Last night sitting on the edge of my bed
a bed that seemed more like a ledge
there with a burden in my head:
Should I look up or just feel the dread?

I sat longer and I think I prayed.
I knew he was a God who cared,
but lately on the verge of afraid,
my faith seemed weak and impaired.

I wondered if they were right
that the short blast of rays
won’t hurt and will **** the blight
the doctors say is in its early phase.

But why pray to a God who seemed unable
to help my aunt who died
from a disease so unstable,
so good at finding places to hide?

So here I was, teetering between trust
and its evil opposite, doubt
doubt he can alter life’s ******.
Does he have any real clout?

In this dark of mind
I came to see I really don’t know!
So why let my inner skeptic always lurking behind
reign and empower its verdict of no?

Instead I choose to lift my head
from that lonely fretting place
and embrace a Father not gone and dead -
but here, now to create and renew me with grace.

“Teetering,” Copyright © 2018 by Glenn Currier

She stands where the river blows her hair wild

no youth and no favor for her
no hands to clean the salt licks on her skin
her palms are dreams wrinkled dry
yet craving an offer.

You come from a distant land, she says,
heavens bless you.

I got no small change, I respond,
my mind drifts to ponder,

a small change, I need that too,
always hungered for
and faltered through
like I missed the vessel narrowly
to be on the river's other side.

Maybe when I come back,
I turn toward her.

She was gone.

Fear waits upon its prey
where the light is a shamefaced girl

wind is a fragmented guest
where silence fools the unwary

to chirp the birds forget
where the baiter might be the bait

the hush is not all white
as in that ever ruling night
blood is spilled without sound.

Forlorn as the lovers' lost track
meanders the creek
in moans for the lost
shedding its sighs to the tides.

This book is full
of my father's eye lashes
He treated the pages
rough like his sons
pinching the daylights
out of them, I remember
mud and grease
on calloused thumbs
and you can still smell
Four Roses bourbon
in the morning
through the onionskin
He would not weep
he knew most folks
never kept their word
Anyway, his death
came through
like a hitchhiker
You could see it coming
like the slow light
of a faraway dead star.

Sister, I tremble in the shade
Of your impending absence feared
Its shadow looming ominous
Sister, does anything ever die?

Brother, this place that we have made
Our garden mutually beloved
And all things must pass to dust
Brother, is permanence a lie?

Sister, if the leaves are golden now
We may be sure they’re soon to fall
We are not immortal evergreen
Sister, you won’t forget to pray?

Brother, though I know not how
I’m sure souls needn’t finally part
But did the poet weigh his words
Brother, can nothing gold e’er stay?

Sister, gold is too precious for rust
But listen to the call, ahead
We cannot neglect our course
Sister, are you glad you came?

Brother, although part we must
And suffer heart-strings joined to cut
Love, still whole, knows no regret
Brother, you won’t forget my name?

Sister, though the country’s breadth
Brings doleful separation on
Love’s memory scorns the divide
Sister, is it not true?

Brother, O, it feels like death
When love bridges the awful gap
It splinters, weeping, grieves the loss
Brother, what can I do?

Sister, dear, look to the Bread
The cup divine, I am outpoured
Souls mingle in the Victim’s blood
Sister, shan’t we run this race?

Brother, I see now in the Head
His every member blessed and joined,
And so unbound by space or time
Brother, there we shall embrace.

imagination
is a funny thing
and getting lost in the hallucinatory bliss
of a fantasy
may become ethereal

our minds
are moldable
   & viscous
the formation
directed
by a mere thought

   or thoughts...
that sometimes
consume
envelope
suffocate
inhabit
our very soul

floating through
an imaginary world
keeps us lost
   saves us
protects us
from the harsh reality
of what
really is.