two poems to get me writing again...

i.

in the valley i found no water
except the lake of my own
unlived moments
will these dry bones
live?

ii.

she's no good for him;

he says, like lyrics with no music

she plays a song with her eyes

by sight

but never by heart

the pen

this pen is a bittersweet
thing
it loves like it writes
baking excuses
semi sweet
squares

The Beauty of Beauty

for my many sisters who have experienced abuse
and for me

This one came to me in a dream.....


Song:

You’re standing here
And you’re in so much pain
Wondering if He’s near
You’re calling out His name
The ones who were 'sposed to protect you
Used and rejected you
They didn’t believe the truth was true
But I know God was keeping you

Chorus:
Because it's alright
Don't be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s alright
Don't be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist/choir

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

verse ii.
And now you’re on your knees
Wondering what to do
Your hands are outstretched to Him
Praying that He’ll hear you
The ones who were 'sposed to protect you
Used and rejected you
They didn’t believe the truth was true
But I know God was keeping you

Because Its al--right
Don't be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s al--right
Don't be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist/choir

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

poem

Come gently lost passenger,
Because this is your stop
You wandered around the baggage area
Looking for a departure but struggling to find your way
With a one way ticket in hand to a epic struggle that
You didn’t ask for, and didn’t own

But there is a flight that will take you home

Time to take your name back,
Reclaim the freedom in the spring of your fall
If its peace you seek then don’t retreat
fall before his mercy seat
Kiss the soles of his holy feet

A deliverer of beauty lost
A heavy cost
Of innocence stolen
From her mother land
So many nights you were a nomad in your own soul
Know the savior heals and holds
He alone provides the aching spirit with
The comfort it seeks

Be released.

The beauty of beauty
Is that no matter what they did
You can live without shame
Standing on the savior’s name

This is your stop, lost passenger
There is a land where the wars inside your mind
Are subjected to treaties
And the battlefields of your body cease to rage
And in the desolate desert soul, He brings a spring of peace
Talitha cumi!
Come child, it’s alright
Come child, it’s alright
Hush child, it’s alright

The only way through darkness, is light.

chorus

Because Its al--right
Not to be ashamed
Beauty ain’t ashamed to know her name
Know you’re not to blame
Because it’s al--right
Not tuh be ashamed
He will take away/all your pain
Know you’re not to blame

soloist

It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright
It’s alright

first line of the chorus
AC FFE ADCAB EFEFE FDCC DDD EF

the power of shoes......

(part of a four part play)


(Narrator)

They were red. Candy apple red. Fire red.Cussing and fighting face beat red. Blood red. Red Sea red. Savior died and bled read. Red eyed red, red boned red. The kind of red that makes you think of a sunset you never saw, and ruby you never owned.

(picks up the shoes and admires them.)

They matched. In the window of the store there was a model, and she was wearing her red dress and her red shoes. She looked powerful, like nothing could hold her. I wanted to be like that.

Powerful. Unheld. Ready.

Ready for what? Sometimes I think that it is better not to tell your story to people, because you end up missing them. You end up floating around with little pieces of you that travel the world with your story in hand after you have given up the secret of who you are. Scrambling like a little bird trying to make a nest you flit around trying to find all the pieces of yourself you gave away to people who were careless with it.

And then sometimes I believe that we are not meant to hold onto our story, because it really isn't ours to begin with in the first place. It is His. My bondage, my hope. My fear, at its full height. My faith at its full depth.

Tangled twins, one skin, like Jacob and Esau. Who can win?

(throws the shoes on the table.)

I bought the shoes even though I could not afford them. You know how that is, when they beckon. I wasn't even thinking about the cost, I only saw the beauty of those red stems caressing my feet, petal soft.

Why?

Why do people ask why? If someone has a limp, people ask them why they are limping? If someone asks for change, people ask them why are you out here hungry and begging? If someone asks for hope, people ask why do you need it? And if they actually feel generous enough to actually give it to you, well, then, you owe them for their borrowed hope, because after all hope isn't free, now is it?

Uhuhh. Everything has a price. Even you.

