Holy Brethren

If you're more a sinner than Dante was,

With less to show for it, be sure the audience you

imagine

Is endowed with an extra supply of patience.

The man you banish in Act One for speaking plainly

Must return like Kent in Act Two to serve again.

The woman you've disinherited like Cordelia

Must still believe that under your pride and rancor

You're waiting for the chance to reappear.

HOLY BRETHREN

If I don't believe the doctrine of my neighbor's

church,

The church of the Holy Brethren, that we're sinners

all

And need to repent each night and ask forgiveness,

I don't believe it's foolish. Some metaphor of the truth

Is hidden there, a crust from the loaf baked long ago

And broken and scattered among the seekers.

And if his church nurtures his many virtues,

I'm glad he belongs, my generous neighbor,

First to help when my basement's flooded,

Last to leave the soup kitchen of his church

Saturday night, when others have gone dancing.

If I had the money I'd make a contribution

So the clapboard walls of his church

In the low-rent district could be repainted.

I'd lift its burden of debt to lift his spirits.

Then he'd be less likely to hunt around

For an incarnation that seems more tangible,

More potent than the one his church is built on.

It hurts me to see how he's planted in front of his

house

A thirty-foot, silvery flagpole with a ten-foot flag.

I wish its flapping sounded like the soft voices of

sinners

Who know they've confused their right hands with

their left,

Not like the voice of a country that can do no wrong.

The snap and pop keeps me from sleeping

On muggy nights, when the window's open.

My neighbor must be worried his life is ebbing.

How much longer will he have to postpone his joy,

The joy that's promised? Why can't the side he's

backing

Win a battle once in a while, as his country does,

An actual battle reported in papers

And celebrated with literal feasting?

What good does it do to be rocked with his church

In the bosom of Abraham if it's dark and cold there,

Its promised summer always postponed?

Abraham left his city when he smashed the idols,

But my neighbor has to live here, in the rubble.

And where is the prophet to warn him

More idols are growing in the night like corn?

BIMINI QUEEN

Three hours from the islands, and the clock below deck

Of the Bimini Queen strikes twice, and out from the

tin house

Stuck in the clockface a soldier steps in jerks

And taps the rim of his drum two times.

Why not stop a minute and watch?

The game of bridge under way in the captain's cabin

Can wait while you compare the fixed look of the

drummer

To the self-important look of a junior accountant at

work

When he steps from your office, full of a common-

place

He's ready to stun his public with,

The crowd hushed at the coffee machine.

Scary to think you might turn out like that,