Diction

Diction
is not just
a chapter in a freshman "comp." book,
is life, power,gender, community,
beyond/within the poet's provenance
words are alive, oxygenated dance
within the bloody brain
make all more plain
like/as (take your choice grammarian
on the plain Sumerian)
the thoughtless immortality
of the child cocooned within each adult
words whiz
do their own "biz"
come and go and trample meaning
when one is attempting gleaning
how elusive words can be--
even for one such as (sic) me.

Writer's Block

Writer's Block

No words now
Which form poem, or prose.
This drought every writer knows.
So I'll wait it out
And the words will come
Some
Later
Time
As prose or rhyme.
(originally written 21 August 1999)

A Question of Form

A Question of Form
What will lend
Itself to a poem
And in
What form will it come?
How shall it reveal
Itself for what
It is?
We are imaged
After our Creator.
Or were.
What of that which we create?
Does not death beget death
And
Chaos create chaos?
Man.
Originally in the image of God.
Seeking to be like god when
He was already in
The image of God,
Not trusting,
Fell,
Falls.
Now whose image do we see?
Adam.
Fallen
Neither trusting nor trusted,
Malformed, imbalanced, hurt.
Incomplete.
Alone.
Now God takes
The image of man,
Before, when man
Was whole.
The Alpha and the Omega
Incarnate
Incognito.
Adam II
Immanuel:  God with us.
Who being in the form of God,
Took on Himself
The form of a servant
That we might again
Be created in the image of God.
I can't handle it.
There are no words.
The Spirit
The Lord
The Father
Amen!  hallelujah

Dictum

Dictum
Create
a poem
Delineate
each vein and flow
as well you know
Trace
the soul
in ink, in a line so fine
it has no shadow
Intrude in cautious silence
Do night
Do not write
on the wall
but
on the sky

Getting It Write

Getting It Write
Wheat and chaff take
Equal
Amounts of time and effort, of
Elbow grease.
Editing is a process of taking wheat and chaff and
Time and
Effort and
Elbow grease, shaking and shifting, shaking and sifting, until
Something gives
Something falls
Something is satisfactory albeit not
Perfect and more muscle and crumpled page and full wastebasket
Testify satisfactorily to wheat
And chaff having settled each
Into its rightful place ...
For now.

Triplet

Triplet

1.
Poetry flows out
through wounds of time and of times
clots in timely words.
2.
Poetry came forth
Because of wounds because of
Words, words resulted
Some catapulted,
Thrust through to through, flew aspurt
Red they blew to read.
3.
Writing
Can strike anywhere
Like Franklin,
And when it does,
It leaves a track
You can follow back
And back or ahead
With words inside
Your head or pen's point
Words intoxicate and anoint
Enlighten, enflame, reveal true name
Purge false.

After Christmas

So, you have opened gifts, gone to church, sung carols, eaten food you don't usually eat (or eat so much of) and today you are cleaning up.
What does Jesus mean to you today?
Is he just the baby in your manger scene--the one you may have packed away already?  Or do you recognize Him as the wise men did--born a child and yet the King?
Worshipping Him is natural and daily to the repentant, stiff and unnatural to those who see Him as a child and not their King.
What kind of worshipper are you?