Steve Dublanica's Blog, page 3

Pluck Out Your Eyes

Today, my family attended a memorial mass to commemorate the first anniversary of my father’s death. Since I didn’t burst into flames the moment I walked into the church, I took that as a good sign. Taking a pew next to my mother, I took a deep breath and prepared to get aggravated. I’m not knocking the Catholic Church, but I never liked the changes Pope Benedict foisted on liturgy back in 2011. “And with your spirit?” “Consubstantial?”  Replacing “cup” with “chalice” in the Words of Institution?  C’mon. The mass I grew up with was lovely and, to me at least, flowed seamlessly. Now priests seem to be trying to cram the name of every saint who ever lived into the program. Linus, Cletus, Clement, and Sixtus? Who? They did mention Stephen though. That’s okay.

The Gospel that day was from Matthew where Jesus proclaimed, “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.” When I was a kid, that passage always spooked me. Did Jesus seriously want me to mutilate myself? Looking around I saw some elementary age children in attendance and, since it was a noonday mass, I assumed they were home schooled. What did they think about what they just heard? Sitting back, I turned up the gain on my hearing aids, wondering how the priest would explain that one. He didn’t touch it with a ten foot pole. 

Instead, he pivoted to the Old Testament reading from Sirach that said, “Do not be so confident of atonement that you add sin to sin. Do not say, ‘His mercy is great, he will forgive the multitude of my sins’ and launched into a ditty about the “Sin or Presumption” which basically means you can’t go out and sin your ass off because God’s going to forgive you anyway. Since seminary wrecked my ability to ever enjoy a sermon without nitpicking it, I thought to myself, “It’d just be quicker and easier to say, “Yeah, God loves you, but don’t be an asshole about it.” Probably a good thing I was never ordained. 

By the time the priest had finished, however, I’d already written a replacement sermon in my head. “Don’t go plucking out your eyes out or cutting off your feet, everyone,” I would’ve preached. “Jesus said that to get your attention. And he got your attention, right?  The Lord used such extreme language to make a point; that sin is destructive to you and everyone around you and, sometimes, we have to make drastic changes to live a good and holy life. How many of us drink too much? Maybe it’s time to stop going to bars. Do drugs? Maybe stop hanging out with those who do, even if that means leaving behind people we’ve known all our life. Bet on the ponies to the point where we can’t provide for our family’s basic needs? Maybe it’s time to stop hanging out at the track. But here’s a sin I know we all can relate to. How many of us stare at our cellphones instead of spending quality time with our spouses, friends and children? When we sit down with our family to eat, letting our eyes be drawn away by notifications, texts, videos, tweets and Candy Crush instead of listening to each other? Don’t we realize how insulting and dehumanizing that is to those around us? Telling them what whatever’s on a video screen is somehow more important to us than they are?  To avoid that sin, turn off your phone! Leave it at home! For many of us, that would be like plucking out our eyes anyway!” Short, timely, relatable and a little bit funny. That’s how I would’ve done it.

Chucking to myself, I wondered how those who take the bible literally deal with that Gospel passage. Last time I checked, there aren’t many “no-fap” evangelicals out there gouging out their eyes and hacking off their hands to stop logging onto PornHub. I think we would’ve heard about that. Funny how that deracinated system of biblical exegesis works. Then again, despite Jesus’ clear teachings on the dangers of wealth, giving to the poor, and welcoming the stranger, quite a few religious types out there seem to have turned the Gospels into a mandate to get rich, burn the queers, and herd immigrants into detention camps. Amazing how people twist Jesus’ words to suit their worldview instead of truly taking what He said to heart. 

