Sunday, March 17, 2024

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."

Saturday, July 23, 2022

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.

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

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.

Thursday, November 19, 2020

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.

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

The Bullfight


-->
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.

Wednesday, July 01, 2020

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.

Saturday, April 11, 2020

My Heart


My Heart is……


My heart is an old junkyard dog,

limping amongst the wreckage….

no, on second thought it is

a boxer, ten years past his prime,

but then again, maybe,

it is an old scratched vinyl album

whose crackle and hiss are just part

of the song.



My heart is a lover,

not a fighter,

so I must keep it away from

all that makes it glad,

crowds, art, dinners, and gatherings.



To save my heart,

I must break my heart.