Outside the Limit

Working the thursday graveyard shift
      At 7-11, I stock cold shelves of 'cours'

      Then write a college essay on dreiser

      Of how all is thin surface, all negation;

But alert in the night, I pray in the stillness

      While beyond the glass, the parking lot lies

      Vacant, lit by the neon signs and street lights--

      When so unexpected my mind transports.

I rise outside of self, see far beyondness,

      Perceive myself sitting between the rows,

      Observe the little ego in the skin and skull

      My bodied self sitting with the staid cans and jars.

But now awash drowned in awe, the Personal

      Luminousness aware beyond words vivid bliss

      Blessed all encompassing exalting surpassing

      Great parabled One Pearl of Being.

Published in Flutter Poetry Journal
December 2007

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Artesian Well of Voice

I can’t carry a tune

Anymore than a bat can sing Hebrew

Or see hieroglyphics,

But once I welled up bursting

Soon all melodious barriers

Of sensuous fountaining,

Songing the voice of all singing.

Usually, I vocalize low

And hesitantly with insecure effort

But on that humid, crowded

Saturday eve of Calvary

In the crowded chapel meeting hall

In the midst of a thousand voiced praise

I not only caroled the Keys but was mused

One glorious open hosanna

With so much climatic passion

Like a human oboe in a great orchestra of tone

Being Bached and Beethovened,

Lava-hot harmonied,

The Spirit’s artisan well bursting forth,

Geysering up in adulation

To God.

Published in The Clockwise Cat
February 2008

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