The Well-Traveler

I expected to see you around
The corner market is where I'll go
Because id rather see me leave
Than you see to it that I go
No one worry
I have my suitcase in tow
It will be quite the journey
For you two so don't forget
Things like rain jackets and good books
It always rains at some point anyhow.

A DIAMOND IN THE SEA

Children love the beach
They search for seashells and
Fill their pockets with their findings
And take them home as their prizes.
They don't need flowers or medals,
When they can hold the ocean in their pockets.
But as for me, I carry handfuls of rocks,
Skipping them while I sit on this dock.
Ignoring the children's boisterous play,
I lazily chuck one stone after the other;
I ignore the sunset and the wind,
Things that an artist would capture in paint.
My eyes watch as one rock jumps and falls and sinks,
Jumps and falls and sinks -- but wait
"No! Why did that last one gleam?"
It wasn't a rock but my wedding ring.
My heart jumps, and falls, and sinks.
The sun confirms my dismay as she
Falls beneath the atlantic bay.
There is no chance of reclaiming my loss,
No rope that could bait in that rock.
My cherished beloved -- the children still laughing,
Leaving me emptied of fishing,
I am lonesome and sick of the sea.

A NOT SO ECLECTIC IDEA

Happiness –– temporal, testing when seen in another,

Fleeting circuitry when felt in yourself;

Something likened to a pin-pointed dart,

Good when thrown by your hand but

Piercing when pierced through your heart,

The feeling I hear at the end of the hall,

Where all is in order with an impenetrable border;

The cusp of the cup I drink in this rut.

Contemptible content leaving me less than content

That prevents my penance from granting my plea;

Lending me absolute absolution, lest I earn

The wage of electric excellence I hear from the side,

Lines tangled throats, embodied is mine,

Today is the day, in fire that I dine.

THE FLOWERS IN MY HAIR

Life is experienced in Spring and Summer
When your perenial joy is awakened
And every morning you are crowned
With sunlight, decorated with the dew of the grass.
Flying three sheets to the wind
Ballads of laughter dance on your lips,
While cumulus dreams number the night.
All of the roses scream romance
And even impatiens patiently yield a passionate kiss.
The cedar's secrets reveal pillows of vanilla white smoke
That you are apt to follow if you so dare,
Encouraged to pursue if it so suits you.

Bring a partner then, a bird from the nest,
Because what good is a good absent of two?
But please I beg, expect the fog to unfold,
Unraveling forth that summer down pour,
That could just bore a wintry mix of the mind,
Washing away your thrill of high tide;
Think of the lilies – though planted as bulbs underground
Their petals break cold ground
In a tall floral posture into salient feats we can achieve.
Yes, though the cold falls hard, August is barely begun
And even in Fall, the orchards don't give way!
The fruit of the laborous persistance is ripe for picking,
The flowers in your hair still there for the seeking.

A PARADOX IN THE PARADIGM: THE LIE OF THE MODERN ERA

The happy man only smiles insofar as his brain

encounters the right happenings of today and tomorrow

he only wields a laugh when stimulated to do so

his hope is a mountain range of emotion destined 

to erode and change after he realizes that the world

is not so much sunshine and bliss as it is hard and trying,

this man is to be pitied because he has no rock but

the faulty foothold of quicksand that he calls purpose,

imagine a life where man’s chief end is to suffer the weight

of that entire mountain held on your back and then tell me

if in the end it was worth finding your worth in the temporary,

look to nature and see that no ground remains the same forever

shift happens and quakes bring to rubble security and stability;

now the happy man is no longer smiling anymore.

The successful man is satisfied only when his pockets are full

with the right things –– stuff stacked on stuff on stuff on stuff ––

so full that he knows nothing but plenty and success and excess

he desires that which is revered by his contemporaries, like

competition and performance, outward accolades and trophies

stored in huge glass closets and display cases for the world to see

but truly that man has locked his heart in a safe somewhere

where no one can touch it but, God is that dangerous

his body is so cold without that heart, he lives for 

the future, the complexion of a looking glass while he is
weighed down by the medals hung around his neck,

forcing a downcast face, in fear that he will shatter any second

because the grades and wealth were never enough, so

he falls down the ladder and now the successful man is on the ground, broken.

The moral man finds his worth in being a good person

making it his goal to leave the planet better off than it was,

to contribute new ideas and new means of sacrifice

a presupposition that man isn’t evil and that full faith in humanity

is full faith in goodness where all are completely welcome,

this man accepts everyone, a universal bridge that leads all together

for him all roads lead to Rome, whatever you deem that yourself

but poor man he is, because poor men are his lot, war is his problem,

injustice is his agenda, tyranny is his to solve, discrimination his issue

and his back breaks as the suspension cords snap because the totality

of immorality in the world exceeds his carrying capacity,

the lie that virtue is relative yields chaotic patterns in his mind because he always

acted as if it wasn't, though he believed that it was, a paradox in the paradigm

that he called humanity self-reflected in his own vanity, altruism 

subverted in egoism, a bridge that ends from where it extends, 

from one hand to the other, a traffic circle with signs of virtue in every direction,

he cannot save the world because he cannot save himself;

now the moral man jumps off his own bridge and drowns in humanistic ecstasy.

If the meaning of life is happiness, hope you never feel depression,

if success, hope you never lose your job or face failure,

if morality, hope you can rest in the peace that you can create world peace, but

if you yearn for a joy predating this pain, then please seek the eternal,

where your identity is to be fully known and fully loved anyway,

a place where you can be weak and inadequate, where you can

be dependent and not feel discarded, wrong but not be judged,

a place where God meets man and says, “Your heart ––

I want to take it away and give you mine so that you and I

can sit at this banquet table for forever and together dine,

oh my beloved, be loved and become my invaluable son.”

CUBISM

Imagine that these words form 

a three dimensional prism

spliced onto a two dimensional surface

like the world arbitrarily

stretched into an oval.

Envision bodies that look

the same from every angle

no matter how you twist them or

how you alter the seems.

I want to see the universe re-

fracted like it’s submerged underwater,

where up is down and East is West;

where snow will be white hot and even the

trees will be made of bricks.

Let us create this puzzling place and

call the land a collage and the sea 

a paper machete.

Help me begin by fragmenting our ideas

into newly shaped blocks and together

let us wash away the order into 

newly instituted borders.

HONEST QUESTIONS

What is Christianity full of passivity?

What is community with people of complacency?

What is joy dependent upon happiness?

What is sending if it is sedentary?

What is forgiveness with forgetting?

What is love when it’s only reciprocal?

What is sacrifice when it is easy?

What is praise if it isn’t prayerful?

What is commitment along with compromise?

What is discipleship without discipline?

What is baptism when you keep breathing?

What is life without constant dying?