You were beaten and bruised,
for the sinful likes of me;
three nails pierced Your flesh,
as You were hung… at Calvary.

An unthinkable act of Love
was cruelly executed for me;
for You took the punishment,
that had been… meant for me!

With forgiveness on Your breath,
You requested a pardon for those,
who carried out judgment on You,
as a death sentence was imposed.

A spear was ****** in Your side,
as Your demise was underscored;
when it was mundanely removed,
both blood and water had poured.

[chorus]
On The Cross of Calvary,
Love was brokenhearted;
Salvation was paid in full;
Grace’s flow was started.

[bridge]
We don’t fully understand,
God’s goodness towards us;
Sin’s debt was wiped out,
by the sacrifice of Jesus.

We adore Him, since Christ
had truly loved us first;
He bore the painful brunt
of payment for Sin’s curse.
.
.
.
Author notes

Inspired by:
1 Pet 2:24; Gal 3:10-14; 1 John 4:19

Learn more about me and my poetry at: http://amzn.to/1ffo9YZ

By Joseph J. Breunig 3rd, © 2016, All rights reserved.

I took a rest on a ruddy bench
Aside the lady with the looking glass
Till a little blessing came tapping
With an outstretched hand telling

Begging change in exchange the floras
The lady, amused with the child
Showed him a wise saying
That was mundanely swaying

As the words came out
The water of life pouring
As the true meaning he learned
From the lady's interpreted word

That moment the personas shared
With time who couldn't stay
Could determine the fate
As it wasn't too late

I took a rest on the ruddy bench
Flowers, words and lives were traded
Familiarity grew on the streets
Where strangers pass or meet

I sleep during the day between the nights I feel alive.
The same mundanely chaotic dream...
We're holding hands and whispering sweet nothings.
fast forward, we're racing across old country roads.
You're inviting me to breakfast, and i am racing across the town.
Only to show up and make a complete *** out of myself.
My body becomes a healing flame, when we walk your hand in mine.
Of my life i can't say that I remember all that much.
But what i know is i wasn't truly alive till i knew "what is love"
When i made you smile, i felt the entire world fall away.
it was then, i was reborn with 5 whole new senses.
All the grays i stared at turned beautiful vibrant hues.
Your meals were a work of art, Fireworks exploding in my mouth.
You brushed my hand, and i felt poetry radiating through my flesh.
it wasn't till i looked into your opalescent eyes,
that was when i saw the world in all its unfathomable beauty.
I know i am nothing to you now, but if you see this i want you to know...

Thank you :)

We arrive home
and I see you look over there.
I've been so happy
just spending time with you.
It's been just the two of us,
a welcome escape.
It's not often this happens,
when we get time alone
without interruption
from texts or a phone call.
But tonight we are free
and we have the most
mundanely grand plans.
And I look forward to them
with utmost glee.
But then it happens.
We pull in and you say
you're going there
"just for a minute."
I'm not fooled,
it's never just a minute.
Our plans are derailed,
I'm left to bring in the groceries
alone.
And do the dishes,
alone.
We said we'd tackle them
together,
tag-team the massive pile.
Yet here I am,
alone.
And I get left feeling like
a complete and utter *****
because I'm upset at the fact
that you want to go home
to tell your parents good night.
I just want this to be your home.
And I'm afraid
it never will be.
You'll always have to go there
and we'll always have some
sort of interruption.
And I'll never have you
all to myself, never,
and sometimes I'll be left
feeling completely *******
alone.

