Finite are the times
The carousel goes round
A painted horse is deaf and blind
It can neither hear the sounds,
Nor cast the vigilant eye
Along the sky, nor ground.
It cannot twirl forevermore,
Each ride has a start and stop.
Once you climb aboard,
And once you climb atop,
Ups and downs are sure,
And nary a rider may swap.
These verses were never written
To impress, to stand on display
On their own two legs,
Nor extend their limbs, nor stay.
They were born as companions
To drink my imaginary tea,
Or brush my hair, or whisper secrets
In the dark, to sing to me.
They were never meant for fancy dress
For beards to appraise their structure
They were never woven
To resist such puncture,
But just to keep me company
Just to tell the truth,
When honesty became something
More than I could do.
Ill-prepared for such critique,
Such stringent demands,
But they have fulfilled their calling;
We have grown together, hand in hand.
Maybe in my footworn roads
With silent sunsets, and lone songs,
And quiet doors, and midnight miles
Maybe I’ve been home all along.
Maybe in these futile searches
I’ve been always falling
Drifting, molding into
My own, hidden calling.
Maybe these secrets I plucked,
Like fruit from the wild trees
Along uncharted fields
Will sink the roots I need,
Were always the roots I need.
Desperate for The Fount again,
Always unhinged, and swinging wide
My pride gets crushed in my own disdain
By all in life I can’t sustain.
Treading in the shallow pool of thought and activity,
Lost in the flow of humanity, weighted with a surface view
By failure, like a heavy noose, I see all cloud and wave
With no desire to cry out to be saved.
My shrouded sky is split by sudden light
Cracking through my night, my hopelessness
Unable to cope with this; these expectations
That decay into hesitations embedded.
Under the weight of dread, but hope
Is no frail concept.
It is the ground beneath us.
These are Godless times.
We write Him out of His own history,
Condemn Him for our crimes
And celebrate His mystery
As our innovation.
We are a Godless people
Who do not work the field,
But eat our bellies full
Of everything that appeals
To our wandering wisdoms
And desires.
When did this first begin
The sleepless nights?
The restless thoughts?
I opened the Book again,
I read about men of might,
The wars they fought
Waged against their Maker
A brief desire to lend the ear,
But hubris on their faces
Urged them to forsake, or
Attack with no fear
Of their creaturely places
Before the God of all fury and graces.
See me
Wrapped in this black shroud,
A wandering, whistling cloud
Free me
To some purpose, some passion
Or keep me in this bastion
Secure
Only thin the haze that blinds me
Spill kindness, the kind that reminds me
To endure.
Palpable shame demands a distraction
Same old reactions, and inaction allows
The ember to sear into flesh,
Toss it around to remember it less,
To arouse less suspicion
Or delay the imposition of conscience
And whatever legal terms apply.
A nonsense-binge denies the evident,
But hinges on turning a blind-eye
To the relevant and essential.
An element of dismissal
In the realm of consequential.
Half the pleasure is in the hope
The child awake on Christmas night
Envisioning some unknown heights
Of bliss, awaiting first light
To awaken their scope.
Half the agony is in the fear,
The woman on the edge of labor pains,
With everything to lose, or to gain,
On the other end of unsustained,
Unmeasured anguish drawing near.
All that we anticipate
Always becoming half our fate.
There was a time when you were near,
And our tender years unsung
All my love was in my heart,
But never on my tongue
And shadows fell on quiet thoughts
Before our years were wrung.
Many times my blood’s been hot
Deafening in my ear,
I spoke the things I never ought,
And you never ought to hear
And distance wrapped its scaly tail
Around my words severe.
Regret is grown from planted seeds,
And blooms on either side
The stream of man’s timeline
His cowardice and pride
Fertilizes his fruitful ground
Reaping woe betide
And who can say what yields more dread
The gush of malice spoken
Or the love that’s left unsaid?
viewingcamelot 