June 30th
River’s Overflow
“Love knows no limits,
But exceeds its bounds”
Like the Jordan River’s overflow
Are we afraid to drown?
A reasonable fear
To endure other’s tears
With no thought of gain
For oneself
Where glory, vain
Rests upon the chest
Of the old person left
Behind the stone
If anything of worth is done
The tomb must be his home
The last time he was free to roam
He strove for every cistern
But the river
Often conflating
The Dead Sea
With its Living Sister
Water freely given
But he’s back in the dark, bones rattling
As I internally battle with the stone
Holding him back
River waves stack, beckoning deeper
An experience steeper
Than when the waves stood on their feet
To truly love, are we eager?
June 29th
Three Sacred Scrawlings
Poem One
I haven’t come this way before
Though I know the fall from this height
Means certain death
One need not be a navigator
To understand that
But the weight upon my back lightens
As I take the step
And slick shadow
Becomes hard stone
An abode for weary feet
On the road
The naked air
Clothes itself in sediment
A wilderness of direction
Becomes a way
Poem Two
I’ve met You in the cool of the day
It took shedding
But I reached it
A passage of fire guarded it
But flame is nothing to those who seek it
They possess willing spirits
That would endure all affliction
For Your voice, to hear it
I know not if I’m a brave one
But something’s changed
In this son
Where he actually believes in the title
He bears
Where life and its cares
Die in his place
It’s a shame
I feel I’m finally starting to get it
At the end of all things
When my hopes,
My dreams
Swell as they dwelt
Within sight
Only to burst
At first light
I see none could compare
All else were snares
Only tares within wheat
Outside of Your care
For You say, we stay
Within your hand
But say nothing about the “things”
Sands that fall between your fingers
Only the living soul
The man that seeks your face
Obeys commands
Which is simply
“Be as you were
Before brokenness
Broke upon you
Receive the love
I’ve spoken of you”
I see it clear
As Sheol draws near
What I would have done
Had I not bent to my fear
Poem Three
Nothing wasted
Though my body
Washes ashore.
Human detritus.
My hand
Thou hand
Is this Thy hand?
A blinding battery of waves
Leaves me unsure
Of what belongs to me
Sea salt stains my taste
And awakens a false choice
As if I chose to wrestle Poseidon
Rather than it just being my time
My hand stretches
Awakens
Across wet sediment
I need not look elsewhere
To know I rest on new land
Breath quickens
As the mortal engine engages
Her arms wrap around my shoulders
And then are gone
As I’m lifted to my feet
Wisdom’s caress
Raises me into a veldt
Where faith leaps as the jaguar
But her hand must be fought for
A paradise awaits
Within the vines
June 24th
A Calloused Hand
With hand on the plow
And an eye to the next
Only in the peripheral
Does regret collect
Oh husbandman
Tending to the harvest
That I can’t see
As well as the prepped mercenary
Protect me
And to that which I do sight
Select me as the one that you delight
For my hand grows weak
And I lose the might
My eyes grow weary
Teary
As they lose their light
Thinking the only path forward
Is eternal night
Reserved not for the wicked
But the cowardly
That grow to heights
Only to fall during the stall
Hesitation during bolder fights
The burdens unlifted
The mountains yet shifted
Though I know you’ll help this gifted
Not for his gifting
But because you promised
I wouldn’t be sifted from the beginning
Though, did you ever promise winning?
June 20th
A Remnant Before Canaan
We’ve forgotten how we became yoked here
To a fear of this encounter
Yet we were fleeing something
A heart’s thrumming
Always coming
To this hour
Jacob was running from
And running to
Coming to himself
Israel faced the fear
And was brought through
Do you believe the “from” you’re fleeing
Won’t also breathe before you?
That being in God’s camp
And His providence
Won’t incite the past
Since the last you saw it
That the dogs that lay
Will remain dormant
In a past that was dishonest
You might be free from old bands
Severed such acquaintance
But do you really believe the 400 men of the “previous”
Won’t follow you to Canaan?
But fear not,
You approach yesterday
With a new name
A new limp
And new favor
So, death skips over you,
Your children and your labor.
That they can walk free from the anger
Of a God that requires payment
That in His outstretched arms
Which endured all harm
We can be called to co-labor
June 16th
Can’t Be a Waste
Emotions unearthed
By nerves
And worries intangible
Seems not even the Evangel Chief
Could be the good news I need.
