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
Gifts
The Prodigal Son
All callow thoughtlessness
Outshone his brother
Unfair or unwise
To favor the miscreant
Yet it's instinctive
We value others
For the love that we give them
Not the love returned
Martin Locock
All callow thoughtlessness
Outshone his brother
Unfair or unwise
To favor the miscreant
Yet it's instinctive
We value others
For the love that we give them
Not the love returned
Martin Locock
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
“Merry…”
No one’s hangin’ stockin’s up,
No one’s bakin’ pie,
No one’s lookin’ up to see
A new star in the sky.
No one’s talkin’ brotherhood,
No one’s givin’ gifts,
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the twenty-fifth.
Shel Silverstein
"...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.
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