FIRST LOVE
Poetry by
Blake Steele
INDEX FOR POETRY FROM 1982 to Nov. '83
A--------
AND CHRIST SHALL COME IN A FIERY SKY
AND THE PEOPLE WERE THE PARABLE
A LITTLE RUMBLE OF THE RIVER IN A SONG
A PRAYER
A PRAYER SPOKEN LIKE A QUAKER
A PRODIGAL MEETS HIS LOVER
ARDOR
A
WAR CRY AGAINST THE MAN OF SIN WITHIN
B---------
BEAMED THE MAGI FACES BRIGHT
C---------
CHURCH N A HOME
MARCH 1, 1983
D----------
DELECTABLY
I BURN AWAY
G----------
GLORY O CHRIST TO YOUR MAGNANIMOUS NAME
GOD LOVES BEAUTY
GOD SLAYS HIS LOVERS INTO LIFE
GREEN IS LIVING - GREEN THE COLOR OF HIS KINGDOM - O
H----------
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, ON THE WIND
I----------
IF A TOAD SHOULD PLAY THE GAME OF ART
I HAVE WRESTLED WITH THE WIND
IMMACULATE CONSUMMATION
INTO THE KING'S CUP
INTO THE WHITE FLAME'S KISS
IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE UP ON THE ALTARS AGAIN!
(TO CHRISTIAN POETS)
I WRESTLE TOWARDS THE DEVIL'S DEATH
I WRITE TO YOU MY MYSTICAL LOVER
L-----------
LORD, MAKE ME WHITE AS THIS SHEET OF PAPER
LOVERS IN THE FIRMAMENT
M-----------
MIDNIGHT OIL BURNING
O----------
ON A SLOW FEAST OF REVEALINGS
ON GENESIS 18
ONE JOHN 17
ON ISAIAH 33:10-12
ONLY GOD CAN GIVE THE DEATH OF SELF
ON THE CHRISTIAN POETIC
OUR FLAWLESS CHRIST
P-----------
PRAISES UNTO THE SWEET AND GENTLE FLAME
S-----------
SALVATION
SECRET CHRIST IN THESE OUR WEARY DAYS
SHE IS THE SHULAMMITE CELESTIAL MAID
SOLID RIVER
SPIRIT OF PRAYER -
SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
SWEET BURN
(INSPIRED BY ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS)
SWEET VISION, BURN AWAKE!
T-----------
THE ANOINTING
THE BROKEN EYE
THE FEARSOME CROSS FINALLY FLINGS
THE HIDDEN SAINT MINISTERS TO HER LORD
THE LION OF GOD AND HIS ARMY OF LAMBS
THE PURPOSES OF PORPOISES
AND ALL GOD'S FLYING PEOPLE
THERE IS A FIRE BORN OF STRIFE
THESE WORDS ARE FOR GOD'S LAMBS
THE SINGING HOUSE UPON THE SEA
THE SWEETEST MAIDENS HEAVE THEIR ALL FOR CHRIST
THE THOUGHTS OF GOD INTO ALL THE WORLD NOW REACH
THE TWENTY FIRST CENTURY AND BEYOND
THOSE CROWNED WITH SILENT THUNDER
TO FACE A FREE PERSON
TO KNOW WITHIN YOUR HEART THE BLESSED BROACH
W------------
WHEN YOUR EYE BE SINGLE
WORD OF GOD ARREST MY MIND
Last Poem - GLORY O CHRIST TO YOUR MAGNANIMOUS NAME
--------------------------------------------------------
POETRY - FIRST LOVE
The Beal's house......(Sept 1982 - Sept 1983)
A PRAYER
A
pure heart shall see you God,
For you are pure.
A pure heart is simple
In its one intent:
To be alive in the reality of you;
In its one pure desire:
To be an expression
Of your holy nature.
The gift you have given us
--My Father and my sovereign King--
Is the Spirit of Holiness
Like a fountain of life
Deep in the heart.
Well up O waters
Clear and simple,
Bathe my deep mind
In the warmth of your being.
Trickle through me purely
Until I grow strong and kind,
Then rush through me powerfully
Until I am
As you are,
A gentle life-giving torrent
Of healing love.
BEAMED THE MAGI FACES BRIGHT
Sapphire blue in glassy beam
Transfixed to awe the pilgrims three,
Rolling on the camel's backs
As sailors oscillate at
sea.
