Category: Uncategorized

A New Dawn (Very Long)

Asleep in their nests

 birds dreaming out loud

Just outside his window

new questions aroused

The moonlight not finished

what it started before

The church clothes still hanging

 on the back of the door

What once he thought ended

 returning again

What never befriended

 new searching begins

The glass in the parlor’s

long myopic hall

Illuminates squalor

and all he recalls

The ringing alarm

signals all bets are off

As the birds start to sing

of eternity’s cost

The revelers revel

the sanguine proclaim

The church starts to fill

and they’re calling his name

Any proof in the pudding

has curdled and soured

As the chalice gets cleaned

and the vision devours

The mood is enhanced

 and wine slowly drips

The light through the stained glass

distorted in bits

The reasons no matter

alone as before

And sanity worships

death closing the door

His dress shirt went on

white starched and unblessed

The sermon made ready

for those at behest

And what might he offer

where prisoners hide

Salvation most proffered

when funded by lies

The eyes looking back

 fixed silent and low

The eyes looking back

from pews far below

Surrounded by neighbors

and men who’re once bold

His eyes were then only

but thirteen years old

The distance seemed fatal

the distance seemed slim

But now looking up

it was all about him

To one then so young

and so new and so fresh

Still wanting to believe

in not leaving the nest

Surrounded by elders

deceivers and friends

Dressed in his finest

his hair slicked on end

His eyes remain down

as his thoughts deconstruct

His face never changed

as the sermon ramped up

“And what must the youth

think of me on this day”

The Vicar’s thoughts looming

praying mantis to prey

The height differential

the power sublime

The stairs leading up

for the blind then to climb

And once at the top

all so distant below

And once at the top

nothing new left to know

The birds dare not enter

the sparrow or dove

The belfry stark empty

devoid of all love

The peacock dismembered

in colors of blight

The peacock remembered

in times that were bright

The hand bills are placed

at the end of each pew

A message designed

for only the few

Caught up in the fable

caught up in the lie

To burn down the manger

lambs scream as they fry

The church social breakfast

has started out back

Hoping for: “Great sermon Parson

had to hold my tears back”

But the truth knows no teller

but what’s told in the end

Whose message stays mired

where all messages end

Belonging to no-one

to him least of all

But forever himself

as he must heed the call

The blamer blasphemer

the architect whore

Silent screams from the pews

that they need something more

And in silence he struggles

his collars’ too tight

For clerics who bombast

portend and then fright

The moral unlettered

the reason unschooled

The soul when unfettered

no one left to rule

He knew the time short

few stairs left to climb

That boy once malingered

to always remind

To start at the beginning

to restart at the end

To start where he stopped

as a stranger again

Overpowering reluctance

consumes him today

And with cryptic delusion

he parry’s and feigns

Beget not begotten

claiming unto himself

All virtue forgotten

all feeling unfelt

If it mattered whenever

if it mattered just once

The parson calls out

to approach and exeunt

Reversing his trust

shouting but to himself

“Betray now adroitly”

this ice cube to melt

Benedictions unburning

inside the unhost

All tides are returning

last turkey to roast

The pot is left thickening

ruination sublime

Intention most wicked

coming only from mind

The cowards stay victim

the bravest rejoice

A knave neath the roundtable

never his choice

The bend in the circumstance

the straightening lie

The clue that was missing

the unquestioned reply

Walk up to the pulpit

three steps that don’t end

The pride and the fury

pontificates rend

Looking out at the parishioners

their eyes staring down

He knows without speaking

rivers crossed, bridges down

As he takes his last breath

speaks his last final words

What once was a boy

separates from the herd

He steps down, turns and leaves

without once looking back

The parson stabbed fatally

his parsonage wracked

The breakfast is ransacked

left plundered and frayed

The devout are heard neighing

like a horse without hay

Heading straight down the lane

neither bowed nor erect

No breakfast for him

celebration dissects

Walking in through the back door

his Aunty Ruth smiles

Asking, “Is everything all right”

you’ve been gone quit awhile”

He says: “Everything’s fine

as his father distills

And closing the window

say’s: “I’m feeling a chill”

He walks up 13 stairs

and sits down on the bed

Looking straight up above him

childish images dead

Asleep before dark

in a dream meets his peace

Knowing surrounded by doom

he must tomorrow retreat

He is up before dawn

and back out on the lane

One sack over his shoulder

one orphan to claim

The walk to the harbor

is rocky and steep

His gait ever steadfast

a promise to keep

Signing onto the first ship

that’s ready to sail

Setting a course still uncharted

in a sea of travail

The clouds getting darker

the waves though they fall

His soul is on fire

his spirit on call

With the ship looming outward

beyond sight of land

His future to clear

his mission at hand

That first day on board

 and first night below deck

Were the first that had ever

held him safe in their net

With dawn’s light he climbed

to the crow’s nest above

And said ‘Thank You” to providence

vowing his love

And he sat there for hours

his past to enshroud

New horizons were calling

— he never so proud

 

(Oregon Inlet: June, 2003)

 

Awaiting

Looking under

the streetlamp

vision departs

 

While all that we’re

missing

hides in the dark

 

The familiar

accepted

our nature’s are such

 

That what’s in

our comfort zone

pleases us much

 

Distracting

from vistas

that broaden our view

 

Unknown

and still waiting

— to birth us anew

 

(Dreamsleep: May, 2024)

 

 

 

Nothing In Common (Chapter 13 – The End) unedited

Chapter 13: ‘Linking Us Together’

The values linking us together in America were timeless, and part of an unending chain, binding us together with the strength of their connection. It was a connection based on values, and those values were shared. As tough and confusing as life sometimes got, these links were a safe haven and connection to all that was good and right.

