Darkness stands above me,
A black clock-tower, and the face
Of the moon is handless
Counting by months, by days,
While my feet are ticking, ticking
Along the ground beneath,
And all the time that I tap out
Is time that I bequeath.
Monthly Archives: August 2013
The Shadows of Time
Obedience
Oh how we strive
Within this realm of God and men
And all the while
The ivy climbs the wall and blooms again.
We build, we shape
And we destroy with fervent hands and yet
The dead seed underground
Will live again and not forget
Where to sink its roots
Or to the surface stretch.
Turtles All the Way Down
The turtle’s shell would crack
Under such a great weight,
And my shoulders have long drooped low,
But I am learning to stand straight,
Learning it’s better late than never,
And never is a very long time.
Lament
Oh for these wasted, mortal senses
To perceive so much, but little understand
Filling the thoughts, the soul, but hence is
Emptied as an ocean poured in open hands
We wander each through his own field
We gather, we gather, but do not bake
With all our toiling, what do we yield?
With all we have, what do we make?
Betrayed
You, my usual haven in dream,
Came rushing in after your brood
Speaking sharp words, like breaking sticks
Like shattering my childlike mood.
Now, when I’m already weak
And the thing that lives inside my brain
Crawls and chews and leaves
A tunnel system of pain
Why, when I have stayed loyal
Swimming against the tide,
Why do you stand against me
Withholding kindness already denied
Just to cast me aside?
Calling on You
I stare beyond civility with closed eyes
Because the dancing flickers of light wound them
I chase you free through sticky grass fields
The air is clean and does not yet burn my chest
We run to where the storm loomed
I see you kneel;
This is the moment I learned your secret.
And I return after you have gone to
Wander through the smell of rain on hyacinth
Slowly, now my lungs are wrong and the air’s so thick,
But I find your abandoned crevice of hidden treasures
And now I kneel.
The sun is gone adventuring when I get home
My sweater is shrunk and stuck to my skin
I’m in bed three days with fever and sweat and dreams
Sitting on my chest and taunting me,
But I have been out to see you again
At the place I know you will always be.
God of Wonderment
Oh God of the smiling moon
Who watches me these many nights,
While swimming in my mother’s womb,
And blind in my first cries
You cradled me with tune
And steadied me upright.
Oh God of the dancing stars
Who stands guard over my bed,
Who sought me from afar
And resurrected all my dead
Who gently dressed my scars
and kissed my fevered head.
Oh God of the cloudless deep,
Who framed the soul of man
In flesh of day and bone of sleep
Who weaves our purposes to plan
All that is inside Your keep,
And all I am with all I can
Lifting muddy hands
Cry out Hallelujah
Holy, Holy, Holy!
Hallelujah
Holy, Holy, Holy!
Liberated
My brother slashed his canvases
His scenes of earth in motion
Were layers thick in paint
Every coating represented commotion
So in the tumult of self-condemnation
He succumbed to but one emotion.
I dump my words upon my words
Hoping a new layer somehow conceals
The best in me, the worst in me,
The passion I’m ashamed I still feel;
Instead of smothering my inadequacies
Each word finds a new piece of me to reveal.
Letting your best go off to greet the day
Requires the skill to forgive
Perhaps there comes a decisive moment
When you have given all you have to give
And you must decide to slash your darlings
Or let them leave to let them live.
Migraines
Sick, so sick my ears ring out,
“It comes again! It comes again!”
It builds a nest inside my head,
My eyes grow dim, my eyes grow dim,
It pecks for pieces of my thoughts,
My memories, my hopes, my sin
To make its bed, to make its bed,
It settles in. It migrates when
My blood runs flush
And burns my skin, my fevered skin
Helps hatch it’s brood, then
I get sick
So sick again.
Heirlooms
My waffle iron is an old man
who groans as he bestows
dried parcels and dark stories
from breakfasts long ago.
My waffle iron is an old man,
whose joints creak and shake
and every lifting of his head
is another threat of break.
My waffle iron is an old man
though my children leap with vim
and run and dance along their way;
He can’t keep up with them.
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