"hymnal" poems
My heartbeat sending up an erratic hymnal to the hand tightening around my neck: The same hand that grabbed my thigh under the table. Only God saw. The mouth that asked forgiveness on Sundays is on my collarbones in the park after sundown. It still gives me a stomach ache to think about you. Your fingers wrapped carefully around my throat wasn't the reason I couldn't breathe. I miss it already even though in the moment I wished I was anywhere else; my world was closing in again and I felt trapped. It happened on the same bench where I sat alone in grade school and wrote haikus about birds and waterfalls. Something must be wrong with me for thinking you were a blessing that I deserved.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 9:25 PM UTC
*I don't know the rules. If I go looking
for grace and find it, what will grace*
be but penance for my past, a silver
sinew-thread wrapping 'round old
wrongs, gray hair for the
fickle.
I've naught but want for sweet release
from this history. The bombs ignored,
repeating in gramophone static
dripping stiff
*as wet bamboo. I remember someone
once sang here, once strung together*
chords so sweet they rang like peace-
bells beneath cloudless sky. They've
rang the bell upon my jaw and
done no wrong.
It's not so much unlike one's curiously
cold reception at a funeral. The cold
and rain ****** at the skin
during graveside hymnal.
*As long as the earth continues
its stony breathing I will breathe.*
That which I cannot help but do.
Stuck between boulders, I sing.
*When it stops, I will shatter back
into gravity. Into quartz.*
Feb 26, 2018
Feb 26, 2018 at 9:54 PM UTC
during service
a slight girl
with a weight problem
somersaults
down
the church’s
main.
in choir, her boyfriend
longs
for a dart-gun
so he can stop
slicking
birds.
the school’s
second janitor
crushes a beetle
in the pages
of a hymnal but the beetle
survives.
it’s heard tell
that this
second
janitor
hit puberty
without ever
getting
an ********
because his blood
became sidetracked
by the smallness
of his fingers.
it occurs to me the only place
the janitor
can hold an egg
would need to resemble
a dark
weekday
church
and that
if god
gave beauty
the world he gave
fragility
my first
unborn
son
perfecting an attraction
to nothing.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:20 PM UTC
seven years young, always sharing a still smile.
You find him decked out and drowning in choir robes, with
Golden curls placed gently on a hammered head.
This boy plays piano in a dead sanctuary
Following familial rule,
until he let it all go.
the boy began playing music unwritten,
off hymnal sheets
Harmonious melodies stream from dancing fingertips,
Intrinsically clearing the once-cloudy air with vivacious voodoo.
The boy’s fingers groove up and down the piano,
His touch graces ivory keys and
His foot performs a rhythmic pedal-pressing tango.
He calls the audience: everywhere, eyes ignite like flame:
A communal headturn towards the piano.
They need more.
They crave it.
All the sanctuary people rise from the seats,
Abandon their pews, they enclose this boy.
No means to scare him, they want to experience.
The audience turns their ears towards the piano’s emissions,
Emanating from within
Inhaling soundwaves—
Intoxicatingly sweet.
They absorb his notes into every pore of their skin,
Fueling their bodies with musical nutrients.
Electric jolts flow right into the room’s extremities.
They let down their hair and begin to dance.
Until a brief noise, distinctive throat-clearing, came through the speakers;
Heads shifted to the podium, only to see their ticked-off pastor,
Smirking and waving sarcastically.
Discipline.
The congregation stumbled back to their seats.
The boy stopped playing.
Ending the enchantment, killing the sanctuary.
Air again filled with ‘God’s voice’
through the mouth of the speaker.
A speaker who just wanted attention.
The boy slipped out of the piano seat, out the church’s doors.
You want to chase after him, give him a ride
Where could the boy be going in the middle of the storm?
The pastor’s prodigal son.
