Stay only a little while, and it’ll be done
The thing called telling it all, called calling it for what it is
Hang around the grounds of apologetic sounds, whispering rounds
Passing plates in communion, sharing shreds of extras and experience
Filling ears and bellies with speech, acquaintance, and sauce
Building bonds, bringing rallying songs
Making us see us as one fond fold
One tight family
Let this time last, past sunset
Let the dawn break upon our unity

So stay just a while yet, and see
All that feverish hiding away slowly depart
The arms around you and handing to you will reveal calm
Assuredness, peace and exuberance exuded in ease and passion
Gentle jests, candid corrections, beyond fraternal, above spatio-temporal
Eternal, traversing ages, surpassing mortal cages, human limits, proud digits
Those phalanges that toil all alone, of a single soul that moans
Decries solitary trudges, but recoils from gathered brothers, sticks up borders, does bother
Kicks herself for staying away, feigning apathy, masking the wide yearning yawn
At the end of this brazen brawl with obvious obsession stalled
You’ll no longer mask that need, but you’ll bask indeed
The seed will sprout, that which we sow with the exclamation “hello!”
You’ll be seen within the cluster that love does muster
As lights fly through the room, breaks burdensome rules, lets love rule
Slowly, surely, ultimately, the compassionate sacrifice will form in you
So you’ll be, like us, chasing down the shy, those who cry, even the hostile
So you’ll be like us, like Him, like Christ who gave us the beautiful life.

Empty
Blunt blur, dull, sore, cranked up crawl
Slow down, sly turn, play catch up
Pursue, frenzied, ecstatic, hysterical, delirious dance about
Trip, fall face downwards, a crash,  fiasco, aborted project
Dead end, failed, finally finished off
Left for dead, abandoned by fair weather friends
Fast lane veered into fantastic plunge
Hopes up, now laughing stock, discussion subject, ridiculed object
Empire chap once was, now sweeps streets soiled by penury stricken soles
Drained of life
Spent

Starting point: I rolled with the high fliers for real
Serene seas I swam, now so surreal,  the memory
Warning signs flashed, grew brighter as the zenith approached
The end is here: Prepare to meet your God
The end is hither, within sight, as infirmity smites me slowly
Health gone, friends evaporate, all hell breaks loose
Forget the parasitic fellas, they’re scavengers, no more

So Job’s scope silently settled into
Prying eyes prick thin skins like mine
Dark skies, black times, stark blindness borne by them
Throwing Pity Parties, resigning to brooding, moody, sullen, sour look
Next turn: Suicidal tendency
The plea now: Save my life; more aptly, make me a new one
Who’s to hear, to bear the tear-drenched howls as decent request?

Strange sense says to me to come up
Who’s there, who cares where none else needs me
Who dares to put up with this heap of flagging faith
Who bears in friendly fortitude, four Fridays of weary ramble
Many more months of mourning, falling face, fracture and frailty
Waiting until I’m drained, broken, defenseless, bare and done with
Coming into loss, forming it unto gain
Mashed mud modeled for moulding
Again, as pain marks the lines of grand design, contours divine
I look up, and see Him, see His smile
Eternity might be what is required for me to understand
But the beauty being made is Theocentric
The expired past departs for life reborn to commence
Where its not fame and struggle that pays, but love and Godly courage that reigns.

I’m sitting here because I’m waiting for you
On a square box stool underneath, and everywhere
You’re there, fair, quaint and splendid, I see
Where blinks atop lighthouse swivels to twinkle
Sign of how to reach you
Sign that I’m far off, away and set apart
Its endless, the abyss that cuts us off
Calmness here is cold, so I warm myself with thoughts of you

Fingers file to base just to while away time
The actor, me, divides attention, wavering between faith and doubt
Between you and the passing preoccupation
The comfort of dull sameness, fire growing ever more heated
The uncertainty of rocky voyages on troubled seas, calming unto eternal bliss
My fingers are neat, but the blink still persists

I’m sitting here, thinking about moving
The other side seems fine, but I’m not convinced
I conjure up defensive walls to fend off giving in
My rational sitting box makes me see you’re not there
Its fine, its my only possession
Its fine, but its wobbly and shortened
I’m sitting on the floor, I’m not standing
I don’t want to sit, but I cannot stand

I’m taken away in meditations on you
Swimming, maybe conveyed by revelation
Conscious, still in clear mind, it happens upon me
Is it I who finds out that cul-de-sac is needless?
I’m awake, I’m on the other side
You’ve led me, you’ve given me new eyes

Bang on the door of consciousness hard as you can
The numbness is sphere-filling, sensation-rebuffing
The sway of glass panes’ finesse are blunt as blues
Your rejoicing over joys coming about makes me roll sullen eyes
Dim mirage to me, your brightest sparks, your fullest bonfires
The stars shine as brightly as dying light devoid of fuel
A universe growing dark without living aim
A whole system, complex pursuits and gains and losses
A mesh-mash of dry crumbs
Give me your best moments, the most sterling of your won accolades
I’ll find them dry as the Sahara’s dust
Whorl wildness, spin cataclysm, recount desperation heightened to lung tops
All of your most fancied tales of hearts pounding hard and breath escaping fast
They’ll never make me twitch an inch, never force me to bat a lid
They’re washing away, faded glories, if ever they were worth much
This is how I feel about becoming excited for these things
Give me a reason to have wide-eyed wonder, to be awed by sights and sounds
I want to live and to be happy in living
Not just to smile at dying dogs and clap at swerving flies

The faith I’ve been handed promises me more
There’s word of hope, a whole new world saturated and overflowing with meaning
One, but all-encompassing; single, but enough
I cannot see it, but they say its there
So I’ve got to get to it
I’ve got to get to Him, or give in to Him
Let Him, the life, have me
Resolving the struggle is what the fight is about
The war’s dénouement is the stage for the last and greatest battle
God, the life I seek is hidden and revealed in You
All I have is nothing but this hope
Something I’ve been handed; a lifeline
I’ll use the rope, the bridge, the route
The path of sacrifice, of gaining all that ever really would be
Giving up my set determination to spit upon life
Letting God be enough, though the road be tough and unwieldy.

