Perilous Times

I was baby sitting when a scene erupted in the neighborhood
made my heart to skip a beat and my reflexes duck for cover.
Special Forces, battalion size, swarmed the block
their engines roaring, the goons shouting.

"Double damn," I cursed, someone's tipped  them off.

Fortunately, they had not come for me nor my family,
but rather to confiscate the  helicopter illegally parked next door,
and three houses down from it an unregistered  half-track
in Mr. Ali Baba.'s living room.

The troops gone, I hid the Uzi the outhouse.

Scent

Sin's lure might just be a matter of scent,
the nose so desensitized, it does not register stench.

Sphinx

The dunes fold black
into a blue blotter backdrop
for the horn that is sword
for the sword that is crescent.

The desert mirrors heaven.
The shifting sands scribble verses,
the verses are prophetic.
Here I am in Egypt,

There you are in Atlantis.

Subtraction

A clamorous  flow
of disemboweled thoughts,
chaos and fracas.

How to conform to "Be Still 
and know that I am God?"
Stillness alludes.

Might perfect stillness
be constant subtraction
till nothing remains but Me.

Brother

I would hold you in my arms as one would a lover,
but it would not be comfy, man to man.
I did, however, kiss you before I left your bedside,
and continue to pray for you in the imagining
of pressing you to my bosom as I would a hurting spouse.

What does it mean to pray, anyhow?
It means to plead to God, I be heard.and acknowledged.
My brother agonizes.  What else can I do but pray,
which is to petition You, Good Shepherd and Great Physician.

Dig, then, where from I come, You of whom I am.
Dig out and cast away the ill which cannibalizes my him from within.
In You I place my beliefs, Lord of my ancestors.

Post Script:  He is my twin, Great Unknown.
He means something special to us both.

Atmosphere

A late night flyer just has taken off.
I hear its turbos talk to the clouds.
They rumble, they grumble.
They suck in the currents and blow them out hot.

Jet planes are fearsome machines.
One, tonight,  flies the polar route.

We recognize that flying tin cans have a limited life expectancy.
Long after they are scrapped, the clouds they flew through remain.
Does this not stand as a metaphor for the presence of God
in our flighty existence; God the sky, we the aeroplanes?

Regarding atmosphere (in general)
to quote William the Shaker of Spears:
"The quality of mercy is not strained,
it droppeth from heaven like the gentle rain."

Oh let it rain, dear God .
There's a drought down in Africa..

Myrtle's Search

Strolling in the wee dark hours, Myrtle went to find the beach
to search for shells where shells hardly ever wash ashore.
You want exotic, go to the waters of the balmy Caribbean
where legend has it, a tunnel 600 miles
connects Venezuela to Puerto Rico

Strolling Myrtle met the sun float in from Europe,
a subtle sun on a day, the forecast overcast.
We write from Cape Henrico, named for Henry VIII.
Here, first English to North America dropped anchor.
Here, Navy School of Seals trains in counter terrorism.

Strolling Myrtle as in dreams, comes upon a mother up to ankles in lace
blown inland from abroad.   Caring mother towels boy who sees in strand
timbers of  wreck, Giovanni Baptiste, drowned in 1904.  So far, no shells
but Myrtle takes another snapshot, and I by her side like lance bearer
to a knight, carry her basket for shells,just in case.

Down a ways, Myrtle captures three sitting maidens like pears in still life,
staring at the horizon as if  it were the outstretched arms of Big Ben at a quarter to 3.
In the postal runs of  tides the sea leaves behind,  jellyfish,
horse shoe crabs with rear sharp statements,
sometimes ocean mammals.

Behold, reality:  Starfish gaze at heaven's ocean above the water.
Behold reality: Pelicans ready plunge into the membrane.
Behold reality: Wherever collectible, wherever photographic,
tidal, co-existing.
Always ebbing.

The 7 Plagues of Brooklyn

Know, you who are young,
that if you dishonor your parents,
the 7 Plagues of Egypt will visit you,
though you call them the 7 plagues of Brooklyn.

