The vast encompasssing

The vast encompassing

Long to see Me as I really am.
Which might mean in time between

not seeing Him as He seems to be;
perhaps, not at all; losing sight

and track, upended, at sea;
toppled fortresses, uprooted trees;

eschewing the accustomed
comforts and shelters, clefts in the rock;

the Companion constant but chameleonic,
undetectable, indiscernible,

yet doggedly held onto
in rehearsal for the bleeding,

the blessing, the blending at last
of God (in our eyes)

with the illusion of the temporal,
prior to the ultimate stretching,

the vast encompassing
of the eternal infinite.

O child of God, why worry about the inevitable?
Unless, perhaps, impatience is a fated prod.

Love Itself

Love Itself                                                                                                

Everyone is a Baba lover.

Most don’t know the phrase

or use the name.  Those who do,

even the ones who consider Him

mad or a fraud, self-indulgent, evil,

love Him and serve Him

in their own limited and inimitable way –

can’t we imagine this? 

Can’t we grant Him this much?

Everyone loves God, don’t they? 

Even those who’ve given up

or never knew or profess not to believe.

What else can love be (and from whence)?

What other object can love be for

in hearts that long, the force

that propels all life, all humanity

towards beauty, mercy, perfection, bliss?

Towards an ultimate quenching of loneliness?

What else can that love be for . . . but for God? 

The ineliminable and ubiquitous God and for Love Itself.

O child of God, everyone is a Baba lover,

each in his own limited and inimitable way.

Plunge!

Plunge!

Follow your nose, proposed the old man,
straight forward, straight forward, plunge!

As opposed to the mind (I suppose),
heart, belly, genitalia.  Can't miss it,

the aroma of roses and vernix caseosa,
guide and remedy for the blind curves,

the perpendiculars, paring down
the big picture to the opportune particulars

by an ambrosial scent;
straight forward, straight forward,

moment to moment, blindly led, blindly led,
hie, lovers, condensed, tapered and myopic,

towards the maze-concealed, aromatic,
romantic, long-sought, sniffed out truth.

O child of God, you will never arrive by a hesitant,
reasonable, cautious and half-stepping approach.

Bright pebbles

Bright pebbles                                                                                         

Real happiness, said my Lord, lies in making others happy;

dismissing then the class, spilling out onto the playground.

Only I remaining behind the windows, poring over

tomorrow’s lessons while today’s becomes, outside,

thread the needle and a-tisket, a-tasket. Happiness,

chalked in huge letters across the dusty board. 

If true, if true, if it lies there, we cannot make

others happy, nor ourselves.  Not really.  Not really. 

In my childish pockets a rabbit’s foot, gathered

small change, cats-eyes, bright pebbles. 

Rather than lead us into such a transitory endeavor

as happiness for ourselves and others,

safely He turns us toward service until

our duty and primary function we discern

and perform agreeably, without purpose or regard

for ourselves and for all the others.

O child of God, the true task before you

is to become who you always were and already are.

Painting by Mark Hodges

Family photos 2014

Lily Finch

Gus and Meg

Austin

Caleb

Debbie and Brian

A smidgen of God

A smidgen of God                                                                                    

To know a smidgen of God, step backward;

out of life; overlooking and through illusion,

adopting theoretically His holy hidden agenda. 

To disappear into God, move forward

and toward, dropping your sword,

blending imperceptively into illusion

with staunch conviction of flimsy death,

shallow grave and your own sort of eternity. 

Move like a winged bird,

not track nor trace to scratch

the empty sky, by turning your back

upon yourself (so suggest the scriptures) –

not to alter, grow or evolve but to die

taking the whole universe down with you;

dying with Jesus, Baba, Buddha,

dying so you may join them

beyond the impairments of time, space,

tangibility and individuality.

O child of God, surrender involves courage,

desperation and a feckless disregard of self.

Zero

Zero                                                                                                       

Life is a dream, said my Lord.

I was glad to ponder on such.