Sacrosanct, so seemed the star,
Guiding pundits from afar;
Fierce the journey to drink a look
Of elixir smelled in Holy Book.
Primal wind within the ear
Inwrought knowing they were near,
Immanent, auric, day tide free
--This lisping child epiphany!
Suffuse the stable in nimbus light,
(Rumbling, subtle, quavered air),
Lucid glits of laughing white
Sparkled up through everywhere...
Exalted innocence they'd sought!
God had reached them with His thought...
Beamed the Magi faces bright!
--Angels steeped the starry night!
THE HIDDEN SAINT MINISTERS TO HER LORD
She sits in silence, then opens wide and sings,
till winds of God come catch her outspread wings,
and cast her 'neath the bright incessant sea,
to helpless drown, O God, in love of thee.
AND CHRIST SHALL COME IN A FIERY SKY
And Christ shall come in a fiery sky
And bring the yawning dawning day.
This fiery sky
His saints shall climb
Into the heat of His Holy Name.
Yawning wide to receive His own,
His Holy Name shall be as one;
Reaping all His blood had bought.
They within Him did abide
One within His Name of Love;
Those who bore His heavy load
Abide with Him when Angels whirl
One with Christ in kindled air.
When the Kingdom finally flung
The million fuming Seraphim sung,
And Christ for all his lovers came
In wild and Holy searing flame.
A LITTLE RUMBLE OF THE RIVER IN A SONG
When the earth remembers awake
and returns for the sake
of the Lamb who is Lord,
adored shall be the I Am
He,
sweet glassy sea within
and Seraphim singing praise
to raise the minds of those
who once closed the heart of life,
(now the wife of Christ to be).
Wholly free within that happy river,
its crystal waters shall shiver the soul
into love and righteous fear.
Quite near is our Lionhearted God,
so
very near are we to dry-shod pass through
the murky flood to that brighter shore;
and more than we have sought
shall be the lot which will rumble
in,
tumbling through the riven sin
which weaves its heavy veils
of pride and lust across
the minds which fear the cross,
and make that meek and gentle Lamb
their wolf-toothed enemy.
LORD, MAKE ME WHITE AS THIS SHEET OF PAPER
Lord -
make me white
as this sheet of paper,
modest like a little bird,
unadorned,
brown and plain,
sitting in a small hidden corner
of the house of your glory.
Only you, Oh Lord,
can bear beauty and glory
without ostentatious pride;
only you are worthy of that high state
of royalty which you are.
I would be as proud as Lucifer
if you did not restrain my madness.
Lord, help me be diminished in my eyes.
I'm only a common speck of dust
in an incredibly wondrous Universe.
This lyric wind I want to touch,
to
ride on, to be -
is you!
If you should carry me for a while
on your Holy breath,
make me remember I am but dust
and small and menial,
and you are the wind,
and you are the largeness of the sky!
I WRESTLE TOWARDS THE DEVIL'S DEATH
Nail this snake unto the tree Lord,
Pin the serpent to the cross,
In his dying I am free Lord,
All God's gain is all his loss.
Secret serpent, subtle still,
Lurks within our soulish will;
Evil power of our pride
Lures us to the wicked side.
Pierce him, pierce him, spare him not,
His true death my Savior sought;
Cast Him down into the fire,
Soft and silken hellish liar.
Drive spikes through his bloated head,
Sword of fire, strike him dead!
Then my garden shall be free
--God will walk on fiery stones--
With serpent dead upon the
tree,
And children singing on thrones.
SWEET BURN
(INSPIRED BY ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS)
Beautiful cross of Christ
To which I cling,
Sweet burn
Of delectable death,
This joy once feared
As eternal loss
Is gained.
Full fire consume
The dross of which
This empty death is built.
Sweet cross of Christ,
Beautiful burn,
Both spear to gore
The serpent's head,
And holocaustal fury
To consume the dead.
SWEET VISION, BURN AWAKE!
Sweet
vision, burn awake
the eyes of my heart
to see
He who unchanging is.
Behold, one glance
and all depths become shallows
to unsounded depths
of His ineffable
truth of the truth.
SHE IS THE SHULAMMITE CELESTIAL MAID
She is the Shulammite Celestial Maid
In her heart,
With crown of gold upon her silky braid,
God's pure art
Is deeply woven through her secret part.
