Some poems I wrote in 1997

1997

The Poem That Wins
March 23, 1997

The poem that wins will always find resolve,
Either in God, Nature, or love;
It works in wild waves to all absolve,
Or sanction-cleanses like an airy, whitened dove.

When I thought these words,
I sat alone in shambled days,
Self-extracted in a park, away from duty-birds;
I did this to achieve an inner gaze.



Dedicatory to Lonesome Words
March 23, 1997

For for me to not write is to not think is to not live,
And then will passion be an extinguished ember;
For words are like gray cobwebs sticking in my brain,
They burrow in the corners and settle there,
So often must I sweep again;

I told you "words," but I mean thoughts,
Or passions, glued to a cranial wall;
To voice them is to clean them,
To purge them frees the hall.

And I am just a worder,
But words mean so much more than scratches ---
They are strokes of emotion, the means to my well-being, and therapy ---
And I love words for they save me from madness,
And I drink them and mix them.

The messy child in the toy room, sitting cross-legged in the corner, and finger-painting on a whited wall ---
His words are merely acrobat escape
From all that houses and throws him;
Words words words ---
A dedicatory to lonesome words.



Grandma VanTussenbroek
May 14, 1997

My grandmother died yesterday, and I am glad
For her sake
She was a good woman
And now she's moved on
She's still alive, you know

Gut-wrenching
Coffin-bearing
Now she's really with Grandpa
Where are your friends when Grandma's gone?



Journey on a Tossed Galleon
June 7, 1997

And wisdom is a journey, often with eyes closed;
And the brain and heart an open conduit to the sunlight inspiration of God,
Inspiration which comes as a bright path of light, down through darkened, gray clouds,
Right over our heads,
Right into our heads, and into our hearts,
As we stand firm on the wooden deck of a tossed galleon,
Faces and shirts drenched by the seaspray,
Hair darkened and matted down against our skulls by the water,
Unaverting eyes riveted upward to the heavens,
To the Fount of all creation
Waiting patiently on His will for our deliverance,
Letting the tempest rage,
For we know the Master is near.



Aikke
June 13, 1997

Aikke!
My soul is broken, bleeding,
And I cannot help but stare,
At the face I'm puzzled reading,
And the love that is not there.

Your soul is frozen solid
To my touch --- you scale away;
'Tis too much, your love is fallen,
From the man who vowed to stay.



A Poem is a Notice
June 16, 1997

A poem is a notice that the Spirit is alive;
A poem is a deliberate, calculated, thoughtful celebration of some aspect of life;
It breathes the inner vision and sees the brain ---
Seize the brain.



What is True Religion? (James 5:14)
June 29, 1997

Loving God: faith, repentance, sacramental covenant of taking the name of Christ upon ourselves, prayer, reading scriptures, temple visits, follow/pray for guidance

Loving Neighbor: visiting sick (mentally and physically), paying tithing, fasting for others, doing favors for others, listening to others, mourning with others, bearing testimony, comforting others, priesthood blessings, visiting fatherless (orphans) and widows in their affliction



The Example That the Son Has Set
July 20, 1997

The example that
The Son has set,
The Son will set no more;
He will rise up
With healing wings,
And buoy us to the shore.

Three times to shore
We come for birth:
The first, to Earth;
And two, for sin;
The third, the waves envelop us,
And pull us from our skin.

But Christ the waves ignored.