The Reality of Sunsets

Athens, Georgia

March 7, 2011

Scientifically speaking, sunsets

are unreal, nothing but

electromagnetic oscillation

diffracted by dust

detected by cones

delivered by neurons

       upside down

reorganized just so

you can pull your beach chair

next to mine and watch the sun

cross an imaginary line

and together we can reconstruct

what never was, yet

brings forth tears. Shall we

say a word or just enjoy?

You can call this what you will

but I would say it’s love.

Scientifically speaking, God

is unreal, nothing but
historical construction
discerned in dreams
dissected by logic
deposed by knowledge
       bottom up
as we reconstruct 
from foundations of facts
new towers to heaven
while ignoring again what
philosophers have found,

that no proof can forever
bind firm temples of truth
to ever quaking ground.

Cerebral God of new tribes
of the civilized savants

who slash the soul with

unassailable argument –   

that God has died, so long

live what lies beyond,

what comforts tears and

calls forth song, what
sustains more kindness
when none is due, what
surprises your heart with
unearned joy. Shall we

say a word or just rejoice?

You can call this Adonai,

Al-lah’, or Father God. From

what I read and think and feel

I would say it’s Love.

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.