Meet me here
Where I am
With broken heart and empty hands
Be the light that guides the way
Through dark of night and bright of day
And though I fall
I still hear you call

Broken I come
Hungry I run
Into the arms of my Savior
Jesus
Lead us
Into Your grace and Your love

Here I stand
Here I fall
Before the glorious King of All
He's my joy
He's my peace
He's my rest when efforts cease
And though I fall
I still hear You call

All I know is You?re all I want
Savior of the poor and lost

The following song will be available for download in a few weeks...when it is up I will alert you all.  Check out my ministry page @

https://www.facebook.com/Reformedandrecovered/

You've called us from the darkness
Of sins feigned delight
To offer up devotion
And chase the light

In humble adoration
Through Your awesome might
We can face the ages
And chase the light

Our weapons forged anew
Our strategies revised
To better testify
As we chase the light

This our one ambition
To glorify the Christ
Our crosses hoisted upright
As we chase the light

The call to long endurance
Effectually ignites
Creating faith from indifference
So we can chase the light

We've known the lash of estrangement
In our once futile minds
Your bludgeoned body was the payment
So we can chase the light

The call to saving faith
Runs ever deep and wide
Streams of ineffable grace
Draw us to chase the light

There in the trenches
I've seen headless henchmen
Bending spoons
For hapless children
Cremated too soon

Demons croon
They zip
They zag
As the lower class picks their scabs
The gift of gab
Sent towards rips from packs
The rush alone could make one gag!

Have you been there?
Would you go back?

There in the trenches
I've met widows and wives
Carousing with voyeurs
Polishing pikes
Their best years behind
Spent on pyrite-
Euphoric alibis
Which eviscerate bright eyes

Will the Church draw nigh
Or watch the stranded die?

Into the trenches
Few do proudly go
Ash pollutes the snow
Falling like pyrex smoke
You might choke
When violence hits your nose

Deathblows
Thrown by the dead broke
Cross your eyes
And clog your throat
Check your pulse
As an ambulance clears the roads

Would you leave ivory thrones
To reach a people with no hope?

There in the trenches
Christ spent His time
Teaching the poor
Healing the blind
Who are we to stand aghast?
Shrugging our shoulders
Fine wine in antique glass?

When revival comes
Will it move your feet
With Gospel passion
Down the cracking streets?

Could you spare a dime
To prepare a meal
For a drooping reed
With snakebitten heals?

There in the trenches
Good News must flow
Will you remain aloof
Or be the one to boldly go?

We are the refused...

Barefoot in the marketplace
Born in the backseat
With minds erased
To hide dirt in the backstreets
And mud on the school steps

The fool in the textbook
Paints us inept
Tainted
******
Illicit natives
Miserable Misfits
Nothing the magistrates can't handle

OH!!!
They wish!
Suppress our melodies
But never break our lips

We are the misused...

Our eyes do penetrate
Every false-flag they perpetuate
Even though barbiturates
Are placed beneath our pillows
The shame billows
The shame follows
Rodents to the edge of the borough
Where men create addicts

There
Publicans turn
Badges burn
Magistrates press their shirts and hatch their eagles
Discernment is not taught
Nor is it learned

We are the obtuse...

Blacked out and abused!
Sold for pulpits and ocean views

Magistrates hate us
Their eagles circle to berate us
"Intolerant"
"Outdated"
"Unpatriotic"
"Ill-fated"

But by grace we persevere
By faith we adhere
To a higher truth
A purer view
Our strongholds are not stick
and stone
Chrome nor drone
But
Christ alone
Our strength and hope
Out hope for home

NOT polls and popes
NOT guns and votes
NOT Magistrates  and lazy legislations
NOT eagles which feed on
Desensitized demonstrations
Police brutality and assassinations
Nomadic nations
Sporadic speculations

We
The Refused
We
The Misused
We
The Obtuse
Will NOT cosign evil
Will NOT massage magistrates
Will NOT elevate eagles
We will NOT
We must NOT

I see hope deferred

Homeless in the dirt

Choking on the violence

Of our every stifled word



I see hope deferred

Hiding in the back row

With no concept of worth

A life spent in the shadows



I see hope deferred

Longing for eternal release

Another **** up year

Struggling in the streets



I see hope deferred

In every motherless child

Hanging on to a bad cough

Hearts sick with denial



Can you hear hope deferred

Calling out for assistance?

Would you bridge the gap

Or stand deterred by the distance?



