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 border
ed 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