Canticles Emmaus

Canticles Emmaus:

The Song of the Pasture Path, or מָשָׁל מִשְׁלַ�-

We swam all afternoon

to a chlorinated peak

like atheletes of the age.

A blizzard squad of dream heroes

who dribbled and shot

around the still twisted ankle rancor

of America in Tights,

who took the scepter wand

from a baby boy in China

and waved in a harvest

of our wild mill of joy.

Desperate dunk plunging,

we swim up levitating.

Oracular moves ending time the tangle,

plant new millenial flags a reconcile.

The neighborhood moved north.

I missed my bus.

I lost the dribble

to the game.

Full grown, couldn't fit

in nature's mirror, still,

shown her glassy form

I found her words intruiging.

The trampled shore of my 33

summers' retired numbers,

has no situation, nor precedent.

Homeless in a planetary sense,

weird to the telos,

no one cared about my destiny,

my molecules aloof.

The year unwell birds

collapsed their wings there,

mouths amazed with thirst.

A little hotter than it ever been before.

My child joy swam roguish in to view,

looking like my old Harlem Globetrotter basketball,

floated along the stagnant waterway

with nonchalance, roguish,

like the orbital of sputnik immemorial.

Its spectacular colors grown pale,

at first it just gaped up

a high thrusting fountain.

Tangent take me home,

keys of lock begin and end together,

I gather myself, only, by my unarrived love letter,

her love so hopeless strong,

written in arms wrong,

name address bent in stifled passion -

girlfriend of another guy.

Migrant going south in classes,

inverse travel of the rich,

cops come to scratch the economic itch.

Transient chapter, librarian looking after,

with a nose in a book, one need not budge.

They see squat, 5:00 close we wander home

the bedbugs are the master here, so so smug.

Cold Mountain mystery,

clouds shroud abruptly.

Endless shedding makes all fuzzy,

dog fur ascending, dark mess manifest.

Bathroom is the place to vomit.

Of baldness, I had begun my PHD.

For masters, TV speaks of digital degrees.

Lost bachelors spread open

collegial cordouroy buttons

won't fit in

fat but walking myself thin

buses trains jump from mossy pad

to the tenement house in “Koreatown.”

Faded globe, past slow like melted butter,

ends up in rocks where I can reach.

Too heavy for one hand,

it squirts tears from several wrinkled

eyes at the slightest touch.

Sinking in drink,

drunk with more to follow.

My stuff filled with so frank a sorrow,

just a little attic air for dreaming,

even sorrier than Hirohito,

fitting into a support group.

Former glory bumps tall grasses for player legs,

presses rocks for graceful winners off the glass.

The fully committed athelete of the heart

is no emulator, but resides in zones numb

or uneven as a broken bottle edge;

the umbones of his bivalve shell open

to discover you so lovely and ill treated.

Divided at the joint, and sold

to be sent out like meat of the month.

Who is tearing you to pieces?

Why are you not made whole at the Temple?

Pushing with your horns

against other denominations.

Head stout and heavy-set,

a beery and professional grappler,

does My dominion suffer splintered sects?

Templar persecution,

Central institution,

Measly contribution,

I have all communion.

Your's the power absolution?

I will say no more.

Abdicate the bishoprick, your consecrated hats.

Like a choir singing in round,

sounding like a rolling river,

Christ gets in lockstep, belts out,

“Hallelujah Heaven! Be strong

you slow and silly fools

that Risen dough is yours today,

gather now the broken for Day Seven.”

A table laid by God offers True communion.

His “Canticles Emmaus,” an energizing sound!

We head back to friends who listen!

That taught me a good communion.

Just sourdough and water.

While rye and soulful blackbread

comfort me like tears,

and Matzah sobers, even mortifies my body,

chewy sourdough puts more sinew in the game,

and the snap to self-sufficiency.

Needful water helps us universally.

Its purity recognizes no pretension,

yet catches you with faint sweetness,

and cold, water turns a person

thirsting toward the substance of things yet unseen.

Forgetting the quota, the pain

of building something great,

the rewarding rhythm of thanks

makes us loose limbed and filled with rest.

Soon Yes-declaring, we go on stacking bricks.

Pining for the daughter of my eye

to walk the streets of Zion,

it does not take a lion

to walk into this cold cave for food.

Author's Note

Really appreciate constructive criticism and honest comments.