Maggots of Sin

The depth in years of these sorrows
Brim up behind my eyes
But they will not spill in quantities
To cleanse what I despise.

I wonder how numerous the lies
Hiding under wet stones
Along the path of our timeline
We walked together; we walk alone.

In what else I could not condone,
Could you not refrain?
And when these stones are overturned
What else can still remain?


Our Native Land

How I yearn for lightness,
The unflinching faith
That lifts the unblemished face
To smile at the fists of time.

I recall laughter
Bubbling from deep soul,
Nothing to dampen, nor console
Boundless joy.

My days got old.
My thoughts, so heavy,
Watch children skip steady
On feet of hope and wonder.

I am atrophied
Or else I would sing,
Dance, lose everything
To skip in lightness again.


Othello’s Song

Have I been chased by shadows?
Bad omens dressed in grown men’s gowns
Have I known this way leads down
Into the unbreachable flow
Of madness and loss?

I grip my love, forced to stay
I allow no slip beyond my span,
It cannot breathe outside my hand,
And therefore can’t betray,
But, oh my love, the cost!


Harpers Ferry 

Suspended on the rock face,
Forever dripping to the ground
Waterfalls cascaded in static pace
Lingering on soundless
While the men behind their barbecues
Pink fingers protruding from crisp gloves,
Knock snow from their white, tented roofs
In the smoke flailing and floating above
And down below sits the drink
Whitecaps turned to icecaps
On the rocks, on the brink
Of one immense nightcap.
Something old, something new,
And the rest caught betwixt
Frozen still, and frozen through
Forever fixed

Inside a motionless, wintry mix.


Causal Necessity

How I’ve mitigated these great fears
Howling at my threshold
Unnoticed and ignored the years
Before this foothold.

Now the wind has torn the shutters.
I search the storm in vain
Through littered banks and gutters
For any piece that may remain.

Creeping cold that bites at me,
Distrust at every turn,
No sanctuary inside of me
No rightful place to discern.

I search for splintered timber,
But I’ve wandered farther still,
Than I could return, or remember;
My path rolls on downhill.

My little cabin I’ve indwelled
Reduced to burning wood,
And all once standing, now is felled,
And all maligns the Good.

Now I yearn for quiet snow
To frost this filthy earth;
To change the things I think I know,
To give unto hope rebirth.

How little consideration
I ever gave the wind
When I thought my habitation
Protected me from sin.


And I Know

And I Know
There must always be
Some other way across
But you pushed past me
And your indulgences have cost
Us all the years between
What we found and what we lost.

And I Know
To take from you will take from me,
But my inaction yet succumbs
To the weight of all I see,
To the route you can’t outrun.
I seal the barrier between
What we have been and will become.

And I Know
We are pulled by one gravity.
As yours, my hands are stained.
We are both the guilty party;
Without repentance, we remain.
Therefore, I pray this space between
Breaks us both the same

So we can taste free, and be
Changed.


Broken Down

Another night of endless pain
Pulling me from the deep
Piercing jabs of mortality
Strangulating my sleep
Reminding me, reminding me
This life, we cannot keep.

Another night of endless pain
Forever on the brink
Experienced, I tread the wave,
Exhausted, now I sink
Under these churning, tempest tides
My body is forced to drink.


The Role of a Lifetime

The moment I guess it all began:
They taught me the opposite of man
Is woman

And who I became was decreed
By who I could not be,
Where I could not belong.

It seemed hopeless,
Opposites, not in symbiosis,
But in diametric tasks

With some necessary exposure,
Friends close, enemies closer,
And a marriage between the two.

I’m grateful for these years I’ve spent
Finding the two complement,
Not contradict

But I still ground the definition me,
Not in who I am,
But in who I could never be.


Forgive, Forgive

Forgive me, friends
When silence falls
And marble walls
Again defend,
Again shut out
The broken spin,
Fatigued again,
And plagued by doubt.

Forgive me, friends
If in your lack
My lamp goes black,
Or I offend,
While my eye is bad
And only sees
All I cannot do or be,
All I can’t deserve, yet have.


Repent

What great evil is this?
I’ve contrived in my heart
Against my One Redeemer
Who scattered my slavers apart,
And tore open my path
So that I may depart

Not alone, but step by step
Tucked inside his wondrous care
Who shakes the earth with fear and awe,
Of whom the power of every age beware,
Yet He protects, as promised,
As He leads my soul from here to there.

I am a grumbling slave,
Who cannot compare to His majesty,
Who cannot deserve His intercessory,
Who offers him no loyalty,
But tastes and protests His blessed grace
With a broken tongue of blasphemy.

The call to hope, the mandate,
Which my stubborn heart resists
With accusatory fears aplenty
Under which my faith desists
Is no less than honestly acknowledging
Who He Is.