Christian Poetry -230

The Old Burying Ground

Gravestones on Golden Hill glow in the ashen mist.
Colonial governors, gray-haired elders,
rest in opalescent light near grandchildren swept away by smallpox.

Ghosts creep
in the spring silence
as thick fog drifts up from the harbor.

Headstones, footstones: sentinels
lean this way and that on hallowed ground
guarding graves amid violets and wild thyme.

All here gazed upon The Angel of Death
staring blankly from stones
since 1693, 1696, 1697.

Spirits hover in the murky air,
vaporous shades of Governors under the Royal Charter,
wives, children, and one unknown soul

whose stone whispers a spectral warning
in the stillness:

"Kind traveler
make here a stop
and thy own end consider
Consider thou art born to dye
and cannot live for ever
and for eternall happiness
in health thy selfe prepare
for here lyes one that was cut down of strength
Death would not spare"

Christian Poetry -229

Forsake Me Not When All My Strength is Spent
                       (Psalm 71)

Forsake me not when all my strength is spent
My heart is heavy, and my head hangs low;
Deliver me from foes within my tent
And those who mock me everywhere I go.
O, be to me a rock of refuge, strong—
A fortress to which I may always run;
And keep me safe from those who’d do me wrong
For they are many and I’m only one.
And when I reach old age, cast not me off.
Remember then the passion of my youth;
When others cast their stones and start to scoff
Release my tongue so I may speak the Truth.
O Lord, your works are great; of this I sing,
As you increase and comfort me again.

Christian Poetry -228

Never Alone

Spooned and nestled, spirits embrace.
Warmth melts gentleness with calm,
while stars burst their radiance.
Comforted by God's tenderness,
emotions are filled…never alone.

Starve not this day, nor night.
Draped with desire, spirits dance a glee;
while beads of rapture entangle thee.
Comforted by God's kindness,
emotions are stirred…never alone.

May bliss engulf your heart,
while rapture tenders vibrate flow.
Shadowed in moist, joined as one,
each is comforted by God's Awe.
Emotions are fed…never alone.

Christian Poetry -227

The Passion Play

Easter rises from the plain of days
like Binns Crest from its skirt of cows.
Here are the low hills that have stared
into our windows like a mad uncle
since the first thing we remember.
Here is our perfectible little town,
our historic Main Street, our Founder's Elm
saved from blight at great expense.
Here is Kiwanis Park with its green benches,
its white wedding cake gazebo.
This is the make-shift stage
sweet with sawn wood.
This is the Passion Play.

The bleachers are full, not merely with our own,
but with folks from Lisbon and across the river,
in the lot a license plate from Indiana.
Same story always, but the players change.
Now behind the rope-and-blanket curtain,
high school track coach Lord Christ
ties his blond hair back with Nazarene simplicity.
The Queen of Heaven folds her apron for a day,
counting not the lost tips, but bearing witness
by breast-curve, by leap of thighs
to God among the bleachers.
Magdalene's children gawk from the shade
of the Cola sign, their mother changed before them,
her cloud hair floating on the wind.

I wondered what I'd be this year.
Not fierce Christ in these merchant's bones,
surely, nor the man-storm Peter,
not Herod, Caiphas, the villains
whose dedication astonishes even the saints.
Not Judas, sympathetic in the modern way,
by mad Israel tormented,
by the dawdling Incarnation
driven to desperate acts.      
As I child I was the last, mute angel.
I hoped at best for the Centurion Who Believed,
the sleepy guard pillowed on Christ's coat,
Nicodemus who is troubled at night
and goes dangerously to see the Master,
who thinks God might raise a prophet if He please,
even from the midden of Galilee.

But they said, You, John.
The beginning was that word.
After a few rehearsals in my dusty robe,
a few splinters through my sandals
I became Christ's beloved,
who in the paintings leans in closest.
It was glory walking with him.
Pharisees bent to their books, rebuked.
Rich men snipped the bangles from their clothes.
I danced a little in my walk
to walk so with a god who loved me.

Then there was nothing but raw crossed wood,
a wrecked man willing me a mother,
all crushed and weeping worse than in the script.
Our voices skittered down the grass
like flushed birds, tinny, husky, gone.
The crowd behind me holds its breath.
I want to turn to them
from this intolerable tableau
and say children.

My story comes after this.
John, Apostle, Saint John Gospel-Maker,
Eagle of the Most High, John of the Apocalypse
weeps here on a wooden plank, my Lord
bleeding between two sticks,
the Holy City yet unseen,
floating bright Jerusalem mothering her beasts
and angels in the Lamb's white fleece forever,
flame, a gulf of fire, a city on Binns Crest
templed with the sun and moon.

