It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled  near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.

I hear a wind whispering from the hills
It comes down tickling the woodland rills
From far is heard the frightened murmur of leaves
As it pounces on them like wayside thieves

It shakes the branches of flowering trees
And their weak petals drop like confetti in the breeze
Over hills and trees it loves to skip and stray
Always in motion, never inclined to stay

It moves unhampered over streams and field
With no resistance to its might, they simply yield
Like a child, it romps over the sloppy meadows
In its gentle touch, dances the gleeful flowers

It skillfully pleats the blue chiffon of the ocean
Sometimes curling waves in electric motion
Over the sea it runs puffing up the sails
And over the sky heaping clouds in bales

Sometimes it steals furtively like a lover
And disappears kissing our cheeks under cover
Often it comes capering with a lilt and a swing
We feel delighted when we hear its merry song

Like a nomad, the wind roams from place to place,
Hiding its mysterious presence from our glance
From an unknown hide out it comes like a spirit
But always making us feel its vigorous might!

At times it gains force and roars like a beast
Felling trees and wreaking havoc with its twist
In rampage, it sweeps the sea and the ground
Triggering sparks of fear and horror all around

Last Sunday after Pentecost

A calling-crow-cold sky ceilings the world,
Lowering the horizon to itself
All silvery and grey upon the fields
Of pale, exhausted, dry-corn-stalk summer

The earth is tired, the air is cold, the dawn
False-promises nothing but an early dusk
As calling-cold-crows crowd the world with noise,
Loud-gossiping from tree to ground to sky

Soon falling frosts and fields of ice will fold
Even those fell, foolish fowls into the depths
Of dark creek bottoms where dim ancient oaks
Hide darkling birds from wild blue northern winds

Crows squawk of Advent disapprovingly,
For Advent-autumn drifts to Christmastide
When all the good of the seasonal year
Then warms and charms the house, the hearth, the heart.

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 2

Would You Like a Downgrade?

I.  
“Everything I own I’m carrying on my back,”
A shipmate said wonderingly that last day
In the recruit barracks.  And it was so:
Two sets of dungarees, one pair of shoes,
Two sets of Undress Blue and then one set
Of Dress Blue B, one pair of sneaks, one pair
Of this, more sets of that, a ditty bag
Of Personal Hygiene Articles,
Officially and carefully approved,
All in a new seabag.
                                       It was enough.
How much does a man need in order to die?

II.
And now we carry mortgages, jobs, books,
Televisions, cars, hunting rifles, clocks,
Lawnmowers, bills, Sunday suits, Monday shoes,
Plastic boxes that light up and make noise,
Fences that need repair, cats to the vet,
Air conditioners, chainsaws, queen-sized beds,
Closets that need sorting out, chests of drawers
Of things we never needed anyway,
Cameras, clawhammers, pens, reading lamps,
Scissors, and writing paper.
                                                   It is too much.
How much does a man need in order to live?

Remembrance Day / Veterans' Day - 3

Bad Morning, Viet-Nam

No music calls a teenager to war;
There is no American Bandstand of death,
No bugles sound a glorious John Wayne charge
For corpses floating down the Vam Co Tay

No rockin’ sounds for all the bodies bagged
No “Gerry Owen” to accompany
Obscene screams in the hot, rain-rotting night.
Bullets do not ****.  Mortars do not crump.

There is no rattle of musketry.
The racket and the horror are concussive.
Men – boys, really – do not choose to die,
“Willingly sacrifice their lives,” that lie;

They just writhe in blood, on a gunboat deck
Painted to Navy specifications.

Come Laughing Home at Twilight

Beaumont-Hamel, 1916

And, O!  Wasn’t he just the Jack the Lad,
A’swellin’ down the Water Street as if –
As if he owned the very paving stones!
He was my beautiful boy, and, sure,
The girls they thought so too: his eyes, his walk;
A man of Newfoundland, my small big man,
Just seventeen, but strong and bold and sure.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

Don’t tell me he was England’s finest, no –
He was my finest, him and his Da,
His Da, who breathed in sorrow, and was lost,
They say, lost in the fog, among the ice.
But no, he too was killed on the first of July
Only it took him months to cast away,
And drift away, far away, in the mist.

Where is he now?  Can you tell me?  Can you?

I need no kings nor no Kaisers, no,
Nor no statues with fine words writ on’em,
Nor no flags nor no Last Post today:
I only want to see my men come home,
Come laughing home at twilight, boots all mucky,
An’ me fussin’ at ‘em for being’ late,
Come laughing home at twilight...

Something About Life


Strelnikov: “What will you do in Varykino?”
Yuri: “Live.  Just live.”

-Doctor Zhivago

The plane lifted, and the cheering was wild
And at that happy moment the pilot said
“We are now clear of Vietnamese
Territorial waters.”  There was joy,
Even wilder cheering for most, and quiet
Joy for a few.  For one, Karamazov
To hand, peace, and infinite gratitude.
“I’m alive,” he said to himself and to God,
“Alive.  I will live, after all.”  To read, to write,
Simply to live.  Not for revolution,
Whose smoke poisons the air, not for the war,
Not to withdraw into that crippling self-pity
Which is the most evil lotus of all,
But to live.  To read, to write.
                                            But death comes,
Then up the Vam Co Tay, or now in bed,
Or bleeding in a frozen February ditch;
Death comes, scorning our frail, feeble, failing
      flesh,
But silent then at the edge of the grave,
For all graves will be empty, not in the end,
But in the very beginning of all.

Bring me the scent of the fairest wild rose,
Bring me all hues of a heaven's rainbow,
Bring me charm dawn bird's melodies arouse,
Bring me effulgence of yonder star's glow,
Bring me splendor of a moon-kissed sea,
Bring me gentleness of the morning dew,
Bring me sweetness of honey of a bee,
Bring me iridescence of a bright moon,
Bring me majesty of a starry night,
Bring me freshness of a verdant meadow,
Bring me allure of a fading twilight,
Bring me the luster of the whitest snow,

Bring me oh bring me all of the above,
For such was the texture of my lass's love.

**Kikodinho Edward Alexandros. Jumeirah, Dubai. 27th.10.2017

The blackberries on the railway path are ripe.
  The woodland birds are quick to take their share,
while purple fingers pick amongst the hype
  and rabbits hop in the hedgerow somewhere.
A cool wind spirals, rustling fallen leaves,
  carrying distant cries along its way
and bending the amber-tinged tips of trees.
  The sound of summer joys are in decay.
They soften, becoming calmer, quiet,
  like tired eyes in need of time to sleep.
There are some feelings I cannot forget
  and memories I will forever keep.
Meet me along the railway path, my dear,
  to breathe the mellow, autumn atmosphere.