Neumatikos

13August2004

Two poems

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

Valerie and I were working on wedding invitations tonight. She found the stationary that she’s been wanting at bargain prices, but we had to order them immediately. This meant that, in order to get our own wording on the cards (instead of stock phrasing), we had to write them up tonight.

We searched for poetry already written that said what we wanted to say, but found none. So I tried my own hand at writing Hallmark poetry.

The first attempt wasn’t so… appropriate:

It’s a bad omen to mention fornication in the wedding invitation, right?

The second attempt seemed much better, so we’re going with it:

I would like to point out that it’s been just under a year since I wrote poetry last, and now I’ve written four in as many days. When it rains…

And now it’s late. I’m going to bed.

10August2004

You Never Leave Me Alone

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry; Songs.

I see you’re into me
Like a Mozart’s into music
Like a Rembrandt’s into painting
Like a baby’s into being
Being alive

I see you’re into me
Like I should be into you
But I just can’t seem to get my heart around
…Turn my heart around

I see you’re chasing me
Like an comet chasing starlight
Like a clock that’s chasing moments
Like a cloud that’s chasing rain
On a sunny day.

You paste me up like sunshine
Like a cloud that’s chasing rain
You just don’t seem to ever let me down
…Don’t let me down

How many broken bones have you found this way?
How many undertones have you brushed away?
Is there anything left in me that you haven’t changed?
It doesn’t matter, anyway—
You never leave me alone.

Second try from the same night. This one’s only about half done, if you can’t tell. I need to get another set of verses and another chorus, but repeating the last two lines. Anyway, it’s incomplete, but I like this one better than the last one. Seems more intimate.

UPDATE: Third verse. I think I’ll leave it at that unless new inspiration suddenly drops on me.

I see you’ve got me now
Like a ring around my finger
Like a rope around my neck
Like a chain around my arms
As you lead me home

You’ve captured me for good
I can see it in your eyes
“I’ve finally got you where I want you nowâ€
…I want you now.

9August2004

Redemption

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry; Songs.

I know I have a home in Zion
A land where milk and honey flow
A place where all my dreams and desires
Will fade before the One I know

His glory shines above the highest mountaintops
His patience bears me far beyond my schemes
His love resounds when I am lost and wandering
His grace is far too much for me

And yet somehow, when all the past is gone
When all my brokenness is burned away
When all the crimes of humanness have flown
He still retains the core of me.

I have a home where flowers never fall away
Where birds have yet to fail to sing
Where peace and rest are never far away
And where the One who knows me best returns
To put to rest my best attempts to be.

UPDATE: You know how really good music can do amazing things with mediocre lyrics? Yeah. When I wrote this song, I had the most amazing jazz melody going on with it. It was great. So great, in fact, I didn’t really notice that the lyrics were only so-so. Now, a couple hours later, I’ve completely forgotten the melody and all I have left is the lyrics. What’s more, every time I try to reconstruct the melody from what I remember, it comes out really hick/country sounding.

This song is now totally ruined for me. I hope somebody else gets something out of it.

UPDATE AGAIN: I rememberd my cool melody. Song is better now. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from my disillusionment, though.

1September2003

It isn’t quite

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

It isn’t quite your holiness,
And it isn’t quite your love
That consumes me when I first get up
On a well-rested morning.

It’s a little bit of both, I guess.
Like the dew of your tenderness,
It covers me so thoroughly,
And makes me want to run, laughing,
And also to sit still.

I don’t know how to explain
What I don’t quite yet understand—
The dreams I have that peel me open
Like a not quite blooming flower
Revealing every earthed and unearthed desire.

So painful to be ripped so gently open
And so grateful when it’s over
So broken, and so at peace;
So unsure of what I’ve just gone through
And so much wishing that it could have gone on forever.

16July2003

A Little Lack

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

It is a peculiar quality of my religion
That it holds the broken reed above the straight one
(as no musician would).
The smoking flax is greater than the bright one
Because it cannot help but to announce
That something in its life is lacking.

As something in my life is always lacking.

So it comes as no great shock to me
To find that I am reaching for perfection
And yet to find that I am never quite achieving it.
This little lack is all I have, sometimes,
That draws me back to Him
Who makes my heart to breathe.

---

I think there was more of it, but every time I tried to write it, it turned into a discussion of why I d my poetry class last semester. A great deal of that had to do with the fact that I was trying, very deliberately, to be as secular as possible “so they could understand me.†Ignoring the fact that moderating yourself so that people will understand you never really works, the true fact is that I didn’t really understand myself at the time. You see, my heart and mind weren’t really seeing eye to eye.

