Journey

The road beckons with its enticing promise
Of what lies and it end; and yet I still feel
Weights holding me rooted to this spot not moving
Do I doubt that what is there is real?

Checking every few minutes to hear if any changes
Have made the trip unneeded or the return moot,
Despite knowing that it matters not in the end.
What will it take to put it all on mute?

At last a click, a shift, a step, a motion
To initiate the journey north to where
I know my heart will have to break open,
That to my love its wounds lie bare.

Hell in a Box

Hell is a box that we crawl inside
Not a place, not an eternal fire
But a choice we make to either see
The light or the dark desire.

When anger is wrapped in a bubble of pink
What lies beneath is revealed
To be but but sadness and fear
That can be held and soothed and healed.

But when it is thrust in a dark black box
It lingers and festers and glows
So that no matter how much it is wished to hell,
It remains inside and grows.

To crawl in that box of darkness with
The cast off and disowned fears
Is to be in hell of one’s own design
And pierced with one’s own spears.

The Path

Sometimes it is easier to turn away
From the path that must be made,
To hide inside my thoughts of fancy
And play out the charade.

Inner Critic

Where did you come from
And how did you get into
My head? I never invited
You there, I don’t want

You there. Jabs and knocks
From outside I can handle
The ones from inside bruise
Where no one can see and

Yet hurt far more and linger
Far longer than the lumps and
Bumps and contusions. You know

All I know and see all
I see and yet you are much
Harder and more hurtful than
I could ever be. I wouldn’t

Treat my worst enemy the way
That you treat me. Where did
You come from and why won’t
You go back there for good?

I to I

Eye to eye evokes a sigh
With an eye to ‘aye’ with what comes nigh.

Aye to I is sign of sly
When I to eye may lead to lie.

I to eye a trembling thigh
When eye to I deserves a cry.

So Eye to aye to I to eye.
All that leads to I to I.

Hear Me Out

Those may be the words I say,
But that is not the thought I present.
I get frustrated when what I say
Seems to get all twisted and bent.

I know very well what it is
That I mean to say;
Its not my fault that your poor ears
Simply cannot hear it that way.

I know you’re trying hard to get
My meaning and my feeling,
But maybe you are trying too hard
And your mind is lost and reeling.

I know I often say I say
Just exactly what I mean,
But now I know there is something else
Hidden behind the scene.

I want to feel that I am safe,
I very much want to dare
To take a risk with what is in my heart
To take a chance and share

The thoughts and feeling deep inside
Where light has never shown -
The dark recesses of my mind
That only I have known.

So please be patient, hear me out
And my secrets you will learn.
It will all soon make some sense -
Then it will be your turn!

Learning to See

All my life I kept thinking
That my problem was merely physical,
Although insurmountable by even our modern means.
I had long resigned myself to an outcast
Banned from the altar, refused from the temple.

It’s easy to learn to embrace self-pity
Like a dear friend
And eventually stop asking
“Why me oh God”?

At times I blamed myself and wondered
What had I done wrong to deserve this?
Or had this been some twisted birthright
Bestowed unwittingly by parents
Too blind to understand the consequences?

You may think it’s a cliche
About seeing the light
But you have never witnessed that first brilliant blast
For the first time being overwhelmed by
Sensations and dimensions only imagined.

I had felt and smelled mud and clay before
I thought I knew all there was about it
What little did I know
Was this the same stuff that existed
Before God breathed life in it?

At first it hurt too much and overwhelmed,
A meaningless noise of strange unnamed sensations
That I could only open my eyes
A little at a time.

For a long time I knew the what,
Although it seemed incredible even to me,
And I could cling to that what like a reed
In a stormy sea,
Being able to discern the blue and green-flecked waves
In addition to their wetness.

Gradually I became aware
That the what was the least of all
And that there were still more eyes to open
Before I could behold the What.