Remember that Apple? The one in the story? It’s not what you think it is. Some stories say that it was from the Tree of Knowledge, but that was the greatest deception of all. It was from the Tree of Belief. The sin of man was not to know more, but to abandon faith and believe that we know more. To be certain. It is to turn away from God, and believe our own truths. It’s why we make unjustifiable rules, and write Books, and start wars, and demonize others, and pull triggers, and to not take responsibility that we were there pulling the trigger, too. We made it seem like it was “God’s Will”. We believe hard, because that original sin still controls us. We believe that our religion is superior, that homosexuality is a sin, that others are dangerous, that women are inferior, that the Bible is true, that we should be in control, that violence is an answer, that guns keep us safe, that might makes right, that anyone deserves to die, that we are the chosen, that Creation is to posses, that power comes from oppressing, that life is a zero sum game. Today, it is hard for me to have faith that we can move past this original sin. Instead, we are sinking deeper into it, with avarice and cruelty.Do you want to meet God, or see the face of Christ? Then put your Book away. Don’t hide behind it. Live among people who are different or hate you or you’re afraid of. Feed them, anyway. Give them health care, anyway. Listen to their sadness, anyway. Welcome them to your home, anyway. Reach out and defend them anyway, Accept their inheritance as children of Creation, anyway. Pray for and with them, anyway. Think this is not what God calls us to do? Do you believe it’s about following laws and rules and Books? Then maybe there’s a piece of apple stuck in your throat.
Category Archives: Poetry
The Apple
Remember that apple? The one in the story? It’s not what you think it is. Some stories say that it was from the Tree of Knowledge, but that was the greatest deception of all. It was from the Tree of Belief. The sin of man was not to know more, but to abandon faith and believe that he knows more. It is to turn away from God, and believe our own truths. It’s why we make unjustifiable rules, and write Books, and start wars, and judge others, and pull triggers, and to not take responsibility that we were there pulling the trigger, too. We made it seem like a good idea.
We believe hard, because that original sin still controls us. We Believe that our religion is superior, that homosexuality is a sin, that others are dangerous, that women are inferior, that the Bible is true, that we should be in control, that violence is an answer, that guns keep us safe, that anyone deserves to die.
Today, it is hard for me to have faith that we can move past this original sin. Do you want to see the face of God or the face of Christ? Then put your Book away. Live among people who hate you and want you to die. Feed them, anyway. Give them health care, anyway. Listen to their sadness, anyway. Welcome them to your home, anyway. Accept their inheritance as children of Creation, anyway. Pray for them, anyway.
What? Don’t have the courage for that? Not what God calls you to do? Still believe in laws and rules and Books? Then maybe there’s some apple stuck in your throat.
Meringue
Afterwards, he spoke.
your virtue tasted like meringue,
lighter than infatuation,
and smelled of store brand vanilla.
it gave a bit of resistance to the bite,
but melted in my mouth,
instantly.
it slicked my lips,
then was gone,
like nothing.
but the aftertaste is cloying,
too sweet to be pleasurable,
and clings to the tongue
too long.
you’re lucky it was me,
and not a lover.
Nobody should have to taste it twice.
Air and Space
I looked around expecting to see light,
But we were doing that dance
Where we talk about poetry,
Or at least what we believe
About the meaning of words
That we toss for fun,
But also for the blood they draw.
The glass was half empty,
But now it has evaporated,
While we argued about
Air and space,
And that thing between us
That we both asked for
But didn’t really want.
I take a sip and choke on the dry,
But I had to prove to myself
That it still tasted like a kiss you once tossed,
Instead of the words you always know
Will leave a mark,
On tender skin,
Where no one else can see.
But I do not have a blameless tongue,
For I know the taste of your tears,
Even though you think I never saw them,
Even though I think I never drew them,
But we both know
It is a daily occurrence
And I have not yet asked forgiveness.
But air and space will not protect us
Because it is not a shield
But a distance that could lose it all,
So I will lay down my darts
And offer something softer
For you to pierce
With words
or kisses.
Air and Space
I looked around expecting to see light,
But we were doing that dance
Where we talk about poetry,
Or at least what we believe
About the meaning of words
That we toss for fun,
But also for the blood they draw.
The glass was half empty,
But now it has evaporated,
While we argued about
Air and space,
And that thing between us
That we both asked for
But didn’t really want.
I take a sip and choke on the dry,
But I had to prove to myself
That it still tasted like a kiss you once tossed,
Instead of the words you always know
Will leave a mark,
On tender skin,
Where no one else can see.
