Dave Petty, 2/19/2006

Taken out of comfort, I lived like I live today.  Not very easily explained this disoriented state of mine, torn out to cry the wildness that you obviously forgot with your greedy mammon grin.  Excuse me is that a side of beef hanging on the corner of your mouth or are you just happy to see me?  Game of golf?  Tennis?  Ring around the rosey?   

My eyes see Black Death ash floating like dust caught in an indoor skylight stream, rain down on me.  Nature’s limitation: we die with or without our clothes on.  No matter.  No.  Really!  Nothing remains, dust to fine dust, gold dust, dirt dust, death dust.  

Wait a minute.  I’m sure you got New York Strip dangling there between your whitey-tighty-it’s-alrighty teeth.  Over-proteined true grit American cowboy, spit running down them rabid gums, foamin’ like milk shake, shakin’ like a grand mal all over the flame-broiled bedazzling world.  It’s like some great Chicago fire barbequing our souls.  Only we just don’t get it. 

As I started to say, I was plucked out of creature comfort, warm momma milk-fed momma’s boy, plucked moved and dropped, not like a feather but a stone.  Left to sink or swim.  News for you.  Rocks don’t swim. 

Sedimentally yours, I have been sitting where I was set when puberty passed by like a Masserati and I got this unicycle.  Everyone around here, built for lightspeed, leaves me in a standstill… sitstill.  But I don’t spin.  I watch.  Wheels, feet, eyes, dart to targets that fade upon approach.  It’s odd (not the disappearance but that no one seems to know or remember or care).  Perhaps it’s because new targets materialize (or appear so) when old ones vanish. 

I don’t think this is normal or natural.  It’s just the way it’s become.  And I’ve been wondering why I can tell.  I have a suspicion that there are others who, like me, are sitting, like me.  Sitting.  Staring and, like me, wondering. 

So there’s this unicycle, here.  I don’t use it.  It’s mine.  It’s a part of me: the unused me.   

It’s different  Curious.  I mean, I know what it is.  What it does.  Who it represents.  I’ve thought about it a lot. 

I refuse to put on a big round red nose, paint my face, wear shoes 17 sizes too big, giant red polka dot bowtie, oversized black pants, complete with suspenders, ridiculous shirt with squirting daisy. 

I refuse! 

One thing that me and a clown have in common is “sad”.  Okay, pathetically sad.  So that’s two things.  Pathetically sad to the distant observer, we are only observed at that laughable distance.  Parents feel weird about us.  Children feel scared.  And we don’t ever tell.  No one knows how we feel.  We are only known for what we represent.  Quite frankly, we are only, really, amusing.  We are not comics that make others laugh.  We are curiosities. 

So that’s three things in common: sad, pathetic, and curious.  Curious in the sense that we engender curiosity… sort of.  Call it curiosity of the moment.  Just then, when observed, the thought “how curious”.  And only then.  People walk away and are happy that we stay in our place.  We don’t go home with them.  Just a momentary disturbance.  We don’t live with them.  We interrupt them on their way to the ever-elusive.  Wheels for feet, engine for soul, sucking wind and thrill to distance, see how far they have come and how far they can go.  I don’t see distance this way.  I see them all come and go.  I see maze and I see wheel and I see clowns and I see laughably sad, if it were not so real.  I am not a clown.  I only look that way.  I see clowns.  Only, I cannot look or walk away.  They move about the ring, juggling.  Too big for their bikes and unicycles they flock to the make believe burning building tossing dixiecups at roaring blazing fires and each other for our entertainment.  Only we are not amused.  Flowers squirting helplessly. 

The real is what I, in sorrow too deep for words, see on tired eyes and broken hearts.  Planet of the clowns where the laughable hide for fear of the wild uncontrollable.  Our consolation is like a hug, tender but momentary. 

Note to the perpetually curious: wildness is a freedom to us.  To the visitor it is a Zoo.  Serenghetti lions and Komodo dragons are served best when contained (bars, glass, walls). 

Why then, power mad Jungle King, do you burn.  Your eyes raging.  Your belly devours.  Your passion is neither sweet nor normal.  Your wildness is a mockery.  Unlike the moving masses, predatorial you catch what you hunt.  Eat what you kill.  Engorged with the blood of clowns, you do not care but for what you claim as yours.  By right of moment’s position, by right of deadly intent, you will not be denied.  You are no clown.  You are monster.  You are honest, though wrong.  Rodeo cowboy, riding bulls and broncos, you do not fear the wild.  You tame it, tie it.  Ride Cowboy Ride! 

And one day, when the truly Wild throws you, tramples you, and leaves you for dead… Tell me then what you have done.  When the dust cloud settles and your return to where you came… Speak to me like the bones of the T-Rex, O king of earth.  Juggernaut me this: who made you? 

By: Dave Petty, 08/11/2001

How not to put words into God’s mouth or… how not to blame God for our own silly notions:

To “think our thoughts after God” is the dilemma since our beginning.   The intent to do otherwise (the art of second-guessing, dismissal, or denial) is what we seem to do best.  “Fairness is the measure” when of course we are the determiners of what is fair.  “If God cared then certainly…” and we decide that all else is inadmissible into our courts of believability.  Ultimately, my hip-pocket God is too small to be seriously considered and so, we deny his everlasting-Tom-Thumb-existence (“old gods never die, they just fade away”… especially when, true to mythology, made by us!).

Spiritual alchemy, for it to truly work, is a very tricky business.  Lead to gold, God to convenience.  Contrast and compare.  Only for the master of illusion and disguise can this be convincingly achieved.  We have basically three problems to address.  First there is the audience.  Then there is God.  And finally, there is the illusionist.

History, which most certainly does repeat itself, teaches us that the task of convincing the audience is by far and away the easiest.

By: Dave Petty, 1983

Thunder breaks the placid calm, etching the epics of divine passion on the surface of the day-to-day.  I love the joy of expression and the imperturbable momentum of creative enterprise.  It is a slow dull-witted pain of decay that I feel when I sit mesmerized at the television screen waiting for the next event in this endless line of programs & channels, images & ideas, lives and unlives.  What is it beyond the conditioning that transfixes me there like the sailors and the Sirens that break them?

            Give life! Again and again the song of songs inscribed on the peaks of mountains and the feet of infants, calls me back, reminding me that these pulsations of personal breath and blood are gifts to be treasured.  Give me the cries of angels at the places where tired feet touch quicksand.

            Comfort, in my frame of reference is a deadly disease, it is a contagious anemia of the soul that lingers too long beyond the languid summer life of lizards in the sun.  I have been forming a seasonal reptilian crust that seems to become less removable with age.  I am quickly coming to the conclusion that there is no happy medium between stress and laziness. Which is not to say that one’s alternative is to choose one or the other, both or moderation (which is only somebody’s watered-down justification for existential malaise).  No!  There has to be more.  The indicator of today’s wellbeing is the stress quotient.  This is one-dimensional life analysis at its best.

            What about servanthood, martyrdom, righteousness?  Do we find our sense of fulfillment crystallize in the presence of these and company of like-nature.  What of zeal, truth, sacrifice, and goodness?  The work of a stone sculptor is arduous, stressful, and to those who quest for value, life-dominating.  Driven men can be dangerous when others lie in their wake.  But driven by what?  “Zeal for Thy house will consume me…”

            What does it mean to be faithful, obedient, serving?  Is this to be done in moderation?  “God, I can only go this far and no further.”  Having a passion for God, will mean extravagant (costly) lives for those who dare.  An artist’s passion for expression in his or her art can be an extension of this passion for God, and an incarnation of His passion for us.  Art that penetrates, extends from a God who penetrates the darkness of our existence, the malaise of our regularity with His intimacy, His love, His creativeness, His concern, His passion, the unsearchable depths of His character.

            Zeal… labor… recreation

            Passion… perspiration… perspective

            I yearn to emulate the crash of waves at the shores of divine connection.  I live to cry the blood of God, deeper than aesthetics, older than steel.

Dave Petty, 5/07/2018

When I had left the driveway… pulled out, head twist to look behind and around, moving away… from house and familiarity.

When I had left the driveway… I was not alone.

But days since then, sometimes, I felt alone. Adjusting to something foreign to me.

When I had left the drive… I was out of my zone. Time, comfort. Out of my zone.

The place we find ourselves is somewhere else. When young, we long for it. When old, not so much. At least, not me.

Is it a root thing or an insecurity? I think both. Funny. I usually think both. On pretty much anything, I think both. 2 sides. But nowadays, at this age, I think as I sit in the same place. A place familiar, a place that doesn’t distract or disorient. It gives me the freedom to be as disoriented as I choose because the place where I am is most certainly not disorienting.

Are creative people that way, or is it just my brand of creativity-ness? In any event, thinking in weird ways doesn’t seem to estrange me. When I was young I was deathly afraid of the dark. Deathly. That was a place-set that affected, strongly affected my mindset. Now, it seems to be just the place. Somehow, listening to mind’s wandering is a familiar friend. But, put me in an unknown place, my heart races. Odd isn’t it? I think it’s odd and sad that my context disrupts me so. In my college years, that just was not the case. It was all exciting and happily unpredictable adventure. That’s all. Not fear-inducing, unless of course I got in over my head.

Dave Petty, 11/1997

Visionary fire is tasting the field grass 

Licking up the day to day 

Inhale smoke, breathe out/breathe in 

World is like a tinderbox, our emptiness the fuel 

Hearts they glow in darkness, plankton on the surface of the deep,  

My Jesus is the whale who feeds on me 

Though I am not consumed, am swallowed in love’s greatness 

And die with Him in holy tomb… 

Bursting forth in holy time 

Life is speaking holy rhyme 

Gone the fantasy and fairy 

Living fire is visionary 

Dave Petty 8/7/2005

Somewhere in the holy waiting… separate. 

Other.  In fact, when, not where, in time there 

Is that out of time knowing. 

Once we were hand holding, but now this that usurps our  

Fallow over-familiarity 

Leaves us hyper-kinetic (though still). 

We are waiting for the thing we had left behind now 

Wonderfully magically expecting the sparks that tell the make-believe 

That this reality is greater always, than fiction. 

1/11/2019

Somewhere in the holy waiting… separate. 

Other.  In fact, when, not where, in time there 

Is that out of time knowing. 

Once we were hand holding, but now this that usurps our  

Fallow over-familiarity 

Leaves us hyper-kinetic (though still). 

