Life - Death - Life
Substitution’s all-new class
Of love. The serpent made of brass
The symbol of the very sin
Pronouncing death on those its in
So look upon it bitten man
The brazen pole on which it stands
The last thing that you’d want to see
An emblem of this killing spree
Look on it with your fading breath
That knife that stabs the heart of death
The wearer of the sins of men
Took on our snake-bit blood. Amen.
Fresh Air interview. 1989.
New Song - “The War of Art”
Our harps and lutes were made
With aimed and hell-bent bow
For music to invade
And steal the show
While love is a song we don’t know
So since the dawn of time
We shout and beat the drum
And that syncopated rhyme
Will just leave you numb
If love is a song we don’t know
Rocks and dirt will cry
And angels never cease
Let’s sing along and try
To get some peace
O Love, touch that coal to my lips
O Love, make me whole
Sing me that song where
People come alive again
Dancing off the stain of sin
Bend notes around me
So when I shout, I shout for You
This: the life.
Under pressure, greatly pressed,
Then all bold and greatly blessed
Skinny knees and whiplash neck
This: the race and this: the wreck
Born to die and blind to see
All you did to make me free
Graceful heart with ruler’s heel
This: the faith and fear I feel
In this pleasure, in this pain
In the right while in the rain
Teary eyed and toothless grin
This: the life I’ve lost to win
Easter Poem
There’s fire in my heart tonight
My veins are glowing bright
This passion is the good disease
I’m strengthened on my knees
All justice has been redefined
It is no longer blind
The justice pays for all the wrong
And puts the right to song
I’ve no redeeming gift to bring
The cross was mine, but held a King
The debt that my own filth enticed
Was paid by Jesus Christ
Amen.
The Flesh Root Grows
The flesh root grows beneath the ground
It never will produce good fruit
It steals the life from all around
It will not die, it won’t uproot
The flesh root slithers like a snake
It’s leachy tentacles spread wide
Like fire burns, it lives to take
The plants, from green to dust they died
The plants that did triumph this plague
Were planted by the stream and thrived
Here, flesh root’s strength is very vague
The only place where fruit survived
Poem To My Valentine,
Valentine, your blossoms bud
Crimson crown of thorns and blood
Love song of the dying Lamb
All the love I’m not, I AM.
Valentine, to me, your scars
Look like broken prison bars
Valentine, your spear-pierced side
Pierced my pride. I’ll be your bride.
In Times of Discord…
I’ll muff my ears and freeze my tears
Halt this heart and stop its gears
Winter time to heal the hater
Freeze it now to melt it later
Those moments when I’d lose a friend,
Chill, then warm them up again
Let the trueness stay alive
Hibernate, let truth survive
Spring dawns on my dying lawn
Remnants of the hate long gone
Joy and peace can thrive alone
They can call my heart their home
Words are not enough for real poetry:
If I could with words do justice to this landscape
To the sight of light-kissed hills
To the smell of today ending
To the tune in which the clouds sing ‘GLORY’
If I could do it justice in a certain combination of words, I would
But those kinds of words don’t exist
You’d just have to be here
So be here
And see for yourself
Letter to my young self
Now listen here kid,
You’ll be old one day
So learn what you can,
Don’t do stuff I did
And you’ll be ok
That string with a hook
Can’t catch a good keeper
So set it aside
And follow the brook
And keep going deeper
Your meal is the hunt
I’m sorry to say,
Your ribs that stick out
(I hate to be blunt)
Aren’t going away
That’s not all bad tidings
For food makes you fatter
And hunger can gain
More ground in your stridings
Than plump pitter patter
And kid, pray for me
I woke up one day
With hair on my face
On future’s vast sea
And youth on the bay