After the service was over, we took my mom to the cemetery to view dad’s urn under glass, say a few prayers and then went to a restaurant for a nice lunch. Today was not the exact anniversary of my father’s death, just when the church had a free slot in their intercession schedule. When that actual day and hour arrives, I will be on a plane winging its way over the Gulf of Mexico on my way to visit a friend in Costa Rica. Something tells me my father would’ve wanted it that way. But leaving church today, I knew making changes is a necessary part of life. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to adjust to the demands of an aging body, the needs of a growing child, a marriage that’s always evolving, and the knowledge the days behind me outnumber the ones ahead. What did Dylan say, “He who is not busy being born is busy dying?” You’ve got to roll with the punches and, when you see something isn’t working for you anymore – or for those around you – you’ve got to at least try and fix it. When you think about it, change is a mark of intelligence. Only dumb people never change. Maybe what Jesus meant in that Gospel passage was simply this:

“Don’t be a stupid asshole.”

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Aloha

When I was in seminary, one of my professors told me, “Before God, there was a sense of the sacred.” Long before people started theologizing, they looked at the rising sun, thunderstorms, mighty oceans, and the stars with awe and wonder. Peering into Kilauea’s vast caldera, I knew why Hawaiians of old and today considered this a holy place. Just in front of the observation deck, someone had left an offering to Pele, the Hawaiian god of volcanos, both creator and destroyer and mother of their island home. 

When I checked the live cam that morning, Kilauea was still geysering magma high in the air but, when we got there before dusk, the earth’s rage had ceased and all that remained was a vast expanse of grey and black rock ribboned with a few streaks of molten lava. Disappointing, but I would have felt like a real rube if I’d come to The Big Island and missed seeing an active volcano. That’s something we just don’t have in Jersey. My daughter was more interested in boogie-boarding and took a pass, so my wife and I left her in the care of her aunt and made the journey from Kona-Kilauea by ourselves. Taking the long way on the Belt Road, we stopped at a roadside joint serving malasadas, a type of Portuguese doughnut, and Kona coffee to fortify ourselves for the drive into Hilo and then to the national park. 

Munching on our sugary treats, we looked at a mother hen guiding her chicks through the flora and fauna while below us the mighty Pacific stretched as far as the eye could see. Sipping my coffee, I remembered that the first Polynesians to settle this archipelago travelled five thousand miles across open ocean in canoes with only the stars to guide them while their European contemporaries were still afraid to sail beyond the sight of land – fearing that they would fall of the edge of the world. The first people who beheld Kilauea might not have invented the wheel, but they weren’t stupid. The also had a lot of guts. What prompted them to leave the safe shores of home for an unknown place and watch as their familiar stars were replaced by the constellations of a new hemisphere? Some believe they were fleeing the new religion of Oro taking hold in their lands, a god who demanded sacrifices of flesh and blood and had displaced Kane, their benevolent god, the creator of life. Not the first time that has happened. 

“In the Old Testament,” I once told my daughter, “God often comes across as a big meanie – flooding the earth, destroying cities, turning people into salt, playing mind games – but, as the Bible went on, we see Him start turning into a much nicer guy. Then, by the time when we get to the Gospels, God is no longer something to be feared but loved and who loves us.” 

‘Why daddy?” Natalie, said. 

“God didn’t change,” I said. “We did. The Bible is the story of us discovering God.” 

Of course, the first Christian missionaries who came to Hawaii were aghast at the islander’s heathenish ways and set about converting them post haste, only to end up almost wiping the natives out with European diseases, enslaving them, and eventually stealing their lands in the service of the deities those newcomers truly loved – money and power.  In the 1966 movie Hawaii, Max von Sydow portrayed one of those missionaries a year after he starred as Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told. But if Jesus had seen the afflictions heaped on the Hawaiians in his name, he would have, as Max would later quip in Annie Hall, “Never stopped throwing up.” Well, it wasn’t the first time serpents has ruined a paradise. Makes you wonder if things would have been better if Captain Cook’s ship had sunk. 

Staring at Pele’s offering, I held my wife’s hand in the evening chill as the low lying clouds hugging the hills began to incandesce in the rays of the setting sun. Then, as shadows chased away the light, night revealed a beauty only darkness could reveal – Kilauea’s caldera had become a lake of fire. The scientific part of my brain knew how this volcano came to be but, as I beheld its power, those facts were swept away by a primal sense of awe. Knowing instinctually, I was in a sacred place, I silently offered a prayer to Pele and remembered that all religion begins in wonder.  I’m very glad I went there. 