Like sower with the seed
The fruit is a breed
That doesn’t meet the demands
Of the season
So in the day with in the heat
I’m stuck with it
Hedges of prudence
Feeding from it
The humble pie I’ve eaten
Must have a limit
Yet I stand, bursting
From the belly with fruit flawed
Because it can’t stall
The Way of destiny
But it’s the rest of me
Which says to me
It wasn’t all a waste
June 12th
Inner/Outer
What does it mean
To get caught in the tread
To feel as though the tares
Are being removed from your head
While awake
You catch on to the error iniquity
Mistakes
That made you the man you are
Standing in His grace
A yet feeling laid low
As the dust touches your face
Neither a temper nor avarice
Not vices that are placed
Upon shoulders, but its living and believing a lie
The truth that you awake to
The boulders that you hold to
But such falsities you had grown to
Hold must face their own gloom
So when the lies subside
Rather yet, are killed and die
A heart of flesh
A heart of feeling
Too much to abide
O Savior, is this the favor
You incurred
When taking a body
Did you savor
Openness to rejection, hate,
And betrayal
Stone rolled against the grave
Passage of time marinating
Giving birth to a living stone strong,
Never long in stasis
To be moved by others
The Parable of the Father
Remaining
June 10th
Abba Father
“Abba Father” issues from lips
As often as calling forth for honor
My cry unbottled
And unbothered:
Doesn’t cry for the one
Who has the stars in His gathering
Nor the Plunderer of the strong man
Consistent in his battering
Neither for the Provider, creating provender
Centering opportunity for the fattening
Of all flesh
But in this
I cry Abba
To my Father
To remind Him
That I’m His
A True Substitute
A king awoke in a body not his own
Worries rose
But he scattered them with his eyes
He scattered them with his eyes
He looked over a domain
Not his own
With compassion
Not seeing ruin nor potential
But abundance
Tangible, living abundance
Dry places flow with water
Gardens stretch, emerging from slumber
Orchards lift their eyes to the skies
High places wipe their tears
And align with El Shaddai
Enemies willingly appear for judgment
The draw of His incense
Sanctified by the words of his mouth
As he made them into friends
What does desolation mean
To one who only sees light?
He booms with laughter
All living things breathe around him
June 6th
Oil Spill
When the vessel breaks
The oil spills
Unaware there was so much
Too late to recapture it
Dabbed up by cloths
That become fragrant but ruined
The slick floor
Becomes pellucid
Reflecting light, then becomes light
June 5th
Pressed
The press is not over
If oil remains unspent
Wholeness and grownness
Broken afresh
The moment we repent
Bones shattered shouting “Hosanna
Glory to God in the Highest!”
But what’s required
Before the lyre
Is living the descent.
For a gift to man, You lent
So that descent becomes descendants
And endings, new beginnings
Suffering and victory, blending.
And the trueness of glory belongs to those
Who behold the man!
With a stand
In their own brokenness.
That a fall from glory
Is not a fall from grace
And a trial endured
Is not a life escaped
Rather, one that’s found
All else drowned beneath grave sounds
Knowing that’s the choral
That begins all renown.
Abiding
Abiding is quite simple actually
It’s taking one step, one breath
Into that which is greater than and above us
Yet within us
The Divine Nerve.
And when we break away
From what fruit we believe we’re to bear
Abiding becomes even simpler
June 4th
Nicodemus by Night
“A temple raised in three days”
The idea marched, paced
Through my mind
And it simply would not lay
Until I saw Him
Face to face
And I began to understand
Until reason was thrown into disarray
When He said assuredly, “you must be borne away”
By an eternal birth
A new born day
“What can these things mean?”
Was all I could say
Ah, a secret son
Who the Kingdom is not far from
Though his holy robes reveal
A broken theology that he’s been scarred from
Oh Nicodemus
How the mystery is preserved for
Those who know they are lost
And if you knew the cost
You would ask your questions
Before the sun falls
But your curiosity meets a prerequisite for faith
And faith leads to engagement
Let’s see how far we get
Before you become perplexed or enraged then
And then, perhaps a seed upon good soil planted
My body a broken thing for you
What the Father has commanded
And I acquiesced
So by night, we will speak in the silence
Oh Savior, how they come to me by night
Ask for counsel in the shadow
But remain silent in the light
I know not why
Can’t comprehend
I have not the time
Or the heart you had for Nicodemus
But for some reason, this season
Has lasted as long as I was breathing
And yet, Holy Jesus, you remain unshaken
Works of the Kingdom quake the intellect of the learned
Who practiced Seder
So, what do you call me to say
When they come to me later?
