Neglect Not the Gift That Is in Thee, Which Was Given Thee by Prophecy, with the Laying on of the Hands

How good
(how pleasant!)
is the Lord's anointing
that makes combustible His prophets
either at Pentecost or at the stake.

But my beard runs down
with only ordination's oil,
and my neck is collared
after only Aaron's robe.
What know I of persecution?

Lord, if I must be torn apart,
may it be as heaven split
for flaming tongues--
the kindling of Your Spirit.

That God Was in Christ, Reconciling the World unto Himself

No one knows the hour
when the trump resounds:
the voice of jackhammers
crying out in the wilderness.

Prepare ye the way of the Lord!
for God will excavate the earth
(leveling plain of hill and vale)
as though by crane will lower heav'n
upon the one foundation laid.

Lo, God’s Kingdom is a brownfield project--
the old lot off highway east-of-Eden
made the future site of New Jerusalem.

Evensong

Behold the bun in Mary's oven:
grain offering of the Kingdom coming.
Christ was in a manger borne
to take and eat on Christmas morn.

O Bethlehem, thou house of bread,
house thou the Bread-of-Heav'n instead--
truly God and truly manna.
Bread-of-Life! descend! hosanna!

Thou Hast Not Withheld Thy Son

Father, Abraham had many sons--
but not even Isaac, promised child
(bearing wood up Moriah's mount)
could play the lamb Himself provided.

Father, Abraham has many sons--
for even Jesus, promised child
(bearing wood up Calvary's hill)
did play the Lamb, Himself provided.

Though I Speak with Tongues of Men and of Angels, and Have Not Charity, I Am Become a Sounding Brass

God's voice commanded kosmos;
His speech patterned Pangaea;
He spoke man to be His spokesman--

yet how can man's words
(the world decaying into wold)
bear image to the everlasting Word?
For the serpent may have lied,
but Adam blamed:

shattering continents by inconstancy.

God Is Not the Author of Confusion, but of Peace

In Christ no Jew nor rabble--
at Pentecost no Babble.

Pomme de Terre

The scoffer calls the apple green--
the earth unripe, too hard, too tart--
and claims that it must ever be
until, like Granny Smith,
it grows too old, too rotten,
and is cast into the compost heap.

For never have the wicked tasted,
seen, how gold-delicious is the Lord.
Never have they heard the gala
that will play when yet the gard'ner
comes at harvest-time into the orchard.

How red will show the apple then--
the earth now wrapped in golden fire.
Heav'n, like teeth, will sink
into the rind:
juice, like living water, streaming forth.

I Was Shapen in Iniquity; and in Sin Did My Mother Conceive Me

The serpent may have tempted Eve,
but 'twas Eve who tempted Adam--
and Cain still murdered Abel
although God attempted tempting otherwise.
How then say, the devil made me do it?

I was shaped of the earth
that drank of Abel's blood,
mouth open to receive
blood shed of second-Abel:
blood of Christ, cup of salvation.

Be It unto Me According to Thy Word

In Jesus' words of moving mountains
we mistake the Lord
for Zion, Sinai or some local peak--
as if we could the Unmoved Mover move.

For as the heav'ns are higher than the earth
God's ways crest higher than our own.

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord?
put behind them worldly ways
and like hind-footed Habakkuk
be made to walk upon high places?
(Zion, Sinai or some local peak)

Whither Shall I Flee from Thy Presence?

O God whose presence fills the temple,
tabernacle, tent of meeting--
how could Jonah hope to hide?
In what boat do You not have abode?
What hull is not Your hall?

We who are God's temple,
tabernacle, tent of meeting--
how also can we hope to hide?
In what chamber has He not His chambers?
What heart is not His hearth?

What depth of soul
(death in Sheol)
can escape
whale-present providence?

Nothing Is Secret, That Shall Not Be Made Manifest; Neither Any Thing Hid

O Lord, we see the dusk at dawn:
the mist curled up to cast a veil
between the eyes of God and man.
Like little children we exclaim
You can't see me! as we press
both fog and fingers 'gainst our eyes.

My God, it's only when
the dew has risen
that we see the manna--
only when Your Christ ascends
that we crave the Bread-of-Life.

O Lord my God!

creation groans--

like hunger pangs the morning after
having gorged ourselves on gluttony.

I Come unto Thee in a Thick Cloud, That the People May Hear When I Speak with Thee

Some, like Adam, walk the garden;
some, like Abraham, invoke pardon;
some, like Jacob, take a beating;
some, like Joseph, keep on dreaming;
some, like Moses, look on fire;
some, like Balaam, speak for hire;
some, like Gideon, expect signs;
some, like Samuel, watch by night;
some, like Elijah, strain through the squall;
some, like Josiah; weep at Law;
some, like Ezekiel, see strange visions;
some, like Jonah, pray in fishes;
     some, like Korah, get pulled under--
     some hear only sounding thunder.

