Poets’ Corner
Rise
Thick, mist-forged shackles held us in the cave, imprisoned for the crime of losing all. We saw nothing but shadows on the wall— they gamboled and they taunted us. We gave in to the dark. A crushing fear replaced our hope for liberation with despair. Our cries withered to whimpers on thin air out in…
Words Are Violence Softest
Words are violence softest. Limits beginning. The course of life by which we will be judged— how our utterance led all others to one thought or eclipsed the next. As boys we were corrupted by a false king and other fantasies, the designs of dirty old men imprinted on us through text with digits ethereal,…
When Winfrith Cut the Oak Tree Down
This is a place I love to sit. These planks play host to something new. The knots and lines and pools of gold… We thought it strange, when it was built. That knot looks like a screaming face. The day he cut the oak tree down I knew that he must die. “A god lives…
At a Performance of Bach’s St. John Passion
The night outside the concert hall is cold. The audience arriving? Most are old. Some push their walkers. Many walk with canes. Some are in wheelchairs. Nobody complains, For they’ve been promised bodies remade, new. How can that be? The music holds a clue. They’ll hear a sound they hope that heaven makes, A passion…
Love the Sin and Hate the Sinner
Disclaimer: This poem contains adult themes. Reader discretion is advised. Now is it sanctity or is it fear That moves a man in public to declare Forgiveness? Is it love, and is it love? When bodies lie but scarcely cold, and words Are said, are we so holy, or are we Just ordinary, moved by…
Contrition
No hesitation, Lord, Do I, in sinning, feel In thought or deed or word. Keep back, I pray, my sin’s reward, Nor let me hesitation feel In repenting afterward.
The Mountains of St. Gabriel
I see no shrouded silhouette or trace Of solid might—thick haze conceals The mountains of St. Gabriel again As if they never were; all mist, These memories of paths perfumed with sage And broom, of hills where Our Lord’s candles rise From dagger mounds and where the scrub jays screech– Their flight like blue sparks…
Lenten Sonnet
O God, who mak’st the tow’ring mountains melt, Look not upon my westward-facing sin: I pray thee to expunge the wrong I’ve dealt And turn my soul toward the East again. I have no sacrifice to offer thee: Thy word and sacrament my heart accuse. Accept my purple robe from Calvary; Thy son no contrite…
A Lenten Poem
’Twas forty-days of the journey long, long, long; dragging through the desert. Boots worn thin and tired from hurt. Sand between toes tires even the strong as they travel wearily cross the dunes. No food but Words, swirling within. A morsel of water to calm the gullet, and no bed but a mat, covered in…
First Wednesday
One step down, my back turned against pear groves As the perfume of orange blossoms drifts On the breeze, mixed memoirs of when we clove Tightly to each other. An anchor lifts, But casually, skirting the floor and primed To fall in the wake of first resistance, And I don’t know if its weight is…