Steve Dublanica's Blog, page 4

Jerusalem Can Wait

Every tear wiped away,

But not in Isreal

Not in Gaza.

Where’s your Messiah now? 

Ukraine’s sunflowers weep,

Unable to follow the sun

Attrited by Third Rome’s janissaries,

Iconostases rubbled

By eyes in the sky weeping ruin. 

Iron beasts, slain

Litter desert, forest, 

By isotopic arrows despoiled,

Cancerous, ravenous, patient. 

Empty hearths.  

Children’s questions. 

Abba? Father?

Wives’ breasts cleaved,

Hungers unsatisfied.

Dirt napped in 24,

Pine boxed, incensed

A wailing last touch or kiss,

Pulling on shrouds, 

Then on with their lives. 

Must fields burn

Before new growth? 

Always one step forward.

Two steps back with you God. 

Between agony and ecstasy

I choose a child’s safe smile.  

Pasture those four horses. 

The New Jerusalem can wait. 

The post Jerusalem Can Wait  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

The One That Got Away

Young, trim and cute

Setting all reason on mute

Forever twenty-one

I thought she was the one.

Yet lost in trauma

Oh Mama!

Slipped away

Through my fingers one day. 

Day she was lost

My friend crucified on cancer’s cross

Wheeled out on gurney entire

Consigned to death and fire. 

The keening widow

Grief bubbling from below

My friends ashen, prayers rote

Certitude up in smoke. 

Broke up the same day

Didn’t let her have her say

Now knowing the cost I’d pay

Was she the one that got away? 

Many others since

As my heart sought to evince

True love

Redemption sired below, not above. 

A bit did I tarry

But I found her and married

House followed dogs and baby

I met the right lady. 

But would’ve, could’ve

Maybes’ and should’ves

Always a battle

As the mind tattles. 

Mourning love shorn

Possibilities unborn.

A better happiness, maybe?

More, more, unsatisfied, greedy.

Look forward, not back they say

Hand to the plough all the way

Easy to say 

Much harder to obey. 

Might’ves craft multiverses 

Lefts instead of rights, curses 

Sifting through memory’s purse

Regret’s teat on which we nurse.

Replacing what you have 

Forgoing extant salves

Missing what’s in front of you

Here and true. 

I suppose that’s human 

Nostalgia’s a tricky lumen 

But our haves’ hurt are they

When what if’s hold sway. 

Wisdom! Pay attention! 

There’s no future or past

Only the now worth mention

Cleaving remorse’s sickly cast.

Soulmates a fiction 

Never’s there but one in a million

Legion, legion are they

Who can take your breath away. 

Settle on one you must

Offering soft fleshed trust

Intimacies dancing, passion’s play.

Then, betwixt at end of the day,

As the boughs outside sway

Heart and mind not astray 

You realize there was never one 

That got away.  

The post The One That Got Away  appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Reynard’s Fiddle

There will be wars 

And rumors of wars

The rapacious mogul knows

Plying his long division in television shows.

Fractional punditry

Unhinged jaws, Hell’s colliers 

Cast the masses sundry

Into worlds polar. 

Reynard’s sly

Vixens too, aggrieved privilege fuming 

Pushing lies

The common outrage consuming.

Facts elided

Talking points lockstep spun

No report, we’ve decided. 

Obfuscating ‘til the program’s done. 

What is truth, for that matter?

Isn’t that what Pilate said?

Letting Sadducee opinion shatter 

And strike the Lamb dead. 

Forgetting Truth is Trust 

That what must be must

Letting reason pierce ignorance’s crust 

Otherwise, reality’s a bust. 

Like Rome’s fiddler dread

Reynard’s playing with fire

Risking Transcendent ire

Desiring ratings instead. 

They’re all about money, honey. 

They don’t give a fuck 

Never have in memory

For those down on their luck. 

I & Thee 

They cannot see 

In them there is no we

Only me, me, me. 

