When Songs Came Easily

 

When Songs Came Easily

(“God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me.” Psalm 51:10)

It is hard to find your heart in the snow and fog,
isn’t it?
And when the silence sounds like avalanche clouds
it feels like someone has
hidden it.

Something disrupted the rhythm, someone pounded it like a drum,
someplace you left it behind, somewhere before first and begun.
You knew it had been perfect once, you embraced the days of
warm grass and girls with braids. You picked wildflowers for their
hair.

You weren’t sure if it was broken or just over-exposed,
but the weather grabbed your throat every time you spoke
about another day tied in knots. Frayed at the ends and
twisted in the middle, you were not traumatized by your hurt,
you were traumatized when you were left alone with
your hurt
even when
you told the
best of them
that your ache was about to destroy you,
that your skin was fragile, that you could use an angel
or a vagabond,
or anyone with arms that sounded like
mom frying eggs for breakfast.

It is hard to find your heart in the prose and smog,
isn’t it?
And when the thunder sounds like approaching locusts
if feels so illegitimate.

You would get over it if, mirrored by a friend, you
discovered it was still the same
as the days when songs came so easily
and no one was shy about kissing you on the cheek.

I Blazed at First

 

I Blazed at First

(“You are a hypocrite! First, take the wood out of your own eye. Then you will see clearly to get the dust out of your friend’s eye.” Matthew 7:5)

I have to admit I grew weary of the game,
for every speck I found, every sin I policed,
they always discovered at least another ten in me.
I blazed at first, burning my way through movie titles,
endless recitals of suggestive rock lyrics,
digging deep into conspiracies that proved the
world crept in through the pores of the careless
who let their oil run out and their lamps grow dim.
I was a fire, they were the lukewarm from whom
I would purge
every fallen poison and hidden urge to prove
my worth.

And yet I could not deny, had they spied my evening drive
or my bored routine,
they would lay eyes on a pretender, a show-off,
a bad actor in a good drama,
hoping to prove
my worth.

One day, or a thousand, I cannot remember clearly,
my energy left me. And yet

I did not stop the policing. I was impure as oil and water,
an emulsion unnatural. Some days demons ran scared,
blind eyes brightened, tiny lives heard the winds that bring
life like Spring. And other days (or nights) I pounded my head
against the impossible, the uncured humanity that
condemned me.

And yet,
dead to devices, the fire burned out, the fuel consumed,
every ember a remnant of the cloak I wore
for appearance’s sake. Reduced.

Today I play in the meadowed remains where wildflowers
grew after the old-growth crumbled when I thought I stumbled,
where only seeds remained to brighten my humanity
again. And I’ve found logs and specks,
failures and driftwood are all welcome here.

Silence is an Answer

Silence is an Answer

He got up from the table, the food had all been served,
but the looks on the faces, the uneasy gazes made him think
he might need to clear his mind before
they cleared the dishes.

He walked out the same door he had used for over
a decade
and walked out before desert.

It was no wrong turn that took him there; in fact, he was invited.
This last meal was much like scores of others,
but in his sleep he dreamt the drinks might be poisoned.
So, his bride beside him, they left the folding chairs in winter
(they were stuck on the floor and
no one stood to help.)

The night fell before the sun stopped shining,
the talk was subdued, and the goodbyes stayed firmly
on the ground.
He wished for longer tables and shorter lines,
for wider conversation and deeper embraces (not
to suggest too many things were unexpressed.)

He got up from the table, the words all untangled
stayed behind in closets of puppet stages and belfries.
He would check the mail often, his bride beside him,
and opened the past like cobwebbed air.
He broke.

He

Broke.

Silence is an answer, he finally understood.
And he never entered the same doors again.

Traffic Jam and Jelly

Traffic Jam and Jelly

(“But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:39)

He left work late, rushed out the gate,
hurried to the next appointment on his calendar.
The road was slick, he changed lanes quick,
slid across the pavement into another traveler.
Neither one understood.

Traffic was slowed to a standstill from Portland past
Vancouver,
people anxious for happy hour,
families returning from the doctor,
a couple missing a dinner reservation,
the traffic helicopter captured it all for those
streaming the news on the local station.

Blood boiled, traffic stopped, an hour between exits.
People used their horns instead of brakes,
others babysat the bumper of every car in front of them.
A delivery truck overheated with a wedding cake for cargo.

Closer than sitting in a lounge together,
names were called through rolled down windows.
No one knew the occupants beside them,
and invented invectives for idiots in front,
fools behind, and assholes trying to change lanes.

No one saw the car door open, no one heard the warning buzz,
but soon sandwiches were offered at the window like
a 50s diner with roller skates. Then from the driver’s side
donuts from a pink box appeared in the hands of a newly
licensed driver
who had not been trained in the dangerous etiquette
of rage on the road.

She only served, naively it seems, buttercream resistance
to the hard slap and mocking laughs of the trigger happy
navigators,

And it showed.

