Rodak's Writings: ...from Whom all Blessings Flow

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…from Whom all Blessings Flow

I’ve been too easy

on myself

and on you

and on your world.

I’ve wished you a river

and I’ve let you skate.

And that river flows

and it burns --

its primordial wetness

mocked by tongues

of dancing blue flame,

as if a bad dream

set free to consume

all that yearns

for a simple peace.

See? you say –

It’s a fucking miracle!

Praise Him!

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Reflections: At Nadir

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I find this election season to be totally demoralizing. The followings of the two candidates who will oppose each other in the general election are absolutely cultic in their devotions. This devotion has almost nothing to do with these candidates' histories or political policy positions; it's all grounded in a hero worship that totally ignores their glaringly dangerous flaws. Both of them are equally lethal to American democracy and any hope for world peace. I grieve for my country. We are at nadir.
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Rodak's Writings: Cruel and Inhuman - a poem

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Cruel and Inhuman

The present is tortured

by confinement

in the cold dank cell

of solitary recollection.

An isolated memory grows fangs --

it gnaws at its own wrist.

Upon the whetstone

of lonely despair

it hones a blade

fashioned from the scattered

scree of the fractured past --

for it longs to free

its dispirited blood

from the circling tunnels

of incessant remembrance.

It yearns for reunion

with a partnered past,

so to share once again

what was once shared as new --

to dwell in the present

with no fear of the coming hour,

no fear of tomorrow --

every memory reborn a blessing.

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Rodak's Writings: Why Servetus Had to Die ~ an oldie

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Why Servetus Had to Die

“Goddamned reprobate!” Pappy Cal hollers, huffing,

pumping like a preacher, chasing the speckled hen back

towards a damp afternoon in the sweltering tarpaper coop.

Thus is inaugurated the Twelfth Kansas Revival.

Up the hill, in the big house, stacks of saucers

rest dust-free in the gleaming oak breakfront,

their cups, hanging up above on brass hooks,

shiver like silent ranks of martyred heretics.

The saucers wait impatiently for the science fiction fad

that will make headlines of their humble designation,

while Bartholomew -- the one we dubbed “Weasel” -- regards

his broken cap gun and his dead hamster with nostalgic

empathy, and stoically returns to composing his memoir.

But no, that’s too easy. Those saucers wait to be dropped

or thrown -- broken -- for the release of their voices;

for their kiln-hardened bitterness at long last to be spoken;

edgy and cutting; musical, strident, impassioned, verboten.

This was all material for a novel never written

by a woman named Robinson, though its composition

was predestined according to sometimes reliable

communicants of Welch’s and Wonder Bread,

at least one of whom was the humble possessor

of an alliteratively tolling Doctor of Divinity degree.

But that was in Idaho, not this flat Kansan Oz

peopled by Munchkins in faded bib overhauls;

not this Ozian Kansas plagued by farmers that fly. 

And returning we see Cal has choked that poor chicken,

unable to shove it back in where the eggs all lay nested.

That persnickety hen, although wings were provided,

refused finally to flap them, to soar towards safety.

Thus did she die: a victim of scruples; sacrificed to her pride.

Pappy Cal we now see flinging saucers at Bartholomew,

for the Weasel prefers to make cryptic hen scratches

in his little red notebook -- his stiff pet there for company --

than to scratch in the dust, so to sweat out a livelihood.

The Weasel might well have had Robinson’s sympathy --

but son, this ain’t Idaho. So, Bartholomew tucked and he

squealed as he rolled away, while a flying saucer chorus

in their pieces and shards took up counterpoint harmonies.

After sundown the porcelain was swept up and discarded.

We had a fine supper of roast chicken with gravy.  

We then sat in silence and listened most solemnly

while Bartholomew read from his Renaissance diary.

Duty done, Pappy Cal snored like Noah in his library.

