Kairos

We all have our moment.
It seeks us out, strikes our gut,
Boils our blood,
Tests our mettle.
Even warriors, in their moment, settle.
Cowards disappear in anonymity
Into the crowds of deferred activity.
Do we fight? Do we hold the line?
Do we desert to find
Some banal pacifications,
Simplicities smuggling complications,
An itch to scratch, a vice to gain,
To rebel against pain,
The wound you try, but can’t measure,
Not with purpose, but empty pleasure.
To join the throngs in primal wail,
Or sit astride to tell their tale
Romanticizing their drunkenness,
Their sallow eyes of sunkenness,
As a fist ashake against the night,
The peasant lost to the rich man’s fight
Allowing the anger to sear your veins
Until nothing but ash and scar remain,
Or else you may stand alone in pillory
Talking of honor, dignity, nobility,
While the crowd throws muck
And calls you mad, and being stuck
In a world no one else will see,
A fairytale for a reality
You must decide if the virtues you hail,
Even if your own fantasy, will pale,
Or if their beauty shines in audacity
Regardless of their veracity
And when your moment arrives,
Every way you once had thrived
Gets rocked like a little boat at sea-
When you must decide who you will be

Whatever secret thing inside your soul
You loved the most, that made you whole,
Will dance naked in the street
Baring all in brazen beats

Onlookers pitching empty glass bottles
At impassioned, unprotected feet.


Heroine

She’s the first person
I met in this place
Who confronts head on,
Who comforts face to face,
Who sees where I am
And looks to mend.
She’s a protector, a guardian;
She is my friend.

Send her blessings without end
In the same way she blesses me
Please.


Plumb

Only the Cross to the Ascension
The moment in history
All that’s in existence converged
And all death reversed

Could carry through time
And into any substance
A miraculous compound
Potent enough

To change this for me.
This perfect element I believe
You call Love, Your substance,
To acquire is too valuable to cost anything

Worth everything
That ever existed.

I can’t offer my life.
It’s mostly gone,
And I’m not enough to trade
Even here on earth.

I can’t get to You.
I’m not even sure why to try
And no one is here
To carry me.

I don’t think
I will have the capacity
To enjoy anything again.
Not with any depth.

I don’t know if this petition
Is for relief in life,
Or release from it.

Can You see an answer?

I’m asking You
Knower of All,
God Almighty
The Only One

Is there an answer for me?


All the World

If chapters never ended,
And covers never closed,
If the ones who filled your hours
Were the souls alone you chose,
And no one owned each other,
You eagerly filled the day
Sharing the exuberance of children
In the purity of play
If vitality held stay amongst the stars,
And we had all the world and time
To sway together against the storms,
We’d forgive each other all our crimes
So as not to lose an eternity
Of our hand clasped in the other’s
We’d love in innocent passion
Like two strangers meeting as brothers.
We’d write each other poetry
To adore our nobler traits.
We’d love without suspicion,
In fidelity that will not abdicate.
We would defend each other
Like children in a garden
Where the threat is not the predator,
But the heart that must not harden.

I love them all this way,
Like a child who cannot understand
The demands adults will bring,
The castles made of sand
People buy with all their hours,
So there’s none left to play within,
Or why no one’s left to play with me
When they all forsake the garden

To walk amid the men.

I sit outside, alone, under the stars
Writing poetry of all the beautiful things
I think they all are,
Or will be when they get their wings.


Simple Faith

God of attention-to-detail,
You see us derail
Before we can see the attack,
The hindrance on the tracks.
You know what will pass or be,
And You prevent the catastrophe,

Or else You hold us and work it
For a higher good.

I trust You.
I believe You.
I expect in You.


In Ebb and Flow

I keep processing this in waves;
I say I forgive. I say I will bless.
Then I’m a mess
And don’t want You to save
Ninevah.

So I’m embarrassed to say:
We all fail. We all sin.
I choose to forgive again.
More resentment dissolves away.
I trust You

To chasten Yours,
And chastise rebels
In Your timing.

Let me be Yours.


Restructuring Reality

One thing I miscalculated:
I thought of idealistic men as protectors
Even though, if it was once in their design,
The first man was the first defector.
I have read too much of chivalry,
The gallant appeals of noble knighthood.
In fairy tales, men defend all women,
But in Iife, they only do what’s also for their good

As humans generally behave.
Only One lays down His life to save
Even the unwantables.

P.S.

Although it all works together
For some kind of redemption.
I’m lucky now that no one cared;
I guess it’s no longer worth the mention

Just the recalibration.


Buzz of Canton

My friend has shut her doors.
In this place averse to candor
I can’t know if it is me, or her,
Or more of the local slander.
I keep trying alone, by hand,
To force roots in this ground.
Am I stubborn or stupid?
What a wasps’ nest I found.


Waiting Widows

I have taken seriously
All vengeance is Yours.
I have kept to myself,
My heart behind doors,
My hands limp at my sides

Do not tarry any more
Than what is in Your plan.
Their corruption broke the weakest
They knew couldn’t stand,
Their coldness couldn’t care

Or look with humble concern.
For their pride,
Their lack of empathy,
Their demeaning and snide
Derision and refusals,

For the foolish ears
That preferred flattery
To honesty
Endorsing their own battery
While judging all others

For the vulnerable loss
Of the tender petals
You formed in me
For gilding in cold metal
My once soft soul

I ask again,
Remember my case against them.

I am not taking it into my own hands.
I wait on You.

Luke 18:1-8

Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart, 2 saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God and did not respect man. 3 There was a widow in that city, and she kept coming to him, saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.’ 4 For a while he was unwilling; but afterward he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God nor respect man, 5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will give her justice, otherwise by continually coming she will wear me out.’” 6 And the Lord said, “Hear what the unrighteous judge *said; 7 now, will not God bring about justice for His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He delay long over them? 8 I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”


A Backing Wind

It’s funny.

When I was trying to get away from him
The company hobbled my knees,
But now I’m grateful for him here
I tuck myself inside his hands and pray that he
Can help me get farther away

From the pirate company.