July 20: Jericho Brown, "Psalm 150," Date Night

Psalm 150

by:  Jericho Brown

Some folks fool themselves into believing,

But I know what I know once, at the height

Of hopeless touching, my man and I hold

Our breaths, certain we can stop time or maybe

Eliminate it from our lives, which are shorter 

Since we learned to make love for each other 

Rather than doing it to each other. As for praise 

And worship, I prefer the latter. Only memory

Makes us kneel, silent and still. Hear me? 

Thunder scares. Lightning lets us see. Then, 

Heads covered, we wait for rain. Dear Lord, 

Let me watch for his arrival and hang my head

And shake it like a man who's lost and lived. 

Something keeps trying, but I'm not killed yet.

________________________

I'm going on a date tonight with the woman I love.  It just so happens that I'm lucky enough to be married to her.  We are alone tonight.  Childless.  It doesn't happen very often.  However, every once in a while, we get a night to remind ourselves that we love each other.

Tonight is one of those nights.

Saint Marty prefers praise to worship, as well.  Just like Jericho Brown.

July 16: George Burns, Jericho Brown, "The Burning Bush"

I wish that God sort of worked the way He did in Biblical times.  (Okay, not like in Sodom and Gomorrah, burn everything to the ground.  More like, an angel shows up at your door for supper every once in a while.)  Life would be so much easier if God made His will a little more apparent.

Now, I know that we have the Bible.  Everything we need to know is contained in its pages.  But wouldn't it be cool if God made an appearance every once in a while, like he did for Moses on top of Mount Horeb?  Heck, I'd even be happy if He showed up like George Burns every once in a while, smoking a stogie and making bad jokes, like in Oh, God!  I want God to come right out and tell me the purpose of my life. 

It doesn't have to be anything as showy as a burning bush.  It could be a simple Tweet, with a hashtag like "#IAM."  I know things weren't simple or easy in ancient Israel.  There are way too many crucifixions for me to believe that.  But God used to make a few more personal appearances than He does nowadays. 

I'm not complaining, because I don't want to be struck by lightning or leprosy.  I simply want a map, telling me what my next move is.  Should I look for a full-time job at another university?  Or should I concentrate on writing a new book?  If Donald Trump gets elected as President of the United States, should I move to Canada?

Those are Saint Marty's burning questions.  Now, where's the burning bush?

The Burning Bush

by:  Jericho Brown

Lizard’s shade turned torch, what thorns I bore
Nomadic shepherds clipped. Still,
I’ve stood, a soldier listening for the word,
Attack, a prophet praying any ember be spoken
Through me in this desert full of fugitives.
Now, I have a voice. Entered, I am lit. 
Remember me for this sprouting fire,
For the lash of flaming tongues that lick
But do not swallow my leaves, my flimsy
Branches. No ash behind, I burn to bloom. 
I am not consumed. I am not consumed.

Hello, God.  It's me, Saint Marty.

July 15: Being a Dad, Jericho Brown, "Prayer of the Backhanded"

Being a dad is not an easy job.  I always worry that I'm not doing enough.  Not earning enough money to give my family the things they need.  There's still a hole in my kitchen ceiling.  My 15-year-old daughter is still sharing a bedroom with her seven-year-old brother.  My wife needs a new pair of shoes.  The list goes on and on.

I can't afford to take my kids on vacations to Disney World or Harry Potter World.  I would love to take my wife on a trip to Italy, visit Rome, see the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi.  I have not made life choices that make these things possible, and it bothers me sometimes.  I think of it as father guilt.

My dad is a hard guy.  Not very emotionally available.  I've always known that he is proud of my accomplishments, but I've never felt like I could go to him for advice about anything beyond a leaky faucet or backed-up sewer.  That's just the way he's always been.  I can't ask an eighty-something-year-old man to change.  (He never spared the rod, either.  That's the way he was brought up.  His dad, my grandpa, once got mad at a cow on his farm and grabbed its horn, twisting it until it bent sideways.  The cow shuddered and moaned for days.)

Yes, fatherhood is a tough occupation.  (So is motherhood.  I'm in no way trying to diminish mothers with this post.)  Jericho Brown knows a thing or two about tough fathers.

