dedicated to E.B.
a man of faith
~

the-third-of-three-of-thee queries,
ask this poet anything variety pack,
3 permission-granted non-deniable answers,
though somewhat unsurprisingly,
the demands are the common deeper commonality,
yet finds the poet
flat footed, tongue raveled, searching
repeatedly for le mot juste, answers he doesn’t prefer to task,
by asking himself ever
directly

fingers and tips knotted,
their cooperative sensation severed,
unprepared to answer
deferring, with a weakish,
“it’s buried in plain sight in the
thousand + poem answers resting here
for a someday funeral oratory anticipatory”

all the tired, tried and refried and endless recycled responsa tossed into a barrel of formaldehyde;

in dissolution, perhaps the solution?

numerous are my recorded “dialogues,”
verbal battles with spirit authorities,
plenty of cursing and finger pointing
and not of the Sistine Chapel variety;
mutual forgiveness for human and supreme  errors,
not always, hardly ever,
on the tabula rasa menu

but you think
a principle, responsum est constituta
(from the principal, the answer can be derived)
therefore, yes, he must be...

but
the poet replies faith in what,
meaning he has the surety of none

then!
the phone rings and the poem begins:
in a voice of heretofore unknown register,

<•>


“I am the highest authority
none greater

I am but and only the first creator;
my touch operates at the spiderweb level,
the muse of muses,
present in the first grazing garden of lips,
the cacophony clarity of the avians swapping stories
in the early morn,
my worldwide alarm clock,
the wafted word,
breeze born when any poet stumbles on what comes next,
I am scented cherry blossoms, the breath in the iris newly come, and quickly gone,
the spiders web
where there yesterday there was none,
I am the first poem,
and will be the last

the new skin neath the scab,
the cooing of a grandchild that
sun melts hardy men grizzled who think
there is nothing new under the sun

the counter movement of every wave that shushes,
requesting global silence,
even when no human present to applaud

I am the smile upon the surgeon exiting
the operating room,
his right hand of confidence,
the arm draped upon a strangers shoulder
who weeps unabashedly for
undisclosed reasons that do not matter

you ask the poet
is he a man of faith
a bewildering query that obtains
diffident daily responsa, for the very question
is an ever changing variable

easy come and easy go
for what is faith but a traveling circus,
a summer day, forgot as it melds with next,
faith in?
me? hardly...

who could sustain a belief in the invisible hand that is the breeze between blades of grasses where the snowflakes will later accumulate as if nesting

even faith in himself
is a passing cloud,
a short term rental

but in that instance
he is faithful personified
for he “discovered”
the next word to close and complete,
the poem that did not exist prior

thus faith stored and restored
he believes once more if but for
a seconds-long knowing a defining of
faith

  thus he is neither solved or dissolved;
yet, is resolved to keep getting
closer to that completion
that affords him, or any poet,
to own the faith that affords belief

There are poor neighborhoods
that are tucked into towns,
where the less educated,
where the lesser of means,
find in the dregs, the ability
to coexist with higher society.

Society is grown to the point of disease,
killing the feeble, disabling the lost,
in the name of and for some ease.
So here comes the city, meaning so well.
They said, "Let's add a train line
to a town that has none!"

Well, there goes the block.
There go the people who
barely have homes.

The Council wants to drop a line
where they see shoes bounce power lines.
What's the harm in displacing
the part of the community already dead?
The town now seems to be just fine
now that the poor are paying fines.
Why not double down and just
gentrify when history tells the story best?

Expand Portland, rid Tigard of blemish,
trade your rug for cement and track.
Beautify Tigard, please your ill desire,
don't be surprised when your eyesore
comes back.

Go ahead, pave your poverty.
Go ahead, clean your streets.
You're thinking, "Lines for dimes."
What do you think a new line means?
What do you think the traffic brings?
The sweet guillotine repeats.

you can see a yard full of weeds
or a garden full of wishes
never let your perception
of what is beautiful be cruel
we are all but specs
waiting to return to dust