But I do not have a blameless tongue,
For I know the taste of your tears,
Even though you think I never saw them,
Even though I think I never drew them,
But we both know
It is a daily occurrence
And I have not yet asked forgiveness.
But air and space will not protect us
Because they are not a shield
But a distance that could lose it all,
So I will lay down my darts
And offer something softer
For you to pierce
With words
or kisses.
Stones
I leaned against your name, perfectly rendered. It was given you by your father, and you gave it to me. I feel the cool of your touch in the summer afternoon, the reminder that you love me and welcome my visits as much as I crave you as if you were here. Your body is lithe and strong, from working the fields, and the scent of earth and sweat cling to you, like home. Scars of fence and falls make you more beautiful, and I have memorized each one as I searched your body, every night for the places that only I belonged. Your breath fills me with fire and readiness and hunger. Our autumn planting bore the bounty of the summer harvest, and her beauty outshone the constant sun.
I cried to her dates, closer together than the sides of her crib. A space too short by anyone’s standards. The words above them a corn cob angel, a fragile, dusty rendition of the divine, brought to earth to shatter under the weight of this hard life. A sorry trade, these words for this spark of heaven. And i would have traded hers for his.
I dropped my burden on his dirt. Flowers that I brought because I had to. Something expected of offspring, and which will dry and decay until the weather crumbles them. He created me, but did not make me, for I would not lose my soul, as he did: smoke into ashes, settling onto barren soil. His breath, almost flammable, ignited my fury and my blame. I would trade his for hers.
Today, I lean against your name. The coolness on my back like the earth I share with you. I am tired, the work never ceases, and the hope never comes. Tonight, I will stay and sing to you, until my voice fades, quieter than the crickets, and till only the hills call back. Next week, they will put my name next to yours, and I will be home.
Once every 18 years
“Turn it down,” I shouted as I banged upon the skies.
“You shine too bright, I’ve got to sleep, but cannot close my eyes”
though the moon’s enchanting laughter rained like stars on forest bed,
I felt the threat of morning like an ice floe in my head.
She said, “tonight’s my special night, you can’t deny me this.
It’s many years before His plan returns me to such bliss.”
I peeked through curtained window pane, and out into the yard,
I figured just a little glance, it wouldn’t be that hard.
And then she called, “it’s early yet, I want to dance with you.”
The summer meadow glinted back in ivory, silver dew.
I looked upon the fairy field and could not stay my course.
I had to breathe the evening light and court its graceful source.
The mighty kings, deciduous, lay mantles on the ground,
while zephyrs through the needled Giants conjured dulcet sound.
The sweet caress of her cool light was delicate and soft.
Our feet ne’er touched the dewy grass, our wings kept us aloft.
The night went long, we drank the scent of blossoms and of earth.
The gentle breeze made music sweet, we sang with drunken mirth.
And then a carmine darkness, as a shadow, crossed her face.
The dance went on, proceeding at a much more sultry pace
The dark upon celestial spheres, brought out the stellar light.
The glitters of those distant suns made candles in the night.
soon the veil across her face retreated to the mist
Her light returned to flood the woods and splash upon our tryst.
The final dance with that sweet court, light feet upon the moss,
belied the call of garish day, this magic, soon, my loss.
Though, with the waking sun I fell to ordinary day,
I faintly, still, could hear her song, “tonight, come out and play.”
That lady calls to dance again, but now I must say “no”.
The late night kept my day off keel and the hours ticked by slow.
So now, tonight, I climb to bed and wish that wraith adieu.
The moment’s passed, the glitter’s gone, from love that once I knew
Save my soul
If you’ve come to save my soul, we should talk, first. The last time someone tried, I almost lost it from my body, by my own hand. Saving my soul may be what you thought it was, but it did not mean the same thing to me. For you, to save my soul was to make it pure. But purity, in a soul, is not human nature, nor is it how I was created.
If you’ve come to save my soul, we should talk first. The soul inside me, was made human. Flawed and imperfect, yes. Full of sin and love, absolutely. But this love is not my flaw. This is part of my grace. My soul burns with a passion, not with the hell fire that you tell of. To live with such passion brings me closer to God, not farther away. The distance to the divine is measured by the unconditional nature of our love. God does not hate the sinner, nor does God hate the sin. God does not hate anything. God only loves.
If you’ve come to save my soul, we should talk first. Tell me your story of loss and joy and love and fears and secret sin. Tell me how God has touched you, and how you have touched God.
If you’ve come to save my soul, we should talk first. Listen to my story. Feel my passion. I may be able to help save yours.
