With words we defy impermanence

Aug 2019

beth fwoah dream

the stars tremor in the water,
breathe of sky and silver bird,

the night is a closed eye, a
river of frost
where the dark, born
of root and shaded dream,
stretches like a flower;

the shadows lengthen
dissolve into wooden gate
and hollowed out tree.

#loving #you

May 2019

Eryck

MOUTH OPEN, WORDS FALL OUT

Saying stupid things at inappropriate times for me is like riding a bicycle, it's  something you never forget how to do...
    like when my uncle tried riding a bike for the first time in 30 years and then proceeded to plunge over a mile high cliff.
   It was my idea for him to ride the bike in the first place and I didn't know what to do so I leaned over the cliff and shouted, " pedal, pedal".

Sep 2018

Jade

The Curse

How are we allowed to grow
When our silences are spread thin,
Our cheeks forever touched
By strangers on trains.
When our eyes are glued to
The girl crying in the bathroom,
And a child following
His mother carefully along the crowded street.

How are we allowed to grow
With the shouts from parties next door
Break down the bedroom walls,
When that boy who you used to be friends with
Walked down the other side of the street
And you hope he doesn’t see you,
When the man starts yelling obscenities
From the corner of the park
And you want to believe his words.

How are we allowed to grow
With all of the pain,
With our brief glimpses of joy,
With our arms outstretched for a better future,
With our minds stunted in the past.

How are we supposed to grow
When our very bones are torn apart
By questions we can never answer.

#existentialism #identity #humanity #city #imagery #depression #fear #memories #crisis #loss

Sep 2018

Alyssa Underwood

Drakensberg Sonnet

We're forced, each man, to walk a trialed path—
resisted trek, uphill through blinding daze
that shrouds with crucible's perplexing haze
till fog-white skies yield quick to black clouds' wrath.
Affliction brims a thorny pack to bear
whilst dewy darkness drenches in the night,
but where is calming lamp to lend us sight?
And who will come to give us saving care?
Here through veil is heard a whisper certain,
then o'er the mountain creeps the dawning day
and with clear eyes we see the brume give way
as God retracts His theatre's curtain,
unsheathing velvet waves whose morning sheen
beyond grey mist splays vast and wondrous green.

~~~

"I will exalt You, LORD,
    for You lifted me out of the depths
    and did not let my enemies gloat over me.
LORD my God, I called to You for help,
    and You healed me.
You, LORD, brought me up from the realm of the dead;
    You spared me from going down to the pit.
Sing the praises of the LORD, you His faithful people;
    praise His holy name.
For His anger lasts only a moment,
    but His favor lasts a lifetime;
weeping may stay for the night,
    but rejoicing comes in the morning.
When I felt secure, I said,
    'I will never be shaken.'
LORD, when You favored me,
    You made my royal mountain stand firm;
but when You hid Your face,
    I was dismayed.
To You, LORD, I called;
    to the Lord I cried for mercy:
'What is gained if I am silenced,
    if I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise You?
    Will it proclaim Your faithfulness?
Hear, LORD, and be merciful to me;
    LORD, be my help.'
You turned my wailing into dancing;
    You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,
that my heart may sing Your praises and not be silent.
    LORD my God, I will praise You forever."

~ Psalm 30

https://hellopoetry.com/poem/1464179/the-beauty-behind-the-fog/

#sonnet #bowlesiansonnet #trials #affliction #darkness #confusion #fog #dawn #sunrise #morning

Sep 2018

Akira Chinen

it’s yours

When I say I love you what I mean is
I love you in a way that means
here is my love
take as much or as little as you need

whenever you need it
whenever you need it

and here this is my heart
but it is more than that now
it is yours now too

you can hold it in your hands
you can feed it to yours
you can hang it in the sky
you can put it on a shelf
        and let it gather dust
you can press it between
           the pages of a book
you can stomp on it
you can break it
you can toss it away
      and laugh if you want

it’s ok
  it’s yours
it’s ok
  it’s yours

because I love you
and what I mean is that
when you need comfort
I will give you whatever
   comfort I can
when you feel ill or sick
I will take care of you
in whatever way you need
when you need someone
   to make you smile
I want to to do my best
   to give you a reason to smile
and when you don’t feel like smiling
I want to understand
    and weather the storm with you

when you are cold
I want to be warmth
when you are hunger
I want to be food
when you are lost
I want to be the road home

because when I say I love you
I love you doesn’t mean
I need you to be mine
and I need to be yours

it means here you made this
you gave me this feeling
and it is beautiful
and I am in your debt
and I give it back to you
not expecting
or needing anything in return

I am here
even if here isn’t by your side
you don’t need to love me back
the same way I love you

and if here isn’t a place
you want me to be
I will go wherever
you want me to go
if its hell
I will go to hell for you

and still if you need a little
or all or none of my love
it’s yours

take whatever you need
whenever you need it

it’s yours
   it’s yours

Aug 2018

The Faithful Dreamer

Not Shaken

Loss upon loss.
Threat upon threat.
Until fear envelops me.
Trying to pull me under.
I fight back. I push against it.
By His Spirit within me.
I turn my mind from the darkness,
to His Light.
I turn my eyes from the stormy seas of this life,
to my Anchor Jesus Christ.
I. Will. Not. Be. Shaken.

Aug 2018

Alyssa Underwood

Darkest Night

O darkest night, what are you for?
Sometimes to wrestle, sometimes to rest
But always to cling to Jesus more

Though senses are dulled, desires awaken
Aching grows stronger, inhibitions are taken
Less seeing, less hearing, more hunger, more longing
Answers are dimming while questions are thronging

More drilling, more filling
The canyons of my soul
More boring, more pouring
Himself into the hole
More stretching, more catching
Away my gasping breath
More tearing, more sharing
In the union of His death

"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them *******, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
~ Philippians 3:7-14

