The Porch

It seemed he’d been on the porch for forever, maybe even forever and a day.  He’d claimed a corner of it at some remote moment and arranged his meager belongings around him like the walls of a home that he did not have.  

The roof kept the rain off but provided no heat.  The door was too low for him to enter upright, though he’d seen others bow or crawl through it in his dreams (or were they nightmares?).  It just seemed so undignified.

He was resourceful, clever even, finding twigs and trash to make a little fire that he could warm himself with.  But then there was the smell of flowers that would waft through the door on the wave of a tripartite tune and so move him that his tears would extinguish his pitiful pyre leaving only damp ashes to contemplate.  

But this place was his and his alone, after all.  He would not leave it for another to claim.  Still, it seemed he’d been on the porch of the temple forever, and yet another day had passed.

___

It wasn’t until I’d finished writing this poem that I realized it was echoing a scene from the life of St. Mary of Egypt in Jerusalem.  Like her, I’ve found my way onto the porch of the temple but it seems I can go no further without repentance.

___

The Molotov Cocktail

I’ve decided to riot today. 

I’m totally fed up with myself.

Someone will pay for my 

insecurities, let me tell you.

I’ve made a molotov cocktail

that I’m afraid will not work

but still, it feels good to imagine 

I could heft it at my foibles

and fathomless failures

setting them aflame in a 

glorious display of defiance.

***

This Tapestry of Life

Hello, world.

This is me saying “Hi.”

I am simultaneously

terrified and thrilled

about this particular day

that lies before me

full of surprises and 

chance meetings

confined as it is within the 

lattice-work of routine.

I am under no compulsion

to do or say the right things

but my willingness to do so

will strengthen and beautify

this tapestry of life

that we are all woven into.

Wish me luck…

***

Rain Faith Others

It rained today

of that I am certain.

It rained today

behind the curtain.

I took it on faith

when told it was true.

I took it on faith

what else could I do?

Dependent on others

in so many ways.

Dependent on others

for all of my days.

***

Listening to the Voices

It's like the words are whispered into my ear, 

voices that I pull onto paper and then cock my head 

to listen for more while perched on the front porch.

I am no great font of wisdom, no mystic crow

or seer of mysteries and so I wonder, 

where in the world are these words coming from?  

All I know is…

if I write them down I feel better,

less burdened, less bowed

by the weight of what I do not understand.

***

A Boy named Christian

It was a small town that seemed big to a boy.  My father was a preacher and small business owner.  We attended church twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday nights without fail.  Our particular Protestant denomination was on the strict side of things with a litany of prohibitions to help us avoid being tainted by “the world.”  The women wore dresses and out-of-date hairdos.  The men never wore shorts or went shirtless outside.  It was all about modesty and self-control, not to mention submission (especially if you were of the female gender).  My friends from school did not share our particular kind of faith which made for a rich missionary field of lost souls who needed to find their way to our sure salvation.

There was a great deal of guilt tied up in all of this.  Always a question of whether or not we were “witnessing” to those around us.  We were to share the “good news” of the Gospel which entailed imploring people to say “the sinner’s prayer” and then follow all of the rules of dress and conduct as well as attend those three “services” a week.  

The most anxiety provoking part of these services were times set aside for people to “testify”  (I keep putting words in quotes because there was a lot of lingo in that particular culture that is probably unfamiliar to most people).  My grandmother was particularly good at testifying.  She had suffered a lot in her life (much of it self-inflicted) and I am sure it was an opportunity for those rush of feelings and disappointments to find an outlet.  How could it be anything but cathartic as her voice swelled and quivered, ending in a dramatic wave of her hand exclaiming like Job before her, “I know my Redeemer liveth!” after which she would gingerly lower her arthritic self back into the pew leaving us all a little weepy and shook up.

I was a shy kid and the thought of standing up and “sharing what the Lord had done for me” was a terrifying prospect, but I was supposed to set an example for the other young people in our church.  It was a tremendous battle in my head as I would sit there with sweaty palms and pounding heart.  If I could just reach out to the back of the pew in front of me and rock forward I would be able to find my feet.  Being the only person standing at that point would force me, against all my natural inhibitions, to speak.  “I just want to say… I’m thankful for…” it was choppy and awkward.  I felt like I was going to throw up, but after I finished and sat back down it was a feeling of tremendous relief and accomplishment.  As a father now, I can only imagine my Dad also felt a sense of relief and accomplishment at my brave act.  His son was walking in the “narrow way” after all.

