Horizon

I found this poem dotted onto a sun-bleached hankerchief that was kept on the dashboard of a massive rusty tractor-trailer with an inordinate amount of spikes. The name of the poem is

Horizon

I've been trapped in a prison of faces,
all of them look just like mine:
hollow eyes for empty places-
masks for shame and wistful smiles.

Round and round I make my paces,
the door unbarred to gall my pride,
no chains could chafe or be more hated
as those that hold me back inside.

A ruined street, a single rebel,
the stage stands still for my ticking heart,
my wardens approach and cast long shadows,
my will and hopes to quickly thwart.

But Lo! I'm headed for a new horizon,
opening below the virgin sky,
gold-white salt flats and a dawn vermillion,
rise up to meet me as I travel by!

Dawns turn to days that turn to midnight,
and I fear my resolve may flicker,
Lord that I might travel towards your light,
and travel stronger, quicker!

There was a bowl of bracken water
in my prison, foul to taste.
And though it seems this desert empty-
I know I pass from strength to strength.

In my dungeon the air was breathless,
and black the ceiling hung low to crush me,
Here I gaze into infinity,
pursue the endless with felicity,
feel the winds caress and kiss me,
and chart my progress by the stars.

Lo, I see a new horizon!
A desert golden-white and bare,
some say I will die of thirst
in pursuit of empty air.

Others that I should have never left,
my prison was in fact a haven;
better to be poisoned, broken, craven,
than wander to an early death.

But I believe in new horizons
just beyond the reach of human eyes
and I will gladly traverse this desert
until it lead me to paradise.

False Dichotomy

"I know it's hard to accept the Facts, but the Truth is that there is no god."

The crumpled logo on his T-shirt moves as he waves his arms about. It tells a very funny joke if you happen to watch the tv shows he watches and believe the things he believes and studied Science as much as he has.

He has a beautiful face; pale but intense, with articulate, sensitive eyes. It's too bad that he doesn't believe he's beautiful. He doesn't believe in Beauty. Secretly, he wishes he were a knight in 12th century Europe with a sword in his hand and his eyes hardened behind the slit of his great helm as he faces off alone against a pillaging army of rapacious mercenaries. But he's born in the 21st century, and he's been taught to know better. The internet and some movie writers in Hollywood have explained to him that there were no righteous knights.


"You may not like it, but what the Bible is teaching is clearly my point of view, where God just made sinners to burn in Hell because they didn't cognitively assess their eternal options and pick the most beneficial and profitable choice like I did."

He tries to look serious, maybe a little grim but also passionate. It's hard to look grim or passionate in a pair of (ironed) khaki slacks, with a little white collar poking out of the top of your (monochrome, earth toned and expensive) woolen sweater.

 He's leaning forward, which does help you look engaged, if you are leaning forward to thump your fist on a battle map and affix your generals with a zealous eye. We're all awkwardly leaning forward to see each other's faces because we've placed our folding chairs in a loose circle, with large gaps in between us to fit our purses, coffee cups, and sense of security because we don't actually know each other that well.


How boring it must be to fit the entire universe into a cramped white-walled office-space lit by a florescent light. To be able to collar God with a necktie and use it as a leash, ask Him to show some respect and keep quiet while you review your church's financial quarter.

How tiring too, to eat of the Forbidden Fruit, only to discover that Rebellion means living a virgin in a basement somewhere watching videos of fake women pretend to love men with more muscles than you, unless by some lucky chance you manage to enter a 3-month marriage to some girl with daddy issues who's willing to exchange (safe) sex for emotional support. (The exchange rate is typically about 8-12 hours of listening for 1 3-second rush of Dopamine. Endorphines and depression reduction varies on how much self-worth you put on your genitals.)


Aren't we tired of this yet? Aren't we all sick, ready to vomit all over our leather-bound study bibles we open once a week?

We're all marching in step to the booming loudspeakers that tell us which side we're on and which side to hate, two identical armies bleeding red human blood for control of a world as colorless and claustrophobic as a tomb.

But stop listening to the loudspeaker for a minute. For one second, stop taking this war seriously. Because its purpose was never to motivate you, but to block out the music we've been hearing since we were born.

Do you hear it now? The winds of heaven, blowing down off the slopes of the mountains of God? Those roaring, buffeting winds that strike a frequency in our hearts, causing them to sing?

Can you hear it now? the pattering and thundering of God's rain on the roofs we've constructed to keep it out, the slashing monsoons to this thirsty world?

Can you taste it yet? The brine from that crashing, endless sea? The grey, aching horizon that calls you to leave all behind?


I'll be damned if God isn't actually bigger than the fortresses we've created to wall ourselves off from the world. Maybe the reason it's gotten so dull in sunday school is because we couldn't fit God in our newly purchased youth building.

And if the Facts point to a meaningless universe where we drift aimlessly to our deaths, then try and stop me from wandering to every corner of it, play-acting at being a hero for my invisible God.

