The wanderer follows
No hallowed path
Set forth for her
By the sagacious few.
Nor does she live
To build her past
For far off futures
Whose seeds are sewn.

No familiar face
Has she ever seen
That greets her where
She decides to sleep
But travels with
The wind in her hair:
The only companion
She chooses to keep.

All empires return
To dust that birthed
Them from the nothingness
Of barren ground,
And push the ambitious
To build them tall
For fleeting futures
On foundations unsound.

Such men still laugh
At one like her
Who possesses nothing
In their eyes,
And lives in chaos
Of shifting destiny
With no respect
For human lies.

But no future goal
Controls her fate
Nor worldly tethers
Bind her past
So she is free
To contemplate
Her relation to
The earth so vast.


She is the dust
from God’s fingers
that’s fallen on
Ungrateful land
And shows the blind
And sinful people
Their origin from
The present at hand.

They deride and mock
Or at best ignore her
And value what God
Did not confer
But she is more
than the earth and sky
And none can take
What belongs to her.

And now a search comes upon the poem,
A search already possessed by what it searches for:
Floundering in the hallucination of its darkness,
Illuminated by the Light it tries to create.

(You are this Light
That illuminates the darkness of the search
For a light that it seeks to make
In place of the One by which it searches.)

It turns to the poem for guidance
Or amusement or distraction,
In its effort to create the light
It assumes itself to be.

(But this end that its ideal proclaims
Lies disobeyed by the means prescribed:
No search could find the light it tries to create
Unless it surrenders itself to the present from which Light shines)

If the search stepped into this Light
And ceased its attempt to replace it,
As if to own or dominate it,
Its light would burn.

(Here the search abolishes itself
As it ends its violent struggle:
As light-in-Light it finds its way to peace
And surrenders its hallucination of control to truth.)

If thine eye offends thee
pluck it out....

War offends
my eye.

All my
senses
defiled
*****
disemboweled
by the
abomination
of war.

My mind
disregards
denigrates
reneges
warps time
destroys values
alters psyches
lays waste
to my
conscience
of hope.

Mine eye offends me
the complicit witness
complacently
ambivalent
turning deaf ears
to groans
of the wounded
wails of the aggrieved
silence of the dead;
shutting doors
to sanctuaries
where refugees
seek safe houses,
locking factories
where men seek work,
level homes
where women nurture,
strafe playgrounds
where children laugh,
raise cities
where people
learn to be human,
immolate mosques
where
God's Children
cry out to the
Beneficent One.

Mine eye offends me,
my gut sickens,
to witness
the slaughter
of innocents
droning on
no angels to save
the million Issac's
savagely smashed to bits
by a Tomahawk's blow.

God's vengeance
escalates
the celestial ledgers
dripping red ink
from excessive
collateral damage,
people reduced
as objects used
to secure a loan
indeed an ARM
on a real time
American nightmare
whose reset rate
is mounting body counts
and massive budget allocations
protecting undisturbed flows
of corporate profits
valued in barrels
of imported blood.

Mine eye offends me
an innocence lost
Veritas vanquished
life is devalued
humanity debased
compassion defunct
empathy a twisted satire
an indelible weakness
incidental hostage
to the torridness
of the lurid play
of savage nations
projecting will,
a devastation
of action.

Mine eye offends me
the message of
sweet Jesus
a way of light
transformed into
biblical justification
agitprop verse
stoking blood lust zeal
for apostate infidels
sons of Abraham's
unworthy spawn,
of Hagar the *****
******* child Ishmael
turned out again
from tribal tents
of an absentee father
from an unfriendly
paternity.

This black *******
an abomination
in the sight of Allah
celebrates
a zeal to ****
unholy disciples
yearning to fill
banana crates
with body parts
draped in
drab Hijabs
decorated with
satanic verses
from a
Holy Quran
carved with
bayonets
of self righteous
Crusaders
armed with rifles
inscribed with
Gospel verses
on deadly gun
barrel stocks
to ramp the passion
of the righteous Crusade
against Godless apostates.

