Oh frail creature you’ve
done it again, again are you maligned
frazzled
ransacked and unsound
You’ve not done the research
You’ve lost the thread
It is better to be alone than
admired by a liar
And yes, I say admired because
he doesn’t love you and
he is incapable of love but
Lord has he tried
He thinks he has
He’s done his best
Forgive him but
he must go; get him out
Will you consider
please
for one minute
You don’t need anything more than
Yourself
Your God
and your lip balm
Don’t be the solution
to someone else’s problem
You are a person
Tag Archives: poem a day
Forced
I didn’t write a poem yesterday
I spent the entirety of Sunday night awake
I was in unrelenting oain
I probably should see a doctor
I slept most of Tuesday until it was time for work
I had some obligations to catch up on
I always put my writing last
I am literally just writing whatever I’m thinking right now
Which is not really a poem
I am going through the motions
I am “doing the work”
I am getting something out
Which really is half of life, isn’t it
Doing whatever you have to do
Until you do it beautifully
Sorry you had to watch the
sausage get made
My Prayer
I want you to feel the greatest joy
I want you to feel like smiling every day
Like dancing or at least singing
Like waving hi to strangers
Like thumping the steering wheel in time
Like everything can be sorted
Like all the pain was just a price to pay
For this happiness
Chronic
I am in constant pain
It never ends
It sometimes abates
It shifts to new places
Just when I think an old pain is done
a new one takes its place
or it comes back
Since I was 7 years old
always the pain
I challenge the pain
“Fight me, you coward,” I yell at it.
It is the nerves, you see.
They are overly alert.
There are medications for this.
They make me stupid.
I challenge the pain.
“You are a record of something that is done! Get over yourself! Get lost! Get out!”
The pain grins at me from behind a rib
From atop my ankle
From beneath my scapula
From deep inside my guts
“I remember everything,” it sneers.
“You are just creating drama,” I sneer back, as I hand it to God.
Sick Burn, Bro
Who was ever moved by mockery?
Which of us was drawn to
another viewpoint
another idea
by name calling?
Which of us felt engaged in discussion after being called
stupid
Who is winning here?
Your side is not winning
Their side is not winning
The only grin I see in the crowd
is a toothy, rotten maw
His breath is heavy with sulfur
And he delights in your self satisfaction
Love Will Not Be Silenced
There is tremendous appeal in
the cloistered life
A life focused on Christ alone where
petty daily worldliness cannot creep in
Where the Things of this age dissolve into distant memory
never to trouble one again
And the simple Truth of Love is before you
always
But would I be able to take a cat?
Are we allowed to bring moisturizer?
My skin gets so dry
How do I give this Love to people when I am shut in somewhere?
It hurts all the time but
I cannot stop giving it
Like a poked bruise
Love will not be silenced
Ninety Five Percent
It’s different
But is it friendship
It is companionship
But is it love
It’s all business and it’s not pleasure
It’s all listening but never leaving
It’s all secrets and sometimes laughter
But never a laugh
It’s all the work and seldom wonder
And never wander
It is limited and liminal
I can’t be your therapist if you
never pay me
But I mean
we know me
It’s okay
Terror of Evil Spirits
Would that there was a father
So favoured by God that
Demons flee from him, spectres hide from his gaze
This is the father who would check the closet or
under the bed and you’d know
know with every fiber of the certainty of your being that
it was free of monsters
Lover of poverty
Who places love before all things
Who placed Love before all things
For demons lurk in possessions
and obsessions but
There is no evil in love
Guess Who Sucks at Remembering to Write a Poem a Day?
It’s me! It’s definitely me.
It’s also you. I note that you are not writing a poem a day. You don’t have to at all, I just thought I’d even the blaming field
Normies get to rest and reflect during Lent
People in ministry do not
People with side hustles never rest
People who pray 2 hours a day are resting but also
Those 2 hours are not spent writing poems
I dreamt last night Led Zeppelin got back together
My friend Chris got us tickets; I brought the cat
The show was so packed we couldn’t actually sit where we could see it
But sometimes we had an opportunity to poke our heads through a hatch & see the stage up close
The opening act was some sort of conga number with a guy dressed as Jesus
When it was my turn to look in the hatch, Jesus looked right at me & winked
The next part of the dream was a CSI type explanation of cat whisker function
This is when I woke up & realized that the “dream” was purgatory
This is a terrible poem, but it may also be my best
This Mortal Toil
The heart pounds
Sweat pools
Eyes dilate
Reflexes twitch
Good God, it’s just a Zoom meeting
Not two generations ago we were holding off Nazis with pistols
What happened
We will survive nothing more threatening than a 24 hour wifi outage