Category: Poetry

The Center Now Holds

The Center Now Holds

By Jane Tawel

April 1, 2019

I never had a center until now.

It took me many years to make

My center sometimes appear.

And now it often all a-sudden,

Shows up–

Solid, sure and unafraid.

 

It was sort of lurking long inside me,

Always a jiggly mess though;

Like a cake without a finished middle,

Still raw and sloshing left and right;

Unable to hold still enough for

Me to feel I even had

what other people easily used,

As nourishment or weaponry.

All my parts were always flying off in pieces.

 

Now sometimes I quietly sense in me

a firm center

Unbroken and unyielding.

But this annoys or terrifies you.

So many times, I  just sit quietly holding my center

While it holds me.

But while I hold myself in place,

And you stare blankly, wonderingly

At what you sense

 and is now un-hidden from even me,

I let you look at all the missing and shard-ed bits,

I once hurled your way.

And instead of pieces,

I often times feel peace.

My center now holds.

 

 

Eat Me — a long poem — by Jane Tawel

A “Warning” I guess:  The following long poem uses an extended metaphor of God eating those who desire to be truly consumed by something other than the current fast food philosophies and religions of our time. As poetry  often attempts, I am attempting to come at Truth from a plethora of various angles and side streets. In this way, some may relate  to readers and “catch” and some may not. Some may now, some may later. In addition, the length of this poem reflects the fact that eating, drinking, thirsting, and food are not only  important, perhaps the most important elements in any culture or human life but are  also used frequently and strongly as metaphor. Various Biblical writers and The Christ himself, use these metaphors, symbols, and even actually use food, wine, water, fasting and feasting as spiritual and religious disciplines and ways of living a truly and completely “Good” human life. God Himself uses food and drink in His own love offerings to us and as symbol and metaphor for our souls.  However, this poem is mostly about the facts that we have forgotten; that God also demands actual food and drink to others less fortunate, and the metaphoric subsistence of our souls in our required sacrifices to Him.

 

Eaten

By Jane Tawel

February 1 – March 15, 2019

 

The incremental decay of our belief

Festering by now

Bacteria-laden and rotten

At the bottom of the maggoty worship mount;

With all the slaves that Abraham left behind below;

While Abe and Isaac took the food and water with them;

Becoming themselves, holy Food

To be eaten by God.

 

As we offer the unholy, unwholesome sacrifices

Of our unearned bucks and gamey games, poached and rotting

On the idol-strewn pews, while we,

Rancid, perfumed meat praying next to our hunting guns,

gorge on pilfered blessings.

And while we bless our own bought bounty in the

 bistros of our imagined coziness with God —

–Judah and Ishmael wander in the wilderness,

Famished for meaning and manna.

As our corpses engorge themselves on the

More-ness of our filched American Idols,

The “ingodwetrust” religion of corporation-run focus groups

Feels angry and afraid that those hungry for righteousness

Stand outside our alarm-strewn kitchen windows looking in;

Making the bile of our chosen status rise up at the

Less-ness of their browned and stewing children.

When all we really ingodwetrust in, is the unbiblical belief

That pagans should not abort.

It is so easy to digest the unborn,

Never having to see their open maw-ed mouths,

Hungry for the least little lint lining our pockets.

The unborn are untested and untasting of

the confections of our capitalistic constitutions.

But we, pampered and as eyeless as new taters, deliver

 far too many chemically modified tots.

 

 

Our humanistic individually wrapped soul-food

worships the laden self-shelfs packed full and breaking under the burden of

too many, too much, too useless – our – us—

–Healthy-wealthy leftovers.

We have no other cause than

Refusing the aborted ones to follow

The Pie-ed Piper to Nirvana,

While the planet sags

Like a bag of rotting bananas

No-longer fit for consumption by even us devolving apes.

 

We now seek exile from a world we fumigated

One indulgence at a time,

While we stood by and witnessed to our own weight gain.

So empty are the containers of our hearts, that

 truly hungry exiled nations have to bomb us to get our attention;

Or be served up as appetizers teasing us in our slobbering anticipation

of an imagined heavenly meal, they aren’t invited to share.

Oh, the finger foods of Jesus’ hors d’oeuvres are now

Outside the work of our idle idolized own tastes.

 

And The World says daily, “Bite me”.

And so, we do;

Taking bites from the rotten core of that same apple.

It is so easy to deny the 6 million and more and more, and more

Of That Good Man’s Relatives;

Killed by a Church that claims a Jew’s death paid it all.

He didn’t. He couldn’t.

Your check is still outstanding.

And you don’t get to keep the Server’s tips

Without serving it up as the Server did.

 

As I ratchet up my worldly consumer debts,

How can I claim that somehow, Someone paid for my final funeral feast

before I actually die?

That kind of fast food will kill you, one heart attacked at a time.

You can’t pay for the funerals of people who just won’t die.

 

God has to kill you before He can consume you. Ask Isaac.

God won’t eat meat with blood still in it,

Ask Moses and the Levites.

I must spill my blood, as The Son did;

Before I can be eaten;

Making myself a tender, “well-done, good and faithful” meat

worthy to meet my Maker.

 

Like Elisha’s widow, uncircumcised, unknown,

I ask with understandable fear of the fire, nonetheless, I ask:

 “Can You? Will You?

Test me? Taste me?

Multiply the oil that simmers me?

Ah!  My God and my Chef–Use the meager ingredients of my soul

And add Your anointed oil,

So that You might eat me.”

 

Now I lay me down to sleep

I pray the Lord, my soul to eat

If I should wake before I die

I pray to be God’s apple pie.

 

God, forgive my poor table manners,

Thinking that I don’t even need to bother to take Isaac up the hill

Since Jesus #lovesmethisIknow.

I won’t clean my unholy mouth with the serviettes of serving the Savior,

Oh no!