Tune out, drop in

Connection’s joy warms the hearth!

Leave behind their jabbering sin

And their art’s cynical dark. 

The post Reynard’s Fiddle appeared first on Waiter Rant.

So Goeth Before the Fall

Fall, my favorite season

Fires chlorophyllous, riotous,

Swirling as kids rustle about

Hiding in leaves. 

Familial conscripts raking  

Chafing against Sisyphean task

Hedges color snared 

Trees haltingly immodest. 

Trick or Treat 

The hobgoblins innocent plaint

Mercantile pumpkin spice, cloying sweet

Radiators pinging in the night. 

Attic exchange

Swapping old clothes 

For the cold new time’s

Pneumonias, grippes, and threats.

As graciously surrendered life 

Trampled underfoot

Is taken for granted 

It does not have to come again. 

The Goth’s solstice snark

“This is when everything dies!” 

That’s always been 

But joy’s remainder persists through snows.

Beauty in loss

The gnarled maple majestic 

The last to denude

Whispers dormant resurrection. 

Numbered days these are

The cycles long for some, others short

Go out and play

In the season of fire. 

Savor cider, sweatered moments

First frosts and burning piles 

The hour’s retreat, harvest fruits

The star’s early dive. 

Sundial shadows stretch 

Marking time gravity bent

Ordinary yet Eternal 

Carried away are we.

Listen. Are you listening? 

The world remorselessly spins

Taking no account of sin

But with each turn

It does it all over again. 

No matter money or fame

All consigned to time’s flame

Swirling, riotous, it consumes all

So goeth before the fall. 

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Showering Regret

Live long enough

It’s a good bet 

You’re gonna accumulate regret. 

With me, youthful mistakes

Manifest in the shower

Bursting unmasked, clarity’s power. 

How was I so stupid? 

Yelping with chagrin

Aged missteps alive again. 

Despite water and suds

I cannot wash them away

Dunce cap moments here to stay. 

Chattering whispers

Turns right instead of left

Loss minted fresh, again bereft.

“Are you okay?” the wife asks

While brushing her teeth

As husband follows memory’s crease. 

“It’s nothing,” I say,

Echoes fading from an old row

Hard to put my hand to the plough,

And move on

Leave history in its dustbin

With all my accretions of sin. 

Toweling off 

Lather, shave and dress

Pushing away life’s mess,

Out the door

To make new mistakes 

Grist for another shower to take. 

Live long enough

It’s a good bet 

You’re gonna accumulate regret. 

The post Showering Regret appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Dirty Magazine

Angels pornographic

God’s eros unbound

Beauty frozen in mouths agape

And limbs interwound. 

Beckoning above the Racing Forum

But below Guns & Ammo

Sultry eyes suggest 

Two or three gathered in His name  

Might make a spicy quorum. 

Airbrushed, turgid, gynecological. 

Just like icing on a cake

Sweet at first, then like paste,  

Love cannot celluloid make. 

Taboos broken 

To coax ejaculate out of the jaded

Time and tissues wasted 

The soul abraded. 

Better than nothing,

When backed up 

Brain semen shellacked

When connection eludes

Soothed by the nude. 

Paper bagged, out the door

One hand holding

Another taking away. 

Furtive motions, door locked 

Substitutes are poor

When your heart’s in the dock. 

The post Dirty Magazine appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Sunday At The Bar

Chores done

Time for a beer

I should cut back

Maybe next year.

Tires crunching gravel

Engage parking brake

Will tired feet to travel

I have thirst to slake.

Bright outside, inside dim

Eyes adjust

Disinhibited shouts, the usual din

Here and there, a smattering of lust.

Bartender, sleeves rolled up

Looking at me and past me

Draws IPA into a cup

Crumpled bills sacrificed, nothing’s for free.

Patrons’ boots hooked to the rail

Some are sober

Others look worked over

Soon to vomit in a pail.

