poetry

When Poetry and Exhaustion Collide

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A tired frame I see looking back at me as I study the reflected image of the back of my eyelids.

Too tired to dream, still I find myself lost, far removed from the realm of reality.

Can I curl up for one hour before life demands my waking?

Is it too much to ask for the contour of my bed to swallow whole the form of my body for a brief respite from the day’s demands?

Is there a pillow handy to catch my falling head?

Can I slow time slightly in order to sit still long enough to doze?

I think I need a nap…

 

I couldn’t resist sharing this poem I wrote yesterday while sitting in car rider line picking up my daughter. It was so overdramatic and pitiful that I laughed hysterically at myself. I thought perhaps you might get a kick out of it too. 🙂

Anchor

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Restless waves stirred by force beyond control crashing beneath the weary ones who ache to stand unhindered

Wind to drive the salty air, stinging the eyes, carrying voices to the bellowing deep.

The sea in full fury, bobbing up and down like Jack springing from his metal box with a suddenness and force so unexpected that screams escape unwillingly as if breath were suggested and impulse merely second nature.

Too weighty we are to reach the harbor

Too tossed by circumstance to avoid the rock and crag of the waiting shore.

Forerunner, save us. Go before us and bring our anchor. Set it firm until we can draw near. Behind the veil, you are waiting. Presence of divine hope embodied in your peace.

The waves will pass but you remain. Draw us safely near you. We’ll wait right here.

“This hope we have as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast and which enters the Presence behind the veil where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus having become the high priest forever” Hebrews 6:19-20

Music

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Fingers slide upon the strings as if to bring them life.

Melody to float in air

Rhythm expanding like smoke in flame, covering, filling the lungs, breathed deep

Passion ignited as spirit and soul unite to bring purpose, meaning, substace…wings to the things that move us.

Who we are and who we’re meant to be collide if only for a moment

Clarity of mind, strength, focus grasped for an instant like the light that explodes just before the bulb bursts

Just enough to sustain us till we breathe again

Enough to make us hungry for more.

Fallen

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The Beauty of the Murky Mire

At what point do we cease to stand?

When the lie has consumed the mind to blur truth to mere suggestion?

Is there a moment when our spirit screams?

Maybe it’s long before we’ve reached the edge.

Maybe it’s that first sighting of the precipice, when a small voice says “looky there”.

Maybe it’s then that we are warned not to glance the other direction.

Perhaps as we approach the forbidden the voice of reason dims in light of the voice of justification.

We too often justify the lie to make truth fit our desire rather than conform our desire to His thoughts.

His ways are higher, yet I see you standing on the bottom looking up wondering how you got there.

Maybe you know…

Today my heart is heavy.

Another one bites the dust while sin smirks in the face of those who have conquered it.

I refuse to give up.

Fallen around me, deep to the murky mire

Wake up now & climb!

 

Majesty

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Wading deeply into light (formless substance we are unable to hold still more solid than any reality)

Your cloak composed of starlight

Bright fire from your eyes escapes to cover the earth with heat

Majestic you rise to take your place

A realm man cannot fathom

Vast beyond dream yet existing in…on…around

You only, are everything

I am small but I am yours

Yesterday morning while coming home from taking my daughter to school, I was struck by the majesty of this sunrise (this photo doesn’t even begin to capture it but it was the best I could do while driving). The sun stood low in the sky but was larger than I’d ever seen it. I couldn’t help but worship as I thought about the son of the living God who watches over us with His infinite love and grace rising to take his place on the throne of my heart.

I’m continually awed by the thought that the God who stretched out the heavens with his hands, who spoke everything into being, loves ME enough to reach into my life and redeem me. I am so small in the grand scheme of things but he knows & loves ME. That baffles me.

I am in His thoughts and they are good! “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

He rejoices over me, sings over me and comforts me. “The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.”  Zephaniah 3:17

I believe if we ever really got ahold of that we would never be the same. I am comforted daily by a comforter who wraps me up in his presence and quiets me with his love. It doesn’t get better than that.

