This Morning

TALK OF THE PEDOPHILES

Freeflow the talk around the table,
changing direction like fast river
discourse. River Discourse in free-
fall word flow. God talk. God

talking. And just like that,
faster than eye can follow,
pedophiles find defense
in power. Sleep on that,

Big River, fast moving water.
My grand daughter walks a wall
with her mother looking into a closet
of clothes—Look Mommy

those robes are worn by God.
Mother walks River Innocence
with her daughter in holy light
dazzled by daughter's vision,

sitting with me, father and grandfather
in the small pew whispering
words. That's God, Grandpa,
seeing pastor walk in his robes.

Jim Bodeen
17 May 2010



WAITING FOR MARY

     —for Mary Campbell

Bachelor Buttons started popping
about an hour ago, and the sun
zeroing in, still has
two hours before the plane

arrives. Solidarity walks
in our garden this weekend.
Mary, who walks with the world,
brings her witness. Mary

is a blue guitar in the sky
over El Salvador. Her sombrero
is the blue song we can't
get out of our heads, the bird

in the song released, dale,
dale, accompaniment
be our way, interdependent
be our feet, dale,

la lucha tuya es pura,
free spirit giving itself to love,
dale, watered by the River Sumpul,
preparing Bachelor Buttons to open.

Love,

Jim
14 May 2010


THE POVERTY OF MEN
    for Marty at 71

begins with their shoes,
often enough, expensive running shoes.
The poverty of men dresses in the rich cloth
of a dying tribe. My friend from an earlier
generation of men, explores this poverty
in small, abstract assemblages of found objects
that can be pinned to a lapel,
or worn on a baseball cap. In his 70s now,
he knows one lifetime to explore this bright,
but hidden river, is not enough for any single man.
Stay amused, he says to his friends who know
they're poor, Stay amused. Male and female elk
produce two teeth made of ivory, which he values
as objects whose size makes things risky
for his art. They're not teeth at all, he says,
but tusks, from an earlier time. He's given
his life to mining these rich fields.

Jim Bodeen
13 May 2010


FOR MEN ALONG THE WAY,

making small paths, go through twisted
knuckles and fingers that can't unwind.
Listen to men praying for each other,
in our one and the same unheard song
of misplaced chance. Men with arthritis
in cupped hands from too much work
and not enough toe-following gamble.
For we have not brought flowers of being
into our becoming, and now we are left
in solitary heads-thrown-back-laughter
and dogs in their comic merry-making.
Oh, Lord, let all cunning follow the ice
into disappearing. We pray as best we can.
Let us be checked into idleness.
Let us hold dominoes on painted red porches.
Hear the laughter coming from cars and be kind.

Jim Bodeen
12 May 2010




VIGIL ON MIGRATION
AT THE CORNER OF YAKIMA AVENUE
AND SECOND STREET ON MOTHER'S DAY

Nothing about believing.
Nothing about stirring the water.
Just trying to stay awake,
remembering what happened.

Whose testimony have you listened to?
How could one detail have been altered? Or left out?
How could it be anything but true?

Jim Bodeen
10 May 2010



LIGHT ASCENDING FROM THE WATER:
A SONG FOR MARGARET FULLER
Light of days, what word
lifts me from dream fields
carries me, what carries me
from dream fields makes me
blessed vessel sustaining
creation in the other time,
I too, I too,
and now this light into flowers


She went down in her boat
with her words and her baby
She went down in her boat
with her lover  She went down,

she went down, she never
was found, she went down
as the boat came home
The boat came home,

it did, it did, the boat
came home and went down
It went into the wind
it was lost in the storm

as the captain of maps
steered and floundered
He steered with no sound
as he'd lived without song

his boat could only go down
We sail around sound
we do, we do, we sail
around sound in our song