Out on the patio

Fire, tobacco, smoke

Imbibing, puffing, the right ratio

Cool hops, Cuba’s glory to toke.

A dog chasing a ball cavorts

Ignoring carapaced critters

Mercy of a sort

Tail twitching as drunks titter.

Hellos and “How ya doin’s?”

Droughts for others bought 

Football’s weekly ruin

Wisdom here is not sought

Politics, sport, barstool maharajas

Holding court

Monday blahs, sunset demons

Predating on the edge of reason.

Cigar cindered to stub; beer done

Billards echoing, money lost and won

Hinges rusted protest, “Where ya going Bub?”

The drive home beneath the dying glare

Of our only sun.

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Thoughts In A Lyonnaise Church

Sheltered under beckoning spires 

Prismatic windows spin fire

Onto cold stone

Taking a pew, he sits alone. 

Votives burn and flicker  

Incense ghosts’ bicker

A monstrance gleams 

Nothing is what it seems. 

Sacerdotalism misplaced 

Prayers gone to waste 

Hearing sermons unwritten

Gospel footfalls unbidden. 

Indelible markings,  

Infinity’s shores harkening, 

Gathered not in twos and threes

Wondering what’s become of Thee. 

The altar of his youth 

Wrested away by proof

Of old sins and new

Innocence plundered through.

Vestments decay

Old shibboleths fray

Left to their own devices

Consumed by certainty’s vices. 

Despoiling mystery

Staining history

Millstones heaved

Children bereaved.

By city and town

Burn it all down

Bare ruined choirs

Ecclesiastics smug into Hell’s fires.

Still The Book clarion recalls

Eden’s promise before The Fall

Before serpents and flaming Cherubim

Took it away from us and them. 

Lillies that need not spin

Clothed in glory greater than Solomon!

Meekness greater than might

Love that will set things right!

An Empty tomb

For all issue of the womb 

Death without sting

Glad tidings to bring.

A hope so bold

No greater story ever told. 

Shock of Easter morn

Redeeming all yet to be born.

A Promise never taken away

No matter the false prophet’s sway

Logos eluding dogma, canonical art

Found only in human hearts. 

This place no longer has hold 

For him beyond the fold

Freed from rubric and scold, 

Listening as bells ring

His soul begins to sing. 

The post Thoughts In A Lyonnaise Church appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Circus Bread

Glowing faces 

Fingers dancing

Connections on hold

News, diversions, errata

Dopamine likes never postponed. 

Mother, father, son, daughter, 

At table 

Eating one handed 

Chewing,

Their batteries running low. 

The waitress sighs

She has tables to turn. 

Baal’s tablets, silicon gilded

Fucking up her tips.

Preaching false Gospel, fake news, 

Algorithmic snake oil 

Dripping from digital aristocrats

Handing out circus bread

While orange goblins twitter about. 

The post Circus Bread appeared first on Waiter Rant.

Forgotten Flute

My daughter forgot her flute 

I have to take it to school

Must have for her class to toot

Unseen by me, I’m not cool. 

Parking spot 

Armed seraphim overwatch

Disembodied intercom squawks, 

Innocence to protect his lot

Steel door, suspicion

Gorgon gatekeeper, 

Guardian of rules and tradition 

To elementary days I’m renditioned. 

The lock open clicks

Into a metal box I go

Boxing me in lest evil low

Reveal Satanic tricks. 

Fire drills, excuse to bound outside

For freedom’s momentary taste  

Now exhortations to run and hide

Or shelter in place. 

Outside, adults’ hard threat

Inside, softness, friendships hale

While unseen futures parents’ fret

Over lives unfurling sail. 

Woodwind left for music to make

Doors open, I’m set free

Dismissed, my escape I take

My child I did not see.

Fortress Scriptorium 

Left in my wake 

I motor in the adult imperium 

But unease I must shake.

Concrete curriculum shelled

Pressured by educator pride 

Waiting for the bell, 

My pearl lacquers apart inside.

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