Oh, no we have stopped wolfing down The Word;

Stopped marinating our souls in righteousness; we have long stopped longing; and

Stopped killing the fatted lambs of our lives;

Ever since we started starving ourselves to death

With our bulimic anorexic Faith

that throws up the good with the bad,

we have stopped partaking in Your daily gluten heavy bread.

We have made the world so hungry,

Ever since we started convincing the masses that

 one Lamb-chop is enough

For a ravenous, consuming God!

 

 

What holy feasts are these?

 When Santa grows fatter and Uncle Sam is obese

 while God looks anorexic!

And the disciples don’t even bother passing out

The fish and loaves to the multitudes;

Instead the apostles are in spin class,

flying first class with their Disneyland pass.

Instead the wannabes sit as food critics, hiding behind the apron strings of Jesus,

Watching chefs on TV rather than buying the street food of the homeless;

Trusting that there will be enough of just one Peace of Piece of Christ to go around.

We mini-me-messiahs gnaw on the edges of Gnosticism

Ignoring the need to nosh on Tanakh;

Ignoring the requirement to fatten up ourselves enough for

God to see and consume us.

We keep skipping ahead to the dessert

Created on a dare by the Nouveau Roman Cuisine Cook  Saint Paul.

Hey all you diners,

Those final additions to the Menu

are meant to be the whipped cream on top, folks,

Not the entree.

The Inheritor of the Real Cookbook, the Son of Chef,

Offers up the A La King special:

“Fatted Calf of Covenant Served with a sliced side of

Hot Crossed Messianic Passover Lamb.”

But our mouths are full of bargain bought plasticized oleo

And the precious oil bestowed

On the bridesmaids,

Is considered oh-so-yesterday’s testament to good fuel.

 

We honor the ones who make money selling Christ’s cross,

 claiming the titles but remaining nice fat babies

sucking on the teats of Mother Church,

never working at the hard task of fishing like grown men

never throwing out the heavy nets of faith

never growing the incisor-ed teeth of Truth

but sitting on altered perches

raking in the dough

with no desire to feed the hungry with real bread, real perch.

Well, you’ve eaten in the halls of the gourmands

but one day that Son of man

will demand to see the recipes we all made in secret.

“Lord, when did we see you hungry?

Lord, when did we hear you thirst?”

God cries: “I Thirst!”

Christ shakes His blood-marinated head,

“Oh, I have food in those unsung, unknown, starved morsels of men,

those wee women, and crumbs of children

that you well -known hoarders and self-serve busy-busies

know nothing of.”

And God cries, “Feed Me!”

 

 

 

And so the feast of fools, once

Stomped into wine by the nail-scarred feet of Christ;

Topped off with the risen bread-body of Christ;

Goes untasted, untested, undrunk by us,

While the sugary cheap-grace bread-pudding and

watered- down wine

Fail to keep us alive.

 

And while the calorie-free dessert is served up in the pews,

Promising it will taste almost heavenly;

 the hellish desert of arid wasted-ness within and without grows larger and hotter.

Spiritual food creating thirst not living water.

And the mirages of our salvation

Keep leading us ahead to a false heaven

While the Earth boils and toils.

And God dines elsewhere.

We have stopped maintaining our weightiness

On the required kosher-ed ketogenics of

The Lamb as Protein  IAM Diet.

We prefer to let us eat cake

Instead of swallowing whole

 the Ezekiel Scroll-based smorgasbord.

We think we are safer eating from

our FDA-approved, second amendment earned trophy-letters of that

latter day Saint Paul

no red letter signage to create hunger

but the dulcet tones of brown and green, rot and mold concealed.

We are encouraged to sit on our fat rears

keeping a food journal  about our own decaying feelings and worries,

Instead of following The Jew’s Recipe for True Life.

Out there serving it up as He did

On the food lines of Heaven on earth.

 

You know,

The one about following The One

And dying to our own self-inflicted wounds;

The one about giving it all away;

The one about no other gods and no personal effects

Except the effects of Love?

You know that one? That is no joke, no fortune cookie faith.

 

True Love proposed to me

 and like an engagement ring in a champagne glass,

Surprised me with His offer, to marry my starved heart to His.

But only if I offer the burnt sacrifice of self,

So that I might Rise like a sweet scent —

Like a cinnamon yeast roll baking in the

Furnace of my serving platelets

Rising to fill forever, the nostrils of Abraham’s God.

 

Oh, ever since we got on that kick about that Diet of Worms that

Martin Luther customized and almost died from;

We have forgotten about our sure future treat of being the snack of worms.

We prefer the cheap-date Jesus with his cheap-grace Savor-y fastfoodmeal ticket and

A home without any chores  or clean up on our part.

Oh those fun Yuletide eggnogs, buried to be found later,

Hatched in an easy-bake Easter ham and oh so ready to bless the food cuz

Jesus will cook it, serve it, wash up after

While we celebrate winning the lottery ticket to eternity.

And we can take our doggie bags of faith to our new home in the sky,

Like all those good Gentile but not gentle dogs who begged at

Jesus’ table.

 

Our theology, reduced to “to-go” sack lunches

While I-saac munches

Next to Rehab, Gomer, and Zipporah.

We zip-lock bag up our plastic menorahs

and reduce our beliefs to the guile of Jacob

and the greed of Esau

with a little salt of Lot’s’wife thrown in for flavor.

Are we too far comfortable in hell

To live homeless in Bethel?

Will we ever fast

For that which lasts?

And not for the 30 -day diet

Where-by it

Starves the body

But feeds not the soul?

 

Bread cannot rise without the sacred yeast of death

And grapes will not ferment without being crushed.

Justice will not flow if we don’t give a dam,

About unclean water for a thirsty dirty world.

And Christos is outside the wall trying to knock it down

To immigrate and dine with us.

And Religion marches on and on and on and on

While the Sheep run out of pasture and the grain rots and the grapes dry up

And The Water that heals all thirst

Is plasticized on Sunday

And on Monday the oil will not mix with it

As it sticks to the wings of the sea-sparrows

Instead of lighting the empty lamps we carry.

