New Year?

New Years day
2011,
begins with rain,
cold, hard sheets;

a sign of things to come?

Eye for an eye,
tooth for tooth,
choices made,
consequences paid;

it is a terrible thing
to accept defeat,
it’s like never having existed
at all.

This is what I do,
there is nothing else,
do not look for more,
do not ask questions
for which answers lie hidden,
none will come;

we reap what we sow.

These words come,
these words go,
this day begins,
this day ends,
there are places unknown,
there are shadows unseen;

all that remains
is the light in-between.

It rises like a distant storm;
this new place,
this other reality,
this far off land where
night never ends.

What is left?
what more can be said?
does no one listen?
does no one hear?
does the madness never end?

Today I would have given you
everything,
yet nothing is all you took,
tomorrow brings fresh sorrow
with nothing more left;

I wish it were not so.

This life is no life,
it changes and rearranges
without completion,
without form,
creations of a creator,
children of light
trapped within the darkness,
temporary,
transient and conciliatory,
blinded to the truth
hidden before our eyes,
deceiving and being deceived,
wounding and being wounded,
hurting and being hurt,
feeding off the leftovers,
running for the scraps,
hiding within the cracks;

this great illusion
we choose to believe.
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This Prison/Parole

This Prison


In the dead of the hot summer night
the breeze finally comes,
as the heat floats gently away
like the breath of a slowly dying man,
his soul crying out to be free from this prison
where it has been held for so long,
never allowed to become
all that it was meant to be,
praying for survival among the destruction
of these decaying prison walls;

returning to a home it has never known.

Sleep comes hard
in this lonely land of pain,
as thoughts of words already said
echo through the silence of the mind,
remembering places nearly forgotten
by this clever disguise called life.

The still, small voice softly calls out,
offering a refuge of hope and light
amidst the cold and barren darkness
of this forgotten, forsaken cell.

I wish I could walk out of this prison,
discard it like old clothes,
free at last,
no restrictions,
no fear or rage,
only quiet, simple thought;

this prison which holds me to the earth,
this prison that makes me crave depravity,
this prison in which I was born,
this prison which has grown with me;

but has never let me grow.
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Parole

Within the conquering depths
of this cold black cell,
You bring hope and life;
from the empty solitude
of this perpetual dungeon,
You fill me with your light;
trapped in the endless despair
of this eternal bondage;

You bring freedom and peace.

This prison,
holding me captive all my life,
no longer decides
who or what I shall be;
this depraved fortress of iniquity,
filled with unending suffering and pain,
where so much has been lost,
no longer shackles me
in the binding chains of anger and fear;
the master of eternal night,
whose darkness and lies
deceive the whole world,
no longer blinds my eyes.

Freed from this prison
at a cost beyond compare,
paroled by Your sacrifice and love
through Your amazing mercy and grace;

PRAISE YOUR NAME FOREVER!!!
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We Are Gone

In the spring
you may look for us,
but nothing is all you will find,
for we are gone,
traveling the hills westward,
soaring over mountain peeks,
gliding through sunken valleys;

we are gone.

Left behind
with all the recycled trash,
yesterday’s news,
trapped within the hollow strands
of tomorrow’s tragedy,
laboriously flailing along
like forgotten refugees,
displaced by new dreams
and decaying winter filth;

we are gone.

Do not look in hidden summer sanctuaries,
nor behind effervescent nooks and crannies,
the dawn will bring no more questions,
the sky no more answers,
mystery bemoans her children,
destiny awakens from its slumber,
we have become the evening shadows;

all things fade,
all things disappear,
all things end;

we are gone.
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Life

I wait outside her domain
like a dog in heat,
I listen to her voice
pounding within,
like ocean waves
on a dark angry night,
she holds me in arms
of shifting winds;

without shape or form.

In the morning,
before the doubt,
before the poison,
anything is possible,
the world is bright and new,
fresh and alive,
but then like the morning;

it is gone.

