Full

 From the highest heights

To the deepest depths,

From the pathway of choice,

To the reluctant road to regret,

From the moment you fell, 

Till you woke up in bed,

Every second, every minute

Every beat, every breath,

As you first filled your lungs,

Till you expel them in death,

Though you know it not,

Or if you tend to forget,

Though it surrounds you now,

And unaware you are wet,

You are soaked, you are drenched 

You're immersed in it,

The whole earth is filled 

With his glory,

From the seas to the sky,

To the radiant sun,

From the molecule, the atom, and neutron

From the mountain top, 

From the eye of the storm,

From the life wrestling free,

 From death being born,

In the science, the energy of the bomb,

There's a whole lotta glory going on,

In fact there's even more to come,

It's full, full, full,

And yet it isn't even close to being done,

The whole earth is filled, yes,

But have you met his son?

I tell you, there's a whole lotta glory going on,

But you better believe,

There's more to come,

If you ask for an equivalent,

You can ask but there is none,

He's holy, holy, holy,

And you'll be undone,

The earth and heavens are just a showcase,

Of the glorious one,

And the whole earth is filled,

With his glory,

So from the sperm and the egg,

And the space in-between,

From the spectacle of galaxies,

To the sight unseen,

From the before to the after

To the ends through the means,

It whispers, and speaks,

It shouts and it screams,

To those who have ears,

To those who have seen,

Just the smallest of glimpses,

In waking or dreams,

It's full up to bursting,

Bursting the seams ,

Of our reality,

Or whatever that means,

Full, full, full, 

Of glory 

And the whole earth is filled,

With his glory,

I bow to the king sat before me,

The whole earth is filled,

With his glory,

Slip Gentle

 I'll slip gentle into that good night,

Why should I rage,

Why should I fight,

As if my going,

Is some dying of the light,

Not the death of the dawn,

But the birth of the bright,

Tell me, for what am I holding on?

For more of the same?

More empty days, scorched by the Sun?

Better to cut free and run,

Let go of the weight of what you'll become,

Life is for letting go,

You shut out the light and smother it so,

In your grasping, nothing can grow,

So mourn for your pride,

And your fragile ego,

Embrace the life that's to come,

When 'all of the colours bleed into one'

Release your hold back into the wild,

Where it wont hold you back,

You've been held like a child,

Restrained by the reach of your fear,

You thought you'd be kept by what you kept here,

But you threw yourself out on your ear,

Chasing the dream,

Year after year,

(When really you've always been here,

Behind all the blinds,

Beneath the veneer)

Then let go, luminous one,

Surrender the days,

Let them become,

Become whatever they may,

Whatever becomes,

Let go the moments, 

One, then, by one,

And slip gentle into that good night,

For it is good,

And not the dying of light,

If your heart doesn't fear

If your  soul is set right,

Let go to God,

Surrender the fight.

(Written in part as a response to Dylan Thomas's poem 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'. It's one of my favourite poems and his performance of it is one of my favourite poetry performances of all time, but he and I do not share the same worldview (nor the same talent, I might needlessly add). Thomas may not have been thinking of the afterlife when urged his fading father to fight the 'dying of the light', and I have a similar themed one about the death of my mother, but this life isn't all there is, and I write, not for a loved one but for myself. It's not so much a letting go of this life, as a letting go of the hold the fear of my death has over me. I am happy to stay as Long as the Lord allows, but I want to be ready to go when the time comes.)

Perhaps I Was Redeemed Too Young

 