I've come to the conclusion that people really don't want to know the answer to why. That's they they sit around angry at God, mad and waiting.

Why do children die in pointless wars, falling into the great gap-- landmines of generational sins? Why do fathers leave their children, countries neglect their poor?: Why did it take so long to recognize me as more than 3/5ths of a human being? Why did he rape me? Why were we poor? Why did you take the pearls that grandma strung for me and hide them? ? Why do we care more about being right than believing right? Why is Africa bleeding? Why was I homeless? Lord why can't I walk? Why is it that I can ask you for your body easier than I can ask you for yourself? Why are most people unhappy except for the people who have the least to be happy about? Why? Why didn't you save me? Why didn't they protect me? Why wasn't I loved? Why me Lord, Why me?

There comes a point when you have to say to yourself, Why not you? Who are you to live in the glass bubble of snowy spinning world and not get wet? Who are you to never know fear, or peril, or nakedness or the sword? Who are you not to be somebody's mentor, somebody's mama, somebody's reason to keep hoping when the world is charging at a premium? Who are you not to walk the walk that your grandmother, your great grandmother, and your great great grandmother all walked so that you could walk? Who are you that you are just so good in your life that you would never feel pain so that someone else may be able to look at you in all your brilliance and beauty and say if she can smile, so can I? Who are you to take away God's crowning glory, a woman after his own heart who survived to defiantly live? Who are you not to know the love of God, the peace of God that passes all understanding. Who are you this creature created in the image of the Almighty god not to be powerful, and unheld and ready for whatever comes your way?!

Who are you?

Sometimes I think to myself, If only you walked a mile in these bad boys, you would know. But you know what? If you could walk my road then you couldn't walk yours. For so long I walked. I walked over, under around and through all the things that tired to keep me mired in my own muck. But today is different. You see God gave me this word: In me, You have the power to walk away. Walk away from all the things that tried to break you. You can walk away because even when you could not afford you, somebody paid the bill. And when you walk away in He that holds your soul, you're different.

Because you don't just walk away, and through, you're walking to, because now you know the truth of who you are! The cost of why you breathe. You are worthy.


Everyone has a color. Everything has a price. Even you.

(she picks up the shoes, exits the stage...)

For me, it was red.

fire. works.

slick sweet
bubble yum kisses
cooled by sweet lemonade
concessions
with a twist of awe

calico cat
shoes clicking down streets that know them well
full with fuchsia mea culpas
we hardly mention anymore

the endless spinning
of abandoned records
the wide hipped full lung
speech of July
hot, humid, and heavy with
words we shouldn't say
but always do
during this season
when breath become brilliant sparkling
displays of will

i will remember those julys
when the love sizzled
when it
it was poppin' and crackin'

now it is cracking and popping
as I give to
the weight of the same old argument
we keep having
with new furies
until the arthritis
sets in

christdreams....

a canopy of stars
an awning of
brightly fallen
hope strung snowflakes
over a mississippi lightning moment
bright and gleaming;

battered but smoothly poured hope into dark chunky soil
giving rise to billowy blooms
the brazen rose of sharon red
sunset set to the key of rustic

the magic hour when all seems lost
and that is the beauty of it.

unwelcomed.

yesterday the wind blew
and in that moment I knew

I am unwelcome in my own dream.

my laughter spills onto a page
for which there is no room
my blinded eyes see stars
or is it shadows?

I am unwelcome in my own dream

they look and stare, look and stare
how dare
she?
who she be?

Offered nothing to eat nor drink,
just as simple meal of mixed motives.

I see what I have never known, dream of what I
cannot own
try to grab for that elusive
silver chord
only to find I have to reach
to hold on to my own soul.

I am unwelcome in my own dream

the rainbow formed by the mist of my own wishes
has split
six ways to Sunday
leaving me with my threaded needle of gold
and ash instead of a pot.

I am unwelcome in my own dream.

