You Ask God For Meaning

Written after the Minneapolis highway bridge collapse

 

You Ask God For Meaning

 

You ask God for meaning

though meaning’s illusion;

the rhymes and the reasons

serve crème-filled delusions.

 

A river flows darkly

past human decay.

A bridge spans its wide banks;

twin cities delay

 

the cost of inspection,

too dear to commit,

no need for redundance

no hurry to fix.

 

So Humpty and Dumpty

fall ‘ere Rush Hour Three,

with six declared fatal,

twenty plus lost at sea.

 

The mayor is grieving,

somberly states the toll;

the numbers keep rising,

and the same with his poll.

 

You ask God for meaning

though meaning’s illusion;

the rhymes and the reasons

serve crème-filled delusions.

 

Young artist is thriving

at the crest of each trend.

Education and talent

thrill her fam’ly and friends:

 

moved into a brownstone,

bought a shiny red coupe,

gave teachers their kudos

but slipped into the soup.

 

A wily weak vessel

awaiting cruel chance

blows out her last party
cuts in her life dance.

 

The shock in their faces,

the sharp blow to their hearts,

her fam’ly and friends

lost at sea as they start

 

to ask God for meaning

though meaning’s illusion;

the rhymes and the reasons

serve crème-filled delusions.

 

Black hearts sometimes weather

the storms of the righteous

while an innocent child

is snatched from beside us.

 

Just reasons and fairness

Are merely old crumbs.

What we do with our fortune

good or ill we become.

 

You ask God for meaning

though meaning’s illusion;

the rhymes and the reasons

serve crème-filled delusions.

 

 

 

Reviews

[Paul Grimsley]

i often talk when i review your poetry of how the surface stillness usually intimates something far more frenetic going on beneath the surface -- this to me seems to flip the whole dynamic on its head and the energy which is present in every line hides a sombre heart -- this poem moves around a still centre.

moved into a brownstone,
bought a shiny red coupe,
gave teachers their kudos
but slipped into the soup.

this stanza for the sonic qualities it leaps and slips through stood out for me, in fact i think the whole poem dances, but one sense while the narrator dances his thoughts are elsewhere -- pondering lofty thoughts. in some way in this poem you have, like t s eliot, found a wasteland that is a canvas for your thoughts

[C. Harter Amos]

Very starkly somber subject, but well treated. I think it expresses the sadness and sense of helplessness we all feel when tragic events occur. Nicely written piece. - Mimi.

[Lionel Braud]

yes, asking the meaning question is reduntant.

So Humpty and Dumpty
fall before Rush Hour Three,
with six declared fatal,
twenty plus lost at sea.

this stanza here stumped me for a minute. had too engage in think-aloud processes. Im sure the three is not the Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan movie. I guess it could be. three-holy trinity, six- three sixes-the beast, 20- lives lost searching for meaning 6 X 3= 18 plus 2 cause it takes two for a philosophical meditation on meaning of life.

the rest of the stanzas are the reduncacies of that equation: the mayor, the yuppie, war, famine yet each are locked within the chains of reason, reason-logic-mathematics-the significance of number mythologies. the repeating stanza "ask God for meaning" works nicely, because usually need reminding that the answer will never be found out of context of the scenarios stated in other stanzas. because that is how our brains are rigged reason-logic- answer, solution-problem. very engaging.

[Ilene M.W. Lush]

dave, somehow I knew you would step up to memorialize this unfortunate occasion...

it was an in your face faith piece. and even though i laughed out loud at first, I was grimly reminded of how much we are in the hands of people who are supposed to be looking out for our safty...big powers, small ones...we are at the mercy of others.

I loved this work.
thank you
sincerely
ilene

[J.P. Bristow]

Wow this so hit home with me...I wrote a poem called despair....this truth is sometimes hard to swallow........I envy those with blind faith sometimes....and yet I feel closer to God sitting next to a tree........

[Eric]

This sits in the pit of my stomach. Sad and sadder.

I can say nothing of structure, style, or punctuation because the message is too sacred. I sit in this pit and mourn.

[B. Lapinski]

i don't like the idea of rhyming it and it..not a bad write my friend..cheers

[Ryan Gilroy]

This is a very interesting poem and yet it seems quietly contrived seeing that the rhymes seem overly forced out and doesn't seem truly authentic at all. I feel like you short changed this poem seeing it's within this simplicity that really could have this from a eh.. half way decent and a shabby poem into a poem that could have been really fluid and solid.