We are waiting for the thing we had left behind now 

Wonderfully magically expecting the sparks that tell the make-believe 

That this reality is greater always, than fiction. 

Dave Petty, 8/31/2019

Of which can you not taste and touch and see and hear? 

That which you and I and eye and ear and hand  

That sensing each and every bit and piece 

The canvas crease, smell of paint, color wheel spinning  

The feel of stone and glass and plexiglass beneath our fingertips 

We make, we shake the can, and spray on wall 

We fall down drain the makers end of days and work 

And pray the sweet remains sweet to taste and touch and hear 

The artist’s fear is we forget, or never knew,  

Or worse would best to have us walk away or never come at all 

The song was never heard 

Or hearing never knowing 

Or worse never wanted listening ever heard again 

The faith in this is not belief in the art 

Not belief in the artist 

Not belief in the doing or the making or at times the un-making 

Faith is what ever so ever lies behind it all 

That beauty or pain is more than beauty or pain could ever be said 

Or drawn 

Or sung. 

Faith lies resting in the Unmade place. 

And builds upon the things the Unmade has made. 

Faith is not the paint, nor note, nor book. 

It rests upon the Unmade’s Word. 

By: Dave Petty, 2012

The signature dish you serve is identical to your fingerprint 

Leaving evidence of your having been here and here and 

Here is one more taste to help us remember 

What sets you apart from all the rest of the universe 

By: Dave Petty, 8/05/1991

What place this musing spot, all scattered like wandering pups about the little-wee shoulder and sit, 

And see Spot run, the sun beating a line down direct to me, 

Not earned I promise you, dear 

Ears that I hear and mutter while I read this fact that right to me, 

Strike! 

Down the lane, and see Spot fly dog-eared inclined to smile and cry the tears of salt and sea 

In praise of Thee… 

Wail now my osprey, circling but to find your suppertime before the sunlight fails. 

By Dave Petty, 2012

They said that. Everyone of them: singly, collectively… They said “praise!” in their own way. Not to the sun, ‘cause they know better. And they don’t clap they whisper, and all the more loudly as the wind blows through. Needles up, needles down, cones around all balled up like knuckles. Green they stand, evergreen and some lie down gray: they gnarl in their historic way. 

They are not missed, but this is what is left, dry needles are the trace of life they leave behind those grand years gone and this grand day of present memory, each fingertip still here to move as He moves, speak as He speaks in whispers all around. 

Dave Petty, 01/19/2012

If the great ship Earth is on its way to an utter end.  If the vaster ocean of God’s universal design has a better plan and the reset button is all but pressed.  Then why would anyone in their right mind invest in it? 

Perhaps this world should be seen as an elderly patient with a terminal disease.  In which case, the only decent thing to do would be to provide hospice care to bring its end to a humane close. 

Or not.  

Once created, Adam and Eve were given the mandate to care for the planet.  “You’re in charge.”  “Here are the keys.  Don’t forget to lock up when you leave.  I’ll see you when I get back.”  To “have dominion over the earth” is a profound privilege with necessary consequence.  We will be, we must be, asked the question by the one who made this earth, “how did you take care of what I entrusted to you?”  Theologians have called this position of ours “vice-regency”.  Authority is essential to the role.  In this delegated sense, we were made the care-takers.  We, and no other, are the stewards of this planet. 

Gay Head, 07/26/1989

Mark 10 days.  Set 10 years.  Times 200… and creation groans in pregnant anticipation… 

Conceptually, speaking perhaps the cross, the cave, the Church’s birthday aflame and spreading (in fits and starts).  And here we set at the edge of time… so close… just a while now. 

I have always been awed by the pregnant pause of the 7^th seal.  The one-half hour silence of all that is…  

Not a ruffle, not a whisper…  mouths agape, eyes a wonder, the jeopardy of an aching spinning dizzy cosmos… not the butterflies of the stomach, but the groaning too deep for words battened down by angels wings in the wake of omnipotent rage… 

The tidal wave of infinite patience in the fullness of time… 

10 years times a billion waves and a zillion moments strung like pearls and slime, growth and decay, a heavenly juxtaposed finality- the scouring of the pan… the snap of the brittle chains, the Shekinah glory that slays and frees in purity.

Dave Petty, 1/2007

Windows and angels 

Daylight, stars and moonlit nights 

Announcing persistently 

Love’s unending interest 

Wing borne, sent fashioned from shores 

Of endless oceans and the stuff of deserts 

Wind borne and set like jewels among us 

To glisten water-like pure and clear 

2004

I want to soon and very soon 

See nothing but your smile 

That’s the day when joy spreads wide open  

Like a curtain call 

And thunder doesn’t rain pours out  

Applause in a roaring flood 

Cause we are swept up, caught up, 

Way way up on these ovation feet 

Standing tall as clapping trees 

Nothing but your smile in the great hereafter 

Nothing but your smile in the here and now 

Grinning ear to ear as we shake the rafters 

Can’t believe what you’ve done 

Take a bow 

Take a bow 

Dave Petty, 1998

Sweet rocks sit on a soggy dish.  The burnt crumbs of giants and oversized kings, pickling their way past a million toes that play hide and seek on the rim of this light brown sugar sand, soft and swept every moment by the undulating sea. 

This food is too much for gods or men who tumble into dust again. 

1989

Soft and hidden she was 

And with every ounce of me pounding feet on sand 

Fists in air, now open-handed spinning 

Dizzy eyes, the clouds pass by 

Then cliff then cloud then cliff again 

She caught me dancing 

Now shifts the axis of earth 

And days to perpendicularity 

With divine presence– 

And at every point on this map 

Of rocks and sea and me and you- 

Light bears down with the certainty of the sun in a cloudless sky 

And with the touch of a mother’s hand 

He found me spinning 

Dave Petty, 2/25/2006

River road bends 

Travelers sending 

Silent prayers 

For safe passage 

To earth and sky dwellers 

“Forgive our thievery!” 

Excuseless metal shod 

Progress, nature’s grimace, 

Mammon’s deadly scourge 

Of flower, tree and tortoise. 

Refuge here at least 

For one more night sweet 

Lilting yesteryear shine 

Like magic, breathe 

Where river bends blue 

Sky and Shekinah 

Wordless shivering. 

Dave Petty, 12/2006

She was smaller on the inside place than the wide wide world. 

Gotta say this big big thing to a little little girl  

Whenever you ever tumble down  

And you crumble down on the inside place 

Whatever the panic attack whatever the human race 

Leaves you with, Let me relieve you with this. 

This world is just a spot,  

A dot on the map of the Infinite…  Don’t Be Afraid 

This cosmic imitation of greatness is less than a handful in the hands of the Holy 

And His blessed recitation (we call it good news) goes round you, cause it found you 

When you were freakin out, Ground you to the real Shout out 

Hey God is not an afterthought He is the great Originator 

So tell the world I’ll see you later, Alligator 

You think you got big teeth have you seen the jaws of the Leviathan? 

Of the Mountains, of the tidal wave, of the jagged lightening streaks across the sky? 

Hey Dragon breath!  Have you seen the teeth of God 

That can swallow kingdoms in the blink of an eye? 

I’m puttin’ my faith on and it feels real good 

Just right, got a glow in the dark grin in the middle of the night 

Aight?  And we can dance on the teeth of the enemy 

I hope you follow me… Don’t Be Afraid 

Sing it.  

Beyond the limits of the creature we got Divinity 

In the neon gleam of His ever lovin’ eye 

We shout the shout heard round the whole wide world 

We shout the shout heard round the whole wide world 

Ain’t nobody ain’t no thing but a chicken wing 

God is bigger 

God is bigger 

Yeah… Don’t Be Afraid 

God is bigger, he is great, the sustainer and the Originate 

The Agitator, he stirs the whole world up 

Earth Shaker, and the giver of the endless cup 

Around the rim of the wide wide world  is the rim of the chalice 

Lovin’ the universe.  Destroyin’ the malice. 

You get a giant room in His heavenly palace. 

You think that He’s irrelevant… it’s just a fallac….y… Don’t Be Afraid 

Dave Petty, 1/13/2006

These invisible terrorestrials 

They drive us mad. 

What are they doing here anyway? 

Like moths to flame, these 

To earth, swarm the human heart 

And leave it coldly out of place. 

Attracted to us, I wonder 

What they smell? 

Death, I guess. 

“Fly-Lord,” no wonder your kind disgusts us. 

Your progeny are raised in our decay. 

Dave Petty, 2/20/2005

1. 

Meet you at the well 

I said meet not more 

Come on to whatever you think I have in store 

It won’t come out, jump out crawl out.  No! 

We gotta get to the water where the thirst is filled. 

I am thrilled that you agree with me. 

O you don’t? 

Well I gotta be more than the bottom of desire 

I wanna inspire you 

Choir you 

Burn a fire in you 

Something holy and true 

I bet you wish I was through with this  

But I have missed this bliss 

Wished this kiss had a holy twist 

Or rather untwisted, two fisted heart and soul for what  

Everybody needs more than the old habits 

Somebody try to be remedy 

Into me (window me) 

Heaven and glory 

Every battle you fight he has already one 

2. 

Snap the change not so early as a switch 

You pay blood and twitch like a dead man 

But I have read too many comic books 

Seen too many movies 

Women with atomic looks 

That blow you up with groovy 

Pow! Slow you up and wow! 

Get those hooks in you and 

You don’t want ‘em out 

Even if you could 

You couldn’t walk away even if you would… 

Somebody try to be remedy 

Into me (window me) 

Heaven and glory 

Every battle you fight he has already one 

3. 

Cut of the surgical knife 

Christ is the master with it 

Tissue and bone to the heart of the soul 

From where you lie or sit 

He don’t quit 

He can spit and heal 

Leave you feeling like a brand new man 

A true man 

The what can I do for you man? 

Unselfish one 

A tell wish get wish son 

You like this thing? 

He got a ton…  

Somebody try to be remedy 

Into me (window me) 

Heaven and glory 

Every battle you fight he has already one 

4. 