She sinks not in the darkened mind of man,
Deaf and Blind,
Her lovely Christ does all her being span,
Crystalline!
His pure maid from among all womankind.
A jeweling rainbow in her
mind does dart,
Bright always!
Worshiping Jesus' humble lion-heart,
Her ruined clay
Shall yet burn light beyond the Milky Way.
He cries, "Come now my lovely maid and eat,
A fat calf
Is killed and ready up on table sweet,
How I laugh,
To think upon when I my maid shall meet.
Come now, sweet maid, to dove-filled loft so bright
--High above--
Behold my kingdom made of purest light!
In my love,
I unto thee shall all my being betroth."
She hears His voice, that voice she's sweetly known,
And flesh dies...
Near inviolate truth's beatific throne,
A choice prize!
As world of light up-eases in her eyes.
THE PURPOSES OF PORPOISES AND ALL
GOD'S FLYING PEOPLE
We should inspire God's people homeward
Toward that merry music heard...
Some as songbirds soar in flight,
Chattering in the wonder of innocent light,
While others dance down the clear happy sea,
Being like a porpoise free;
Christianities most treasured
jewels,
As poor Pharisees sit dry as prunes in Sunday Schools,
For they have never learned to soar nor dance,
Shan't take the smallest chance
Of jubilance in the old wine skin,
Might be that nasty devil that in joy comes in.
The Holy Spirit flies on wings in tears,
Fair and free above the groundless fears
That with sneers sinks old religious death,
She sweeps the singing souls upon Her boundless breath,
And thrust them innocent into God's eyes!
Christ the lover claims His prize:
These true evangelized souls receive
The bursting joy that God had bought them to believe.
ON JOHN 17
This is our Savior's plea,
The cry of His opened heart,
That we might wholly be
An integrated part
Of God in Christ and Christ in God.
That our lives might become praise
As in one love we raise
That
blood-red rose in the golden cup,
Lifting, lifting the standard up
Of God in Christ and Christ in God.
Why else has He given us His glory
Except we become the story
Of that perfect dove of the boundless skies
Flying hard towards His children's cries
Against this sin-black hurricane,
Shrieking blind and gone insane.
So let us to these fierce winds fling
Our battered and broken, yet healing wing,
To win Him all His rightful fame
For the honor of the glory of that great name,
Of God in Christ, and Christ in God.
ON GENESIS 18
In the heat of Mamre
as One stood three in silence
of the fiery desert air,
watching
an old man squatting in the door of his tent.
Blinking,
old eyes rose to meet
eyes older than the stars.
These three stood as one,
(like heat, and light, and sun.)
As a child leaping in a womb,
so leapt the shriveled father of a future dream.
With sun in eyes,
and sweat in beard,
upon
his knees he offered simple bread
- then killed the calf -
and watched them eat
the food of earth,
as he ate
the bread of heaven.
MIDNIGHT OIL BURNING
2/7/83
There is the reward for a devoted life:
the hidden manna
and the secret chambers.
The soul in rags who thirsts for more
of
bright things ever so vaguely touched,
shall yet come into golden rooms
thick with honey lights of glory.
First the waiting,
first the binding,
first
the severing,
then the holy terrors
with the fires all consuming.
Hot the piercing pains of doom!
The animal squeals and cries - then melts off dead!
Now the waters, clear and gentle
lapping on the unveiled face,
then the washing of the embers
then the holy robes embrace.
Then the ointments and the perfumes
and the holy sacred bread,
gaining strength through tears and laughter,
steadying nerves to go see
God.
ON THE CHRISTIAN POETIC
Poetry is the singing of thought
In the music of words;
The vision and the gift sublime -
The poet who sees what he writes
Makes not words lilt
to rhyme;
But having beheld that golden city
Beyond the spheres of stars,
Becomes a glass lamp luminous,
With visual music moving through his veins;
As though he had learned the music and movement
Of fiery Angels which dance,
gleaming upon those heavenly seas.
These seers - God's most ancient gifts to men -
First and last singers of eternity's truths,
Dwell here despised and lowly on the ground,
Yet in secret seasons rise heavenward singing!
Christian poets! Awaken now to see
His vision pure, and weeping to be sung!
Point your hearts, and minds, and words
Unerringly towards that crystal Kingdom
Where spirits rise high in Angelical airs.
