I can’t stop thinking about how he lets us
Draw pictures in the wet cement
Our little hands, our squiggly messages
No one would call this art
But they might call it
Mine, fierce love
The Graffiti Artist
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Category Archives: Poetry
Indelible
There are things that happen in the indelible. First, time becomes a character in the story, exerting control over both the narrative and the heart rate. It moves through each room, touching old pictures and hidden spaces, spinning a cocoon so thick it makes normal movement impossible and must be pulled apart like spun sugar
Next, change
Old you out to sea, pared down, bereft
So you
Write down promises
On every doorpost, every lintel, every exposed beam and limb
Let the words become living things
A forest in the house
She calls him
Revelation 19:16 NIV
[16] On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:
king of kings and lord of lords.
She calls him King of Heaven. I like that
Evoke the way you effortlessly possess
The sky, the clouds, rolled up One Day for something new. I want to gather these flocks of clouds, the silvery colors of this matchless afternoon
Wonder what is written on you
Wonder what you will write forever
On me
Mark me
Mark me out as your own
Been There All Along
Darling, I have no right to
Look for you
At every bus stop, mailbox, broken sidewalk, out of the corner of my eye as night falls
No right but your love, so true
Been there all along
This Little Girl
I want to say so many things to
This man who does not really see
“This little girl”
But I know You
See her, see me, see them
All the little ones who
Need a God like You
Take my sins away, heal my wounds, stay until I am well, bring justice in your wings, never blame the victim, never stop searching for treasure
You
who were, who are, who always will be
Just You,
and “this little girl”
Ordinary Time
I could not tell you a name for
the pallet of this one night sky
Inkyblueblack
One plane
Less than the usual number in the airspace threaded between San Antonio and Austin
And a single small snake down below
Licking its way across rough cement
Most likely non-venomous, but
Who can tell
When things are still so
new?
Always true
Only one of them, the beloved, would be clueless and self-absorbed, inclined to foibles and easily distracted
A regular
Flibbertigibbet!
But the Other One—
He would always be true.
And all the pleasant pictures
I have been having the mildest of stress dreams–quirky, bureaucratic hotel check ins, attempts to gather the hard-to-shepherd, things washed away. I know why the dreams have come, and I doubt they will leave me soon, even if the heat and intensity of a gathering sun should cause them to lose their inevitable grip and dissipate
I turn to morning songs and croak out broken praises
Think I should listen to the Gospel, but chose Isaiah instead
Because these are old
And New Testament times
And we are all in wont
of fierce faces
Isaiah 2:16 KJV
[16] And upon all the ships of Tarshish, and upon all pleasant pictures.
Tragedy plus time equals…
Coronavirus
All over the world
Right now
People just like
You and me
Have begun to
Live in fear
Of our own
Invisible, creeping
Spinning, spiny, tiny, inevitable invisible crowns
Empty shelves
Where once cellophaned signifiers of
All that can be wiped away–
Canned food, pasta, string cheese, milk
Fomite transmission
You and me
Gone
Don’t worry, Darling
He took all our thorny little crowns
Smoothed each out
Like a girl braiding her sister’s hair
Singing some sort of song about
A proper crown for the One True King
Come to save us all.
