Faith

The year they took our pennies away I watched goodness die In an Ice storm. It blew across the country, Spurred on by frozen hearts.   In the year they took our luck away, So that they could nickel and dime us To death, The ones who warn us against hell Unleashed it in our cities.   In the year that Abe Lincoln Went out of circulation, He was replaced By a lily-white frost That...

It’s always there It’s the air that we breathe in It’s the water that we swim in It’s the current that takes us Down to the altar and makes us Drown   This water, it used to be wine Until we tried to trade our shame For thirty silver coins salvaged from a shipwreck that We bought off the docks with a hand written check that… Bounced   And now Shame is the currency we...

Misrepresented. The artistic renderings Had cast me as a saint. Separation Makes the heart grow fonder. But it doesn’t teach you how to paint A man you never really saw. The one that left never came back. I did.   No firetrucks came To put out my burning life. It was consumed like wood, hay and stubble. Deconstructed By hellfire missiles. As I sort through the rubble, At the bottom of that pile Is a...

Sometimes I feel as if have fallen through a tear in the fabric of life Sounds and colors are dimmed A sub existence in a shroud of gray Hemmed in on all sides Shrinking me. Silently I wait for the Light to penetrate And like a flower at dawn my heart opens. Love never fails.

There are fears lurking in the recesses of my soul darkening my light Fear of rejection, abandonment, failure. Time after time I pull them up to be incinerated by the fire of God’s love To make room for the Living Waters A river of peace There is no fear in love.

I was six years old that Pentecost day My hair was curled My dress was new I saw pride in my mother’s eyes The aunts and uncles came with gifts and smiles It was the day of my first communion   The church was full with people seeking but I did not find God in there It was outside in a field of white that I met my Maker His gift to me; Identity on...

A rooster announces the new day and the birds exalt their Maker As I fill my soul with the fragrance of the dawn dormant memories awaken Of tulip fields and tree lined streets Of endless skies and meadowsweet Time not of the essence My youthful years are captured in the fragrant air Forever effervescent

I know no sweeter sound than the song of birds in the morning As they sing of endless, carefree days a door in my heart is opened and I am again a child in my father’s house free to step into the day with abandon As my soul joins the music, I soar and I hear my Father whisper “Consider the birds”

I am not a poet I don't know how to string words together in a way that even death sounds beautiful.   I am full of disjointed phrases that when you put them together you want to look away.   We danced too early Sometimes my sadness leaks out for no apparent reason The broken pieces of my heart have been put together again but there are pieces missing And sometimes the missing pieces are...

We who’ve been broken, are not easily seen. We are hard to understand We make people uncomfortable. Unspoken questions Beneath standard issue smiles; “Aren’t you better yet? It’s been two years now, Get over your fears now. No more tears now.” Their get-well wishes are for themselves Not for me. Not for the one they cannot see. They give me advice on healing; “Just spray some spiritual weed killer On that root of bitterness And...