Security

I do not feel safe

but what can this mean?

crammed in a seat

in the upright position

the man beside me

may be a physician

please, I beg him

remove my pain

I am a human,

this is my name

small

sick

worthy of blame

am I protected?

I am surrounded by

oxygen, metal, carbon, wood

thought, system, law, and love

I do not feel safe

I am betrayed

lovers who leave are not lovers at all

I do not feel safe

but I do not fall

Peep

If nostrils flaring indicate I am alive

This air in my chest is keeping me there

In, out

We exchange molecules and atoms of gas

This bit of flesh on the edge of my face

pink and warm

this is my lip, made for kissing the foreheads

of small children

This callused flesh on the edge of my phalanx

my fingertip, communicating even now with rhythmic taps

This sharp edge, rubbing my right foot

The toenail of my left big toe, protecting it

Words, labels for the elements of life

I know them better as

Myself

Spun around

Love fills you and spins around your mind in such a delightful and fulfilling,

monumental watershed way that you just

want to write and write and write all these realities that there are no words for

But you can’t.  You never will.

He’s bigger than me

Stronger than me

He died for me

And He still wants to be with me

He has authority, and power

His grace falls down in showers and hours later it still is waiting,

For only my yes, to receive

Everyday he draws me near,

to interfere, in evil’s work

Every day he calls my name,

just the same, as he did the day of my birth.

What is my worth? 

Only in Him 

Where I can run? 

Folly it is, even to try

He is the sea and sky

He is above the sea

I must cry

Jesus is Lord

Doorbell

It happens in a moment

Suddenly the doorbell rings and life starts over

Now, of a sudden, the person I was

Becomes the last, best page

Of a story I’m no longer writing

Opening the door is opening the world

With you

Climb

Mountains tower

Overbearing the distance

Struggling to climb it but stuck with the pain in my legs from the work of just keeping on moving

It is not easy

Breathing, hurting, aching in the starlight

Night and day

There is brimstone and rock before me

Pain will stay

Look up, look off at the sun

Receive the light

Suddenly, slowly, peaks are crowned, and difficulties fade

Rocks fall off of my back

New life in my legs

Weakness and joy overcome me

I fall to my knees

Sweet relief

Oh, sweet

Relief that pulls my shoulders down

A pulley anchored in my filling heart

Tilting my head and lifting my eyes

They fix upon yours

Kind

Your glistening eyes

Giving to me

I, the unworthy

Oh, ease

Smoothing out my each and every tightened tendon

Touched

I am touched by this

Gift

You took a step to me, ignited with kindness

I explode, I erupt in an outbreak of touch

I wrap my arms around your waist, and lay my cheek on your strong shoulder

Thank you for loving me

You have, once again, saved my life

From striving

Once more, I am sure

Loved as I am

Glow in the dark

Sometimes

When I am alone

Sitting, watching the darkness statically stand

I wonder how we ever love at all

I marvel that we ever say hello to each other, connect, and reach for a hand to hold or a face to smile upon or a shoulder to cry on or simply a person – another person besides ourselves

How do we recognize each other?

Corrupt as we are

It appears that we often forget

Souls still glow in the dark

Thousand songs

A thousand songs are being sung

But none for you

A million games are being played

And so are you

Loneliness circles in close

You lose your breath

The daylight turns now to dusk

And this life to death

Dreaming of a hope that will light up your soul with a dazzling spectrum of hues

Wishing for a life where you won’t have to wish cause it all will be done unto you

Someday you dream that you won’t be ashamed anymore

But the sun drops burn in your eyes as you cry cause you can’t see the light through the pour-

-ing rain

People come in colors

People come in colors

Undefined pastels

Grayer when I’m tired

Brighter when I’m well

Pouring out my personhood

Makes them all more real

People come in colors

That only I can feel

Divorce

Who was it that taught us to leave our coldness

Shoved underneath the living room rug

Why are we stranded with no land between us

We’re dating until we are numb to the drug

The pain of our distance is tangibly aching

Aching inside of our too broken hearts

We roll up our sleeves to dig into our selfishness

Cowardice seems our only recourse

We are the children

We are the broken

Parents have left us alone

What is this cancer

Eating our faces

Degrading our places that we call home

Down to the bone

We are the children

We are the broken

We’ve been left

With pennies

Shortchanged

We are the ravaged

Blindly forsaken

For dreams of pleasure and fame

Remembered for innocence

Lost

Remembered for promises

Tossed

Out with the morning

Rain

Pain

Hurt

Divorce

Eggshells

In spite of myself, I am killing myself

Coursing and crushing and grinding myself

My eggshells are broken, decanted, thrown out

My blood itself pouring and clumping as small bouts of anguish and pain come attacking my abdomen

Oh, woman

Your little martyrdom lives

I eat, I speak, I drink, I sleep

And still I am washing away

I give life with my mind through my heart and my hands

And still I am still giving way

My body is feeling and quietly stealing or maybe more loudly it's telling me lies

I eat, I speak, I drink, I sleep

And still I am dying inside

Monthly, monthly, this must go on

The grieving embattled one must now walk on through these fields of lost chances, mortality, weakness

Bleakness

Lovely

Because it is ours

Oh woman, your little martyrdom lives

On in the lives of half of the world

Through all of the mothers and each little girl

All of the aunts and sisters and nuns

Experience battle, they run as you run

Together, onward, into a new day

A new seed planted and new soil sown

Beautiful, beautiful, bodies that bleed

Bosoms of suffering, bosoms that read:

