Late Winter Sky

Standing on the dark frozen lawn,
beneath the cold gorgeous late winter sky,
my eyes would open wider,
wide enough for the stars to fall inside.

The ice blue red shifting light of the stars,
the chill air, make me shiver with cold delight
in the deep black well of this still frozen night.

The Creator who knows me knows those stars,
lit long before He touched this clay with life.
But He knew when He filled the almost infinite sky,
I would love this icy cold beautiful night.

Night before the blizzard

I love walking out into the gravel road at nights and taking in the solitude and stillness. I did that last night. Here's what I wrote:

Still night. The early edge of a blizzard. I can see the snow-softened lights of the nearby farms. No one is on the county road just 1/8th of a mile south of me. The soft hissing of snow blowing over snow fills the blurred night landscape. The pine trees voice a distant wind-driven roar, high above my head, as I stand in the middle of the dark, muted, drifting gravel road. There are no cars. There’s no one. Just me, gazing into the dark. A peaceful, deadly dark, not for humans. It quietly, inexorably, denies us. I know this night isn’t for us, we aren’t out there. No one is. That’s what makes it so peaceful. No one is there. Only the quiet sound and soft motion of the storm. It is pure, unhurried, emotionless, unstoppable. I can’t effect the wind or snow in any way. I am powerless here, so I can relax. I can do nothing, so I can be still.

I told you not to be frightened

See, that last post freaked a couple people out. I told you it's not really how I feel, but I can understand feeling like that. It's like, that's not where I am, but sometimes I can see it from here. It was wordsmithing. And it really was interesting to see how much impact and effect my words can have. That actually was encouraging.

Now here's a little piece I submitted to a Christian magazine, for their Hope edition, and this I truly do feel.

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My son’s paralysis, caused by an IED blast in Iraq, is my sorrow. The Lord’s faithfulness is my hope - Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV) “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

I know the attack that injured my son was not my Father’s will. I know the enemy, physical and spiritual, wanted him dead. But my son is alive! The enemy hurt him but was unable to kill him. Where there is life, there is hope. God’s Word itself is Life, and so it is hope. There are many verses of healing in Scripture, promises from God, and I am standing on those promises, just like the old hymn says.

God’s will is for our good. But there is no denying we live in a fallen world, where the Lord’s will is not always evident to our human eyes. So I ask myself, “Who is the expert here, me or God?”, and of course I must answer, God is the expert. He knows. He sees the end, when I can barely see my next step. The Lord sings over me, and my family, when I have no words to speak. We are not here alone. The Lord Jesus leads the way. He knows the path, and if I can’t see the path, at least I can see Him.

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It might be a few months before I know if this is accepted or not, but I couldn't make myself wait that long to post it.

Don't be too frightened

This free-verse poem is the darkest, blackest, worst thing I have ever written. I don't really feel like this although I can imagine feeling like this. But an incident at a bank the other day really set me off and I just went with it.

PAIN

I would vomit angry fists of rage.
But I push them down, silence them for the world, and they pound against the inside of the facade that is my face. They pound against the back of that wall until it is slick with their blood.

I would scream swinging aluminum bats of hate.
But I push them back, protecting those around me, and they hammer viciously against the base of my skull. They rise from my lungs, beating against my tightened throat with the “ping,ping” of cold hard metal.

There is no direction I can turn.
All the compass points are cruel barbed fishhooks, straightened with hateful intent, pinning me into myself, snagging my flinching skin with rust-filled sickening pain if I move.

I cannot speak or I will gag out the fists of rage.
I cannot scream or the thug-swung aluminum bats of hate will crush the skulls of innocents around me.
I cannot turn or torn metal pain will rip the skin from my muscles in thin, horrible strips of blood-shaped shivering agony.

So I stand. I shuffle. I silently wretch horror. I taste it, like dead children.

If I don’t smile you think me sullen. If I don’t reply you think me rude. But if I open my mouth you may see inside my head. You would kneel in the street and beat your skull against the curb, beat it to a bone-fragment clotted sack of brains so you wouldn’t witness the red-black churning razor blade landscape of emptiness and pain that is the blood hacking its way through my veins.

Be thankful I seem rude. It’s the best protection I can offer you.

White writing

Another poem from the past. I'm researching writing, starting to make plans, trying to establish a framework within which to approach this endeavor. Looking at my older writing might be opening the door a little bit in my mind.

And now that poem I mentioned...

White Writing

white writing, unlinking thinking, no lingering fingers, no words left unheard, the way of the saying is not part of the meaning, it slips between the reeling tumbles of words, text, from the letters in front of my mind I don't see them I don't feel them they slide over the surface of my mind, spreading like oil, chattering like a razor across glass, spine shivering jangles of thoughts and letters, unfettered by structure not bound to the meaning by the purpose of mind, forgotten once written, once shy never bitten not mine but then whose

Thinking Thing

Trying to get back to writing, I'll pull out a few of the things I wrote last winter. Maybe bringing these things to the front of my mind will help get more words moving. So here's a (kind of)free verse poem, Thinking Thing - (what you see below is something like version 2 or 3 of this poem)

Here's a new idea. (no, there's no such thing)
I'm thinking white on white. (it matches everything)
I don't need to see what I think. (seeing doesn’t make anything)

Do I need to think to think? (is there really such a thing?)
Do my actions make me think? (is thinking making everything?)
Do things outside lead me to think? (without, can there be anything?)

I think that thinking makes me act. (so thinking makes me do a thing)
Can I know what to do, not what to think? (and must I question everything?)
If I can, then doing does not make me think. (and nothing makes me do anything)

Thanksgiving, 2010

Don't you dare ask me how I can be thankful. If I weren't such a nice guy I might have to knock you out. I have spent the last 6 months at the bedside of my son,or working to bring him home. He is currently paralyzed from the neck down by a piece of shrapnel from an IED blast in Iraq.

The blast didn't kill him. Thank you God!
The shrapnel wasn't an inch higher. That would have killed him. Thank you God!
My son did not suffer a brain injury. He is still 100% my son. Thank you God!
He can talk. The doctors said he would never do that. Thank you God!
He can eat. The doctors said he would never do that, either. Thank you God!
He needs the ventilator now less than he did before, and he's working towards not needing it at all. Thank you God!
His eyesight is fine, so he can see us who love him. Thank you God!
His hearing is good. He did suffer some hearing loss in the army but nothing terrible. Thank you God!
His sense of humor is totally intact and we have shared many, many, many great laughs. Thank you God!
He knows his family loves him, and we know he loves us. Thank you God!
Both my children are done with war. Thank you God!
Our needs are being met, not even impinging on my income. Thank you God!
We haven't torn ourselves apart in grief, fear and anger. Thank you God!
God our Father knows us, loves us, and is with us always. Thank you God!

And this is just the short list!!! Don't let me hear you complain. I will smack you.