Perhaps I was redeemed, at too young an age,

In movies it comes at the end of the story,

Your character arc arches toward the final stage,

It would undo all the narrative,

Perhaps rob it of some of the glory,

If our hero was left to grow old,

Letting the bitterness and cynicism unfold,

If the reformed romantic lead,

Grows disinterested, bored,

And finally leaves,

And I was redeemed too young,

Perhaps if the rapture, or Jesus had come,

Taken me from this life of temptation,

To dwell instead in this new heaven,

The arc would feel complete,

The boy swept off of his feet,

Rescued from a life of sin,

Though he barely understood where sin can begin,

In the smallest of smallish things,

That big sin was never what would conquer him,

But the desert of time was what would expose,

His heart to the elements,

The longer it goes,

The more the flaws are on show,

The desert deserts this desert rose,

For faith can flower a while,

But it's only faithfulness,

That can retain the smile,

I suppose this is where the lack,

Shows that I'm grown from the seed that fell in the cracks,

No roots you see, 

And the sun rose, and it scorched me,

It scorched me real good,

With no deep root in love,

I think I misunderstood,

Not rooted nor grounded in love,

Or at least not rooted deep enough,

And my youthful valour is all gone,

The hope I strung out, burned up by the sun,

And for a drop of moisture I've hung on,

But it's now that redemption should finally come,

And finish me off for good,

Instead of stretching me out between what I should and I would,

Well I suppose,

I suppose,

I suppose,

The older I get,

The more the grace grows,

And the glory is all yours for keeps,

If you can find any,

While the sower sows,

And the reaper reaps,

Scream Directions (for a Screenplay)

In all of my youthful dreams,

It never fell apart at the seems,

I would be golden, I had the means,

But now my nightmare arrived in waking screams,

The wasteful composure,  concluding these scenes,

Skinny longings in skinny jeans,

But all of that crap's 

Gone in a clap,

Cut to fat,

(Fade to black)

When I was a lad; a little boy,

I thought the future might hold joy,

Daily/nightly I would employ,

The device of dreams as they were my toy,

Look into the lens now , Don't be so coy,

Pucker up, son, praise, acclaim and fame ahoy,

Smiles make up for the lack,

Of blue-sky's gone, not coming back,

Cut to me cutting hope some slack,

Now cut the crap,

(And fade to black)

A lifetime spent in vain pretense,

That the future held more than the present tense,

That potential held the best defense,

Unassailable, unquestionable in a sense,

The weight of the unknown, could be immense,

The potential heft of what could be hence,

Weighed: found wanting, a has-been hack,

The weight of expectations broke his back,

Pinned with excuses, under attack,

Cut to cancer, or heart attack,

Finally run out of slack,

Shrug to camera,

(Fade to black)

The dream is gone, and the dream is dead,

The dream was a beast that should have never been fed,

On a leash, but it was I that was being led,

And all hope scattered before it and fled,

And I became what I came to dread,

I should have loved God and others instead,

Instead of the pride that filled my head,

Cut to me, gone way off track,

Boxed in whilst the mourners dress in black,

Cut to the smile that will never crack,

Fixed in death, etched in flesh like wax,

(Close the lid)

Fade to black.

(The disparity betwixt the dream the reality. The fake fur trimmed coat of what could be to cover me from the cold of the hard reality of what was and what would be. I pulled up the hood and hid my face in the tunnel vision of that snorkel. Life is gone in a moment. Like flowers we fade and fall. Use your bloom wisely. Love God, love others. Find fulfillment in these.)

A Spit Amidst The Imagining Of A Deluge

 

From a bridge over former glory

I spat into the bed of a dried up stream

Imagining the torrent 

As if in some dream

But my spit is absorbed

With no difference, it seems

But the parched bed awaits

A deluge to redeem,

And the channels of my prayerless heart

Are also dry, directionless and mean,

Come then and return to purpose

Come then and redeem

Rain then and redeem, I say.

Redeem me, 

Redeem.

Redeem away...

(This one is kind of like, ok then God, surprise me. You're a redeemer, do your stuff then. Redeem away....)

Focus

I have a tiny little hole in my eye,

Some embolistic rupture from the pressure

That pushes my blood through my veins,

Which carry it round my body,

When I look at white paper, or a blue sky,

I catch glimpses of what is always there,

But of which I am usually unaware,

A tiny dot,

A blurred little burr,

To the lower left of my right eye's vision,

Putting it overall, just right of centre,

It is always there,

Weather or not I am aware,

And on those occasions,

When I notice,

I try to look at it more closely,

But it evades the capture of sight.

Every time I look directly at it,

It moves,

Being part of my eye,

It moves when my eye moves,

And so the tennis game goes on,

40 love to the embolism,

Game, set and match,

I'll never catch it,

Unless the whole eye goes dark.

It lives in the peripheral.

I have a tiny hole in my soul,

A spot, 

A speck I cannot see,

And whenever I look at it,

The bugger moves,

And I can never focus on it,

For it cannot be looked at directly,

But lives within the periphery.

It is all I can do to acknowledge,

It is there,

And from time to time,

When the environment is bright enough,

It floats around on the edges,

Just to remind me.

Specks.

Eyes.

Planks.

Thorns,

Prayers.

Grace.

Sufficiency.