A Chapter of Verses Read online

r of Verses

  By Richard George

  Copyright 2013 by Richard George

  Verses encapsulate a moment. A few words shape an incident in the cosmos. The moment may be defined by an image, an event, an emotion, or a whimsy. A new perspective expresses a reality, sometimes one so obscure even the poet is unsure what it is. Then along comes a reader, reads the poem, and another perspective is born. Reader, enjoy making out with these poems.

  Making Poems

  I stuffed an ibis

  I caught one dream

  with cotton swabs

  from aspirin bottles.

  I stitched the skin

  with nylon thread

  from raveled socks

  and waxed the beak

  with paraffin

  from jelly jars.

  I propped it up

  against the wall

  above my mantel.

  It shook its wings

  and flew away.

  Villanelle for a Silver God

  I made a silver god

  and put it in a shrine.

  I thought my work was good.

  I made an altar of wood

  and set it on the lawn.

  I made a silver god

  with eyes I painted red,

  because I was alone.

  I thought my work was good.

  A priest came by and said,

  when everything was done,

  I made a silver god

  because I was so bad.

  I did not think I sinned;

  I thought my work was good.

  He was amazed, and mad

  with faith, he burned my shrine.

  I made a silver god.

  I thought my work was good.

  A Caveat to New Converts

  Beware the Tiger hidden in the Lamb,

  his wool-sheathed claws and sheep’s eyes veiling fire.

  Hosea married Gomer, a common whore,

  and got three children in her well-worn womb

  under the Tiger. Jeremiah came

  to Jerusalem a poet, and wore

  away his poetry and died a bore

  in Egypt. Lamb-beguiled, the saintly dream

  of fleece and limpid eyes. The Tiger waits,

  crouching in the wool, to strip and break their bones.

  Dream on, oh would-be saints, of God, of sweets

  in Paradise, rewards for repented sins.

  Sleep with the Lamb between the silken sheets.

  You’ll wake to find the Tiger always wins.

  A Dream of Dolls

  I dream of dolls

  under my feet.

  Their celluloid heads

  crackle and crunch

  as I walk over them.

  Their plastic hair

  tangles my toes,

  threatening to trip me.

  I wake, terrified,

  to find my lover

  shelling walnuts

  and my toes wriggling

  through the holes in my socks.

  Ossuary

  Lost in a search for God and truth,

  I wander on wind-worried silt,

  stepping over bleaching bones

  others left in this barren place.

  Barren myself, a spastic puppet,

  yearning for an ever-absent god,

  I shake my fist at uncaring skies.

  This is a storehouse of crumbling skulls,

  a place designed for stacking bones

  in piles ordered by length of shin,

  in heaps by size of scapulas.

  I will wander till thirst and dust

  strip my bones and I lie down

  in this ossuary of broken faith.

  God Thoughts

  The pious people come to church

  shining and clean from soap and water

  to hear the clergy caw of god.

  The pulpit crows presume to hedge

  divinity with scarecrows conjured

  from rags of their own dustbin natures.

  Priests fear the unchained power of god.

  Pagan and saint alike craft idols

  plaster gods to front our fears

  and cardboard saints to be our models.

  Whatever god might be is other,

  beyond our naming. We need our idols;

  what use is a god we cannot know?

  Do not smash our idols, lord.

  Ascension Sunday

  Three sparrows play musical roost

  on a wire across the street.

  A robin gathers weeds for a nest

  she’s building in the elm. The preacher

  says “Glory, Hallelujah!

  God’s gone to heaven in glory.”

  His shouting scares the birds,

  scares them into the heavens.

  Elegy for a Dead God

  My God died yesterday.

  Outside my windows rat claws

  scrabble waltzes on the sidewalks.

  My God of the golden smile

  died in an alley last night

  among the orange peels

  and scraps of Styrofoam cups.

  Under the neon stars

  knives flashed and fell and rose

  to slash at him again,

  again, ‘til he fell and died

  in a huddled heap by the gutter.

  His laughter is lost on the wind

  prowling the hidden alleys.

  His unseeing eyes are staring

  at an empty sliver of sky.

  Overnight, I’ve grown old.

  I stumble. My feet make echoes

  in the hollow chambers of our house.

  Outside the devils chatter

  like copulating squirrels.

  I’m too feeble to silence the devils.

