They took all the people,
all the ones who were huddled and tired and yearning,
and they put them in
low-income housing.
They put them in a box
away from services
away from bus lines
away from any help
any chance.
They said they were doing it to help them
otherwise
they’d be on the street.
They put them in a box, smaller than a grave
smaller than their hopes and dreams
of a second chance
of a new life
in the fairytale
that is called
America.
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Category Archives: Poetry
I’m not that fish – poem
People keep showing
their ugly side
their needy side
the side that says
they think they are
no good
broken
worthless
hopeless
and it is
exhausting
to swim
against that stream
to be stronger
emotionally spiritually
to say
I know (you think) you are
but what am I
around you?
So much, so often
people are addicted
to feeling bad,
they’ve heard the message
saying
you aren’t enough
unless you
until you
fill in the blank
and they’ve swallowed it
hook line and anchor
and it drags them
along the bottom
in the muck
and the discarded waste
of our throwaway
culture that says
you aren’t enough
even if
you
fill in the blank
because
you are a blank.
They’ve eaten the
bait and are
getting reeled in.
But I’m not that fish
not ready to be caught
filleted open
gutted.
(Early June 2018)
Respect – poem
Aretha taught people
how to respect her,
spelled it out so they could understand.
How can someone respect you
if they don’t know what respect is?
Sure, they might know the word,
but they don’t know what it really
looks like, or feels like.
What does respect mean to you?
A letter of thanks, handwritten.
An invitation to a party.
A gift given just because
and not because it is expected.
Respect is a form of love
you can show anyone
and should show everyone.
It isn’t flirting, or dating.
But it is kindness, consideration,
seeing them
as equal as
and as worthy as
you are.
If they don’t give you respect,
perhaps it is because they
have never been given it themselves.
How can they give away
what they don’t have?
Perhaps it is up to you
to teach them respect
by showing it to them
first.
Gold mining – poem
I keep writing these things
and maybe one day
there will be a piece of gold.
Like a miner with a pan,
I keep coming to the river,
sifting rocks, hunched over.
It is lonely work.
Will I ever strike it rich?
Am I asking the wrong question?
Because really, the treasure
is the doing. The daily
coming to the river, doing
the work. Even if nothing
amazing appears, I’ve put
in the time, I’ve gotten the
practice.
Writing is a skill, after all.
Being born into the language
is no excuse for not
practicing it
Fear of love – poem
Soon we will know
what it is to be free
really free
of our fear.
But not yet.
We aren’t ready
while we still teach
fear of God
in our churches.
Maybe that is why
so many people have left the church
or never joined.
Maybe that is why so many people
suffer from
addictions or compulsions or perversions,
interacting too much or too little
with the world and people that God created
for us to love.
Lack of love is a terrible thing.
Misplaced love is possibly worse.
For God is love, after all.
God is or should be
our first and last love
and everything in between.
That word “fear” isn’t the original.
The word that the Christian church
translated as fear
means something more like
awe, or respect, or reverence.
But not fear.
Because “perfect love casts out all fear.”
Because how many times did Angels say “fear not” (once for every day).
Fear never healed anybody
but love will do the trick
every time.
The Church chose “fear”
because it leads to control.
Forgive them for they were mistaken.
It isn’t that “they know not what they do”
– they knew.
It was fear of love that made them do it.
Lovers are illogical.
Lovers of God even more so.
Jesus didn’t come to control people
– but to love them so much
that they were healed,
were whole
again.
I mean, really – poem
It seems I should start the day
With thankfulness,
checking off the boxes on my gratitude list.
House. Central heat. Water. Flannel sheets.
Etcetera. But all I really want
is to grumble about how my brain kept me up
last night with
all those songs and craft ideas and book projects
and wondering if I would even have the strength to
get up on time because
did I
even get enough sleep at all?
It is a greedy and immature bastard,
my brain, being the cause of
my own worry
so often.
I mean, really
if it had only had these ideas
just two hours earlier
I could’ve done something about them
instead of wasting my time
reading a magazine
or Facebook.
But instead, like a needy child
it chooses
to keep me awake
with its litany of requests
that can’t wait until morning.
Should I write that idea down?
What if I forget that chore, that connection?
Will it all fall apart
if I don’t
do it all
myself?
These ideas are like rare butterflies
that if not caught and pinned down
will fly away
never to be seen again
by me
and will probably alight upon
someone
else’s head.
Or so they try to tell me.
Maybe they are just a bit of
sausage and scallop pizza eaten
just a little too late at night
as usual.
A surprise the first time – poem
And who’s to say
that Christ won’t come again
in a body
in that body
the one we’ve gotten used to
the one we have seen in paintings
and pictures
but not photographs
but instead of being born again unto a virgin
in a cowshed
or descending out of the sky
the Christ
the anointed one
comes again
for the first time
into your heart?
I mean
it was a surprise the first time
even then,
over 2000 years ago.
They expected a king.
They expected someone to lead them out
of slavery to the foreign army
to lead them back
to who they really were
as people
chosen by God.
Instead they got this guy
born illegitimately
born in poverty
raised in a nowhere backward town
who spoke of a different kind of
freedom, a different kind of return
to who they were.
It wasn’t a revolution
it wasn’t a rebellion.
He didn’t come to be a king
but to point them back
to the only King
they ever needed.
He wanted to lead them out
of slavery
not to the Romans
but thinking anybody
was over them
other than God.
Why can’t it be that
surprising again?
Why can’t it be that
the second coming
doesn’t happen
in the Holy Land
but in your heart
right where you are
right as you are
right now?
The best gift – poem
If I had my way I’d be getting up around 10 with no alarm clock having drifted awake
resurfaced, like a deep-sea diver.
But instead I’ve pulled myself up (if not out) of bed sitting here, writing to clear my head to return me to the world of words, of thought, of physicality and away from the dreams that seem so real.
Maybe that is why I write after all not just in the morning not just in the mode of poems but everything, all the time.
Putting pen to paper, pulling words down from the air and making them sit and stay like dogs doing tricks is how I wake up every moment is how I come back into the present, the best gift of all.
Morning walk or not – poem
In this morning
this cold morning
the sky touched with the pink the color of rose petals,
of Magnolia blossoms just beginning
I wonder how long it will be
until the sun is awake before quarter till seven
the sky aglow with the sure quiet joy
of awakening.
Because until then
I will wonder how I could possibly have dragged myself out of bed
with time enough to go for a walk
before work,
even on a Saturday
those many months ago,
or so my journal says.
Because right now,
I can’t even imagine getting out of bed
at all
it is so cold and cave-like.
And so I sit here
and write a poem
instead.
And I think maybe this is a kind of walk,
too. Or maybe
I am fooling myself,
again.
Consumerism is the new religion
Consumerism is the religion of the world.
It is destroying the planet.
It is the antichrist
– the opposite of life-giving, of healing, of resurrection.
It is about trust in yourself,
not sharing, greed.
It creates war and poverty.
It builds present presents and walls.
Time to cast out this false God
this idol of “you deserve it”
this spirit of “me first” and to hell with everybody else.
It pits person against person,
creating nations that war against each other
blinding us to our true nature
of oneness of unity,
that we are all in this together on this life-raft we call Earth
and if we don’t pull together we’ll discover
to our horror
there is no planet B.
Instead of trying to Terraform Mars
why don’t we re-form Terra
(which is the old name for Earth)?
betsybeadhead 
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