May 20, 2012
May 20, 2012 at 10:17 PM UTC
Fierce is god impenitrable
glad glad glad there is a
Fire up the street called Heaven
There is
A woman wearing only one shoe who is taking
an exhaustive drag of her smoke in the
early morning where birds are
still heard in
!!!!!!cities
A hymnal a
heralded nest of savory berries A quartzstone is trapped in time a myth is made more ridiculous when proven real
Continents wither where the flies glue their
regal canvases on downtrodden earth (missing Pangea)
Or smiles everlasting smiles meanwhile
(Blonde tongues wearing fashioned wigs)
in constant state of beguilement
The Neanderthalic stones will be unforgiving to the REVEREND who has collapsed through his song the song of lead pipedream fantasies of sexless dogma YEAH monkhood yeah Ghat burning holes in twilit schools of thought or no thought at all
I can
hear the collective Faerie outcry that silence has presented itself HEAvier to their wicked careless bodies ok I am innocent of love I love your innocent love I am careless(of their wicked careless bodies)
ResemblingA swans actual duty to die
a swan lies a swan lay
like an even more beautiful swan
on even more beautiful swanny grass
To die by swanlightSUN and MOON white like the swan where we soon listen closely to the swansong a celestialLOVELY
rhythm of gilded forest (((((orchestrals
The swan leaves us in happiness of bright groggy light
O (of which in chaos of day I am again innocent)
The Reverend's desperate gaspings into a micro -phone for a macro - cosmic prayer idol o idol where is your capability for worship idol o where is my chinstrap o idol where is ****** youth or the romanticized eternal SUMMERS I sing
O bible O cloudland O where is your telephone operator is they deceased by their own fragrant holines? The church
Watches the Reverend neverend his television routine of clamoring death odes
Watches his senility come like an implorical shadow outline watches a demon lick its dreamless lips beyond the periphery of godless dreams
Watches
Reverend lose his sight in anInstant
HeWAILSheWAILSandWAILS can you hear it Thomas De Quincey can you hear the sandbeaches ringing more clearly than the ChurchBells or the ****** Pagoda for torture /
his soul is to sleep in the (mossy)mountain the fire of the (forever)street called HEAVEN the mountain column supporting the sky(swan)gate of heavenHeaven!welcome
to:
Mar 17, 2017
Mar 17, 2017 at 9:41 PM UTC
Mozart fades into Monet,
you are the ivory keys,
piercing the silence,
tangled in echoes of an angel's voice,
awaiting to explode into the
mystery of my colours...
Hushed within a silence,
fading beyond something grey,
always meant to shimmer in sapphire.
Love is never bound to soft silhouette's,
though the fault line is so fragile,
the hush can rupture the ballast,
deteriorate the fingerprints
left, moistened, in an exploration of hands
christened in worship of the journey,
sliding between the hymnal of thighs
scarred in the numbness of quiet bruises,
aching for the press of your needs
to awaken the ache, and kiss the morning
held fresh in my eyes,
with a glance into hunger,
still fresh upon your tongue...
My soul rests within the ebony shadows,
straddling your fingers, as they
pound the song from your heartbeat
descending into a crescendo of requiems divertimento,
unraveling all of these unspoken words,
in soft whispers of your embrace
Curve the edge of my thirst
in that place where the heart stills,
that place, where the pulse quickens
so deep inside the quiet of your benediction
redeem me in the corners of your smile,
and I will paint my love in Monet,
so soft, upon the canvas of this
Mozarts serenade of us
The aftermath, a concerto,
a delicate stroke of crimson
smeared upon the ivory parchment of my skin,
"I love you" etched
beneath the wings of your song,
...I am the unspoken lyrics...
you are the music of my life
fading into the colours
...of love's last breath...
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 5:12 PM UTC
Let us spark,
Lest we dwindle on
Such ill preconceptions.
Let us spark
For the steps
We have taken
Towards setting suns
And rising moons.
