Entertaining
Angels
Perhaps they would
like to play
charades, acting out the scenes
of Gabriel and Michael’s
greatest moments, or maybe
they would simply like to watch
a DVD. I’m sure they
don’t
often have the opportunity to
rest and eat microwaved popcorn,
but then, what kind of movies do
they like? I can’t
see them enjoying
action or horror, certainly not
anything involving the occult, but
maybe they would like a good
comedy. Then again,
perhaps they
like Bergman; that seems like
something they would enjoy.
But now they’re
getting up, saying
that they really must be going and
that I should take care of myself. I
tell them that I haven’t even had time
to serve the hors d’oeuvres, a new
recipe from this month’s Southern
Living, but they
assure me they’ll be
back another time, and, next time,
I’ll
be ready. I’ll even have dessert.
Cupid’s
Pockets
Aren’t That Deep
It’s not about
black-clad
women refusing to smile
on a red-letter day protesting
that it’s not about
a middle-aged man
treating
his wife to dinner at the
restaurant they frequent
every other weekend while
he mistakenly thinks it’s about
young lovers using
massage
oil and rose petals
to have tantric sex while
they try not to remember
that they think it’s about
their single
friends, alone
with the VCR, Haagen-Dazs,
and resentment, though
the truth is that it’s about
the guilt that
comes from
not loving enough the other
days of the year, so
we allow ourselves to be
conned into
purchasing love
like a divorced dad in
Daytona who buys his children
for a day a month.
Those with the
empty houses have
hope that they’ll be filled
one day, but the empty words on
the cards, the
empty feelings of
stomachs stuffed with too
much candy, and the empty hearts
pretending to love
because they’re
scared to be alone can only be
redeemed by a miracle.
Sample Poems:
Diagramming Won’t Help This Situation
Grammatical
rules have always baffled
me, leaving me wondering whether my
life is transitive or intransitive, if I am the
subject or object of my life, and no one
has been able to provide words to describe
my actions, even if they do end in -ly.
But now the
problem seems to be with
pronouns: I am unwilling
to be him,
and you are unable
to be her, so we
will never be them--the
ones talking
about what they need from the grocery
store
because the Rogers are coming for
dinner tonight; the couple saving for a
vacation, perhaps a cruise to Alaska or a
museum tour of Europe; the two who meet
with a financial advisor to plan their children’s
college
fund while still managing to set
enough
aside for their retirement--and so we will
continue to be nothing more than sentence
fragments, perfectly fine for effect,
but forever looking for the missing
The Church of Divine Reality, Inc.
There are
laws, you know, legal
liabilities that must be
considered. If Jesus
shows up
in a vision, and somebody
veers off the interstate into a
telephone pole, who do you
think they’re going to sue?
It’s not going to be Jesus, I
can assure
you. Or
take the
case from a few years ago:
a man rids himself of all
his worldly possessions (well,
except for
a camel’s hair coat)
and goes all paparazzi on
people, getting in their faces
and screaming about repentance.
Lost his
head, he did. And
who did the family go after?
It wasn’t the Spirit, as if he or
she or whatever has any type
of
representation; he or, you
know, barely has any kind
of manifestation these days.
You see, someone around here
has to
store up treasures
and make sure they’re protected
from every bit of rust, moth, or
ne’er-do-well who has the Virgin
Mother show
up on a burrito.
Someone has to take responsibility
for God, after all; it’s not like
we want him running wild.
Exit
Lines
I was always out
of character,
it seems. While I
thought I
could run to you, I stumbled
over missed cues, unspoken
lines, and a
background that
never fit our daily drama. At
least actors can count on a
curtain call when the curtain
falls, but I must
skulk away to
the shadows as the audience
exits as silently as you did
when
you left last night.
Alternative
History
If Hitler would
have become an artist,
and
Einstein had
worked as a watchmaker,
would we not have
found ways to
pound enemies into
submission
with paintings
and
to wage war
by winding our watches,
always making sure
the
trains
arrived on time?