Then I got home and watched Donald Trump and J.D. Vance squirm in their pew as a bishop asked then to have mercy on immigrants and LGBT people while Melania glowered with what might’ve been contempt. The bishop, who didn’t insult our new leaders, professed Christians both, but asked them only to remember the kindness Jesus preached. By the end of the day, however, some GOP wag called for the American born bishop to be deported and Donald, being Donald, dismissed the clergywoman as a “leftist” kook. I guess people don’t go to church to be preached too. Then again, a Baptist minister recently described how his fellow pastors would preach about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, specifically the part about turning the other cheek, only to have their parishioners come up to them after the service and ask, “Where’d you get those liberal talking points?” When Jesus’ own words are considered suspect by Christians, then something is very, very wrong. 

Eighty-two percent of evangelical Christians voted for Donald Trump, despite their fellow theologian John Piper proclaiming, “Trump’s immoral behavior in the past, and his ongoing unwillingness to renounce it as evil, show that he is morally unfit to lead our nation.” Why did they vote for a man who has constantly spread division and confusion instead of trying to uplift and inspire us? Why pick a man who, while the paint was still drying in the Oval Office said, “What? Do you want me to go swimming?” after being asked if he’d visit the site of that terrible airplane crash in D.C.? Who, instead of consoling grieving families, launched into a tirade against his perceived enemies? Not to gang up on evangelicals, lots of Catholics voted for him too, but the only answer I can come up with is that some of them have lost sight of what Jesus was truly about. But this isn’t the first time such a thing has happened. History is replete with examples of believers perverting the Gospels in pursuit of money, status, power and a false sense of certainty. Just ask the Hawaiians.

Seeing this kind of stuff, its small wonder people are deserting organized religion in droves. You don’t have to be an expert in theology or biblical exegesis to see that the craven and mendacious takeover of American Christianity by people who consider the Gospels “weak” or “too woke” and hell bent on political dominance are just another iteration of the Pharisees and Sadducees Jesus continuously railed against. Splitting that scene, far from being indicative of “godlessness” is actually a healthy reaction. Who wants to put up with that shit? Oddly enough, that that fills me with hope. The Church – and when I say “church” I mean all the denominational flavors out there –  will always survive, it just may turn into something different. That’s happened many times over it’s history. The very first Christians would’ve been hard pressed to recognize “The Way” a scant three hundred years later as bishops began wearing funny hats, doctrinal battles raged, and the Lord’s breaking of bread became a ritualized affair. Then again, religion is usually a one step forward and two steps back kind of thing. The Catholic Church once condoned slavery and capital punishment. Now it does not. Once popes proclaimed, “Outside of the church there is no salvation.” Now they say, “all religions are pathways to reach God.” God doesn’t change; we do. Perhaps more change is coming. 

Like those brave first Hawaiians in their canoes, I think disaffected believers and religious “nones,” rejecting the ravenous new “American God” consuming money and blood, are already unfurling their sails in search of a new home. It won’t be easy. There will be ups and downs and their hope will be tried but, while their former brethren foment ignorance and anger whilst clinging to the paranoid certitude of their insular shores, these explorers won’t fall of the edge of the world. Instead, by crossing that vast expanse of sacred wonder that is available to all, they will rejuvenate what is old and true, discover revelations afresh and, perhaps realize, “It is better to be Christian without saying it, than to proclaim it without being it.” Maybe then they’ll eventually start building a paradise where compassion, gratitude and love is “The Way.” I think that would make Jesus very happy. Palm trees and boogie-boarding would be nice too. 

Aloha.

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So This Is Christmas

My daughter plays the flute in her fifth grade band and, this morning, they put on a holiday concert. Arriving early, I snagged a couple of seats near the front for snapping pictures and waited for my wife to join me. 

“How are you, Steve?” one of the mom’s seated behind of me, asked. 

“Fine,” I lied automatically.  “How are you?” 

