Fetters are on many who do not believe
Are they on you?
Well, check and see!
Are you bound by doubt
Or are you shackled by a thought you can’t surmount?

In my answer listen close
For good news, I bring from the coast.
Turn not from listening when I begin
For it is needful that you listen in.
It is that you are a sinner and do need saving
From the wrath of God, that is hastening.
Believe me, not?
Are you without a blot?
Well, then you must be the best of persons!
But quick, let's check and see?

Not one false truth have you unfurled
From thy curled
Lips?

Do you withhold every word thou might have uttered
In the blasphemy against thy maker?

Have you never murdered?
Even by saying a perverse word
Against thy brother?
Tell me truly
Are you
Unruly?

If this dear poet were to speak to your parents
Would they tell me you've always
acted truly?
Honored their commands
And obeyed their demands?

Has thy hand taken?

Has your heart coveted the body of another
That is lust, my dear brother.

But be not mad
for I am just as bad
if not worse then all transgressors.

How then shall two chums like us
Enter glory when our bodies are but dust?

Maybe we shall escape through the mercies
Of the God that is to judge our secrecies?
Nah, my fellow!
Be we in a court of law the judge would bellow
That we have transgressed
And are dismissed
To suffer the vengeance
Saved for our negligence!

But say we were so bold
to lay out the story yet untold
Of good deeds many
And prayers plenty?
This still would not suffice
For our sins do require a sacrifice.
For though I transgress not again
The sin is unpaid for if I have not accepted the Christ.
The one who suffered all demise!

'Tis a two-step process
that is a must that leads us
To a reunion and a trust
To the one who formed us from dust.

First cometh repentance
The which is a turning
From the yearning
Of the lusts
Which did
Hold you
In the
Dust.

The second
Is to believe upon
The one who hung well after the dawn.
Yet not in his death alone, for that would be wrong!
But in his resurrection and in his victor's song!
For he has freed us from our death
And taken the punishment
For our every breath
That we did fail
To thank God
For who gave
To us, our
Will.

Repent and believe this tale
And my dear friend, he will never fail.
He promises not a life of ease
Nor one free from disease
as some modern preachers tease.
No, he promises a life of toils
And many raging seas.
But at the end is life untold!
So brother do be bold
And humble thy head
and bow thy knees.
Commit to him thy life
And to you, he shall grant eternal life.

If this has happened to the soul that does read
Then do take heed
For our heads are not the keys
Nor are thy deeds
A means to inherit
These.

Trust Christ and him alone
for all thy wants and needs.

I am from humble means
So think not that I live in ease
For I live for him but many tease
And my life has its stormy seas.
But he has called me to my knees
Where I did call upon his mercies
And he bestowed his wondrous glories
And gave me joy and peace

With that, I may now cease
To question my life
that I once did doubt
And my fetters are fallen
And I do shout
So how could I ever come to doubt?

Now conclude I with a promise
And it is one He gave to me
It is that life might be more full
And abound with blessings
And in the end, you will receive
Life everlasting, peace, and glory.

No shackle
No fetter
Only a life for the better
This does come if repentance
You seek and are humbled
Before Christ.

Everything I once knew has been stilled:

I fathomed my mother’s voice whispering
In my juvenescence,
She weaved a tapestry of tales
Whilst her pearlescent eyes
They glistened,
Enveloped by downy lashes
Ebony and yet unassuming
For
The night domineered.
Unblemished enough to
Garner the praise
In the clarity of
My reverential heart,
As I lay there
Tucked in,
Once peacefully,
Yet now shaken
By
The disquietude
Of the restless twilight,
Upon an azure king-sized mattress
Primped in creaseless Space Jam sheets.


They were set by
The grace of her manicured hands
However slightly,
Chestnut and replete
That longed to,
By the Blessed Oracle
Speaking with a God,
Summon the Salvation
Of my long lost rest
That Raged Leviathan
Where,
To be cocooned in The Sea of Shadows
The thew of dreams would be born.

She sanctified my fears
Like coal oppressed for aeons
By
That Treasured Sphere
(Terraqueous Gaia)
Until by
The Womb of the Mountainous Mother,
Were reborn
As the Children of Diamonds.

Or perhaps
Like a baptismal kiss
That floweth from an ivory chalice
By which
The soil of my life flowered,
For a quaked youth was
Bestowed
With a fading taste
Of the transcendence at dawn
Poured upon my palate
Until
The Garden of the Valiant
Bursted into bloom.
(Tis where the Behemoth lay nestled
Under the Age Old Tree of Life
And Sylphs soar beneath iridescent twilit skies
Illuminated by Providence
Of the Half-Faced Crimson Moon).


If I so chose
I could
Be anything
That
I imagined, even
Today.

Ephemeral though
Those moments were
My reminiscence
Doth memorialize in crystal stasis
My infantile longing,
Tis ceaseless in its yearning
To be comforted
When
Pangs overtake me:

But what fable is my weapon
Now?
The Hallowed Excalibur,
Or perhaps even The Ultima Weapon
With the Impenetrable Aegis
Imparted by
The Mighty Crystal
Bestowing might to its Anointed
The ones who war with their own iniquity,
Until their paths align
Like celestial bodies
And they’ve arisen triumphant,
Eclipsed the fictitious light
Of a false deity
Who besmirched the truths
That upheld The Cosmos
Since its genesis?

