Hiding Place(dodoitsu)

Even now, in the morning,
When my heart cries for Your voice,
Even while I wander these fields,
You still hide from me.

The Hiding Girl(Limerick)

There was a girl so fond of hiding
Her only communication was in writing.
Her parents, who kept her writing notes,
Clung to doomed but still-rising hopes
Some young man'd find her scrawl enticing.

Confession(dodoitsu)

I don't understand this art.
Maybe those old Japanese
Samurai just used their swords
On their sentences.

Rejection(Limerick)

It was late in the morning of the day I was peddling,
I was accosting the customers, and sick of meddling,
Said I, "Lovely lady,
"My manners are not shady,"
Before you too pass, pretty lass, eye I, oh so piddling?"

Her hair was drawn up with Japanese sticks but her eyes
Past gobs of eyeliner was stuff finer, even regal, but shy.
This queen, oh so tender,
Put out a hand, so slender...
Made a fist, then her highness gave my request a reply.

Who Knows

I might've seen her smile,
The color of her eyes,
Maybe we'd share a sunset,
Maybe, later, a sunrise.

And sitting there beside her,
I'd regrets I'd never made.
For I knew, so dreadfully sure,
How soon she'd go away.

We were totally incompatible,
Obvious in a glance,
Staggeringly stupid gamble,
One in a a million chance.

Still enchanted by her dimples,
Immobile in my chair,
But I knew better than to speak.
So she left me sitting there.

Later I traveled home,
Her face still in my mind,
I remained ruminating alone
With the world I'd left behind.

Writing Block

Let's blank, let's freeze, put our minds
In a bind.
Let's panic and frantic, scrabble for a way
To somehow say
Whatever we can find.

Let's think, let's blink to fill up empty spaces
On our faces.
Let's type all night and erase every word,
Until sleep-driven, we've given with speech slurred
All we have, all we can think of,
Which isn't anything to love.
So delete, repeat, and crumple up
And again with the eraser.

Man, do I hate
Grappling till late
With a writing block.

So let's revolt after revising
Rising hopes before we read
What we wrote on our note.
Eyes bleary, it's clearly
Time for revolt indeed.
Let's take arms against our muse;
Let's go to bed.

Show and Tell

Acting class
And the teacher was a frank atheist
And all eyes on me.

How could they ask me to do this?
Inside a storm of wills,
And all eyes on me.
I moved not a whit.
Very, very still.

"Perhaps if you tried telling instead of showing us?"

So I did. I moved. I told.

I shared:
Seventeenth birthday.
Asking for a song.
A silent, secret prayer.

I shared:
My seventeen year old fingers,
Picking up my birthday card,
The paper fluttering out.

I shared:
My mother pulling out her guitar,
For a newly seventeen John.
Birthday paper in her hand
Headlined by words: "John's Song".

Now, today, in class,
All eyes on me,
On my private memories.
On a Heaven sent song,
On a miraculous answer to prayer.
On a devout side I closet at all costs.

It's unfair they chose this memory.
It's unfair my profession demands
Even my secrets.

I struggle to keep talking.
Even voice and still face.
I show, I tell. I sing.

Curious(tritina)

Curious, and how! spring wakes the senses.
Hard, unyielding, frozen by winter, life
Births again a promise bright. Curious.

Seasonal cycles catch me curious.
Winking world, you beckon me. Consensus
Would whisper I, too, greet a bright new life.

Do you, too, breathe in this beginning life?
Oh, feel the tug, the heart wake. Curious,
Daring, glaring, foolishly sensuous.

Now all I sense is life. I’m curious.

Apart

Long, long have I wandered through fields not my own.
I'm a man with no county, a child with no home;
Wonder, do you, from whither I wander?
Oh, indeed, whither,
For I am not of the foxes or fishes or birds of a feather
That, when given chance, will each gather together...
For long have I hushed footfalls in bold, brazen tread
Of the saints, with their saintly visions lifting my head.
And, lest the running should rouse and ruffle the dead,
(These corpses are my friends and familiars, or so they've said,)
Have I hidden my heavenly haunt, have I misled.
Until only the closet knows of these wide, searching eyes
Crying for my beloved and searching the skies.
And I am so hounded, so horrifically pressed
Lest all that matters bow to matter and be missed,
Lest my longings stray from heaven, must I persist,
Until worn, torn, unbeaten but bowed
I open hands and let my heart cry loud,
Crying:
"Oh, Father, hear me,
None knows of my searchings,
None but You knows my pursuit.
What else do You want from me?
What else can I do?
Long, long have I wandered through fields not my own.
I'm a man with no county, a child with no home;
I've given all that I know, and I'm still apart from You."

Sometimes I Wear My Cape to Work

They asked me: “how do you do it?”
And I said: “Oh, it wasn’t so hard.
“I just bent my knees and blew it
“Reaching for the stars.

Sometimes I never hear it coming,
But when my dreams give the call,
I always hit the pavement running
And run into the nearest wall.

I’m a secret super slip-up,
Wouldn’t find more super if you searched.
I like to keep it on, you know, the down-low,
But sometimes I wear my cape to work.

Doc(a dodoitsu)

Hopeful, he strayed to my side
--Limping beagle with brown eyes.
Woken from black reverie,
I knew he was mine.

A Way Beyond

He came to me from afar
While snow swirled outside,
He came with stories of a distant place.
Some say he chased an Eastern star,
Some say he flat-out lied,
But I listened and saw the truth upon his face.

And he said:
Hey, boy, what's it all about?
Don't you know this life you live goes away, hey?
Hey, boy, it's time to step out of the crowd,
Grope and grasp, pray and fast, but find it today
A Way beyond your ways.

He came back again while showers fell,
He came back to me once more
While the scent of rainbows hung heavy in the air.
He came back with more hope to tell,
He came wielding a sword,
And leaving, the life I knew left me there...

For he said:
Hey, boy, what's it all about?
Don't you know this life you live goes away, hey?
Hey, boy, it's time to step out of the crowd,
Grope and grasp, pray and fast, but find it today
A Way beyond your ways.

Bloom

Sometimes the words–they just don’t come.
Mouth gaping, mind racing, my world’s washed in white….
All is a blank.

Finger poised over delete,
My fist is in my mouth
Lest my mouth contain my feet.

Father, even in this stillness,
I can scream so loud, standing lonely in a crowd.
Father, even when I’m trapped
I still find the room to fight. “I can do this, just–give me time.”

Time’s up.

God of Heaven,
God of earth,
I have had enough.

Bloom, Father, let me grow
Complete and holy in Your teachings,
Bloom, Father, I let go,
You alone can give me what I’m seeking.

So plant a seed, plant deep inside
Deep down where only secrets hide.
And sprout a longing, a love, a need
To be with the God in which I believe.

Let the page be blank, be open, pure.
And now, to mix my metaphors,
Bloom.