With head bent, her stoic shoulders push into winds of chance and time,

fending against all comers.

Hope, even stolen from its place, dares not shake this one.

For though she bruised and battered be,

broken never shall she be.

Beat her head against rock, tree, pain or fall;

it serves only to fan the flame of inner resolve.

When all others have left chained, flayed or shamed,

yet she shall stand, and in brazen truth

remain.

Postulant gleanings, smugly smother;

themselves, recused of all but shame,

and, grinning, welcoming all others

to lust and pander to the same.

*****

Their shriveled hands with guilty prints

have satisfied their share of grasping

little ones so frightened, whence

they licks their lips, while one’s left gasping.

*****

Forced to lie and to pretend

that all is well in home and pew,

but soap can ne’er these stains amend

nor memories of hope renew.

*****

Cry out to he whose son was pricked

by lords and teachers of the cloth,

his first-fruits life no parlor trick

his vassals, now are we, betrothed.

*****

When turns the tide and justice breathes

its wind of life and sanctity,

these little ones so bruised, relieved

shall live, their due reward, to see.

On the evening of President Obama’s second term in office, regardless of anyone’s political proclivities, I pause to reflect on the one great fact that subsumes all others: Christ our Lord it is who ultimately leads us and strengthens our arms to love and serve.

The ink is dry, the eyes are wet,

the table’s turned, the cast is set.

One plan dies, another one lives,

not without pain but it, wisdom, gives.

We aim’d to lead and change the world,

through every challenge fear we hurled.

Every obstacle, dark and drear

must meet with faith, not wanton fear.

The coldest wage still paid in time

are those whose hatred’s willful crime

purports to guide but kills instead

the heart of our compassion, dead.

But though with every fiber’d will

we put to rest our need to kill,

there yet remains love’s dividend

of Christ, the Lord, our journey’s end.

Let’s have some Greek escargot, garnished well with lobster tips.

we ordered kosher pizza though it’s never touched my lips.

Let’s have a garden party once I text the dog a bone,

then all of us retire to the balcony, alone.

The stereo is oozing out some sad John Mayer tunes,

a few Adele, Dave Matthews and Death Cab for Cutie, too.

We’re swingin’ in Hilfiger, Abercrombie, Fitch and Gap,

the men drink single malt and chase it down with room temp Schnapps.

The gals pretend to talk about the things that matter most,

but mostly compare boobs, and think they’re better than the host.

We spent the afternoon at Starbucks just so we’d be seen,

my forty something ass looks tight in these designer jeans.

The holiday in Aspen skiing down those magic hills,

we stayed in Porsche’s timeshare and took weight reduction pills.

My faith has wavered some in my investments this past year,

for all those lazy bastards without jobs I’ll shed no tears.

And now one last Shiraz will go down sweetly on my lips,

those seven Dos Equis have left me sorely needing sips.

When next you ask about me I will need to ask of you,

to use the servant’s entrance and to please take off your shoes.

Teased by leaves of impossible hue,

November coaxes her song, late in coming

but pure in its lyric of white death.

She sings, crouched in waiting on hollow, haunted haunches

squeezing out what remains of flourishing days.

Confidently, she trades them for the unknown future

where day and night swap places.

Grey becomes the new day,

greyer still the night that swallows up

scented Summer’s boasting, silken Fall’s lust for Spring.

Stop, she says.

Stop to hear this song about nothing,

these words that have sewn up sown seeds,

entombing with wordless serenade the last vestiges of living

and, instead, insistently hums her song,

her late and last and lingering notes;

notes only overshadowed by the noisy whines

of Spring’s new calling.

Photo thanks: writingasjoes.blogspot.com 

His was to be a road of warn and worn,

saddled in piecemeal fragility, poised upon the brink of his otherworldly heart.

No rings of Saturn to juxtapose here with there, horizon with fingertips.

No multiple moons taking turns rising and falling in the sight-line of his dreams.

No dusty, chemical-winds racing to pour themselves in heaps of derivative normalcy.

Beyond the vale of his thoughts, in pools of reflective light, came time

time…

time…its slow ache, d  r  a  w  n out, s  t  r  e  t  c  h  i  n  g then from now from when.

Along the borderlands of his discontent there lived others,

other souls of perishable flesh, volatile spirits, meandering hearts

who linger around burning garbage cans hoping to catch but a glimpse,

a passing glance of someone whose hands are still warm

whose life still contains the fragrance of love,

whose passions remain undulled by restraint and the ticking clock of desperation.

Then, as night falls from day falls from night,

a single drop of blood trickles down his shredded cheek.

His was a life renewed, born again in the tattered oneness of a cracked, brittle rosebush.

He had found a place of belonging among them in thorn-ed bliss.