I sat hard-pressed against
the plastic seat on the Metro,
green line to Branch Ave,
feeling the heat
of all the dozens of bodies that surrounded me,
5:30 PM and everyone
making headway for home after a
long, hot work day.
The swampy humidity
clung to my arms like sticky tack.
I wiped my brow with the sleeve of my
blazer
and listened to some 90s
R & B on my iPod as I
c
o
u
n
t
e
d
d
o
w
n
the exits till I could
free               myself      from
the suffocating crowd.
It was no day that was even remotely extraordinary,
no life-changing series of events,
no incredible people I had met;
nope, just commuting back to the SE quadrant of
town as I had
every day that summer.
I looked up and took
a snapshot with my mind;
I remember exactly
how that sliver of time
felt to me,
how it looked,
smelledsoundedtasted
as I realized my days in D.C. had begun to feel
like the norm,
that I had grown accustomed to the
claustrophobic train cabins,
the repetitive street names,
and
10% sales tax.
So suddenly there was this
catastrophic
timeturning
momentous magnanimous monumental magic
of the most mundanely minuscule moment,
as ordinary crawled up my veins
and absorbed me in it.
Somehow
squeezed.in.between
the rush-hour,
the annoyance, impatience, and near-suffocation
felt like
home.

Earth: our ominous all-mother,
   she, the greater good:
the interminable fountain out of which stems life and vivacity itself
always reaching
                        and grasping for the abstruse azure heavens above.

her hair never stops growing. the mites and parasites never cease to fester her scalp. She is growing and changing and rotting and dying.      but where death comes, there is no long interval until more

life.

the liveliness is everywhere; it promotes to all faces and regions and niches. Multiplying, begetting, propagating. all for the greater good of our orb and its inhabitants. Most dwellers are humble and solicitous toward her, and learn to keep a vigilant eye
as she can be so
forceful and violent.

She does have, however, one rascal who believes that the globe belongs all to Himself.
He is the man.
He has a masterful gift, yes. He is profound and competent. He forges the impractical query into a conclusive answer. He, however, is also egocentric and pompous, and He sees her as a specimen to which
He has the rights to dismember and pervert.
He makes a mess of her unique vistas. He tramples and stamps on her face, running about as if she were the coliseum in which the gods gather to view the Species fight itself to extinction. He works her to the
core, always asking for more, more, more, more,
until she has little left to give.

But she never loses courage in His asinine and moronic views and His sprawling village,
for she created Him
    out of herself
she is the framework out of which the mind is able to mundanely manifest itself.
Without her, He would be nothing.
And she is so immeasurably loving and benevolently caring and forevermore giving;     for
    She is life,           she is love.
       We are love.

My best friend Steve
had a rat named Beulah
and although she wore the white pelt
and pert whiskers of a domestic pet
she never generated the heroics
of Disney’s menagerie;
rather, she’d
unwind her days doing a scurrying
hunch'n'hop
around the perimeter of the living room.

As a native Pittsburgh rat
Beulah escaped the bizarre fate
of her Baltimore cousins
who resided in neighborhoods
where the residents fished for rodents
using Kmart rods and big steel hooks
baited with cheese and rancid bacon.

Instead, she died rather mundanely
like many rats
at the end of her life's only adventure
fleeing the tame existence
of the living room
for the fresh air of the driveway
where the rear wheels
of Steve's dad's pickup truck
flattened and whirled
poor Beulah
in a counterclockwise
spinfest
of radial belted
frenzy

You've been crying into your pillow for weeks now
because he-

Never mind.

Today, you walked into a grocery store
and stared
at all the people
buying broccoli and shampoo and dish-washing liquid.
All those people with their own
chapters and textures,
their own loves and hates and
personal heartbreaks,
all their embarrassing habits.
Mundanely gathered in this over-lit shop...
You realize that for this short while
all your lives were quietly mingling.

And then your heart sighs
with relief because
you've done it, finally.
You've realized something small but so very
important.
It's quite simple, really.

The world is larger than your heartbreak.

(You smile because you know that things just might be okay.
Eventually)

I slowly lose it every once in a while.
Get too "out there", philosophical thinking.
I lose myself in thoughts, but seem to find out more and more Truth.
I get a spark on insanity, but it helps me see the sanity in it all.
I get happy to know this is in existence, then sad and angry that no one else sees it.

