Poems

The Light Reveals but is not Seen

The light around the corner
Like the water that weeps from rock
Leaves stains on memory
And calls forth the future

From glory mirrored in matter
Of that which shines beyond time
We are lured
Forward by the music
Of fragrant breezes
Blowing the cottonwoodwinds

The hope in possibilities
Is greater than the fear
By which we think we know
The light around the corner
Reveals but is not seen

With Each Breath

The body dies and resurrects
Every seven years
After mites eat the cellular dust
What remains?

Only longing
Unquenchable constant
Like lungs grasping for air
Saturated then poisoned

We must exhale and begin again
The desire to take the breath
That ends all breaths
Is a suicidal desire

Neverendingness is life and lure
Those who warn
Against longing
And offer law in its stead
Settle for stale air

Having forgotten that Life itself
Can be trusted
And draws us indirectly
But definitely forward
With each fresh breath

For Children They'd Never Know

The rocky shoreline is a vanguard
Pierced by cold winds
Piercing the hulls of boats
But for the lighthouse
Built by men and women
For generations
Of children they'd never know

Hearty grasses and red-green ice plant
Cling to protected nooks
In thin soil blown there
By blind winds
Serving a story they'll never hear

The sun sings goodnight songs
In ever changing colors
As the wind grows still
The evening glass a mirror
For the darkening sky
To see the dance of light
Never to be repeated

The tower stands tall
Untroubled by endless days
Patiently awaiting the night
When it will be called upon

To welcome the blind and lost strangers
Who know nothing of the men and women
Who built the tower just for them

The Owl and the Plane

Hollow boned
Five feathered
Triple lidded eyes
Light and flexible with a
Broad field of view
One might say
Eyes to see and ears to hear

A dual stomach composter
Dividing bone from marrow
Wasting nothing
Missing nothing
Seamlessly fulfilling it's roll

Constructed of steel and plastic
Mined from distant lands
Fueled by toxins
Siphoned from a living community
Held aloft by waste
Noise and arrogance
Enamored by it's own brilliance
Blinded by addiction

Wisdom is unhurried
Appreciates the whole
And the long story
Is beauty all the way down
All the way up
And to the very end

The Conversation

"Do you believe?"
Sometimes
Ask my neighbors
They would know better
But I hope
And take the next step
"You can know what's true!"
I don't trust my knowing
Or any one interpretation
But I have faith in Love and Light
And so I watch and wait
"What if you're wrong?"
I'm sure I'm wrong
Just not which part
But I'm willing to see
And to turn
"Don't you want to be sure?"
I was sure
But then I looked around
And saw certainties
At the root of divisions
I'm sure that I'm in over my head
And that love is its own reward
"How do you live that way?"
You mean the way of not knowing?
It's not easy
But I live the only way I can
By faith, hope, and love

Holy Humus

Re-imagine your shadow
As seed
Which needs to be buried
To germinate in the warm wet darkness
To swell and burst

It's not ready for direct sunlight
Under which it would shriveling in shame
Let the cellular respiration begin
In the rich oxygenated soil
Of your soul

Where the humus and the holy meet
Only there will it find it's true form
And strength
Only there in the dark silence
Will it feel the upward draw
Of soil warmed by the sun spring

The loving lure
Which will feed it's final need
To reach and bloom

Divine Lure

Some longings can not be satisfied
Not even by God
Who is infinite
Satisfaction if finite

Can I learn to love this longing
To make of the pathos a prayer
To see as thief the offer of relief

What choice do I have
But to apprentice myself to Love
To let longing guide me home

The salesman
Religious or not
Sells products to slake my thirst
I've drunk my fill many times over
And still the thirst remains

I declare you friend
Dearest heartache
Never consoled
I trust no one else but you
Divine lure
To guide me home

As it Shapes You

Everything that falls away
Eventually blows away
The winds of (mis)fortune
That erode your sense of self
Cleanse your self of illusion

The pebbles and dust at your feet
Are partial histories
Blended, sifted, and forgotten
There is no recall of what you were
Or foreknowledge of what you'll become

Precarity and balance
Gravity and loss
These are the forces of Presence
Maybe you're safe here
Under this rock
Maybe you're not

There's only one thing you can know
And only you can know it
The wind has been whispering
This secret to you
As it has shaped you

Apocalypse Happened

We don't need scapegoats anymore
We've been forgiven
We can own our deadly desires

Better stories have been told
The enemy within
Has met the enemy without
Excuses are now moot
We've been forgiven

The apocalypse happened
Our sins unveiled
Projected onto screens
The faces of our neighbor
Our motives visible
In the actions of our enemy

The Mad Farmer Showed Me

The certainty seekers sought conclusions
And called it knowledge
I called myself a hobo spider
Pointed to my funnel web
And called it steel

The smiling bullies chanted
We are the law
And the law is good
I climbed to the top of the law
And dove like a swan
Into the cesspool
Seeping from its foundation

Some call me a contrarian
I confess
The falcon showed me I was wrong
The thermals are not the wind itself
But a mere change in position

The Mad Farmer showed me
His profit and loss statement
The red turned to black
And the black to red
And the compost brought sweet berries

Give Me Wonder

Every mystery inspires awe
A flash of light
Illumining beauty
Hidden in darkness
An irresistible lure
Drawing me past the terror of unknowing
Into the process of becoming

