Poets Prayer

Can I pray to you in poetry?
Do you hear the prayers of Art?
Can you hear the anguished cry
Of my pen scratching in the dark?
Can I sense you gently nodding?
Is that your healing touch?
O Lord, are these anguished scratchings
That I offer you enough?

Idle Tears

Is there any healing in these tears?
Or just emptiness and despair?
Is there a way out of the quagmire?
Or just leading deeper into fear

Behold the greif of your son

All senses inhale
that which speaks of loss
Exhale grief, son
Soul notes float up
Drifting from the deep
Melancholy tears from fingers
Flooding the keys
Perfume hangs low, near the unvaccumed
carpet
You speak to me of death, soul
You speak of love
You speak the language of bitter tears
Exiting unbidden
So bittersweet,
The taste of soul blood
Minor notes falling from trees
Gently sighing
Sad with love and longing
Bone dry
Father, behold,
Behold the grief of your son
Be not deaf to the souls
unseen weeping, Father
Behold the grief of your son

Broken Worship (March 98)

I walk the streets
Confused as to what I should be doing
I look around at all the people
Pushing and smiling
Towards their sense of purpose
While on the inside
I stand on the edge of brokeness and tears
wanting to cry in the gutter
And break my vase of nard over your feet
But in the peoples eyes
I sense the need to put my fingers in the cracks
And force a broad grin
Convincing my reflection
That I know what kind of man I am

Fragments (13/11/1997)

I communicate in fragments
Between drowning gulps of pain
Calling frantically between the waves
Desperate to hear my name
I stay focused on the tightrope
Being careful not to fall
And occasionally, I throw a hurting glance
In the window of someones soul
Im searching for approval
For an a ssurance that, "your ok"
And in that brief and searching moment
I see they are hurting just the same
i communicate in fragments
Stabbing pain through wounded walls
With a rusty nail, I chip away
To connect with other souls
I communicate in fragments
Though not sometimes as it seems
When i catch the gleam in eyes of joy
That are free to share their dreams
I communicate in fragments
With the eternal lovers gaze
Following in the dark, the sparkling trail
Of fragments of His Grace

Thirst

Love is the hardest patience

Too often tugged by deserts yearning

I stumble over myself

with the desire to care

Crude, school boy fumblings

That bruise, instead of healing

Real love is not perturbed by

A lack of connection with its beloved

Love is prepared to wait

Alone, in the dark if necessary

For the right course to take

Real love is wize

But not I.

I cast about furtively

like an addict, not really loving

Anyone, but only hurting

in the attempt to quench my thirst
My desert yearning

Truer words were never spoken;

Real love is not self seeking

It sounds trite, cliched, anachronistic,

To say, "God is Love"

But imagine if you will

Ponder in your heart the true nature of love

and you will find peace

All the furtive desert fumblings will cease

Ghost in the Machine

We reject truth without evidence
As hot iron blasphemies applied to
The neural highways of our enlightened minds
While the pathetic and uninformed continue to pray
We worship our cortex idols
And the sea remains unknown and intimate
To idiot souls who know
That we create our own destinies
Not as masters, but as subjects

Faith of a Dog

I seek your face, your loving gaze
The touch that can make me free
With grubby hands and mout h I call,
"Have mercy, have mercy on me!"

You can see what I've been eating
Its no use, I cant clean up my act
My hands are grubby, and the
corners of my mouth are stained
With the evidence of who I am

But even dogs eat the crumbs from
Their masters table, dont they?
Dogs are not ashamed of need
With grubby hands and mouth, I call
"Have mercy, have mercy on me!"

The Kings Troubles

The king became sick
The prophet said,
"you are surely about to die, O King!"
The king turned his face to the wall
And wept like a child
Later the King said,
"it seems it was good for me to go
through all these troubles.
You never let me tumble over the edge into nothing."

Each heart gropes in the shadows
Along the path to loves union
Made soft by the beatings it recieves
In the search for love
The battered heart is prepared for home

Everything on the hearts journey must be stripped away
What was a gift
Became addiction
What was devotion
Became idolatry
What was once a humble ear
Became a lie
And all the Kings troubles led him home

Surface Touching

Our eyes only met for a moment
As the kingdom of this world rushed by
she was lying in a doorway
Vacant
Staring
Unseen by passing eyes
Beneath her barricades
Her Faded plastic bags
full of relics
salvaged
from lifes war
Beneath her Icons
venerated
against the cold assault
Of city neon
On her soul

I ventured a weak smile
Powerless
Shy
Ancient wisdom welled
In my imagination like vapour
It is we that pass by who are lacking
Lost in our cold aversions
We that are driven
To find peace in consuming
The temporal ghosts
Of our empty yearning

The Apricot Tree

My heart is the roots of an Apricot tree
People like me when the fruit
is right and the leaves are green
But when the days grow short,
the nights long and cold
And the moons white silence
rides high above earths mourning souls
My limbs can appear sickly and grotesque
To people wandering past my fence
Chilled by the rooftops barren glow
White eyes
Now awake to darkness close
to keep at bay some nameless thing
That the fingers of the moon arouse within
My heart is the roots of an apricot tree
People think I'm dead when
they see no fruit and the leaves arent green
But alone in silence, buried deep
In loves mysterious darkness my heart still beats

The Restless Heart

Home is where the heart is
Thats what people say
Does this imply
That anywhere a heart may find itself
Is a good place to remain?

