Flying to Miami
We’re sitting in vibrating chairs
Each surrounded by blank stares
Of people with sudoku puzzles and books
Occasionally taking second looks
At the landscape outside
Of our airplane ride.
I’m looking past someone repeating
The motion of peanut eating
To jagged cotton mountains
Or the base of foaming fountains
Frozen in time that goes on forever
In a white sunlit endeavor
To make me mention
That God grabbed my attention.
I have dry skin
Our microfiber tablecloth is like the devil to me.
I’m the sinner to who absolutely has to see
Why my mind’s set to a frequency
That desperately screams out to me,
Screeching “Don’t touch that!”
But never the less in no time flat
I’m gripping the deadly sheet,
My fingers are forced to meet
The elegant cloth turned into rags
Caught in dry-fingered snags
That act like chalkboard fingernails.
The fabric cringes me and prevails.
Joseph and the Manger
Secure and pure.
Jesus slept tightly curled
In the arms of his mother
While Joseph rigged a stranger
Crib than any other
For the savior of the world.
Vacancy Signs
A couple thousand years a go
There was a pregnant woman, nine months along.
She carried the savior of the world and so
Joseph thought it would be wrong
To stay in a barn all night.
He tried every Inn in sight
In hopes that he might
Find something a little more “right”
Than out in the barn hitting the hay.
Where the animals lay.
But truth is it was fitting the way
Jesus entered the world that night
‘Cause what a horrible sight
It would be if I had to see
Little inn scenes every year
With glowing neon lines
Of vacancy signs.
…But I suppose we should wear those
As we’re staring, preparing the manger scenes
Lining up kings and things.
We should have big old letters across our hearts
Reading “Vacancy” to say that He
Can come in now.
To say, I’ve cleared you a place
My heart now has a space
That you can take and make your own.
Pardon the mess. I’ve been living alone.
Post Office Line
One week ‘till Christmas and I might miss this
Conversation with The Divine
Since I’m standing in line
Busily waiting in a blank stare not talking.
Standing in line not walking,
Simply suspended
Where footprints ended.
But I should start those conversations with God
Start making it feel less odd
By leaving two footprints in the sand
And saying a prayer while I stand
Waiting for a gift to be mailed,
A gift that wasn’t nailed.
God’s Choice
Jesus was hanging out upside down and wet
Long before the blood and sweat
Went splintering through eternity
In hopes that we would learn to see
The value of a person through this choice,
To start the savior’s life without a voice.
Advent: Waiting for a Baby’s Crying
Tree lights twinkle, sprinkle joy inside my eyes,
Awaiting Christmas, when their lights will be out shown.
The joy illuminated by what we’ve anticipated
In the Son who comes to love us as His own.
This specialized event of grace, renewing every year,
That allows us to displace the race for packages and hear
A baby’s cry that saves the world so we can celebrate
The birth of One who’s in the womb this advent while we wait.
Forever Sunday
Do you think God invented Monday?
The mental connotations of this one day
Are far from that of any given Sunday.
I propose that God invented Monday
Despite that fact it happens to be one day,
That is for me, a never-see-the-sun day.
I’ll work inside a dark room all of Monday
Feeling like the weekend’s short by one day
Wishing to myself that it was Sunday.
Regardless whether God invented Monday
I’ll keep working for the Lord until that one day
That I might live in His Forever Sunday.
We Don’t Grill Babies
After stuffed animals and baby dolls were shown,
As exhibitions of my son’s playing.
It’s likely my voice contained a confused tone
At the wonder of what I was saying.
My son was grilling dinner on the ottoman, it
Took me a moment but I thought a minute
And after rationalizing “yeses”, “Nos” and “Maybes”,
I came up with, “we don’t grill babies.
You can grill animals ‘till your heart’s content
But a baby who does not consent
Cannot be cast on the flames of a grill.
To be disposed of at your will.
In fact, a baby who does consent cannot be killed
Simply because the two of you willed
It to be so. Human life contains value.
So grill a tasty animal pal you’d
Like to eat instead
Of pretending the babies are dead.”
My wife gave me a smirkey smile from the other chair,
Loving me and the words I chose to share
With our three year-old who was grilling
Babies that no one should be killing.
sidetracked
The park was our destination
But my son’s procrastination
Was fueled by acorn shell designs
And spelling STOP signs.
Things that were understood
To be not as good
As the slide
he would ride.
I guess I should slow down and learn
The path his walking weaves.
It’s time for me to take a turn
Enjoying crunchy leaves.
What’s the point of time to spare
If I hurry towards the end,
Not realizing my son’s not there
‘cause he had time to spend.
BonjourPoetry 