Best Affirming Poems
October 7 Scripture Meditations Based on Luke 20-21
Key Verse – Luke 20:8 And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell I you by what authority I do these things.
MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR AFFIRMING TO ME YOUR AUTHORITY
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s sovereignty
Above earthly rule’s territory of no certainty
Beyond powerful universal and galaxy’s velocity
Within my soul for my salvation-upheld spirituality.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s leadership
Above selfish motives of vain workmanship
Beyond tested humanism and worldliness’ friendship
Within my heart for my redemption-entrusted stewardship.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s mandate
Above governmental decrees of national state
Beyond set regulations and agreements’ date
Within my faith for my trust-performance rate.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s sovereignty
Above earthly rule’s territory of no certainty
Beyond powerful universal and galaxy’s velocity
Within my soul for my salvation-upheld spirituality.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s command
Above administrative orders of presidential demand
Beyond international executives and officers’ brand
Within my conviction for my Bible-truth stand.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s mission
Above personal pursuits of ephemeral ambition
Beyond standard education and well-being’s function
Within my desires for my service-sacrifice devotion.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s mercy
Above condemning judgments of zealous fervency
Beyond systematic punishment and correction’s persistency
Within my worship for my submission-surrender consistency.
Thank You for affirming to me Your authority’s aim
Above established measures of global flame
Beyond excellent objectives and goals’ fame
Within my gratefulness for my gifts-provisions claim.
October 7, 2022
To care,
A peculiar notion isn’t it?
An envelope of warmth,
A hand ghosting a shoulder
As you mutter the musical lull.
Or spit daggers to the opposing
To care,
To shred your beating heart
Into tiny bloody fragments,
Scattering them like confetti over anyone
Who dares enter the party of your mind.
To care,
To bang your fists against their walls
Until you bleed out from your self-inflicted wounds
As you watch them trample those fragile,
Fluttering fragments under foot.
To care,
To care for self,
To hold those glittering jewels
Like a poker player with cards abreast.
A twisted self-preservation and the path to emptiness,
Alone.
But I’d rather care,
I’d rather love, rather live, rather break.
Because to care is to have purpose
And give meaning to that beating heart.
Water is the only visitor for us here it tickles
thunder and lightning signal their arrival drops form rivers as it trickles
The force of its power tries to shape us carves our prickles
Transformed in our way unlike the idols we surround so simple yet fickle
The invisible hand of wind sweeps, a breeze of fingers it creeps gives us the power to fly
It comes for some but not all this time, refusals denied, our departure without tears, no time to cry
Some are left to watch them go do they look back do they try
Our land paints a new picture everyday grains turn to dust carried into the sky
Where do they go when they are out of sight
Is the landscape is forever changed as they are taken away day and night
The sand is forever shifting winds grows strong and too hard to fight
I see them carried away without wings I finally take flight
Caught on a wind and carried to the sky the limits of which impossible to show
I have never before seen the size of this mighty lion or this many buildings bellow
The beach beneath me as far as I can see continues to grow
Over the top of the pyramids higher and higher and higher I go
From here I see the desert that for so long I called home
I am on a journey controlled by the wind I feel so alone
There are others here with me I see them and feel strong
I wonder if the ones on the ground will know that I have gone
For the first time ever I look past the clouds
I look down on the birds a river the crowds
Higher still higher I hope for more if I am allowed
For the first time, I see what I was a part of and of that I am proud
Up here I see stars where only astronauts play
The sky has no end I see night and see day
Have others seen these same things was their journey this way
I am scared and excited unable to return so here I must stay
Far below me, the horizon curves the land away rivers feed the oceans
The land moves from beneath me below blue water in my heart warm emotions
Everything to be seen at once but not a part of the grounds commotion
Peace is found isolated in this cloud from dirt to sand to dust all promotions
Affirmations seem popular
attempting to manifest reality
peril being of ego seeking
boon as bane causing fatality
Unless with the conscience
we be in tranquil alignment
ego borne cravings & urgings
bring suffering & discontentment
Such is the divine paradox
that whilst we may co-create
we must do so in loving surrender
detached and in stillness sedate
16-September-2020
By Michael Parker
October nineteenth. two-hundred-ninety-third day of the year. It’s Mercurii, and the waning Hunter moon sits by Orion’s stretched thigh. Hydra lifts her head out of its eastern hole (there, next to Orion’s foot), wanting to devour the cadmium-hued moon.
What explains our struggles’ centrality?
At night, we sit by the window waiting for our suffering to leave;
the desolation of pain’s long war, and how that
pain changes and consumes
every single ounce of us.
This just might be the answer.
We have lost the guide star.
The nights are all black and shadows, and
we are bleak with a quotidian affinity for
our very own insufferable violent solitude
(because no one around us knows our pain).
The days are crowned with the southern sun, glowing.
If we walk, we’re crooked; slower than the wind.
Aphids, like tiny-winged fairies, dance like heavy snowfall.
God is soft spoken.
The praying tree has been felled.
Blood has come out on the leaves on the trees.
And dry leaves fall away from their own
beloved green communities.
The Prince of the cards leaves his own Egypt.
(Does he feel the terms: lone, exile, desolate?)
I see he carries a long stick.
I don’t want to believe it’s a weapon in this age of weapons.
Rather, he holds it forward like a diviner’s rod.
Divining a future? Divining life
without the fear of increased pain
(which chokes sufferers like ivy about the neck)?
Yes, the angels seem to have lost us.
Lost to us in our kingdoms of the unapproachable.
Lost to us in their great and benevolent flight to
minister to the forsaken living and
the unburdened dead.
Copyright © 2021 by Michael Parker. Originally published in the poetry collection, Diving the Spirits in the House of the Hush and Hush, by Michael Parker, published by the Utah State Poetry Society, 2021.