“Ghost Sharpener II: the Tailor of Time.”

Recently, I found a tiny blue pencil sharpener on my desk that I’d never seen before. The first poem that I wrote about it will not be viewed by the public, but I thought this iteration more amenable to mass consumption. “Zappa” is Frank Zappa, who said that music dresses time; “ontic” means “relating to or having real being.” Beyond that, let me let it speak for itself…

Ghost Sharpener II: the Tailor of Time

The pencil sharpener is small and blue;

So is my soul, sometimes. I wait for bliss

As acrid bombs still fall through Gaza’s sky

And rubble sings its song of heartlessness.

I wait, and yearn, for joy through April rains

(and sometimes through surprising falls of snow).

I long to taste the wine of victory

Fresh squeezed from Paradise’s reddest grapes,

And long to lift the weight of Wisdom from

The rock-face hiding Creativity.

The ghostly sharpener still draws me in,

Still grinds my little no. 2 to dust,

Still breaks my aching dreams within its gears.

I wander through a pathless, darkened wood

And fear to trip upon some errant root;

I sit upon a rock on Georgian Bay

But dare not dive into the deeps below

For fear I’ll strike a rock and break the chain.

I feel that I must choose yet fear my choice.

Why must the choice I make be fuelled by fear?

I’m happy I no longer wear a watch

Because its blunt, banal, internal time

Would never cease to terrorize my thoughts.

When I feel agonized by choice, time slows,

And only steadfast love can lift my soul

Beyond the chaos of chronology.

I know that Zappa’s right, and music still

Plays tailor to the vanities of Time.

The tiny sharpener of navy blue

Will burst in rings of bright cerulean

When opened by the magic major chord;

As Townshend shreds his Rickenbacker’s strings,

As Petty covers songs by old McGuinn,

I see pink sand on some Bahamian beach

And hear the angels’ gloomy post-punk songs.

So, music mends our hard mundanity

And good-time Jesus brings us wine from Gilead

Accompanied by howled hillel Psalms

And feted by soft flute from Anderson.

Though burning worlds careen around their stars,

The stellar music is the cosmic glue

That integrates our ontic house of cards.

The song can heal our sick societies

And grow the rich, dark coffee of the mind.

Each well-played note can grow a mustard-bush,

A hyacinth, or a stout maple tree

Where lions will lie down with tender lambs.

“Catlike Grace.”

I wrote this one on Monday night, as I listened to the Stones, and edited it a couple hours ago. It’s more aspirational than I’d like to admit.

I hope you enjoy this. 🙂

Catlike Grace

Some nights, the grey waves roll right over me,

And fill me with the hue and cry of fear;

Some nights, I burn with fierce intensity,

Like copper chloride, bright and blue and clear.

Some mornings, I may groan my shaky prayer

And watch the sunlight flicker on my wall.

Some mornings, I will feel as light as air,

And lift my weights and pass my big grey ball.

My passions can be fluid, like the sea,

My movements quick and full of catlike grace…

But when I feel the ancient injury,

I lose momentum, and may lose my place.

Connection lights my spirit’s ceaseless fire,

And sweet relation is my heart’s desire.

“Three Kinds of Love: a Valentine’s Day Meditation Inflected by Liberation Theology.”

*sings softly but insistently*

In the name of Love…

Once more, in the name of Love…

I wrote the blog-post hyperlinked here in collaboration with friends in the Christian Reformed Church.

“Shadow.”

This poem may sound loose and jangly, but it’s actually based on a recent experience of anxiety.

Beyond that, I’m gonna let this one speak for itself.

—

Shadow

Sometimes, the shadow’s close to me

When I lie down at night;

I scream aloud, and toss my sheets,

And flail around in fright.

More often, I’ll sit very still,

Sing quietly, or pray;

Art helps me navigate the dark,

And chases ghosts away.

I’ll listen to Depeche Mode,

Or the smoother Radiohead,

As I use my slow cooker

Or (quite often) shave my head…

At other times, I’ll play U2,

Or get down to the Stones,

As Hebrew spirits hear my cries

And make sense of my groans.

Some days, it’s difficult to move,

And breath’s hard to attain.

I weep, and write out how I feel,

Till I can feel the pain.

I stretch, or lift my dumbbells, till

I’m focused on the day;

My senses reassert themselves…

And sometimes, I’m okay…

And even though, sometimes, I weep

And stare into my shoes,

I know at some point, reds and greens

Will overtake my blues.

And often, I’ll lie down in peace

Because deep inside me

There are bright voices full of love

That speak integrity.

“The Coming Storm.”

Ceasefire now.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

—

The Coming Storm

I cannot read the news tonight; oh, no…

The Gazan headlines lead my heart astray.

Each phrase takes effort, and my hands are slow

To do what my most-willing heart would say.

My heart feels trapped within a hollow hold;

My arms and legs are crying for relief.

The cries of genocide still leave me cold,

And suffering will stagger my belief.

What rituals can centre me, this time?

They can’t be saved by steeping cups of tea.

Bright faith and apathy can never rhyme,

But art can bolster my integrity…

My black-and-white keffiyeh keeps me warm

As I walk closer to the coming storm.

“New Shoes.”

Just after Christmas, I received a lovely gift of new dress shoes from someone I love. This poem is, in part, in light of this wonderful present.

—

New Shoes

Some nights, I dance to Winwood in new shoes –

New shoes from Amazon, all black and snug –

And spiral out in rounded pirouettes

To feel the higher love of which he sings.

