- Eyeing Weakness by Donald K. Johnson
- The Ins and Outs of a Good Mouth by Donald K. Johnson
- Daughter of Violence by Donald K. Johnson
- A Teenage Memory by Gerda Turner
- She Had an Addiction by Gerda Turner
- revisiting the verb factory by Kathryn Klingebiel
- the jam what am by Kathryn Klingebiel
- Ode to the Green Man by Jean-Paul Klingebiel
- Ode to the Trees by Jean-Paul Klingebiel
- Psalm on Liberation #1 by James F. Cartwright
- Psalm on Liberation #2 by James F. Cartwright
- Earth Day Hymn by Fritz Fritschel
Poetry and Prose by Writers’ Workshop (June 1, 2008)
The Writers Workshop is a group of church members and friends who meet once a month to work on their writing together. Everyone is welcome to bring something they have written that they can share with the group.
Group members displayed the following examples of poetry and prose as part of Faith and Arts Sunday 2008.
What is it Saturday night when two
Phalanx each with eleven undamaged youth
Seek status through this popular civil sieve?
If not for thousands of enthusiasts the
World over to revel in their success,
Judge their skills hate weakness
Boo error covet win and
Suck up vicarious dominance?
What is it
When living-room-safe arrogant eyes
Ogle images on little glass walls of gladiators
Banging each other in left-brain brawls?
If not to sic cagey corporations into blue gloom
Rooms where they sink financial fangs into unsuspecting fans?
What is it Sunday morning
When a fragile bit of birth flawed life
Joins ten healthy hula girls at an altar
Singing and swaying right brain awe?
If not to grace a congregation as it honors the Holy One
Adorning all with a garland of poignant prayerful pulsing?
What is it
When the awkward moves of the Down's Syndrome girl
Are always late?
She fails to follow her mentor
Gently forgetting what comes next
Innocently unaware
Enjoying her place
Proud
Smiling
If not our weakness dancing in the eye of a loving God?
Don Johnson
Top of Page
The Ins and Outs of a Good Mouth
Love smells of snuff and garden sweat coffee stains and urine
It permeated grandpa’s blue velveteen chair with its shinny sitting spot
“Eh poike yuu set herr unt still No yumpin yust set”
Out came the apple for pocketknife slices
One parchment thin so he could gum-munch it the next boy-dream thick
Followed by a wild knee-bouncing gallop with his chuckle-song
“Ree a ree a runken
hesta brate da brunken
ar skan nee go
yaska go a hymmmmmmma”
The coda a strong armed toss toward the ceiling
As a youth Grandpa escaped starvation’s mass graves in Fagerhult
Sweden dug each spring for the frozen cadavers of the winter dead
Successful American gardening showed at the waistline of his baggy pants
Suspended on canvas straps by weary buttons.
Each pair had a little round snuffbox memory on the back pocket
Safety smells of soap and old spice
The Third Reich had his son in Poland behind barbed wire
Slimming him down with turnip soup
So the family regularly gloomed around the war news
Sanctuary became a pew snuggled next to grandpa’s solid bulk
Feeling him rumble with song
He wore his teeth to church on Sundays and
To avoid an open mouthed musical oops
He slipped them back into a pocket for the hymns
Don Johnson
Top of Page
Rainbird 2005
Watching a ragged bag-lady on a
safety island by a cement freeway
column near the Kahala Mall.
I see them I see them hunger
tentacles they think I'm rotting
blood slithered from that cement
column shadows
they have knives
blow a kiss to that car
then they'll think I don't see them
come window faces
eight dies for you
I will die again
left face march half face no face stop
red light about face
yellow flight no light
this island lost its safe
lake water lick my toes
orders are disorders
lick my toes
do you like them?
Jesus Christ lady,
watch where you're goin!
oop American Legion
present harms
hedge hide
scream
vine the hedge
vining under my cloth look
a place to grow
soap the corners
so Legion you have come
for the night
sun is dead
Mother, is she O.K?
Come child, the light is green.
Don Johnson
Top of Page
I took piano lessons because I was anxious to play the piano. My first piano teachers were not professional piano teachers. They were school teachers who happened to play the piano. Sometimes there were no school teachers who played the piano. But I practiced.
My mother ordered a music magazine from St. Louis, Missouri. It had a religious bent. (Have you ever heard ‘Will there be Any Stars in my crown’ with variations?) I also ordered music books and popular ballads from Sears-Roebuck catalogue. My parents enjoyed hearing me play.
One day Lovise Christianson was visiting my mother. She was an elderly widow we had known for years. After some visiting, my mother said, ‘Gerda, why don’t you play a piece for us?’ As a dutiful daughter, I sat down to play one of my mother’s favorite pieces. I was playing and had almost reached the end, when Lovise asked my mother, ‘Are your hens laying any eggs in this cold weather?’
I continued playing and finished the selection.
Gerda Turner
Top of Page
We had a dog, Lana, raised from a puppy, that we dearly loved. She was a mixed breed. She weighed about 27 pounds, had a body like a pointer, with a tail that pointed. She had Weimaraner eyes.
We gave her the run of the house, but she slept in the kitchen.
At various times my husband smoked. He’d quit awhile and then resume the habit. As was the fashion, we provided ash trays in convenient places. Many of our guests smoked.
Suddenly we noticed that Lana would drool when she saw a lit cigarette. She’d stare at the cigarette, and actually drool.
We were horrified. Actually we hadn’t emptied the ash trays frequently enough. From now on, we emptied the ash trays as soon as they were used.
