Word Pastels

I eat applesauce now because there is a
Parking boot on my stomach clamped
Because of years of unpaid nutrition tickets that
Seemed such mambo jumbo at the time that no one
Could possibly be serious about them.

Protein shakes like liquid bricks drip past the Guardian
Who passes each drop on inspection
It takes me thirty minutes to savor what used to be three gulps
Of afterthought to wash down the burger-and-fries mash.

I eat applesauce now. It slips unnoticed past the Guardian
Who must think it’s for the baby.

Bear wobbles like a bowling pin
Hands on his hips tip toes to the syncopated Latin piano
He tosses his nose to the sun and draws a drunken pirouette
Inhaling the intoxicating aromas of summer

He looks so flat and angry on the wall in the crackling glow
He is not himself.

Nature knows no equal,
Christ’s power on display
That rends the holy veil
And banishes the demons
Who terrorize the night.
And every flash a lash
Burned across the one who loves
Bloody rain poured out
Till all in wrath consumed
And after the violence,
The world sleeps
Beneath the blanket
That covers the head of a child.

Strange thing, this thing we know
But never call by name
For fear we’ll ‘rouse it from its place
A shadowed dank domain.

Where dark things grow, it lurks about
And slithers on its way
With orange eyes that never sleep
Intent to strike its prey
Strange thing, this thing we know,
But never call by name.

Bright light, white light, quite suddenly
Pierces through the paper skin
To set a boundary ring of flames
To halt this thing we know,
But never call by name.

“You may not come this way!”
A voice beyond our days
“For at this border life begins;
You may not reach within
to snatch the one that I have found
and called by my own Name.”

I make a ready fool of myself
As naturally as a baby’s wet burp
Surely as a drunk ex-mother-in-law.

There was that time when I said, “hi”
And another when you said, “hi” back
And I didn’t know what to say next,
So curled up like a possum
Wishing they made shirts with necklines nine inches higher.

And then tonight I said, “Good night”
And you said, “Good night”
And I ducked under my blanket wishing I were someone else
Maybe Frank Sinatra