Secret Sonnet

Secret Sonnet

For you I shall write this secret sonnet,

and shape it like a communion wafer, 

to place in your hand and look upon it,

fourteen short lines to make you feel safer.

For you I shall write this discreet small rhyme,

to fold in two and place in your pocket,

and if you feel anxious from time to time,

read it once again, even to mock it.

I cannot be with you for all your day,

and our lives are full of threats and danger,

I can’t cast a spell to safeguard your way,

Nor protect you from an evil stranger.

All I can offer is this one small poem,

to help you, to love you, to guide you home.

It's Not Easy

Have you noticed how hard it is to be good?
For forty days I have gone
to the Progresso bridge.
Walking up concrete inclines
pulling wagons with granola bars, soap, ice, water, milk, clothes, sanitary pads, and once, as a special request, a brown paper bag with condoms.
All for .migrants who wait, sleep, eat, and sweat on a bridge turned in to a prison where people wait to cross those few sacred feet into a land they believe in
more than I.

I sweat like a cold beer
on a hot humid day, and
my Spanish is a shy toad
hiding under a rock.
Why am I doing this
I wonder? There are others
who speak the language,
who are in better shape,
about whom the men will
not whisper "maricón" even
as they take my food and water.

I'm doing it because no one else
Is.
I'm doing it because posting on social media is not enough.
I'm doing it because they are human.
I'm doing it so one day in the future,
I can say,
"I resisted."

Podcast link

https://anchor.fm/michael-gerleman/episodes/A-brief-history-of-the-beloved-classic-eoe27g

ghosts

How sad to be a ghost.

half in one world, half in another,

to carry so much wisdom, so much experience,

and no way to communicate, but through children's games at slumber parties,

Ouiji boards in college dorms,

Psychics in carnivals,

and old women staring into tea cups.

We don't respect the wisdom of the dead. 

They are consigned to glimpses in the corners of our eyes,

momentary reflections in windows,

and their voices sound like moonlight sliding on glass.

St. John

Mad prophets are the most divine,

and the more human they are

the closer they bring us to God.

How inspired to give St. John

the face of a unstable young man,

his sheep a dull gray, his toes

dirty, his hair greasy.

God always asks us to drink his

wine from the cracked glass, 

eat his bread from dirty fingers,

and read his word on torn pages.

Moon

I grew up afraid of the moon.

I thought it was the pupil 

of some vast black eye,

focused on me only.

It was inescapable,

and followed me everywhere.

It chased me on car rides,

( I could see it following me

through the rear view window)

and peered through my window

at night probing my bedroom

with its icy cold fingers.

The moon still startles me today.

Moonshine dazzles my eyes 

in ways the sun never does,

its silver light an otherworldly

lantern held by a huge black hand.

The Bullfight

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The Bullfight

We paid extra to sit on the shady side

of the the Plaza de Toros de Monumental.

White handkerchiefs in our hands to

to wave and mop our brows.

The bull was splendid, an ancient, mighty,

visitor, we should have knelt in supplication.

Nothing was alive as he. His hooves

trampled the sand, his breath was thunder.

The matador entered the ring like dawn,

golden spangles, a dancer’s body, and

that cape! Magenta and gold, a living

thing swirling in front of the bull.

As a child I rescued broken-winged birds,

three-legged kittens, and blind hamsters.

No creature was beyond my ministering

grace, no bug too ugly to be redeemed

But then, as blood flowed like lava

down the black velvet of the bulls

legs, and the bull fighter bared his chest

before the exhausted animal

I realized, startled, that blood calls to blood

and I felt my heart race, and I yelled

as loudly as anyone in the crowd when

the sword pierced between the shoulder

blades and filled the bull’s lungs with blood.

Hearts

I gave you my heart,

tapped it out onto the screen,

proofread it,

considered it carefully,

its rawness, its vulnerability.

It is my sacrifice,

so I hit post-all

for two emojis. 

When you drown

in social media,

no one sees you

wave for help.

My Voice

My Voice

A distinctive foghorn, cutting

through background noise, 

my own private public address

system, a sonic blast produced

by an oversized head, a megaphone

made of flesh, bone, and cartilage,

my voice has served me well.

And I have put it to use! My opinion 

is never kept to myself.  I know a

lot and am not afraid to show it. 

My voice alone wins arguments

and conquers foes with its

wisdom and judicious reasoning

(or at least my its volume).

But now, it is time for me

to be silent. I must silence my

own voice to hear the cries

from the streets, from the parks,

from the young who rise up,

from the old who say “not again”

from the people whose own

voices have been dampered, 

voices that have been misunderstood,

voices that have been ignored,

voices that have died out,

because society has placed its

knee on the neck of those

who only want us to hear them

say, “I can’t breath."

I am listening. I am waiting. 

Please tell me what to do.