And Eden has nothing good left in her to be eaten.

 

So we keep eating Saccharine -sweet blood and fiber-less bread on Sunday

And our Soul-food is Weak, tepid, spice-less stuff,

That would never make any one think we were drunk on God.

We pay up big time to the sermonizing sous-chefs who preach about

what’s good on the menu like making laws against  people not like us

And what to avoid like the Beatitudes;

Cutting and pasting a nutrition free diet plan from

The Bible’s hard to swallow manna, in order

 to fit into the American dream-siccles we buy from

The nice-cream trucks imprisoned by their lack of faith.

 

And while highly paid motivational coaches of calorie free theology

 still expect to get a King’s ransomed big tip someday

we are overcharged on our credit lines with He who holds the Scales.

And still the Church’s 9 x 13 inch casseroles of catechism

are bought with bitter bonds.

 A long while back I got that party invitation

 From A Jesus that just wants to Party with us in the pews and Dance like David,

While wine gushes, flooding from the baptismal fount

And fresh baked baguettes and caviar fill the offering plates.

I accepted the invitation at the time

But since then, I have struggled to fit into new clothes like

old wine in new wineskins,

While Continuing to gorge my soul on His Feast of Famine.

That first taste of Christ whetted my appetite

And now friends and family point out that my mouth is dirty

Smeared with bits of Christ’s blood.

But I point out that my hands are still far too clean.

The professionals all agree though:

“Come instead for a quick Sunday tasteless, wineless Brunch at our food-free service.

Let’s quickly eat some gluten-free consumer friendly atom-sized wafers of Jesus

 So we can all head home for the real Communion

of booze and nachos and wings to watch the real-fun and buff gods in the Big Game–

Go Team, Our Idols!”

 

While the world starves for a God who ain’t playing around with His Food.

 

We just need to keep adding on gods to the menu, I guess.

The number is up to at least Four now: Trinity of Three plus their Mom.

Gobble, gobble, gobble, since we’ve added a turkey and bald eagle as well.

And even those are not ever enough to convince us we truly crave the pollution-freed and

The Tree to Table Meal

Of Yahweh’s Kingdom Come.

 

Ah, Creator-Chef,

Take me from Eden

To Eaten.

 

I am Hagar-ed by my flight

From Your Truth.

While the flights of wine keep flowing

Keeping us high,

My flight to you is grounded.

The proverbial wine of violence

Is headier than the Baptizer’s head

Lopped and served up on a garnished garish platter;

While Your water turned to outrageously expensive wine was

Offered me.

 

Messiah took his time making a cross-hatch next to the names

Of those with

reservations at the 12-Star Kingdom Wedding Feast.

But we are all too busy to come and dine

 except for a short time.

 Peter the maître d’

stands at the gate wondering

Why so many don’t bother to show up on time for

Their reserved Eternity-pool Jewish-mikveh-ized seats,

The whole Kingdom Hall, bought out at great price

By The Bridegroom.

 

That old joke about Jewish food being bland

Wasn’t a joke for the Jew from Nazareth

As He served up God.

Fish and bread for the multitudes were just the Costco-sized samples

Enticing us to pay the price for sharing in the meal-Life of

The spitted Lamb, marinated in tears and blood,

Swallowed whole by the Sin-a -men he bore,

Brought out of the stone-fired oven,

Smelling of sweet sacrifice,

Ascending to become Sous-chef

Forever at the right hand of The Chef,

Creating masterpieces

In the serving staff.

Ah, Abraham and Sarah –

If you can still bear to look down on us, your children, now,

Please help me crawl back onto the wilderness altar, a sacrificial daughter,

Subsisting only on Your Substance,

My substance only for Your Children’s subsistence.

Make me willing, as Your Son Isaac was,

To die thirsty,

To cry as your Son and God’s Son did,

“I Thirst!”

I fast!

For Love

Of The Lord.

Create in me a new heart, Oh,Yahweh, a heart that

Wants You to eat it completely,

A heart inhaled by Your Spirit,

A private sacrifice attended by Only You.

God, eat me.

 

Ah, Father Abraham and Mother Sarah,

My limbs have become so weak with ego

I can barely lift The Cup of Christ to my lips.

My psyche is

Fueled by the Saul-isms of The Chosen Ones Part Two.

I need Holy Fire to consume me,

Instead of the lie of a one-time for all sacrifice by that other Son of Ruth,

She the one who lived because she gleamed the kernels of God’s truth.

Yes, That Son did what Isaac did not have to do

Then.

But later, oh later, Isaac, Ruth and

All sons and daughters must be eaten up

By The Fiery Mouth of God.

Consummation is the only Communion with You.

Your  Holy Maw is the only orifice into

Your Eternal Promised Land of Feasting.

 

Just as You ate Your Son,

God, eat me.

 

May I starve myself

To gain the fasted weightiness of Your Son.

Let me char the

The choicest morsels of my life,

Sacrificed, shaken and stirred in terrified worship of You.

 

Cannibalize me, Oh God,

As You did your only Son.

That by Your devouring me

I may devour Your Son’s own body and blood – His True Life-force;

Cannibalized into Your Bounty now, this moment,

As it will be forever.

 

The Psalmist’ hymn: “Oh, Elohim! “You alone are my portion”.

I add to and cry, “Adonai!  Make of me Your portion.

.

Oh, Great Creative Genius,  IAM

Today I am sending you back the ram

caught in the thicket of my sinful days on earth.

Thank you so much

But I need You to imbibe me such

 that I may truly gobble up

Messiah’s bread and cup.

 

As I ingest You, today

I pray;

Eat me,

Completely,

Oh, God.

61ac1-abraham

 

 

Lent – a poem— by Jane Tawel

Lent

The First Day

By Jane Tawel

March 6, 2019

 

Lent, surprising season,

And for good reason,

One’s never sure when it draws near.

Each year its start

To ream our hearts,

Will suddenly appear.

 

 

This first of Lent,

Our souls should rent

With sobering contrition.

