The Feast of Stephen
•12.27.09 • 1 CommentTHE FEAST OF STEPHEN
January is lonely—
And the difficulties
Wrap themselves anew
Round your legs once more—
Gone the few short days of
Belief strung like lights
From the eaves of Faith—
The warmth of anticipation—
The arms of joy to comfort—
The breathlessness of waiting—
And waiting for the coming—
For the borning of the new again—
In a child who is God—from the
Mother who first said Yes before
She had even seen His face.
December 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Lonely In God
•12.16.09 • Leave a CommentLONELY IN GOD
Lonely—lonely in God—and
This fractured economy is the
Best diet there is—will these
Times even be remembered?—
We will eat lower on the food
Chain—the crib on the altar now
Is empty and waiting—we await
Its filling with the Divine food—
She placed him in a manger—
Manger: to eat—ten more days—
The children pull open the doors on
The Advent calendar of days—ten
More—nine more till the eve of—
We wait—in this month of December
In 2009—going to numerology—it’s
Been a 2 year, the witch tells us—
Duality: yours/mine—all that we
Have is vulnerable—not to loss but
To wanting it, claiming it all the more—
It’s mine!—so I squandered my gifts—
On wasteful calories and stand at this
Altar empty-hearted and empty-handed—
Here, at this altar—in this sacred space.
December 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Adventus
•12.16.09 • Leave a CommentADVENTUS
—for FTM
Guess who’s coming—guess—guess
Who—who’s coming to dinner—whose
Presence will bless our still-standing
Crib and sprinkle with renewal waters the
Droplets of our new baptism—guess—guess
Who—might as well with our joy be the Baptizer
Himself—guess who’s coming—guess who—
Mary will serve—my Magdalene—on our
Finest china—or should it be simpler than
That—she’ll need Martha’s trained eye,
Her now-restful hands—what time will that
Lazarus go to bed?—we will need the mouths
To open and help sing Hosea—guest, you are
Welcome here—long have I waited for your coming—
Stay with us a while and bless the table—it will be
The new year—so bless that, too—we await our
Dinner guest—the seat of honor is yours, Priest—
Welcome—welcome to our home.
December 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Decembering
•12.12.09 • Leave a CommentDECEMBERING
The church was a bog—the shadows always
Decembering—and like December—fogged
In and revived by only Debussy—the walls
Shadowed and spoke of all they had seen:
Yes, endings, and beginnings—too soon
Endings and too late beginnings—the
Crèche life-size and coming to you in
April dreams when spring threatened
At the reenactment of the Passion. The
Students were ushered in—boys on this
Side, girls on that—though the garb
Modified, the legs visible—the sandals
The sandals of hippies and protestors—
That young nun could do more with a
Guitar.
December 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Lunch At Flannery O’Connor’s
•12.07.09 • Leave a CommentLUNCH AT FLANNERY O’CONNOR’S
Smiling—smiling and impish—wave upon wave of
My pentecostal locks were no defense against the
Growing terror—toes curled in revulsion, awakening
In cold urine to a scolding—sheets I’d just as soon had
Been my winding sheets coiled in a corner awaiting,
Like me, a bath—Grandma would have had them
Washed in vinegar and baking soda by now and
Hanging like Howdy (I gave him a proper funeral)
On the line—they smelled sweeter that way—that
Was the year of Saigon and red-headed evil—and freckles—
Captured on a photo of the season: Christmas 1974.
I wasn’t old enough to imagine a meal of cold
Lima beans eaten with onion spoons and crumbled
With cornbread—lunch at Andalusia—a cold Co-Cola, please.
I recall Vicks Vapo Rub and peacock turds—I was warned of
The Arcadian attacks—Dagobert, the slain, knew the same—
The peckpecking at the eyes—they should have warned me
Of clown terrors, alarmed that I exhaled and sighed as I did—
I was a soufflé, a breath of mint to some—sand in scrambled
Eggs were my mornings—and clowns in my hung-over coffee—
Clowns in my coffee.
Oil paintings on black velvet from Tijuana appeared
When a full decade and more they took away the
Portrait of the slain president from the wall in the
House on Sugar Pine Lane—and replaced it with
One of moonlight on ocean and rocks—you remember—
It hung above every gold velvet sofa and did little with
Its undertows to ease the terror of clown heads and
Midway music—send in the clowns—cool, watching,
Perverted eyes—watching, watching from behind the
Painted-on smile—until—send in the clowns—by the
Age of 6, I finally decided it was smarter to turn crazy.
Winter 1990
Dan Davis, (c) 2009
Caution
•11.27.09 • Leave a CommentCAUTION
Cautious they watch me,
Judgmental they view—
Who does he think he is?—
Drinking champagne, listening to jazz—
I read, once and so long ago—that uneased
Them—I existed like text to be read only
In page.
