Your self steps in your way,
unseen to you, you trip again.
You’ll pull yourself up,
brush off your sin
and continue on your stray.
You hold dear
all the right ideals,
but sideways,
with all the wrong ideas
fixed askew.
You crave worship,
so you can tithe a tenth
to the Most Holy,
like spiritual rent
or dues.
I can’t explain the cloud.
It doesn’t bring me down,
But it threatens a little rain
And I’m over-sensitive to pain
So when I feel the sky turning gray
I swim upstream all day
Afraid to see what’s downstream,
Another tumbling waterfall, the gleam
Of another cruel hook,
So I bite by the bullet by the book
And close my eyes, and repeat
It’s all just a dream, there’s no defeat
If I just keep standing.
No running, leaping, landing
On my feet is needed;
If I stand still I have succeeded.
Today is new.
I’m an old wretch,
Drenched in the sins
ever seeping through,
But this is the homestretch,
And I belong to You,
And every day Your mercy is new.
Today is hope.
I’ve been clinging
To the very bottom
of my frayed rope,
But You keep singing,
Expanding my scope,
And ringing out hope.
Today is Yours,
And I’ve tried to take it,
but no more.
I relinquish it, break it,
Lift it off the floor
Teach me to let it be Yours.
The coffee pot sputters me awake.
My children color while their waffles bake-
The younger one loves what the older one makes
So as a show of admiration she takes it
and runs away. They call me, the judge, to break
the disagreement. Pleading their case so I will slake
their thirst for justice, and I agree and forsake
My kitchen station- My mistake.
I restore peace then return for the sake
Of waffles burning, big black flakes
Into the trash- everything brakes.
We sit with what remains. We partake
Together.
And when these perfect days are over,
How will they ever be replaced
With anything but ache?
Rain pelts the old girl,
The tin roof and cold world
That once hailed home.
Late for a roam,
And my brother’s guitar.
We live wherever we are,
But home is a woodstove burning hot,
And songs belted out over a boiling pot
Of cheap, simmering stew
Climbing the stairs when we were through
Sleeping with freezing fingers and toes,
The only warmth anyone knows
Is whatever we can bring
Whatever we can love, or be, or sing.
We’ve been following old roads,
Carrying old loads,
Passed from hands to hands and
Shouldering demands
We can’t understand.
We’ve been drinking elixirs,
Looking for fixers,
Someone who’s handy with some spackle
Someone to tackle
Our old rusted shackles.
We’ve been roving all night,
Packing light,
A coin in the cap
And no home on the map,
For a return lap.
We’ve been getting older,
But never bolder,
Never bold enough to turn around,
To stare the years down,
To drive a stake in a piece of ground.
The wanderer is a language,
A song of anguish
That passes through trees,
Gets heard, gets forgotten, leaves
Before the next breeze
Reminds of whats and whens
Without the whys.
Laughter subsides,
Takes a nip,
But does not slip
Asleep under bribes-
And the dark of silhouette
Falls along the inner walls
The hunt, the calls,
The fears aren’t fallow yet
And they haven’t found me
Not for years, but a moment alone
A glance, a shadow, and I’m known
Again seen, again to flee.
I came with my head high,
No blood in your water.
You smell the martyr
And I didn’t want to die.
You taught me this language,
And I recognize the strains,
Echoing what remains
Doesn’t flow under the bridge,
But in your veins.
I pluck the star from swirling deeps
The burn, the flameless fire creeps
like an epitaph unsung
across my lips, along my tongue
Scouring, devouring, I swallow it
down my gullet to my hollow bits
There, the swimming fever roils,
my pulse screams in my ears and boils
all the quiet, saner thoughts to death
With light and fire on my breath
I exhale and beg for rest, beg for time,
to digest the star I ate as mine
And when these tremors still, all slaked,
when I am well, when I awake,
I will gaze back to the sky
and wonder which star next to try.
I want to write all all day.
Instead, I pull myself free
sideways, out of the riptide
that would release me
into an ocean of words,
images, ideas; the vast
wilds and winds of Wonder
wherein each poem is cast,
and forms, and floats,
and gets washed back.
Can I
Swallow the past?
We laughed
As brothers who disagree,
But long to see
The same Father.
Can I bother
Myself to change
Or somehow rearrange
These well-detailed
Biases I’ve hailed
As defenses-
The body come to its senses.
Can I drop my hesitancy
To embrace residency
Under an enemy
Who is now my friend?
Is this an end
Or another beginning,
and Can I?
Can I?
viewingcamelot 