Someone help!
     I sold my soul for a song that I cannot hear, a meal that I cannot eat, an end that I cannot see. My heart is aching! I regret my choice, I sought to make my past undone. Alas, I've left the realm of life; I lie in the dust of death. I cannot reach beyond my corpse, my soul is gone...devoured. I lie here dead, unable yet to call for help. Who is willing to take my place? To give their soul to purchase mine? Is there none with love enough to save a fool like me? Look! Beside me now stands the dead! But a moment ago a corpse, that one stands alive with soul anew! And now he kneels with hand outstretched, his lips alight with words that bounce and fly away. I cannot hear him, my ears are blocked by this dust, this death. One word, unlike the others, is sharp and pointed. It does not seek my ears for entrance, this is far and above the most blessed of treasures. It pierces through my chest, straight into my heart it plunges! The pain!
     This Word does not excuse me, nor does it accuse me; it cleaves me clean in two, beyond my heart and deeper than my vacant soul. Love. This is not a love that I can understand! What kind of love has the power to create life where death and hate have reigned unchecked? Who is this love? What name can I call it by? How can I respond? Through my despair and past my deafness I hear His name, higher than any other. Jesus! With muted lips and vacant soul, my broken heart cries out! Please save me from my past; it screams against me, condemns me, lays out my guilt spread bare. Can this name silence something this loud and honest? It already has. All of my accusers are gone, the silence of this moment is beyond all I have ever known.
"Come forth."
What is this! The very dust of death, the gates of Hell, have split wide! No longer do I lie still and empty, deaf and blind; I see and hear, I dance and fly! My soul pours forth with a love I can neither understand nor contain, I am whole. The Maker of Earth, the Author of Truth, the One who spoke existence into being has paid the price, bought back my soul. My ears are filled with truth, my mouth with songs unending. My eyes now see what lay before them, always it was here. No longer do I hunger, no longer can I thirst, a soul that is not my own flows from a well of life that cannot end. In every way, I live. I do not fear my end; it no longer holds me, it cannot touch me. The flood of Life through Christ has washed it past the borders of being. I live without end, without fear. The well of life pours out from the Spirit living inside me. I cannot die. Come, won't you stand with me? Won't you be pierced by the Love of God? Let Jesus open the gates of Hell for you and carry you out of death. Come and know the peace of eternal life found in the joy of Christ.

Ronnie couldn’t talk
And be rhymless at all.
He could barely walk,
I'm pretty sure he'd fall,
Unless he was rhyming.
He said to me, “You see
The thing is with me
It all has to do with timing.

The cadence when I walk
Become words I hear,
The beat when someone talks
Makes a poem in my ear,
Then the rhyming begins
And seems to make good sense.
The words like magic appear
Poetic possibilities immense.”

All of the time I knew him
It seemed to be the truth
He rhymed almost constantly
From his very verbal youth.
He was like a Hallmark card
Sometimes saying pithy things
That fit the moment exactly
And had that ***** ring.

But other times his utterances
Were acerbic and very witty.
When it came to sarcastic tilt
He was the Mayor of Snark City.
Or he could rhyme endearingly
And paint pictures with his words
Saying some of the nicest things
That were ever put into words.

Yes, he was Rhyming Ronnie,
A poem for any current thought.
You couldn’t stump him even once.
At least not that I ever caught.
Ryan was amazing for sure
And some found it rather vexing.
But oh boy in the internet age
It came in handy when texting!

Read too much prose today
Kerouac, Micheline and Miller
And that old Bob Kaufman too
Tried to sell me their rhymeless lines
Child, Eyed, D.A Levy capitalizes all
Splashing bloods and vessels on the wacky paper
Airs of San Francisco, Paris and even…PAUSE!

Read too much prose for hours
On end, Kerouac, Micheline and Miller’s
And that old Bob Kaufman as well
Tried to sell me their rhymeless swell
Child, Eyed, D.A Levy capitalizes, he does
Splashing bloods and vessels on the wacky paper
Airs of San Francisco, Paris, and even… PAUSE!

Renegades and outlaws, Bible of the Outraged
To me rhymless poetry is like a hammer’s sledge
Ramming its fake fluid down people’s throat
And all is left on here is some ink one should blot.

January 19, 2016, 7:45 pm
Guillotière