Three minutes on the stage means three days.
East of us, a light.
This is poor John at the empty tomb.
I know what is coming.
I grip my beard in my two hands and laugh.
I must run to tell the others.

Christian Poetry -126

Denying Demise

Aged crone,
She walks along the highway
          mile after mile.
She says 'for her figure',
Yet I have seen
          the smile…

Vacant-brained, staring,
Manic in its width;
That "keeping spirit busy"
          To ward off
                    the hands
                              of death.

Christian Poetry -225

Mr. Domingo's Garden

Between garage and fence
the garden wakes and waits
for Mr.Domingo's attention.

He fawns in her seasons,
adores her harvest and fallow.
She responds greening for love.

Leaves shiver as he nears,
sprout to fruit reaching
to kiss the old man's hands,

soothe the arrogant arthritis
and the thin fiery bone
that digs and seeds and tends.

Tomatoes swoon off stems
falling heavy in his palm,
peas grow attentive on string,

cukes hide for him to seek
in prickly vines tangled
where fat beets jump

purple from the earth
in the morning damp rows.
I hear him recite Italian,

sing opera as he weeds
or waters the evening bed
chanting his daily prayer

bent beside the fence,
then tip his raggedy hat
to a mockingbird's aria.

Christian Poetry -224

St. Michael's Bells

I sleep in frail sheets
of noiseless white
glazing a flaked pattern
on the windows,

their perimeters of moon
light a flurry of shadows
on the bed. I wake hourly
for St. Michael's bells
tolling the depth of snow

then cozy down in feathers
warm pillowed with one
ear welcoming the lull
of chained tires crunching
through the growing drifts.

Muffled cars and drivers
plow paths down Hope Street
dreaming of sleighs and horses
beneath the blanketed bells
telling me He watches.

Christian Poetry -223

Afternoon Angel

In the delirium of an afternoon
nap an angel dug a blue tunnel
through my dreaming pillow,
whispered into my asleep ear,
"this is not a dream, although
when you wake, you'll remember it as one,
just as when you're asleep,
you remember waking as a dream.
Both states confound."

Then she asked,
"may I take your dream?"
I forgot what I was dreaming,
and tried to say, go ahead,
but was lock-jawed sleeping.

She flew me to the Sistine Chapel.
"Great painting," she mused,
flying around the busy blue.

"This is a kind of reality,
a dream, in a dream, in a dream.
God's word written, read,
then mulled by an artist
inheritor of genetic dreams,
from his parents, their parents,
and so on, manifested through genius,
work and diligence into an image
real, and a dream in your dreaming head,
along with me, a reality
you'll remember when you wake.

I wanted to appear to you,
let you know, everything you imagined
as a kid in your sand box
is the truth of it all. So don't be
afraid, nothing can destroy you."

Then I heard the heavenly bells
loudly ringing and ringing,
waking me for vespers.

Christian Poetry -222

Satiated Sorrow

In the morning the kitchen fills with the
bang and clatter of pans
oven hot, bursting with possibilities
in the background a marriage
bone-stripped marrow of disillusionment
her hands find solace in dough
kneading out her pain
to the rhythm of rising yeast
cookies fertile drops of blood
carefully spaced on the baking sheet
the birthing sheet
the sheets in the bedroom
sterile with tears
baked to the temperature
of her sighs
lust is also kneaded out in dough
batter tender with unfulfilled desires
fill the kitchen with rich poignant smells
the only sweet savor she encounters

The afternoon escorts in the tasting time
escape to the bedroom
to slip into
cherished dresses
that only get their airing now
her waistline once thin
enough to fit the curve
of her husband’s arm
attests to her new first love
tarts and cookies,
breads and puddings
that now caress her from inside

Christian Poetry -221

Bearing My Cross

I huddle within this threadbare faith
warm empty hands on a stone-cold heaven
shrink from the possibility
of You being real
and I such a pitiful witness

I long for the warmer, softer garment
of one newly born to faith
enraptured by the celebration
and ceremony of Your church
feasting on the reality
of Your Presence

my life's losses leave me
foraging for crumbs of You
among the starving,
mangled borders
of my dreams

I strain to pray
my tongue grows numb
with grief
I seek to embrace You
my fists are frozen
in anger

I turn away
cast the smoldering
cinders of supplication
towards heaven
oh, this beggared flame
yearns to be rekindled

Christian Poetry -220

Reunion Haiku

i)
relatives, fruit, beer
spoil in the afternoon sun
why did I attend?

ii)
like old worn-out skin
I shed my family ties
best friends take their place

Christian Poetry -219

A Song for Isaac

"Come child," he said, "I must not leave you here.
The hard ground and the frost will cause you harm.
This coat is large enough for us to share
and you can lean for comfort on my arm."
And so I stumbled at his side
and gazed into his eyes and cried
though curious and cold.

