Questions for the Sky
By
Stan Grimes
Smashwords Edition
* * * * *
Published by:
Stan Grimes on Smashwords
Questions for the Sky
Copyright © 2012 by Stan Grimes
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Table of Contents
Isn’t that how it starts, the Bible, every word of it? In the beginning like there was never anything before the words were created, but who wrote them? Somebody must have been there with their Kodak camera or their sharpened pencil. Maybe they were like war correspondents. I don’t know, do you? It has been explained to me by some of the finest ministers I’ve ever known that Genesis and other books of the Old Testament were simply verbal folklore passed from one generation to another which makes the stories a little sketchy.
I guess sketchy works for religion. It works well for UFO and Bigfoot sightings too and perhaps just as dependable. This small book of suffering contains purely my sufferings with truth. I don’t understand the same truth as many religionists. My truth doesn’t coincide or correspond with theirs. It seems to me that each sect of religion interprets their book of rules differently, Jew, Gentile, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever. Different sects read their own belief system from the same set of rules, kind of like politicians.
My truth? My truth is what I see and what I see are a bunch of people who hate each other but believe in a loving God. Now what is that about? Your God tells you to love one another, not just someone who sits next to you at church. Yet you continuously disobey the suggestions made by God. Someone explain this to me because I’m lost.
Allah tells you to love and be kind. Instead you wrap a stupid bomb around yourselves and blow a marketplace up. I’m lost which means you’re lost. If two plus two makes four. Your actions only make three out of the math problems, doesn’t work.
I wanted to call this book The Jesus Diary but my wonderful wife threatened to stone me to death so I made the change. I called it “Questions for the Sky.” I have so many questions and no answers. Maybe you can help me answer the questions. Maybe you have the same questions. Maybe you have thought of possibilities. You know the “what ifs” of this life often unanswered, perhaps unimaginable. I do hope you enjoy the trip. Don’t count the stripes on the highway just close your eyes and enjoy. Oh, I forgot you can’t close your eyes. Keep them open so you can read.
Mary the Innocent
We lay naked in our hovel
near the Sea called Galilee
I stroked your ink dark hair
as you pressed against my chest
you with child
I with a world so set on hate.
How could I know hate yet I did
it crawled between each pebbled
heart like sand fleas in spring
Still, hate is the grit in every man’s
mind which begs to be released on someone
or some idea. I’ve been chosen
to hang for man’s heresy
God? God is not I nor is He them.
If only I could teach truth without hate.
It is a crime of all mankind,
to hate without understanding
to know without understanding
to kill and die without reason.
It is the way of this world in which I sleep
with Mary near the pebbled beach of Galilee.
Split
I can’t hear you
words stumble
from lips I kissed once
It was never to happen
this way or that
I guess my butterflies
propagate
in someone else’s flower garden
It happens in early morning
when silence of sleep meets today
trash men talking trash
street cleaners roar yet
you’re gone
the milk is spilled
and I without a cat.
Milk, Honey, and Hunger
In the silence of the ink night
cutting silence like tight coffins
in a cemetery
I heard a voice, not yours
not mine but like mine
the voice screamed freedom
amidst enslavement
amidst oppression.
It was not my voice was it?
It was the voice of Gandhi
Martin Luther, Jack, and John.
It was the voice of the Dalai Lama
crying freedom on Iwo Jima.
Voices of pain rippled through
my voice, the pain of children
your God’s children hungry
forlorn and forgotten.
The cost of freedom unpaid
with bubbles of champagne
and your necklace from Tiffany’s.
Eyes
Once we saw eye to eye
dark brown almonds
floating in a foaming sea
Does it matter what time of day
the sun sets or creeps back to life?
Our eyes said it all like laser beam love
it remains even as age fades
the piercing beauty of it all
still we touch without touching
beauty stays in the beholders glance
eternal
eyes
The Jesus Diary
I am the light you don’t have
just a hole in your tent
from which you can see my radiance
I am the can of soup
which multiplies for feeding five
pass it around and drink my blood.
I give to the least of these
homeless shelters
soup lines
scabbards for your paring knives
Caesar’s gold is hidden
where rust doth not corrupt.
