Disciple at Easter Dawn

In a silent calm We floated in light Unaware of the surrounding turbulence, Feasting only on ether and wonder. Then hungry at times for this world We would bicker, drink, eat, fish, Swagger, return to our families, Make love to our wives, Forgetting if he were more Than a man among men.| Now he is dead: Spikes driven in his wrists,

Pain in every wooden muscle, Thorns in his brow, Lifted heavenward until, pierced, life deserted him. I saw him doubt, forgive, thirst, shout, And go limp. My soul is swollen in grief, The salt of unshed tears coats my eyes and throat. Restless, I am also inert, my will flung to the winds. At the base of my spine burns A small, white-hot flame. It is more than my fear. What is this anger? At the last he ran headlong Into the arms of death -- Taunting it, teasing it, Thrust and parry. How dare he die? Who am I now, Circumcised body and soul?

I hear the silly clamor of the women Outside the entrance to this upper room. Did they anoint his body thus, With no respect for the dead?

Copyright, 2020, Pat Grauer

The Seventh Year

Restless I wake in the old bridal bed A half-century of small resurrections in this room Outside the little locust we planted, spring-naked, now frames the sky. Life, black-winged, flutters at the window, its future so close I can hear the shells crack Though I once saw the blue drain from your eyes I hear in silence The throbbing that is you.

Good Friday 2015

The liquidity of my lover’s blue eyes,

The blood of my Lord,

The tears of my church

Mingle in a bitter cup today.

I will drink it.

Boston Marathon Redux

There's light and dust and acrid stench,
but it's the bombs' sound,
rooted so deeply that it's felt as much as heard,
that inspires fear.

Waves of great amplitude
violate our bodies.
The soles of our feet vibrate;
our eardrums are stretched to breaking.
Shockwaves alter every cell,
gelling our brains.

We expect the pavement to open,
to yaw to hell,
and Satan to emerge from the smoke.

Three are killed.
None of them had known three decades.
Two hundred sixty four are injured.
We honor their deaths, their wounds.

Courage overruns the blood in the streets.
Love reaches out to all strangers.
Goodness cleans away the debris,
embraces the terrified,
reaffirms law and peace.

Across the globe, daily,
it's the bombs' sound,
so deep that it's felt as much as heard,
that inspires fear.

Half a million die of conflict each year.
Millions more are wounded, sickened or starved
in consequence.
We honor their deaths, their wounds.

We strive to love our enemies.

Haiku: Old Apple Tree

Thick fruit and leaf walls
hang low, her best harvest yet.
The weight breaks her limbs.

Unshuttered

UNSHUTTERED

I had used up the stock
and swept clean the warehouse,
diluting the blood and tears with scrubbing.
I left it airy and open,
the sun flowing into rectangular pools on the floor.

I saw no prospects.
I had no capital to invest.
I locked the doors.

Then a shipment arrived, unordered and unpaid.
I opened it gingerly.
The words, bright mirrors, were jumbled in their crates.
The tees caught in the bellies of the gees.
The jays hooked into the bee bulges.
And the esses? They locked everything.

Their edges were razor-sharp.
It took me weeks, bleeding, to sort them out.
Now they lie, gleaming, at the ready.

The Poetry Factory has reopened for business.

Back to the Future

With Lennon, Dylan and Byrds in my ears
I ride, facing backward, on a train
to the great city of my youth 
where all the doors are still open.