It Was All Unpredictable

It Was All Unpredictable

(“For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.” 2 Timothy 1:6)

Everybody needs some time because
there’s no one left to blame. Look around you,
all the suspects have been framed. All the runners
came up lame. And you and them and we will all
never be the same. We went. We came. And then I said:

I’m just the kind who won’t show up where I’m not wanted.

It was all accidental, and if it wasn’t, it was experimental.
My roost is too chilly to hatch half a plan. My time too empty
to recreate a masterpiece fully complete with classic characters
playing their music for a king. I steal words now from
songs I listen to. I haven’t written a melody in 54 weeks.

I’m just the kind that would love to sing around the campfire.

It was all unpredictable. Why do you say you thought it would
come to this? I can fill the page with printable ink only to waste it
by the end of the day. I used to have something to say; now I meander
from wall to wall while the memories swirl around the chimney when
the storms are delayed.

I’d walk in the rain if that would warm your thoughts toward me.

I swear I’ll write another song someday. But I have no one to
play them for.
I have no one to correct my cliches.
I swear I’ll sing another tune someday. But I have no one to
sing them with.
I have no one to co-write anything.

I’d sit the afternoon with you. Bring your guitar and your newest tune.

There is a steel wall between my wanting and my writing,
there is a dark gravity that keeps me from the sky.
There are memories of blue, dreams unpursued
that leave me jealous of the crows that yell at the
dogs in the yard. Everything is on standby till I
take pen in hand.

I’d write on the porch today if only I could read it aloud for you.

No One Left to Blame

 No One Left to Blame

(“Christ made us free. Stay that way. Do not get chained all over again in the Law and its kind of religious worship.” Galatians 5:1)

Now that there is no one left to blame because
they left the machine running and
took an extended vacation
I can finally tell you I never wanted to be a puppet.
The puppet-master insisted he never kept me on a short
leash. But I was not after
a leash at all.
I needed relief,
a wink that opened the world when I shivered
at the 16mm film that got caught in the gears.
The reels had turned true just an hour before.

But when the car has been running so long and
you get used to the fumes,
you learn to presume that the mistakes are all yours.
So I loaded my breath into shipping crates and
buried them beneath the patio in my back yard.
I missed too many birthdays while I shook.
I shoved craters of love into lock-boxes
while I rated my success by numbers, or money,
or morality, or memories and counted to 10.

I cut the strings long ago, but they stay like strands
of spider webs
wrapped around my arms and legs. They try to
make me perform in my dreams. Perhaps if someone
different had been
pulling the strings.

I should puzzle happier words,
I should make you smile,
but the one who told me that was
weaving tourniquets without apology.

Here I confess that control can never be possessed,
but I craved it, to make up for the mess I made while
finally performing on my own. Who knew that freedom
will not be leashed or tied? Might as well try to
lasso the clouds.

Fascinate me once again, with the baby’s cry and
the nuance of candles left flickering in tiny chapels
overnight.

Someone to Blame

Someone to Blame

(“The Lord's acts of mercy indeed do not end, for His compassions do not fail.” Lamentations 3:22)

The troubles came out of nowhere like
the rain that hides behind the mountains.
Creeping hands of clouds loomed over the crags of
unconsciousness
and suddenly
we were drenched with invisibility.
Everything we could not see gripped us
so eyes that once saw clearly beyond the
eastern day
blinked away allergies and smoke.

We thought we knew it all,
we thought we knew cause and effect,
we thought the evil get punished,
we thought the righteous were without defect.
So why did it come to our town,
our holy little amendment on the river?
Why not upstream where the pollution
started, why not underground where the less polite
were hidden?

Our backs ached, our brains burned,
our hearts stopped when the power lines went down.
Once in a while the fog lifted
only to remind us what we were missing.
Still it seemed to all of us there must be
someone to blame. Someone had misspelled
the same day over and over again.

But above and below, while we sheltered at home,
the robins still sang, the dogs still pranced,
the children still played, though everything seemed to be
left to chance.
Someone hummed walking along the river,
someone looked for frogs on the bank.
Others slowly ate their lunches on picnic
benches wet from dew and rain.

It was not deliberate, but in the renewed silence
of water upon water
(the ions of joy and photons of vision)
we learned to breathe together again.
We saw again. Fireflies
lit up the night.

Don't Blame the Women

Don’t Blame the Women

(“As Solomon got older, some of his wives led him to worship their gods. He wasn’t like his father David, who had worshiped only the Lord God.” 1 Kings 11:4b)

Don’t blame the women;
oh please do not blame the women.
Who knows their wardrobe, their worship, their went as young and
their return as some the kings of the world would trade
for lumber, gold, ships and silver.

Don’t blame the women;
oh please do not blame the women.
King know how to marry to
prevent the ugly videos of dirty faces
gathering at the border. Trade rates rise
for a long-legged concubine or two.