Cheer now, and glorify these paths below,
The veins of gold through which we moan,
Yet, leading to Him who white as snow,
Sits a Lamb, on the Lion's Throne!
PRAISES
UNTO THE GENTLE FLAME
Love and praise
And nothing else;
All my soul,
Wounded tenderly
And deeply,
Turns unto you
Wholly
In
Love and Praise
And nothing else,
Love and praise
And nothing else.
Sweet and gentle flame,
Dove-like flame,
Burn within my soul
Upon the altar of the jewel
Which is your gift,
And dapple my mind
With quick gleams
Of Lambent Love.
CHURCH N A HOME
MARCH 1, 1983
Wreathed by singing Saints
A little child danced in purest joy;
In the presence of such love -
her innocence was restored.
And the eyes of one man's heart
Saw a crystal brightly glistening
--Hovering diamond-like in Heaven--
Within which a child of perfect beauty
Danced in Luminous Glass.
And the Father beamed with elation
Filling that Celestial Creation
With jubilant peace.
How beautiful is Heaven,
First blush and Homeland,
Where the Spirit of Glory
Immerses the souls of men;
But when Heaven kisses Earth,
As I saw it do this night,
It sets a fire burning
Of re-creation,
For when that humble child
Touched the winds of splendor
— God came singing
In the Flood-tides of
Freedom.
THERE IS A FIRE BORN OF STRIFE
There is a fire born of strife,
Its words are swords and death its life;
And there's a fire which flows from peace
Which only burns to bring release -
For the fire of peace within a soul
Makes it luminous and whole,
While the fire born of fleshly drive
Consumes
itself while it's alive.
The God of peace and God of fire
Melts away the religious liar,
The man of sin in spiritual guise,
Abominable puss in my Father's eyes;
Flushed away in the Spirit's flow
So only Christ can ever grow,
In one unceasing giving breath -
Blowing down the doors of death.
A WAR CRY AGAINST THE MAN OF SIN WITHIN
Holy fire sent from Heaven,
Purge me of this wretched leaven,
This black maggot would only die
If it could warp into a fly.
Hunt it fire in hot pursuit,
Leave it neither branch nor root,
Melt the maggot in its brain,
Free me from its spell insane.
Burn me down unto the core,
Glory to God and nothing more.
A PRODIGAL MEETS HIS LOVER
Not with walks of men I walk alone,
God's prepared for me all this my fate,
Sighing like a lover from His throne
Till all my course is finished, He awaits
To flee to me and kiss my blood-washed neck
And all the robes of state me to bedeck,
Before the August Final Judgment Seat,
I'll strive to crumple down before His feet.
DELECTABLY I BURN AWAY
I will praise the name of my God;
His name shall ever be
as sweet wine
down in the roots of my mind.
Intoxicated in his love
my thoughts of him leap free upon my lips
in songs of praise.
I eat of the profusions
of your spiritual wealth;
my soul reels drunk with love
and falls into your holy flames.
Delectably I burn away
to be who I am.
There my songs are visible
in the white fires of God.
IMMACULATE CONSUMMATION
When
the seven colors
become as one,
the diffraction done,
the soul
turns white
in perfect light -
fiery
and luminous.
WHEN YOUR EYE BE SINGLE
The heart that is all glass
beams the face clear bright
with that one star's light
of white love.
THE LION OF GOD AND HIS ARMY OF LAMBS
We sing, we sing the song of the Lion
as we bloom lamb-like in God's Son,
the ruby gates of glassy Zion
our hearts now wholly own.
And so we march with innocent eyes
amidst mutinous cries of mortal loves,
with our banners we march to His throne,
where there is none unclean.
And all the penitential throng
there all their souls unto Him throw,
while far, so
far, so far below,
seethes proud pandemonium.
AND THE PEOPLE WERE THE PARABLE
"The wheat and the tares,"
Jesus said,
"Let them grow together,"
Jesus said;
And the people stared -
Some blank,
Some nodding knowingly.
And the tares were stiff
And black
With empty heads whistling,
While the wheat bowed low
And heavy,
Golden in the wind.
THE FEARSOME CROSS FINALLY FLINGS
The
fearsome cross finally flings
Its virgin vortex across slaves and kings;
Drawn to judgment in that inevitable hour
By this resolute immanent power.
Then
chaste fire searches what's been done,
It eats on, or feeds the resurgent one.
