A Different Turn

All the emotions I’ve glorified look to me
Like the stem of a drying tree with rotting roots.
My prying conscience smells the irregularity
And my hope every morning looks out for shoots
Green is graying: this is death, not growing
The dim is preying: this is falling not flowing

The water table was lowering; it was imminent
And the sun was beating us down, drying our leaves
Turn after turn in a maze where fatigue grows prominent
As we yawn, sigh, sneeze and choke, hope barely cleaves.
Just when we are about to fall to the ground, weary and craven
We are at the threshold of seventh heaven

A Step Towards Salvation

Having walked all paths that are sure to expose my imperfections,
After having indulged exorbitantly in the gore of my weaknesses
After having fallen to my passions into the gall of iniquity
(Grace left me and my spirit destabilized, I lost my defenses);
Time losing meaning, moments like strands breaking hair;
Nothing to cherish, nothing to admire about my quagmire…

Going from level to level, righteousness waning, my spirit complaining;
Suffering from dishevelment, rickety, trudging the boggy, sodden way;
My spirit tarnished, my soul now banished, my heart campaigning –
For, even in this tangible darkness, the heart strives not to stray –
Yeah my heart campaigning for re-direction towards salvation;
Yeah my eyes begin to see the promise: love divulges the revelation.

Yet I could have wedged myself in the pit of grief, of sorrow
Settling on the retrogressive delusion worshipping wistfulness,
Wondering why yesterday rings truer than the promise of tomorrow,
But serendipity snatched me to the island of novelty and restitution
From the iron rule unfortunate circumstances, from the known despot
(To the spring relief and release, inside life’s very depot)

How sad, how sad to watch as life wallows towards submersion!
How sad to live now and wish today was swopped for yesterday!
How sad our end if we are so feeble as to lose by submission
While our doom wears the crown of having subdued us cleverly.
I kneel in the grime and close my eyes to imagine light
Then and only then does my heart frolic: my spirit takes to flight.

Tired souls on the brink of collapse;
Weakened hearts unable to rise once again;
Hopeless beings due to continued relapse,
Much acquainted with disappointment and shame
Are revived, the curse is on the verge of reverse
All circumstances are multiplied by their inverses

For An Answered Prayer

When the leaves were dry in the budding season
We took our prayers and forsook our reason;
Bound our hearts with the thick cord of purpose
To ascertain the certainty of harvest. in humility
We knelt, being sincere, concise and not verbose,
For we feared our turn would suffer futility

And when the roots came drying ‘neath the earth,
On the verge of losing all our plantations' worth -
Purpose now embedded in our resolute hearts,
Faces on the ground to reach the uppermost heavenly parts -
We groaned invariably: family by family with sacrifices
For atonement of generational shadows that lingered,
For the re-erection of our walls and our ruined edifices,
For the reinstatement of lives obviously endangered

Thaank you Jehova God For An Answered Prayer

Rosette

1
From the cold, in the night: vespers
Clothe me in your petals
Blanket my disfigured torso in your velvet bosom.
Do you know that I’m sentimental?
Coil your aura round me like a tail of a possum.

Once i was seen easily to falter
Today i see life in your shelter
To smell the rich scent of your fragrance,
Safe from the effects of bad weather
Into your loving, warm snuggle of patience.

A different human now: mutant
I’m like a zealous student
Engrossed in my matters of study, passionate, devoted
And you: the taste of the pudding,
A source-book, anthropology, words I wish quoted

The glory of your sanctuary is everywhere;
And as I lie in your comfort free of care
Dreamy, healing from all of life’s aspersions,
Covered in bloom of a flower of the desert air,
I sing your song: “thou art my new-found diversion”

I had forgotten
That to get the rose you have to kiss the thorn.
So I avoided both the rose and the thorn,
And the song of retreat blew from my horse men
I gave in; I gave loss an official endorsement.

I had forgotten
That love is a tender intention with violent corollaries
You pay to live or you’re rendered rotten;
Or worse you become a guinea pig in life’s laboratories.
Your warmth has reminded me of your importance

Oh Rosette, Rosette my love
You have painted my garden with spring
Birds once again perch on my alcove,
Birds of a myriad colour perch and sing
While i glory in the very same garden

Spoiled for choice: scent, warmth and colours,
My heart swimming in nectar – overjoyed.
Rosette, clothe me in your petals, in colours.
You have filled me, I’m no longer void
You have painted my garden with spring colours

2
we sat face to face, cross-legged
as if we were approaching ritualconfrontation;
we two, entangled, happily convoluted, webbed -
Under a winter's sunshine, consenting: a mutual congregation.

then she ties her hair, and edges a smile,
glows her eyes, folds her arma, and looks distracted;
hums a celtic tune and is lost in it awhile.
to me she's merely a prowess, an art the Lord abstracted

she whose actions stand eloquent, worthy to be heeded,
with a look that equals her wit (assertive but mild)
oh what colourful ideas she has worked and kneaded:
she has beckoned at spring, she winked and the Heavens smiled.

as she bears the disparity between timidity and humility,
legs still crossed, arms folded, face ever so gleaming,
time stands still while the sun overshadows humidity.
time shows up. i wonder whether or not i'm dreaming

the strand of hair she never tied falls in the way.
her arms unfold to deal with her hair accordingly.
a yawn, not of boredom (but a discourse-marker) wont be subdued
she's good. she sprinkles enthusiasm. oh the joy she's affording me

she's a song i'm still learning to sing, forever special,
where every note is notable and every chord is complete.
a flower whose blessed, scented, bright colouered petals
draw my eyes as if looking alone would be the best profit.

*The Great Oak

*The Great Oak

wake me up with your voice, shake me up
take me up like helium, take me up.
my conscience has since prayed for attitude
in groanings no graduation could exact in magnitude,
when seasons changed and jumbled haphazardly
and time went tic tac tic tac sluggardly.

thence i took the fall of a slipshod man
but there always as a comofort in the discomfiture,
a far-fetched, idiotic hope though i could barely stand:
there were adjustments that could be made to the picture.
yes! when you stood beside me breathing life words
and life came to me like stampeding buffalo herds.

warm me up please warm me up. 'tis cold
wrap me in your bosom, my address, 'tis where i live.
it is wrong to belive only men need be bold:
the cruel circumstnces are gemder-blind, no reprieve.
you have known that early and now you are an oak.
so i will not be bashful, wrapped around your loving cloak


For Kimberly Amanda Hannah Adams