“Getting ready for Christmas,” she said. “This is your busy time at work, isn’t it?”  

“Yes,” I said, flatly. I wasn’t up for small talk.  

“Well, enjoy the concert.” 

“You too.” 

Watching as the children filed in and took their seats, I waved to my daughter and her face broke out in a big smile. She was very happy I was there but, truth be told, I’d’ve rather stayed in bed – but I’m a father that means trying to act like everything’s okay when it’s anything but.  Fidgeting in my seat, the kids’ bright excited chatter seemed like an alien counterpoint to the screams still echoing in my ears. 

My wife joined me, and the concert began. Watching as my daughter’s pursed lips coaxed sounds out of her instrument, I wondered how she was doing. It had been a rough twelve months for all of us. First the dog died, my father and now this. “Many great dears have been taken away,” I thought to myself. ‘What will become of you and me?” I was worried about my daughter. I was worried about my wife. I was worried about me. 

A round of applause chided me away from my thoughts and I absently clapped along. I’d been in a fog all week, the simplest tasks seeming like a gargantuan hurdle, and that’s not good when you do the job I do. A volunteer who was with me when I had cancer and my father died told me, “I’ve never seen you like this.” But this was different; like life had been stripped of its illusory veneer and I was finally seeing the seething chaotic substance which truly lay beneath. 

Last week a friend of mine killed himself. I won’t go into details other than to say I was on scene, dealt with the traumatized person who found him, and called the cops. That was a horrible night. He was such a good man. He didn’t deserve to go out that way. Now I see him everywhere I look. Just last night, I had a vision of him on my porch, beer in his hand and smiling his lopsided grin. They tell me that’s normal, but now everything seems off kilter, like when the doors won’t close right after an earthquake has shifted the foundations of your house. 

Feeling reality was gossamer thin and could split open anytime, my brain and body now seemed to be moving slowly and with great care, lest I ruptured the thin membrane separating the familiar from the alien and terrible. Watching the children playing their hearts out, I was jealous of their innocence and joy, blissfully unaware that people can succumb alone in a darkened room to a pain so lonely, desperate and terrible. Why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t he knock on my door? But as one of his friend’s wrote on his memorial, it was shame he wasn’t as comfortable with us as we were around him. The worst part was telling my daughter a man she knew most of her life was gone. Even though we didn’t tell her how he died, she isn’t stupid. One day she’ll figure it out. 

The other night, his mourning friends strung up Christmas lights around his house and set up a little memorial on his lawn with flowers, as if those sparkling bulbs could dispel the darkness of what happened there. Since he lived close to me, I see them every day, along with the cars in his driveway that seemed to know he’d never drive them again. Knowing his garbage was half full, I’d dragged the can to the curb for the trashman to take away. I didn’t look inside because I knew it contained the detritus of the last days of his life. It’s little things like that which set me off; the suit on a hanger inside his car, mail in the mailbox, and the light burning in his bedroom like nothing’s amiss. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was still there. Eventually, of course, after the dust settles and all the legal niceties have been observed, his house will be sold, the memory of his face will blur, and another family will move in. It will be strange to see new people there. For them, I hope more light falls on that house than shadow. 

Watching my daughter play her flute, I thought about the circuitous route my life had taken and how, despite my selfishness and stupidity, it had lavished such great treasure at my feet. No matter the pain and sorrow I’d recently witnessed, I knew this concert was one of those small jewels that made life worth living. I also knew that the substance of hope lay in the knowledge that lovely moments like these would come again and again. How my friend lost that hope I will never understand. After his shattering death I’ve I found myself humbled. I know nothing.

After the concert ended, I beamed broadly, praised my daughter’s play, took the obligatory photos and shook the music teacher’s hand. Then I kissed my wife goodbye and went to work. Because my food pantry’s holiday programs were in full swing, I had to screw on a smile as I thanked donors bringing in toys for tots and food for the hungry, but I knew I was just going through the motions. My heart wasn’t in it and part of me wondered if it ever would be again – but I’ll buy my daughter presents, put up a tree, and sing carols because I’m a father who has to act like everything’s okay when it’s anything but. 

