The Lonely Leaks In

 

The Lonely Leaks In

(“Be careful that none of you fails to respond to the grace which God gives....” Hebrews 12:15a [J. B. Phillips])

Maybe there’s a job at home that will keep me there this time.
Maybe there’s a lover or a friend,
an upended cup of water that
was filled again.
The lonely leaks in like august heat waves through
the blinds.

I’ve been standing on your porch hoping you still live
in the same house where I once knew you.
We were kids, we were naïve, we were insanity,
we were cotton candy and backyard picnics. We were
young love and agony.
Then it got cold,
and we got old
and I moved to the north country.
But I still feel you living in my chest.
Nothing lasts forever, some of my schoolyard crushes have died.
Some timeless friends have hidden themselves,
and some live just up the road.
But the lonely leaks like a diesel engine on fire.

I had a friend so smart he could have been a
chemical engineer.
But he bought a bowling alley instead and had a hundred
friends visit him in a day.
And still the lonely leaks like the grease
from drive-in fries.

Maybe there’s a house where laughter still lives
despite the brute force of age. Maybe
there’s a museum where one friend finds another
staring at the same painting for far too long.
Maybe there’s a child not grown
that simply wants to play on the swings again.
And still the lonely leaks in like delivering
newspapers before the sun rises on the weekend.

Top Heavy

 

Top Heavy

(“So be careful. When you think you are standing firm, you might fall.” 1 Corinthians 10:12)

Be careful, you have become top heavy.
Be wise, you have become talk heavy.
Be humble, you have not moved in years.
Be kind, you have not slowed the tears
of anyone with god-talk that knows it all
and gets so much of it wrong.

(Don’t ask me, I remember what I used to know
and what I have forgotten now.)

For instance, the rain began at just the time
my apps told me I could take a walk without
getting wet. For example, I told someone I had talked
too many times and when they agreed, I sang a monophonic
tune that took up the entire side of the record.

Check it out, then, when inert gasses convince you
that nothing changes. The wind knows the way to
curl between hills and make the heavy trees sway.

Watch the smoke curl from the factory across the river.
Watch it stripe the horizon like silk candy from a pipe and
watch it next day and the day after. Some days it hugs the
ground with the atmosphere weighing it down. Some days
it flies as the breeze arises from the river and corkscrews
the skies.

All this is to say, please stop sitting in the same booth at
the same restaurant and ordering the same meal. Rebel.
And open the menu to dishes with funny names. Un-tame.

The Previous Phone Call

The Previous Phone Call

(“I pray that the Lord Jesus will be kind to you.” 1 Corinthians 16:23)

Now  the last phone call I received was well-intentioned,
but I have a view from another side of the mountain,
If I speak as I see, acknowledging the focus of the other’s scene,
everything can be disremembered and spread like stale smoke and perfume
until my observation is dissolved as completely as the last bubble
in old champagne.

If you looked at my heart carefully, microscopically, methodically,
a quarter century ago; you know before the first peek; you hear
it speak in healthy rhythm, and you would doubt any deficit of
love or
surrender,
sprint or
marathon,
though the breath may be heavy, and the mistakes plenty,
you would find only the few healed scars from crashing
friends and cars in laughter afterward.

Examine again the sautéed pathway, this
slow-cooked journey never running from self.
My fear has always been what men and friends would
do to me
if they could see
the banquet I serve myself. I smile when they
serve me all their best,
but my chief interests run counter to the daily special.

Grace is not a mask, it is the dialogue I would have with God
once every human eye had turned the other way.
It is the phone call I would have with you,
begging you to withdraw the names you gave me
and my best,
and join the dialogue we could have with God
once every human eye had learned the other way.