This will
be my
death poem
I look
around --
Owl hoots
even as
I live
and breathe
There is
only
this
This will
be my
death poem
I look
around --
Owl hoots
even as
I live
and breathe
There is
only
this
A phrase in Chesterton’s book on Francis ... “a saint without God” — interests.
Makes me think of Christ as the center of creation, center of humanity, that which resides innermost.
Thus, a christian is someone dwelling toward that centric existence, that way of being intent on dwelling innermost with and within all being, all beings.
Perhaps “a saint without God” is one whose life is lost within God.
So many
Leave
Finding
Ground
This
Transitus
Brother
Father Francis
Thank you
For leaving
This
Is not poetry
This
Is the cry
Of
Devout despair
Of
Reverent disdain
Of
Yesterday’s joy
Bruised
Bloodied, clawing back
Amnesiac
Tell me the forgotten
I have atoned for my sins
I have prayed to the angels,
Dómine, lábia mea apéries.
O Lord, open thou my lips.
Et os meum annuntiábit laudem tuam.
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
I have grown weary of the insanity
tired of the foolish lies and liars
my prayer is exhalation,
Laudes - Campanae, bells sound
I yawn, the morning cool inhales
passing psalmody, gentle guitar
(Ps. 66) Deus, misereátur nostri, et benedícat nobis:
May God have mercy on us, and bless us:
illúminet vultum suum super nos, et misereátur nostri.
may he cause the light of his countenance to shine upon us,
and may he have mercy on us. The question arises:
Where is this countenance? Is it looking out,
or is it looking at? Where is God, exactly?
I no longer have any idea of God’s presence --
no notion of church topography or clerical navigation --
only some quantum gibberish about Schrödinger’s Cat
both dead and alive at same time, or double slit stuff
sometimes a particle, sometimes a wave, then
Higgs bosun, the God particle (as they say) dropping
through the crash in accelerator into ... what?
Where does “God” fall out of and fall into? Cern,
sitting astride the Franco-Swiss border near Geneva,
is as good a place for God as is the Vatican or Mecca,
better than Washington DC, not as good as a tomb in
Assisi where the bones of Il Poverello and Lady Clare
consider their poverty alongside riches of their church.
I tell the captain of the Respite Sail Boat that it is, yes,
a depressing time, it is not her, except she is in this time,
our country’s father is insane and surrounded by ridiculous
men and women too frightened of his lies to remember truth --
where anything could happen, citizens fired upon, and fired,
people kidnapped and disappeared, universities cowed,
churches gone mute, those without money ... absurdly
labeled communists and fascists by real fascists and oligarchs --
we are left to our own devices, doomscrolling and video gaming
while nuns and monks turn to psalms for sanity, for us all --
4. Illúminans tu mirabíliter a móntibus ætérnis:
4. You illuminate wondrously from the mountains of eternity.
turbáti sunt omnes insipiéntes corde.
All the foolish of heart have been disturbed.
5. Dormiérunt somnum suum:
5. They have slept their sleep,
et nihil invenérunt omnes viri divitiárum in mánibus suis.
and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands. (ps.75)
Beware of the nothing in their hands. They know not what they hold.
God is like that: everything for some; devastation for others.
I have here a quiet room. Outside, there is sun on October branches.
I suspect God is wandering by -- Some leaves on branches nod and sway
Many leave home
If their father
Or husband beats them
There are many bags
Pulled out of closet
Some have guns or bats
The abuse will not continue
Sorrow accompanies packing
To leave, to end, the cruelty
What do you mean “angels,
guardian angels?”
They are celebrated today.
These invisible so-called beings
Here to help, protect, guide?
Who are they? How happen?
I love the idea. Can’t penetrate it.
Maybe it’s the free will thing — it’s
Our choice to be good or bad,
everyone waits for our choice
To shoot someone in the head
Or pull someone from collapsed rubble —
No angel diverts bullet, or diffuses
Bomb — and we suffer the suffering,
The ones molested, stabbed, blown up
Duped, scammed, fed lies and cancer —
Listen — I like the idea of angels, maybe
They need an organizer, a rally, a protest
A song for the dying of light, and those who swing obscurantism over all.
Beware Of Darkness
By George Harrison
Watch out now
Take care, beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness
Watch out now
Take care, beware the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night
Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for
Watch out now
Take care, beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of Maya
Watch out now
Take care, beware of greedy leaders
They'll take you where you should not go
While weeping Atlas Cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness (beware of darkness)
Written by: George Harrison
Album: The Concert For Bangladesh
Released: 1971
Lyrics provided by MusixmatchWas
Yes.
Beware.
If God’s voice
Is within
Everything
God must
Be so
Disappointed
We listen to
Stark raving
Outside lunacy
Yellow leaves
Fall to ground
With a lightness
Turning, twisting
From high branch
Two on my lap
I ask them
If they had
A good summer
Cars go
Up and down
Road
Between Ragged
And Bald
Mountains
Which is
Where I
Find myself
Each
Morning,
Alone
Scholarship and the immersion into words.
St. Jerome (born c. 347, Stridon, Dalmatia—died 419/420, Bethlehem, Palestine; feast day September 30) was a biblical translator and monastic leader, traditionally regarded as the most learned of the Latin Fathers. He lived for a time as a hermit, became a priest, served as secretary to Pope Damasus I, and about 389 established a monastery at Bethlehem. His numerous biblical, ascetical, monastic, and theological works profoundly influenced the early Middle Ages. He is known particularly for his Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate, and has been designated a doctor of the church, a title granted to saints in the Roman Catholic Church whose writings and teachings are of particular importance. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Jerome
Where one finds
what one is
Looking through
You
Good
For you
Good
For us
Panentheism
Inhabits
And
Surrounds
Should you
Be so inclined
We don’t know what to do with derangement, paranoia, malignant narcissism, and cruelty. Psychopathy is difficult to contain and treat.
I feel badly for the patient. Mostly I feel badly for those around him helplessly afraid. Then I feel angry with those who use and manipulate him for their own benefit.
We are abused children in a disfunctional household where addicted adults and neighbors are high and abusive and out of control.
Things, we like to say, will get better. But not until additional pain and suffering is promulgated and prolonged.
Mental illness sucks.
It is our plague right now.
Unhappily.
a theological/philosophical
encomium in prison this morning
to Deum Creamus -- the adverbial
adjectival co-creating of God
Time will come
Ugliness in White House
Will be taken away
As if gold
Would change
Anything
How many words
Does it take
For a sentence
To reveal itself
The answer is
None —
Itself is wordless
Presence
I find
I have
Little
To say
When guests
Visit I
Have little
To say
Last night
Around fire
Pit a trillion
Stars overhead
None of
Them said
Anything but
We are here
As fire
Lowered
In steel
Ring