Ye Shall Drink Indeed of My Cup; or, He Hath Made Him to Be Sin for Us

O Gracious God, You would not slay
rebellious son:
stubborn Ephraim,
sour grape
who set his children's teeth on edge
of altar raised to foreign gods.

O Gracious God, You would not slay--
but sacrificed--
obedient Son
that sons might call You Father--
the cup of wrath fermented to
salvific wine.

He Taught Them as One Having Authority, and Not as the Scribes

Prophet-God, they called you rabbi--
but who would not at open house
cry, Resignation! if the teacher claimed divinity?

Behold,
there is no sitting on the barbed-wire fence
between the pens of sheep and goats.

I Am Cast out of Thy Sight; Yet I Will Look Again Toward Thy Holy Temple

In seeking specks in neighbors' eyes
I walked the plank in mine
off the ark into the flood--
surprised I could not walk on water.

O me of little faith!
O plank between my eyes!
O get behind me, Satan!
into that dogfish Monstro's maw
there to be baptized in the
whale-tomb belly
of the fish-provided.

Lord, that your grace
may vomit me
and make me clean.

Common Grace

My friend Sajid
fasted with more humility
daily during Ramadan
than I could ever muster
during any Thirty-Hour Famine.

What irony that I've seen more jihad
in the charismatic church of my youth
than in Sajid--
or even in the Islamic meeting place
one lot over from the Arby's where I worked.

What irony that those Muslims only ever claimed
customer-only parking every Friday,
but that the church claimed my humility--
and taught me contempt for pure devotion
(albeit to a foreign god)
and pride in my self-righteousness
as I cheapened my own.

What irony
(what Gospel!)
that at the end of day
(or thirty hours)
should Jesus strike upon
our famished souls--
Sajid's by the integrity of a virtuous pagan
and mine by the Simony of self-gratification--
He would follow home the Muslim for his dinner.

Love Your Enemies; or, Happy Shall He Be, That Taketh and Dasheth Thy Little Ones Against the Stones

A Superfortress is our God
dropping bombs on ancient foe--
No! not on prince of darkness grim,
but wrestling against flesh and blood.

For whomever has not struck your cheek,
turn them the other preemptively.
Of what value are the white and blue
without the red of fallen soldiers?

As Twain's lunatic has said,
we curse our foes
in blessing troops,
so in the manner Tiny Tim
God bless us, everyone!

The Fall of Man; The Fall of Men

Crimson flushes from the cheeks
as chloroplasts from fallen leaves:
dimming eyes, thinning hair--
autumn branches laying bare.

In death and autumn, Lord, I see
Advent beauty waiting Thee.

In spring the trees will bud again
as corpses donning flesh and skin.
New-clothed limbs stretch toward the sun:
the answered prayer--Thy Kingdom come!

For two falls usher man along
from Eden into Eschaton.

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God; or, Took upon Him the Form of a Servant

As the wind riddles through the leaves,
in autumn's glory, Lord, I see
a parable of paradox,
of life and death, of death and glory.

You rain on earth and reign in heav'n
like fallen leaves and foliage:
Immanent God! O God Transcendent!

Paint Yourself across the hills
as amber folded up in fire--
o'er forest and the trees--
that as we hear creation groaning
we find solace in your Spirit's breeze.

I Will Put My Law into Their Hearts, and in Their Minds I Will Write Them; or, You Can Lead a Girl to Dementia, but You Can't Make Her Drink

When the river Lethe runs dry
the streams of living water ever flow.

Down by that river I know
(in robe and crown head covering)
that I will see Bea Cooper on the shore.

She's met me many times before,
always saying how
she worked in this bank
and used to be head teller then.

Yet I know that when
Bea meets her Maker
(by and by, Lord, by and by)
she'll remember that
she's met Him once before since--

for blesséd assurance
(Jesus is thine!)
is Sunday mornings watching Bea
recite from rote the Apostles' Creed:
her faith written on her heart
far deeper than her teller days.

Our Old Man Is Crucified with Him, That the Body of Sin Might Be Destroyed; or, Truly God and Truly Man

Thou Golem loam Your body-brick was broken So bake me, in the oven that in imitation (like brick I may be also

Holy— and loaf— that we may break bread. Lord, of Your Holy fire of Your imagination and bread) broken.

Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of His Saints

My God! I watched and waited
for the Respiration of the dead--
eyes strained for her chest to rise:
just one more minute counting breaths
but I matched her zero holding mine.

My God! The Day shall come when
(like breathing chests)
the dead shall rise,
respire, waking from their apnea.

O How Love I Thy Law! It Is My Meditation All the Day

Law has been fulfilled.
How obey--not live under--
Law not abolished?

He Shall Baptize You with the Holy Ghost and with Fire

Wham! Bam! The I Am slammed
Jacob at the Jabbok's fork,
for baptism is a contact sport:
like Jonah swallowed by the sea
or Peter sunk in Galilee.

Tag the new man in; tag out the old--
heart circumcised by submission hold.
For we limp by faith and not by sight
and hobble off alive despite
our hobbling by baptismal might.

I Consider Thy Heavens; or, When Bad Things Happen to Good People

What is man? 
You have a mind full of him--
fulsome, foul, some filled with folly--
reminding You of their requests
and questioning when You have
a mind fueled by majestic ways.

You made him higher than the beasts
and lower than the angels, blessed,
yet for his angelic angling
he at best in beastly anger
besets You by his best behests.

What is man--
that You don't mind him
blaming all the spoils of his
apple-spoiled appetite for justice
on Your wantonness
or wanted-ness?

The Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen Thereof; or, All Will Went Well

My God! we held her here so long
by many misled loving hands--
her suff'ring body bound by chains
of raising pulse and blood pressure.

My God! we tried to promise
Your eternal life, deferring promised
dignity and pulling plugs.

My God! You know of promises
so hard to keep:
Your self-son sacrificed,
forsaken, for our sins.

My God! why break a promise breaking sin?
For broken bodies rise again.

My God! I break in face of death--
making rhymes instead on broken breath.

The Temple of the LORD, the Temple of the LORD, the Temple of the LORD, Are These

God All-Moldy, Soily-Father,
male and female You created
out of dirt and Holy-Spittle:
bone of bone and dust of dust--
God's image borne in ground so good.

The Lord God Formed Man of the Dust of the Ground; or, in the Image of God He Created Him

God All-Moldy, Soily-Father,
male and female You created
out of dirt and Holy-Spittle:
bone of bone and dust of dust--
God's image borne in ground so good.

Therefore I Say unto You, Take No Thought for Your Life

Seek ye first the heav'nly kingdom
     like Solomon before the ark
     and be clothed as a lilied park--
a grass-blade in heav'nly floral print.

Though thrown tomorrow into flame
     like grass into the fireplace,
     chaff-child, from ashes you'll be raised
a lily when Christ comes again.

The Winter Is Past, the Rain Is Over and Gone

You came bounding, Christ,
down Zion's mountain--
the Word of the beloved--
like a stag in Spring.

Although in Autumn
hunters tried to hang you
like a trophy on the wall,
make haste, o Lord, to come again:
a young stag leaping
on the hills of Allegheny mountain.

Who Can Find a Virtuous Woman? for Her Price Is Far Above Rubies

May I wed Wisdom as a wife--
our wedding welding two in one.
She processes in the way of life:
Her wending winds me to the Son.

How's This for an Ecstasy?

A woman--
wearing worship in her ears--
walks by faith
(and not by sight)
unknowing off the sidewalk
and in one measure moves
from omnibus
to omnipresent.

This Is My Beloved Son, in Whom I Am Well Pleased

Three upon the mountain stood:
Law-man wielding tablets stone,
Word-man wearing prophet's robe,
God-man wrapped in radiant glow.

Three men spoke in Heaven's cloud--
Heaven speaking to disciples loud:
repeating words at baptism said
when the Spirit lit upon Christ's head.

The Marriage of the Lamb Is Come, and His Wife Has Made Herself Ready

The Lord will raise two witnesses
like goose-flesh by His soft caresses;
then by rough touch, the Tribulation--
foreplay before Consummation.

All Scripture Is Given by Inspiration of God, and Is Profitable for Doctrine

Words condense like gath'ring clouds--
Holy Writ in nimbostratus ink--
sky-pillar God in clapping thunder loud
poured forth incarnated torrent.

Word became flesh flash-flooding earth
in waves of hydrologos truth:
you'll find Eden at the Savior's birth,
the same God wat'ring Old and New.

We Also Are Compassed About with So Great a Cloud of Witnesses

The Lord breathed life
then blew it heavenward
scattering the dust to which
she had returned--
a specter glist'ning
in the sun-lit beams
whose specks are haunting
homes and picture frames.

So too, one day
the Lord will scatter 
you and me like dust
blown off the counter-top
and gather us into
those sun-lit beams:
two specters called,
returning home,
and filling out the frame.

