Weathered hands held a white circle of bread,
A papery wafery piece of this world,
But there through transubstantiation was instead
The flashpoint of eternity unfurled.
This form He chose is humble and plain,
Bringing me a moment’s circumspection.
How can this qualitatively contain
The suffering, death and resurrection?
My face is pressing a tasteless façade
Smudging up the glass I look through
My breath fogs up the lens of God
While finding which toppings I want to
Have placed on my ice cream, already chosen,
So I can truly enjoy this treat.
My father behind me knows all of the frozen
Combos, his knowledge is sweet.
This decision could be life changing
What if I choose the wrong sprinkle?
I imagine my choice rearranging
A space-time-continuum wrinkle.
My dad knows everything and so I ask
“Should I get chocolate, or rainbow?”
He looks at me, puzzled by the task
Of answering a question I should know.
I turn and face my sprinkles one more time
Rainbow sprinkles, or chocolate ones to flow
Off of a spoon onto the Ice cream I’m
Going to have, but right now, I don’t know.
I’d hate to have the wrong thing sprinkling
So I wonder what would dad want me to do.
Is it rainbows, or chocolate that will bring
Us closer as a family from his view?
One flavor or the other wouldn’t bother
Him or me, it doesn’t really matter
Chocolate on my mouth would look to father
About the same as rainbow sprinkled splatter
I asked my dad again for his solution,
Since I didn’t know exactly how I felt.
He desired me to seek a resolution
So the Ice cream I was gifted wouldn’t melt.
BONJOUR RATING: 33 (12 out of 37)
DISTRACTIONS: Reading in the dark while trying to get kids to sleep
“The world does not need words.” Is the first sentence of the first line of the first poem in this collection. I’m a sucker for a good poem about the craft of words since I love them so much. I was immediately intrigued and ignored my children for a moment, allowing myself to enjoy reading poems again.
Failure would soon follow though. No, I mean literally, a couple pages later Dana Gioana introduces us to Failure. This poem calls you and your children failures but pulls it off without being too self-deprecating by introducing the failure of failing. A successfully-written complication.
I soon found myself reading in a darkly lit room saying shush to my children every couple of minutes. That might explain why not much could measure up to failure until page 51 when I joined a former loving couple at a table for some conversation about one of them being engaged. I find a love triangle as The Corner Table is immediately joined by two more “love” poems and finish up the book finding poems of interest on about every other page.
Curriculum vitae was also nestled in these pages with a beautiful simplicity that can only be contained in a six-line poem that requires more words to complement it than it required of itself when it was originally written.
Poems of Interest
Words
Failure
Entrance
At the Water Front Café
Curriculum Vitae
Corner Table
Long Distance
My Dead Lover
Homage to Valerio Magrelli : V.
Accomplice
For Sale
Summer Storm
Additional Links of Note:
Dana Gioia http://www.danagioia.net/
Graywolf Press http://www.graywolfpress.org/
Sometimes we get caught in indecision,
We pray about something, but never really know
the level of correction that God’s vision
Has for us, our lives, and where we go.
We all know he’s a really smart guy since
He invented what inventors use
It’s not dumb to seek his guidance
In all those choices that we choose
But I seem to get stuck in the waiting
For answers he’s placed in my heart,
Overlooking my free will creating
The answers desires impart.
Wind-down window worlds have long gone past
Replaced by air conditioned comfort zones,
Still music did consume my car and cast
Away my wind-up window’s silent tones.
A slow crescendo pulled beside my car
Of music made to make me feel and move
The opera pumping thumping was bizarre
As it persuaded me into a groove.
I rolled my window down and bobbed my head
To music from a language I don’t know.
From operatic music I was led
To empathize with passion and let go
Of things that held my mind in structured form
Instead I danced to opera in my seat.
Tonight I’ll tune to tenors that transform
My setting to a wind-down window beat.
He always gave the death grip
When the family came together
Unprompted from his arm would slip
his handshake like a tether.
You’d innocently place your hand
In vice grips he’d deploy
But quickly you would understand
Your hand was like a toy
Your whole arm moved up and down,
This mad-man grip was crazy.
I decided I could take his crown
If I could just be lazy.
The next time that we met again
I had my silent wish,
Extended out my hand and then
I gave him the limp fish.
My shake was absolutely dead
No muscles tensed at all
The limp fish that his hand was fed
‘caused gladiator’s fall.
One “how ya doin’?” really means “hello.”
It’s confusing when it’s secretly inside
The “how ya doin’?” meaning “we should go
And talk somewhere you’ll more likely confide
In a friend, who truly doesn’t know
What it is you think that you can hide”
In a “how ya doin’?” left to mean “hello.”
On sleepless days from sleepless nights
I’m up and solving sibling fights.
Who’s Cheerios are on the ground?
Who gets to sweep the mess around?
The poopiest of all gets changed
While my shoes are rearranged
By the other dressing up
And spilling from her sippy cup.
Our newborn doesn’t need those toys
They’ve piled on, releasing noise
Competing with his little cry,
I pick him up but wonder why
I bring him to my shoulder, pat his back
And though my shirt was colder, once was black
My brilliant son performs as if on cue
And leaves a badge of honor there for you
To notice what I’ve probably forgotten
Amidst the other joys that I’ve been caught in.
There’s something deep inside me that sets off an alarm,
We see a family photo full of an awkward charm
That’s worthy of the internet for all the world to see
And laugh at all those poses that you hold so awkwardly.
The knee shelves, the arm shelves, the weapons of choice,
The costumes, the settings, cause me to rejoice.
With brothers as bacon and mommy the pooh
The awkwardian era’s all there just for you
To break from your day and click through endlessly
Finding family ideas for new Photos to be
On your cards, on your walls, those glares will be free
To awkwardly stare down more people like me.
The Distraction of Blogs
I’m distracted in the blogosphere
By all the links that seem so near
‘cause everything’s a click away
to see what someone else would say
about tangential information
that keeps adding complication
to a simplified relation
from a blogger’s revelation.
Comments and links lead me on.
The original posting is gone
Somewhere in my history
Only slightly missed by me,
Who’s moved on to new sites
Discovering new writes
Of passage serenading
In blogs we keep creating.
BonjourPoetry 