~~~

#darkness #night #wrestling #jesus #rest #pain #struggle #heartache #questions #tearing

Aug 2018

Alyssa Underwood

The Only Perfect Romance

Promises made by mortal man
Are rarely met by mortal hand
For though they strive to win your heart
Such passions land far from their start

They'll paint, so clear, a future bliss
And draw you in with blinding kiss
But just when you have bought the dream
Man finds pursuits more worthy to deem

Ambition, sport and other girls
Whose flattering words and smiles like pearls
Will tempt a fellow to leave his nest
And lie upon another's breast

'Tis pain so sharp you think you'll die
And tears aren't found enough to cry
A torture rack would be better friend
With all its tearing limb to limb

To have your innards disemboweled
Or face the fiercest lion's growl
Would be kinder punishment than this
From one who knew your ****** kiss

And yet within this darkest night
A hint of moonbeam's softest light
Might rise upon such blistered soul
And shine into its gaping hole

For romance still may spark a flame
And whisper to your heart by name
To woo you in your bleakest hour
With promises of healing power

Promises unlike the others you've known
Whose good intentions were quickly thrown
Away by the frailty of human flesh
When sin's entanglements did enmesh

No, this One's words are wholly sure
His heart and mind and will are pure
His faithfulness cannot be shaken
Nor His covenant love ever be taken

He chose you before He made the sun
And said to the Father, "I want that one!"
He searched you out through all your years
Through all your joys and pains and fears

And now He waits for you to grasp
That deepest pleasure lies in His clasp
That His own kiss brings highest delight
That His face is eye's sweetest sight

It's He alone Who can fill you up
And saturate your empty cup
When life has left you hollow and dry
And numb to further wish to try

When memories lie tarnished with stains
And not one worthy dream remains
He reaches in with perfect hope
That pulls you up like saving rope

And as He wipes tears from your eyes
He says to you: I am the Prize!
Take hold of Me and drink My love
Come sit with Me in realms above

For I have blessings prepared for you
That you've never imagined, but oh it's true
I long to give you all of Me
To draw you close and let you see

That in your pain you know Me best
That heart's rejection finds its rest
In this sweet fellowship of intimacy
Where you are made to look like Me

I'll give you love like you've not known
Enough to see your will o'erthrown
Enough to pour it out upon
That very one who did you wrong

For that one, too, knows thirst of soul
And needs My love to fill the hole
Which, though he's tried hard to ignore,
Pleads, "More and more and more and more!"

