Broken Pleas

Lord, hallowed be your name. Merciful / Lord
                                of reconciliation, hear my / poem as prayer; these broken
pleas in lines,
Lord; /                                        
                                                                             metronomic musings,
unmusical, / heavy with fear.  Lord, hear not my
                                       numb speech /
                                                                                                      but the token−
                                 the meaning.                                                            Take
away / the hindrance of self−
                                the sense of− and leave / with me a greater sense
of your presence; / Your spirit within revealing signs,
                                                                             sight / restored
                                                                       and light.  Within this rare shining, /
shine through
the gift of losing self to You. / This vital understanding
awakened / only in sheets of grace poured out and down /
                                and seen in strips of visibility, / so release me of all pride,
                                                         generate / humility and create connection /
                                                          so I might dine with you in communion /
drink from goblet
                                                                                              of signification /
                                                                                             my sins forgiven
by sipping tipped back / offering and again in harmony / I pray Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done…. /
                                       Amen.

The Sunday Whirl
                                                                                                          

Imploration

We pray to a God who won’t respond…or so it seems.

We pray to a father God, a mother God, a man God, a child God,
a Buddha god, a yoga god, a nature god, a million other gods.

We pray for wants, for needs, confusing these. 

We pray desperately in disaster or alternately denounce existence, disseat,
disrate, spit in the face of what appears to be a placid god,
maddeningly calm in midst of chaos,
refusing to intervene.

Inept or cruel?  Easier to efface:  God is dead.

We worship at makeshift shrines of momentary sacrifice.

Congregate in cathedrals of ecclesiastical décor with alabaster
windows with stained hands clasped and our perfume hoarded.

We are a searching people, blind to what we find.

We look for you in burning bushes, in consecrated bread and wine. 
Parched, we need to taste you. We look to the clouds for signs.
We mine the scriptures, memorizing passages to suit our purposes but not to live by.

We confess to priests, we hail Mary, we pay our tithes, we swear off church, disassociate
with those who claim your name, return in hopes. We are gold-diggers. 

We praise ourselves when all is well and blame you when it is not.

In measurement of altitude, we place your elevation low, humbling you and not ourselves.

We,
who are open and bared before you
                              beg for you to bare yourself.

Herald the works of your hand, we say,
                          so we might believe,
                          then we turn away
from words that say,  I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity. 

We hunger for milk.  We try and force your hand with pleas,
with demands, with the works of our own hands.

We drift away and feel you've left us.
We, who are so depraved with such gall, feel deprived.

We fear you and we do not fear you.

We emplaster you in icons-we want you plastic and adaptable.

We want vivid, graphic, blatant.

Our prayers lay out Irenicons- God, sign here, on dotted line. 

We are a loud people, bold in our absurd appeals,
errant in our exaction.
You are a quiet God, slow to anger.

Your gifts are bared before us, everywhere-

Embossed in vein of leaves we step upon, traced in space of sky with argent stars,
sketched in shadows after every storm.

Yet, I am deafened by your seeming silence.
Open the eyes of my heart. 
Take my mustard seed of faith
and multiply it. Perforate my conscience
that I might observe the wondrous
works of your own pierced hands. 
Create in me a clean heart.

The Sunday Whirl

Disjointed

Disjointed but
    Still
    somewhat content

Yet, there will exist in transit
A preferred belief, as seen
    In combat

                     Together, added,
Wed, stayed, confined
In telling circle-prayer

Then out of confessing mouths
Of babes- a disconnection
Vocalized in whatever feeble attempt

To connect
These critical dots-
How it is now with

How it was then and no prefigurement
Can belie inside a forming mind
                     Still clasped tight

In fervency this held,
Preferred belief. 
The smallness

Of the exclamation
And expression
                 still
                 sharp and wounding.
They could be mine,

For, already, elements
Show forth, in digging,

Of a familiar type
Of thaumaturgic thinking.

Already perfume
Of a false relief wafts
To tease
the air

With an invisible,
Presiding fragrance
And even

Unexpected
                    Delight
Cannot

Prove true outside
Of what any heart

Would naturally
Want. 
Cannot presume

To mend the unrent determination
  Of how it ought to be;
  What was meant

To be. Later,
Even doubt found in chilling
Waves of truth,

Expositions
Of transgressions

Will be secondary to
                                 The firm dependence

On the poet-like impression
That to relive or re-survive

One’s childhood would or could
Be worthwhile- this, they
Will rock themselves

To sleep with.  Now,
The whole is still
Hidden

By an, as of yet,
Unrealized

Reality
and though
the storm
Is behind the bend it seems

The answer
To the thirst

Of soul-drought.  Daring, this desire
                                In fruitless romance-trifle,
dancing
Ever dangerously

With denial
But  forspoken bone-bonds
Are never broken.

Yes, every boy
Is born with savior-complex

Builds a fort of this, presuming
Every girl in wait, singing

Calls from some faraway window
So transferring the need

The mother is transfigured
And this woman resumes
Her place on knees,

Releases, dies to self, 
And thus receives.