The days are swift, meager,
a doughnut doesn’t fill me,
say empty sweet calories,
can you fill me with blood,
old brown cow eating grass,
earth sky cloud bird a steeple
accompanying the rest of your
spiritual days, as I stand in
bog, the potato peeler keeps
cutting, gouging out deep pits,
blood is a stowaway, hiding
dumb, numb, a transaction
birthed inside Yorick’s skull.
Did you run across the valley of my shadow?
Did you shudder my illusion so I’m light as a feather?
Did you kiss me yet, lingering? Trembling,
when you’re tendering, slayed by whatever
you’re doing, dreaming of you so far, far away,
inside of me. My heart’s lit on fire, desire streaking
lines. You’re the dream I must follow, across the sky.
Honey sweetness make me whole, taking it slow.
Night stars, eternal mysteries rest, sweet paradise.
**
Abraham died last Sunday. I came to know of him,
what little, as his funeral news blinked through
a friend’s email devout with the message of prayer,
of breaking bread on Sunday, observing holy communion.
Do this in remembrance of me, Jesus gave the bread,
saying, This is my body, which will be given for you.
It was the last evening before he died savagely,
that supreme act of grace. At the time of death,
senses become ether, the limp body falls cold away.
**
Those who survived our World Wars, intact,
who lived to tell tales of depravity, of hunger,
walked our earth changed, their souls scorched
forever in knowing, spirits finding meaning,
like courage, like peace, maybe even love,
braiding souls through a dream of eternity,
like the kissing couple on a street in Paris,
wrapped in their own glow, life a shadow,
dream web, living story under a shared sun.
**
Abraham must have felt such sweet release,
having lived in blind darkness for thirty years,
giving up one more sense, his hearing, then
one more, his mobility, so suffering never ends.
His sacrifice seemed divine, brought inner
making of peace with his life’s meaning,
an epithet of faith overcoming lashes of
sorrow, lending his fragile face to stave off
stupid disgrace, false teachings, lousy myths.
**
Spirit roams the seas, rows human oars
towards love, mortal beyond faiths.
Senses intact, we look for signs hidden
like feeling felt and not spoken, as if
true desire opens the blinds of solitary rooms,
climbs our shared rope towards eternity.
Only love transcends this time and space,
finds our sense of mooring, faces off knowing
at death, man rises and walks away alone.
Robert Doisneau’s Le baiser de l’hôtel de ville (Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville)
Process notes: Read Write Poem’s prompt here.