On other nights, I’m paralyzed in place,

Lost in a logic loop of lissome lies,

Of thoughts too tensile for their own damned good,

Too bright, too ready to collapse and curve.

My new dress shoes are warm and onyx-black,

And they come on and off with craftsman’s ease.

I wish that all my thoughts turned out the same,

But they cannot sit still. They don’t all shine,

And can’t all ferry me from place to place.

My thoughts are varied in their hue and cry:

Some thoughts will tumble joyful, live, and green

Onto the waiting page, like falling dice;

Some thoughts burn red with fury’s crimson flames,

Reducing all soft sophistries to ash;

And many falling thoughts are blue and grey

Like cataracts of cool consternation,

Like windswept coastlines after autumn rain.

The clearest thing that lays each thought to rest

Is silence, punctuated by bright song:

The fifteen-minute taper of my prayer

Will burn into the embers of the night

As jagged Gibsons, keyboards, and taut snares

Remind me who I am and how I feel.

The Mobius strip immobilizing me

Will break, will snap like thinning rubber bands,

Before the banshee wail of Eighties punk,

The spinning disco balls of Nineties pop.

When I return from stasis, I will feel

The warmth of Winwood’s voice like summer sun,

The taste of bold Brazilian coffee, and

A lover’s fragrance through an open door.

“A Paradigm for Peace: Peacemaking in Disability Theology, Scripture, and Culture.”

I wrote the blog-post embedded below for some friends at the Do Justice blog in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. It talks about theologies of disability and peace-making. I hope you like it!

“Advent Fruits and Flowers.”

I wanted to write this to shake off the cynicism of the current season…and (to my surprise) Paul of Tarsus came to my aid. After that…it sort of wrote itself. I hope you enjoy this. 🙂

—

Advent Fruits and Flowers

Sometimes my mind lies fallow, frail, and sere.

I’ve watched too many gangster movies now

To welcome Wisdom with her stern replies,

To calmly greet the angel with his wings,

To doff my sandals in some desert heat…

And yet, the wilderness still makes its way.

The snare drum of the bleak December rain

Still beats its rapid tattoo in my heart,

Still nourishes the loam within my soul

To sprout its hardy and resistant fruits,

Fruits that belie the coming winter’s snow.

I name each growing fruit within my soul:

A halting love that seeks the good of all,

A joy as vivid as a Fender bass,

A peace that blooms in solidarity,

A patience that can wrestle angels and

That knows the faltering of fragile hips,

A goodness that will pay its loving debts,

A kindness that may call at 1 AM

Although your children sleep and you’ve no bread,

A faithfulness that will not turn away,

A gentleness that sometimes says too much,

A discipline that does the dishes and

Will help you stack the heavy wooden chairs.

These hearty fruits survive the bitter chill

Of stiff indifference in Toronto’s streets,

The bland denials of old demagogues,

The economic “truths” as hard as frost,

As stern and biting as the freezing rain.

They blossom in my heart with every flag

That flies for Gaza’s children, and for Homs’;

They flower in the Ottawa food banks;

They twine around the burnished glass and steel

Of Rideau, and the curves of Sandy Hill.

They may be buried in the winter snow,

But may rejoice in solemn springtime, if

The seeds of ceasefire flood the streets with hues

Of Advent green and deep poinsettia red;

Eurasian elks may lie with bears in Kyiv,

And stern Egyptian cobras may not strike

Their errant prey in verdant old Khartoum.

Creator’s mountain will be sacrosanct,

And no one will do harm or desecrate

The ancient stones erected in our minds,

The stones beneath which vivid flowers grow.

“Sometimes.”

Recently, the Israelis started to bomb mosques in Gaza. I’ve seen a small amount of video, which I won’t repeat here…but when I felt my way through that a little tonight, I wept copiously, and prayed fervently…

and as I wept and prayed, I wrote the English sonnet that follows.

—

Sometimes

Sometimes, I am a burnt-out Gazan mosque;

Sometimes, I am the hand that holds the flare.

Sometimes, I pray my earnest prayers at dusk

And feel them melt like vapour in the air.

Sometimes, my rage is like a red, red rose

That blossoms underneath a Syrian moon.

Sometimes, it’s like a hemlock plant that grows

To choke the dreams of children gone too soon.

My fury’s not a toxin; it’s a flame

Fed by the holy, righteous, steadfast ire

Of One who gives each star its secret name

And winnows grain with forks of living fire.

Good, loving Sovereign of time and space,

Come down and help us with Your saving grace.

“Wholeness.”

I was coming back from the poutine place this evening, when I had the following conversation (edited lightly for clarity)…

He: “You weren’t injured in the field, by any chance?”

I: “No.” Beat. “I have spastic cerebral palsy…”

He: “Oh, I totally understand! If I were 100%, I could help you.”

I *grinning*: “I don’t need your help, but thank you.”

A few minutes later, I sat down, listened to R.E.M., and wrote this.

—

Wholeness

My wounds are not from theatres of war,

From blood and shrapnel tearing through the night;

The pains I feel come from my ancient core,

From leftward limbs more stable than my right.

My back aches, and I feel the hollowness,

The aching gaps, that span my scoured soul.

My arm will twitch. Its spasms will confess

The tremors that sheer will cannot control…

And yet, in constant movement, I still live

To sing the song that’s sitting within me;

Sometimes, my weakness shames me, but I give

Stark, vivid proofs of great Eternity.

My lengthy, dusty mirror helps me see

That I am whole, even with holes in me.