I know hope deferred

Thick chains around the soul

Constantly on the run

From the noise between my skull



I see hope deferred

Traded in for hope revised

Pull off your skeleton clothes

Put on the cloak of a bride



I see hope deferred

Overcome by recovery

I'm taken back by mercy

And the love which covers me



I know hope deferred

Will be gradually displaced

With the venom in our veins

Through a sure movement of grace



I see hope deferred

Finally removed from this place

The nations rest in God

Sunlight softly warming their face

I feel it coming on the breeze…

A wealth of shivers
Renews my identity
Harsh like a torrent
Licking my misery

Call it a balm
I call it “anemology”
Uncovering the ignorance in me

What can renovate the heartless
Still morgue strung with darkness?
None but breeze
None but Serenity
Sway the trees
And uncover the forest of me

Turbines on the hill
Bend me to Your will
Childlike branches
Snap like evergreens
They bumble and burn
To tumble and turn

Call it a mystery
I call it “delivery”
Uncovering Wasteland me

My arms are pumice
My feet are clay
I fall from malice
A thousand times a day
None but breeze
Can refresh my fidelity
None but breeze
Brings me to my knees

Call it the calm
I call it “Sovereignty”
Uncovering the darkness in me

I feel it coming on the breeze
The freedom of recovery

Love
I'm lost without it
Bogged down
Across the mountains
I could turn my longings high
And offer up the angels cry
But if I do not have charity
My cymbals crash in rude cacophony

Love
I could donate my very body
In glad service for my brothers
In willing service for my country
I could be swallowed by flames
Give my clothes and all my gains
And if love is not my aim
Work is void and intention vain

Love
Ever balanced with truth
In all our dealings
As our proof
Hating sin
Hating deception
Rightly serving
Until we breach the gates of heaven

Love
You show
And love You gave
To those born of the grave
Upon a cross
Your very life
Through blood and faith
We're declared right

Love
None can mention greater
Than which is offered
By our loving Lord and Savior
Pierced and whipped
Sweat and spit
For the Church His side was split
Enthroned in heaven He now sits

Love
He is
Pure love
He gives
My ransom paid
My heart reshaped
Through His blood I do draw near
And through His love I'm freed of fear

Daddy
I'm gonna be a daddy
That shakes me to the bones
When I heard the little heart beat
I knew he was my own

Mommy
She's gonna be a mommy
She smiles from ear to ear
Her vibrant eyes are so much brighter
Lightly glazed with tears

Family
We're gonna be a family
Our home is gonna change
As clothes are bought and prayers are prayed
We ponder over names

Baby
You're gonna be my baby
I swear to do my best
At times I'll slip
At times I'll fail
But I'll cherish your every breath

"A Beatitude Prayer"
(See Matthew 5:3-12)

Teach me to cleave
To the richness of poverty
Every drop of me
A proper offering

I'll happily mourn
And feel the warmth
Of Your comforting ways
Calling me to faith

To run with meekness
Strength in weakness
Trusting Your providence
A tower of strong defense

I will hunger
In awe and wonder
For the knowledge You grant
Hope to cleanse each garbled glance

Your mercy in me
Will freely seep
To fiends in the streets
In the slush and the sleet

So they can blessedly see
Your face in purity
With minds fixed above
This cursed ball of dust

Make me a heavenly son
When harmony is unsung
Spreading the Great News:
Men can have peace with You

Even if I'm hated
Cursed and berated
Like all the godly before
Still my joy is more

Even when persecuted
Reviled and excluded
I know my one reward
Rests with You
My joy is more

Hold me when I'm broken
By sorrows of the night
And I pray for Your glory to shine through as light
Though I pass through thick darkness
I know morning comes
You've promised to hold me
Until my worries are none

I lift up my head
For the sorrow is gone
In Your joy I'm refreshed
Quickened and made strong

Though the trials may come
I'll be not afraid
For in the cold of the night
Your grace will not fade
Your grace will not fade

Through our pain Your proclaim
"My grace will remain"

I will seek You in the darkness
For I know dawn is near
You're the closest to the weakest
And every desperate word You hear

And You complete my faith
Father
You offer me grace
In You there's daily strength
And I am completely complete
And I am completely complete in You

You have given us Your mercy
Poured it out upon the lost
Let the tired and the weary
Fall before the rugged cross

In a broken world
You're our only hope
In a broken world
You're rest for our souls

Beautiful Eyes
Inspires my mind to write
As we pour over pictures
To celebrate young life

Son of mine
A most precious gift
God blessed you mother's womb
Such wonderful heritage

Beautiful Eyes
An arrow in my hand
May the Lord keep our household
As we grow to live His plans

Son of mine
The prize of an excellent wife
She wakes to make home for us
And settle you in the night

My only son
Compiled in perfection
The call to fatherhood
Begins at sacred conception

Beautiful Eyes
At your mother's doting side
We pour over memories
To celebrate young life

