JOHN AMEN

On a Morning Such as This

Faces are blanched like concrete driveways.
Even in times of tragedy, the serial killer sticks his course.

Newsmen play cards inside the morgue
while Franciscan monks and Jesuit priests
whip themselves with rose stems.

The dream ends like a bad movie;
we arrive bankrupt at the concession stand,
as night closes in like a trash compactor.

The diary becomes the trendy literary form.
Armies march, foundations shaking like a man with palsy.
Cannons are cleaned like ears,
altars scraped as if for skin samples.

A clown walks up to me in the battle zone and asks, 
Why, friend, when I  dust the rooms of my defeats,
do I keep finding God's fingerprints?

copyright 2003 JOHN AMEN

RICHARD FEIN

A Kaleidoscope of Longings

In kindergarten I saw her during arts and crafts
making a magic wand from folded paper.
But no magic could have made me go talk to her, and even if I did
at that age I couldn't put in words what I desired.

Saw her in the schoolyard where all the fourth grade classes lined up.
I was in 4B and she in 4A,
between us were the teachers and a red line.
Once I waited for her after dismissal,
and in the rush of homeward-bound children
she brushed against my shoulder.

At a highschool pep rally I saw her
waving a baton as if it were a magic wand.
But only tackles and quarterbacks went with cheerleaders.

She visited the office once, holding a leather briefcase
and looked severe in her blue business skirt and blouse.
But she smiled at me.
And I, and I almost,
then the elevator opened and she was gone.

She had many hair colors
and eye colors of blue, or brown, or hazel
and a wondrous spectrum of skin tones.
But a common denominator 
linked them all in my memory.
This denominator was not the lowest,
but the highest,
though I've never computed the right divisor.
Her myriad faces flash deep behind my eyes,
but her voice, her warm hello,
I've never had courage to hear.

copyright 2003