I don’t serve God out of fear or to obtain a “get out of hell free” card. I serve the Lord because I am captured and amazed by a love that lights my darkness and intimately adores me. I serve the Lord because His life is abundant. I serve the Lord because I can’t imagine loving him more but I earnestly desire to spend the rest of my life growing in love for him.

All he ever asked for was all of me and I intend to hold nothing back. That is the only reasonable thing I can do.

 

 

 

Pumpkin

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I fear that if I don’t go to bed before midnight, I might become a pumpkin

I worry only about change I cannot change

Anxious for nothing, I ponder the reasons I fall to deep emotion

Balance is sometimes hard to attain

The cliff of same before me, something sacred this way comes

Freedom from the ashes of the past

Beginning again each day the death of me in pursuit of the life I seek to live

Wrap me up sweet comforter; I need your arms tonight.

In Light of Argument

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Brush back the tears I thought had dried

Slowly bound by in between

Is there a riddle to things behind unlocking the scars in me?

Tonight I’m yarn knotted to nonsense, twisted aimlessly behind the noise that screams behind your eyes

 

A promise I believe will hold me pounding steady rhythms on my aching feet

Foundation to calm the poisons from my past that sneak up to persuade me to believe the lie again

I am the constant variable

You are not dependent on the stagger of my wasted emotion

 

Then your lips press to close tightly like a vice that seeks to express the air from these, my infant lungs

The hose that feeds me sustenance pinched before you and I’m not sure you even notice

 

I’ll wake tomorrow and see that it was all a dream

My heart will lift with the sweetness and calm of morning

But tonight, I’ll exchange the tears that attempt to fall for the letters joined in sequence on this page.

Maybe that’s enough…

I wonder

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I wonder if there is a haven for lost poems deep in the recesses of time…some magical place of calm & noise all jumbled together to form meaning.

I wonder if there’s a mystery to the soul that will never be solved until we meet our maker and then in His light, all will become clear, like a translucent breath given form and substance beyond its particles.

I wonder if there are places where two & two add up to three.  You know…like me & you & we.

I wonder

I wonder at wonderful and it’s subjectivity, how the universals collide with perspective to form the moment when “it is good”

I wonder what happens to our dreams when we wake

I wonder what the substance of a prayer looks like from heaven and if mine have created something of beauty or a blob of selfish ambition. I pray the former. Still I wonder

I wonder about today, if I’ve lived it well or if it’s joined the overflowing tombs of the wasted.

I wonder if God allows “the wasted” to resurface in the mind & heart of those who are quick to hear.

I wonder if I can join that number & revive the moments of truth I’ve squandered.

I wonder if I should stop writing now, if maybe I’m digging too deep and will be found buried tomorrow beneath the pebbles of thought that pile to gravel in my head.

I wonder if this makes sense at all.

Some things I may never know…still I wonder.

Clarity

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Oh beautiful disaster, the life that once was. Stretched before the faceless masses with bloated heart set to bust. Above the cynic’s laughter, beyond the doubter’s tomb, a small voice sings. Growing louder with each resistance. Brought forth from deep within. Singing wonder of the soul. Blood, sweat and tears collide in rhythm at the sound. All the pain once carried, all the songs once sung, all the moments of abandon lead to now. And everything is clear.

Sunset

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What do you even call the color where all the shades & hues of the spectrum collide and meet  in the middle of the sunset? It corresponds with the nature of soul and spirit itself, a mixed kaleidoscope of beauty; inspiring, inviting, connecting to the core of me. It slides and fades; brightens and deepens in mere seconds. It’s just like your voice, a constant of brilliance, a myriad of excellence, a conglomerate of majesty before me. It breathes in and out freedom and wonder, intimacy and radiance. You sing and I am new.

The waiting world holds its breath now eagerly anticipating that moment… that flash when you speak. Explosions of color emanate from your mouth. You breathe and we live. Then when the fire of your glory touches the earth, light transcends shadow. Meaning surpasses the coming night. The promise of morning looms heavy in the salty air.

Brilliance becomes you. Color and light grasp in vain to describe you. You are vast.

Speak Lord, I am listening.

Color meets Sea

Collision