No camera flash
I might evaporate
When the other kids laugh
I can't commiserate
They don't know what I know
They don't go where I go

No winter dance
Another semester passed
My basketball
My sweaty palms
They're all flat
They're all flat

No report cards
Only hospital gowns
Crying fathers
My mother frowns
They don't see what I see
They don't feel how I feel

No mirrors
No websites
My fears hide
The dessert aisle
My social life
A desert isle

My health
Volatile
Myself
Scars and piles
Blinded by starlight
I faint on the car ride

Sixteen
In treatment since fourteen
Hide the scissors
Stash the razor
They make me feel so real
A five-pound loss sealed the deal

This nurse is nice
She makes me laugh
The others are lizards
They hunt in packs
She's been there
Tenth grade with thinned hair

She's been there
Missing the fresh air
She's been there
Confined to a wheelchair
She knows what I know
She sees what I see

Eighteen
I find recovery
No more treatment homes
No more holidays alone
No more hospital gowns
No more parental frowns

I write this letter
To all the winter girls
Struggling girls
Scar and shiver girls
I know what they know
I feel what they feel

Years death obsessed
All hunger suppressed
Splintered arms
Senseless harm
Seeking control
To calm your soul

I know how it feels
Hating recovery
Residential trips
Counting calories
Skipping meals
Fleeing from misery

I know how it feels
I've seen what you see
But i won't go back
I won't give in
Once a shivering winter girl
Now
I hope summer never ends

Step out from the cold
Embrace the warmth
Icicle girl
You deserve so much more

Now I come to the end of myself
And my skins crawls off the walls
Off the walls

I bend and I break
As I give and I take
For a softer way
For a yesterday

But it never comes
And if ever does
Will I be ready?
Will I be there?
Because right now I’m nowhere
But I’m everywhere
And I float high in the thin air
Right here
Right there

Through You
I can cling to Your promises
Kiss my election
Embrace assurance
Rejoice in suffering
Pray in afflictions
Weep with joy
Reach the hurting
And love the proud
Always through You
Only through You

"The Refused Part Two"

We must hold the lines
No more drills
No more compromise
When the worlds barrage us  
With lightning and drive-bys
Cesarian messiahs
Nations deified
We defy
All of their abuse
Stand tall
All The Refused

History stammers
When truth is hammered
By humanistic holograms
Facts edited for one hundred grand
They'll impose new realities
Blessed *******
Proud plurality
Invitations to kiss their wrists
Pray to the state
Silently submit
BUT!
The faithful must not sign their truce
Stand in the Lord
All the Refused

We know
WE KNOW where our answers are
Rightly divide
Pull apart
Each lawless judge
Each merciless czar
The pawns of nations
Built by oligarchs
To tip the scales of justice
And sew sin in the yard
Stay grounded in truth
Renovated children
All The Refused

There is no glory
In their lesser laws
Secular cures
Palaces of straw
Night and day
They claim to save
With the pagan ways
Of their savior state
God becomes the institution
With idolized science
And cultural revolutions
All we can do is remain astute
Through faith in Christ
All the Refused

We the Refused
To promote perfect union
Cast down the witchery
Of humanistic confusion
Their messianic state
Their Socialist ways
Their lust for dominion
And unending praise
We cling to Jehovah
We sing the Evangel
We pray each day
For the demise of tyrannical scandals
What else can we do
But deny revised history
And fabricated new?
Train your minds to study Truth
This is war
All the Refused

“Shoot the Dead” (rough version)

I settled for a while
To catch my frozen breath
Until I caught a strip of steel
As you aimed to shoot your dead

My eyes are growing tired
From this constant stream of red
Every time I come around the bend
You recoil from shooting your dead

With the calmest demeanor
Like a seamstress stitching thread
You never stop
The hammer drops
You go ahead and shoot your dead

All they ever wanted
Was a place to lay and rest
But true to form
You swoop and swarm
To blankly shoot your dead

You talk of brotherly affection
As you hunt for stranger flesh
Each life you take
Is a bed to break
As you stoop to shoot your dead

“What can quell such bloodlust”?
I ponder in my head
While the leaders of the free men
Quietly watch you shoot your dead

“Renovation”
Time and time again I’ve said
“Is the only cure for genocide”
Another acolyte shoots their dead

You hide behind barbed wires
Beating on your wireless chest
You talk so tall
But your reach is small
Another critic shooting their dead

I’ve spent most of my existence
Living large on stolen bread
A face among the slaves of hate
Just a coward shooting the dead

Father
I hope and pray
I bow to humbly beg
Rip the skies
Mend our lives
Before we shoot every last one of our dead