June 3rd
Release
As eyes fill with tears
The crevices on his face
Prepare themselves as pools
Holding grief as mother with nursing child
He leaks
From forgotten wounds
His movements grow sluggish
He drops his hands
Which hang down
Never to rise again
The end?
No
Though he longed for one
With more flash and bang
Pomp and circumstances
Bread and circuses
Than the beating of the grey sun
Upon a living sacrifice
The only coliseum he enters
Is one of mind
And spectators remain
Unaware of the lions before him
Unaware of the lion within
He tarries in the midst
Of the press
Praying for release
And it comes
Just not in the way he expects
June 2nd
The Man Upon the Man
He appeared meek on the surface
A bit gentle but never nervous
As one of them said to the person
Next to her
Thinking she would concur
At the whisper, “I dunno about him
He doesn’t follow the herd
Do you see how he spares with his words?
How he hesitates with the opportunity to elevate
As if he would relegate
Power to others more suited
Like a trial court to an appellate
He speaks not of Allen Tate
I know he has not real estate
And treat wealth as something to ingratiate”
Her friend paused her
Look not with your eyes that lie
But your eyes that sight
The true light
Because I see a Man within a man
This covering, this holy tan
Blows divine memory to mind as a fan
As the dark, yet comely
His shoulders effaced in something
I can’t fully comprehend
But its good and its peaceful
To walk with such a presence
Is to embody a steeple
Yet, you can’t see it
Unless looking through a holy peephole
But with perspective, you can understand his actions
Respective
His words slow because he knows their medicine and venom
To exalt
To bring low
They are not simply the chimes of a human ring tone
But THE channel between present and eternity
The instrument that leads to Zion or the gurney
And his actions, follow the rudder of the soul
His role, when at every movement,
There’s much to stake
He hesitates with anointing
So nothing he will break
In carelessness
In terms of the real estate
Perhaps, there’s comfort in knowing there’s One
That prepares for him a place
Contrary to your demands
It seems like he’s an actual man.
May 31st
May 29th
The Prophet
What happens when you’re looking for the prophet
But you are the prophet
When the perishing
Doesn’t come from a lack of knowledge
But truth waded
In a fist
Struck out without polish
We commend the God who dresses lilies
But don’t comment on His rawness
Creator of Dis and wrath
To this, I have this honor
And to be honest
The consequences of the lawless
Seem less hot
Than the sauna
Of the refined
Not in taste
But in stripping towards zero
That’s unrefined
Fins and Flippers
Time doesn’t heal all
Neither does obedience
It changes us though
We find that the fins and flippers
And gills we once needed
Serve no purpose when emerging upon sand
The half measures asked for
To better surf in syrups of sin
Not only were ignored
But the waters were swallowed
Leaving us writing on our backs
Every moment being a wonder
That we hadn’t expired
“Use your legs”
You call out
In an evaporated whisper
But how to move
When your reality is starved to death
And the truth you crafted
Adapted to suit you
Is locked in a tower
Its cries growing weaker and weaker
Day by day
Agape’s Place
The preconditions have been met
Not for the bonds required for cooperation
Not for the consummation for the marriage bed
But for prejudice
And their outbursts of wrath
Agape finds her home
In the noise
Where there is no rest
She places her head covering
Upon the tattered chair
Ready to give herself
For her victims
Pressure
The pressure to be profound
Pounds my head with pressure
Desire to bring treasures to the surface
Knowing the surface has ways to test ya
Savior to the rescue
And if we’d turn His way
The Living Parable
Can assuage the terrible
With his own veins
Through blood stains, He came
And He left
No Son of Man, his better
King of the waters above the firmament
Leaving permanent depth upon
Those that would bear His name
Upon their foreheads
And yet
We assume the pain
And the rain
And the dead
Souls broken through the grave
When we should hold
To broken bread
Instead…