Twenty odd years later, I heard Him

phrase it in an different way –

O lover, you are dreaming Me! 

I am, said my Lord, whatever the dreamer

takes Me to be, dependent upon their karma –

God to some, fraud to others,

a photograph, a name in passing,

an anonymous cipher in the human throng.

Then, also a dream, I replied, is what You are saying.

Everything is zero, said my Lord.  Zero into zero –

it all equals zero.  I’m at sea, I said. 

Not yet, He replied, but you’re getting there.

In order to drown, you have to let go

of everything that holds you up.

O child of God, the child is a dream;

God is a dream; this idea, this poem also a dream. 

Drawing by Rich Panico

On love's behalf

On love’s behalf                                                                                      

The Godman lives on love’s behalf

and thereby couples the disparities

of flesh and spirit, truth and self.

A lifetime of service and repair,

the epitome of mercy, the Godman

appears on love’s behalf

and as is His habit, never looks back,

never looks up from His task.

Arrives, survives and departs on love’s behalf,

relying upon the resounding chords

of love’s lilting, everlasting, ultimate

presence and essence to carry the day,

to preserve and persevere, to convey

His holy mission and message

to every hungry cell and soul, every being 

in God’s vast and illusory repertoire.

O child of God, liberation involves the lover,

also, living at last only on love’s behalf.

Various apples

Various apples                                                                                         

We desire in our human love

only the best for the various

apples of our eyes,

our clutched-to-the-breast beloveds.

Our love’s great failing –

the truth that we know not exactly

what is best and what constitutes

further entanglement on a field

so sad and vast as time and creation;

what is pure and what is tainted

from hearts sorely cleaved and teeming;

sorely cleaved and teeming.

Love Divine, on the contrary, said my Lord,

is not originated but bestowed (divinely);

wants nothing, has no center, no motive,

no standpoint, no hub, beginning in the light

of non-existence and never venturing

into the shadowy realms of the illusory self.

O child of God, wish your loved ones the best.

You are so very far removed from Love Divine.

An embroidery by Caleb Darnell 

Baby steps

Baby steps                                                                                                       

These aren’t just poems – they’re baby steps (let us pray)

upon the bedimmed terrain, for poet as well as those,

perhaps, who read them and care to share my path

for a while – the gathered notes; the incoming mail. 

Correct me if I’m wrong, if you’ve jumped ahead

of the plodding gait. I expect no answer from these

(not at all) endless, internal, expedient musings,

longing deeper and richer each step for the clarity

and strength to run as an adult headlong

and heedless into the waiting arms of my Beloved.

O child of God, employ the illusion of movement

until a quenching comes in the everlasting stillness.

Paper dolls

Paper dolls                                                                                                        

Our lives are spent cutting out paper dolls –

the piecemeal extracted from the whole.

Our hearts set, gazes fixed

upon various relative, handsome,

scissored and brightly-colored figures

we prop up and manage;

with whom we play act for our own exculpation,

amusement and gratification

while discarding the ravaged sheets

from which they are cut, the origin     

and background, field and root,

never to humbly let things lie

unhanded and dormant in their contextual truth

but take up our scissors, our scissors,

again and again, to wreak havoc

upon this paper-thin, flimsy, fluttering world.

O child of God, how improbable and illusory

is the human predicament and personality.

Unhook your soul

Unhook your soul                                                                                   

The creature is tethered.  It tugs the chain taut.

It barks and snarls, scuffles and whines.

It lunges toward freedom.  It goes ‘round and ‘round.

For an Enlightened Soul or life itself

to free the creature, it must be persuaded or gain

the strength and wisdom over the years

to slacken the tether, move toward the axis

so that it might be unhooked at the critical point.

Liberation (apparently) comes not from struggle

but from retreat and acquiescence.

O child of God, let the creature recede

so that Love might unhook your soul.

Benefit of the doubt

Benefit of the doubt                                                                                 

The opposite of love is not hate but, indifference –

the great sin which comes from innocence

and its accompanying ignorance,

intoxication, insensitivity and immaturity.