I crave awe
And the courage it brings
I sit down to feast on wonder
But I'm at the wrong table
The menu is full of assumptions
The house special
Ground certainties on air dried rationality
Served with a side of freeze dried confidence

I eschew confidence
It's cloyingly sweet
Assumptions relieve tensions
I'm better off holding
Knowledge is good
But awe is better
Give me wonder
Or give me death

I in Wonder Look On

I welcome this life event
Wide awake at three am
Half conscious
Thoughts from I know not where
Like alien strobe lights
Insisting
Insinuating import

I can be hospitable to disruptions
Because you are ever present
And relentlessly creative
Like all good healers
A non anxious presence
Calmly confident
Attentive to my fears

I attend without understanding
Ready to cooperate
But mainly resting patiently
Trusting
As you weave together
My disordered imagination
While I in wonder look on

Good Shoes

Facts may be true not false
Prooftexts may prove
But they over promise
More used car salesman than wise guide
More comfort than light
And once you hold them
They turn from beacon to weapon

Parables that knock you off your feet
Sacred images that lure and repel
Metaphors that reveal and conceal
These are your friends
They won't lead you astray
Because they don't assume to lead
They merely illumine

The stuff we don't know
Can't know and
Don't need to know
This is a fathomless place
Prepared for us to explore
We need a flash light
And good shoes
Trustworthy traveling companions
Not an antiquated map
Of ancient dreams
Projected through modern lenses

Risk Management

I believe in risky investments
They are very clarifying, inspiring
And can reap great rewards
But when power gives you the tools to hedge your bets
To shift the risk onto others
You lose the best part
And become a parasite
A tick fat with the blood of others

Not Scalable

Compassion thrives in the particular
In presence with a person
It can not be scaled up

Charity springs
From co-suffering
It is inefficient
It can not be mechanized

Generosity is response
Ability to share from abundance
Not a tax deduction

The Way is not scalable
It is walked
Shoulder to shoulder
One step at a time

In the Shadow

In the shadow of Angel's Landing
I draw a circle and wait
Small and fleshy
As vulnerable as dew in the morning sun

One by one explanations and answers
Rise and fall like days
I close my eyes and wince
And wait for them to pass

They rattle through my body
Until I slip my feet into the water
And watch them float away
Down the Virgin river

I return to my circle to listen
The breeze plays in the cottonwoods
And soars with a condor
Up the great red walls of Mukuntuweap
The straight up land

Here I can open my eyes
An awestruckdumbpilgrim
When I mingle with the hungry ghosts
That wander the earth eating all they see
My eyes offend me
Comparing and judging
Sickening my soul
I want to cut them out

Here there is wholeness
Holiness everywhere I look
It feels good to desire without consummation
To want the land to be
Forever as it has always been

Made in America

Yes, there are symbols
Branded on my forehead
Passions and rivalries injected into my blood stream
Jingles dancing in my ears

But your ideas masquerading as sunlight
Can't warm my skin
Much less illuminate my heart
Exchanging your branding for mine won't save me
From the lies I believe about myself
Or the false witness I bear

But if your eyes can see me
Behind the branding
And mirror the place
Where the human and holy mingle

Then, perhaps
You can listen me into being
And I you
Together we can be saved
From the Madmen
Making us in their own image

Wonder vs. Certainty

You seek certainty
I seek wonder
You ask, "why can't I have both?"
I don't know, maybe you can
I still seek wonder
Oh, I see now
You need me to seek certainty

Don't Tell

Radical ideas terrify people
Inspiring them to buy guns
And vote for authoritarians
Yes, Jesus has radical ideas

Don't tell people about Jesus

Drawn not Driven

Love is generative
It creates more love
This is its nature
Eternal, undying

Love is union
Perfect relationship
It is invitation
Never demand

It draws, sings, in-spires
Nothing is driven to love

Other Eyes

The streets are filled with eyes
Empty, hollow, pain filled eyes
I dig in my pockets
But find no answers

I return my gaze
See a spark of life
Buried in the fear and pain
A sad smile rises
From my aching heart
The spark flashes
Then dims
Then returns my gaze

Incomprehension
Followed by hope
Then recognition
All in a flash
And there at the corner
A slight smile
The light in her eyes

But, for now, it's still too much
The hydraulic bus door
The stink of diesel fumes
The awareness of other

First things First

Fear is more trustworthy than God
Unlike the Abba of Jesus
Fear will help you avoid the cross

You can count on Fear
To keep you alert
Prepared for the worst case scenario

Have faith
You can be certain
Life can be
Small, safe, and predictable

What can you expect from God?
Nothing, that's what
Unless you like meekness

Tell me, "How will the meek inherit the earth?"
You don't know, do you?
Because it's impossible

You know I'm right
I've seen your hidden thoughts
You already trust in Fear

Everyone knows it
There's no force more dependable
No strength stronger
Than strength in numbers

Iridescent

There is no True Self
Because there is no self
That subject that we experience
That dying and rising mystery
The blindness that sees
Is too small and too large
Grounded and gossamer
Shadow and light

To find one's self
To give one's self a name
This is the work of children
Before they return to the womb
It's the ambition of despair

The pearl of great price is hidden
Where it can not be found
But it's iridescence shines for all to see
A beacon, a lure
That draws and creates
Making all things new
Endlessly

Three Theologians

Three theologians walk into a bar.
One a lawyer, the second a poet, and the last an holy fool.