Team Sports were a living embodiment of these chains.  When everyone was acting together in unison, agreeing on a plan or goal, the game had the best chance of being won.  If only one person decided to break away, go off-sides, commit a foul, or worse get thrown out of the game, the whole team suffered with victory lost.  In a negative way, this underscores the importance of a strong connection keeping the links intact for the objective to be met.

It was only through strong links to each other that people survived the Great Depression, the bombing of Pearl Harbor, an ensuing and devastating World War, and its low point, The Holocaust.  Today, we are still dealing with the aftermath of 9/11.

 9/11 tragically pointed out that terrorists don’t only kill their sworn enemies … they kill indiscriminately!  In a dramatic statement of inhumanity, they tried to shock the world with their misguided and disconnected view of reality.  They profaned their allegiance to God by blaspheming him with their actions of despair and destruction.  They are links to a chain that is, at its end, connected to nothing, worshipping in many cases the same things they seek to destroy. Many of the 9/11 terrorists were out experiencing the worst of western culture, strip clubs etc., only days before they carried out the brutal attacks.

The value chain of generations past was a mutually shared affirmation. It reinforced the idea that by living together we could prosper if our values were shared. Living this way in America, we overcame all obstacles for over 200 years.  When I was a kid, and we had a bad snowstorm, my parents would always put chains on the rear tires of their cars.  The chains would allow the slippery rubber tires to reconnect with the snowy surface of the road, digging in, and creating a ‘grip’ that bare tires could never provide.  This allowed my parents, and our neighbors, to resume their normal activities and turn what was a temporary setback into a small challenge to overcome.

These chains metaphorically point out the deep connection we used to have with each other.  When times got tough, we dug deep, finding the ‘chains’ within our own psyches to get us through the tough and challenging times.  The ‘chains’ were only as strong as our belief in them and what they could overcome. Strength was based on each link and how it would ultimately fit with other links in the chain that bound us all to each other.   It was this ‘connection’ that created our sense of community, and it spread from our families, to our neighborhoods, through our states, and ultimately across our nation.  I also believe when we were the strongest this chain spread worldwide linking America with the rest of the world — a connection that in many ways has either been broken or abandoned today.

With these ‘chains of connection,’ we were able to become something bigger than just ourselves and share in the true wonder of moving mountains together.  Whether it was creating the world’s greatest economy, national infrastructure with our great dams and highways, or curing many of the worst diseases that had plagued the world for generations, we attempted these things with a unity of purpose and shared in the pride of accomplishment once our efforts were done.  Most of these things could never have been done by individuals alone.

Today, the celebration of division is killing America.  My generation kicked this into high gear with the mantra ‘do your own thing.’  Forty years later, we see what the result of doing your own thing has become.  What happened to ‘our thing?’ the spirit behind why men died at Valley Forge, Bunker Hill, Gettysburg, Normandy, Mt. Suribachi, and the rice paddies of Vietnam.  Brave young men are still dying today in far off places like the deserts of the Middle East.  Are we supporting them in the same way we did their grandfathers and great grandfathers?  Do they fight with a clear vision and light heart knowing the country is of one mind and behind them until they come home?  Do they watch the evening news, seeing the protests and division that have driven America into a sectarian society.

Thank God, we still have men and women brave enough to go to these places finding something deep within themselves, and each other, to get the job done.  What the military has not totally abandoned is the spirit of connection that our country has lost.  These men are bound to each other in an ‘Esprit De Corps’ that transcends any politics or attempt to divide them.  They are sometimes forced to fight two wars — the one on the battlefield before them, and a second war of public opinion that no courageous soldier should ever have to endure.

No country in the world has ever been 100% ‘right’ with a moral compass free of all blame.  That being said, no country in the world has ever been as right as ours. Democratic freedom, and its defense, is a shared idea. It’s been the defining link in our national chain from Lexington and Concord to the present day.

If we can’t agree on who we are, and what we are, the problem stays buried deep in what we have become. We need to look inside ourselves and admit to the emptiness we feel. We can only fill that emptiness by acting together. An 8-ounce glass of water has little power, but magnified 300 million times, it turns into a powerful force that can wash over us all.

I am here today because of what so many men and women gave their lives for over the past 250 years.  I am writing this, in a fervent attempt, to reconnect us to our American Core Values and to each other.  Together, we can reconnect the links in the great ‘Chain of Unity’ that, up until recently, defined us as a nation.  I write with the hope that sacrifices made in its defense, and its shared value system of Freedom & The Individual Rights of Man, were not in vain.

 

  Kurt Philip Behm: May, 2024