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Rodak's Writings: Mad John ~ an oldie

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mad john  

from insanity yes

but by virtuosity

or faith

we earn no grace

it comes of chaos

is born of catastrophe

like a grassfire at midnight

creating a simple desert

grace descends

as a fumbled penny

and rolls ten feet

to rest on edge—a miracle

no less

and no cameraman present

paradise lost

as one hour later

with the feat attempted

one hundred times

and failed ninety-nine

a crowd gathers to hoot

the madman

pocketing his penny: vide

mad john

the wings of locusts

making a rainbow fan

of his honey-soaked beard

clawing in fury at

jehovah’s mask

uncut hair lashing

at his naked waist

disclosing with a single note

the desert’s secret: fire!

he screams: fire!

and at the river’s bank

receiving a simple prophet’s privilege:

after my bath john

you may see to my shoes…

and it’s duck! boys, hit it!

who saw it dive?

a kamikaze pigeon!

it is miracle enough

enough of a sign: here is a man

who has known the madness

of a simple grace

who spits out upon leaving

a leg bent for leaping

with a four-letter oath:

fire! and turns to the desert

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Rodak's Writings: Pragmatics - a poem

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Pragmatics

Give your hideous honesty a rest:

lie to me.

What have I ever done to you,

or to anyone on this earth,

that I deserve to be

goosed by the truth?

Truth is for convicted felons

and sunbaked ascetics.

What I need is soft lies,

reciprocal eyes,

and the oceanic tang

of chowder upon the lilt

of my contented tongue.

Please lose the problematic verity:

take care instead to do what works.

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Rodak's Writings: Reflections of a Wall-gazer ~ an oldie

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reflections of a wall-gazer

my walls, my ceilings

are white for purity of life-style

and here beneath my feet

the floorboards are black

the flavor of death

which has no color

these boards which support

me now a membrane

between this moment and the abyss

beyond this room:

foundation for the walls

which are my context

i am supported, i am sheltered

thus immured

i exist

______________________

and there on the wall

grotesque icon

glaring in the heat

of one naked electric flame

one hundred-fifty watts

of unmitigated proof: the mirror

relentless merciless

infinite -- timelessly truthful

say these cellular eyes

_______________________

but behold the mind, the dream

admitting the term -- the soul:

there is a funhouse reflection

a non-stop flight

unexpurgated passport

bon voyage, my blue-eyed boy --

never stop to question now

o, who is fairest

of them all

every mirror is another wall

every crack in the flooring

is the boundary of another

crisis of identity:

ticky-tock, all light’s a clock

________________________

in existential limbo sometimes

i think i’m a cheeseburger

often a television, a lucky strike

a ready woman

less frequently a symphony

a breath of air, a field of wheat

gone copper with the evening sun

o, when will i at last

confront the face of something holy

happy gleaming from the wall

think i’m a window

and fly out the door

pursuing with the speed of light

the swift-heeled shadow

of something left sitting

within wall ceiling and floor

?

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Rodak's Writings: Unpleasant Reminder ~ an oldie

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unpleasant reminder

yes, i know…

you are a seeker of ecstasies

a lover of beatific, transporting visions

a solitary wanderer of fragrant fields

you worship love in the cathedral of the pines

a service orchestrated by the genius of songbirds

a sanctuary lighted by colors

reflected from the robes of god

and scented by the garden breath

of the east wind out of eden

these things you love to touch

becoming one with their reality

you open your hands

and your palms fill with butterflies

fanning your hot lips with their beautiful wings

or you hold in your hand a hummingbird

knowing a breathless epiphany

with every flutter of its fragile heart

these things you touch

knowing yourself to be of their essence

your astral fingers remember virgin eve’s every shape

as adam learned them in eternity

see the imprint still in the grass

where she bore the innocent weight

of his fall to earthly grace

oh yes, you are a sensitive and free

child of nature, god’s holy mirror

as you unfold your soul and spread it on your knees

to reveal yourself in its perfect reflection…

…yes, but there is much

that you choose to overlook

behold the creature that scurries in darkness

recoil as it streaks across your feet

its black bristles rigid with fear

see how it sits, quivering with dark impulse

within the shadowed ring of its scaly, naked tail

showing the yellow blades of its necrophagous teeth

its gloom-piercing eyes gleaming

with a wisdom you wish not to comprehend

behold this night-stalking familiar

of the dwelling place of man

as you sit down to the feast

know that it waits impatiently in your cellar

possessed of an undying will

that is the lust to satisfy its beastly hunger

can you see through your dream’s dark dimension

the claw marks in the dust beneath your bed

or in your slumber hear the hissing in your walls

as you await the dawn with your love in your arms

and your heaving breast filled

with the fragrance of lilacs?

dreamer, would you be free?

it is the rat you have yet to embrace

would you know yourself?

it is the rat you must yet learn to love

only then will your mirror hold a true image

only then will you feel the kiss of god…

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Rodak's Writings: Amnesiac -- an oldie

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amnesiac

i wasn’t paying attention

obliviously sucked down

through the opaque narcotic

of a quicksand ennui --

The sky had ripped off a page

and begun a new chapter…

i awoke in my heavy boots

staring at an empty palm

no grip on the plot line

that must have hoisted me here

amnesiac: i have lost

the gypsy poet’s number

i hear a voice

tossed back by the wind

who shall i say is calling?

