Category Archives: Poem

The Column

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Deep and dark in the cave time carved
A sprinkling sound skipped off cold stone walls
A spire that hangs from the high ceiling calls
Down to the answering stalagmite love-starved

Wishing quietly for gravity’s haste
To break his prison bars which anchor hold
The dripping rock that has grown in the cold
Weathered only by water’s mineral taste

Iteratively aching to loose each drop
Truncating his comfort for the love for which he longs
Translating his care into stories, deeds, and songs
Interpreting echoes growing nearer every stop

Night how cruel to cast sun-hiding shade
Recalcitrant to tell the story of the lover’s act
Return my Love who from me love attract
Never-ending lest I dwindle without your aid

Dampness felt as calcium splats the tip.
An answer echoes close in the stalactite’s ear.
Again! Could it be the cherished one is near
Devoted to respond to his steady drip?

Lips moistened by the fall and growth of love
Come now to lightly touching until at last
Connection! As the two rocks now stand fast
Lodged as one: a bridge from below and from above

Enter now, O climber in the cave
Transfixed by this monument to faithfulness
Telling the power of earth’s fruitful thankfulness
Enmeshed with Heaven by all the gifts He gave.

Before the Ships Came to Take Them Inland

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His kindness never bade them stay for long.
Their welcome was not worn by his being weary.
Instead he gave them hope with every stroke
Though sinking himself into the darkness where they trembled.

The master fixed his own light house
Securely upon truth-rocks carpeted with love
Treasures of the deep rose to see the light
Even if only for a moment to feel the beams of hope it gave.

The island coasted by a sea of trouble
Bid ships on their way pass merrily, warily by
They did not need his light except to know
His rocks nearby could sink them or capsize

The sea creatures knew this lighthouse well
The mermaids frequented the rocks nearby
He gave them music and wonder and joy
And they were gladdened by this caring reminder of sunlight.

Only after basking for a little while, to dive at length
Far from the reaches of his beams of grace
Down into the hole which they could not escape
Where their dark safety was promised in frigid under-water caves

The lighthouse sometimes guided the merpeople
To cast off their fins and scales from their lives
And walk on two legs on the island of Hope
But they even then did not stay long,

Before the ships came by to take them inland.

Ships with sails and steam and steering wheels
Ships that carried cargoes precious to cross the bar
Ships that wheeled their world-wide way
Ships that felt the light, but could not touch the house

The house that kept its lenses burning bright
The house that ocean brine had crusted green
The house that learned the value of its light
By staying on that lonely island of hope.

The island small but never sinking
The island seeing all and never blinking
The island choosing good and not despairing
The island swept by waves of tears and caring.

O that dark clouds may part and let sunshine come out
So the hope of many wanderers may be refreshed
By the light and the warmth of the sun dancing on calm seas
Which is the only comfort this light-bearing soul breathes!

And yet, one day, the hope remains
That the island of hope may have room for two
For two houses to shine yea in two-streamed directions
Kept warm by the fire of the other’s undivided heart.

For now the island of hope is shadowed by grey clouds
The mockery of lightning’s torturous and cold subtlety.
Who will warm the lighthouse and scrub him clean
So the thunder rolling will not cause his own brick to quake?

The Hedgeman

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Madam Grandmother had a house of grey:
Grey roof, grey shutters, grey siding.
All one story; All one level
Surrounded by box hedge plants waist high.

A hedgeman had come and trimmed them recently
But he only chopped the shape just right.
He did not seek to undertake
The dive seeking weeds of thorn and vine:

Young spritely clinging little buggers
Troublesome meddlers in a boxy world
In shadowy subtlety they showed their heads
A long time they had grown in secret.

The hedgeman returned at the grandmother’s request
The bushes needed trimming, but the vines were his quest.
Over two days he set about the purge
Of everything that grew up from secretly seeded earth.

He found himself saying, as the vines scraped his arm:
“My goodness this bush is a pain.”
But then he thought to himself:
I wonder if God looks that way on me?

Extricating and tending the bush planted well.
From the weeds of the seeds of the unworthy sown.
Did the Maker of creation who saw it was good
Did He say, “This is a pain.” When the devil’s seed was sown?

Grace shines like the hot afternoon sun on his back.
Reminding him of the Maker’s glowing face.
Which does not cool when faced by those who turn
Their back on him shady tents to pitch.

O grief, such grief: that crown of thorns
That encircled the Savior’s human brow
To crown the flower with Satan’s weeds
To raise up a sacrifice of earth because of Heaven’s love.

Of course! Twas not for grief He bore
But for the Joy that was set before!
His cross he endured and the seed he planted
In the tomb of the rock to sprout forth with new creation!