And nobody can say
what our work will be

Nobody can say
if they see it

It doesn't matter
if you don't see it

It doesn't matter at all

Jim Bodeen
10 May 2010


















SETTING THE TABLE FOR MY SISTER

Our mom, Margaret Fuller, and Mary Colter,
three who crossed over, wait for you at the table
whenever you sit to eat. Colter designed
these plates after looking at pots of Mimbreño Indians
unearthed after 1000 years of sand cover.
She built her tower on the South Rim
of the Canyon at its highest point—
over 7500 feet, and her Kiva,
seen repeatedly in nature, recognizes
how one enters from above, by foot,
before descending. One must turn geologist
to imagine you sailing ancient oceans
in the Esperancé. Gifts arrive as one descends
even in boats. Bright Angel Trail contains
more kivas than one can photograph.
Colter wore waist-long strands of multi-colored
wampum shells and turquoise beads,
a Path of Truth ring on her finger.
Margaret Fuller's here because of your word,
transcend. My inwardness is grown insight,
she wrote. Can you sail with that?
Margaret Fuller, winged phoenix,
life within, life without, making talk and poems.
She edited The Dial with Emerson,
both transcendentalists. She, too,
needed more than Jesus, calling on Greek gods
to walk with her. "The blue sky seen above
the opposite roof preaches better than any brother."
No preaching here, sister. Mom remains.
Now she shows us how to fall. Her doctor
says she's found a way to go down
and not get hurt—still better to let her go
than tie her down. Amen. Mom remains
the wildest teacher we've ever had—hence,
the best. This morning, with Kick Ass Coffee
from Kicking Horse in Canada, I'm thinking of you,
and your story on your birthday—all you've done
with your life, and what you're doing.
Where you're going as you sail.
It's your birthday, the day gods give us
great permission to practice.
You sent me the word transcend
and a movie and I walked Bright Angel Trail,
a walk returning me home before I came back
with Karen. This poem's a coupon
for the meal with the women.
It's good any time, no expiration date.
Fuller, Mom, and Colter sit at table
whenever you pull into the harbor.
Unlimited seatings. I promise
not to listen in at what gets said.

Happy Birthday, and Love,
your brother, Jim
9 May 2010



LINES ON CHARACTER FOR STEVEN MEISER'S BIRTHDAY

It's fun to talk about someone
who knows things, because
of their strange competence—
but even better to talk with them.
What's better than this, is to talk
with someone who makes things,
and Steven, you know and make.
With you we enter the mysterious
coffee shop of knowing.

Even better—to tell someone:
My son-in-law races cars.
His blue Chevy goes 130 miles per hour.
It's not so much about speed.
It's about timing. About not
getting there too fast.
It's about relationships of all kinds.
It's not about the 10 seconds
in the quarter, either,
although there's nothing without that.
Hitting it just right—

No, talking about Steven,
talk always turns to character.
Something that's not part of any part—
a part of who you are invisible,
yet engraved and inscribed,
something that can't be changed,
but can be counted and seen.
That's how we talk about you
when we talk about what you bring
to the track for all of us
while you wait in your car
for those ten seconds that go so fast.


Love, Jim
7 May 2010


THIS MORNING

Piano lullaby comes from Karen's dream.
The grandpa that I am turns me in my bed
and I fall asleep in the middle of my own prayer.
The garden waits knowing that roses
will soon be eclipsed by a storm
of bachelor buttons that have taken over
the Path of the Mailman. Bachelor buttons
ask for nothing and bees come as they're called.
I sit before all of the facts with the best coffee
the world can produce. I have sat in the shade
and eaten the sweet berries like children
unable to stop until their bellies swell.
I refill my cup, piano keys
tapping both sides of the bicameral brain.

Jim Bodeen
6 May 2010





2 comments:

  1. love the poem for lovins, a fine occasion well met.
    kevin

    ReplyDelete
  2. JIM

    I've never commented on a blog before—but here goes.

    I HAVEN'T READ ALL THE POEMS YET, BUT "WAITING FOR MARY" IS A WONDERFUL POEM!

    ALSO I HAVE BEEN THINKING LONG AND DEEP ON:
    "For God, there is no difference
    between the living and the dead."
    AND I'M NOT DONE YET.

    I AM RE-CENTERED ON THE POTTER'S WHEEL BY:
    "Looking for the other with a second chance
    to find what's lost in ourselves."

    THANK YOU FOR YOUR VOICE,

    JOHN GRABER

    ReplyDelete