"My Father, when the servants fell behind
you bid them wait—what mischief will they plan
and we return but shortly—shall we find
them drunken, dozing by the caravan?"
He shook a tear from out his eye
some grit maybe that swept the sky
and caught him unawares.

He felt each step ahead, for he was old,
and paused at intervals to twitch the skin,
shifting the bulk against the constant cold
and drew me near to keep the warming in.
And so we took a silent walk
distracted from the usual talk
of realms and rumoured wars.

"My Son, Almighty God, in my old age
after so many years of silent wait:
the same that bid me into pilgrimage,
has called again—and now I hesitate."
His words were stopped, a plaintive note
of anguish gathered in his throat
as though his heart would break.

"What say you Son, shall I resist the Lord
who blessed me late—his venture touches both
but only one returns—his present word
beats like a vehement whirlwind on my faith."
It seemed a weak and slight reply:
"My fathe—must I fall and die
on this deserted slope?"

"A Son, the Lord has said—his one demand!
Look here is wood, go gather all in sight
then I must bind you—see this senseless hand
abhors the knife that shall remove my light:
and yet I know—through sacrifice
the dead shall live—by what device
or means I cannot tell."

And often since, when shrouded by these rocks
against the first foot of the winter's cold,
piping a shepherd summons to the flocks
to lead them down the mountain to the fold:
I hear the cry of Abraham,
"Our God will yet provide a lamb!"
that echoed in my ears.

Or prone and thoughtful on a summer's day:
lulled by the drowsy tinkling of the herd
and my Rebecca singing far away:
I find my heart distracted by the word
that God—our God—spoke out the flame
who swore by his own head and name
that blessing he would bless!

Christian Poetry -218

A Shortcut to Happiness

Walking to the pier head,
Where the dirty pontoons
Grated on their moorings
And the river flowed fast and furiously,
enough to kill the unwary.

He thought of Uncle Charlie.

        Charlie, told them all each year,
        (With the help of drambuie)
        powerful memories of him and Gladys
        dancing their way across the river
        On the "Daffodil"* with, sisters, brothers, soldiers
        In the swirl of VE Day celebrations,
        Under a night of brilliant rockets,
        Gallant promises,
        To the blasting horns of troop ships
        Linked up for miles.

        When he was a boy, his mother said
        You could cut the atmosphere at Charlie's:
        Neither gave an inch, one stubborn
        Charlie storming at the least thing out of place
        Slamming doors and grumbling.

        Gladys killed her own affection
        Until they took her to the home in Crosby
        Then she cried a little.

By the Alantic convoy memorial
He leant upon the balustrade
Letting the iron chains give to his body:
Gazing at the plastic bottles on the tide
Bobbing in suspension—always changing direction.

Where had it all gone wrong,
Why should a man and woman
Strike each other into shards?

He would choose wisely if he chose at all.

  * Mersey Ferryboat

Christian Poetry -217

Anniversary Poem from Westmoreland*

Suppose the tale of our years were told:
how first we motored through the dusk and damp,
those headlight bends that blazed with fleeting gold,
the mad three pointed turn and there was Heaves*
untended by the welcome of a lamp.
And with our cases braved the new night cold
skirting the banks and drifts of autumn leaves -
nervous you squeezed my hand - how warm to hold.
December was that month, and still it lends
remembrance of a quiet company,
where in God’s presence and before our friends,
declaring loudly what we were to be:
how love and time would settle constancy
as fair beginning leads to richer ends!

    * Honeymoon Hotel near Kendal English Lake District.

Christian Poetry -216

Easter Setting

The main event—the show to end all doubt
a few look in, the business isn't brisk:
two thousand years and still that man's about,
but health and safety experts judge the risk
to be remote, and then the jury's out;
so Easter has become to you and me
a cold commercial opportunity.

You take your pick, the package is the same
its all wrapped up and no one's taking sides,
eternal destiny seems pretty lame
before the rush of pure white knuckle rides,
it doesn't do to shift or shoulder blame:
that sort of myth died out before the war,
no certainties! of that you can be sure.

I beg to differ but we don't collide
you pass me thus, I pass the other way
to talk of sin is bound to coincide
with urgent somethings happening today
attendances that cannot be denied
and so I gaze at you and you at me
and yours the earth but mine the mystery.

