All Thumbs Thinker » poetry

A Gift From Death

Aaron — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 03:07:31 +0000

Death’s darkness calls,
Though his sting removed,
Casting his shadow tall
Over all that may by lost or loved.
His appeal rings with clarion clarity
To doubt what we trust as certainties

For the redeemed he is a servant
Saying to those with ears to hear,
God makes no promise of eighty years.
This message through many means he merchants
That we would from self break free
And fiercely love in word and deed.

A Swarm of Dragonflies

Aaron — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 02:12:57 +0000

Green helmets pop up to peer out
Over the blue battlefield as
The pilots steer, weaving a pattern
Of dodges, rolls and dives, determined
To evade the anticipated shot.
So effective they are, these silent fighter pilots,
At evasion, it does not even matter
That they have no bullets.

Redemption

Aaron — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:01:40 +0000

I once lived with the dead; alive, but dead to all that lived.

My own family rejected me, but I don’t blame them.

You see, the scars on my wrists and ankles are proof

That I was a threat to others. No, no one else is to blame for these.

I did this to myself. I lived in caves used for tombs

And I used rocks – jagged or smooth, it did not matter – to hammer

My limbs.

I used to shriek day and night, restless, roaming the hills, cursing

Heaven, or hell, or myself.

My family, hopeless but terrified, tried to bind me, constrain me,

But no man or men could hold me. They used rope, but I ripped it.

They tried chains, but I tore them apart. They tried shackles, but I shattered them.

Unable to restrain myself, nothing could contain me.

That’s when they drove me to the tombs.

I cursed my family for abandoning me.

I cursed God for making me.

I cursed myself for being me.

No chains could bind me but I was bound. So I gashed my ankles and wrists,

Desiring release. Darkness overtook me. That night lasted forever,

Or so it seemed, until

I met him.

The moment I saw him I ran to him, unwilling but compelled,

And I dropped to my knees.

I heard myself shouting but it wasn’t my voice. The voice

Called him “Jesus, Son of the Most High,”

And wailed, begging to be left alone. I heard him, Jesus, say,

“Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” The voice cried for permission

To enter a herd of pigs nearby. With a voice that shook me

Like the trumpets that toppled Jericho

Jesus said,

“Go!”

A force pushed me backward. I fell down.

My head hit the hard ground beneath me. I raised my head, my eyes cleared,

And I saw the pigs. Hundreds and hundreds of squealing,

Wriggling pigs. They ran toward the sea like an avalanche,

Trampling over each other, wading into the water. They drowned.

I turned my eyes from the sea to the man standing over me.

He was smiling.

He asked some men who were with him (I hadn’t seen them till now)

To get me some clothes. I didn’t know I was naked.

They started piling into their boat, and I implored him to let me

Stay with him. Instead he said,

“Go to your home, and to your people and tell them what the Lord

Has done for you, that He had mercy on you.”

He left.

I feel the weight of that day every morning,

Every time the sun rises to warm my face.

Implied in the word “Go!” was the invitation “Come!”

I wanted to be by his side forever. I knew in an instant that that

Smiling face,

That face of mercy and authority, of kindness and raw power,

Of grace and knowledge was

My only hope.

Only he could rid me of my demons. Only he could rescue me from myself.

You see, though I was truly helpless against the demons,

I was not always so. The spirits did not seek me;

I invited them in.

I wanted power. I craved authority.

I yearned for influence. And I believed it was the darker,

Hidden and unspoken powers that would deliver.

Instead of gaining power over others I became powerless,

Able only to destroy myself, my family, my people.

So when Jesus expelled the demons he did not say he rescued me,

as if a storm threw me from a boat, as someone who was helpless.

He showed me mercy.

In uttering that one word I felt the weight of all my greed,

All my compulsion, my dark search

For dark power.

My rebellion.

Mercy.

I relish the taste of the word

On my lips.

Thursday Clerihew

Brian — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:35:02 +0000

Clerihews in the news!

Kim Jong Il
Fired a missile
Disguised as a satellite;
The U.N. sees it as unpolite

Thursday Clerihew

Brian — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:42:39 +0000

Do you clerihew?

Judge Sotomayor
Has got some sore
For saying she’s keener
By being Latina

I know it’s probably not the impression she meant to give, but the quote is just too funny to pass up:

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life…” [LA Times]

First Frost

Brian — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 21:20:00 +0000

This morning the frost that’s gathered overnight
Rests on every surface like salt;
On the car’s windows and hood,
On every curled brown leaf,
Across the driveway and the porch,
In the air; it’s white with cold.
In my breath, in and out.

It’s different every time I see it.
And how strange the world looks
Through millions of crystals
Distorting, glazing, crunching,
Or clarifying.

It is new while it lasts
And will be tomorrow if the weather is right.
It’s new each time I see it;
For as many times as it’s come
I wonder if it will ever grow old.

But today will be warm enough that
This first frost will burn off;
The steam is already rising slowly
From beds of stiff, heavy leaves,
And the sun won’t let this new place stay for long.

