Of Prose and Poetry…

Though I often write poetry, I rarely share it with others. For me, it’s more of a way to get thoughts and emotions onto paper… a conversation with oneself, as it were. When a bad (or good) day ensues it’s sometimes easiest to let the words just flow onto a scrap piece of paper as they may. Consequently, the majority of my poetry has been penned in free verse. Looking back on a few of the pieces that I’ve held onto, it’s interesting to see how the Lord uses our daily experiences and emotions to teach us how very reliant we are upon his saving grace and love. The following are a few pieces I penned on some of those ‘bad’ days. Hopefully they can be of some encouragement to you in your dark times!

“War of the Mind”

In a recken stupor the fallen flies
Not to hope but forsaken lies
He clings to malice and familiar places
A forged forgetfulness of the twisted faces
How is it that he flees into the arms of what he hates
Is this redundance akin with his fate
This lucid, frozen, empty desire
Is filled with his historical mire
And all around lay his fallen friends
As he takes up the sword and a stance to defend
But how, oh how is one to persevere
Amidst burning corpses and constant fear
Where ash lays thick on the deceased and broken
Where all that is said has never been spoken
The war of the mind continues in silence
A twisted spectre of raging violence
The fool dismisses the battle within
As the enemy approaches armed with his sin
Until at last when he least expects
They enslave his soul and infest his flesh
Alas for another, alas for shame
A tunneling enemy, wounding the lame
He despairs as the bulge inside
Becomes too much to handle- too much to hide
And as the tears run down his face
A warmth surrounds him and doth embrace
‘Onward, onward!’, the cry from above
‘On with the sword and on with my love
On in passion, on with grace
Onward in this runnable race!’

“To Remove a Mask”

The world is a dead place to me,
wrapped in the fading shrouds of filth
I wander here and there
meeting again, those that I thought I knew
but the light shattered my soul,
the thick glaze cast from off my eyes;
I walk anew… indeed I walk for the first time
cares are cast on the wayside
longevity is strewn on the hilltops;
pining under this synthetic light
Plastic faces in plastic cages
burdened under a sack of mud-filled lies.
Gaunt and tasteless a mirror of what I once was,
they stagger through the streets
grasping for a day they call ‘tomorrow’.
But oh, for a fool’s hope,
to inject them with faith of a child,
for scales to fall from off thine eyes
and clouds to pass from these dark skies
then and only then you’ll see the truth
two wooden beams and a body forsaken
they washed away this tainted shroud
that corrupted creation and perfection

“What I am and What I will Be”

Gather not the thoughts of dread
the chilling silence which so easily invades
so often it feels like my mind has been entombed
imprisoned in a cell of gelatin
where true thoughts never quite make an escape
trapped inside a numbing agent they float
resonating slower and slower
until they’ve become part of the emptiness

thus the task is realized
a soul encased in frozen deception
though the thoughts and ideas fall asleep
memories of a brighter day claim hope
they scream and resonate through a slothful soul
shaking off the dust and sludge
of a body that has become accustomed to being choked

but these memories claw and cut
though they face a dulling foe
perhaps the most dangerous-
who enslaves the flesh slowly, with purpose
constantly eating away at a mind
once intent with pristine purpose
now maleable and easily bent

then with a flash- memory emerges
cutting the surface of a mucous-laden sky
stark and sleek, so this is what I was once!
as the sleeping soldier groans and aches
staggering to attention; to fight again
oceans of clay rushing from his feet
suddenly speed with meaning!

concepts flashing, life happening
the pulse of thought jolts to life
Purposefully driven forward
striking up a pace that increases with each step
slashing, hacking to the surface
the direction now made true
jumping, fighting, riding
through the muddy swamps that surround us

only for a moment
this short race we call life
until suddenly the shock of light
engulfs and incinerates every imperfection
nothing but joy, sweet perfect joy
consumes ever atom, every synapse
of what was once a body

“And What of a Traitor?”

Despotism is the alias of a corrupted man
For wherein lies the strength of a broken crusader?
Who will cry for the fallen runner?
Would the world shift and turn its back?
What about the lonely, the lost, those who once burned bright?
Was their concience a stolen commodity?
Was anything real?
Should I have been affected, indeed should I still feel?
Wolves in sheep’s clothing tearing the flesh
Empty eyes are tunnels to nothingness
The heart beats cold in a cavern of stone
Yet once I felt its warmth at night
But those days are gone and winter has come
They’re but a chiseled, sneering statue
What of the traitor in you?

“Untitled”

The dawning of a realization within my heart;
Something I’ve known so many times before
yet everytime seems new in the eyes of a child
a lesson learned a million times
that I will fall the harder I try
but there in lies the problem
‘try’ is a three-letter word for failure
My frail vessel plots and plans,
but to no avail
What I require is another’s desire
to replace the makeshift crutch with a plan not my own
A path to follow that I know not
trusting my life to a script that is being read for the first time
Shall I resist, shall I show blind defiance?
No, I will confront my ignorance and accept my failing capacity
to grasp a concept greater than humanity itself
I surrender all to the plan that unfolds
through another’s broken body and becomes my own.

“Mess of a Man”

Screams of conviction echo in an empty mind,
Waves of panic crash upon a slick black thought
The castaway’s dark secrets are uneartherd,
There is no running, there is no hiding,
Sheer terror takes over- vision begins to blur
I now behold the blinding sword of truth.

A hand, perfect and shining grasps the weapon
My eyes widen with fear as the sword approaches
Pain so brilliant as I fall to the floor
Again and again the sword strikes,
I scratch and scream, “Lord, please no more!”
But no stalling action is taken and I’m left in a heap.

The crowd surrounds me, a broken, bloody mess
I cry out for help yet they turn their eyes away
I’m left all alone, cold and helpless
Years go by and countless tears fall from my face
And still in the shadows I can make out a figure
The soldier that smote me stands in silence.

I curse and scream in his magnificent face
Yet his hands are stayed, poised and smooth
I ask him to end my life, I beg for death
Yet he merely shakes his head and grimaces
I’m at the bottom, defenseless and broken…

Only then do my eyes open wide,
As I look to the one who struck me so very long ago,
“Oh, good Lord I need your help,
for if you will not kill me, then make me your own!”
He stirs from his post and trods toward me

“My son I love you, I always have!
But you viewed my good as wholly bad.
I struck you and hurt you, ’tis true
but only to strengthen your spirit,
to show you a humbler and better way.”

Then he picked me up and held me in his arms,
He nursed me back to health and equipped me anew,
A better and happier life I lead,
full of purpose and full of speed,
For God takes a mess of a man and gives him hope.