It’s Easy to Dream

It’s Easy to Dream

It’s easy to dream once your eyelids close;
it’s harder to dream what you want like a set
of your favorite clothes.
I tried to direct the choir, now I just play the piano.
I tried to feel the fire that had burned in my heart
all afternoon.
I hoped to live within the ropes that tied me to you.
I remember how ICE dressed like masked gang members
to confiscate some human’s feet from the concrete.
I’ve seen the gulag where they keep them like
cattle waiting slaughter. I’ve heard the mumbles
about the bible, I’ve seen their inchoate references
to excuse their handgun executed arrests.

I threw my hands up hoping you would see that
I cannot excuse or stomach the worship that parades
itself like confetti on the front rows of avenues.
There are no demons to attack, there is not warfare
to extinguish,
there is only love, love only love, left for us from the
One who forgave every notion of adversity from the pain
that would have driven sanity from the best of us.

I saw your attitude inside the congressional halls, the
room of the people. I saw your faux prayers that you prayed
to push through the bill that removes hope from millions. I’ve
heard your prayers on the corner in direct defiance of Jesus’
direction to pray alone in our own room.

I threw my hopes down the tunnel created by hidden boys
thinking they could hide inside the dark trees and foliage.
I dreamed the American flag was removed, finally and for all,
from every church’s stage. I dreamed we learned that empire
is the enemy of following the Lamb.

It's easy to dream when you sleep so late. It’s lately
uneasy, but I’ll keep speaking and trust the words will
end up carving a new way in my mind overnight.

Before Fitful Sleep

Before Fitful Sleep

(“Even the one who has strength of heart like the heart of a lion will be afraid.” 2 Samuel 17:10a)

It was the last thing I thought before fitful sleep,
the last wheelbarrow that kept cycling from load to load,
and my breathing followed the pace, my heart left little space
for calmer dreams to prevail. I knew I was certain to fail;
all I thought had been accomplished over ten or fifteen years
was upended as the gunfire encroached from every direction.

I liked my pillows flat as tortillas once,
for years in fact, since I was a kid I slid my hand beneath
the cold pillowcase and listened to the pulse thumping in my head.
But now I need them fluffy. I cannot pinpoint the date or the year,
but I think it started when I discovered thin pillows were
fragile defenses against the armaments of recycling thoughts.

Long thoughts with no side streets, no turn-offs to a quieter avenue;
wrong thoughts with no return or redemption, a sorry state for weary mind;
strong thoughts with no silencers, so loud I’m sure my eyelids twitched morse code;
thoughts that did not belong to my quieter wishes. Rarely, sparely a
plainsong of space between breaths left enough calm
that I could sleep without feeling the hypocrite.

I’m older than the fitful nights, and stay up later because
once slumber greets waking I’m met with shaking pain that
has nailed my head dead-ended so I stumble before getting out
of bed.

None know my pain (oh, I must remind myself, and any reader,
I am no whiner, no self-repeater), my face sometimes shows the pain,
but mostly it has grown back to its original dimensions; a thin smile and
eyes slightly bowed. I admit my feet have slipped from the pedal,
and my life and my work coast hazily, and my life and my work
appear to lazily pull to a stop along the shoulder. And my life
and my work
have suffered from so many miles without attention
and a cracked head that has lost all compression.

And so you know, a bit narrow, or more obtuse,
the harrowing tale of a lion-heart that hid well
the dreams of night and the schemes of day;
and who hates excuses, and sings the blues by heart.

But my final stanza, (for the safety of my readers)
still glorifies the Lion who roars in Love-and-Truth,
and will, in fortune’s reversal, soon remove the thorn
that has beset my soul, while the small circle of friends
is found unbroken.