Walking on Faith

The idea for this poem was inspired by my friend Ellen who had this insight on the story of Peter walking on the water: "Peter stood on the word 'come', not on the water." I really like this idea because it fits perfectly with an idea in a book I read earlier this year called Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl by N. D. Wilson. The idea is that while our words describe reality, God's words are reality. The Word speaks "Tree", and a tree is. His words are the great story in which we are a cast of characters. These two ideas sounded like a poem waiting to happen.

Peter Walks on Water 12/6/2012

In

the beginning was the Word, the words, the world

the Word uttered Water and water was

the Spirit respirated and wind whirled

the words are broad, bitter, blue, as the Word does.

Then

the Word walks his smaller words, his earth,

these few men he serves breathe his further words

that form his stories since he spoke his birth,

the wild, narrow path they bound down and surge.

But

pause at the cold, dark words shaken about

over the deep where wind scatters the breath,

where God is ghost, firm is deep, faith is doubt.

one man needs one word to save him from death:

"Come."

the sound of the Word's word drowns out the old

till turbulent is stayed and wet bears weight

that word, once Water, bears a stepping Stone

but stable, solid, and spoken like Faith.

Taste and See

The form of this poem is simple; I just increased the number of syllables in a line by one per line. Kind of a lazy form. The sense of swelling and building looks better in my moleskine.

Who Cares About Apathy Anyway? 9/7/12

that

my heart

would feel this

world so that

a blood-red siren

would grip, grind, rip my heart

bird song stitch it whole again

that the tides and summer storms would

wash my marrow with electric salt

so I can taste, smell, breathe all else in me

stand in wonder more (and more) at an engine

or an iPhone or an ant's exoskeleton

whisper to the night for fear of breaking it (or me)

and scream my footprint pattern into every stretch of soil

and so grow callouses beneath instead of upon my tongue

to grip the bitterness and savor the sweet agony of joy

and to found my bound into the thick wind's exhalation all around

And It Was Good

And It Was Good   6/25/2012
When my mother walks beside the deep,
she seeks a little round-rolled globe
in the stones; sometimes she finds a Real,
a world spun thin, with bumps and holes.
Perhaps she will seek
every beach for that stone,
perhaps forever--

I imagine all round all around
whenever I walk water-by
and run, squealing skin to groaning bones,
stones roll below toes till they cry my lie:
I find that I
cannot run for long,
not forever.

Every now and then she keeps a Real,
calls it good--
enough to keep.

Manitoba Fishing

Manitoba Fishing   6/8/2012

the lake at morning: wispy crispness

with bits of fog and boats floating

by docks filling with fishers sans fishes

into the universe the boating

scatters lakeward like july fire

popping like engines gleaming and croaking

soon the tap and plink of line and wire

on water, whoops and hoots echo boat to boat

over water ruffled over mud and mire

five feet above the bed we nod and float

beneath us silent phantoms whir and bend

that whispers of their winding in the ripples wrote

amid the mists we see ghosts like real men

winding wisps as if reeling real, lines refurled

their sound shattered by the silence and

we: a point still whirling in a stilled world

and all else seems thinning and leavening

and our driven purpose seems round us curled

But the cosmos seeps in, envisioning

the rod rocking rhythm as a breath unfurling

and the stillness, the stillness is deafening.

The Cave

Another poem on a theme similar to my first March posting.

Generally I would have edited this more for form before posting, but Finals are coming up and realistically that's not going to happen. So here it is.


The Cave 4/29/2012
It was autumn when they put me in a shallow grave
Two trowel twists and I was dead
The bitter sod made a sodden bitter bed
And the rest was unbearable cold save


The rest I found as I became acquainted
With the dim round pressure all
Around pressing around dim walls
And everything pressing around untainted


But breaking--spring's solar shafts brought
Shooting agony and shredded me too soon
My leafy neck broken by a bloom
Drinking warm and bright that I had long forgot.




John 12:24 "...unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

I lost my voice

Being Sick 4/13/2012
I lost my voice to a back alley trench coat,
All smooth shoes and polished words,
Lots of grins and glinting glances backwards.
My dash he dashed with a knife at my throat.

I lost my voice and then he left;
He left me merely whispered croaks
And wisps of spoken throaty chokes.
With lemon tea I remedy the theft.

Fog

When I have a plane flight, expect a poem.
Still working on my Iambic Pentameter.

Fog 3/25/2012
Early this morning heaven fell to earth,
The sun is blotted out and breath comes hard.
So we are re-wombed, ready for a birth,
Almost drowning in the air, white and dark.

So all of us must be borne above or
else heaven must rise and wait pendant for
our death.

Objectivity

For a while now, I have been fascinated with the linguistic production of the final consonants in words like "tests" and "trusts". I finally involved it in a rhyme scheme. Since the time it takes to produce the sound is so long, it really brings the line to a close. I want to try using it again where that closure is related to the meaning of the lines it ends. In this poem, I also experiment with consonantal rhyme in lines 1 and 3 of each stanza.


