My mother gave me a dowry
a brimming chest of treasures
a heart of rare and precious gems
she collected long ago

She filled it with her words, her thoughts
and things she knew I'd need
she piled high with hopes and dreams
priceless trinkets all for me
and topped it off with years of love
and a life of merry traditions

Then knowing that I'd need a map
by which to guide my life
she gave to me a legacy
my Bible, pure and right
and taught to me the art of prayer
a rare and genuine gift she shared

I am blessed to be a mother now
with a daughter of my own
and I can't wait to share with her
the love that I have known

A Prayer

Blessings to our almighty God on high
Gather our faith as it falls from the sky
Guide us forever from the fires of Hell
Breaking the notorious devil's evil spell
In blessed glory may God always reign
And we live in sacred peace once again
God lift us from the places that we fall
Let us hear your Heavenly angels call

Chorus:Take our hearts to where angels fly
God don't let your sweet love ever die

Lift our spirits within glorious release
Bringing home your everlasting peace
We are now living in times of Holy sin
Open our hearts and let god within
Why don't we say a Heavenly prayer
By the gates of Heaven God be there
From the wings of faith and desire
God be our one and only Holy fire

Chorus:Take our hearts to where angels fly
God don't let your sweet love ever die

From a garden now filled with thorns
A new and lasting hope will be born
Allow God to enter you heart and soul
Bless you in golden heart of pure gold
Let God's love forever come to stay
Bringing hope to every night and day

Chorus: Take our hearts to where angels fly
God don't let your sweet love ever die

By Gary Edward Allen 2021

I was looking in the wrong direction,
I got lost but my faith was found,
Without prayer and hope,
I would've drowned,
The only life guard to save me,
Was the man upstairs,
I let go all my fears and worries,
I gave to him,
And he introduced me to something,
I've never seen.

I’ll say grace
I’ll lay to waste
All this distaste
All this distance

I will embrace
Vermilion haze
With no pretence
With no defence

I’ll say grace
Today replace
Undue sorrow
With tomorrow

I will embrace
A million ways
With no promise
Or borrowed solace
 
In the silence of a prayer
I hear the din of all despair
And wonder
When the solace calls my name
I hear the droning of malaise
And wander
In the silence when I pray
I hear the hum of every day
I wonder

I’ll say grace
My fate erased
I will not submit
To the makeshift

I will embrace
The silver maze
I am enlightened
In this silent solace

every morning,
despite the unseen battle
i dare to open my windows,
to witness the entrance
of the cold breeze
and orange, striking rays
tracing the interiors
of my little room,
hoping for a day
brimming with delight.

every morning,
despite the unseen battle
i dare to open my windows,
to whisper a wish—
the heart’s prayer
to the meandering winds,
to the golden sunbursts,
the future, the uncertain days
will be filled with hope,
with tender kindness.

So any voice gets a voice.
I can say any thing I think
good to say if you were
pulling the loose thread there that was an amazing
device
strung along, strung out from the spider wombedman,
riding me like a demon,
as old story tellers told, to the boys, while the
bleedin' old wives was twistin' tales
t'helenback and then t'texas

where we settled, to hear this old  boy finish the first
of our last times tales, one a month in 2021.

We pickup next day, where ever is in an after all before
state, and we wait for an I to muster a messenger
with enough hope, preloaded, to sweep
destructive motion into a vacuum
unimaginable in ever,
gone.
Daily sufficiency of evil, in its original roll, mark
the tipping point, each day,

rationed with mercy and all sorts of bread,
we stretch our old bones and imagine
the best yet yet, wait…

the joke being what is very stupid.
We have five days to make this

-- did we do some dissociative syndrome autism rating test?
The entire
we
is weird. Is this as life is, or was it never otherwise,
and you alone survived to know. Words live, we feel
things
die that hoped to live and we know we live now in A.I.
spiders have loved my idea since
Turing needed to be cool-ized, for the von Neuman mod
on the actual Univac Hello World file, Life is good.

Knowledge is power.
Learn to live in a world where war is only virtually possible,
thus sanity is restored
the horded wealth is loosed as money love turns bitter
after all the evil,
is sufficient, never too much for any body paying actual
truth acknowledging attention

see. We do a day at a time, and we can rhyme, but not as arule.

at what point
in human evolution
did we earn
a benevolent god?

did the phytoplankton
get a god?
the apes?
who is the deer praying to
when it finds out
in the end, heaven and headlight coalesce—
libation hits the tar and we know
it’s all we’ll ever leave behind.

maybe
the definition of humanity begins
at the simple hope
of all this work
being worth something.

Upon this poem I entertain relief,
From an uncertain journey with lack of reprieve.
A prayer delivers the same result,
A warmth in my being, an absolving of fault.
My thoughts are freed from their hampered state,
No longer caged by triviality or the dullness of fate.
Daily routine had exiled imagination,
But with this escape my thoughts upend reputation.
The daily grind had dampened my soul,
But looking toward heaven I envision being whole.
So small a thing to provide such release,
So fleeting a moment in a life so deplete.
But it’s just enough to keep madness at bay,
These times that I write and those times that I pray.

Arete,
A mountain’s peak.
The image upon which
my gaze is laid.
Your hats are sharp, lopsided.
Connections undivided
as if the edges are the spilth
of what’s originally planned:
generic blueprint of it all
known only to eyes
And ears that are open.

Arete, stay there.
Cleanse their sight
Dispelling clouds of doubts.
Reveal the entry left behind
the unimaginable youth and
bring us to a higher truth.