Tie

This is the thing that brings me to you:

The open hand, the closed look, the ring.

Then, while I am here, even every touch ties me;

This is when I decide I'll never leave.

I take the ring, the little hard cold beauty,

It's size a wonder, it's eyes always bright.

Still you leave, and I leave you, in the cool evening,

With only one rule between us, the one that I took.

I glance at it now, thankful to have gained it, yet

Wishing it were able to channel your self.

No, but it is only hard, scratchy, lifeless beauty,

Nothing like you.

Dilemma

How can I open a box with no seams?

I roll it in my fingers, feeling the smoothness of its surface,

Wanting what's inside;

Not knowing how to get it out.

My goal is ahead, but I see no path,

And though I try to step farther,

I am only trampling down the grass

That I trampled yesterday.

This is the circle that I am caught in:

To know the possibility, but have no ability,

No opportunity to become,

The one I know I should be.

Prayer

I really tried to write something tonight, but I couldn't write anything good. So I searched my files and found something I wrote several years ago instead.

It's not that I doubt you, Lord;

It's that I think you might forget some little detail.

You know how I have to have my life ordered just so,

And You might not get it right!

I have to watch out for my own interests.

And what if you don't give me the things I want?

What if you think I don't deserve them?

I'm sure I can get them on my own, if I try.

It's not that I doubt you, Lord, but

God helps those who help themselves.

(You said that, didn't you?)

If you were a little quicker, it wouldn't be so hard.

If you were clearer, I wouldn't need so much faith.

If you really loved me, you would give me what I want.

I didn't write anything today, but I'm OK with that because I purposely did something else. I will check back in next week. Sayonara!

Falling Waters

I'm not sure about this one. It's odd, and may need to be rewritten. But it's all I've got for tonight. So here it is...

The rain pours down all around me and over me

Like drizzles from a coffee pot that never finishes perking.

Snuggled in my house with every incandescent light on fire,

Fortified against the winter darkness,

I allow the simple noise to blanket me.

My life has been like the running water.

It drizzles slowly at times and puddles along.

Slogged in mud, I wonder if I will ever gain momentum.

Later, I am sheets of rain falling,

And terrible winds knock me all about.

Shaken, and confused, I look for a surface to still me,

A tin roof maybe, or a coat to soak into,

Just so I can have a bit of peace.

Like the running water moving from sky to ground to stream,

And flying back again in the great circle,

I am caught in a circle until the day I die.

But perhaps, and this is my great hope,

Perhaps as I run from here to there, I change my nature.

Unlike the water, I can remember and choose,

And at the final day, when I flow out to sea,

I hope I may be a better, wiser drop of water.

The Cost of Freedom

We start with the Public.

That is the outer face, the mask that we wear,

A web of skin that can peel apart at any time

But can fuse tightly when never taken off.

Next we have the Fiction.

This is the tricky fantasy that we believe

It is the world we inhabit, that hides

Corners and holes we trip into blindly.

After that is the Angel.

We seek salvation from this broken person

Or object, or job, or technological gadget,

And only a shiny veneer separates us from disappointment.

The ending is not part of the tale

It could be Collapse

Or a Manual Reset.

But a better ending comes with Truth,

Scraping away the outward sheen until we see ourselves dead,

Taking our life away until we surrender to be reborn,

Not to walk again in the illusions of the carnival midway,

But to breathe the sharp, stinging air of freedom, unafraid.

Inspiration from the Bookshelf

I tried really hard to write something, but my brain would not comply. In the interest of stirring up a poem, I compiled a list of words from the book titles on my bookshelf. I'm saving it here so that I remember to use them next week.

My word list:

Society

Finding

Web

Highest

Journey

Hip

Lessons

Collapse

Angel

Encyclopedia

Model

Truth

Tale

Country

Fiction

Guide

Manual

Public