and eight more new poems in the Poetry Project
Sacrificial Lambs
I’m alone out here in the wilderness,
A lone bird on a limb,
Proclaiming.
A hawk flies over.
I shutter like the falling leaves.
The beech are yellow,
The dogwoods orange,
Virginia Creeper scarlet red.
The maple leaves are strangely
Green and graceful,
As if denying truth.
But sickness has them,
Full of holes, nearly imperceptible,
The brown death already in their bones.
The universe is full of sacrificial lambs
And so is my heart.
October 2007
The Middle Age
We huddled around the fire
Wondering what civilization
Would be like in a thousand years.
Or if it would exist at all.
Our grandmothers would have said
Of course it will. Yes, of course.
But our grandmothers are dead now.
And so are we for all practical purposes.
But our minds race out like meteors
Hoping to land somewhere and not
Just burn out in eternal space.
Our children are our grandmothers now.
Of course it will, they say. Of course.
Life goes on. What else is there.
October 2007
Oil and water—a vision
1.
From dust cliché, dry
And sun baked soil that is
My flesh, I came to stand
Upon a hill one day.
In dreams my mind
Does not forget nor want
To be mere dreams but life
And hope for me, the world
And God my soul. My
Heart spoke out to me as
Water from beneath that
Hard white earth that bubbles
Cool, so powerful
And wanting to be free
To run, soak, spill into the
Cracks of earth to
Quench each parched and dying
Grain of sand that is
Mankind.
2.
Each day I woke the
Pulse beat of my blood
Grew stronger till my
Will to lead all men from
Darkened sadness through
Their dreams of hope
To days of quiet light became
A fiery passion in my soul.
But I needed time and
Money, friends and men
To plead my case; a
Thousand Yankee dollars fought
With every coin I earned
Or won or sought to
Use to move that liquid blood
That pulsed beneath the ground.
3.
Amid the seeds of quivering
Expectation I
Could not see to feel
My way for fruit.
She bore me two but like
Her, unlike me, they could
Not know the darkened sadness
Buried deep within my soul. We worked together,
Four of us as if some
Strong web of truth within
Our blood were yelling
That we wanted all –We
Took it, moving up and outward like the silent
Roots and upward shoots
That feed on water
Far beneath the earth
But more on what is
Freely given by the
Clouded tears of heavens
Tender spring.
4.
While waiting on a
Misty day
For hope to rise and
Strip away the
Image of manipulation
Caused by years of
Laying pipeline underneath
The ground, a sudden
Gush of hope from
Out a blackened bloody
Hole amid a cry of
Tearful sorrow
Told me that my well
Was in. His death
Was now my life.
I gushed – with holy
Aspiration, needing the
Sadness of her face
To make me know
That death was in me
Too and that
My dreams of finding
Holy waters
In my soul for thirsty
Men to drink was
All but lost now—oil
My liquid life blood,
Fluid in my veins, the
Deadened sum of all
That lived and died
Before me was for burning
Not to drink.
1968
Remembering Rosa Parks
Very cold. Sunny wind at bus stop
Bus on time. Bus warm.
Must write. No inspiration.
Earthquake in California.
Changes in the bus schedule here.
Telephone calls for me to repair a fence
The wind blew down.
I’m dressed up this morning
In a cheap suit
Like a monkey in a circus
To work temporary at student bookstore
For minimum wage. Bad money that.
Don’t know who I’m working for.
Certainly not me.
Zen of not knowing.
Last week good.
This week bad.
Balance, balance, balance.
This will be hard on my ego.
And hard on my poetry.
And hard on my feet.
Blister on lip just thinking about it.
Then I remember Rosa Parks and I smile.
1994
Jesus tries to find Himself
When they had
Pushed the rock in
Place, I opened my
Eyes and could
not see.
By the time
They removed the
Rock on the third
Day, I was so sure
That everything
Had ceased to exist
That they couldn’t
Find me.
I knew I wasn’t
Dead because I could
Still think. But I’ll
Be damned. I couldn’t
Find me either.
I decided right
Then that I would
Go to work looking
For me. All my
Disciples were looking
For me too. Every once in a
While we would catch a glimpse of me
But then I would be
Gone again.