Already his bright shafts pierce patches on
The ground, where they mingle, cold and indifferent
With sparks just as bright.
Each cold dancing light is crying out
With joyful first breath and melts away
To the gutter, or the earth.

Come again, Come again,
Exultant lights,
Before sister snow
Covers your faces.

An Expectation of Morning

Brian — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 21:35:05 +0000

Undercurrents of a sweet, sure morning
Flowing behind a night stretched tight across
The drumhead of the sky, when punched through by
Mindful words would they run, and fill my cup?

To St. Michael in Time of Peace

Brian — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:16:00 +0000

Today I’ve been browsing through some of G.K. Chesterton’s poems, which, like much of his writing, are fantastic. If you haven’t read The Battle of Lepanto, you must, you must, you must. The poem that I want to look at right now is titled (as is this post) To St. Michael in Time of Peace. It’s basically a one-sided conversation from the poet to Michael the Archangel, and describes various things related to him, i.e. the fight with Lucifer:

When the world cracked because of a sneer in heaven,
Leaving out for all time a scar upon the sky,
Thou didst rise up against the Horror in the highest,
Dragging down the highest that looked down on the Most High:

The part I really want to take a closer look at is this stanza on the incarnation. The wording, imagery and theological truth are profound. Here, take a read (remember: Michael is the “thou”):

When from the deeps of dying God astounded
Angels and devils who do all but die
Seeing Him fallen where thou couldst not follow,
Seeing Him mounted where thou couldst not fly,
Hand on the hilt, thou hast halted all thy legions
Waiting the Tetelestai and the acclaim,
Swords that salute Him dead and everlasting
God beyond God and greater than His Name.

OK. I recall when I was much younger I went to see a play put on at a local church. I believe it was my aunt’s church but that’s rather inconsequential. It was basically a nativity story but had a neat twist where the angels are all debating about how God is to come to Earth. Will he be a great magician? A mighty warrior? A fearless leader? A brilliant philosopher? No, he will be a babe. And of course the angels are astounded.

This stanza of Chesteron’s similarly echoes the wonder of of the inarnation. Not that He came as a little child, but that He came, and was able to come, at all. Angels and demons who are forever immortal gape with wonder at the everlastingly immortal God dying, and the whole world hushed for possibly the most beautiful word in the Greek language, or any language for that matter: tetelestai, it is finished.

Our Lady Autumn

Brian — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 16:38:00 +0000

I thought this little poem was appropriate given that fall officially started on Saturday. This is definitely my favorite season, but I’m not sure why. Perhaps because the change is so swift and dramatic. The leaves turn and then fall off and the days grow cold and boom! It’s fall! Spring comes on in strides: the winds, and the rain, and the slowly greening plant life. Maybe there’s just something enrapturing about the sudden onset of a rainy, cold, death-ridden season, which should be dismal, but is not.

One day soon, maybe not this week,
Or the next, Our Lady Autumn will rise
From her long, deep slumber
With the remnants of a previous year’s
Merry-making caking her tawny eyes.

A long sigh will escape her lips
Out of the west and into our very woods,
And nestling there in the tree creaks
And cicada’s dying drones,
Will slowly sink towards earth.

Her shaggy robes, remended,
Will snap and beat the lingering warmth
Under the loamy rugs,
To join their own unrestful hibernation
Till Spring cleaning.

Autumn will then burst upwards,
Dousing in cold stillness the lifeblood
That beats faintly out of Summer’s weak heart.
And his fantastic death shrouds will blaze upon the pyre,
Then pale and tatter with a last wheeze.

In a sibilant rush, the Lady will dance
Here and there, making sure all is prepared
For her inaugural feast:
The lights strung up between branches, out of reach,
And the carpeting laid down layer on crunching layer.

Pumpkins and gourds arranged in
Colors that match the decorations,
Cider weeping out through smashed skins.
The brown brew dyes the harvest-producing death;
A funerial tribute to plenty.

At last we will make a solstice toast,
Raising glasses by firelight
To the last fading greenery.
And the mortal crowning of
Our Lady Autumn.

It appears that writing verse in the future tense is strange; too many uses of the world “will.” Anyone have suggestions to get around that?

There is a Fire on a Hill

Brian — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 20:16:00 +0000

This is my first attempt at a villanelle. It was fairly hard, especially getting the refrains to make sense in more than one position or form. It’s not very good, in my opinion, though practice may bring me to make a finer version.

There is a fire on a hill,
Set long ago by men of old,
Burning away a bygone chill.

Twas kindled by their ancient skill
In deep forests above the wold;
There is a fire on a hill.

By its light they made mental drill
To fill their minds all they could hold,
Burning away a bygone chill.

The flame is beacon to us still,
And we proclaim with voices bold:
There is a fire on a hill.

Now we hold their high vigil,
Sounding thoughts that they had told,
Burning away a bygone chill.

Rememb’ring this our children will
Shelter their souls against the cold:
There is a fire on a hill,
Burning away a bygone chill.

There you have it. Quite an interesting style of verse if you want to challenge yourself.