So you wanna know me 

I wanna know you 

Wanna show me 

I wanna grow you 

Can you build me 

Please don’t thrill me yet 

I wanna forget  

What I just forgot 

I wanna get wet in the mercy spot 

Let the old man die 

Let the dead man rot 

So when you look at me 

You see no hideaway 

Just a see-right-through to the light o’ day 

Please somebody remedy into me 

Heaven and glory 

Enemy onto me help me I’m sorry 

Mercy me Mercy me… 

Somebody try to be remedy 

Into me (window me) 

Heaven and glory 

Every battle you fight he has already one 

Dave Petty

He holds my feet 

Concrete slabs, dead wait 

No hands my raise 

No invocations of creative pursuit 

Here they wait. Dead with weariness 

Dissected vision carries my movement to its predictable outcome 

Lethargy of spirit. The sluggish heart 

Slowly, imperceptibly slips between 

The clock that counts the unredeemable moments 

Lost time can never be retrieved. 

Paralysis plays no melodies that I can remember 

He holds these feet in tombs of fear 

Fear is not an emotion that passes with the juice of organs 

It is a trap that guts a man 

And leaves no prisoners  

7/11/2006

They sit at the banquet table with their silver fork and knife  

and they mean to swallow you.   

Autumn and the green bowls and the taste of sweet cilantro. 

Mid the wild rush of hungry hearts and gaping eyes, 

They swallow more than alcohol. 

Tanned your skin till magazines agree. 

They nod with mad grins of violent mystery. 

They swallow more than barbeque…  

More than barbeque. 

Dark.  Your darkened blood runs down 

To the world’s other side where scarlet snow begs for innocence. 

Too late.  Too late! 

White skin, broken heart, long shadow, She 

Walks the winter world. 

Stark trees nod erect with frozen smiles,  

Lost boys. 

Ancient tales of cold intent. 

Dave Petty, 2019

Break the thing 

That’s its thing 

And then slip in  

That’s sin. 

It starts within and permeates my mouth, 

Out of the heart it speaks 

I speak like us 

A people of unclean 

The permeated people like me, 

Of unclean lips 

Because out of the inside, 

Of me of you 

And slipping through the cracks 

Within without, it slips, it seeps, 

It creeps, it breaks 

How easily 

Things get broken 

Dave Petty, 4/7/2010 

Interestingly enough, if you measured the distance between the sun and your alarm clock as it rings in the darkness of the worst hour conceivable every morning of your waking life, the total measurement would be years ahead of where you should be by now.  Time can be the longest distance between two points. Start counting.   

I think, and I am definitely not in the minority on this, I think that the alarm on a clock was not an accidental discovery.  The word “conspiracy” comes to mind and the word still does not sound anywhere near as loud as the alarm itself.  My daughter wakes to her iPhone.  Another subversive design, worse, I think, than the “beep beep beep” thing that hounds me but a scant 17 inches from my left ear.  The iPhone is fine.  The music is fine.  But the cyborgian technologically merged music-alarm is nowhere close to fine.  To be told, yay required, to wake up by any song, however dulcet the sound, is like giving a child a loaded gun.  We fear the gun.  We fear the child.  We fear the child with the loaded gun.  We fear the clock that wakes us.  We fear the music that wakes us.   

Pretty soon, we will decide to end it all.  The clock, the sound, the morning that is not really morning until the sun declares it so.

Dave Petty, 9/3/2011

Something tugs, my skin, to peel the life from is underneath.  (Not me but still) stripped flesh is all it is, and I is all aglow like phosphoressence. You smell life or death. 

Depending on your end, not mine, for mine is glory given. Paid in substitutionary blood: life for life, death for death, I can feel the hair rise up, skin tingling, wind blowing. Smell, touch and see the liberty burning pinprick holes through my clay-shell covering.  

Inside out the glory goes. Outside in the glory came, the Word, the same. 

Breathe my lungs, O breath 

This death has lingered far too long 

Move this air of hearts set free to run and not expire 

And love that heats the frozen lands 

The never touch and have no song 

Fan this flame to set the cold on fire 

Hollow tears stand nameless in the corners of these boxes 

Cardboard TVs same station same time 

Holy arms touch distance with a blood red solution 

I have seen the blind man die 

I’ve heard the scream 

This fearful rhythm that can wake the dead 

Fills their empty glass with life instead 

Dave Petty, 1/2006 

The expectation, I think, is that most of us brace ourselves for Divine retribution wrapped in recrimination.  A slap with the back of God’s hand branding “You Idiot!” on our “sorry, sorry, so sorry” behinds. 

Our hearts will smart with the Almighty’s rightful remonstrance.  Then, and only then, will we truly change our ways.  If you want repentance you’ve got to do it the old fashioned way. 

I’ll admit, that no matter what, it’s gonna hurt.  But the surprise is…  

the after glow. 

“it’s Your kindness that leads us to repentance“

Dave Petty, 10/6/12 

There is a history to the pain and the fight and the discontent 

In the years of war  

In the Afghan days 

When the soldiers fell 

For no good reason 

And the foreign land seemed much stranger when the ones we trained 

Turned their guns on us 

There is a history to the pain and the fight and the discontent 

When the gray and the blue 

And the Richmond town 

When our blood caked brown, 

And the Sherman march lit the night on fire 

Things were broken then 

Things are broken now 

As we think we see… 

There is a history to the pain and the fight and the discontent 

And I had a friend 

Who went to Vietnam 

And a dad in World War 2 

My brothers they enlisted 

I was almost drafted too 

We barely understand 

When England was besieged 

And all the world has grieved 

The damage we’ve conceived 

Dave Petty, 10/1/2019

We do war 

We fight the fight 

Against things unseen 

We look crazy 

Swatting invisible enemies  

With our prayers 

We look odd out there 

The stare of those 

Who don’t see what we see 

We talk of trials 

As if someone were at work 

Behind the scenes 

Moving things 

On our behalf 

The Makers craft 

To make of us a new thing 

Yet those who overhear us 

Think we battle windmills 

We suit up with an armor 

Using weapons 

Seem semantical 

Witnesses call us rantical 

Or patronistic they say romantical 

We have stars in eyes  

And heads in clouds 

And we confess this shroud of faith 

It goes unrecognized 

Dave Petty, 10/5/2019

The war we rage is a soulish fight 

For the heart of things 

To make the broke things whole-ish 

We sweat we bleed  

for love’s sake peer deep in 

To name the lie  

we see through mirrors and the sleight of hand 

we spy the smoke and screen  

flush out the masquerade 

To make it clear 

Lives lost in that shade, it is our fear 

And so we fight 

The lie, the sham, the darker shades of the fallen man 

And the malevolent behind it 

Though we can’t see it we find it 

We name the thief and we sign it 

With a stronger name we bind it 

For the damaged child and the alien 

For the neighbor and our wounded friend 

With a stronger name we shine it with light 

We show it for what it is that steals and kills 

We shine it with the light that lives 

Who arrives to give 

And give and give 

For this love is strong to chase the fear that flees 

And shall not return 

The prayer we say sends mysteries 

We hate the evil, in prayer we make it fly 

Yet more than all of us combined 

The one who hears our prayer He intervenes 

Who stepping into darkness… shines. 

Dave Petty, 10/5/2019

Prologue: 

A weapon of significance 

Combating loss of innocence 

A word made flesh to touch the flesh  

And make things new 

A word to do what we can’t do 

one little word is all it takes 

To change the world of our mistakes 

A word steps in to take our place 

Our wrongs undone and to erase 

Our shameful memory 

The dead to live the blind to see 

To better you and better me 

The Good Fight: 

Our battle raging daily 

We fight thoughts we bring them down 

Every single one the call to captivate  

as in inprisonate 

As in to doctrinate 

Yet not with coercion so much as to illuminate 

The cry to freedom yet not as you think 

This freedom gives the better link  

To better days and better lives and not the wise-ness of our own eyes 

But gone the mannish hemming in 

We leave we run we fly we swim 

Away from thoughts that man has made 

We turn from earth where shadows lie 

We look from ground on which we die 

We leave we flee we let all go 

The house the town the tower’s fame 

The babble noise the pomp the vain 

We leave our homeland for the better home and more 

While others criticize 

Our quest is for the other shore 

We hear the city’s sighs as we shut their door 

Go out of this to be made new  

To find the thing we couldn’t do 

We die to live, we live to die 

and we do war 

Knowing now what we are for 

We bend the knee and we do war. 

We every thought to Jesus captivate 

We every plan discriminate and choose the narrow way 

And pray for new love that sings an ancient day 

Of mercy won and mercy paid 

The death of death for our lives to win 

The good fight fought to end our sin 

And the good good news  

The smile of love. The end of blues. 

The call to faith. The song to choose. 

Swallow death, Breathe new life,  

Gone the blood, gone the knife 

Gone the earth-born sacrifice 

Now the light, Now the blessed dividend 

Forever on, the Maker’s friend 

Echoes of the Great I Am. 

This mirror is the window 

Reflects beyond reflecting pool 

True Image and the holy jewel. 

The rose, the bread, the wine, the sun  

the presence of the blessed One. 

The evil and the damage done 

The war was fought. The war is won 

Love is here. The Light is on. 

Dave Petty, 11/5/2019

“I am a man of peace, but when they speak, they are for war.” Ps 120:7 

world lies in pieces need it fixed 

in the damage of things that the least is 

betwixt the us and them 

ain’t no R E M ain’t no sleep 

ain’t no dreamin’ we all creep 

like nightcrawlers keep a watch on 

what we got so get your hands off 

my stuff it’s enough that my spycam security 

gets hacked and scammed by you and your impurity 

and my hope for love and piety  

turns to my own culture’s impropriety 

At least in your eyes I got a mote 

But really? you got a plank 

And we all up in that walled up stank 

We all up in that mine is mine 

We all blown up in that minefield crime 

Leave the demolition earth for our progeny yo 

They playin’ football hopes as their playground ignites 

He loses a leg as the war dog bites 

Nothing good ever comes from the rage teeth remains 

But the blind and the deaf and the child left lame 

So when they remember and speak, the kids are for war 

all they have left 

Is the hero’s lore 

The vision of winning 

The blood and the gore 

Game boy gone crazy from the madness of war 

The stories they tell smell like spirited teens 

Tales of the past where they just haven’t been 

The rocks dust and rubble they would trade just glean  

From the passion and fire and the gunmetal sheen 

Over the lands we have travelled, where the conflicts don’t cease 

And they are for war 

But I am for peace 

Dave Petty, 11/6/2019

“I am a man of peace, but when they speak, they are for war.” Ps 120:7 

And they are for war 

But I am for peace 

I sing the great reconciling 

Who all things makes and old thing new 

From broken earth to the broken heart 

The broken world and the applecart fumbling  

the rottening 

I bring the moth wing 

Descended from the lost heights 

I sing the moth wing and the flame bright 

And the turning dark nights into more 

Ezekiel song of dry bones, dry wings  

Dry dead things  

turned to more 

Though they for wars 

His peace restores 

Though they for war 

I speak release  

Uproot revenge  

The bloody end 

Our lives pollute 

I won’t salute 

The vast dispute,  

I shout to root  

for peace. 

