POEM - Lunch in a Cemetery

There is nothing quite so remote as the
Toothsome grin of a cemetery:
A sober composition of marble
And galloping grades of sloping green swaths

Of the hard single point perspective that
Only a headstone can place at your feet.
Sometimes I wander in to eat my lunch
Amid lush reverence, amid the blessed

Solitude, swarmed by distant bereavement.
The air encircles my earlobes like a
Seashell whispering the ocean’s secrets
To me. There is nothing so snug as the

Envelopic tuck a cemetery
Provides - grassy blankets wrapping well thought
Out plans so full of pebbled details, the
Black skies, filled with each starry promise

Ever made throughout a vibrant life.
Each person, limp like a shawl tossed over
Slumping rounded shoulders, fully resigned.
Leaving what remains of many names, free

To roam, just as I do, and just as fearful -
Just as concerned for purpose and meaning,
Even while wandering in this hallowed
And hollow state, even as pure spirit!

What is left, here beneath the green blankets
Dressed up and fussed over with greatest love,
Here at my feet is just an early spring;
A bonfire of burning debris and grass,

Raked into little piles like headstones
Turned into ash, caught by air, it floats off.

M C Biegner
3/27/2006

POEM - Surfaces

Which are the rocks
I must turn over
If I am to find a life

Frothy with intent?
Which packed dirt trails
Must I explore,

Wrestle to the ground
To make my way?
All my living

Seems an expansive
Stretch – some
Manifest destiny

Of a soul’s right
To always be more
Than what it has a right to –

The returned quiet
From all my questions
Is God’s voice to me.

Just below surfaces
Where no one ever looks
Is where things get lost

And where I get found
among things that await discovery
Which are the rocks




.

POEM - Cancer, The Rounder

The hands of the cancer place you between callus palms.
It spins you around like rolling a pencil
Just to see where you point and how you end up.
The hope just dribbles out leaving you empty.

It spins you around like rolling a pencil,
Like Abraham hauling up the bulk of his faith
The hope just dribbles out leaving you empty
A hoisted promise onto the altar – poised for intervention.

Like Abraham hauling up the bulk of his faith
Before a God who demands a pound of flesh
A hoisted promise onto the altar – poised for intervention
Wanting proof but maybe just a breast will do.

Before a God who demands a pound of flesh
Dealing fear like fingered poker chips
Wanting proof but maybe just a breast will do.
The great secret held to the vest: minimize all loss.

Dealing fear like fingered poker chips
Wear the poker face cancer asks of you
The great secret held to the vest: minimize all loss.
Cancer – the great rounder – seeks only one hand with you.

Wear the poker face cancer asks of you
There is no sucker bet and you are no easy mark
Cancer – the great rounder – seeks only one hand with you.
Taking what the river gives with no sign of “the tell”.

There is no sucker bet and you are no easy mark
Made dizzy by the chemo and heavy wagering
Taking what the river gives with no sign of “the tell”
The hands of the cancer place you between callus palms.


M C Biegner3/16/2006

POEM - When I Gave You The Sweet

When I gave you the sweet
The face that you made,
When I gave you the sweet
It gave you away.
The red foil paper like
Color that shoots from
A flare gun against dark -
Edged hospital corners
That lovingly held
Each candy - the red cross
Ribbon that promised
A great rescue, draping
When cut, like flaccid
Arms with not one muscle -
Loose and looking like spilled
Blood - quiet, forceful
A mask of violent
Morning that you wore
Beneath your shadowed eyes -

When you woke -
When i left you
With just the bitter

Flavor.

M C Biegner