Diakonia's goal is to change unfair political, economic, social and cultural structures that generate poverty, oppression and violence

He says ,"Everyone deserves the least if they want the most !"

I twist the loose strands of the wicker rocker

"You work hard all you life for nothing ."

"You don't sleep , you blink and bleed while you think , what for !"

"There's no escape , no loose rage in the hot sauce of defeat !"

"No escape , no sleep , don't slip , don't quit . Just bleed and blink and think !"

She said it's twenty seconds to last call

By the time I had considered that . . .

Skinny love always intimidated me

I always feared I was going to break a bone or something else

. . . but I never did .

I guess I kissed the girls and made them cry

now it is my turn

to turn the world .

I hear the loneliness knocking at the door

it's not Lanore or Annabell Lee  .

She turned to the hand of the night and told me ,
"God knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts ."

The low rumble
of sparks of delusion
race across my thoughts
in the seclusion of my skin

The Gulf's winds that
are coming
will seed the destruction twisting time end over end

The bird must have its feathers if it so desires to fly

Then why does the naked truth remained grounded
instead of racing across the sky

. . .
that which has a secret inside itself . . .

which is :
that exhilaration that is serene and untouchable . . .

that self contained God-like feeling
that is completely independent of all of the chances and changes of life

. . . . Joy . . .

He has no face
or desire
to face
the large grate

And inside
the wicket of the grate
The little door
to the larger gate

One side named narrow

The door ****'s
apprehensions
twist in the fingertips

The other side
slides to the indifference

The 69 peep holes rock in
scandalization

How does one survive ?

The false prophet goes
door to door
selling sheep skin
diplomas
black as raven's hair

His false fruit
lays fermenting adding
pollution to our despair .

The prophet's basic fault is full of self interests
For gain and grain of easy life
For personal prestige
through others pain and strife

His man-centered words
appeal to the ears that want to be tickled with ear candy

And the results are that truth be forgotten , trampled to dust and thrown away

Beware of the smooth tongue Jacob with
the rough hairy hands
of Esau .

If you look up
Is it there?
All I see is air
Why do I raise
my arms up
hoping that God
hears my prayer

Is it some kind
of wicked game
we play ?

I never dreamed
I would meet
someone like you

What a deception
fast of feet
What a reception
so incomplete

I raise my
empty hands up
asking God
"Where is my love ?"

Never liked horses
they reminded me
of all the women I rode

They would buck
and bray
they would disagree
and say
neigh neigh neigh

They would toss
me to the ground
Stomp and rear
make horrible
sounds

Best when
unbridled
unsaddled
left to roam
free

I care not
for the age I am

Too much sand has past through the hourglass
gram after gram

. . . . . . .

Wishing that I could
turn it around
But time has the chapters of the book
locked-strapped down

. . . . . .

Then after I fell
from the tree and
hard-thumped the ground

I stood up and I looked sheeplessly around

"Egad" ! I said with a reluctant scowl
I care not
for this moment wiping the pain off my brow

. . . . . . . .


Now that the salt has
turned blue steel to rust

It leaves me with thoughts that I find just disgust

. . . . . . .

The temple crowns . . .
snow white in disguise

The truth is affirmed
inside reside all of the lies

. . . . . . .

So many things
I care not for . . .

Seems like the list aquires
daily
more after more

. . . . . . . . .

The burden's great that holds me down

The elementals of time
have shackled me to the roots in the ground

. . . . . . .

Yet I set sail to sea
with one set of sure-sails

knowing there's hurricane force winds
and tempestuous gales

. . . . . . .

Just one more thing I care not for  👇

"I'm just another mouse that wants to hear itself roar"

Natas - latin for resurrection , associated with Christ . Also Satan spelled backwards . Like a Bible held upside down or an inverted cross nothing is as it seems to be .

When the sun goes flame
When dried blood's no shame
One truth stands out in the shivering cold
That there is no truth in silver or gold . . .

and you can't handcuff those of the spiritual fold !

I never had a chance
to look at the future
but with a glance

I saw the world from the rear window
of the car
while being driven
to destinations
near and far

So many miles
before I was five
Before I even
realized I was alive

And home was where
my grandparents lay
Maybe we could visit
come Christmas day

I walked long
and I fought hard
Always drawing the shortest straw
or the blackest card

The Romans taxed by auctioning off the right to collect taxes to the highest bidder . Then the tax collector  would tax enough to cover his cost and
make a profit .

These were the toll-takers , custom-takers for the Romans , and most of them were greedy grifters . They were hated by the people . They were called Publicans because they took up publica , the goods of the Empire .

Publicans are still here today collecting taxes but they like to be called by their new name , Republicans .

