Saturday, August 16, 2014

                    Good Night, Fender


                         I'm so sorry
                               so sorry,
                         You finally fell apart
                         with no one to reassemble you.

                         The Genie who granted wishes,
                         Brought giggles, snorts and laugh-bursts,
                         Packed his bag and this time, really left the lamp.
                         Not wearing his tropical shirt.
                         Never to return to Neverland.

                         Apparently, the day took hold and,
                         in a non-comic twist,
                         The day seized you.

                         After all the ups you delivered,
                         the downers took you down.
                         Grounding Peter, dousing Doubtfire, closing Mork
                         and Outmoding Fender
                         who tumbles down the hill
                         rolling through Walt Whitman's leaves of grass.

                         Your funny funnies will never leave, glad and sadly so,
                         ...that frowny-smile, the jewel-blue sparkle in your eyes,
                         ...that voice, those voices, all three million of them, will
                         continue, a flicker-flame, happy-sad, in a Genie-less world.

                         and I think, I think you would want us to turn forward
                         and
                         keep laughing.






Saturday, July 12, 2014


                            I find you this morning
                            In the swirling
                            Slosh-around
                            Brushwork.

                            In the strokes you always and never intend,
                            Your whimsical touch-noodlings, arm-sweeps,
                                                     glue-gloppers and hand-wiggles.

                            Wrapped-around, Pushing in, Swipe to left
                            Jamming right, Curled around and up and down
                            and rolling in the colors, and then
                            splash-landing on the canvas.

                            Or a careful application, a calculated jab
                            Maybe here, or over there, or, surprise!:
                            A large orbiting gesture, slung 'round and dotted with a dabble-point.

                            Or the layers of paintings under paintings under paintings,
                            Like history, often covered with a glaze, often glowing to the surface.

                            I miss our laughing--turning--plucking--playing--strumming--praying--                                                           jump-around--windy dances.

                            And yet, on this sun-dappled Saturday morning, Avery,
                            I find you.
                            Smiling,
                            In the brushwork.





Saturday, June 14, 2014

                                    RECENT RIGHTING


                                           Rough it in,
                                                 Punch it up,
                                                      Knock it out.

                                           This is writing.




                        Nevertheless,
                        Alwaysthemore.

                        Found me in my sullen troll-cave
                        lighting a candle that light-spoded like
                        a symphony-sun.

                        Illuminating tattered questions: 
                                                                  Why trade the mirror for the window?
                                                                  Embrace a fear to find a vapor?
                                                                  Dwell upon shadows rather than reality?

                        And now I remember, how often I forget:

                        Always the more.
                        Never the less.





Big Sky
Blue between the billowing
Cotton-torn pillows,
Oh so white-white in the

Big
Big Sky

Under such an everywhere,
Dwarfing my anti-berry car machine,
As I titter along, miniscule, under the

Big Big

 Big Sky.
                                             



                                  Stop motion,
                                             Go motion.
                                             Drop by drop
                                             You paint an ocean.

                                             Many years later,
                                             What did you prove?
                                             A lifetime spent dripping drops
                                             Can make an ocean move.

                                             So from Gumby to Goliath to Gromit,
                                             My friends live by gentle jerks.
                                             Smiles, laughter and applausing proves
                                             That animation works!








                               

Monday, May 26, 2014




“Do and do and do…”
John Wesley Weasel


Dear Walter Wangerin Jr.,

I’m so glad you did and did and did, and produced this glorious story, the third and final Book of the Dun Cow.

I’ve been following the milky, marvelous scent of our Cow since the first book in 1978. The much-handled paperback sits by me now as I write to you. The Book of Sorrows (now Lamentations) is not far from me either, but all four of us have gathered to applaud this monumental work, Peace at the Last.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, for the newest story, which is cool like Eden’s daylight, hot like Wyrm’s underground evil, colorful and delightful as only God’s creation can be.
I love the new characters, the hilarous and quirky dialog, the rugged journey, the beyond-beautiful conclusion, and throughout, your trademark brilliance with personality, plotlines, and painterly use of language.

