December 24, 1914

Before the bitterness, before the hatred,
Before spawning the beast
That must be sated,
In the horror of every war since,
Came the peace on Christmas Eve. 

Few could then believe
The German call heard in the night
Across the blasted waste of No Man's Land.
The British and Germans dared to stand
Atop their trenches, within sight,
And, walking, met halfway in brief reprieve.

Though comical the call,
"We no shoot!" opened the door to all:
To sing old carols, "Stille Nacht, Heilinge Nacht,"
To hear a band play "God Save the King,"
To give as gift every simple thing -
Wine and cigarettes,
Bully beef and biscuits -
To share a human night is all they sought
And a game of soccer with a makeshift ball.

By Christmas the following year
All of the players had killed each other,
Bringing on the helpless, hopeless tears
Of British and German mothers.
French mothers, too, clutched their damp letters
From sons who believed, in December 1914,
That life could be better.

Gone are the trenches; gone are the fences.
Gone are the days a solider could see
The enemy's faces.

Our enemy bears no love
For our yuletide traditional ways.
And still we rain death from above
On the enemy's most holy days.

So let us pray today
For the youth of that children's crusade,
The ones who had glimpsed on that night
That another kind world could be made.

Distance

Imaginary fingers
run gently through my hair
as I fix a lazy stare
at the table, once laden, now bare.
The heating pipes knock, hiss
and warm the silent air,
in the night beyond the only kiss
the wind upon the branches bare.  

Imaginary hands miss
my tight and aching back,
hardened by the days of quiet labor,
dragging the alienating sack;
hands instead that brush the sand
from a hardened pillow
on a warm night in an alien land.  

The soldier and I had parted
in the possible of an autumn evening,
one meal not sufficing, not enticing,
a gust of words to loosen
the silent weight that years create.

Petals

Here today,
Gone tomorrow.
Heart to lend,
Love to borrow.

Blossoms of new promise
The winds scatter in sorrow.
But always there is solace
In the sunrise that will follow.

Looking Glass Moon

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.

But curiously,

The pale October moon

Sinks too soon

And shines no light upon the plight

Of the distressed little doshes.

 

For the Gostak distims the doshes

When the year turns autumn green.

Sad and sweet are the losses

Though in fact they are never seen. 

 

The splendor in the grass

Sinks down into the bottom

In the first chill gust of autumn

When the clouds of moon go past.

 

In the soothing thoughts that spring

From our human suffering

We see the trail of doshes;

All are mimsy and  distimmed.

 

And the slithy Gostak goes

Where the cold winds always blow

From the east far to the west.

After the sleep of the colorless green,

The doshes wake to wonder and see

The flight of the borogoves blessed.

 

Then toves and mome raths smell the grass,

The splendors all to eat.

But splendors sleep in burrows deep

Until frabjous sky of spring. 

 

Under autumn moon the green ideas

Prefer the light of noon.

The uffish passions sleep til then

To the cry of the burbling loon.

 

 

Ice Cream

Does anyone see the irony?

Does anyone think it queer?

Does anyone grasp

That the thing we crave

Is the very thing we fear? 

We eat our slice of cake

And cut a piece to save.

But the light of all those

Birthday candles

Shows where lies the grave.  

We lick our mound of ice cream.

We lick until it melts.

With every lick we may get sick

But oh! how good that felt! 

So chase your little treasures

Until you're out of breath.

Take care that your last pleasure

Is not the kiss of death.

 

 

Destination

The tall volcano will spew its fire.
In rage the storm will roar and break.
The sunlit hills will tremble and shake.

Mankind, another scourge that roams,
Lays waste across the trembling world -
Oceans and forests wither and groan.

Whether the world will end in fire,
Whether the world will end in ice,
Whether mankind's base desires
Will poison the world in passion's guise -

Destruction is the destination.

Those who extol predestination,
In the grip of ancient fears,
Differ little from the explanations,
Offered by the wise of many years
Who trace the arc of nature's dawn
And its ultimate decline
In complex formulas that shine -
The magic spells of a darker time.

