(BLURB)~~~~~~~
Conflict. Who needs it, right? But avoiding it can be
difficult and perhaps even ill advised. It finds you
when you least expect it. Friends you been close with
for years can suddenly turn on you. Strangers who know
nothing about you can take great umbrage at the smallest
provocation. Do you turn the other cheek? Which cheek?
Do you "fight back"?
I try to learn from altercations. Even the worst and
most gratuitous attack may harbor a stray insight.
Anyway, here are some poems about conflict.
jesus shrieks
jesus on his tip toes
arches over me and spits
the same lecture word for word
and i endeavor to turn my cheek
jesus sent me a manuscript
and asked me for my thoughts
and cursed the little jew (left in me)
who muttered "well ..." instead of yes
jesus gives but can not take
sarcasm and accesses me of talking
out the side of my mouth all the while
showering me in spit
jesus throws the world at me
all the names and pricks and
a bales of barb wired round
creamy centers of venom
jesus stomps and hurls and shakes
the branches of the tree of wisdom
and throws it all at me in a whirlwind
and yea, sure, some of it sticks
jesus whips his crown at me
and the thorns do prick and i do bleed
he throws the first stone through the last
and i wonder which might be his heart
jesus says i alienate and that i'm drunk
with self importance not worthy of concrete
and rattles a litany of ancients who'd agree
on my shameful lust for the very last word
jesus says i'm goddamned insensitive
he's had it up to here with me
and sets the scope and terms
and rolls a stone over my memory
jesus might be better pleased
if i where retarded, happy as tea bag
to bend my knee and praise his text
and let his country simple grace prevail
jesus yes "you get it or you don't"
and will not seek to elucidate
since it's all as obvious as the color blue
and he will not weed it out for me
jesus has wrestled me many times
and still he calls my best "shots" cheap
though shooting is no sport for me
still (as he can not say) i do my best
jesus i guess is out for blood
and finding none claims my heart a stone
sees not my sweat or tears or this wet
pool of red - he thinks all blood is blue
jesus wails and protests so much
with fingers in ears coughing up brimstone
he harrow hells and drags me down
and as always closes with "hope all is well"
jesus prepares himself to defend
confesses sin and despicable acts
and mortifies himself again
yes, i too have kicked what's down
jesus with his bridges all aflame
burns the future with past and present
in childlike rage that would melt any bond
and ends with earnest protestations of love
lunatic
it must be hell
to wear the shroud
dark bitter cloud
obscuring
it must be a burden
the endless flow
of unbridled foam
belittling
it must weigh him
the burnt out bridges
the defaulted loans
bankrupt
we must be careful
a mirror might tip him
from inanity to insanity
his mind (and his gun)
overloaded
opinion
in my opinion
it's my reaction
to sit on my hotplate
and spit out my anchors
i'm peeling my onion
and wiping my bird off
shining my rearview
to piss through a shotgun
next word my mouth oils
consider an apple
lobbed at a cockroach
to fester embedded
the spineless and brainless
are painted like targets
to decry (sweating bullets)
the violence in apples
i piss on my hotplate
i stoke my reactor
i oil dead targets
i spit out my anchors
ok corral
a bunny, a dog, a sexton, and a shrink,
and a lithium encrusted daughter,
showed up unannounced
brandishing a nine iron
meanwhile
a muffin, a dog, and some excrement
where holding up the law
in a lawless town
near the
lithium mine
then
the excrement claimed
the truth would reveal itself
which greatly displeased the sexton
muttering about evil stars while
our lady of the lithium prayed
hard against the muffin
jihad was obvious
the daughter
bit the muffin
sexton beat the shit
out of excrement
and the shrink
killed the bunny
in friendly fire
but
the dogs sat still
admiring each other's tongues
to forum