Ephraim Risho lives in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Trying to catch life,
a big bowl
and fast legs
grabbing memories and moments
fajitas and friendships
romances and dances
keep it, keep it
but a big leak in the bottom
drains it all away –
today I stare
into that pitiful big
empty bowl –
my life –
and teeter painfully
upon the brink
whether I
cry despair at having lost
it all
or hope the unplanned loss
could be a true
fresh start
©Ephraim Risho, November 8, 2006
What do you do when you’ve
got a soiled soul? especially since
such dirtyness permeates obliviously
deeply.
Thank God for life’s laundromats!
Tossed on in without warning and
suddenly you’re bashed about with
dirty socks and friendships, wrought
and wrung, mixed and mangled,
churned up, spun out, whacked into
some crazy kind of sense.
A quick and quiet huge relief will
ease the grief, a moment of some
rest, but then, with dreadful creeping
speed the spin begins, and never-
ending nausea engulfs the flattened
flipped-out frightened soul.
Amazed and fazed, you find yourself
alive and healed, a fresh and freed
and sorta soggy person. With wobbly
joyful legs, you taste the air and gulp
the shock how utterly deep-cleaned
you have become.
Of course, it’s only grace that keeps
elation blind to how you’ll soon be
roughly toughly jammed into the dryer!
©Ephraim Risho, October 29, 2006
A flaky frittered frump –
that’s me, quite living in
the yearnings, not realities,
imagining, not marvelling,
daydreaming, not delighting.
Oh! Oh! I am a toad!
A creeping clueless crawler
plopped by priceless bogs
where fairy princess ladies
come and randomly decide
today’s the day to
kiss some warty wondering
longing lounger just in
case connections draw
him out from slimy
sprawls, erupt him into
something greater, more
magnificent, a dragon-slaying
hero with a spatula to
cook her up a dish.
I wish.
Delish.
©Ephraim Risho, October 11, 2006
Sailors coming on the doldrums
did not cry out terror as
they might in massive storms. Instead,
that placid equatorial prison with its
lacking wind and waves would craftily
creep up and bore them with its
pleasant murderous directionless attire,
and tired of waning impetus, those
unbecoming sailors had a flourish of
desire while life did stop.
How suddenly we find our lives
a mess! Off-track and in the calm,
we float in tepid misery a-praying for
’most anything, even torrential storms,
to shake us back to living like that
time in distant memory all vibrant with
intensity, the love, the pain, the saturation
bleeding all around – an honest sign
that life is more than this.
©Ephraim Risho, October 5, 2006
After ten sips of coffee at
the local café I finally woke
up and realized the layers of
guilt I’d been snuggling into,
like a cold spikey blanket
murdering my soul.
Inadequacies battling
obligations rip into
unseen flesh and bones
rewinding lessons learned and
reminding what a broken,
gimped-up man is me,
more holed than holy,
gored than gloried,
resting in unnecessary
harms instead of nesting
in my saving lover’s arms.
©Ephraim Risho, October 1, 2006
In search of some mountain-top experience
I suddenly found myself in a car with
empty tank winding up the sea-to-sky
highway and practically bolting up
the steep inclines to get there sooner.
At the pinnacle of the huge rock they call
“The Chief” I paced around, took off my shirt,
admired things like snow-capped peaks, the
twisty trees, and inlets that are glacial-fed,
but certainly did not conjure glorious epiphanies
even though yes I was atop the mountain and
most certainly did get myself experience.
And just like that, so unanticipatedly did I run down,
a racer’s bolt from stand-still and surprising
even me, I spread my arms as if I flew, a wild
and madcap penguin deeply craving all the
soaring of his aviating brethren.
And by the time I drove on empty down the
mountain all the windows and the roof exposed
themselves and me to blazon elements so that
I whooped and sang out love songs to our God.
A reckless coast downhill to the gas station
brought me back into society, but still
peacock-ruffled, I popped into a store and
bought a pound of chocolate, giving goofy
smile to the young check-out lady who, startled,
tried to swipe my card upside-down.
I laughed and pointed at the large button
on her breast loudly pronouncing, “I’m new,”
and told her, “You can get away with anything
with one of those. If only we could go through
all of life with one!” and suddenly, though we
did laugh, we instantly and somehow knew
that it was true.
I’m new! I’m new! I’m better than
I thought I knew.
I’m new.
©Ephraim Risho, September 23, 2006, on a sunny Saturday.
A grumpy man’s response
initiated
a lengthy chain of thoughts,
ending with
photos of little kids with
man-killing guns, which gives myself
a tiny huge consideration
what their lives must be,
the pain and death and loss
of life,
it wrinkles up my eyes
with deep surprise
how I’ve been playin’ at life,
‘cause everything around me
is abundance and my trials are
microscopic – what’s the fuss
with love and risk and debt,
I’m only playin’, hardly slayin’,
so get off your seat!
I tell myself,
get out there and dive in!
‘cause if those risks are
only playin’
then you may as well throw
into life at least everything
you have got.
©Ephraim Risho, September 19, 2006
When I am low
I recollect how Mom
would call me her
little potato
and it helps me
remember that
though evidence
may seem to argue
otherwise
I know
I’m not alone.
©Ephraim Risho, September 17, 2006
Hear the song here.
Last Night I Was Killed By A Bus...
Last night I was killed by a bus.
I suppose it had to do with all my
regular metaphysical distracted
thoughts and so I just stepped
out in front of it.
Bam.
You would think there was pain,
but it’s kind of exciting.
No more worry ‘bout tomorrow,
how much so-and-so likes me,
planned success, how these
jeans enlarge bum, or
those money concerns.
One swift knock and all stress
is unfashionably free.
Enlightened?
You’d better believe I’m relieved!
a quick load off my back! and an
utter weight lifted! O joy, I can
finally, finally simply relax.
However, I wonder perhaps if
this lazy-dog day doing nothing
is giving less meaning, and through
my delimbing and dimming I’m
thinking I’m missing that
bright vibrant chaos that comes
when I’m living.
©Ephraim Risho, September 13, 2006