Don’t blame the women;
oh please do not blame the women.
Yes their worship took them to the high places where
they thought the gods dwelt (but demons dined instead.)
They were taught, they were tutored, they were cultured like
pearls, like chattel.

Don’t blame the women;
oh please do not blame the women.
Solomon bought the empire truces with chits
traded for human flesh; a palace full of international treaties
that made for uneasy peace. And the eyes of a
thousand women only wanted a taste of home.

Don’t blame the women;
oh please do not blame the women.
They were mere footnotes on the pages of
contracts aged with the backroom smoke of cigars
struck in secret.

Oh please,
do not blame the women.

I Wish I Could Blame

I Wish I Could Blame

(“My friends, God has made us these promises. So we should stay away from everything that keeps our bodies and spirits from being clean. We should honor God and try to be completely like him.” 2 Corinthians 7:1)

I would rather be battered by the Holy Spirit’s wings than
massaged into oblivion by a stranger’s strong hands. When
tight and twisted within, thoughts rebound so often they seem
multiplied, beginning with one or some and leaving me full of them.

I wish I could blame my enemies; the ones that murmured so often
behind my back they started a fire in the alley where they met to discuss
the continuing saga of their disgust of me. We all saw the smoke-signal,
the tower of gray rising west of main street above old two-story buildings;
the kind where the owner lives upstairs and sells his wares down.

I wish I could blame authorities who handcuffed me with letters signed
from the tiny minds who, after meeting, put it all to a vote, and sent it
to the Controller. They donned their pretty disguises, (helpful words,
integral wigs, and the monotone of those who hide anger and abhorrence),
and led us in their jury room, asking our intentions. “Where are you going
next?” they squeezed the words like butter. “Let us know, and we will help
you there.”

Just days later the phone rang four times in a day; one place we were going
(we made other plans); another (oops, we found a man under the table) and
3 and 4 (we’ve closed the door we said was completely open). And so,
the disguised dignitaries cut off every road we might take to rediscover
hope. I believe there exists a file with 20 or 30 letters loving us,
yet there effect was the same as spitting into a hurricane.

I wish I could blame the dishonesty, the policies, that left me hanging,
and placed me in momentary darkness in hopes I could die with
no one mourning.

And if enemies or dignitaries ever read this in its entirety, they would miss
its meaning entirely. I am black, they are white and why would the failure whine
over the actions of the godly and fine.

I wish I could blame, but Christ will not let me. I wish I could document
these headaches, started after the final blow and unending. I wish I could
make them see their policy is a deathblow and far from helpful.

I wish I could blame, but the Father calls me to healing. (He does not need
to convince me of my wrong, long, long, long moments are full and complete
of marksmanship so panicked the target is clean.)

In spite of the promises, (disguises), in spite of the offers ($10/hour),
in spite of the book with two endings (old statements in new places),
I know now the pleasure of the Father. I am gray as ash, never white,
and write to speak, and speak to scream, and scream to be heard,
and heard to be noticed, and noticed to be understood, and understood
to be human

Again.

And so, by the perfect promises never withdrawn by the Holy God,
Three-in-One, I cannot blame, but purify my name for the glory of

the Father who showered me clean before I knew it.

Soul is Face, Black is Red

Soul is Face, Black is Red

(“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9)

Sometimes the wind turns offshore and insists
on another whiff of trails I have left behind me.
Another note I played half flat, another name I forgot,
and more than that, could not remember the connection
we certainly once had.

Sometimes the circuits are crowded and
emails are never answered. I wished for days,
hoped for weeks, waited for months, now despair
over the years that my misspoken and slippery tongue
cannot be forgiven by the one who misheard my intention.
(I do not blame your hearing; it is my speak that
shorted out like a light switch with the wiring worn away.)

I have heard the words from men over the phone,
no tears, no cracks in the armor of their voice,
only the admission they couldn’t break the sickness
until they sent apologies. (Never mind my wounds
and splinter bed, or tears spread everywhere I thought
about the next blast of angry flame. I forgave,
nevertheless, though, as I’ve said, I wished you hadn’t
continued to blame me for days, weeks and months after
you called so you could recover from your cold.)

My old soul is black from its youth,
my thoughts are intractable,
my actions driven and drunk from
the impulses that only serve to break my boredom.

My face is red from effort and embarrassment,
and my feet slide upon the incline littered with
lava’s gravel; my pace is unknown.

I am open, having stolen words from poets;
I am guilty, having spoken lies to prophets;
I am filthy, having broken vows to comrades:
I am captive, having pursued praise from patrons.

I am free, completely above the inactive plains
of stone-cold lava flow. I am clean, entirely within
the passion and pains of momentary composition.

The river is sweeter than the peak I pretended to conquer,
and the pretence that nearly conquered me.