Two-Thirty Bedside Blues

The night following a special B-52’s concert at the Athens Classic Center.*
Athens, Georgia

February 19, 2010; revised August 1, 2015

I was butt-called by a stranger

in the middle of the night.
Been butt-called by a stranger
in the middle of the night.
My cell phone line was playing,
I could feel the bodies swaying,
it was hours after turning out my light.

I sipped a bit of sweet tea
in the banquet hall last night;
an endless hit of sweet tea
in the banquet hall last night.
I could hear the priestess preaching
a progressive Bible teaching
in a room of earnest dreamers seeking light.

My mind was all a-flutter
in the banquet hall last night 
with my hip-credentials cluttered
by the middle of the night 
for I sat a room removed
from the rockin’ ’52’s
while upholding old commitments way too tight.

I got the sweet tea sipping
hipster cred slipping
microphone squealing
monkey mind congealing
higher brain a-thirsting
bladder filled to bursting
Bible on the night stand
sleeping through the big band
banquet hall buffet night blues.

So when I get a butt-call 
from a stranger in the night; 
when my life comes calling
in the  middle of the night,
I take to righteous dreaming
but I feel the need for swinging
through the banquet hall buffet night blues.

*With apologies to Barbara Brown Taylor, whose writings and lectures inspire.

Egyptian Sunrise

Athens, Georgia

February 8, 201; revised April 23, 2014

A memory of Egypt, May 1982. Dedicated to the youth of Egypt.

Forgive me Amal, not knowing     

your name, but it could not

arise in our improvised

game, that two-penny drama

played three decades past

When we came to

Upper Kingdom elegance,

peers of a genteel breed

served thick bitter coffee

in tiny cups with a side

of sugar. Such a gracious land

Of ruins and restaurants

fallucas on the Nile, sunsets

deep red with the dust of Sahara.

Of gentle dawns by slow waters 

lapping riverbank reeds 

where slave women once hid

baskets from Pharaoh’s baleful

gaze. The Pharaoh’s eyes

Still gaze unblinking

as he worships the gray

god Stability, secured

with burnt offerings –

the soul of a kingdom

locked down and torn

by the call of the dollar

and the call of the muezzin

In a mean land of dirt

and bribes, where swarms

of flies sip tears about

the soft brown eyes

of passive babes, born

to lives of hustling squalor.

Of grade school entrepreneurs

  

Like you, Amal, rude son

of the Lower Kingdom,

your dark eyes discerning

where an impulse to kindness

might be mobilized to sustain

Another day trolling tourists,

trading dignity for dollars

on dry sandstone bluffs

where must-see monuments

mark slow millennia

above the sprawl of Cairo.

You latched to us like desert flies

and even though we meant you

well, my bride and I could brook

no urge to mount tame camels

and make cheap postcards

to please people back home.

So we tipped you a bit to be

on your way, but please 

And no are just weak

bids, and kind rejection

signals softness to sons

of Egypt, ever working

the tourist for just a bit

more. Dignity is a divide,

and no do-overs can bridge

culture and time. In the end

Amal, what is a pyramid

but a large pile of rock

burdened with too much

history? And what is man

that Thou art mindful of him?
Of you, Amal. Even you.

So if I could return

I would take you aside,

buy you bitter coffee,

the sweetest bread

and know a new soul,

both yours and my own.

I had not then read

Les Mis, or surely

would have recognized

le brun petit Gavroche,

so charming on the page,

but God help the mighty

When you turn your attention

from tourist to master

and meet the gaze of Pharaoh.

Did I see your son in Tahrir

Square, standing with the young

elite? Was that your girl

who turned a bronze cheek

To reclaim the honor

of Egypt? Dream big,

Amal, but know the score –

pathways to liberty

are negotiated on the back

of tigers that care not

For your dreams.

They leave youthful

bodies, empty fathers

and hollow mothers

who nevermore live

whole. So be whole

Amal, bold child

Of the human tribe.

May we meet once

more on the trembling

bridge that links time
and faith. Let me

shake your hand
this time around.

Waking to Vertigo

Athens, Georgia

January 5, 2011; revised July 2, 2012

From the darkness

that ushers first light

my tattered faith fights for birth

        to a new day –

a new day spinning off an unstable axis.

To a new day, cold

with calculated rage, honed

        by hardened voices

sharpened on diamond-edged ideals

clawing at the heart of power.

To a new day, hot

with ill-tempered ignorance

and tinny pride, thinly trumpeted

        by vuvuzela

pretending to the sweetness

of Marsalis, or of angels

with all the redemptive depth

        of ground bees

swarming in distress before their phantom fears.

To a new day so broken

        the blessed redeemer

is repurposed  for vengeance

strapped to the white warhorse

        locked and loaded

goaded by a band of furies

playing in the proud key of certainty.

And redemption? Earmarked

        for the mighty

while wrapped in weakness,

the tender teacher

healing rabbi

kind-eyed spirit who would save the world

fades into ether

        excarnated again

from the empire of strength

spinning in the midst of the whirlwind.

This is the day

it is always the day

that whispers blessings from beyond

the breaking news, beyond

the tight smile and firm jaw, beyond

        the clenched heart –

love lurks in robust fragility.

Confronting ignorance

it is extinguished in darkness

        only to rise

as the midsummer sun

to illuminate hollows enshrouded by night.

Confronting hatred

it is crushed underfoot

        only to rise

through the soles of the jackboot

to soften the callus encrusting the heart.

Ideas fight for incarnation

through the living media

        of our messy lives.

And we are finally redeemed

but not by knowledge

nor by theology, clever

        though they be

but by the intangible ideals

incubating in the heartland

of our emerging soul.