Mine eye offends me
as I witness
the **** of
corporate mercenaries
churning bereaved
Blackwaters
beholden only
to shareholders
gobbling spoils of war
to safely exit
to private vomitoriums
to expunge the excess
of gluttony
only to
quickly return
to engorge themselves
at the public troughs
again.

No constitutional
restraints
save the
strict guidelines
of holy
corporate governance scriptures
ruthlessly enforced with
golden carrots
of multi-million dollar
stock options
and the brutal stick
of shareholders divine right
to quarterly dividends
and above average
equity returns.

Corporate warriors
anointed by
holy oil
proffered
by capitalist shamans
and US Senators
conferring
jurisprudential deferment
on civil law
recusing them from
any behavior
to recognize the humanity
of captive insurgents.

Mine eye offends me,
as the flag
draped coffins
of returning
servicemen
and women
continue to pile
on the boiling tarmac
of Dover Air Force Base.

Tearful salutes,
folded flags
and mournful dirges
of prerecorded Taps
are small compensation for
shattered families,
and a wasted life,
unnecessarily spent,
criminally sacrificed
in a pointless conflict
in service to a lie.

Mine eye offends me
as I watch
my country's soft parade
of growing militarization
xenophobic fear
compelled patriotism
salute and goose step
to the flash of sword
and the sound of guns
and the glittering
medals of valor
adorning the chests
of a nations warriors.

How barbaric
are we?
allocating
overstuffed
apportionment
of weapons
and armories
while
people are
foreclosed
forcing armies
of unemployed
Joads
to ride
en masse on
an Acela Express
to a crowded
poor house
a listless journey
on pock marked
highways
arriving at
dreaded
destinations
to defunct
townships
offering
empty factories
and closed schools.

Screaming in silence
I scratch at my eyes
with numbed fingers.

Matthew 18:9

Music Selection:
The Doors, The Soft Parade

Oakland
3/17/10
jbm

choices
embrace things
that sickens
enslaves
maims
kills

unbound
yourself

loose
your chains

turn away from
the dungeon
that has
become
your death
chamber
you
alone
crafted
with such
deft skill

you exiled
yourself

hid away
from the living

inhabiting a
convenient
confinement

relishing
the deceitful
pleasures of an
addled mind

a twisted
portrait
of a
shackled
self

living
inside
the
dark abode
of your head

bumping
about in
unmapped
caves

dwelling
in a place
that no one
could find
nor dare
explore

you heap
stones
at the door
providing
your only
means
of escape

safely
entombed
in your
vapid
delusions

a decrepit
graveyard

an abandoned
township
of lonely
sarcophagi

long forgotten
by the
moldering
bodies
of the city's
ghostly
citizens

you reek
with the
stench
of death

you
murdered
yourself

and
became
dead
to us

But
Jesus
wept

over
your
self
denigration

never
forsaking
y­our favored
condition

The
Good Friend
lifted
you
from
Edens
dust

and
showered
you
with
fine
thi­ngs

yet
you
found
no joy
in

the gift
of solace

the might
of grace

the balm
of love

the rest
of peace

all
only
heaped
torments
upon
you

your
sisters
wailed
in grief

imploring

The
Resurrector
to make you
whole

he only
shrugs
and
extends
a palm

unloose
the rags
of your
swaddled
grief

unbound
yourself
Lazarus

come out
and walk
amongst
the living
again

put
down your
stones

the hand
is nigh

choose well
my friend

St. Alban's
Bible Study
7/09

jbm

Every second of every day
God speaks life into this world
That greets you in the here and now
If you take the time to listen.

God creates existence from the future
So to give it to your present
But every time you receive it
It has already become the past.

Do not stay with this past
And with its spectral illusion
Try to overtake the future
And be creator of God’s word.

But man cannot countermand
The eternal will of God
As love’s radiant authority
From which all existence flows

Son of man cast off your past!
For your illusion originates there.
The future speaks with resounding truth
That there we must all be born.

A great nothingness swelled and shrunk,
A thundering tumult of random motion.
A still expanse void of all things,
An utterly bleak unending ocean.

