Does all the good we do,
Every tender song of altruism
Or shared laughter taking flight
Mingling with another towards the skies
Fall dead to earth
In the rotted husk of the lies
We sold for goods?

Are the dishonored vessels
Crafted by hand?
Is there any way to change
A shattered destiny?
Are lovely moments of kindness
Scattered like paper debris
In the roaring downpour?

If I ignore her faults,
I peddle the costly lies for which
With their lives
Her crushed little ones still pay,
But if I keep accounts,
How can I ever be saved?
Who can be saved?

Under the heavy conundrum,
Like a slow-moving millstone
Spinning in circles as it is
Until suddenly breaking the grain heads,
I grow accustomed to the weight,
Immobilized by the dread
Of the rejected fate.

What is the substance of a soul
That it may groan and crack
Like the hull of a ship
Squeezed by heavy stacks,
Exposure wreaking corrosion
Throughout what once stood intact.

What comprises a soul’s DNA?
That it remain pliable under grief,
Capable of being wrung repeatedly
Shaken in its basic self-beliefs,
Bruised like the hopeful face
Full-moon smiling with no relief

Under the blow by blow.
What is the substance of soul,
And what good would it be to know?

My fear for 303:
No achievable speed of repair
Can outrun the dilapidation
We’re alone there
But for God’s ministration.

My fear for me:
About the same.

I sometimes wonder
At human affection:
A gap in proximity,
A few steps in the other direction,
And we all fall silent.

People orbit,
Even compound,
Where there is some mutual benefit,
Some stake in the ground,
But who lifts up the useless?

This isn’t a poem.
It’s barely a prayer,
My soul is wrenched
By desperate despair
Railing against my huddled joy
Smiling between blows,
Because between black and blue,
She knows, she always knows,
Morning breaks new.

Be my sustainer,
Through exhausted nights
When my anarchic flesh
Wakes me with bites
Of breakdowns and threats
Sustain my flight
From birth to endless praise.

Take my family in Your hands
Like You have all our days
In Your stalwart tenderness
Protect us and renew our ways
To serve You as we enjoy
Lifting ever purer praise-
As You move, we are able.

Forgive the stubborn sins
You died to forgive
Before we relented, before
We cried out to live:
After You reached into my chest
Squeezing the stone impassive,
Transforming it into a beating thing.

And the attacks land
On this buffeted body
But I rejoice I can still crawl
Our family suffers the volley,
Pummeled quietly,
But we remain Godly,
Because You are God of all,

And we are Yours.
Wrap us in the tenderest provision.

It isn’t in some hidden crevice,
Some dark corner outside Your realm,
That I process out the gathered sludge
Of moments overwhelmed
To see Your heart instead.

You are capable beyond comprehension:
As I refer to human abilities
To connect the pieces in cohesion,
Our intricately imbalanced fragilities;
We don’t know true comprehension.

We know You are capable beyond
To weave redemption, reconciliation,
Shocking our concrete sensibilities,
Our most fanciful imaginations,
Into humble adoration.

I don’t know
If through this heated furnace
You’ll deliver mightily,
Or if the day displays in earnest
Another shade of Your glory.

But I do know
He who Is, is able to command,
And every moment that follows
Flows from the same Hands
That formed man,

And was pierced for the same;
The Hands that will come again to reign.

Foundations measured oft and laid
With painstaking care in precise order
Even lines and distributed weight-
A cement marriage, balanced daughters,

But the brick rubble of the prior structure
Heaps into my mountain view
The sense of constant deconstruction
Urging me to build anew

Yet these bricks will just as likely crumble
I cannot build to former glories,
And each brick inside my simple hovel
Has seen a more magnificent story.

And I look for those who wear their gloves
Who understand what bricks may mean,
The perishing beauty in single pieces of
Antique constructions now unseen.

Some days I go out alone
To sit among bricks of disordered decay
Listening to palacial whispers
From fallen yesterdays.

Underneath all my lashings,
Linguistic writhings in the steep,
Underneath my set jaw
I weep.

You envision a world of beauty,
And for my part I grieve
I could never give you
Your desired reprieve.

You’re wounded and confused,
Ready to come home where there’s none
Shattered windows and trampled doors:
To the ashes you run.

These aren’t accusations.
I’m not angry at ghosts.
I’m sound, and fury, and sweet nothings,
Always tender to the utmost.

I think your fantasies were lovely,
But they’ve cost us the sum.
In these tremors, I ache, I feel
A million impulses inside the numb

Past the surface flash of burning ire
Lies the fresh earth of hollow graves
The dry flower beds of unopened blooms,
And the passing train cars that can’t be saved.

I see the tragedy ever unfolding
In over-cranked, slow motion spinning
And I know there must be time remaining-
Desperately I fumble to rewrite the ending

You yearn to return with packed bags
And reinhabit a dream you’ve once known
But there are no roads, and I go mad
Being unable to drive you home.