the sieve and the sand

i’ll give you a penny for your thoughts —
certainly
they’re worth about that much to everyone
in this room.

pasty white skin
on marbled floors
in black leg-netting

a yellow couch in
the lobby of the 70
story building.
—yellow leather.
beside a three story
pillar which looks like granite.

the elevator doors open
you emerge for lunch
and i’m more than thrilled
to leave

five of twelve pills are gone
from their orange case where
i was told homeopathy does its
thang.

five of twelve. because five
didn’t work. who needs what
remains?

i had some blurry vision
called the doc and was told
a migrane would join the party
in about 30 minutes.

then i spent the night
in awkward expectation of
that which never came.

like being stood up at that
coffee shop where everyone
knew me and was really hoping
this girl would turn in to something
great

except this time the poetry
i wrote about it was much
more emotionally detached.

you place foot in front of foot
on stone stairs and proceed
slowly to the rooftop restaurant
and order cardboard pizza and
water without lemon (and it comes
with lemon in it anyhow) and the
pizza tastes nothing like cardboard.

in fact it’s delicious.

And He is jealous from me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy

why He wants anything at all to do with me is rather a mystery.
but i am a tree being battered by the rain drops i know
were carried inland from the ocean, and the salt stings
and beats against my face (leaves right?) and what can
i do but fold? that’s what they did on seeing glory
(2 Chron 7:1-3), why should i stand.

When all of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions
Eclipsed by glory and I realize just how beautiful You are
And how great Your affections are for me

if for some reason i was ever to expect eventually
understanding it would have been foolish of me. instead
i’m overwhelmed and become comfortable in the feeling
of the loss of control, my lack of control. like you’re
a stalker and i give up ever shaking you, except a stalker
must be the wrong picture for we seem to not like those
whereas none who’ve seen you could possibly not like you.

And oh, how He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves us all

i cannot claim to understand
i cannot claim to understand

And we are His portion and He is our prize
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking

running like lemmings into the ocean except
we didn’t just begin to sink, we’ve been drowning
and people watch from the outside and think it must
hurt, yet this choking, this lack of oxygen, is not
fear inducing. the water surrounding is of another
substance of some sort and we’re hundreds of feet down
to where the light has begun to fade and everything
is blue. the reds long gone, the greens fading fast
and we’re all sinking.

And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets
When I think about the way…

an unforeseen kiss, how it causes you to startle,
but yet is something delightful. something like
a donut you figured was just a donut because you didn’t
realize it was filled with boston cream, and when
your tongue and teeth make contact you’re startled
but delighted.
frustrated suddenly you ever ate anything else
you ever settled for something else. but without
time to feel frustration you turn instead to continuing
forward, swimming in your delight because…

He loves us, oh
Oh, how He loves us, how He loves all

Oh, how He loves us, oh how He loves
Oh, I love
Yeah, He loves us, yeah, He loves us
How He loves us, oh, how He loves us all

this feeling brings overwhelming clarity that
the words i have to express myself are frail compared
to what i’m feeling. others watch me compose poetry
to my true love and laugh at the seeming worthlessness of
what i feel. but how do you express something that makes
you feel like a child? free? you don’t. you dance and look
like a fool and then give up and decide repetition will have
to serve it’s purpose — truth — again and again in place
of a better expressed thought. because He loves us.

einstein was right you know
about both time and relativity.

what’s five minutes, you might say,
well it’s a lifetime for a popsicle in
in the sun

and i’ve been waiting here a lifetime
or two, if you consider the span of time
a gnat tends to survive when born in a
frog infested pond

and frankly 2 minutes again is asking too
much. maybe you don’t value our relationship
always showing up five minutes late.

or maybe you just value our friendship relatively

liars, every one of them.
but then we all are.
so there’s that.

an oil pool on a corner 5 feet from
the sewage drain.

a rat running alongside the curb,
scurrying for food into your favorite
small “restaurant”.

the sun breaking through the corner
of the building behind yours, shining
on the table in the courtyard from
2:32-3:34 approximately (but you’re not
counting).

life’s like this. and you’re thankful for
the promise of a new heavens and
a new earth?

you cannot help but comment
on everything you produce
be it the written word, a
creative project, the happiness
in your wife’s eye, you’ll always
point it out. something must be said
you say.
when you cough and it’s productive
you comment, when your home-
grown tomatoes taste wonderful
you comment.

and now in the distance i hear
“oh yea”
and i know it’s coming from
the bathroom where you cannot
help but comment on everything
you produce

dry air at altitude.
a romantic view of
return to routine.
tea and rice noodles
(the kind that never
quite satisfy hunger)

five days in the ancient city
void of internet
(yes, that ancient)
walking winding streets
with pictographs where
an alphabet, or even characters
do not suffice
seeking a restaurant of refuge
or a moment away from the canal
where you wash your clothes
dump your sewage
and generally swim for funsies.

