The Pilgrim's Progress

Last month
just after the coming

my new smart phone

a pilgrimage toward

peace and love

When did baseball

turn into warfare?

It's small, mean, profit-oriented

 world after all,

It ain't all Disneyland

But I don't worship

Mammon

It's merely a high-rise

optical illusion

1.

The Sacred

I take refuge

inside

In the house of

the Lord

All roads lead

me to kneel here

at His feet

People get ready

There's a train to Jordan

There's a green cloth

upon the altar

A meditation profound

in Jesus bound

Until He comes again

spacey organ music

Side trip

to the strange

side chapel

Contemporary

traditional

triptych

Occluded icon

Bardo icon

Empty baroque

 frame

The Faithful

A candle lit

in a human heart

no limit

Cabinet of the cruets and

True confessional

I'll roll right over

confess to all my sins

colorful and sad

Holy water

God's going to

trouble the water

Secular water

Salt water

When I think

I've had enough

He fills me up again

Deep peace

in the Palmatarium

I came upon

a bench

in the midst of life

Peace came

falling slow

Another little

man-made pond

of peace

We shook the sugar down

now party like it's 1984

That happened

and it was

declared wigged-out

A luscious time

but it's

2.

The Profane

So I put

the fragmented life

behind me

turn my back to it

I like to show the police

the bottoms of my feet

Dreamy

in repose

A little Bettie Boop

China doll

appeared to me

out of my subconscious

 an illusion of refraction

She grew up fast

Commencing a sexy dance

the seven veils

of Maya Love

Like the opening

of a Warner Brothers

cartoon

Sleepiness ensued

Enough to make me draw

the Venetian blinds

My sleeping bag

seduced me

 Hypnotized

if not narcotized

on top of

the sea of afgan

Warm enough for boxers

 flannel bed clothes

are out of season

Before I knew it

I was asleep

I dreamed I was reclining

in some foreign courtyard

looking up at the sky

 covered over

by a drifting

rippling veil

25-26 July 2017