River

Attend the hypnotic babble soothing the air,
Calling to beasts, birds, bugs, and wanderers,
Finding fare and life on an ebbing shore,
Of grass and humus, a niche for wonderers.
Boundless creation finds an echo here,
In sounds, in smells, in all that stirs,
The water murmurs.

This trickster escapes 'ere it is seen,
Yet ever perceived though never still,
Kneel and kiss the cool fresh current,
Hold back the water's wandering will,
Savor the substance and the semblance,
In all things perhaps the greatest skill.
The water evades.

While this seducer captures the gaze,
The surface hides a million stories,
Death and detritus ever encased,
Below, nabbed in nooks and crannies,
Fish and fowl won't allow the waste,
Feeding in pursuit of their quarries.
The water conceals.

And as this moving canvas enchants,
The sky's light churns in reflection,
Sometimes hiding the water's secrets,
Sometimes clarifying in connection,
When muddy mocha to crystal clears,
In perfect beauty and affection,
The water shines.

Attend the parable of the river,
The visage conceals constant change,
Deeply buried in the human heart,
Are places dark, somber, and strange,
Yet the angels aspire to hymnody,
When mire for glimmer is exchanged.
The water reveals.

As I sit by the river.

Fear and Tremlin . . .

Quiet as the Buddha,
Silent as the grave,
Yet mischievous to the core,
As a dork noted of this knave!

Humility adorns him,
Like a bad hair day,
Canon of Eerdmans Publishing,
Where will his feet now stray?

His wit often hid under a bush,
For better or for worst?
Until the bastion of blurbs,
Would break out into verse!

His eye suspiciously tilted,
Toward a twisted fantasy,
A salesman imagined in speedo,
A horror none should ever fancy!!!

Often channeling his darker side,
In Olympian feats of feet,
Through exercise and lipo,
He remains among the svelte elite.

Eons of descriptive copy,
Made Todd pine for something regal,
Yet pink did his countenance shine,
In delivering Robert Siegal!

Superb! Unique? And, Groundbreaking!
His descriptive skills evocative.
A light under recognized among pee-ons!
Can wax eloquent and provocative!

How many professors will sigh relief?
Alas, so much fear and trembling,
From letters and emails requesting a word,
Postmarked and signed by Tremlin!
_________________________

This is another work poem, that won't make much sense to you if you didn't work at Eerdmans when a now Professor, Todd Tremlin worked there. He wrote copy and solicited endorsements (aka: blurbs) from authors for books and catalogs. He was very quiet in meetings...usually in deep and quiet tones would speak to usher a zinger. He also had a mean sense of humor that included teasing one editor for a self-effacing comment (he had called himself a "dork")...and tried to embarrass me when I was still in sales by trying to make others imagine what a guy like me would look like in a "Speedo"...I shiver still at that comic conversation. He was somewhat obsessed with fitness...He often used flash words like "groundbreaking" in his catalog copy. The piece de resistance came when he turned in a blurb he thought was from Robert Siegel of NPR...it turned out to be from a poet/friend of Luci Shaw. He had to write an apology to Robert Siegal...which was one of his most embarrassing moments. Anyhow...I ran across it in my archives...thought I'd post it to be silly.

Madman

Standing cold before the barren,
Landscape at dawn's first sliver,
Eye of mind and gelatin blues,
Closed, contemplate, and quiver,
What monsters rise with the wind,
What calls the spine to shiver,
Before the chasm.

Waiting for Jesus, or for Godot,
Doubting Thomas, or turncoat Judas,
Waiting with the holy or the derelict,
Confused in a tale without codas,
Wearied of certainties of the certain,
In endless chapters, verses, Suras,
Spoken to the chasm.

And as the stars race from the bang,
And over ages move into darkness,
The cold around and in us steels,
The truth in the love we profess,
As divinity dies don't our souls,
Now ragged wander in state of undress,
Reeling over the chasm.

The prophets, poets, see their bones,
The pilgrims gnaw and suck the marrow,
What breathed visions, words, warmth,
In their song, sweet as the sparrow's?
Where they now without flesh, or sinew,
Chant their dirge of deepest sorrow,
Across the chasm.

