March 26, 2009

My tongue aggrandizes
academically, that is to say
I don't love You. I say
I do, I'm covenanted to
what I've said. You know
that promise is deliverance,
for in times lacking touch
I've lusted for our violence,
a toothless tearing of flesh;
a rationalism You'd hate and I would regret.

Perhaps in refusing our separation,
I've instead divorced my heart
from my head.

A creed to come back to,
a serpent bronzed, a representation
of inauguration; something solid to
repent into. A cup that is deep enough
to hold blood for my contrition
to dissolve in, a body that is strong
to be lifted up, once for my sin,
and then once again.

What tragic beauty, arabian jujube
pressed in scarlet curls,
perspiration falling on the neck of
Your heaving back, eyes falling to
the dust of the ground.
You felt as I do now. A separation
what ran through You and what You said.
But unity was stronger, still is,
than that which splinters our skin.

March 5, 2009

Job 19

i purposefully trashed
my basement today,
bagged up my needless things
to take to those in need.
In the midst of my ascetic
task of worship, alone
with the sapless taste of
half-used cans of brick-toned paint;
in the simplicity of making less,
i uncovered a blank canvas.
Stored recklessly on basement floors because
times of organization induce belief,
i can envision shape and color
and reproduce without practice or technique.
In one of these harmonized manic states,
my grandmother gifted me a 1 by 3 foot
quadrilateral of opportunity. i covered it
with suitcases, boxes of clothes, baby
accessories, dictionaries, and all
the candles we'll sometimes need.
i have found it is difficult to decide
what to create in permanency.

Advent: Day Five

Prophets, you who bare words
to their loveliest curves and lines,
bring honeyed apples in bent cursive
to quivering lips. For hearts burn out

for want of flame. Sometimes you should
stand in the flat blacktopped corner
of the local church parking lot, become a
garden of Eden in violets and golds,

a silent stream of created beauty,
rushing courageous over all boxed ears,
and you should just be. Pencil lead
on tablets leaves the arguments of ultimate

pointedness inside the practical glass.
But if you wrap up your hands, and you
forever stay a sight, if you are not a place
for the tired bees to alight and more than not

find renewal of life, then the moving world
will toss you aside. All tulip tipped and unfortunate,
gorgeous and useless, one purpose without point,
misunderstood now kindle unintended god's lights.

Day 2: Evening

1 Timothy 2

"I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God..."

Between the broken doors leading to the spacious home
and the city blacktop beckoning to the sensuous beyond,
i began to build.

Piles of Tennessee Bluestone, thrown on sandy assurances
of quantity and smiles of the choicest quality, half modestly
you accept banter and praise.

Saturdays frame anticipation, raise the expectations.
Dirty nails, spreading sand, dumping wheelbarrows of braided grass,
i am meditative, you are beauty.

True, singularly i saw you, focused you as the centerpiece because of
that rippled ridge of orange and rust tinting your edge like an
exposed photo, bent corners crinkled.

Unique and deep you drew me, but when you were secured and entrenched
i unearthed a new attraction: your strength that held my maze stable,
a confidence in your surety.

Where i perceive shifting silt and lack, i can lead forth and stand,
your value an immutable foundation. Not always dazzling jewels but a foothold
from where i proceed.

Day 36: Random

My feet unclothed,
grassy path uncut
but warm under dusk,
and well walked and worn.
Fresh wooden steps
propped up against
the ever eroding shore.
Guide my wide-eyed son,
support facing the waves,
digging his wondering toes
in shallow pools of wet sand.
Mother-in-law reads pop fiction
with her pen in hand.
Inspired by trite, we
witness the grand
so lightly.
Thunderheads over Erie trimmed
in battling blues and grays,
they chase away clouds over silos
crowned in oranges and sun.
The storm leaves behind stars
over Madison, exploding across the dark,
brilliant as celebrated rockets
springing over Beijing.
i stretch out beneath
this full and unreachable sky,
and wonder why i wonder why.