two more... tonight's been a writing-y kind of night

This Poem Has Metaphors.

So maybe I'm sharp,
but if only I were jagged...
Maybe I'm bright,
but just once
I'd like to burn your eyes...

to make
something
that not only is,
but
does.

No, I've spoon-fed
my lines with meaning
till they're puking up
melodrama,
green with wishing
it were not so green
with wanting, so very
mine.


Essentially, I get frustrated with how contrived my poetry feels sometimes.




Untitled

The crooked saw's
Worn-down teeth gleam,
Wet with blood
From its undead sapling feast.

The sun, perched impatiently
In early morning's seat,
Passes time by scorching dew
Like ants from every leaf.

The river bubbles slowly
Over stones, muttering somewhere
A cold hand creeps behind ancient
Man dozing in a chair.

Out with the old,
Out with the new,
In with whatever's left.
It's all entropy, right?

Yet somehow, I can't wait
For what comes next—
The young tree sputtering
Sugary green life on grateful bugs,

The sun attending the dew
In its heavenly home,
The old man feeling
Warmth of the Alone.



This one actually started out with just the image of the saw, and turned into something else entirely. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but until I decide I hate it, I'll keep it up.

I'm a bit apprehensive about posting this one, but that's kind of the point.

Object Impermanence

What is it?
What's the fear?
So worried
about scuffing the
whited sepulchre?

—a stroke of the brush
will clean that right up.
can't smell the piss
if it's covered in paint—

The censored sailor
still curses up a storm
under purgatorial bleeps
dead-set in slopping on
another coat, and I
mutter shit under my
breath when (I'm praying)
nobody can hear it.

—but what the world don't know won't hurt me,
and God's an infant lamenting
my new nothingness
as I leave the tomb.







If you want to take some more time to try and understand the poem on your own first, stop here.

This was a painful poem to write. I was struck today by how much fear I have of revealing more of myself than I am comfortable with in my writing. I am scared to death of showing what it is I really am sometimes. As a result, it doesn't even seem like me when it comes out. I think we keep an illusion very close to our hearts—that somehow, it's better not to be honest with yourself, with others, with God. I'm coming to the realization that I have often structured my personal life in a way that attempts to hide things—thoughts, feelings, actions—from many people, and from God. I have recently been trying to make a more concerted effort to counteract this tendency in my life, and it struck me that art is an area of life where honesty is not just valued, it is required. How can I assume that I could possibly create anything meaningful if I am afraid to articulate what it is I'm really trying to say because it's too self-disclosing, or because it involves language that I don't use on a regular basis? If this is what the truth of what I am trying to say hinges upon, how can I avoid it and stay honest in my writing?
Object permanence is the understanding that things exist whether you see them or not. Children below a very young age do not have the ability to understand this. They experience object impermanence. In attempting to hide things from God, or in believing that our actions matter more than our thoughts and our motivations, believing that these actions are the criteria on which we will be judged, we place God on the same level as these children who think an object that has been hidden from them no longer exists.

Pray for me, that I will become more open and honest with God and with people in all areas of my life.


note: If you think me a heathen now, please talk to me. I would love to have more than a one-sided conversation about this issue.

A Memory

When I was five, my family went on a trip across country. We camped out at a ton of places, one of which was on the Snake River in Wyoming. I have a vivid memory of standing on the edge of the water in front of our campsite and skipping stones with my brother, Nick, who is 7 years older than me, and my sister, Liz, who is 6 years older. I have been privileged and proud to watch my siblings grow up and make their choices as I make mine. This poem tries to use that memory to get at (among other things) how glad I am that no matter what paths our lives take, we are still family. Liz and Nick, this poem is ours. I love you both.


Snake River
(For Nick and Liz)

I can only assume that
Nick must have started it,
Then Liz, then me.

We stood at the edge
Of a swift and shallow stream,
Selecting stones judiciously

Then casting them out across
The water to count their steps
Before gravity took them under.

Each choice was irrevocable—
Once released, bound to fall below
The constant, rushing current

And join the droves of decisions
Already thrown by man or God,
Dissolving into the sand beneath our feet.

For all the fighting, the long ride bickering
About every nothing that masquerades
As anger and frustration,

We stood there on the bank
Of the Snake River, side by side by side,
And picked our destinies together.

swamped, drained, inspired.

I wish I had more time to write lately. Unfortunately, school has been quite demanding recently, and in the free time I do get, I can't really bring myself to open a notebook and think really hard for an hour. The most frustrating part about it all, though, is that I have so much I want to write about. There is so much ambition, I just don't know really how to harness it.
Recently, this is all I've been able to muster. The title changes pretty much every time I write it out.