Unto the Possession of His Fathers Shall He Return

I sold myself a slave to sin--
poor in power, poor in grace--
and labored vainly in that place
as though I were an alien.

Then the trumpet sounded jubilee
and returned me to inheritance.
My Savior was from Heaven sent
to set me at my liberty.

The World Itself Could Not Contain the Books That Should Be Written

The Word became flesh
(so many Words)
that neither psalmist
nor apostle could contain--
and filled the womb of Mary
like the books upon the shelf.

Epiphany Collect

O Lord of law--o Lord of locusts--
God of baptist-prophet's focus,
Lord who seized the vipers' tail--
the unclean cleaner's Kingdom, hail!

Praise the Incarnate, at whose immersion
truth--law and locusts--was wholly subverted:
the sinners now saints, the saints are revealed
as sinners with hearts as hardened as steel.

So prepare ye, then, the way of the Lord:
white horse and rider with double-edged sword--
one side a blade, and the other a plowshare--
raising the wheat and razing the tares.

Morning in Beaver

Bronzéd sunlight breaks into the room
beneath the door, about the shade.
Outside songbirds sing their morning tune:
the op'ning act before the clock tow'r plays.

So too, the tower plays in precedent
of when God's beams will break into the earth
and, like songbirds, angels sing triumphant:
the op'ning act before the world's rebirth.

I Am the Vine, and You Are the Branches

Like a stubborn weed--the Church, it grows--
an old thorn tree that survives all throes.
Chop its limbs or burn its stump,
you cannot top the Church's trump:
the root is Christ, and he stays strong--
and so the Church grows ever on.

Agnus Dei

Into your hands, o Lord,
(cloven like the curtain's veil)
we commit our spirits.

For worthy is the wounded lamb
bleating there upon the cross--
red letters pouring forth like blood:
forgive them, Father, for they know
not what they do.

Four Sheets to the Wind

Drink deep the Spirit of the Lord--
the living-water-turned-to-wine
that sets the tongue ablaze within your head--
and sure enough you will be speaking Babel.

Come to Me, All You Who Labor and Are Heavy Ladled, and I Will Give Spoon Rest

O Lord, Your cup of wrath ran o'er
like gravy dripping down the ladle--
your au-jus-blood poured out
and flour-body broken.

We'll take, and eat, You, Lord
like gravy in a mashed-potato crater.

No Man Putteth a Piece of New Cloth Unto an Old Garment

There's Gospel in the garden, Lord:
a scapegoat's skin o'er fig leaf thrown.
For You'll hide our naked flesh, O Lord,
in garments white before Your throne.

Happy Hour

As free bread in a restaurant
we take the host as appetizer:
a foretaste of the kingdom 
coming on a covered-tray,
for you will not know at
what hour the entree comes.

So taste and see
that the Lord is good--
like shortbread dipped
into the wine.

Whosoever Eateth That Which is Leavened, Even That Soul Shall Be Cut Off

The apostle said,
"In Jesus' bread
no leaven-Greek
nor Jewish-yeast."

But, Lord my God, we take
Your recipe and bake
ideologic loaves
we've wrapped in shepherd's clothes:
     gender, age,
     and vocation,
     party line,
     denomination.

So take and eat this body broken--
scattered flock as shepherd's spoken.

There Was a Certain Creditor Which Had Two Debtors

Lord, I'll sin for You
as though I were a Magdalene,
and when they cast me
as a stone before your feet,
o Lord, I'll anoint You with
repentant tears: that perfume
I couldn't muster.

Write my forgiveness
in the sand, o Lord--
salvation in Your palms.
Forgive me much,
I'll love you much
(until I sin again)

He Which Testifieth These Things Saith, Surely I Come Quickly

The silver cord was severed
and the golden bowl was broken,
pouring plagues of hail
and slag and ash
into the skies over our Babylon.

"It is done," the loud voice called
in thund'ring tone as trumpets
sounded tucket for the iron-clad
Jerusalem descending from the sky:

streets of gold as though it were
transparent glass, with cobblestone
and trolley-track showing through.

And he showed me three pure
rivers of water of life.

I heard the voice from heaven say,
"Behold the tabernacle of God is with men,
and He will dwell with them--
and everything is meaningless."

Bubbles for Emma; or, the Kingdom of God Belongs to Such as These

I taught you how to blow
as though barely breathing,
your quiet prayer of breath
inspiring shape and motion
upon the face of soapy water.

The light bent through
those haloed bubbles, as though
they had been stained
like the windowed sanctuary
where we blew our praise.

