Lord teach me to pray
Words that I'll mean
Not words that look good on paper
Not words that tell people I'm smart
That soothe the ear
And tell the world I'm good.
Teach me to pray honestly
Urgently, yet modestly
Not to impress, but to be impressed upon
Not to express theology
But to learn it
Teach me to pray
As the miserable wreck that I am
Freely admitting it
Without condoning it
Not merely asking to change
But being unable to stay the same
Teach me how to mean
Your name
How to need your grace
How to see your face
And be transformed
How to say I love you
And mean it
Because my heart beats
Differently when I think about you
And not solely because I'm afraid.
Lord, teach me to pray
Not just what to say
But what to feel.
Teach me to kneel.
Day 16
There in the sink
The lonely dishes think
Of their owner with hate
A man with out mate
And so too are they
Then suddenly one day
Spoon says to fork
We could make little sporks
It's better than being alone
And with sanity gone
Fork says to spoon
Not a moment to soon
With your suggestion my dear
Because over here
Bowl and plate
Are discussing spatula-gate
From that time he mingled with pot
Because skillet forgot
Bath time that week
And ladle and knife
Are bemoaning their strife
In being left out of so many meals
In favor of pizza wheels
And mac and cheese
Then from the drain, broccoli sneezed
For he was the least loved of all.
Day 17
Dear life
I surrender
Unconditionally
White flag in hand
All that I've planned
Set aside
Paused midstride
By your relentless assault
Face in the asphalt
Arms wrenched behind
A slave to the grind
Of your endless erosion
Continuous corosion
Of all that I was
Of all that I love
I give up
For my cup
Overflows with sorrows
All my tomorrows
Look worse
Your curse
Wears me down
Till I'm facing the ground
Concrete in my teeth
My laurels a wreath
Adorning your smug expression
You won
For I'm done
I'm done, and I quit
I submit, this is it
I can't fight in your cuffs
I'm saying enough.
Day 18
She came
Seeping, weeping blood
Her tears, a ceaseless flood
Desperate and ashamed
For just a touch
She came.
She came
Without artifice or crutch
For just a glancing touch
Unobtrusive and unnamed
She came.
She came
For she would not stay the same
Not clamoring for fame
Not with praise or adulation
She came.
She came
Fearing not damnation
Not looking for salvation
But for a cure
She came.
She came
For she was sure
That all she had endured
Would end by grazing thread
She came.
She came
From despair's deathly bed
Pleas swallowed, left unsaid
Just to simply brush
She came.
She came
Just for one fleeting touch
In a crowd, in a rush
Just knowing of your name
She came
Why am I afraid to do the same?
Day 19
Vice is the flavor of the weak
And I taste it most of all
For all the good that I would seek
I'm caught within deception's thrall.
Upright walks immoral man
For good ones only crawl
We won't kneel, we damned demand
Thinking to stand tall
Not knowing that our posture
Marks us as least of all.
Day 20
Walk the same miles
Day after day
Pass the same beggar
Spare the same change
In other words
Nothing changes at all.
Self-improvement's vanity
Ambiguous insanity
To be good to me
While you suffer.
For what does my weight mean
If you don't eat?
These new shoes on my feet
Make me uncomfortable
Looking at your cane
Each ache and pain improves what?
As your dignity's shot
To hell and back with each lap
As I pass you with barely a wave
Trying to avoid the grave
And putting your feet in it.
Where did everything go wrong?
Day 21
To be trite
Well-defined rhymes
Chiseled lines
Perfectly punctuated meter
To say what fits your scheme
And pleases the eye
To speak in riddles
Dwell firmly in either the overt
Or rest in the shadows of the obscure
Or simply to be
To say
To see
To revel in every piece
Of each heart
Healed, broken or loved 'long the way
To dance freely in verse
Or without
No scheme holding back subject
No meter withholding truth
No poetry measuring love
But rather love itself unleashed
And given poem's form.
Which will we be?
Day 22
We sleepless wights haunting the night
We fearless boasts, we ghastly ghosts
Invincible in our infamy
The ever watchful enemy
Of the dreamer's restful nights.
Insomnia so oft approaching
Ennui ensues, now encroaching
On our ability to care
Lethargy bends the very air
Dreams made ripe for poaching.
We dreamless ghasts, the mizzenmast
Of death's arriving fleet
The skull and bones
The throwing stones
Toward glass houses made for sleep.
Day 23
I don't know anything
Think anything
Dream anything
See anything
In
Out
In
Out
Existence.
Meditative mantras
Peculiar slogan Santas
Giving particular gifts
Healing impassible rifts
In slogans at any rate
Reality's another state
Untouched by quiet breathing
A tension, coiled and seething
Uneased by proper pose
The heart knows what it knows
Though we oft impose upon it
Long trained commands to stay or sit
Fools we were and are
For there is no wishing star
To be found in inner light
Denying absolutes doesn't make you right
There's no inner peace within
In most, there's sadly, sin
Eons of untapped night
Denying that won't grant you sight
It merely leaves you blind.
Day 24
Always alone
In darkness, alone
In daylight, a stone
Rolling slowly along
A tumbleweed adrift
Blown as the sands shift
Carried by the wind's song
Alone.
Always alone
With words, alone
So many sift in
Don't come out again
For reading is oft done alone
And writing, a wrong
Made mostly of tone
For talking shouldn't happen, alone.
Always alone
The gathering throng
Left me here gathering dust
Sitting here, twiddling, just
Sitting here like a stone
Sitting, and sleeping, alone.
Always alone
Returned to the stone
And clay whence I came
No need for a name
Only a grave
No markings, save
Dead and gone
That alone.
Day 25
God of starlight far and wide
Reach across the vast divide
Between now and who I should be
And make me what you see
I could be in you.
Risen Christ, oh Rising Tide
I am so far now from your side
Come swiftly, sweep me away
Come strongly, Wellspring of Days
And carry me off to you
These things that I do
Taunt me, mock me,
Horrify and haunt me
And worse they've done to you.
Lifegiver, ever true
Breathe into these lungs anew
The breath that's found in you
For mine is stagnant, stale
Words beyond the pale
Have and thought and uttered
And yet at praise I've stuttered
At love, been silent and untrue
Crucified God, bring me back to you.
Day 26
If everyone's told what to think
Then no one is thinking at all
The whole world a lemonade stall
Laced with poison, begging you drink.
If someone needs this to be that
The obvious answer is why
Should I be anything other than I
And who are you to define that?
We're told to love this, that it's good
But who decides what good means?
And who are they to define all our dreams
To tell us we must and we should
Choose this or that way?
If so, what matters the dream?
Or the song, if everyone sings?
It's always groundhog day
Without choices.
So don't be the same
Choose your own name
Ignore all the voices
That will tell you you're wrong.
Day 27
Every surface reflective
Each changing perspective
One drop in an ocean of grace
Every thought a reminder
We're all on a timer
Held by the hand with no face
Stopped clock illusions
Second hand contusions
Bruises to egos and pride
In each prism a vow
From the eternal now
That time is always on his side
But the enemy of hearts
With our faulty starts
And infinite repeats of lessons
Learned for the test
Then lapsing, at best
For the rest of life's sessions
So we're back to the ocean again
Just one more drop, we begin
Thinking conviction a choice
Repentance a phase
That will last a few days
Then fade like the sound of his voice
Swallowed by the roaring of pride
Revealed by the rise of the tide
Pulling us back once again.