Life is full of wasted time,
wide open spaces and moments
in-between the only ones that matter,
long, drawn out hours of insufferable boredom,
highlighted by seconds of indescribable pleasure;

life is a never ending orgasm,
working and struggling,
building and rising,
working for just one short burst,
one quick release,
I want a place to hide,
a shelter from the storm,
safety in the wilderness;

a home within the night;

what words can be said for this?
what salvation, what mercy,
what redemption?

There are places
where hope does not walk,
places where love has no home
and light does not shine,
places where truth does not speak,
down here words fail,
seasons become blurred,
down here;

giving up is not an option.

We come so close,
reaching and touching,
knowing and seeing,
hearing and feeling,
so close yet so impossibly far,
flowing like underground rivers,
hidden,
alone;

silent.

Fires burn bright,
stars blaze through the night,
yet we see only the shadows,
moving through rising tides,
surviving extravagant excess,
hiding among the corners.

Day after day we wait,
as miles become like dead stones
wrapped around the necks
of fools and lovers,
hour by hour we survive,
selling flesh inch by inch,
smiling at reflections in the dust,
crumbling before the edges;

with nothing in return.
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Never Been to Prison

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

 Ephesians 6:12

Never been to prison,
but I feel like
I’ve been behind bars
since the day I was born,
never seen the desert,
but I think I have been
planning the trip
all my life.

Now my life
is almost over,
dried up
like an abandoned well,
a gentle mist,
a fog shrouded vapor,
see it fade,
see it change,
see it rearrange,
movement becomes hard,
pain a way of life,
everything is gone,
everything is different;

everything is new.

We reap what we sow,
and I have sown the seeds
of perversion,
wallowed in the ways of lust,
fulfilled the desires of the flesh,
reveled in the excesses,
partook of the debauchery,
delighted in the thrills,
I have lived for the moment,
searching for forbidden fruit;

I deserve nothing.

All my life
I have lived in worlds of fantasy,
trapped by delusions and
non-existent details,
flirting with madness
and disasters beyond
mere magnitudes of mortality,
searching for finality,
witnessing untold destruction,
forever knowing,
continually waiting
for moments that came
and went like liquid glass;

the night belongs to those
who have nothing else.

Sadness is an art
known by only a few,
understood by none,
without beginning or end,
without mercy or compassion,
techniques and classifications
have no hold here,
no amount of money
can buy membership here,
words can save,
words can kill;

turn around
before it is too late.


once more
the darkness closes in,
once more
the abyss lies before you,
calling, beckoning, caressing;


save me Lord!……………
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Choices

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:21

“Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Ammorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua 24:14-15

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

Matthew 7:13-14

The hot sun beats down,
the sweat slowly runs,
the anger and hatred grow,
the bitterness spreads,
life is finite,
all things come to an end,
we have no control
over the places or times,
the circumstances and situations,
it is there with every beat of our heart,
it speaks with every breath we take,
it is all that we are,
it is part of the life we live;

participation is not optional.

In the end we choose
the reaction not the situation,
the darkness or the light,
to control or be controlled,
the truth or the lie,
the narrow road that leads to life,
or the broad road that leads to death;

choose wisely.
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"I knows shugah"

Over the weekend
my woman and I
drove out into the bayou
to this little parish town
she knew about,
where some Cajun thing
was going on;

her charm and smile
got us in,
if it had been just me
I would have been chopped up
and thrown into the swamps
for gator bait;

but with her
I was ok.

We had a great time,
squishing crawdads
then sucking the juice
out of their heads
as zydeco music
played in the background,
we drank warm beer
and danced late into the night,
I tried to act cool
and indifferent,
but by the end of it all
I was dos-e-doing
with the best of em.

On the ride home
she sat next to me
with her head on my shoulder
and her hand
resting lightly on my crotch,
the stars
shining brightly
in the sky
overhead;

“oooooh weeee bebeeee
I luvs you more dan ze moon”

I said
in my best Cajun accent,
she just smiled
and said;

“I knows shugah
I knows.”
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