“I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” Rom. 12:1

The floury palm that presses once again
into the yielding dough, it is “I love”
that wrings the sopping rag and scours the pan,
that knows the choicest spot to stroke above
the ear or underneath the chin – each form
of kindly touch or labor is “I love”.
The fingers settling root and seed and corm
into the crumbling loam, the hands that move
to draw the thread through cloth or thought through pen,
through brush and clay the shadows glories prove –
to trace the labor of those scarred hands
that formed the all from nothing is “I love”.
For Love Himself is bread and breath and fire,
form of my clay and spring of my desire.

Kathryn Boswell

I’ll give up my seat
on this world’s barstool
and let some other prophet
buy the next round.

The Fire Fighter fought burning flicks,
construction long long deconstructed,
incendiary tongues lapping vain memories
of extinguisher’s extinction.

The Fire Finder found cinders,
the camp long long decamped,
the smoldering wreckage reckoned a write off
by those who knew.

When stand up comics
throw a fit
I wish they’d do
without the wit.

The monkeys see
but what they don’t
is understand
the symmetry.

The wisdom of
the worldly man
is stored inside
a moving van.

It never gets
unpacked because
the driver never
thinks to pause.

As woman’s beauty
must be veiled
lest sight, endangered
by dazzling excess,
be blind to all else,

so naked truth
must be clothed
by metaphor
to mind’s eye
lest blinking,
stunned by desire
we see what is not –
last lust’s love –
rather than glory.

This tangent played itself out
like st. john’s wort played out every year in his garden
before that big thresher Autumn,
thrashing it into pathetic hay with its icy blades.
He could not say less than he was cued,
but as the boundary between biologic and mechanic disappeared into
semantics
he could run for cover
and did,
taking a tangential path past ribboned oaks,
past every initiative for world peace lurking in darkened cellars,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are cruel swathes of stuff you wanted back in your dreams,
scythed down and lying limp,
laced up in loose bundles
and left to go brown in the sun.

2. the financier

That tangent played itself out
like a brokerage agent played out and broken by the s e c or the street
plotting another black thursday
while hiding his pathetic stash of unmarked bills in icicle sticks.
He could not say more than he was cued,
but as the bear and the bull vied for wealth and investors cried for blood,
he could plead the fifth
and did,
taking a tangential path past the treasury and the mint,
past the frozen assets of every sucker he had ever known,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are always laid out under a billboard’s backhands
hawking southern getaways
to soviet style sweatshops,
with beer and tv enough to buy off any gringo.

3. the seductor

This tangent played itself out
like the resurgence of the arts played out every week to catcalls
uptown or downtown or motown,
taking her pathetic curtain calls before an iceblue backdrop.
She could not say less than she was cued,
but as audience morphed into mob and threw eggs and booed,
she could take her bow
and did,
taking a tangential path past an all night grocery,
past the warehouse of burned out light bulbs from the evening’s cartoons,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are always cagily positioned to tempt every passer by
by taste and touch and texture
and offered with whatever promiscuity
promises the most profit.

4. the politico

That tangent played itself out
like an adjutant general played out day by day with endless questions
in a senate subcommittee,
harassing him into pathetic quips by their icy barbs.
He could not say more than he was cued,
but as the distinction between axis and ally disappeared in a media blitz
he could order a proportional response
and did,
taking a tangential path past the latelastnightness of daily events,
past need-to-know knowledge of atrocity and mayhem in all night briefings,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are always followed to their final denouement,
denouncing the dead and the effigy
or else denying every detail,
asymptotic to every devil that’s ever lived.

5. the guardian

This tangent played itself out
like a sergeant at arms played out each hour clearing the courtroom,
derailing the train of justice,
leaving behind a hanging judge and an inmate or two on ice.
He could not say less than he was cued,
but as the boundary between felony and misdemeanor collapsed to a moot point
he could desert his post
and did,
taking a tangential path past chalk outlines,
past yellow tape denying access to improper authorities,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are always duplicates of some previous incarceration
decorated by drugs or degrees,
dragged on without the conventions of miranda or geneva
and draped by shrouds for effective interrogation.

6. the hero

That tangent played itself out
like a misogynist with hiccups played out in the glare of the tabloids
with photos of his scantily clad soul
iced up in his pathetic need for maximum nightly dominance.
He could not say more than he was cued,
but as the boundary between subdued and subduer blurred beyond belief
he could tie one on
and did,
taking a tangential path past the blued screens of evening,
past the manifold notorieties of bad taste slinking down the broadway,
past the very center of western civilization,
and so home.

The tangents are always played out.
The tangents are always slick excuses for violence done by word of mouth,
in the secrets of our careful hearts,
balancing kisses with heavily armed hugs,
bruising all softness out of choice.

7. the mendicant

This tangent played itself out
like a tramp in mud time played out sleeping in a laundromat,
rustling up a furtive lunch of dumpster salad
with slaw and fries on the sidewalk, and the bubbles from an iced beverage.
He would not even say what he was cued,
but as the roles of pursued and pursuer disappeared into abstract theology
he could hop a train
and did,
taking a tangential path past kids and transients breathing tainted air,
past the killing field, the pogrom, the evangelist with the program
past the very center of every civilization
and so home.

The tangents have always been played out.
The tangents take us down the death march to a harbor view,
never delivering a living thing,
skirting the verge of our modest decency
and slipping to the very edge of sanity on the slide.

I cannot hide you.
Winter comes in my home
as well as yours.
You must look for another
to be brother to you.

His grief shines
from ten thousand eyes at once,
like all the eyes
of my whole race together.
We cry the same.

I do not do research.
I do search.
They’ve not yet found an answer
worth finding again.