The True Vine

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”           John 15:1-5

You are the true vine
I am the branch,
apart from You
I am nothing,
within You
I become fruitful,
through You
I can do all things;

because of You
I am a son of the living God.

Your light is greater
than words can express,
Your love fills
even the deepest valley,
Your truth goes
far beyond that
which my limited mind
can comprehend;

hold on to me
forever.
.
.

Deliver Me

Within nighttime dreams
I walk in cold, forsaken places,
dark, dead lost places,
far beyond the reach of hope.

I listen to the suffering,
I hear the sorrow,
I feel the pain,
I know the emptiness;

they are places through which
I have walked before.

When I awake
You are there,
standing by my side,
never letting go,
never walking away;
healing me,
renewing me,
blessing me
when I deserve nothing,
forgiving me
when I can not forgive myself,
reminding me that without You
I can never overcome.

Deliver me O Lord
from dark, dead places,
lost and forgotten places,
hidden within the shadows of dreams;

take away the emptiness
as only You can.

Hold me now,
bathe me in Your light,
fill me with Your love,
surround me with Your glory,
let me belong to You forever,
my Savior,
my King,
my God;

my Everything.
.
.

An Uneasy Interruption

In the end
I will fade away
like the early morning dawn,
quietly changing from darkness
into light,
without a sound,
without a fight,
a passing whisper
in the middle of the
dark, crisp night;

we all do,
we all will,
we simply have
little choice.

Words will mean very little,
relationships even less,
memories but a brief moment,
an uneasy interruption,
a passing vapor
in a world of swirling mist.

I have been to the mountaintop,
I have peered into the oblivion below,
I have heard the small still voice,
I have known the touch
of His calm, cool hand;

words will never be enough.
.
.

Questions for T McV

I wrote this after the Oklahoma City bombing. I think it applies to any situation where people or groups place their own desires, agendas, or needs (whether rational or not) over that of others and are involved in the death or harm to innocent people. Wake up America, before it is too late!

What have you done?
babies lie broken in the street,
what have you done?

Did they do such terrible things
to justify this?
did you think this was all
some romantic hollywood script?
did you think the innocent
would get up when it was all over?
did you think the babies
had some magical protective shield?

did you even think at all?

You are not a hero,
you are not even a man,
was your land taken from you?
have your loved ones been dragged
from their beds at night?
have they been tortured or killed?
have you ever even been told
what you could think
or not think?
what you could say
or not say?

These are reasons men do what they do,
these are reasons heroes do
what they do not want to do,
you are none of these;

you are just a sick,
demented,
despicable
coward.
.
.

Memories of a King (or god)

When I was 6 years old my Aunt Ruth took me to a Chicago Whitesox/New York Yankees baseball game. I don't remember the details of the game but I do remember standing with my aunt after the game trying to get autographs from the Yankee players as they left the stadium to board the team bus. Many years later I expressed those memories in this poem.

I remember that day in August 1961
as if it were yesterday,
standing outside Comiskey Park,
the Yankees team bus waiting nearby,
holding on to my aunt’s hand
as reporters and others
buzzed and milled about,
all of us waiting to catch a glimpse of a man
who I thought at the very least
must be a king or perhaps even a god;

although at the time
I didn’t really understand why.

I remember the commotion as this king (or god)
emerged from the stadium darkness,
reporters rushing forward, camera bulbs flashing,
my aunt pushing me to the front
with pencil and paper in hand.

To my six year old mind
he was everything a king (or god) should be,
tall, blonde and crewcut,
hard as a rock, with a jaw
that looked like it was chiseled from stone,
and eyes of steel that flashed with anger
as he pushed his way through the reporters,
ignoring their questions,
the pant leg of his thigh
brushing my hand as he went by,
bounding up the bus steps then
angrily throwing his duffel bag against the window.

Today I understand the pressure and stress
he must have been going through,
trying to break the record
of an even greater king (or god),
but when you’re six you don’t understand
that even kings (or gods)
have bad days at the plate,
when you’re six you only know
something has upset the king (or god);

and you cry.
.
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Danielle (daughter)

The children of darkness
have their moments as well,
glorious testimonies and self-made fantasies,
delightful, intoxicating delusions,
breath-taking beams of false light,
rising to incomprehensible heights;

perhaps this is what
I understand best.

I have never been able
to survive in either world;
just somewhere in-between,
out on the fringe,
slightly past the known,
standing on the edge,
where even shadows
remain silent.

I should have reached out for you,
I should have protected you,
I should have pulled you from
the gathering storm,
I should have been stronger
than this miserable mix
of flesh and bones,
I should have been willing
to fight for you,
die for you;

now it is too late,
now you are gone;

lost forever.

Baby,
you’ll never know
how I grieved for you,
how I loved you like a daughter,
how I loved you as a woman,
how you made me smile
on the inside;

how I will always miss you.
.
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Babylon (excerpts)

Wept (Alpha)

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

I do not weep for the truth,
I weep because of the truth;

I weep for the futility,
I weep for the loss,
I weep for the waste,
I weep for the hopelessness;

I weep for the children,
I weep for the tragedy,
I weep for the sorrow,
I weep for the suffering,




I weep for the inevitability.

._______

Shadows

We sit among these growing shadows,
standing on the brink of an unknown tomorrow,
hiding somewhere between the darkness and the light,
safe within this land of perpetual sorrow.

Moments come and moments go my dear one,
leaving only traces they were here at all,
this moment we hold alone,
free from a land full of killers and madness,
a world of defined boundaries and limits,
designed to imprison all that live within their deadly gates;
and to you do I say:

that it is better to lie here among these shadows with you,
than to walk among the light with any other,
better to have tasted your love even for a moment,
than spend a lifetime without it.

