What if our guardian angels,
our guides to the light,
aren’t as perfect as we hope?
What if they’re merely “good”,
maybe barely adequate,
as winged messengers go?
Perhaps they can get as socked in
by a Blue Norther of Spiritual Woe
as we can. Problem is,
they’re the only angels
we’ve got. It’s not like they can
go to the gym, or get retrained,
or even call out for a temp.
Maybe the angels and I can
pray together for a mighty wind
to blow away these clouds
that beset us.
Miracles do happen.
I’ve been blessed by a few.
And, besides, my angelic friends
went to school with the maître d’
at the Chateau Ciel’s
pearlescent entrance station.
Table for one, please.
Amen…
Always
but especially in times of dark,
encroaching space,
my hope alights and leans
on an enduring faith
in the human spirit
and the myriad illumined pockets
of kindness and enlightened thought.
They are as the stars in a night sky:
escape the density of beamed artifice
and they are constant; visible.
For the heart sees what it looks for
as much as does the mind’s lensed eye.
one loses the ability to sleep with awareness every event and sound is magnified in the late hours of one’s existence it is then when the pulsing of blood through veins can be counted like grains of sand in an emptying hour-glass where each falling grain echos memories that replay the events of our life a life where options were possible and paths were taken to where we are now aware seeing more clearly the lies broken promises and preprogrammed dreams of what life should be but could never be so we lie in our beds in a fetal position just before we die
He was known as an eloquent speaker. Saint Anthony of Padua is the Patron Saint of Padua, of Portugal, and of San Antonio, Texas. Prayer cards manufactured in Italy identify him as the saint of “miracles,” but to most Catholics, he is the Patron Saint associated with the return of lost articles and missing persons.
# look after your people, you may never find them again
Reclining in an empty chair
like a bent-over palm
the young Asian woman leans.
Awaiting the next client,
leg kicking softly
head odd angled, staring
at nothing
and sleeping.
September creeps through
as the customer doorbell rings.
Ladies don’t come. Their nails
flake off the remains of summer’s
hard baked sands
from lake-front properties.
She shifts,
dreaming of a faraway place
where family lives
imagining rice fields tucked far away
where her tiny feet once ran
through a needle-thin pathway.
She becomes disillusioned,
while melancholy mood music
gently rocks her
till her lashes flicker
and close once more.
To be and not to be,
That is the commandment:
To live and dream,
To dream one’s life,
The innocence of original sin
And the sin of innocence,
To love logic for its loveliness,
Its loneliness,
And its lovelessness,
To live forever and to live a day,
To run to and to run away,
To doubt and believe,
To be loyal and betray,
To live while dying,
To accept the question as an answer,
To love but hate that you love
But still to love,
To affirm your contradictions
And yes but perhaps no,
To be and not to be.
If words were what they pointed at
Instead of just pointing at things
And sometimes instead of things,
Then I’d build a castle word by word
And weave a dress for you word by word,
I’d make a mirror and put your reflection in it
Word by word by word.
And the castle would stand on an island
Hidden by palm trees and words
Within words and mountains
Surrounded by a sea of words,
And only my ship of words,
Its sails filled with words like wind,
Could find my island of words.
If stars were stepping stones
From birth until death
And back again,
I’d step across the heartless night
Until I reached the morning.
If clouds were countries
That no army could conquer
Because horses and cannon would fall through,
I’d move there.
If God were a word,
In the beginning was the word He would say,
And if He were real
I’d believe in Him
Because He created my senses
Of things to believe in,
But He’s just a word others say
Instead of the thing He’s supposed to be.
Although there is truth
I will never know it
Or be absolutely sure.
Although the world
And universe above and below
Do in fact exist
I will never perceive or conceive it.
Although all this is true
There is not enough evidence
To make of me a true believer
A skeptic or a cynic
An optimist or pessimist.
According to forensic science
Every criminal leaves a trail
Except for God and His magicians.
All this and less
As we move forward in our time.
Once upon a time forgotten,
Or so they say,
God walked alongside Abraham
On goat paths crisscrossing mountains
When they were still new and green,
When Moriah was not yet named.
