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.

Poem about Communion: Another one that reflects the experience...

It appears that I have a number of poems on the Communion experience. This one is like a prayer. I hope you like it. My experience with Communion has been a refreshing one. I have included a poem by the Episcopal Priest John B. Coburn. It is also a poem like a prayer. I post it here to provide a flavor for prayer and poetry.

Hospitality of Communion...( 2001)
By Peter Menkin

In the poverty that lies of my sorrow,
I asked with the bended
knee of my heartfor gifts as Solomon
did when he asked of You
wisdom.
Wisdom day, I want to know

this rhythm living
with You.
Some wonderfully enter
into spectacular celebration

on Sundays that is a feast,
and I am waiting
to know some of this incredible
Word: let my prayer rise like

a sweet savor,
incense that is happiness.
Discovery, you are the Vine,
and there is such celebration!

I called out in the Church,
Reveal Yourself, O my God!
I am needy and seek You.

In the quiet part of day,
towards sunset,
hear me.

My sorrow brings
me a lowly heart. MayI know this lowly heart
in your poverty.
I have met Youin others.
They invite me
with an ache. Heart. Mine.
Give me
hospitality.
Accept me.













In Weakness, Strength
by John B. Coburn, (1914- )

Take my weakness, God.
Take
my failures,
my sins,
my dishonesties,
lies, pride, and lusts.

God knows--you know--
I can't do anything with them.

So, for Christ's sake, take them.

And give me, I pray you,
not so much a clean spirit,
nor a pure heart,
nor a sense of forgiveness
give me
a sense of you,
of you in me
and I in you.

Then shall I be strong
to be
for you.
Simply to be.

From page 408, the book, "Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers" compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Reviewed by me on Amazon.com at:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0819219622/ref=cm_aya_asin.title/103-3795260-4525434?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155 .

The Sunday feast of Communion, a personal and religious testimony...

Sunday Church is a feast with Communion, and here I mean not only the taking of Communion but the entire service. There is hospitality to this kind of celebration, and I find I cannot go on with my notes without adding that there is an immense pleasure in taking the bread and the wine. Perhaps you have noticed and enjoyed a similar experience.

My poem from 2001 is a personal statement on my experience of Communion and the Sunday Celebration, called a feast. I like being fed at the Lord's table, and while telling you, reader, of my own religious experience through this poem I hope to strike some common note. I have been told that the poem represents the religious sensibility.

The Hospitality of Communion
by Peter Menkin

In the poverty that lies
of my sorrow,I asked with the bended
knee of my heart
for gifts as Solomon
did when he asked of You
wisdom.

Wisdom day, I want to know
this rhythm living
with You.
Some wonderfully enter
into spectacular celebration
on Sundays that is a feast,
and I am waiting
to know some of this incredible
Word:

let my prayer rise like
a sweet savor,
incense that is happiness.

Discovery, you are the Vine,
and there is such celebration!
I called out in the Church,
Reveal Yourself, O my God!

I am needy and seek You.
In the quiet part of day,
towards sunset,hear me.
My sorrow brings
me a lowly heart. May

I know this lowly heart
in your poverty.
I have met You
in others.

They invite me
with an ache. Heart.
Mine. Give me
hospitality.
Accept me.