But now the night is lit with neon,
Toys, and sex, and glitter demons,
They numb memories of a greater lamp,
In pleasures urbane or abominations,
And the crowds, like rats to a piper,
Blowing in bones played to distraction,
Fall into the chasm.

I have come too early,
So few are capable,
To carry the weight,
of these times.

The lantern is out.

Carolyn Joy

The hope your brought, yet unborn,
In the joy of anticipation,
In that hidden place, being formed,
Bringing Joy of a new creation.

Oh Carolyn
Remind us again.
Carolyn,
Of the Joy of when,
We were made new,
Just like you.

Listen now to the voice that formed you,
Learn to recognize it well.
In this world of half-truths and lies
He whispers of the only love so real.

Oh Carolyn,
Listen to Him.
Carolyn,
Your Joy will shine when,
He makes you new again.
__________________

A poem from a much younger me...24 years ago, when my first niece was born. She is now a bit older than I was when I wrote this for her. It struck me as I reread the thing, how innocent, and wide eyed I was...not much less so than my new born niece.

Adrift

Ever the undertow has its sway,
And current pulls from the bay,
Features fade in the horizon,
As the sphere yet emblazons,
On scorched cataract corneas,
Above gurgling glossolalias,
It's seal.

Then tide takes from the tow,
The hapless pilgrim cargo,
Now lost to all stories,
And the daily banalities
And in the ebb and the flow,
Resigns 'ere the winds blow.
Lost steel.

And as the pitch and the roll,
Ever again take their toll,
Limbs surrender to the surf,
No longer dreaming of turf,
Scalded sight in empty stare,
A ghost for Davie Jone's lair.
End ordeal.

Storm

A night robbed of moon oppresses twilight,
Galaxies hid in vaporous thermals,
And infinite space compressed from the height,
Air bristling qualms, breathe sacramental,
The wind fulminant, that can but ignite
Seethes o'er all in a downpour torrential.
The vault enraged,
The vale savaged.

Then the pitch negates in a zealous flare,
Electrical tendrils root sky to loam,
And the firmament fractures in a tear,
Incandescence surges below the dome,
All that breathe, breathe in silent prayer,
As the sky cracks in noises so fearsome.
The heavens rent,
A strange portent.

Again and again, see the darkness slashed,
Like seeping magma cracks cooling rock,
Again and again, hear the silence crashed,
As zephyrs are madly scattered in shock,
Lo the darkness bleeds when it is lashed,
Fine filaments fall like teasing lovelocks.
The firmament fires,
Numinous inspires.

Fauna, flora, and folk curve their necks,
Have gods unbridled and kindled their wrath?
Some beings cower, while some genuflect
In awe, as if bolts could summon sabbath.
Then a precipitous quiet, the sky elects,
To whisper sweet peace in the aftermath.
The shadows retreat,
Amid dancing feet.

Tremble,
Joy,
Hush.

Pachyderm

Ancient tribes march across the plain,
Wise gray-ones in deliberate plod,
Mother and child in a land without rain,
Sisters and aunts thunder o'er the sod,
Masses of memory endure the pain,
Of endless miles in callouses shod.
Migration.

In shadows shifts the Savannah dust,
Noses nuzzle familiar faces feel,
Brays call strays against a sky of rust,
As kin collapse branches — the evening meal.
The mercy brings cool in a gentle gust,
Under dark cover hear a trumpet peel.
Communion.

First light unfurls both leaves and lids,
And a resolve for the miles ahead,
The caravan resumes the journey amid,
The dust and the soil and a sky of red,
The joyous thunder as Sol peeks at mid,
Mountainous splashes bath in a water bed.
Elation.

Yet compelled to move in ancestral paths,
Molded in humus, genes, neurons, soul,
The herd abandons edenic muddy baths,
Ever driven to their elusive goal,
Survive and thrive — resisting the wrath,
Elements and enemies that take a toll.
Compulsion.

And the fast-footed foals need hurry,
To keep apace the lumbering steps.
Young ones from old ones learn their story,
A gift to minds that will not forget.
And families and friends share this journey,
'Til meeting ancestors beyond the sunset.
Reunion.