Jesus, unchanged through ages long and wide,
He breathed creation’s dawn with sovereign grace,
To Abraham He came, as a friend and guide,
And promised Isaac’s birth in time and place.
El Roi, the God who sees, found Hagar there,
In desert’s ache, He met her tearful plea.
With Jacob, wrestling through the midnight air,
He blessed and named him Israel, bold and free.
In flames, He spoke to Moses from the bush,
To Joshua, as Commander of the Lord’s army, robed in might.
He walked the furnace - fiery, fierce, seven times hot
A fourth man glowing in the blaze of night.
He heals, restores, and breaks death’s cruel tether -
The same yesterday, today, and forever.
Three cretinous judges, have commited to
The slaughter.' Of the B C Ostriches what?
Such a crime and dis-order.' Who knows these
Sleazball black robed ghouls? Who pours
Their water, man its so un-cool who tends
Theif hair who would shake their hand? Who
Would be their neighbor? Who can approve of
Their plans.?
Like an Axe Used To Split Kindling for Fire
Like an axe used to split kindling for fire,
Her beauty repeatedly strikes at my heart,
Encouraging sparks of desire that inspire
Me to bravely approach her without swagger.
I, in livery, and she, robed in fine cloth,
Comport in accord with that which is proper;
Express youthful, sentimental, foolish tropes,
Indulged in cautiously during our rapport.
Blustery adaptations amuse our spirits
At her pleasure, confident in my prescience.
We play charades insouciantly within limits,
Aware of time and place and our adolescence.
Music warms the heart’s revival of remembrance;
Our minds exploit these encounters with exuberance.
I can’t believe I once believed
that dragons could shed tears—
a time when my mind was robed
in the fragile cloth of childhood.
I wandered alleys where clouds bent low,
pressing their weight upon my skull.
Shadows snapped at my heels like starving dogs,
my heart swung loose inside my throat.
The tremor in my boots chained me still,
and every thought I birthed became a phantom,
scrawled in the dark, painted across the sky.
Those years were lived in trembles and fears,
each night a prayer for the ocean to come,
to wash me clean of figures
that crouched in corners,
that flickered like mirages where light bled thin.
How did those faces dissolve,
slipping from cloudbanks and corridors of shade?
How did they crawl out of my mind,
leaving silence where terror once nested?
Why was the darkness that devoured me then
locked away as a riddle,
a secret even I cannot untangle?
And those I asked only mirrored my silence.
Some still breathe the same trembling air—
fears childhood carved deep,
fears adulthood disguised.
But new specters gather around me now,
pressing their weight like tides unseen,
and once more I beg the ocean:
take me under, strip me clean.
This life is a fierce battlefield,
Little did I know before my birth,
My weapons should have been better honed,
So no earthly force could conquer me.
Friends I made while I was nobody,
Turned to foes when I sought to be somebody,
Those I loved with all my heart and soul
Blew pepper in my eyes when vision blurred.
Deceit comes robed in sheep's clothing,
But in its mouth lie poisonous fangs,
Mental torture is their specialty –
They wield it without a flicker of remorse.
When I wept from the pains they inflicted,
They dried my tears with clean handkerchiefs,
Their smiles conceal their bitter hearts,
Veiled in peace, their souls steeped in a vile bile.
Why were some people made just to hate?
They rejoice when they see their friends cry,
They are logs happier as stumbling blocks.
Than as bridges across a stormy river.
Had I come with my own weapons,
Their jugular would have been severed
To drain their wickedness till dry,
To purge their hearts of bitterness till empty,
And plant in their minds true love to grow.
If only wings all words would soar...too many anchors yet to endure.
Knowing is maybe less important than living? Certainly we are not here, to teach God anything.
We soak in our grief -- till the black robed thief returns us.
Traveling more deeply in sometimes is the only way out.
We travel and see through the shallows and depths of many. Poetry is the Poet's shared ark of survival and discovery.
Ever since I left you
the sky has been too narrow
and the light too heavy
and I inhabit the flatlands
like an exile, dreaming of
the Blood of Christ mountains
and mesquite.
The scent of silver sage
is the perfume you wore
the day you seduced me
as I wandered your streets
with my soul still echoing
from canyon walls,
and the hush hadn’t yet left me.
And the flute players—
Peruvian, you said—
sent up aching hymns
like smoke from a holy fire,
curling through my ribs
and loosening something
I hadn’t known was too tight.
Outside your chapel stood
a bush robed with rosaries—
garlands of pearl and plastic,
turquoise, wood, and glass,
whispering in the wind
like the prayers of strangers
I suddenly understood.
Inside, the hush was deeper,
diffusing the golden light
that illuminated
your impossible staircase
spiraling upward without anchor,
floating like belief
in the absence of proof.
I’ve lived as an exile
ever since I left your arms —
under flat songless skies
where nothing echoes.