The “C” in Campbell
Left my proud resolve in shambles
As I made my rounds
I took a deadly gamble
With my witless hands
I spent my plans
On sleepless nights clouded with suicide

One step from the edge
The overpass fence
Became my best defense and my closest friend
I walked aimless
Anxious under bruising skies

The “C” in Campbell
An edgeless dead-end town
I sought my self-destruction
But no self was found
Only the burnt out and bored there
Spun out on cold stares
Hung out to air dry
By the slow creek with graffiti eyes
Broken hearts
Muted lies
We rummaged through stolen goods
Sneaking an alibi

The “C” in Campbell
We thought we were so much bigger
So much smarter
But we could never deliver

Not quite beautiful
Not quite scorned
We were insomniatic
Thrilled with being half-born

A buck shy of broke
I was thinning away with every rhyme that I wrote
Like a fevered poem
I was skin and bones
So alone

The “C” in Campbell
I dream of you washed in light
Freed from that which harbors you
The depravities of night

I know your streets are not so clean
I know your stars
I know your amphetamines
I know you too can be redeemed
From mediocrity and self-pitty
The underbelly of a forgotten city
Skin and bones
So alone

The “C” in Campbell
Believe
Believe!
There’s no other way out

If I fall from grace
I will hide my face
From everyone who said the devil’s in my head
Did they really care
Or just play a part
Which was never their’s
From the very start?

If I lose my faith
I’ll seek a softer way
Their tradition’s strong
I cannot tarry long
The standard’s far too high
My head hangs so low
With every aching breath
The confusions grows

Still I carry on
Carry on
Through all of this
I Carry on
Carry on

In the darkest days
When I fall apart
The confusion frays
The fibers of my heart

Still I’m holding on
Holding on
Through all of this
I am holding on
Holding on

And it’s not by might nor sight
But something deep inside
Everytime I want to hide
Grace redirects my mind

So I carry on
Carry on
Through all of this
I carry on
Carry on

Unleash another night to drink and drive
I’ll forget my sorrows underneath the starlit sky
This is how I get around
From sunrise to sundown

In this liquid life
I rub my tightening eyes
They’re red from resentment
And black because I’m battled
My pride is frazzled and rattled
This is how I get around
In my secondhand town

Unleashed
Another night I drink and drive
Fear rides shotgun
It’s always by my side
A consistent copilot
This is how I get around
My liquified life
It isn’t much of a sight

Swallowed whole
In a world of darkness
Sleeping but exhausted
Nothing can part this

I want to be alone
But I’m so lonely
I ride the train aimless
Spaced out
Anxious

I want to run away
So I hide in my headphones
This place hurts so much
Just leave me alone!!!

Just leave me alone!!!
But I’m so afraid
I long to be an all-star
But I push the team away

This music is so loud
It drowns out my father
All of his disapproval
Why do I even bother???

I hate me
They me
All of these angels
Bring demons around me

They choose to battle
They call me to fight
But the greatest skirmish
Rages behind my blue eyes

There’s two me’s in me
The one everybody knows
The one nobody sees
I dodged both of these

I’m so lonely
But I want to be alone
Should I isolate further
Or allow myself to be exposed?

“In My Cup”

Thursday
The worst way
Can’t sleep
Can’t eat
I’m spun
Stuck in my cup

Monday
“Sick pay”
A coin shy
Sleep all day
Throw up
Stuck in my cup

Wednesday
Ends late
My liquid illusion
Mends pain
I’m numbed
Stuck in my cup

Tuesday
You say
“Climb out”
“Come down”
“You’re starting to rust”
Stuck in your cup

Friday…
Saturday…
Sunday…
Crushed
Strung
Stuck in my cup

We were high like satellites
As we roamed the back streets
Chasing a stolen dream
With holes in our stream

We roved for miles
Dead but alive
Falling out like meteorites
Splitting a half-life

None of this was right
Still boosters would ignite
To disintegrate academy book
And their hard-earned flights

Down on The Palms
We heard meteor psalms
Ringing in our ears
We couldn’t help but hum along

Bad Cosmonauts
Searching for life support
There was no hope to be found
At the local space port

We were high like satellites
Always like satellites
The dust on our shoes speaks of a past life
Lightyears from here

This is where I find myself
I can’t blame somebody else
All I’ve done is all I’ve done
The deed is signed and I’m the one

Just me
Just me

I turn my back
I flick my tongue
Misspoken words
Smoking guns
How did I end up in this place
Shaking hands
Twisted face

Just me
Just me

I cannot run
I cannot hide
What’s done is done
What’s dead has died
Another word
Another line
Can’t push this off
The burden’s mine

Just me
Just me
Just
Me