But like Succoth,

Lent fills our cups,

With God’s Chosen’s commission.

 

 

The change of date

Just like our fate

May throw us a curve ball.

For loving chaos

We suffer pathos

Ever since The Fall.

 

 

Today’s descent in

This season Lenten,

Requires of me a price.

But that is little

If only it’ll

Bring me closer to The Christ.

 

 

The Only Son of Only God,

When on this earth, Christ trod,

Took up our lent

When God’s will bent

To die upon a cross.

 

 

And so today

In some small way

I suffer by election,

To become like the only Man

Who sinless, Resurrected.

 

 

Each Lent’s first day surprises me

Like did Christ’s death upon that tree.

But suffering for our human doom,

In this dark season of Lent’s gloom,

Is the only way to be surprised,

In the same way at long past sunrise,

Those women who loved The Christ who died,

Saw Him Arise.

Surprise!

 

 

 

One Small Pebble – A poem

One Small Pebble

By Jane Tawel

February 17, 2019

DGt6DmoWsAIaOep

 

 

From Dorothy Day: “What we would like to do is change the world – make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to do.… We can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.”

 

One Small Pebble

By Jane Tawel

Today I threw a pebble in the pond

The pond I’ve been assigned to;

I’d rather walk as Jesus walked,

Than grow moss upon a cold pew.

 

The first pebble that I threw

Was singing songs beside some Jews.

I sat in synagogue with them

And praised the God of Bethlehem.

I looked at faces, like my Lord’s

And ghostly hordes from holocausts,

And felt quite humbled by my tossed,

Small pebble of such little cost.

 

The second pebble that I threw

Was picking up the trash from you.

I didn’t use my gloves or sack

But just my hands to show the lack

Of love we feel for this mocked world.

The planet is My Father’s Pearl,

He treasures it as would a girl.

God loves the earth, the sky and sea

And that is why He planted me.

And by my awkward kneeling down

And worship, as I clean the ground,

And suffer for those able rebels,

I hope that others might throw pebbles;

By picking trash I missed today,

And following Jesus in His Way.

 

 

Another thing I had to do

Was cast some cash to the small crew,

That sleeps outside in my town’s park,

And oft reminds me of the stark,

Injustice that our world has spawned,

Increasing darkly since the Dawn

When Eden was first given us–

As something Good that God could trust

To us, His loved Imago Dei.

God fashioned us from common clay,

And gave us powers to rule the earth,

But ever since our sin was birthed,

We look upon this life as right

And choose not nourishment but fight.

 

And that reminded me that I

Should pray for enemies that lie

And tell the world they are in power

And do not fear the coming hour

When all the nations’ high built towers,

Will before Justice kneel and cower.

 

Ah, do we not regard the One,

Who claimed to be God’s only Son

And told us if we did not cry,

“Hosanna to the God on high”;

that all our faith would be just talk,

and God could get the praise from rocks!

 

It is not wealth nor earthly might

That can restore the world, once bright;

No, only we can make things right,

By seeking Justice, Goodness, Light.

Just one small act, but not one random,

But one that’s tethered to the Ransom

Of God, that Fisher of our shoals,

Who loves each lost and broken soul.

 

Oh God, who hurled out our small Mass,

May Thou, now seen through smoggy glass,

One day restore each stream and tree–

And let Your work begin in me.

 

So I pitch puny pebbles few

And hope that maybe when I do,

Against the tide of moral drought,

Those pebbles small will circle out

And like the pebble David hurled,

Will slay the Evils of this World.

I do not wear protective gloves,

Because there is no fear in Love.

And just because I claim each time

That some such problem is not mine;

I must confess that Good not done

Is just as bad as sins that are.

Because I’m guilty of this mess

And find the only way to bless,

The name of Yahweh is to walk

The walk and not to merely talk

About the change I wish to see.

The changes must begin with me.

 

If only all we foolish rebels,

Will keep on throwing our small pebbles,

Then ripples will in time expand,

To heal our hearts, and heal our land.

“A tiny human pebble”, you say,

“Will never Evil’s Giants slay”.

And yet, it was a pebble trivial,

That made small David, king of Israel.

And there was just a tomb’s small stone,

Preventing Jesus from His throne.

And when Christ rolled that stone away,

He rose from Death’s final decay.

 

We too can see the World’s perfection

By joining Christ in resurrection.

But first we must get dirty hands;

Tear down our towers built on sand.

We need to wash each other’s feet

And watch converging circles meet;

In streams of Love, my Rock, I fling

to truly imitate my King.

My circle that conjoins with yours

Can truly change the whole wide world.

Because by now it’s widely known

That Jesus is the Cornerstone.

He chose to heal and not throw stones,

And sent us out to be atoned.

And by His love He does persuade us,

to heal the world that He has made us.

And that’s best done avoiding trouble,

By merely picking up the rubble

And humbly, small-ly getting rid of,

Any thing that is not True Love.

For Truth and Love survive all clocks.

 

And so I fill my life with rocks,

To throw in God’s provided pools,

And join the cast of many fools,

Who think small actions can change Spheres;

As Christ’s return draws ever near.

For only if our nets we cast,

In Pools of Love, will this Life last.

 

The God-man who upon the cross,

Began new life with one small toss,

Will one day call us to His docket;

And count what’s hoarded in our pockets.

The Christ hurled all His power aside

And gave His life for His soiled Bride.

If I want to by God be known,

Then I must rid my heart of stones,

And empty out my life and heart

By throwing pebbles for my part;

And whether that seems worldly smart,

By foolish love of Earth I’ll chart

My course –as just one tiny stone–

Tossing it all before God’s throne.

 

God’s Kingdom Come

His Will be Done,

On this Blue Stone

As in His  Home.

 

And while the preachers would coerce;

I thrust my hands inside my purse,

And hope by serving from my case,

The pebbles, with a joyful face;

I’ll show the Love, that for someone,

Will show the Love of God’s own Son.