Hearts are restless creatures though
Chasing this and that
Leaving rooms empty, cupboards bare
and boxes unpacked

the belongings of the moving heart
Are labelled no fixed address
Although a permanent home is what they seek
they take up any room for rent

A true home for the heart
Exists, its true, we know
For without origins of rest
For the soul and the heart
Why would so many roam?

Road to Recovery

Sometimes home
Seems a long way off
Like a glinting on the far horizon
fooling me into travelling on
i put one foot in front of the other
On the road to recovery
Past houses with many rooms
That resemble the mansions
Ive been searching for
Their emptiness seems pregnant
With the promise of life
Maybe I am welcome there?
But peering in their unwashed windows
I can see that their pallid walls
And musty rooms
Are just unoccupied shells
Of other places I have been
Empty scenes
Waiting to be filled with the wounds
and noise of broken lives
Visible
But to most unseen
Their 'for rent' signs
Crudely stapled to the front fence
Are not inviting me into my Fathers house
Only advertising a place to rent
Somewhere to put my baggage down at a price
So, I continue walking, enquiring
Looking for my rightful home
A patch of blue sky
Is revealed by parting clouds
Filling me with hope

unknown author

copied this down from a Lewis Smedes book a few years ago. Dont know who the author is..

Within my earthly temple theres a crowd;
Theres one thats humble, one thats proud
Theres one thats broken hearted fro his sins
And one that unrepentant, sits and grins
Theres one that loves his neighbor as himself
And one that cares for naught but fame and self
From such perplexity and care I would be free
if I could once determine which is me

A Tolerated Pet

It followed you through life
Like a mangy dog
Down an empty street
Head lowered
Ribs exposed
Hip bone protruding
Through mottled coat
Like a blunt instrument
Following at a safe distance
Sniffing the air
For a whiff of hope

GIDOUDAVITT!

It drops behind a corner
Scampers away behind some bin
Tail between sinewy legs
And cowers a while longer
Circling itself in fear
While you turn and stride away
When you turn
You see hungry eyes
Head begin to lift
It wont stop following
So, you think
He might as well become to you
Like a kind of friend
Like a tolerated pet.

Tears, Idle Tears.

I knew there was a reason I collected stuff and left it sitting in a folder on the bookshelf for months and months..

So i could be refreshed by it later.

I found this last night among my collected papers, by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

TEARS, IDLE TEARS

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more

Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from ther underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more

Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
the earliest pipe of half awakened birds
to dying ears, when unto dying eyes
the casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O death in Life, the days that are no more!

The broken hearted

The bitter edge of life
is succulent with beauty
and the saltiness of tears
That rim the cracked earth
of our inner deserts
Broken hearts can be fertile ground
Teeth on edge
Eyes slitted
We regard things witha cool eye
The broken hearted

You cried some more..

You spent your life in tears
Looking out windows
Watching the clouds roll
The rain fall
Your room was dimly lit
Half in shadow
Chains
Chairs, they were silent
Socks and pajamas
Were your only comfort

You wondered if there was any future
if there was any hope at all
As you looked over the fence
Into the neighbors yard
And the clouds loomed and rolled above

Through a blur of tears
You thought you heard a voice
Comforting you in your mind
And for a moment, stillness and peace reigned
In your heart
And you cried some more
You cried some more

Easter

Mustard coloured heart shapes
Sing brightly against skys looming face
that puffs and rolls down as if from holy mountain
Sagging under thunderous skys belly
Hearts bend under the weight of clouds and
the weight of deaths cold descent

Heaven's darkness makes everything look so bright
As it bears down upon the earth turned black
Pressing dead hearts and bones into earth and rock
To rest among each other in damp and silent graves
Pregnant with diamonds
Becoming nothing, becoming faith

The way to Gods Heart

Ive been looking for the way to Gods heart for so many years
In so many nooks,
Rocks and holes and far flung landscapes
Listened to instructions, admonitions, sermon illustrations
Read thousands of sentences, searched thousands of eyes and faces
that promised so much, but were merely fellow pilgrims on the way.
We are all looking for the way to Gods heart.
Bhuddists, Muslims, Hindus.
Christians think they are so damn smart!
Meditators, procrastinators, activists, professors, garbage collectors, agitators.
All looking for the way to Gods heart
Artists, musicians, story tellers, movie makers
Even those of us that descend the stairs of the human cellar
Blind in our dank and furtive groping
From arts highest beauty to sins slop and mud
We search for the way to Gods heart
Why hide such perfect art?
Ah.. Gods heart! Gods heart!
Where for thou art?
We look at the Christ and paint him high on walls and ceilings
Volumes of articulated thought create spiritual vapour trails across history
While Gods heart calls, whispers in the birds and trees.
And when Jesus prayed to his Father, thanking him for "Ordinary people"
And spoke tenderly, inviting the ordinary and the young
To recover from the damage done in all our desperate searching for the way to Gods heart,
We heard and sighed, and staightened up, just a little.
We saw no hard edge in his eyes.
"Take a real rest.."He said,
"Get away with me and find Gods heart."