Driving home after work, I stopped by my friend’s house and stood in front of the makeshift memorial on his lawn. As the holiday lights strung up by those left behind began to push back against the wintry shadows of the abdicating sun, I shivered. Too much loss this year. Too much sorrow. Too many great dears taken away. Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I looked up at my friend’s bedroom and sighed. My favorite memory of him will always be the smile on his face when he carried three neighborhood children effortlessly in his strong arms while they shouted with glee. That was a lovely moment. For my friend, those moments are gone but, as I stood in the cold, I knew my salvation lay in the hope that more of them would come. Bowing my head, I said a silent prayer for his loved ones, those for whom the holidays would never be the same. Then, seized with sorrow, I muttered, “So, this is Christmas.” 

Goodbye my friend.

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Out of Control

Malignancies, car crashes 

Power’s decisions rash 

Politics, war, ideological clash

Terror marring summer skies

Buildings imploding, cutting short lives

Death, loss, insanity, sundering ties

Young men angered over trifles

Seeking fame with rifles 

Innocent lives stifled

Spouses swift dead

Penury unexpected instead

Loves replaced with dread

Youth taken too soon

Hearts devastated strewn

Not escaping doom

Time’s swift march 

Aged realities harsh

Loneliness too much

Control, an illusion 

Reality, all confusion 

No matter what say television

All things change 

Rearrange

Old wisdoms burn and flame

The more you grasp

To rigid breasts clasp

Shorter do things last

Swept away are we

Towards futures unseen

Not knowing whom we’ll be

You are not the master of your fate

Nor Captain of your soul. 

Realize this, before the bell tolls.

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Autumn Morning Jog

On morning kissed streets

Mercuries fleet streak past

As mothers perambulating, solidarity meet

Whilst old men for whom the die’s cast

Each other knowingly greet.

The shopkeeper with wares

Opening for the day 

As youth, hale and fair

Blazing bright, much to say

Easy rolling gaits, tragedy unaware.

Dogs walking, leashes straining

Sidewalk cafes, families chattering,

Street oddities, furtive, complaining 

Singles, couples, happy or mourning

Here and there, laughter roaring. 

Livery aluminum carapaced  

Roll down the thoroughfare 

Stopping at crosswalks, no haste 

Savoring first coffee tastes 

As sinless children amble without care. 

Trees ringed resolute, generous shading 

Swaying boughs sheltering lives small

Rooted in dark soil’s embracing

Filtering distant furnaced rays, scattering

Hammer thin beat gold upon all. 

Soft zephyrs raising placid heats

While swift birds chorist, lofted pageantry

Carried on currents gentle, sweet

Carving air, dancing majesties 

Angelic glissandos, towards Heaven compete.

Keeping pace, the greyed man races

Knowing all that was, is, and shall appear

Before him laid now, illumed by Creation’s blazes 

Tantalizing close, far, and yet so dear

Hidden between the music of the spheres. 

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Satanic Mills

Huddled masses, yearning to be free

Enslaved to needs of you and me

Grow our crops, tend our fields

Beneath hard men who refuse to yield.

Packing impulsive desires 

Things they can’t afford to acquire 

Into mails, swift to ship 

As technocrats crack the whip.

Clean our homes, porcelains gleaming

As we whisper about them stealing

Between haves and nots, lack of trust

But lives easier have we must. 

Cooking our food, bussing tables

For them, leisure a fable

Pay stolen, tips robbed

Someone else always to take their job. 

Plucking poultry, slaughtering cows

That we eat not caring how

Building houses they cannot buy

Day labored, for them the Dream is a lie.  

Tasks we don’t want, below us

Glad others have to fuss

Out of sight, their travails we miss

To live in bubble shined bliss. 

Working hurt and sick

To maximize hours, profits, and clicks

Herded in tenements, landlords’ rapacious 

Cold baths, molds, stilled furnaces.