When you doubt God’s existence give God the benefit.  

Pore over the scriptures, rather than the opposing arguments;

better yet, plumb the heart’s depths and its necessities. 

Ask Him whether or not He exists and ask yourself

whether or not He is essential to your existence.

You might discover after a time, meditative

and contemplative attentiveness to God

reaps benefits which are in fact

the God-sent answer and affirmation

your doubting mind seeks.

O child of God, give God the benefit of the doubt,

the fear and loneliness which at times overwhelms you.

The Great I Am

The Great I Am                                                                                       

To You, this poetry is addressed as supplication

and remembrance but, also, the holding of You

at word’s distance, at arm’s length;

the channeling of a shriek, rage and whine

into winsome couplets of polite doubt,

flattery and offhanded inquiry.  Absurd! 

The attempt to peer at the Infinite Ever-present,

through the glass of imagery and metaphor;

the attempt to confine God within a human skull,

carry Him on the tips of our tongues, fingers,

brushes and pens; to pledge our allegiance to That

of which we know a terrifyingly scant nothing;

to That which we fear and mistrust

instinctively and almost entirely.

O child of God, it’s no small matter

ever, to speak of the Great I Am.

Chortle

Chortle                                                                                                       

Somewhere between a chuckle and a snort –

this word invented by Lewis Carroll.

No one quite sure of the wordsmith’s

original intended meaning and pronunciation.

(He let the word speak for itself),

it’s precise nomenclature

in the common vernacular

summarily up for grabs.

Creation began

with the invention of a Word

(perhaps, an immortal chortle)

entering into the vernacular

and no one’s quite sure now

of its original meaning and intent . . .

as endlessly in a cacophony of fear and desire

we assert, opine, question and debate,

while the Wordsmith looks on,

lips pursed behind an upraised finger

in ambiguous silence,

letting the Word speak for Itself.

O child of God, Meher said, ‘Life is a jest’ –

surely worthy of a chuckle and a snort.

The Great I Am

The Great I Am                                                                                         

To You, this poetry is addressed as supplication

and remembrance but, also, the holding of You

at word’s distance, at arm’s length;

the channeling of a shriek, rage and whine

into winsome couplets of polite doubt,

flattery and offhanded inquiry.  Absurd! 

The attempt to peer at the Infinite Ever-present,

through the glass of imagery and metaphor;

the attempt to confine God within a human skull,

carry Him on the tips of our tongues, fingers,

brushes and pens; to pledge our allegiance to That

of which we know a terrifyingly scant nothing;

to That which we fear and mistrust

instinctively and almost entirely.

O child of God, it’s no small matter

ever, to speak of the Great I Am.

The exploration of love

The exploration of love                                                                                     

Love God, said my Lord, and become God.

Elated at having a strategy, I sallied forth

to do battle, to conquer fear and evil; self and will.

I woke up one morning after years on the battlefield,

sans compatriots or adversaries.  Two things I’ve learned –

I know nothing about God.  I know nothing about love.

My Lord knows loving God requires the exploration of love,

not the exploration of God and the systematic dismantling

of the mundane and human impediments which bar us

from the direct knowledge and embodiment of love.

Love God and become God.

Love love and become love.

O child of God, love God and awaken

to the reality of love.

By God's Grace - written by Austin Darnell, performed by the Darnell Boys

An emphatic breach

An emphatic breach                                                                                

In the pouring rain, the old man said,

I do not get wet and one day,

not as theory or concept

but, in a clear, emphatic breach,

I answered, of course, of course.

Somewhere from a dry, rustling field

where he stood and spoke,

the words reached me

over thirty years but more –

over centuries and continents,

oceans and dynasties –

a crack of the door,

the stones of the temple

and the lush gardens behind the walls;

the crumbling old myths.

The earth shook, dislodged a stone,

the shift of an ancient foundation

upon which everything I am

and seem to be, everything

I know and seem to know, rests.

