Some poems I wrote in 1993

1993

Some Kind Girl, So Insistent
June 11, 1993

Some kind girl, so insistent ---
Her wide brown eyes a polygraph ---
Her words few, but well chosen at the empty restaurant ---
Her ears draw from me a string, a river of anguishes.

So I told her, to her eyes and to her ears
--- I needed to tell somebody ---
And she listened well.

(A dear friend, Kim Bartlett, went to dinner with me on this evening, and through our conversation helped me to begin healing from an emotionally draining relationship.)



Be Vague
June 11, 1993

Brush stroke one particular feeling
A thousand times with words
And maybe you'll catch it

Be vague

Be vague
And people will love it
Give them a thousand different bricks, or words
Tell them to build what they want
Be vague

Lovers will understand
Anyway



Girls Come and Go
June 22, 1993

Girls come and go
They smile, leave a glow,
And glide on through the door.

Girls they come, and play with words,
Saying and doing things I've always feared
(Their emotional make-up allows them to do that)
And I pause before them ---
Sitting there;
Sit there;
Glazed.

I've rehearsed a thousand times the scenario (of love)
With mentally ideal results;
But the plane
Knifes through the clouds
Speeding downward
Towards destruction



Here I Sit
July 19, 1993

Here I sit, or lay, alone,
Within this basement home;
Only words to comfort, or to travel,
To this bound heart unravel.



The Man in the Distance
July 25 to 26, 1993

The Man in the distance signals to me:
It's Jesus Christ.
With one hand He beckons,
With the other He waves me to take it slowly, surely, in appropriate moderation;
To see His face and live may take a lifetime.

So live ---
the zeal of LeGrand Richards
the thoroughness of Neal Maxwell
the love of Gordon B. Hinckley



Nephi
August 8, 1993

A golden ball absorbed your faith,
God made raw meat taste sweet;
Your brothers bound you, smote your face,
But shipwreck-threatened did retreat.



Christ's Word
August 8, 1993

Christ's word:
A sword, a globe, an iron rod, a rope we gather in,
Whose tied-end product is a fruit,
Whose whiteness cleanses sin.
Christ is the Word;
Christ is His word.



Encounter on a Lonely Beach
August 15, 1993

When the ship of survival leans to me, and catches me silently curled up on a dark shore, weeping, I strive to muffle my pain and shoulder my faith once more. I begin walking along the shore again, this time trying with a renewed concentration to maintain a rhythmic gait.

I am left alone on an abandoned shore, far from understanding ears and people willing to weep with me...

In the distance I vaguely see a hazesome figure walking,... I can't tell if she's coming or going.... she's coming. Along the distant sandy shoreline. Night is falling, and the shadows of illusion play games with my eyes. Suddenly she is in front of me.

"I am woman," she says.
I pause. "I am man."
We stand there looking at each other.
We found each other on this lonely beach.



Stupored in Transition
August 21, 1993

It's just that ---
In my heart of hearts ---
I'm stupored in transition ---
Shattered into shards ---
Isled in derision ---
Beached, abandoned, compassless,
Trying to enter rest ---
No routine to secure my days,
No clear skies in this soul-lost haze,
No clue to flee my mental maze;
If patient I'll be blessed.



Pearl
August 21, 1993

Pacing the shore for a certain grain
Of sand to make this pearl ---
Why did I take this pain?
My jewel won't be made from a girl(!);
She can't do such thing to this boy,
The answer's already within;
Pearls of self-virtue give me joy
Pearls from others only cover my sin.
Pearls may appease,
But world-pearls don't give peace.



Thoughts Too Deep for Words
October 3 or 4, 1993

Thoughts
Too deep for words
Complexities
In life
Too knotted to ever undo
But we try
And we slave
And music envelops us
And sanity is neatly wrapped in a blanket of poetry
And unconscious music is in the head
And words float
And some people don't see that I so often revert to this medium (writing) for soul-searching salvation
And that I mean no harm
Nor have any apostate intentions
And so it goes



Living in Waves
December 24, 1993

Living in waves; that is,
Sometimes writing poetry, but not always.
Some days very physical,
Other days very mental, or spiritual ---
In other words, not always doing the same things each day.



To a World That Has Essentially Forgotten Christ
December 24, 1993

For a world that has essentially forgotten God and Christ:
We still celebrate Christmas yearly,
We still calculate the year from His birth,
Many still remember Him in their cursings, or desperations.