There’s a chair that whoever sits in it
becomes less proud

Grocery bags tumble their contents
out on the ground

Buildings reflect more sunlight

There’s a doorway that whoever stands in it
becomes more transparent

God’s Light shines through

The rooms we go from and the rooms we
go to are the same

full of illuminated furniture and
wise beings and intelligent conversation

And whoever goes through that door
leaves all concern for this world

behind

And whoever enters our rooms after
going through that door

has nothing but light in their hearts
put there from the beginning of time

which shines everywhere

5/27/08 (from Sparks Off the Main Strike, in progress)

I leap these giant salmon falls
like a vertically charging bull

wild eyes wide and blinkless in my
brute determination to get home

though it cost me my life
to bring life to life and the afterlife

and the whole world is doing the same
in my eyes

Look at it urging upward against the
downrush leap after leap its mouth agape

pulsating crouch springing forward
against the eternal wall endlessly ascending

Where’s the music to accompany this striving?
Is it the sound of these tons of water against me?

Is that the sweet symphony to my soul?

When I fall back with all my strength
I haven’t lost ground as much as

tested the resiliency of my intention
against all odds

Hear the held crescendo’s solemn chord
in the distance?

The exhausted but victorious serene
and greater knowledge come

in the spent muscle of arrival
the last glad spasm

of success

_____________________________
5/14/08
(from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak, in progress)

The only real life is the soul life
say what you will

The only real world is the next world
we’ll soon know

The bicycles of the sky disperse into
cloudy drifts

their spokes farther and farther apart

The famous hills and dales of
the earth fall and rise rise and

fall

throwing up snowmen and fire demons
in their congenial upheavals

Once one footing’s established
the rug is pulled the bridge

cranked to the side into shadow

The only true sun is not this sun
blazing contentedly though it

warm vegetation to feed and clothe us
season after season

Past the blues and greens
other blues and greens more

vividly ablaze await us

And the cool drink that allays our
thirst complete and is passed around

God’s pin drops to earth through the sky
and lands point first

exactly where we are
moving or still

and the pinprick and the ache
are His glory in its purest form

_____________________________

4/22/08 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak)