In the hollow place I found these words:
Let not the meat of my mouth be full of bile.
My dwellings, let them not be among the wickedly dark.

Where they take advantage of the ignorant--
Those full of earth's vomit--
Who are considered unseen.

The orphans mindlessly stumbling,
As the heat bares down on their backs.
Purge them, let them stand upright.

Higgaion

My whole heart I promised to another
An emptied besieged city can not end
Seeking, knowing I'm not forsaken

My groanings, he has not forgotten
Standing at the mouth of death
As the sun, I will rise in safety

Waiting to be laid down

The truth lands with a sting. It's hard to admit when you have been caught red handed and don't have anything in your hands. The proof lying on the inside. And only you know how far it's cutting. The design is to show how ridiculous you appear before others find you with your shirt on inside out. The ramblings leaving your mouth continue to loop back around to the beginning of your conversation. You realize no one is listening to you. It's a good thing this time because if they would have paid close attention they would have all the proof they need. The proof of who you secretly are and the written conversations you have with yourself. No one thinks to look in the boxes down in the basement. The ones you have marked personal and have promised to sort through by the end of the summer. In the meantime, you must find a way to turn your mind around. To bring it back to the place where you at least know what you will say next.

Psalms 2--my understanding

There was a roaring among the people.
Their minds full of rage.
The rulers puzzled themselves at the mystery.
They must disband the union.

The heavens hold the power.
Man--no match for its fury.
He anointed his king.
Man the jewelry of his crown.

Victorious in the battle.
Knees bowing--lips worshipping.
Wise is the man who watches for him.

Selah

Mercy-----forever
Glory------forever
Kingdom---forever
Reign------forever

The sun was battling to hold its position tonight. It didn't want to succumb to a quarter moon or even to lighting streaks. Still the lighting bugs skipped in the air. They know they hold light underneath their wings. They want us to be envious of them. It isn't enough that they can fly.

The moon stood over the house near the end of the street. The image as if it was staged. The flowers in the yard props for a Hollywood production. I passed by to listen for the truth. I wasn't willing to fall for the Hallmark view. Maybe because my lawn too is dressed and the draperies match the paint.

I've stopped wondering about the other side. Stopped pretending I didn't care if I ever tasted pomegranates. I'm taking a que from my friends and using the light underneath my wings.

The time doesn't seem like the ordinary passing of days. When the sun looks so familiar you don't pay any attention to it until it has set and you realize you have laundry to bring in. No, the time feels like you should move. Move in the direction fear has kept hidden from you. But you know it. You see it in your dreams. See it dancing in your shadow. The smile on your face unrecognizable. Your skin glowing at the touch of your hands. They too look as if they belong to someone else. Your feet want to move. They itch underneath from the rush of new blood. A decision obviously must be made. If not, you might as well turn back until your mind catches up.

Uncertainty, an offspring of fear, paralyzes. Leaving the lame lying beside the fountain. There's a stirring in the water. The feet want to wade in while the mind continues to wait.

She looked crazy. The lady sitting next to me. She wrote down random, meaningless, isolated thoughts...."wine good for the belly"...

Whatever happened to her turned her world upside down. Made her believe there was no longer a reason to understand the elements surrounding her. Her feet went in opposite direction of each other. Her face showed remnants of a once beautiful creature.

I looked again. I took hold of myself. I took hold of my mind. I have felt it slipping before. This time I tied a knot at the end.

ground parched and thirsty

no sign of relief in the clouds

the sun ruling the sky

breathing on the earth

the earth surely its enemy

the sting of its rays

biting any brave enough

to move before it

in the middle standing

a well flowing with water

it flows deep springing up

refreshing against the heat

We cover up what we don't want seen

Disguise what we allow to be seen

And lie about what is seen

Same words

How many ways can I write the same story?
How many ways can I say the same thing?
I don't know.
I guess until I have understanding.
I guess until the feelings leave the words.