.__________________

Sometime in the Night

What is left to be said
that has not already been said?

We live in a world
where quiet heroism means nothing,
ruled by those who boast
of every accomplishment,
crying out every great deed,
putting others down
so they may be lifted up,
a world where truth and effort
are no longer rewarded,
only loud mouth trash-talking
and instant self-gratification.

We live in a world
ruled by television and play stations,
where might makes right
and ends justify means,
a make-believe world
in which there is no longer room
for simple lives or
even simpler dreams.

We live in a world
of our own choosing,
a death within the dead,
a soft quiet whisper
among the shadows,
a hot white empty light
filled slowly and surely
by the dark innocent night.

The time is now,
even as the moments pass us by
on their way to lost foreign shores
where mourning vessels await,
hidden among broken smiles,
cold and dark,
filled with a lover’s passion,
her eyes shining like liquid night;

seen by all
yet touched by none.
.____________________

New Gods and Prophets

What if I told you that white was black,
that day is night,
round is square,
up is down;

would that make it so?
would you believe what I had to say?
or would you let reality rule the way?

What if I told you
that the invasion of Iraq,
the overthrow of Saddam Hussein,
was what 9/11 was really all about;

that we are doing exactly
as it was planned on us doing,
what was counted on us doing,
that American youth are dying
for the cause of a new Islam,
would you believe me then?

Sometimes truth is so big,
staring us coldly in the face,
reality so twisted and unreal
that it is impossible to be seen
by those who think
only in terms of yesterday.

New religions are born
from the ashes of impossible thought,
by visionaries who recognize its birth
for what it is,
those who see beyond
the way it has always been,
those who see the promised land
before it has been reached,
and it is these visionaries
who become the new prophets,
the new gods of tomorrows reality;

whether you believe it now
or not.

.________________

Where Now America?

Where now
America?

Your playgrounds and sandlots
lie empty,
as your youth
grow tired and disillusioned,
hanging out at the mall,
gathering in clumps and clusters,
wearing hundred dollar rags,
wrapped up in coolness,
struggling to be ghetto,
jaded with knowledge,
dripping with sarcasm;

nobody’s fool.

Ice flowing through their veins,
filth dripping from their lips,
incapable of genuine laughter,
void of dreams,
growing old
before their time.

South jersey farm boys,
full of TV bravado and
James Dean machismo,
daddy’s good little girls,
playing MTV hoes,
busy being
trash talking lil bitch wannabes,
joking about
giving blowjobs for a dollar.

Generation X,
childhood gone,
innocence lost,
forever;

where now
America?

Where now?

._________________________

Teach Your Children Well

We thought we could change the world,
a new society,
the great experiment,
that we were different,
knew more, knew better,
we were the solution
not the problem.

Make love not war,
tune in, drop out,
hell no, we won’t go,
rebels with a cause,
defenders of the righteous,
crusaders of a higher standard,
a new code;

instead we became
more of the same.

Hypocrites within a world
of hypocrites,
masters of enlightenment
without light,
monsters disguised as
children of peace,
dogs licking up
their own vomit,
white-washed sepulchers,
dry bones,
sheep without a Shepard;

we fooled the world,
we fooled ourselves.

We became draft dodgers and activists,
poets and musicians,
stock brokers and analysts,
doctors and lawyers;

anything but our mothers and fathers;

we became consumers,
we became users,
we became takers,
we became the future,
we consumed
until there was nothing
left to consume,
we took
until there was nothing
left to take,
we used up what belonged
to our children,
we took what belonged
to our grandchildren,
but even that wasn’t enough,
we pointed our fingers,
we blamed the man,
we blamed the over thirty crowd,
only to realize we had become the man;

we were the over
thirty crowd.

It was all about us,
the ‘me’ generation,
gods of our
own making;

we taught our
children well.

.____________________________

Babylon

After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted: “Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.” Then I heard another voice from heaven say: Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues, for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, ‘I sit as a queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.’ Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. “When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry: ‘Woe! Woe, O great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!’

Revelations 18:1-10

O Babylon;
land of opulence and luxury,
kingdom of self-indulgence and lust,
home of instant gratification and decadence,
you use until there is nothing left to use,
you take until there is nothing left to take,
you lie dying in the filth of your own greed;

where is your pleasure now?

O Babylon;
trampling on the backs of those who have less,
stealing from those without the resources to fight back,
killing under the guise of righteousness and the greater good,
how long can the hypocrisy remain hidden?
how long can you pretend
the misery and suffering doesn’t exist?

how long O Babylon?

O Babylon;
surrounded by wealth and excess,
your children grow restless and bored,
turning to technology and machines,
ashamed of a legacy stained with innocent blood,
unable to reconcile the truth
in the name of liberty and justice for all.

.________________________

A Midday Dream

On a bright blue morning
I saw the end,
as the city went up
in flames,
you turned to me
with panic in your eyes,
screaming “WHY?! WHY?!
I said we must not
cry,
so when it is all over
we can face the truth
and say
we remained
human beings.

…..Be still
my tired,
beating,
savage,
heart,
your day of rest
will come
all to soon.

.___________________

Wept (Omega)

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace – but now it is hidden from your eyes.”

Luke 19:41-42

I do not weep for the truth,
I weep because of the truth;

I weep for the futility,
I weep for the loss,
I weep for the waste,
I weep for the hopelessness;

I weep for the children,
I weep for the tragedy,
I weep for the sorrow,
I weep for the suffering,
I weep for the inevitability.




What now
America?
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