There is one tale,
(Lean in, listen closely,
This is my Susurrus in the Night)
Tis no figment
And one I found most favorable,
One of a man
Simple,
Strong,
Stunning,
Sound,
Sapient,
And high over all but
The Desideratum of the Holy,
The one to whom
Even the angels, seraphs, and cherubs bow.

He was scourged
In flesh and spirit
Till his pulse was silenced,
His inestimable blood
Prophesied to vanquish
Chaos and
The Futile Wind
Of life
That by
By the disobedience of
Our
Tarnished Father,
Is now
An accursed child

She
Is effaced by
Time
(For Sorrow has no end)
And
Tormented by Space.
(Height,
Breadth,
And depth,
O that Existential Fabric)
His caverns
Condemned Her
Without
Compassion.

The thought of solitude
Looming in mortality
Were the dreadful horns
Of an Auroch that
Pierced
Her consciousness
Until by
Proud Oppression
Hope
In its frailty
Was a dandelion
Strewn by skinless hands
Against the immaterial
Brush of the breeze.

To flourish then
Wither,
Wax and
Wane;
Never
Was a fate
That our God intended.
For eternity shines and
Is a supernova
In the galaxy of our hearts
And though undiscerned
By many
Has always been
And
Will always be
The Cherished Wish of the Stars,
For though we are an exhalation
By contradistinction,
Even they become nebulous
Fading into dust.

We shall
Become
Exalted and ennobled
Even to these who are
Of the luminaries,
Lowly
Brothers and sisters
Without Ears,
Eyes,
Hearts,
Or minds.

Yes,
(These vibrations resonate from the Cosmo-Plexus of Love)
Soon enough they say,
Soon enough.

The News had then
Come by that day,
That there was cause
To sing

And sing, we did,
The Song of Life,
Like winter’s turn
To spring

The Song did never
Change a rhyme;
Its melody's still
The same…

And, daily, I will
Hear its tune,
Again, and
Then, proclaim

---

Because those things
Of cause to sing
Are News for
Every day

Like morning’s dawn,
When light returns,
And drives the
Clouds away

I sing Today
Of hope Tomorrow,
And joy for
Yesterday…

Though most of my
Old memories fade,
This Song is here
To stay

.

Perilous times are foretold for the end
When the one who betrays might as soon be a friend
When he who walked with you in the midst of God's throng
Proves a broken-off reed who didn't belong
When the crowd turns away from the truth they once knew
To embrace a strange fire of the enemy's brew
When the mystic is favored much more than the teacher
And intolerant is the name reserved for the preacher

For myriads have tasted of the heavenly gifts
Then at some unknown point the set compass shifts
And they show by the fact that they do not endure
That they never knew the One Whose salvation is sure
For He's promised He cannot lose one of His own
Yet His wheat grows with tares that His enemy's sown
So these goats dressed as sheep might say all the right words
But pasted-on wings do not turn moles to birds

They learn the same Scriptures and enjoy the same songs
But haven't yet come to the cross for their wrongs
Haven't taken it up and followed the Lord
Have never been born of His Spirit Who is poured
Into all whom the Father has chosen for His Son
Those predestined before the world had begun
So among the elect in the pews sit the dead
Unregenerate men taking up masks instead

And some will sit thus for the rest of their life
While others walk away overcome by the strife
Of their trials, distractions, desires or greed
Rather trusting the world to provide all that they need
For discipleship costs and most think it too high
A price now to pay of their self who must die
Most are tripped by the weight of that covenant walk
Which accompanies a faith that goes past mere talk

It is God's grace alone which grants genuine belief
And with it repentance for proud or for thief
While the course remains bumpy until dying day
The saved may fall down, but they can't fall away
For salvation from first to the last is of the Lord
And His Spirit within is what keeps saints secured
It's our duty and privilege to obey and abide
Yet how could we without His power inside?

Now besides a new fuel we receive a new nature
The old man is dead, we are made a new creature
One that's being conformed to the image of Jesus
So we live to please Him now and not to please us
But because of this switch the world is enraged
For when light shines in darkness its evil's front stage
They hate us the same as they hated our Master
And as time nears its close their fury swells faster

Persecution's been promised for all who are godly
Could be mocking, rejection or harm that is ******
It cannot compare though to what's been exchanged
In the gift of redemption for our souls long-deranged
So we dare not forget when the blows are received
That those doing the punching are still dead and deceived
Still locked in the grip of the enemy's force
Still blinded by sin, still enslaved to its course

Just judgment will come if they do not repent
If they keep on rejecting God's Lamb Who was sent
So it's best left to Him to defend us against
The disdain and discord of a world that's incensed
For they're already judged who refuse to believe
And we would be too but for mercy's reprieve
Being saved from God's wrath that is soon to be poured
Out full strength onto those who His truths have ignored

In the meantime the Father's maturing His children
Forging character depth through both trials and discipline
So let's not lose hope in the face of our sorrow
But rejoice that He's working it out for tomorrow
Since we have a sure treasure stored for us in heaven
And we'll soon be set free from all sin-staining leaven
Let's press on toward Christ's likeness worked in us by grace
And look hard for first moments our eyes see His face!