Piece of Rome
It has been with me for two and a half years now, through Rome, Missouri, and
Minnesota. It has lived in two dorm rooms. For some reason, it acts as a security that I will again
visit Italy and have a “Vacanze Romane.”
Audrey Hepburn clinging to Gregory Peck’s back while they zoom through the streets of
Rome on a scooter, her face glancing down and away from the forward future, while his meets it
with a determined, daring sideways smile: I am both. Scared to face the future, looking back,
letting someone else face it first, yet also knowing I might as well let the wind play with my face.
The poster’s glossy finish reflects the light from my plain dorm florescent light fixture.
The indefinite light lines make me wish the picture was real. I know it is just a poster now,
nothing more. But to me, it is real: as real as the Trevi fountain was when I touched it’s warm
whiteness three years ago.
The Italian words on the poster movie advertisement provide me with a sort of fake
identity, reminding me that someday I will speak Italian, someday find a Gregory Peck.
Silently it speaks of the sights, sounds, smells of Rome. I smell the tobacco, hear the
loud cadences of human talk, feel the hard cobblestones beneath my shoes. I own a piece of
Rome.
I’m a Believer?
I know Love is
Only true in faery tales.
Meant for someone else
But never me.
Love is out to miss me.
That’s the way it seems.
Still, a Prince is always
In my dreams.
When men see my face,
They become leavers.
They take off without
A glance at my mind.
I’m not Love.
They have to leave me,
They couldn’t love me
If they tried.
I thought Love was
More (not less) a giving thing.
But the more I’ve got,
The less they want.
What’s the use of thinking?
It hardly gives me gain.
When I need some Shakespeare,
I get Paine.
When men see my face,
They become leavers.
They take off without
A glance at my mind.
I’m not “Love.”
They have to leave me,
They couldn’t love me
If they tried.
Cross
In my heart there’s a canyon,
Deep as rift ‘tween church pew and door
But it’s long been crossed,
I had long thought it o’er
I had thought it was finished,
Knew there was more
But I don’t want to find it,
Don’t want to explore
I’ve depleted my sources,
My own selfish mind
I can’t think for thinking-
Thinking has made me blind
I try to run forward,
Hope in one desperate leap
My legs fail beneath me,
I crumble, a stubborn heap,
Still refuse to let Gravity
Me ground-bound keep
Just let me fly,
Let me be free!
I can’t accept merely being,
I want to be
But now I can feel
That my heart has stopped being
I have tried to become
More than I AM who was freeing
The One who secures me
Has been passed in the shuffle
I have passed Him, ignored Him,
His voice tried to muffle
He is standing here now,
Willing arms strong and able
I try to box the Unlimited in,
Distort the I AM with a label
He is absolute God,
I cannot resist
I accept His strong love,
Let His arms bear my burdens
Find balance in God’s will and mine,
And the sub in subordination
Life in a Moment
A thudding whack
Questions
Flash of fur
I look back,
See a bobcat
Rolling like a bowling pin
Down the roadside.
We keep driving,
Then turn back.
It’s lying there,
Unfairly dead.
We park.
It moves – snaps to its feet,
Slips – hind legs collapsing
Before a second is through.
It resiliently runs
Toward the woods.
We drive again.
One mistake.
That’s all he made.
One mistake.
But he’s not out yet.
Sucker
She wriggles along
Smoothly, with ease,
Her wet slimy skin
Impossible to seize.
Her words are like scratches
(they’re only skin deep)
I feel soothing caresses
(she’s playing for keeps).
She worms her way further
Under my skin,
Sucks out my life,
Endeavors to win.
I let her continue,
Don’t want her to stop.
I feel that she’ll cleanse me
But know that she’ll not.
When finally I surface
From warm, murky waters
I see her true colors:
The black bloody brown,
Her murderous mouth,
Each flattering word;
What I now see as poison,
My ears had misheard.
I try to untangle
The mess she has made,
But she just struggles harder,
Refuses to fade.
She wriggles along,
Slowly, with ease,
And I?
I wonder
why I’ve
Been such a blind
Sucker.
Shadow of a Princess
In the shadows, I am a princess
My shadow is my friend, my perfection
Dark, slender, graceful me
hiding my awkward shape, stiffness, blemishes
Fluidity and grace are all, confidently, softly floating along
I wonder why I cannot so lithely move
This is the me I want to see, the delicate shadow
of me wanting me to be.
Unlived potential, it stretches ever upward
mocking my attempts to
follow
This ebon profile is one of a sprite, a woman, a ruler
But I am no longer in the shadows
Never will be
I am simply
me.
Wordless Words
I have so much to say, but no words to say it with.
So I shouldn’t even be saying anything, I guess.
Soon….soon, words will come. Then I will gobble them up wordily.
Thanksgiving.
So much to be thankful for.
Thank you, LORD, for your unfailing love, truth, and righteousness.
When I Have Fears – John Keats
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love,-then on the shore
Od the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
A Man’s a Man for a’ That – Robert Burns
Is there for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a’ that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’that, and a’that,
Our toils obscure, and a’that;
The rank is but the guinea-stamp,
The man’s the gowd for a’ that!
What tho’ on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey and a’that;
Gie fools their skills, and knaves their wine,
A man’s a man for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, and a’ that;
The honest man, though e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that!
Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a’ that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that:
His riband, star, and a’ that.
The man of independent mind
He looks and laughs at a’ that!
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that,
But an honest man’s aboon his might,
Guid faith he mauna fa’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their dignities, and a’ that,
The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth,
Are higher ranks than a’ that.
Then let us pray that come it may -
As come it will for a’ that -
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May bear the gree, and a’ that;
For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s comin’ yet for a’ that,
That man to ma, the world o’er,
Shall brithers be for a’ that!
The Clod and the Pebble – William Blake
“Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.”
So sung a little Clod of Clay
Trodden with the cattle’s feet,
But a Pebble in the brook
Warbled out these metres meet:
“Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.”