I speak for peace resolves the need 

For enemy 

I see the friend 

He bears the wall, the cause, the bitter end 

The friend in whom there never was 

Dave Petty, 3/23/2001

he things unsaid when lips are closed when nightime falls 

And birds to sleep 

When dark descends and eyelids shut 

The peace in dreaming lulled are we 

No weapons drawn, just laid to rest 

Sweet jasmine soothe 

Sweet Constantine…  lay down lay down 

No hoard to fear- no enemy when we forget 

[This silent war is deadly still] 

In dead of night the demon prince steals precious things. 

Dave Petty, 4/8/2019

The first world war was not on earth 

And it was not the war to end all wars 

It was the war to begin them 

Not flesh and blood  

But far, far worse 

Rending the heavens 

Crying chaos 

When war had gone to ground 

The flesh from clay  

Considered him 

And blood ran down 

The red the earth the bleeding name 

The man the woman child and shame 

The brother’s keeper gone away 

The seeds of war, the here to stay 

When I a child 

Was born to death 

I learned to live 

Without a breath 

Then life was but a life to bleed 

Casualty we, the human creed 

For all the night and all the day 

The shadow war and all astray 

The lambs to slaughter slaughtering 

Are caught in someone else’s war 

We live this maraudering 

As if we were forevermore 

Yet life is blood 

Our blood it flows 

The battleground where no one knows 

The battle’s end. The victory 

These wars have made of me. 

And I? Yes, I am you and you are me 

Imprisoned in this gluttony. 

His lust for death, our enemy 

In his warring revery 

The dream that ruins every 

Good thing that God has made 

Leads us in his primal shade 

His noble cause is all charade! 

11/8/2005 

Soon.  I will not face this again.  Regret, that lingering guilt.  Mercy I can believe.  But grabbing at the irretrievable, that is regret, an empty hand tired of swiping the air.  No wonder good Christians can live so unhappily.   

Every sin forgiven, but nothing returned.  We get a second chance with future events, but none with the past. 

What is redemption if not to buy back?!  I think regret is not the result of mercy.  True mercy is beyond all that.  Mercy is a letting go.  From God.  From Us.  To hold on is our idiotic attempt to pay for our mistakes.  What does God do when he remembers our sins no more?  He pays the whole debt.   

We are the sort of forgiven, the kind of ransomed.  Our backs still bent, our feet still tied.  Held hostage to the forgotten past, we trust no one, no thing.  Unhappily we refuse to be consoled.   

I try to remember all the lessons, dredging up all the failures, and it’s no fun to live like this.  Christians have there consciences sensitized.  They know their sin.  They see the hurt they’ve caused.  Then, theoretically they can face reality and know mercy.  But if we do not embrace that blessed freedom that true forgiveness affords, we are left with our heightened conscience and the merciless miasma that regret binds us in.   

But where the Spirit is, there is Liberty! 

Dave Petty, 6/19/2008 

Today the world is caving in. 

Sinkhole hubris descending 

Warhawk, self-entitled, claim the planet for its own by right of ideology 

Some 3 centuries long and God is set aside as if the politics 

(O Great Balloon) 

As if the political ideology 

(O Great Balloon) 

is all and in all and for all and by all 

Amen… 

A man, corn farm down, Blackhawk down 

Money down tomatoes down oil scarce and running out 

And the Fiddler smiles hand out 

Expects joy for service rendered… 

Banks foreclose and soon  

The boom of business whimpers 

The world is caving in  

Sinkhole hubris descending 

We’ve got an Empire down… 

The Kingdom of heaven is at hand 

Not in the engine’s roar 

Not in the market’s scream 

But in the whimpering. 

Dave Petty, 11/14/2004

I thought the pain would go away.  So long!  Bye bye.  Have a nice trip.  Don’t forget to write. 

Pain didn’t write.  It didn’t have to. 

I fantasized its departure.  It made us all believe that he had gone away unexpectedly for a long time. 

He never left. 

Mental alchemy is our feeble, impractical invention; designed to turn agony into ecstasy. 

I just say the word and presto-changeo:  hurt to happiness.   

Of course this is all slight of hand, a poor man’s parlor trick.  Everyone sees how it’s done and makes sure they point it out: privately or publicly.  (Have they no shame!?)  They say “it’s just a trick!”  And I say, “no way!”   

The only person I really fool, and this is the absurdity, is myself. 

10/25/2018

On the inside of me there waits the damage. It is a monster of which I dare not speak. It speaks for me. Lies in the shadows. Turns like hunger, over and over again. I spend more time and mind on this than I can measure. This yearning mixed with dread. This is where the dead live. This is the remains that prey on most my days. This is the lie I try to muzzle. But it just smiles and speaks for me. 

If we could leave this world behind, if we could leave, if we could, if we, if. It’s why the escaping is no good for me. Why the hiding is for fear. Why the running away is for fear of fear and failed intent and empty ends. This thought is not automatic now. I’m very well aware… and it is present and staring and smiling at me. It smiles emptiness and remains smiling as it speaks for me. 

It is not enough now, perhaps never was, to simply leave it be. It gnaws and I feel it. Right there, somewhere between the yawn and the yearn. I want to give up. I want to stop. I want to fall fall fall asleep.  

When I feel alone. When things are gone. When I want to run away. This is what I am left with. Holding the bags, and they all depart. Everyone leaves. Or is it me?  

Dave Petty, 3/21/2019

I think we think we invented it. 

All of it. 

Or at least we act like we did. 

Inventors know the design 

They have the blueprints 

They know how it works 

They know what it can do… 

And what it can’t. 

They know what it should do. 

And what it shouldn’t and why. 

Enter the re-inventor. 

Re-inventors mess with it. 

They experiment. The adjust. They replace. 

They re-define. They re-purpose. 

That’s what we are doing with all of it. 

The world… and the people in it. 

We are re-inventing our world: 

We know how it works. 

What it can do and what it can’t. 

What it should do and what it should not. 

And why. 

Or so we say… 

And so we act. 

We re-invent as we re-define: 

Our world 

Our humanity 

Our selves 

And as we re-invent and re-define: 

We determine the methods. 

We determine the results – the outcome. 

We do this collectively- 

We call it “culture”. 

And we do this individually. 

We call it “self”. 

And who then gives us the permission? 

We do. 

We give permission collectively- 

We call it “culture”. 

And we give permission individually- 

We call it “self”. 

We collectively assert our Manifest Destiny! 

We individually assert our Manifest Destiny! 

Dave Petty, 12/2004

It is doubt that perturbs me, upsets the applecart of my simpleminded soul.  Dumping out the seemingly tidy into chaos.  “Everything in its place” is that “just so” mindset which blissfully, happily explains everything.  But everything, so it happens, turns out to be a lot.  I have lived in this maddening mess for more moments than I would like to measure or admit. 

But doubt, to me, is an afterthought, a second-guessing.  It is a bit like spilt milk. 

You have lived in broken glass and words that sting like nettles but linger like forever.  You have been paying prices for everything ever since you lost that child’s twinkle.  You have waded knee-deep in regret and couldn’t get out even though you tried with all your feeble might.  You have aged centuries in just a season.  Your grey hair is turning white and the bags beneath your sinking eyes could hold gallons of tainted tears.   

Self pity or true remorse?  Shame is relentless and more complex than you could have ever imagined.  Years are not lost here.  Life is.  Your graveyard is an open wound that will not heal and you have fallen and you cannot get up.  Satan is a dark whisperer who is more than happy to remind you of what you cannot forget.   

To not admit, is to be the fool.  To admit and still remain in the prison of shame is father to the fool.  I wish I could go back.  I cannot. 

1/16/1990

I really believed in Peter Pan.  I vowed his vow.  I had made a pact.  I would not grow up.  Vacations and seasonal celebrations remind me of childhood.  And when they end, I don’t want to leave.  Like when the day ends, I don’t want to sleep.  And when the movie is over I want another.  I don’t want to go.  Is that what makes You so special?  (Or at least one thing?)  When everything else changes and goes, you don’t.  I could put my trust in self and effort.  I could lean on yesterday, or even the transitory moments of today.  I could distract myself with solomonic amusements (and even squeeze some juice out).  I could set my sights to the long-term dream projects of albums and books.  Or I could lose myself in your unchanging gaze.  I avoid what is constant because I conclude the worst… it is dull, relentlessly relentless, and on and on, tic tock tic tock, same as it ever was. 

And yet you are not static and you do not affect static reality.  You are the mover of winds and minds, and stuff like that.  In the moments, how could I possibly miss this.   

Move my life to live for you.  Everything else grows up and away, but you… you never change. 

State College, 7/3/2009

I wonder…  

At your beauty… in what you have strewn about this planet: horses, flowers, birds about twittering, talking, singing, muttering to themselves 

Horses, named by men: Misty, Keegan,  ridden by us, by children, tamed by us and turned, stopped,  cantered by Anna. 

The beauty of a mother’s love for her child… children. 

I wonder… 

At the moon,  not smiling,  at the sleepers, not smiling…  just being 

I wonder at our failing, faltering selves who fight for territory over the smallest things.  The slightest provocation.  The lost coins and it makes me want to quit.  Or just let go. 

Beneath your sovereign demands… I let go.  I have no right to it.  I have no good reason for any of it.  To be understood… by you, it is a given.  By the ones I love, desired by not essential.  One day we will know you just as we have been known by you.  Somehow, down here, things are lost in the translation.  But the fact that you tell me to yield to you my rights, I yield.  My only right as son is Jesus.  To claim this is all.   

You are Lord…  of my rights, my wife, my children, my grandchildren, friends, things, talents, time, joys, sorrows, future, past, present, the moments, the weather, the surprises, the predictabilities, the projects, the expressions, the listenings, the viewings 

You are Lord… of the crows, the cardinals, and finches, the cars and drivers, the hosts, the plans, you are Lord, of what I eat, clean, dirty, you are Lord of what I understand and do not.  You are Lord of the permissions and refusals, the welcomers and the door closers.  You Lord have us all…. Though you adopt but a few… none are beyond your control…. NONE! 

