All these years
Loving the flame
Waiting for the burn
Too fierce to name
To bloom the rose
Instead of curl the leaves
Into ash and bad goodbyes
The phoenix in me
Curved beak, bird of prey
Knows there is no mate
For the untamable soul
Whose burning fate

Is witnessed by all
Harnessed by few
Shared by none

But the flame is an inextinguishable gift.

How poorly we entertain the paradox!
Preferring to nestle in a simple canoe,
To follow the flow of a single tide
To keep our heads under the bow side
Looking at the handheld truth
Protecting us from all the shocks

Of panoramic vision.

Sometimes we strive
To keep upright
A foot each in very distinct
Canoes, we toggle how we think
Quickly between views, a fight
To stay balanced and astride

Each canoe in respective streams.

In reality, truth eddies wild
Like rivers rushing in all directions
Along with the banks, and all below,
A network too expansive to know
Variables too complex for simple reflection;
Yet she can only be known by a child

Who smiles, but does not measure.

Your blessing requires suffering,
Jacob gained Rachel,
And lost her, and Joseph too
Until his last years
Spent in a foreign land
Amongst foreign gods.

David gained a crown
After toiling for an enemy
He wanted to be a brother,
And then loved a son
Who wanted to be his enemy.
Blessed with sons
Who brought tragedy.

You blessed Saul
Changed his name
So he could face shackles,
Beatings, imprisonments,
Ridicule and distortion,
Martyrdom.

What is the substance
Of Your blessings?
Eternal?
Or changing existing matter
Into something this world
Rejects like an immune system
Rejects a foreign object?

The ones You bless
Don’t belong here,
But here belongs to them
In all their trials and crucifixions.

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.