The Importance Of Ritual

Raise your arms
Thus so,
One higher than the other
Fingers together
Palms facing outward
Thumb alongside palm
The Mudra of Perfection,
Pick up the Chalice
It could be the Holy Grail
Raise it up also
Then the Spirit comes,
How can there be any Sin
Left in the world?

The Importance Of Theology

The schematic diagram
Of the first transistor radio
Can be the basis for
The New Creation
It only takes disbelief
In how it works
And belief
In how it doesn’t,
Otherwise,
The ritual of turning it on and off
Generates a pattern
Of new language
Intelligible to only a
Chosen Few
Who is it, anyway,
That can decipher
Non-reality?

The Importance Of Penitence

When you realize that you have erred
Then the time has come
For you to divest yourself,
Getting rid of the excess baggage
Generated by your recent past,
You may kneel at the alter
Of Forgiveness
Gazing wondrously into
The eyes of the Priest
Convincing him that now
You surely are on the
Path Of Righteousness
For your own sake,
Or you may walk barefoot
On broken glass,
Does Faith have anything
To do with this?

The Importance Of Sin

It appears out of nowhere,
Stuck to your mind
Like the glowing ember
Of a campfire
That flares up when the wind blows,
Then fades away
But still remains hot under the ashes
Of desire,
Rekindling only requires
More fuel,
The hot breath
Of lust
Blowing it into its flaming beauty,
What? You didn’t think
You could be beguiled?

The Importance Of Dogma

So! You think you know what you’re doing,
You’ve created the ineffable scenes
Talked to the burning bush
Stood in the whirlwind of fire
Eaten the manna from the ground
Turned the wife of Lot into a pillar of salt
Thrown down the law
Lifted up the Cross,
But how do you, Oh Sage,
Explain it to the people?

The Importance Of Religion

Walking down a hall of mirrors
That reflect your self
Undistorted,
All are an illusion,
Reflections, such that
An infinite number of renditions of yourself
Are projected
Beyond where you can see,
Yet you keep walking
Toward what you believe to be
The righteous End,
Still there are the reflections
Of your self,
Generated by what?

Football Psalmody

Gleaned From The Sunday Kansas City Star sports page
(Sung Responsively)

Number Fifteen Missouri / Forty One
Number Twenty Two Texas / Tech Ten

Missouri Tigers look / BCS worthy
The Big Twelve’s best football team played its best / on Saturday

Two Missouri players jumped for joy after the Tigers / stopped a drive
MU held Texas Tech to minus nine yards rushing and intercepted / four passes

KU stuffs Buffs late / in the game
Number Fifteen Jayhawks improve to / seven and oh

The Oklahoma Sooners came to Lawrence but left / in a bum wagon
But the Colorado students came booing and / yelling obscenities

Carolina gets / Vandy-lized
Tebow uses arm, not legs / to lead Gators

Late kick / propels Cowboys
Huskers still seeing red after / another loss

There is an advertisement for the new two thousand eight / Honda Accord
Right next to a smaller ad / for Viagra.

Slippin' From The Mainstream

Every year ‘bout this time
The radio beggars come ‘round
They wants my money
For nefarious deals
Or some different kind of projeck
They say “Man, you been listenin’”
“You know how it is.”
“We're tryin’ to ‘complish somethin’ here,”
I drive my car in the traffic line
Bumper to bumper, mos’ of the time
But today I just slips away from all that
Findin’ myself a nice gap
Between cars and trucks full of people
Peoples goin’ to work
Peoples goin’ home from work
Peoples avoidin’ work
So I just turns off the radio
An’ let them beggars have it all to themselves
Man in a car goes by blowin’ his horn
Flippin’ me off an’ I just laugh
I aint done nothin’
Just drivin’ in the mainstream
Hittin’ one in the gap
Puttin’ on my signal
I head on outa town
Passin' by a line of beggars
Holdin' transistor radios out to me
Tellin' me I got to pay
For what I been hearin' all my life for free.

Corrina, Corrina

(Arrangement of Traditional Song)
(Lyrics Adapted by S. Darjeeling for banjo.)

Corrina, Corrina where you been so long?
Corrina, Corrina where you been so long?
It’s been several days now,
Girl, since you been gone,

I love my Corrina, know the world I do,
I love my Corrina, know the world I do,
Corrina, Corrina,
Baby, what’s wrong with you?

I hear my Corrina knocking at my door
I hear my Corrina knocking at my door
I’m gettin’ down
My smokless forty-four
Now my darlin’ Corrina’s
Lyin’ on the floor

Voynich Deck Emanating Lines Of Flux

Dandelions In The Lawn

He pulled on the rope starter
The lawnmower remained defiant
The neighbors
Tired of hearing him swear
Called the police
He had been pulling on the starter
For five days now
Day and night
Pulling and cursing
The lawnmower giving no more
Than a chug-chug-chug sound
His hands were bleeding
Eyes red from non-sleep
He reached down again
As the squad car pulled in the drive
Picking up the service revolver
Waving it in the air,

The neighbors
Waved at the ambulance
As they mowed their pristine lawns
Too bad
They thought
His lawn always had dandelions.

Scrambled Eggs, Rotten Cabbage

She reached for the handle
On the refrigerator door
She pulled
When the light came on
She let go
Standing there
Looking at a dozen eggs
A handful of grapes
Half a cabbage,
A lifetime of opening
The refrigerator door
Now reduced to this last look
Upon nothing that she cared for
Nothing she desired,

She remembered when they
Took her away
She had put ice cream
In the refrigerator side
And apples in the freezer
That was enough
They said
To take her away

If you drop a carton of eggs
Off the roof of a house
Some of them end up scrambled

Every grape contains all it needs
To turn juice into wine

Sauerkraut
Is half-rotten cabbage.

Graves Registration

Night after night
We watched the choppers come in
Like a row of fireflies
Dancing on legs of tracer rounds
Closer and closer
Louder and louder
Chop-chopping the air
Knife blades in the wind
Spiraling lower into the thick night
Delivering their death vengeance
Laughing with bared sharp teeth
Screaming “Hell fire and damnation!”
Like a Sunday Baptist Preacher
Delivering to the non-penitent
Their gospel of perdition
Contained in a fifty caliber chalice of blood.

Dark angels why are you waiting?
Remove the dead from their tangled death pose
Place them in the black plastic tomb
With their names driven between clenched teeth
Drag your black claws through their belongings
Rifle through their pockets
And send them off to their graves.

October Sunrise

All the leafy-down trees have escaped
The rigors of summer leaving no trace
On the hot-wind days of no rain
Or the homes of bats and birds,
Giant moths beat at the window pane
The only light they perceive
Trying to get past the invisible barrier
To nourish them as they change,
All the grasses lie dormant
Drawing down into the Earth
Deep below the surface
Until called upon again
To rise
To become green and alive again
Yet alive they are in another world,
All clocks are rolled back
A feeble attempt at controlling the Sun
Which breaks the mist and illuminates
The webs of spiders having their last foray
Setting their last spider traps
On the trellises of the grapevines
That
Having given up their harvest
Are now
Giving up their leaves,
Bones stick up out of the ground
Bones of dead animals
Bones of dead men
Carried there by black crows
Who call out in worship
Of the rising Sun.