O child of God, the flowers of the garden

unfold strictly according to God’s schedule.

By the way

By the way                                                                                                          

You and I are on a first name basis.

I’ve grown up with this intimacy –

praying as a child each night

for You to take and keep my soul,

allaying with Your name

my fear of death and harm.

Yesterday, I heard part of a speech

by a famous crusading atheist.

He’s made God the center of his life.

No one gets around You.

Everything is a part of Your work.

Every sin, every blasphemy, every ignorance

as well as every revelation and act of compassion

brings us closer to You. 

God, by the way, is the only One

with the infinite breadth of knowledge

required to know for certain

whether or not God exists.

O child of God, running from the Everything

is just another route into His arms.

The truth of illusion

The truth of illusion                                                                                  

Moths circle the lamp, hover

and hurtle, attracted to the flame

but, also driven from the midst

of their dark surroundings.

You reach God

when you come to the end of yourself.

You get wise.  It’s the truth of illusion

that shatters, that jades;

the truth of illusion that bores, sates,

disheartens, disenchants.

You rush toward God when God

outshines His surroundings.

When the dark has gobbled you up –

bones and blood.

You rush and flail

and hurl yourself toward the light

when you see there’s nothing

in the darkness worth living for.

O child of God, turn from illusion

toward the way, the truth, the light.

Apparently, fearless

Apparently, fearless                                                                               

Rumi likened the soul to a bird’s beating wings,

propelled toward God by (love’s) expansion

and (fear’s) inevitable, subsequent contraction;

a thrust and recovering –  fear and repugnance,

joy and inspiration and back again in pursuit

of truth and beauty and the leave-taking gamble

of the solitary perch of nestled desire and pleasure,

our final approach being, apparently, fearless –

of a gliding, unalloyed posture, wings stretched to their limit,

braced and unbending, our flight’s path and pattern

determined solely by the play of winds, from beak

to feather beyond our efforts, desire and control.

O child of God, abandon fear and soar

into the holy, awaiting firmament.

A stretch of silence

 A stretch of silence                                                                                

You and I share a room.  I come and go while You remain.

Like sprays of flowers, You add Your silence,

Your darkling mystery, a pinch of unbearable love. 

I add my aching fear, my infidelity and indifference –

continually drawn to the door, darting in and out.  

(There’s always a parade downtown

with a carnival on the outskirts.)

But, also, I’m afraid to be alone with You;

able only to endure for a few moments

at a stretch Your beautiful, lonely silence,

Your seductive, foreign presence,

Your fragrant promise of peace and annihilation. 

O child of God, make Him your constant companion

by exploring  His real and constant presence.

True grit

True grit

God is love ...

but, to express love,

to exercise, exhibit and execute love,

God has to become human.

Coats of flesh must be applied

and not just the Christ,

an illusion of pearl

around the true grit,

every human body making evident love,

existential, empirical and obvious love,

bodies heavenly in the void,

colors in a field of light,

illusory flaws in God's perfection,

making visible our ephemeral selves

where resides the tangible evidence

of God's pure and unfathomably true love.

Chinks and seams, ledges and crevices

in the daunting face, the edifice of perfection

we must scale in our impossibly long

journey to reach heaven.

O child of God!  God is love, Meher said.

And love must love.

God's gift

God’s gift                                                                                                   

Enjoy this moment God has made

knowing full well

you have no right to joy –

not having earned it,

not owning it nor having created it.

It’s a momentary gift you can never possess,

slipping invariably through your fingers.

Endure the suffering moments, too, God gives,

knowing you do not own suffering

and have not earned it.  Knowing it too shall pass.

We pray for joy while the teachings

emphasize the efficacy of suffering.

But God gives neither joy nor pain; God’s gift is life –

the undivided experience and awareness of it –

the ecstasy and horror, beauty and bitterness,

pride and grief, the gentility and brutality of it all.

O child of God, to accept the gift of God,

accept the total, eternal ownership of the Giver.