Some shall laugh, and some shall weep,
In that searing separation of Goats and Sheep.
THE BROKEN EYE
The broken eye
does rarely spy
that voracious worm,
whose gaping jaw
holds in awe
those who squirm.
Then who will sense
their last defense
lies in God,
and turn to flee
through blood-split sea,
dry shod?
THE SINGING HOUSE UPON THE SEA
The singing house upon the sea,
Renaissanced in beauty,
The house in which we pray;
Windows flash with coming day
As fires flame from smoldering embers,
Christ filled, all triumphant members
Live to light again,
With leaping tambourine,
The golden lampstand pure.
THESE WORDS ARE FOR GOD'S LAMBS
These words are for God's lambs,
Who hunger for that living flame,
That they might taste and relish there
The pungent sweetness of His name.
As chastely fed on living bread,
(Broken body and poured out blood),
The Spirit's song over such souls broods
In a heat of all that's bright.
As sweet flame, His river grows,
The hotter the fire the fiercer it flows;
Though meekly white, it's boldly hurled,
Weeping out singing for the life of the world.
THE SWEETEST MAIDENS HEAVE THEIR ALL FOR CHRIST
Precious, precious is the price,
The entrance full to Paradise,
Bound by love in sacrifice.
Precious
entrance bound by love,
(Through all the madness He forgave),
These hearts tinged with Spirit soft
As godly gold through souls He weaves.
Spirits weaved with gentle love,
The woven gold by pain engraved,
While in His virtues we're enslaved.
High altar of fire is our quest,
Climbing, climbing with heaving breasts,
To be
consumed in perfect rest.
We rest on quested funeral pyre,
Our garments of gold flash full with fire,
As bright flames amidst a flaming choir.
In fiery heat we ascend the sky
Singing towards Eden as we die.
IT'S ALWAYS GOOD TO BE UP ON THE ALTARS AGAIN!
(TO CHRISTIAN POETS)
We cannot live like others and fulfill this call
to wholly love God, and by lyric poetical
to share, to share this gift
with those whose wills now
lead them
in diverse ways. There is a place
within
the Christ of God, for those whose
beings wholly thirsts in wings for him; whose
hands and hearts crack with loud applause
at words which light the face of Cherubim
around
the ancient throne of our great God.
Renounce! Renounce! all that would dissipate
the vision pure and fine which flows to you,
and all the rivers of creating fate
will wear and mold, and
then imbue,
and flush the wicked rubble far away
till only whiteness does remain
as a simple mirror of the coming days.
Whole life is restored by God's gentle breath,
breathing, breathing down the doors of death!
A PRAYER SPOKEN LIKE A QUAKER
Living God, thou hast ruined me with thy glory.
I beseech thee, ruin me worse!
Show me thy glory
That I might ever only
Pant after thee.
Lord, make my finding of thee
To be a hundredfold sweeter,
As thou does make thy finding of me
To be sweeter to thee yet.
Come Lord, light within my garden
and let us languish there for each other's love.
ON ISAIAH 33:10-12
The
hotter the fire of flame
The fiercer it flows,
Bounding down a broken heart
The river grows,
Up through lips
And up through burning eyes,
Burning
up the wicked
And burning up his lies,
Till darkly dancing on the ashes of death
Is the naked soul, and its naked breath.
GREEN IS LIVING - GREEN THE COLOR OF HIS KINGDOM - O
Green is the singing house
where God grows
golden through the laughter of the eyes
not his, and
yet His own:
we and He are each the other's prize!
Green the singing house
where music's seen,
through the countless hearts the countless dreams
form
the endless images which seem
crystal shards broken off that perfect green
sea upon the sea which is His home
— His the Kingdom, He is God alone!
Vast the sea around the singing tree,
house of birds who lilt the vaulted air,
crashing through the barriers by prayer
to kiss the gentle faces of the free.
HOLY, HOLY, HOLY, .
There is a river from the throne,
Flowing freely like the solar wind
Moves in perfect freedom through the stars,
Sweeping through the fields of planets bright,
Bound
by naught, but disciplined -
Holy, holy, holy, on the wing.
And God shall descend into our night
As a subtle movement through our souls,
Casting down the grossest things which stand
Against the holy rivers of His wind,
Till tainted not by one dark thing
We're holy, holy, holy, on the wing.