The lawyer, nose deep in the sacred texts, eyes the other two from across the room and comes to the logical conclusion that they are predestined for eternal conscious torment because of their unproductive life styles and apparent disdain for conventional society.

The Poet smirks, concealing tears, knocks back another shot, works long hours to squeeze out a metered couplet that reveals a different reality that the lawyer first denies then ignores.
The Poet crumples the paper upon which he's been scrawling and tosses it out the window.

The fool jumps out the window.

"God is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it, vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”
--A.N. Whitehead

Are you in love
Or in control?
Or is Love in us
Inviting, drawing, desiring?

Is love to be measured by power
Or is power to be measured by love?
How can the power of love
Displace the love of power?

God-in-love willing
In the original sense:
Wanting, desiring, urging

What can dissolve
The absolutes of certainty
And replenish a fluent hope?

Love is charged
With the beauty of our co-creative becoming
Its hope becomes us

Water

Imagine the Land
The Land before man
Killed God's civil engineers
Turning them into hats
For women in cities
Cities that turned water into sewage

Imagine that time
When damns fed the Aquaphor
And water meandered
And people meandered
Because God was still alive
In the Land

Then man came into his own
He discovered his power
The vulnerability of the Land
He realized that he could kill God
And live like a king

But the water did not die
It will resurrect the Land
Women have responded to the water
Thrown off their beaver hats
And invited men to do the same
To repent of their crowns
To join the water
And the women
To heal the Land

Become Human

Diminish
The power of money
That chain round the heart
Mental monopolist
Domesticator of the imagination
Shamer of love

Cleanse the heartless craving
The isolating need
Open your eyes

To become human
Is enough
Vulnerable to ache and loss
Bright with curiosity
Empathetically connected

I say it again
Because it has been forgotten
To become human is enough

Reactionary Thank-you's

Clutching certainty drove me into the open ocean
Bracing magnificent air
Opened up my lungs
Grateful for the simplicity of breath

The murmuring of communal fear
Echoed from the dark corners of my closet
"You don't know me"
And I sought a new teacher

I looked down my nose at
The willful ignorance of power
And saw myself defecating the blood of torture

The presumptuous confidence of disputers
And provocateurs
Banging on incessantly
Drove me into silence
And the musical evocations of poetry
Resonated like never before

Call me reactionary
And I'll own it
But I'm finding it hard to apologize

The Eyes of God

I can't see myself
Mirrors don't help
They don't see-in
Only God sees me

The eyes of God are mirrors
Love and light unfiltered
I long to look into those eyes
And see for the first time

I say to myself
A glimpse will do
But I know a lie when I speak it
Feel the soft gauze blurring my vision

So I look
Into the eyes of my enemy
For what he can see
The glimpse for which I am ready

Knowing without Knowing

I've been conditioned since birth
To eat dead animals
And believe
Supply & demand will save the world

The world that floats my boat
The rising tide that lifts all boats
Suffocating job seekers
Stinging ammonia eyes
The urgency of money
Clean air and water
Cost on a ledger

I fail to see
What I've been taught not to see
Chickens with their beaks cut off
Crammed together in filthy cages
Market efficiencies
Cheap food

Food that I eat unconsciously
People that I don't see
Costs on a ledger
Knowing without knowing

I know what the taxidermist knows
No more
Life abstracted
Justification of death
Death of the unseen
And the unknown

When I heard the prophet say
Only beauty will save the world
I knew like a lover knows
And I was no longer alone
But I was haunted
By what I could not unsee

The Christ Life

You can't kill the Christ life
Okay, you can kill it
Buy you can't keep it dead
This is the source of all hope

You don't believe in the Abundance
That's why you're afraid
That's why you hoard
And blame others for their lack

You believe in this thing
You call it the real world
The world of makers and takers
Criminals and innocents

Well, I don't see it
How can it be real
I see a life fecund
Cascading generosity

Yes, we've paved over fruitful soil
Chosen war from fear of lack
Lack that we've created
But the things we make
Even death
Will not survive

They were buried with the Christ
The way, the truth, and the life
Life will not stay dead
Death it seems
Is just a part of Life

Beauty Beyond Preference

To pray is to look
With sustained and reverent attention
To attempt to picture the vision
Once it becomes visible
Like a chameleon
In plain view concealed

To notice what it evokes
Calls forth from within
To start with "people, places, and things"
And through loving attention
Come to know and see
Divine essence
Radiating from each particular thing

To listen for the music
In water, wind, and movement
To find one's self worshiping
The gift and the giver
Because they are one
Beauty beyond preference

And finally to try
With sacrificial effort
Found only in gratitude and wonder
To make a poem/prayer
In honor of the unending particularity
The gifts that make a life

Deadly Cliches

I'm forced to write poems
While they quote cliches
And smile
Mouths gleaming with certainties
Suckled since birth

Is it an injustice
This forced-labor of love
This lonely calling
Not quite
My slavery is chosen

The longing itself is better
The ache more clarifying
Than stuffing myself on
Misleading half truths
Repetitious lullabies
Sung in familiar tones
For the incurious and content

Re-Membered

You can refuse the mantle
Of must do and must not
And re-member
The One thing

Like that time you ran
Into the street
Chasing the laughing child
Not looking left or right
Not thinking at all