Founder's House

A flag hung from the brick façade
Of a stately and elegant house,
The street lined with old rich homes
And ancient, shady trees.

Inscribed were the words:
"Descendants of Valley Forge,
Soldiers in George Washington's army,"
Undulating in a hot summer breeze.

Around the corner, down the street, some distance away,
A posted sign was met with casual glances each day
From an American public who, with faces pink and red,
Between wiping sweat and heaving, read:

"On this spot, until 1889, lay the house,
Richly appointed, grand, and fine,
Of So-and-So,
An enlightened man of his time,
A Founder of this great Nation,
Whose achievements in Government
And Industry were sundry and sublime."

The plot of ground was flat and empty,
A wide square paved in red brick,
With tufts of grass in places thick,
And a thin tree growing like a lonely stick.

An old, tired beggar sat beneath the tree,
Taking from the sun a brief reprieve,
Descendant, too, of Valley Forge,
Though no one would believe.

That night the beggar walked to the river and saw,
With hunger and awe, the fireworks light the evening sky,
Blotting out the stars, the very stars the Founders saw,
Their precious source of light, as they sweat in all their splendor
On those steaming summer nights.

D.L.

The lone eye stared

Impassively in its deep blue silence

And the passengers passing

To and fro

Failed to notice;

Their pace failed to slow,

Hauling luggage

Across a hall they only know

As destination, arrival,

Another day of survival. 

The eye hung along the wall

With other drawings large and small,

Drawn by invisible children's hands,

Bearing names, first and last,

Destination and arrival. 

Below the eye, no name, only: 

D.L., 10th Grade

“Window to the Soul”

Incarcerated Youth Program 

Slowly, beyond the tall windows,

The line formed outside waiting for the next car.

 

 

Dust

We parted on an old road

near the edge of a small town,

its name forgotten.  

The bus, rattling softly,

raised a cloud of dust

as it faded into memory.  

I remember the pasture

where we escaped the dust

raised by the passing wind. 

In the middle of the pasture

sat the copse of trees,

the remains of an ancient forest.   

We would go into the trees

and pick berries from vines,

wondering if we could eat them.  

His was a strange face

in that strange country,

more open, more knowing.

But his name was lost to the years. 

In those days

our souls were still growing,

our innocence showing

the faith that those moments

would not fade away.

Murder

I stood up in the courtroom
And made my final stand.
"I don't deserve your doom
For murdering a man. 

"Yes, I did murder.

Yes, I did kill.

Still I say I'm innocent,

For I lacked my own free will! 

"Our every act is part

Of the Lord our God's own plan.

He fixed my dark inerrant task

To kill my fellow man." 

The judge peered down

And said to me with steady,

Troubled frown,

"You say God made you do this.

I've heard this tale before.

For better men have claimed the same

Facing their own death's door.

"Kings have claimed the solemn right

To slaughter towns in foreign lands

In name of God's great might.  

"And Popes and priests

Through centuries

Decreed swift death to infidels

Without regard to inquiries:

God's place for them was hell.  

"To all that I have but one reply:

That the Lord our God is indeed sly.

So he sent his killers out to kill.

But I, too, lack free will!

God's plan at last has justice in it;

My role as judge is to instill it." 

"Oh, woeful end!"

I stand and cry.

"Our God indeed is very sly!

How could I have foreseen this?

That God's own planned creation

Fails without the constant death,

Takes the believer's final breath,

And seals his own damnation!"

 

 

Orbit

Traveling just so far,

And just so fast,

At just such an angle,

Our planet and its star

Form a cosmic tangle. 

And for that, in the world below,

The skies turn gray,

And the snow piles on the ground,

And bare trees glisten in the winter rain.  

The wildest chance ensnares

Two bodies in a steady orbit;

Beyond the reach of mortal cares

Strange forces bind them round. 

