“Take Off Your Shoes: Between Religion and Ethics,” Santalka, Vol. 16, No. 3 , p. 37-49. (available for download in pdf)

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This is the story of America. Everybody’s doing what they think they’re supposed to do.
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road

A Soldier:

I want to tell you about myself.
I didn’t do it. I didn’t see who did it.
It isn’t right for me to get in trouble.

Chorus:

There is no place to stand here that is not
the scene of some unspeakable violence.

Ismene:

Your heart burns for things
that have gone cold.

Why seek the living
among the dead?

Father, mother, brothers
gone by one another’s

hand, a city
consumed, and I

alone to mourn one more
cruel act of one more

who thinks he holds the city in his hand
or does not think, but does.

Chorus:

There is no place to stand here that is not
the scene of some unspeakable violence.

Antigone:

The city reeks. Death rises.
Every living thing lies

in the grave while dogs grow fat
on the bodies of our distraction.

Ismene:

I alone. If things
have reached this state

what can I do but hope
the ones who matter

will forgive? I am
forced.

Chorus:

There is no place to stand here that is not
the scene of some unspeakable violence.

Antigone:

Who thinks she holds the city in her hand
or does not think but does.

Ismene:

No matter. No
matter. Power

speaks. Cities
fall. Precipitous

action makes no sense.

Antigone:

Be what you want
to be. But I will

bury what lies
rotting on this city’s streets.

You may wish it were
not. But what lies

there is like us
our mother’s child.

Power speaks. Cities
fall. Be what you want

to be. But I will
bury what lies

rotting on this city’s streets.

Ismene:

Power speaks, and I
will be

what we are. I am

Antigone:

forced. I am not
opposed to war. I am

not opposed to war. I am
not opposed to war. I am

opposed to dumb

Ismene:

war. Power
speaks, and I

will be

what we are. I am.

I am.

Chorus:

There is no place to stand here that is not
the scene of some unspeakable violence.

Our happiness depends on wisdom
every step along the way.

Great words by great men
bring greater blows
upon them,

and somewhere
there must have been
a time when we could have said

no. So wisdom comes
So wisdom comes.
There is no time

like the present.

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flat white bristle
brush, white full
circle

a single stroke
on a field two
shades

bluer
than zinc,
green arcs

on either side
of gray between
rainbows parked

in lines
that would
converge

if they could
find the horizon.
dazzled by sun

you could miss this
slow reflection that is
more than a dance

of rising light
on a bright
moment of water

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Western philosophy is a footnote to Plato.
-Alfred North Whitehead

1
It’s all
a footnote

to Job,
nothing no

where but
the corner

of the eye.

2
Cite book
after book,
Koheleth –

the memory
of them never
ends. We

make scenes
of one Socrates
or an other,

bind
books
and imagine

we should know
every ass
that stands in our way.

3
Satan,
like a god,

is a metaphor,
part of the power

which forever wills
evil and forever works

good. Moscow is
not the only place

where no one is
to be seen.

4
No one is
to be seen
everywhere

one path
crosses
another

posting
notes
to his brother

who is
made of nothing
except loneliness. The other,

who does not know the meaning
of the word, is the perfect witness.

5
Yeshua tells Pilate nothing
he does not already know:

every kind of power
is a form of violence

against people. Even
Ivan is seized by poetry

when the moon is full.
As for Margarita,

who needs light
when you have this

peace that could pass
for understanding?

6
No one but no
one earns
light. No one.

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