I Would Wear Paisley

I Would Wear Paisley

(“I will tend My flock and let them lie down.” Ezekiel 34:15a)

I have always like paisley,
beginning my teens in the 60s and
ending them in the 70s.
I could always rest for minutes on the
vinyl couch the color of early evening
forest green.

I am weary, not just today,
but annually.
I failed you, you failed me.
You fooled me, I was a fool.
I fooled them, other stood silent, the
words stolen from their mouths.
I still understand what I stained, decades of
carrying a burden and a mask.

There was energy in the backstage conversations,
the lead-up to the construction of
stories we only had begun to understand. We held
hands, sometimes kissed,
were always shy,
and never caught the caution that age and weariness
would bring.

Did I mention I am fatigued, did I rehearse the weight
I carried but could not name? I have declared my guilt,
I have fastened my shame to every bit of interest I have paid
trudging through wounds that shoved me like gravity
into late night drives that let the ghosts breathe for a while.

I always thought they would leave. Tears were my exorcism,
while I left the specifics open to interpretation.

Every time I speak now,
every time I wish for those eyes that saw through my disguise,
I feel the weight all over again. I deserve nothing more than
 days on end befriended by silence that breeds only more
weeping at my unreliable resolve.

I would lie down, I would find the sweat rolling from my back
on the old couch on a summer day. I would open the book
and let you read every word anonymously.

I would go to the party and now, so lately,
I would wear paisley.

We Did Not Wear Armor Well

We Did Not Wear Armor Well

(“Go in peace. We have taken an oath in the Lord’s name to be friends forever.” 1 Samuel 20:42b)

There were bottles of cabernet, a well-used kitchen table,
a couch shared with dogs and teenagers and talk that could
extend for hours.
We shared the wine those times when the days were thicker than
mud and we resigned ourselves to well-worn company protected
by in-house
understanding that the world could not enter in.
And so we would begin, whether from shame or fear,
to share what we hid most often outside those weary walls.
Occasionally we socialized (Sunday’s of course, after all,
I was a pastor). But we were clear from the beginning:
Friendship was why we were together.
But at a banquet, a wedding reception, bingo, or groups
of more than a dozen,
we were always the first to leave. We loved every person attending,
but social anxiety had the last word far too often for us both.
They said we were well-liked; we did not believe it.

Neither one of was very brave, though we shared our opinions readily;
God knows, we both had a trove of accumulated knowledge that we
could dispense at will. We did not wear armor well, sometimes
the sunlight was all that sent us
seeking each other’s company when our personal
darkness stole the day from us.

We lived only a block apart, but now hundreds of miles away,
the same friendship carried me for months, but awkwardly.
We once sparred gently with our wine at the table,
but now, unable to see your face, to hear the laugh in your voice,
I fear, still without armor, I let a priceless gift gather dust on the shelf.

With so many miles and years between us now,
with the place the path has led me now,
with former friends who ignore me now,
(in their cases, they could not understand my shift)
I still long for a place, a person, to sift through the
unwinding of life. When I have failed, I have feared
all the more.
But, though far in time and space, the door between us, sweet friend,
is open. My best friend here,
a retired Lutheran minister, now as liberal as I am,
would complete an amicable trinity.

A Day to Play the Blues

 A Day to Play the Blues

(“And so my harp is tuned to the key of mourning, and my flute is pitched to the sound of weeping.” Job 30:31)

