Sunday, June 22, 2014

Salem, Shalom, Salaam



Sunday Morning

A Shiite, Sunni, Palestinian, Israeli.
Lutheran, Orthodox Presbyterian,
Mainstream Methodist, and Quaker
walk into a bar. One of them is
exclusively Right and Righteous.
The others think they are, but they
are not. Will they Just Get Along?

Baptists and Episcopalians join them,
Some Jews and Hindus and Pentecostals,
a couple Mormons show up & one of my
Wicca students:  all following the Drinking
Gourd so to speak, transcendental railroad
—out of Egypt and into the Wilderness—
feeding on manna . studying pillars of fire
& columns of smoke as it were, in manners
of speaking. Promised Land.

Only one has it right. The others: in error.
Pity. They can't just get along.
It's impossible


Sunday Afternoon

For the time being wasting time is 
what time's good for a little while.
Sitting in a lap of green luxury: 
wood pecker, butterflies, blue birds, 
cardinals, cut grass & carpenter bees 
bumping the screen. I hate. No 
reasons why, direct objects or 
subjects needn't apply. Proof positive 
of a gap between circumstance & 
internal affairs.

Smell “the slow smokeless burning
of decay.” If I had hammer & nails
I'd mend the great divide. Fix it. 
Fix it good. Sunday Afternoon time
and again. Sun on the hemlocks and 
dogwood. Sherwood Forest. God
rest ye merry men.


Motorcycles ratchet up Riceville. 
Freedom's the word for nothing left 
to do. Begging bowl in a cupboard 
filled with the poor I am with me 
always. Exquisite.

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