Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
I have seen thy holy 
places in the Old City
of Jerusalem.
I have walked the 
cobblestones Christ
once walked.
 
I have stood before
each station of the cross
and marked the time
of day you stood there 
in pain and agony.
 
I have felt the hurt of all
thy people,  be they
Christian, Jew, or Muslim
from any sect across
the Holy Land.
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
I have been to the Western
Wall and heard it wailing,
crying out in prayer for some 
compassion, 
some small mercy. 
 
As I have seen your
people praying in the mosques
upon the Temple Mount ~ 
Al Haram ash-Sahrif, the 
Noble Sanctuary. 
 
Each is claimed by many 
as a holy site. 
So many, O Lord.
 
I think that there is
nothing here, we may
claim completely as our own,
that is ours. 
There is nothing 
here that any may claim 
that is not yours first.
 
I hear them crying 
on all sides for these
their holy places, 
but not yours, 
O Lord.
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
I have seen them 
bend their 
words and 
intentions, their 
prayers, into 
something far 
from holy.
 
I have seen 
and heard 
them miss the mark 
more than once, 
in their quest for 
your holiness, your
presence in
their life.
 
Lord God, I wonder 
when will we ever 
learn that 
true holiness is not 
found 
within these 
places alone, 
these monuments 
and 
images of you, 
who are
unseen and invisible, 
without image.
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
Lord, I wonder when
they will find your
holiness 
resting in themselves 
as an
indwelling of 
the Spirit, 
the Holy Spirit.
 
There was an 
infant child
once born upon
a holy night, 
a silent night.
 
Who rested in a 
humble manger,
where cattle fed, where 
ox and ass and sheep
all dwelled.  
The innocent 
of creation.  Where angels, 
shepherds and wise men 
bowed in homage to a 
new born king, a heavenly 
kingdom only, not of this 
earth or world. 
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
Let us give birth too, 
in this most holy of nights, 
in the silence and stillness 
of this night to the
Christ child 
that dwells within
us all. 
 
Kýrie Eléison ~ Christe Eléison
 
of a memory
that has
faded
 
in reflection
in knowing
where we
 
only desire
to be
known 

By – Ron Starbuck
Saint Julian Press © 2016 – Poem is from:
There Is Something About Being an Episcopalian
​

INDEPENDENCE DAY
 
July 4, 2018
 
“Such a restructuring of space and the objects in it, unaccompanied by any reconversion,
must in the first instance be considered an impoverishment.”

 –Jean Baudrillard, The System of Objects
 
“The introduction of actual objects, often with direct popular connotations such as
the Coke bottles, was interpreted as a riposte to the high-flown discourse of the older
abstract expressionists. Rauschenberg specifically rejected the idealistic aspirations they
represented. . .To paint, he said, is no more important than anything else in life.”

 –Dore Ashton, The New York School: A Cultural Reckoning
 

The B train. The people from Edward Hopper who do not look at one another.
The ads for things that will be forgotten in another generation. The station.
Petals on a wet black bough. The cracked pavement. Bright sunlight. Taxi horns.
The walk to 53rd Street and right turn, slow, because the physical object
Of my body in this space is in hypertensive crisis. My swollen feet, shortness
Of breath. The elegant lobby, spare, atmospheric. Against all advice I take
The stairs, because they are the system of ascent. Fourth floor.  These words.
It is of course not July Fourth when I am there. The MOMA is closed
For Independence Day. Here are the Pollocks, the Warhols, the Rothkos--
I could step inside a Rothko and be safe for eternity, though dead, but that
Is not how objects work, and thus another story—the Rauschenbergs, and there
Is Jasper Johns’ “Flag.” It is two years older than I. It is an American flag. It is not
An American flag. It is the object of the object of an American flag, which
Though not a specific reference in Baudrillard’s first book will lead directly
To Simulacra and Simulation. But this is also, technically, neither simulacra
Nor simulation. It is “The American Flag.” 


                                                                        For that reason it has an origin,
Although the origin is not what we might surmise, not the flags flying everywhere
Today. The origin was a dream Johns had 64 years ago. The next morning
He began to assemble three plywood panels, 42 1/” by 60 5/8”—call it
Three-and-a-half x five feet--and then the resined newspapers, McCarthy era,
That fear, that American fear of America, not an object, though present
Once again. The object of newspapers, their fragments of communities,
Their warning. The thick oil paint over the resin, the red and white stripes
And so on. The thick white of the stars over the thick blue, stars held 
In place in this place on earth by paint, of all things. Rauschenberg was right
Up to a point and then he was wrong. These words.The disaffection
Of millennials, their caustic irony, their objectified performance of despair.
You will die, Siddhartha. Then I will die. Hesse. We must see the scintillation
And its impoverishment for what it is. Then we must descend the system of assent.