Whether Lana had withdrawal attacks, we don’t know, but she no longer had access to cigarette butts. There was no longer any drooling.
Gerda Turner
Top of Page
a verb for standing under a tree motionless watching the rain
a verb for swinging down the railroad tracks weighing 24 tons and belching smoke
a verb for watching sunrise looking different every day
a verb for the packing up of yesterday’s unfinished woes
an adverb to keep things going
a verb for gathering friends and family into one
a noun for the celebration of finding one’s place
a verb for joy
and an adjective forever
say, did you know?
Arabic has a verb for “cutting off the upper end of an okra”
Kathryn Klingebiel
Top of Page
jam wars: homemade jams
by the dozen dozen
girls, get out your spoons
this lady says plum
that lady: too sour
that lady says pear
this lady: so sweet, dear;
yonder says cherry
apple peach no berry
(each in her assured role
as jam judge of the universe);
each loves the others dearly,
but . . . when it comes to jam . . .
each only has the jam what am
Kathryn Klingebiel
Top of Page
Smiling eyes, upon his gentle face
Green fronds spreading like lace
Little known spirit of Nature
We need you in this time obscure
We are late to see how
Nature is our nurture
We must be good stewards now
A base of our culture
Feeble but are we
Greedy for progress
Sawing branches on which we press
Save for the trees what are we?
Jean-Paul Klingebiel
Poem89 20080309
Leaves limbs and trunk
Only dust remains from the saw
Green memory in our eyes
Sadness in our heart
Alas all living things
Are but transitory
New life sprouts
Old trees fade away
They were faithful friends
Shelters from the sun
Yet they leaned over
A danger in our courtyard
There will be new saplings
In new places, new landscapes
New leafy friends to grow
Nature is in God
Jean-Paul Klingebiel
Poem 90 20080427
And she said to me, “You have changed....”
Have I changed? Oh my God, have I changed.
I was enslaved. Enslaved to fear their words might apply to me:
fairy queer sissy girly,
you who could not catch a softball or make a free throw.
Enslaved to loathing me for not matching the ideal;
for not lusting to touch a woman on her breast,
for not yearning to worm my finger along her thigh;
loathing my being, yearning for the touch of a man.
Enslaved to the language of hatred and fear.
Captured by their misreading of inhospitality and cruelty as sexual sin.
Made captive of selected abominations:
men with men,
but not eating shellfish or mixing fabrics or marrying two sisters.
Have I changed? Oh my God have I changed.
Touched by God’s finger I heard
The good tree does not bring forth evil fruit
I had used the power to heal the sick, to comfort the distraught, to bring peace to the fearful
The fruit had been crisp apples, grapes, plump peaches, sweet and juicy
God’s finger touched me
I saw God made me what I am, part of the whole creation
When God looked upon that creation, he said, It is good
Have I changed? Oh my God have I changed
Free to choose. Daily, hourly, momently, I choose to be what I’ve always been, to be free, to rejoice in my wholeness
And if that basic choice were given I would
choose with loud voice and singing
Yes!, yes, I choose to be me, the whole gay man God intended.
Have I changed? Oh my God have I changed
Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Amen
James Cartwright
Top of Page
I heard thy voice in the time of birds’ singing; in the dayspring thy voice spoke peace.
Isaiah heard thee and said he was undone;
the cherubim touched his lips with a coal from the altar
and he was made clean by fire throughout.
The burning beginning with his lips,
searing throughout must have brought pain,
Like the poet’s feeling your finger and finding you.
How long, O Lord, have I hidden away from you;
as Adam heard your voice and hid,
How long have I refused to hear, lest I find you?
How many times have you called in the evening.
How long have you murmured peace at the dawning of day, but I could neither see nor hear.
My voice in the evening was weeping; in sorrow I mourned for you.
The pain of judgment cut me to my core; the judgment of the people condemned me.
I mourned my loss and believed their evil report; my heart within me despaired of thee.
You are evil throughout; God has abandoned you for your perversion.
A lying tongue, a thieving hand, can receive again God’s grace; but you are an abomination forever.
Oh my son, you spoke, men do not gather grapes from thorns nor figs from thistles.
In the dawning, I heard thy voice and was made whole throughout.
Thanks be to God.
James Cartwright
878744477
Tune: Bryn Calfaria
Stars have burst with blazing brightness,
Sending rays through spacious time.
In the dark galactic wideness
Points of light appeared sublime.
Stars a-whirling
Comets swirling
Planets twirling
Worlds are made from starry dust,
Worlds are made from starry dust.
Fossils tell a silent story
Of some creatures once on earth.
In the stones lie ancient glory
Of a time before our birth.
Dinosaurs
Mesosaurs
Pterosaurs
Of God’s constant lure to life,
Of God’s constant lure to life.
What was once mere formless matter
Now appears in beauteous shape.
Soil and water once a-scatter
Now becomes our treasured scape.
Lovely isle!
Precious isle!
Fragile isle!
Where we live in trust and hope,
Where we live in trust and hope.
In the forest and the ocean
Forms of life compete for food.
Many times in fierce commotion
They all seek their private good.
Nature’s violence
Victim’s silence
Fragile balance
While God calls the world to peace
While God calls the world to peace.
Now we humans have a mission
To sustain this wondrous world.
Filled with hope and daring vision
All our will must be unfurled.
For the future,
For our planet
For all children
And the world’s own common good.
And the world’s own common good.
Fritz Fritschel
April 2008
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