INVERSIONS

We stand around bleating
about the Good Shepherd seeking
his lost little lambs, being
sweet as He is to his sheep.

Cool grit the shears
in such bleeding;
crook in the Staff greets
the Reading.

We ask whither the Wind
bloweth over, only to find
the SEEK YE inscribed
in Lamb's bone-setting bite.


-r

Healer-Idealist, Hmm

After nearly 26 years of living, I continue to find it shocking that the world isn't filled with 'healer-idealists', and can't name the source of this everlasting assumption. God's design? Natural inclination? Egoism? Loneliness? All of the above? There could be a dangerously and naively selfish edge to the assumption; I don't mind being naive or being perceived as naive (old hat), but the true danger is in failing to recognise the world for what it is and in doing so rendering yourself useless to the world at hand. There are many different kinds of persons in Creation, each kind with its strengths and weaknesses that we need; yet I'm everlastingly surprised at the lack of empathy and selflessness in the world. I naturally assume that we all struggle with self and pride in the same way, on the 'outwardly-focused' end of the spectrum; frankly, we do not.

The 'solution' here seems to be parsing and prayer; the items here lapse over into each other, natural and innocent inclinations mixed with egoism and the like. But then again that's the mystery of life for you.


-r

FROM BEHIND PAPER-THIN WINDOW

[or, THE DIFFERENCES]


So it would seem
freedom means my ceasing to be,
breathing means my freezing,
smiles likewise to weeping--
very well, oh yes,
it's not so strange yes
but also not so easy
never will be easy--

sadly though
this mystery of motion
(oh, for me a merely teeny-tiny ocean
(of complete destruction)
makes you think you're happy. So
let's, sure let's, grin hand-almost-hand,
not hand-in-hand
but neither never too far out of hand;
internal bleeding-out meets your relief in
fact that it
will take ten thousand lifetimes
for this burnt sand
to break down,

oh sure yes.


-r

SUNBURN IN NOVEMBER

[or, The Parable of Dr. Jon Osterman]


Apotheosis has its own hidden odds,
a pothole hardly occurring to
hapless the human soul who
happens to stumble into
the courts of the gods.

Seeing the quarks
sears dumb such transformation,
oblation becoming dark,
obtuse relations:

To Mars with the one
whom apotheosis has preyed upon -
his exodus is
a dark exodus;
his inheritance is the winds
of the ubermensch, the supermen,
the disembodied, the inhuman men.


-r

Musterion

Rock is alive, though we classify it as inorganic matter. Its lifespan is the length of the universe, so it doesn't say 'hello' because it can't perceive our brief fly-by; its day is a thousand of our years. It reproduces with other rock in sheol, in the secret guts of the earth.

Maybe, or maybe not - but maybe the poetic language offers a door for reflection about the eternal God and Man's brief sojourning. Maybe there is some truth to the wording, just as the world is a globe though it isn't.

'Aha,' says the empiricist, 'rock is inorganic, case closed. Onto- comes before theology, if there is to be such a latter. Logic judges Revelation.'

Judges? No, Revelation sets the bones of logic.

Musterion stands in one place, and we often can't find him; he often finds us. He walks a tight-rope in flip-flopped scenery, and he looks strange to us; he looks strangely at us.

The Word was made flesh; the Word was made strange, and it dwelt among us.


-r

. . . / LIQUID LINE.

I'm reconstituted, thank you:
broken streams compressed,
broken gleams pressed
out, broken, stressed,
starched and
hardly seen;

see the gurgling stream
of conscious effort,
a glued-together smile for
saying, 'I'm okay, you're okay, we're
all okay';
does all this gurgling placate, make
you feel good enough about yourself?

-If not, there's more glue on the shelf;
I'll apply here, rinse, repeat,
reconstituted, thank you.


-r

DEAR VIRGINIA: Yes, there is a Santa Claus - that is what you would have me to write, is it not? If there is not and was not a Santa Claus, well, you would still revel in the story, would you not? But you would have me answer the question, would you not? Well, my young lady, this is an important lesson that you will learn now or later, and the answer to your question is as follows: hope does not die. In my own personal affairs, I have tried to kill it before it grows, attempted to spurn all love and joy that continues to bleed me (for grown-ups, hope often means everlasting misery and disappointment), but no matter how hard I myself have tried to kill that which kills me, hope won't die. You yourself might be able to kill it - I don't have this killing-of-hope to a science - but even hoping to kill hope is a distorted hope.

I will not answer your enquiry regarding Santa Claus; I will leave that for you and your papa to discuss. Hope lives, and he lives for a thousand years.

F.P. Church (remix)