All posts in Poetry

  • Turn The Page

    Tomahutu

    Turn The Page
    Blind Man at the Gate

    In our journey through the holy script we’ve not yet reached THE END
    Turn the page
    All that is to be said has not yet been said
    Turn the page
    Long ago the writers finished the text
    But the players have not yet said it all
    There are heroes yet to take stage
    There are dramas yet to be resolved
    Turn the page
    We’ve lingered long over this familiar leaf
    And it’s beginning to turn yellow
    We’ve begun to forget that which has gone before
    We’ve begun to think there will be no more
    Turn the page
    We find comfort in that which is now too familiar
    But the thrill is gone and the story has stalled
    Turn the page
    To move on in the divine tome is not a betrayal
    Of that which we have come to know and love
    But to understand the story demands that we
    Turn the page
    But those afraid to turn the page
    Discourage and disparage and in fear rage
    “If we turn the page things will change!”
    Yes Read more

  • Moonset

    starry-night

    Moonset
    Blind Man at the Gate

    Last night I watched the moonset
    From where I sat
    It was half past eleven
    Between Longs and Ypsilon
    There I sat
    With the moonset
    In the enfolding dark
    Growing colder
    Knowing
    I’m growing older
    And time flies
    But still I sat
    Long past midnight
    Under Rocky Mountain skies
    Until the stars came out
    I saw the Big Dipper
    And the Milky Way smear
    Seven meteorites
    And one satellite
    I hope it wasn’t inflicting cable news
    On God’s good earth
    BREAKING NEWS
    Theater shootings are a thing now
    When I was a kid we saw shoot ‘em up Westerns in theaters
    But they don’t make imposters like John Wayne anymore
    (T-Bone Burnett said that)
    Now we have real shoot ‘em ups
    In…
    Theaters
    Schools
    Malls
    Churches
    Anywhere
    Because Americans have a right
    To act like John Wayne
    “Bang! Bang! You’re dead!”
    But it makes me wonder
    When will America grow up
    And act like an adult?
    I don’t know. . .
    Then shooting star number seven
    Calls me away from the madness here below
    And I remember something about
    Each night giving a little grace
    To help wipe away the sins of the day
    Time to sleep
    And dream of peaceful things
    The moon sets
    The sun also rises
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  • Income Tax Day by Walter Brueggemann

    IMG_5278

    Income Tax Day
    Walter Brueggemann

    On this day of internal revenue
    some of us are paid up,
    some of us owe,
    some of us await a refund,
    some of us have no income to tax.

    But all of us are taxed,
    by war,
    by violence,
    by anxiety,
    by deathliness.

    And Caesar never gives any deep tax relief.

    We render to Caesar. . .
    to some it feels like a grab,
    to some it is clearly a war tax,
    to some — some few —
    it is a way to contribute to the common good.

    In any case we are haunted
    by what we render to Caesar,
    by what we might render to you,
    by the way we invest our wealth and our lives,
    when what you ask is an “easy yoke”:
    to do justice
    to love mercy
    to walk humbly with you.

    Give us courage for your easy burden, so to live untaxed lives.
    Read more

  • Peace Donkey On Palm Sunday

    palm-sunday-an_african_jesus_christ_s_triumphal_entry_into_jerusalem_riding_on_a_donkey_to_the_enthusiasm_of_the_crowds

    Peace Donkey On Palm Sunday
    Blind Man At The Gate

    The king approaches on Palm Sunday
    Forsaking the glorious war horse
    To ride a ridiculous peace donkey

    Gentle as the wings of a dove
    Inaugurating the reign of love

    Conquerors come with hubris, blood, and violence
    Riding stallions of famine, war, and pestilence
    (They tell me Genghis Khan murdered all of ten million)

    The Prince of Peace comes without breaking a bruised reed
    Swords are now for plowing, spears are now for pruning
    (I’ll tell you for a fact, Jesus of Nazareth killed nary a one)

    If Hosanna praises rocket’s red glare: Weep over Jerusalem!
    If Hosanna acclaims kingdom come: Let the rocks cry out!

    BZ
    Read more

  • War Is…

    Syria (2012)
    War Is…
    Blind Man at the Gate

    War is stupid.
    War is wrong.
    War is impatience.
    War is song…
    Made silent.

    War is hate.
    War is haste.
    War is rape.
    War is waste…
    Of precious life.

    War is murder.
    War is money.
    War is pride.
    War is profit…
    Woe the profiteers!