Some of the disciples began
To feel that I was
Gone for good. Some
Felt I had gone to
Heaven. Others knew
I was around somewhere.
Still others just thought
I was dead.
I’m not sure what
I thought.
All I wanted to do
Was find me. I knew
That as soon as I
Found me I would be
Able to explain everything.
I decided to get away
From the disciples and
See if I would appear to
Me while I was alone.
I wrote some letters to the
Disciples saying that I
Had found me, but I hadn’t.
1968
3 Short Stories About Why I Love to Ride the City Bus in Austin, Texas
I.
I get on the bus and almost all the other passengers appear to be humbler and happier than I am. Someone almost always speaks to me and smiles before I speak or smile. I am almost always surprised by this. The other day I sneezed and a woman’s voice issued from the back of the bus: “God bless you.” And I felt like he did.
II.
This morning while riding the bus I heard a woman ask a man if she had correctly overheard him talking to his companion about needing a job and she told him that only just this morning she had seen a big “Help Wanted” sign at the MacDonald’s on North Lamar. I winced secretly at this but she seemed to see no irony at all in such a suggestion and was in fact quite pleased to be able to help. She went on to tell him exactly how to get there.
The man who was all the while bouncing a small child on his knee, nodded gratefully to her for the tip. He said he was going in the other direction now (as were all the rest of us on the bus) but that he would check it out later.
For a moment there I was completely in awe of this woman who had the air about her of a slightly deranged bag lady only better dressed. For a moment there I saw here as otherworldly—like one of those angels in disguise you see on television. For a moment there I felt a timid prayer well up inside me that she might offer a suggestion for me. Or as has happened to me on the bus before, a small blessing.
III.
Tonight a man got on the bus and sat in front of me and said to the driver, “Hey, I like this ridership program you got on the weekends. But I’d like to know if it’s ok to ride the bus all day.” The “ridership program” he referred to is a weekend special that grants unlimited rides for 25 cents a day on weekends instead of the usual 50 for one ride and one transfer. He said to the driver, “I hear they had some problems when they did this before. People were getting on the bus and riding around all day.”
The driver mumbled something I didn’t hear. The man pressed on. “I hear you can only ride all the way to the end of the line and then ride all the way back to the other end of the line and then you have to get off and catch the next bus.” The bus driver said nothing. “Is that right?” the man asked the back of the driver’s head. “Yeah,” said the bus driver. “I think that’s right.”
3 or 4 blocks later the man pulled the cord and got off the bus. “Thank you, driver,” he said politely. “You’re welcome.” The bus driver replied.
1994
You can write it down.
But I’m feeling my physical self now.
Wanting to build something
Or tear something down.
A house, a fence, a tree, a garden.
The work is nothing.
The time is what slips away
In the dying light of autumn.
The air is clean and comfortable
But time becomes the beloved
And the enemy of self.
You can write it down
Late at night,
Beer after beer,
In the silent house beyond midnight.
But the dying day
And its physical retreats,
That’s the sad part.
Like a marathon runner
I could work every muscle
To its limit tomorrow
And feel the pain as joy.
October 2007
Anatomy of the Human Heart
I don’t have a door to my heart
Nor are there any windows.
I hardly know how things get in or out,
Things not blood related or visceral.
Loneliness seems to gravitate in
Like a ponderous friendship.
Love comes out like radio waves.
It’s all very strange and foolish
This heart of mine,
Having so much extra-curricular
Activity about it.
A heart is like a secret saint
Who works at a regular job
And performs his miracles
In a way not easily measurable
In time or space.
1988
Bob Memory on the Bus
For R. S.
I miss Bob when I see
A man that reminds me of him.
Bob, the tall.
Bob the lanky.
Bob the loner in his lone sky.
Like a salmon
Swimming up river to die.
Unreachable Bob.
Tender friend.
Hawk flying over.
Come and meet me at the station, Bob.
Hold me in your arms
Like rough reeds woven
Gently into basket art.
Say, I love you, Bob.
Hold me in your basket heart.
1994
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copyright 2007 by Larry L. Dill