Sweat Like Tears

 

Hands and knees,

Down in the earth and mulch,

The roots of weeds weave,

They duck and burrow and break off,

To live and fight another day,

But the rich soil of the Kingdom,

Is worth working for,

And sweat forms on my brow,

And wearying I bow my head

And the drops run freely now,

And one in particular, leaps somehow,

Over the ridge of my eyebrow,

It hits my highest point of cheek,

Cascading down towards my mouth,

It feels like a tear,

A tear that comes from a deeper  and less emotional place than the ones from my eye,

This too, is a kind of cry,

And I,

Am digging,

Am weeding,

Am sowing in sweat and tears,

And knowing I've been sowing in the wrong kind of tears,

For years,

And years,

And years,

Maybe this kind,

Will bring that morning joy,

I'm fighting for my land now,

And the dirt is beneath my nails

Resurrection days

Every time I fall
Every time I fail
Every time I find myself
Chasing my own tail

And I hear your voice
Calling me back to life

That's a resurrection

Every time I let you down
Every time I sin
Every time I sell you out
To be saving my own skin

And I hear your gentle voice
Call me back to life,
Call me back to faithfulness

That's a resurrection

Every time I'm deserted
Each time  I'm betrayed
Whenever I am let down too
And I've got down on my knees
And prayed

And heard your loving voice
Call me to forgiveness

That too is a resurrection

And at the end of every road
That's led to a dead end
I've found the strength to turn around
And start all over again

Well that's a resurrection,

Each time I turn to Jesus
A kind of resurrection,

A resurrection
A new-life connection
A grave rejection
A forward projection
An insurance, a protection
A dark-to-light defection

Switched sides,
from dead to alive

Resurrection
Sown into the DNA of earth
In the shadow of every death
The dawn of a new birth

Each night we sleep, as dead
In the morning we arise
And the sun appears to rise
From the ground up to the skies

All around us
Resurrection

From the death of a single grain
Comes a harvest you cant contain

With Christ we're never dead and buried
When all is lost there still is hope
When down and out, we're never worried
There is always resurrection scope

We worship a living, risen saviour
His name is Jesus Christ
Victor over death and hell
And he holds the keys to life

Internal reading

When words are things I cannot feel or see,

And "I cannot read inside of me",

Or begin to describe the message my feelings send,
"I push my lungs up and pretend,

I pretend to be fire at them."

 

 

I Asked My Love

I asked my love

What things define me
Three things she replied

A poem
A cross
A mess

Disgust Discussed

I look back now
At my 23 year old self
A roll of fat
Pinched
Less than an inch
Between my finger and thumb
Unclothed down to my bony bum
Naked before a Barcelona hotel mirror

And for the first time
Began to feel a distant sense of disgust
The slightest swell,
All is not well

And he disgusts me.

He disgusts me
Not for his paunch
But for the launch
On a projected trajectory
A tragic story
The magic inglory
Inglorious in ignorance
Ignorant in innocence

That his first step down the staircase
Will lead to the step that stumbles
Tumbles
Into a face-plant
Landing in the cellar
Of Disgust

That the truly disgusting thing
Is the presence of disgust itself.

If you had known
What that was
Or where it would take you
You'd have been grateful.

Kingdom Principles In a Post Service Coffee Apocalypse

The Last Shall be First:

Unless I see him first
And let him jump in the cue in front of me,

Just to teach him a lesson,

(And maybe steal the real blessing)

And the First shall be Last:

Though his thirst shall not last in the temporal,

Though his lips are wet,

And his cup is full,

Though his custard cream crumbles,

And his belly no longer rumbles

He has received his reward,

And answers to the Lord,

That is, oh wait, unless....

He has found a way to invert humility,

And really he seeks to bless,

By going first and taking for himself the last place,

I bet that's it,

He's using grace,

He takes the biscuit,

And wins the race,

Or perhaps I am overthinking this,

In this post service coffee apocalypse,

Please Don't Love Me

 Please don't love me,

Like I am,

'Cos what you have to understand,

That what I am,

Is not me,

Save your love,

For me.

Feel The Spirit

 You wanted a miracle,

And here it is,

The temporal touched eternally,

The physical world,

Hard copy,

Moved by unseen hands,

Invisible force made visible,

The evidence of the wind,

We don't see it,

But we feel it,

It moves the trees,

And though we don't know what 'it' is,

We give it a name,

It is not Christ 

Commanding into being,

Muscles and sinews,

Skin and new bone,

Stretching out the arm,

Where there was no arm,

It is not the leathered soles of sandled feet,

Succumbing to the resistance of water molecules,

It is not the dividing of the indivisible,

The subtraction of bread,

Becoming the addition of bread,

The division a form of multiplication,

It is not the immaculate conception,

It is no resurrection,

But here it is,

 

This tear,

That wasn't here,

And now is,

Carving a path down my cheek,

Through the tiny forest of miniscule hairs,

That sense it's passing,

Send signals to my brain,

In the code of a tingle,

That yes, it is here,

And a moment ago it was not,

Like the tree,

I am moved,

By a presence I cannot define, describe or contain,

Let alone explain,

Like the wind,

I feel it,

And without seeing,

I see it,

And though I don't know what it is,

I give it a name.