Because this planet given to us,

Has now become so treasonous;

That by our fallen-ness and sin,

We will have brought World’s bitter end;

But only then God will be able,

To bring His Kingdom Ever Stable.

And then the King will on His throne,

Reward the ripples of small stones.

For one day all the world will tremble

Before The Christ, God’s One Small Pebble.

As Dorothy Day much more eloquently does in her writing, my hope and prayer, if you have chosen to read this far, is that you will discover that you have been given much and that your pockets are filled with the Good pebbles that God has given you. I hope you will begin to see as I am beginning to see that as The Christ said, “it is only by throwing out one’s life, that one truly gains Life.” I hope that what will be revealed are the small pebbles that the Beatitudes call the blessings of the poor in spirit; and that we will have courage to throw the pebbles out; tossing them one by one in the pools of our own particular lives, and in that way, change the world, one ripple of love at a time. The Ecclesiast in wisdom, advises to “throw your bread upon the waters; for you will find it after many days.” I hope if you are reading this and lack any good thing, that you will find the ripples of Goodness, Truth, and the Love of God cast upon the waters that are rippling toward you where you live today. If you have been given much, as I have, and realize that because of that, one day much will be required of us; I hope you might find joy in picking up someone else’s trash today, or give some of your money to make life a little simpler for someone else. Ultimately, as Ms. Day said,  and as God says in His Word, even better –there is absolutely nothing worth doing but loving.

“Now these three things only will remain: faith, hope and love.  But the greatest of these is Love” (Paul of Tarsus, a lover and servant of Adonai, The One True God)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verses 2-4 of A Mother’s Poems

***Verse 1 of these poems was published separately on February 10 under the title: “This Small Heartbeat”. These poems are for my thriving adult children.

 

A Mother’s Poems

By Jane Tawel

 

Verse 2- A Haiku

by Jane Tawel

February 11, 2019

 

Metaphors slide skew

When I try to write of you.

Only love will do.

 

 

Verse 3 – an Ode

 

Beyond and Above Aphrodite

by Jane Tawel

February 12, 2019

 

Now I, the geek,

Will mimic the Greek.

But Odes to love of children

Are false gilden, not real gold.

Or so I’m told.

 

I strive like Psyche

To see you, hidden from me.

And in the process, burn you

Then angst ‘bout why you flew.

 

Wondering why

And wandering nigh’

I hold coins in my mouth

To keep the devils out.

Yet before long,

My righteous strength is gone;

Opening forbidden boxes that you might see

A mother’s lasting love in me.

 

 

Ah, Aphrodite’s  love of child can not compare

To the cupidity of my every prayer

That you, my dear divines,

My treasures, as long as sun does shine,

Will find more Love, than all I’d give

And find True Love within you lives.

 

 

Verse 4

This is a poem I wrote several years ago that I thought I’d end these with for Verse 4.

Whoa

March 11, 2015

By Jane Tawel

To Justine, Clarissa, Verity, and Gordon

 

Whoa, slow down, where you galloping off to?

A second ago, you were a useless collage of limbs.

I had to raise your hands to clean.

I had to raise your head to drink.

I had to ask you questions then answer them for you,

You, without a word, or sound that anybody knew.

But I.

 

Whoa! Take care! You’re running much too fast.

You’re going to slip and fall — I know.

I’ve seen it happen in my mind

A thousand times a day.

Did you hear me? Can you hear?

Have fun! Be safe! Too fast!

Rely on me and all my knowledge present, future, past.

Love you.

 

Whoa…slow down… I missed what you just said.

I see the buttons, levers, gears.

My fingers fail where yours speed on.

I hear the words that used to mean

A different thing. A different thing.

Did I already say that?

You tumble forward, catch yourself.

I used to catch you when you fell.

I’m still here watching, waiting– holding out my helpless hands.

Too much.

 

 

You’re gone and I can’t hold you here.

My whoa’s are just my own.

Remember—no, you don’t, I guess.

I clutch the memories, now — no more.

I once held you, my baby, child–

And now you’ve flown,

A Pegasus with wings of dreams

Not flaming myths,

Not lullabies from me.

I’ll sing your story old and new

Not mine, not ours. All you.

I’ll never seek to slow you down again.

My joy in you and your bright flight

Is how I can explain these blinding tears.

Blurring my sight

Of your fast ascent.

Forever.

 

 

This Small Heartbeat – Poem

A Mother’s Memories

Verse 1

To my beloved children

By Jane Tawel

February 10, 2019

 

This small heart beat of mine,

Pounding down aisles

Of memories,

Reconstructing the blue prints

 of your now built temples,

As they once stood trembly

Scaffold-ed only by my love.

 

Ah! The sight of your accomplished domes and arches

Thrills me in my voyeuristic tourism.

And yet, to me

You will always be

That childish little chamber

In the house of my heart.

 

 

 

In My Cocoon a poem by Jane Tawel

In My Cocoon

By Jane Tawel

January 2, 2019

 

In my cocoon

I lie

As yet, unraveled

by the winds and swatters

of the awaiting day.

 

In my cocoon,

I do not need to fly

Into, out of, despite.

My day’s wings are not yet formed

And I can ignore

Pretend

care for

 that

Which is not yet born

In flight.

 

In my cocoon

The creepy caterpillars

Of my nightmares die

And a new body

Full of promise

Chrysalizes

If only while I can still lie

And to self lie

In my imagination and deny-

all.

 

There is nothing scary or sad,

Without a heart or brain,

In my cocoon:

No Pain, No Gain, No Blame;

No feigned vain reigns

Of kings or queens

or me.

And the rain in Spain falls always on the train

Because all the moments

Are all the same

When I am tourist-ing life

Sweetly paralyzed

In a cocoon.

 

In my cocoon

Nothing hurts and

Nothing hurts me

And my pupils

Remain closed

While the pupa of my

Solitary, sedentary self

Undisturb-ed

Dreams.

 

And yet. . .

