I cannot control you, brother;
I cannot control you, sister;
Nor would I want.
I can only control my actions
with a little help from heaven,
which resides
inside
a heart
made smart
by Spirit’s love
I feel toward, with, from you,
my brothers,
my sisters,
creation —
all of you.

water rises fast;
animals run to high ground;
cottages can’t rise.

“Above all, the listener should be able to understand the poem…, not be forced to unravel a complicated, self-indulgent puzzle. Offer your art up to the whole world, not just an elite few.”
— Lucinda Williams

The poet showed a certain pertinacity
in order to reach a certain sagacity.
Unfortunately, the poet lacked a certain capacity
and that was a certain perspicuity,
so whether or not the poet had a certain sagacity
was lost in perpetuity.
However, the poet’s lack of a certain perspicuity
indeed was taken for a certain sagacity,
so while the poet perpetrated a certain mendacity
the poetry was hailed for its certain cryptic sagacity
when it really was just gibberish of a certain infinite capacity.

Thunderstorm cracked/roared;
rain beat bullets on tin roof;
Lab begged with her paw.

The neighbor said she was
thrilled getting a copy of the
book. He said that some of
the poems are of a political
nature to which the neigh-
bor said, “Gee, as if we don’t
already know your politics.”
He didn’t remember ever
discussing politics with the
neighbor. Later… “Oh, duh,
the yard posters,” To which
his wife chimed in, “You have
always been so subtle, dear.”

He was told by the profs
of pastoral care (and that
bled over from one dept.
to another because it was

a denominational seminary,
which by nature is all about
training people to serve the
church as pastors so all the

profs get to weigh in) that
we needed to spend at least
twenty-hours a week prepar-
ing Sunday’s sermon. For the

first few years in the parish,
painstakingly he would count
the hours of reading the script-
ures for the week with some

but minimal at best attention
to the original languages and
consulting the commentaries
and writing and condensing

and editing and he got close
but never up to the twenty
mark. Then he thought about
life experiences and added

those and, low and behold,
he was hitting around a hun-
dred in just a few hours. Now
his poetry is running about

the same way. So if asked how
long it takes him to write a
poem, he says, “About a life-
time in a few hours.”

it’s all such a mystery —
     people (were they real
          flesh and blood people

or did we make up these
     flesh and blood people?)
          all around the same time

in history (give or take a
     few hundred years here
          and there) who would

deliver all the essential
     wisdom with which we
          need to live, touching

the longings of our hearts
     — mysterious wisdom
          from the far east, middle 

east and greece for those
     of us in the middle west
          and points north, south

east and west? did we
     do that, have something
          to do with that — put

flesh and blood on
     timeless, wonderful,
          wisdom, so we could

look at it, read it, think
     about it, feel it deep
          within us — affirming

all that was already
     there in the depths of
          the hungry heart of

humanity? might we
     have had something
          to do with that emer-

gence and, if so, we
     should give ourselves
          a little more credit

for those eternal verities,
     questions and mysteries
          and that truly would

be a mystery or was the flesh 
     and blood there and we added 
          the mystery? or did it all 

come down through history as 
     the heart of mystery clothed in 
          flesh and blood touching ours?

Has it always been so easy to
sell your soul to the devil? A
prominent Republican’s book

is entitled Everything Trump
Touches Dies. That having
been said, wouldn’t people

run from that death? But no,
they rush into it for reasons
which escape analysis. So

many could retire with their
pensions and their integrity
intact but no, they sign-on

to ride the death vehicle to
its inevitable end and why,
why, why? What is it they

are going to get out of the
deal besides death? Nobody
seems to know. Don’t they

know they are going to die
in the car crash or on the
sinking Trump Titanic of

corruption? Maybe they just
want to commit suicide. May-
be they just hate themselves

so much that they welcome
death by Trump’s touch. Or
maybe they are just old, white

people thinking there is gold
and other treasures at the end
of the Trump train wreck.

Or maybe they are old, white
cult followers who never got
enough Koolaid as kids.

An elderly man had an
accident in the public
bathroom of the outlet
mall. He didn’t make it
to the toilet. Another
man coming upon the
scene asked if the
elderly man needed any
help. He was told no
and so, he left and looked
for someone who looked
like she might be looking
for an elderly man. He
saw two elderly women
and asked if either was
looking for her husband to
come out of the bathroom.
One replied, “I stopped
looking for a man a long
time ago,” and the other
belly laughed as they
danced off arm in arm.

If in the Trinity, God is re-
vealed as Divine Father and
Mother and Child, then in Christ,
truly there is neither male nor
female as distinct from a hier-
archical perspective, but there
are both male and female in utter,
complete equality and anything
less than that reflected in life
is a sin against the Holy Spirit
and we’d better be careful be-
cause we are told not only that
it isn’t nice to sin against the
Holy Spirit but that that one is
the unpardonable one and as
we scan the horizon of gender
relations, we see that males are
committing that one all the time.
Does that mean that there won’t
be any males in the Eternal
Realm? Ladies, why are you
putting on your dancing shoes?