My Favorite High School song.

This was my favorite song in high school. Mayday Parade is one of the greatest bands I have ever heard. Well, here it is.

Summer's Shadow.

The loneliness bears down
With unrelenting heat.
My heart crawls wearily
In the desert of separation.
Days and hours move along
Like a passing blur.
Your eyes are my mirage.
They float on the humid air;
Two wells for my soul.
My parched heart cracks and crumbles
Wearily.
I cannot go back to yesterdays pastures,
So I'll crawl on,
Waiting for summer's shadow.

Shadorma

My heart jumps.
The blood in my veins
runs hotter
than sunlight.
It is your liquor-sweet eyes.
Oh, sweet drunkeness!

A conversation with my shoes.

I slide on the fabric sneakers
And feel their welcoming embrace.
Sometimes, they are the only welcoming embrace.
Their scuffs and scratches are familiar.
The laces are fraying,
Like my soul.
I like the way they rub the asphalt,
Rough and tender.
The gravelly song of a journey begun.

I have missed too many sunrises.

I have gone through life
As a child with fingers in his ears,
Closing his mind to the taunts of
His bullies
And their incessent stream of
Attacking venom.
I have closed my ears to
The sound of the whipporwill
And the wind's howling song,
Because she is my bully.
She shows me how unbeautiful
I really am
In light of her dazzling rainbows.
If I only opened my eyes though,
I would see that she speaks parables
Instead of omens.
I am beautiful
Because of my imperfections.

Magpie Tales Poetry Prompt

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Mask.

Your skin shines radiant
Like the luminescent moon,
But you hide it with a mask
Of darkness.
You cover your beauty
With delusions of
Brokeness.
You define yourself
With the words of others
And smear on their lies
With a powdery brush.
You hide yourself from the world
Like that will stop the bleeding,
But it never will.
Because, you embrace destruction
And clothe yourself with its
Claws.
Disarm yourself,
My love demands it,
And replace your mask
With me.

Entrustment.

Here I stand,
Scarred and broken
At your feet.
I've given you my heart
Imperfectly.
I've given you my heart
But taken it back,
Afraid to trust your sweet hands.
But still you stand,
Open arms stretched towards me
Like a chasm of strength,
A canyon of refuge.
A abandon myself to you.

Echo.

Alone, at my wooden desk
I am haunted by
Your echo.
I am kept company by the
Shadow of your memory
That takes up residence in
The caverns of my heart,
Quietly floating about
Drip-dropping in the pools of held in tears
That occupy those reservoirs.

I can hear your voice,
The almost whisper lingers in my ears.
Loneliness is teasing me.
It is drawing me in with the phantom
Of your presence,
Only to cruelly show me the truth;
You are not here.
Yet...
Your embrace lingers.

Magpie tales.

For Emily.

The shrapnel flies;

Broken fragments of failure
Piercing the air.

The warmth of our embrace
Is cut swiftly
By the sounds of
Our demons,
Our scars,
Our weaknesses,

Chasing us relentlessly

With the chains with which

They wish to hold us
Clinking through the unseen veil.

I hear their screeches;

The siren call I once found

Irresistible.

It grates on my ears with

Memories of failure.

We shall take on our demons,

You and I.

Here, in the scarred battlefront

Of broken hearts

We will dig a foxhole for two,

A cool place of refuge.

We shall stand,
Hand in hand

Looking our fears
In their blood-soaked eyes.

We shall tell them to keep

Their scars,

And their murky dungeons,

For we have each other,

And we do not need them
Any longer.

And with one closing kiss

We will bid them
Goodbye.

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Something by Paul Zimmer.

Here is a poem by Paul Zimmer. He has won two Pushcart awards, and an Open Book Award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Enjoy!

 

Bach and My Father

by Paul Zimmer

Six days a week my father sold shoes
To support our family through depression and war,
Nursed his wife through years of Parkinson's,
Loved nominal cigars, manhattans, long jokes,
Never kissed me, but always shook my hand.

Once he came to visit me when a Brandenburg
Was on the stereo. He listened with care—
Brisk melodies, symmetry, civility, and passion.
When it finished, he asked to hear it again,
Moving his right hand in time. He would have
Risen to dance if he had known how.

"Beautiful," he said when it was done,
My father, who'd never heard a Brandenburg.
Eighty years old, bent, and scuffed all over,
Just in time he said, "That's beautiful."

Waiting...

I wait
Through the numbing hours
Of self-contained loneliness
For the dose of your words,
My refreshment,
My hope,
My defining moment in a sea
Of expectant hours.
But they do not come,
Your words,
Until my heart is at the precipice, the apex
Of self-contained hope.
Then, and only then,
They make their appearence.
But only for a single, fleeting moment,
A tiny breath of life to sustain me
Until the promised tomorrow.
But each lonely moment drains me
Empty of patience to wait.
So my heart grows stony,
Against my wishes,
But steadily still.
When will tomorrow come?
I've waited through what seems to be
A thousand tomorrows,
But they were not the right tomorrow;
The tomorrow that you will speak to me.
So, I wait...

Magpie tales.

Yoke
The night darkens in my soul
And my fingers numb themselves
Stretching for You.
My cold, hard soul,
Cracked and broken,
Cries out,
For even the rocks will cry out.
My rocky soul cries out to You, my Rock.
Your radiance meets me with
Astonishing collision.
My heart pounds within my chest.
My pupils widen in amazement
At You.
Your deep enveloping hands meet mine
And I can't help but stare
At the scars
When suddenly, the scent of Your grace
Overpowers me
As You take me in Your arms
And I finally rest
In Your yoke.


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I like days when I have to use an umbrella...

Today was wet and foggy, MY FAVORITE! Walking across the parking lot becomes the adventure of a lifetime when you have your trusty umbrella. Today, working at a Jamaican church on my VBS missions trip in Ft. Lauderdale. I realized how present God is in my life. He is present in the overfeeding of two Jamaican sisters who laugh more than St. Nick himself. He is present in the extraordanary vocabulary of an old pastor who has been to just about every country of the world. He is even present amid the raindrops in the parking lot, walking right beside me underneath my umbrella. The words He says in Matthew's gospel seem so much more powerful when I read them in this light. "lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20) NASB