It’s a day to wear a long black coat that covers you full and low,
from your knees to your feet. It’s a day to pretend to walk the dog
and leave home with just the leash.
It’s a day to hide your tears from the many who would never understand.
The sun has little to do with it, high and bright,
or
hidden and cloud. Wanting to see a friend take to new heights,
but they tremble, glued to the ground. And the sounds of music
they hear, the soothing chords,
are merely morse code for liberation.
It's a day to shake like exhaustion, to feel the cold you hoped had
finally melted in your soul.
It's a day to hide your pain, you’ve carried it too long anyway.
(Or so friends and experts say.)
Wanting to share coffee with a friend, but they demure,
certain and unsure like the first flickers from wet logs in
a campfire.
It's a day where sitting silent would be good, if there was someone
to sit with.
It’s a day where sitting alone feels more like abandoned.
The sky has not answered back and neither have the distress signals
flared toward the sun early in the day.
It's a day to play the blues, but you need two. No,
you do.
It’s a day when the ghosts of those who have walked away
refuse to leave your heart, your shoulders, your brain, your tears,
every muscle fiber, and you would be rid of them if the replacement was not expensive.
If it would help to spend it on yourself, you would gladly shop all afternoon.
But this is a day to walk incognito in the world and hope that someone
recognizes you tomorrow.

You Wear Stripes and I’ll Wear Checks

 You Wear Stripes and I’ll Wear Checks

(“Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion. Sing aloud, Daughter Jerusalem. Look, your king will come to you. He is righteous and victorious. He is humble and riding on an ass, on a colt, the offspring of a donkey.” Zechariah 9:9)

You wear stripes and I’ll wear checks,
we’ll dance until the world thinks we are the whirling milkshakes
from the midway at the state fair.
We’ll walk past the sunset, we’ll take our hands out of our pockets,
we’ll walk without a word to say, we’ll take the same midday meals we
took yesterday.

We’ll lay down the memories, etch them into the sidewalk,
we’ll lay down the memories so plain, we will never forget
the dancing that brought rain, the songs no one explained,
and the hours we spent unafraid of the next day or the day after
That.

Tomorrow we might step up to the sky,
tomorrow we might climb the stair, see if we can fly.
Let us look like fools in a world that, adoring war,
celebrates medals and ribbons, bombs and acquisitions;
let us loop behind the firepower with wild poppies from the fields.
Let us lead the parade on
the day after tomorrow
where gardens and festivals meet on sunny Sundays
midafternoon.

Have you seen us lately? Have you felt the breeze?
Have you heard us lately? Have you felt the thawing
of ice bricks; have you felt the mighty withdrawing
from their thrones?

Sing, though the words are indecipherable. Dance, though
the patterns and colors do not mix. Feast, though your pockets
are empty. Drink, though you have forgotten why.

You wear stripes and I’ll wear checks,
we’ll walk down the midway from entrance to exit,
wearing palm branches for sandals and the flowers we
planted where muskets once were manufactured.

I Wear Them Like a Chain

I Wear Them Like a Chain

“([God], look away from him and leave him alone, so he can enjoy his time, like a hired worker.” Job 14:6)

Sometimes you are heavier than glaciers,
and I breathe the moraines left inside me by
the previous ice age. Look away from me until my
heart warms slowly like spring wildflowers along the highway.

You are too present for me, though all I feel are electrical charges
in my brain
sustained from the first second a decade ago until this moment
weeping over the work I’ve forsaken,
the relationships I could not keep,
the mastery over my life that was just a servant to
the chemicals in my brain. Please ease the distance between
us.

I cannot work when you have confined me to unwieldy thoughts
and pain so accurate it stabs me on the spot I’ve made famous
by hiding my fontanels from birth until late autumn. But any
soft spot will do to expose me as a pretender, a joker,
a clown, an actor, a jester, and a swimmer nearly drowned by
exhaustion. Step away just a bit, please, and give me room to think.

Quite prosaically let me say, my anxiety is sky high today.
Every thought is judged, and I have no defense.
Every hypocrisy is seen, and I cannot restart the dance.
Every mutation is obvious, and I cannot modify my genes.
Every tear is tedious, and I cannot explain why my hands quiver,
my thoughts spit from every pore in my head, and I rarely look
anyone in the eye. My life is measured in decades now,
and the charges against
me have piled up for so long I wear them like a chain, and I know
everyone hears me coming.

So, please stay away today, I need some space. Wanting to please you
just brings more disgrace into the veins you created to carry oxygen
to my veins.

So please, I would rather say, (please, do not stay away.)