Humble men

Humble men                                                                                             

I’ve known a few humble men in my time.

Dead now.  They wouldn’t want their names mentioned.

Humility is a fabled hamlet somewhere

up in the mountains no roads lead to.

Not a way of self regard but, regarding the self not at all

or, offhandedly, an afterthought, an offshoot,

treated underfoot as maybe a kid brother.

The self a cumbersome necessity for a while,

an essential nuisance like the cast on a broken leg

to be discarded when wholeness returns.

There’s a natural attraction to the humble,

their emptiness allowing room to unwind, stretch out. 

They exist so minimally, a sense of expansiveness

is engendered in all those fatefully drawn near.

O child of God, humility arrives by an evolutionary process

which cannot be rushed, provoked or overridden.

           

Orb of the heart

Orb of the heart                                                                                     

When the center of the sky was earth,

the movements of planets and stars

seemed erratic; calculations difficult and complex.

The sun took over and flights clicked

more easily into predictable patterns.

And when the center of the sky

became a distant, conjectured,

long-ago point of origin, the earth,

stars and planets began to interact

in calculable and precise ways,

parts of an infinite, well-oiled machine.

As long as that blue, stone cold

orb of the heart is taken to be

the center of the universe,

every outward movement,

every body spinning beyond it

will be judged as erratic and arbitrary,

inexplicable and incalculable.

O child of God, the truth makes things

o-so-much-more simple and clear.

The unfolding answer

The unfolding answer                                                                             

A man of deep faith, just as a man

without faith, asks nothing of God.

Life itself to such a man 

is the unfolding answer to all prayers.

Pain, fright is there – but not anxiety;

loss but not grief;

failure without disappointment;

solitude without loneliness;

death (we are told) without termination.

Perched on the tip of the bow,

a man of faith is serenely poised

to receive, to pass along

only what he’s given; responsible

for nothing but vigilance and acquiescence.

He gets the big picture, the ocean view,

recognizes the nuances, though as yet,

is unable to grasp the details.

Less than a hair’s breadth (the Masters say),

separates heaven from earth –

it requires an unhanding,

an atrophy of judgment,

a relinquishment of presumption.

O child of God, life itself to a man of faith

is the unfolding answer to all prayers

In the thick

In the thick                                                                                                 

The nearer you get to God,

the more you take Him for granted.

God becomes a necessary routine –

soap to skin, food to belly,

the hours allotted for sleep.

Daily we remember God –

to give Him His due

until one day we are shown

He’s due everything, every moment.

Then, life becomes a prayer.

You take it for granted God is there

because it’s His life, His due

and where else would God be

but deep in the thick of His own Self?

O child of God, make Him the center

until He becomes the everything.

Cross yourself

Cross yourself                                                                                      

Cross yourself – routinely

(in whatever form customary) –

puja, zikr, mea culpa; yarmulke,

psalter, kusti, damru, suf.

Don’t look for trouble; let it find you – 

keep it between the shoulders,

o good neighbor. You’ll find dear enough,

familiar faces around the corner,

down the street, in need of heartiness

and a gentle hand.  Cross yourself –

quietly, discreetly; apply deeper wisdom,

a farther vision, visceral caution. 

Keep your balance to help

balance the world around you.

Cross yourself, o traitorous one,

and you may find after so long a time

crossing yourself befriends the Friend –

befriends the One, befriends your true Self.

O child of God, give only advice gingerly

gleaned from the words of the Master.

Now Available -- SPOKEN FOR - a new book of poems from Brian Darnell

Spoken For  - over 200 poems never before in print

Available at AMAZON (click to enlarge)

                                          Link to Amazon.com           Sheriar Books

The scent of a peach

The scent of a peach                                                                            

A ripe peach is on a wooden table.

Rather than reach for it, I write poetry

on its virtue, beauty and succulence;

safer, more enduring than the true peach

in this unreliable realm –

(I find it’s never there when I reach for it).