For the tears we shed
And the blood we’ve sullied
Alongside tobacconists,
Who pray without hands,
Hymnal steam seeping through
Chapped lips
For the sounds of laughter
That erupt from
Inconsequential selves
Who only ask
A tiny bead
Of hallowed light
To cut the smoke
Dense in our skulls.
This heaving ashtray
Will go on for miles.
I beg pardon for
A moment’s reprieve
In dear memory
With cigars.
-Juan Carlos Gomez
May 30, 2013
May 30, 2013 at 2:46 AM UTC
Once upon a time we had the hymnal propped by the kitchen sink so's I could learn; years later Mum would sing along with me, and now...I like never but once in a blue moon dare to sing aloud, for missing her to tears.
(sonnet #MMMMMMCCXLVII)
What's happened to--me? Rainy hours detail
Thet eye with silver's touch while green lawns fence
The minutes fog obscures by vague suspense
With softest carpets rolled out to avail,
And I'm not erm, my own in sheer betrayl;
Erst naked trees lost to mists' whitish sense
Of yonder, I could shiver, and do hence,
Cuz in a blink I'm his upon that scale.
One comment like my wont five days ere, poor
As what? now he distracts aught hours 'til through
Suggestion I am giggling, sober, tour
His deepest sorrows, and maunt say he'd woo?!
Of course, I'm better searching violets, fer
All that. Let purple wink low, saying we knew.
05Apr17b
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 12:58 AM UTC
It seems when I truly start to doubt
There is a god, something whispers, no shouts
At me to look to the miracle of nature to see Him
It stared with a morning bike ride on a whim
The fluffy white clouds that dotted the crystal blue sky
Urged me to go for a Sunday morning bike ride
It began in on an ordinary, familiar trail
Water, glasses, computer, kit, and pull the bike off the rail
As I pedaled along, I felt Him in the breeze
I saw Him in each glimmering leaf suspended in a choir of trees
The rustle of the foliage harmonized with the birds
Creating a hymnal of music that filled my soul with each word
It became abundantly clear that I was in God's community
Nature spoke His words and delivered His truth to me
Jul 21, 2013
Jul 21, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
Another heady day blooms and gathers pace
Spring dawns at 5 a.m. with a gargle and spit in the dark
Big rain drops and falls
Soft blood red wet cherry stones of bath salts
Splayed across my ageing face
Autumn showers then walks
The spiderweb of ragged birdsong feathers and
Threads through the branches
Of just November trees
Autumnal hymnal
Singing through the dying darkness, whispering
Don’t capture the light
And walking jogs thought
Factoring rebuke as Information unwanted
Proof then reproof
The tarmac fields of youth
Tilled by broken hands with
Broken men mending pipes and wires
Time leaves a presage- a butterfly mark
Autumn leaves their signals sending winter’s mark
Beauty colours death
Dec 15, 2009
Dec 15, 2009 at 1:29 AM UTC
Open eyes
With sun's rise
Rouge roused room
Four by six box
Satin lined
Episcopal ritual,
Bury the dead
Mother, Father
Don Apache garb
Hymnal hummed
Candle lit
How could nature see this fit
Suspended
From casket
Rise
And rise
And rise
Above autumn leaves
Struck with vigor
And love unobtained
Taunting with every flick of the wrist
Breeze blows through hair
I rise
And rise
And rise
Far above atmospheric scene
Aesthetics please
Sculpted by hands pure and clean
Mountains and sea
Gifted unto me
Love unrestrained
Rise
And rise
And rise
Celestials gleam
Forever in a day
A glimpse I've obtained
Descend
And descend
And descend
To gift bestowed
To forest spring
Nestled in
Mother's green
Descend
To casket
Forever in sleep
Forever in dreams
Open eyes
Rise
And rise
And rise
May 1, 2014
May 1, 2014 at 11:49 PM UTC
there is a song inside of my chest it
begs to be born from my naked breast
it comes to me in lullabies and keeps me from rest i find the goddess of earth in my dreams
a quest of solitude that only the soil can give me i feel
unraveled at the spine and
crave the blessing of death not for
the fear of life but merely the romance of the unknown
i speak words of love to all who
cross me i whisper intimacy
to my familiars all those whom are
dear to me are my soulmates
i was made
to love to be crucified
for sharing my body
*** is a gift
my body is communion
my divinity comes at the expense
of knowing myself
the sacred earth whispers to me words of mourning i cry for its
plants
body
and sacristy
and share myself to sacrifice
for the land which built me
Jul 13, 2021
Jul 13, 2021 at 4:06 PM UTC
liturgical language of wind whispers in the pines.
