Category Archives: poetry

No Need to Be Jacob Marley  for Joel  There is no need for me to be Jacob Marley, no shaking of chains in the night, No cold wandering moon to partake of, No threats to spit nor fatal portent cite.  Because the ghost they have made is much worse Than I could be in my outpour of wrath. No, IContinueContinue reading “No Need to Be Jacob Marley”

Remembered Forgetting for Briggs How many ghosts live mostly lost in livesLike ours? Some long and lasting, others brief,These friendships, journeys that do not arrive. Ways can divide by pride and bitter grief;Ambition, chance, desire; joy and neglect;And someone who was-is someone is not,Well, not to me………………………………..So I did not expectTo see him dead, forContinueContinue reading “Remembered Forgetting”

Remembering a childhood punishment and dreaming of the pure in heart who shall see God, I wrote this corona of sonnets which hopes to offer a continuous path through the passion of my brokenness, the hope of my human capacity for singleness of will, and the vision of my very self through the loving eyesContinueContinue reading “Glassy Beams: A Corona of Sonnets”

Aggrilacious odor (Greek and Latin concur) Of earth-goddess veins; “Petrichor” numbered and named by Joy (Isabel, “pledged to Yah”), With Homer riding high (Homer, also “pledge”), Receiving tribute From Richard’s study wall (rīk-hardu, “king strong”). The lengths we have gone To know and name all we know; To reign like so many Richards Over everyContinueContinue reading “Earth and Sky Making Love Between My Head and Heart”

In secret woods, tucked between business parks,The fireflies wake early for their eveningDance, which today begins at noon. The sparksOf yellow-green presaging the lightningWhich gathers above my deepening shade.And I contemplate the early leaving Which severe weather on my way has made–Storms of words which would make clocks deceiving,Calendars fly forward years in a score;ErasingContinueContinue reading “Early Dark — A Friday Sonnet”

Ambition With No DesireFor Sir Gibbie“Ambition is but the evil shadow of aspiration.” George MacDonald Ambition with no desire,Striving but never wanting,Getting without any receiving—Houses built on sand. And the sky is full with threatOf rain—of trembling sheets of rain.Master Mason, give meBetter materials for this home:Aspiration’s holy fire,Worthy work for worthy hands,My self asContinueContinue reading “Ambition With No Desire”

Holy Week Sonnet Number 6 Not many anymore have had to liftA body. This sacred duty residesIn institutions staffed by those on shift.When loved ones die, we call, and stand aside,And others feel their weight. We have our own,In head and heart, the pain is very hard.We feel, but rarely in our limbs and bones;AndContinueContinue reading “Good Friday Poem”

Holy Week Sonnet Number 5 from Jesus, to you and me”I have desired this moment eagerly,And here, at last, we are together, friends.Please share my table; please come eat with me;It is the last of our beginning’s end,Until it’s finished I will not partakeOf food, or drink, or any comfort’s kind.My ends lie far beyondContinueContinue reading “Maundy Thursday Poem”

Ripeness means letting go. The hard fruit hangs on. It’s from the weakness the sweetness flows — God rolls his fruit on the lawn.

This book smells like someone else’s house,Has an inscription written to someone else,Notes scrawled in the pages, Which are hard to decipher.But the book is mine now It’s for meIn a second way.It was pillowcases at my sleepoversThat first made me feel this– This other kindOf belonging,Not the one I was born with–One I neverContinueContinue reading “At Least Two Kinds of Belonging”

The day I learned the roaming range of squirrelsMy life grew large with neighbors small and gray,Who know as no one else I know each burlAnd branch that grows a few miles from their dray.Said dray these made inside a hole in frontOf my brick house. Right here in my yard’s tree,Whose name I doContinueContinue reading “Belonging to Squirrels — A Friday Sonnet”

A man closed eyes around the sound that sungDownstairs to an untidy living room;And knew just then, with his heartstrings unstrung,That one day too soon he would need to exhumeThis memory. And one single-note thread,Sung by grief and joy, would surface this song:The chattering roar of going to bed;Two boys, giddy with sleep, playing strong.ContinueContinue reading “Listen Now with Love”

Here is some inspiration for you as you relish the quiet this weekend. I hope you have some. The Sudden Silences  The moment when the starlings start to fly A sudden hush fills ears to empty brims, As trees spill noisy swarms into the sky, Now silenced by their million-feathered wind.  The moment when you surface from theContinueContinue reading “The Sudden Silences”

Two weeks ago, on my last Sunday with Circle of Hope as pastor, the congregation organized some time for storytelling and blessing to send my family off with love. Thanks to Rob Lairmore, especially, for organizing. Dani Vazquez told a story about our time together at the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore in July ofContinueContinue reading “Moonrise on the Michigan Dune: A Friday Sonnet”

January is a great time for sunrise observation. Here’s a reflection after another beauty today. Light Comes Lateby Ben White Light comes lateThrough impossible branchesOf lake lining,Horizon heavingCanopyNaked in winter.Jagged shapesAnd unimaginable lines,Stranger than you could thinkTo designScrawled against the sky.Back-lit byGray-blue brighteningToward orangeOr maybe pink –You never know by now.Dawn comesIn contrast, of course,UnpredictableContinueContinue reading “Light Comes Late: A Friday Poem”

I was dumbstruck when I discovered the little resurrection pendant I had lost at least a year earlier in the parking lot of Circle of Hope’s building in South Jersey. I had lost it and looked everywhere in my house but never even began to look elsewhere. Yet, there it was right next to whereContinueContinue reading “Lost and Found Resurrection – A Sonnet”

Loosestrifefor Oliver (“peacemaker”), Theodore (“Gift of God”) and Lysimachus (Not the warrior of Third Century Thrace but the proto-botanist physician of minor Fifth Century renown and the first Western identifier of the lythrum salicaria plant commonly known in English as Loosestrife) An etymological blunder broughtThis blood beknighted flow’r upon my banksLysimachus who found it, someone thought,WasContinueContinue reading “Loosestrife: A Sunday Sonnet”

When something wonderful happens I often write it down so I can remember to write a poem about it. I love writing poetry. I draw my inspiration from those epiphanies that happen often enough in a life lived with open eyes. “Open eyelids and open hearts” I should say. Because sometimes what you see isContinueContinue reading “The Holy Spirit Helped Me Write This Poem”