Waterbug

Angel Stew

Angels seldom have flat tires
because they use only new ones:
As the adage says, "Fools call Triple A
while Angels fear retreads."

Actually, most angels
prefer flying to driving.
Of course, even a plane
can get a flat tire when landing,
but planes don't land on clouds.

Actually, if one "lands" on "land,"
I suppose one "clouds" on "clouds".
"Gabriel coming in for a clouding
on runway number 7...".

Imagine being powerful enough
to guard us from harm, yet
intangible enough to be stopped
by a cloud's surface.

Well, I'm just winging it.
All I really know about angels
is that the word indicates a higher being,
beyond human -- as is anyone
able to communicate well.
I see fallen angels
at every poetry reading I go to.

Dean

I wonder

Angels

Do angels have flat tires?
Do they worry about their weight?

Flying clumsily, do they knock about,
bumping into each other in the clouds?

For myself, I wonder
whether this wouldn't be more fun
than sitting around all the time
playing a harp.

Pam

My Radial Conscience

Angels, Tired and Feathered

We work -- we tire.
We stop working --
we re-tire.
Will nothing wake us,
perk us up, neither working
nor quitting?

My work is poetry.
Some call it play --
fine with me, as long as
it's the thing that captures
the conscience of the one-eyed men
in this blind land.

If my work is play,
how can I tire -- or retire.
I'll write until I bust.
Then I'll flat-tire.

Dean

Undress us

We think of healing as correcting,
but we are perfect.
We've tried, again and again,
to solve our problematic perfectness --
at first to please others,
whose narrow ideas of perfection
had to be appeased, later,
to become those others
(to keep them alive, for they were
always disappearing, taking with them
your assurance of pleasing someone).

How odd to become another
in order to contain yourself.

Now we have wrongnesses
attached to us -- simply additions
to perfection. If there is nothing to improve upon
but perfection, why we'll improve it
with whatever affliction is fashionable.

Do not heal us. Help us undress,
remove all the layers we have added
to our wellness.

Dean

Retiring

Coming to the end of things

People stop to greet you
with “how many days left?”
and there is that look in their eyes
as if retiring were something desirable
something you should be ecstatic about
(and you’re not…)

People plan your retirement party
as if it were some big occasion
asking you where you’d prefer to have it
and consulting you secretly about the menu,
exulting because the boss has allowed a budget
(and you’re not paying attention… )

Seems the best thing they can hope for is retirement
(and you’re not really retiring
but you don’t want to hurt their feelings
or their expectations…)

And so you go along.

Pam

Healing

The magic of auditing

How nice that healing, when it comes,
can leave no scars, can leave no burns,
but in a timeless moment weave
(like sleep), knit up the ragged sleeve.

Pam

One kisses you where it hurts...

One drugs you;
another nourishes you.
Which doctor reigns?

One explains you to you;
the other listens to you
and understands.
Which doctor reigns.

One reports your oddities to "the authorities";
the other keeps your secrets.
Which doctor reigns?

One looks for what's wrong with you.
the other looks for your rightnesses and
helps you expand them.
Which doctor reigns?

One tells you the answers;
the other helps you find your own.
Which doctor reigns?

One labels you;
the other sees you.
Which doctor reigns?

One leaves you duller and deader;
the other helps you.
Could we lock up the first
or at least subject him to the same laws
that apply to the rest of us?
Could we go WHOA! on the
Witch-doctor reins.

Dean

Speaking of witchdoctors...

Witchdoctor Rain

Witchdoctor rain dances, makes the drains ring,
wraps this house like demons,
insistent ghosts,
turning the world into a charcoal study,
chanting: Woe, Woe...

But in my mind:
Fontainebleau coffers enameled in bronze
sunlight on porches by elegant swans

Evil asks for a fight
begs for it, bullies you.
Evil drops bombs on your suburbs, taunts,
kills your neighbors, demands attention.
And when you have rolled out the big guns,
step out of yourself, sucker, turn around
and face your own demons.
Who is now the enemy.

But in my mind:
Tremulous roses by slippy millponds
Fontainebleau coffers, elegant swans

Enemy you have made yourself, friend,
passing me on the street wearing an
old face, new face, bleak face, wooden face,
masked, wearing the armour of eyes and teeth
smiling, dropping old bones.
You're no mortal
You're no mortal
You

But in my mind
Transparent yearnings, silver tipped fronds
Spirit the questor, spirit responds.

Pam Blehert

Big Noise, Small Voice

But usually God (from a raging fire
or thunder and lightning) is said to speak
in a "small still voice", which is interesting,
because that's a witchdoctor technique
for implanting suggestions. It's a form
of hypnosis. The witch doctor dances around
the sick man, shaking rattles, chanting loudly,
screaming, pauses briefly to bend down and
whisper (perhaps, "You are well now"), then,
immediately begins again to shake,
rattle and roll, as loudly as he can.

The sudden quiet between two furors
makes words spoken quietly in the quiet period
take on a hypnotic quality, partly because
they are something to cling to in all that chaos.

Perhaps we should say "Speak softly
between big noises -- perhaps made by
beating someone with a big stick."

No wonder I hate small talk.

Dean Blehert

The small voice?

How about the big
booming voice
from the heavens:
"Hey, fatso..."

Pam