You are the Almighty.  The Alpha…. Beginner, the beginning, the Creator, reCreator, the author, the first letter writer… the supraGraphis… you are the initiator… the designer… the originator… you are the Father… you are firstSeed and firstFruit… the Chicken and the Egg…. 

The Omega… the finisher, completer, perfecter, ender, the Reckoner, you are the Judge, the Compiler and SummerUpper, you are the Goal, the EndPoint, the Fundamental Purpose, the Period on the Novel… You are  

The ProLogue, the Main Logue, the EpiLogue… You are It!  He!  You are eternal Life and Holy Communion…. You are the Patterner and the Template… you are Dei. 

We simply follow… yield… bow…. Recognize… reflect… Image… or rather… image. 

You are the en arche…. You are the only one who Was and Is and Is To Come.  You…  I worship…  and to others commend… Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world…. Behold the Holy… Behold your Maker…. Behold the Past, the Present and the Future… the Blessed One… the True… the Truth… the Love of all true loves… the Light of all true lights… the Word who is and who speaks in languages we can never understand and in others that we must… the Word embodied… the Word breathed… the Maker and the Explainer… Lift up your eyes, your minds, your hearts… or rather… be lifted up into Mystery… 

And wonder. 

Dave Petty, 1996   

If I could get there in just one piece

Not a shattered window but a sweet release

If my inside space wouldn’t tear at the seams

Losing air and the innocent dreams

Almost I can taste the cool breeze of heaven

Almost I can hear the angels singin’ over and over again

Almost I can lay down on a riverbank

Almost I can spread my wings beyond the rainbow’s end

But I am still a pilgrim, still in shadow

And I am standin’ here on the other shore

Where is the bell that rings a melody

That can catch me up, can catch me up and take me over 

Almost I can taste the cool breeze of heaven

Almost I can hear the angels singin’ over and over again

Almost I can lay down on a riverbank

Almost I can spread my wings beyond the rainbow’s end 

If I could talk with you, talk with you and never leave this place

And we could tell the story, tell the story with the right refrain

And we could walk along the shoreline, and we could walk along the shoreline

And we could walk along the shoreline singin’ glory in the morning rain 

Almost I can taste the cool breeze of heaven

Almost I can hear the angels singin’ over and over again

Almost I can lay down on a riverbank

Almost I can spread my wings beyond the rainbow’s end 

Dave Petty, 5/28/2019

Everything is a lot. Right? 

You would say “what could be more?” 

Fair question. 

I could imagine. But what is that? 

I have 2 kids plus 3. 2 + 3 = 5. I could imagine more. 

You say, “that’s not real.” 

And I think, “yeah. I guess that’s what we mean by “real-ized”. When something we imagined or dreamed, thought or planned, became actuality. 

So what is that? Imagination. Is it part of everything? 

The saying went: “includes everything but the kitchen sink” 

And I think: “then that’s not everything.” 

Someone shows her empty hands and “nothing up my sleeve” but we think something when we think and see “nothing”. It’s the “nothing” that is required for the credible magic trick. The evidence of nothing seems to be important. 

That guy on Close Encounters of the Third Kind looked at the big pile of mashed potatoes that he sculpted on his dinner plate and concluded “this means something.” And we, the audience, said inside ourselves, “Yes! Yes! It most certainly means something!” It’s not just mashed potatoes! It’s more!  

So, when we try to contain something, by a crisp and concise definition, by a Tupperware container, by a clear description, in a book, in a bottle, in a photograph… is that it? Because, if “that is it” means “that’s all there is of it, nothing more and nothing less” than I suppose that when we say, or think that “that’s everything”, that that is everything. Unless of course we’re missing something. 

Dave Petty, 06/1991

First Impressions 

There is far more to this life than realizing my dreams. 

The dreams of God are the stuff and such of eternity…  

to love Him and others 

to pass this dim pre-occupation albeit lustrous in appearance. 

First impressions are the covers of books, the afterthoughts (and images) 

First impressions are the death of kings and little girls 

There is always more than meets the eye unless of course the eye is God’s… 

A unique perspective not intended for us to use. 

My dreams must be the dreams He dreams, lest I try and grasp mirage. 

Dave Petty, 12/21/2019

Everything is what you can’t have. 

Everything begs the proverbial question, “where would you put it if you had it?” 

Some would say, you don’t put everything anywhere. Everything puts you. 

Funny word “put”. Looks like putt with one “t” short. 

Perhaps “put” is all about placing.  

It does sound then a bit redundant to say, “she really put you in your place!” 

Simpler to say, “she really placed you”, as in, I set out the place mats for mom with the designating place cards so each of the family would know his or her place. And then I could say to my brother “dude, she really placed you!” Which sounds like a put down (or should I say place down?). 

In my family’s place, growing up. We had a pretty big house when we moved into mom and dad’s dream home. Big enough to fit everything… we all thought. But every “thing” leaves room for a whole lot of “thing”, “thing” being an abstracted and singular collective noun. An uncommon use of the word I know, perhaps it would be easier for us all if I wrote “things”. So, to make us all feel a bit more at ease let me repeat myself. 

But every “thing” leaves room for a whole lot of things. And since “every” was a complete exaggeration in the grander scheme of “every”, we at least knew that we could fit a lot in that house. 

If you grew up in the closet beneath the stairs, it seems obvious that you could not have much. Where would you put it? And clearly if you grew up in that closet (and you in fact grew), the smallness of that un-growing space would bring to your mind that your space would warrant a serious and significant upsizing. And perhaps you might even wonder whether those who put you in your place might be due for being put in theirs, though you would not entertain even the smallest notion of doing that yourself. 

Ironically, everything is not in fact “everything,” if in fact everything connotes all that one can see, hear, taste, touch or smell. When we consider everything as including the mythical tree falling in the forest then everything in fact includes what we, whether individually or collectively, don’t see, hear, taste, touch or smell. In other words, when a tree falls in the forest, the tree does not have to be seen or smelt or heard to exist and to act and to be a part of what it in fact is, which is everything. 

The sky above, the earth below and all that’s in between is a part of everything. And then there’s the ozone and the space beyond and the planets and the swirling or exploding or imploding star systems, the galaxies, and on and on is everything. The space time continuum or not so continuum is everything. And finding our sense of place in that place is, well, daunting. And in this sense, it puts us in our place.  

Actually, everything does that. Don’t you think?  

5/20/2001

Attract magnetic pull this interest for a deeper place 

Where intimate connection still breaks sound walls 

and heart blood pumps iron rhythmic two-step sweeping floor. 

Dance fiddlers green things unseen draw curtains in and we  

are left to love.  One room here then one  

wish star may… fish-eye night 

Burn this memory like the stone and sea forever. 

Dave Petty, 2/15/2010

The weight of this daily grind has a relentless pull to it 

The world’s gravity tugs us back to it’s surface time and time again 

The bills that bite, the ills that eat away 

The hours that leave our bones dragging through the dust 

I think the ever after is just here… so incredibly close 

Like the distance of the pen’s lift as it moves from word to word 

Heaven’s attraction, when first imagined, is peerless, priceless 

Worth our every thought 

Dave Petty, 8/19/2017

When did we think that heaven be  

Without particularity?  

Just lost in clouds and angels’ harps? 

As if our Maker lost His art  

When making earth that He forgot 

That heaven first He drew each dot 

The river, tree, and every stone  

they go forever on and on 

Now think that earth reflects its tone 

In every good worth thinking on 

the flowers, colors, mountains, seas 

the everything outside of me 

the fruit and veg’tability,  

in stem in leaf in vine and tree  

what slithers here and all that flies, 

what walks and talks or silence lies 

beneath the earth,  

the womb the birth  

the child that sings 

the dreams that keep on revering 

the dust of desert sand that dries 

the whole creation as it sighs 

the groaning for the pain’s release 

the day when all our sorrows cease 

the day of days the song of songs 

the wiping of our endless wrongs 

the only glory ever on 

the only glory ever on 

But let me ask again once more 

The vast array at sunset’s door 

When did we think that heaven be  

Without particularity?  

Dave Petty, 11/2010

What I want is a room with a view 

And the air that moves 

The sun that shines 

And my soul shines back 

Like a beaming child 

In a loving place 

Where you just know 

It’s so good to be alive 

But the children put away their children things 

The songs made up now left unmade 

The wonder, cold beneath the earth and sand 

No longer meant for digging 

Discovery is just a channel that leaves us 

Sitting on the surface 

And sand to keep us sleeping 

Do not wake the beaming child 

Lest you scrape your knees 

When you careless go a-venturing 

For amazement’s treasure buried  

Beneath your disappointed years 

For you might weep awhile 

Like a mystery where the danger 

Can only be solved in the end 

Like the best part of lovers 

When they shine like the sun 

(As if it never would end) 

When you reach for the shimmering sunlight 

Just to touch the radiant sky 

When you yearn for the wings of the dreaming 

And the glory flying by 

(Earth looks so small) 

Something here is more than I knew 

And I know it is not me 

There’s a crack in the earth and its current 

Is moving beyond the sea 

Let me sit down and catch my breath 

And take this whole thing in 

Let me lie down and take a rest  

From this energy rushing in 

And it moves me through the distances 

To the place that always was 

This must be what they call heaven 

And I wonder what it does 

Heaven lasts forever 

Earth can only give a metaphor 

Heaven last forever 

Earth can only give a metaphor 

Something ‘bout this planetary life 

Makes you look for something more 

Heaven lasts forever 

Earth can only give a metaphor 

Like a magic trick with a special touch 

That is more than slight of hand 

Like my deepest wish coming true 

Like some visit to a promised land… 

Dave Petty, 8/7/2017

Flute is playing 

Sounds like bird, like beautiful 

Her voice is like it, like you, like an angel 

They join her, I join them… listening 

My heart singing, like dream, 

The windows open, doors open,  

Soul opens, dove descends 

Wind is whispering in words I overhear 

The silent resting silence rest upon my life 

I cannot say, lips are moving, my lips are 

(music) 