Determined by his Father’s love,
Pronounced for the world from the beginning
He did not merely say, “It is good.”
He simply “Saw that it was good.”

Now the hedgeman was ennobled to press
Through the thorns that tore his exposed flesh
For in these thorns a fresh thought was true:
God fell in love with the world to make it new.

Emancipation: the feeling surged as one by one the vines relinquished their hook
They could not withstand the power of man determined to make the bushes good.
Why? Because these bushes were planted first, and then the weeds took root.
The bushes are good, it’s the weeds that have corrupted their look

So even though the weeds are deep entwined
With the plants of the Grandmother’s good intention
Still, deeper is the ability to dig
With a pair of pruning sheers to clip the hidden stems.

Strong is the stock the Sower sowed
When He made the world out of His goodness
The enemy may have added his own ingloriousness
But the Angels can tell what is good by its fruit.

Oscillating between standing and kneeling
The hedgeman cleared away the weeds by probing deeply.
Humility and confidence to seek understanding and apply it:
Getting to the root, and pulling up the shoot.

Familiar with these living plants
Their tender leaves not sown by chance
Were worth releasing from these self-ish pokes
For which the fire the Angel stokes.

Grappling with the plant near the top does no good.
It took a long time to reach the now spoiled-sightly top.
With a firm hand the hedgeman pulls on the vine
So he can pluck the thorns like a bow string and cut the base.

Others yank the plant up by the stem
Hoping that the whole thing will come right out.
Those who are clever know such a risk is not sound
Even if it clears the top, soon the issue will reemerge.

During his struggle, He sees the Creator dealing with him.
Not managing his issues so as to keep God busy
But always asking the questions that get at the heart
Of why man hides and turns his back on Him.

Resting in the tension of the Master’s pull
And wincing at the precise cuts of the wise Healer
Leveling haughty lusts from creeping back out again.
He reminds me of His pleasing and excellent plan

Utilizing the hedgeman to keep the hedges beautiful
The Creator has appointed a manager for His Creation
A Creation He made so beautiful, that it was even good in His own eyes.
The only One who is Good, saw that it was good.

Lo, He did not only say “It was good” when he made the light.
Nor even when he made land, trees, fruit and seed
Nor even when he made stars, and birds and fish and animals
But when He appointed man to rule He saw that it was VERY good.

Ended the task, back stood the hedgeman and smiled
The grey house framed by box-hedged life
The weeds were cast away to rot, to be chewed, and to die
And the Hedgeman sees that the Earth is worth redeeming.

Unhappiness: an Honesty

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This mortal coil that burns out to crispy cinders.
The glow once found, now lost to rotting tinder.
A hollow wind blows through this dismal shrine
Where all that now is dark once housed divine.

The bulb crackles as its amber light-rays falter
The power lost to cravings man has altered.
To spin a web of safety and for feed.
In darkened corners where shade makes light bleed.

Thrice woe! The wail of counterfeits discovered.
The blindings of the ages are uncovered.
As sight is lit by just a little proof
To bid despair loose beams and drop the roof.

Unhinged from bolts the door made for a frame
It topples to the floor in open shame.
And creatures trample down this scratching post
Where guardianship now pays its careless cost.

Untruth: the absence of the deeds of good
On which a world so beautiful has stood
Makes slavery of freedom’s fruitful trees.
And grants no peace to those who lie at ease.

The “strinch” of wrenching strength to quench
The Hell-flames reek with death’s foul stench
The play of demon dragons doomed
To empty slither neath dust entombed.

Forgotten what must take place at the top
The center, the beginning and the stop.
What worthy light can cast its mighty glow
To fill this day with life I weep to know?

A Reckoning

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From the deep chalice of my memories
I imbibe in the elixir of youthful life
While agonies breathe cries in muscles strained
By the ever-present struggle to master the day.

The soul’s tongue is fueled by that strong drink
So as to cast the shadows of pains far back
Against the wall with dark streaks overcome
By more than their present significance.

Oh to days long to be remembered
That lark in my throat that sang to the clouds
Carving pictures only the child’s eye can see
My wand’ring heart must not be loth to frequent.

And let this heart not soon forget
That moment when all days were a single breath–
Each breath, a gift of the whole of my life
No breathless dust of earth could ever tell.

A Sun and a Planet ~ A Love Poem

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Ah Sister Sun!
Ye lofty gleam
Illuminating every color
Soft blue your choice of setting

How many planets
Rove dismal paths
Set in a course through the universe
Seeking a place to call their home

Though many stars
Shine bright but far
So many places the orb could circle
If only for a little while

But only one
Has the size and spin
To keep the planet near
So that life can grow

And though she set
Weary and needing rest
Still her warmth stays close
Enveloped in the blanket of faithfulness

For many stars
Peep out and twinkle
Filling darkness with cold lights
Giving only stories to tell by the fire

Until the day
Returning in the East
When my beloved rises from her bed.
To grace my face that brightens as she fills my eyes.