The One thing
Is ever present
A hidden treasure
Discovered by the wholehearted
Which is you re-membered

Apocalypse Happened

We don't need scapegoats anymore
We've been forgiven
We can own our deadly desires
Better stories have been told
The enemy within
Has met the enemy without
Excuses are now moot
We've been forgiven
The apocalypse happened
Our sins unveiled
Projected onto screens
The faces of our neighbor
Our motives visible
In the actions of our enemy

Antithesis (the movie)

"I'm not doing that!"
I refuse to take a position
I refuse to hang a label on a person, like a cloak
I refuse to do anything that conceals the incomprehensible

Naming is self protection
An excuse to keep a safe distance
Love is meeting
Love is changed by whatever it touches

Love knows nothing
Only desire for flourishing
For fruit
I'd rather hang on the tree of forsakeness
Than wield the sword of certainty

What are Words For

The straw-man that you're talking to
On which you paint my face
That's not me
Neither am I certain
Do you want to win this fight
Or just have it?
Then have it
I'll watch and wait
When words are walls
And battering rams
And kind words wound
Silence is still an option

The Light in His Eyes

The god you claim to fear
Is a cartoon
A twofaced clown
Your awe feigned
Like a WWF fan

Naming yourself Truebeliever
Only exposes the lose threads
In the costume you've outgrown
The one fitted by the priest
In confirmation/bias class

If you really feared God
I might believe you
But you've betrayed what you fear
And it's not God
Unless "God comes to us
Disguised as our lives"
Concealed in the stranger
Without and within

Because I too fear this
Not the masked Punisher
Unknowable, ruthless and cruel
But the Light
That exposes the lies I tell
To protect myself
From the foreigner in need
And the light in his eyes
I fear the light in his eyes
And what they will call forth
Maybe you do to

Resurrection

Bless you
Executioner
Of my defended self
My liberator

I volunteer to die daily
By your hands
Your filthy hands
Covering my mouth
Suffocating me again
Saving me from becoming
The Accuser

Who better to silence me
Poltice of pain
The first wound
Surfaced before festering
The grit and sweat on your hands
Mingle with the poison of my last breath
The sour smell a reminder
Of new life to come

The Wire

In spite of how it may feel
The safest place
Is the tight rope
Where instantaneous feedback
Keeps you on the narrow way

Religion was born of awe
A sudden awareness
Of the overwhelming
Sacredness of each step
From which follows desire
To be awake
Able to respond
Moment by moment
To the ever changing reality
Life

Religion died
When it answered every question
Defined the way
Removed the necessary terror
Of being awake
Painfully alive
Discerning on the wire

John Muir Walked

Making miles over rough terrain
One must place each step with care
And John made miles
But he seemed to see
Every bird and tree
And take time to converse with all

Listening to the wisdom
Of water falling over stone
His journals suggest
An experience so thick
Sensuous
And worshipful
That I picture him crawling
Then rolling on his back
To apologize to and wonder at the Dragon fly
He just disturbed

There's a phrase well known
By those familiar with extremes
Slow its smooth
And smooth is fast
Maybe he didn't walk like I walk
Maybe he tickled the ground
With each step
His toes a sixth sense
The the rest of his senses
Upright and attentive
A conduit of wonder

Hidden

Why does the devil always demand
That the people denounce God
With words
Or symbolic action
Step on this cross
Or others will suffer
Denounce St. James
Thirsty pilgrim
And I'll give you water

That's easy
That's a diversion
Who is this "devil"
Demanding fealty to relics
Leading people to believe
That thirst is illicit
That people are less valuable
Than objects labeled sacred

The Devil is hidden
In vestments
The Christ is hidden
In the outcast

We Must Go Through

You must go through this
Your illusions must be exposed
Your bubble popped
So you can breath
Fresh air

You don't want to
I understand
I don't want to watch you
I'm sick of watching you
Embarrass yourself
Defending the indefensible
Conflating BLM with White Nationalists
Calling the humility of the scientific method arrogance
It's hard for me too
But you must go through this
I'm willing to suffer it with you

The Real World

I glimpsed a different story
But that was Sunday school
In the real world
There isn't enough
For me and mine
If I don't compete
I'll be eaten

Stories don't feed my children
Or protect my nation
Walls
Military might
And weed killers
A dependable source of energy
To power my home security
In these things I trust

You talk of neighbor love
That's nice for Sunday school
But in the real world
It's just a pretty piety
A foolish children's story
Don't bother me
I've got work to do

Clue

When I was ten
I took the tiny knife
From the Conservatory
Stabbing it into the
Sliding screen door

Slow and straight
I cut a one inch gash
It was a delicious sensation
The illicit pleasure of destruction

The babysitter quickly
Pulled my hand away
The scar was never repaired
And became a daily reminder

I was not ashamed
But I was aware

Second Naivete

I don't label
Or come to conclusions
There's too much going on
Too much I can not see
Or yet imagine

Curiosity and humility
My most trusted guides
They don't lead me
To premature conclusions
About anyone or anything

You could call me a child
But it's not my first rodeo

Unpolluted by Certainty

I am the Dunce
Exiled to the corner
Ignored because of my ignorance

What I don't know
Could fill a library
The grandest canyon
The depths of every sea