Here there is death, but what follows is life

Oh, woman

Yours is a beautiful strife

Amadeus

Items,

bought and given items,

littered across a carpeted floor

Bottles, books, and light-up toys

Made to be handled by sweet little boys

Items, objects, pieces of form

Lifeless, lying, lonely

Picked up,

bottle, plastic and milk

Suddenly seems to be… real

Because he is using it

He is holding it

He is choosing it

Grubby hands, sweaty forehead

Precious, unrepeatable body in progress

Sucks out life

And then he drops it

Bottle

Lying, lonely, happy

Fingerprints left on its body

Wedding day's night

Like a wedding day’s night,

you will rest by my side

We will be one

Come and lay on my breast,

where you will find rest

Love is edible

Through me, in me and with me

Glory be to the One

Take me eat me

Love please receive me

Love is edible

Hold me close

I’ll wrap your heart

With my love

With my host

Be my host

Take and eat

Take and drink

Receive me in

Be my host

Hold me close

I have won you in battle

With the legions of darkness

It is complete

On a white steed of spirit

I have torn them to pieces

with my bleeding feet

And I swept you up my Church

Your white dress no longer bloodied

You welcomed me back home

And I rescued you

my bride

Come with me

to our new home

Like a wedding day’s night, you will rest by my side

We will be one

Come and lay on my breast, where you will find rest

Love is edible

My blood

Pours out

Into you

My flesh

Is thine

I give to you

Though you’ve been courted

Though you’ve been sordid

Still my faith burns

Though you’ve been cheated

And you’ve been beaten

My heart hurts

Hold me close

I’ll wrap your heart

With my love

With my host

Be my host

Take and eat

Take and drink

Receive me in

Be my host

Hold me close

Love is edible

Appetizer

Red curtains let in street lights overhanging cold untold stories

Here, on the inside, we huddle

Lackadaisically creating a mystery

Casually planning each glance and laugh

Lights twinkle and bubbles inebriate

The atmosphere is filling

With a buzzing living feeling

Intoxicating

I watch your lips closing ‘round a fig

The corners of mine curl up slow

As I wonder why I care to observe

A dried fruit beginning its degradation

The fig has been swallowed, and I stand to walk

Out of the door and away from this talk

Standing alone, below the street lights overhanging cold untold stories

Faramir

I just want to ask you,

Why do you cry?

I can’t see your tears,

but I do see your fears in the stilt in your walk and the gray from your years of this sad shadow-living, avoiding your brother, not knowing your place nor the love of your father

Why do you cry?

You are great, you are strong, and your competence lies not in fate and in songs but in daily believing that good just may win and your role is important though affection be thin you’re a man

And a man you’ll remain

Whether fighting or dying or sighing in pain

You are able

You are capable

To hold treasures and wealth, to lead armies and sovereigns and battle with stealth any lies that ensnare you, or those that you love

You are a force

A steward

And this is your role, the adventure of man, to fight for a beauty and conquer an evil, to journey forever a romance your own

Why do you cry?

How I wish those would be

Silent tears of relief, or even of ecstasy

We need you, oh steward, to be who you are

Come armies, come darkness, come hail or hellfire

Silk threads

Silk thread bloodied and ripped

To shreds

By the pain of your hurt

And the rage of your brokenness

Filigree shattered is no longer fit

For your own self-infliction

Has left your dress bitten

Why should you let someone in?

You’re sure all they’ll bring is more bleeding

How can you trust an old friend?

All that they’ve done is left dust for your eating

Fire leaves ashes

They sit cold abandoned

With no spark of hope

No request for compassion

Cold steel erases

The dreams you once held

For tomorrow’s bright waves

As your thoughts become welded

The waves have turned to gray

You sing with the same old refrain

Something is killing your soul

Fear has gripped it and won’t let go

Let it go

Ebony agony is not your destiny

Let it go

Freedom does not come free

His arms

His arms
They are like my mother’s

If my mother were a carpenter and built my house alone
If she held me safe from fire and from David took the stone
If she led me to the river and swam in it with me
If she bound me to her ever so as to be true to me

His mouth
It is like my brother’s

If my brother was a president proclaiming forth my world
If he spoke to me of beauty and of dreams as they unfurled
If he asked me for my essence as a presence and a guide
If he opened up his bleeding cup and bid me come inside

His heart
It is like my father’s

If my father was the greatest dying man that ever lived

If he disciplined his passions and enforced his will to give
If he cherished all his children and fought for their true life
If he loved me like a daughter and a sister and a wife

I have been asked to live far away
with he who is more than the men of today
It is not what I’m losing but what I receive
In loving this man, I fear not to leave

Beginning again

I am beginning to blog again, because I want to share my poesy.

Poesy: The work or art of poetry composition.

It always starts with sinking into mindfulness of a particular situation, experiencing and accepting it, living it fully.

Real images and starting points, concrete experiences, atmospheres described, circumscribed with feeling and adjective. Highlighting, expressing experience. Elocuting experience. An experience, singular.

I try to let my poems live with one experience, and only one. It is expression, not meta-cognition. It’s the barest, deepest, strongest speak I know. Writing poetry brings reality to my experience, validating the beauty and richness and worth-while ness of it. Writing poetry is acknowledging who I am. Reading the poetry of others lightens up my world and raises my eyes to the future, to my surroundings, to what is real and grounded and shared in the human experience. Elocuting, speaking it, elucidating it. Beauty.

Enjoy, if you please.