Politics Play

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I feel like I should apologize for this. But history as my witness . . . I will not lest one can show me I am wrong.

The Generation rises to take their stand
Upon the political world stage
To fight for justice and freedom’s brand
That has inked the Declaration’s page.

The stage is set with prop and dot
Where powers quoth their scripted lines
And decisions break like winds of plot
Entangling their opponents in jungle vines.

How proud the idealist takes the floor
His eyes glazed by the light above.
He cannot see the long-locked door
Where no one cares to see or move.

The plays play on, the powers clutch.
The bills are passed, the upstarts fail.
But mighty arms of play power touch
Not the women who weep and men who wail.

Outside the theatre people starve.
The rich feast preying on the undeserving.
The French Revolutionaries carve.
A guillotine for the nerve-less head’s un-nerving.

So men will cast their ballots down
Like tickets to a show they’ll never see.
May God have mercy on the clown
Who thinks the world thus better will be.

The theatre will close. The powers scatter.
The people will seek out the purpose of living.
Then they will remember the soft pitter-patter.
Of the child they lost in their taking and giving.

ATM — The Ache of a Day Lacking in the Word

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Ah to me a drink so cool and refreshing greets
A weary wand’ring soul with burdens cumbering
All fractured by the similitude of shackles on his feet
After breaking step of march to cast his stride by lumbering

The sigh that lifts his chest to float downstream
Through shifting currents of his patterned thought
Trace several eddies fraught with what may seem
Tantalizing directions to follow but all for naught.

My Carowinding roller coaster plunges
(Through which state: North or South? I often wonder)
And shakes my spirit with what my past expunges
Made perplexing by the present clove asunder.

At the moment I am lost in life’s hard way.
At the moment all this ache has had its say.

The Lonely Caravel

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The agonies that stang awake
In solitude they prod the weather-beaten heart.
An outcry for lost love
In hope it can again be found.

The lips that crack, the tongue can soothe,
Only to let the liquid of your spit
Be evaporated in the cold and evanescent air
And your own soul’s water be depleted.

The cavernous hole your bleeding chest aches
To let another soul find rest therein.
These calls that welcome, become a plea
For someone, ANYone to come fill me.

The organ plays to fill a church
With painful piercing chords that filet my hurt.
Can the flood of beautiful sound drown woes
That clutch the mast and rise again in silent calm?

Trust breaks over me like glass
Upon a hardened shale piece cut from the mountain.
It shatters and makes a weapon not to be handled
By a child whose hand has never been sliced open.

Cries muffled by a pillow make my scream
A softened surrounds for a golden needlepoint.
The heightened sense of the sheets around my head
Swim noisily as I bury myself in them.

Such noise is the song of fissures in the fabric of our bosoms
Where friends beloved come and go, and good men break their word
The powders of such explosive interruption
Are loaded in a canon aimed for the hull of nearby vessels.

“Friend or Foe?” I cry aloft
But feign to hear their polite reply.
How can they know my ship will sink
If they board and take not the greatest care?

For in these waters, all men are pirates.
Their colors or flag make little difference.
I, a pirate like them, have a vessel of goods
And none to transport to, since I have no bay.

What’s this? A ship sailing less a standard.
‘Tis white! A great white shark no doubt.
To seem to play weak, only to prove the briggand
And use their own canon when drawn in close.

But nay, the song aboard their ship,
A song of thanks spills onto the waves.
As they pull in tighter, they cast me a line.
And pray we may lee our ships in tow.

My fever heightened, but my anxiousness was lightened.
My wonder was dazzled, and my canon upturned.
A song of my own filled up to join theirs,
Though a sharp eye, I kept lest they catch me unaw’res.

Twas the song of the humble I learned in that day.
From these once pirates, who had learned a new way.
To sail thankful and sharing, on the sea of the king.
And join ships that were starving, and feigned to be mean.

My bow broke waves and liberated spray.
My canon unloaded was pointed off the stern.
My cargo stores replenished from the friendship learned.
My own royal colors retracted and His white flag displayed.

To trust, and to wait on the Maker who is good,
To look with love on the people He came to save.
To chart out new seas, knowing this thing for sure.
He is the Captain of every Soul who surrenders to Him.

O Lord, my tired hull is heavy with precious cargo.
I fear none will take before it rots away.
Please show me that I matter to You,
And give me a fellow heart with whom to share this load.