from John 2

I couldn't tell you why I said it

I hardly ever know what I will be moved

to speak or sing or do for him

I just feel what the wind feels

I hear what the rain hears

and I trust that what's calling me, moving me on

is a love, is a feast, is a party that starts

when what I have runs out

I went back to dancing women

back to drinking men

let the breeze rustle my clothes

I smelled a sweet rain coming, becoming

sweeter and darker and deeper.

I wait for something, but I think

the waiting is what I’m waiting for.

I’m listening in the silence, but the silence

is what I wait expectantly to hear.

The stillness and the passing of time

are also things to taste and touch.

If the taste is tasteless,

the touch unfeeling,

it’s the taste of water,

the touch of air.

To feel the flavor of water on your tongue,

your skin prickle in the grip of air

is to tune your senses finely,

calibrate to the highest power.

So I wait silently and let the still time

be the thing I wait for in the quiet,

in the dark.

Just as we do our best

to give up our resentment

and see things your way

even so

take it easy on us.

You have a lot going on

we know

spiral arms must keep spinning

anemones fill crevices in deep coral

chemo courses through fiery veins

like a seam of coal, ignited.

You are busy

just like us.

We’ll keep each other company.

There were days when all I loved was what I lacked –

God’s love, like Brian Wilson’s “Warmth of the Sun,”

drowned in comfort, soaked in solitude,

salt and water ascended from my back;

I dreamed of it like old men dream of seas:

a fondest hope, a longed-for destination

that might be gained with care and preparation,

a just reward just beyond my reach.

You can taste the suntan lotion on the breeze;

you can hear the shells upstaging shattered surf;

you can feel the beach like carpet on your knees.

And sometimes simulacra must come first.

And sometimes “No” is what comes after “Please.”

And sometime nothing’s Heaven. Sometimes Earth.

Both of us put the crew together:

some day laborers, some hard men,

at least one guy inside the system.

Eleven and me and him made thirteen.

It takes a while to pull a job

this big, this weird, this… miraculous,

so we hunkered down, we glanced around,

made one plan for us and one for them.

The haul would be huge, just staggering.

What Jew would think of a heist on the temple

that sly fox built? No easy task.

It’s also why we had a chance.

Almost three years it took –

starting real small, a quick trick here,

one-off grift there, it takes a while

to build any kind of grassroots movement

from scratch. But we’d got the timing right,

the mood was good for what we’d got

and to cap it off, a rival hood

got pinched the week we’d marked for the job.

The boys had their dander up, all right.

We had one last meet that Thursday night,

and me and the boss played it laid back,

just hints and clues of what was up.

Boss gave me the cue (the hand in the bowl)

and I hit the bricks to nab the bulls

and spill my phony guts. Then ankle to the hill,

let ‘em grab the big guy and split up the boys.

They’d never see it coming in the free-for-all,

our second-story man heading to temple

and covered up tight. (Thomas was shrewd

all right but he knew his business.)

Things heated up fast, we knew they would –

they sweated the boss good, they rushed the trial,

even offered the public their choice of palooka.

Our doubles were ready with fugazi nails

and G-d dammit if we didn’t pull it off!

The mickey got slipped, vinegar and sponge,

the coppers too busy rolling the bones

to notice too much the new guys on the crew

or the boss starting twitching way too soon.

Temple security had their hands full,

it being the high holy days and all.

Our man on the inside got what he got

and got outta Dodge with nary a soul

the wiser or worse for any the wear.

We’d greased the right palms, made it all work,

met back in the upper story house

grinning like nobody could make us stop,

slapping the backs, raising the glass,

running hot fingers through the coolness of coin,

just yukking it up for all we were worth.

It took quite a while before it sunk in –

our cover story might’ve been too good.

We’d got it too right, too air-tight

and the story spun out way bigger than we thought.

The boss played it cool, but just me could tell

it got to him. Wouldn’t anyone

have problems becoming the savior of the world

on accident? Jesus. Have mercy on us.

from the series “Before God Departed”

He tapped the icon to disable notifications.

He set a voicemail message

that went something

like, “Sorry I missed you,

leave a message and I’ll get back

to you when I can.”

He left no out-of-office reminder

in his auto-reply. He left

no auto-reply. He gave

no notice, not two weeks, not

any time at all.

His officemate might have seen him

grab his bag and umbrella

on the way out the door

but could never quite be sure

ever after that.

He definitely left before lunch, though –

a bag in the fridge had His Name

clearly marked in Sharpie,

neat block letters with no trace

of hurry or nervous energy.

Never grabbed the last paycheck.

Asked for no references, no follow up,

no answer at the number HR had on file.

Damn, was His manager pissed,

kept fuming about what he’d do to Him

if he got the chance.

Really all He left were pleasant memories:

a kickball home run at the team-building retreat;

instigating “Chubby Bunny” in the break room

during the quarterly push;

taking Myra’s hand when she had

her final incident. We all

remembered that.

We treasured the spaces He left

in His absence, the in-between

where nobody else would go.

Somebody still got Him a present

for Secret Santa months later.

Sure, we fought over His parking space

for what felt like years.

I think my getting it is what

He would have wanted.

I believe in a God who's mostly not there,

mostly not here, mostly nowhere.

Like any solid object, it's a vast empty space

a tangerine seed in a football field ocean,

the God I believe in.

The leptons and quarks, the hidden helix,

the spirit cloud of sacred electrons

giving and taking away, valence levels

shrink and grow, the nucleus gives up the ghost.

The God I believe in is listening

more than speaking, his trumpet is played with a mute

and the most beautiful nothing is not not him.

He weighs so little that you can't believe

anything could come of it; nothing that makes

Nothing vast in comparison: the God I believe in.