Forget about the other six, says Pride.
They're only using you.
Admittedly, Lust is a looker,
but you can do better.
And why do they keep bringing us
to this cheesy dive?
The food's so bad that even Gluttony
can't finish his meal.
Notice how Avarice
keeps refilling his glass
whenever he thinks we're not looking,
while Envy eyes your plate.
Hell, we're not even done, and Anger
is already arguing about the bill.
I'm the only one who
ever leaves a decent tip.
Let them all go, the losers!
It's a relief to see Sloth's
fat ass go out the door.
But stick around. I have a story
that not everyone appreciates
about the special satisfaction
of staying on board as the last
grubby lifeboat pushes away.
Dana Gioia
2.02.2014
1.26.2014
Small deaths
Jesus suffered the small deaths of life.
Losses of Joseph and John.
Rejected in His hometown.
Being misunderstood
by His followers and the crowds.
Grieving over Lazarus.
Angered by the condition
of His Father’s house.
Denied by Peter.
Betrayed by Judas.
The bullshit trial.
Which lead to His Big Death
That blessed us
(as we suffer
our own small deaths)
never to experience
the curse of a
Big Death.
The Day After Sinatra Married Mia Farrow
So the coffee would stay hot all morning
Edna, the large-boned Dutch waitress,
her face and throat flushed from the heat
would first fill my thermos with boiling water
in the Circle Diner on Kutztown Road,
this July morning steamy and loud
with a highway crew at the counter,
two grizzled mailmen in the side booth
and us from the nearby construction site,
a job I loved for its noise and fresh air,
screwing big lag bolts into the sills
of Caloric Stove's new factory warehouse,
the whirr of the countersink drilling the wood,
clean white hemlock or spruce
and when one of the mailmen heads for the door
Edna calls out to him "Hey Jack
how you think Frank's feeling this morning?"
Smoke from the grill and the cook's cigar
clouding the wide glass window:
Frank, 20 years her senior,
stepping from Sam Giancana's limo
or else whispering One For My Baby
into the spotlight: his death
in his voice with its flawless control,
his slanted fedora and raincoat,
his glittering life we could only imagine
though most of us are laughing by now
wolfing our hot cakes and eggs
when the old man yells back, "Tired as hell!"
pulling his hat down low at the door,
happy enough to be going to work
on a Friday under the dawnwashed sky
of Johnson's Great Society,
with the Lehigh Valley opening its thighs
and the weekend gorged with promise.
Joseph Millar
Edna, the large-boned Dutch waitress,
her face and throat flushed from the heat
would first fill my thermos with boiling water
in the Circle Diner on Kutztown Road,
this July morning steamy and loud
with a highway crew at the counter,
two grizzled mailmen in the side booth
and us from the nearby construction site,
a job I loved for its noise and fresh air,
screwing big lag bolts into the sills
of Caloric Stove's new factory warehouse,
the whirr of the countersink drilling the wood,
clean white hemlock or spruce
and when one of the mailmen heads for the door
Edna calls out to him "Hey Jack
how you think Frank's feeling this morning?"
Smoke from the grill and the cook's cigar
clouding the wide glass window:
Frank, 20 years her senior,
stepping from Sam Giancana's limo
or else whispering One For My Baby
into the spotlight: his death
in his voice with its flawless control,
his slanted fedora and raincoat,
his glittering life we could only imagine
though most of us are laughing by now
wolfing our hot cakes and eggs
when the old man yells back, "Tired as hell!"
pulling his hat down low at the door,
happy enough to be going to work
on a Friday under the dawnwashed sky
of Johnson's Great Society,
with the Lehigh Valley opening its thighs
and the weekend gorged with promise.
Joseph Millar
1.19.2014
The Gates of Love Budged an Inch
Just an ordinary day.
Casting for cash.
Mending our tools.
Minding our own business.
Then the Extraordinary enters,
and
asks us
to join Him
in finding His lost sheep.
And the fools
run off with Him,
while the rest of us
have to hold the fort
without them.
A Great Leaf
A great leaf, that God and you and I
have covered with writing
turns now, overhead, in strange hands.
We feel the sweep of it like a wind.
We see the brightness of a new page
where everything yet can happen.
Unmoved by us, the fates take its measure
and look at one another, saying nothing.
Rainer Maria Rilke
1.12.2014
The Poor Rich Man
The poor rich man
misheard the gospel.
He thought
his fellow one percenter
went away mad
instead of sad.
"Oh, My God!"
Not only in church
and nightly by their bedsides
do young girls pray these days.
Wherever they go,
prayer is woven into their talk
like a bright thread of awe.
Even at the pedestrian mall
outbursts of praise
spring unbidden from their glossy lips.
Billy Collins
1.05.2014
"...but deliver us from evil."
(A meditation on each word(s)
of the Lord's prayer)
Lord,
please deliver me from
the pleasures of sins.
And when I fall,
grant me Your mercy
as I suffer its consequences.
Amen.
12.23.2013
Canticle of Mary (The Magnificat)
My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
From this day all generations will call me blessed:
the Almighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
he has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Spirit,
as it was in the beginning, is now,
and will be for ever,
world without end. Amen.
"...not into temptation"
(A meditation on each word(s)
of the Lord's prayer)
Even though I profess
You are the one true God,
the world contains
so many of
its own gods.
Trying to seduce me
that their fantasies
are able to
fulfill my
needs and wants.
Lord,
may every choice
I make today,
be considered
between
Your Way
and the
world's temptations.
12.16.2013
A Christmas Circular Letter
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn't thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I'd hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I'd hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, "There aren't enough to be worth while."
"I could soon tell how many they would cut, You let me look them over."
"You could look.
But don't expect I'm going to let you have them."
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded "Yes" to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer's moderation, "That would do."
I thought so too, but wasn't there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, "A thousand."
"A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?"
He felt some need of softening that to me:
"A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars."
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them.
Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn't know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn't lay one in a letter.
I can't help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
Robert Frost
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