The waking antennae

Of my soul

Begin to sense that

In my cocoon. . .

 

There is no room for

Laughter

Friendship

Shared meals

Warm Sunshine

Rain

Dry toes

Wet leaves

Cinnamon rolls

Spontaneous Grins

Splashy Puddles

Or

Hope.

 

In my cocoon

I can not hear

The notes and chords

A baby’s bleating cry

The breezes

The pitter-patters

The gurgling waters

Giggling waders

Gorgeous sunset weepers

Or

Love.

 

In my cocoon

I will never, ever, ever

Know

Risk

Understand

Hurt with

Imagine

Create

Touch

Be touched by

Or

Trust.

 

And so

I begin to shed all

That would keep me here

Incomplete again.

I digest the self of yesterday

Willing wings to grow

Though still small and damp

With tomorrow’s fears.

I emerge.

 

Today it is enough for me

To materialize again

Alive

The same,

Yet some one brand new.

 

Today

I’ve never been a butterfly,

But I will learn in this new moment

How to use my wings.

 

And being a slight grey moth

Is enough.

Moths can also fly.

 

And with a small amount of creature luck

tonight there will be

A new cocoon to rest in

To grow in hidden promise

unaware to all

Even to my moth-holed self.

 

And someday

I hope to wake

And find the whole World

Has been cocooning

Until Eden is restored

And Butterflies

rise from their

imagined cocooning graves,

Never to die.

Trying to Make Rhyme and Reason Out of The Christmas Season

Trying to Make Rhyme and Reason Out of the Christmas Season

by Jane Tawel

December 23, 2018

 

We worship the Genie we call Santa Claus

Or  honor a building or practice some laws.

We call this religion and true Christmas season;

Or come up with competing fiestas or reasons.

We give gifts to loved ones and eat ’til we pop

And think we are doing our best if we shop.

We claim it is all about Jesus and yet

The fact He was Jewish we’d rather forget.

And all of the immigrants who’d like to be saved,

We keep locked in prisons while walls are being raised.

Our children are dying by their own hands or ours,

And we have the nerve to preach “wisemen” and stars?

Well, maybe that’s why kids prefer “holiday”

Instead of the old news of babes born in hay.

If this is the time we celebrate birth,

We’d best know that God came to save the whole earth.

And that means if we want to lay down a claim

That “Christ-Mass” is about the Name of all Names,

We must take down our idols and elves off the shelf.

We need to become like the Christ-child Himself.

If you are still worshiping power or greed,

Then humble yourself,

Be bruised like God’s Reed.

And if you have never experienced real love

Forget about Christmas and seek the true God.

For God will become anything your soul craves,

After all, He once chose to become a small babe.

Because our God loves us He came down to save,

And took for Himself our own death and the grave.

And that is what Christmas should be all about,

And why those who love Jesus should sing with a shout:

“Fear not, for a God does exist who is Love

And wants all of His children in His Kingdom Above.”

 

The phrase “Merry Christmas” seems often abused,

So I would prefer to give truly Good News:

God loves our small planet and each molecule

That He has created and that over He rules.

The God of all ages has appeared large and small

And this season we worship the smallest of all.

So let’s in the New Year all try to find

A heart like a baby’s both needy and kind.

Let’s need love from others in the same way we share

The love of All Love, the God-child who dared;

Who came down to our level and brought us Truth’s Light;

Messiah, The Chosen, King of David’s Birthright.

May the new day before us remind us, we too

Can live every day reborn and renewed.

Just as God longs to heal each worldly cell,

He desires that all souls may know true Noel.

We pray that in our hearts, each of us will strive

To let God-love transform us and eternally live.

May we seek every season, love that grows in each heart,

No matter our culture, religion, or part.

For every day’s holy if we humbly will listen,

For the soft voice of Jehovah and the True Word of Christ-mass.

May Each Day of the New Year Bring You and Yours Those Things that will Remain–

Faith, Hope, and Love,

Jane

*********This can be a tough time of the year for some people. Did you know that if you text 741741 when you are feeling depressed or suicidal, a crisis worker will text you back immediately and continue to text with you? Many people don’t like talking on the phone and would be more comfortable texting. It’s a FREE service to ANYONE – teens, adults, etc. – who lives in the U.S. It’s run by The Crisis Text Line.
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If you prefer to talk to someone, National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 800-273-8255

Hebrew-Names22

Until The Daylight Comes A Poem by Jane Tawel

Until The Daylight Comes

By Jane Tawel

September 27, 2018

Until the Daylight comes,

I lie broken

Sleepless

Afraid.

Until the Daylight comes,

I lie

Breaking

Truth-less

Afraid.

And until the Morning Star breaks the dark

And breaks the dark in me

I fight the demons of the night

Real and unreal

Forgetting that Hope

Comes with the Light.

 

But Ah, My Soul Awake!

Hope Comes Renewed

with the Rising of the Morning Star.

XF4Ukcu

Maybe You Have Left Us — A very long meditation poem. By Jane Tawel

Maybe You Have Left Us

by Jane Tawel

November 20, 2017 – July 22, 2018

This is a very long poem-like meditation, a modern-psalm-ish thing of lamentation. It is something I have worked on a long time and just need to be “finished with” for now. It came out of this ache and longing, I guess, to come to grips with a struggle within myself about with how far off course I feel we seem to have sailed in our ideas about God and His / Her relationship with us humans and our planet. It is based on Biblical records of God’s coming and going, Jesus’ coming and going, and the willful coming and going of the Holy Spirit. You will find pathetic sophomoric allusions to The Great Thinkers of the ages, like L’Engle, Dickinson, Greek philosophers, Dolores O’Riordan and The Cranberries, Shakespeare, Pink Floyd,  and  so on — listen to them instead of me, of course.   It is also a meandering collection of random droppings from nights of lying awake in the night and wondering, Are You there, God? If so, I’m rather lost down here.  And finally it comes from a deeply dissatisfied weariness of facile answers and cheap grace talk. It is not for the faint of heart nor the short of time. LOL! Perhaps like any personal thoughts, the sharing of mine  might open a door for someone else’s thoughts, valuable to them.

