food & thought
At a gas station in the early morning I bought a large coffee and a cheap breakfast biscuit and I drove through a day warm enough to be late Spring wearing a getup strikingly like my father's daily work uniform on my way to build long-promised bookshelves thinking as I shifted and steered my way down the mountain that we are the product, the people of our makers, God and parents, and we cannont escape this, only wake up to it, embrace this and drive onward.
Gospel Truth
We deny with our fool mouths
yet our Maker breathes under
our skin, rises, claims his own.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Friday, January 5, 2007
number 12
food & thought
There were six of us at the table: four of the family I live with, me the surrogate son, and a daughter's new boyfriend, here to meet the parents for the first time, and we ate baked mushrooms filled with good stuff and finger salads and spaghetti with the bread, the loaves torn to bits and plates of oil with salt and cracked pepper and we all laughed and we all passed plates and eyed the young man, comfortable or passing for comfortable and I thought about the miracle of guests and what it's like to pull a chair up to a strange table, what it's like to have a stranger at the table and how we aren't as strange as we clear the dishes, pour more wine.
Guests
For them, foreign everything,
a strange fork. For us, we break
bread with our finest faces.
There were six of us at the table: four of the family I live with, me the surrogate son, and a daughter's new boyfriend, here to meet the parents for the first time, and we ate baked mushrooms filled with good stuff and finger salads and spaghetti with the bread, the loaves torn to bits and plates of oil with salt and cracked pepper and we all laughed and we all passed plates and eyed the young man, comfortable or passing for comfortable and I thought about the miracle of guests and what it's like to pull a chair up to a strange table, what it's like to have a stranger at the table and how we aren't as strange as we clear the dishes, pour more wine.
Guests
For them, foreign everything,
a strange fork. For us, we break
bread with our finest faces.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
number 11
food & thought
I sliced the pork thin with enough kosher salt, and lots and lots of black pepper and then more, more pepper and it seared in the heat and then a mountain of broccoli and that was it -- all for the vegetables -- enough said from the plant kingdom, all over wide noodles in a thick sesame sauce and wine, red wine out of my favorite coffee mug and that was dinner as I chewed it, tired of rolling words around and out these last few days and now more words and I was thinking then and am still thinking now about where all these words come from in the recesses and crazed filing cabinets within me and about the magic that lays them down in bed with each other, here and other places too.
Writer's Prayer
Through walks that stretch over years,
at the desk or searching her
face, he hopes for some good words.
I sliced the pork thin with enough kosher salt, and lots and lots of black pepper and then more, more pepper and it seared in the heat and then a mountain of broccoli and that was it -- all for the vegetables -- enough said from the plant kingdom, all over wide noodles in a thick sesame sauce and wine, red wine out of my favorite coffee mug and that was dinner as I chewed it, tired of rolling words around and out these last few days and now more words and I was thinking then and am still thinking now about where all these words come from in the recesses and crazed filing cabinets within me and about the magic that lays them down in bed with each other, here and other places too.
Writer's Prayer
Through walks that stretch over years,
at the desk or searching her
face, he hopes for some good words.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
number 10
food & thought
A bland Moe's burrito crammed in my belly as I sat on the veranda with the smoking employees, irritated and on my way to an appointment I was more or less empty, no thoughts burned in me, every thing was as fleeting and thin as the clouds scudding by the full moon in the middle of our cold and windy night.
Untitled
I reflect the moon, in turn,
both swollen with a fullness
tonight, cold miles between us.
A bland Moe's burrito crammed in my belly as I sat on the veranda with the smoking employees, irritated and on my way to an appointment I was more or less empty, no thoughts burned in me, every thing was as fleeting and thin as the clouds scudding by the full moon in the middle of our cold and windy night.
Untitled
I reflect the moon, in turn,
both swollen with a fullness
tonight, cold miles between us.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
number 9
food & thought
The Doc Chey special of the day was chicken and red peppers mingling with broccoli buds all spicy and I chose noodles, udon noodles heavy and wide for a thin, cold day where I sat down with two men I respect and enjoy enough to laugh with and even be honest with sometimes like today when I wondered driving downtown: "What are we each dragging to the lunch table today?"
Three Brothers Gather For Lunch
The first brought his loud stories,
the second -- nothing. And the
last sat down with quiet hands.
The Doc Chey special of the day was chicken and red peppers mingling with broccoli buds all spicy and I chose noodles, udon noodles heavy and wide for a thin, cold day where I sat down with two men I respect and enjoy enough to laugh with and even be honest with sometimes like today when I wondered driving downtown: "What are we each dragging to the lunch table today?"
Three Brothers Gather For Lunch
The first brought his loud stories,
the second -- nothing. And the
last sat down with quiet hands.
Monday, January 1, 2007
number 8
food & thought
Over easy eggs, two of them, cracked open on a square white dish with slim, real silverware, a pair of bacons, another of toast triangles, some melon pieces -- trapezoidal and huddled with purple grapes -- all staring at the orange polenta spooned out in the opposite corner of the plate as I sat on the cold porch of Old Europe drinking good coffee in my jacket I ran back to my car for, staring through the wrought iron fence there between patrons and those marching or shuffling down the sidewalk I read Fred quoting Luke, "...or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil,..."
Good Gifts
Our fathers are evil, but
still they hear us, relinquish
their true hearts, dark eggs, with love.
Over easy eggs, two of them, cracked open on a square white dish with slim, real silverware, a pair of bacons, another of toast triangles, some melon pieces -- trapezoidal and huddled with purple grapes -- all staring at the orange polenta spooned out in the opposite corner of the plate as I sat on the cold porch of Old Europe drinking good coffee in my jacket I ran back to my car for, staring through the wrought iron fence there between patrons and those marching or shuffling down the sidewalk I read Fred quoting Luke, "...or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil,..."
Good Gifts
Our fathers are evil, but
still they hear us, relinquish
their true hearts, dark eggs, with love.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
number 7
food & thought:
Three egg cheddar and turkey omelet alone at the after church kitchen table, quiet with a glass of spilled water puddled on the floor and Bob Segar's most poignant, reflective moment in lyrics: "You smoke the day's last cigarette, remembering what she said."
What She Said
You're an invisible man
her hands said as she let him
go and curled away, blown smoke.
Three egg cheddar and turkey omelet alone at the after church kitchen table, quiet with a glass of spilled water puddled on the floor and Bob Segar's most poignant, reflective moment in lyrics: "You smoke the day's last cigarette, remembering what she said."
What She Said
You're an invisible man
her hands said as she let him
go and curled away, blown smoke.
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