Sisyphus

An hour here
An hour there
And so I veer
From care to care
No greater plan
No greater goal
Since I began
This long patrol;
I wander out,
I wander in
Ever in doubt
Of where I've been
Am I in hell?
I cannot tell.

33

Now I have reached my Jesus year
I wonder if I have twelve friends?
And if I ought to quake in fear
That this year my life story ends?
But I fear not, and nor should I,
I make no waves, I will not die
(If random chance we may count out)
I do not claim Messiah-hood
And if I'm honest, I might doubt
If I am even all that good.
So I am sure as sure can be
That this year's danger is no more
And at the end of thirty-three
All I will be is thirty-four.

Mass Murder

When Pittsburgh wept, I wept, for they were me;
If I had lived there, there I would have been.
Their pain was mine; I felt it on my skin
The phantom pain that dogs an amputee.
I grew up singing them: "Etz chaim hi"
Is how our children's services begin
Or end. All those who sing it are akin
Holding fast to that same holy tree.
I weep no less with Christchurch. Where we pray
No matter who we pray to, should be safe:
Should be a refuge from the world outside.
Their pain is mine, though half that world away.
This kind of violence is always treyf
Always haram, always a fratricide.

Ring Suburb

The best part of a city is the sprawl;
Not Jacksonville's suburban endlessness
Which really isn't cityscape at all-
A cul-de-sac of strip malls, more or less-
But also not the downtown business core:
The city of the city, neighborhoods
Where people live in closely, door by door,
The Wallingfords, the Queens, the St. John's Woods.
Downtown is but the jewel set in the ring
Whose carats, though the measure of its cost,
Ultimately is a useless thing
If all the metal holding it is lost.
Without downtown, a city's but a band;
Without the sprawl, a gem dropped from the hand.

A Loud

Ambient chaos exits me as noise;
I whistle like a teakettle on high.
I wonder often if the sound annoys
My colleagues, or the people passing by
And when I do, I also wonder why:
Why is it that my nerves are guitar strings,
Why I tap toes against my desk, or sigh,
Or creak my chair in rhythm as it swings.
Am I so tense that I cannot express
The fact of my existence silently?
Must every single little source of stress
Exhale itself so volubly from me?
Or would I cease to be, or just be less,
If I did not confirm it audibly?

List

I do not know what I should do today.
The air is crisp, the sun is shining bright
But since I know it is but lying light
I have no plans for outside anyway
For if in hopeful ignorance should stray
Into the world, trusting that all is right,
I would freeze solid, struggle as I might.
And so I lie here listless, in the way.
The work around me that I ought to do
The books to read, the essays I should skim,
The empty documents that wait for filling
All mock me cruelly, but do not imbue
My lazy soul with urgency or vim:
I do not do them, since I am unwilling.