Fill This Vacancy

 

Fill This Vacancy

(“You have done well, and proven yourself to be my loyal and trustworthy servant.” Matthew 25:21)

Let me educate you about silence,
about the abyss that exists when the decades you
invested
amount to hardly a whisper a quarter mile up the road.

I hide myself, take no risks,
wince at squinted questions,
die of laughingstocks.

Let me fill you in if you do not know
that, beaten at my own game, I stayed in until the
final seconds ticked my fate dry. If you are asking:

Yes, I cry every day.

My time ran out, my well ran dry,
my risk was greater than my apparent reward.
My friends forgot to write, and one or two
called me in 24 months of shivering solitude.

And just down the hill today, just a 10-minute walk today,
they gathered six months after my return. Isolation
has insulated me
from unwrapping my skin again. I trace the same route
over and over,
up the road and down the valley where
bramble and tree limbs entangle the cold banks of
the brook that is background noise to the mosquito buzz
haunting the abyss in my head. I am an analog
AM radio
forever caught in the static between stations.

I hope Jesus, the one quoted above, will fill this vacancy soon
because I’ve been a tenant on this battle hill too long.
And if no one else has a word, a hug, a plaque or an
invitation to dine around campfire smoke,

I hope the words he spoke will be enough for me to hear,
that someone thinks I’ve proven myself,
that someone thinks my self-inflicted wounds are
worth the time to heal.

Or Write a Harmony

 

Or Write a Harmony

(“And we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which comes of God, in order to know the things that are given to us by God.” 1 Corinthians 2:12)

And how did your day begin? The clouds hugging the
ground and cold sweat dew on your brow?
Did it start with winds spiraling through the hills,
whistling and roaring like voices from up the canyon?

And what if the clouds escape the earth’s weak hold
and the winds cease for a moment just to listen to
the silence between low pressure and high pressure?
And what if we heard the music that exists so quietly
you can only hear it between heartbeats?

There is nothing magical about the moods of the day,
and yet there is singing that comes from everywhere (dark
or birth, howl or arrival, answer or inflections that change
with the hour.)

There was fear in the skies yesterday,
yet now the potholes are holy baths where brown finches
are hop-flitting in the sun. Any flip second
can rearrange a day.

Or write a harmony that we only can hear.

The Throne Among Us

 

The Throne Among Us

(“For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us. He shoulders responsibility and is called Wonderful Adviser, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6)

“Pass on by and don’t say a word,”
they reply when they repeat the lies of violence
and then turn with a smiley face on their sticker heart
they have pasted on their foreheads.

Why do you leave us waiting without wings?
Why do you see darkness when the light fills everything?
Why do you leave us to wonder
how you came to your conclusions?
Facts are facts, not your affection for sledgehammer delusions.

Oh, speak my Prince,
and move upon these streets of stone.

Oh, seek my friend,
the truth that will not bend to the seismic intentions
of words you attribute to angels
but smell of demonic design.

Oh, rain my Prince,
upon these barren lands where we paint our
rock gardens green because nothing ever grows.

Oh, listen friend,
to the streams that wake us,
the rain that soaks us,
the sun as it coaxes us to
open like roses in the face of love.

Let go your arrows, empty your quiver,
spend your words with liberal fascination
that the throne above is now the
throne among us
and it calls us
to speak more like
the Prince of Peace.

Why Has Your Love?

 

Why Has Your Love?

(“Learn to do good. Seek justice. Arrest oppressors. Defend orphans. Plead the case of widows.” Isaiah 1:17)

Why has your love become tethered to
abusive egos? Why has your love become grounded
after it flew so high? Why has your
love insisted
blood will be spilled when Jesus returns?
Why has your love
resisted
the tears that were once cried for you?

Why have you not dried tears that now crease the face
of the lonely one who is
living as a shadow?
Why has your love expired
like winter leaves mulched to black?
Did you disable our friendship,
did you discover it melted in the first
spring thaw?
Did you pledge allegiance to the next
despot who promised your prayers would be answered
if you only kept out the riff raff like me?

