Road Trip

Keeping it buried

in a book

has come to mean clean,

nose to the grindstone should I slip

and forget gathering gas

to bring him home from jail.

Four hour ride to tell

we're vegetarian now,

Mama might grow her hair grey.

I'll say ,"Yes, I'm still preaching Sundays.

No one's embarrassed.

We sold the furniture,

hoping to be gone

before long."

I don't mind lifting my pen,

it's my sights that get blinded

by the windshield sun.

Cloud of Praise

God is the only One

who's heard it all before,

every whisper tone tenor

in every Georgia juke joint

joining the jumble of julip glasses

and pay day smiles,

every under the breath grunt

of the pineboard piano player

counting his honeys and black worn keys,

the vocalisms of a fronting throat singer

that may have been golden or silver in youth

but has bronzed and brassed

with the crowds applause

or indifference.

"Why's the devil got all the good music?"

is the revivalist organist's accelerando.

"Well, he don't actually," is what God says

from the back corner booth

everything that has breath hanging on His 

every word. Rackety crickets pop

outside the window, crispy flying things

fry in zapper blowing under the porch awning.

Willow leaves whistle in their own night, 

nightingales prove the point in their black eyes

is a star from the far side of a cymbal ride

that has even the lamest feet tapping.

You want glory realized?

Trace the walking bass

to the blindless place in your heart

and the all seeing skirts of the dancers

that raise up the dust we came from

in a cloud of praise.