FIVE POEMS





SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS

"Turn off your mind, relax and float
downstream. It is not dying."
Lennon/McCartney

The demon inside me,
the one
with the knives,
the committee chairman,
never shuts up.
It is his incessant chatter,
murderous and
self-serving, that holds
me here,
locked inside my house.
I build
my house of bones.
It's where I hang my head,
my head full of him.
I tell myself
Find the still place.
It eludes me,
though the quest is worth
everything. It is the
quest I use for prayer
for prayer.


A DANCE OF EXTRAVAGANCE

for Cheryl

If we could mingle our bodies
I'd put my kidneys where
yours are, your perfect knees
to replace my creaking ones,
your ever-loving heart
here amidst my ribs, where
so much detritus floats, where
so many ships have foundered.
If we could mingle anymore
than we already have what
could love give us that our perfect
daughter has not already satisfied,
what, indeed, could love
have in store for us, who have
each other in abundance?
And, when we dance, clumsily,
laughing, in the kitchen, it
is only the mysteries inside each
of us, crashing, subsiding,
operative and fluid, wanting to make of
us one person anyway,
in this flood of plenteousness
at the end of the twentieth century.


AN AFFAIR OF FAITH

"she needs a shot of a very bored God."
Bob Dylan

She turned toward me,
on a spit, a lover,
a way to the possible
tomorrow.
I adored her.
She runs like an egg.
In the morning
she took me by the
root, planted
me in the middle of
this mess we
called love. We did
in our foolishness,
our frangible dotage,
call it holy,
holy love.
And I almost believed.


RELIGION

Singing
Beatles songs
with my five-year-old
daughter

is one path
to the Godhead.


MEDITATION/MEDICATION

"day goes everywhere investigating accidents
but my head's quiet as water"
Bei Dao

Thoughts are clouds. The mind
is the sky.

We want the mountain to come
to us. We

want the peace stillness brings. We
often wonder

at how close mountain is to maintain.
At how close we

all are to the final enlightenment,
just out of reach, thankfully.

Corey Mesler

ww You may e-mail Corey at chmesler@earthlink.net