Your innocence and wonder
are like those bubbles:
delicate,
fleeting, and,
as you would say
with all your child-like faith,
beautiful--your voice
full of excitement like the time
you told me I was in the Bible.

This Hurts me More Than It Hurts You

Busily she bumbles
seeking necessary nectar
for lengthening her life
and bolstering her sisters.

A knight with no such armor
serving queen without a scepter
makes a grail of liquid gold
of a merit beyond measure.

Creeping skyward through creation,
lilting lullabies and letters;
alarmed she pricks my paw,
for I tried to feel her feathers.

As a Shepherd Divideth His Sheep from the Goats

Bird-bathe the world in fire, Lord;
     pluck goats like scattered seed.
Tuck sheep beneath your wings, O Lord,
     and light with heav'nly speed.

Why Beholdest Thou the Mote That Is in Thy Brother's Eye, But Considerest Not the Beam That Is in Thine Own Eye

Read your neighbor like a fun-house mirror:
     their skinny sins shown in the glass.
You've a log to match the speck seen there--
     your own sins worn like a fat ass.

The Kingdoms of This World Are Become the Kingdoms of Our Lord

The sound of birdsong signals through the sash
     like tucket sounding for returning spring.
So also through the coming kingdom's ash
     the trumpet's calling for returning king.

Eli, Eli

My God
(my God!)
we prayed for him,
grandfather with the failing heart,
but I wasn't there to lay my hands
(I couldn't bear to see him sleeping)

My God!
He would have took my hand
with grip so strong
it tied the knots
inside my stomach.
My God,
my seed-faith ground to
mustard against mountainside--
putrid, pungent
(spreading thin)

O Sing unto the Lord a New Song; or, the Marks of the True Church

Sing your psalms like shibboleth--
     like lines drawn in the stand.
Stave off sin and error;
     measure doctrine, measure man.

Behold, I Create New Heavens and a New Earth and the Former Shall Not Be Remembered

Let there be light-source! Lord,
You called into the room
and hung the sun, the moon, the stars
like lamps within Your studio.

You stretched out heav'n and earth
like canvas o'er the void
and painted sky, the land, the sea with
the-Spirit-moved-upon-the-water-color.

What demi-urge could hope
(though many violent vandals try)
to help You usher in your forms--
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done?

So come to bleach the canvas, Lord,
and blot out all that's egg-shell-temporary.
Repaint and frame new heav'n and earth
to hang within Your gallery.

Pray Ye That Your Flight Be Not in Winter, Neither on the Sabbath Day

The nations flee from Tribulation:
ants and spiders fleeing conflagration.
For the Lord will set the world ablaze--
heav'n and earth--like logs upon the fireplace.

thank you; I see your hand

The preacher had received a word

transmitted to prophetic rabbit-ears,

and asked the rabble bow their heads.

There's someone here, he said

and waited for his hundred callers.

I thrust my arm into the air

as though it were the antenna

for channeling that holy fire--

I see your hand,

the preacher said.

We prayed the sinner's prayer

the umpteenth time that year:

both ears strained to hear

the voice of God thund'ring

quiet o'er the still of static

humming through the monitors.

I see your hand,

the preacher said,

I see your hand.

Thank you; I see

your hand.

I see your hand.

Birds of Pray

Extend your arms like eagles' wings
and catch the Spirit like an updraft.
Descend you then upon your quarry:
the weak, the maimed, the poor in spirit.
Encircle them; lay on your hands
like so many eagles' grasping talons.

Why Seek Ye the Living Among the Dead

Did You wake to hear the sparrows sing--
the cardinals cry--that early spring?
When like, cracking ice, earth split asunder
and stone rolled off like April thunder?

Like the song of wind chimes o'er the air,
angels greeted women weeping there:
"You seek the Christ, a seed entombed,
but Christ, like tree buds, has re-bloomed."

Unto Him That Is Able to Keep You from Falling, and to Present You Faultless

The Spirit leads, from wilderness and desert-wold twisting truths So god-breathe but get behind me, where my ears cannot o'er the chorus

but Satan drags— to temple-peak and mountaintop, into temptations. your misquotations, Satan! pick out your lies of His praises.

He Shall Baptize You with the Holy Ghost and with Fire

Envelop me with water, Lord;
impress the seal with fire--
that like a pillared cloud the steam 
yet draws my spirit higher.

The Bottles Break and the Wine Runneth Out (and the Bottles Perish)

The Lord will pour new heav'n
(like wine)
into this old-skin earth
until it swells and bursts--
spilling forth from laid-bare seams
like streams-of-living-water-turned-to-wine.