My bewilderment is vast
Fecund as a rain forest
Beautiful as the night sky
Unpolluted by artificial light

In Your Hand

Aspire for the good
You cannot yet live

Let others see you fail
Or risk blindness
The eyes of those who see
As necessary as your own

The good and beautiful
Lay just out of reach
But never out of sight
The good and beautiful
Are the lure
The pearl of great price
The only thing worthy of trust
They will not be held
Don't even hope
That thing in your hand
That's not it

Poetic Theorem

We remember that which makes an impression
Those memories form reality

Reality is created
By the chinks in our armor
The poorer the armor
The more reality

Defenses are protection
The source of inauthentic life
This theorem proves the Beatitudes
The defended
The strong
The wealthy and powerful
Are inauthentic

The undefended are real
And because of this they are blessed
They have the most reality to offer
There is an undefended self
In every person
The crucified Imago Dei

Trust Poetry

I love ideas
But I trust poetry

Ideas abstract
Detach
Summarize
Labels emerge
Efficiently

Poems cement
Ground
Picture
Evoke
Inefficiently

Whatever is lost
Is mourned
In a poem
Resurrected

Whatever is found
Is celebrated
In ideas
All but the new forgotten
Ideas birth ideology
Poems bear Presence

Loser

The word I hear Whispered most frequently
As I walk The Way with Jesus
Is "lose"

Lose the argument
Lose your expectations
Lose your desire to be
Seen and respected
Lose your need to know
Be a loser

You no longer need
Power
Privilege
Esteem
You are free
You can lose everything

In the Mud

First love
The ground on which
You walk
That living dust
That dies
So that you may dance

Then
Welcome the impossible task
Loving that which would walk
On you
Oblivious

How many times must we be told
Dying is living
Losing is winning
The task is gift
A game to play
A toy to mold
In the mud like children

Living and Writing

Living and writing
Demand the same
Reject the cliche
The easy
The lie

Attentive, vulnerable
Waiting
Ready to spring into action
Ready to spring a verse

That line
That act
Might do
But something in me
Knows
There's a more beautiful note
Aaah, the exquisite pain of waiting
Will it be worth it

The Perpetually Perishing Moment

The way of Jesus
Death and resurrection
It's like Wack A Mole
Victory through dying
Resurfacing in another place

If killing is all you've got
You're gonna lose
Best way to delay
Your inevitable defeat
Is to share power
The illusion of life everlasting

But power provokes resistance
Grows weary of the fight
Withers and dies
Feeding the boundless life
Found in the grave

Money is a Game

Money is a game
Musical chairs
Creating scarcity
And competition

It's driven by a story
The story of separation
A productive story
That drove us
To produce so much crap
That we turned this beautiful world
From a wonder
Into a landfill

There's no more room
To convert life
And the world
Into money
One day the landfill
Will be full of money

Jesus Tried

Jesus tried to interrupt my day
But I didn't let him
Said I didn't have cash

He pulled up his pant leg
Showed me filthy bandages
Covering a seeping wound

I had medical tape in my car...

Wu-Wei

We are lost in a hellscape
Carrying a map that leads in circles
With no way out

To exit
We'll have to drop the map
And look around

Composting Answers

I'm exhausted by the effort
Of maintaining an ugly story
An asphalt drive
Covering a field of green
I want to let the wild
Flowers break through
In time they will turn this freeway
Into nourishing questions

You talk as if you take credit
For the sun and rain
As if gifts are an illusion
As if we do not breath
The same air

Fear is baked
Into the cake
Of the ugly story
Only the fool trusts
Risks
Hopes
I will fast and breath

We live by many stories
One of which is
We don't live in a story
There is no beginning
No middle
No end

I will compost all answers
And wait for the cracks
That the flowers form
In the ugly story

Poetry vs Propaganda

Poetry is language humbling itself
Squeezing mud between its fingers
Dunking it's head in an icy stream
Language is meant to serve
To point
To evoke wonder

Propaganda is language
Drunk with power
Discontented from purpose
Insensible to the pollution
Spewing from its mouth

Restorative Justice

We spit at Jesus
The disappointing face of justice
With his torn and bloody sleeve
He wipes off our spittle
Returning his gaze
Meeting our rage

In his eyes
We see our shame
Born but mirrored
So we finish him

His last words
Forgive them they know not

His death a temporary relief
But he returns
Again with the eyes that see
Piercing our willful blindness

Maybe our punishment
Is crucifying a Jesus
Who keeps coming back

We wear ourselves out
Trying to kill love
Until we fall
Exhausted
Into the arms of God

The Bible or the Gun

Gun lovers
Love prooftexts
The leather bound bible
Feels good in the hand
A well balanced pistol
The verse a finely crafted bullet

The self a heroic sheriff
Maintaining law and order
With his Colt single action
Peacemaker

Everyone kept in her place
By the will of one
A violent man
With a heart of gold

Five generations later
Uppity people of every color
Round every corner
From every which way

How does the hero
Maintain order
The bible or the gun?

