Under the Sun

I. The Ethics of the Dust

All you have today is that

waking cognizant,

revelation, first eye-twitching,

red-sun distillent.

All you have today is

the night-watched ground to keep,

an atmosphere of settled breath,

beneath your soles that reflex back,

from earth's exigent, cold demands.

All you have today is

the ethics of the dust,

suspended there

from disturbed air,

all to which we owe our

iridescent hues,

our faded, twilight glow.

All you have today is

the orange-banded beetle,

clutching the dull, graphite tip

of pencil pressed between the lips -

the red-tailed hawk and kill-cry

overhead.

All you have today is

half and arm to shoulder,

a signature of age – each new hurt

to bear and stock

your confidence

with strain.

II. Electric Delight

We found a hill of electric delight.

It took our strength and gave us a fight,

gave us a right to be children again,

our sons and our daughters,

we children of men.

Men who in love, long to obey.

Men who in deed back up what they say.

Those who in saying, waste not a word,

and no word is wasted on them that heard.

Who in hearing decipher not what they want, they

for whom truth is not lost in the form of
every passing, worldy norm.

Ensnared by delight.

From wrong into right.

Embraced by coursing light.

At once a comfort and a chill,

a thunder-bolt-body fill.

Walk away.

See me sitting.

Smitten.

Now a citizen

of the city on a hill.

III. With New Eyes

An enemy has now become a friend.

Mourning transformed to elation.

It melted and burned in one dreadful surge.

It twisted and fought against what was wrought.

Yet,

Watch and observe,

find solace in.

Reach out and expect a freedom within.

Awake oh sleeper and rise from the dust!

Rise from the rust!

Exchange your corrosive years for

a crown hammered and shaped

for your head – an unmatched, weightless

tale for all to see – each precious stone and

jewel and gem – a story of

fireproof deeds.

Acts,

having passed through the flame and

emerge as brilliant as they were -

the same.

Now shining with internal heat -

radiating at the feet, before

the throne.

IV. Medias Res

Unworthy!

Unworthy to posses are

we whom you have royally dressed!

Worthy is the Lamb!

I will rend my robe.

I will hurl my crown into the glassy sea.

My face will fall.

How the colors melt as

my eyes blur and full-body shudders

within me stir!

With knees of bronze,

resounding into space -

I fall, we fall.

Echos go forth as a great forest felled -

one mighty swing,

the cosmic ax of wonder takes its toll.

We are his workmanship from ages past.

Never not thought of.

Never not cared for.

Never not kept secure.

For him, for this very moment and all others.

V. The Tincturer

I asked for eyes as Edwards had,

a vision of eternal past – that

when my face turned toward the sky -

I'd simply not see infinite blue or

voluminous shade-makers with the

pictures they impose.

But,

Tinted with a hope that comes from

within – my windows mights catch a

glimpse of you in whatever

pavilioned splendor exists – that

perhaps you'd turn,

look at me too, and

with one glance – say immeasurably more

than the toil of my life could ever secure.

VI. Feel

“I want to feel” he said, balding and gray.

Those hands – those wound bands of iron -

resting on his hips.

“I want to feel” he mused, glint in his eye.

Pausing to let the weight settle in.

“I want to feel” he purposed, now looking at me.

The sunset proclaimed to the sunset to be.

On the last stretch, in my final breath, with

palms upward facing – holding onto nothing,

I want to lie at rest – bask in perplexing peace.

“I want to feel” he chanted.

Maybe one day I'll take a hand that's upward faced,

lying still and feel the final waves of heat pass

from somewhere within – from skin to skin – absorb

what knowledge in there lives.

I want to feel the temporary evidence.

Feel like I'm passing through.

VII. Semantics

“Through” implies we've entered in,

from somewhere outside of what is seen.

“Out” implies an exiting,

back to the place from whence we came.

VIII. The Tempest

“It's all the same” young men implore,

“The sand is the same on every shore.”

Open you eyes! Do you not see?

Each shore here is different – as the ones are to be!

But each seemingly calm shore and bay,

is hereby the same in this very way:

Neither is safe from

the tempest that blows,

that stirs

lagoon-languid waters

into dark, white-capped foam.

Hear as the sea-birds croon in dismay,

watch as calamity comes into the fray

and dances a waltz – an up and down song

with destruction and death – a three party function

feasting on fear – in the loss of everything you hold dear.

It was so sudden.

We never saw it coming.

What distaste!

What gaunt-faced terror

and mindless error on

us imposed!

Exposed.

IX. Futile Devices

Futile devices – so Samuel said

are all you have to lay in your bed.

Futile devices – grasping at dusk

clutching the last sunbeam through the dust.

Futile devices – in every endeavor

lace my thin life-line with a tremor.

Futile devices – I know they won't last

I live far too fast.

Futile devices – one of two ways

this measure of treasure cannot remain.

Futile devices – how can they change?

What life is there lived that is not a shame?

X. Yhwh

There is a name,

that all men know,

from which all things flow,

everything lies subjected.

Above it there is another and another and another.

But they all mean the same.

They mean the name.

The name that is above all other names.

It is the unspeakable,

beloved and hated – a heart song or

nails on a chalkboard grated.

All in all,

You are as you are.

“I Am that I Am”,

You said and say, still say to this day.

What can we know you by?

I will not be put in a box

to be poked

and prodded

and coddled

and forgotten.

I never needed you.

Every knee will bow.

Every tongue will confess.

From first to last.

It is always the same.

From stone to water and flint to fire you remain -

unchanged,

ever demanding change.

XI. This Body of Death

Living in a manner
worthy of life is no
easy thing.
Wrestling with the strong
arm of frailty,
weighed down.
Badged up with bruises
hidden from sight,
knees and forehead kissing
the ground.
Palms upward faced,
an offering anew,
for you.

 

Within me brews a thirst
for first fruits, a pang
for something light and sweet.