apocalypse poem #4 (it’s temporary)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

asteroids, floods, & eruptions
might sweep this face clean
of what crawls or walks on it
occasionally, a few seconds
in hours of geologic time

erasing

almost

everything

but she’s not telling
the how of it or the when
except what is written
in layers of sediment
turned stone–
glyphs we read
& wonder at meaning
when every gesture
could have permanence

consider the dinosaurs
running across mud
their footprints
uncovered now &
behind museum ropes

but we can’t guess
at what is kept
for the sake of memory
or just random fossilization

we don’t speak
the language of stone
or know what planets whisper
to each other
across near-vacuum

& how could we
newcomers
that we are
count those layers & say
we have learned anything
but our own smallness,
the duration of our heartbeats
uncharted in stone

begging the question

if we can’t know our beginning
how can we presume
to impose a supposed end
on this living

so much bigger
than any of us?

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games

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

everyone wants the same thing
he said to me
once, desperately
we want it

& it’s what sells
mascara & fat-free cookies
not to mention aftershave
& fashion
but
none of those answers
this need
no matter how wide
our wallets open
to look good
to feel good
to smell good

we can buy sex
but not desire
& we can pay a therapist
to care 45 minutes a week
& never get
understood
& that’s what we need

ears
from some(any)one
listening

let’s not even call it
love, just
like in that game we play
with babies

take your hands
off your eyes
& say I see you.  

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yarn

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

this is how life happens,
unspooling smooth
in front of us
until we grab it up
into needles or hooks
to make some(one)thing
of it, but I don’t crochet
or knit.  those disciplines
of ordered tangling
are beyond me, so I play
cat’s cradle with mine
& maybe change colors
weaving a god’s eye
between crossed popsicle sticks
easy enough to do
because that’s not craft
it’s geometry

just another way
I have learned to live the big
through the mundane
technology of hands

the significance
hiding inside crossed sticks
Elmer’s glue
& yarn

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Why I hate school but love education/spoken word

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

Love it when Facebook friends forward me something this good.  Enjoy.

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apocalypse poem #3 (daily faith)

Posted on December 3, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

my grandmother’s eschatology
was from Daniel & John, quoted
or read with my mother
in the afternoons, slow ones
after tomatoes were put up,
windows washed & the dusting done,
the jam jarred & herbs
strung & drying between rafters
in the root cellar

belief was for them
something that ran under
daily, practical things
softening the corners
of their lives & mouths
with all the possibility
of heaven, unseen
but anticipated
more than I longed
for that first kiss
before I had a boy in mind for it

like them, I weave
an appreciation
for the holy
through my life & it shines only
when you look for it
but it is there
braided into everything

do not mistake my flashes
of displayed faith
for something random
as heat lightning

it is always there–
this faith translated
to particles
hissing and charged–
something felt
more than it is seen

before the strike

 

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Posted on December 3, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

Inspired in part by my apocalypse series I’m doing. Mike has some incredible poetry on his blog, threaded delicately between the rants–look for it, if you have not already done so.

ruleofstupid's avatarRule of Stupid

This is a themed poem inspired by Susan Daniels (if you don’t know her, you should).

 

No Second Sun

We wait for an apocalypse

Swear or curse or pray at it

 

In this we are like the long buried

Still fearing our deaths

 

There was no consumption

In a murderous nuclear sun

 

There was no explosion

Just a million tiny breaths

 

A thousand every day

In a pathetic decay

 

As our minds turned to profit

And love was left

 

This is hell

 

This is heaven as well

 

This is all there is

 

We wait for an apocalypse

So fail to see it exists

 

Not in the universal

Or some phenomenal scale

 

It is the beggar in the street

The clenched fist

 

It is each time you buy

The easier lie

 

It is our spiritual song

Turned…

View original post 16 more words

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apocalypse poem #2 (longing for apocalypse)

Posted on December 2, 2012 by Susan L Daniels

the Millerites,
tired of waiting
for the second Advent,

said Christ
needed to be persuaded,
prayed down

from the clouds–
their faith a ladder
for His descent, a new Jacob’s

if you listen hard,
over 100 years later
you can still feel their prayers
echoing
& braided into new ones
a tether of longing
leashing heaven
to earth

but the ladder is empty
of descending
winged feet
& respects faith
if not the timetables
of men

& God waits still
for someone new
to wrestle
Him down

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