the sky filled with the pearly puffs of Her word.
the hymnal call of the mountains.
angles rise from the depths of lakes.
the taps of rain on the ground proclaim the Almighty.
cavernous churches entombed within the minerals
of Her love.
upon Her watery canvas She paints portraits
of Her ardent, blue dreams of eyes, and erases them
with each passing kernel of time
repainting them just as fast.
paradise.
pinnacle of unselfish endeavors.
untainted beauty encapsulated in Her smile
She is good; She is infinite; She is yes.
my only escape,
ever-faithful,
unchanging beauty.
all is held within the womb of Nature,
waiting for birthing death into the ethereal.
thank god for Nature.
Dec 26, 2013
Dec 26, 2013 at 4:54 AM UTC
i was raised up
to sing ,
and to praise god ,
and to say amen .
nothing else .
but as i live this life
with all of the forks
in my yellow brick road ,
that i was urged to travel on
by people in my life
who i realize now
were children
compared to people who cared ,
i see no god .
i see no praise ,
for him or anyone else
that is said to deserve it .
i hear no singing .
just see thousands of quarter notes
in a hymnal book that five people
pick up
and study , like it's their job .
i hear no independent amen .
it is only said after one person's prayer
is finished
and after they have used
pointless
s p a c e f i l l e r s .
" dear
lord , we just thank you father
for the day to day lord . and
god , we just love you lord . and heavenly father ,
we would like to pray, lord , for those who couldn't
make it to this service tonight , god .
remember , dear lord , our soliders , god .
remember those of your children , father ,
who have strayed from you path god , and
please help them dear jesus to
find their way way back to you , heavenly father .
in jesus' name . amen ."
**THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE PRAYING TOO .
THEY NEED NOT A REMINDER EVERY SECOND .**
i bet god gets sick
of his own name .
i bet he changed it
like mom does when the kids say "MOM"
too much .
maybe that is why prayers
aren't getting answered anymore .
i bet he changed it to something awesome , too .
like Spacefiller Christ .
i think a chorus of silent , heartfelt prayers
and hushed amen's
would be more beautiful
than any robotic , unified repeat ;
more beautiful
than any hymn .
STOP .
you are not just
one of god's children ;
you are whatever you want to be .
god is not glenda
and the devil does not only reside
in the west .
life was made
for you to awaken
from this controlled dream
and hug your auntie em
and to work on the farm in kansas
until you get the money to go
where you want to go .
you don't need to click your heels .
not even once .
you just need to wake up .
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 5:16 AM UTC
After tending sheep,
He reads the worn Hymnal and
Dozes by the fire
Mar 7, 2016
Mar 7, 2016 at 10:26 PM UTC
His voice like the sky splitting open,
When a storm is just over head.
His smile is warm and crooked,
Framed by cheeks of rosy red.
Always to be found under the hood
Of a car being restored from old age.
Or a bench made of wood by a grand piano
Reading music from a hymnal's page.
The greatest example of a love for life;
Generous, kind, and forgiving.
Always thinking first of his wife,
As if she is the sole reason he's living.
But oh to hear him sing!
The sweetest tenor voice you've ever heard.
Hymns, carols, all sorts of things.
