The white-faced owl perched
On the cannon fifty years after
The fierce fighting ceased. The
Wind ruffled the owl’s feathers,
But the owl’s talons held fast,
Digging deeply into the rusted
Neck of the dead cannon.
“Think only to your educators
for your understanding of
yourself.” —- Fifth grade,
dowdy, matronly, female
of my dreams
(Gertrude Stein-ian?)
who made me
concentrate so she
could educate me —
how I feared, thee.
Freshman in college,
short, fat, lisping, stutter-
ing, Shakespearian,
Falstaffian professor
who made me
believe in me.
Senior year,
Hemingway wannabe?
No, just the beard
and love of literature
(who on a beautiful spring day
said to the class, “Go out and play,
er, sit on a stump in the woods
and take it all in.”)
who thought my writing
oh, so mature
for my age.
Who am I to demure
from such affirmation
so pure?
It didn’t
come from me,
but from thee,
all three —
now and forever
with me.
Now!
is the
TIME
for all
good men (sic) [and women]
to come
to the aid
of their
party!
What is good to learn to type
is good for the party,
(cover the keys/cover the bases/cover the basics)
so don't gripe,
snipe,
hype.
Quite the tripe (quit it).
Get your thumbs out of your butts
and do something ---
before we all go nuts....
Fenton Johnson had jumped through
all the ecclesiastical hoops,
did what was necessary to behoove
his anointing to serve those in the pews.
He faithfully served that flock.
But he didn’t evoke
the emotion in the flock,
so the Bishop told
him to give up the flock.
A flim-flam man evoked
all the emotion from the flock,
the church house rocked
and the coffers overflowed
getting the congregation out of hock.
The bishop rejoiced
over the worked-up flock
and all the receipts in stock.
The good Reverend thought
it all an unholy crock.
Was Fenton ever defrocked
or did he just up and quit
muttering
“Such is religion,”?
“And don’t I know it!”
exclaimed the retired minister
with the new vocation
of a fellow, self-published poet.
*idea from (an originally self-published) poem The Minister by Fenton Johnson
He wanted Gouda
For the omelette.
He had Swiss and
Provolone.
But it was really
Gouda.
it’s brief
yes,
but meaningful (?) —
(well)
full, yes —
or empty —
half-full,
half-empty....
the start,
half-pint —
the middle,
a few pints —
the end?
empty--
ing
ng
g
---
His pincers began to feel
heavy, so very heavy he
could hardly hold up his
arms and stiff, so stiff he
could hardly grasp and
clasp all the things, so
he let go. His pincers
turned to hands. He
turned them upward,
open toward the sky
and he looked at all
the lines and wrinkles
and then he lifted them
out of the cold water
and the sun warmed
them and he lifted his
arms as high as they
could go; he stretched
and stretched and let
them fall at his sides.
He breathed deeply
and walked home.
Terminal, she approached
death with the resolve to
live in the Wonder of Love
now and not seek the silly
notion of a safety net for
beyond the grave. She and
her husband held hands as
they yielded patiently, in
holy suffering, to the loving
arms of the Eternal Beloved.
An aura of peace enveloped
them as they beheld —
the hospitable wonder of it all.
*idea from a meditation by
Richard Rohr, April 5, 2019
The poet yearned for
the artificial
over the real —
the deteriorating
actual.
The man thought about
that and while
all things deteriorate
there is something
to appreciate
and celebrate —
life all of its stages
up to the grave
and, yes, beyond
for there memory
is found
and, in forgiveness,
what remains
is that which
is so fond,
so very fond.
While looking up a biography of
a poet, he came across a site
with a reputation score. What?
A reputation score? Is nothing
sacred? This one popped up on
Deborah’s birthday. Happy
birthday, Deborah, 68. She scored
a 3.2 out of five. The good news
is that she is over fifty percent,
has racked up plenty of interactions
by age 68 and so maybe 3.2 isn’t
so bad for all that. The bad news is
that by 68, she still has people who
hold grudges or animosity after all
those years maybe dating back
decades and have still not forgiven
Deborah or perhaps the evaluation
is done by faceless, anonymous
persons using some sort of new
fangled algorithm to size up or take
down Deborah. Maybe the message
comes from God, “Deborah, oh, dear
Deborah, you only scored 3.2 out of 5.
The good news is that it isn’t 3.2 out
of 10. You’ve got little time left
(sorry to spill the beans so to speak),
dear, to clean up your act, so without
airing all your dirty linen, I would
just advise that you start treating
your grandchildren better than you
have treated your children and, I
assume that by your age, you have
stopped cheating on your husband,
oh, and about those fraudulent checks…,
Best wishes.” Holy Cow! Everything,
absolutely everything is quantified,
evaluated and scored in a reputation
number more indelible than one’s high
school IQ test score, which you took
on the day following your mother was
hauled off to jail on a manslaughter
charge for doing in your dad. He got
to thinking about what his score might
be and then he heard the ominous,
gravelly, gurgly call from the depths,
“Sorry, Charley.”
bobdahl 