If John the Baptist
were alive today
he would be wearing
second hand clothes
with holes in them .
He would be living
on the streets
with cardboard
for shelter

He would be
eating out of garbage cans
but he would never
need to beg

He would be
on every street corner
telling us we must
repent and to prepare
for one coming
that would be greater
than him

And no one
would be listening
to a homeless
man on the street

She standing there with her gin and tonic
Holding it like a cross
ripe for crucifixion

She turns to smile making sure you see her
Pouring out wiles of affection on the somebody that's brand new

It's like an arrow through your affliction
Cutting deeper than the burbon on your breath
Is it her way of making up a torture test ?
Well the answered would be . . . YES !

Well it's sometime between midnights
It's anytime now all of the time
She holding the arm of leaving
with the intention of her new guy she's deceiving

There's no amount of Bourbon you hush
It can't flush away the ghosts

And it must be between the midnights
It must be the last of last call for toasts

The band's quit for the night
The pianist twinkles on the keys of exhaustion
I whisper to the glass of ice
Everything's going to be alright
Best to err on the edge of caution
and learn how to roll with the dice

Building houses of life
with white pine
and beaverboard
strife

Poured floors
of crete
and narrow doors
without glass

Varnished nobs
that soon corrode
and lose their flash

Matchbook marriage
that can't take the heat
soon burns down
in defeat

You paid your share
You collected nothing
but beaverboard
despair

Time! Time! Time !
The great eraser of me

Watch ! . . .  as I pace  
this cage of days
that is leeching me

I was the fool . . .
nothing was ever going to
placate me

Just look around !
The walls are bare
There are boxes of pictures
that will never get their chance to stare

Huh !
Time . . . the great eraser
of me


https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cXXdCIClI&si=gmIFFxqNLcJUS1Bk

We all have it
or at least I think we do
That ache or sorrow of heart
When in moments all alone
we sit sometimes on the edge of the bed for hours
Each breath slow and easy
as that hollow ache swallows the whole heart

I wonder if it comes from God letting us know what it feels like to be rejected by the people we love

When Jesus was 12 he attended the Passover festivals in Jerusalem with his parents . After the holiday was over everyone packed up and left only concerned about their destination . About half way home his parents realized he was not there and made a hasty retreat back to Jerusalem . They found him in the Temple teaching the priest .

Sometimes we get caught up in our destination and forget what we are missing .
"Why were you searching for me ? Did you not know I must be in my father's house ?"

Maybe that hollow ache is the missing presence of our Father's house inside .

Maybe going somewhere without is going nowhere at all .


https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvKcuQdMbw&si=grgF8Cs1-z6MS5MZ

Drifting in the shade
of Hello Poetry's long lost grave
In archive (a kingdom's history)
the past that has been made

Stepping on the bleached out bones
The pale parade of long dead dreams

Crunching fragments of sentenced themes
burning books , poems stuffed inside the reams

Epitaphs to their honor
2010 comments to poets
Vickey , Fix , and O'Connor

Poems to praise lost in time
I hold in hand the words that bind

Great poems whose eyes
were never shed
In a broken aspiration
now lay dead

Cruch , crunch ,
the landscape littered in 2012
Oh what sacred feelings
not forthwith

Here ! lay my poems
to rest here
In 2014 my poems
of yesteryear

When a man is a short distance away from his wife his messages are short .
The greater the distance the longer the messages .
.
So are the prayers of man to God .

You took away my wealth
I gave you my all

My house,  my clothes
I didn't stall

You beat me , kicked me
Bad names you called

I just bowed my head
and no replied to all

You imprisoned me chained me
I made it my home

You took away my food and water
I fasted to bone

Every lash of pain inflicted
I turned it into another verse of song

The water is the symbol
of the world's evil sea

We are submerged in helplessness but emerge innocent and free

Old flames
leave singed hearts
and ash crusted exteriors

yet inside remains tender
intact memories still
moist in tears

No flame
lasts forever nor soft wet kisses on front porch swings

Sometimes you surrender
everything for nothing to gain

It's said God will wipe away every tear in Heaven .

That means I will remember you .

Children
exist in a place where
they can only receive

They don't refuse gifts
out of self centered pride

Such are the ones who seek the Kingdom of Heaven

For unless they become children of God they will never enter

Your knowledge is one thing
Your faith is another

Sometimes even the greatest scholars are not the holiest of men

Even when you've become ashes
Your life laying in ruins

There is one proclaiming
"Those ashes are mine"

God is the seed
Man is the soil

Nothing will grow
unless a man toil

God's watering words
quench a man's thirst

The son's called our Savior
from cradle to hearst

Is an action word , not of a sorrowing heart , but one of a change of direction like a stone bouncing off an immovable force .

The strategic opportunity to make decisive decissions
that define the moment we call time .

Healing doesn't come from
revisiting a wound

It comes from releasing it

I will follow the followed

Those cuspacated fingers cringe of dried blood

The cracking lips
belching
the word "fursat"
from a dying Noah
after years of desiccating floods

I stare for hours
at the keyboard

It's staring back at me

So I change my profile picture
But I'm feeling the same

So comes the light

The night ?

