Son of Man

SON OF MAN

God’s wrath; His agony is felt too well.

He hangs in myth. He spills downward a tear.

Where are those heroes? Are the travails forgot?

People turn away, leave him dying here.

Truly, the crying of forsaking swells

Into seven times seven angry fears.

We taunt to keep him moving, soothing not

His soul by worldly ways. All the Earth sneers

To see him hung in pain and private hell.

It scourges him and tortures him. It’s clear.

Our glee has spun a rope of thorny knots.

We meet his claim with games of chance and jeers,

        But while we stand and wait to see him die,

        Down comes salvation from the darkened sky.

Illustration: Christ by the author, 1958

Antidisestablishmentarianism

ANTIDISESTABLISHMENTARIANISM

Put down your rocks, people,

Lay down your gun.

The foundation has weakened,

Its dust blots the sun.

Take account of the wounded,

Pray for the dead.

Don’t shout as loudly.

Hear what’s been said.

You once had a reason to take a stand,

But now the causes are lost in the sand.

Beards aren’t important,

Nor is your hair.

Stop being exclusive,

The time’s come to share.

The signs that you tote

Use volatile words,

But no one finds order

Within Mongol hordes.

You had a cause to take and defend,

But now the causes are lost in the wind.

We still see bigotry

And a war in the East.

And still people starve,

While others hold feasts.

You picket and boycott

While our troubles accrue,

Complicating our problems

With the problem of you.

You once had a reason to stand and fight,

But now the causes are lost in the night.

You’re thinking I’m speaking

Radicals and such.

It just goes to show,

Realities a crutch.

I’m talking of us,

Victims and veterans of war,

Afraid of a future

That didn’t happen before.

We once had a reason to take a stand,

But now the causes are lost in the sand.

Illustration: Self-Portrait, 1967

I Am Like the Night

I AM LIKE THE NIGHT

by

Larry Eugene Meredith

I am like the night.

Who can see the night unseeable?

Underneath the night Is light.

I am like the sea.

                        Place of mystery clearly opaque.

Underneath the sea --

      Beauty.

            I am not like those

                        Content in blind corners nested in narrowness.

                                    With eyes wide shut they

See not

That I am like the night.

Illustration: Photo by Nitewrit, 2007

TOUR STOPS V: LAST TRAILS

Travel Notes

TRAVEL NOTES

Oh

So

Coolly

I am turning into other things,

Yet somehow stay the same.

I am sitting in my living room

While I’m walking in the rain

And it’s very gently dropping

Dripping             dropping

Falling wetly on my head,

Getting slightly slippery,

Rolling sleepily down my skin

Rolling            sliding

And it is slowly seeping in

Slipping through my skin,

Through my skin,

Oh

So cruelly

Slipping through my skin.

Then I sit upright

Facing through the light

To listen to my fright

For I feel a growing fear

Of some crashing I might hear

If the thunder starts again.

Oh

So

Coolly

I am sitting in my chair

While standing over there

When it begins.

Thudding and thumping!

Bumping and bouncing!

It is the thrashing of my fear.

Growing deeper is this noise.

It is thumping on the wall.

It is tramping down the hall.

Banging, bashing, slashing,

Shaking pictures as it falls,

And it’s barging through my mind,

Busting outward through my skull.

Then it flows like washing water from a warming rivulet smoothly swaying and swelling and I can taste that I shall drown in this sticky lustrousness of a milky sun-lit honey and so dreamingly drift throughout the flushing running flow of the straining stream until it is as relaxed as music.

My night is sadly funny.

Oh

So

Cruelly

There is the sorrow of her laugh

That rises where the water gave its bath,

Where every night begins,

A star regains its twitching,

My mind’s in pain and itching.

Life and death are busy switching.

I reach awkwardly for the wall

For it is fastly flying.

I am forever falling and the wall

Goes off so fastly flying.

The wall has left me alone with it all

Pressing for my fall and I must crawl

In the empty of myself.

And the wall is flying faster.

What could it be that it is after?

And I am grieving for now I hear

A corpse that comes to stare

Oh

So

Coolly

From my place upon the chair.

Toast

TOAST

by

Larry Eugene Meredith

May the past year be pleasant memories

And the New Year be memorable pleasures.

May all your memories be pleasant

And all your pleasures be memorable.