He arrived today
although none saw him coming.
He had been here before,
been quickly ignored,
despite his pleas and prayers,
they twisted his words
to suit their venal desires,
his message forever lost in translation.
They were not ready,
and in their hate fueled world,
they might never be.
A desert again,
always a desert
and she the saint
of uncounted names,
her crying eases, no
smile appears for this
Madonna of the coyotes,
her orange-orbed eyes
shuttered against the
slowly retreating sun.
Once her tears watered
the desert sands, mixed
with the blood of a Christ
now long forgotten, trans-
substantiated into a spirit
we formed in our image,
no longer we in his.
The Blessed Mother
watches, holding hope,
holding space, holding
a serenity we cannot
fathom in our search
for divine justification.
She remembers, she mourns,
for what ought to be, and waits
for the windwalkers
to pull the blanket
of stars over her.
First published in Liquid Imagination, Issue 52, October 2022
http://liquidimagination.silverpen.org/
You say that I am an apostate,
hell bent, hell bound, soon to meet
the hell hound awaiting my arrival.
You have condemned me for thoughts
that deviate from your own, you
are the guardians of the Word, you say,
although whose words you guard is ever
harder and harder to discern, certainly
not those of He who died for saying them.
You say heaven is reserved to you
and those who merit being your apostles
and those who fail must be condemned.
Yet Cerberus understands well,
and you will be surprised when he
greets you at the hell gates of your heaven.
He appears, rising from the horizon
the sun at his back, as if a mirage
taking physical shape and form.
He approaches slowly, your eyes
straining to separate him
from the sun’s growing glow.
You wonder if his is a holy man
robed and with a staff, walking
to announce his long awaited return.
As he grows closer, you realize
he is a she , older, in a flowing
dress with a walking stick, not
the returner for who you wish,
but your faith requires that you
continue waiting in hope.
In the farthest reaches
of the afterlife, the old men
gather each day, although
day and night are meaningless
to them, just assigned
for purposes of the writer.
The Buddha recites sutras
hoping the others will
be in the moment with him,
while Hillel smiles, stands
on one foot and dreams
of a lean pastrami on rye
with a slice of half sour.
Christ muses on when
mankind might be ready
for his return visit,
and Hillel says “good luck
with that, it’s been downhill
with them for two millenia.
Shroedinger sits off
to the side staring intently
at the box, wondering
if there is a cat inside.
The man walked into the old diner
looking not at all happy,
dressed in what looked like
a white robe he found in some alley.
He ordered coffee and glanced
around, as if seeking one
familiar face, finding many
that looked like that
of his father, like him,
for that matter, and he knew
from this quick glance that
they were not yet ready,
not even close really, but he
had tried to tell Him that,
not that He listened, so the man
left some change on the table
walked out into the night,
and prepared to return home,
certain this visit, like the others
would never be deemed
a second coming.
It isn’t my first Christmas
although almost so, that
part of me hidden for half
a century, its twisted discovery
filling a hole that I never
knew existed, yet always knew.
This is the strangest Christmas,
a time of gathering, now
in isolation, only pixels
and prayers on a too flat screen,
and it is hard, in times
of want and suffering, to recall
why we celebrate this day.
A child was born, and now
countless others will be,
and it is only the children
that recall his message, and
truly understand peace.
As a Jewish kid in a small city
I suppose I had it pretty good, enough
of us that I didn’t totally stand out,
and it helped living a single block
from the Jewish funeral home, some
just didn’t want to travel all that far
when the inevitable time came.
But we soon moved to the suburbs,
the shtetl neighborhood was gone,
and I was a Jewboy to more than a few,
so the Temple felt like a safe place,
setting aside all the OT stories
which were wholly unblievable.
I took a fair number of lumps
for killing Christ and all other
imaginary sins freely attributed.
I wish I knew then that as an adoptee
I was really only half Jewish,
and that the other half among
my distant kin were kings and saints
as well as a fair number of sinners.
No one looked up when the Buddha
walked into the deli and took a seat
at the counter, “Pastrami on rye, and
lean, with mustard on the side, and two
slices of full dill and a side of slaw.”
As he sipped the Dr. Brown’s Cream
Soda, the waitress smiled at him,
asked, “Are those robes comfortable,
winter isn’t all that far off, you know.”
Buddha smiled, and with a serene calm
said, “It all depends on what you wear
beneath, I prefer a silk-cotton blend,
but some I know want only organics.”
As he finished, a younger, swarthy
man entered, his robes bleached white
from the sun, his dark hair long,
sandals worn down, and came
over to Buddha, sat down with
a nod to the waitress, and instantly
a corned beef on pumpernickel
appeared, at which point Buddha
muttered “Christ, how do you do that?”
First published in Bengaluru Review: Spring, 2021
https://bengalurureview.com/bengaluru-review-spring-2021
Go into the hills
an bring back logs,
straight, peel the bark
and smooth them
satin fibers, the main pole
at least eight arms
the cross no less than six.
Lash them well
so they will not yield
under the weight
of the body
where you might hang.
Do not speak
to the shepherd,
he will tell tales
of what he claims
he has seen on the hill
but he cannot be trusted
and speaks of his dreams
of centurions standing
over the freshly dug graves.
an old writer and his words 