But if he never should respond
Still, that pure love will seal the bond
That ties you to My own heartbeat
For then you'll see My love complete

For though the world resists Me still
I love them fiercely and always will
I've known rejection like no other
From bride and kindred and friend and brother

And when you love through hate and scorn
A jewel within your heart is born
For then you glimpse My own heart's breaking
And learn My secrets of rarest taking

To rejoice in the face of bitter spite
Requires sure death but will invite
Your soul to dance in gardens of bliss
Where you will know My Lover's kiss

So come and dance with Me, make haste
There's no spare moment left to waste
Abundant life waits through this door
With thrills and pleasures evermore!

~~~

#heartbreak #infidelity #divorce #adultery #brokendreams #healing #jesus #recovery #hope #god

Aug 2018

Alyssa Underwood

What Is True Joy?

It's delight which flows without measure
from the assurance that through every circumstance
and detail of my life God is ever beckoning and drawing me
into deeper intimacy with Himself, ever whispering to my heart,
“Come closer still.”

Joy in the midst of devastating loss, crushing disappointment,
unbearable pain or scourging heartache is about the discovery of
treasure so precious and rare that it never could have been found
had we not been forced to walk a path of affliction in the desert.

It's in the isolation and brutality of the wild that we come to know Him
in ways that transcend the span of human imagining or desiring,
and all the songs and all the poems and all the masterpieces
taken together cannot capture an estimable description
of the pleasures that might be unearthed there.

There lies before us in our afflictions a vast and wondrous beauty
yet undisclosed behind the fog, and like a theatrical curtain
slowly pulled back to reveal a perfectly set stage
He will sublimely unveil it in His own directed time.

And we shall be elated at the view,
for it's against a backdrop of struggle and darkness
that the best and most moving of stories have always unfolded.

Maybe nothing truly beautiful can ever take form on earth
without the shroud of mystery and brokenness surrounding it—
at least not the kind of beauty that takes our breath away
and leaves us yearning to possess it.

~~~

"You have made known to me the path of life; You will fill me with joy
in Your presence, with eternal pleasures at Your right hand."
~ Psalm 16:11

"O God, You are my God, earnestly I seek You; my soul thirsts for You, my body longs for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You. On my bed I remember You; I think of You through the watches of the night. Because You are my help, I sing in the shadow of Your wings. My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me."
~ Psalm 63:1-8

"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn Your decrees. The law from Your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold."
~ Psalm 119:71-72

"'Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth...'"
~ Hosea 2:14-15

#god #mystery #fog #intimacy #devastation #disappointment #pain #heartache #affliction #isolation

Aug 2018

Alyssa Underwood

Wrestling at Peniel

It's at the point of desperation that the soul finds its deepest desire,
and in that desire lies everything of which true life is made.
Perhaps the first and central question concerning surrender
ought not to be, “What am I willing to give to God?”
but “What am I willing to receive from Him?”

For it's only in the realization that I have nothing to give Him and
He has everything to give me that true humility and surrender come.
If I would simply receive all He offers me and let Him fill me up
I would have no room in my hands to hold onto anything else.
But how often it is that we won't receive it until everything else is lost.

It's the secret and inexpressible dreams of the soul
which are the hardest things of all to let go and the last to go.
When they are finally gone we have nothing left to run to but Him,
and when we do we find that He is the beginning,
the end and the center of every secret dream.

Ah, blessed Peniel—that mysterious and holy ground
where heartache collides head-on with romance,
that deep and shadowed land where we struggle
with God and with men and we overcome,
that painful yet glorious place which we may leave limping
with a wrenched hip but we do not care, for we have seen God’s face—
like Jacob, may we not pass you by without being forever changed.

Genesis 32

~~~

#god #wrestling #idols #desperation #desire #surrender #dreams #mystery #heartache #struggle

Aug 2018

Alyssa Underwood

move on

go on your way
My beloved child
turn aside from
the swerving path
untangle your gaze
to center on Me
stand in courage
hugging wisdom
guard all thoughts
leaning upon My love
release what's behind
and walk on in joy

Proverbs 4

~~~

#moveon #lettinggo #release #wisdom #courage #joy #peace #god #path #love