Who Will lead

Who will take the lead
Move beyond opinion
Forgo defensive data
Listen for the heart's cry
The divine longing

Who will suffer invisibility
The ache to be known and heard
To make space
For a question to emerge

And then suffer patience
Reject the leading question
And wait again
Embarrassed and silent
For the lightfull question

The wrench in the motor
That drives the auto-pilot
The third eye opens
You become visible
No one is sure of the answer
The celebration begins

I've Seen the Enemy

I've seen the enemy
And it's not us
It's the simple story
The common sense morality tale
That helps us sleep at night
Feeding dreams
But seeding lies
About an enemy other
Who merely believes
A different version
Of the same fantasy

Like the Resurrected Christ

Like the resurrected Christ
We walk through walls
Fear can't contain us
Or lock us out

We're not insensitive
Sometimes we feel naughty
Ashamed of our freedom
We hide from your gaze

But then we remember
We are your friends
Even though you forget

Divine Promises

"Love is light, not consolation."
--Simone Weil

Divine promises
Are like poetry
They offer everything you need
But almost nothing you want
They offer power to see
Not power to wield
Hope for surprise
But no hope of certainty
They evoke images of union
And harsh realities
Rather than wishful fantasy

To Be or To Believe

What can it mean to say
I believe in the hypostatic union
When I don't even believe
That my neighbor is real
I can only aspire to believe

To believe is to BE
The greatest risk of all
To experience my neighbor's
Hunger as my hunger
I'll need some better sermons

Who Told You
That You Were Naked?

I acknowledge no absolute authority
Except the good question
Which alone can save
From easy answers
Whispered by serpents

What Kind of Salvation
Makes One Vulnerable?

So many who claim
God's Incarnated Empathy
As their savior
Are suspicious of Empathy
It breaks down walls
Makes one vulnerable
Softens certainties

Build a Wall

OK I admit it
I've built a wall in my heart
And I've tried to make you pay
I don't know how to tear it down
There is no foreign leader to blame
No opportunity for Reaganesque posing
To get me out of bed

Instead of blaming
I'm confessing
Asking forgiveness
For what you can not see
I'll chip away from my side

If you put your ear up to the wall
Maybe you'll hear me pounding
Maybe you could have a glass of water waiting

Infinite Gift

What do we really need

Breath
Gravity
Kinship
Photosynthesis

What is gratuitous

The leaf-song and cool breeze
Under a shade tree

The acrobatic dinner theater
Of the barn swallow

The glistening of empathy
In the corner of your eye

The good ache of muscles
Extended beyond easy pleasures

Awaking from the numbing
Dream of privilege

Many things are needed
But the gift is infinite

The Absence of Struggle

The absence of struggle
Makes me stupid
Cheered by random victories
Of uncertain origin
I presume future success

Optimistic projections created
By favorable digestion
Move through my bowels
Forming convictions that pass
The muster of military inspection

Basking in the privileged sunlight
Between passing clouds
I quickly forget
The powerless feeling
Of standing under a tree
During a rain storm

Droplets meandering down
Hidden branch ways
Collecting in leaf ponds
Awaiting the capricious gust
Spreading wide the cold spray
Down the back of our necks

The Bubble

The "gospel truth" doesn't exist
Inside an orthodox bubble
The good news is
That which bursts all bubbles
And saves us
From the hugs that kill
From the illusion of Babel

The Gospel is
Every damn fool one of us is dirt
Dirt become conscious
Glorious reflections
Of the creator who plays in dirt

The bubble is protection
From the other
From wholeness
Forgivable
But deadly

Weak like Water

Fear and hate are strong
Like stone
Constant
Predictable
Crushing hope

Love is weak like water
And relentless
Able to carve canyons
Out of rock

Dam it up
Boil it into vapor
It comes back as rain
Inspiring wildflowers
In the valley of death

Hungry Eyes

The only constant in public life
The sideshow
Fantastic hair
Clown feet of clay
Sinister smile

Like a wreck of mangled steel
We can't look away
We slow down to see
But never stop to help

Our hungry eyes create
A hunger to be seen
The pandering sideshow
Grows more extreme

Poetry Is

The liberating contradiction
Invisible to all
All but the loyal dog
And the outlaw poet
Who love everything

They love what they see
Sure that their gaze can heal
Even as the beloved
Kicks past
Barely conscious
Of what just happened

Message in a Glad Bag

Hunched over the trash
Black bag cloaked
Tiny gray head
Focused

Large man with pink box
Places coin
Near the withered
Left hand balancing

A screech like bark
Echoes from glass walls
100 decibels
Impossible sound

Customers turn
Involuntary
From glistening pastries
Incomprehension

The bag alive and quick
Full sail chase
Returns the coins
Ferocious words:
"You have no right"

Back to the treasure
Hunched, still, searching
Energy like I've never seen
A radiating life

Woman in line
Snorts and scrunches
Her face disfigured
By a wondrous mystery

Nouns

My opinions and preferences
They are of no consequence whatsoever
Happy?