Deaf or Dead

She's no Buddha,
but on a plane
between The Gobi and Siberia
has the following epiphany:

If you feel the wind,
but do not see it,
you're deaf.

If you hear the wind,
but do not feel it,k
you probably died a time before.

Radar and Headlights

He was outrageously delinquent,
but is at present a wannabe follower of Jesus.
She's straight as an arrow,
never meandered from the strait and narrow.

As luck or fate should have it, Billy and Marigold are married.

He, at times in the midst of believers,
upon the close of a Sunday service,
takes to his feet and critically comments
on Pastor Calvin Atwell's morning preaching.

Needless to say, this has raised some eyebrows.

Straight-as- an-arrow, advises:
Fly under the radar. Billy.
Billy replies, Jesus says;
Let your light shine before you.

There's more to this exercise than meets the eye.

The rub,
the scrub
is always
in the details.

Bat

What gives the bat such energy,
to fly erratic the night
on the chance
to catch a random insect?

Me thinks its secret is,
it sleeps the day away
to use the cover of darkness
to pursue its mischief.

I love you even drunk

My favorite television program tonight is poetry,
the events I observe in the course of the day,
synthesized I run forward and backward in prime time.

Mr. and Mrs. Bat at sunset,
the perfume of gardenia in my nose,
the scent of the lawn just hosed.

When I was young,
I was an unbelievable girl.
Aged, I'm a bit more credible.

Second Chances

How gracious is the Sovereign who has provided me
with pen, paper and a tower from which to observe the distance,
and tears for magnifier.

How gracious is the Sovereign who provides robins with wisdom,
and who provides survivors
with space and  pause.

Knot

A vision sea of many, many dots
by ones vanish till one alone remains.
Were this last dot to vanish too,
what art is that with out form?

Same Sex

Can one have two mothers and no father?
Can one have two fathers and no mother?

"Yes, we can!"

Was that not the electoral slogan
of the last campaign?

Mona pregnant, Lisa braless

They, the editors, full covered page featured a pot belly actress,
Demi Moore, looking like Mother Nature Goddess,
24 months pregnant before Planet Earth was born.
The full cover page ad was a sensation,
particularly among boys 50 to 84,
who would gladly have sacrificed their left testicle
for a chance to crawl back into a womb.

Years later, the editors mused - Guys we can better!
Thus, was conceived a new full cover page
featuring a peroxide blond, dressed in black, in spike heals,
bra half open, breast protruding, into the mouth of her three year old son,
on a step ladder sucking timidly the nipple,
and,looking sheepishly at us by way of the camera.

The latest full cover page has been controversial to say the least,
a wow sensation and a lolly pop treat for thumb sucking boys of every inclination,
who now must rethink saline tits.

Glowing Pearl

In the deep of everyone
lies a pearl God-given
in likeness of the Giver,

A soul is not destroyed
though it be buried
under mounds of grime and crime,
but recovered shines once more,
pulsates and glows for all of time

Inspired by Teresa of Avila's "The Interior Castle"

Corridor of Statues

I walked a garden of African statues,
statues of considerable weigh,
weight of stone, mother lode statues
sculptures of mothers and babes,
babes of brawn, elephants and rhinos,
crocodiles also in wait for wildebeest

I weigh and way to photo them,
who now majestic march through me.

Immaculate Tablets

The intrigue over gravestones is;

the whiteness of their structures;
citizens' names, dates of arrival,
dates of departure.

Nothing unsavory in between,
not wished for happy endings,
but neat and groomed burials.

Rhino Horn

The half dressed nude you stretched
the prude deems porn,
you judge if not merely popcorn.

I Am A Chameleon

I have a whining bagpipe in my gut,
the feverish dancing of the frenzied, too.
the hand clapping of negro spirituals,
even the jack boot marches of the fascists,
these tie me to tribal memory
and the solar energy of which we're integral.

It is not so much that I am an internationalist,
I am a chameleon.