My heart does catch a glimmer of the sight,
Land beyond our dreams, burning true,
Solid as a mountain made of stone,
Blowing forth to crush the idol's gold.
So this song the saints shall freely sing,
Untainted by a single dying
thing -
Holy, holy, holy, on the wind.
TO KNOW WITHIN YOUR HEART THE BLESSED BROACH
Open up you gates to living grace,
Stretch in prayer and praise your
colored wings,
Rise to see the beauty of His face
On the subtle movements of His winds.
Behold in vision clear the golden throne,
There the Father smiles in love for thee,
You a gentle child of God alone
All your heart into His glory throw.
When the vision fades, you still are free,
While the room is hot with beauty bright,
From the purest place upon your knee
You thirst again to soar the holy brink.
*
Broach: A sharp pointed stick for holding
roasting meat; a hole made by such a stick
in something so as to let liquid out.
IF A TOAD SHOULD PLAY THE GAME OF ART
Shall I take your treasures
and remain unchanged?
Horrors of all horrors
it would be insane!
Pain me Lord -
it's better than to be
a proud toad hopping
down the dry vain road,
freed from God and hopping,
floppy feet slapping,
down the dry, vain road
towards hypocrite's heaven.
TO FACE A FREE PERSON
I shall not grasp
this fragile thing,
I'd rather die
than crush the wing,
but I shall sit and hear it sing
and revel in its freedom.
It's pain at times to take a
drink
of people that the angels think,
but it's a pain that truly links
my soul unto its heaven.
THOSE CROWNED WITH SILENT THUNDER
Those crowned with silent thunder
Know that God dwells in the set order
Of wild wonder.
LOVERS IN THE FIRMAMENT
He, the Watcher, sees sapphires
in still pools;
Her heart in the wilderness is ravished
and dives in.
Awakened and aware
in the full alarms of love,
her long golden hair flutters
in the upsurging fountains.
She sings, and the waters tremble;
He smiles, and they grow still.
ARDOR
I desire you
My choicest lover;
Come
weave your heart into my heart
Until your tresses fall over me,
Face upon face,
Eyes into
The pool of eyes.
THE
ANOINTING
He pours spiced wine in her hair
Amongst the barren brambles;
The gate of her face
Is radiance -
For she sees in His pouring glass
Terrible beauty.
INTO THE KING'S CUP
Lip gates
Bleed the breast's essence -
Awake the soul,
Leaping open
To ravished climb
Into spiced wine.
GOD SLAYS HIS LOVERS INTO LIFE
Cruel, the man of war -
With vehement love
The hero slays the virgin's heart,
Standing at her flower-woven doors.
Down runs the blood
Through the thicket,
Like jewel-lit honey
Runs golden off fingers
Into lips -
Dying, her life seeps down
Into His kiss.
ON A SLOW FEAST OF REVEALINGS
And of His glories that soul must rave
Who permeated with Holy love
Discloses the heart to that highest good
And slowly unfolds itself to God.
Spirit to Spirit they two are wed,
As each does eat the
other's bread.
I HAVE WRESTLED WITH THE WIND
I have wrestled with the wind
and strove to climb the paths of rain!
Wearied,
I sunk down low
and behold... those things
I sought to gain
came
tumbling
into my
soul,
so
free...
given in
simplicity.
INTO
THE WHITE FLAME'S KISS
The Divine lover entreats His maid
Till there be
The dropping of the hands,
The dropping of the gown
Into His holy ardor;
Then flies the white bird free
Into the motionless music
Of the opening skies;
Then leaps the spirit free
As a white flame into
The White Flame's kiss.
ONLY GOD CAN GIVE THE DEATH OF SELF
Only God can give the death of self;
This sweet death which is the only door
Into the full sanctuary of life.
Outside are the fearful and unbelieving blind
In the pride which so poorly covers
Our alienation.
Only God can cloak the changing soul
And tuck under ribs stars and wind:
Stars under, wind under
The covered soul as it changes
To the beautiful bloody likeness of that virgin lamb,
Full and found in its meekness,
Holy round and fully out of madness
Which stalks imploded souls incessantly.
I am found and full in His meek gift,
To where my soul which seethed for
Pinnacles of madness
Now quakes into those gentle ways
Where the snap of an apple
Is far to good for me.
So the long lost thankfulness returns again,
And I return,
by this saintly
sweet
dying.