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Rodak's Writings: And There's the Rub - a poem

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And There’s the Rub

This world, without me –

unimaginable.

So as I reach for the gun

my yet unshattered brain

confronts my desolate mind with –

“Oh, sure. And then what?”

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Rodak's Writings: The beach by/ego light ~ an oldie

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the beach by/ego light

i’m writing

                the beach

clean and free

of human leavings

                      coloring

the polished sand

from a limited palette

   --pinks and opaline-gray.

the evening sky

     contracts

becoming a fisherman’s lantern.

i  too am there

   my shadow falls across the sand

   drowns

   in a shattered light

where foam and stone prolong each other.

the moon

blasting stars with her stolen starlight

the earth

hiding half of all that’s whole

while i bead the planets    like words    on a line.

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Rodak's Writings: Poem -- a repost

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your song i sing

down by the sea this last summer day

the sun shining sidewise on a tropical slide

foam stiffens and dries in the air

leaving a golden shell of salt and sand

which we shed like insects with minute contractions

of invisible muscles as we mount the stark dunes

neglected expanse of widows abandoned

in loneliness mounded rolling nude in the wind

crossing the highway out to the meadows

parched summer grasses the color of hair

marching through a stand of cronish oaks

with shriveled breasts

whose fingers implore release of the sky

cupping the wind in skeletal palms

their hearts exploding yet in verdant gore

here is there nothing so human as myself

as i have him lead me

the weight of my flesh rubbing warming me inward

my hair in the sky we ascend to the hills

i strive with the trees but i dream of the sea

where all is crisp with death i moisten

such is my womanhood’s power to life

from the shore to the hill

i let him speak like a stranger

imploring demanding waxing and waning

he sweeps through the seasons

now a wind now a whimper

i let him go on let him frost thaw and bluster

from march to august to april again

until i’ve heard quite enough i have come to season

now i touch him just once and he pops like a blowfish

all spine and taut flesh straining and staring

a fish out of water gone apoplectic in an alien weather

…the distant highway is a ribbon

around a bundle of hills

it winds its way down to a toy city

and a darkened room

where the cat stalks her boredom

in a frame on the mantel

my image resides

frozen in another life

beside my bed in little bottles

resembling crystal

liquid musk gleams golden

behind foreign words

suggestive of passion

the room is full of secret moments

which do not concern me now…

in plain view of the city i stretch make myself naked

and i pull him down to me providing a sea

now and swimming him through me

he acts like a stranger imploring demanding

now waxing now waning a wind and a whimper

frost thaw and bluster i let him go on

and the breeze rises harshly

drowning his babbling voice in my ear

as i gaze on the sky to avoid the distraction

of the bobbing and gobbling

as caught in a frenzy like a fish in a net

he withdraws charges blindly again and again

for the sea is a drug is a strong anesthetic

i can draw his blood freely feel it flow hot and slimy

and deftly my fingers are tracing my portrait

in red sticky liquid on the flesh of his shoulders

as i fathom the milky blind eye of the sky

and i am a tide rising gripping a monolith

set on the beach as an object of worship

by some ancient race as old as the shore

a tide like a hand gripping sliding releasing

muscular sinewy fingers of wavelets

pumping hard toward a peak of delicious fatigue

wave upon wave sliding sucking to swallow

the shaft of that rock in the depths of the sea

wave upon wave of salt spray and suction

rising and heaving and straining and yearning

until for a long moment the sea is contracting

and pulsing and swirling and i’m seeing my image

flashing and burning across the swift clouds

that are boiling and churning

in the smothering winds that scream

and then sigh

and lost in the distance something frantically pulsing

is pumping and toiling to urgently offer

but a spurt to my boundless my infinite measure

…freed from myself

i turn back now to him

but release has brought calm

to the rage of the maelstrom

he just soaks away

through the hair of the grasses…

far away my cat stretches tries her claws on the rug

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