These many years later—glutton—
Avaricious among us—am guilty of
Any and all the seven sins—in heat,
Burning, burning—feel the fever from
The page—I am waiting, I am waiting—
Waiting for others to rise up from their
Own petty moments—they melt I am told
In the heat of your own brilliance—the best
Well-meaning words have to offer: they slap
My face. How—tell me—do puddles help me
Now?—a rotund monk—oblate, out of step
With this world, slipping in puddles—cassocked
In brown—a Jesuit heart, a Franciscan mind—
No community undergirding this fast fading Falstaff—
Cocktail, mixed, eye on the buffet: Faulkner—
The Call—closed in one hand—Morrison—
The Response—fisted in The Other—poetic
Language escaping my mouth full of Easter
Memories and Pentecost dreams washed
Down by champagne and numbed by chocolate.
Cautious, cautious I am viewed—I am—listening
To Coltrane and Hartman—smooth as hot-chocolate
Wishes with a brandy sidecar—Shirley Horn waiting
Breathless in the wings—so again—here’s to life—
Cigar burning like incense in a thrift-store ashtray,
Turquoise and kidney-shaped—baby hands holding
The literature which killed me—baby feet still
Smooth—calloused not even by warehouse
Work—feral with Desire—I am only here—
Falstaff fading fast—remembering the September
Garage—this is not a poem—these are the words
They will find.
I should like only just once to be unfevered—
Cold, like the forgetful foods in the freezer
In the garage—a refreshing bag of peas
A compress for my burning eyes—frost-bitten
Piece of flesh blackening the big toe in the fall—
The blissful dark of the garage, like the old
Confessionals, door closed against the chaos
Of the word, drawing in, drawing close to solitude
And contemplation—with jazz and champagne—
No need for a coffee—I’m buzzed enough—and
Piled at my feet—the literature which surely
Killed me.
Winter 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Day of Thanks
•11.25.09 • Leave a CommentDAY OF THANKS
The leaded crystal goblets holding water, wine—
The two o’clock bell summoning gourds into soup
Terrines, fanciful and fraught—the birds of the
Air free from hoarding and fretting—the celebration
Today with lace borders serves up the reminder:
You carry a bone, you bring a bone.
Autumn 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Little Master
•11.24.09 • Leave a CommentLITTLE MASTER
—for CMD
Little master, when I am gone, the gold rings on my fingers
Will be yours—I hope like clover they bring you luck.
We are only once men but twice boys.
You thought I was something— your hand in
Mine—your footstep in my stride—and now I
Hold your hand.
The cropped world of Mrs.—taut and nervous—
Allows no space for the unexamined chin scrape, the
Unexplained bruise on the shin—we must talk about it—
There are no paths for you, Hunter, Warrior—guided by
Mars against a world that has declared its war on you in
Rules—quiet!—in commands—be still—and judgments—don’t cry.
The nuns once corrected my bold barbarian cursive.
The lack of memory for it all—except for the fiery dance of victory
On the noonday field and the implicit understanding that the other team
Is not dancing—and in those faces without victory you recognize your
Own defeated twin—they don’t acknowledge that about you.
In the Forest Nod of Lancelot and Galahad you meet your own
Christ—and there gently pluck the rose and hold it soft to your cheek—
Firmly tame the lioness to obey—master, master—master yourself—
And, little man, be nothing like me.
Autumn 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009
Clay Jars
•11.21.09 • Leave a CommentCLAY JARS
An energy I never had—an eagerness read
as aggression—so I let it die by forgetting to
water it—and more than that, I stomped at
the roots and let the rain of tears drown out
dreams of ivy walls and campus malls—replaced
by sawdust floors in ragtime joints and peanut
shells thrown under the table that reeked of beer.
I didn’t dare imagine Rutgers or William and Mary
but thought I could get close—I took We don’t pay
for shit but we’re awfully nice as the only bridge from
worthless sheepskin to a vocation—eight to five but
more—sixty-five hour weeks and fingers now locked
with arthritis—eyes bleeding—I had only an electric
Smith-Corona and was the most advanced for it on
the block—at the dining room table February evenings
dissecting the evils of liberation theology—liberation:
freedom: how is evil freedom? I asked myself at sixteen—
where are the keys to the kingdom, to this blood and its
flesh?—freedom the goal, freedom arthritic fingers unfold
to like sleeping flowers to the sun—caress the crazing and
crackings caused by that ugly tenured Taurus in the china
shop—Paradise you always see from Hell once you admit
that we are only clay jars waiting to be stolen—again.
Autumn 2009
Dan Davis, © 2009

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