    War is old.
    War is told.
    War is gold.
    War is sold…
    To remorseful buyers.

    War is swords.
    War is tanks.
    War is bombs.
    War is banks…
    Of filthy lucre.

    War is Auschwitz.
    War is Hiroshima.
    War is Nagasaki.
    War is humanity…
    Hanging by a string.

    War is Hell.
    War is Hades.
    War is Sheol.
    War is Gehenna…
    Valley of the dead.

    War is seen.
    War is obscene.
    War is famed.
    War is declaimed…
    By the Christ.

    War is named.
    War is shamed.
    War is sham.
    War is banned…
    By the cross.

    War is ancient.
    War is always.
    War is ever.
    War is over…
    If you want it.

    War is Cain.
    War is cruel.
    War is crucifixion
    War is cancelled…
    With resurrection.
    Read more

  • The Magi and I

    journey-of-the-magi

    T.S. Eliot’s poem Journey of the Magi with my quasi-interpretation of it. Which is more than an interpretation — it’s also a kind of autobiographical confession; for I too have had a hard time of it. And like Eliot’s Magi I would do it all over again.
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  • The World As It is (An Advent Poem)

    dylan-2009-0019-kitchenette

    The World As It Is
    (An Advent Poem)
    Blind Man at the Gate

    I take the world as it is and still believe

    Debauched and beautiful, sordid and seemly

    Where Kerouac is a secular saint

    Heard uncensored telling his story

    On the road with Dean Moriarty

    In the long run Merton took a better road

    But still the beat goes on…

    Take your stand on whatever smidgen of faith you have

    Smack-dab in a world of hustlers and hookers, users and losers, liars and lovers

    Don’t waste your life on a pastel watercolor faith

    That runs if touched by a tear or a drop of sweat

    Can you take the world as it is

    And still believe in God?

    Can you take people as they are

    And still believe in love?

    Or do you only play at make believe?

    A world of terracotta saints

    Of little houses on soundstage prairies

    So not at home in the world as it is

    That you can’t wait for it to be left behind

    That, my friend, is no real faith

    It’s scripted B-movie phoniness

    Rated G (for gullible audiences)