Maybe the best phrase to hand you is the comment from The New York Times: “It is a taut string plucked that reverberates in memory.” And it is! But it is even more, because this story—the entire trilogy—reverberates with the deepest and highest musicality: the footprints, or pawprints, or clawprints, of God Himself walking by.

Thank you for your profound word-ministry to my life. God bless you kind Walter!

Warmly in Christ,

Rod Butler        
                     


Saturday, May 24, 2014 Arlington, Texas






Sunday, May 25, 2014

                                          WOrdTHINGS
                                 in APRIL or MAY  

                            

                              The battleship in the living room,
                              The behemoth bounding up the stairs,
                              The rocket
                                       fire-blasting here 
                                                                 there
                                                                 everywhere.
                              The boy-quake man-tremor, rumbling the furniture
                                                rattling the windows,
                                                shaking the salt in the salt-shaker
                                                flaring the lightbulbs to 
                                                                 new-found intensities.

                              Story-maker, Music-catcher, Sword-warrior,
                              Video-visionary, Opera-phantom, Comedy-king.

                              No wonder you fire-light the skies,
                              When you are destined to
                              Change your world.
                              ----------------------
                              Sleep now, this Saturday morning,
                              Sprawled out, and making
                              A deep, deep impression in
                                                                                your bed.



All the flowers are blooming  into the room, into the hazy mountains, into the trees
and the forests and the lilacs that sway in the breezes always laughing in 
                                        Springtime
and This is the fragrance of these rain-splattered, pansy-dancing, mist-sparkled,
music-bubbled color-fields, and this is the sound on the driveway, the sound of the
                                        Glimmering white car
yes, tires rolling up to the bushes who bow in and sweep skyward with or without
                                        A breeze:
You enter the hallway, and a whirlwind of life-gardens grow, unshuttering shutters,
unwrinkling wrinkling's shuffling slump, and soaring us full-blown forward, out of
                                        Sleepfall
and into the                Morning.


                   Words slide in, and attempt to speak, then quickly slide out,
                   having found themselves stark and thin-lined in the spotlight.

                   This is because: you come with unsilenced, and resilenced song.
                   Notes slide in, and attempt to sing, then quickly slide out,
                   having found themselves unable to complete the orchestration.

                   This is because: in playing you are not playing, or not only playing,
                   or More: you are playing with More:
                   You are sliding away so that a greater song plays you. Then we transform
                   from listeners to instruments, from dirt-ground to sky-fiber, or higher:

                   From stitchings of bone and flesh to ribbons in spiritual wonder-gust,
                   Enswirled in something unexplainable by word or note or meaning: like
                   Music in prayers, prayers in music-----until a sudden, funny, sneezing
                                                                              POP!
                   And there you are on Skype again, clever and quiet and too far away.



Now

In the clickery moments,
Time eeks forward, slow motion, 
Hollow minutes pass, in a mist, trains going nowhere.

The house is clean, plants watered, meals frozen,
dishes skimmed, lathered, rinsed, returned
and perfectly in place.
And this, though tidy, is worse.

Because I may have wiped away your fingerprint. 

And you are not here to replace it,
with a touch on a cup, a
rhinestone, or my chest, where
a heart floats in silence, 
Wading through slow motion clickery moments,
and breathing the very air of
the letter name
j.






Monday, May 19, 2014




                                           
                                               Strong winds, swirling leaves
                                               Into storm-gale dances . . . 
                                               Leaves never let go



                                   You, wind of great force
                                   Twisting trees, testing buildings
                                   Rush on through my soul . . .



                                                 Rushing force, are you
                                                 Wind or Ocean roaring and
                                                 When . . . can I sail you?



                                    Branches sweep, they bow
                                    Tossed by windy punches . . . or
                                    Dancing in praises?



                                                Dear Wind . . . float me in
                                                Ocean air waves and drive me
                                                Home without my car