With coarsest sackecloth cloath my naked soule;
     Construct for me a throne of ashes blacke;
Place on my lying lipps a liuing coal;
     Cast me asea inside a sackcloth sacke;
I am a rocke of great offence, a rocke
As stonie-hearted as a stvmbling blocke.

Not any man hath greater loue than this,
     That hee should for his friend laye downe his life;
But I betray'd my friend without a kisse
     And stabb'd into his backe a butter knife;
And hee who loues his life his life shall lose,
And I, by louing life, my death did chuse.

I love and hate to see her when she cries:
It breaks my heart like a pane of stained glass.
But having washed the windows of her eyes,
I better see her soul's amazing grace.  
And seeing me through wet-washed window panes,
She better sees my faithful love for her.
So all her tears (that fall like summer rains)
Reveal us heart and soul and make us sure.
Thanks be to God for tender-hearted tears
That speak a deeper truth than truthful words.
Though truthful words are health to hearing ears,
Tears speak the truth that yokes us, two lovebirds.
Thanks be to God for truth that's so conveyed.  
She's fearfully and wonderfully made.

022524

Maybe some beautiful letters
Were written not in the bed full of roses —
Some write to make their lovers live,
But some… to **** the blurry pages and leave.

Maybe I could write
Until the last dance of the clock…
And I won’t ask another charge
To keep the thumping of my heart.

And maybe I could write
Until the sun smiles
And meet the moon
And bid each other’s goodbyes.

Until the last drop of blood
Shed in tears, falling like leaves unto my feet…
Until my sleep has left my being…
Until everyday meets no end with an infinite kiss.

If you want to go to Heaven, Jesus is the only way.
If you haven't accepted Jesus, you should do it today.
If you want to go to Heaven, accept Jesus Christ as your savior.
If you ask Jesus to save you, it's something he will not ignore.
Jesus and his father both love you.
Non-religious people don't believe that even though it's true.
You're a sinner but Jesus still wants to save you.
Asking Jesus to save you is the right thing to do.
If you choose to put it off until tomorrow but die today, it will be too late.
Jesus wants you to enter God's Kingdom and that's why you shouldn't wait.
If you want to go to Heaven, Jesus is the only way to get there.
Accept Jesus today because both he and his father truly care.

I don’t play my mandolin everyday anymore,
let alone my guitar or tin whistles
I can’t let this die
I listened to 7 year old Japanese math rock
and want just a speck of that
An identity where I can sift right through
all this mediocre destruction all around
No one even has the gall to admit they’re killing
or the decency to even cover it up anymore
They videotape themselves dancing and
murdering kids for lebensraum
then turn around and say “no we’re not”

I’m tired of surface level house maintenance
followed by immobile phone scrolls
I’m looking for that lesson we’ll all learn
after finally going too far
I won’t play the victim or the hero no more
I did my part and now I’m too old
I need deeper art to escape samsara for good
and maybe that’s the best I can do comrades

I’m sick of details grown so scattered and thin
My whole past feels like entrails
smeared across vast desserts
There used to be rainforests here
but now it’s hard to find the pictures

Just when things almost get too competent and nice
they let decadence do its worse
out of fear that the improvements would make goods and services
too cheap not to be free
Socialism’s bad for business owners
so we lay off the workers and overcharge even more
Let the octogenarian billionaires buy up more water and air
to keep the fellas in the favelas gnashing and grim

Bunker complexes, spaceships, missiles coated in spent uranium;
these are all more important than starving children
Why do the poor keep having poor kids?
Still a conundrum
We gave them a chance to compete
some ephemeral time ago and they blew it
What can we do?
We tried to teach a man to fish…
Imagine Jesus Christ just giving folks fish and bread
for nothing in return?

My favorite gifts were all from Christ the Lord:
The midnight Scrabble game where U and I
Were side by side and face to face and high
On Christmas Spirit, cherishing the Word;
That great game of Oahu that I won;
That great game of Oahu that I lost;
The time I spent pretending to be Frost
Seeking a rime and landing on a pun;
The yummy apple pie perfectly baked,
Second to  ̶M̶a̶r̶t̶h̶a̶ ̶S̶t̶e̶w̶a̶r̶t̶'̶s̶  none, and made with TLC;
The morning coffee brought to me at 3
P.M. by her who kissed me as I waked.
My favorite gifts have everything to do
With, Bethany Elvira Vitters, you!

Christ on the cross was maximumly heroic:
He was braver than braves that slay goliath foes,
Or warriors facing deadly threats with stoic
And stony faces, standing nose to nose.  
At Golgotha the sin of all the world was laid
On Him who, though despised, was more victorious
Than a general at his own ticker-tape parade,
Thronged by a grateful nation joyous and uproarious.
Had Christ destroyed his enemies with a thought
(An option for Him), He would've suffered a defeat
Since all the lessons the Lord of Glory taught
Would've been dismissed as having been taught by a cheat.
It would've been the easy, cowardly fashion
Of escaping the pain that proved His Godly passion.