But this story is not about me.  It is about a teenager named Brian Christian.  I had first become aware of Brian’s existence through a neighbor friend’s older brother who played bass guitar.  Brian was a drummer and had a catchphrase that he would use regularly, “Neil Peart, no problem.”  For those who are not in the know of nerdy teenage musician-wannabes, Neil Peart is the drummer for a band called “Rush” and is considered one of the greatest rock drummers of his generation.  Brian was spreading the Gospel of Rush by greeting people with those words.  He and some older teens, both boys and girls, were hanging out in my neighbor’s basement when I stumbled upon them.  They made no exception to my presence as a much younger kid, but also did not refrain from telling crude jokes  and engaging in explicit banter that left me feeling uncomfortable.

So this is what little I knew of Brian Christian: drummer, Neil Peart devotee, and rough around the edges.  But then somehow he came into the orbit of my family.  It may have been that he was working for my Dad.  My Dad owned a carpet business and hired older teens to work on his carpet-laying crew, mostly during the summers.  Shoot, I worked with him some summers beginning in middle school when I was strong enough to handle carrying at least one end of a roll of pad or carpet.  It started with simply bringing him the tools he needed and progressed with time and maturity to actually doing the work itself, wielding a hammer and then a carpet knife loaded with razor blades.

My Dad must have invited Brian to our church, but not only that.  He invited him to bring his drums to help with our little impromptu band that was set up in front of the church opposite the piano.  My Dad was playing trumpet, my sister was on saxophone, I played the baritone, and another teenager honked on her clarinet.  It was a motley crew of amateur musicians playing along with hymns and maybe even being featured for an instrumental or two on Sunday morning, songs that had been practiced after church on a Wednesday night.

I’ll never forget that first time we went to pick him up and load his drum set into the back of our van.  I was fascinated by the sparkling red toms and shiny cymbals.  I was also perplexed.  Didn’t he have gigs to do or friends to rock out with?  Why on earth would a rock drummer in the prime of his teen years be playing at a church with a group of off-key horn honkers?  And to further add to the surreality of the situation, he could only use his brushes because the leaders of the church thought his drum sticks would be too rock-n-roll like, ie, “worldly.”  This may sound strange to someone who is used to seeing drums in Protestant churches these days, but at that time it was unheard of, especially in our particular denomination.

I was in awe of this guy.  He had such a kind and humble spirit which completely blew my stereotype of him out of the water.  No one was forcing him to be there and if his friends had seen him quietly brushing those toms and tingling those cymbals in our church I am sure they would have had great fun at his expense.  

I am not sure how long that arrangement lasted and I do not know what became of Brian Christian after we eventually left that church and moved to a different town.  I can still picture his unruly hair, five o’clock shadow, and shy smirky-smile.  It is thirty years later and I have just recently become a Rush fan (the ring tone on my phone is their song “Tom Sawyer”).  Brian is long lost to my life story but I trust he is doing OK and that his life is truly “no problem,” Neil Peart or no Neil Peart.

***

The Missionary

It was a paperback book on my father’s shelf of religious books that heralded the first stirrings of what would later develop into the sexual awakening of puberty for me.  I was a curious five year old snooping through his office when I stumbled upon it.  The cover featured a painted illustration of a beautiful white woman’s face peering out at me with dark brown eyes, rich black hair, and full red lips.  Behind and surrounding her on a smaller scale were menacing bare-chested African warriors with shields and spears.  

I don’t remember the title, but I knew it was a story about the dangers missionaries face in deepest darkest Africa.  I don’t know if it was some kind of early example of Christian fiction that is so prevalent in Christian bookstores these days or an actual account, but to my young eye it was exotic and quite alluring.  In retrospect, it smacked of sexism, racism, and other typical isms of 1970’s America.  All I knew at the time was that if it took going to the “Dark Continent” to get a wife that looked like that, it was the missionary life for me.

*** 

She Floats

She floats in the darkness of my heart  

glowing with a tender fire that dispels

the cold and black places that seek to 

overtake me in my state of fallenness.

***