Within and without of this chaos,
For which no descriptive words exist,
God wove inward and outward,
Sewing order into the abyss.

This order has been named light,
And as light came so came shadow.
Together spun this new order,
And so went day, night, and morrow.

God looked upon his glorious creation,
And in it he took great pleasure.
So he created once again, when
Day ceased came sky and sea in together.

And so again dawn came over the world.
God reached down to gather the sea,
And the dry in between he called land,
Where the trees grew and fruit came to be.

God then made the moon, stars, and sun,
To give pace to day and brighten night.
With this God was pleased again,
With this division of the world's light.

Once again day came and by its light,
God filled his sea and air with life.
All these things God looked at with love,
And blessed them to ward off strife.

The sixth day dawned with promise,
And God brought forth the creatures of land.
He swelled with love to a great extent,
For his pleasure had never been so grand.

God's joy was so great he wished to share it,
And so he made man to love as well.
A creature free to love and serve as it would,
But without concept of heaven or hell.

I walk a winding path,
Between the growing brambles,
And through their thorny stems,
I see a man singing as he ambles.

**! Good man from yonder trail,
What joyous things set you singing?
I beseech of you my friend,
What has your heart a winging?

Love and love alone sustain me,
For I have found my counterpart.
She sings to me with an angel's voice,
To the tempo of my heart.

She has known me at my strongest,
And pulled me through my hardships.
She walks upon the very wind,
And has rose petals for her lips.

Before her I have wept,
And sweetly she has shared my pain.
She loves to hear my music,
And she dances in the rain.

Surely God has blessed thee,
To know such magnificence.
As we part our wandering ways,
I wish you long levity and sense.

And so I keep on walking,
Between the growing brambles.
I beheld a gray-tailed squirrel,
Chattering as he scrambles.

For a time I pause peacefully,
Taking in the scent of pine.
When behind me I hear thrashing,
And a long beleaguered whine.

I turn to view my old friend,
He is caught within the thorns.
Why have you left your way,
To tread the paths man scorns?

Love and love alone has pained me,
She held me in her soft pale arms,
Those I used to run and seek,
When I couldn't bear life's harms.

We had brought our paths close,
And spoken of our dearest dreams,
When she held me with her gaze,
And showed she is not what she seems.

She spoke to me quite softly,
With danger in her stare.
Why not join our paths together,
So you can feel me close and bare?

I replied with wonder at her quarry,
To do so would require more,
Than our love for one and other,
I've no wish to make child I did implore.

But a child will not come to be,
If I merely take these herbs.
Their potent flavors take effect,
And the plant my fertility curbs.

And so in the rash actions of love,
I joined my path with hers.
But the joining was demented,
And set pain to my heart as spurs.

No sacred joining of two paths,
Can be healthily maintained,
Without intentions of a child,
No matter how the lovers are inflamed.

For when two paths merge,
Another must be formed.
Of the dire consequences,
I wish I had been warned.

The wrongness of our joining,
Left me hollow and pain ridden.
With anger and deep resentment,
I left the path I had been given.

Now I stumble through the woods,
Praying that a God sent thorn,
Will chance upon my exposed flesh,
And then all could my memory morn.

At the conclusion of his tale,
I offer what little comfort I can give.
My dearest friend you have sinned,
But fear not for you can still live.

With life comes a second chance,
Not always the easiest or apparent.
It can be found through forgiveness,
And the strength your friends have lent.

I turn back to my given path,
Knowing rescue is in his power.
I walk the lonely way one does,
When growing older by the hour.

I have seen the bright light,
It shines for me in heaven.
I have seen my future
In seals numbering seven.

But before I reach my freedom,
And taste the fruit of life,
I must make it to my goals,
No matter the amount of strife.

But my goals are farther
Than my feet can take me,
So I’ll ride on wings of faith.

I see troubled skies ahead,
And grumbling ground below.
But surely if I give my all,
I shall reap that which I sow.

My goals are farther
Than my feet can take me,
So I’ll ride on wings of faith.