Rain is steady, rain surrounds 

tree and plant, leaf and flower 

drinking 

we drink 

drinking 

we 

soak you in 

living here 

and grow to sun 

Like tree, like flower 

red and blue, yellow, pink and white 

In garden green 

we are taken into 

dream 

(music) 

arms raise hands raise sands 

ascends the hour glass 

now opens up to up and rise to skies and 

time no more to signs of ever on 

and time no more to signs of ever on 

the dust it flies to not remain on earth again 

we, rendered beautiful, 

by life’s divinity, 

and wings to fly  

and wings to fly 

(music)  

heaven lasting ever 

earth but longs to see 

In your dream, I found myself beyond the ocean 

You had your angel elevate my body and I was 

Higher than the atmosphere 

And the elements seemed so inconsequential 

Looking down from way up there 

And everything so tragic’lly small 

Their tiny hands hold thin air 

Their little feet on thin ice 

Blue tears silent fall—ing…  

Silent fall—ing 

Down there 

Silent fall—ing 

Down here 

In your dream you took me out of here 

You had your angel tell me stories 

Things I would not know 

Until he told me 

Wind was touching everything 

And dead things started dancing 

Flesh on bones and soul in flesh 

And we were not afraid 

Glad tears silent fall—ing… 

Silent fall—ing 

Down there 

Silent fall—ing 

Down here 

In your dream I dream of waking up 

I find the world is changed 

And little things are beautiful 

Tenderness is everywhere 

In everyone a grand relief 

The sun is laughing beautiful 

And no one is afraid 

The Angel’s tears are silent fall—ing… 

Silent fall—ing 

Down there 

Silent fall—ing 

Down here 

07/1997

And all the rest, the myriad numberless:  let me have my place in line, the pushing and shoving press of opinion, the man-eating sharks’ teeth, many headed hydra, the well intentioned convinced and convincing, the not the glory (never was and never will be)… all the probable possibilities without potential.  The dead-end roads to shadow heavens… the fallen and will never get up declarations that are noise words, breathing without breath, a dead man’s gasp, windless wind… and this the shame of the curtain.  It can only hide. 

Every policy needs a rider.  Every noun and verb… a modifier.  The enhancers… but this has none, needs none, wants none… “the Word became flesh.” 

The fabulous, famous, all-curing, quality, supra-digitally mastered, higher definition Word…  This Word needs no modifier because this Word needs none to define it.  This Word is the definer: the uncaused cause, the unmodifiable “deal with me” “before Abraham was I Am” Word. 

Inconquerable, unhidable, the unstuffable, and to us…  The misunderstood, the disunderstood… 

If the Maker took this universe and cracked it over his eternal knee, all life would trace its connection to this Word.  Separated from this heart of things the dead twigs would be good for burning. 

(Selah) 

Graceless lie, wretched death in a deathless eye, hollow heart in the rock of the ages… 

In truth, this is the grimmest tale, most tragic, when all lies broken in a breaking plan.  And yet, without conjuring, in a simple child’s discovery, some have seen behind the curtain the radiance of the One and Only, full or grace… full of truth. 

Dave Petty, 8/7/2017 

Right here at our fingertips 

Static in the air 

Words like no one ever said 

We just stare 

We just stare 

We see the crowd is gathering 

We see it everywhere 

Feel impossibility 

Standing there 

Standing there 

Bread of Heaven 

Bread of Heaven 

Ethereal has stepped right in 

As anyone can see 

His meal from nowhere feeds us all 

Mystery 

Mystery 

Bread of Heaven 

Bread of Heaven 

Dave Petty, 4/23/2016

What makes this heart to move 

To beat with love 

What takes this stone to breathe  

With life and praise to shout  

Like birds to sing, like trees their leaves… applaud 

Like birds to sing, like trees their leaves… applaud 

What life what sound 

The baby’s cry 

To swallow air and then return 

The water and the blood 

Where names are whispered… revering 

Where names are whispered… revering 

We drink unending praise 

The shining cup, the endless days 

We drink unending praise 

The shining cup, the endless days 

What lights the light this night 

To valley shine  

A way to guide us home 

What moon… what star, what place to comfort find  

To rest this weary traveler 

What message bring 

What angels sing 

When sweet delivery make 

The endless news to friendless share 

As good a sound… as ever was 

As good a sound… as ever was 

We drink unending praise 

The shining cup, the endless days 

We drink unending praise 

The shining cup, the endless days 

You and I and He 

Who gives us new identity 

And in a word His story tells 

The end of all our tears where love never fails 

Forever life, the Holy Grail 

Forever life, the Holy Grail 

9/30/?

I run the overwhelming danger of being seriously misunderstood.   

Everyday… 

This blood red pen scratches loudly.  My bare whispers shout earth-moving volcanoes. 

My actions speak planetary collision. 

All day long, everyday, whether I am walking in my sleep or meaning everything with crystal clear intent… 

We, godlike, small g, big feet, plant our significance on lives around us.   

But, most misunderstand. 

Dave Petty, 4/28/2004

I had stayed too long in the press of fear.  My eyes had circled inside leaving lines, below them, the small arcs of worry, and so relieved when one’s call, one day one heart to call and make one question sound like heaven’s diamonds.  Holy love, the kiss of friends, that says the earth revolves the sun aware, the stars are witness to the messengers and their things of salvation.  When I was closed, the power down, the nightlight out, when I was huddled up and shattering, when I was crying river-water salt and pepper spraying everything and mostly everyone had disappeared, you said “hush I am listening.”  My shaking chest and breaking spirit was by you made still. 

Dave Petty, 2/21/2001

Everyday talking with God.  E-v-e-r-y-d-a-y.  Jump out of my shoes and leave my socks behind and talking with God over coffee.  Or, leave the coffee… Matter of fact leave it all and just go.  Where He goes. God is quite a conversationalist, but the trick is to let Him do most of the talking.  Not for His sake.  Oh my goodness no!   For our sakes (for goodness sake).  God should not to be humored.  Trust me.  He doesn’t need it.  Believe me.  God is not interested in just chewing the fat.  He doesn’t chew… He devours.  He is not mocked.  He is God.   But man, talk about conversation!   

Dave Petty, 08/1997

Once upon a time, a spot 

A brief, brief candle broken frame 

Once upon a breath, a life, a death 

Has left its ghost of whimpering 

A lone word faceless telegram 

“STOP” 

My tears had long been left behind 

The taste of ocean crystalline 

They never were true friends of mine 

For so I left them suddenly 

And in surprise of mystery 

My soul is dancing on my grave 

Unending love is reveling. 

Dave Petty, 8/11/2001

There is a thin but powerfully illusory veneer  covering us.  A kind of fakery that is indistinguishable from the real thing.  Indistinguishable as the adolescent wheat and tares.   

And we believe it.  We swallow it whole.  Hook, line and sinker.  All week long, Even the we who would, should, actually could know better.  The allure is so compelling, that those who could see, though once blind, lose focus.  What was to be clear becomes fog and what was all becomes all again, but for a speck of the child who once believed.  No institution can address this where it truly counts.  It can remind, urge, cajole… but only God convicts.  The little tiny voice of Him in us can not only call but convince.  To be captured by God is to be inexorably contained but to true freedom.  So what to us is a season, to Him but a slight inhalation.  When God, then, breathes outward, worlds are made and we are born again.  

Let me translate:  dry clay though golem is still dim as dust while sparkling in its day.  The Maker is all and clearly desperately we need to be remade.  The best thing in life is not only stringless and free it is invisible. 

Dave Petty 2008

No to tempter. Yes to Father. 

This allure is the iceberg’s tip. 

The iceberg is the think that sinks ships. 

Sinks me. Drowns me. 

Gone the lifeboat. Soon, if the loss doesn’t get me, the hypothermia does… sets in… 

This enemy is too complex for me to outthink it… outthink him. 

I hate what he sends my way. Always a catch. 

And the only release is the mercy… and the mercy of the currents 

That brought me to You and You to me. 

And I really don’t want my life any other way. 

My yes is the yes that you began when we first met.

Dave Petty, 10/26/2019

When I was left over 

So ever undone 

Raw as winter 

Left to my own desert 

Wandering Bedouin I 

Thought distance and sand was normal 

This thermal haze left me only 

Wishing that water in the desert was real 

Garden King came a-gardening 

And made this drift of mine 

This drifting me 

Grow still 

To root to earth to hidden River of Life 

To root and grow to reach and know 

The Heavenly. 

4/3/2002

We are the winners.  We are the recognized ones.  We have developed quite a reputation.  People have turned their heads more than once.  A name, a look, a well-placed remark and the world is our oyster.  To the winners, like us, go the pearls. 

Not all the pearls mind you.  There are pearls… and then, there is one.  One that whispers gently but ever so certainly in our ears: “I am like no other.” 

If I could spend all that I had for this.  I would.  If I could give all that I am for this.  I would.  But to the winners like you and me, it is un-buyable, and in this way… un-possessable.  It costs everything that we have ever had or done or been… and far more. 

To this pearl, we are poor.  This is the treasure that would own us.  This is the gain that would reduce.  Until we, to it, penniless and nameless, would beg for the privilege to be possessed, to be bought, to be conquered.  We are the consumers who must be consumed. 

We are the winners in name only.  In truth, we are the hired ones, the tired ones.  We are those who, having won, have lost yet once again.  We are the handicapped: the cross-eyed, lame, weather-beaten derelicts of an ancient arrogance that can only babble nonsense in our dreaming which we have called “reality”. 

The worst place we have ever been is right here in Mudville, where there is no joy for a never-ending day.  It all comes down to a sin and a miss.  A sin and a miss for many more times than three… and we are out for we have never been in, and we are off for we have never been on.  In this game where dreams must not dim what is true, we are lost.  We have always been so.  With every head bowed and every eye shut, we grope our way past disappointed crowds to find a lonely shadow to sit down with and keep us company.  The game is played and done, and we are each found with holes burnt right through blackened hearts and empty pockets.  Nothing left to remember but the sting and the loss. 

Once upon a time there was a pearl of a price that we could never afford.  Once upon a time a hand stretched out and touched us in the dark.  Once there was a pearl, placed within our begging hands, and tears of lifelong gratitude, the only price we could afford. 

There was a field we bought to place it in.  All we could afford to place it in, this gift beyond the means of our tongue-tied lot now ours, possessed but not contained, owned but never earned. 

Now, though truly known, we, gladly, are unrecognized.  In this field we sit and burn like bonfires.  Not consumed, we, pearl and mercy swallowing, breathe wonders warm in darkest night. 

