“Be still and know that I am God.”

Daily life

bangs at the door
city trucks sucking up dust,
Skeins of syllabi, schedules, slugs
In the marigolds, my body twanging
Angst like acupuncture gone wrong
And oh yeah, the meaning of life, my life,
giant Caterpillar between me and
Tranquility, barging in.

2,
I am at the age where
questions fill every room,
cubes ballooned with
heavy air as June gloom breaks up
and my fingers, spiky from
winter’s icy strikes
find the keys. Would they do better
on a Steinway, puzzling out Bach
instead of this box of syntax
and woe? My parents didn’t
countenance art, or feared
it, and you’d think by now I’d
have all those flags pulled off the pole
and folded up for good, stuffed into
three-sided caskets under glass
lids, frayed banners and zealotry stuffed inside
for exile – but to where? As for loyalty,
I want to bash in the glass. I am here
to register my protest once and for all.

3.
Hmm…the anger I’ve been inveighed upon to
let out for good behavior pops up at the oddest times,
like when I grabbed up the cat hotel
and threw it on the floor (why that?
Because it was there, where repose
Evaded fruitless meditation
Provoking a fit of gall – sometimes breathing
opens Pandora’s door)
And, I screamed at morning and
hit myself, (bruises on one leg afterward,
I hated my life)
the cats yowling mad into
the next room – the living room
that I’ve left askew. This really isn’t
like me. All winter I was a person
not quite right, big raw scratch on
the wooden floor, the “easy chairs”
where I was far from easy, asymmetrical
and insomniac, dining room table
in the wrong room, empty, except for
the cats who lounged, smug and hearty, leaving
cross-hatched hair patches, antithesis of
communion or food. Table
in dim light where it shouldn’t be,
chairs pushed in, three on each
side, big ones with curved arms resting
at the ends, as if people of consequence
might have been expected,
as if there’d be an order to things, hot dishes
going round to the right, for example,
my grandmother’s bargain
china which I unaccountably hoarded
mounded with lumpy mashed potatoes
and some other recipe I might have tackled
to prove my mettle but it would have scalded
and soured in my winter rage. Oh yes, those
high-backed chairs with
empty padded seats all
made by Pigeon Mennonites.
I took to them too soon, ardent
For the wrong reasons.
The memory of the cold moon breakdown
still stabs me with fear.

4.
Breath. Breath. Breath.
The next stanza is available
For rent. There’s a tentative lady wanting to
Step in, do something with it
That’s not insane, step outside
A metaphor somebody handed me
Like a religious tract off the street, the way
To life through that revolving door
even if on somebody else’s dime:
I can bootstrap, hang a ride,
Get onboard,
Come unbidden or undone to the party
Revel in ayes, holding out
A mysterious tool I found in my hand.
That will be a hundred bucks, paid in advance,
And thank you very much.

5.
For a moment there I was in control
Happily discovering a weapon
(did I say tool?)
I didn’t even realize until that very minute
was at my disposal. Yes, ladies and gents,
It was in my very hands. Already.
To my surprise. Its specific
Nature, I’m sorry to say, is still unclear.
(Are there too many “very’s”
a couple lines up? I declare a moratorium, I throw
In exclamation points to boot:
Yawn and ennui: Excitement wearies me.)
If I tell you about that tool (did I say weapon?) you’ll
Say how Freudian but it’s not like that at all.
This weapon scares away bad voodoo and
Turns up my mojo, baby. There are elements
Out there to fight after all. When I saw
It in my hands I couldn’t stop smiling
And don’t we all want to be smiling, now
Isn’t that what we’re here for? Smile
Until you show your teeth, but not too much
Or you’ll scare the dentures right out
Of the parishioners’ anxious mouths.

6.
On the other hand, I loved
The church. Not The Church but the church,
Churches. Hot stone caverns the
Color and smell of magnets, dark
Carnivals where even as a child
I cried for altar calls, sidled to the
pull “Just as I am” – for what? What
Made me think it should be me, to
Weep for my single-digit life so soon
At the waxy rail? My simple guilts
a yen to perform, but – but -- were they ?
Really? Did I want no more than
The father’s eye, anointed touch?
(Didn’t I see I was stepping out on Mother,
annoyed in her netted pillbox
Girdled in the second pew
A growl stuck in her throat?)
Did I know yes I knew, so soon
the cleaves of yearning even at eight, the
Papery cloves of fear, my failures
Approaching through cloven arches,
Coven of dark women
coming at me coming at me already
down the dreadful purple aisle.