February 1st, 2014


Piazza, New York Catcher, Belle and Sebastian, 2003

There is something about the seams of worn jeans,
pulling apart from overuse and love, from hikes and rambles,
from falling, from pressing into the floor.

We jumped the fence to see the abandoned highways,
they had never even heard of them, and when we were
done, I got caught in a bramble bush as we rushed out of the woods
and back up the embankment to the monastery grounds.

The prayer trail snaked through the woods,
stone saints gravely standing every ten steps,
and the gravel of the path hissed beneath the
monks feet -

a real monk, in real monkish attire, and here I was
trespassing, and caught in a bramble bush.

I struggled and pulled and ripped my skin and clothes
and finally fell free, tripping up the hill, into the sunlight,
blood dripping from my arm and my shirt hanging where
it tore,

and fell into the circle of his gaze. He smiled kindly.
He smiled like someone who knew, but still
he let me lie and say something about running after
a small animal and getting caught in the prickers.

The boys asked about stories from the Bible to distract
from me as I caught my breath, the monk answered calmly,
still smiling, still knowing.

I would have liked to have sat on the cool stone benches
next to the stone saints as light fell in patches on my
ripped clothes and talked to him about life and God

and monastic existence - I would have liked to have asked
him about Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Sienna,

but I was not myself yet, or rather, I was taking a long
break from myself, and my lips were always sticky
with wine and my body was a beckoning finger.

I had found myself on the other side of my own expectations,
and standing in his gaze, a trespasser, a liar, a
lost girl with tangled hair, I knew a deep grace.

It was a little bit like the alabaster jar,
though it was months later that I would fall to my
knees and weep at the feet of one I knew
but had forgotten.

When I finally stood, He slipped his arm
around my waist, looked down at me and
said, simply, I have been waiting for you.

________________________________________

January 29th, 2015

Peace and Love, Cat Power, 2012

i said lioness
or deer

and laughed at the duality

she said
i see you more as a deer

because you can dance
around life
and even escape

Mel says we have hands
we have hands
i don't know where they are
but we've got them

i wonder how it got like this
so dry
and dangerous
to speak or breathe

and if we feel this way
then how must the children
feel?

the wolves gather
they've been gathering
they have much to gain
from all our flesh

and i want to break my bones
in their mouth in such
a way that it will choke
them

i'm a lover but i'm in it to win

just wait i keep saying
just wait until i'm gone

i will write words that will
destroy worlds

it's in your hands to come
out ahead she says
twice as she slowly leaves
the room

over and over again

sarah palin is a joke
from Russia

her face is shape
of soviet school buildings

all these gifts from Russia

we are still fighting the cold

but now it is here

and

i am more of a socialist than
they'll ever be

bill gates here is putin
they have earl grey tea
and talk about their
stables full of people
saddled in gold leather

i can taste the bridle

but i will only pretend for a little bit longer
to be lead by it

i have drilled a hole through the blinders

see you on the battle field
gentlemen