    A real faith lives in a real world

    The world as it is

    Sordid and seemly

    Debauched and beautiful

    It’s the little town of Bethlehem

    Good enough for the Son of God

    Read more

  • Out of the Corner of My Eye

    Sir_Frank_Dicksee_-_The_Two_Crowns_-_Google_Art_Project

    Out of the Corner of My Eye
    Blindman at the Gate

    I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
    A ghost, a whisper, a suspicion, a subtle and subversive rumor.
    So dangerous that every army would be commanded to march against it;
    so beautiful that it would drive those who see it to madness
    or sanity.
    Does the whole of my kind suffer from mental and moral vertigo?
    As Melville said of cabin boy Pip,
    he saw the foot of God upon the treadle of the loom
    and dared to speak it.
    Henceforth his shipmates called him mad.
    As Vladimir said when they came to bury Fyodor,
    the spiritual leader must feel the falsehood prevailing in society;
    the prophet must struggle against it, never tolerate it, never submit to it.
    I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
    Have we been so blinded by the bright lights of advertisers’ lies
    that the only true vision is peripheral vision?
    In the age of constant commercialization and overblown hype
    does truth shout with a whisper and stand out with subtlety?
    I think I caught a glimpse of truth out of the corner of my eye.
    It terrified me as I fell in love with it.
    I said,
    This explains everything.
    This changes everything.
    This challenges everything.
    This threatens everything.
    This transforms everything.
    Dare I speak it?
    The truth I caught out of the corner of my eye?
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie;
    they come to kill, steal, and destroy.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie;
    all virtue is subject to sacrifice upon the altar of imperial expediency.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie;
    God or gods exist only to serve its cause.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie;
    religion takes off its mask when it says—
    We have no king but Caesar.
    The ultimate betrayal,
    the final apostasy,
    every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    Marx was more than half right when he said—
    Religion is the opiate of the masses.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie:
    Self-promotion and Self-preservation,
    Greed and Lust,
    Industry and War,
    the industry of war.
    Long live the Empire!
    Keep the Empire alive,
    and to keep the Empire alive
    many will be made to die,
    because the Empire lives by the sword
    and dies by the same.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    From Aztec to Zulu,
    Egyptian and Ottoman,
    Persia and Babylon,
    Greece and Rome,
    England and—
    Now I’m too close to home.
    A kinder, gentler Babylon to be sure,
    but a Babylon for sure.
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    So when Christ came
    he did not bring
    another empire of men
    built upon a lie
    as the liar in the desert tempted.
    Instead he brought
    the Empire of God,
    Good News!
    The government of justice and mercy, grace and truth,
    and the truth is
    every empire of man is built upon a lie,
    though every empire says,
    We have God on our side.
    So you will have to decide
    how patriotic a Byzantine believer can be.
    May we be salt and light,
    a prophetic voice,
    a Christian conscience.
    May we preserve and illuminate,
    cry aloud and convict,
    but never forget
    every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    And to stand for truth
    and to stand for God
    is to stand against the lie the empire is built upon.
    And in the midst of imperial self-justification pray—
    Thy Empire come.
    There, I’ve said it.
    The truth I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye.
    And when push comes to shove,
    as it always does,
    the Empire of Men will oppose the Empire of God.
    To know this is dangerous.
    To say it can be deadly.
    Do you think I’m kidding?
    What crucified Jesus?
    Self-righteous religion?
    No, not religion alone.
    Religion as the whore of Empire.
    This is what killed Jesus.
    And Paul.
    And Peter.
    And Polycarp.
    And Huss.
    And Bonhoeffer.
    Because this is what empires do.
    Silence the prophets who will not prostitute the truth.
    Religion is tolerated.
    Imperial religion is promoted.
    But the prophetic hope of another way
    must be censored
    even by the sword.
    This is the way of empire.
    Because
    every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    Constantine can become a Christian,
    but Constantine cannot baptize the Empire.
    The Empire of God converts the hearts of men one at a time.
    Christ the King must himself sponsor each one into his Kingdom.
    But when the Empire sanctions religion for its own purposes,
    the whore of Babylon rides the back of the beast.
    Giddyup and God bless the Empire!
    Every empire of man is built upon a lie.
    I glimpsed this truth out of the corner of my eye.
    To believe this truth will set you free.
    And you thought it was just Sunday school banality
    or empty religious sentimentality
    to pray
    Thy Empire come
    Thy Policy be done.
    You had no idea it was dissident and subversive,
    because every empire of men is built upon a lie.
    The lie that the empire has God on its side.
    I glimpsed this truth out of the corner of my eye.
    And if you ask me my politics, I will say,
    Jesus is Lord!
    I glimpsed this truth out of the corner of my eye.
    Read more

  • O To Be Open

    The-Open-Door

    O To Be Open
    Blindman at the Gate

    O to be open
    It’s what the wise ones seek
    It’s what the great souls attain

    What’s a saint?
    An Open One
    Saint Francis and Mother Teresa were
    Open
    Open to God, open to Creation, open to the Other

    We’re all born open — wide-eyed and wide open
    What’s an infant?
    An Open One
    Wonder, learning, and love come easy to a
    Child

    But then we suffer the blows
    And begin to
    Close

    By the time we’re a teen
    We’re mostly tight shut
    Happy or sad
    A clam inside a shell

    Now the task begins
    The task of a lifetime
    The task of becoming
    Open

    O to be open
    An old one open again
    Open to wonder, learning, and love
    To grow open is to grow young

    Much is against openness
    Vested interests stake much on keeping us
    Tight shut
    The talking heads of the tight shut tell us of
    Right and Wrong, Black and White, Us and Them
    Who is In and who is Out
    Their words are a slamming door
    BAM!
    Tight shut!

    To live in the world of the tight shut is called
    Certainty and security, clarity and conformity
    It’s also death
    To live there is to shrivel your soul
    To die there is—
    Well, I don’t know

    I do know that to save my soul
    I must become open
    Open to God’s all-encompassing love
    I cannot afford to slam the door
    To shut the door on “them”
    Is to lock myself in hell’s closet

    O to be open

    Where does the first crack of openness come from?
    It could come from anywhere
    A poem, a heartbreak, a sunset really seen
    A song, a sermon, a mercy freely received
    A birth, a death, a person fully loved
    Let openness get its foot in the door
    And it’ll begin to shovel in the grace

    Open to the openness
    The openness of God
    The openness of light
    The openness of love

    Life is open
    (Ever unfolding)
    Death is closed
    (A sealed tomb)

    Heaven is open
    (Its gates will never be shut)
    Hell is closed
    (Abandon all hope ye who enter)

    Jesus is the Usher of Openness
    He holds the keys of Hell and Death
    To set its prisoners free
    May he loose us and lead us into
    The Great Openness of God

    O to be open
    Read more