Sometimes just want to drop everything and yell: "Do you not see this, do you not see what is happening right now to you to me!?"
We are incredible beings, with the ability to think and feel, and know we are doing so, the capability to create, destroy.
Yet some of us are still mundanely getting up at 5 to go to a job we hate to come to a broken home to watch our favorite t.v. show to help us escape from our lives, to drink some beer to chill out, to buy that bigger car to make us feel less small.

If everyone, right now, could just stop what they are doing, look up at the stars..
you are connected to everything

If everyone could realize that this Earth is our original Mother and our only Home, like really see, maybe even feel how she feels, would they respect her more? If they knew the natural givings she offered for us to live, the herbs, food, habitat, water, medicine, etc, would we stop destroying it?

If everyone would focus on meditating and Love as much as they do the clothes they wear or the shows they watch, imagine the exponentially positive vibrations this world would propagate!

I understand a lot of our ancient wisdom has been swept under the greed and power rug. I understand some people and cultures still adhere to these, and to other natural laws of love and life. But i also see the opposite, and the indifferent.

t's good to be good, it's bad to be bad, but it's worse to be indifferent. Some of you are. You hide in your magazines, your T.V. Shows, your gossip, your fake happiness. the happiness you create out of thin air and consciousness. That is how I make my happiness too, but I don't birth mine out of sorrow and lies.

I know what I know, and I am satisfied, but will always remain a student, and hopefully at times, a teacher.

The children are growing, evolving, and astounding me. I've always known there was something special about children, and there is. They are the closest ones to the realm between Life and Death. They know more truths than we do, and we tell them lies. We tell them what they know in their heart and soul is not real, which is a huge mistake. Because also as children, we start to believe it, so we conform to a society of one-way thinkers.
Indigo, calling out to you to color the spectrum with your radiance of intelligence. Watch out for these guys.. I know I have qualities, and I try to have many conversations with others that do as well.

Insomnia. Why? Idk. Several reasons. Writing helps. Maybe I have too much **** up in my head. I need to get some of it out.

Still I cannot help but fathom the fact that I know all these things, (and I know others do too) yet I walk around the bare white walls and see the blank step ford stares of other inhabitants of this planet.  They are all going about their business as if nothing is happening. As if all of this is normal!
Sure I can do all this homework, go to work, pay rent, pay for school, drive a car, text and drive, eat this fast food, study, make my parents happy, make the cops happy, don't step on anyone toes, just try to be the best in my field, find someone, marry them, have kids, raise demons in this Hell, cry, become old, wonder where my life went, buy a motorcycle to make me feel better, see my kids all of a sudden leave my house, get sad and lonely again, continue my mundane job or hopefully have enough money to quit and travel, maybe retire, maybe have a cool hobby, try to **** myself with cigarettes and ***** before I live old enough to really hate myself.
Yea, that sounds really normal. I mean comon' most People on this Earth live like This. (If you can call it living).

**** NO! WE have the powers and capabilities to think and to do, so ******* do them.
think for yourself, do for others

It makes me feel better to come across things like Spirit Science or The Emerald Tablets or The Flower of Life books. Because it proves my sparks of insanity are real. I am not alone in the way I think.
This non-believer found something to believe in.
Now I must be patient, I do not want to become one of those 'bible-pushers' i hate so much.
But the Movement needs to move..

When the evening glimmers day slowly turns dead
I peek at my watch sweet six in my head
Walk in windy sprint in cheerful childly gait
To reach home in time meet you sweet mate!

When the few hours seeming like weeks
Roll out prolonged till they reach six
I pick up my bag leave the tedium behind
To reach home in time my sweet mate in mind!

When the day unfolds bland time slowly ticks
The clock acts too lazy to reach the magic six
I hold on the belief the evening won’t be late
To ferry me in time to my waiting sweet mate!

When nothing seems to tick except my weary watch
As it trundles into six I say thank you very much
For though you ran so lazy reached six at any rate
To tell the time is ripe to rush home for sweet mate!