SOLID RIVER
Solid river,
yet
too tenuous to touch,
my substance gross
passes through
till passed through
and rent open and alive
by
the air-like sword
of Heaven.
SPIRIT OF PRAYER - SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
Prayer -
Lord, let this holy breathing be a litany,
A libation of my soul upon your breast,
Tremulous, my spirit turns, then clings to thee,
And stands beneath the pillars of your rest.
Prophecy -
Raise the standard as the trumpet's clarion call,
Sharp the note is sounding forth in me,
Wide the flowing river of your fire-fall,
Deep the channels of its jubilee.
WORD OF GOD ARREST MY MIND
Word of God
Arrest my mind
and plunge it
in your starry grasp
to the unsounded depths
of emerald silence,
or BOOM it
through the high clefts of sky
to sail lean and naked
into the subtle raging
of solar wind.
OUR FLAWLESS CHRIST
Our flawless Christ!
Ruddy pleasant -
Once scorned
Now uncompared!
The juice,
The very
quintessence,
The heart of Holy air.
To you, Oh Christ,
The unsoiled virgin thigh,
The falling, flowing locks of hair,
The chaste and wondering eyes,
The innocence aware.
This bride bought with King's blood,
Once scorched and scorned,
Now upon her ivory throne,
Crown adorned,
Sits the beauty rare!
SECRET CHRIST IN THESE OUR WEARY DAYS
Secret Christ, in these our weary days
amidst this last full frenzied whirling,
constant supports our errant, wounded ways
and listens to our soulish wailing.
Through the manifold books of mankind's wisdom
the shattered light flicks out its flames
while in the rich remains of outdated virtue
shines the lovely Christ, still unashamed -
weeping in and out of view,
still sacrificial in the few.
THE THOUGHTS OF GOD INTO ALL THE WORLD NOW REACH
The
thoughts of God into all the world now reach,
the thoughts of men flow in grave covered speech;
but the words of God sever death like a knife
and slice the soul down to the core of life.
Then out from man flows a crystal river:
sin-dead man now a Christ life-giver.
Jesus' cross laid upon a man
is the only force which effectually can
expose
and kill satan's subtle power
till like Aaron's rod, dead souls flower.
GOD LOVES BEAUTY
God loves beauty:
He's sung it into every whirling wing,
Through all the wind which breathes upon the wing
And all the sea which wraps the sounding whale;
The music's seen by those who love to sing,
And all the lovesick tellers of the tale,
Who, fierce to see the music bursting free,
Swallow all up in the beauty's prayer.
I WRITE TO YOU MY MYSTICAL LOVER
I write to you
my mystical lover
for I must live
unto another
if love as a river
through my soul should fall.
How deathly is the pall
upon a soul sown into self
with needle and thread of selfish desire -
I yearn for fire,
for fire fall in all
to harrow out the river's course!
From my soul unto yours
my sorrows seek their airy way;
this soft, dove-bearing heart,
(all encased as a work of art),
these silent words spirits say...
"My lover, I pour into you
to imbue your soul
with burnished love."
SALVATION
There is an unending sea around my heart
through which the well-watered spirit moves in heat,
seeking that rubied soul who grins to meet
He who spun the world a work of art.
Blood ruby dipped in dying blood
to show in echoed light the mirrored day
which bent upon the shouldered world to pay
the shuddered impact of the raging flood!
Vehement blast disgorged from satan's brain
strikes the meekest soul there clean into,
smashed the lamb the wilting thunder due
each who drives the darkness into pain!
Here the torn and tender shimmers light
through eyes which see the foggy maiden clear,
the little children huddled in their fear,
and all the hungry faces of the night.
Break! you rebelled soul within your pride.
Darkness hates the burning risen sun,
spurns old history's deeds which God has done
and seeks by spit to stem the coming tide!
Eastertide's now surging through the night
to swallow torn up hearts with tenderness
and drown them in that ocean which does dress
the naked soul with virtues forged in light.
GLORY O CHRIST TO YOUR MAGNANIMOUS NAME
Lord, you know my own propensity
to take your glory and fling it
far to see
my own ambitions sprung to full delight,
my leering clown-like self
in life's limelight.
Kill me God, kill me down into love:
Your selfless goodness giving
in the torrents of your true self's joy;
bearing the ever-bearing
new born miracle in flame —
Glory O Christ,
to Your Magnanimous Name!