But sometime later God took his angels
And his box of miracles to his bosom
Leaving us to our own devices,
Existentialism and science.
Perhaps because our faith was not enough,
Because we understood the letter
And not the spirit,
Because His creation could not create
But only destroy itself,
He left us to ourselves.
We fought our enemies oh so bravely
But, when the enemy was ourselves, capitulated.
Now we live in a moral flatland,
Two-dimensional creatures on a yellowing page
Without height or depth.
We kill because we can,
We hate and hatred makes a home of death.
By the River Jordan,
By the caves of Qumran,
By the hills of Jerusalem,
We lay down and wept for thee, Zion.
He was muttering as if
he was trying to describe
a vision he couldn’t share
with her; with anyone.
It was of something he’d never
seen before this moment;
a moment when she saw a look
on his face that carried away
all her fears; all her tears.
She felt no longer worried,
no longer afraid of the future;
only afraid that she could not
see what he could see;
this apparition, the vision
that transformed his face
to serenity, to happiness,
that even they in all their life
together, had never seen.
Something beautiful that
he could clearly see,
but not she.
Then, she, involuntarily
felt angry, full of rage
a sudden torrent of emotion
filled and puffed her tear-strewn face
As if he’d been unfaithful;
as if he would desert her;
after all these years.
How could he do that!
As if…
…something changed,
not in him, but her;
she felt what he was seeing,
that illuminated his face as if…
…and now she was incredulous.
She could not now believe
what he was thinking, seeing…
could not, would not entertain
the thoughts that entered her;
thoughts she could not fight;
that flowed so unexpectedly
like snow drifts in a storm
a snow filled wind
of blinding light;
of cool refreshing crystals
looking like white flowers;
a sea, an ocean of stocks.
And out of this there grew
the tallest trees of evergreen
protecting all beneath
their heavenly canopy.
As if.
Then he fell very still,
every muscle and sinew let go,
relieved of their exertions.
He’d tried to tell her
all that he could see,
but it was very quiet.
Both had dreamt,
for all their days,
of some idea of heaven
a screen to draw down
over their lifelong view …
This poem, first published in February 2012 in ‘My Poetry Library‘ was prompted firstly by the inspiring photograph above it and secondly by a documentary I watched six years ago, on BBC2 television, called “The Toughest Place to Be“. It was a programme well worth watching, if for no other reason than to remind us of how fortunate we are in the affluent west. If you think, on the one hand, you have some complaint about the effect on your finances of the economic downturn, or, on the other, you’ve got some boxes to tick before you leave this mortal coil – maybe these involve travelling to see a few wonders of the world – as you make your plans, think about these ‘workers’ who are as good as destitute and trapped in poverty, in the kind of stomach churning stench that this environment presents; trapped not only for their own lifetime, but also the future for their children…
Bantar Gebang – Courtesy Mark Tipple
I’ve read about organisations that are working to change things. No doubt the major ones, like UNICEF, who are concerned particularly about the plight of children in these conditions, and like the International Labour Organisation trying to set up schools for the children, who have to live and start working in these places at all too young an age. If there’s anything we can do, at the very least, it is to raise the consciousness of anyone and everyone, who should care about the inhuman effects of economic ‘progress’ and exploitation, particularly in the so-called Third World, which in this case is Indonesia.
Who named you Carolina Oriole?
And where are your clothes?
Why have your legs abandoned you?
Who diapered you in that grey sweatshirt?
And whose semen dissolved the orange
poppies of your blouse?
Where has the gold in your teeth gone?
And where have you misplaced your children?
And the tears caught in your lashes–
you’ve cried for whom?
Who named you Carolina Oriole
and how often have you wanted to fly?
At that hour
the breeze turns around.
The fishermen are coming back
with hands splintery,
without lips,
with eyes of stone.
The bottom is empty
like a bottle at midnight.
The shore is there
where somebody’s waiting.
They’ve sleept for a long time. Dreaming.
With hands locked together.
He, the wind, the last one
an orphan, leads
them…
If souls have a scent
The BeZine 