That will soon disappear

There I stand lashed to the key
But the tsunami never comes

Just reality sweeping over me

When love declines
the heart grows cold
It becomes the moonlight
that chills the soul

Polished like marble
with all of its frills
It withers away
Attemptable to ****

What cold singing
from frigid lips
When the heart grows weary
From the vice of life's grips

When prayers become weeds
Scattered by wind
Left with nothing
But the hollow within

Dare dash the dust from the room
The canary in the coffin doomed
Crack the legs to make it fit
Awful feeling in your pit

The days taste of kerosene
The bees are gone there's no sting
While the albatross questions why
The walrus now has to die

Yank the heart from it's wrack
Beat the drums tack tack tack
Time's kept in a bottle by the sea
So was tossed the child so wee

I dared thee to write it down
You , the orangutan face of a clown
Kick the plastic down the road
Make the others tariff the load

If you are afraid to die
Then you are not ready

A person is like a light bulb
The light comes from within

Death extinguishes light
from the outside in

But the live wires of life
will still remain

Waiting on someone to turn the switch on again

Death pats itself on the back but then

Life puts the dagger into
it's empty hand

I had someone's extra time and money
So I planted it in the rose garden
Man , that was a waste of time !

Everyone has their fifteen minutes of fame
They carry their torches high
while going up in flame

The ashes of the past
become the hope diamonds of tomorrow

As one ages time flies by even faster
Yet they do less and less before they are put out to pasture

If you find a hole inside your soul
It's where your heart once called its abode

The gold coin had a two sided head of an ox

One side of an ox pulling a plow

The other of an ox being lead to slaughter as a sacrifice

At the bottom it was inscribed ,

"Be either"

The darkest nights
provide
the mush-rooms
of delight

They took the Don-key and the colt
They did not ask permission
They told the rightful owners
We have a need and want
They clothed the colt in money
Threw dollars before its feet
And entered the sacred city
looking forward to the feast
"Vox populi , Vox dei"
yelled the people
Triumphantly they were heard to yell
Little did they know
It was the beginning of four more years of Hell

You have to let go and not hold on
When life's past has cut you to the bone
Cast away the anchors
grasp
Cut the ropes , drop sails on the mast
Check the weather that the sunrise casts
Let go , Let go ,
. . . the ugly past

When I was last
I dreamed of being first

When I became first
I wished I was last

Those in the middle
looked left then right

Shook their heads in disbelief
And prayed with all their might

Who was it that was left
Who then was the right

Excuses
are the white bread
spinal taps
that alleviate
the sticky
super glue
of truth

Infinity is the fabric of time that eternity wraps around itself .

It's not the reflection in the mirror
it's the image we put into it

I held your love
with the fingers of my heart
I tattooed the promise
to all my tomorrows
across my back to be carried for eternity
. . . where are you now ?

It takes forever for distant stars to burn my lips
There is no mercy found on the floorboards that walk across my kiss
. . . where are they now ?

Remember how the needles of time stitched the nights together ?
How easy does the fabric of love become unentwined
. . .  remember ?

When it's my time to go
do I go alone ?
Who's to guide me ?
Who's there to open the gate ?
Who's there to say welcome home ?

The days have been torn from the book
There's nothing between the covers
but that dubious look

No hands of man can reach me
No clock can measure
No wind will chill
No thoughts remain
No tears left unwashed
by rain

I will go to the music
I will crave the light
I will not fear
Nor lose sight

Between the day and dark
I will choose to follow
If I lose the way
It will be my sorrow

So let my hand go
Whisper something
beneath your breath
I will see you there
beyond the grip of death

Does not the sun
that softens the wax
turn on the clay
to make it hard ?

The one whose rest
is restless at night
Drives by on his silver screen
Eying out potential poems for demarcation

If one believes something they should have proof .
If one does not believe they should have proof as well .

Don't hide behind your protasis .
May all your "ifs" sink into the sea .

Stand firmly on the waters of your apodosis .
Ease your mind and set your spirit free .

One can say : "Tell us the truth!"
And I long to want to
but how is it best to do ?

I find it residing deep inside
But my ability is lacking to make it come alive

So I cast out examples
that lay alongside
Heavenly meanings
with Earthly ties

Proverbs , riddles , and saying so wise
Make it easier to see and feel the truth that's disguised

Sometimes it hard to separate the truth
Then one must turn into a quizzical sleuth

But for the one that knocks on the door
A new world opens for them to explore

I blow the new dust
off the old dust ,
the dust that remains forever.
I told her ,
"You steal my time
and my money ,
my house and
all my integrity .
But you will never steal my heart ."

I tilt the base back and forth
Watching the same grains of sand
become suspended in time

Your open arms were my harbor to my shipwrecked dreams

Your beach my bed where I lay my head

My nights were the stars in your eyes

Your kisses the comets I craved

The tides of change , tropical depression and hurricanes . . . as I curl my toes in wet sand

The grains in glass I seek
to balance out the spatial

I have that space now nothing more

No , nothing more .