food & thought
There was eight of us or so huddled round a tiny table in a small corner of a dark bar and the bad music, which was live, which was happening right there in front of us where women with hairy pits danced some kind of yoga, feeling free, I hope, and around that table we took turns telling stories about the young married couple among us -- the ones moving away this week and us here telling goodbye and until-next-time stories, wondering, all of us at some point I think, if we would ever see them again this side of death and we'd had dinner at the church, a little bread and a little wine, and now we were sipping a little more wine, a bit of beer, dark there in the shadows, and God that boy got up and danced with those women and he rolled on the floor with them and all very slowly and never cracking a smile and Lord I still ache for how I laughed those huge rolling tears hot out of my eyeballs.
Going
We break, bleed a little in
the space of their last leaving
as they walk away from us.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Friday, January 26, 2007
number 35
food & thought
Me and the old man ate our sandwiches, thinking about mom's empty space at the table as she was hurtling through the jet stream air on a plane back to us in the hands of strangers and the God we asked the meal's blessing from and he wiped things from his moustache and we laughed and I collected some crumbs from what he let fall from his mouth, swept them up into my pocket, seven syllables apiece that sit together, now telling something about our day working out in the bright, cold world.
Things Dad Said Today
"They've got bright blue plummage."
"People don't do what they should."
"Pilot holes are for sissys."
Me and the old man ate our sandwiches, thinking about mom's empty space at the table as she was hurtling through the jet stream air on a plane back to us in the hands of strangers and the God we asked the meal's blessing from and he wiped things from his moustache and we laughed and I collected some crumbs from what he let fall from his mouth, swept them up into my pocket, seven syllables apiece that sit together, now telling something about our day working out in the bright, cold world.
Things Dad Said Today
"They've got bright blue plummage."
"People don't do what they should."
"Pilot holes are for sissys."
Thursday, January 25, 2007
number 34
food & thought
I ate pita bread, three pieces, calling it lunch and it was a reminder of the communion reminder as I sat thinking about where she's been, where she's come from, and what she wants to hear versus what I have to say.
Hello?
She wants to break my silence.
I have only one word left--
he's paid for all my poems.
I ate pita bread, three pieces, calling it lunch and it was a reminder of the communion reminder as I sat thinking about where she's been, where she's come from, and what she wants to hear versus what I have to say.
Hello?
She wants to break my silence.
I have only one word left--
he's paid for all my poems.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
number 33
food & thought
It was going to be a day that would try, would strain, the bands and cords inside that keep my parts together, motoring on, and moving, but I didn't know that at the morning table alone with my God and my yogurt with cereal stirred in, a good breakfast for a poor man, thinking about how gorgeous, how unbelieveable and ripe with potential the world looked in that very specific light that came down as that sun came up, a miracle, again.
Light, rising
Every thing starts to look plain:
the best job, most striking face --
shiny, temporal prisms.
It was going to be a day that would try, would strain, the bands and cords inside that keep my parts together, motoring on, and moving, but I didn't know that at the morning table alone with my God and my yogurt with cereal stirred in, a good breakfast for a poor man, thinking about how gorgeous, how unbelieveable and ripe with potential the world looked in that very specific light that came down as that sun came up, a miracle, again.
Light, rising
Every thing starts to look plain:
the best job, most striking face --
shiny, temporal prisms.
Monday, January 22, 2007
number 32
food & thought
Tomato and ginger and heavy noodles and fried tofu in a large bowl with enough basil to make me notice and the PBRs were a dollar apiece and I had one and my friend had one and he bought them both and the dinners too and I learn more about grace and the generous hearts of the world and we talked about things I can't pull out and hold up out of the files just now, but mostly I was just glad to be there smiling, boys tearing into the dinner meal and telling stories.
Castaways
The mind is lost past all ropes.
Poor heart: parched among the dunes.
Our souls press on in the night.
Tomato and ginger and heavy noodles and fried tofu in a large bowl with enough basil to make me notice and the PBRs were a dollar apiece and I had one and my friend had one and he bought them both and the dinners too and I learn more about grace and the generous hearts of the world and we talked about things I can't pull out and hold up out of the files just now, but mostly I was just glad to be there smiling, boys tearing into the dinner meal and telling stories.
Castaways
The mind is lost past all ropes.
Poor heart: parched among the dunes.
Our souls press on in the night.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
number 30
food & thought
Firehouse Subs makes a good sandwich, every time, and today, in Clemson, with my friend, out of the rain and just out of a church in the basement of a bar where I sang with hands that raised for the very first time to take hold of something -- there, after that and the morning's drive we sat and ate and talked excitedly about what had just happened in that small room and it was the bread, I decided, that made their sandwiches so good with everything sliced thin and just right between the halves and I thought about how torn, how in halves I was myself in that place -- not wanting to move beyond the moment and the experience of a worshiping that ran even beyond the power of my heart's hard lines -- there was that half -- and there, too, was the other side that couldn't wait to put my feet out on that wet pavement, moving onward.
Good Meal
Our ragged line taking the
broken loaf dipped in dark wine --
some ate bits, some mouthfuls.
Firehouse Subs makes a good sandwich, every time, and today, in Clemson, with my friend, out of the rain and just out of a church in the basement of a bar where I sang with hands that raised for the very first time to take hold of something -- there, after that and the morning's drive we sat and ate and talked excitedly about what had just happened in that small room and it was the bread, I decided, that made their sandwiches so good with everything sliced thin and just right between the halves and I thought about how torn, how in halves I was myself in that place -- not wanting to move beyond the moment and the experience of a worshiping that ran even beyond the power of my heart's hard lines -- there was that half -- and there, too, was the other side that couldn't wait to put my feet out on that wet pavement, moving onward.
Good Meal
Our ragged line taking the
broken loaf dipped in dark wine --
some ate bits, some mouthfuls.
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