Spring is returning, and just in time.
Snowy white blankets, death iced over,
Smothered this tender soul of mine
Under a friendless, thankless cover.
Come back azaleas, come back clover,
Grass wake green, ivy climb-
Resurrect the aimless rover
Who feeds on rays, and roads, and rhyme.
Freedom from oppression
Left us open to translation,
Open to expression
Still plagued by conflagration.
Protestant meiosis,
Becoming less, and also more,
But the cells suffering necrosis
Are isolated from the core.
Still these arteries developing
Cause evolutionary confusion.
Similar cells are trespassing
During a standard transfusion.
Until these ages gray and die
And the erosive effect of sin,
Isn’t reborn like you and I:
What is broken works again
The way it was always intended.
Her once golden array
Flowing down around her supple limbs
When all was new and the day
Tangled around her sun-dark skin as
Sheets of desire, spilled Cabernet,
Wasted hours on foolish whims.
These winters, cold and cruel,
Unleashed unholy, jealous rage
She was passion- a capricious fool
Laying uncovered until engaged
The flawless fell to brutal-
The ageless aged.
She wanders wild, confused,
Clutching her threadbare shawl
Her lovers long ago excused
Her unbowed features fall
Into the wrinkle, spot, and bruised
By the loss of her enthralled
She roams in search of her wailing wall.
Midnight was in her raven hair,
But I saw not her shape-
She rode with the fury of hell at her back,
And a locket chained at her nape.
And the beat of the hooves, and the billows of breath,
Was the rhythm of her escape.
I spent the evening with a friend,
And as I tarried late,
I took the wooded shortcut home
To the back of my garden gate,
And there I stood, and there she passed,
The crossings of the fates.
How gently, falling snow,
Without authority or force,
Without ever raising your voice,
You transform all I know.
All I see is rebirth
Softer than the gentle rain pours
You float, you follow your course
Changing the face of earth.
A new idea, a new idea,
And all of you must bow down low,
Put on the yoke, put on the yoke,
I do not listen for I know.
Try it on, you must try it on,
How will you ever know I’m right
Unless you yield your point of view;
Your faith, your passion, and insight.
Be quiet now, be quiet now,
Don’t dare assume I’ll fail this time
As all the times before have gone;
The only Right Idea is Mine.
I love liturgy, the ancient rites
Striking chords at the heart of man,
The depth of sin, the cost of grace-
Where we stood, where we stand.
Ageless insights passed age to age
Tools to clarify the timeless Truth
A bulwark to the aged man,
And caution to impassioned youth.
Depression is the next seduction.
Stuck in another deconstruction,
I hate the long transitions
Stuck in my own sedition-
How long are these traditions,
These binary oppositions-
I wish I could follow instruction.
I wish I didn’t speak destruction.
I miss the walks on the sandy shore-
I know I don’t belong there anymore.
No one thought I’d find subsistence.
It’s hard to break the habit of resistance.
I want proximity that isn’t coincidence.
Every part of life is long-distance.
I’ve walked all the new roads before
There’s nothing left here to explore.
I feel trapped in a world of vanity-
Ego is the worst profanity,
And we’ve built our towers high.
I wish I could still see the sky.
I wish I could hear the tide.
The waves are just implied,
But they were once my sanity.
What do I contribute to humanity?
I wish I could find my purpose.
I’m sick of the three-ring circus
Everyone is a juggler at a cheap fair
Everything stays in the air.
I meant to be more prepared.
I’ve dropped everything on a prayer,
And a cluttered surface.
I forget when I get nervous.
I need to take a walk to remind me,
I need for You to find me.
I’m good at shutting out the noise,
Carving fancy decoys-
Some towers need to be destroyed.
Deconstruct these cheap ploys,
Show me again Your glory,
Tell me again our story.
Two weeks in the ground,
and the family’s dried up
so he carries them home-
his bride’s dead shrubs.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
She places the black blooms
in the front room, unforgotten
she admires the dry petals
crisp like starched cotton
He eats quiet, sleeps fast,
and leaves with no kiss,
to tend stones and bones
and she tends his.
“Oh, he loves me still,
still, he loves.”
Roses need not open red
with petals silk to skin.
Beauty is, in life, in death,
where it is seen akin.
Throwing decisions over my shoulder
Grains of salt to the fates
Waiting and watching and working
I can’t concentrate
On the weight of these days.
Brooding inside me, in my neurosis,
All the pieces fit,
Falling into my obsessions,
The passions I won’t submit
And who will acquit me in my guilt?
One day more, one more week,
And I know how to fight
Addiction with distraction
Ignore what incites
But I’m not contrite enough
to marathon.
Darken the lights and dim the senses,
These days are long, and senseless,
Feel the same old something different,
Something deliberate or irreverent
To break the ice and crack the dam
Or wash away what I am.
viewingcamelot 