But I still long for your embrace,
and there will always be
a hole in my heart
the shape of Santa Fe.
Whether the Indigenous People,
robed in leathers, head dressed in feathers,
who had their own sovereign nations,
wanted it or not,
June 2nd 1924,
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
condescendingly signed the Snyder Act,
a.k.a., the Indian Citizenship Act, into law,
thereby conferring American citizenship
on American Indians.
He had it backwards,
it was no more than an affront
as, whether the Indigenous People
wanted them or not,
it was American Indians who,
altho' they made no claim to own Mother Earth,
should have conferred American citizenship
on the Paleface People,
who were mere trespassers on tribal territory.
And Woody Guthrie
(1912 – 1967),
another white man,
was not referring
to Native Americans
when he wrote,
'This land is your land.'
Condemned to die, beaten and torn.
Upon His head a crown made of thorns.
Upon His back they placed a purple cloak
Treating all this as just a joke.
And what they said in mockery,
We repeat in all sincerity,
Hail to our King!
Crowned with glory!
Hail to our King!
Robed in majesty!
Hail to our King!
Fall down upon your knee!
Hail to our King!
They stripped Him bare, His wounds all could see.
Then knelt before Him in mockery.
A crown of thorns and a royal purple cloak.
To these men it was just a joke.
And what they said in mockery,
We repeat in all sincerity,
Hail to our King!
Crowned with glory!
Hail to our King!
Robed in majesty!
Hail to our King!
Fall down upon your knee!
Hail to our King!
Love makes the lonely heart sing,
for it would rather die!
Like a bell that's lost its ring,
or a forgotten one's sigh!
The heart needs someone to care,
Who knows of its sorrow.
For nothing else can compare,
no joy that you can borrow!
The vicars for the masses,
fear the new enlightened ones.
Watch as time slowly passes,
spinning with planets and suns!
The robed ones carry crosses,
that on them heavily weigh.
They count up all their losses,
and then jump into the fray!
Remember all the factors,
The fateful flight of the dove.
When we become the actors,
in the light of peace and love!
soft the moon robed in yellow
loft of clouds...her home's halo--
nights sift the hues pale to bright
while fist of ray gleams on lune's flight:
come, fast...gaze at moon's wonder
her fest , time's glory anywhere!
cannot bear the weight of all my sin
Alas, I fear, I’ll commit them all again
To add another pound or two of guilt
And hide behind my flame-retardant quilt
And so if Hell must have me I’ll submit
And stand accused of sins I did commit
And some, alas, that fell between the cracks
Of penalties enforced by dark robed quacks
And yet the penalty does seem severe
For one who made a mockery of fear
Now feigns the trembling words “I do not care”
To mend the garment rent without a tear
I have sinned in thoughts and words and deeds
To minister to those without a creed
June 2024, in Borno state, Nigeria,
three young Nigerian Christian men,
knelt with hands tied behind their backs,
under the fiery African sun.
Then shot dead into eternity by Islamic State
West Africa gunmen.
Rev Ibrahim Abako, secretary of the Yobe State
Chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria
condemned the murders.
The martyred men of Christ,
with their King, their Savior.
Nigeria's Christians' blood on its landscape,
the hearts of those who pray.
Persecuted for serving the Lord.
His people around the world cry out,
the Lion of Judah roars for His
three more white-robed saints of His Kingdom. ~
I dreamt I was in a church,
I was walking up to the candlelit altar.
There were clergy garbed in vestments,
whether they were Catholic or Episcopal,
I don't recall.
A mourning Mass was about to begin.
I approached an open small mahogany coffin,
an infant lost to abortion was lying in it,
instead of the bassinet it deserved to be
born into.
I placed my hand tenderly on the
lacy-robed babe.
Suddenly, the baby stirred and came to life,
gently cooing as many babies do.
The Life Dream,
sweet omnipresent Christ,
our prayers for unborn and born children.
Your infants of the ages,
of the earth's mother's receiving bosoms.
Our sorrows become our joys,
we saved through Your grace-
more of Your precious ones today. ~
O when the sun again do rise,
‘nd you with emerald eyes,
think not, of me, in ways kind; nah!!!
greet me as in throes; heeded greed perch’d
awin’ lecherous pine,
dip me amid rude imaginings, vile; yet fine.
think me ogre vying funsy peachy hind, or pig,
scoundrel even, lathering sweet pinkish chime.
O when the sun again do rise,
‘nd the sky had yet to surmise,
before the clock boom a cry, not in vague lye
nor spurn form’d pulsating stalk.
not in wholesome gown be robed; jazz-up racy talk.
if ne’er, do, when heat fills the bust,
unfettered lust dine, thus,
does truth of bliss cum, midst the two of us?
O when the sun again do rise,
‘nd you with emerald eyes, oh let’s not do find
exhaustion’s unclothed musk odd to us.
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