However, Saint Marty is not a tough dad.  He's more of a teenage girl.

Prayer of the Backhanded

by:  Jericho Brown

Not the palm, not the pear tree
Switch, not the broomstick,
Nor the closet extension
Cord, not his braided belt, but God,
Bless the back of my daddy’s hand
Which, holding nothing tightly
Against me and not wrapped
In leather, eliminated the air
Between itself and my cheek.
Make full this dimpled cheek
Unworthy of its unfisted print
And forgive my forgetting
The love of a hand
Hungry for reflex, a hand that took
No thought of its target
Like hail from a blind sky,
Involuntary, fast, but brutal
In its bruising. Father, I bear the bridge
Of what might have been
A broken nose. I lift to you
What was a busted lip. Bless
The boy who believes
His best beatings lack
Intention, the mark of the beast.
Bring back to life the son
Who glories in the sin
Of immediacy, calling it love.
God, save the man whose arm
Like an angel’s invisible wing
May fly backward in fury
Whether or not his son stands near.
Help me hold in place my blazing jaw
As I think to say, excuse me.

July 14: Marianas Trench, Jericho Brown, "Herman Finley"

Okay, I am a little down tonight.  I am going to wallow for a few hours.  Actually, I've been wallowing since about 6 p.m.  That's five hours and counting.  You will have to excuse me this evening, Constant Readers.  I have been drinking a little, and the night is stretching out before me like the Marianas Trench, full of blackness and weird oceanic danger.

Jericho Brown's poem, which I thought was going to be a wallowing poem, sort of turns out in the end to be life-affirming.  Not what I was expecting.  I thought it was going to be a little more Emily Dickinsonian (I know that isn't really a word, but I like it).  Instead, it's more like It's a Wonderful Life, without the angels and ringing bells.

Saint Marty promises that he isn't going to try to jump off any bridges tonight.

Herman Finley

by:  Jericho Brown

I didn't tell you that, in the end, he begged

For the end.  Death like the bed after

The bedtime story.  Death like a widening

Crack of light beneath the door. 

He begged them to let him

Go so he could go.  Said I want

To die.  Then said kill me.  Please. 

You and I endure that first pain.  

We just want to die.  People with that

Other ultimately physical agony say

Kill me and know they won't discuss it

In therapy.  Kill me.  I’m thinking

Of him today because I want to die

And I am ashamed to say it.  My thinking

Is red and sticky.  Rather than kill me,

I'd like you to listen as I live

In a perpetual whine.  Can’t I still be

Somebody’s baby?  Say yes for yourself.

Call me some time.  Every day I wish to die,

Remind me how he insisted.

Kill me.  And I’ll live again.

Even Death is in a good mood!

July 11: Messed Up Place, Poet of the Week, Jericho Brown, "Dear Dr. Frankenstein"

The world is kind of a messed up place right now, if you haven't noticed.  Police officers are getting shot in the streets of Dallas.  A reality TV star is going to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States.  Two Broke Girls is still on TV.  Isis.  Terror threats.  Body parts washing up on the beaches in Rio where the Summer Olympics are scheduled to begin in less than a month.

It takes a poet, sometimes, to make sense of senseless situations.  Jericho Brown is my choice for Poet of the Week.  He was also recently Rita Dove's pick as one of the poets under 40 to watch.  Brown writes about race and sexuality and gender.  He's as concerned about our messed up world as I am.

Sometimes, Saint Marty thinks that God just shakes His head at the world and thinks, "I could have done better."  Just ask Jericho Brown.

Dear Dr. Frankenstein

by:  Jericho Brown

I, too, know the science of building men

Out of fragments in little light

Where I'll be damned if lightning don't

Strike as I forget one 

May have a thief's thumb,

Another, a murderer's arm,

And watch the men I've made leave

Like an idea I meant to write down, 

Like a vehicle stuck

In reverse, like the monster

God came to know the moment 

Adam named animals and claimed 

Eve, turning from heaven to her

As if she was his

To run. No word he said could be tamed.

No science. No design. Nothing taken 

Gently into his hand or your hand or mine, 

Nothing we erect is our own.