The sirens blared that 4th of July
Officer Duncan gave Mammy a ride
An emergency dash to the hospital
He’s 2 months premature Mammy cried

Deaf, dumb and blind is what the doctors said
To our mother when Sammy was born
But none of us kids ever were told
Until Sammy was stable and grown

Pappy declared that they’d both be fine
Not believing dire news doctors gave
We happily named him Uncle Sam
Trusting in him to be strong and brave

His 1st 5 months in an incubator
Hooked up to every device
In Newton Wellesley Hospital, 1959
A miracle saved his life

Reaching gloved hands through holes in the side
Weighing just a bit over 2 pounds
Looking more like a spindly ET
I was amazed to be hearing breath sounds

Sam worked on doubling his weight by Christmas
Nothing seemed easy or fast
Still Mammy survived the eclampsia
And Sammy went home at last

Returning a few years later
Sammy’s doctor she would find
To show off to all the nurses
Her son NOT deaf, dumb and blind

I so love my brother Sammy
Always felt like a sister and mother
I’d give all I have for the time
Just a minute more with my dear brother

I’d speak to you of those 57 years
Of the great whirligig you carved with your hands
All the times you showed up for me
Through the good and the bad our love stands

You wasted no time hating anybody
Children and dogs always your friends
Quick for a laugh despite any lack
I draw comfort that all your pain ends

The sirens blared once again for you
The ambulance came, the paramedics tried
Racing you trying to save you
All in vain, in the OR you died


Like Tommy’s rock opera is over
Perhaps you paused to speak to a stray dog
While keeping your divine appointment
By reaching right into the hand of God

There is a dam inside my head
I'm waiting on a crack for the water to leak
Onto the surface it will seep
Spilling out my mind for the people to see
My life is a vision rated 6/10
We don't dream in colors like kids, we just pretend
I dreamed of a pied piper with a lust for bronze
Even though she can get both silver and gold

No time - so no setting sun
I'll keep on shining while i'm still young
No time - so no setting sun
Down in the valley of my head

I am a fish inside my head
Laying on the ground gasping for breath
You came about and saw me approaching death
You picked me up and tucked me in the river bed
New found life then entered my being
From that moment I swam upstream
I swam to the dam with the cracks running down
From the muddy backwaters I leaped out
The liquid from my mind drenched my skin
Turned me from a creature to a normal man
My personality is a lifestyle rated 9/10
I still dream of her every now and again

No time - so no setting sun
I'll keep on shining while i'm still young
No time - so no setting sun
Down in the valley of my head

There's this thing about worship
that I often forget.

You see it's not just this thing
that we do on Sunday.
It's every day;
Every breath and movement of our hands
is done because we understand
that God's grace is not a prize we won.

It was a selfless giving of His only son
that He gave to rend our chains undone
and bring us into relationship with Him
by the victory over sin that we proclaim He won!

Yet somehow life still becomes some kind of rat race
trying to appear holy and saving face
with no admittance that we still need grace
and our response to that grace just kind of...

Disappears.

And then I wonder why I don't see His face,
why I'm not moved by His Word
why I'm not changed by His grace.
I wonder why I don't want Him around,
while my wrists are secretly bound
with shackles I like too much to take off.

But on Sunday morning I pray to be free
to realize that this Jesus did die for me
so that I could be with Him where He is one day,
yet day to day, I almost never say

God, I need you, and I'm not okay.

And I know it doesn't have to be this way!
I know He gave His Spirit, He promised that He'd stay
With me until the end of the age
and even in my deepest darkness His love for me is still the same
But God, oh God, I'm so ashamed
of all the things I've done while periodically praising Your name.

But there is no condemnation from You, You say.
You invite me to turn and run away
Into your arms and that I'll be changed--
That You will give me a new heart
and remove all of this shame
If I'd just confess my sin to You, You'd take the pain.

So I beg, and beg, that every day
My response to You would be the same
To run to You and admit my need
For Your grace, for Your love
above everything.

That I'd never not be responding
with my life, my work, and all my talking
to the Christ that stepped into time
to make me His, and make Him mine.

I’m a heart breaker.
It should be my Instagram and Twitter bio
Or my facebook description.
This should be my catch phrase.

While I’m savoring the taste of pain
And the salty taste of tears in my mouth
I wail my pain away
But it only keeps on coming back

It so overwhelming
It so numbing at the same time
I feel nothing...
And everything.

I love you, I know that much
I love you with my shattered heart
I love you with my swollen red eyes
I love you with my runny nose

I love you enough to love myself

Eventually, the tears will stop, not today or tomorrow but someday
Eventually, you’ll find someone else to love and so will I.
Eventually your heart will heal and so will mine.
It’s okay to cry myself to life.

Eventually, you’ll understand that I broke our heart to save us.

Grow up without a father?
That wouldn't be so bad...
Yet every broken man whispers
to his devil,
you're the father I never had.

My chains are my desires,
my eyes are your possessions,
and when I walk into the fires,
my lies are my confessions.

Just a taste of your flesh,
will bring me to life,
but if you depend on me
your heart is a knife.

My father was a ghost,
but I grew up
I sought bigger ghosts,
the devil in my throw-up.

You can run from what haunts you,
you can hide from your past,
but the devil will flaunt you,
up there on his mast;

because you're the fool
who sought comfort in gold
you would have learned,
if you could grow old.

I've been the king
in an ocean of sand,
not knowing choice
is in the palm of my hand.

Fly - never past devils in big windows, taking bows for a plate of flowers. They will glean your soul from you, as a reaper might - only you're living at the end.

Fly beyond wanton desires, past graves that were planted years before this moment. They hold memories, bodies of things best left forgotten. Bodies don't always have a face.

Exist in a time that knows nothing of itself. It has no perceptions of seconds, despite its blood is littered with wasted hours.

Believe you are sublime. The earth carries you to only the destinations that you own. All is yours, even the cracks in the sidewalks with reeds of grass deeply rooted in them. Cracks don't always mean broken.


Losses of life take the light out of the deep within - eviscerated by our grief. Flawless love and always praying for moments - momemts that have not our name on them, that are not ours and are not our right to touch.


What lies ahead is a road. Forked in many different directions, with vultures circling if you dance down the wrong road. Vultures are ignorant. You choose the road - AND LIVE!


Baby, I'm an American. I cry for those who can't. I cradle hope and hopelessness in the same arm, while they scratch and bite at each other. Will one lose? Yes. Time will scream it from the tabloids.



I Couldn't Love You More crooned the singer. And I can't. You are my skin. My cells. As others pull at you, I hold you up - for life! We're in this together, baby! Trust no devil!

You will not see me until
four full-moons circle earth

when I burst forth late
May with colors flush

red as *******,
ivory, and blush pink;

it is winter now
and I rest.