Some influence—an understated hush
held the unholy in a stranglehold
but now we fight each other in the crush
to clear the shelves before Good Friday's old
and Easter Holidays are one big rush
to flee the Isles, shake off our rusty home
with Easy Jet to Malaga or Rome

The Englishman has laid aside his lease
Gone on a long vacation long ago!
With tacit blessing of sedate police—
in some republic where the clocks run slow,
(and no one's got the stomach for caprice)
expatriates still smooth the linen spread
divide the hot cross buns and butter bread.

Christian Poetry -215

After Office Evening
(and passing beneath the tower of Big Ben)

A bar stool circle empties glass by glass,
the loud debate subsides,
and who was right or introduced the element of farce;

one said "religion lets a demon loose"
another "it must take perverse delight
to utilise what shouldn't be of use!"

How black bewitching is the Thames tonight!
            at Hungerford,
a deep dull note rings clear—
—above the grumble of another train
            that pale face,
                       the hands,
                                 the stroke you fear
                       strikes!
As the windows steam and streak with rain
the carriage jolts and groans from Charing Cross
scraping the points,
             jarring to the ear,
and can a God transcend this wilderness?

Christian Poetry -214

Heaven's Olympics

God somersaults into our bewildered hearts,
Swims us smoothly through pools of perdition,
Vaults us effortlessly over poles of deceit.
Breathless, we sail through clean, blue sky--
He thaws the cold ice of denial,
Spins with us in triple axels of joy.
Souls spraying fountains of glittering diamonds,
We leap onto the highest platform;
Angels loop gold stars over and around us,
Laugh with delight, sing the celestial anthem.

Christian Poetry -213

Fallow Time

The cold earth, clothed by a scanty sun,
holds firm to blackened stems.
Barren, thorny branches stretch across fences,
and the inhospitable earth
clutches crucifixion-forms.
No visible, welcoming host awaits seed or plant.

Dried rivulets of cracked earth
attest to the past summer’s drought.
Nourished too little, bereft too long,
life has withered.
Compost and fertilizer, tilling and watering,
nothing brings forth resurrection.

Eyes behold winter’s blight that has stalked
blossom and sprout and eradicated each
with frozen scorn.
No heartening surge promises change.
Endless conformity exists in nothingness.
Dulled by weariness, depleted of energy,
eyes search but doubt.

The earth hides and knows.
Worms and microbes smaller than mites
move within the entombed earth.
They aerate and bind, transform and nurture.
Memory quickens.
Unseen signals transmit.

dwindling belief
communion with stilled summons
the search for answers

Christian Poetry -212

Entrance Hymn

In the hesitation between two chords
an unexpected door to the measure
breaks open
admitting a resurrection of light
a brilliant ray
on the sanctuary floor,
major, minor and augmented,
three twirling gypsies
with red scarves
Father, Son and Holy Spirit
orphans
prostrate at my feet
pleading adoration

Stunned by the revelation
i fall full face and kiss them
talk to the One
who opened an invisible door
admitting infinite light
love Him
while the music plays

Christian Poetry -211

To the One Who Prays for Me
(for Linda W.)

Who would bear me
on a litter of prayers
should your knees falter
or your folded hands fail?

If my bed should splinter
what stranger would sweep up
my shattered cause
gather my frame
and wave a cross
to draw the eye of God?
I could not walk to the altar
climb to the fire
or crawl to the throne,
but your certain petitions
bore me on clouds.
Your intercessions
raked the road.
Your supplications
anointed my journey.

On my lips your name is Blessing.

Christian Poetry -210

Into Thin Air

And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. Luke 24:51

When He vanished
this is how it happened,
a thinning of the atmosphere
above and around Him,
a siphoning wind from the sky
lifting Him away.

We eleven, so attentive,
hung on His every word
as He had hung on ours.

We were ready.
Yet the suddenness
surprised our faith.
We wanted to be forewarned
and see it all again.
We would be prepared
next time.

Christian Poetry -209

Taking It Home

God steers His Volvo to the center line
He’s on the road back to the Garden of Eden
The wheels are humming, the pedal aches
His head is roaring with memories
summer vacations, forbidden fruit
He’s got the windows down
the breeze playing hell with his beard
and the radio howls
Wonder where the lions are
God knows
nostalgia is a tree of knowledge
He’s running up glad miles on this bucket of rust
but there’s pain groaning the blues
doubled over in a sack on the back seat
He’s got to drop it back where He found it
Summer ain’t no time for the blues
God knows He’s set his hopes
high on Enchanted Forests, Fairy Castles
and the Lover’s Leap
He’s going to drop these blues at the gate.