I would stand next to him and sing "Oh, my Lord"
He gave me a gift that is the best gift to give
The gift of a love for music
and the voice I use to sing it
Mar 31, 2014
Mar 31, 2014 at 1:30 PM UTC
Each moment give lesson certain determines to us,
Often it echoes on frequent level in my mind,
And tranquil measureless moans accumulated still o'er guess,
And embolden too the state of perplexity bind.
Standing aloof solitary, from the worldly affairs
Mainly I feel behaving tutelary this nature,
To thrive in life as section indicates,
And react perennial affectionate voice of warbler.
Setting sometime in lap of productive reach,
Enrich with corn-seed, paddy and sugar-cane,
I assume numerous hidden hymnal consideration preach,
Sacrifice for betterment glide making other sustain.
Swinging swiftly at the hilly terrible groves
Shrub and thistly atmosphere, provoking gorgon fear;
Ne'er contradict genuine a horrible warning relieves
Give support always deserving deafen destructive cheer.
Or sipping brine, before nymphomaniac watching zeal,
Dumb caution centralize, beware alluring notion create
Nip stiff witty desire render stigmatize deal:
Ye propel next to Him in power approximate.
Jun 6, 2013
Jun 6, 2013 at 7:42 AM UTC
someone once told me
that writing
is an exorcism.
if that is true,
i can conclude one of two things:
i. i have never truly written before.
ii. my demons know their way back home far too well.
and while i am reluctant to choose either of the two,
i know that the more realistic answer is the latter.
i have known, at times,
what it is like to be clean.
to be pure.
to be holy.
i have known, at times,
what it is like to make my body a one-bedroom apartment
with space solely and deliberately for me.
i have known, at times,
what it is like
to fear no evil.
i have known these things, and i have known them well.
at times.
but i know, too, that these times never last.
there is always a second coming i cannot foresee,
a judgment day that gives no warning,
a demon that yields to no cross.
someone once told me
that writing
is an exorcism.
but i am a church of worn walls,
my pen a faulty crucifix.
i need not look down at my hymnal to sing of false purity.
i have read that one far too many times.
(a.m.)
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 12:13 AM UTC
black-eyed child of the morning
sings blue-eyed hymns in the afternoon,
chokes on black water at night
pouring from the ceiling
depression waterboarding her small cheeks.
black-eyed child of the morning
paints red smiles on her thighs
running down her knees
heaven on her mind
looking for the tormentor in the ceiling.
blue-eyed child in the afternoon
lets sunshine soak up her irises
turning the light rose-colored
laughs drunkenly just under the
feedback
lies in bed and finds worlds in her mind
stroking their edges
closing her eyes
black-armed child of the night
resurfacing at last
shaking on the mattress
talking
screaming
to her thoughts
telling them to stop
trembling under the black water ceiling
crying because she's suffocating
begging because there is no choice
black-eyed child,
blue-eyed sometimes...
beggars can't be choosers
Jun 28, 2015
Jun 28, 2015 at 10:05 PM UTC
An overall’d uncle stabbed over homemade champagne drifts around the bend.
A commemoration quilt and the Adamsville population shifts around the bend.
There’s an old hymn torn out of Martha’s hymnal, an elegy, a black dress.
“These details seem important,” Preacher says in European swifts around the bend.
The rains come and wash away the things we bury, bodies and toy cars.
Lowlands become lakes and a lone, malaise blackbird lifts around the bend.
A boy, all elbows and knees, in corduroy everything, in the thick of it,
drives a truck with no wipers, no license, the stick shifts around the bend.
The homes with electric lose electric, and the newspaper floats off porch.
