Paper Crowns

Posted on March 4, 2017 by Elea Lee

Last spring I sheared my own crown, playing both the sheep and the shepherd in a one-woman show about redemption.

The thing is:

You can’t redeem yourself, no matter what lovely poetic last

Name you have been given.

I see the boy you used to be

I see the lost in your eyes

Playing both sheep and shepherd in your own one-man show about…

I will always love you.

Who says that and means it?

Not me. I am a coward who cannot handle her always

Ten years since he died

And I stand in the dollar store conjuring up themes for a party girl

Bikini contestant party girl

Written in permanent marker

The lost in their eyes, the voice in my head

Man who played both the sheep and the

Shepherd in his own one-man redemption show

Thorns for crowns/ Paper crowns/diadems, tiaras

For the children we will be

At the wedding feast of the Lamb.

Dissembling Wrong

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Elea Lee

So close

to a reclusive keeper

of memories, of wrongs

Shuffling among the forgotten objects

Placeholders for the barely living:

anonymous empty

water bottles, hollow and crumpled

Become the jury

Old newspapers still swaddled in

Their plastic rain protectors

Told to be

Witnesses or spectators

Instructed to rise

As a one-armed nutcracker assumes the bench

Rag doll court reporter records the proceedings

Mr. Vinegar prosecutes while

the defense attorney was appointed from among the

A pantheon of generic

Happy Meal toys.

But the victims are living songbirds

Twittering in the disheveled

cage of my heart of course

Always re-animating dried bones-

Off-kilter, neglected, wrongs

Will inexorably be

Radically, fundamentally transformed

When the true King

Calls them back

To life

Break-up Songs (for babies)

Posted on February 25, 2017 by Elea Lee

in the space of no more than

Half-an-hour

someone steals his little shoes

dear to him/dear to us

Still, just shoes.

At the scene of the crime we

Call their names

Thinking whoever did this has to love them

Must have loved them

Oh. This song I know the words by heart

Sang it all those years ago

With all the other sodden

Unbearable

Break up songs for babies.

To the bone

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Elea Lee

somewhere floating in the ether of souls there is

another us

Without the inevitable entrapment of self-preservation

-The pig mom and the human child

I use my truncated vocal apparatus

to try to warn you you are

– not safe here

among the scientists

With their crisp white coats and syllogistic rejoinders

They count pieces of us

Placing animal in one

The Cone of Silence

Posted on February 17, 2017 by Elea Lee

after almost exactly 30 years

I return to the original cone of silence

Scooped not by time and chance but the

Actual-true-hand of God

near the plain of Megiddo

where bad, terrible, awful things have, did, and will

Happen.

You have a tell, my dear

In all your smack talk about leprechauns and canine destinations for women

At 2:30 in the morning

the aircraft flies too loud, too close

to my insomnia

I remember your anger is your origami armor

against the wounded you-us-story

sewn into the cloak

of every disguise you put on

in vain.

Reflections in the dark

Posted on February 16, 2017 by Elea Lee

ghost light

reflected in the rear view mirror

(Where, as you know, things are closer than they appear)

Come close, Light

Lie with me in the dark night

Gaze into the firmament

where broody giants

time and atoms become

Lonely

As our eyes begin to falter

the ghost light does not

stop just because we fail

to see

No. The light goes on

comes on

Barrelling through the tunnel of darkness

toward us, light speed

These three remain…

Just three? Out of this infinite

host of…the

whole we shall be..come

When we see Love for the first time

Face to face.

Magi at the park

Posted on February 9, 2017 by Elea Lee

They emerged from an ordinary

van

…wore ordinary clothes

shuffled toward me along uneven

lines

squinting, sun-struck

I realized: Magi!

come close enough for

greetings and salutations

along the usual

Lines of dignitaries and princes-

Hands shaken; eyes met

they said oh, it is you!

(Me?) their honored guest?

regretting I had no

Gold, frankincense, myrrh to give them

Come so far we all are

children of the King.

Elevator Pitch Savior

Posted on February 5, 2017 by Elea Lee

Just an ordinary looking guy with an odd refugee backstory who comes along, works with wood, talks some smack, heals the crowd, dies for all, inexplicably

Rises again.

The end-the beginning

for all of us.

“There’s no base!”

Posted on January 22, 2017 by Elea Lee

“there’s no base!”

Exclaimed the girl–green shirt, tiny dog resembling a toy…

only real in the crook of her arm

And suddenly I get atheism–

Darwin shouts in the schoolyard–

no base!

And unhinging the game from…

well, base-

Another name for

The trunk of the branching oak

we rest beneath

breathing hard

before someone says

One, two, three, get off my father’s apple tree

Not to be confused with

That one inimitable player who says

One, two, three, base all over me

And somehow, miraculously

Means it.

Cry Fire

Posted on January 21, 2017 by Elea Lee

her voice is metallic-insistent-succinct

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Thank God she is there

10 dollar angel

suspended above us while we sleep

…when we sleep

You know it took me years to know You did that

And then years again to know few others did.

Vigilant love, calling us out of darkness

where angels who watch over us if we

had eyes to see

Always resemble the Firstborn

Fill the sky with light

Ring the children with wings and eyes

And teach them how to vanquish

Implacable darkness

with words of supplication

to the fierce Unstoppable

God of Light.

Carrying Light

Words for light

Category Archives: history