To lift a thought to a song,
To redress perceived wrongs;
To relive my youth,
To expose the truth;
To express my love,
To see a pigeon as a dove;
To foresee the future,
To capture the elusive;
To give voice to the abused,
To find refuge when refused;
To immortalize loved ones,
To embrace the shunned ones;
To know stars are fireflies,
To scrape away lies;
To explain time is just a moment,
But enternity's in a sonnet.
Simply put,
It's the right thing to do.

My confession
I'm a wretch
A miserable
Broken soul
Stained black in sin
I am shattered

But I am reborn
Scarred, yes
But reborn
Cleansed in fire
Washed
Clean
Pure crimson

I will dive
Deeper
Swallowed whole by the sea
The purifying surf
I will never surface
Yet I will never drown

I The Wicked Son
Drenched in Saving Scarlet

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream:
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Nightly troubles I never escape.
The tossing and turning of comfort retreating.
The waking in the morning before the sun begins to rise.
The work to fall back into a sleepless sleep.
The nightly energy I spend just to stay still.
The rest of the energy I use just to stay quiet.
Sleep does not visit a restless mind.
Sleep does not take over a moving body.
Until I get prescribed, but the nightmare continues.
Medication does not even help.

Fixing his eyes on
The purple horizon,
He waits for his ship to come in;
Gazing across
Empty seas at a loss,
Anxiously scratching his chin.

The spray of the waves
Against his worn face
Reminds him that hope has grown thin,
As clouds drifting by
Can hear a soul sigh,
“Will my ship ever come in?”

But just then the winds
Off the starboard begin
To fill flapping sails overhead,
As gazing straight down
At boards, and not ground,
He sees that a deck his feet tread.

“All of this time,
For my ship I have pined,
And searched near and far for a sign;
But such was in vain,
For now it is plain
That I’ve stood at its helm the whole time.”