​
_____________________________________
Thomas Simmons
July 4, 2018

BRING YOUR NIGHTS WITH YOU ~ New & Selected Poems 1975-2015, in two volumes by author Thomas Simmons, will be released on July 6, 2018 by Saint Julian Press.

Thomas Simmons taught for 24 years in the Department of English at the University of Iowa; in the spring of 2016 he started something new and has been writing ever since. Before that, he was an assistant and associate professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; before that, he was a doctoral student in English at the University of California, Berkeley, a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford, and a Stanford University undergraduate. His seven previous books, one of which (The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood, Beacon Press, 1991) caused some offense in Boston, may be viewed at amazon.com site listed below. He lives in Grinnell, Iowa.

Ron Starbuck © 2018  –  With a very special thanks to all those who serve on the Altar Guild in every Episcopal & Anglican Church.

​GOD’S LONGING


It isn’t known when it began,
God’s longing,
certainly no one mortal knows.
The angels might know,
but for most, it is still a heavenly secret,
a mystery of mysteries
long hidden.


Some would say that it was always there,
has always been there,
from the first instant,
long before the big bang.
Banged!


Leading up to the first 
thought that caused
creation, to explode suddenly
out of the emptiness and nothingness
of all reality, which is still expanding,
still growing
still arising within us each.


Many would say, and I would be one,
that God’s longing is eternal.
It is a deep longing, a true longing,
a longing that lingers slowly
and perfectly 
stretching out far past our own imaginations.
However, far back or forward we are able to imagine.


It is almost as if God suddenly awoke
and being alone.
In knowing loneliness from the beginning
sighed deeply, sighed so deeply
in that loneliness,
that in breathing out
some portion of God’s breath left
his body and being
to seed all creation.


Perhaps it was then, in that moment
when the breath of God first moved
across the waters of earth
or moved through the depths of
nothingness giving birth to creation.
Or gave breath to both Adam and Eve,
and then to all humanity.


Sometimes a thought crosses my mind,
a single thought, born out of my own breath,
as I breathe in deeply during meditation
and out once again quietly and stilly.


Sometimes it comes to me then, in a split second
that this was when God’s Holy Spirit first appeared
and continues to appear throughout all history.
I even imagine that in some secret way
my own loneliness and longing are helping to give birth
to God’s Holy Spirit
and the compassionate loving-kindness
that follows God’s gift to all humankind.
I know this much, that God’s longing for us 
runs so deep
and so true
that He gave up His only begotten Son, even unto death.
So that we might come to know Him and He us,
and that by this miracle of love
God’s Holy Spirit comes to dwell and rest in us.








​


Copyright © 2016, Ron Starbuck
All Rights Reserved
 
 There Is Something About Being An Episcopalian
 
 
ISBN-13:  978-0-9965231-7-2
ISBN-10:  0-9965231-7-0
Library of Congress Control Number:  2016906673
 

​An unarmed 20-year-old Guatemalan girl, Claudia Gomez, is shot dead
By a United States border agent just across the Texas line. A mother,
Silvana Bermudez, hugs her teenage son and younger daughter outside Houston
After US Immigration and Customs Enforcement catch up with them
And separate them, sending the children to an unspecified detention center
For an unknown period of time, and the mother to a similarly-unspecified
Though different detention center. . .Two days ago a US Senator from Oregon,
Jeff Merkley, was denied access to a Texas “immigration detention center
For children,” although he had every right. . .Even the language, “detention center,”
Is carefully chosen not to invoke the memory of the National Socialist German
Workers’ Party, which rose to power on the fear and hatred now gripping 
The United States. The president, elected with the assistance of a Russian dictator, 
Has declared himself to have “absolute power” to pardon himself,
Although because he has done “nothing wrong” there is no need to--
But he may do it anyway, because he can, because he thrives on chaos
And confusion and no one will stand up to him. Rome, Rome. . .
Even within the Republican party there is division, among the Democrats
A complete absence of leadership, and no one has the courage to warn
That an affirmation of dictatorship from Trump will lead to impeachment.
It won’t. A president with absolute power to pardon himself would not
Think twice about federalizing the armed forces, and would override
Congress’ Constitutional authority to refuse to fund such a move 
With an executive order. Thus the future of American government,
Should there be one, would come down to one man, Secretary of Defense
James N. Matthis, who could defy the president by ordering his forces
To stand down, although that conceivably could start a civil war.
 