Christian Poetry -208

My Father’s Hands

My father’s hands were thick as boards,
twisted and knotted pine.
His sturdy fingers, ancient forests,
fissured, gnarled and lined.
Those lunch pail hands were lumbermen,
toiling in preference to play,
with fingers like hardened solid oak
felling the strain of each day.

I never wished for my father’s hands,
with their primitive shape and display.
Instead, I fancied a pianist’s octave—
musician’s fingers—to play.
Soft fingers smooth as ivory
to draw the face of a bride,
hands that eschewed hard labor,
warm hands that stayed inside.

But it seems as I play longer,
and my father’s hands have passed,
my music grows more woodwind—
it’s my father’s strain at last.
The fingers that greet me this morning,
as I play in a minor key,
are thick as planks of spruce
with splinters plain to see.

Yes, my hands have betrayed my desires
to reprise a beloved score,
a gift life's symphony brought me—
the hands that my father wore.

Christian Poetry -207

Read My Words

Read my words, and be in communion with me:
My words are my bread and my flesh—eat of me,
My words are my wine and my blood—drink a draft of me.

Take a Eucharist of me; a holy sacrament of me;
Be at one with me and anoint me with frankincense and myrrh;
Make my soul brimful of your light to guide me.

And I will take a Eucharist of you; breaking your bread,
Drinking your wine; your flesh and your blood,
Lighting the way for your soul, with my light.

And we will be one together; two in one saved by each other,
You, by reading me—understanding me, being comforted by me,
Me, my words being read by you, sanctified and saved by you.

Christian Poetry -206

The Discipline of Silence

I didn't mind the silence. After all
The years of shame that scorched me dry and dumb
His speechless season seemed a penance small
For doubting what an angel said would come.

No vision came to me, no angel voice.
I didn't mind; silence, after all,
To my appeals had long been heaven's choice.
A desert does not wait for rain to fall.

But now he sought my bed, and would recall
Night after night the fire of long-gone years.
I didn't mind the silence after; all
Night long I drenched my infant hope with tears

Till rounding belly told how in me grew
The Voice out in the Desert, sent to call
"Prepare!" Then, brimming wonder, I withdrew,
And didn't mind the silence, after all.

Christian Poetry -205

Self Portrait

My winter sisters preen their smooth white gowns
but I am February
I don't fuss
just pull on
the same old
sweatshirt grey

They tried to trim me with a Valentine
it doesn‚t suit
this drab face
I keep my
own heart hid

I do not offer festivals or flowers
plain sturdy food
will serve

My gift is being
brief

But underneath
my frozen bark the new sap creeps
and days behind the laden clouds grow long.

Christian Poetry -204

The Lichen

On the wind-raked mountain
only those things grow
that nature has made low.

Proud-crowned heads of forests—
hemlock, spruce and pine—
cede at timberline;

but lichen, creeping upward,
find the summit-stone
and drape it like a throne.

Christian Poetry -203

Flea-market Saturday

Flea-market goods clamor entreating
potential owners like pound dogs
waiting on death row desperately
praying for nervous salvation

Tables serve out trinkets and junque
their failed luster sinks below the
horizon of nameless weary workers
grasping a nether world of mercy

Crowds flow through gilded diversions
some rapidly some near rest still they
flow worshipful at the veterans‚ half
bows from the waist with a healing

touch Currency fuels the marketplace
promoting detainee doves up temple
steps homeward neatly tucked under the
arms of proud owners‚ braggart faces

Commerce usual as it should be until
market doors resonate shuttering and
fleas leap hiding inside the gorge of
a ware's severed tentacle transaction

and mobs rush over the spillways of the
toppled running towards confusion
and anger the worst of all angers arrives
A community of misplaced faith gone

as Jesus razes the marketplace

Christian Poetry -202

Upon the Mount

Sweet music softly flows from lute and lyre;
from bodhram beats the ever-ancient past,
and notes are still the same within the fire
of truth—Your words engrained in us still last.

The day is different, yet it's still the same;
upon the mount, Your open arms and hands
still beckon us with truth that shall remain
within us...by Your grace—we understand.

Upon this mount, I listen while you speak—
Your sermon, instrumental in my life.
As others on the mount, I too shall seek
Your way, as though an ever-playing fife.

Upon this mount, my love to You, I give—
Oh You, who conquered death so I could live...

Christian Poetry -201

A Child in the Garden

Small hands reach up as if to touch the sky;
she twirls, engulfed within the garden flowers.
God-given hues have held her eyes for hours;
pretending, she becomes a butterfly.

