The Hidden Mercy

The wall creeps back in the night,

She loved the wilderness. She lived the wilderness.

The actions of the many have guided us.

Like our ancestors, we seek the Song.

There is a voice upon the waters.

I turn to you.

The people have forgotten.

I wandered far, seeking for the Song.

The mountains loom above the horizon.

I am lifted up by Her holy word.

There is a darkness

Blood calls to blood. But the water answers.

The mountains move. The seas part.

Between the hunter and the stag

There is nothing that is not known to the heart.

May She walk in light.

It is time again for miracles.

August 6

It is time again for miracles.

Let us declare our holy desperation to the gods,

And let us scale the crumbling walls

And shout our disdain at the state of things.

This world is made of corrugated iron

And half-remembered visions of freedom,

Glimpsed once and chased forever more.

We will cast down the idols of mediocrity

And leave only silence in their stead,

A silence pregnant with the possibility

That we were meant to be here,

Meant to love and laugh and destroy

That which condemns joy and speaks

Only of gain and loss and dull efficiency.

We will dream so loudly that we can hear each other

Over the crash and clatter of complacency.

We will live, once and forever more.

They say the way that can be walked

August 6

They say the way that can be walked
Is not the true way,
But I have to take a next step anyways.

They say the way that can be spoken
Is not the true way,
But I gotta use words when I talk to you.

In emptiness we are filled.
In desperation we are redeemed.
In fire we are reborn.

The true way is
A mixed metaphor,
A fool's game,
A tilted windmill.

It's also worth it.

Exiles in the garden,

August 4

Exiles in the garden, Saturn's lost children, we spin circles of hopelessness and deceit, spending our coin on the only thing in the realm that fades, the only thing that time can touch, false idols, golden calves and silver mirrors, offerings to ourselves that we may placate our own hungry ghosts with the promise of just one more, forgetting that the first one more was what got us here in the second place, slaves to a god that hears, understands, and doesn't give a damn, and frankly, it's enough, enough light to see by and love to live by and loss to put by, storing up dreams for a sunny day when the light blinds us and the loss finds us and we forget neither where we were going or where we came from but rather why any of it matters at all.

Believe me when I say that it does.

In my boredom, I steal from the gods.

July 26

In my boredom,
I steal from the gods.

I knock down the headstones
of my idols,
rummaging for ticket stubs
and stripclub match books.

I need to know
if they were real like I am,
or more real:
actually present in the flow of life.

Tired phrases tumble from the ashtray,
a mismatch of alibis and metaphor.

I pocket the scuffed ones, the sad ones,
and leave the rest for the cleaners to find.

I slip out the back,
and forget I was ever there.

Surrender, Believe, Pray, Repeat.

July 25

Surrender,
Believe,
Pray,
Repeat.

Even simple things can be hard.

But easy things aren't worth much.

I struggle with my own worth.

Something happened, long ago, and it left a scar that hurts even now.

Or maybe it was a thousand somethings, each leaving its own tiny scar.

Either way, something inside me is broken.

I don't hate myself, I just don't much like myself.

I don't want to die, I just don't much want to live.

I don't want to scare you, I just want to be honest.

I wrestled an angel last night.

July 24

I wrestled an angel last night.

She told me her name was despair.

She warned me I had wilderness yet to wander.

I protested, what about Egypt?

She told me I didn't want to go there.

She smiled and continued, telling me of signs and wonders, of golden calfs and temples within.

I told her the Temple had been built and burned and built again.

She offered me honey. I asked her for locusts.

She laughed again, rivers running with blood.

A trumpet sounded in the distance, seven times, then once more.

She seem afraid for but a moment, and asked how many days had passed.

I told her, as many days as there are sons of the blade on the mountain.

A lamb wandered by, it's fleece glinting golden in the swelling sun.

Her voice rang out in silence, speaking of miracles remembered yet unheeded.

Her silence rang out even louder, as though it were the ninth hour on the hill of the skull.

Mountains crumbled like dreams at dawn, forests burned like clouds at sunset, and the land cowered like a rose at midnight.

I wrestled an angel last night. That angel was myself.

Watching Hunter Street,

July 24

Watching Hunter Street,
Americano in hand:
Tiny shiny things.

Something within me balks

July 24

Something within me balks
When I pick up the pen.

The walls inside tremble at its stroke,
And I tremble with them.

Mightier than the sword indeed,
For what sword could free me from myself?

But freedom chills,
And I would somehow sooner remain bound,

Caught up in the monotonous lies
I've woven of my life.

But still I write, my fingers dancing,
Mixing metaphors and finding ways

To convince myself that freedom
Is the better life by far.

So still I write.

A blank canvas, awaiting her arrival.

July 24

A blank canvas, awaiting her arrival.
It doesn't mock, it doesn't judge.
It just exists.

Perhaps it beckons gently,
Whispering of times past,
Of lines written and inspiration given.

And maybe today the fear isn't so sharp,
Or maybe it is and she whittles it into a point
And takes aim at her tedious desperation.

She still dreams of forest fires and butterflies.
Maybe it's time to paint them again.

How did we get so broken,

June 17

How did we get so broken,
That these cities of shattered glass
And withered dreams seem
Worth living and dying in?

Families without houses,
Junkies without rooms,
Children without hope.

How can we see the sky
With blind eyes turned to our
Own softly beating hearts?

Because our hearts must still beat,
Because still we walk and talk
As if life runs through our veins.

But in vain we look for something,
Anything, that will make us whole again.

But we can't even tell what shape the hole is,
Or what could possibly fill it
Except desperation and despair.

But the sky is still there,
High above us, and it makes me
Think that it's not over yet.