Courageous Love

Courageous Love

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to oppose an evil person. If someone slaps you on your right cheek, turn your other cheek to him as well.” Matthew 5:38-39

I can guarantee you that not a single person on the globe automatically turns their cheek to someone who hits them first. In fact, the way most of us tried to get out of trouble for fighting in school was by saying, “But he hit me first.” We have a built-in response that is like some free pass to unload on someone if they throw the first punch.

I Like this Song

I Like this Song

(“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7)

I can’t find the help I need, no one answers my call,
I’m stuck and I’m leaving, I’m famished and I’m grieving
over the cold feet that could be warmed
if you just asked one friend unalarmed, to find
the source you lost when someone Grasping for Life
held the door open so the winter cold would enter
and you would leave for the last time after time.

Your words are a string of letters flowing from immediate fingers,
not the dipstick pens of unresolved stories. Let the flurry
wipe your vision clear, the frigid blister steel your resolve
and look further forward this time than ever before.

I entered your story around chapter 16. I heard you recite
vignettes from six and seven. You quoted dialogues of two characters,
both with the same name, though their sentences were
of nearly equal length while you filled in the silences.
I knew you were future.
I hoped you were not fastened with invisible fishing line
to stories that would become ancient by the time your
narrative is ended.

The indelible ink has dried, the silent pillows cried
along with your unrelenting fears that played like
silent movies upon your sleeping cranium. But, with
chapters and dialogue still to be written,
seek the Muse whose style can match your
past unbidden

With a future unhidden, when
day becomes brighter from sunrise over the mountain pass
to noonday’s reflection upon the stillest river flow.

I’m out of predictions, used my last half a century ago,
but the story will be written, the lines like poets write
with jazz in the background and a favorite friend who,
each time the band begins, says again,
“I like this song.”

The Same Way

The Same Way

 ^(“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:26)

I judged so hard I cannot see what the judging meant to me.

I dug so deep the stones slept below the shoveled repeats.
I ran so fast the artificial track burned my barefoot heels and
artificial grass. Run again, to hide from the looks that guided
the criticism back at me. Running still, to discover the hopeful dollar
because I knocked one hour longer than all the rest.

I’m feeling the same way all over again.

I have not been fed like a pet left alone with a bowl and water,
like a parrot talking to the air or a
cat reigning from the sunlit chair.
All the desires, nearly most, and some of the best,
were coffee houses on open mike Fridays,
were student-published staple-bound copies that
made the rounds from temporary buildings on the edge of campus
to dots on a page of the Milton press.

I’ve never liked sandwiches; bologna or tuna; but when a sunny friend
asked would I stay for lunch,
I ate like a seaside café had plated the catch of the day.

I’m tasting the same way all over again.

I thought he sang better, (no, I knew it true) but we sang together
the light and the blue, the crystal and the few lyrics we pieced
from our own short minds and limited time. A single night recording,
four track Teac tape, sitting on my brother’s bed; we said this
was our best, an acoustic set. Two guitars, a recorder, a trumpet
and a flute. We sang of the Lamb of God, the one slain before
earth’s foundation was laid.

I’m searching the same sound all over again.

Yet pain is still the song the brings shadows unbidden;
sleepless, my thoughts are hidden behind grammatical corrections
and dramatic protests to my Autumn. Well-fed, sleep is
the only option what leaves my mind simply rested. 

In All Seriousness

In All Seriousness

(“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3)

I had a notion long ago, like an ocean full of logic,
that God needed informants, sleuths to testify of
loose gears in the machinery to management. I dearly loved
the agency,
the sanity I thought was saintly. I never clicked my tongue
or filed a report but I plainly
explained every missed question on the test;
and wondered how they test-taker graduated with all the rest.

Some of them became teachers, these ones with private files
printed upside down upon my desk. I confess I read them, if
not to the rest, to myself. Some of them led millions,
these ones dressed with waterproof ties, shades over their eyes,
while I thought my casual garb was more naked than theirs,
covering less than theirs; showing more of my bleached ankles
and skinny wrists. My mind was insulated just as well,
buried deeper than the death knell. My tears distracted the
prying eyes.

When did I believe I was richer than I had begun? What piles
of treasure,
uncalled-for leisure on mountain slopes and summer isles
had I amassed? My balance is higher, square footage greater,
new car faster; while I’ve read more books, learned more tunes,
bought more songs, and composed my poetry better than
I’ve composed myself. Because,

In all seriousness,

The nightmares I walked off on high school nights
are the same dreams I hide because old men should be
over them by now.

This is How

This is How

(“This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 1:18)

I don’t know how the angel felt, or if angels can feel at all;
to announce it, to unroll the scroll of the new and holy meeting
God would have with the waiting world. Though nearly every mother
dreamed
her baby boy, her firstborn, would be the one, the foretold Son

The Lord promised would bruise the serpent’s heel.

Though *YHWH promised, the prophets had announced in clearness
and shade, the coming and anointed One, the expectations ebbed and swayed
as days delivered less vital force and more simple hand-to-mouth tedium,
when God is acknowledge but seldom sought or begged.

Though *YHWH spoke, and the Word so rhythmic and poetic, was
passed down in every sacrifice sent to desolation, and every feast meant
for celebration. Perhaps the rythmns of life had rocked the holy longings
to sleep. Perhaps the beloved napped away the moment when *YHWH
sent the explosive message to two who loved, and pledged, and softly waited
their joyous wedding day and consummation.

Oh *YHWH, how uncommon are your plans. We stumble in circles at the
turns you manufacture and the dead ends where angels wrestle us,
rupture our hips and call it a blessing.

But we do not plan the journey, the journey plans us. And you sent,
perhaps a cold April,
your brightest announcement through an angel’s whisper
to a teenage miss who only knew to say “yes” when angels come
calling.

  

*Not to be enunciated when read aloud. Leave a pause.

Dressed for the Dance

Dressed for the Dance

(“Pharaoh sent at once for Joseph. He was brought hastily from the dungeon, and after a quick shave and change of clothes, came in before Pharaoh.” Genesis 41:14)

They told me it was ending, the time was closing in,
the final act was over, we waited for the epilogue.
We had heard the announcement for ages, for lifetimes,
for moments we wondered would ever end.

But we kept on dancing, with our without the band.

They told me it was time now, the auditions began,
the callbacks, the final chance to make the team,
to be called an actor, a thespian, a professional
at my craft.

But, I kept on dancing, and never heard their laughs.

They agreed I had talent, I read well, they said,
“You have presence, you have intensity,
your belief is suspended and your belt holds up your pants.”

And I kept on dancing, avoiding cracks to save my mama’s back.

Which is where it started, with her, with mom. I was groomed,
I was dressed, costumed and confessed I loved the stage and applause,
while I was shy as a turtle who dreams of going to school without its shell.
I had done well to fight my bashful nativity until a guerilla war
left me slow to trust and playing in the dust; a quiet corner of my
personal prison cell. Books don’t talk back; books serve as friendship well.

But I dressed for the dance, scrubbed my face, neck and ears;
washed the ancient cream-colored Bug and picked up my date who
helped me

Keep on dancing. Dressed in rags or royal, my estimation is this:
esteem can be beaten, but dancing is forever’s food; dance on,
dance on.