They only want a better life

Away from poverty and strife

If in their shoes you

What would you do?

Walking thousands of leagues 

Familiar hearths they leave 

Trekking deserts, jungles, seas

Tougher than you and me. 

Cyclically we demonize them 

Blaming for all injuries to our ken

Crimes committed; jobs taken

So easy to forsaken.

Pull themselves up by bootstraps

Preach we old mediocratic crap 

But opportunity, hoard to our breast

For ourselves only, forsaking the rest.

Fanned by nativist rage

All across the newspaper page

We turn against our serfs

But only ourselves we hurt. 

A nation lip serviced Christian 

Spouting hollow benedictions 

Forgetting commands Gospel

To the stranger, Pharisee hostile. 

When tell the travelling poor  

To deport from our shores

Forgetting we were them back when

Reveals more about us than them. 

Better to keep them in penury, wicked  

We have ourselves deluded permitted 

To have our gluttonous fill 

Grind tender souls up in Satanic mills. 

Beware of politicians’ crazy

Exhorting arguments dishonest and lazy  

Seeking to cast out immigrant throngs 

Because trust me, when your stuff doesn’t come

You’ll miss them when they are gone.  

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Department Store Baby

Baby ahead of me in line

Eyes staring, beautiful they shine  

Fresh opened, trusting, kind

Shimmering wisdoms new and divine. 

Not stained with adult guile 

Which sorrow’s sediment piles  

Ensouled only a short while 

She makes me smile. 

What in her life shall she see

When time marches beyond me? 

Flying cars? Men on Mars? All possibility

When I’m not around, what’s to be?

How time does pace

Youth surrendering grace

Under my cragged face 

Memories legion taking up space.

Cobwebbed, untrustworthy 

Sometimes trying sanity

Yet, for baby, all still maybe

Free from burdens weighty.

Now in tender times

Fanciful nursery rhymes

Just at the start of her climb

A ramble ridiculous & sublime. 

When my age, she

I will no longer be. 

Just a memory

In hearts once loving me. 

But that’s okay

It can be no other way

Chronos’ specter holds sway

As day follows after day. 

But now, my sins all shrived

After fifty-six years lived 

Shock joyed; by chance beauty visited.

Basking in glories unsolicited.

Sticking out my tounge

I watch her face delighted become

Transfixed, as old and young 

Fleetingly touch, becoming one. 

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Affliction, Wrath, & Need

The Golden Mouthed, he was the one

Singing about the Father, Spirit, & Son 

Intoning Triune creeds

Beseeching deliverance from affliction, wrath and need. 

Old words, on Sunday’s rote droned

Under gold onioned domes

Before workaday concerns, alone

Dominate ordinary time at home. 

By Monday, incense drifted away

Tabletop concerns reassert sway.

What’s owed me and you?

Glad tidings left in the pew. 

Tuesday, homeless man on the street

What then, when our eyes meet?

Give him spare change,

Or leave from kindness estranged?

Wednesday, home burned in fire

Family lost possessions entire. 

Give them our spare clothes 

Or tell them someplace else go?

Thursday, mother and hungry baby

Can’t eat good willed maybes.

Do we let out hearts be swayed

Or blithely walk away?

Friday, friend alone, hospital bound 

Asking us to come around.

Forgo an hour of our time glorified

Or excuse ourselves with polite lies? 

Saturday, disaster blows 

Injuring people we don’t know.

The wounded many, come in a flood

But we don’t even part with a drop of blood. 

Sunday comes round again

After ignoring the week’s pain

Our hearts paying no heed

To other’s affliction, wrath, and need. 

Why bother with golden litanies

And prayers for love’s certainties

When our hearts and minds in schism

And souls imprisoned? 

The Great Author knows all

Even the slightest sparrow’s fall,

So, forget our incanted rhymes 

And false promises’ shine.

Thought and prayers, useless 

For us hardened and ruthless.

An infernal road we tread

For faith without works is dead. 

Wisdom! Pay Attention!

