I work as hard as I can
But when I am done
I leave cement and plastic behind
Walking slowly into the sun
I stop to see flowers,
Fields cover-cropped in clover
I talk to the clouds
But my walk isn’t over
Until I make it to the cages
Where the little chicks are hatched
I watch them eat, and nestle,
Nap, and scratch,
I came this far
Only to come this close.
I listen to the tiny peeps;
My heart already knows
This window is also closed.
All this way, for what?
No one cares.
You keep reminding me to love,
To be kind, not to define man
Where I have no jurisdiction,
And I will do what I can
But God,
Be kind to me.
The wait is long.
The people were treacherous.
The disappointments throng
And seem cemented.
No one cared,
Now I’m not sure I do either.
I took my way
When we were dating
He spoke Your name
Looked close enough
But didn’t really obey
In the ways he didn’t want to
I knew it was common to man
So I hoped
I wouldn’t pay the consequence of sin.
Your Sin Will Find You.
Always.
We began by doing it our way
And rendering You lip service
Asking You to bless
Our presumption
And the meager ante
The gesture
We gave You instead of obedience
Instead of laying down our desires
And seeking You first
I’ve payed for it since.
No one should care.
What would caring look like?
Like You holding me back
From the final death
By betrayal?
I suppose, like Your men
Your earthbound friends,
I expected an earthbound answer
To an eternal, spiritual question.
Deferred Hope
There’s nowhere to turn
Ever in this life
But left or right
Farther into You
Or into destruction.
I read Your promises
And I couldn’t imagine
That kind of joy
Worth it all
But my time frame was off.
I was thinking
As one stride follows another,
As a pendulum swings
In turn
I have to alter my hope
Adjust my scope
Survive and search
The skyline
For the final resolution
Learn
To suffer in silence
Like a lamb before slaughter
Who is so very quiet.
Try to look like You
To the people who tear You apart
And rejoice
To share in Your sufferings
Which I can do
When I truly believe
I’m sharing with You.
The pain and betrayal,
The cold indifference of onlookers
The sustained injustice
Mockery and derision
From the very people
In charge of putting it right
Put me wrong.
But that was Your cross
Where You bore their sin
As they wrote it
In the carnal delights
Of Your misery.
You forgave them in it;
Help me look like You
To the ones who tear You apart
Forgive me
When I know not what I do.
Help me bear up
Until I cross over to rest in You,
Then remember me
When I wash up on the shore
Of Your kingdom
My Tender King.
I believe You still.
I am estimating ratios
To calculate the miles
I will need to forget
What the pirates defiled.
I thought the current of days
Would carry me sufficiently far
To release and forgive them
For being what they are
Remorseless, lawless,
In love with their own image.
I thought I could live and let live
Patch up, on my own, the damage
But it just doesn’t heal,
And it changed everything for worse.
They enjoy their bounty;
I am branded by their curse.
I believed they held noble virtues,
But they have no hearts
To house them in-
Ruthless to tear someone torn apart.
I know it will work-
I’ll forget them all in time.
But the wound must be deep
To be worth leaving so much behind
And risking so much ahead.
No matter how I calculate,
It is well worth it.
I hate pirates.
If he were gone tomorrow
Nothing is solved,
And now my fight is gone
These days have revolved
Spinning in sorrow
Past my own view.
I believe everything You said
Must in some way prove true
But somewhere along the way
I stopped running to the window to see
For all this and worse
Please forgive me.
If I ever had those watchmen,
The diligent watch they were to keep,
Now seems the time
To rouse them from their sleep.
I’m not sure what I’m doing here.
There’s no part of my life
I love to be in.
You promised so much;
Reach me again.
Wake me to joy.
I want to disappear,
To stop being aware,
To erase myself from here
I don’t want to go anywhere,
I just don’t want to be here.
Why am I?
What do I do?
There’s a kind of frequency
A vibration we are made to pulse
Hubris and striving twist the strings
Off-tune echoes the false
Leaves us on edge
Frustrated at offkey being
Losing the simplicity
Of harmony, of consonant melody,
We can inhabit through
Forgiving and being forgiven.
We play the measured notes
Of love, joy, peace,
Patience, kindness, goodness,
Faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
Maestro of Song,
Play one more psalm with my soul.
I always love the wolves.
Not the ones who bear their shame,
But the ones draped in false wool
Who wear Your name
Not Your nature.
I am a fool.
Look for me on the lost hill again.
They are all the same person.
I don’t know how I didn’t see.
They aren’t the nicest I’ve met;
They were never nice to me.
No one spoke out.
No one stood.
No one defended;
No one advocated for my good.
No one broke the silence.
No one confessed.
No one was honest;
With what was I impressed?
How did I ever find such
Rogues and scoundrels charming?
None of them are worthy;
Shame on me for fawning
After bad human beings.
I wanted to buy dirt
But the dirt mongers bit me
Now I’m reminded
How city streets also fit me
Midnight coffee shop conversations
About love as a build, or a fall,
And the meaning of life,
Like any of us know anything at all,
Hole-in-the-wall book swaps
With dogeared paperbacks
Written by Greek philosophers
Translated by hacks,
A store for every occasion,
And parks for walks
No one knows each other’s names
Even after extended talks,
Privacy is fragile.
Space is too tight.
It takes a block party sometimes
To invoke you to invite
And I was a wildflower
Growing between sidewalk slabs
But I did just as well there
Without the personal jabs.
Where’s the benefit?
What good does buying dirt do
If the people around
Treat it better than you.
It’s astounding.
Everything he did to end me,
But the ones who hurt me the most
Were the ones I ran to for help.
I drift away, a wiser ghost;
I will never ask for help again,
And they will never feel remorse.
There is no hope for us all
If God doesn’t change our course.
It’s the first time in my life,
I have to hold the curse on my tongue.
I’m a breath away from praying every delight undone;
Holding it in poisons my lungs.
They have changed me,
And I can’t figure how
To restore what they vandalized,
Or if it’s even worth trying now,
But I am far worse for knowing them.
viewingcamelot 