Once, years ago, I attended a Southern Baptist preaching festival at a First Baptist Church in a midsized, mid-state Kentucky town. I was invited by a Southern Baptist preacher friend.

Listening to the sermons, I realized the preachers tried to outdo each other with outrageous, personal experiences and name dropping (When Billy Graham and I prayed down the cannibals in the rainforest and they dropped their spears and we all had tears….), thus attempting to lift themselves to preeminence within the group, I later learned but with a divine purpose in mind.

I noticed that the attendees loved it and roared their approval. The bigger the whopper, the bigger the cheer.

Having been raised in the somber, sober environs of the Dutch Reformed Church, I was outraged by the bald-faced lies, especially being shouted out from the hallowed elevation of “The Pulpit.”

Undies scrunching by the second, I told my friend that the preachers were lying through their teeth. He turned to me and said, in his best southern drawl, “Embellishin’. It’s a fine art and time-honored tradition, which must be cultivated and honed over the years.

“You simply have to attend one of our annual denominational schools of evangelism to learn how to do it right. There you are blessed with the best.

“We all know what’s goin’ on. It’s just for fun. It’s our way of sayin’ don’t take me too seriously; just make sure you take Jesus seriously.

“And we do get serious when the lights go down and preacher calls all to bow their heads and close their eyes, lift their hands while no one is watching, (although you know there are always a few who sneak a peek) if they want to accept Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and be assured of going to heaven this day instead of hell if they happened to leave this place and were struck down by a car at the intersection of Main Street and First Avenue, right out the front door of the church right after the service on their way home to a wonderful fried chicken dinner.

“It surely could happen the preacher would say. Then the preacher would ask those who had come under conviction to walk that sawdust trail to the kneeling bench as the soloist sings, Just As I Am verse by verse for however long it takes for those souls to be saved.

“If it took just one of those Embellishments to get that kid saved, that little lie is a twinkle in Jesus’ eye and that’s one more Lamb of God that the Devil missed.”

Honestly, I had no idea what to say, but it was kinda’ impressive, I thought in my best, newly acquired southern drawl.

When your mother dies,
wouldn’t it be blissfully wise
for St. Peter to make her fate
to have my mother as a roommate?
Thus proving two covenant kids
could have their cake
and eat it, too,
by having hell in heaven
to live eternity through?
Some might then say,
it is God’s way
of solving the theodicy
questions of evil and good,
justice and
grace
by putting those two
in the same place.

The man says, that is
the one who is the poet,
to leave all the dreamy,
sweet talking, romantic,
smell the flowers and
moon dust out of
your poetry and get into
real life where everything
counts and the more exposure
you can give to the vital,
earthy substance of life
then the more successful
your poems will be.

It is okay to use garbage,
sweat, and off-color words as
long as you express yourself
forcefully and don’t take
a lot of time getting to
the point you are trying to make.
If you don’t like that approach,
who cares because no one
is going to be reading them anyway.

The flowery stuff, rose petals and
morning dew just don’t cut it.
People are looking for the skinny,
the latest gossip and the truth of
how we all wear underwear and
it stinks at the end of the day,
unless all you do is sit around
watching TV and eating bonbons and
then just the bathrobe smells.

I keep listening, but I have this
lust for life that includes
rainbows, sunrise and sunsets.
What is wrong with talk
about the moon and tides;
mountains and the arduous climb?

I like to listen to the birds singing,
woods moaning as the wind
sweeps through. That is life, too.
Streams pouring into the lake
present a wonderful visual.
The morning sun highlighting
a single yellow flower in
the dunes is breathtaking.

So what does this guy know?
Sure, he has three or four
books of poetry published,
but that doesn’t mean anything,
does it?

Stanislaus Kuperski the Firski
February 15, 2015 ^

A young executive innocently
dropped what would
become a
toxic tweet.
She may be
callow and shallow
(Who isn’t at thirty?), but
she hasn’t heard
the end of it; shaming —
on and on
it goes, when and
where it stops
only
eternity knows.
He sat and thought about
her and what she has
suffered and she
didn’t even mean
how it read,
as if that should
even make
a difference.
When it meant something
to stand up to evil, when
Adolph dropped toxic
everything,
where were the voices?
Now, the self-declared
defenders of whatever
hide behind
tweets and
hash tags
and destroy as
mercilessly
as the secret service
did with their toxic
tweet — a
deadly knock
on the door.
And the dripping
hash tag
Blood of the Lamb
wasn’t enough
for the angel
of death
to pass
over.

There was snow on the ground the day he was found
The sun shining bright, I in rare Martha energy abound
Used all my strength, perfect housewife synergy
Two o’clock: deliver clean laundry: begin quandary

Signs throughout the house had been solved before,
But when I opened a door, saw him curled on the floor
Knew I wrongly suspected a call-out emergency as I slept:
His life had ended before I logically processed it or wept:

He lay on the floor, no pulses in three places tested,
No breath misted a mirror held to his mouth: he seemed rested.
I called 911, the dispatcher’s reply left me ajar:
“Did you do CPR?” Why? His life was no more, spirit gone afar.

I related actions I cited above in a steady voice about my 35-year love.
His cat walked the length of him, never returned to the room again
“Your call is on all screens” I heard, then wanted to scream at
“I’m sending double–he’s one of our own”, our life ended with that.

EMTs arrived who confirmed death within five minutes of my call
An officer made me sit lest I fall, he was, I knew, their stalwart natural.
I called his doctor, further protocol unknown
Then began my hours on the telephone.

The doctor’s wife–my doc, longtime friend–said I would stay in shock,
Advised a dose of medicine so my brain would not downlock.
Commiserated about this loss, sudden end.
Dear Norma dismissed her guest, came to warm me, icy feet to tend.

