I need the tattered stuff.
It feels like grooves groaning.
Envious of slow thoughts.
I’m rattled.
It bounces like falling down the drain.
Until I looked again and everything turned shy.
At least shy to me.
As the old coat got older.
I like the tattered stuff.
Flipping through all that yesterday.
And still, nothing under my eyelids.
It’s nice as a book with spices.
And medicine.
In the tattered stuff.
In this abandoned place.
Until I unabandoned it.
Their rattled.
Aged olive tree
Where Jesus knelt
Still alive today
A thousand years
Or more growing
Unabandoned
Exposed yet free
Open witness before
A history once more
In Gethsemane waving
It leaves to the world
Triumphant, victorious
And never commit errs
Till eternity and gospel wish
Crown the returned of the Victor.
I have found the fullness of brokenness in one person,
He is Jesus, the Christ, born to dwell with human beings;
For no sin of his, like a lamb, I found his cause worsen,
Scourged; thorn-crowned; spit upon; underwent such menial things...!
Didn't, as though a wonder, kings visit him, at his birth?
Why so soon, yet, the scenes changed, and dominions sought his end?
If truth, except for parrots, is not allowed on this Earth,
Incarnation is nothing but a note by Yahweh sent...!
Neither Romans nor the Jews could ever his name erase,
Unabandoned truth stood firm; this was, hence, he rose again;
The body was broken and blood was shed; in him was grace,
This was why, beyond all norms, the victory he could gain...!
Thank you, Jesus, for teaching me to be truly broken,
My flesh and blood is yours as my reverential token...!!!
When I arrive home.
I will silently unpack.
To be abandoned.
To be unabandoned.
The community that found me.
The people I’m destined to forget.
The society I had been taken from.
When I arrive home…
There is too much to unpack.
Tomorrow, the apologies begin.
Tomorrow, the secrets begin.
OF WEIGHTED CROWN
whose thorns? you think you know.
c r o w n e d with heavy g o l d of s i n —
layer upon layer, an i m m o v a b l e feast.
the k e g of power, one thinks he has. king
of t e r r o r, troubled in burdensome brow.
the d a n c e of the threatening l y n x , with
eyes of o p a l fire, free a kingdom of his
earthly voice. Salome’s unabandoned rhythm
chops off Herod’s head. The king’s unholy wife
and child are his f e t t e r s for life...for death.
the Savior preaches and heals as the Baptist’s head
is plated, presented and celebrated for a brief season.
4/2/2018
It’s A Shorty Contest/Sponsor: Deborah Beachboard
Mingled highs and lows from the weather
All around earth gives forth flowers
Radiant sun awakens and birds gather
Constant change as each tree grows higher
Hopeful season of spring; spirit towers
Majestic springtime sunrises
Amorous hidden feelings spring forth
Rapturous aroma surprises
Captivating senses of mirth
Heavenly days linger, henceforth?
Magic moments float into night's prizes
Attentive doting companion
Rehearses love's verse excited
Completely engulfed unabandoned
Hauting thoughts float like jasmine
Mingled highs and lows from the weather
All around earth gives forth flowers
Radiant sun awakens and birds gather
Constant change as each tree grows higher
Hopeful season of spring; spirit towers
Majestic springtime sunrises
Amorous hidden feelings spring forth
Rapturous aroma surprises
Captivating senses of mirth
Heavenly days linger, henceforth?
Magic moments float into night's prizes
Attentive doting companion
Rehearses love's verse~ excited
Completely engulfed unabandoned
Hauting thoughts float like jasmine
Written: August 12, 2015
a concrete heart waiting in ebony night
on winged-flight, softening in calm's dreamy thought.
One grain of sand becomes a glistening pearl,
over the years, an aging restlessness wrought
in moonlit tides and cyclic wave-drenched hours.
Harsh winds have blown smooth and soft breezes cool.
Then across hands of time, shades of dawn unfurl,
waiting until the sun sets on a fool.
He who loves with fury, unabandoned.
The man who names his own waking despair.
The one called a fool, a true dying breed.
He waits for beauty and passion without care.
One glistening pearl waiting amongst grains of sand.
An artist's gem uncovered from the hardened land.
Hope
I think there is s a town in Mississippi where hope lives,
a place were clouds look like purple cotton candy in a bright blue sky.
Where the best of the best parade down main street every Saturday.
Imaginations run unabandoned like, preschoolers questioning everything and
encouraged to be loud.
Sister reality, rigid and uptight,
lines gardens and doorways in white picket fences.
Daisies in rainbow colors painted on the front.
Even her proper lenses do not damper our view of time.
But Hope,
this town in Texas or Mississippi or Milwaukee seems untrue.
Bigger than a giant and louder than the drum beats of my heart when i realized I
was in love with life.
Hope, huh,
a question on cloudy days,
a command on mornings too difficult to get out of bed,
an exclamation point chasing me away from my painful past urging me to break free.
a statement filled with a destination on days when I run, walk, swim and dream
for the directional compass of my life,
and hoping batteries are not needed.
(Aids memorial quilt, February 2005)
I.
As a native girl too,
grapefruit tanned, knew the secret
to Florida oranges.
That the sweetest nectar,
broken open
piece by piece,
points naturally toward the
thumb tip, dips delicately
across the taste buds.
I am sure
Tommy held them this way
many times,
far away from the dull blue
surrounded Florida
painted on his cloth tombstone.
II.
The heart of Texas was Bill.
Not the plastered crumbled clay
of the Alamo,
where the dead still wandered
aimlessly, gaunt faced, austere and unknowing
of their long abandonment.
I wondered
if Bill liked ten gallon hats.
If Tommy would scold him every time he put one
on before planting
light bird nest hands on his shoulders
and pulling tight
with pressed lips,
telling Bill to remember Tommy, not the Alamo,
so his apparitions can stalk at daylight
with green tea and an orange on the thumb
unabandoned in the heart of Texas.
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