Religious Scholar

The following four poems were written within 40 minutes before breakfast on May 16th, 2008.

Here:  Have another bowl
of  fire. Do you take sugar
or salt with that?
Oh, don't worry - those
mitts won't burn, only
singe, a bit;  the napkins,
too.  They think of everything,
don't they? 

Yes, we do have a nice
selection of fires, they're
quite the rage! How about
Promethean Fire (it was a
steal)?  Then, there's Passion's
Fire, but I'd save that
'til later.  Divine Fire? Not
for us rationalists, I'm afraid.

Why don't you try this
Old Flame? It's not quite
so brilliant, but will bring back
memories, for sure.

Now, let's take these bowls
to the front porch,
my dear.
And scorch. 

The nice thing
About a short poem:
It's not an intimidating
Tome.  In an
Augenblick, I see
Its destination point,
At least in terms
Of print.

Its implications?
That's a path for
Another day.
Subito, there it is
All cut and clean and dry,
In black and white:
An unambiguous end
Down to the last
Dot. 

Snarky critics,
You were my bane!
Crushing, crunching up
My poems in your trap-snap
Jaws, spitting them out
In unrecognizable
Wads.  Because of you,
I left the critics' fold,
That wolves' fold where
Fodder's sheep and
Poets cheap.

So now I thumb my nose
At ineffectual spite -
I skirt your iniquitous
Smirks and spray
The Internet with my words'
Array.  Let all who dare to look or read
Into these wide waters wade,
With open minds and hearts ajar.
Let judgment be suspended
Like a shining star
And critics' screeds squeak
Into tiny empty thunderings
Afar. 

My brain is a pump
Expressing words,
Squeezing them out of
Memories and old magazines and
Things I heard on TV or
iPods and transistor radios and saw
On billboards or in newspaper ads
And in overheard conversations at
Lahieres and Burger King,
By the pool in Spring Lake and under
The threatening expressway in
Northeastern Philly

And  sometimes where no words
Dwell:  in forests humming with
Unseen bees and the early bark of dark
Birds leaving the hungry nest
And in the startling morning songs
Of cardinals and red robins,
Yanking the sun out of night with
Their unimaginable strong
Voice.