Love

 Love is a hard nut to crack

The chemistry is only somewhat known

Especially in the falling part

More than the sum of all greeting cards

Love doesn’t begin or end with an orgasm

Anyone can possess it

To have and to hold from any day forward

Love can’t be contained by a song

Or make everything all right

Love has unexpected consequences

So check for stretch marks

Practice doesn’t make perfect

Because love is as human as we get

Pain is love’s companion, its guru

Love is a main ingredient in saints

Never a cheap date

But it could be a simple gold band

Worn properly

Jesus in America

 I think God was wise in sending Jesus to Earth two millennia ago. Can you imagine Jesus in contemporary America.? He’d wear kneeless skinny jeans and an un-tuck-it shirt, some expensive Nike’s and no socks. He’d ride into Jerusalem on a mountain bike and have the Last Supper at the Jerusalem TGI Friday’s. His disciples would be a band with three black female backup singers. He’d have to have a personal trainer so that he looked really good on the cross.

After all, this is what we’ve come to expect from our heroes.

Beauty

 Beauty is everywhere. You just have to pay attention. Fill your eyes and your ears with beauty. In fact, fill all your senses. No human culture failed to find beauty in nature and none failed to create its own beauty. Beauty eases pain, affirms the world and hits us in our guts with our own humanity. Beauty is not flabby.

Beauty is not always easy to find. It can be lost the noise, routine, busyness and empty spectacle of our lives. But beauty is everywhere. Waiting.

Eden

 Eden

Was it an apple?

Or maybe an exotic and

Long extinct fruit

How many seasons did the tree

Flower and fruit, fragrant

With the scent of life coming

How long did it take God

To invent sex, messy and glorious?

Did He regret the orgasm?

I don’t

Did God hassle with Satan 

Over the form of serpent?

Since there was at that time

No Queen of Heaven

Blame it on the woman

Only now can we openly admit

That the other genders

Lived in Eden too

This story lingers stubbornly

Truthful in its untruthfulness

Honest in its dishonesty

Wise in its silliness

Just needing a fresh coat of paint

Walls

 The walls go up. Fear is the builder. Fear of perceived threat. Fear growing out of ignorance. Fear of the loss of privilege.

Threat, ignorance, privilege.

This is the basis for hate, whether it’s racist, religious or ethnic. This kind of hate is a pernicious and persistent part of the human story.

It may be true, but it’s simplistic to say the answer is love. How can individuals be convinced that the threat they see is not real? How can individuals be educated out of their ignorance? How can individuals be convinced that the good for the many is a worthy advantage?

The answer is love. But it’s love that is unrelenting, mature, visible and shared across all walls. 

A pessimist's lament

 A Pessimist’s Lament

There’s no one to trust

The hungry eat crust

Love is just lust

The economy’s a bust

Gold’s turned to rust

There’s nothing that’s just

Anger’s a must

Then we all turn to dust

Truth and mystery

 Science searches for truth and mystery in nature.

Art searches for truth and mystery in human nature.