 

 

We’ve cornered You in books and boxes–

Dry pages turning over Your name,

like dirt turning over a gravesite, so

Maybe getting bored or irritated?

Maybe? You Have Left Us?

 

We gather publically to kneel easterly in modern streets

And fight neighbors over thievery- aged space

to beg You for things and more things.

And You are known to get angry at abuses of Your name, so maybe,

Maybe You have left us?

 

We rant like ants in a bowl of super-sized Super superstitious  Super-sized Super Stars.

I’m thinkin’ –Maybe You have left us?

 

We think of You as the putz who promises persistently to part the Red toilet-bowl-sized Seas of people’s petty problems.

You are the definition of a putz: “one who engages in inconsequential or unproductive activity”. See you Sunday if I can make the time for You. If not You’ll forgive me with Your Walmart-priced grace. Welcome to Discounted God-grace.

We still hope you will continue to pick up the bill and get us out of our fixes and hand over the goodies without much effort on our parts. That is how we see You — #Genieinabottlegod.

 

 

But didn’t I see somewhere on a dusty shelf that

we used to view You as

Someone who created us

out of dust

to be gods.

Isn’t there a repressed memory (oh, god, I long to repress it!)

That once in paradise

we lived like

gods

owning out- of- this- world power, wisdom, glory, truth,

beings who were with you, were

like You;

we lived

created to creatively create as mini-Me gods

in Your eternal Being-With-ness.

But that was a long time ago,

When You were With Us, #emmanuel.

 

Here– Now–

we wallow in our wimpy wan and selfish greed

mistaking greed for power

preferring to beg You but not to be like You.

Frankly, we would quite prefer not to expend the energy it must take to create and By Jove!-

it is much easier to destroy stuff, in the image of some random, soul-sucking goddess of the ancients

Yep – that is us -Toys Ares are Us. #bestBastBuys

Just another game somewhere with machine guns, killing the zombies which Ares just

A bunch of panty-waisted school kids from over the border of otherness.

 

We beg You for incidentals

in a world crying for LIFE!

writ large indeed.

We praise You for our gourmet buffets

in a world crying for clean and living Water.

We hammer up cameras to spy on thieves

and miss the daily stealers of our souls.

We blithely tip the cup

on Sundays before brunch

and rise on Mondays to brazenly pour out cups and cups and cups and cups…

into the landfills of our nations

while neighbors worship– roofless, shoeless, dirty,

in their hovels of holiness.

Are You there? Hello?

What language is Your Spirit speaking where?

Oh, God, maybe You really aren’t there when I feel like you aren’t there?

Oh, God, maybe you have left us?

 

 

We shut the city gates, and build the Western Walls, eyes in the skies help keep our carpets clean, we celebrate our blessings of being imprisoned against those who are licked by dogs, who gladly take the crumbs from a table we no longer sit at in reverence, no longer wasting our perfumed lives weeping repentance in the footsteps of You.

We daily eat the flowing bread and drink the wine bought with the price of an hour’s litigation, thinking that the one meal we ate, ingesting You into our tiny, closed up hearts was enough to feed us ’til the Judgment– trusting that Your once upon a time, in a land far, far away sacrifice of being spitted -on and spitted on a stake for our future consumption, believing against any reasonable belief that  Your One Man-band’s sacrifice on the deathly cross paid up all our bills. We daily leave Your offered Feast for offal feats and for the remembrance of how good that one meal tasted. Long, long ago we rose from Your table, barely able to move from stuffing ourselves so full, and we thought we put You safely into our little closed up hearts like a napkin to wash our faces with after eating at  other banquets; Son of Man as convenient Handi-wipe; and You remained behind longing for a homeless person’s dirty feet. And as we waste away our waists in the wasteland of  our corpulence, I lie awake at night needing a good massage to work out all the knots in my scar-tissued back and I remember how You had some serious scar tissue back there too and I have to wonder if  You finally just decided to once and for all show us Your back side on Your way out  #don’tlettheDoorhitYouonTheWayout.

maybe you have left us?

 

We put You at the end of swords, and guns, and bombs, and bombs and guns,

and turn our plowshares into Wikileaks and tweets.

We honor you with words spit out as fast and killing as bump stocks.

We think You only face one way, Northeast was it?  with all your other faces, you are so not

halal, not kosher, not evangelical, not shriven

and, oh god, do we even know your name?

maybe Y-u have left us?

We look at each other through cloudy mirrors called TVs and cell phone screens

And are so bloated with appetites for apps we can’t see our feet meant to teeter on

The Narrow Way;

And after so much Botox and Lasix our eyes can’t focus

And we no longer look for You in the dimmish glass.

Our mirrors have been turned to selfish selfies and perjuring posts making our lives look large

But about you? — how small can I make your name? and how do y-u spell that?

We have fallen into the habit of containing You in buildings and museums. As if the God of Noah, Abraham, and Moses could cramp Himself into a container built without holy specs.  You tried to tell ole David that.  I notice now when people touch their hands to light up the touch screens with stuff about you, or put your body in their mouths, they don’t fall over dead.

Is that ‘cuz You have left us?

Frankly, though (and I can call you Frank or Shirley or anything I want – what was Your name again?) Frank, old Boy —

If I’m to be perfectly honest with You, Frankly;

We would rather You did not show up in Persons.

Remember how awkward it has always been when You have?

 

So, maybe you can leave us –#hopingitwon’tmatter

Anyway,  I plan on catching you on The Other Side

Once I finish ruining this dark side of the moon.

 

We like to think, being more used to breaking international treaties, that this has always been a one-way street with You. Our favorite praise song is “I Did It My Way.”

Fun Fact: The word covenant doesn’t even come up on spell-check.

