Other Poems

The spokes of grief spin on the axis of hope

by Ken Sehested

These are most surely the days to trace the shape of
hope in the swirl of despair: to reassure children, to
encourage harried parents, to tip big-time, to speak out
loudly against vacuous leaders, to praise medical
professionals, to acknowledge teachers who are
working harder than ever (with exponentially less
notice), to celebrate cleaner air (a foretaste of what
could be if together we were to rigger the needed will
for weaning from fossil fuels). And on and on. (Add here
your nominees for concerted public attention.)

Nevertheless, do not forsake the labor of lament, of
public rituals naming the anguish, of the singing of sad
songs. The very spokes of grief spin on the axis of hope.
No one grieves aloud except for the deep down
awareness that life has come off the rails of gracious
accord, of promised bounty, and the practice of
neighborliness embedded in our DNA.

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Prepping for Ash Wednesday

A supplication

by Ken Sehested

Return to your heart, O you transgressors,
and hold fast to the One who made you.
Stand with the Beloved and your footing
shall be firm. Rest in the Merciful One
and you shalt be buoyed.

Where do you go along these rugged
paths, pilgrim, so far from home yet so
winsomely loved? Be clear about what
you seek, and where you seek, for the
beatific life cannot be found in the land
of illusion.

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What we need is here

Meditation on mayhem while sitting shiva

by Ken Sehested
All Hallow's Eve 2018

Introduction.This prose poem’s origin began upon confrontation
with three recent tragedies spurred by white nationalists in my
country: pipe bombs sent to public figures opposing our nation’s
nefarious governance; the killing of two African Americans in a
Kentucky grocery store after the shooter was unable to enter a
black church for the same purpose; and then a successful, deadly
sanctuary shooting in a Pittsburgh synagogue. This poem’s
completion came after participating in a Jewish mourning the
dead ritual (sitting shiva), specifically in light of the Pittsburgh
massacre, in one of our city’s synagogues where the rabbi,
referencing Isaiah’s famous “Comfort, comfort my people”
refrain (chapter 40), suggested that the text can also be read
as “Find comfort in my people.” Which is exactly what we were
doing in that packed-to-overflowing sanctuary.

WE ARE IN A WORLD OF HURT. And the hurt submits to no tawdry
there-there, it’ll-be-alright. To the hurting, there is no be-alright
on the horizon. That’s why it hurts: such pain calls the future into
question. Hurt is more than pain. It is threat: that dawn’s dispersive
power against night’s dread can no longer be trusted. Of the kind of
weeping that compounds the sorrow and leads to no joy.

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If justice and only justice

Lamech's threat of escalating violence

by Ken Sehested

If justice, and only justice, is
            all we ask, none will
                        escape the hangman’s
                                    ugly work.

Some are less culpable, of course, no doubt, some did more, yes, some less righteous than me and mine, some more, some so much more, mucho mas more are worse than others and, in particular, worse than me,

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If justice and only justice

Lamech's threat of escalating violence

by Ken Sehested

If justice, and only justice, is
            all we ask, none will
                        escape the hangman’s
                                    ugly work.

Some are less culpable, of course, no doubt, some did more, yes, some less righteous than me and mine, some more, some so much more, mucho mas more are worse than others and, in particular, worse than me,

Read more ›

Silent night

An Advent poem

by Ken Sehested

To move into a seemingly bleak and
ominous future requires laying hold
of stories from our past:

Stories to remind us that buoyancy
        emerges from unseen places,
        at unknowing moments,
        in unpredictable ways,
        beyond all calculation
        and prognostication.

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Silent night

An Advent poem

by Ken Sehested

To move into a seemingly bleak and
ominous future requires laying hold
of stories from our past:

Stories to remind us that buoyancy
        emerges from unseen places,
        at unknowing moments,
        in unpredictable ways,
        beyond all calculation
        and prognostication.

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Sacramental operative in a sullied world

by Ken Sehested

We need to recognize, and adjust in appropriate ways, to the
fact that we humans maintain a perverse fascination with
disaster. I’ll leave it to psychologists to explain why, precisely;
but this habit is easily illustrated: From “rubber-necking” on
the highway (slowing down to view the scene of a wreck), to
the media’s 24/7 coverage of hurricane news. We rarely recall
the car trips made without incident, or the sunny days that
predominate in the Bahamas’ and Outer Banks’ weather
patterns.

For whatever reasons, disaster stories and images are more
mediagenic. Our eyes and ears turn to them with the same kind
of compulsion as the tongue’s obsession with a broken tooth.

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Memorial Day 2018

by Ken Sehested

If, in the end, I did not believe that grace will ultimately
rob the grave of its triumph—that mercy will finally trump
vengeance—then I would opt for any and every form of
resistance to imperial sovereignty, including any and every
form of “terrorism” (whose designation is always assigned
by those currently in control, as if imperious rule is not
itself the most definitive expression of terror’s sway).

The reign of brutality must be challenged, to the death if
need be. But the nature of that challenge, its form and shape
and character, is shaped by one’s vision of the future:
to whom it belongs, by what means it is secured, and by
what authority it is granted.

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Another Word is in the wind

A psalm of complaint and avowal

by Ken Sehested

          Have mercy upon us, O Lord.
          Our soul has had more than its fill
          of the scorn of those who are at ease,
          of the contempt of the proud.
          —Psalm 123:3-4

In the end, if we are left to our own devices—to our
own amalgam of brains and brawn, of ingenuity and
charisma, sleight of hand and strength of arm, in
mobilizing sufficient force to bend the will of others
to our own, in accordance to self-ordained vision
masquerading as fate’s foreordained history—then
nothing is forbidden. All authority is subsumed in
the will to power.

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