How do I crack the veneer,
This polished feeling
That threatens to steer me
Into a reeling destruction?

How do I maintain this impossible facade
Long enough for the getting to get good again
Long enough for my walk with God
To break and reset what’s bent by sin?

How do I take every thought captive
When I myself have been a captive my many years,
How do I unwrap this
Bitter disappointment engineered

From my first breath,
To my waking prayers,
To the faithless death of caring

That threatens to devour me?
How can I absorb the world,
And yet be?

I’ve never raised a hand in self-defense
Like those mad drunks swinging wild
At the immense blackness that defiled them
Though I inhabit the same hour
And own the same hands
And have scoured the expanding
Darkness in us all
I’ve even been put down myself
I’m not enthralled to tell of it
But it’s happened yet
My hands hung listless
I forget to feel vicious when I get restless
I never grab my fists
To take up the collection
When some stranger twists the wrong inflection
Or casts an insulting eye
From a swiveled head
I never try to beat the dead
Or kill the ghosts inside men’s souls
That taunt us in the wilder hours
The old that haunts with ageless powers

I never found my fighting feet
To stand, to swing, to rage on by
I think it must taste sweet to try
But for the excessive afterthoughts
That drive a man to drink:
A thought worth not the think.

Oh Father, I’m so damaged.
I can barely manage
These broken bits of me
Ever falling out for all to see.

A dire protection isolates;
To retain what must remain inviolate
It’s too late for me, I’m untied
But for them, I can keep it inside

And what light have I to shine?
What witness can still be mine
When all I do is distract,
And my best gift is to detach?

How do I let Your light shine through?
How do I reflect solely You
And keep my mess aside?
I have failed You as hard as I tried.

I’ve been stretched to great lengths;
These weaknesses that show Your strength
Threaten to crack my reserves,
To open spillways no one deserves.

Yet I hear the call to hope resound
I feel my resignations unbound
And I tremble for the next step:
Blind at my best.

Grant me hope,
The ability to cope
With all my most broken,
And leave me unspoken

To speak instead You,
Oh God, Preeminent Truth
Speak to the lies whispering to my soul;
Make my witness whole.

Because when I am weak,
You alone can speak to it,
You change my substance
Melting my reluctance

Into love, into engagement,
Ever at my amazement
But not for my sake, so feeble,
But for the sake of nourishing Your people.

Because I’m swimming blind,
But if You are so inclined
Your kind hands may pull me free;
You may teach me how to see.

And how to feed the starved
Whilst You still carve time
With instruments of flesh.
These sins I confess.

And as You carve time,
Bear our end in mind.

Can a soul pray for gray
Wordlessly aching
For some way to validate
Internal quaking

I spoke against our story
Perhaps in truth
But what good is it for me now
To punish our youth

The fragile leaves outside
Tremble against the wind
As do I
Hoping to bend

Back into you again.

Migraine – shaken loose from core to shell,
Like a bad drunk reeling in a carnival scene
Following the circuitous path to leave
Round and round the prancing carousel.

Caught in all the smells of the morning after,
Stale trodden popcorn, leathered cotton candy,
Challenges and failures barked and bandied
Spliced with derisive carnie laughter

The pain to rip through the shadow
Of tiltawhirls and teacups,
To see a world unjust
And land knee first in the fallow

And hallowed dust.

Eager for the great hibernation
That sluggish, creeping cold
Dipping my consternation
In the patina of the old

Until the latest kneading
Becomes another hidden fold.

How I flit like dry leaves
Counting down in seconds browned
All the moments upcoming winter breathes
As its consciousness is found,

As it awakes, and yawns,
And runs the sky to ground.