insomnia

well
.
.
.
.
is
sometimes shallow
sometimes deep
eyes sometimes peek
before we want
to stop our dip
into the place
where we may
sip
the cup
of all that's
left
when
all we want
is
touch of
rest

the offspring of love and repentance is redemption
who is born in mystery,
yet lives on
through faith
vibrant,
kinetic faith

we are all born once of the flesh
we all die once of the flesh

and so, in the ultimate case
of redemption
we come to
resurrection as
the passage-way
to realizing
the pinnacle of
all hopes
.
.
.
          eternal love
                  in relationship
.
.
.
as long as people
have been capable
of abstract thought
as long as allegory has
been discerned from nature
.
.
.
life after death has been
demonstrated in all creation

some faiths speak of
reincarnation
some of
enlightenment
some of
pantheistic oneness
with the all

but
what of love?
where is relationship?
what happens to
real, live presence?
why no longer dwell together?

give me resurrection
give me dwelling in the house of the Lord
you can have all the rest

Fellowship

Looking out together,
Sharing face to face.

Exposing past emotions,
Seeking common grace.

Allowing time for sadness,
when sadness is best.

Uplifting when its proper,
for sadness to rest.

Unnoticed need.
Unless unmet.

Fellowship.

Copyright ©2008 bberry

 

am driveling

      bberry

 

 

does coffee drivel

   off your cup

       pre-6am? 

 

it would mine. 

   drivel on out the spout

      drivel all about

 

in slow undirected

flow

 

into

b

ing

on the

flo'

 

calm northern sea
smooth southward sailing
mist veiled eventide
illimitable horizonessence before
which stood strawgold, a
stallion; still, sure, serene
mane and tail of cream
unblinking sentient
insightful acumen exhorts
a lingering western horizon
beyond that
which is
visible,
distinguishable,
convergence.

a gracious
grey.

van says it is not easy
being green.
cantering toward forever,
I see
it is impossible to be grey
perfectly
placidly
dispassionate
being nither
pro
nor re
gressive
guiltless
joyless
remorseless
ethereal
just
am

copyright 2009 brent berry

pics taken from the Westerdam in Pacific ocean off southern Alaska and digitally altered

heart attack

frontal muscle somersault
to pulmonarial plug
beginning with who not me, and
ending, if all goes well, with
whew; I see

sorry seems as
dour me
today got free

don't
worry
be
happy

b 

Mystery

Hypothesize and theorize
to build ourselves all up
a system closed and neatly wrapped
might fit within a cup

Consistent as a ball of twine
we thought it all right through
though never all nor clearly known
what parts were then or new

We sent the ball a rolling down
the way we chose it to
in order that it would go ‘round
and come back home true blue

on way back home we walked along
in evening’s calm dim light
to find us tripping over yarn
that had not fit quite right

How dare that yarn!
Who played this trick?
The system should be closed
as mys-ter-y, she raised her head
a tipping on her toes

copyright 2008 © bberry

Lion & Gin on poets.org

Link to Kurosawa's Dog (book by this poet)

To be clear, my father was nothing like this.  I just thought it was a well written poem and then I also know friends who had a father like this.

Lion and Gin
by Dennis Hinrichsen

I pet my father like some big cat a hunter has set on the ground,
though I am in Iowa now and not the Great Rift Valley
and what I sense as tent canvas flapping, thick with waterproofing,
is cheap cotton
choked with starch.
Still, he is a lion on the gurney.
I talk a little to make sure he's dead.
I have some memory of riding his shoulders
through the fragrant night. Three fish coiled in a creel. So many
butterflies
and gnats, it was two-thirds Kenya,
one-third Illinois.
And then home: the clink
of ice and gin.
And so I rub his hair, which is unwashed, and will
remain unwashed, for we will burn him.
I touch the blade of his chest.
Think of all those years I spent hovering beneath the scent of
Marlboros,
the mouthwash trace of booze; all that ice
cracking, going stale: crowned molars and mimic glaciers
fading to bled-out amber among the cuticles of lime.
Maybe that's why when he so blindly flies
on that exaltation of velocity and gas,
he doesn't linger in this world awhile as word or song,
a density we might gather round—
an aquifer, or gushing spring, as pure as gin.
Instead, he departs
as vapor.
Fragments of tooth and bone in the swept-out mass I can
throw back to dirt, or spread—a child's sugared, grainy drink—
to water.
And now I wonder, where's the soul in this?
The agent of it?
If it un-tags, re-tags itself—a flexible, moveable,
graffiti—indelible for the time we have it,
or if it sputters on some inward cycle toward a Rubbermaid
waste bucket, sink trap ringed with cocktail residue.
As on my returning, the trays of ice were reduced to spit.
I had a drink in my hand,
that memory of riding; the fragrant night.
How can I open the freezer now and not see the milky irises
of his passage;
the array of paw and pelt;
jaw wrenched so far open in that rictus of longing, gasping,
his living eyes could not help but tip and follow?

.....

better to do
than listen.
I mean this
seriously.

In Greece,
a long time ago,
an old couple
opened their door

to two strangers
who were,
it soon appeared,
not men at all,

but gods.
It is my favorite story--
how the old couple
had almost nothing to give

but their willingness
to be attentive--
but for this alone
the gods loved them

and blessed them--
when they rose
out of their mortal bodies,
like a million particles of water

from a fountain,
the light
swept into all the corners
of the cottage,

and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing

but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.

Wherever it was
I was supposed to be
this morning--
whatever it was I said

I would be doing--
I was standing
at the edge of the field--
I was hurrying

through my own soul,
opening its dark doors--
I was leaning out;
I was listening.

Mary Oliver is the writer-in-residence at Sweet Briar College, in Virginia. She received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1984 for her book American Primitive.