Monk in the World Guest Post: Tom Delmore
I’m delighted to share another beautiful submission to the Monk in the World guest post series from the community. Read on for Tom Delmore’s poems on the Kingdom of Heaven.
The Kingdom of Heaven on earth. The Kingdom within, is a big shift for me. Raised in the Catholic faith and dad’s mantra of: brownie points and rewards are in heaven only. I am seeing the kingdom in the ordinary. These poems are thresholds to the Kingdom.
The Kingdom of HeavenThe Kingdom of heaven is likeAll those truths Jesus spokeIn Matthew’s gospel, I’m sure.It is also,Sisyphus without a boulderOr that fifth ace that’s acceptable.Shopping and talking and no mask. The road is what you expected.God, in all of us. Nicodemus More confident in the light.The woman at the well comparingWater to living water or justThat imagined look upon her face.But I was waiting for that invitationAn entrance, the personal, me.Jesus was telling all the beauty Of heaven and I, like the parochial Child, kept my hand raised. CallOn me, it waved. ABBAWhat is the kingdom of heavenFor me?A place of no pain.*****What to RememberI am not stacking symmetric shapesLike the Montessori studentOn his private mat. My Zen momentComes with dry seaweed amongstDamp, uneven stones. Lapping wavesDon’t speak receding or incoming of tide.Focus, is the bellwether, the “just so”‘Tween the billows of my breath.At three stones I look to seeIf I’ve drawn attentionOther than sandflies. My kneesAnd hips ache-As if,They’ve set limits my mindRefuses to ignore.At four stones and sandI make myself quitStumble back, gain balanceAnd tumble intoThe short tower of rocks.Tide aside, I stagger in soreness.*****I missed a piece of the kingdomI missed a piece of the kingdomLike a well-worn jigsaw puzzle-I pushed instead of fit.Large Cezanne women bathersCalled me outOf fleshy secrecy.Down the road Over the bridge To the left.Stay awake.What I lost I will not know.Only perhaps the castle road-Or a wrestling angel.*****You Shall Dine With me this Evening in the KingdomI am amazed unscuffing a shellOn a desert dune. Invoking dreamsOf an ocean so huge, so deep, to suspend disbelief.At the bus stop all concrete and manmadeTwo oyster shells, as ifA gull had preened and set the mollusks,For another.Wading deep in shoal awarenessThe poor are eating well in the kingdom.
Tom A (TA) Delmore lives in Bellevue, Washington. His books of poetry include Eclipsing F Crow Poems (Little Letterhead Press, 1996); Child is working to Capacity (Moon Pie Press, 2006); A Poultice for Belief (March Street Press, 2009); Tell them that you saw me but didn’t see me saw (Moon Pie Press, 2011). Individual poems have been published in Raven Chronicles and Seattle M.E.N. Magazine. His latest Poem appears in; Take a Stand Art Against Hate. A Raven Chronicles Anthology. Titled: Homeless Vet. 2020 A Thurible of Belief August 2022 in America Magazine a Jesuit Weekly.
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