  Elvis Redemptor

  They come, arid of spirit,

  to worship their Elvis Redemptor.

  His face has appeared in the rust

  on a public bathroom’s tiles.

  They bring their paper flowers,

  to wreathe the holy picture,

  some light candles on the drains,

  some offer their teddy bears.

  The pilgrims shuffle in lines,

  waiting to plead with Elvis,

  plead for water to cleanse them,

  plead for Elvis to fill them.

  They go away empty,

  their nostrils pinched together

  against the reek of stale urine

  and the dust from their own dry hearts.

  Geas

  I must go to the desert, to the clean high country.

  I will call on the winds to sweep away

  the cobwebs the city has spun in my soul.

  I will call on the sand to scour the scale

  from my mind until my thoughts run true.

  I must go among the mesas and rimrock,

  and walk through the sage and rabbit brush,

  breathing their pollen to clean my lungs.

  I must go where nothing grows with ease,

  I must go to my brothers, coyote and deer,

  go where the rattlesnake has her dominion,

  I must go to the desert, the clean high country.

  Abandoned Promise

  I thirst for god, the promised water.

  The springs I drink from are pools of mud.

  The low wells yield a brackish drink

  thick with salt and rotting matter.

  I walk in barrens. My skin is caked

  with salt from my sweat. Sand crusts in my eyes.

  I cry challenge to God the Promiser.

  “Why have you left me broken in this bitter land?

  Here sun has bleached the bushes white

  and bord
ered the leaves with brown.

  The hot sand glares like amber glass.

  The copper sky sears like a skillet.

  The winds bob and weave in the thistles,

  spreading their thorny seeds on the sand.

  I walk this place and stir up dust.

  It fills my throat and clogs my nostrils.”

  God does not answer, preoccupied

  perhaps, or dead, or harrowing hell

  or otherwise divinely bemused.

  I stumble over the mountain’s bones

  crying through the parch in my throat.

  One day some other unfortunate

  will stumble over my brittle bones

  and fall face forward in the sand and thistles,

  and I won’t care I’m no longer alone.

  Out of the Shadow

  Shunning my shadows has shaped my way.

  Sure I knew the geas of God,

  I stifled the cry of the Spirit within me.

  I danced with angels and dallied with demons

  bound in the pages of the books I studied.

  Weary with turmoil and tumults of spirit,

  I sought haven in a prairie pulpit,

  earnest to soothe my soul in service.

  I affirmed my faith with false fervor,

  gulled with dogmas of God and goodness.

  My shadow deepened, light shunned me as shameful

  I made demons of failure from my fear of freedom.

  Broken, I yielded to the folly I’d fled from,

  and there was God, greeting me with laughter

  and holy healing for heart and mind.

  Sunday Morning

  Old prayers hang from the chapel rafters,

  fallen short of the ears of God,

  dried bats of piety gone dusty.

  The choir intones a solemn hymn,

  a dirge for faith sucked dry of hope.

  The preacher thumbs his tattered Bible,

  seeking a text to prompt his sermon.

  In the market the people sell and buy.

  Two fall in love; two others part.

  One wins a game; one loses money.

  One gives birth; one kills his brother.

  The nodding congregation waits

  to hear the benediction amen

  before they brave the market again.

  Anything is Possible in California

  I bought a tangerine to eat beside

  the California ocean. Rain and wind

  had washed the people away. The ebbing tide

  grasped at the shore; its wrinkled fingers found

  no purchase on the sand. The surf was cream

  on the coffee beach. I used my toe to write

  my name and town. Seaweed erasers came;

  their bobbing pods rubbed all the letters out.

  I sat to peel and eat the tangerine.

  Wavelets tickled my toes and made me laugh.

  Above me I heard a wheeling gull complain

  to God. I threw the peeling at a cliff

  of cloud, and kindled the west with scarlet fire.

  Tomorrow morning I’ll gild the dawn with a pear.

  The Copper God

  I tooled a mold from clay,

  melted copper, and cast a god.

  For eyes I ground pebbles

  from green bottle shards.

  I carved a niche from the rock

  along a mountain highway,

  a shrine to hold my god.

  Most travelers passed it by,

  but occasional pilgrims stopped

  to offer flowers or prayers,

  and once a teddy bear

  with a single button eye.

  When the high