Chasing

Chasing

I get tired of chasing inspiration

I get frustrated with interruptions

This ever-gnawing, ever-present desire

Something beyond words, a burning fire

So deep within I cannot see it nor hear it

Yet I most assuredly can feel it

It is my life calling me forth

It is life itself calling me into the beyond

Beyond normalcy, beyond status quo

Even beyond the knowns of excellent and good

Into realms of even better and best

Places of peace, places of rest

Where I have no part in a chaotic hurricane

Rather I stand in the cooling rain

Just taking in the rainbows from the sunshine

It’s light is there no matter the circumstances

No matter the mistakes, the crushed romances

No matter the costs, the worries, the trials

No matter the doubts, curses or dark denials

Light does shine, darkness doesn’t argue

My every lot, my every sinew

Is washed anew in this effervescence 

Reclining

Reclining

I could sit here in this chair all day

Pondering the mysteries and wonders before me

And when the day is over and done

I am deeper into the struggle than ever before

Knowing less but feeling more

Closer to You than ever before

Closer to me

I can watch the sweeps dance across the waters

I can see the ducks resting in the rain

As I sit here in this recliner seeing it all

Writing out a simple refrain

I sense I am walking to something deeper

Something beyond the dark and the pain

Though I am more still than I have ever been

The rain keeps on falling and falling

The water keeps on accepting the earth

The sound of its music brings laughter

Its moisture brings clouds in the mirth

Heightening mirth more than ever before

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before, still even closer to me

The wind has joined in with the laughter

The grasses now see they are green

It reminds me that my heart is a flower

It blooms in the realms that cannot be seen

Changing the sounds of the earth

Closer to You than ever before

Ever closer, even closer to free

I see

Shadows on the Parking Lot

Shadows on the Parking Lot

I walk along during the late afternoon

The sun still high enough to make it like mid-day

The geometric shapes of shadows line the bay

They have changed

But yet they still are patterns

I wonder why all these patterns

All these equations

All these predictabilities 

Come from One Who is unpredictable

From One Who has no form

No shape, no patterns that He would ever fit into

I wonder what would I say, what would I do

If I ever had the chance to meet Him

Right there, in my face, in my person

What would that be like?
I’m sure it wouldn’t be like these dark and quiet shadows

Shifting with the angles of the sunlight

I’m sure it wouldn’t be predictable

Though likely predictably incredible

Awe-inspiring, shaking, thundering

These geometric shapes have changed

Yet still there is a pattern

Maybe there is message here

That the methods can change

And change with time

Yet there is always the pattern of love

The geometric shapes of shadows line the bay

Yet the sun is still high enough to make it like mid-day

Sensing

Sensing

I have sensed the poetic

Yet I have yet to engage it

That delight seems to flit around in great whimsy and flight

When I try to approach it with determination and might

It surely just whisps away

Or possibly I might squash it like an annoying ant

Under the padding of my thumb

I cannot enter the world of numb

I simply, simply cannot

I must feel the joy along with the pain

I must imbibe the sunshine along with the rain

Because both are essentially life-giving

I’d rather hurt in the land of the living

Than be eternally numb in the realms of the dead

I touch the fear, I feel the dread

Yet this fire within me will consume it

I will not take it for granted, nor will I assume it

To be ever present, though it always is

I rather yield to the waxing flames

I listen for the lightning names

To sound off in the dark distances

In dark divorce, in stark romances

There is ever still the light, the heat

The love that sits on supremacy’s seat

It is love that will aways guide me

I am sensing the poetic

Simple

Simple

Sometimes I just try too hard to be poetic

Trying to turn every little detail of the day into something profound

All the while life stands there beckoning in all its grand simplicity

A conversation

A smile

A beautiful face

The clouds

The mountains

The rain

All these things in short refrains 

That don’t require any histrionics at all

They don’t require any deep thought or shame

Just simply a moment of pure joy

A seed

Which grows into a giant redwood

Something of eternal depth and height and weight

All from the living of life in the day

Within the day I’ve been given

Call to Arms

Call to Arms

There is nothing quite like the emptiness

Of a poet’s mind and heart

Staring at this blank piece of paper

With an even blanker mind

The heart numb

The spirit still 

And though my heart and soul and will

Long for a deep expression

The minutiae of the day 

Have drained it all away

Is this really any way to live?

Is this really any way to live at all?

A whim, an act, a curtain call

Then a glass of wine to wash the day away?

Listless sleep, a restless slumber

Then the agonizing buzz of a raucous alarm

The same damn time, the same damn number

To announce it is time to pretend again

Is this any way to live?

Is this really any way to live at all?

Is this even really living at all

Or is it merely cheap gyrations?

In the midst of all these frustrations

There’s nothing quite like the emptiness

So I, determined, pick up this pen

This is my sword

This is my dagger

And with the glory of a warrior’s swagger

I will stick it as deep into this slumber as I can

Just to understand what life and love can be.

Crest

Crest

Waves of anger and depression

Slapping against my being like gray waves

On a black sand beach

Too hot to walk on

Too dreary to sit and watch

So I’ll move along and check the swatch

Of this new satin and silky fabric

This stuff that is supposed to hold it all together

This stuff that brings happiness in any kind of weather

Oh look, the moths and the worms have left their say

I cannot speak, I cannot pray

Or I can but I’m afraid of what I will speak

Everything I’ve loved, I seek

But have found this place of dark derision

I have come to the point of stark decision

Do I jump into this mosh pit that I can see

Or do I wait for these things I cannot

This waiting is hell, it seems to go on eternal

This silence is torture, this noise is infernal

When all that my soul longs for is a sound

A sound that casts all to the ground

All that is not beauty, down

I still cannot hear it.

Maybe I should move

Maybe I should change my place

Maybe I should change my face

Like all the other superstars

Maybe I should join in the farce

Known as jaunty superstition and hype

Known as virtual expertise, so ripe 

Is the fruit of all our monstrosities

Painted to appear like lovely charities

We mock what we cannot know

I look to the mountains and see the snow

I long to know its cold, pure light.

I have wandered far, I have wandered here

I have left the wheel and refused to steer

The course that every other person seems to go

They ask and ask, I answer “I don’t know,

I have no idea of which way to go

And I’m not sure anyone else does either.”

I pause for a moment to enjoy a breather

And everyone else perceives it as ignorance

Simply because I am not speaking

They leave me standing there with the answer in my soul

So, that’s ok, I’ll just walk to whole

I’ll just meander myself off into the distance

I’m told I need a guide, a companion, a help

Yet all of these have seem to go their own ways

I look to stars, I lift my gaze

I decide to follow the whisperings of the wind

This wind, the last of my unseen friends

Begins to dance along the river

This place is good, my spine does quiver

In the knowing of nothing at all

In the understanding of almost everything

I feel a song, a dance, I sing

To a song that only the dogs can hear

A song I know and love so well

A song that makes the gray waves swell

Until they crest into a blue-green sea