Visit to the Veteran's Hospital: San Francisco

Just last year a friend from Church passed away at the Veteran's Hospital in San Francisco. I wrote this poem some years ago, after visiting "Fort Miley", San Francisco and seeing the sketches of soldiers on one hallway wall--in black ink by artists. I wanted to do something, too. So this poem which was originally workshopped on The Atlantic Monthly Writer's Workshop, which is no longer extant. That was around 2000.

I Visited the Veteran's Hospital Today, Oh Boy...
by Peter Menkin


The fog sits and lives by the City
Where men with their sketches made
by nursing friends to strangers, linger
on the walls and in the memories.

Anonymous lessons of Caesar campaigns,
and American victories of elegant tours,
in journeys from many armies
are adorned by men with injuries tended.

This on the caverns and hallways
punctuated by building clinic,
hospital, Nursing Home, Ambulatory Center
for Veterans in San Francisco by the Pacific.

Limbs, lives, bodies nurtured with
desparite routine in diversity,
of legions in regular staff to
administer the chapel of balm to war injured.

Oh, boy, I saw the men today
and the women when visiting
the line at the Veteran's Hospital, Oh Boy.
I heard the news today, saw the results.

Care and treatment offered:
Tender mercies given with discipline,
received with gratitude, politics,
and golden hearts with purple glory
in sketches of lines of color in living faces.
A kind of memorial to wounded.

These, Oh, Boy, I read the news today
of American faces mingling comraderies
in wounded attention, ministrations of,
Oh, Boy, the agony was apparent in the quiet.

The fog rolls through the Golden Gate
in the City where the houses in their
colored array sit cheek to jowl; the men
talk of Senators and Officers, wait for prosthetics.

Oh, Boy, there is God who is around
the corner, down the hall. I read
the news today in the vastness
and hub bub to display a sketch of tenderness.

A poem as poetic list, a list as poem about sin and confession...

This isn't a poem, it is a poetic list that poses as a poem. I also think it is a poem that is a list, that explains one of the things I do to stay in relationship to God. I think you will find it understandable; no secret message, here. Just work to do to keep things and my life straighter than not.

Another of my poems written five years ago, this one was also originally posted on The Atlantic Monthly Writer's Workshop on the internet. Today, should you go to the Reposte & Post section of the online Atlantic, you would find little action in the Writer's Workshop. Too bad, and a real loss for me because it was so helpful. Then in 2001 it was a lively and interesting group, often encouraging of my ambitions to write an acceptable poem--about God and Christ.

Returning to the poem posted here: Some people don't believe in formal confession, to a Priest. The Episcopal Church offers the sacrament of reconciliation, called confession. It is done one on one with a Priest, and is more a spiritual conversation. The practice as I know it allows the confessing to see the confessor. In other words, it doesn't take a dark room, but can be said in a chapel with no one else around to hear.

Moreso, this poem alludes to such confession, but I think you will find it covers the idea of setting things right with oneself and one's God. And with others in one's life. As you can see, I think it is a good practice and also a form of self examination. Certainly, it is a poem as confession since it tells the reader that I believe I am a sinner and do sin. That is a lot of public revealing, in itself.

Relief from burden and grievings
by Peter Menkin - 2001

Sin is
awareness that
forgiveness offers
the covetous,
and a long list
of human frailties more,
too numerous to name
relief from burden
and grievings of the soul.

What to do with sins
not in conscious.
Do not fret, listen
to your heart; be
still and know
that I am God. Live
with sorrow, embrace
joy, allow acceptance
of the human, eschew
evil. Know failure;
willingly embrace
humility. Tears.

Live life a friend
said. Yes!

Garden variety, thorns,
common knowledge, blindnesses,
bring my misgivings
to purity
~May I grieve You not
Lord~

You are good.

Yet I do.

Hear
my confession.