There is More Space

 

There is More Space

(“Open your mouth and taste, open your eyes and see—how good God is. Blessed are you who run to him.” Psalm 34:8 [The Message])

There is more space around me than I will ever
need,
unused cubes and shipping containers.
My walls are lined with books I seldom touch
(though my taste for reading is still afire).
Stay in the minimum,
talk with me in stories that whet my appetite for more.
Tell me why I still hear music after the band
is packed and gone.
Tell me how to hear it again.
Teach me the song the wind sings to the mountains,
teach me the sun when the windows are shuttered.
Meet me for drinks, stay for dinner,
let me hear only our voices in the happy hour buzz.
Choose the table in the middle of things and I will
lean in to hear it all.

There is less space around me than I predicted,
crowds of unused voices in cardboard boxes.
My thoughts are crammed with stubborn sanity
(though my taste for absurdity remains the same).
Play in the maximum,
meet me in the meadows that cleanse my palate for more.
Meet me between cornstalks and remind me of sunflowers
before I head back home.
Teach me the drama of dirt, rain and humanity,
teach me the sum of creation and the divine.
Let me have one drink, kneel by the streams,
let me hear it like crystal and taste it like starlight.
Choose the space in the middle of me and I will
green my heart to hear it all.

How Much Louder

 

How Much Louder

 

How much louder can the spikes and
mountain peaks speak? They are not pleasant
echoes,
but syringes filled with yesterday’s aches
reflected off days of clotting rain.

It must sound like self-pity, these constant
allusions to pain.
And so it is, and so I wish it was not.

A lonesome soul, I stare blankly at leaves on
trees
turning yellow
with rain dripping like medicine from
each of them.

I miss the stage, the proscenium,
the rehearsals, the work days,
the torn curtain and the costumed relics
of shows no one remembers. I miss the
ensemble when running cues was better
than any cast party.

A lonesome soul, I wander toward the past
half a century ago and find it takes microseconds.
There is no replacement for the threads that
bind us without time. Yet my body remains
a monologue without an audience.

I would write you another letter, another longshot
that inks my heart once again. I would remind you, though
dizzily scratching the surface, I am friend, same now,
as then.

I miss the potlucks, the rainy picnics,
the best confessions shared well into the evening.
I miss the laughter at misspeaks and the way we tell
the story so many years later. I miss someone’s house
with a sofa made ready for me.

Fenced in by smoky thoughts, how much can I write
that will every be read at all? Remember when we
read our poetry
in high school
and people thought we were magic?
We borrowed each other’s metaphors and
never charged a dime.

Remember when we drove all night just to get to San Bernardino?

I Wasn't Bluffing

 

I Wasn’t Bluffing

(“But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to watch him baptize, he denounced them…’Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God.’” Matthew 3:7a,8)

I wasn’t bluffing, I meant what I said;
so you’ve seen my soul, you’ve seen the hole in it.
If my scars were human (I suspect they are)
then blades of time and space intersected in the
place my elbow connected with the foam pillow afire
from sitting on the floor furnace vent. Did you see me shake
the flames out and the way the plastic flew like wildfire
and landed on the inside of my arm to char and boil a
silver dollar size burn on my arm. I was 13 and the scar
turned purple every time I went swimming for five years after.

So, I overheard the backstage talk that reasoned away the
unachievable mandates (we won’t wear a mask, but we’ll make you
change your gender), and wrestled with the water that never
washed me clean of
the demeaning stain of
deserving the pain of
the everlasting flames of
hell or god’s gory torture.

I would repent if only you will.
I will fall on my knees if you will once
beg pretty please the way that I did.
I will follow you into the river if you will
trade in your rolling eyes
take back your pious lies
and simply ask in words more sackcloth than satin,
“How did we offend?” Because you were the ones that had us
gathered around tables,
bemoaning the porn addiction among the faithful.
But I knew you had not spoken truth,
and had set traps to get confessions that, many times,
had already freely been given.

I wasn’t bluffing, I meant what I said;
you never saw my soul, and you invented its abyss.
My scars were human and I was left to find deserts
in the ocean.
I still am adrift in lonely, so alone I am
weightless.

 

I would repent, but will never give my confession again. 

Banish the Between

 

Banish the Between

(“May he give you what your heart wishes for. May he make all your plans succeed.” Psalm 20:4)

Banish the between us,
vanish the spaces that remain.
Drop the divide, cried and stopped
where the arms uncrossed, where the open
revolved like dance, like love.

Revive the among us,
survive the pauses, fog and rain.
Stop the collide, tried and started
where the brains defrost, where the daylight
snickered like French bread, like love.

In you (closer than far) more hearts beat
fully
than repainted in a day. In us (slower than near)
more mirrors
fully
refund colors and gray.

I’ll take a dozen new friends please,
but just like the old friends who have walked through
the breezeways to class,
sat on trampled grass,
asked question after question like a dreidel,
and never fatally ended our conversations
or lost them in the canopy of trees that preceded

Everything we thought we knew.

Tiny the Grass and Green

 

Tiny the Grass and Green

(“But as for me, justified, I will behold your face; when I awake, your presence will satisfy me.” Psalm 17:15)

Tiny the grass and green,
finally the sun and shone.
Dropping the death and doors,
hoping the waves and curl.

