Category: Encountering New Experiences

I Too Have Sin

I too Have SInned

Malignant tumors of regret 
I now seek release.
Trapped.
By the foolish acts of being human
I now seek redemption.
What is the first step
that I must take
to be washed clean
to come into your presence?
I do not know
I fear my crimes 
have taken control
of my possible aquittal.
But I must be reborn
still born no more.
I must try
or die trying.
I must come again
strife again against the pain
of loss and regret.
I want to feel the light
smell the sweet air
of release of all my fears
defeated at last.

Still Life

Still Life

Arranged just so
frozen in the dust
of our yerteryears
forbidden to go
too far out
still life
a masterpiece
dying to breathe
the breath of life.
I take one step
to get ahead
but I am chained to my past
hooked like a drowning fish.
Will I walk on water
or,
be pulled under?
Still life,
Too long?
Perhaps.
In a whirlpool of doubt
I release my tears
to the four seasons of the year
finally,
the great flood has come to its end
and the ship can sail off
into the horizon of my future. 
Truly beautiful...
Completely unexpected...

Trying to Let Go

Trying to Let Go

I cling tighter
to a sliver of the memory
that contains the moments
to my recovery.
Crates created 
by the passion of my loss
for a time
hard won 
when the battle was fierce
with the promise of victory.

Are these tears?
Am I really crying?

Or am I dying?

bittersweet moments
I wish for all my days
but now that now my gaze
must look North and not South.
But how can I let go?
What must I do with those sweet moments
of release
of death and grime?
It was the best in my life!
How can I take the dive
in these murky waters alone and unprotected.

I must leave it all behind though
let go!
Or drown by its weight 
now my foe

April Rising

April Rising

April Rising like a Pheonix - 
No praying mantis.
Lying dormant for too long
I emerge like Aphrodite
ready to pick my grapes.
Better yet ready to release
all the creative juice
centered in my back.
Though I am rooted in this spot
I will bloom
spread wide
bold and in control
of my destiny.
Moveable 
I roam the ground grounded
in search of my destiny.
In the Nothern skys
I reach for my growth
to pick of the tree of life
my new approach 
my destiny
determined.

Last Lick

Last Lick

you hit me 
I hit you
I hit you
you hit me.
you go low
I go low too.
Think you are sly
not gonna lie
I was fooled for a while
but now
now I know what to do
I will split you in two!
So 
you hit me
and I hit you
I hit you
and you hit me.

But question:

when is the last lick and 
can we stop this show?

That Lesson is the true Blessing

Often times when “bad” things happen to us we question why. We feel and act like victims and may even curse the day we were born. It is not easy to navigate this life when your intentions do not bear the kind of fruits you had in mind. Too often people, like me and you, become disillusioned with the twist and turns that punctuate our lives. DIsturbances as we see them, that happen maybe when we least expect them or produce our greatest fears. There is a tendency to be angry in these situations, to feel trapped and oppressed.

So, it is hard to think that there is anything good to see in these situations much less to see them as a blessing. I have learned that hard times produce the opportunity for us to not only mature but to flourish. When we get too comfortable where we are, we may feel reluctant to “rock the boat”, and accept where we are, who we are and how we have come to be perceived as our lot in life. But here comes those lessons that say, “no this is not your final destination, you have to be stretched a little more, melted down to the liquid fire and beaten into a new shape”. We are there resistant, resentful and hopeless, waiting for it to end. By it I mean this season of hard lessons, the experience of the hard-knock life. However, it can be that our greatest strength can come from these surely hard lessons. We are forced to work from our survival and with it and toughness develops, when we choose to stick around, that can take us through another hard knock. With each of those knocks out toughness becomes more improved until we can better appreciate the hits and even welcome them because they really allow us to live life fearlessly, or with a little less fear even.

For all the things we can gain, awards and wealth, it is those difficult times, sometimes the hardest in our lives that are the real treasures on earth. It is never easy to reconcile the painful experiences that we have blessings as we have become too focused on blessings that lead to matchless prosperity. How about we shout amens for those lessons, hard lessons that lead to our blessings, true blessings not limited by a limited and our very human understanding.

The Imposter

The Imposter

Look at them,
innocent lambs to the slaughter
of my decay.
They think they know
but no
they don't know the carnage I can bring.
I have killed before
and may do so once again.
They don't know I can suck them dry
and make them just like me.
"Beware of false prophets"
for they too like you
are blind to devil's tricks.
I too was blinded
and have yet to recover my eyes
and so must follow a distant voice.
Don't tell me I achieved
through blood sweat and tears
all that I have achieved - 
the agony of the truth
is too much to bear
I must not share the burden of not belonging.
I look in the water
and for a second see myself,
then the pebbles come along 
to remind me to retreat 
once more back on the shelf,
a lonely hallow place,
where I belong,
because I do not belong,
incompetent as I am,
to anywhere else.