I’m back again in my bare cell, empty-handed.

This poetry is not much like a peach –

not within a country mile;

a very rough approximation

yet it’s imbued with the scent of a peach

with which I must content myself.

A ripe peach on a wooden table

and I have thrown my life away

in pursuit of it and its presumed reward;

swallowed every tale; followed the wildest rumors;

written down my confessions for all to see.

I have trusted You, my Lord,

in complete ignorance for the truth

of the long-trumpeted, promised perfect peach.

O child of God, keep your faith confidential

and pray for Meher not to let you down.

A grass hut

A grass hut                                                                                                       

God has no boundaries.

Make Him the hub (said my Lord)

and He will someday also

become the periphery. 

Walk with Him this immediate realm,

at some point you’ll enter the other –

you’ll lose your own boundaries.

God tolerates (apparently) for the sake of illusion,

our claims of authority, the iron pins

by which we stake out our properties.

Only on rare occasions does He trespass –

a revelation, a vision, an inexplicable synchronicity.

But God has no boundaries.  That is the sobering truth,

the great fear to which we all must attend –

utter vulnerability and ultimate non-existence.

Like an elephant entering a grass hut

(if He has a mind to) – no locks, barricades; no walls,

no appeals to our sovereignty will keep or contain Him

as He invades and supplants,

obliterates the structures of our beings.

O child of God, Meher did often avow –

we are not we but One.

The nature of stars

The nature of stars                                                                             

A sky full of stars and the magi looking

eastward to an extraordinary flare

moving contrary to fixed patterns,

to all known predictions,

contrary to the nature of stars.

They follow it pell-mell –

blazing sun, freezing nights –

in a burdensome gallop,

destination unknown.  It doesn’t matter –

they are chasing the cosmic,

leaving behind the earth.

And the great mysteries of heaven

come down to greet them, those wise men,

to intermingle and lay on hands,

no longer ashen remnants,

distant trackers and observers

but burning, existential participants

in the ancient, great fires of creation.

O child of God, chase after truth;

let nothing stand in your way.  

The heart of wisdom

The heart of wisdom                                                                                

A popular version I browsed in the bookstore

of the Tao Te Ching, urging everyone and telling how

in tranquil, flowing poetry to become sages.

Don’t know if I could or would want to become a sage.

Better to be wise than foolish but, sage or fool, both

essentially ignorant – like learning to favor a bruised foot

or determining the easiest route through traffic home.

The heart of wisdom is to discover ourselves,

the fallacies of our basic assumptions,

carve a niche from which we might calmly

view the world, not for the sake of comfort,

not for any advantage; not to seek a dependence

upon wisdom in lieu of grace and surrender.

The Old Man put down the Nameless pen to paper

best he could.  Reading his now gilded words

standing in the self-help aisle of Barnes & Noble.

O child of God, foolish to judge what belongs

where, why and to whom concerning the Way.

                         

An ocean away

An ocean away                                                                                        

I’ve been to India many times.

I’ve never quite felt at ease there.

It’s the oppressive, ubiquitous unfamiliarity –

ever a stranger in a foreign milieu,

an ocean away from home.  These days,

holed up in my hometown, homestead,

habitat, my own planet and (gross) plane,

I’m also ever slightly ill-at-ease,

every familiar thing now drenched

in a foreign light, heard in a disquieting way,

smelt and tasted seasoned with dust and ash.

Ill-at-ease in my own skin, my head and heart.

I’ve listened to You and told myself

so many times I’ve come to believe it

beyond any intentional, intellectual concept,

down to my very bones –

this world is not my home.

This world is not my home. 

O child of God, don't rest until you

get back to where you started.

(photo by Debbie Finch)

                     

A new banner

A new banner                                                                                         

I hoist the flag – salute my sovereignty,

my authority, establish my boundaries,

determine which way the wind blows.

Tattered, under sun and weather,

it’s blanched over the years into white,

the colors I cling to less and less relevant,

the governing body for which it stands

having picked up and moved to another shore.