Closing obliquely fell along with
shadow the dusk and sigh.
Flowing the pray and knees,
slowing the song and final.

Lullaby me,
beside me chair your sweetest stare
at the scent of yellow, the rose and petal.
Inside the forest and tree,
reside the mirror and me,
stopping the wound and cut,
just at the moment, just when the shut
measured in and remeasured out,

The portrait and the face.

Only Broken Rules

 

Only Broken Rules

(“Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, and do not let it be afraid.” John 14:27)

It is time for us to go now,
we can talk along the way. The
walls are ready to implode now,
and firelight has nothing left to say.

I cannot wait to see you again,
sometime before my next life crisis.
The troubles might try to drag you down;
the demons fancy a tour of my garden
planted yesterday so yellow and carefully.

There are enough people to blame,
enough weekends to discover the schemes
of failures on the outside of the rooms we constructed
to protect our thin-shelled eggs of ideas.
What seems an onslaught was
just a summer rain last year.

It is time for us to go now,
we can walk up and down the streets. The
walls have tumbled, muddy sheetrock,
and the moonless night swirls like sludge from
a prairie oil derrick. Can we stand still while it,
glacial and black, fills every hole and crack?

I may never see you again,
it might be because of my last life crisis.
The troubles dragged us down as we estimated
the cost of a friendship like ours.
The demons took their seats to see whether
wildflowers and tulips could thrive in the same
garden plot.

I know who you blame, and I know who I suspect,
though none more guilty than myself. What if peace
is what we expect, clean air that thins the grimy night
and lets us dance again, walk the hills again, smoke cigars
and get uneven tans again?

It is time now; the walls are shambles. If you hear me
call your name,
meet me in the rubble. You remember the table and
golden chairs where we once ate sandwiches together?
The demons have all gone home, the troubles have expired,
only our memories keep us apart,
only broken rules can mend us again.

I've Seen Trouble

  

I’ve Seen Trouble

(“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.” John 14:1)

I’ve seen trouble and so have you,
we have lived on the outside while the pots boiled
within.

I’ve wondered who will pay attention and so have you,
we have felt the pinch of a thousand wordless letters
from friends.

Sanity seemed a cross-country dream,
we have held on by a thread.
Tears were our food and drink while
others just shook their heads

And told us we were not strong enough.
I believed them and so have you,
we have fought and lost against their vain
demands.
I’ve seen clear days and so have you,
we smelled the meadow aroma after yester-
day’s rain.

Clearly the sun dried petals and blooms,
we have walked in the margins.
With one foot in the storm and one in the sun
others doubted our battles

And told us we weren’t right in the head.

I’ve found solace and so have you,
we have answered the small voice that is bigger than
our fears.
I’ve wondered why God pays attention and so have you,
we have felt the gaze of a closeup love that never dis-
appears.

Would You Show Up?

 

Would You Show Up?

(“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face like one would speak to a friend.” Exodus 33:11a)

Would you show up when we least expect,
knock on the door from inside a dream?
Would you correct the recipes we have misunderstood,
direct us to banquets where we feast as friends?

My attention has been torn asunder (there,
I admit it). I’ve been pushed to the edge by
playground carousels,
buried beneath the bedrock by relentless
gravity. It is time I came up for air.

Would you dig deep enough to find us,
wait until our breath returned?
Would you suspect us of heresy, try us for treason,
or despite our errancy, meet us at our unevenness?

My pages are being rewritten (there,
I wrote it). The ink is drying faster than
my slow unfolding intended. But birds still fly,
preteen hawks perch on the fenceposts looking like doves
until a closer inspection.
It is time I read outside for a while.

Would you meet us before sunrise, though
our aches precede the day? Would you
send us your poetry, ask us to dance,
answer our questions with only your smile?

Would you befriend me, or have we been
from the foundation of the world?

Call Them By Name

 

Call Them by Name

(“I assure you: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains by itself. But if it dies, it produces a large crop.” John 12:24)

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the corners that never see
the breath of morning breezes.
It is easy to say I will not reject the shadows,
I will not gasp at the unexposed stories
locked away in a steamer trunk too heavy to bear.

If you have lost the key, I will help you find it;
I will turn it gently in the lock and avert my gaze
as you tilt the lid slowly, as the light lowly beams
across the musty contents.

They are everything you have stowed away,
the hopes, the loves, the dreams, the clouds,
the kites you would launch in an opening sky.
But hidden they have become an ache of sorrow,
lead weights upon your opening soul.

Tell me what is on your mind,
let me know the dreams you have packed away.
I have stored my own shadows, wept over my unspoken
passions, and grieved the love I never gave and the love
I have lost.

I will listen, though you whisper haltingly,
though you stammer for words to, this time,
give life to the dreams that were nearly a casket below
the earth.
Tell them to me low enough and only I will hear.
Tell them to me slowly, birth never comes quickly or
easily. But I will be your doula never leaving your side
until, born anew,
the full light shines on all you thought was dead or
shame. Now they are christened: “Beloved”.

Call them by name.