And still I know my complaint is full of
privilege and faint echoes of hoarded measures
against ruin. And still I know my fainting heart
has never beat on its own. And still the phone remains
silent.

Why is your chair empty? Why are your sleeves still
rolled down?
Why can’t you hear the silence
between each beat of my heart?
Why have you left me alone?

Coronation Day

 

Coronation Day

(“How terrible it will be for you legal experts and Pharisees! Hypocrites! You shut people out of the kingdom of heaven. You don’t enter yourselves, and you won’t allow those who want to enter to do so.” Matthew 23:13)

So, you be queen, and I’ll be your king
because we need more heroes and fewer
novitiates.
I cannot remember the last person I saw
kneeling before a peasant in the street.
But we’ll take it all back when we come to power;
we’ll storm the gates on our coronation day.
I’ve heard them say the day will not be long enough,
the forces against us are weaker than the principalities for us.
We can break a few windows, steal a few chairs,
set up our thrones at the top of  the stairs
where everyone can see our benevolence.
(Imagine the arrogance of those who only kneel
at ball games.)
So, parade with me; we will walk together past
the old frame churches to show our allegiance
to script and verses we cannot repeat but
have rehearsed for this day only. March
with banners of war, that’s what we are here
for. Doing battle against the enemy you have hated
with me all along. Slay the satan, demolish the devils,
and create more dragons in the minds than ever existed
in fables or rhymes.
You know we have the votes, you know we have the defenses,
you know we have kept out the vagrants with our fairy-tale fences,
unscalable except for the quiet mob we invited
to ignite the flames within our sacred chamber with
wood from the lecterns and ancient documents declaring
independent witnesses are so last year.
In God we trust (since 2015), no matter our obscene
rants. Chances are our subjects will love every word
from our mouths and erect us monuments and fill
their churches with songs about our anointing day.

So, you be queen, and I’ll be your king
because I cannot think of anything more
that God and Country could need.

Shoes on the Beach

 

Shoes on the Beach

(“The Captain of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, ‘Take your shoes off your feet. For the place where you are standing is holy.’ And Joshua did so.” Joshua 5:15)

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no ones hears you coming on the cold winter sand.
You can watch the waves, foamy stars; you can stand
for days before time reminds you of the friends
who once watched with you.

There are no duties on the beach
and no one makes you take up arms against enemies.
You can breathe the mist, salty wine; you can leave
the future as you memorize the driftwood at your feet.
Smooth, white, gray and light; you wonder its origin
and family tree.

No one wears shoes on the beach
and no one cares about sand or mud-caked toes. As
the world turns the sun toward down humanity thins
as the horizon is crowned. Perhaps the unknown few
will warm the chill, earthy flames; perhaps they will
let the sea touch their ankles, the fire touch their hearts
and slowly discern the holy love circulated without.

Within.

Just for Kicks

Just for Kicks

(“For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:14)

I was never a rebel just for kicks,
I was hardly an enlisted maverick.
But, by the time I had been stranded inside the bricks
and mortar of lines to cross and
coughing borders
I was forced to become larger than my story.

(Just between us, the butterflies that ravish the wildflowers
speak more eloquently to me.)

I was living like a ghost and no one saw me.
They saw the pottery I lived in and the tendency to crack.
I answered back but my arguments sounded like fallacy to
those who thought the cocoon was the condominium
we all should live and die in.

I heard you telling me to be fearless;
the judge and jury could not care less.
You have washed the gutters with your tears,
and yes, your heart has melted the listlessness away.

So I sported my fedora,
walked cautiously outdoors
and told the trees and the sky that
this was the last time I would lie
about who I am
and where I belong.

And my heart no longer kicked against the goads
that moved me to ride on donkeys or foals.
I rebuilt the house with the sun piercing every crack,
I re-spoke the words the Son of Man also spoke
and never turned back.