I am
The freedom is exhilarating

Every encounter
With person or peacock
Is new
An invitation
A possibility

At my best
I'm a proud
Not-know-it-all

At first it felt dangerous
Deliciously risky
But nothing happened
Nothing changed

I continued to chase down
The same dead ends
This thought connected to that thought
Circled back to this thought
Urgent, important, myopic

With nothing to hang onto
I landed on the ground
In this aging body
With these surprising people
In these boundless places
And all these wondrous things

The Blank Page

Cleared of the clutter of hand-me-down desires
The blank page appears
Full of emptiness, boredom, and hunger

Some call it spaciousness
But only after the gnawing abates
There's nothing to be done about the boredom and hunger
Only wait
The waiting is faith and hope

Faith that there's more
More out there
More in here
Hope for something new
Surprising and unpredictable

The predictable is always available
Dependable
Saccharine

The blank page is dependable, too
Ruthless and cruel
It mocks and taunts
Woos and seduces

Like a projector screen
It receives, mirrors, and reveals
But it also opens like a door
A locked door
Keyed with patience and attention

There are no guarantees
You will find what you find
Maybe the detritus of an un-lived life
Or a few clues
Weighed down with dubious promises

Nevertheless
The blank page opens up tomorrow
The only other option
Is more yesterday's
Or the day before

More Silence Than Noise

The poetry is hidden
In the convalescence
Not the diagnosis
In the dark screen
Not the news feed

Consent to conflict
To nausea as process
These are the containers
The unwrapped metaphors

The shadow contains the question
The question that leads
To the next question
The mystery that illuminates

Like the dark matter
That fills the cosmos
There's more silence
Than noise

Look at a Chair

Look at a chair
See the wood
Where is the tree
The forest
The carpenter
The perceiver

The entire universe
lnterwoven
Interdependent
In the chair

The presence of wood
Reveals the tree

The presence of leaf
The sun

Apple blossoms
The apple

Can you see
The one in the many
The many in the one

The chair is not separate

It exists
Interdependent with everything

It is because all other things are

Divine Politics

God is a Libertarian
Watching us play
In barbed-wire

And God is a bleeding heart
Suffering in solidarity
The consequences of freedom

But that is not all
God exercises power
Not to cause or coerce
But to create and woo
God's patience is everlasting

But only Shalom
Will satisfy divine justice

The Great Ship

I'm not this person yet
But I wish to become one
One who would
Leave the lifeboat
Make room for the other
The enemy even

Become the one
Who would gather
At the band stand
The other musicians
And play
Play the saddest song
The only song
We could play

Even if the great ship
America
Is sinking to the icy depths
And reason implores
"Elbow your way onto the raft"

I am persuaded
By the man on the tree
The one who forgave
His executioners
The only way to find life
Is to lose it

I am persuaded
Unshakable in my conviction
Now comes the hard part

Meditation as Composting

Regrets about the past
And anxious projections
Are like old banana skins
Smelly and useless
But if you set them aside
In the compost pile
Where soul and spirit mingle
Today's wasteful thoughts
Become the rich soil
Bearing tomorrow's sweet fruit
Peaceful creative presence

The Identified Patient

The Messenger can be a fool
Or a trickster
Sometimes confused
Addicted
Or spewing hate

Dismiss the unworthy one
Nothing could be easier
No one would blame me
Every Messenger is unworthy
In someone's eyes

But when I see it done
And I see it every day
I always wince

Because I know
The message is a gift
And the Messenger is the message
Born from the same longing

"What you do to the least of these
This you do unto me."

The Circle Equation

God is love
Love is creative effort
The opposite of creativity is destruction
Sin is whatever blocks the flow of love
Salvation from sin flows from vulnerability
Vulnerability is the courage to love and be loved
Courage comes from solidarity
Solidarity connects us to God in the Other

Preemptive Peace

Who's responsible?
Who's gonna pay?
These questions
Like a drum-beat
Set the tempo of our hearts

Make an example of
Them
Then THEY
Will think twice
Maybe
Maybe not

Come to think of it
The responsible
They're long dead
Or dying
Reaping their reward
Satisfied?

Maybe a better question
Is who
Today
Is able to respond (response-able)
To the roots of
Tomorrow's evil?

Uncovering their hearts
And finding it there

The Stew

A teaspoon of pepper
Reconciled into a broth
Is a fragrant pleasure
A complex stew

All by itself
Sprinkled on your tongue
Or blown up your nose
The fires of hell

The Slippery Slope

I've been surfing
the slippery slope
For some time now
It was
at first
a shock to my system
But now I'm acclimated
Invigorated by the bracing breeze

Balance and skill and vision
Became more urgent than
Convincing myself
and others
That I knew
what can not be known

Beauty and terror are common
Especially when
The slope grows steep
Suddenly
Or the ice turns black
On a flat plane

Naturally one falls
There are tears
But the playful joy
of discovery
The exhilaration
of the new
The capacity to weep
With those who weep
And rejoice
With those who rejoice
Makes the inevitable slide
Towards death
A life lived full

You Said Call When I Land

I find myself surprised
In a kind of solidarity
With the scoffer
And the outcast

Out here
I hear clearly
For the first time
The way that you speak
I hear it through their ears
And through their eyes I see
What you do
And value
And your way

Since I understand you
I could show you
I'd be kind
Can you see the advantage

You smile
Push in the same direction
You say
There's so much work to do
A friendly dismissal
Of the quaint contrarian

I know better now
What it's really like
To be an outsider
And I'm finding
That outside
Feels better than inside
A friend to sinners

I can say that to you
You speak the lingo
But out here
It's embarrassing
To speak of love
In coded language

Ode to Simone

God is love
God is light
"Love is light,
Not consolation"*
Or condemnation
The light is sufficient

I welcome the shadow
Because it's cast by the light
Light can blind
And feel like darkness
Light can warm
And feel like love

