Go Easy on Me

Go Easy on Me

(“May the Lord direct your hearts to God’s love and Christ’s endurance.” 2 Thessalonians 3:5)

I wish I could replace these words in my head;
every unbidden thought,
every unbolted shelf where memories hang by a thread.
Don’t believe everything you hear;
there are better days,
go easy on me.

In the most unconscious of ways my
soul has been shattered like a
deflated skeleton. I am dust among the stars now.

In the most mysterious of ways the
rain has smeared the ink
on my paper trail. But the directions to find me
are plain for those who seek them.

I could find you in your loneliness if only
you would search for me in my blindness.
On my most private days,
in my most inhibited hour
I still look for your form coming up the road.

I am scattered, I am whole;
I am tattered, I am just a stroll away
from words that ring with truth and love.

If only our words did not matter, if only
we were sponges heavy with water. If only you
could hear every shaky verb;
if only you knew I heard every accented note of
the song you’ve hidden in your heart.

Patience, infinity. Information, passivity.
Exhaustion, and a little rest.
Exhalation, and untested, our song will land
like a dove upon its nest.

Your Private Disaster

Your Private Disaster

(“He won’t brush aside the bruised and broken. He will be gentle with the weak and feeble, until his victory releases justice.” Matthew 12:20 [TPT])

No one saw your private disaster,
no one understood your tragedy.
So no one came to your rescue,
no one searched the sharpened canyons.

You wore your game face well,
you protected your personal hell by
slack-jaw prayer requests and
avoiding the inquests that were meant
to rein you in. But you never liked the
corrals, did you? Especially when

You could see

The open range before you.

You carried the flash floods inside you,
you erased the lines from your face just before
the grinding days deepened the furrows in your forehead.
If people looked at the layers the angry river left
they could count your history, your sandstone red
and the gray clay that marked your day.

In time they might find the candle you left burning,
the wick slowly dying in the window where you watched
doves dancing with robins looking on. The only way
they might knock on your door, these wash and wear
investigators of supernatural strength,
would be to know you were sanitized head to soul,
and showed fewer callouses and sores than you did before.

You could see

They empty road before you.

And though none came to the door, your candle
stayed lit despite the hordes who stayed away.

One light ignites another light,
one soul restores another soul,
one long and lonely day with
only a phone call to break up the hours.

But the voice, the lift from a minor key,
fills the stone silence with enough music
to, perhaps, end the day with a dance.

Something Private

 

Something Private

(“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” John 7:38)

I want to write something so private that no one will know
it is me;
then I could write effortlessly and
my hope might rise
that you have discovered honey and
bread in me.

I have been untethered, distant from home,
unconnected to earth or sky,
rain or sea,
and the clouds pass far too quickly
for me.

I have no more meetings to attend,
no schedules to keep,
only the blue light from river to my eye,
and trees gone silent because the heat
choked their upraised feathers now
drooping like midafternoon on a workday.

Still there is something satin within
like an azure banner in the wind.
I wish to be transported to sit at
the kitchen table
with departed friends or standing
at the bar
missing half the conversation because
the dj loves funk and plays it loud.

You would not hear me complain.
His hands spin the discs while
his head bounces like David Byrne.
We all are surrounded, we are sympathetic
strings
on a human music machine. We are
streams
where glances are more private
than whispers. We are teeming with life,
top to bottom. There is always water
in the middle of the ocean.

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.