They buried me in a pauper’s ditch
you will be blessed with a vinyl box
I never came back from the dirt
neither will you
sing halleluiah
sing to each other, I’m not listening.
Where Did Jesus Go?
I have viewed too much hate
too many spoiled apples
in this barrel of existence
Jesus they ask have you found him?
I say no is he lost again
gave up looking for him years ago
You’ll go to hell they say
I say take me down
Jesus loves they echo in thunderous
tones too loud to mention
I too love so what’s the difference
perhaps we’re brothers
I the older
he the one with nails of hypocrisy
festering in his back
thrown by those claiming love
but living hate for the poor
the meek and torn
little Gandhi brothers and sisters.
Throw your rocks my brothers and sisters
watch your lives crumble into shards
pinch your noses and drown.
A Brief
Thought of Age
It is dead in the city
midnight outside my window
cars ease by like hyphens in a windstorm
tonight is different like colored coffins
I swore I wouldn’t feel this way again
yet
here I am alone and you twenty-three
stair
steps away how can that be?
Age
as far as I can see draws draperies
across
our windows of intimacy.
Age
that impenetrable cataract
draws
draperies across our memory.
Of
course we blame it on maturity
and
too many losses between us.
I
the impotent lover and impotent convict
upon
this small plank which we walk.
Boxes
Boxes
as far as the eye can see
each
a cocoon for a poor child
each
a place with room for sleep
each
a place to thwart our dreams.
Which
box is yours?
Take
your pick after all
they’re
no different
refuges
each and every one.
Is
there a time when boxes fall
for
popsicles to give way
to
brick and mortar?
Not
soon my child not soon.
Sweet
baby grows tears
dirtied
and disassembled
the
world rolls on and on
stopping
only at the grave.
Santa
Died Last Night
Snow
falls arbitrarily across our street
first
snow this year pronouncing itself king of kings
I
guess I am grateful in this warm manger
for
not fighting red-faced wind burned snowball flakes.
It’s
a sad time some say I say so too
people
die more often they say I say so too
near
holidays no doubt with broken hearts,
insatiable
needs for immortality ringing in deaf ears.
High
definition virgin snow show outside my window
I
sip slowly on a nameless red wine watching headlights
pass
anonymous friends with nerves on edge
fearing
control will slip from their fingers.
Are
we not all afraid of our destinies?
Those
slush filled dreams bring us down
to
reality and reality is a broken heart,
the
insatiable need to live and fight the forces
which
insist our skin must age
our
bodies must decay
winter
storms burst our fantasies
after
all we fear the virgin snow of our death.
1952
A
night I remember well so well
blizzard
road and a cherry red motor
ditches
surrounded us and I but a child
no
one near on a full moon path
we
were lost and never stopped.
You
died soon after, dark dirt mouth
white
bearded cemetery swallowed you
something
swallowed us five poor white
kids
with hollowed sockets of brown
we
crept into our beds that night your bed
empty
yet breathing not life our life
turned
on a dime in a forty eight chevy.
I
watch as cars pass in gray November fog
wondering
if tomorrow
comes
again
for
three white kids left.
Land
That I Love
Thousands
of voices reach into the frosted air
upside
down in an upside up world
black
boots marching always marching
each
mindless soldier does what needs doing.
Freedom
rings in cubicles inside warm and cool
freedom
dies in the streets of needles rubber hoses
don’t
dirty the parks don’t spit on the boot heels
let
freedom ring in oligarchy red combed roosters.
No
one helps those who help themselves
brown
shirts have turned to pin stripes
well
trimmed hair without conscience
office
in front hold the calls for freedom.
Food
lines hospital lines road signs fools say
9-9-9
may I sleep with you
touch
you to the top of America
and
grind you down to size when I am done.
America
is falling Marxist
rumors
spread no wealth
unless
you’re a plumber in Ohio
America
a free
falling
golden parachute
free
basing its way to the third world.
War
is Hell
Is
it fair to say we are dead
proverbial
door knob
never
again twisted
no
room to enter or exit
sorry
the cage is
closed
for business.
Wars
end and begin
peace
bargained
high
bidder wins and god bless the loser
ragged
child
without
shoes and food
IEDs
hidden in your underwear
take
them off and
shower
clean your sins.