We like to think You always save us by day’s end — Dear God, please RSVP and BYOLWF —  Show up please, with Your lambs and wood and fire (I hope You know I mean metaphorically cuz I’ve recently gone vegan to lose some weight, but I’m telling everyone it’s cause I love little animals so darn much).

We like to think we ‘pecial persons are  the final Hurrah People. Forever lisping childishly, we didn’t mean to bwake it, pease fix it fohwa us, pease?

I heard an old, old story that

You came once to save us by being one of us

Just in time for The End,

Remember?  You threw that big cook-out

with Lamb on a big wood skewer

marinated in our sins and

deliciously surviving the Fire.

Now You are being saved up for dessert later

Wrapped in heavenly golden streets

Waiting for me right after I finish eating

my million-dollar 24 Karat Gold Chicken Wing. #oncesavedalwayssaved

 

but maybe You cancelled your reservation to dine in my neighborhood

and You plan on taking a rain-check

something like the rain-check You took before the rainbow?

or maybe You just left us?

 

We do not want to count the cost ticked off in Your centuries of multiplying corpses.

Costs ticked off tend to tick us off.

Some of us are counting on the Prime Number Corpse You raised.

Others of us count on the corpses we bomb in Your honor.

And there are those who think our corps are the only people

at the core of Your Great Plan of Salvation

Never realizing they too have eaten the core of the dirty apple.

Well, it’s so much nicer here in Texas, than in the Corpus Christi You had in mind.

Some of us want to be left alone with you-ness-less-ness, simply left alone by-non-you, to breathe through nihilistic nostrils through our first world- stressness, seeking a type of nascent meditated-medicated corpse-ish-ness we think sounds peaceful, aum, aum, aum, without a thought of how to die for those who breath in bomb-fumes, rat-fumes, death-fumes,  third-world fumes of  fumigated philosophy.

uncertain next- breathless-ness.

and maybe, just maybe, because we insist on living,

and You insisted we must die

then maybe You could no longer dwell in our corps? Our corpses?

maybe You have left us?

 

Isn’t there a verse in some holy book or other that promises if I just say You exist that You will stick around to make everything Almighty-alrighty– just for little ole me?

 

We have created an idea that there is a need in You!

We have created this idea because we need to believe You are for us.

But that is a need that cannot exist if You are who You are –I Am

No prepositional prepositions around Yourself

No conjunctions connecting Your outstretched limbs,

No ifs, ands, or buts,

just Being-ness. #freetobeYounotme

We say: “You need us to love! You need us to watch! You need us to do Your work, to kill the infidels, to spread Your words, to give foreign children boxes on Your birthday, to gather once a week to sing songs and be taught by highly paid motivational speakers, to post up Your commandments, to hide our faces, to make our nations great, to make others follow Your laws, to give You our service, to give You our hearts, to give You our only ten percent and no more, to give to, pray to, sing to, speak to You! You! You! Rah, Yea, You! You need US to love you, need US to love you, need US to love you!”

But maybe You didn’t need to stick around?

We believe in you because little ‘ole God (how small can I make your unknown name?) needs Us.

But need is not a word I think You comprehend. I could just as well ask You to tell me the color and shape of a Dream. I may as well ask You to give me the equation for Hope. If You have the time, could you tell me the meaning of Time?

But hope has lost her feathers and must be singing elsewhere,

plucked naked in the company of stars.

Ah, Jesus H. Christ! Did the H stand for Holy or How-ie, as in How do I get out of Here?

How do I find The Way to where You are, Jesus How-ie? Christ!

 

 

I am left with only the remembered space of

You

now empty.

And what am I to do?

if YHWH El Eloah Elohim Elohai El Shaddai Tzevaot Jah Mashiach Ruah Hakodesh

have left me?

 

I often wonder over here

if maybe You are in

Korea or India or Nauru?

But maybe You have left us all, all together, left us– for God so loved the world He eventually just had to walk away and count up His losses?

 

What if You have gone elsewhere

Like any good Mother would

To see her children?

What made us humans think

we were born as Your only children?

It is legal after all to divorce your Parents and if we divorced You

Then maybe You are taking care of the kids who didn’t.

 

What if You have born quintessences in

galaxies galore

to explore

that we know nothing about?

What if You have a whole family

Of lovely children that

Look and act just like You?

What if You have a special Son You’ve been meaning to hang out with more?

So maybe You have left us?

 

What if You are wedded

With beings that are far more like You than we could ever know?

(After all, after The Fall,

we gave up on that quixotic idea,

preferring to be zombies dressed up with no place to go).

 

What if You are dancing and singing with supernova-stars

While we watch Idols win prizes that decay?

What if while we seize the day,

Your Son has come out Tomorrow?

What if You are building worlds with feathered bird-like Phoenixes

While we burn out and then burn up, never to rise

In the only resurrection?

What if You have found others who have lived with

pierced hands and piercing eyes

and You have yoked together

in radiant death-sought death defying

otherness?

 

If all who once dangled dancing on this lopsided Orb

with broken feet and empty suitcases

have ended up Up- there out there somewhere else

with You,

while the rest of us are just vacationing here,

biding our time, instead of biting Yours,

if They godlike are now circling

in the cacophonous kaleidoscopic Caper,

cavorting through constellations as Your Corpse

Your Body as Macrocosmic!

but some how You Yahweh

individualized in little ole me time and place

right here right now

as it is in Your Heavens and yet

so beyond the measure of our Season, Space and Scope,

on this brief Stage

with no flag flying

but the Banner of Love

If?

Then?

I could choose to live in the mangled mode of your mysterious materiality, mothering the mother of all manias with my Maker. #meaculpamymaster

 

But, oy vey

This day

I wonder – Oh Woe — if

maybe You Yourself have packed up

and moved on in a Tesseract of Space and Time

Tessered  beyond

My teeny tethered ability to fathom it;

while I unbeknownst are

unknown? #Ineverknewyou

what if you have left us?

What if you have left Us?

what if You have left us?

what if when we left You…..

 

YOU let us?

 

The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.– John 3:8