…a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
(Ecclesiastes 4:12)


A pastoress once bore a name
which merits neither guilt nor shame;
Pentecosta Charismania
(biblical in megalomania).
Worthy of poetic fame,
a brilliant if unstable flame.
Sincere she was, yet volatile,
she brought it down, revival-style.
At altar calls, she could inspire
tongues of glossolalian fire.
The Devil she would oft rebuke
with lines from John, or Paul, or Luke;
a prophetess on holy crack
was Pentecosta on the attack…

Her nemesis was prudent, able
doctrinally dull—but stable:
Patriciana Presbyteria.
Less given to divine hysteria,
wisdom did adorn her table.
And her soul bore well the label.
No prophecies escaped her lips
nor prone to divinating slips;
this sensible reformed young maid
was made to have and have it made
Elect, correct in doctrine, wit
invested in no counterfeit
her pop’s portfolio lent her worth:
not less than heaven cashed on earth.

Mocking these unseemly heretics
swayed by neither sects nor politics
was Maria Della Romana
Faithful matron, primadonna,
loyal to her Papal rite,
she grieved her sisters by candlelight;
fingered furious rosaries
stormed the gates with St. Peter’s keys
beseeching Jesus that they turn
from devil’s doctrines fit to burn,
rejoin the holy Mother Church
rather than their souls besmirch
with further Antichristian sin.
(She genuflected fit to win.)

God is known in Trinity
but less through femininity:
His three adherents, flamed by One
like braided gold reflecting sun
are Christian fates: three tendencies
or triplicate analyses,
tripartite in judgemental grace
each one assumed, with zealous face
that the other two could not be saved
as sure as Heaven’s roads are paved
with wisdom’s gold and Christ’s pure light.
(They made a most amusing sight.)
Since threefold cords cannot be broken,
let my punchline rest, unspoken.

many of his posts tilted
like trees tired of the wind; wires sagged,  
red rusted, but still jabbed the errant cow  
when duty called    

three quarters a century
he rode the same trail; of late,
he had gone afoot, the saddle too heavy
for him to heft  

walking, he reconnoitered  
the tracks with more care--hooves of his myriad steers,  
a few equine signs of the farrier’s labor    
still  there, fast fading    

his boot prints were  
more numerous now, and sometimes
tamped down by the few beasts left
in his herd    

across the line lay his dead
neighbor’s pastures, peppered with mesquite,
pocked by fire ant holes;  no livestock grazed, but the giant turbines whined, white whipsaws slashing not timber, but blue sky    

driven by the relentless winds,
they called to him, in chanted chorus, issuing a premonition:  
one day soon, your fence will fall, and the path you trod
will bear no new tracks for other souls to read

I drew an old man,
with beard

like mine--though his face had
more wrinkles

deep lines of age
are hard to draw  

my pencil bore down at the center
of those creases

like I was trying to leave a mark
that wouldn't fade

or trying to carve something
from nothing

piling lead upon lead,
on paper

that couldn’t protest my adding of years,
with a dull number two        

when my pencil was but a nub, there were
more years yet to add  

by then, my hands were weary
my eyes blurred

I had no blade to shave the wood    
from the shaft    

to make more eternal marks
on white space

Dumpy semi-feminine somethings,
ambling rotund wrecks of time –
wraiths of increased girth and grayness;
womanhood unsublime…

Where the dignity in aging ?
Where a minimal decorum?
Could you not yet bear some vestige
presentable in public forum?

All I see are jowly short-hairs:
Dressed to dullness, clipped-face mean.
Form subsumed by frumpy function;
drab routine.

Surely God has taken vengeance
stealing thus your womanhood.
Is this sloth? Or liberation
…misunderstood.

Other cultures guard some glory,
seem to age with more élan:
picture nomads, desert queens
of Mythistan.

Chiseled faces, sculpted hard
by time and faith and fate and God
lines unsoftened by abundance
I applaud.

The Godless West lays waste to glory.
Is our ease of life to blame?
Casual geriatric matrons
bring us shame.

Is it North American only?
Is this just genetic traits?
All such mortal non-description
insults the fates.

In the former life I led
I had no way of filling
The empty grave of one who's dead
My pride was e'r willing

I had an ego overblown
In pompous boasts exceeding
But I was lost and all alone
My soul was torn and bleeding

I had abilities and then
Became a prideful bearer
Of all the things that I could do
At last I was in error

Even when I knew The Lord
Made charity my pleasure
My works became my righteousness
Above my only Treasure

Christ died in vain upon his cross
If my beliefs adhered to
And I rejected precious Grace
That was the point I came to

How can I live a sinless life?
I am without that merit
Jesus lived that life for me
So Grace I could inherit!

So here I am to tell you all
Pride is like a cancer
I will boast in Jesus Christ

For He's the only answer


SoulSurvivor
(C) 4/23/2016


*"I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection

Why would I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom."

How Great The Father's Love

Well I'll be a monkeys uncle
If that old King Kong
And the lizard Godzilla
Did not one day fall in love

It was the wildest looking of all affairs  
One of the strangest scenes
With all of that burly bristley hair
Mixed with all that slimy green

They both met on the corner
In The Big Apple downtown
Amid all the screaming heebie jeebies
Of people running around

Between the two of course you knew
It would be love at first sight
And what love story isn't tragic
Without a few squished passersby...

My idol walks. Behold her beauty
born of Nicaraguan night
summoning poetic duty:
tremors of volcanic light!
Clouds of ash and lava dropping:
I come back… I going shopping.

Sounding her primeval waters
crater lakes, her green lagoons,
fabulous—this diverse daughter’s
humid palms and storm-tossed moons;
ascending up her jungle mount:
Transfer dinero to my account!

Stone-faced idol, pre-conquista;
rice with beans or sacred maize
labyrinthine Latin vista,
cumbias and sacred lays.
Hurricanes and quaking earth:
******, what’s your dollar worth?

She who left her quaint dysfunction
reeking of colonial woes
for the multi-culti junction,
holy in her *****-pose;
scowling like exploited nations:
How you say… congratulations!

Gushing like a flow of lava
running down her placid gaze,
ripened flesh; the scent of guava,
passion-fruit in paraphrase…
Monkeys howling, torrents pouring:
Poetry to me is boring…

Rubén Darío’s wonderland:
Flor de Caña the anesthetic.
Marx’s tropic reprimand:
Sandinismo as emetic.
Verses don’t impress this lass:
Please—the car need fill with gas.

Lost in hurricanes of thought,
pounding the roof, God pours, it rains.
What was it, really, that I sought
In her land where the poetry reigns ?
It’s love. At times I long to shoot her:
Why you waste time on that computer?