five days in the ancient city
days 6-11 of my cold
and 10 hours overnight on the
second floor of the train
to bring me home.

as the stress falls from my shoulders
i’m hoping the oppressive weight
of the mucus in my throat begins to ease
and as i walk roads paved with
black-top instead of hand-carved stone
i thank the Lord for civilization,
good food, 3g, and overwhelming sunshine

and a bed i call my own
naps i call my own
and hot water
i foolishly call my own.

this beard of mine
laced with honey
dripping for sweet
to you

i never felt i lacked something
i never felt i had need of until
this void grew so big
i never felt anything like it.
i never felt satisfaction after
searching like i know i’ll find
when i find it. i know it because
until now
i aint never felt it.

i’d stuff you with bamboo
for with you i’d take extra care
the best of taxidermists
hang your right side on the wall
(it is your best side)
and i would not settle for mere
cotton
for with you i’d take extra care
you’re my trophy, and to prove it
i’d spend a little extra and
i’d stuff you with bamboo

thanks for rocking and rolling with me
while i fathered children
raised them, fathered more and began
the process of adoption.
thanks for writing with me through moves
and furloughs and job changes and
countless different degrees.
thanks for poetrizing through thick and thin
and daily (or at least sometimes daily)
giving what you got the sieve.
i grew a beard, got scruffier, meaner
and generally slightly more gruff.

but you’ve stood by… a writin’
often sans-inspiration.

thanks eh.

the beauty of being male
(apart from not having to curl up
beside a hairy buttox at night)
is in the 14 years since
we’ve seen each other
the two years since we messed
everything up
and the five minutes it took to repair.

the beauty of being male is that
a swift blow to the face solves
all our issues. and then we’re bro’s
again.

have we really come to this point?
is this really the best we can do?
line standing reduced to numbers
handed out on small printed papers
views from games we spent too much
of our valuable time playing now
burned in the backs of eyelids
clear as the sky when we close our eyes
when we try to sleep
when we wake and find
we’re still standing, waiting for our
number to be called and wondering
is this really the best we can do?

there was one thing the greats had in common and it weren’t
education
height
weight
shoe size
shoe string length
love for mcdonalds
patience with children
or the location of the roll in their eyes

socks socks daddy you wear some socks
daddy tickle me
daddy tickle me
or like this or like that
daddy tickle me
tickle me
daddy tickle me
tickle me

sometimes all we really need is a swift kick to the buttox of our pants
but other times a swift kick needs to followed by several hard blows to the face
and when that is insufficient being threatened with our lives tends to help
though should our own life prove disposable loved ones are always there for threatening

a seashell on a wooden table
inland
so inland you’d never buy sea food here
and you hold it to your ear
because you’ve never been to the sea
and don’t know a clam shell holds
no sound
and wonder at the sand
you’ve heard is like your dirt
but finer
cleaner
less dead-moth-ridden

a book of wisdom
filled with pages
of foolishness
in the hands of many
without hope for
more
basing every decision
on being better
when the best is
nowhere near good enough
when the best is
menstrual rags
before the only One
whose opinion matters

kingdom shakers
fumble when they shake your hand
their mouths don’t work quite
right, nor their memories
and despite their high level of
education they keep copious
notes because of an accident
they had in a car riding off the
side of a mountain 15 years ago
(and incident they don’t recall
personally at all, only what they
‘ve been told)
which left them with a perpetual
at-best three months of memory
but yet they shake
the kingdom at its foundations
and to have stood in the same
room with these people
(let alone to shook hand with them,
or worshipped alongside of them)
never fails to humble me.

some folks get all the attention
and some folks brew coffee
some folks go live on television at 9
some folks take out the trash at the tv station

some folks, they say, long to not be known
they sit in their cubicles, wait tables, laminate construction paper,
all for the greater good
and some, i hear, desire nothing more than a great name.
famous cubicle sitter, waitress extraordinaire, or THE construction paper laminator.

some folks get all the attention
but some folks just brew your coffee
or grow it
or produce the fecal matter with which your coffee is fertilized.

some folks get all the attention
but other folks have all the power

the cranes are still here but
the people have gone
and this place feels alone
but i still walk along

this crack-ridden sidewalk
deserted and grey
the prices were rising
then fell fast one day

and i run past these things with my eyes closed and music on blaring to drown out the silence of the people who left and left me here staying in a city of so many, but none of them living.

my lack of need for pen and paper to compose
has removed the problem i’ve had with
the roundness of my legs.
no flat surface is now—
no problem.
more and more writing can be done
whilst otherwise occupied upon porcelain.

certainly technology has more to be praised than this. but right now, there is little for which i am more thankful

water slips between.
you slip quickly between my fingers as i grasp
for you.