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Ginnesburg is not dead, I think.

 

A sad sad sad sign of the times:

he is writing email titles

for the smut peddlers

 

Strange lines, soaring lines,

devised to sweet talk their way

past my firewalls:

 

 Sperm anchorer cloaked at night

train swims into the tunnel too small

running leapfrogs sheepdogs

argot orb midnight juggler dance

 

There are lessons in this that I quite like.

Poetry is everywhere

Inescapeable.

In the last place it has any right to be.

 

Like a weed. Or a nun. Or a two year old.

 

I am, however, put off.

By the way it has been finally spelled out,

The mouse has let the cat out of the bag:

 

Sex lies one click beneath our words. 

Broken

 

“But every conversation has to break

 

somewhere”

 

Those are the words that were laying in wait,

enjoying the camoflauge

of the rest of that poem

and all the other works on all the other pages

in Poetry magazine, dated May, 2005.

 

They were patient, those words.

 

They were sitting improbably

gathering dust

on the shelf of a Good Will:

They were propped up between copies of

 

Johnathin Livingston Seagull 

and Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of Call of The Wild.

Those words were counting on my wife

knowing me and loving me enough to see them and bring them home

 

I don’t know if they were waiting in ambush,

soldiers at the ready in a literary Trojan Horse

or if they were silently huddled with party hats

and those annoying noise-makers, and presents,

full of self-congratulations at luring me to their surprise party

 

But whatever it was I know this:

those words were waiting for me.

 

Every conversation breaks for me, now

whatever that means.

 

My interchanges with everyone eventually snap with the finality of uncooked spaghetti.

Did they always? Do everyone’s?

Did the broken halves of all our conversations fill up the world like the packaging of preprocessed foods?

 

Maybe it’s only me.

Maybe I break those conversations by expecting them to be broken,

and so, along with those conversations,

I’m broken, too.

 

 

a variation in the key of 1 Corinthians 13

1 Corinthians 13The very depths of me hum

with the greatness of this realization:

This realization that though I might speak great truth

truths which unlock the secrets of this world

truths which unlock the secrets of the next world

I might speak ecstatic wisdom.

but words

without love

are only noise.

And I might appear to be a prophet:

holy man healer medicine man mystic.

There might be a depth to me

deeper even than the deepest wisdom

Healings, trances and supernatural abilities.

but actions,

abilities,

without love

are irrelevant.

If I am self-sacrificing:

if I give every piece of me

to build up every piece of you

if I give until I am a sad shell…

if I wait until I am almost nothing

if I throw the sad remnants of what I once had

of what I once was

into the very flames of sacrifice…

if I sacrifice even my love

if I give even my love

until I have none left

then I have truly given too much.

Where patience manifests itself

love is underneath

where kindness emerges on the outside

love hovers beneath

where envy has been transcended

love has conquered

where boasting has been ended

love has begun

where pride falls

love rises

where cruelties fade away

love comes into focus

where selfishness is defeated

love victors.

where rule books and score books are thrown away

love springs up.

Love does not flourish among evil,

love abides in truth.

love preserves the eternal

love trusts even when it is hard

love believes in the best of us

love maintains the best of us.

Love is perfect.

it is not like our words, any words

whether those words speak of this world or the next.

Because some day

we will run out of words

because some day

our tounges will no longer wag.

Love is perfect.

It is deeper than understanding.

understanding resides within us.

and is a passenger with us.

and it passes with us.

The best we can ever hope for is to speak partial truths.

The best we can ever hope for is to know half the truth.

But we can participate,

right here,

and right now

in something which is full and complete.

Someday we will be greater than we are.

Someday we will see that we are not so different now

than the child we once were.

We know that when we were toddlers

we could not speak complete sentences

or understand the fullness of adult thought

Someday we will look at who we are now

and where we are now.

and we will see that we are still toddling around

still so uncomplete.

We put our childishness away before,

we will put away this new childishness again.

In that new place

in that new time

we will step into the fullness

of what we were meant to be.

The best of us

is what will be left of us.

We will be faith

hope

and love.

But the greatest of these

the greatest of what we will be

is love.

1984 Revisited: A prose poem

And the clocks were striking 13.

(Page 5 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic ed., copyright 1949.)

In the far distance a helicopter skimmed

down

between the roofs

hovered

for an instant…

and

darted

away

again.

It was the Police Patrol

snooping into people’s windows.

The Police Patrol did not matter, however.

Only the thought police mattered.

(Page 6 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic edition, copyrighted 1949)

The day’s worst loss came from the crash of a U.S. Army helicopter northeast of Baghdad that killed 13 service members.An attack Saturday night blamed on militiamen in the city of Karbala killed five soldiers. Roadside bombs killed another soldier in the capital and one in Nineveh province north of Baghdad

(By BASSEM ROUE, Associated Press Writer published Saturday, January 20, 2007 )

There was of course no way of knowing if you were being watched at any given moment.

How often

or on what system

the thought police plugged in on

was guesswork.

It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.

It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.

You.

You.

You.

You had to live-

did live,

from habit

that became instinct-

in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard

every sound you made was overheard

every sound you made was overheard

every sound you

You

You

every sound you made was overheard

and

except in darkness

every movement scrutinized.

every

movement

scrutinized.

(Page 6 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic edition, copyrighted 1949)

The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouthThe NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the calls of ordinary Americans — most of whom aren’t suspected of any crime. ordinary Americans- who aren’t suspected of any crime.

By Leslie Cauley, USA TODAY Updated 5/11/2006 2007 10:38 AM ET

It was just possible to read

picked out on its white face

the three slogans of the party

WAR IS PEACE(Page 8 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic Edition, copyrighted 1949)

The time for denying, deceiving, and delaying has come to an end. Saddam Hussein must disarm himself — or, for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.(From a speech made by President George W. Bush October 7, 2002)

FREEDOM IS SLAVERY(Page 8 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic Edition, copyrighted 1949)

Now, as before, we will secure our nation, protect our freedom, and help others to find freedom of their own.Some worry that a change of leadership in Iraq could create instability and make the situation worse. The situation could hardly get worse, for world security and for the people of Iraq.

(From a speech made by President George W. Bush October 7, 2002)

IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH(Page 8 of 1984 written by George Orwell: Signet Classic Edition, copyrighted 1949)

Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past. Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges,which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

(From a speech made by President George W. Bush October 7, 2002)

The thing that he was about to do was not illegal

nothing was illegal since there were no longer any laws

but

if detected

it was reasonably certain

that it would be punished

by death

or atleast

by twenty five years in a forced labor camp.

(Page 9 of 1984 written by George Orwell. Signet Classic Edition, copyrighted 1949)

The U.S. holds about 435 detainees at Guantanamo,some captured after the ouster of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime

following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The U.S. has refused calls from human-rights groups and the United Nations

for its closure, saying the detainees are “enemy combatants” whose internment is necessary as part of the war on terror.

By Caroline AlexanderJan. 21 2007(Bloomberg Financial Times)

Freedom

is the freedom

to say that two plus two equals four.

If that is granted all else follows.

(Page 69 of 1984 written by George Orwell. Signet Classic edition. Copyright 1948.)