Objectivity 3/16/2012
I balance by a fulcrum worlds out
from earth; testing Archimedes' boasts.
From here I hear each dream and each complaint
and feel each people as she glides, spins, coasts.

I listen as I budge her up and down
And still on more improvements she insists.
She likes the light, but not the heat at noon,
and seasons, but she's dizzy as she lists,

And love but not fear and deep but not dark.
Not just clouds but rain, not just bread but crusts
Not just sleep but fatigue must bear her back
And so I shift and craft our global dusts
And then
With all my lever efforts done in full
I find I have not moved the earth at all.

If we had room enough to stand and lever long,
We would not be too weak for her, but she too strong.

Meditations

I have been holding out on posting until I finished composing something that utilizes what I have been learning in my poetry class this semester. Since this has been slow to materialize, I have in the mean time, some scattered lines on a similar theme that I arranged into a format: problem, turn, and resolution.


In this life you will have trials.
My yoke is easy, my burden is light.
Sell what you have and give to the poor.
My yoke is easy, my burden is light.
Take up your cross and follow me.
I will lead you and you shall not want
when you fall into various trials.

The better potter fills the bumpy bowl
but
The stronger potter breaks the bowl
and spins another new.

Pain is stronger than blessing
but
The Blesséd is stronger than pain

So strengthen my pain
to bless me with weakness
that strengthens the blessed.

Take me and fill me
or
Break me and spill me

My cup runs over.

Can Man

I was recently in Dublin and, as with most cities bigger than Bozeman, I was exposed to more people begging on the streets than I am used to. I began thinking more about giving in situations where you don't know how the money is going to be spent (drugs, alcohol?) How do we reconcile Biblical stewardship (Luke 16) with generous giving to the poor (Luke 12)? This poem wrestles with that question in terms of the benefits to the giver and to the recipient of a gift. Maybe it doesn't matter how the gift is spent and the act of giving is the important thing. Is it right to only give to good stewards of money? Is it possible?

I like trying to deal with questions like this through poetry because it is so much a heart issue; reasoned arguments and line-drawing easily skew our conclusions. It's also easy to avoid drawing any firm conclusion with a poem, which can be a danger.

The form of this poem could use a little introduction as well. Each line is a single unit (usually a noun with modifiers). In general, the first and last words of each line rhyme. The words in between either use a similar "palindrome" rhyme scheme, or use assonance or alliteration. Mostly I was trying for palindrome sounding lines. The ear doesn't really pick up on the rhymes of words except the last one, so the rhyming is often not readily apparent. In some ways that was a good thing, because it forced me to spent a long time editing it trying to make it to sound decent. It was an interesting experiment that I probably won't be trying again any time soon. :)

Can Man? 1/16/12
a battered can rattled with pattered coins passers scattered
a line: "anything helps" scrawled on a small sign
a concrete seat beneath a can man's street feet

a town man making rapid rhythm walking sounds
a skeptical pair of staring eyes behind a pair of spectacles
a hurried soul in the worried wind's guilty flurry

a plink of a coin in the thirsty throat of an (almost) drink
a beggar warmed by a giver

a giver warmed by a gift
a hope that a coin well sent is well spent (on soup or soap)

a can drunk by a man. a man drunk by a can

a man warmed by his coin for a can. a can warmed by a coin for a man

two happy men then

-
a man's empty can. a can's empty man
a town man worried, hurried, still unstill, one coin down
two empty men again

another giver gives another

You should see him run

I had a bit of writer's block so I asked my sister what I should write about. She suggested (big surprise) ponies. The only time I've approached her appreciation and love for horses is when I've seen them run.
By coincidence (if there is such a thing), this poem and the previous one ended up with (almost) the same form.

For Rachel 12/19/11
An old brown pony stands like Alexander's steed
Now marble-made, bears weight and smells of dirt and feed.
How long has the neck held that head all wrapped in hair,
Stiff from the cold, solid in the open air?

But when it's warm, you should see him run,
Flesh transformed to wings taking flight
on feet, like the fleeting flight of the Great Heron
carrying might, brushing aside the grass like light,

A symphony of grace and muscles, all one.
I'm telling you, when it's warm, you should see him run.

The sun is a morning person

The Sun is a Morning Person 1/5/12
The sun is a morning person, you know.
Every day while all the other stars
are sipping coffee, coughing, moving slow,
and the moon is waltzing in from late-night bars,

he yells across the clouds in red and pink,
"It's morning! I'm here! Wake up sleepy heads!"
The other stars just blink their eyes and think,
"Really? Again?" and crawl back in their beds.


He would make an awful roommate mornings,
I mean talk about overdoing things.