You Were The Sea

 You were the sea,

When he moved to the coast,

A locked in land-boy,

Bereft of waves and their wonder,

When he arrived, he'd daily dive in,

He made it a practice to go in and down under,

Sea starved his whole life long,

He thought this love affair would run and run,

He swam in September and all through the year,

Regardless of rain,

In spite of the Sun,

You were the waves that lapped over him,

That called from afar, that drew him back in,

The tide that pulled back the sheets,

He'd lose hours in that water,

Lose count of the weeks,

He'd run fingers through the surf of your hair,

He'd comb the beach for the gifts you'd left there,

Little signs of the things that you bring,

Residues of your rise, and it's love offerings,

Hard things you had softened over time,

Foreign objects and trinkets with no value,

No reason or rhyme, 

But precious to him to find,

And the beauty it bought;

A rare and unique kind,

When he held them,

It bought your presence to mind,

Exotic and domestic, at the same time,

A sense of safety, an essence of freedom,

Your watchful eye would oversee them,

Unpredictable and dependable,

Sensuous but rarely sensible

Always there, Always moving,

Always changing, never changing,

Always changing, never changing,

When he moved to the coast,

You were the sea,

For that first year,

He'd live and he'd breathe

Salt and Sea air,

Were his only reprieve,

Though he'd drift back to land,

He would never leave,

The sound of the surf 

On the sand, filled his ears,

Calling him back,

From salty spilled tears,

To the place where all rivers run,

To the source of the salt,

And the birth of what had begun,

The love should never have gone,

With resources that deep,

It should have gone on,

But eventually the sea became the background,

The backdrop, that never came back round,

He could hear the tide all day long,

But he tuned it out, like a radio's song,

He got used to it being there,

Like he no longer noticed the salt in the air,

The sea was for the tourists,

Sure it was nice,

But he was a purist,

Some time he'd go further down the coast,

One day he'd go and chase that ghost,

Inverse

 Warm on a lazy, late September day,

Only blue down there,

No trace of grey,

In the depths,

The red tail Kite swims by on his back,

On the surface, in an opposite direction,

The uptipped dragonfly hovers back in his track,

The vampiric Pigeons between,

Perch precariously, hanging from the fence,

And inverted I , look down into the depths of the sky,

And sighing give up all pretense,

That there is up or down,

As I'm pinned to the earth by unseen force,

Gravitated to the body,

That holds and sustains me, 

The heavenly body which dictates my course, 

And up and down are meaningless,

Without the planet's orientation,

And direction only comes with a place to leave,

And a place of destination,

You are my West and East,

You are my South and my North,

My down and my up,

My far and near,

 Creation cries out,

It's speaking forth,

You're my home and the land that I leave,

You're my awaiting destiny,

You are the train and the station,

The departure and the destination,

Without you, I'm going nowhere,

Floating off into space,

A vacuum oblivion without you,

A  prize-less, 

Directionless, 

Endless race,

The shining Sun is in the deep,

On the deep September day,

The creatures continue on; upside down or backwards,

And carry on their way

Bottom

When all was drunk,

And it came down to it,

Drowning in dregs,

Sinking in my own vomit,

My belief was burst,

Not a life jacket, but a millstone,

But much as I hated I could not reject you,

And you must save me,

And you alone,

I want you to know,

I got to the bottom,

I found deep truths,

Long forgotten,

And if faith is something,

Rather than taken up,

Something of which one cannot let go,

Then yes, I'm a stubborn rebel,

But I have to say,

I found at the bottom,

I have such faith,

And I love you so,

On the bottom, looking up,

I saw the surface, 

The shimmer and glow,

And from the bottom,

It was more beautiful,

Than angels on clouds will ever know,

You're Christopher Robin (The division of Characters)

 My Brother you're Tigger, If I am Pooh,

Though I'm a bit more Eeyore, and some Piglet too,

Yes you're Tigger, and sometimes Roo,

Although if I'm honest I see some Kanga in you,

And sometimes you do what Rabbits do,

But neither of us was ever Owl, That's certainly true,

But mostly I was known as Pooh,

A Bear of Little brain,

In the forest I was Robin Hood, And you were a little John,

In the Jungle I was Mowgli, But you were Tarzan's son,

Boy the jungle went on and on,

The laws of play seemed never done,

I was Akela at the Council rock,

At times: Shere Khan, You were Bandar-log

Grey Brother, you were Bagheera, I was Baloo,

Although I'd have much rather been you,

I thought I was D'artagnan, But I was Richelieu,

You were Porthos and Athos and Aramis too,

Without the poetry of course, 

And of course mine was the religious discourse,

I wanted to be Flash Gordon, You were Superman,

More suited to do what a hero can,

I was Luke, you were Han Solo,

You were Captain Kirk, You would boldly go,

Where no brother of yours had been before,

But you'd follow sometimes, When I'd walked out the door,

You were Obelix to my Asterix,

You were the whole village to my Cacocophonix,

You were Tin-Tin and Snowy, I was Captain Haddock, son,

Also the bungling Thompson and Thomson ,

I was Penfold, You were Danger Mouse,

Bringing character and story to life all over our house,

But most of all you were Christopher Robin more,

You, my brother, were who the stories were for.

The Miracle Factory

The shop floor,

The conveyor belt,

The mold, 

The fold,

The iron smelt,

A pinch of flesh,

And some calcium,

Hair follicles, hands,

And, here they come,

Down the line,

One by one,

The miracles,

Machine made. Done.

The government,

The law, the schools,

Conventional wisdom,

And unwritten rules,

Shape their minds,

Weed out the fools,

Whittle down the clowns,

No frowns, let's all be cool,

There is no robbery,

Here's all the tools,

You'll need to feed,

The spoon-fed liberal gruel,

Get rid of God

Supply the fuel,

Independent Individuals,

All kind, Tolerant and Cruel.

Miracles made,

For the miracle pool,

Man in the image of man,

Man in the image of man,

Manufacturing miracles 

Man does what he can,