Monthly Archives: September 2012

Clay pots and true treasure

Posted on by
Reply

The story involves a baby swatting a vase which then rolls off a table to the bench below. The vase is visibly chipped by not shattered.

We mourn for a few seconds
That we could not fix it
That we could not have snatched it from the edge

The kids watch for my reaction
I tell them, that is why we buy vases from Goodwill.

Peace.
I know that this simple event is crucial for us because my reaction provides traction for my kids. What I did not do or say reflects my priorities as much as what I did.

My child is the treasure. All the vases in the world are not as precious as one dear little child.

The rest is dust.

Rebecca and her sisters

Posted on by
2

Sometimes I should keep my mouth shut and I don’t.
Sometimes I need to open it wider.
I have a vision in my head
Of all the scenes I haven’t made
Brought to me in part
By the ones I could not avoid.

You wanna say
grow up!
Get a life!
Get a job!
An education!
But most of all
You wanna say
watch out!
There are dangerous curves ahead!

You are young and stupid and don’t know what you have effing got yourself into
Teething
Colic
Nightmares
And an endless stream of
Naptimes
Precious
You gotta listen
precious!
’cause that kid you are gonna have
Deserves the life you wanted
As well as the one you threw away.

Keyon Dooling

Posted on by
Reply

http://www.latimes.com/sports/sportsnow/la-sp-sn-keyon-dooling-retirement-abuse-20120928,0,5441679.story?track=rss

I am interested in the language of this article. Dooling admitted? How about revealed or detailed or spoke of? The Times writer’s use of the wordadmit reveals the strong (and erroneous) stigma attached to the victims of sexual abuse.

Dooling is telling us in no uncertain terms that the strongest, fastest, tallest members of our society are the routine and silent victims of sexual abuse.

We need to admit that we are failing to protect children. We need to admit that the silence and the stigma hurts us all.

Covering

Posted on by
Reply

Isaiah 28:20 (NIV)
The bed is too short to stretch out on, the blanket too narrow to wrap around you.

I maintain
That poetry
Is what prophets write
When ordinary warnings
Fail

Prophesy
How you will be
Good
Preach to me
About tomorrow
Whether it will rain
And we will all
Be swept away
By all the things we never said
Before the invention
Of the rain
-bow.

Super Powers

Posted on by
Reply

Isaiah 27:1 (NIV)
In that day, the Lord will punish with his sword, his fierce, great and powerful sword, Leviathan the gliding serpent, Leviathan the coiling serpent; he will slay the monster of the sea.

No, it is the child
Raised in a shambled house
With the dark monsters of uncertainty
Humorless play fellows

I want to say
Promise me
You will not hurt
This living child
This eternal being
Already bound
For sorrow

Isaiah 25

Posted on by
Reply

Isaiah 25:8,11 (NIV)
he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove the disgrace of his people from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. [11] They will spread out their hands in it, as a swimmer spreads out his hands to swim. God will bring down their pride despite the cleverness of their hands.

Kept having the same dream
The water be gone
I look for it
Missing
Watch it pour down
Look to the clouds for rain
Plead to the Lord
Rain.
Rain come down
Wash my sin away
Give me the hands
To spread through
The water
The pool
Source of the
Girl I once was

Amber Alert

Posted on by
Reply

Somewhere on the eastern coast of the United States a family has been torn apart. A 12 year old girl is missing and the person who took her has already proven he is dangerous, especially to children.

But my Facebook page is eerily quiet. I posted the Amber Alert along with two other friends. I thought people should know, should search, should pray.

Hopefully someone cares, right?

A quote surfaces at times like these. Carson McCullers–the life you save may be your own.

Something in this country is broken.
I think it might be the heart.

This place is no place for children.

Fireflies

Posted on by
Reply

John 19:1-3 (NIV)
Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. [2] The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe [3] and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they struck him in the face.

Fireflies in the dark
Defined our early years together
Not the constant noise
Or social ostracism.

No.
Fireflies
More beautiful than
The man-made fireworks
We craned our necks to see

When you were that pesky
Little girl
He was already ahead of you
Closer to prison
Farther from the boy
I must find to love him.

Sometimes, I promise you
The only poetry here
Is in
every careless word
Missing
From our story.

I once

Posted on by
Reply

I once lived in a country with high
Beautiful walls
Stone/mud/concrete
But most of all
Jagged glass
Broken/beautiful
Like a crown of pain
Stained glass warnings
Don’t come any closer
Danger.

Beware of dogs?
How do you say “Doberman”
In this other language
I knew a dead man who taught me this
And a boy I always loved
And feared
Who knew the future…

There Is more than one way
To die/to maim/to rape
A country/a people/a family/a man-woman-child

But one way for sure
Is to look the other way
When it is happening to them

And hope their blood appeases
Men trained like dogs for war.

The Ghosts

Posted on by
Reply

We have to talk about it
Even though we don’t want to
The ways we are broken
The way the past haunts me

I don’t think it haunts you
The same
Like two different ghosts
Mine brings me beautiful picture
Then wryly points to
The darkness behind them

And yours
Merely piles
Rejection letters on your desk
From all the cool people
And the clubs they go to
Without us