Poetry

I've destroyed everything that was good in my life.
I've broken each vow that I made.
I've disgraced my two children, my friends, and my wife
For this mindless, relentless charade.

Think of the worst person you've ever known,
And I'll wager he's better than me.
Hell is a place I would hate to call home,
And yet it's where I ought to be.

As a youth, I was favored, a virgin to sin,
A light to the wavering soul.
My thoughts were perverted and wrong now and then,
But I kept them in constant control.

In bad times, they'd soothe me and take me away
Like a Heroin dose to my brain.
I'd yield to their lure more and more everyday,
And my heart grew more selfish and vain.

Disappointment in self
Who hasn't felt it?
Chatter of internal communication
Falls silent
Image of parent past
Comes to life
Bigger than life
Immovable
...and angry.
Visceral dread
Spreads.
Tightness in throat
Shallowness of breathing
Bowing of head
Awareness narrows
Awaiting arrows
Certainly deserved...

SURPRISE!!
It's a FEELING!!

Deep breath
Expanded focus
Gaze lifts
Shoulders relax
Honest reflection sorts wheat from chaff
Chatter begins
Balance restored
Everything flows
Decisions made
Self released...

Forgiveness is such a gift.

89 years old
decrepit
sores
cantankerous

looked on by society as worthless
an outcast
a burden

and yet absolutely loved by You

in Your eyes, a mere child
a soul in need of Love
just like the rest of us

The sun seemed quite blocked
By cloud of unknowing,
In anguish I'm locked
Miles apart from God's glowing,
In sorrow I sit
Adrift and decaying,
I turn on the spit,
I'm split, God's filleting.

If tincture of time
Could evict my inversion,
I'd wait for sublime
And unblemished conversion,
But something inside,
Unsettled, is gnawing,
Where visions collide
An insistence is pawing.

Alert to the call
I rotate an ear,
From under the pall
A snippet I hear,
The tiniest clue,
No more than a tinkling,
Light as the dew,
A fairy dust sprinkling.

God in His subtle,
Mysterious way,
Had deigned a rebuttal

"Thy will be done"
A prayer
A repositioning
Suppositioning
Divine concern

"On earth"
Our dust
Ether's thickening
Gravely turned

"As it is"
As it was
As it always
Will be

"In heaven"
Our leaven
May we rise
With Thee.

The wonders of Creation
Of cremation of my sin
Of how a child like Mary
Could harbor Life within

Of how a thriving orchard
Springs from a single seed
Or maker of the universe
Could sit on Mary's knee

I hang in life upon a limb
On far flung distant tree
But track my lineage to the One
Who took the nails for me

The miracle of Life moves on
Invading, chasing void,
Creating fertile fields in hope
The dust will spring to joy.

I've fed on pods, I must confess,
Out in the field, when hunger pressed,
What's meant for swine I've feasted on,
Midst dung I dined, my gusto gone.

I took my fill of stagnant swill,
Ingested things that might have killed,
I found myself in distant land
Fresh out of luck, life out of hand.

There should have been an ending there
In blending with the empty stares
But something woke and pushed aside
The prison of my toxic pride.

When given strength to journey back
I found the fruit I sorely lacked,
The wine that's poured from royal blood,
A Father's feast, prepared in love.

You're my music in the morning
You're the joy that brings the dawn
You're the sun that warms our faces
When the winter's bearing on
Warm me 'til my lonely shivering
Heart's inspired to kneel and pray
And I look to joyful dawning
On that final brightest day.

In tumultuous times of trouble
May we still Your songs employ
To dispel the growing darkness
That would all our faith destroy
When we feel our strength receding
May we still then seek Your face
In the midst of our heart's bleeding
Send us oceans of Your grace.

You pour out Your sweet libations
Lord how great Thou truly art
Onto thirsty errant nations
Your sweet fragrance You impart
Lead us to the Living Water

The darkest times still harbor hope
And weakest wills conceal a way,
A path forgotten, choked, untried,
A torch untouched by dismal days.

From ruins rank and unredeemed
A phoenix can appear, hold sway,
Misty mournings, though amassed,
May yet relent, admit the day.

A righteous branch arose anon,
Though Judah had been captive, slaved,
Our Babylon has prison doors
Whose locks release when God invades.

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch,
a King who will reign wisely
and do what is just and right in the land.
In his days Judah will be saved
and Israel will live in safety.
This is the name by which he will be called: