In my mind I have created a garden
populated with insects who don't bite
and birds who don't **** on my paper when I write
there is a lily pond, with frogs who know Bach

However, they keep quiet. This is my refuge
where nothing pierces through the surface
every ripple is merely the smile of an admirer
every distortion the promise of a silence

I sit at a table, turning all that I see
into bold and brazen words; forever
in love with language, forever beholden
to her blossoms, that lie rotting at my feet

Through silky grass and waters blue
Do the joints click into
Shapes of knowing wing or bone
Stretching, enchanted
And nerve and vein hums, pulses
An ancient tune between
Breathless heaves
The trembles of heartbeats
For a simple reflex of a finger to lips

Most mornings are spare,
Like the spaces between the branches of a spruce tree.
Most mornings are clearings in woods
And bare bark.
Most mornings sound of violins
And Torquil Campbell’s voice swooning in and out of Bach’s Suites,
Leaving you empty,
Hueing you in gray,
And sketching you, lightly, onto white notebook paper.

♪♫♫♪♪♫♪♪♫♫♪

Revelation:** three, seven – the Kingdom of Heaven

The key to unlocking both glory and shame.

Philadelphia knows He’s arriving in newness

inscribing on foreheads His city and name.

(Though it could be on tee shirts or baseball caps, true –

unless someone takes time to decipher the text…

is it Greek? Aramaic? Amharic? What next?)

Don’t be mad – it’s not me but old John who’s to blame.

Of names and on numbers of Savior and Beast

I have long been a-pondering, trembling, wondering

mushroom-cloud raptures in mind’s eye a-thundering.

How will we get to that marriage-day feast?

Will my garment be ready or filthy with fall-out?

(The song says His blood will make clean if we call out

in faith for forgiveness, in humble repentance

believing that grace will abolish the sentence.)

You may wish my rhyme to be likewise abolished.

Bear with me. Forgive me, I grant it’s not polished.

I speak what I feel and I write when I’m able;

which brings us to heavenly thoughts gastronomic:

what dishes we’ll meet as we dine at that table-

strict Jewish? Angelic? Or pre-Abrahamic?

Shall they serve us from silver or common ceramic?

Being clay to the potter, an unfinished vessel

I leave all these questions for others to wrestle.

Yet there’s still one more realm I explore in conjecture:

the sounds at that gathering.  Classical?   Rock?

Unending revivalist Christian refrains?

Shall we headbang in heaven with glorified brains?

Psychedelic/Psychotic…? or  Handel and Bach?

(Lighten up. It’s the end of my bible-school lecture.

You’ve seen a few rooms of my castle-in-air,

and we ALL know it’s reggae they’re playing up there…)

While sitting here one sunny day
my favourite music started to play
It started soft and grew in sound
when the ***** boomed around
Emotions running high and low
while the sound of music ran its show
The sound of brass echoes through
with string quartet making things anew
The concert hall is filled with tone
chilling you right to the bone
the audience goes wild at the end of the show
and maestro conductor takes his bow
for the encore there's the sound of Bach
the audience leaves for now it is dark!

Hollowed within the frozen finger tips,
as each stroke of the key vibrates a crisp C.

The piano home key that resonates the beginning,
and the place of birth of most classical music.

Then the C chord echoed with E and G,
while the journey read like a journal.

So it stood as the progression of time,
like the life force intertwined with each notes.

Where does your hand take you to the next step of life,
as you create the next stroke of your dream song.

Hallowed within the frozen finger tips,
and the final song is the end of life.

Make your perfection of music,
as if you can no longer play a next tune.

i look at our time together like the keys of a piano,
somehow pounding on a mess of a's and d's and f's creates something beautiful.
somewhere between all the laughter and late night phone calls
our messiness of a journey became a piece that was worthy of being played by Bach or Mozart.
we found the balance of those a's and those d's and those f's,
something that will be remembered by those after us for centuries.