When each hour passes mundanely alike
Work drags slowly painting the day prosaic
Past its burned hours beyond the toil’s sweat
Chimes the magical six it’s time for sweet mate!

Gazing at a mundane paper
The mundane eyes came across
A mundane error in a mundane question
In a mundane hall

The mundane boy returned
To his mundane house
He had a mundane lunch
With his mundane pet mouse

When the mundane moon came out
Of the mundane sky
He put on Eleanor Rigby on his mundane phone
(As he did every mundane night)
And slept mundanely
In the mundane moonlight

This is how the mundane boy
Lived his mundane life

truth-
the direction of my energy is going to more productive places
than reserving hours each day to mourn a thing that used to be
second truth-
you were rooted more in my mind than in my heart
which is why i've thought so many things for you aside from true love,
which would be wishing you the best.
resentment is easier to harness than open sadness
but now i see that the heart must be open & wounded
before it can harden.
(i tried to skip all that...)
pangs still come
deeply through music or mundanely while turning onto a given street
saudade will strike; dismissed weakly via anger or fruitfully through
mindfully acknowledging these
parting truths:

there is much for me to continue learning and exploring inside of myself, and a day will come where another soul in this Universe will present itself through the kind of love I need, so painstakingly clear and this experience will be looked back upon in its appropriate light- a necessary painful stepping stone rung on the ladder that prepared me for what I've always wanted.

Beauty, i've realized, is not confined to one singular moment
Nor one singular place.
Not one precious moment in time but perhaps a web of them.
It's intrinsic to nature.
Confounded through and possibly limited by the dullness of people.
We need too much.
We desire emptily.
We set definitions leaving little space for the outlier.
But beauty, in its purest form, is the outlier--a great composition of them.
For what we set our eyes forth to blatantly, routinely, and  mundanely is often the most beautiful, masked by our innate desire for novelty.

Sorry it's long (said no one ever)

Working in retail opens your eyes to a whole world many do not see.
A world of such diversely, fascinatingly, mundanely grey, vibrantly glorious, disgusting and bright human behaviour.

You may think we just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work.

But we do so much more, we see so much more.

We watch, we listen, we cry and we laugh both with you, and admittedly, on occasion, at you.

But do forgive us as we are too, diversely, fascinatingly, mundanely grey, vibrantly glorious, disgusting and bright humans.

You can, as our customers, wholeheartedly make our day, you can be kind and courteous, funny, and quite often, we love having you with us, especially when you are considerate, considering this is our place of work.

And in that place of work, where we spend more daylight hours of our lives with you than we do with our families and loved ones, in that place of work we come across those who frustrate and annoy, who are aggressive and demeaning, we are made to feel unworthy and on occasion, occasionally you make us cry.

But you also lift us, with your own brand of madness :)

We have 'Buddy' who often comes in wearing a puffy coat and a blue baseball cap, precariously perched on top of his head.
'Hat family' visits were mum and daughter each wear a trilby and dad wears a cap.
"Carol" who is always decorating and most often needs...
" A thing, you know, with the part that folds over, it's grey" or an "Orange do-dah, you use it in the garden, it was on the telly"...

Be assured, we see you all, we remember you all. The good, the bad and those we endlessly try to help but always ask for things we don't sell and end up saying "fine i'll just go to Dunelm"...

We don't just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work. We also share with you your joys and your woes.

We spoke to a woman who was in floods of tears as she had been made to feel stupid and had been spoken to unkindly in another shop. She was looked after, consoled and taken care of.

We spoke to a woman who was on her first day outside after her husband of some 40 years had passed away. We listened and gave her many kind words, she left feeling much less alone.

We spoke at length to a woman in her 30's who had been told that morning she was finally in remission. We shared her joy. And relief.

We help the elderly Scottish gentleman with his son who has autism. His wife passed away 4 years ago and his son is his world. His son likes to touch our soft cushions and always asks his dad if it's 'time for tea yet.'

