Have I tried to ignore you?
Dry your well of words
So you won’t be heard,
And I’ve done it before too.

Any word is only as valid
As what it represents,
Regardless of climb or descent,
Requiem or ballad.

I sift through adjectives and nouns,
Always looking for the verb.
Still the subject stands absurd
And the silence falls profound.

So maybe I ignore you still,
While you burn like Vodka in my gut,
But you’ll not prance and dance and strut,
Until some common use distills.

Comfortable enough to forget my place,
I overstepped my station again.
Crawling under the cover of grace,
But never to stand amongst men.
I still thirst some things in vain.
Why do we even know Priscilla’s name?

The poisonous bloom of tragic youth
Yielded its toxicity and tapered,
As the stronger undergrowth of organic truth
Choked its vitality to passing vapor.
All the while I fumbled with resistance,
Until truth transformed my base existence.

Told to kneel, given a reason to stand,
I do both in tandem, never sure whether
I kick the goads, or fight reprimands;
Do I tear asunder or tether?
Will there be peace in silence tomorrow,
Or just a rich young ruler’s sorrow?

Many thoughts weigh the heart,
And this tongue is no good rudder.
The answers are strewn too far apart,
The questions, one after another.
I believe: a gift above critique.
I believe, but can I speak.

You again,

And a wave of sentiment

Crashes into conscience

Diminishing both.

You punish,

With your own contentment.

Viewing me through the lens

Of distance and affront.

I miss

Sandy walks in the silence

Of kindness and mutuality

Even if a lie.

Silent gray masses oppressively pass us,

Perpetually preceding the storming,

But never enveloped, so nothing develops

Beyond the bleakest warning.

Pallor cannot instigate. Neither heat, nor rain, penetrate

The muted, mobile display.

Nor can thunder threaten to sunder

We who follow gray.

Time advances, but stasis reigns with no joys or pains

To pierce the mist.

The blanket of numb will keep undone

The fetish and the fist.

Yet echoes from the divide rankle inside

Even under sleeping fog.

There’s an impulse to fly, to see a clear sky,

Above our smothering smog.

Fyodor, my Fyodor,

I fell in love with you as a child

When I read all your stories

Of the wounded, the wanting, the wild.

You also lived in isolation, nearly died,

But your deepest thoughts lay open, undefiled.

I loved you for those.

Luther, my Luther,

Your life captured me first:

Your grief, your guilt, your desperate grace.

In your best, you saw your worst.

You became my brother, my kindred

In flame and thirst.

I loved you for your company.

Lewis, my Lewis,

You, my letter-bearer, my closest friend,

Opened wonder, beauty, structure,

Expanse of water, and depth of wind.

You explained so much

Of God and men.

I loved you as my teacher.

My brothers, my friends,

Across oceans and mortality,

Foreign languages and foreign lifetimes,

In fellowship you reached out to me, one body.

Though I possessed expanding lungs,

It was always, only, yours to speak,

So I loved you.

Ghosts, my ghosts,

I never walked your halls, or ate your food.

I only saw your polished best;

Never confused, angry, or crude.

I never spoke to your heart, or thought,

Nor was I one of your brood

Who knew you.

I do not know of love quite yet.

Perhaps a blossom in the gale:

A fragile thing that yields to let

Any dominant wind prevail.

Maybe seed scattered to the earth,

On gravel, or in shallow graves.

While weeds may choke to death its worth,

Or its tread on, or barely saved.

It could be firmer than the oak,

A strong and many-splendored thing.

Calamities its name invokes

May be mere lesser, foolish flings.

I fear my love has always been

A walking shadow, a part to play.

All sound and fury, but empty wind

That gambols on at close of day.

Perhaps I’ve never loved at all,

Even I, who has been loved so well.

Perhaps within my heart’s stone walls

Only icy blood may swell.

These things grow old inside of me.

The creeds I hold, they bring me life.

I know I can’t keep up the dance,

But can I end the strife?

I’ve been inside the freezing rain.

I’ve been the bride on burning coals,

But either way, grace on more grace

Has gone and saved my soul.

So I will stand ever taller

Knowing Who’s on high.

And I will praise ever louder

With my life.

I will run and not grow weary.

I will walk and not faint.

For the Voice that spoke creation

Calls me saint.

I’ve had no place to lay my head

And endless space for my each whim.

At times I’ve been hungry, but then

I never died in them.

I’ve cursed Your name and fled from You.

I’ve worn my shame as finest jewels.

But You sought me out, though I didn’t doubt

The wisdom of fools.

So help me stand ever taller

For You, who reigns on high.

Draw forth praise, ever louder,

From my life.

Feed my faith, calm my tempests

Raging on so wild.

For You authored all creation

And call me child.

You’re the king of every nation,

You judge every generation,

But You drank my condemnation

To call me child,

Beloved child.

I had another dream of you.

We spoke of life and theology.

You fell in the camp of, “Do.”

I stood on the side of, “Be.”

You disciplined your soul:

Remonstrance and restitution.

Diligent to a higher goal

Beyond our human constitution.

Selfless seeds of Saint

But your soil is sterile.

You cannot see it taints

Piety towards peril.

I wept for you, in dream,

Waves to water your seeds,

But our noble hearts still teem

With the sordid side of deeds.

You came again, in dreams,

No sense of time or propriety.

These years, they fall between,

And some are crouched inside of me.

You speak to me in tones

Of intimacy, filial familiarity.

In visions you are home,

My singular expression of family.

We walk the sandy banks

Open speech, laughter free,

No unknowns, and this outranks

The gaps in our proximity.

We stay so close. I do not run

Or hide what I feared you might see.

Our reunion cannot be outdone

By any other urgency.

I bask in you, your strength,

And need no other society

Than your eyes devouring mine at length,

Sparkling with jocularity.

I try to stare, eyes open wide.

You’re washed out with a wave of anxiety.

Pain recedes into the great divide

That drowns our commonalities.

We are one with our formalities,

But your visits are more cruel than silence.