This daily ritual is a mere adherence

to the only allegiance I’ve ever known,

containing in its discrepancies a freedom

only dreamed of, read about in books.

It’s a ceremony I’m only true to

because there’s nothing else to do

until my liberator arrives and we haul down

the flag together; reverently fold, put it away forever.

I’ll gather my things and follow Him

under a new banner into the great unknown. 

O child of God, Meher says the journey  

is from the bottom red stripe to the top pale blue.

That stone, domed room

That stone, domed room

Bring Him to the door by gathering
your hand into a fist; pound until

it sifts right through - proving how
insubstantial is the veneer of existence

as if gaping holes might be
left in it by the next hard rain.

Thinnest I've found is in the Tomb,
hovering between lover and the Beloved

and what fills the gaps is that
(of which I know so little)

to which the word love might apply.
If ever I return to India it will be only

to that stone, domed room,
hoping to leave outside everything else

and rejoice beyond the world's grasp
and power to ever touch me again.

O child of God, be a man without substance
and fall undetected through the cracks.

Dream house

Dream house

Each morning I build my dream house
on a narrow spit in the great blue sea,

a citadel rising and shining
along the length of the day.

Each night, the tide turns, invades the shore -
everything uprooted, pulled asunder

by the flooding waters.  I observe the ruination
and, with canny clarity, the prejudice

and error, the insularity and pride with which
I had stood sure-footed by the light of day.

Curled up and trembling in the dark,
from my heart's incontestable bottom,

I call Your name, Your name, Your name
until a light breaks over the horizon -

Your presence, a bulwark again the blows
of the overwhelming sea.

I arise on Your assurances, for another
morning prayer, another whole-hearted,

arduous day of labor upon the house of my dreams
upon that narrow spit in the great blue sea.

O child of God, doubt yourself and trust Meher.
Dissolution is opportunity; obliteration - absolution.

                         

Baltic Avenue

Baltic Avenue

You took God to be your father
and never grew up.  O child!

You took the phrase sufficient grace
and now operate under the assumption

of getting something for nothing,
though the evidence of a lifetime

points in a different direction.
Offered the jewel of infinite worth

you keep haggling God for a better price.
You parse the ransom note and refuse to pay.

You inhabit an old shoe on Baltic Avenue
while your opponent runs the rest of the board.

Still, you strategize and maneuver.
Maybe you'll make it around again.

You could parlay two hundred dollars
into a vast fortune - you're sure of it -

if only you could pass Go
one more time.

O child of God, the price of salvation is your life.
How much will it be worth lying in your grave?

A vital forfeiture

A vital forfeiture

Gain heaven by losing your faith -
in the brief, the conjectural,

the untrustworthy pursuits
to which you habitually pledge your life.

To reach out to God (the teachings suggest)
you must first cut off your hands.

To embrace Him, you must
sever your arms at the shoulder.

Love and life eternal
entail a vital forfeiture,

a timely, incremental
and unmourned death.

Drown in the river by ceasing
to grab hold of the opportune

flotsam and jetsam you judge
to be exactly what you lack;

which you pray will keep you afloat
until that fabled salvation drifts within arm's length.

O child of God, gain heaven by losing faith
in everything but God.

                         (Unpublished)

The unlit wick

The unlit wick                                                                                           

I search the world for light and warmth

while, apparently, my heart is made of tallow;

no way or will on earth or within to spark the unlit wick,

but You promise over lifetimes

adversities and satiations, acquiescence

and perceptions will scrape away the crust

and expose the whole ball of wax;

its absolute vulnerability to flame and dissolution.

When ignorance comes from accumulated wisdom;

when love cleaves from romance and desire;

when heartache reveals its inherent beauty;

when grief becomes a humble dismantling

of the false, by grace will the interior candle be lighted,

the veils catch, the whole tinderbox house go up in flames.

O child of God, you seek light and warmth.

The Godman is the bearer of the torch.