Re-knitting this present moment.

The chords of my heartstrings
Are fraying;
Thread by thread
They are unraveling
As I am traveling
Into the fearful future,
So unknown behind its
Cloudy incense veil consisting of
This present moment;
A curtain of now-ness.
My last resolve
Has evolved itself into
An irrepressible hope
That denies description.
As my last tools of comfort
Are torn from my grasp,
And alas! My flask of Gilead-Balm
Lies empty;
I must turn my attention
To the question at hand,
"How does one re-knit
A tattered sweater?"

The longest short weeks I ever did know.

A few short weeks.

Only a few short weeks

Long with frayed patience 

And empty heartbeats.

My full heart beats,

Over-running, overflowing

With a lonely, empty seat

For you.

I must be the loneliest person

Who ever heaved a heavy sigh!

The people around me think they're alive,

But they don't know life,

They are dead to the knowledge 

Of what it means to really fly.

But I know the sky,

I've felt the moon sigh,

I know what it means to be really alive.

It means holding you,

And dancing under our spotlight;

The moon.

Life means breathing alongside

The rhythm of the sighs

That escape from your lips;

Like the echoes of your 

Eyes.

Written on an envelope.

Whispering orchards;
Dark and cool places between
Pears, apples, and the sweet bloom
Of healing.
Fresh mountain air;
Crisp and free,
The balm of Gilead
For my scarred, weary everything.
They call to me,
Quietly,
Silently,
With whispers that smell like soil.
My thumping heart;
My bleeding, stitched, bleeding heart
Pulls violently.
I want to go home.

What it's like to hug a shadow.

Four months ago today
She had watched her prince charming
Riddled by needles, IV's, and
A thousand pestering nurses
Who were prettier than her.
Four months ago today,
She gazed into his vacant eyes
And kissed his head
And ran her fingers through
What was left of his hair.
She had watched him fight
For his final breaths.
She had watched him become
The damsel in distress.
Cancer must be a dragon too big
For any prince to fight.
Four months ago today
He had ridden off into the sunset
Without her.
But he was still here,
Everywhere he was still here.
He was here in the creaky wood floors,
In the cold cement walls,
And in the apartment catwalk
That led to her door.
And, every night
Before she closed her tired eyes,
And hid her aching heart
Beneath the quilt of t-shirts he had given her
Made of the places they had gone;
She whispers a prayerful, sacred
"Goodnight my prince",
And reminds herself what it's like
To hug a shadow.

This was a poem written for Magpie Tales poetry prompt. Find more here http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Heart-key hands and sunlight smiles.

Your hand fits in mine
Like a key in a lock.
Without your key
My heart is locked
By stony block
Upon stony block.
Break through my granite condition
With a smile of your sunlight!
Unlock my soul's door
With your freedom cloaked
Loving grasp!
The distance is fraying
The cord of my security.
The Chasm calls to me
From below
With its yawning mouth opened wide
Hungry for my lonely soul.

Worry.

They pile on like little specks of sand,
Small and weightless at first.
But as they pour
Speck after speck,
My carefree living
Is taken captive by a seashore.
It seems silly
To be taken captive by a seashore;
But then again,
Worrying is silly too.
But I don't know what to do!
My hair is growing grey,
My bald spot is widening every day,
And I've found myself worried shirtless!
I didn't even know that worrying affected
My wardrobe!
Oh ocean of dreams,
Shall I ever sail thee again?

Find more like this at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Peace

This time,
This place,
This season abounds
With this five letter benediction.
This is our Advent commonality,
We use it as our catch word,
Our, "don't repeat happy holidays" word,
Our cram the season into one short grunt
Word.
Our actions do not reflect peace.
Our coming and going,
To-ing and fro-ing,
Moving along our Christmas list nightmare
Does not reflect peace.
This time,
This place,
This season
Is the moment of revelation;
The opening of the castle doors.
Here, amid the din of the battle,
Amid the spark-like clash of sharpened swords,
Amid the cries of cancer, death, and lost love,
Amid the rising divorce rates, the rapists, the murderers
And the greedy American bankers.
Here,
In this time,
In this place,
In this season,
Peace is Born,
Christ is Born.

Emily's headband.

Here is my take on the prompt over at http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Every single day
They filed in, and then out again;
Predictable as my grandmother's grandfather clock.
With their neutral toned skin,
And their earth tone suits,
And their white bread and black coffee,
They repeated the litany again and again of
Bite,
Chew,
Swallow.
But one day, she stepped in
And things were never again
Ordinary.
She was like all the rest
In a different sort of way.
Her name was Emily,
And she wore a red headband, although her favorite color was
Green.
She changed things for me.
My black coffee began to taste like
A thousand rays of sunlight,
And my heartbeat became something new.
I never could place what it was about her
That made my insides feel so
Soft-like,
Until the day I asked her,
"What is that headband you wear so proudly
Made of?"
And she looked at me with green, smiling eyes
And said,
"Don't you know dear sir? It's made of
Love."

Ichabod.

Glory departed,
Glory departed.
The words stay glued to my lips
Like a mantra.
It echoes from the darkness,
The unbearable darkness,
That sits on this land
Of stained glass piety;
This wilderness of
Dead god's bones.

We crafted him carefully;
A god of our own image,
A god who consumes
Like American spending,
A god who loves
Anger, lust,
And self-gratification.
With fragile precision
We bred infatuation
For this boxed Jesus
That we created.
With attention to detail
We removed the scars from his hands,
Because we didn't want a Jesus
Who would bloody our manicured
Hands.
But the god of our creation
Had no ears for our groaning,
And we carry our vacuum filled
Empty hearts
With nowhere safe to lay them.