1984

Not for the feeble, only the tough survive.  Instinctually, each synapse fires commands as if conducted by a million composers, choreographers, directors, working in perfect asymmetry.  There is no knowing it all, once it has been set in motion.  It only does what it has been made, programmed and trained to do.  The car, computer… the cumulative sum of all inventions cannot compare with what now stands before you. 

It is the I, the me, the fearfully and wonderfully made of which I or we can take no credit, not our invention, yet ours and us, we are.  This body human, not divine but never inexhaustibly grasped.  Never comprehended but map-able to the human and yes electron eye.  I do not hardly understand this outer me, this visibility.  This face you see, and what vast impenetrability this bodiless man.  Frail and yet industrial, vaporous but built to last… 

The inside is forever.  Always was forever.  Great if the place is right.  Enduring this cannot simply cease to be, we bear some awesome destiny.  Dark or light and no in-between, round the world and gone again.  Just once to die and afterward… the great unending. 

3/24/2008

We are the heard ones, that when we pray heaven moves. 

Clouds form and thunder cracks, chariots and wings fly to us (of all things… to us!). 

And we are emboldened, emblazoned with divine Theurgy 

We run to battle… the ground itself re-forms to ensure our sure progress. 

And enemies, seen and unseen, fail in heart and deadly device. 

We are the overcomers, set on fire by grand design. 

We are the breathers of true wind and answered prayer. 

We lay low like so much wheat, those that held us, forced us down, 

And near to drowning, God heard our cry. 

When we were all but gone, all but done. 

He, listening, moved celestial host to move the world 

And having made the earth stand still, poured flood-liquid, 

Sheer and palpable, grace and mercy in time of need. 

And, now standing thick in the clouds of glory presence,  

We shine to sing the victory that has one name. 

Dave Petty, 1/7/2005

The sharing cup, everything past, now 

And ever on to heavenly.  You and I sing 

In rain and shattering. 

Once I you fell I you failed and yet 

Once upon the winged times, we will 

Happily go to ever on. 

You and me making quite the pair, I’d never 

Want to really leave no matter where,  

No matter how.  Stay with me now 

And we will go a’haunting. 

Dave Petty, 6/7/2009

Rain drip, owl hoot 

Door to door H2O 

Grey sky canopy 

Remind us of our incapacity to sustain life 

Clouds, wind and sea 

Banana tree just takes it in 

Green thinks saying thank you 

They just don’t know otherwise 

And we will sometimes rise and get it, 

As in get the point 

God has sent this earth to moving  

And keeps it close 

And keeps us closer 

Still the Voice who breaks the earth, mends the heart 

(For all its wrong) 

Makes wrong things right 

Repairs the breach 

He fills the hole with divinity. 

It is our gaping need. 

He knows well 

To rain down mercy and hear us Howl the song of rescued ones 

Dave Petty, 12/29/2017

Fondly we fondue to you the dip right in the sink and swim till lights go dim 

and goes to shows and movies move me to be or not to be alive or dead 

They said the door is number 2, but lady or tiger, we just guess the best 

but I confess we bumper pool and pinball flip to dip right in I think 

You blink and the lame old game or never see the same again  

depends… on “you choose”? or these tiny shoes we wear? 

the wolf lair is packed with the uninvited just consumed or yet to be 

tiny room for the claustrophobe that just makes do, like you and me 

A shame that our diversity is not without its limits 

2 feet, 2 eyes (his brown hers blue): swallowing the devil’s due 

the medicine that cannot cure  

the only end is death I’m sure 

the fish the lure the reeled right in 

the “not endure” 

A shame that our intent cement for roads we walk  

Not for the chalk that draws us 

Not for the talk that claws our way out of the paper bag we live in (hot air) 

The vapor nag of our complaint, we will to live but ain’t all that 

The gnat the cat the chit the chat the nowhere out, we fight the doubt, and ho! 

the thought that thinking so just makes it so 

but life is mo’ than the wishful think,  

the stinking stinks, the drunk man drinks, the liar winks, the glasses clink 

the skater skates on frozen rink, she carves “forever” in a figure eight 

Says “infinity” is at the gate, the bell tolls “now!” and doesn’t wait 

more than our human wills to determinate the outcome of it all 

the narrow hall, the holy One, the Magistrate  

our naked truth and our lifetime of accumulate: 

the things we had, the things we did, the things we showed, the things we hid 

They sound like vivid memory  

Raw and real for God to see 

They sound like vivid memory  

Raw and real for God to see 

Undoubtedly, the air is tense 

to reckon with the consequence 

the will to power is powerless 

No turning back as we confess 

That He is more. While we are less. 

10/10/2004

If ever we saw the sun crack and liquid light pour out like a thousand Mississippis at floodtide 

And you and I would jump right in the cleansing daybreak 

And you and I would spin like fire wheels on Independence Day 

If ever the whirling Milky Way would set right down and rest awhile 

And you and I would count the giant beads we knew as planets 

And you and I would wonder what they really meant just standing there 

Just staring there we giggled at out gaping mouths 

We laughed at our indestructibility 

We celebrated permanence and rolled upon the sea 

Over and over we would ask how this was ours 

When once, poor as church mice we simply nibbled crumbs at the Master’s feast 

If ever we ever tucked in and feared the walls that would not move 

If ever we ever doubted the Unbelievably Wow more than this 

And you and I looked down at our heavy feet of clay 

And you and I fell down and could not get up 

One day everything will change… 

(except our holding hands of course). 

Dave Petty, 4/24/2005

1. 

You see lately I have felt the Stranger 

I have walked in dangerous places 

Too soon drowning in these faces I don’t recognize 

And the tragedy of this dark assimilation 

I had forgotten who I was 

I came to bring change 

And I was changed 

And not for the better 

Amnesiac horrors 

I would never have guessed 

I can never forget what I cannot remember… 

2. 

And I remember (doo doo) 

And I remember (doo doo) 

I remember now I had another name 

It sounded like water and fresh wind 

And springtime and freedom 

It smelt like harvest time 

And the bright, bright feast 

Of things beautiful… 

3. 

Grey streets, bedroom secrets 

The unspectacular spectacle 

Where I can’t see you and you  

Won’t know, not like you thought you could 

And the only good things seem to happen accidentally…  

But now, ah yes, sweet thing, I remember you 

And you said 

Or did I? 

This common thread 

The needle and the eye 

See such room in there 

To slip right through 

We do 

Sound-less-ly 

No one need ever know 

Ever know 

We go unnoticed 

Quiet as a whisper 

With a wink and a nod 

God is sleeping 

Yes? 

Eyes shut.  

Si-lent-lyI 

And we 

You am I 

I said 

Or did you? 

Our common thread 

The eye and the needle 

Our fetal womb is where 

We slipped… right through 

We do this 

Sound-less-ly 

No one need ever know 

But they do 

And I do 

And you do 

And he do 

Who did we think we were fooling? 

The rule in these here parts 

Is that God knows 

Ev-ry-thing 

Just the way it is. 

He is. 

And the “ISNESS” is He 

And He never sleeps 

Nor blinks 

Nor winks 

Nor nods 

It’s odd these odds 

That we think Him otherwise 

Odds are not in our favor 

That we can think God in otherwise. 

He is the needle 

He is the eye 

And I nor you  

Can just slip right through 

No thread we 

Are thick as thieves 

From womb to room in there 

Cannot pass through 

Sound-less-ly we are 

Deafening to God 

Alarm scream 

Though we hardly breathe 

A whisper 

Womb to tomb 

Our common thread  

Leaves us dangling 

Tangling in our own designs 

We finds us found out 

Not a silence but a shout 

And I am you 

You said 

Or did I? 

This common thread 

The needle and the eye. 

Dave Petty, 3/6/2018

to the Relativist: 

that depends 

to the Emotivist: 

when it feels the most free 

to the Anarchist: 

when the string of control is cut! 

to the Activist: 

when it has the power, the will and the tools to make a change 

to the Utilitarian: 

when it does the greatest good for the most 

to the Creationist: 

when it does what it was made to do 

“Turning over a new leaf” is popular around the New Year.  Resolutions are made to change our way of living.  It is a book-metaphor.  It is about turning the page of our lives to discover a brand new one.  And, since we are on the subject, it is about writing a new page in the journal of our lives.  We write so others can read.  It is an exciting, albeit scary fact.  Our children are reading us every day.  Today is a new day.  What will we write? 

Dave Petty, 2/3/2005

Somewhere out there is a mystery that defies me 

That says things we don’t understand 

Beyond blurred vision and aging ears 

Lying there beneath the womb 

That births the Great White Crab and the Golden-Fried Fishwich 

Conch and Oyster, alien jelly things with 

Deep sea stingers for deep sea fingers (no fingers) 

Luminous fang teeth grinning scale to scale 

Rib-eye mammoth whale that howls for long lost relatives 

And wonders why its all alone 

The bone lies buried there underneath the Water Womb 

An ancient Yoric screams “Alas!” in unknown tongueless madness 

It is hell to be this way 

The disconnected marvel of the seven seas 

The breezeless shadow, hidden carelessly 

Shaking off discovery 

Dave Petty, 2/10/2007

It is not measurable 

Though we feel its weight 

It is not visible 

Though we see it constantly 

It is not audible 

Though our ears ring with its impact 

It is timeless 

Though it is present at every moment of our lives 

Beyond the senses of the soul… 

Unquantifiable 

Yet intimate though mysterious 

Horrible and majestic 

Small though vastly immeasurable 

Dave Petty, 2/20/2020

Mrs. God is an Asherah 

Tel Arad she has the wrong address 

In fact, little god got an in at the door 

As if he, she or it could. 

But sorry the pedestal is empty and the bigger little god got no place no more 

At a door or just a doorless doorway of the unholy of holies 

Please! Just put an end to this nonsense that these things even speak to anyone 

Though I swear I hear something. Didn’t you? 

And the rocks go boo and the Mr. Baal makes you flinch 

Though he can’t move an inch outside his stony skin 

Though we could swear by the idols even spill out some blood on an unknown altar 

That don’t alter a thing 

Blows the wind on the wing of the Angel of Death 

You know this blood don’t speak like the hear should! 

Bow to the One and leave the dead bones dry! 

Leave the ways of the world 

See them all pass by 

See them all pass by  

This is not us 

We are born from the One alone above! 