Because if there's one thing I do know, is that this world we've constructed is one huge cattle-schute, to funnel us, heirs to the Infinite Kingdom, away from our destiny. And I choose to believe that our destinies will find us the day we stop being controlled by our fears and false desires.

I'm just one little boy-man with gossip issues who inspects his biceps in the mirror and finds them wanting. But from this day forward I don't want to keep accepting the role of a gagged wooden puppet, pretending to be perfect and have all the answers.

Since all men die, I'd rather die gripping my King's banner in the free air than lie embalmed in a flowery casket. If I'm going to live for God's love, than it's real love, all the way. The love that gives this world color and and breaks down our strongholds and chains and sets us free from the suffocating identities the devil tells us is our destiny.

Destiny

I found this poem at a busy intersection, where the signal lights were confused, the drivers seemed to be (mostly) unaware of the intersection at all, and as I consequence I nearly was run over half a dozen times. The poem, which was written on the back of a crumpled boarding pass, was lightly dusted with sand. I have a deep suspicion that the author is either dead, or will not complain if I publish it here.


Destiny

Whether in joyous love or thirsty hate,
to be consumed, we yearn.
Not for the cold ground and touching cold gold, are the God-children born.
No, if there is one thing I trust for certain,
one thing I have learned;
in the heights of heaven or the depths of hell,
men were made to burn.

Eye Contact

This is a poem which was written by a man who wanted to believe he possessed the qualities required to become a free-styling rap singer. The meter and structure go out the window in this one, but maybe my rapping friend could argue that is the soul of 'free style' . Judge for yourselves, my readers.

Eye Contact

He always says nothing; but he has a mountain to say,

he feels helpless knowing that she'll go away,

he's angry at himself and her, in a way,

because deep down he wishes she'd sit down and stay. 

They meet when he's strongest; 

For me it was the day,

When he's strong he's ashamed 

of the part that he played:

He's failed yet again, and knows who to blame. 

She takes many forms: friends, crushes, sisters,

oblivious of how his mind has been twisted,

how dark the places that last night he visited. 

He lashes himself with his own sense of Honor,

after so many failures his mantra seems hollow,

But denial tastes bitter and a tough thing to swallow. 

It's sad just how easy he can say that "I'm broken."

It's freeing at first, after that's spoken. 

But then it seems that the gates of his pride are ripped open,

leaving him free to sink in his poison. 

Dammit! He curses, there must be point to this shame,

surely there's a purpose for disappointment and rage,

surely dreams and ideals have not passed from this age-

can I ever live wholly, can I ever live free, 

is there a chance that I'll always want to be clean?

Wanting. Now there's the stuff. 

What we desire controls us, it will shape what we love. 

If I want to climb higher, will that be enough? 

Christ knew this in a world of hard iron and stone,

that evil is inside us when we think we're alone;

That it is in our own hatred where the murder is done,

and we fail and betray Her with the lust from day one. 

God save me! he cries, maybe this time he means it. 

The Lord works in our weakness; He cleans and redeems it,

Given chance after chance, at last he'll wake up and seize it. 

It's hard to be clean without wanting to change,

It's easy in the pigsty to stay just the same, 

But once from all his addictions he tries to escape,

The prison collapses from this leap of faith. 

Leave it all behind, every last indulgence!

the small ones are seeds for their unstoppable parents

If this leaves you alone - become a knight errant,

those demons will scatter once you take up forbearance. 

They'll seem like good friends- with which you had fun,

reliable mates with whom you've had a good run-

Damn them to hell, those devils are lying;

they were sucking your blood and your true life denying. 

What he really was chasing

when he bought all their lies

was a word with that lady 

and to look in her eyes. 

To be a man to his woman,

and a son to his God,

to win the battle for honor

 he did not realize he fought.

Oh yes I know how heady are the drinks Satan serves,

but I've tasted sweeter things in Christ's endless reserves.

Once you've felt the free air hit your face with sting,

You can't just go back to hell's stale gathering

of the objects and toys that broken men buy 

because they're ashamed that they won't look Her straight in the eye.

Awe

One time,
when my eyes were very large, and filled with tears I could not explain,
I saw you.

You showed yourself to me, for a half a second, for eternity. My heart could not bear up the wonder of your story, nor my mind cache your glory. There are fractured images, cartoonish now in memory, and that feeling, that caused me to weep with awe.

Bare arms with a golden arm ring, light flashing off your mail. You are victorious, naught could stand in the end against your purity. There was love, and sacrifice; a thousand times rewarded. There is hope, carried through a thousand dark nights until at last it blossomed in light and joy. Your hair is tossing in the wind, crimson now like the blood you had shed for love. There is a wind blowing off the mountains, and where it touched there is no fear.

But most of all, I was comforted. I had been sick with despair that you were small and fake, imprisoned in a few deluded imaginations or confined to a screen or a page. But in that moment when my eyes were opened it seemed you were huge, real, in ways that I was not, nor could explain. I felt flat and two-dimensional compared to you, in that eternal moment I realized you were looking in, and I was looking out.
 I was a creation, finite with limits and boundaries. And you, with all your mighty descriptions, hero of the infinite mountains, could see me. You are personal as you are infinite. You are more real than anything a thousand human minds could ever hope to compose. And I will one day rejoice to see you face to face.

