Living the Dream

He has been looking for god
in the bobble of sandpipers on crusty beach
and all the time, god was lapping at his feet,
foaming at the mouth in order for him to see
and know that even gods get desperate
to be seen and heard, felt and tasted

he looked and saw a trotting deer
stiff-legged leap over crooked fence
leaning on crooked land
punctuated by the dim drill
of funereal bells, lunging
against a gold-twist rope
dragging a limp-wristed priest to his tiptoes
with every gong that frightens
prey from the silver glint
of the gun that would have sacrificed him

a banded wolverine, grew long teeth
waiting for him to come to his senses
and either leave the land
or lie down to ponder cloud-gods
in a paper sky that someone planted heaven in

drumming hind feet of a jackrabbit
mimics partridge pound and, were he to press
his partially torn ear to ground, he would hear
Chinese gold Buddha’s chanting
in god’s voice

white-throated hawk, hovered over
exact spot that his last supper came from
and even that did not distract the man
from his careful crawl over downfalls
that made him struggle against
silence for a feather of hope that he would see
golden glint of god in a dropped mouse eye
that had seen the sacred lake
because she gave the wolf her seeing

an otter, slipped down his self-made slide
and became a cap for Metis sacre’ blue
breath on winter’s cruel lisp of a half-frozen god

raccoon knocked twice until the world split open
and a pearl un-gutted itself for him,
if only he had walked by the river
where he could have been dipped
on the third day of darkness

green gangly moss, grew on the north
for any other direction was too harsh,
too hard to sustain itself for long
in the white lace of a virgin ancestor
left too long in her bridal bower
while the groom crawled on his belly
like garter snake that needs his nest
and takes any hole that he can fit in to

cottonwood trees, tucked their pads
in appropriate places and waited his seeding
with chastity belts of tumbleweed
hiding the rude awakening in some damned garden
that being female discarded his notice
that a creator is a creator,
even co-creation counts
had he dropped his belief that patriarchy
points to a pope or the pious enough to parade
brick paths lined with Montezuma’s gold
hidden under bones and stones
from sad sacrifices to ones who knew
the grim glare of shining things
could bring yellow hair to the ground
with bleeding ears draining the hope to hear
even an angel’s voice as the last sound on earth

oh, god was there, young man, in white wings
that sailed across these prairies
long before the need for a real god was discovered
little paper planes, drifting just under the radar
and the mushroom-shaped clouds
that rose from your throat in a prayer
for more witness and need for someone great and good
to cure the mad cattle of the penicillin scourge

god was here in the garden where the lettuce
and spinach grew invisible sponges that swelled up the belly
of vegetarians while he was having a laser cure
for being blind-sided by the best politicians
and the greedy guts of the honey’d hive
spilled themselves out in waspish hoards
to leave nothing but white pods
and buffalo skulls and white whale bones
that we euthanized rather than set free

look, here is god, pirouetting in the
vaulted nightlights of street people
who mumble psalms and warnings
before the water rises again in the keys
and the wide–mouthed gulf

he searches, but in his pocket
is a page of phrases that came from dreams
of women and babies and young women
and fathers and sons and brothers
and mountains and streams, and the white buffalo calf
and eagles and crows and vultures
and sights and sounds and smells
and even the taste of a shadow
has made him tender to god

Tags: Poems //