To Move Mountains

I'd be content to see
a mustard seed turn over
in a gentle breeze.



—It's very short; very simple. I was talking to a friend about "faith-sized" requests in prayer. It's the idea that with whatever amount of faith we have at a given moment, there are things we can ask of God—things with tangible results (like "God please give me the opportunity to talk to this person before Friday")—that are proportionate to that amount of faith. If we pray and have complete faith in the fulfillment of those prayers, God will answer us in one way or another.
The gist of the poem, then, is that if with faith the size of a mustard seed we can make a mountain move into the sea, I must have a long way to go. At best, I might have enough faith to move the mustard seed. The mustard seed is not only a reference to the proportionate size difference from the mountain, but it is also the representation of faith. As such, the poem is also a prayer, that God could use what faith I do have in Him to begin to move and grow that seed, causing it to build upon itself. The mustard seed is a double metaphor, I suppose.

Ice

It's winter. There's a lot of it. Ever since I was a little kid, walking home from the bus stop, I've had this fascination with walking on ice—especially when it cracks underneath you. There's something so simple and childish about it. It reminds me of home. Lately I've been reconnecting with that feeling. I'm fixed on the concept of "home." It's a hard thing for me to wrap my mind around; I have this strong sense of it being a very real, tangible thing, however at the same time, it's almost impossible for me to really wrap my mind around it. As such, much of my poetry deals with "home," and with childhood and memories.
This is one of those, but it's also something more. It's the realization that home is still attainable in some form after childhood has passed.


Walking Home

I
As winter melts away,
Little ice ledges overhang
The borders of paved
Walks from Lewis
To the Hill.

I don’t know why—
The path is wide
(And for the most part,
Unoccupied)—
But I stay to the side

And let my sneaker drop
Naturally over the fragile
Glassy surface until all
My world—direction,
Thought, desire—

Is reduced to pure crunching,
The satisfying snap underfoot
That breathes in cracks, “it’s okay
For things to break.”

So like a fading dream
Upon awakening,
I chase it:
A truth,
Half-known
(If that)
Until somehow
In my mind
It’s found again
And I am home—
I know
And I am known.

II
We lived on Battis Road
And could declare “home”
Without a moment lost
To wistful thoughts.

Here, I used to cry
On the living room floor
Begging never to grow up,
Never work, bleed, or die.

Then, older, I would wander
The four house-lengths
Back from the bus,
Famished for excitement.

Drainage water formed a brook—
Frozen in the early months—
And here I first learned
Of that raw and simple catharsis.

So like a pioneer
(Of sorts, I imagined)
I braved it
Stomping,
Falling through,
Soaking wet;
Warmly cold
And alive,
Crackling
My way home—
Where I know
And I am known.

III
There’s comfort in the collapse
And order in the entropy;
A sound and a feeling that ring
In my bones like the dim voices
Of dear old friends.

It struck me like a falling sole
On my way to meet you up the Hill:
The destination binds it all,
It makes every crushed crystal
Sing one crisp but subtle song;

Whether small boy or grown man,
The melody remains.
Footsteps keep cadence
And the improvised adventure hums:

Vital and young
And heading home.
Heading home:
To know
And to be known.

IV
The destination binds it all
To one singular sensation.

And this is my terminus:
Where I find rest
And lay things out to dry,
Where comfort can be
Free to flourish,
Where at least
Something is sure
To be in order,
To feel planned,
To seem right;
This common end
Is my home:

There I know
And I am known.

two new poems

A Sunday

I
arrived
to
find
the
Body
dis
membered:

the Feet more than
a few from

the Eyes, avoiding
contact with

the Arms that
couldn't reach

the Mouth, which refused
to speak to

the Ears, entirely
deaf to

the Head and the Heart,
pleading for unity.

We took our seats—
a pew to each—
begging for the LORD to touch
while dreading any other such.


You (you)

You’re You, but from the way i
close my eyes, refuse to get behind,
cover my ears, mutter my lies,
You’d think i thought You were you.

a heavy Hand high above
that could crush, or move, or love,
yet i pass over as if It were anchored
to the arms of a beggar, outstretched:

a sorry feint to faintly jingling pockets,
remorseful smile, (a look in the eye
to let him feel alive)
then passing by, no guilt, no memory.

you’re you, but from the way i
forget that old coat covers the Divine
(which i forget i claim to keep inside)
you’d think i thought you were You.

and what if i unblocked
my ears to You,
who asks me to find
You in every you?

25 Page Poetry Project Sampling

I had to write 25 pages of poetry for my creative writing class. Here is some of it.

