The beginnings of a song...

Nation from a worm
planned outside of time.
Will you wrestle again tonight
to find
some satisfaction to steal
from the Most High?


-the bard

black shoes.

his mother is lying in a coffin
_____________________twenty

________________________steps

___________________________away
and we are all
standing by the floral arrangements
talking about
saturday
morning
cartoons

another day,
I am walking to the corner store
and am halted by a
funeral procession
black cars crawling by
and I’m just going to buy
milk.

I'm staring at all our
black shoes
standing by the floral arrangements
talking about
saturday
morning
cartoons
his mother lying in a coffin

_________________twenty

______________________steps

__________________________away

Grey

Grey like the snow, post-December
(cigarette palace and a cardboard crown)
grey like his eyes when it rains.

walk a little faster

Grey like the gum on the sidewalk
and the tops of your over-priced shoes
grey like willful ignorance.

hurry along

Grey like the weight of two dollars
and eighty-five cents in your pocket
Grey like the state of your heart.

avert your eyes

Grey like preventable hunger
and cold, naked backs in the wind
grey like the goats on His left.

the divorce on the second day

Once upon a time
the clouds were married to the earth.
and

a great distance separated them,
taking the full length of the second day.

So
clouds and earth
are actually halves
of each other.

Once upon a time
in desperation and determination,
the generousity of the clouds
swelled to such heaviness
that when provoked by peripheral temperatures,
its heart will burst

and hope

that the ground will receive
his ancient love.
sent in white envelopes new and fresh
holding loyal and fierce love
of the sky and the soil.

i wrote this in my distraction from studying at OC while looking out the window. yes (Erin), this is another poem written from nature (chuckle chuckle). it's pretty straight forward though..
and yes, i know that in the second day, the sky and the SEA were separated, but i wasn't looking at any body of water when i thought of this poem, so we'll dismiss that fact :)

first pulses

I
ContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxing
then there is beginning.

engineering the invisible blueprint
laid out by all of You, and
given.
wired in everything, wired in each one

ContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxing
Fold on the flesh
ContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxing
Dust the bone
ContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxing
Entwine the ganglion
ContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxingContractingRelaxing
Trace the features
ContractingRelaxing

concealing revealing
my x-ray thinned so bright
that fatal one--yes, [εks] marks the spot
HERE, ready for death.

II
flicker flicker fleck.
trying to breathe,
i'm trying to see.
the illumination for the filament is not yet given
i'm just deadweight on
this metal line
contracting? relaxing? contracting .. relaxing ..

and PING: You come--
the bulb head breaking,
the inert gas leaking.
i'm disrupted
-more
flesh and bone and nerves demolishing

this mess You made is me
and this reparation You suggest
hurts me
Because my filament has never been lit
and i've never breathed outside the bag

But
flicker will finally GLOW
and this electricity cuts the circuit,
breaks off the tungsten.

In the beginning, the world was made with electricity
buzzing and burning and crackling and singing.

continuation of thought from 'Too Close?'

A response

This poem will be deep;
Sky deep and Ocean high
with meaning.
And
Nothing to hide means
everything to hide.

But.

You are mistaken in logic.
I have no idea how you feel.

-the bard 10/12/05

Intentionally Unintentional

You said, "I am intentional."
Intentionally unintentional,
intentionally shielding your eyes
from the words you swear you can see.

You said, "I won't play that game."
Playing that game of not playing that game
intentionally not playing that game
of unintentionally playing that game
of not playing that game unintentionally
not intentionally unintentionally
speaking all those words
that became so tangible to see.

You said, "I won't be vague and I'll say it like it is."
You were always so clear to me.

Too Close?

Too Close?

I'm serious this time.
Its not as if you will listen,
Flying white flags over your hearts
in that
opposite way;
squashing hope like generations before.
Fire in the heart,
Fire in the soul,
Fire all around, and out of control;
But why?
Why do we associate fire with the
Uncontrollable?
Spirit of fire, in perfect control,
Bind together such hearts
who's thoughts are the reciprocal
of their proximity.

-the bard 08/12/05

Guest Starring Eddy the Crab!

"guest posting Dennis"

Eddy was a hermit crab
He never came out of his shell
Eddy, he was shellfish
You know him very well
His peers just down the sandy beach
Found him to be crabby
Was it just his stone-washed genes
That made him so unhappy?


throw your thoughts at this one folks!

drop

"drop"

yes, I am trying to hurt you.
yes, I am an atom bomb.

I think that I might shatter
into infinite shards of stained glass
church windows
to press against your neck and
make you remember.

yes, I remember the words you said;
I heard of "love" in there somewhere,

never meant to
sever
your arteries with my tongue

but,
sometimes you need to

bleed.

On "Drop:"

I honestly have no idea where this came from. Your guess is as good as mine. Some of the lines are are just phrases that I had stuck in my head. The last section (never...) was an incomplete poem I wrote last year...that I guess is now "complete."

The inspiration was a pastor that I used to sit under. He took advantage of the congregation and twisted the word of God. I don't want to get into the details (forgiven and cast to the bottom of the sea, the bible says) but I guess this was just welling up in my heart for a while.

Death II

When you are choosing Christ and the cross, you are choosing death." -Vivek Mukhopadhyoy

we no longer live, but rise and soar to unchartered heights with Christ!

like the river lolling over the mouths of grass,
i am drinking this in. And
how the colours sting my eyes with ineffable sweetness,
i perceive for the first time--i see the Lord, and He is beautiful!--with loose scales by my feet and praises on my lips

Be! He says, and i have become.
Follow Me! He gestures, and i leave my perishable self for an unusual exchange:
Life. LIVE! -and i do, breathing once and breathing again
for once, my lungs do not ache, for once, my hands are not stained, for once, my body is not bound.

Be! He says, and i have become
free.

i've been thinking about how to write about the resurrected life we have in Christ for some time. the last time i was at DPS, someone wrote a poem written about death, (sorry i don't remember the name of the author!) and a comment made about Hook's "death is the only adventure" quote gave me some ideas. this poem is titled "Death II" b/c the first one is my spin on our talk about strange niceness and life around death and funerals (maybe i'll put that on another time) but i also like Noah's idea about writing poetry with intentional progression. so after i wrote the first Death, i decided to write my second one about death to ourselves through Jesus. and last Sunday, an Indian missionary spoke at Ferndale and mentionned something very profound about death to ourselves when we choose Christ (hence the starting quote), and that was the final catalyst for this poem. (long story--kudos for readers who are still with me)

i didnt' want to make Death II sound like a sermon, but i really wanted to write about the freedom that Christ gives, and decided to put it in first person to show that (b/c i think freedom is best described from the experience of the freed).
i think something is missing from my poem thoughi think i've said all i've meant to say in the stanzas, and i'm trying to try poems that are not as lengthy, but it seems incomplete.. what do you guys think?

Check Mate

Ok fine.
I'll play.
Since you asked so politely.
Just don't expect me to let you win.
And you can stay
poker straight with your
royal blue flush
while I blush
redblackredblackred
(it's all part of the strategy,
you know)
to king you in front of your
checkerboard friends.
And I'll let you move first
since you're white afterall
'cause they tell me that chess is a
gentlemen's game