The age I’m in turns my head about full circle
Sets me to tasks multiple in static time and frenetic pace
Its about clicking boxes and staring at light-space boards
Given to logical forms, algorithmic sense, geometric thought
Rational reductions, cardinal creeds, all modernists’ espoused rules
Its a world of straight science and relative morality
And the trees, though alive and standing, will sway to your eyes’ pleasure
As long as you speak not of a living, Almighty, right and firm
There, you’ll be suddenly silly, wanting decent intellect

The streets are a colourful pastiche of persons, posts and painful pangs
The avenues lined with streaming styles, neon lights, destitute lads
Sky lines, black ground, middle space claimed by in-between movements
All the fight to keep alive
All the fight to keep on fighting
All the flurry to be chanced to flaunt comfort
To be uninhibited by shame whose face is penury
I wonder what they find after all
Pleasure then, is sought in brighter joys where family picnics in fields
Or in infidel dark sides, where desire trumps trust, where lies are wise
In the defrauding of the masses, in the brutal tragedies, in cursing rants
As has ever been
The scraps slap sour, render self-made morals surreal
No matter how long the infinite hark is ignored
Truth stands, and changeable morals change and fade and disappoint
What use is there of creating your life’s meaning
Don’t you, the driver, admit being driven by elements, mere material, no one’s signature?

I have seen the fantastic things that ease our days a bit
The creations of our time, from minds in good motion
They are fine and fit for applause
But not the bland whack of situational gymnastics
Not the pretense of showing off fancy living rules, just to avoid God
Your feigning free-for-all naturalism is practising slavish blindness
Better option: Give in to life unbound by circumstance
God, timeless, immanent, Lord of constant order, gives this certitude

I look at cheering children waving wildly
Time stands still, then turns tidily to past periods
Pleasing tunes fill my ears, pure feelings fly through from the within
The world when I was an avid dreamer, innocent, impressionable
The field in which I played peacefully, rowdily rocking, running kid
Days of sunlight, brightness, breezy stillness, joy overwhelming
Nothing dampened by life’s weary shades, all shaded by trust
Belief simple, straightforward conception, uninjured heart
Today I remember, and think of bygone beauty, lost love
Evaporated essence

This is the era of energetic grinding to a halt
Battles to brew bragging rights, treks to thrive, to survive
Glass paned building of dizzying highs, might, defiant, arrogant
Flawed floured thatched shacks and shanties, lowly, must avoid
Pursue purpose packed and stacked as material, as showforms
Edibles and raised shoulders and pumped out chests, plus yachts
If need be
They were there, some needed, when I was younger
But now, no longer childish or simple, I am complex and compelled
Completely taken by sharper focus upon the world’s wants and wannabes
I had stage frights for fearful eyes
I have stage frights for finished ego
It was once nature’s patterns that intrigued me
Its now ultimate questions that jolt my conscience
I am rich, yet paupered
Because counting coins may picture greed, not humble learning
The sweetness is gone with innocence
I now smile wickedly, but detest that look on my face

I want the life back
All of the great adventures a carefree child undertakes
All of that freedom to fly further afield, fearlessly too
All of the nice smells from Christmas packages and dishes to savour
All of the looking forward to my loving Father’s return
I know He’ll bring me gifts I’ll delightfully devour, experience
He’s sure to take me up from my standing point
To raise me up from the rough patch of present wrinkles
To toss me into sky high joy, in jubilance for our victory
And place me on His shoulders, where true rest always will be.

Jesus, son of David, thou art Messiah, exemplar ultimate
Thine hands hath borne my iniquities, thrust them aside, made them as waste
There at Gehenna, where I should, barring this, rot eternally
Save that you saw it as sufficing, to raise my face from mud-slung past preoccupation
Jesus, son of the Most High, now I have hope
I have a life, one which cannot be destroyed
Jesus, my hope is you, my mind doest thread steady beats, silent, soft, longing
For thy presence is like the curdling hand of a million safe hands upon one single soul
Upon one otherwise bereft, struck fella
Jesus, Light, Grace, Life, my joy is that thou art near

Hear now, dear friend, my faintest heart’s greatest plea here present
The way you have shown, but more saviours proclaim themselves now
They say they hear you, louder than my ears could even pretend
They paint portraits striking, yet diverse and different
Yes, I see the way, but the waves follow in swift pursuit
Yes, I see the brightness showing forth, shading away darkness
But in response, dear Lord, darkness hath now taken course in shades varying
To confuse, to disrupt, to set ablaze fires strange to quench my fiery desire
My once burning thirst for your un-refashioned person
Now, my head is turned by chandelier glows several and once
By beeps and blares and roars
By fighting over what constitutes ideal life
The crowd moves with fury, to fatal end
But the groups, though small, fare none the better
I must choose, dear Lord, but the choosing is not the hard part
The choice is, the ordeal which bends my conscience to breaking point
They are, in apparition convincing, but they are, to clear gaze, deathly
None gives life, none is yours, none adores you in truth
God, my Life, the noise of the world keeps me in fear of living thus
So now, do mercifully quell it to silence
Or lead me to quiet streams, where the living waters flow without end
The pandemonium rages, but farther away from it, do take me now
The peace great and dearly craved for is ahead
Do guide me hither, to you.