War Some of the Time, Bukowski

 Today I stand with Chuck Bukowski, especially the last two lines. Perhaps this will motivate a blog post soon:

"when you write a poem it
needn't be intense
it
can be nice and
easy
and you shouldn't necessarily
be
concerned only with things like anger or
love or need;
at any moment the
greatest accomplishment might be to simply
get
up and tap the handle
on that leaking toilet;
I've
done that twice now while typing
this
and now the toilet is
quiet.
to
solve simple problems: that's
the most
satisfying thing, it
gives you a chance and it
gives everything else a chance
too.

we were made to accomplish the easy
things
and made to live through the things
hard."



"War Some of the Time" by Charles Bukowski, from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way. (c) Ecco Press, 2003.

A Poem by George Bilgere

Below is a poem by G.Bilgere, look him up. How often has this happened to you? For me, daily.

Desire

by George Bilgere

The slim, suntanned legs
of the woman in front of me in the checkout line
fill me with yearning
to provide her with health insurance
and a sporty little car with personalized plates.

The way her dark hair
falls straight to her slender waist
makes me ache
to pay for a washer/dryer combo
and yearly ski trips to Aspen, not to mention
her weekly visits to the spa
and nail salon.

And the delicate rise of her breasts
under her thin blouse
kindles my desire
to purchase a blue minivan with a car seat,
and soon another car seat, and eventually
piano lessons and braces
for two teenage girls who will hate me.

Finally, her full, pouting lips
make me long to take out a second mortgage
in order to put both kids through college
at first- or second-tier institutions,
then cover their wedding expenses
and help out financially with the grandchildren
as generously as possible before I die
and leave them everything.

But now the cashier rings her up
and she walks out of my life forever,
leaving me alone
with my beer and toilet paper and frozen pizzas.

"Desire" by George Bilgere. Reprinted with permission of the author.

1 Corinthians 2.2 po.d.1

In fear and trembling, I see His,
the face of pain, the burning shoulders.
Sweat forming on the holy brow
as He reaches for me.

I dodge His grasp like a kid playing tag
Hate my enemies.
Love myself.
Digging deeper and fixing the great chasm.

I, me, mine, running to the right;
You, yours, running to the left.
Together we stretch the bond
that once kept us close.

The farther I run
From justice, prayer and humility
To desire, self and captivity
The harder it is to go forward.

I look back to see
the cause of this elasticity.

I see Christ
  still crucified
His arms outstretched
holding together
two halves
  of our broken world.

Unwoken po.d.1

I dreamt a dream last night.

I dreamed that I went back in time
to when you hand was still in mine;
the world was ours and ever fine
to wake up with bodies intertwined.

I dreamed that awake was the dream
And asleep things were as they seemed,
where your love the brush and heart the scene,
where fantasy and longing reign supreme.

I dreamed of a past that was the present,
where your memory and image sent
tears, not gloomy, rather pleasant
and in your light the night was spent.

But, I woke up alone and in a daze;
the fading dream now gone in haze.
Tonight on knees I know he prays
that soon his nights become his days.

Jam Packed po.d.1

It is hard to describe the work of not working
The tiredness of doing nothing.
I watched two straight hours of television and
Now I want to go to bed.

I spent the time thinking about what I should be doing
But could not move, only sink further
Further into the couch cushions.
Paula Dean was on for sixty minutes.

But I won't call my mother, I am too busy.

Years that Week pr.d.1

     Sometimes when you don't even know someone, you know someone. They sat behind us every Sunday morning for the early mass. The kind of couple that has been together for so long that they even look the same. Both very old, enough that you would notice that sort of thing. She hardly ever spoke. He would sometimes come up and do the readings. I always liked that because of how he would pronounce his words like a gangster. "A readin' from da letta of Paul ta da Romans...." They would nod to us when we walked in, my father, my sister and I.

     Somehow my sister met them along the way. They took a liking to her. I think it was a spirituality group or something, a collaboration between the young and the old and they thought she was 'just....' So she would say 'hello' now in the mornings and they would smile to see her. I would wonder about them often. Especially when an old couple renewed their vows after fifty years of marriage one of these past Sunday mornings. Do they speak anymore to each other? Is there discussion over dinner or simply the silent conversation between old lovers? I even thought for a moment they would go home and combine back into the one person they were, separate only in the eyes of the public.

     Someday later my sister told me I was supposed to pray for this woman, she was diagnosed with cancer, her turn I suppose. I did, but it did not make the cancer go away. I don't know if I expected it to either, maybe that's why it didn't work. They still showed up every Sunday, same seats as always and always there before us, as if they did not move from week to week. Nothing seemed to really change on the outside. Maybe it is hard to notice on people who already look old. But then one Sunday came, and there was no one to nod to in the back row.

     Some people I guess really are of one heart. He came back to mass one week later and several years older. She was not with him. I felt a fraction of his pain and imagined what the whole of it must have been. I knew then some of the reason his shoulders slouched and his cheeks sagged; the heaviness of his loneliness. He comes now to stare at the Cross and wait his turn.

Suffering Faith po.d.1

"God is deaf."
Is that right? Graffiti on the subway wall.
We cry out to him, but hear only our echoes, echoes.
The world is suffering.

I cry to him then stick my fingers in my ears.
I call to him then cover my eyes.
I reach for him with my hands in my pocket.

God is not deaf. God is not dead. I am to him.

The world is suffering, and He with it.
The tears flow from the cross
Beautiful blood and water drips from the cross
The ground is soaked not just with our suffering
But the God's.

My tears, He cries them.
My pain, He feels it.
My mourning, He bears it.

My God, He hears me.