No news today, nor tomorrow these are philanthropic gifts around the bend.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 12:49 PM UTC
Take me to bed
In the forest
So I can feel the cold damp earth
Against my naked back
Look up
And see in your eyes
A desire burning for eons
Draw the doubt from my soul
Through my lips
The only witnesses are the trees
As you press me into the ground
Electricity where our skin touches
The only sounds are our
Gentle hymnal moans between gulps of air
Kiss my translucent skin
Taste my hunger for you
As we reach a fervent crescendo
That rips me in half
Apr 1, 2018
Apr 1, 2018 at 4:46 PM UTC
The hangman
Riding town to town
In his creaky dusty black buggy
Sleepy eyed old mule pulling
Long-tailed fat round pet rat
Riding beside him
Both dressed all in dusty black
Neither smiling or frowning
From Tennesse to Missouri
Oklahoma then to Texas
Back again across the Mississippi
To Alabama or wherever called
Tools of his trade neatly bound
In back of the black buggy
A cheap hotel and clean black suit
Bow Tie tied neatly
A perfect knot and long coat tail
Takes the tools he needs for day's task
From black bag beside sweaty bed
Heads downstairs for another day
Just another job
Humming a sweet hymnal
As he climbs gallow stairs
Loops the noose tight 'round
Poor neck and offers cigarette
Politely as expected
Pulls black hood if requested
Awaits the nod and drops the trap
To cheers and jeers and sobs
Collects his bits of silver
Packs his gear and bags
And long-tailed pet rat
Has buggy hitched and hits the road
Dusty, humming hymnals
In his creaky old black buggy
Without a thought to next job
Down Georgia way
The hangman and his gear
Long-tailed rat and sleepy mule
Another day another dollar
r
6 Sept 13
Sep 6, 2013
Sep 6, 2013 at 5:11 PM UTC
honest, the ones that hurt the most to write
are the self-love poems because
they remind me no one's around
to do it for me. they're also the most rewarding
to finish for the same reason. sometimes i sit at
the hickory writing desk my grandfather built
waiting for clarity to be chirped out of the bulb of a
trumpet or true love honked longingly from the
fever nose of a saxophone but it never happens that way.
instead i write my feelings -- veined hand curled
around a crude pencil with gnawed erasers at both ends.
or idly scratch the flowers from the wallpaper
while the moon looks down like a twisted bottle-cap
smashed in half by macho fingers into the gray
asphalt sky primping its reflection in the pond,
i think that someday i'll learn to love myself the same
way, by facing all my bad parts in the sharp mirror and my
friends abandoning me. each time they do i hold church inside
my own individual heart on sundays or saturdays,
huddled tight on the first frozen december morning around
a hymnal fire altar, only standing to **** or light another
stick of peppered citrus incense. but right now
i've got a crumb of real turkish hash
and only spittle left in the wine bottle reciting Keats
to the empty moon-painted cow field across the brittle fence
and laughing with lilac bulbs pasted on my face, watching
a low cloud thread itself between the skinny
barbs of pecan tree fingers as i wander through
the orchard. the stars hop restlessly like chigger bugs
and sparkle raw in my
swimming-pool-blue eyes but the ones that
blink back really aren't stars at all.
Dec 19, 2015
Dec 19, 2015 at 8:03 AM UTC
If you listen very closely
You can almost seem to hear
The sound of faeries dancing
Upon a sea of fallen leaves
To an autumn evening hymnal
Carried by the river's humming course
And the beat of bright red embers
Cracking in the frosty breeze
Nov 16, 2019
Nov 16, 2019 at 8:15 PM UTC
It’s that Southern Gospel
that Northern Revival
from the sunrise to the sunset, dusk to dawn.
First on the right then to the left, up and down
it’s a rhythmic tone, tuned to tune your heart
plucking that picking string
twang in that twilight night
how it feels oh so right
this little light
sing that Gospel song
in that bright blue moonlight
all night long!
Hear me sing
see me dance
let me laugh
jump
and shout out loud!
its that Sunrise Service,
that beach day baptism,
its that old hymnal message that never dies
never, ever dies
that old old story of the righteous and the holy
that oh so sweet story of the Bethlehem baby born and raised.
He live to die so that I could die to live.
They call him good, I call him Lord
They call him teacher, I call him Savior
They call him Jesus, I call him King
Jun 6, 2017
Jun 6, 2017 at 12:51 PM UTC