"Love is light,
Not consolation."
It is enough

I want to become Christian
One who can bathe in light
Even as it feels like fire
Burning away fear
Fear of the light

Turn or Burn

You probably think I'm joking
Well, maybe I am
But I also think it's true
If we don't turn from violence
Violence as the only answer
We'll end up scorching the earth
If we don't turn back
From consuming and polluting
And hoping in growth
There won't be enough food
Or water or land

Our apocalyptic movies
Reveal what happens
When there's not enough
So no, I'm not joking after all
If we refuse to turn back
To live out the kingdom solutions
We will burn

Why do we think
Jesus will save us
He already offered
We keep refusing
To take up our cross and follow

Thousands of years of history
Reveal the consistency of Divine wrath
A.K.A. Freedom
And its consequences

Perhaps we've properly interpreted
The Biblical promises
Of a new heaven and a new earth
But that doesn't mean
That we won't join
Our brothers and sisters
From the past
Who have created their own
Hell on earth

Shallow Lies

You don't condemn or coerce
You're too free for that
You lure and invite
Like birdsong

From your abundance
Life flows freely
Like a river to the ocean
It passes by unnoticed

But it's resurrected
Evaporation, rainfall, snow melt
Here it comes again
I stand in the shallows

My feet seem to sink
As the silt clutches my ankles
The cold water
Both new and ancient

I exhale gratitude
Breathless, I promise
To come daily to the river
To open the gift

Even as I shout this promise
Wanting to be heard
Over the roar of the river
I know it's a lie

But I also know
It's a lie that's more true
Then the promises I keep
Because it's called forth
From the river itself

An Undiscovered Land

It was as if I'd heard the music
For the first time
It swelled and radiated
From the earth and sky
Resonating in my belly

Then the hand of God...

An invitation to play
To explore
To risk

Hunger and curiosity
Movement and rhythm
Replaced self/fear/caution

I found myself onstage
People were smiling attentive
I was dancing in public
Impossible sight

Telling the truth
But telling it slant
All the while
Stuttering and stumbling
Unrecognizable to myself

When the great man
The gatekeeper of truth
Appeared
Humbled by life
I was delighted

But life couldn't silence
The decades of training
Which taught him
To see through my freedom
To the danger of dancing
So close to the edge

I shrunk back down
Into self/fear/caution
My flame was weak
Too easily extinguished

But when I walked away
It wasn't long before
I heard a faint pulse of music
And saw the hand of God
Reaching out to me
Inviting me to dance

The fear evaporated
With the first step
And I knew
There is no risk in play
And the light
Of the new morning
Is there each day
An undiscovered land

Life is a Gift Wrapped in Mud

Life is a gift
Wrapped in mud
I'm learning to be grateful
Without pretending

To be happy
That I can never know
And that I'm always anxious
About what I'll find

When I wipe away the mud
And discover blood
Mixed with tears and laughter
Surprise!

To Whom do I owe my life
The terrorized cow
Contained and slaughtered
Shipped and fried

The migrant picker
Absorbing pesticide
Through calloused fingers
Not mine

The bacteria in my gut
Organizing my affections
Or the tumor in my brain
Benign but undecided

The gift is always wrapped
And more often than not
I confess unopened

But I can no longer justify
A willful blindness
Of the sacrifices
That created the gift
Or the necessary unknown
Upon which tomorrow
Is unfolding

Maybe it's a second naivete
Maybe everyday is birthday
Because it's time for me
To dig in the mud

Maybe the anticipation
Can balance out the terror

As You Are

Welcome the willful
The lustful
The angry controlling voice within
Each will tell its secrets
When you are ready to hear

Some like a deer in a dark forest
Will watch you for hours
Or days
Waiting for you to prove
That you can be still

Others talk incessantly
Critiquing everything they see
But this is a test
To see if you can love
The beauty hidden in fear

The moralist says
"Do no harm"
But has no imagination
Can not see all that is lost
In the hunkering down
The safe negation

But at the big house party in your head
Full of blowhards and wallflowers
You will find everything
Everyone you need

As you are with yourself
So you will be with others

Hunger and Thirst

Could it be
That the lover
The status quo lover
Intuits his own vulnerability

That change might expose
His frailty
The gravitational pull
Of the crowd

The voracious crowd
That eats everything
But sees nothing

Save us from the gnawing
Hunger for power
Control the crowd
The crowd in my soul

Could it be
That the lover
The lover of freedom
Cultivates hunger

The gnawing ache
Of looking without eating
That sees everything

My Cravings are a Mirror

(The Contemplative Rapper)
My cravings are a mirror
A fun-house mirror
Reflecting my twisted soul
What courage is required
To behold the desired
A heart ache, a burning coal
How long will it take
For the fire to abate
The pain is to never know
Facing in, holding my gaze
Nothing before me worth praise
Denial a pleasant goal
The craving finally passes
As I reach for my glasses
I perceive myself more whole
Into my shadow I gazed
A strange light there appraised
A glow within my distorted soul
My cravings it seems conceal
But nevertheless reveal
A substance more precious than gold

Thoughts and Prayers
Perhaps our thoughts are in fact prayers
Shaping what becomes
We are prone to longing
To wishes and dreams
We would change the world
If we could
What would happen
If we heard our own prayers
Really listened
Without judgment
We might discover
What we truly believe
Desire, love
We might be ready
To begin