Hell’s path’s paved with good intentions,

Leading to gnashing of teeth

When refusing help to those we meet.

For the Day will surely come

When from Heaven’s Hound we will run

Not seeing in our sin

That failing to do for others, we failed Him.

Men must be like angels

Not empty, clanging cymbals.

For together ourselves, you see   

Delivereth each other from affliction, wrath, & need. 

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Wildfires Of No Consequence

Billowing menace, acrid scents 

Old growth, saplings charring together 

While out of sight, fawns distressed race

And the owl’s perch succumbs. 

Golden hordes breaching firebreaks 

Rapine alight windswept, rapacious, desiccation stoked  

Consuming canopies, no quarter given

While rooted tributaries blazing course underfoot. 

Slight deluges, drawn from placid lakes

Lofted by fraught metaled battalions

Plunge pityingly into the maelstrom 

As fearful caravans scatter, grasping trifles,

While cathode shamans prophecy

The great globe’s doom

Too much, not enough, too late,

Before peddling wares. 

Yet, Sol Invictus shrugs

Arcing across azure skies parched,

Indifferent. It has seen much worse

Then this slight spark lit.

Comets’ wrath hammering!

Ringing Gaia’s bell.

Vulcan’s bellows springing traps!

Skies thickened, raining corrosion.

The last breath of dying stars!

Rime’s glacial gouging rape 

Continents cracking, smothering heats! 

Oceans boiling – the great dyings. 

How many unknown sorrows then

And cruelties? 

Younglings multitude, flaming cleaved

From mothers – frightened, burned, apart, 

As vistas rendered black

Mountains plundered; forests coaled

Sea’s barren, winds pestilent and

Wonders struck and stilled. 

Sol once wept over unique beauties 

Cindered and delicate joys ash heaped,

Desecrated tenderness; tears furious

That life requires death. 

Now, numbed from many perishings

Tragedies, grief, innumerable loss

Sol, sojourning jaded, doesn’t bother

To learn his children’s names anymore.

Now he just tends to his furnace, 

And brood of lifeless gods

Trying to remember lost rhymes stellar

From nursery days long gone. 

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Fighting Decay

Things you have to do 

To your body stay true.

Diet, exercise, apothecary

Doctors, tests, insurance mandatory. 

Youth ground away 

A little more each day

But forget counsel’s irredentist

I still have to go to the dentist. 

Ever since battles malignant

Naked, poked – most indignant

Chattering angst free floats 

Whenever I spy a lab coat. 

Lysol scented parchment 

Sterile, cold compartments 

Periodicals, out of date, 

Too much for my soul to take. 

But this is just a cleaning

Make my teeth gleaming.

Nothing to worry about

But I still have my doubts. 

Terror, I know, can burst from the blue

On a fine day, to take all from you. 

Once hit with such pain

You dread its return again.

This is the specter

My mind does it hector

Invulnerability, I now understand

A foundation built on sand. 

“Are you okay?” the dentist asks

Tool in hand to remove plaques

Concern furrowing brow

Elsewhere I’d rather be now. 

Last time I was here

Day before father’s soul dear

Did death did take

My tooth still aching at his wake.

A bad association, perhaps

Neuroses does the mind trap

Setting me a bother 

Even when one thing

Doesn’t have to do with the other. 

Open mouthed, heart thumping

Metallic scrapes, irrigation pumping

Whirring pastes, floss, then spit

Too long do I sit.  

Then lead aproned, X-Ray

After sugary sins washed away

Tounge, gums, examined

Hoping nothing bad’s happened.

“All’s well.” comes the reprieve 

Ministered amnesty and relief,

Then I get a toothbrush

And out the door I rush. 

Pardoned, into the morn I go

Enamel fortified, into traffic’s flow

Procrastinated task done

Yet more skirmishes to be won. 

To gym I head to iron sinews taut

Not because I want to, but ought.

To stay on this firmament 

Despites laziness’ candied endearments. 

Time marches on, our bodies grist

“Til we disappear into Empyrean mists

But to your body you must be true 

Until slip away you do. 

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