New buds will blossom here to glorify
the Lord, who watches from grand Heavens' bower,
and manna will be sent—sunshine and showers,
a plan both she and flowers will espy.

Small hands reach high where hollyhocks were sown;
she twirls, and painted flowers become swirled.
The seeds of youth are all that she has known—
small buds as though her life will come unfurled,
as soon, all faithful flowers become grown;
God loves the little children of the world.

Christian Poetry -200

Autumn Dirge

A shiver of wind
calls death orange and red
rustle on
     rustle on
lie below white.

Yes, you were alive
but splendor is stolen
fallen
     raked
         beaten
by one so unworthy.

Oh grave of the ground
why did you beckon
to shiny green leaves
torn from the trunk?

And winter begins
away from the sun.

Christian Poetry -199

God

She is autistic,
and she is five—
full of curiosity
about the shape of
others' bodies
or whether Jesus
lives in the graveyard
(she calls it heaven)
we just passed.

On Father's Day,
her father told her
that God is her daddy, too:
it's like she has two fathers.

She thought about it;
one night during
a sleepy mumbling of
the 23rd Psalm
she asked me:
Is God my mother, too?

Christian Poetry -198

out of love

we cry when we feel lonely

– God cries with us when we
feel we are alone

we love, but love to judge more

– God loves, and only judges
us out of love

we find ourselves truest in enmity

– God’s magnanimity is our
greatest fear

Christian Poetry -197

Yahweh

those metaphors
hung in the mist
I am the way, the truth, the life
heavy with impenetrable darkness

in the swirling chaos of love lost
he burned a poem
spoken like the sea
the tears wept
in Martha and Mary's grief
the breath that pulled
Lazarus back from death
to eat the funeral feast
the bread
on the table
the body
that tasted
the wood, the nails that bound
the vine
crushed into the cup
the wine
bloody sweat
of a shepherd
over lost sheep
the gate
opened by the prodigal's father's reach
the sweet perfume poured
on the wounds from the road
the body
bent over the basin
the water
to wash feet, to give drink
the gold offering at the inn
to hold a beaten man's place
so the debt passes over
into the impenetrable garden
the way and the light
shining through the hole in his hand

Christian Poetry -196

A Garden Story

A Garden Story

Christ crawls across the grit
in flesh as dry as paper
bleached of words
after forty days of wind
the lush baptism wobbles in illusion
thirst scrapes away the waning blood
as hunger tears at his body for bread
the first communion

the morning star
seethes heat and doubt
asks the son of God
if he is the son of God
when she and he in the garden of plum and wine
seized the first bite to be god-like
adn drove the only thorn into the crown
to be god-like
this weary son of man
pursued bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh
out to the scorching sand
where the leper and the lame
plead with their need
ask the son of God
if he is the son of God
to make the rough places smooth
like the streams that once flowed
through the once garden

again
the allegations coil around the divine
the pale ribs and black tongue
the accuser asks
the son of God
if he is the son of God
to take a taste of bread

choked by the simplest need, he
cries the words of garden poetry
on God man does not live alone
even in deserts of stone.

Christian Poetry -195

A Country of No Brides

Genesis remembers
the rape of Jacob's daughter
the man who defiled Dinah
only daughter, only sister
brothers Simeon and Levi
took up swords
slaughtered Shechem and a city of men
   carried Dinah home.

small newspapers record the rapes
daughters, sisters, wives
the Soldiers, sons of mothers,
grab girls still full of song and rhyme
violate their sacred shape
throw the bloodied women away
infected with disease
wounded with pregnancy
   until they cannot walk home.

where men revolt like monsters
instead of husbands and fathers
there is a country of no brides
Fear a woman's chore
as daily as carrying water
the dark mirror of the pail
reflects the blood from her nose
the blood round her ears
her body
strapped to a tree
torn and torn, as if she wasn't made
   of flesh and memory.

Simeon and Levi
a country of women weep
broken sobs in abandoned beauty
   your sisters cannot walk home.

Christian Poetry -194

Hannah

If you will only look upon your servant's misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to

the Lord for all the days of his life. 1 Samuel 1:11

Hannah's hunger is a child
barren sorrows at the table
while a fed sister hordes scraps
taunts Hannah raw.

Hannah curses prayer
pounds and beats til fists
bleed bitterness, scab faith
her sadness careens in drunk words,

You
carved my mud hollow
woke incense music in my blood
why chant echoes, no pilgrim psalms
my cup falls in flats.
Abort these sorrows, my God
know me.