We don't just stack the shelves and clean up the unmitigated and immense damage you cause after you visit our place of work. We do understand, more than you know.

Today I met a quite exhausted woman, covered in dry paint, wearing a weary expression. She was holding a tin of paint with paint covered hands.
And with a tired voice she told me she had been...
"Painting all ****** day" and she was... "so bleedin' tired I can't think straight". She had run out of paint and asked how much the paint was.
And then I felt a whole new level of understanding and compassion.

She looked me square in the eye and asked "Is it wrong to wish everyone would just *******?"

I said "Of course not, it's perfectly normal considering the day you've had, can you leave the painting until tomorrow, after you've had a bath and a good nights sleep?"
She looked at me and smiled wearily "I guess it can wait"
Handing her the paint i said "it's 7.99, then do that, get some sleep. And tell everyone who says otherwise to ..."
"*******" she smiled.

1
i am the space expanding non-stop at the risk of losing history
and what remains of its stardust.
my sorrows expand with it; my vastness grows wider,
deeper by the day to accommodate
an uninvited houseguest.

2
i fear the act of going through my bones
like a bundle of endless, wistful letters;
some for burning.
some for throwing away.
some for breaking through
my ashen skin.

how can i be both limited and boundless —
it is no magic — just mundanely human.
the thought descends like poison eating at my backbone
until i am no more than a bygone, spineless caryatid.

3
yet again i take down the cosmos,
pick it apart
and in my hands, manage to turn it
into something distastefully prosaic —
turn it into a disassembled being.

all this wordless sadness has made me ancient. alien. unidentified.

4
i am the space expanding non-stop at the risk of losing history;
i have long stopped trying to make any sense to myself and
there is no greater joy
than to be a perplexity.

amid it all, i tiptoe back and forth
between the ice-thin parts of celestine silence
and the static ringing of incomprehensible poetry.

the ground where i stand on breaks;
i float with no direction.

5
i am the space expanding endlessly; i grow wider and deeper
to make room for vaster sorrows —
if only a sigh is enough to hold me
as i tear it all down. tear it all quietly. inward. once and for all.
if only a sigh is enough to hold me
as i implode in tragic,
breath-taking cosmic colors.

You take so much of it,
From me.

In my daydreams,
with a script imagined out of idealism,
filled with a seamless string of events
almost as if every tiny detail has its own biography.
The way a scene is choreographed for an awfully flawless performance,
like a single foot positioned an inch too far would make the masterpiece a fiasco.
In perfectly crafted scenarios too fragile for them to be acted out in reality.

In the songs I listen to,
not from the lyrics, no.
But in the rhythms that sound like my heartbeats,
whenever I hear your laugh that is mundanely common,
yet so notable that I still think of you whenever I hear it from other people.
A tune that feels like a glimpse of ethereal blessing, but still unharmonious for other people.
In melodies that resonate how it feels like to hear beauty in frequencies that others simply overlook.

I am skimming the surface,
Of my life,
Far below,
In the deep depths,
Of what if,
Are opportunities,
Blown , unknown,
I mundanely shuffle,
On the surface,
Of destruction,
Distractions,
Political, poverty,
Discrimination,
Keep me from,
Kneeling down,
To press my face,
Through the still waters,
And peer below,
To see ,
What else life holds.

It’s not a ferris wheel
with fancy lights
that draws you to
the other side at night.
I know because once
I tried to take that ride
and end my life.

It’s not a pool of cool
reflecting water
that lets you see
the ones you long to,
sparkling images
that smile sweetly
back from deaths arms
to finally greet you.

It’s not a church choir
there to inspire
with regimented lyrics
that repeat mundanely
boring the **** out of me
for their lack of
originality.

It’s not perfectly sanitized,
or measured in black and white.
Truth is not always just
wrong and right
sometimes there are nuances
but there are definitely not
alternative facts.

This poem is not an exploration
of the nature of death
or the reality of truth.
it is just a pretty painting
in poetry and prosaic presentation
of my inexhaustible ego, whimsy,
and creativity.

