SIX NEW POEMS

Dealing with the Devil

The snake’s tongue touches on deeper

down into the darkness of all my appetites, 

given to me by the One, who made the snake 

and the death dealing flea, made the virus, 

and the man, the hero, planet poisoner, god killer, 

savior,

made woman, wisdom’s source, more beautiful 

than misting rain, 

fiercer than lightening, 

made all ever made, 

or to be made, and is 

all that has been 

or will be. 

The one, who seeking to know itself,

knows fear 

of the unknown, 

and begets those moments 

wherein we believe

beyond what we can understand 

so that we like the one, we 

keep touching on deeper

into darkness.

What Life said

            You have, out of your own misbegotten prejudices, your craven bigotry,

and ignorant self-righteousness, elected leaders in your own worst image. This is 

the predictable conclusion of your blind arrogance and pride. Therefore, I am eating your cities, which you built on the plains and in the valleys, along the coasts of the oceans, and the banks 

of the rivers. I have employed your own most grandiose schemes to destroy all your dreams. I do this in the name of that which you honor least: the earth, its many spheres of life, animate and inanimate, and to restore the divine dance. Do not ask why, for the answer is clear. Have I not said: be content and bite not the hand that feeds thee, for it is I who extend this hand, providing the wisdom of love, filled with nourishment for you. And yet, having gladly eaten of all this hand provides, you appreciate it as naught, but only accept it as your due, and look further to those appetites that the nourishment of this hand doth not satisfy, yea, you seek not only in your secret heart, but openly in the market place, for ways to eat of what is forbidden and given not from this hand, but found only in the other hand, food for all that is base in you and inflames your heart with grandiose passions. 

            I have created you in the fullness of my vision for the unforeseen consummation of this universe, but you blindly presume it to be yours? Yea, and you proceed as if it were knowable by you, and, finally, nothing but your own to master. 

            Whereby you have forgotten that you did not create yourself, and whereby you have failed to use what I have provided you that you may live wisely and well, in harmony among yourselves and with the animals and plants, but instead have brought into the world the means for universal death, I turn away from you.

            Long have I known of your towering pride, and long have I suffered it, but my patience has now come to an end. It is thus you must suffer my wrath, loosed as pestilence, chaos in the weather, and violent dislocations of every sort– until the divine scales are once again in balance and you learn to steward the bounty I have created.

So be it.

© Richard E Messer, 2020

Where It Comes From

Price check? I saw a cashier waving her arms 

and shouting— Don’t you think I know

about all those agents, stealing

up and down the aisles like demon insects, 

chittering,

and right here the devil himself 

spit in this can of soup;

there are fifty kinds of devil–

fruit devils grown on foreign soil and flown

all over the world, silky devils 

in Ladies Lingerie, devils in the light fixtures, chemical devils

in the meat department, and in the paint

on children’s toys, 

all the house wares have hidden cameras,

and this stroller I just rang up for you

will kill any child put in it.

Is this the world you want! 

Is it?  

            She kept screaming and we all stood silent,

watching. And we watched 

as her manager with soothing tones led her away, 

his comforting arm around her shoulders 

as she wept; 

and when he returned from the back office

to man her register, he smiled and we,

reassured, went about our business,

and business was good.

Losing Friends

                                    On a line by Anna Akhmatova

It’s late, it’s always late 

in this bar, he said, and he said

he should have died too. That explains 

the pistol butt I saw when he leaned 

over the pool table. They all have guns, 

all my friends, men and women

 I haven’t met 

even once, guns instead of dreams, whiskey 

instead of hope. I see them on TV

each time there’s another war 

and sometimes they come back

alive. Then they come here to find a fight 

or someone to love, they come here

to die, just for tonight, or maybe forever,

it doesn’t matter. They’re here

to drink and to take the edge off

wanting to live again.

Orisons 

I press my face down into the dirty water of the world 

every day, and it pushes back, cold and caressing,

over my invisible gills and fins, breathing through me 

the voices of the animals of all worlds, peaceful and grave,

entreating me–

remember your mission and remember, 

we lay down our lives prayerfully every day, 

and though you no longer offer up your gratitude,

we die for you. Remember you live 

as no creature has ever lived, isolated from your source, 

yet all creatures above and below, in all the kingdoms 

of the waters, of the earth, and the sky, pray for you. 

To whom do you owe your life? Remember 

before it is too late for the myriad lives

unborn, remember.

Vision on White Horse Creek

At the airport I powered off my phone. Seven hours later 

I was fishing on White Horse Creek. My friend 

in the hospital, unaware a machine breathes

for him, had told me to come here, 

and as my Royal Coachman fly looped out 

and touched the water, I stood wet faced in mental darkness,

looking beyond the visionary rail at the racetrack of the world

lost in the hooves’ thunder, watching the lead horse

pound around the last turn and go down

to its knees and pitch headlong, the terrible arch 

of its neck illuminated as it slammed into the turf 

and somersaulted across the endless finish line.  

Worlds collide on certain days, outer and inner. 

You are born, my friend said, with all 

the dreams you will ever have, and those dreams 

have dreams that must be lived.

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