Jim Mayzik SJ Blog

POEM SHARE:

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard...

I approached the open screen window and called out to her, “hey baby, hey I’m here”, and from within the house I could hear her delighted response to my voice: small wordless, high-pitched squeals and whimpering.  As I rounded the corner on the wrap-around porch and approached the sliding glass door, there she was, this beauty waiting for me, so excited she could hardly stand still. I opened the door and she nearly knocked me down in a joyous welcome embrace, her two front paws landing on my chest.  “Yes, my baby, yes, it’s so good to see you too, yes, you are a good girl, yes you are, such a good girl”, I kept saying again and again as she danced around me, jumped all over me, ran to get her favorite squeaky rubber toy, which she grabs whenever she is happy to see someone. 

Short narrative film.  It's the middle of the night, a storm is approaching, and Russell needs some supplies from a backwater convenience store. He's in a hurry — but Dixie, the checkout clerk, is in no rush.

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At the Department of Motor Vehicles
to renew my driver's license, I had to wait
two hours on one of those wooden benches
like pews in the church of Latter Day
Meaninglessness, where there is no
stained glass (no windows at all, in fact)...

I was going through a desk drawer in my room looking for a AA battery for my ROKU remote. It was a kind of catch-all drawer, filled with all kinds things: old checkbooks, keyrings, rubber bands, some old ID cards.  I came across a wedding program from a bunch of years ago, for which I was the officiating priest.  My eyes scanned the program and its list of participants, and stopped at the ringbearer. I smiled, remembering him...

Short narrative film.  In the Attention Economy, technology and media are designed to maximize our screen-time. But what if they were designed to help us live by our values?

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During natural disasters two enemy animals
will call a truce, so during a hurricane
an owl will share a tree with a mouse
and, during an earthquake, you might find
a mongoose wilted and shivering
beside a snake...

I’ve been recently sampling a popular HBO show I hadn’t watched before, which actually just aired its final episode forever. It’s called Girls, and although it’s not my usual television fare, I got into it.  Girls delves into the daily experiences of a group of twenty-something girls living in New York City, often dealing with humiliating and disastrous events regarding young adulthood, relationships and sexuality. It’s a pretty good show, it draws you in---sometimes in its shockingly honest portrayals of modern day choices.  It has been controversial, but it has also won several Emmys, Golden Globes, Peabody and other television awards.

Short narrative film.  In 2084 the State knows all.  Or does it?

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The summer of my mother’s illness,
a season so hot and dry it might
have erupted in flames, we discovered
the dog liked television. She barked...

Nancy got in the cab, winded from running after it in the morning traffic. She gave the driver an address, and he turned on the meter. At first, Nancy didn’t pay any attention to the medallion license posted in the back seat of the cab. She was too upset to notice much of anything after reading the first text message of the day on her phone. Her eyes were turned towards the traffic and the pedestrians outside, but she didn’t see them.  No, she was caught up in a flurry of emotions all at once—fear, dread, anger, sadness, and much cynicism. The idealism of her younger days had been all but disappeared. Self interest and self preservation in the world was all that mattered. This was the final nail that sealed her own hardened heart.

They call it collateral damage, the euphemistic, inoffensive, evasive term to describe the effects of the cruise missile strike, or the explosion from the barrel bomb: the unintended killing of innocent civilian mothers, fathers, and children who happened to be in the blast zone during the attack.  A spokesman said “We are currently assessing the collateral damage in the aftermath of our mission.”  Collateral damage: these babies, that young woman, that elderly grandfather, this teenage boy.

Short narrative film. A spoken word piece about Christ's final day... and why we call it good. Performed by Propaganda of Humble Beast and written and animated by CentralFilms.

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Pedometer attached to her belt, your mother, spry and strong
at eighty, joins the other Methodist Church members
in calculating the 5,915 miles, no matter the weather, to add up
all the way from Linesville, Pennsylvania to Jerusalem...

If this story were a movie, it certainly starts out with a happy scene!  I mean, a parade of triumph into the city, people whistling and shouting, “hip hip hurray”, “two four six eight, who do we appreciate?””Let’s go Jesus….let’s go Jesus!”. 

Short narrative film. When a man is put on hold to place a food order, he turns what would normally be an annoying experience into a memorable one.

April 2017 The Pope Video: Young people have in their hands the challenge of building a more just future, a future of solidarity. Let us support them. Let’s pray with the Pope that our youth will respond and work generously for the changes the world needs.

POEM SHARE:

It starts with the climbing in,
nerved-up enough
for that defiance
of gravity, the slow-grind
rackety-clack one-inch cog
at a time—the mystery of machinery...

I was crawling through a very dark and narrow tunnel, the dirt of its ceiling scraping my back, lodging under my fingernails, staining my exposed kneecaps.  The person in front of me had disappeared, moving more rapidly than I through this underground world, and when I confronted an intersection of three tunnel options, I began to panic.  Why had I chosen to brave the long route through this adventure?  What was I trying to prove—my manliness?  And I began to feel the real effects of claustrophobia: a rising panic, the possibility of being paralyzed with fear, unable to move.  What if the walls caved in, or the ceiling collapsed? Would I suffocate, would this be my tomb?

Short narrative film (commercial for State Farm).  Let's turn caring into doing.