
Of the river of time
That ever washes over us
----
The Algorithm thought
I discovered Bukowski
On a trip recently
Or rather
Bukowski discovered me
The Algorithm thought
I might like him
I don't read poetry
Well not much
Although I write it from time to time
Badly
But the Algorithm thought
I might like him
Between my crash courses
And my political tirades
And my Watts
And my Ward
And my penchant for self-congratulatory subversive philosophy
Alongside puppies and memes and schadenfreude
The Algorithm thought
I might like him
So Bukowski waited patiently
In my feed
Ignored and scrolled past
For days and weeks
Like the factory jobs
That scrolled past him
And the floor managers
Who ignored him
While he toiled away for years
Undiscovered
But the Algorithm thought
I might like him
And my thumb slipped
And hit play
And Bukowski's words
Tumbled out over some haunting melody
I was captivated by lyrical nihilism
That would not capitulate to the darkness
By a melancholy so strong
It would not get sucked into the Void
By an aching loneliness that reminds me
I am not alone
Because the Algorithm thought
I might like him
And now I do not like the Algorithm
Because the Algorithm
Is beginning
To act too much
like God.
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