Ice puddles in the snowy ground

Form in tracks of travelers,

Their movements slow

Across a distance,

In the night without a sound.  

Your name turns round my mind

But still I cannot find

In the winter sky your star.

Though once we walked together,

No orbit lasts forever:

My door in vain stays open

For boots that wandered far. 

New Year

When the traces of frost are gone,
In the light of a new year's dawn,
From my dusty window pane,
And the morning still is broken
By the ice from branches falling,
As if the earth itself were calling,
The briefest answer spoken,
To my silent, doubtful prayer:
The old year another layer
In the fallow fields of hope -
Whence the strength to note
If the day to mind can bring
The seeds of a brilliant spring:
A new way to see,
A new way to hear,
A new way to pull the plough
Through the fear
And bring a blossom of hope
To the fledgling year. 

There, in the dripping sound
Of the crystal branches
Lay the answer clear:
Like the branches guiding flowers,
The mind holds silent power
To lead its thoughts to joy
Or to pathways of despair.

Therefore, have a care
And seek the three-fold path
For every tender thought:
Is it needed?
Is it kind?
Is it true?
If this counsel then were heeded,
Tomorrow we may find
The world each day is new.

 

 

 

Encounter

We are alien to one another:
Our visage,
Our turns of phrase,
Our customs and flourishes,
Our dishes,
Our mien,
Alien is our being. 

The alien brings the fear -
And wonder;
Fear that screams and wonder quiet,
Fear that seems to trail our footsteps
And thicken the evening air,
Wonder drives our fingers outward
To touch each other's hair.

In fear our eyes avert and dart, alert.
In wonder our lips curl - a grin or smirk.

Wandering, walking in the starlight, I think
If we could touch each other's faces
We could build the safest places,
Our strife and turmoil soon to sink
In the knowing that forms our link.

Torn Veils

Winter takes the warmth from everything.
And the lush veils that hide
The eternal mysteries
Wither and fall.

The dark, jagged shape of the trees:
The monsters that walked before history.
The winter sky gray and wan:
The smoldering glow at time's dawn.

The people of the city, puppets of the stars:
Indifferent as the winds of Mars.
The people of the farm, keepers of the faith:
The lonely miles of outer space.

All the souls surrounding me await,
Like nurturing vultures,
My untimely death;
Every boon, every kind gesture,
A gentle prod on the plank at the chasm.
Your trouble does not concern us,
They imply, sly fangs dripping:
Not your aches, cares,
Fears or nightmares.

In the dream I am falling, hurling
Down the chasm filled with millions
Of falling souls, all wrapped
In a mantle of cold, and the voices
Whispering, shouting, calling:
Choices prisons make;
Memories shimmer and break;
Long days of brief sleep-
Fitful, ungrateful -
Your fury is silent and deep.

The eternal mysteries knocked and hissed:
As you failed to forgive, all those chances you missed;

As long as the days are the lines on that list,

Down the chasm of time as you tumble,

With the weight of the sadness you stumble,

As you fumble to shoulder the rock of regret –

The sentence of days that you cannot forget.

December 7, 1941

A day that will live in infamy

Drowns in the ocean of oblivion

That is our collective abandon of history. 

Old photographs of human misery

Fail to move a generation

That never grieved and never learned

What their parents failed to teach -

The ships in Pearl Harbor burn

In old and musty newspapers,

The human cries forever beyond reach.  

Seventy-two years

Have dried all the tears

A nation had once learned to shed.

The years since then

Have filled us with dread:

The screams of the war planes

In truth never ended;

While history remained unattended

Days of infamy for years descended -

We all are the Pearl Harbor dead. 

 

 

Thanksgiving Day

The history of injustices,

The endless reign of terror

That is the march of wealth

Sought by every Nation,

Is a cause for celebration. 

Let us thank the Lord our God

For the blood that we have shed,

For the tears the vanquished shed,

For the breaking of the bread

From our newfound fruited plains. 

