Till Thou Cometh Again

Short Friendship Poem

Till Thou Cometh again

But it is for you, I will sing of the fool.

I will sing of the black birds

In the deep pits of hell,

The stars that are lit, that never tells.

I will sing of the moon.

…eh? …they mostly have burnt eyes.

Pests! I will sing their songs too?

As their charcoal fingers clutch through

The crevices;

Satan, Satan,

Stately praises meet unto thy passion?

Hear a word—death!

Pass it on

Unto the dead, “I makyth my heart for the living!”

Note: A song-poem, I do believe it can be sung, or simply read, with a small compact insight; here, in short, is the indispensable minimum, and introduction into the realms of the undetermined world of a poet’s edge, my rim between earth and hell, and heaven, and who knows where else. The lyric has a technique, fresh insight, I do trust. We live in a vacuum that ripples into other unknown dimensions, circles of other existences, so I do believe, between multilayered existences: we are not the only ones here, in essence, on earth. Even Satan, and the hordes of hell, surely acknowledges this as they time their feasts accordingly, and do their tasks likewise, whatever they may be, what they must do for whatever reasons, avoiding clashes I would think with other unacquainted realms, as we earthlings, go on with life.

Commentary on: Rewriting Jesus

Most everything written today about Jesus Christ comes under “Speculative History,” tales told by those writers who have no discipline, no facts, so quickly written, simply to get their name in the spotlight. We have produced a generation of poor academic – sensationalism.

They get a big paycheck, go on a TV show, win a popularity contest, only to see their book of Science Fiction, produce a high for them, and thrown into the nearest basket of rubbish. These are the writers of a generation that got stock somehow in-between Adam and the Australopithecine Man (of the so called Pleistocene epoch, a million years ago)) from the 1970s)), now in their 40s, the new unintelligible banana beat.

Hot Day in Lima

(Thursday, January 24, 2008)

The city's streets here in Lima

(on this hot summer's day),

is full of junky cars, so it seems

weaving in and out like blind bees.

Carbon smoke, it chokes

all us, eight-million people (a million taxis)

Ugh! -it's a hot day in Miraflores,

Rosa and I walk by the bookstore

go in and check it out,

she gets a Sherlock Holms book:

Q. "Do you want to buy some DVD's?"

A. "Sure, I'll get us a taxi." Rosa says.

And the taxi takes us a few miles

into another inner circle of the city,

to what is called the "Circle"

Haw! A few cars come close to hitting us (not uncommon,

I think I'm waiting for the big accident, it hasn't come

yet, but every day here, odds are against me).

I tell myself 'Why not buy a car in this over crowed city?'

Haw! 'It's so much cheaper to take the taxi (I'm either

too lazy to look for a car, or too cheap to buy one).

Great! We made it to the shopping center safely.

Knock on Wood!

I buy the DVD called, "The Assassination of Jesse James," and

think: 'What more can they write about this guy...' :

in the evening I find out it is more about Robert Ford, the

assassin. Casey Affleck, the supporting actor, is a better

actor, than the main actor, Brad Pitt. 'Oh well,' I tell myself:

just eat the beef jerky, and the hell with it.

Great! Its 12:56 a.m., my wife is sleeping in my sofa chair,

I got to take her to bed.

Waiting for the Tide

Waiting for the Tide

Part I

A day the full-sun was like a spinning-top,

Yes, like a young boy’s first full-dollar

Hidden in his pocket deep from the eyes of many,

Young Ferdinand drove his Ford along the sea-beach;

When he stopped, prompt; then he trembled, drove

The face of the little Ford’s wheels deep

They felt the mud; the car with four slim tires

On a pavement of sand pivoted like an elephant,

Jerked him from the sinking soil, wet down, wedged, skid;

Then, the sharp agitation finished, thickening him

Slid with his young lady rider over the car’s hood,

Shot from utter torment and a ruined automobile

His body and hers out now waiting for the tide.

The day you know time-honored with no show of passion for the little mishap; grave

Joana

Moved toward the undressed mountains, the day moved to twilight, the fast pulse of

the sea behind

Echo, the slow wind came in across the icy stones of the mountain; the dead Ford

wedged in tightly wearily on shore

He felt for the girl; Ferdinand’s restful eyes came back from the wakening, and

curiously knew

The mountain’s cold touch, now sucked into the walls of bodies, its timeless ruin.

Inside him, pain and dizziness, overwhelming

Bloated, and a hopeless wish to heave, and likewise his girlfriend, again

The cold hands of the mountain passed, likened to icy fingers, passed and crept over them,
lay on each side of them, he slept sideways

She felt the weight of the mountain and waited an hour he lay still.

Then came a surge of whistling noises

The tide came in from the sea, to the edge of the mountain,

their bodies limp and cold

They crawled in further, like worms, between the groves of the two mountains, as

if they had rubber for bones, she lifted up his face

Their they lay, as if in a freezing chamber, with the tide in

She woke him from his callous sleep; he rose and made a face, the moon lit

like a lamp, cold like the sea, night equal to the days sun, in reverse,

Night and day were touching each other, ‘twilight’s in-between,´ (she thought): she

remained quiet, for it seemed a nightmare

For half the night long, she became a child’s mind and frequently sleepless, with the

other moaning

Within the gorge, the tide remained out, yet at its knees.