In fact, they weren’t really getting along well at all. It was pretty rough. They kept arguing about things. There was the name calling, and the blame shifting, and I, their poor godchild, kept feeling like it was all my fault. There was some talk even about breaking up, getting a divorce. I think it was mostly my mind who was the disgruntled one, didn’t like the way my heart was doing all the leading in the relationship. Then my heart would get all whiney, and start crying, and all that self-pity mess, basically guilt tripping my mind, I think. I really felt stuck in between them. I kept having to hear both sides of it. It wasn’t pretty at all. Anyway, they basically separated for a little while, tried to “see other people,†that sort of thing. Fortunately, I think after a little cooling period, they both realized that they couldn’t really start over with anybody else. They need each other too much now. So my heart has moved back in and we’re trying to pick back up where we left off, which has been really good for me, the happy godchild. You’ve never seen someone more messed up than a person whose heart and mind are divorced. My heart still tends to be a little domineering, and tries to jerk the reigns a little too hard, but usually my mind is able to calm her back down. We’re not perfect, but I think we’ll be okay.

21April2003

Delilah

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

What were you thinking, when you held my hand,
Ran your fingers through that uncombed mass behind my head?
“You don’t really love me,†is what you said,
When you asked me for the seventh time
The secret to my magic strength.

Could it be that for a moment
You actually thought you loved me?
Not the man of titanium, so light and strong,
But me, stubborn and corruptible, the one who
Could not decide if he was meant
To marry Philistines or murder them?

You were my second almost-wife,
My second chance to lay to rest
The hostility between our peoples,
My second chance to prove
There’s not so much difference
Between a Gentile and a Jew.

We were so beautiful and so different
Lying next to one another
Fascination and xenophobia
Making love to one another

Did you think that I was beautiful
As I lay there, head almost in your lap?
Did you smile at my innocence
As I swept loose bits of hair
That fell on my nose and mouth,
As you gently sawed each ragged lock?

What were you thinking, when you awoke me?
“Up and face your enemies,†is what you said.
When they took me, tied me, blinded me,
Did your insides leap for just a moment
That last time I glanced at you?

Your face was the last thing that I saw.
When you smiled and waved at me,
Did you whisper to yourself,
“At last I know he loves me�

13April2003

Lord of every morning

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry; Songs.

You are Lord of every morning
And You are Lord of me.

15November2002

Zachari’s Song

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

A couple of years ago, I was at a homegroup meeting for students at MorningStar School of Ministry. It was the first meeting of the school year and all the students were explaining who they were and where they came from and so on. On of the students, named Zack, had a testimony that particularly got my attention. He was the son of an Assembly of God pastor and had done the traditional preacher’s kid thing. That is, he had been a rebellious, superficial jerk for most of his life. I’ve forgotten most of the details of his story now, but I remember especially his testimony of how he got right with God again. The church was having a series of powerful revival meetings of some sort. You know, the really scary ones? The ones where kids go sort of as a joke or because they’re forced to, but then when it’s all over their lives are so completely changed that their old friends don’t want to hang around them? That was the sort of meeting this kid was at. He said he was just sitting there, minding his own business when he felt what he described as this wind coming up behind him and blowing through him, and suddenly he was weeping. I could tell it really affected him, beyond just the fact that he was now arduously attending a ministry school of the “crazy people†sort. I could see the fresh tears on his eyes again as he spoke.

This poem was sort of a spontaneous response to his story. I gave him a copy. I don’t know that he was that impressed that I had reduced his life change into a few measly words, but he had an impact on me and that’s my standard response to that sort of thing. Nevertheless, here it is:

Zachari’s song

Lost in the middle of a great big wind
My heart is on the fly
Then I heard Your voice and it’s drawing me in
I think I’m gonna cry

I heard mercy, on the wind
I heard freedom, calling… when

My heart is drawing
I will follow
Now I’m kneeling down

I am Yours
I cannot help me
What a thing is life to me?

Freedom found me
I must follow
You are life to me

I cannot
Help but listen
You are all I have

I stand up
My eyes are glisten-
ing I cannot see

Here’s my cross, Lord
give me a road
as I follow

I am not alone

6November2002

The Fire Inside Me

Posted by Puretext under: Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

What am I supposed to do
With the fire I find inside of me,
That lifts the leaves of my awareness
And yet is not my own?

