Poem - For the Savior's Sake

Try it again
Release the heavy breath
and shake loose the clenched jaw
Speak.
Just speak up, for heaven’s sake!
For the blessed Savior’s sake
Just open your mouth and
the Spirit will provide
Yes, Lord, but I’m scared and visibly scarred
I choke and fumble
I curse my own being for the introverted station I inhabit
for serial failures
for pitiful paralysis of the tongue

“Who made man’s mouth?!”
Yes, Lord, but rote evangelistic rhetoric somehow
tastes foreign stumbling from this particular mouth You made
Feels memorized and inorganic
My pockets are overflowing with excuses – what’s wrong with me?

Try it again
Release the breath
And manage a song about
Him and for Him
So, yes, I sing loudly
I craft verses on pages and share them without request or prompting
I clumsily grab a hammer and a handful of bruised nails and
in the quiet I begin to hang pictures on the dark
Then steal away to pray
I plead, begging the Spirit to drop little
bread-of-life crumbs on the paths where the lost ones linger
Yes, Lord, use those verses to awaken need and to
point with great poise --
in ways my prefab elevator pitch never does --
point to the Light, seduce their vision:
“Behold, the Lamb of God!”
“Behold, your King!”

Oh, Great God, Lord, work
Work despite this tangled work of me
Let the fruit be rich, even if deeply blemished and unorthodox
Let the offering be sweet and sweetly accepted
for the blessed Savior’s sake

Of Walls and Monsters - Fathom Magazine

"Panic has become our collective prompting."

I'm thinking through walls and fear and cute, furry, blue Sesame Street monsters today in Fathom Magazine. I'd love for you to stop by and check it out here.

Kingdoms

(A messy sonnet, for our messy world)

They woke to life in amber waves of grain
With freedom’s sweet aroma wafting nigh
Ambition pumped the blood from that first cry
The “land of promise” promised them great gain
And so they labored long for kingdoms fine
A blurred, stale focus kept them looking in
The mother church of dreamers gave a grin
Entangling them into the liar’s vine.

But turned upon its head, that kingdom’s crown
Bejeweled with souls it’s ravished, left for dead
Evaporates to dust from whence it came
And all the rescued pilgrims tumbling down
Go groping for a hand, that they’d be led
And part their lips to finally call His name.

Rabbit Room -- Read It!

If you haven't visited The Rabbit Room, you are missing out. There's a ton of great articles, links to podcasts, discussions, etc. Trust me, you wanna be there.

I've had the supreme honor of having a couple of articles visit The Rabbit Room over the years. Here's the links if you'd like to check them out:

https://rabbitroom.com/2015/03/guest-post-handling-dust/

https://rabbitroom.com/2019/03/when-dreams-wake-up-different/

Peace, love and cheesecake, y'all!

April Poem-a-Day Challenge Day 11

Today's prompt asked us to write a dedication poem, a "to" or "for" someone or something. You can get more info and get on board with National Poetry Writing Month by checking out the daily prompts at writersdigest.com. 

For the Boy

If passion were any more a person than you, my boy,
If fervor itself could somehow favor any further the eyes of the one you call Papa in your silliness
I couldn’t imagine how
Couldn’t conjure up a more tightly-wound, sturdily and heartily packed soul than yours, son

You are messy triumph and a treasure.

All brimming with bounds of ideas
Tinted in technicolor
Comic-paned within cells of story
Swimming feverishly off your tongue every time the room falls quiet:

“Mom, do you want to hear my new idea?”

So I stir the tomatoes into the sauce
While your dingy-socked feet fitfully trace the ceramic floor tiles
Back and forth and again
As you spin yarns of your future creations
Tales of heroes and justice and how good always, ALWAYS buries evil
In the end

You have the soul of a justice warrior, sweet boy

And maybe (no, definitely) you add to your tale just a dash of
Good ole potty humor
It is, after all, the secret ingredient for a guaranteed laugh
The spicy nutmeg of every teen boy’s adventure
And you giggle at yourself

You are a web of wit and wonder

In the undertones of your words, I clearly make out
Your deep, unabated thirst for truth
For what’s right and what needs to be righted
That fire within you that often erupts in angry words and fists and tears
Of confusion
Of compassion for the underdog

Son, stoke that fire!

And I keep stirring the sauce as it boils and bubbles along with
The tempo in your tale
Your heart and voice crescendo until
“and that’s how it ends.”
Mama’s smile whispers a prayer to your Good Maker
Begging Him that no matter how often you lose in life
No matter what gets corrupted or falls down and tries to stay down
That you will never lose the fire for a just and good story
Because the best stories lead us
We weary wanderers
And the few righteous storytellers among us
Become our guides into vibrant life-songs and salvation.

Emerging - poem and mixed media

Emerging (a haiku) 

Shadows, they cover
Sever the beauty from song
Lord, let me emerge.

Emerging (mixed media - acrylic and paper on 12x12 canvas)

Explaining seasons of depression is difficult. The darkness is deeply real and felt, but is so hard to put into meaningful words:  the shadow that covers up what was once beautifully beheld, the spiral, the drain of color, the frail prayer requesting emergence from the shadow. 

But Light will not be stopped. 

Sometimes, though, coming out of that dark feels much less like a triumphal entry and much more like straining your vision at a crack of light sneaking in through a slowly opening door; or like a puncture, a tiny fissure, that opens to let you drip back into the joy of life. 

Untitled -- a free verse warm-up

April is right around the corner, sort of, and that means the bi-annual Poem-A-Day challenge is coming up soon. I am not great at free verse, but I wanted to start stretching my free verse writing muscles a little early this year, hoping to settle in to a style or flow in that category.  Being that we have stepped into the Lenten season, as we fast, as we search, as we wait, there is much to dig into within the darkness of the season.

Untitled

I'm glad for where I am
But getting here cost me
Everything
And sometimes
It feels like
My very bones will break trying to dam up the heavy tears
Pooling always in my heart
For what was lost.

Hope you'll consider joining the PAD Challenge next month at writersdigest.com. It's so good for soul and craft.

Blessings!