Remember always the great pains

Our ancestors surely suffered,

By their swords our lives they buffered

From the savage, godless stain. 

The unbelievers that remain

Are a shadow of their evil empire.

Now as their own our God they claim,

Their heathen errors cleansed in fire.

And thus the traitors we brand as liars,

They who brand us a nation of thieves.

The hunger of Indians is not so dire -

We send rice that piles like autumn leaves.

 

Dance

Muscles ask no permission
but show you the way
as you sway,
this way and that way,
across fields of worry,
oceans of pain,
mountains of sorrow.

Tomorrow
the dying world
rises around and above.
But tonight there only the love
that raises the walls
and calls all to know,
amidst the lights of the show,
the joy within.

 

Noon

He died alone

In a faraway land,

Left to lie

In an unmarked grave

In the slowly sifting sand.

He'd left his home

In a faraway land,

His spirits high

On voyage to save

The poor in an alien land.

But the aliens cried

When they saw his gifts;

A savage rage of waiving fists -

In a hail of stones he died.

His gifts were books

The villagers feared

For their dark foreboding looks,

Locked in a box

And piled with rocks

On a dune the sun would sear. 

No avian eye, no scratching claw

Could see what the villagers saw:

The myth of civilization

Belied in a book of war,

The tale of a god's creation

Destroyed in a jealous roar,

And the senseless doom of saviors

Whose lessons we all ignore.

 

 

Columbus

The stars fall in India at night.

Our end to behold that sight,

Glorious purpose surrounds these ships

In the vast expanse of ocean;

The smallest drop cannot touch our lips. 

Guided by the Hand of God

Mysterious in its dispensation

Now caressing,

Now striking tragedy

Into his sublime creation,

We hold to our mission of revelation.

What wondrous nation will stand

Revealed in the light we bring!

What treasure rich and palace grand

Will make the angels sing!

What ancient, mythic land

Shall know my mighty king!

 

For this purpose our course will hold

Though we face dangers ever bold.

We sail in truth as God's instruments.

So the stories will be told.

And though history may lament

My men's untimely death,

Still to me it shall be kind,

The one sent forth to find

The road to destiny, so far,

The cradle of the evening stars.

 

 

Colombo

What does my future bring?

Where ends this ocean road?

What if I fail to please my king

Or if my shoulders sink

Beneath this captain's load? 

The anger of God surrounds us,

The water we dare not drink,

Taking us to the brink

Of a thirst as terrible

As the torments in hell. 

No one must I tell

Of this gnawing doubt within me.

If God himself these lands has hid,

Perhaps reflecting we should bid

Goodbye to dreams and what now seems

The voyages of fancy.

 

 

Laptop

The words appeared, noiseless, on the screen:

“We are witnessing transitions

from social-welfare states

to social-control states

around the world. 

“We are witnessing a global crisis,

unprecedented in its magnitude,

ecological degradation

and social deterioration. 

“Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of violence.” 

The words waited, quietly,

while I drained a glass of pinot grigio. 

The hydrangea bushes

nodded softly in a late summer air,

a bee hovering without sound across petals. 

A long row

of men and women

walked past the sidewalk café

in sharp suits, carrying laptop cases. 

Unprecedented

in the sheer scale

of silence.

 

 

Sunset

We sit together on the pier,

With our legs swinging,

The water lapping, glinting.  

We watch the sun sail

Across the low horizon

And sink beneath the sea.  

But that is not the passing of time for you

Or the passing of time for me.  

For the sun flies a little slower for you,

Child of tomorrow.

It sinks a little faster for me,

Man of yesterday.

How many sunsets have I witnessed?

How many sunsets have you missed?

How many sunsets until you read my name

Upon a list?

He was kind, the print will say.

He was brave,

(Though at times he played the knave). 

When you see the sun set in a blazing hail of color,

Shades you never knew you’d see,

Know that time is surely passing.  

The colors at the end of the sea

We see at day's beginning.

They fade to sunken mystery

And rise at day’s cold end.