Shanties, nothing but shamed faced houses standing in a row leaning in the sun. The roots don't seem deep enough for them to remain after a storm blows through. Mans mortal attempt at creation. Man troubled on the inside because the tools to speak existence doesn't lie in his tongue. He settles instead for trying to place woman back under his wing. And after she discovers his plot he tries to win her back with a fish sandwich. They dance around the pear tree--everything has a center to it. A woman learns how to make her face laugh to take the bloom off things and to hide her thoughts. To keep them from being tangible, to speak as if she had a switch in her hand.

You can spend years asking some questions and only years will bring the answers. Is there anything as consistent as the sun? Can loneliness be erased with the sunset? Sometimes these questions seem destructive and moldy. But if the answers were found--we wouldn't be lonely anymore.

I would wait at the edge of the earth if love could be found there. Since there are no directions to its origin I'll wait until it turns the corner. Many moons have been up and down since my search began. The darkness of the night still didn't bring any new revelations maybe they'll come with the morning.

I ponder this longing in my mind where questions float around thought after thought on every sight and sound. Then there are those too deep to be accompanied by words and underneath them feelings numb yet to be defined.

Still there are parts that search for answers. Parts that stand by the gate expecting a miracle. Hoping the tears shed fall on compassionate ground. Hoping that the old world will leave in the evening to make room for the new one fresh on the morning sun. In my mind I can see it forming seemingly out of gray colored clay. But words haven't managed to bring me love.

Sometimes at dawn the world looks as if the sun has stabbed the sky. But it looks alive. I would turn myself wrong-side out to feel its color. The feeling of newness. The feeling that comes with the world changing. Were the sun escapes as vividly as it arrived. A prelude to an emerging smoke colored night sky.

Audubon Red Bird

There's something connecting us to the heavens. Sometimes we have to be reminded. Eternity seems a long way off. Some prophets say around the next turn. I don't know whether they even know if that's the truth. I do know signs come.

We need signs for direction. We need them when the air is cold and coarse, when words don't match the heart, when the pavement is hot underneath our feet, when we hunger on the inside with no way of being made full.

There's a completeness that comes from bathing in the Blood. A quickening unlike the first. One that makes you feel existence and safe in its emptiness. One that makes you look for the Red Bird in the trees--reminding you of His refuge.

When you want your dreams to be your reality you begin to act accordingly. Time seems to be the enemy, but even when the sun is gone it still leaves its footprints streaking the blue sky.

No time anymore for sitting on porches feeling the evening breeze. It's time for action. When you realize the sun's almost gone and no one has really been standing in your way, time to realize you're human and full of power.

You look in the mirror to see if the buttocks are still firm enough to catch a mans eye and make him momentarily forget he belongs to someone else. A walk that he'll try to hold in his mind long after it's lost from his eyes. Some say that's vain. People who believe in God shouldn't indulge in such foolishness. It makes you wonder do they praise the Lord when they go to bed and turn off the lights. You leave the gossip to your friends. Of course, you have put the story you want told in their mouths.

Even after years of praying self revelation still hasn't come. You search the trees and the leaves that look like they have seen every season and hold both joy and pain. You look towards the sky even when it's freshly covered in blackness. Dressed by a quilt of stars it begs you to gaze upon it and ponder over its mystery. So close you can reach and pull one down and wear it as jewelry, but so far away you can't comprehend its scale. When the morning light chases them away they'll be momentarily forgotten until played again like a sweet song.

Nature, kin to the flesh, pants in the breeze, the sun holding gold, trees in bloom causes you to search out the world made for you. And until you find it the tears stand in your eyes begging for their own ground to fall on. Until then you feel like trees without roots with limbs that hang down scratching your knees.

These of course are things you want to preach, but there's no pulpit for you to give your sermon. People don't want to be reminded that they are only pretending to be alive. Whenever they are reminded the mind conjures up the feelings once covered in the hollow of their hearts.

Even if they won't listen, the memories play back in the cool of the evening. Mostly the suffering during the winters when there was no sign of spring. Trying to shield yourself from the coldness in the face of the premonitions won't work. They come back again and again sounding the alarm of reality.