Hannah's wager stands
the haggled bargain
begged of the Lord:
her empty shrine
for the life of a prophet.

Where her prayers collide
with sovereignty
El-Shaddai
speaks his name, and
breaks the mud seal
on Hannah's son.

Christian Poetry -193

John the Baptist

The parables help
but these unnecessary miracles
a walk on water?
Isn't belief toil enough
without the burden
of extemporaneous theatrics.
The night after his burial
we remembered in darkness
our Prophet, the sign of water,
his baptisms put current into sand
and drowned our jerky lives
back to flesh.

We do not want to remain
unchanged.
In the undertow of doubt
was John's baptism wide enough
to withstand the belly of a whale?

The down by the river message
sounds dry in prison walls
the pressure of faith lifts
like Anteaus, the question
we all stumble to ask
Are you the one?
We wait for an answer
that will not answer the wait.
The tongue that never tasted
lusts of the flesh, cut out
his severed brains on a platter
to serve the lusts of the flesh
until all that is left to us
is the burden of his headless body
carried like a pointed finger
full of our accusations of hope.

What is the good news
when the preacher's head
becomes a platter?
Tonight, baptism crushes us
no prophet pulls us up,
we toil for air.
Perhaps a miracle…
a walk on the waves
is the necessary hand
under our head.

Christian Poetry -192

Desert Communion

In the headlights' glare I spot it,
a little pale altar
of bone and brush
beneath a highway marker
sixteen miles out of Nogales.
Here is the body and the blood
deconstructed,
remembered flesh and
white jaws that slack
into sleep.

I do not stop.

But in the rearview
I see through the red glow of tail lights
that a desert poppy
has pushed up between
the ragged ribs,
and I know this
unexpected resurrection
is His way
of speaking to me:

Rejoice,
Daughter of Eve,
in little miracles—
for you, too, began with a rib.

Christian Poetry -191

To Mary Magdalen,
with thanks

savior of pretty girls
       slammed into doors
       bloodied by steel-toed
       boots,

       tripping in heels
       through the night

       retching
       memory
       into drains

       hiding
       to scrub filth
       from split lips,

       certain still, their souls
       are unbroken,

       (these are the fortunate)

safe from pills
stashed in pockets

they've heard the truth—

love covers a multitude of sins

       and there's been plenty
       of lovin'

no sense to kill yourself
when you may be redeemed

by tears,
letting down your hair
is easy,

the hardest thing,
to believe there's deliverance

at the feet of a man

Christian Poetry -190

House of Refuge

Then the Lord said to Moses: "Speak to the Israelites and say to them: When you cross the Jordan into Canaan, select some towns to be

your cities of refuge, to which a person who has killed someone accidentally may flee. They will be places of refuge from the avenger, so

that a person accused of murder may not die before he stands trial before the assembly." Numbers 35:9-12

There were six of them then.
But wouldn't it be helpful now
to have just one,
or something, at least,
on a smaller scale?
A modest place,
a yurt, perhaps,
or modern menstrual hut,
where a woman could be
and not have to apologize for it,
a place to run to
when an accident,
spinning around like a demonized
roulette wheel,
picks her number,
an encompassing shelter
when the innocent mistake
becomes a bear with a club in his hand,
the forgotten detail
an ice chute to hell,
a safe site from the prefect
of perfection,
the avenger
of glaring goofs,
a domain of forgiveness,
a simple house of refuge.

Christian Poetry -189

Spider on the Porch

I saw her build it.
Then she sat in the middle
like a pea in a pod,
a child in a sandbox.
She waited,
turning her glistening body
this way, that way,
enticing beyond all reason.
And when they came,
she let herself down easy.
Devoured the poor chumps.
For weeks they flew her way,
attracted by the yellow light
on which she built her house.
Some figured it out,
but too late.
Chains from her body wrapped their
attention around each one.

Her lawn was littered with dead
carcasses, half-eaten hulks.
It was business as usual for her.
One day, with an old New Yorker,
I relieved her from dull duty
and inborn ingratitude.
But don't think I didn't sympathize.
I spend a lot of time, myself,
waiting for the right one
to come along.

Christian Poetry -188

The Evils of Junk
   for D. Montgomery

On a lost corner in L.A., you kissed me.
Maybe it was the cinnamon candy in your
mouth—or the fact of your gender.
It was sweet, like horse.

That summer, while the wind scattered
the trash on Venice beach,
I drove you, by Fiat, from
trick to john, connection to dealer,
a journey too similar to Dante’s,
no matter how we tried to avoid the heat.

