Poem: The Drunken Soldier

THE DRUNKEN SOLDIER

The drunken soldier broke down
the wrong door

Inside was a circle of saints
lifted off the ground

To the sound of gunfire
a really supernal yellow light
shone round them

His jaw dropped
and his heart stopped

In the dark of the room
he saw his place

At the cost of so much blood
so little decency

The saints admitted him
to their convocation

The rest of the world went
dizzily into the background

The rest of the war popped in his
ears like distant fireworks

The young soldier
lifted off the ground

Suddenly his age didn’t prevent him
from becoming ancient

The hearts in that room
were made of bronze and
royal copper

In their burnished surfaces
the Face of God shone resplendently

The drunken soldier
broke down the wrong door

Inside was a family of saints
huddled together

In the death of decency
so much bloodshed

The circle of saints
admitted him to their company

The drunken soldier
broke down the wrong door

Inside they
broke bread

1/22/2008 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak / Tall Tales in Short Takes, in progress)

Poem: Lake on a Hill

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LAKE ON A HILL

Is a lake on a hill closer to God than a
lake on a plain with its

bright reflective waters?

Is the dial on the watch of a saint
closer to true time than the

dials of the rest of us?

Is the night longer or shorter for
one who believes or one who disbelieves

that at the farthest end of it a glorious oasis arises?

(Slender palm trees there bend and tremble in the
sweetest wind)

Is the voice of the Beloved
licked inside our ears

clearer than our own voice and the
voices of others on the outside?

Is outside any different from
inside in God’s Eyes?

                        1/15/2008 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak, in progress)

Poem: Ladders

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LADDERS

for John Heron

Some ladders go up some ladders
go down

It’s true! Of course all ladders intrinsically
go both ways

both up and down
though we prop one up to climb out of

somewhere or
put one down to climb down into somewhere

But in both cases we’d climb back down or
back up unless we can keep

going at the level we’ve climbed up or
down to without needing to return

The tall wind-blasted fairy-castle caves at
Capadoccia in Turkey have ladders going way up

then precariously down

We had to climb down to prophet Daniel’s
supposed tomb on Prophet Daniel Street in Alexandria

then had to clamber precariously up

It all depends where we begin
down or up and where we need to go

up or down

Oh and take a ladder when you leave this poem
would you?

Climb up there and see if
anyone’s listening?

12/29/2007 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak, in progress)