1992
1) I was born in a Free City, near the North Sea.
2) In the year of my birth, money was shredded into
confetti. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. Of
course I do not remember this.
3) Parents and grandparents hovered around me. The
world I lived in had a soft voice and no claws.
......
Is nothing real but when I was fifteen,
Going on sixteen, like a corny song?
I see myself so clearly then, and painfully--
Knees bleeding through my usher's uniform
Behind the candy counter in the theater
After a morning's surfing; paddling frantically
To top the brisk outsiders coming to wreck me,
Trundle me clumsily along the beach floor's
Gravel and sand; my knees aching with salt.
Is that all I have to write about?
......
And when, in the city in which I love you,
even my most excellent song goes unanswered,
andI mount the scabbed streets,
the long shouts of avenues,
and tunnel sunken night in search of you...
That I negotiate fog, bituminous
rain rining like teeth into the beggar's tin,
or two men jackaling a third in some alley
weirdly lit by a couch on fire, that I
......
A chieftain, to the Highlands bound,
Cries, ''Boatman, do not tarry!
And I'll give thee a silver pound
To row us o'er the ferry!''--
''Now, who be ye, would cross Lochgyle,
This dark and stormy weather?''
''O, I'm the chief of Ulva's isle,
And this, Lord Ullin's daughter.--
......
Half squatter, half tenant (no rent)—
a sort of inheritance; white,
in your thirties now, and supposed
to supply me with vegetables,
but you don't; or you won't; or you can't
get the idea through your brain—
the world's worst gardener since Cain.
Titled above me, your gardens
ravish my eyes. You edge
the beds of silver cabbages
......
it never came with conclusion as how the night took its time to raise a sunshine
to survive in the wild makes no sense for such a young wolf
to be part of a pack , to learn how to defend , avoid danger , hunt — crushed hares , bison , and moose
much more to be close to them all
blood dripping all the way to my mom’s home
at heightened peril of death , all lone and numb from hunger
wandering through unknown terrain , limping , some bones broken
no such scheme in mind for how the high spirits turned way upside down
to ponder why it unfolded just as it did
......
Father will be there
To heal me from my sickness
Any time today
Father will be there
And put me to sleep
This night
I need that badly
Father will be there
To pray together with me
Before I go to sleep
......
I know you still care for me
Father
Also father I have no enemies in my life
And I hope to keep that way
I never built any fence around me
There is no need for that
Because I only have friends
And no enemies
I don't need enemies in my life
When a door closes
......
Before the dawn of time’s first breath,
Before the light of morning’s crest,
There was a Presence, pure and grand,
Who shaped the stars with His own hand.
He did not begin where beginnings unfold,
Nor fit within the bounds of old,
For He, the Prime Mover, the Uncaused Cause,
Initiated all with divine laws.
......
Few words I pen, for today is your day,
A celebration of you, in every way.
Thrilled and happy, my heart does sing,
For your life has been a blessing in everything.
A father you are, steadfast and true,
A husband so loving, through and through.
A godly man, with wisdom to share,
A parent so devoted, beyond compare.
......