How could I subdue the flame
That burns beyond my regulation
The living light that is inside me
And cannot be my own?

I am enthralled by mystery
The fire that I cannot control
That burns within and is outside of me
And yet is not my own.

Hot off the presses! Yeah. I just wrote this poem about five minutes ago, as I was trying to explain to myself why it is that I will write poetry, even though I know it’s not exactly a profitable market. Do you ever have that happen to you? I know you do. This little imaginary guy shows up and tells you why you’re wrong and suddenly you’re on the defensive against a figment. Those figments are evil, because they know you really can’t get revenge on them. Right? You know you’ve been there, right? C’mon now… don’t leave me hanging…. Oh fine. Be that way. I’m the only one who ever actually argues with his figments. Anyway, I was trying to argue with my figment and I said (out loud, I think), “Well, what am I supposed to do with the fire I find inside of me?†And that shut him up pretty well. And the rest is… well the rest is in that there poem right cher.

28October2002

You Are My Offering

Posted by Puretext under: Essay; Poetry; Sacred Poetry.

You are my sin offering
You are my first-fruits offering
You are my only offering
Is you

And I am free to offer up
Everything I have
When all I have to offer up
Is you &nbsp

(3-1-00)

---

Some theology goes with this poem, I think: Correct me if I’m wrong, but my understanding is that, in the Old Testament, there were three basic kinds of sacrifice.

First was the sin offering, where an offering was made in substitution for what was owed to God. I commit a crime; I deserve punishment. The ideal repayment is that some or all of me must be destroyed to atone for my trespass. The sin offering made a substitution for my own life by offering up something to be completely destroyed in my place, the ideal example being a perfect, spotless, male yearling lamb.

The second kind of offering was the first fruits offering, where an offering was made in kind as a token of what was owed to God. The basic idea was that everything I have comes as a freely given gift from God. If it belongs to God, by all rights, I ought to give it to him. Unfortunately, the laws of nature (and of giving) prove that I can’t. If I give everything I have to God, and he keeps it all, I will die. This would sort of defeat the purpose of God providing for me in the first place. There’s also the scriptural principle that you can’t give more than God. He has assured us that he will abundantly return our gifts to him, so attempting to literally give everything to God simply leads to this vicious cycle. The solution is to give to God a portion (say, a tenth) of what he has given you, the first fruits of what you have gained from His benefits.

The third kind of offering is the wave offering. This offering has nothing to do with what is owed to God. This is the only truly free-will offering because it can only happen once all your real debts to God have been paid. If a person finds that he is particularly grateful to God for something, he finds some way to symbolically represent the thing that he is grateful for. He goes to the temple and he waves that symbol before the altar in the shape of a cross. It is entirely a ritual act, and has no value outside of its symbolism.

The cool thing is, two out of three of these offerings are covered by the of Jesus Christ. I think everyone who is basically familiar with the concepts of Christianity is aware that Jesus on the cross is the ultimate and final expression of the sin offering. The same goes for the first-fruits offering, in most ways. (I hesitate to say in the area of finances. That just occurred to me. Must think through…) There are scriptures (I forget where) that say that Jesus, as the first man that ever lived a wholly righteous life has become to God a kind of first-fruits of the sons of God that the whole earth is waiting for. Also, Jesus said that “unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and perishes, it yields no fruit. Jesus would be the seed that was planted, and he would be the first fruits of the harvest that is to come at the end of the age.

What can be left for us, then? Jesus said that the law prophesied until John and that not a jot would pass away from the law until all was fulfilled. (please forgive me for the lack of references. I’m doing this on the fly.) It would be a very easy thing to say that, if the laws of about sacrifices were a prophecy, then when that prophecy was completely fulfilled, then the sacrifice would pass away. Jesus was our sin offering, and lo-and-behold, all sacrifices for sin, the whole world over, have passed away. (I know, I can’t exactly say the same for the first fruits offering. I’ll leave it be for now. I don’t have time to properly do research.)

The only offering that’s really left for us is the wave offering, and what is every act of worship, but a symbolic act of gratefulness to him. Literally, worship is the only thing we have left to give Him…

It’s an interesting idea, anyway. That’s the sort-of theological basis for the first stanza. The second part is just a statement of fact: I can only give everything to God once I have laid aside everything I have, so that Jesus is all I have left to give Him.

Yeah. And it sounds so much better in poetry.

Blessings, all KB