Hours of wangling in telephone booths,
waiting in alleys, fighting with pushers,
brought at last, a deflated balloon.
The balloon begat the needle,
the spoon, and the dark red blood.
Wholly, wholly, wholly.

You would slump down on the floor
in the bathroom
as if settling down in Eden,
the lines of your face easing,
dreams pouring from your eyes.
You would talk to me then,
a nodding, noodling, interminable
monologue on life, death, and
the evils of junk.

But I was fixed.
The rush of your attention
shot through me,
actual words spread peace
through my veins.
It was nirvana in the bathroom,
the details of our life plucked off
one by one until, finally,
nothing was left.

Christian Poetry -187

Museum of Miracles

Behold the mystery, look, but do not touch

Miracles locked, preserved in glass cases
on display to muse, astonish faces
Behold to your right, four thousand are fed,
to your left, Lazarus raised from the dead

Come closer, is that a question I see?
No, this power is not for you or me
Flash your cameras, marvel at the sign,
this one reads: Water transformed into wine

Behold the mystery, look, but do not touch

Religion guards and circles through the night
recording miracles by width and height
Excavate etymology in Greek—
categorize, philosophize, critique

Behold the mystery, look, but do not touch

Gather children, hold them close to your side
cup your palms to mask their curious eyes.
Here is a provoking anomaly:
Peter trusts Jesus to walk on the sea

But from the boxed crowd laced with composure
a boy ducks the velvet-roped enclosure
His innocence paints a smudge on the glass
diverting some stares from the captive class

He whispers a sound, touching heaven's ear
tilting the tourist guide's smile to austere—
whipping through air like ribbons in the wind—
shattering glass from beginning to end

Plucking a splinter from the pile of glass
the guard stands baffled how it came to pass
The laws of physics can never explain
a whisper grinding glass down to a grain—

Behold the mystery, there's power in The Name.

Christian Poetry -186

Shrink the Dark

Wispy breath of cotton braided to hold the flame
of life wreathed tightly in this bottled wax of days,
sovereignly woven together by the Hand of the same.
Each wick hand-picked with suspense to burgeon into spark-

Ignited by one charge, to slowly shrink the dark.

Sweet ambrosial balm gently dripping healing
from each drop filling wounded pores of hollow hearts,
freely spilling from the brim when kneeling,
monogrammed with the seal of love's lone mark-

Ignited by one charge, to slowly shrink the dark.

Darkness searches with spindly sword seeking to unravel
and wet the wick before it's lit, quenching cries that crackle,
before the tear of liquid wax can burnish into flame,
melting voices ear not heard forge under heaven's name-

Ignited by one charge, to slowly shrink the dark.

Though the wax begins to wane, its wick flicks a brighter blaze
of halo light charring the haughty hem of night's train,
dragging through the muddy dredge of moral haze
flaking embers whirring, blurring night and days-

Until the breath from heaven's gate
blows open from our lips of praise,
And with our humble hands we raise-

Ignited by one charge, to slowly lift the light…

Christian Poetry -185

Midnight Stanza

She leans close to me—
whispers teasing words
in my ear
before she turns to place one foot
on the metal stair—
the porter close behind
silhouette in a train window
red mouth open in passionate message
pressed up close
enough to read soft meaning
in the moving of her lips
One finger spells out a beginning
then an epitaph
on the fogged
glass of a chill morning—
symbols that breathe patterns
in ecstatic swirls and melting silence—
composes a love letter I strain
in vain to read in the haze
of my racing heart
Lines blur as the train
moves down the tracks
The poem gathers speed and disappears
around a bend
leaves me on the platform
of my bed at 3 a.m.—
in my hand a dog-eared schedule

I search for something to write

Christian Poetry -184

A Home to Die In

"This is a home where people go to die."
Isobel

When I'm drawn out of my shell
soon to lie in satin, rise
like smoke, like a song,
what difference
where I wait,
peaceful beneath blankets
smoothed with gentled hands,
warm as sun-bleached sands,
or heavy with grief, while waves
of voices break, screech,
flap about my damp island,
plastic trays untouched
A disparity…
the ship's hull run aground
on cruel rocks,
battered, sinking
beneath waves of indifference, but…
I want to be the old fishing boat,
pulled high out of reach of the storm,
placed for the viewing
of this world, cut adrift
A slow settling
A composting down into rest
In soft sheets
of moonlight, high waters nudge
this beached coracle, receive
it on the hush of an outgoing tide,
Gently,
go gently
with soft voices falling
like distant surf in curl
of deaf ears, hearing

While I wait to leave you,
please,
take me home
to die