Sincere

There are so many things that bother me

That is is difficult at times to say how many;

Or to admit the possibility

Of minimizing it so there aren't any.

I'm always on alert (not always well) 

And twitchy in a broad, generic way; 

I know you know it, know that you can tell

When I'm no longer close to a-ok.

It doesn't matter which thing may be bad

Because I trust you to relieve them all

Whether I'm anxious, tired, or just sad

Because you'll catch me, I can safely fall. 

And if perhaps sometimes you're bothered too 

I hope you know that I'd also catch you.

Ashamnu

There is a concept, dear to me,

That says we cannot quite undo

Our own responsibility 

For what was done wrong that we knew.

We knew that there was sin afoot

(Whatever term you use for sin)

But thought that if we did not put

Our stamp on it, then we could spin

Ourselves away from it. But no;

The things we did not act to stop

Are part of us now, even though

We did them not. It's a fair cop:

Too often we ignore what's bad

For fear of making someone mad.

Not

 You are not more special than the rest.

Oh, you are special; don't think otherwise,

But not more special. No, you must excise

The part of you that thinks you are the best

So far as that belief might be expressed

Through only caring when your body dies

And not when others do. That thought lies.

We are all special. Death, then, is a test:

Whose life did you believe in? Whose, dismissed?

And only care about the folks like you

Or who did what you wanted them to do?

Or did you know that people who exist

Are special, every one. Yes, that one too.

Not yours to wish undone or devalue.

L'Tzion

A thousand generations, give or take,

Might be enough, perhaps, to be away;

But to return--is our return to make

Another homeless? I refuse to say

That just because we've long longed for the land

We have exclusive title to it; no,

That is a horrid and a false demand

That we should flourish but no others grow.

Let us abide, ah, let us still remain,

But not at the expense of those still there.

We should best know their common source of pain

And knowing it should be a source of care.

They also love the land, and we know whyfor;

Let us not kill to have what we would die for.

Perfect Design

Nothing has been made that does not need

Upkeep and maintenance as time goes by.

Time will corrode the mountains high,

Silt up the river, set the field to seed

(Exhaust the crop and then exalt the weed),

Tear buildings down, and make their walls a sty

(Or bury them so they can't see the sky).

Time does all this not from disdain or greed

But by its nature. And so we must fight;

We must push back the power of decay

With constant work, unthankful and unceasing.

And since the shit is constantly increasing

The need for this will never go away:

But many hands can make the hard work light.

Mortality Rates

I sit and read the poems of the dead

Who wrote as dead men do about their sons

Who likewise died. They were before I read,

Before they wrote the poems. This line runs

Through almost every poet. Everyone's

Constantly in mourning for a child

They lost; sometimes a wife. There are tons

And tons of these, emotions running wild 

(As it should be, for who is calm and mild

When fathers bury sons?). I read and read

My own emotion tenderly beguiled

And feel the anger that the poems feed:

Children don't die the same way now, but will

We have vaccines. To end them is to kill.

Fish

Here in America, between the coasts

Christianity is like the sea

Invisible, and salty as can be.

Haunted as we are by undead ghosts

(The genocides we've done, in all their hosts)

We cannot exorcise them properly

Until we recognize that to be free

Is nothing like our vain and feeble boasts.

The irony that rises above all

Is that true Christlike care could make us so

But when I hear of Christ, it does not call

For good for all, but gold for those we know

And so we all remain in total thrall

To impulse--which true freedom must forego.

Of July

I had a country once, and I had faith

That what it strived for, if not did, was good.

That surety is dead; an empty wraith 

That only shrieks in tones of could and should.

I hoped my nation would do what it would

To help the sick, to free those under bond:

That what it had of burning cross and hood 

Was banished to the past. But that was fond.

It all remains. Not banished to beyond

But living, breathing in my hopes' dead shell

As if the hope itself had somehow spawned

Its revenant, and born it out of hell.

Yet looking at the thing that I abhor

It is the same as what it was before.

Gather Us In

The song that we sing will tell God to gather

The people together, and make them God's own;

But I have an inkling that God would much rather

We gather ourselves; not like seeds to be sown

But livestock to pasture, or people to freedom

More self-motivated, more ready to go

Aware of our hungers and eager to feed 'em

Not crops that the sower must gather and sow.

For God can most certainly sow as God wishes

(And make things spring up that were never before

Like the insects, the water, the land, and the fishes,

The light and the darkness, and so many more)

But the point of our lives is not passive obeying

But living the life that itself is our praying.

Nightscape

There's people here, out on the streets at night.

That is enough itself to make me glad.

They glow themselves, without the aid of light

And loosen what I hadn't noticed had

Grown tense. I'd almost say it's sad

How quickly everything falls into place:

I'm standing taller. I feel like a cad,

Cheating on the city I'd replace

That doesn't run this kind of nighttime race. 

It's not it's fault. But there are people here 

Refusing to cede night the public space:

No emptiness. No darkness. And no fear.

Even here they sleep sometimes, of course,

But by free choice, and not by night's brute force.