Beth came to match needs to calls, endlessly wrote
While perched at the telephone, she flipped through her notes
I’d made the bad-news calls: to my daughter and son’s boss
To privately tell him in person–no mom-phoning this great loss

Of their closeness, now over. Son notified my “steps”
I called our church, or did Beth from her perch?
A minister came, I think, then undertakers–while his shell
Weighted a too-wide cart, through twisty halls, final ride–death ‘s knell

Seems like film stills six years later, played myriad times since it passed
Now he, my home, my family have changed, yet sorrow of that day lasts
His husk remains. Of all who loved him, I alone saw, felt, saw him dead,
My beshert–greatest love–my all-in-all–lives in memories, hearts, heads.

By Vicki Hill, 01/16/2014

The poet of resounding renown stated
for the record with the air of redundantly
absolute certainty that poetry had to be
written with pen and paper the alterna-
tive going without mention as if it were
too lowly to cross the lips of the poet of
resounding renown — that being, shhhh,
a word processor and apparently not just
for the poet of resounding renown but as
a blanket requirement for all poets desir-
ing to write poetry and even be poets. Is
it like swimmers needing water to be swim-
mers and pilots needing air to be airplane
pilots? Poets need pen and paper to be poets?
My wife just saw me writing this on a really
small pad of paper. Out of loving concern
(Is it because it’s Valentine’s Day which
begs the question: Does she need Valent-
ine’s Day to show loving concern or is it
just a nice nudger?), she asked me if I want-
ed the larger pad that I usually use to write
poetry. She was offering to get it and save
me the trouble because presently I have a
bum knee. I told her I was trying to write
shorter poems and thought the smaller pad
would help. Well, you can see that strategy
didn’t work. Conclusion (not of the poem):
the size of the pad of paper isn’t what’s im-
portant. It is the existence of the essence of
pad-ness of paper that is necessary to being a
poet, much like water for swimmers and air
for flyers. Except, now I have to transfer this
to a computer where I will most certainly make
changes to the writing. Can a poet do that or
will some essence of poet-ness be lost (I just
wrote that on the computer and not on the pad
of paper.) Anyhow, I have my own list of the
basic elements needed to write poetry and even
more importantly, be a poet. There are eight
including the poet of resounding renown’s two
and the usual four that inspired poets, philo-
sophers and alchemists alike:

1. Air — I breathe it.
2. Water — I drink it.
3. Earth — I sit on it, several layers of
stuff removed.
4. Fire — I’m inspired to do it, like
“Fire in the belly.” Hey, metaphors
are good.
5. Pen — I write with it.
6. Paper — I write on it.
7. Computer — I type on it.
8. Spellcheck — Okay, I know; I often hyphenate
incorrectly to keep a line length
(Isn’t that poetic license?). How-
ever, the question remains, can a poet
be a poet without it? Some would say
it’s like water to the swimmer and air
to the pilot. Similes are good, too.

She sat upon a folding chair that night
having thought she might not go at all,
but something in her stirred her spirit right
especially for the man who heard the call
to leave the lonely house devoid of love
in search of comfort and solace so serene.
He looked around and spied a heavenly dove
sitting with tears which down her cheek did stream.
The host for the evening said look around the room
and find someone with whom to share a meal.
And so, he ventured to ask her out so soon
hoping for the best that she might feel.
Now nineteen years of holy, wedded bliss,
he thanks the Spirit for the meeting he didn’t miss.

Nothing like a friend.
The kind, I mean,
That embraces the years.

Lots of years, for the long haul.
Stretching back to another world
When we were young.

Enduring.
Some clashes and getting pissed off.
Finding and refining.

After all, we’re friends.
Embracing years.
For the long haul.

Listened to nearly a month’s
Worth of The Writer’s Almanac​.
On this morning’s walk.

Like taking a long hot shower
After a hard day.

Or a cool shower
After a hot day.

Or at least, a glass
Of early evening SoCo.

The man stepped on a needled,
creeping vine in the desert. It
got under one toenail and entered
his bloodstream and worked its
way up past the ankle, knee, hip
around the lower and upper intest-
ines, encircling the duodenum,
moving along the stomach wall,
spinning around the lungs causing
a cough or two, but nothing serious,
and then on up into the throat
causing some extra swallowing,
but again nothing serious, twisting
around the spinal cord, causing some
temporary numbness but nothing
serious, and going into the brain
shooting through the limbic region
causing the man to become irritated,
angry, restive and speak uncharacter-
istically harshly to the dog who
rested by the man’s feet but who got
up and retreated into the bedroom. It
then headed directly to the cerebral
cortex, upon which the man started
spelling words that would have
won him first place in every eighth
grade spelling contest. The barbed
vine wrapped around his eyeballs
causing the man to cross his eyes
so that he looked like Jerry Lewis
mugging in a Dean Martin/Jerry
Lewis movie. Finally, the vine pop-
ped through his skull and did a really
nice comb over so that when the
man looked at himself in the mirror
he thought of the kid who nearly
won every eighth grade spelling con-
test except that his hair was green
instead of blond turned brown turn-
ed gray turned white. He wondered
about some of the supplements he
had been taking, the ones tested in
several stores and found to be devoid
of what they were supposed to be.
He then considered for a moment
how to spell “uncharacteristically,”
“restive” and “devoid,” which would
have been pretty good words to spell
in an eighth grade spelling contest.
After spelling the first two words,
the man awoke. On the way to the
bathroom, he caught himself limping
for no apparent reason and then
thought to himself, d-e-v-o-i-d as
he readied to void into the commode,
another good word and, of course,
f-l-a-t-u-l-e-n-c-e.