To Ferdinand it seemed that she was making love to him along the shore

With her, who said “Here we are, pushed into this mountain gorge, blood on your forehead, and you, you daydreaming of me on shore, dearest vainly…for here I am bad girl and all…come out of your dream and with your hooves of passion, dreadful passion, dreaming .” And he awoke completely, again.

Intense his eyes were, now upon hers

When the waves stopped, it got quieter, she slept lightly, and he all night through,

not a slump, or wink of an eye opened

Joana from her mountain view, likened to a window view, saw the cloudy light of the

sun rising deep in the East, mist overhanging

The lower part of the gorge had overflowed last night, but the waters were receding.

The Go-Cart

Here in front of Old Rice School
(underneath arc lights)
the boys (the Cayuga Street Gang)
wait like candles on an alter- half lit.
We are bending over looking down
while Mike and his go-cart ready
the world for light.

None of us noticed it then, the
boy, girls...boozed, that twilight had sit:
how funny, it was like a festival-
a square rigged cart of steel, with
a motor on its back, made us hold our
breath, hoping our turn would come
next, to ride and drive this mad-mouse.

And then your turn came-counting
stopped, breathing regained-
I mean, you were different now, you
had the reins. I didn't care all that
much to drive and ride, that mad-mouse
around and around, the school-but more
so to be present, and feel the world in light.

No: 2387 (5-23-2008) Note: back in 1959, in St. Paul, Minnesota, Mike E. Siluk (my brother), had a go-cart, he was the talk of the neighborhood for that season, and perhaps well deserved. He had everyone in envy, but he worked hard to acquire the only co-cart (with his paper route money), this side of the Mississippi I bet. And Old Rice School, which was just up an old dirt alley from our home, was a great place to have a go-around runway for the go-cart. It seems nowadays, go-carts are almost everywhere not anything special, perhaps times have changed, but 'the world in light' or setting the world for us in a spark of light, hasn't change at least in memory and in this poem I tried to recapture that moment-or perhaps better put, to recapture back that extraordinary feeling. Yes indeed, those were special days. Dedicated to Mike Siluk.

Should You Write Your Own Poem to Read at a Funeral

Should you write your own poem to read at a funeral or should you rely on professionally-authored verse? There are strong arguments in favor of "homegrown" poems and equally valid reasons to utilize expert poetry. The best answer to the question may not involve choosing one over the other at all.

If you feel as though you can add something of meaning to a memorial ceremony by delivering your own Funeral Poem, you may want to do just that. Admittedly, unless you're highly trained as a writer, your poem will probably not be "perfect". It may actually be clunky, maudlin, cliche-riddled and altogether inferior. It will, however, have heart. It will be yours and it will convey your feelings. That has value--both to you and to those assembled for the funeral. It will be an emotional truth in a setting too often dominated by false sentiment.

If you do decide to use your own poem at a funeral you may want to supplement it with the use of a classic funeral poem or some other well-regarded verse. A good memorial poem by a trained artists will convey ideas and concepts with a certain elegance and grace that most (and I say "most" because there are undoubtedly many fine poets "waiting to happen" out there) written-for-the occasion poems won't rival.

So, the best solution for those who feel the urge to write their own poem to read at a funeral is not to abandon the idea of self-expression. Instead, he or she can use the poem while also using a classic uplifting funeral poem.

There's no reason to ever make a funeral impersonal. The inclusion of your own words may uniquely contribute to a meaningful memorial. So will the use of some of the truly great poetry that has been written by the very best--material that comes directly from the soul and that communicates strongly to it.

Box of old Photographs

There is a season—(a time) before you die,

you know you are dying… a decisive eclipse

sort of….

You open up the box of old photographs,

ask, “Which ones do you want?”

Knowing time is short at best.

You don’t fuss if they take them all,

not anymore, and they wonder why—!

(Because some one may have to erase them.)

Each word you say is fainter, more certain,

less laminated than before you knew—;

you can now see the end, the disappearing sunset.

Note: So often we hide our heads in the sand when the word death comes up, the most common thing in all life, its end. Something we all have to face. Dennis' poem is to the point, and very real, perhaps hard to read, yet short as it is, it gives out strong emotions. As he has said, "There is a season under the sun for everything," and this poem ('Box of Old Photographs') says even a little more than that.

Dennis has often said, and I suppose I don’t really like talking about it, “Death, we all have to face it, come to terms with it, I believe we don’t want to leave simply because we are so used to it here. Even if there was nothing to wake up to, after death, it has been a great experience, a wonderful gift God gave us. Unfortunately it is not a commodity, so we must take advantage of it while we can. I think we all want a little more, even Abraham, wanted a few more days, and he lived pretty long.” Rosa

Kuelap's Spirit, Impenetrable Darkness

It would be likened to a disembodied

Blind spirit—

Wandering through unlit space!

If not for the swish of winds

Around my—

Soft, warm naked face…!

Silent sounds roars from the dead

Embodied in stone-darkness—

Inside Kuelap’s Fortress

Here lost souls, wail for peace

Ripping and sweeping in madness

With fitful gusts

As I regained my frozen feet

Felt the pounding of his heart beat

It halted…

Shuffled was their sacred ground

Of which they laid

From Horizons Dawn

I assured them from whence we came

We would not disturb them

Ever again…

Thus, he abruptly left back into his

Abode, stoned-darkness

(This Roaring dead soul)!…