Lollie hesitated, looking up and down there street. She hadn't been in an awful lot of bars in her life, and this one didn't look particularly inviting.
An old beer parlour, she decided, looking up at the façade. Improved at some point, then let go downhill again, when business failed to pick up.
But the name and the address matched those on the mauve slip of paper in her hand. And it was cold outside, the October winds pushing a few leaves around. Lollie swung the door open.
That's the beginning of The Tavern of Lost Souls. Four poets meet at midnight, at the dark of the moon each month, and answer, in poetic form, a nonsense question.
It's been thoroughly rejected everywhere and is probably unpublishable. But I like it. There's some damn fine poems in the book, lying hidden like yesterday's french fry under a tavern table.
There are lots of love poems, but my favorite are the religious poems. Here are a few.
Should the Tavern Open When the Poets Need It?
Pounding the
gates of Paradise
I fled some inner Hell
All the answer I got was a ride
On God’s stupid carousel
Looking for some bit of truth
One tiny, warming sign
I found tracks upon the world
But they, of course, were mine
The Old Fart might have spoken
In voices of wise old men
But all I saw was flesh
That turned to dust again
So again around the carousel
Sing songs against the skies
And raise a glass to those who chase
God’s tawdry tinsel prize.
Alf
How Do People Ever Get together?
"That
about does it for locusts and wild honey,"
Said John the Baptist, sitting on a desert rock
Watching JC vanish over the hills;
"I guess I’ve got to figure out what to do
Now that the Big Deed’s done."
"I’m a beer and salami kind of guy, actually
Maybe I’ll get a condo by the sea
Marry a dancing girl – I always liked dancing girls
And raise some kids
Take my word as a prophet
Find someone
Life is short and not even a prophet knows
What lies ahead.
Alf
Is There a God?
I came
across Odysseus out in a field
By the edge of an open grave
Drunk and loud
Stomping on grasshoppers
And crying
(He always was a sensitive man)
Well, I asked, and he roared,
"Gods! You have no gods
In your bloody cold country!"
I offered to show him channel 27
On weekdays on the one-eyed Cyclops
Or find Gzowski on a Sunday morning,
Where sounds come from the air
But he would not be comforted
"Fuck you," he ranted at the sky
Positively begging for thunderbolts
Or even a small rain.
It was a brave performance from an old man;
He got my sympathy, and the lovely sweet song
Of a meadowlark bravely singing over the grave
Of all his dreams, fears, and hiccups.
Alf
Is There a God?
(song)
Bless the good guys and the cowards
Heroes, hookers, and them all
In the cancer ward we answer
Lord God's cattle call
chorus
And the humpin' and the dyin'
They're just part of the song
They're just God's way of sayin'
Git along, little dogies, get along
I saw my old friend Arnie
Just recovering from the knife
In the cancer ward at Western
And he asked me, What is life?
So I told him the good lies
Things about God and plans and pain
Then I went out the big glass doors
To a cold November rain
I drove home behind a truck
Full of cattle, and I thought
Arnie, you tried for freedom
Hey, universe, thanks a lot
So bless the good guys and the cowards
Heroes, hookers, and them all
The whisper of a needle is just
Lord God's cattle call
Calhoun
Does God Care?
Every
evening God opens a fold-down desk
(Before She pulls her comforter over Her head
And sleeps the sleep of the damned)
And writes the whole events of the day
In a radiant book.
It helps to keep her warm.
Lucifer, you see, stole Light
And scattered Her power
Across the gray planet.
God cannot be caught, but
If you’re quick, you can see Her
In the strange reflection from a wine bottle
If it is topped with a half-burned candle and if
It is full of tears.
Lollie
Should We Search for Meaning?
I stumbled
to the camplight, towards the music that
Filled the forest, a black dog gripped, long-fanged
To my thigh. On my shoulder a crow wiped his beak and
Guilt on my hairless head.
Upon the stage the music wavers now; bluegrass turning
Bad. The audience is gone and half the strings are broke,
The players tired, not knowing when the show should end.
In a tree, a figure blocks the starlight, eyes reflecting gold.
They say he has the program, rulebook, and scales
But no-one’s ever got him to come down.
Had I a kazoo, I would play Amazing Grace
But for the dog, I would climb the tree
Had I the schedule, we could all go home.
Alf
Is the Kitchen Life?
Jesus,
entering Martha’s house
Would not to into the kitchen
Where sunlight flowed willing onto
Bread from the fiery pit
Wine transformed from grapes
Knives piercing limbs of lambs
A table nailed together from old wood.
He healed the sick
Raised the dead
Argued with the devil
But
Would not go into the kitchen.
Alf
What is Beauty?
He
remembered each spring of
His childhood, and the way
The wild mustard flowers covered slopes
That rolled like waves of sunlight
Down to the bay.
After the flowers, there was the road
Dry, and hard, through the desert
Past the temple
To the hill.
He could easily see eternity from the hill
But it was spring, and
He strained, trying to see if
He’d left even the faintest trail
Through the wild mustard.
Alf
Why are There Shadows?
I knew a
woman once;
No side of her leaned
Into darkness
She wandered the olive groves, but found
Only shade
And tried many supermarkets but
Still no shadow
We told her she must be pure
And that an immaculate conception
Was a definite possibility, but
"What will happen if God comes?" she asked
"How will I know which way to look?"
Eventually, certain God could not see her
She married a man whose soul was
Like the underside of a log.
Then she was much happier.
When he was drinking his morning coffee
She had only to turn away
To look toward God.
Lollie
What Medicine Do I Need?
The fourth
horseman offered me
A selection of fine Nazareth cheeses and
A flagon of God’s mercy
I sliced the cheeses but poured the liquid
Red as blood onto the soil of Palestine
From out the sand the dried hands of Judas
Clawed the brittle air a moment
Trying to catch a bit
I hope he found enough to wet his splintered lips
"He was my brother," I told the tired horseman
Handing the jar back
"But
Please tell God we thank him for the cheeses.
Alf
How Can I Become Rich?
In the
crystalline minutes before midnight
I was crawling along the west wall of
St. Grotesque of the Subway's basement
My hands feeling for hidden panels
Loose tiles for carefully-hidden keyholes
A priest, flashlight wavering
Knelt beside me, startling
My seeker heart
"I've figured it out," I told him
"There's a passageway here, somewhere
It goes through God's orifice, and out
His muzzle to streets of gold
Pearly gates, platinum wings.
The carpenter's son was devious, but
I've figured the code."
He turned off the flashlight, sat down.
"Go ahead," he said. "It might work.
God knows, nothing else has."
Calhoun