Summer Mist
The summer mist pours into the valley just as the sun sets, smelling strong of the alfalfa freshly cut in the next field, paving oil, down on the route, and the last of the season’s lilac blooms from bushes that escaped my great grandmother’s garden, 50 years ago, combining so the air is thick enough I can drink it, sweet, gulp at a time, until I’m intoxicated, and floating and believing the world is alright, and buried in that is the heavy smell of you, the summer sweat in your pits that I can just track, whether it’s actually there, memory, or just a hope, so I follow the trail down to the shed in the back of your house, where you lie underneath the truck again using baling wire to hold the exhaust into the muffler, even though this hasn’t worked the last three times, but it’s fascinating because you’re so much smarter than that, you keep doing the same thing even though it doesn’t work, just as I am, approaching you in this state of desire and inebriation, and we both know your handiwork will unravel in a matter of a few days, once you’re on those rough road from your house to mine, just as I know my work this evening will unravel in seconds before you even become aware it happened.
You always get aroused when you work on your car, and while you’re under, I see only your lower half, with patches of sweat soaking through your T-shirt and jeans, and as usual, your Carharts can barely restrain the force of your excitement, and sometimes, you don’t even try to contain it, and work unzipped, and occasionally commando, like you’ve done for years, and for years, I’ve been mesmerized by the power and possibility in that open fly, like an open invitation, even though I know it would all go away if I even gave you a second look, and I cannot bear the thought of not falling under your intoxicating spell, again.
The heat of this space draws my sweat, too, slicking my forehead and swamping my pits, and making my fingers slippery enough I cannot hold the splash of your expletives or the dribble of your day to day story, but I can grasp the occasionally spurt of your Mountain Dew words of friendship and bro-hood as you recount our glorious past and contemplate our mutual future, which I doubt with fevered anticipation, as you tell me all the ways we are the perfect compadres, except the part where I really want to hold you in this place, and in those places, down there, where you would surely feel the need to wash me away, out of your way, and back into the dense summer mist.
I walk home, alone, lit only by sparkled starlight illuminating the summer mist turned morning dew, fallen from its ethereal place of dreams and desires to be regrounded with the unforgiving truth of the earth under my retreating soles.
suspensions
Between a suspension and a solution is a colloid, a type of suspension that forms from intimate mixing of two immiscible materials, elements that would otherwise remain separate, but are combined into a new stable substance. One acts as a substrate – a medium – holding the other in a place it is not usually accustomed, and maybe not comfortable. It is two distinct components, blended and stable, to create a new material, better than either of the two combined.
Solid dispersed in a Solid – a Sol – Goldstone, we chose that stone for the knobs for our kitchen cabinets to match the countertops, as we did all the design of our new home: together. A solid partnership supporting a solid home together.
Liquid dispersed in a Solid – a Gel – Jello. I was so sick, that week, and you made me three different flavors, all of them my favorites. We smiled at the bright colors, left on my tongue. You supporting me when I wanted to melt.
Gas dispersed in a Solid – a Foam – Lava. We were at craters of the moon in idaho, talking geophysics and discussing that this volcano erupted close in time to the life of Jesus. Our joyous spirits supported by the structure of our shared scientific and religious experience, and a world that we crave to understand.
A Solid dispersed in a Liquid – a Sol – Mud. every fall, the pond gets dark and silty, and we have to drain it over the stone wall. The flow of our lives picks up bits of dirt and dust, and sometimes we have to clear it out, together.
Liquid dispersed in a Liquid – an Emulsion – We sat in the sun with sandwiches at picnic rock several summers. The mayo slicked our lips with sunshine, and the sweet lemony taste. Though we are both fluid, we are able to support each other to make life taste a little fresher.
Gas dispersed in a Liquid – a Foam – Whipped cream. Your nephew only likes whipped cream when it is fresh and home made, someone always licks the spatula. Your family, that is, we, would giggle and tell stories of raisin pie, and zombies. The ebb and flow of our family life helps support my exuberant lightness.
Solid dispersed in a Gas – Aerosol – Smoke from the woodstove drifts out to garden where I am harvesting the last of the season’s beets, for us to roast. Through my own unclarity, I find the path back to the warmth of our together.
Liquid dispersed in a Gas – a Fog – The evening mist in the summer meadow is lit by the moon’s silver dust. Magic suspended in lightness, lightness suspended in magic. the beauty of dreaming our lives into one.
Gas dispersed in a Gas – Oh, my Beloved. These, like our spirits, are always mixed thorougly and completely. There is no separation between them, they become indistinguishable, like air, essential and necessary, mixed correctly and perfectly to nourish the life God has given us, to live together.
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