Frustration

 Listen carefully: the universe is at war. Holy fire billows in the void, dark storm fronts of despair crackle and flash with all the colors of fury. Armies are sallying forth from the heavenly places, swift-footed agents escape certain capture. Legions of evils fountain up wherever the thin fabric of the mortal realm punctures, leaking across our world like a spreading pool of ink. We here in the finite world are both soldiers and battlegrounds, both waging war and being waged over.  Every little word and thought is as a bolt of fire and a thrusting sword in the reality beyond reach.

I can hear it, sometimes. The music playing in my dreams the moment before I wake. Though I can never remember the tune, my whole soul reverberates afterward. I see the effect if not the cause, like the invisible wind tossing a tree's limbs against a gun-metal gray sky.When you know you've heard the song, nothing else matters. We are notes in the song, pages in someone else's story.

Do you see it? Those rich red-brown autumn colored hills that spread off out of sight? The morning mists that hang over millponds and dewy fields? Those pale morning skies that soon give way to the deep blue of a crisp november day? They are not just in one place, nor in a single memory. They transcend memories, are too real and too big for place or time or human understanding.

I can feel it at times, mostly when I was younger. The gentle sting of a morning breeze stripping away layers of sleep. The feel of waking, of being alert and aware of wondrous things: mountain slopes and flushed dawn clouds and that wind blowing in your face. Deep oceans of peace and mountaintops of joy.

For split seconds I think I have seen the people who live in those mountains, maybe only begun to understand their majesty. Great sacrifices and burning loves and indomitable heroes are in those lands; heroes who never die and wear a thousand faces.

And so I remain, staring with hardened eyes before you, my heart filling up with sadness. It wells up from a grief at what should be, and in my childish dreams deferred they boil up as anger. No, I love you still, more perhaps as I learn more of you. But with every word, thought and deed that honors the darkness's sovereignty it grows in power over your heart, and I see the stars that shine upon you dim from a spreading cloud.

I am not some righteous bastion of faith, that need choke out my enemies like a tyrant. Evil does not offend me, it grieves me, as I watch it poison the spirit world. Colors fade, and the song from the infinite mountains grows hard to hear. I am pained, choked as if on ash by the evil that pervade us in this realm. That which serves life gives me life; that which serves death, to me, is death itself.

So please forgive me, for the sudden tempests that sweep across my face. I am weary, and walking a long road to my home.

White Washed Tombs

I've lived in a graveyard,

in a country that's hot.

The tombs are painted pretty

like a candy shop.

I met a woman who told me she Cared,

about places where kids lived with dirt in their hair.

But you know I think she was sad and couldn't stop;

since she'd murdered her baby at the Happiness Shop,

It's where they sell you your youth back at the price of your heart;

So she held up her sign, to cover the rot.

I've talked with a man just a bit too angry for me,

he was raging about sins he'd never achieved.

Boy, he was on fire about another man's hell,

I couldn't get close, but even then I could tell;
 he was afraid of his silence, and what it would say

if he gave it a moment to kneel down and pray

If he just stopped for one second from yelling to breathe,

we'd all hear the quiet where his heart used to beat.

Well I was pretty pissed with the tombs

I figured they ruined the world,

still I didn't want the streets to have more folks like me;

cos I was broken and rotting and ugly to see.

I was corpse with a stomach that was turned in disgust

at the white washed walls hiding bones turned to dust.

But one day in the graveyard a Live Man appeared,

he was human and hungry with dirt in his beard.

"Tell me," I asked him, while I rattled my bones "have you come to seal me in a tomb with a stone?"

For darkness was what I wanted, and it was where I'd end up;

laid out in silence and consumed by the rust.

"Answer me, Live Man!" I begged through my teeth "what is it like to feel hunger or bleed?"

"Do you thirst?" He asked, and my anger was spent; for I had been dead for so long I'd forgot what that meant. Of all the corpses that rotted I was the worst; for I knew I was broken but I'd forgot how to thirst.

"Live Man," I rattled, shaking my bones "I am not worthy for you to stand in my home. You are Forever, and I am undone. I will crumble and perish far from the sun."

"Tell me," he said, as he stretched out one arm "can these cold dead bodies ever be warm?"

The clouds rolled away and a wind started to blow. But I said only in a whisper:

"Lord, you know."

"Look around you," cried the Live Man, as the winds began to moan, "can I raise up my children, and put flesh on their bones?"

I covered my face and spoke real slow: "Oh God, you know."

The Live Man bent down and whispered in my ear: "I am willing, be healed."

He took me by the hands where only bones should have been; There was blood from his wrists and it washed me clean, he put a heart in my chest, and when he opened my eyes:

All around me were people, real live people.

 Wearing the clothes that the Live Man had brought.

 I looked at each neighbor and I didn't know what to say:

The stone on each tomb had been rolled away.