Disingenuous

Trying to convince you
I don’t care about money
Would be about as disingenuous
As saying I don’t know
Who’s winning the
Scoreless
Peewee soccer game that
My granddaughter is currently playing.

This poem is from the new edition of catapult magazine with the theme, "Call That Profit." Follow this link for the entire edition: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/

I can’t bear to consider

I like to think

what they don’t know

can’t hurt them.

But then, I think,

everything can hurt them.

But they don’t know it,

so it doesn’t.

At least, until it does.

But then, again,

I’m not sure they are aware

enough to really be hurt.

All of which I choose to believe,

because I can’t bear to

consider the alternatives.

Do you wanna dance?

Here is the intro to my new piece in catapult magazine

Q: Why are Baptists against sexual intercourse?

A: Because they heard it can lead to dancing.

The joke works because it catches you by surprise. And because you know proper people don’t talk about Baptists and sex in the same setting. It hovers on the razor edge of being ridiculous, while revealing something of reality...

follow this link for the rest of the piece: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/dance--2/article/do-you-wanna-dance

Backward Movement

Following is a piece I have in the current issue of catapult magazine:

What's the real issue here?

 It’s too easy to identify progress as evil, as the problem. However, progress is an extension of human drive, desires, passions, creativity, exploration and who knows what else that can work for good or for evil. Progress in the form of hell-bent efficiency has destroyed, maimed and killed. Progress driven by greed is a beast. Blind progress has led us to destroy much of value, including the extreme of annihilating people groups. At the same time, staying put or going backwards can also result in the growth of evil.

follow this link to read the rest of the piece:  https://www.catapultmagazine.com/backward-movement/article/whats-the-real-issue-here

New ones

Here is the intro to a new piece I have in the current edition of catapult magazine:

Another call from another teacher. The kid’s only in middle school and I’m wondering if I’ll live through six more years of this. It’s never real trouble. Yet I’ve heard an unending parade of exasperated teachers say, “He just doesn’t get it!” I’m betting the principal has us on speed dial.

for the rest of the story click here:  https://www.catapultmagazine.com/imagining-imagination/article/new-ones

Lent, again (annual post for the season of Lent)

Small Baptist church
Edge of the city
Family farms were gone
Ever widening streets
Car lots and early stage
Of strip malls
Good people
Almost "country folk"
My mom's people

They knew the Bible
They loved it
They tried to live it
No creeds of rituals so
They believed

Lent was bad, almost evil
Empty routine of
False religion
Catholics and Lutherans
Maybe some others so
Far from faith

Home is not so distant
Four or five hours down the freeway
Decades later, now about four

Yearly ashes to my forehead
The joy of sorrow
The smudge of death
The touch of some pastor
I hardly know

What was once forbidden
Now is my food, my life

I worry for a moment that I may later see
Someone I know at the
Store who won't understand

Six weeks Wednesday at noon
Sitting with Glenn
Sometimes others join us
A hymn or two
Short sermon
Some good, some not
Prayer

Lunch in the basement
Church cookbook casserole
Creamy salad
Water or tea
Neither of us drink coffee

Talk of family and sports
Maybe the sermon
Church friends and politics
Work updates
We say our goodbyes

Giving up something, maybe
Remembering, anything to help

Holy Week, the beginning with
Sword ferns posing as palms
Maundy Thursday
It took a long time to
Understand the "Maundy"
Good Friday
It's trite,
But who ever thought to
Call it "good?"
The dark, quiet and waiting

Easter and
It's over
Day of joy
Get my life back, again
Not sure I want it
At this cost
The seasons end

I hope it will come again
Next year
Or maybe, I hope
I'll be here next year
To remember that
It happened
Jesus suffered
And I live

Oregon my Oregon

You want to talk about Oregon?  I’m glad you asked.

Oh, you didn’t ask.

Well, let me tell you anyway. Oregon, the thirty-ninth state, entered the Union on February 14, 1859, shortly before the start of the Civil War. Remember it was the “Oregon Trail” that drew settlers west to the “Oregon Territory.” And it was the Oregon Territory that grew out of that great American adventure, the journey of Lewis and Clark. And it was the land sought after by both British and American business interests and political forces.*  And it was where, like my father, I was born...

You can read the rest of this piece by following this link to catapult magazine: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/the-state-im-in/article/oregon-my-oregon