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.

It feels like its late in coming
I turn right, thinking I’ve caught you by my eye’s side
I find light, sinking through from cracks, ruins
I find no one else but myself, standing in dust
In desert inspiration, covered by all and none
Confused with all the pictures of a single life
Many, varied, pretty, false
In fatalistic turn I forget about hope and seek solace in despair
Then in the wanton blur of drunken sarcasm and narcissism
I am right, and its so against the world
But still, I feel voided; I feel void

The space of grass blades, the land and sky clashing
The dutiful war upon soil of marching rain
The awed explosions of ecstatic love for beautiful red sunsets
In moments all the more rare, they make me want to live
To be free from solitary cage
From miserable island miserly and unsmiling
From dead ends and frantic searches for escape routes
Here, dying is living, but where is the right and wrong juxtaposition?
I wish, dearly crave for life
For the smiles and laughter and hugs and kisses
For the shared tears and seared comforters
For the orchards and flower fields scenting up to our atmosphere
For a world as I have barely ever had it
The life is rising as sounds to fill thirsting ears
Starved of truth, joy, peace and contentment
After the storm of empty materialism has raged and ravaged
I am dying to live, in the midst of living traffic
Perhaps mostly dead too, yet being walking, thriving corpse
Nothing gives me the fiery fuel for finding essence here
Except the discovery of wasteland that stays following rampaging materialism
Everyman left open and dull in the end
Finished by lies of destructive promise

So I’m dying to live, fighting to die fulfilled
The world is not enough, so I give in to another instead
The Divine is my hope for meaning
God is my light, my life, my salvation
One without whom life lived is just death in procession.

The Lord whose hand stays the waters
The Lord that blossomed life with His word
His command moves the air where He wills
The land is solid because He told it to be

Life sustains because of His mind
His love we need yet run we try
His promises are signed with colors in the sky
The waves of the sea? don’t move freely

The sand of the shore
The animals that fly
The relationship between Him you and I
Its all a part of His mind

Lord we submit and we are afraid
Hard times will come
But the road You lead us down
Ends at home
At rest in Your Son
Until the day He returns

We want to love you
Show us we don’t so that we can
Jesus please hold my heart, mind, and hand

The lines and links on your faces’ journey mean something to me
The route, the paths that cut through from lashes to chin
The highs of smiles upon cheek, the joys borne by smiling through lip rims
The lows of hanging heads, of jaws let down like your battered spirit
Your life is a treasure throve, a beautiful grove, a barely explored road
Not looked up, not viewed, not let to minister, to point the way ahead
But I look at you, feeling empty and without worth
The world is the little that I could give to let you be near me
Move oceans and reconstruct landscapes to make you see
Part clouds and drive back storms to unveil the truth
Fix the spot you stand upon, make the world’s sounds seem gibberish
Let your choices be, but make them be to you, what they truly are
My perception becoming yours
Opening up your eyes

I can only love you enough to make you see what blustering calm I bring
If only your hunt for comfort be laid aside this once, thenceforth
Give me your weary heart, your tearful face, your destroyed dreams
I gave you my life
What else couldn’t I give to see you truly joyful
All your world’s pleasures could sink in seas, could be gutted by flames, could rot and rust
Your very flesh could decay six feet deep days now or decades later
But your life is worth enough to me
Enough to seek you the world over
Till I find the way to your heart, and sweep your feet to commit to me
I will raise you up and above the world’s nothingness
You’ll find that you were made to last forever
In me.