One
legged soldier
smiles
at two shoes
one
too tight the other lonesome
war
a penis extension
for
generals
kings
and jacks with wild cards
royal
flush just flushed the
desert
clean.
For the
Wretched
Too
much to say not enough time
like
never burn your mind
in
an empty crack house stairway
don’t
step on a crack
make
your mother proud
even
if pride is lost to her to you
gooseflesh
and grandma’s grave
never
matched never hatched
so
much for folklore crack whores
and
the time it takes to breathe
to
die without someone by your side
don’t
do it, just don’t do it.
Welcome
Bare
baby slapped
twisted
and gagged
born
in violence
scabbing
belly button
here
you are
what’s
next
momma’s
tit
daddy’s
gift to you
more
violence
welcome
to this world
don’t
cry
don’t
be hungry
don’t
need
for
god’s sake
don’t
need.
Changed
I
have sat alone and cried
so
many times for promises
vacant
broken glass.
It
seems I cannot count
failed
follies
since
knowing you.
Love’s
cruelty sad
like
sparrows in winter
and
frozen clay in spring.
Parting
now I say
butterflies
must change
to
see their tomorrows.
Hopeless
It
never stops
this
ball of muck
rolling
through my mind
like
a pebble in a shoe
I
can’t walk forward
until
it’s been plucked.
The
lingering dreams
never
bring good news
just
headlines of hopeless hypocrisy
will
I die in a homeland
that
never was?
Jesus
Saves
Treasures
have eluded me
same
shirt as yesterday
same
torn sneakers
same
night gags.
Where
do paupers rest
park
bench studios
internet
cafes
appliance
boxes?
Is
there a savior
surrounding
oily
necks
or
piss scented hideaways?
Jail
cell luxury
is
best for me
three
hots and a cot
god
loves us all.
Jesus
left today
black
Lexus
with
sirens blasting
morning
prayers.
Black Dog Night
Windless night greet me
old friend like friends should
smile before going
into a world without hope
or mutterings of daylight
you the blackest of stallions
galloping through my dreams
boldly running through washes
long forgotten
old memories return riding
roughshod for daylight
your wicked grin chagrins
even the pinkest streaks
of twilight.
Divorce Revisited
Did morning break
or did it shatter?
The day of your train ride
home I won’t forget
but the day I drove across mountains
of snow to save myself
I won’t forgive.
Breathless Trains of My Youth
As a young man
I would fall asleep
to the sounds of crickets
whippoorwills, and lonely wolves
but the sound which strikes
my memory most
the trains clawing and scratching
their way up the mountain rails
heading for all points west
Chicago, Chattanooga, to Denver.
I dreamed so often of those faraway names
but dreams are ashes when you’re poor
poor like hobos sleeping
in woods parallel parking near the tracks
poor like tattered cottages
rambling up the mountainside.
Poor is death before its time
and time is never late.
So I dream of travel
I dream a dream so sweet
with a country girl yet to meet
and a straw between her lips
and eyes like autumn
autumns come and go
too soon for me.
In the end man became calloused
from walking the tightrope of existence
thinking he was right and no one else
thus God said it was good
and man took a woman by the hair
beating her until she gave children
bloodying her hope breaking her spirit
and God said so be it
it is good.
Let us give praise to the heavens.
What can be said in an epilogue of such a book? Can it be said that all is well now that the God fearing man or woman has had their way with the world they have squatted upon?
Some men have decided for themselves and of course in the name of their God which ethnic, religious, or gender group should live and which should die all in the name of purification. I ask an unanswerable question, when you take your last breath can you say “all is good?”
It was Gandhi who said: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Was he not correct in his view of Christians? Perhaps he could have expanded his thought to all religions who claim a man or prophet to be their role model, to be their God. After all God and Christ are perfect, so how then can a man or a woman claim to be like them, near them, or devout followers of them. It is the epitome of arrogance.
I understand the possibility that you the reader will say this book was not all that religious by nature and it didn’t ask that many questions. You have a point, but wouldn’t know how to go about the process of asking every question unanswered by a God or a man, or a woman. It would be impossible. Perhaps a sequel might be in order someday, but for now it’s all I have and it’s all I can leave you with. Let’s call it the many shortcomings of Stan Grimes.
Thanks for reading,
Stan