I've cried tear oceans
scaled molehill mountains
dug virtue valleys
with visions of sugarplums dancing in my songs
simply wanting; but complexly willing to take
a cold floor in heaven
over a warm bed in hell

Is it that the fight in my face has fallen?
Is it that the only way to be loved
is to be
the last one
left?


the awning of the line
it is
knowing vs. believing
smiling vs. laughter

doggedly beating on the door
begging to be let in
on the loneliest night of my life

I am unwelcome in my own dream
after I poured my soul into rock
and pulled my peace into the wood
Even the splinters I caressed lovingly

I am unwelcome in the dream I molded
carved, built, restored
but somehow do not fit.
because builders seldom inhabit
their houses

and then a still small voice says
but what is the dream
without the dreamer?
what is sleeping without dreams?

The Sole of the Matter

Tied to the left
Ans strappy
Two toned
And slim boned
Makes the brothers long for home
Makes them shout for joy
these tiny delicacies
massage the earth in circled
“c’s”
Step front step back
Side to side
They whisper warrior
In the click clack
Of the swayed back
Go , sister, go
See sister run
See sister command
Look out, here they come
Wayward ribbons
A perfect witness
Ask the question
Who are you?
And the story better be good.
Cauze I got no time for
Malevolent melodrama
Don’t you see my back zipper
Packing in my power tight?
Don’t you see
The patent on my leather induced adrenaline flight?
Don’t you see the way I hit the arch at its height
Letting em know whatever I come with
I’m promoting
a doggone tough fight?

I’ve walked over run away lovers
And hate filled horrors
And dissipated dreams
And broken hearted blame
To crush the heal
Of my own pain

I can be long stemmed
Or thin rimmed
Wedged or silhouetted
Archetype erudite
But when my hops sashay
Mama don’t play

I step out in my
baby blues
mile high magenta margaritas
black and bullish
Aquamarine artsy

I wrap myself around your weary (soled) dream
To adorn almond delight toes
With hues of mango
I am the dancer you can never catch
But always follow
As I give you too tough blues


Cauze no matter where her feet carry her
Everywoman has a pair
Of fighting shoes.

Who Am I, Lord?

You're my messenger
You're my leader.
You are the person I send into the battle when the road is tough, and the resources are few.
You're my healer. My water bearer.
My fire starter.
You kindle in others what I have kindled in you.
You are my nurturer.
You are the one that I have set aside for the special day of atonement.
You are my deliverer.
I send you into the dark caverns to be my light.
You are my scribe.

My lover of justice.
My creative spirit.
My voiceless voice.
My pure and adultrated mercy.

You are my child.

I created you to be my passion.
I formed you to be my kindness.
I made you in my image.
I marveled at your beauty, a reflecting pool of my own self.

I own your soul alone.
I bring you peace alone.
I share your world alone.

I made you to be perfected in my image.

You are my child.

My precious child.
You were born to give the world my joy.

If you ever should doubt who you are,
you need only look to me.

For who is like Elohim?

You were made to love me.
I exist to love you.

This is the sole purpose for your being.

Monday’s Oranges

Monday’s oranges were not so good
Sunday there were lively lemons
That danced with like beads of water
On a hot pan
Saturday the mangoes rocked
Back and forth on on the roof of m mouth
Playing a mélange melody
But Monday’s oranges were not so good.
Friday there were cherries so tight and black
That I could clearly see myself.
Thursday there were sepia pears
That tickled the tongue, each bite
A delicious question, each question
A delicious bite.
But Monday’s oranges pallid and round, were not so good.
Wednesday there was a yellow slick of
A banana, a smooth mat to my waterslide hopes
Careening into the marsh of Tuesday’s peach dreams
But Monday’s oranges were not so good.
The dingy blue calico of the creeping suspicion
Smothered my breath
Monday’s oranges were bruised and scarred
And full of dents
And holes where a worm or two had found a home
Yes, these were bad oranges indeed.

Caught in the mire of Monday
I forgot the splendor of Tuesday, the wonder of Wednesday
The Tenacity of Thursday, The Freedom of Friday, The Scent of Saturday and the Salvation of Sunday
I only saw Monday.

Then suddenly I looked for my basket
Filled with the fruit that I longed for
And found that in my
Momentary
Search for Monday’s oranges
I had forgotten
The bounty
Of the week