Poem

Sing to me of artists
Of poets and dreamers
Who live life out loud
And overcome their fears

Sing to me of lives fully lived
Give me their ecstasy
Show me their courage
I will dream I too might be

Sing to me of adversity overcome
Show me the garden in late summer
Don't spare the happily ever after
Show me you believe in forever

The blood on my hands is fresh
I search my body for the source
No abrasions, no cuts, no soars,
I am as I was before

I notice the song has stopped
The singer nowhere to be found
Why doesn't he stay and sing
Stay and calm me down

I need his songs of springtime
Of lovers in full bloom
Get my mind out of this place
Out of this dark room

A voice breaks the stillness
Forced, hushed, and low
The singer staring up at me
His life spilling on the floor

I hold him in that moment
Whispering comfort to his pain
And realize I have killed him
Forcing him to do the same

Lives of Praise - A Song

This is a song I wrote for Crossroads Church in Kansas City, MO. Not quite the same without the music, but I wanted to share the text with you all.

Lives of Praise

Verse:
Spirit, come and fill us up
With your love and tenderness
We’ve come to lift our hearts,
And we’ve come to confess

Our brokenness and our pain

Spirit, open up our eyes
To your beauty and your grace
May we see your reflection
In every stranger’s face
Here today, in this hour
Feel your gentle touch and your power

Chorus:
Tear down the walls
Of our fear and our pride
Help us to live while we’re alive

We offer you our songs
Our grateful hands we raise
We offer up our broken lives of praise

Verse:
Spirit, open up our minds
As we seek to understand
How to live like Jesus
With our feet and our hands

Walk the road you’ve prepared

Spirit, open up our hearts
To a world outside this place
A world of broken lives
In need of your embrace

Teach us, Lord, how to care
With our lives, answer prayer

Chorus:
Tear down the walls
Of our fear and our pride
Help us to live while we’re alive

We offer you our songs
Our grateful hands we raise
We offer up our broken lives of praise

Shoah

Lady Gaga calls to Alejandro over the bar speakers. I sip the thick lager native to this city and admire the scenery. (I will ask her for her number, later). The ceiling fan has outlived its usefulness, as the crisp fall air interjects its presence through the open windows.

Wide, northern dialects explode in words like 'Fahk' and 'bawls,' exclaimed with a religious fervor by the bar patrons. The smell of cigarette smoke rides the breeze and freshens the tavern air.

The young, blond woman in the white button-up sweater runs her finger along the rim of her gin and tonic glass. She tosses me a glance while she flirts with the policeman who is using his uniform to his full advantage.

Beyond the cigarette smoke, the steady flow of steam dances inside the memorial of names and glass with that unspeakable title.

The city lights cast shadows across the asphalt streets and brick sidewalks, painting pictures of exotic animals on the grass. Shadows dance everywhere but on the tall glass memorial, illuminated internally.

Afternoon in Boston

Past the fragmented corners of a Sunday afternoon

Struggling against a night gone too soon

I sit.

I listen.

I talk.

I talk too much.

Bombarded with option and consequence

Sipping tannic acid from a ceramic glass

I sit.

I listen.

I dream.

I don’t dream enough.

More free than I ever have been, and less free every day.

I watch the parade of past present and future pass away

I sit.

I listen.

I wonder.

Do they judge me this way?

Giving over to something new

Something borrowed yet true

This is growth

The present gently taps me on the shoulder

I raise my gaze from this old manila folder

I sit.

I listen.

I smell the roasting coffee

I hear the undergraduate student strumming her guitar

I see the runner smirk judgingly at the parked cars

I sit.

I listen.

I am here and nowhere else.