P o e t r y

Plastic and Plays

Strip away the rotting paint
and tear off the fading wallpaper;
come away from your house of illusions
and walk into the realness of life.

There is an entire body of people
who find themselves to be as bright as you,
arrayed in their Sunday best,
grinning a mannequin's smile.

They sit in nice little rows,
and stare at the back of the others' head,
while imagining in their minds
that the world is really "okay."

They speak of lives that are not unlike
a theatrical drama that ends in "happily ever after,"
scripted and choreographed
by themselves and not the author.

Yet life is not plastic nor is it a play,
and their once a week Sunday best and mannequined smiles
can never convince their audience
that they are offering anything more than a lie.

            -dedicated to the Nicodemus that I know...that Pharisee who is trying so hard to find Jesus but can't seem to quit living a lie, no matter how small it might seem, even to himself.

Psalm 44

     It's cold in this place of shadows.  It's beyond me why I've chosen to stay.

     Past familiar places, beyond the simple times and bonds which hold me fast in this place.  I've come to reach beyond something and into a color less familiar.

     Blue like night's tapestry above the trees draws down before me.  Back-lit by tiny pricks of light, painful dots of illumination like scars on a tree hung body.

     Innumerable like the evening's fires and, sometimes, bringing something less than shame; for heaven's children do rejoice at the sound of our footsteps

     Hidden behind the shadows and tapestries is the One, and, we often ask, "why is the posture of glory like that of a child at play, crouching behind objects to obscure his form?"

     Why this dizzy dance for our eternal supper?  Why this apparent game when viewed from a rock, a tiny speck in the fabric of time?

     Is it we who play?  Is it sin, is it cowardice, or just some lack of eternity in our minds?

A Movement Away

Amazing how a single choice
alters my every option
How one momentary action
sets all else in motion
My own thought has changed the life
of every other person
And all that I am certain of
becomes a certain question

Relative to relationships
life is never lonely
Everything revolves around
the trust of wise decisions
When one move is made in haste
all will feel the pain
I stub my toe
you take the blow
and the world nurses the bruise

Selfishness perceives loneliness
the heart cannot protect
One who loves and one who hates
all can feel the wind
of change and choice
all are at the mercy of the others
Move and sing carefully, my dear,
Fragile lives and destinies
are only a movement away from change

-- I intend to put this to a tune --

Brought

     Brought. . .into the downer’s grove by the sun’s first light, into that sad wonderful place of in-between.

     Between time, thought and wonder.  Between each heartbeat, between each rhyme.

     Each rhyme, each rhythm, every crescendo building towards somewhere, or is it everywhere?

     Where to begin?  From what place do I stop and look back, or forward where the light is dim.

     Dim is the path, the way. . . though even dusk, for me, is a shinning beacon beckoning me to move beyond my shrinking shadows of dread and dismay.

     This may very well be the end of me, or else some strange beginning born in another time.