I can’t seem to shake this triangle poem infatuation. They’re impossibly fun. This is installment three…

Fiddle Faddle

Crunchy bits stuck between teeth,

my jaws ache from chewing,

The bowl sits empty

and I am sad.

How I wish

I’d saved

some.

Cowgirl Stomp

Boots at the ready to dance

and jeans too tight to move;

hair so big it leans

but legs so long

and nimble –

dancing

still.

First Love

When first this heart was stolen

from its haven of dark;

began a journey.

Latent this love

came wanting,

warm and

still.

First Love Lost

When first a mind is stolen,

then starts a tale of blind

and foolish dullards;

bent on seeing

things that may

once more,

nudge.

Highland Women

Lain atop these grizzled breasts

are shoulders built of steal

with muttoned buttocks

and ham-like calves;

envy of

highland

men.

I have to say, these triangle poems are a true delight. I strongly recommend them. They are a quick, simple and prayerful way of engaging whatever thoughts might be floating around up there in the amniotic fluid of our minds.

unity in reverse

Come to us this awkward hour

with pensive silt of home.

Woo our devotion

from love estranged

and tilt us

toward

us.

ambiguity

Was this what I signed up for?

To seal the deal with vows

never more to seek

what questions come

in places

dark but

good?

sipping water

Crispy lips half parted now

to slurp what freshness comes

and slake this parch-ed

throat deserted,

now relieved;

stubborn

thirst.

solitary

Were it not for gut-deep cries

my soul might never seek

a breviary,

solitary,

place for me

to find

you.

kilted men

Knees of thunder now revealed

and thighs like knotted pine,

the wind now blowing,

just as you prayed

it would, for

kilted

men.

Oh love,

come from the borderlands to this home

and kiss me with kisses both cunning and strong;

lean in to embrace me with arms lean and long;

enshroud this one in the perfume of love.

Oh truth,

unleash the past of your future’s remembrance, near

to all whose hearts can see God’s salvation career

invade, invite, implant love’s tears

embranch this tree with budding truth.

Oh peace,

nest yourself upon this welcome bow,

where soft-shelled womb-free life lives now

and reaches, neck-stretched knowing not how

you enhance this life in food of peace.

Oh grace,

speak not to me, my toothless grin,

my face unseen, my heart wafer thin;

let love’s promise loosed reveal the dark within;

encourage this one with the gentle soliloquy of grace.

In some rich conversation among friends on a new Facebook page, designed by friend and author, Valerie Hess, and dedicated to uniting the practice of spiritual disciplines with artistic expression, the subject of “triangle poems” came up. I was intrigued; enough to try my hand at a few. If you like these, try some of your own and share them with me/us. They’re quite delightful and very contemplative.

An Unsatisfied Satisfaction

Contentment has its uses

if choices don’t suffice.

I once felt a fire

where there was none

to remove

this one

joy.

Front Porch

I think I have a mem’ry

of something wide and strange,

with depth of field and

softness, wielding

timely smiles

and old

songs.

Staring at Sunsets

Shared, the wafting summer light

azure, orange, brightness

unfailing, obtuse

with promises

of happy-

ending

days.

Overalls

Fit to tie and tangle-up

these buttons never fail.

Till recently when

I forgot to,

after lunch,

and they

did.

I love the sonnets of Shakespeare. Who doesn’t, right? They have been good friends to me of late. Bill had a way of writing about love unlike any other; new love, old love, forbidden love, unspent love, unrequited love, undeserved love and immortal love to name a few. They’ve inspired me to take a stab at a sonnet of my own. It is a modified form unlike those of Bill’s day. And, although I think it’s pretty good, it’s a want ad or Hallmark card by comparison. Be that as it may, I give you…

Tear me from this mystery of dark and shapeless track of dawnless night

Betrayed within the conundrum of grace, suffused by quickening light

Statistic now in sharp withdrawal and vacuumed from the place of sight,

Warned by love of love forgot.

To steal what might have otherwise giv’n a simple love, both shared, sublime

Is to find all that is found when ‘tis doubly passed through space, in time

Where music, sweet, and dancing, too, the world begets what two define,

Found in love what love is not.

To remedy the hurricaned heart while delay and trepidy so daunting

Playing games so wicked, wild with words unspoken, doubted, flaunting

Now no sound, nor whispers call to head so bleak, a heart left wanting,

Comes grace, alas, where sin forgot.

Love has come where passion burned,

and  stilled itself inside, and learned.

We are now post-Easter in what, historically, has been called “Eastertide.” With our post-resurrection eyes we have the benefit of hindsight and a big picture view of Easter week events. I should really reflect more on that and probably will. Instead, I share a bit more about the Saturday before the Easter event. If we can remove ourselves from what we now know and envision ourselves among those first disciples, we can perhaps grasp a little better the dramatic change from a Saturday despair to a Sunday hope.

Be – in – tween

It seems an eternity for what promised eternity

to wrest itself from dark and dank and deathly cell.

Yet hours have passed, not days and still can’t be

how you would show us life before death you fell.

Everything we gave and more to stand as one

in your reverie of newness, in time of all that comes

to quell and quiver and quash the forces of un-done

that hate and hold and hammer our daughters, our sons.

Our group was tall, like trees or hills, a truth to share

to all who hear or have not strength nor shame to hold

the weight of wait for that or this, the just or fair

awakened now but still shadow, pledge, a story told.

Why leave us in such mean estate of doubt, despair and dark

when but a word, a touch, a look all pain suspends,

and move, retool, redact the tepid toil our sorry ways embark

instead to choose what not you chose but placed in others hands depends?

But now what cryptic hint of empty rock-èd tomb bestirs

this rumored gossip that comes to taunt and tease, we rue

with quivered tongue and knees that buckle unsure

if this should be a joke, another tale to ruse, all hope undo?

Silly girls, you babble, burst and blubber forth what cannot be

the news of, what, we cannot say, except impossible to hear

and still remain in dark and desperate impossibility?

No longer face we fear of ending but ending of our fear?

If this be what I think I see then torn am I from all my knowing,

abandon now my shrinking soul and bursting out with heated heart

I clutch and grasp my tightened breast, my parch-ed throat, now stowing

what vestiges remain of sadness and remorse depart.

My brothers here and sisters, too, once shattered dreams reborn

as mist of doubt and pain of loss and waves of night congealed.

To satisfy, not mystify, was your intent. You shed the scorn

of those of them and us who turned from shame, our love concealed.

Severed from the death before, now living, path and joy to bring

you settle down to chat and dine and titillate with presence rare.

All that was then is not what now seems true or right to sing,

Still, in our time be-darked, be – in – tween, you trade your joy for our despair.