The miracle of all this is not its brinksmanship, or its lies—the president
Created the separation-of-immigrant-parents-and-children as an intentional
Cruelty to stop illegal immigration, then falsely blamed that “horrible law”
On the Democrats, and few people outside the ACLU and the Society of
Friends blinked. .The miracle is the stupidity, blind stupidity. The five 
Extinctions that we know of in the inscribed geologic history of the planet didn’t
Have to do with stupidity, but rather a sudden build-up for various reasons
Of carbon dioxide: the first clue in each case was the dying-off of coral reefs,
Whose demises are sealed in the paleontological rock. The difference this time
Lies at the heart of consciousness: we do the evil and the careless and the reckless
Things we do in full knowledge of their evil, their carelessness and recklessness
And we do them anyway. Or we’re simply distracted. Yesterday right outside
My house, a man with a grandmother, a young daughter, and an infant in the car
Did a California rolling stop from my street onto 1st Avenue directly in front
Of a fully-loaded cement mixer. It was a miracle no one was killed. I had to call
911. And I am the key witness, corroborating the truck driver’s story. It’s important
To be a key witness, and to speak from that knowledge, whether the matter seems
Relatively minor or overwhelming in its stupidity or conscious evil. I labor 
In the fields of the unconscious because it is not labor, it is fascination and
Pleasure and brilliance beyond measure—and its limitlessness, as the self dissolves.
It is always a mixed blessing to return. Some day I will not. But in the mean-
Time, here, as discrete agents of consciousness, we cannot evade what Lionel
Trilling once called “the moral obligation to be intelligent.” If I am preaching here,
It is because I am angry, I don’t especially want to be here and never did. But
Compassion is as real as its opposite, and more powerful, in fact, because
Based in love, which is by nature expansive, rather than hatred, which is
By nature destructive of everything, including itself, excluding love. I go
Out into the world reluctantly, armed with a better armor than Gawain.






Thomas Simmons
June 5, 2018

Thomas Simmons © 2018

THOMAS SIMMONS taught for 24 years in the Department of English at the University of Iowa; in the spring of 2016 he started something new and has been writing ever since. Before that, he was an assistant and associate professor in the Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; before that, he was a doctoral student in English at the University of California, Berkeley, a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Creative Writing at Stanford, and a Stanford University undergraduate. His seven previous books, one of which (The Unseen Shore: Memories of a Christian Science Childhood, Beacon Press, 1991) caused some offense in Boston, may be viewed at amazon.com site listed below. He lives in Grinnell, Iowa.

​Amazon Author's Page

Houston: Press Release - For immediate release December 15, 2017. Saint Julian Press proudly presents a new collection of poems by Dylan Krieger, which will be available on February 2, 2018 through fine book distributors and retailers. 

Praise for dreamland trash 

This is the opposite of a sophomore slump. Like the latest subatomic experiments in above-the-speed-of-light velocity, for a fraction of a second, when the same particle is in two places at the same time, Dylan Krieger will be there and elsewhere. As if Giving Godhead weren't good enough, suddenly she hits out past light-years of stratospheres and reproductive insanities of biology back to the “invertebrate mother” and the lunacy of a planet organized largely around humanoid self-destruction. The scale becomes both precise and enormous, echoes of things heard as if through water in a glass. You will have to think about the sound of it all for a few days, it is both so familiar and so volatile. dreamland trash is one of the most perfect IED’s ever made.
​
Thomas Simmons – NOW


“Holding whole generations up at sexpoint,” dreamland trash is ingenious, witty, and electric. We are just as likely to wake up next to a moaning unicorn as we are to be abducted by deranged YouTube automatic captions. It’s in this derangement that we begin to see the late-capitalist world inside out and upside down, for its cheap thrills and absolute devaluation of the self. Abandon and alienation are rendered in a linguistically dense, gothic style, deeply aware of the “day-glo chokehold” we are all in.

Sandra Simonds – Further Problems with Pleasure, Steal It Back


​Dylan Krieger is a transistor radio picking up alien frequencies in south Louisiana, where she earned her MFA from LSU and now sunlights as a trade magazine editor. Her debut poetry collection, Giving Godhead (Delete Press, 2017), won LSU’s 2015 Robert Penn Warren Award and was dubbed “the best collection of poetry to appear in English in 2017” by the New York Times Book Review. She is also the author of no ledge left to love (Ping Pong Free Press, forthcoming) and an autobiographical meditation on the Church of Euthanasia called The Mother Wart. Find her at www.dylankrieger.com.

Available through ~ IndieBound ~ Ingram Content Group ~ Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Fine Book Distributors & Retailers
dreamland trash by Dylan Krieger *  ISBN-13: 978-0-9986404-4-0  *  ISBN: 0-9986404-4-1
Saint Julian Press, Inc. * 2053 Cortlandt, Suite 200 * Houston, TX 77008  * Ron Starbuck ~ Publisher-CEO
Phone: 281-734-8721 * Email: ronstarbuck@saintjulianpress.com * www.saintjulianpress.com

​​An Evening of  POETRY –  JULY 14, 2017
 
with
Poets – Dylan Krieger & Tomas Simmons
Pianist – Scott Graham
​&
Special Guests
Donna McKenzie – Doug Williams
Publisher – Ron Starbuck
Reading the works of  Saint Julian Press Poets

ST. JOHN'S LUTHERAN CHURCH ~ EASTON, KANSAS