York Harbor

Down by the ocean
on the rocks
where the crashing,
rolling, tumbling waves,
the warm breeze
and the night
spotted with stars
took the time away,
we sat in silence.

Down by the ocean
in the dark
where the sinking,
floating, anxious thoughts
spun my head
and the sand
clung to my socks,
we talked it all
into stillness.

Down by the ocean
side by side
where the painful,
awkward, stark truth
remained, knowing we
were only nothing
but still everything,
I thanked God for
airplanes to bring you back.


Highway Evangelism

I was in the third lane
and, in his defense,
the needle was barely
breaking seventy.

I was in the third lane
and couldn’t help but notice
the tiny metal fish
stuck to his bumper.

I was in the third lane
and will never quite forget
the rudest gesture, his eyes
filled with hate.

I moved to the second lane
and quietly considered
removing Christian keepsakes
from my car.


A Cold Night

Smoke and pain twist
Toward the skylight (shut)—
Like the one in my room as a kid
When falling asleep I’d watch
The moon framed by astronaut walls—
And they fill the closed-in porch.

It’s freezing out with my
New coat, the freezing
Where you watch your

Breath (and pain twist
Toward the skylight [shut]—
Like the one in my room as a kid
When, falling asleep, I’d watch
The moon framed by astronaut walls—
And they fill the closed-in porch)

Dissipate into the vacuum
Of cold and marvel that
It’s not already ice.

But the pipe—a gift
From two halves that
Used to (maybe) not be
So halved; who can wrap a box
But keep separate houses—is warm
And something sweeter to taste.

Struck with the sharp finality
Of the interminable:
So smoke and pain
And breath and pain
And anything, and everything,
And pain.


Guilty

I remember once feeling guilty
For having no sad story to tell.

Now I only feel guilty
For having felt guilty.


Constellation
(for Dad)

I still trace Orion
Every winter night
When the stars oblige
And remember the first time
You filled in the lines.

Showed me the belt
The shoulders, the sheath,
The head and the feet, perfect
As if, when I had looked away
You moved them all to fit that shape.

You couldn’t have known,
And you needn’t understand,
But on cold evenings,
I find the piece of sky
My father signed.


Toss-Up

You’re a toss-up between
A flickering bulb and
A closing comet.

The bulb just needs
A turn or two
To tighten some
Loose connection;
Then you’ll be bright.

The comet, on the
Other hand, circles
In slow cycles
Until finally
Burning up.

I’ve seen the way
Your light undulates:
Predictable, celestial,
But hope still sends prayers
For the flicker.


Again

Take me back
To the hill
We’d sled
Between the fence
And the porch
When youth was new
To waste on youth.

Bring me back
To the trails
That wound behind
The town we never,
Never thought once
We’d ever
Ever leave.

But now it’s lost
To time and age
And age brought pain,
Real pain;
Real pain then brought
The drugs that dragged
Those friends away.

And now I’m left
With snowy days
Remind of when
We’d waste our days
Our days I wish
I wish again
Again again.


From “The Dead”
a (found) poem

His soul swooned slowly
As he heard
The snow falling faintly
Through the
Universe and faintly
Falling

(Covering all but
Revealing all
the same)

Like the descent
Of their last end
On all the living
And the dead

(Praise God
For the day
When this all
Melts away).


Poor Parenting

I learned today
That parents
Petitioned
To have the Cookie
Moster changed.

Apparently, the
Obese oaf was
Slacking on his
Duties in rearing
Their children,

Letting them into
The sweets. But
Never fear, the
Veggie Monster’s here
To raise kids right.


We’re Not Doing Any Favors

The paper said
A schizophrenic son
Killed his caring mom,
Believing her to be
A terrorist.

It didn’t note
The psychiatric ward
That stole his sanity
In deeming his state sufficiently
Sane to leave;

Because when he does
Begin to come down,
The grief alone
Is all he’ll need to bring
Him back around.

But we live in a
Humane society
Where we oblige to let
The cancer itself decide
If it should cease,

And redefine
Insanity to mean
You’re fully capable
Of opting for the half-life
You will lead.


And It Will Be the Sign of the Covenant Between Me and the Earth

Sometimes I thank God
for rainbows—

not because they’re
pretty or pleasing,
but because of the
promise to Noah—

because sometimes I wonder
if I’d make it onto the ark.


Sermon

The preacher spoke of
Healthy, wealthy, and happy,

And I couldn’t keep my mind
From wandering down
The road marked with suffering,
To crosses, camels
And the eye of a needle

As he explained that faith
Was a bank account
In which the smart investor
Accrues interest
On his deposits.