I know it's wrong
To carry on like this.
But now that I have seen you again,
In ways that were too intricate
For me to unwind as a child,
And the love that i've come to know mundanely well
Is few and far,
I can't seem to keep you at arms length.
Because my arms are selfish
And my self-denial is anything but denial.

Maybe it's just a symptom of this pandemic.
My isolation has always
Brought me back to you.
And it could be wrong.
I could be leading you to the pyre,
Following blindly with a torch in hand.

Are you willing to be a martyr
For my narcissism?
A sacrifice to my selfish indulgence
Of another's attention?
But I know your blindness,
Your readiness to burn with a smile
As long as I lit the fire.

You're worth more than my oscillating indecisiveness.
You're a steady pillar
Holding up my contingency plans.
When will you crumble
And let me face the world
With true uncertainty?

As long as I have you,
I will always have something to be certain of.

maybe i should’ve listened
i’m overwhelmed on a sunny day, my organs are in the wrong spots, and miscommunication is somehow benefitting us

the words are in the walls of my throat, your tongue could reach them so easily (why are you making any excuses?)
“celebrate with me, put your hands on me, be jealous of me”
don't you wonder what it'd feel like to have my skin rub against yours again?

change your expectations of me, be ignorant of your sore limbs, be naïve and keen
things could be better, take the hint and be with me

i’m making a mistake valuing you more than a dime
are you holding on for me or for you? stupid question
i don’t think you want me to come around again, i won’t knock on your door, i need more barriers anyway

in a different timeline,
our capsule is buried, we don’t progress further. we’d stay like that until someone got a shovel
i’d call you before you slept even if i’m about to miss sunrise
my blue jumper would be resting in the same spot that your sweater is lying on my chair
my laugh echoes and dances with yours on the highway
your fingers fit comfortably between mine

it was nice living mundanely, too bad we figured each other out, it's no longer fun anymore
for what it’s worth, you made it worse

everything was fitting together, except us (you were the good in the bad)
now, currency has no value
i’m expensive to you, so you choose to settle for temporary happiness instead (pitiful, caring for me shouldn’t be costly)

the wind took my sickness to another heart, i didn’t know which way to go
i hope it bothers you more that you’re no longer him, do you even feel satisfied in other ways?

what even is ownership?
when i used to belong to you but now i’m by his side?
where do i buy the title to keep this distance between us?

such a dream, does everyone feel this enlightened when they surpass loss? i wish time stayed a myth
used to be indecisive, now i won’t hesitate to say his name (don’t fly out, the stickers are still here)

Do you ever feel
Like you have no one to talk to
Like no one  understands
The depth of your be ing
Do you hold your thoughts in check
Not wanting to overwhelm
Those who are friendly
And live mundanely
I wish I could find
Someone to share my thoughts
My dreams with
Someone who understands
And doesn’t have a need
To fix me
Or mother me
Or dismiss me
I look for companionship
At the level
Of heart, mind, and soul
And seek, in that person
A friend

I walk with will into umbral dark.
Fly through broken boundary of tempered veil
To unknown worlds beyond description.
I mingle with a forgiven strangeness
And become both act and audience
In theater foreign and familiar...

Then I cruelly slip from such sweetened state
And wake and live so mundanely.

Upon this vibrant world
Man walks mundanely,
As if fragrance furled
Their hearts insanely.

Amid carnival and chaos
We sail the seas,
We eat those candyfloss
Emerging from trees.

We laugh and cry
Throughout our life,
We fall and try
Through joy and strife.

Through this temporal
We seek the eternal,
Free reefs and coral
Yet we loath the carnal.

Beast's and men
Live side by side,
Shouldn't we then
Find peace within stride?

In this tantrum tavern
We live with hope,
We give and earn
Holding the rope of cope.

Heaven on earth
Is not a mere illusion,
If you anchor Love's perth
Soil becomes cushion.