POEM ABOUT GOD AND DROWNING

POEM ABOUT ALL OF HUMANITY AND EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL AT ONCE

It's said that God provides
but then how do you explain
drowning

I hear the battle hymn of the Christian faithful
in the moments before the explosion
of that doomed flight over New York
the one where the body parts of Latin travelers
landed in the back yards of their loved ones
or the harbor

Maybe you can draw some parallel to Job
but Job woke from his nightmare, tested
and I know some never rise
They land in Chernobyl, Auschwitz, ovens

The Hebrews debate the old word, Timshel
Thou shalt triumph over sin (predestination; some of us are effed)
Do thou triumph over sin (obedience; go flog yourself)
Though mayest triumph (hope)

I believe in God, I'll stick with hope
knowing, as I do, that sometimes
it just don't float.

-- END --

Tiny parents

Can't sleep. I was, er, in the bathroom and a few simple lines came to me. I made some tea, munched some food, and came upstairs. Now I'm trying to recall them, and it's not coming out anywhere as crisp and clean. Here's my best effort at remembering:

Tiny parents, OR: At 32, 64, and 67, respectively

When did my parents become so
small, I don't remember this of them. They are as short now
as they were once endless.

My nephew, who is 3, kisses the white t-shirt holding my father's belly
and says, "Big tummy." I remember holding him there,
and wondering if he were Santa Claus.

Some eternal magic, a happy mystery,
this great love that does not end.
I was too young to understand
that they do.

Poem

I wrote a poem!

Worked late tonight, went to an Uptown Latin bar, and wrote my little heart out. Don't know why I was thinking of this picture, but it won a Pulitzer in 93 or 94. Then the photog killed himself. I saw a documentary piece on it. So sad.

Sudan, Child crawling toward refugee camp

(For Kevin Carter, Bang Bang Club photographer, September 13, 1960 in Johannesburg – July 27, 1994; suicide)


You failed
to see through false modesties
your arrogant talents tossing you between darkness and light, and into
Africa; where blood-thirst and slaked limbs
ran down the lens of your Nikon, fields of the dead and the dying
mining celestial deserts; and always, always, your Nikon

clicking clicking clicking

Gunmen across the avenue, gunmen at your side as
bullets traced the epilogue of reporters, translators, soldiers, heroes, killers
children; beloved friends, and everywhere, the unnamed everymen, not even yet,
if ever, footnotes in history

Gunmen at the foot and head of your bed as you
slept, gunmen in the jeep next to you
as your zoom settled on the far-off child, the bastard doll
bloated with death, but not dead, a feast for the bird
biding its time, history calling you three together

clicking clicking clicking

You were hated
in your Europe. Comfortable young mothers and fat old sons
feted and condemend you; an orgy of nothing
in the soft brittleness of cultural criticism and afternoon teas

As if the one lives could have meaning in the maw of death,
the canvas of suffering,
the particular above the general.
As if they did not.

how could they know
oh how could they know

of the fields of limbs; the ecstasy and empty suddenness of endings
the void of holy in the heart of the holy

clicking clicking clicking

your gun found your mouth
and by your own hand,

your own hand made history

-- END --