Gone the ghosts of the world 

Gone the ghosts of the world 

We cry the blood that speaks better than the blood of Abel 

Hezekiah speak! O king decry! 

And please tear down the place on high  

Bury deep in tombs of earth 

Forgetting gods that had no worth 

O Tell Arad the lesson learned 

And on return the idol time no longer spent. The exiles. 

The love for God, “the Lord is One”, to heaven sent. 

Our gifts of thanks extravagant. 

“The Lord is One” our worship bent. 

From lesson learned we speak the day 

At night the same 

The words we say: 

From dawning day to setting sun 

“Hear O Israel Our God is One.” 

Dave Petty, 2009

I cut a square whole in Moby Dick. 

I didn’t like my class. 

I didn’t like my teacher. 

But I did like the candy I hid in the hole. 

And I did like the idea of getting away with something. 

Of course, my school-mates liked the contraband that I would regularly distribute. 

My teacher never knew. 

And I never read Moby Dick. 

Who likes required reading? 

When I graduated from college… that’s when I returned to my love of books.  

I loved reading (and would read a ton) when I was much younger…  

Before I’d ever heard of Ahab and his pet whale. 

Dave Petty, 2/21/2020

I thought I said “too many holes in the bucket dear Elisha, Elijah” 

The words can’t stand the weather of our disbelief, but don’t ask me.  

Ask the facts, raw data, the inconsistencies, I presume, uncovering history, archeology will corroborate our discontent with these biblical “verban” legends.  

Legends that are all bandied about ad nauseum. 

In the mausoleum, dead men tell no lies. “Quel surprise!” 

What the dead men tell in the Qumran Tel, these dead sea fragments, okay some smell like “the older the find, the better the mind.” 

And these? 

If you please, have now convinced me otherwise. 

That what the good book says… the good book says. 

Dave Petty, 4/11/1990

Purely mechanical, that’s how it feels 

Slipping like oil between the gears 

Food ingestion, coffee chasers 

“So long dear,” beep beep, 

“am late for work” …and when I’m home what is it supposed to be? 

Play?  For the kids maybe, for the neighbors maybe… 

Work and Play are elusive to me. 

One is a plague and the other an addiction, 

No… scratch that.  They are both addictions, but it’s not them… it’s me. 

Play is like the wind, like nostalgia and pangs of passion,  

and heartburn and impulse.  

And just when you least expect it…  

And rarely when you really need it.  Playtime… No.  Scratch that.   

Quality time cannot be bottled, 

But when you’ve had it, you know it. 

Beep, beep…  “Honey.  I’m home!”

Dave Petty, 6/13/2012

He wrote that he was not as crahzee as the system that was organized to slice and dice the human mind as if it were only that which, scalpel here, suture there, a little labadabadoo wouldn’t cure. 

This one is not flying but struck dumb by the Tweedle Dumber, thinking, as they always seem to think, that they know better. But they did not. And, of course, he could not, thanks to them.

Dave Petty, 1/17/2020

I live in this box I call it a place 

My eyes through peep holes 

cardboard face 

See you be de faker just like me I masking shy rigidity 

See eyes that move me out of me 

See lies that fake news shake two by twos  

Turned too many to this world gone wild 

And crazy like a crush mob clash 

The child he smash his crib, he bash 

He trippin’ crazy like a crush mob flash sob tears of a clown gone wrong 

No song but blues like jazz like razzamatazz like the Alcatraz 

Daz the way the jailbird flies birdman tries birdman cries for his release 

He cease. He quit. the lungs go flat incarcerate  

That prison has no jail to brake 

The gone man new in bars he grew the stone façade facilitate 

His promenade. His sole decree is lock and key inside of me 

I be the unavoidability my eyes can’t see the outward the looking eyes 

The prize and price of freedom

Dave Petty, 8/2005

When did the dream merchant deliver your door to door blue dot specials wrapped in lickable triple fruity rainproof pollywolly cellophane?  And did you get a puff bow with that  (no charge)? 

I did!  Yesterday, he walked right up all dressed in sky blue tidiness, star button vest, shoes as black as night and of course his ever-mysterious gold rimmed hyper-radiant wonder pack straplessly stuck to the middle of his back.   

I was looking out my window.  I always do, because I have always known, windows are for looking through. 

Susan said “windows are for shutting” 

Mom said “windows are for cleaning” 

Dad said “windows?” 

I didn’t say.  I just looked. 

At school my teachers kept the window blinds closed. 

“To stop distractions” said my history teacher. 

“To keep out the glare” said my math teacher. 

“To eat my lunch” said my French teacher. 

At least that’s what I thought she said, but I don’t really understand French. 

My English teacher wished our class had windows.  She was different. 

She wore the same thing every day. 

“So she can fit in with the rest of us.”  That’s what my bigger sister Susan said. (Because she had Ms. Green in 3^rd grade too, so she should know.) 

And besides, she’s bigger. 

But Ms. Green didn’t fit in. 

“What do you know?  You’re little.” Said Susan 

She’s right.  I’m little. 

That’s when I started to keep my journal.  I called it my noticebook.  Not like school notebooks, which are for taking notes.  My noticebook is for taking notice, secretly. 

Every day Ms. Green came to class with a secret.  There was always one little thing that was different. 

Tuesday it was her striped purse.  Wednesday it was her hair knot.  She called it “a bun” when Jenny asked.  I don’t think so.  Or at least, it didn’t make me want to eat any.  Kinda odd.  Who eats hair except Dottie our stupid cat who throws hair up in a pile?  Not “a ball”.  Dottie’s throw-up-pile is no more “a ball” than Ms. Green’s hair is “a bun”.  But I think she’s pretty anyway.  It’s in my noticebook.  Not the pretty part.  The different part. 

Thursday was a cheese sandwich in tinfoil.  And Friday was some funny color on her eyelids, though nobody was laughing.  People don’t laugh at Ms. Green.  People don’t notice. 

She wore polka dot socks one day.  I forgot to write that down but I remember.   
What I remember was that was the day that nobody noticed anything.  Really.   

Susan dropped her pencil and left it.  It was still there when we got home. 

Mom dropped her jaw when we weren’t looking on our way to the bus.  It was still there when we got home.   

Dad was at work when we left for it in the morning.  He was still there when we got home.   

 
That was the day that I noticed that no one was noticing.  Except me of course. 

In the halls at school, people bumped shoulders, slammed metal lockers, drug gargantuan loads of books. 

1/11/2019

When I go to cows I go to nowhere I know 

Might as well be lost in woods 

Might should be coulds and the what if 

We would just go just out 

Just let the dogs out 

The who the lit the we the 

Shout out loud as lungs 

And tongues tie like sweet  

Holler down the rain barrel 

Halloo!? Halloo!? 

We hide the me the you the we, we seek 

The kid and play, we happy shriek 

On farms and yards 

And on porch play cards of 52 

The pirates loot, the sword for me, the gold for you 

And you say rope and I say skip 

And say hope and I say ship 

We sail along a day gone free 

The life and love of fantasy 

We cry halloo and sail to sea 

Upon a once and future king 

The two of us adventuring 

The two of us to kid and play 

From morn to dusk plus half a day 

And dusk that stays and stays and stays 

The lingering. The swingering. 

The holy moley fingering. 

Air guitars our perfect band  

The hourglass the falling sand 

The howl of wolves go scampering 

The cry of moms brings hampering 

We say goodbyes and homes we go 

Each of us back to what we know 

The night has come and tucking in 

To dinner’s warmth and day gone by 

We each our own remembered sigh 

The play we knew  

The ways we did 

The love we share 

Our secrets hid 

2/18/2004

If could capture you in a camera 

Press the button hear the click 

Call you up on the view screen 

Choose edit and  

Scream in horror at the blasphemy 

Trash the camera.  Beg for mercy 

Fall down flat and wait to die. 

You would laugh at me and my idiocy 

You would roll your eyes and ask me where I got the idea 

And of course, I wouldn’t know 

Light would shine from you like a million flash bulbs 

And I would remain etched in your indelible memory 

And my camera left in pieces 

as I would enter in. 

Dave Petty, 1/2006

This poem is a winter tune 

It sounds like weather 

But tastes like French fries 

Mostly in your mouth 

With just a few narrowly escaping  

To be trampled in their newfound freedom 

By indifferent feet that come in all sizes 

Tonight the air will be cold  

As runaway potato.

Dave Petty, 12/07/2005

Dirty lime green framing the clear as glass (because it is glass) that keeps the bugs out, the people out, the “out” out and me in. 

Burnt bitter dark as brown can get and still be brown, sweet, sweet coffee: she lives in her homemade mug, something you can get your hands on: Me and my liquid shadow. 

Drink me in you Veronese mystery!  Send me sputnik spinning.  Make me drive this thing like a chimpanzee.  Toss me down on a bed of letters and I will, rolling, rolling, rise without a trace of meaning.   

Syntactically speaking, babble-towering over dirt and clay and the endless parade of the Christmas wraiths.  We hang on doors.  We don’t knock or ring.  We decorate. 

Ornamentally speaking, we all need something to hang on. 

This cloudy afternoon, I choose the Veronese muse.  But then again, she was after all, inevitable. 

Dave Petty, 2012

There were three companions on their way to a dance 

Two wore dresses and one wore pants 

When they got to the place it looked just like France 

The girl with the curls asked the boy for romance 

The other one looked at the two with askance 

She proceeded the chandelier to advance 

“O let us be partners” she urged “take a chance” 

The fixture of light to the girl gave a glance 

“Thanks for your offer but you can waltz and I can’ts”

Dave Petty, 5/24/2020

I line these books like this 

You see them alphabetically 

Are you kidding me?! 

Words cannot express what we 

See, try, do perpetually. 

Inside the book. 

What counts if we would read 

But rabbit racing over me. 

Like I, lie, see stop, his watch. 

No. Stop. 

Did you see that? 

He don’t have time to read but he reads time?! 

He reads the flying of it. 

Translates with the moving on 

No.  

Rushing on. 

No.  

Blurring. On. 

He, the here and gone. 

You saw that. Right? 

He has a stopwatch, gold as gold can be. 

And he, reading it. Is I think iliterately 

Passing it.  

Bye. 

These books wait for no man. 

They do not wait. 

They contemplate. 

To be read. To think. 

Therefore. Time’s the whore. 

Therefore, we stopwatch time stop. Watch. We. 

Be.