Blind Faith
by Joan Pond
I look for a sign.
If I could see His footprints,
or some honest to God relics,
like a lock of His hair
or the ring He wore.
If the LaBrae Tar pit were filled
with haloes and harps
perhaps,
I could believe.
If there was a place like Graceland
where I could
touch His bathrobe and bedroom slippers,
Then,
my faith
wouldn”t have to be
so blind.
***
will I sit later in the coffee shop
are you sitting there
is that you over there
at that table
reading words on the screen
with your backpack beside you
are you on your Iphone
will your finger touch
this word
or this word as we scroll
wheee I roll by
wheee you scroll me the other way
I slide by like there are
tiny bearings under me
I look around
I like the case
looks a lot like mine
nice outfit
looks good
this thing has a good camera
I can see you
are a new visitor
and chances are you will spend
twenty three point seven seconds
and will leave this page
I am that old man
near the window
watching the birds
in the parking lot
and feeling
lost
the birds pause on the
back of a chair
one looks my way
I type these words
your finger scrolls the birds
into view
david michael jackson
Where
by Marilyn McIntyre
Where?
are poems alive
upon the page
do words have meaning
does the music sing
when no one hears
am i alive when i’m alone
does my breath soar
and reach another’s dreams
will God hear me
can i feel with no other
to give me bounds
and where do my feelings fly
in the night
mysterious and dark and calling
if my eyes cannot see
is it so
and the candle
what of the candle
will it still glow
without tender whispered murmurs
where will my love touch down
must it float forever
meandering among the stars
where does it all go
where does it go
when it’s gone?
***
First published here on: Jan 6, 2005 @ 16:24
Angel Whispers
by Marilyn McIntyre
Angel Whispers
the time is upon us
rest, rest
clouds of snow
drift gently down
rest, rest
violin, serene
words alone
thoughts untangle
time solely owned
rest, rest
sing to your heart
wordlessly murmur
lullabies and time
to rest, to rest
womb and warmth
rockabye, rockabye
shush, hush, dream
to rest, to rest
listen, feel, fly
the angels whisper
rustle, ascend
rest, rest.
***
Published on: Jan 6, 2005 @ 16:22
Einsteinium
Janet Kuypers
from the “ Periodic Table of Poetry” series
Einstein understood
that everything was relative…
Why did he have to worry
about brushing his hair
or changing out of his pajamas
when he was busy grappling
with the foundations of phyics?
And once he fathomed
the relationship
between matter and energy,
once he understood
the interconnectivity
between matter and energy —
he suddenly understood,
after this Jewish physicist
left his home in Germany,
that Hitler and the Third Reich
could be working on an atomic bomb,
converting so little matter
into so much devastating energy.
At this time, he understood
the need for Roosevelt
to create this weapon
so the Germans wouldn’t destroy us.
The gravity of this discovery
in the hands of evil men
weighed him down,
and even months
before he died,
Einstein wrote
that although the devastation
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
seemed unfathomably horrific
and he regretted writing
that letter to Roosevelt,
his justification
was the threat of Germany.
When he wrote that letter,
he still had to appeal to Roosevelt,
that yes, to save us from Germany,
this weapon needed to be created.
Knowing about his torment
in making this decision
to ask for the creation
of the atomic bomb,
makes it so ironically beautiful
that after scientists
discovered an element
after the first explosion
of the hydrogen bomb,
they named the element Einsteinium
after the physicist.
How
ironically
beautiful.
Einsteinium is a silvery-white,
radioactive, synthetic element
with a high fission rate,
like the atomic bombs
Einstein first knew of
when fearing his homeland enemy.
But because of the short half-life
of all isotopes of Einsteinium,
all primordial Einsteinium
has decayed by now,
and beyond it’s nuclear creation,
there is almost no use
for any isotope of Einsteinium
outside of basic scientific research…
Which makes me think of the
life of Albert Einstein, I suppose,
for although Einstein worked
at odd jobs for years
until he was a patent examiner,
his mind was only good at one thing:
doing not-so-basic scientific research,
solving scientific fundamental puzzles,
if only he had the time
to study the puzzle long enough.
