Reclamation

Who says to the wind,
"I am weak, blow me over?"
Who says to the hangman,
"Take this rope, I tied it strong and true?"
Who says to the flames,
"Come closer, I'm barely warm?"
Who says to peace,
"I don't need you, you may go?"

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn

is just to love, and to be loved in return."

-ahbe

In the mountains rests a door                                 
Retinal scans and 14 codes                                       
Buried 'neath miles of soil                                                                                          
The urns of things most true
Laid softly side by side
Known only to one,
Meant to always be so.

Toohey: "Mr. Roark, we're alone here.

Why don't you tell me what you think of me?"

Roark: "But I don't think of you."

Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

As treasures go in one by one,                                  

Roark's words ring within,                                        
a paragon of serenity                                                
Repeat it, repeat it, it might come true.                     
All of them, any of them                                                            
Like vapor through my frame                                     
To be invincible.
                                                                                    
ahbe fights the whole way
the siren of ache and honesty
but surely he must be wrong
for what is love at the cost of peace
or being loved at the cost of...




if I lose my eyes
if I lose my codes
may they rot in the surrounding earth
may the way of peace and horizontal lines
win out over knots and bursts of abandon
this urn is meant to be mine
every fingerprint reminds me
to cling harder
to think harder
to say to the wind
I am not weak, you will not blow me over
and to the flames
the cold is where I belong

Bunker

Set 'em down on these wood gallows
Fumble the fears of the end
smiling all the way
I'll smile right back and we'll
Say it's alright that our pains are so cold and so intimate

If two is good, then three is better
Life only moves one sip at a time
if we say it does
Futures scroll across lines
of a tree that once gave shade to lovers
who knew better
The clock on the wall says
this time is sacred, and for once
we treat it like it is

Wheats of variety, friend to the nervous
tease out the truth from my padlocked tongue
like digging my grave
i lay the cards down in a row
and hope they paint a coherent picture
We leave them there, sprawled in order
Unsolved but exposed, a nail plucked from
feet tired of running

So next week I'll set 'em down on those wood gallows
Fumbling my fears of the end
smiling all the way
You'll smile right back and we'll
Say it's alright that our pains are so cold and so intimate

If You Build It

She doesn't have to be real
He doesn't have to be listening
It doesn't have to have Platonic form
If you call, speak, listen or scream
You can build your own God.

A neurological model
Formed of longing and optimism
Crafted by the prayers of the heartsick,
crying out to know that which cannot be greater
Form it in your mind
Focus on its love
Talk as if not alone
And there you will find your lost friend

***

He tells me these things in sound and print
Celebrating the return of his lost love
while I wait inside with the porch light on.
I've forgotten the voice I once knew so well.

It seems so easy
Allowing the mind to do what it does
Forming avatars of hope and surrender
Yet..I can't.

***

I saw my essence from above today
and grieve what I found
The whole being is on permanent defense
Losses of the past have formed speared walls of preservation
The body insisting, "you will not hurt him!"
while the mind wants to give up and accept companionship
Even if it isn't real.
It's not the fear that Love will show up
It's the fear that it won't

Losing my Jesus
that death by a thousand cuts -
this body won't let it happen again.
So while the mind longs to quit fighting,
to pray to whatever will absorb those prayers
and offer that sweet illusion of safety
The body is winning the fight.
God, whatever that might be
is losing to these walls of self-preservation.



inspired by Finding God in the Waves, by Mike McHargue