Presence

Night on night I laid, stacked,

anxious like Jenga sticks—

But slept.

Tonight writes

the twist in the midst- Glory.

Shoulders rest, fire beneath

my chest: learning Your burning.

You’re burning, my smile brimming.

Beneath bone flames moan:

eyes drier, ringed out with time.

Day’s right bookend erased

Topples me into bright life.

Love’s overflow still slicing

into night; Presence purrs

and pierces, hissing joyous

songs, like kerosene. 

The Best Stanza

The best stanza

written, walked.

Talked. Spun

minds, tugged

and healed hearts.

The best stanza written broke every rule, and fulfilled every law.

Offended endless readers, and loved individuals. This stanza
breathed and bravely bled.   It loved.    It loved most against

The greatest Writer’s

block     :     wrath.

S l a u g h t e r e d

by the screaming

illiterate. And then,

the best stanza

stood and said

e v e r y t h i n g by

saying n o t h i n g

at all. Yet, let not

a word go wasted.

Now, we write

as light as that

two ton stone

solely because the

best stanza written

still lives.

I Think I Might Explode

It’s just unbelievable we have legs that get us

to point A and then to point B

and to C and D and E and F and

wherever we want to wander and

reroute because even at point Z we will

find U made us

and I am simply amazed at Your

not stopping amazingness and You even gave us

mouths to speak of what our heads

are thinking about because what if

where there is a hole for these mouths there just wasn’t 
well then I would blow up like a balloon and pop like one

too or explode like Robbie’s volcano experiment or

maybe even a real one but instead of lava

there’d just be a lotta words everywhere

like the candy outta my busted piñata I know

I would So I love my mouth

So thank You for that hole in my face and thank You again

that tomorrow I will have the same

one because if I didn’t I wouldn’t

know how to use it and I couldn’t talk

about You or my brothers or my mother but You

know me so well You even know

the corners of all those tubes inside of

me that I’ve only seen drawings of and

I’m glad someone smart knows them like You

because I don’t trust all those pictures in those

books the teacher ladies make me read in school

But thank You for school because if I

didn’t go I just wouldn’t use the brain

You gave me and I’d just eat macaroni

and cheese all day or make my own piñatas

with macaroni and cheese inside all day so

thank You for school and thank You for

being amazing and maybe making me

a little amazing too 

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

Her aroma fans

and folds into him.

His inequity surfaces;

his death is uncovered,

tries to hide: broken limb.

Chin to skin in shame;

forbids his breath.

Her entrance spritzes

permanence and tunes

his ears to the voice

of a grave, shredding his

purpose into less

than mince.

Her finished scent

heightens his crave.

Strong, but strong,

she reeks of water.

She’s pollen’s smell

of death, holding life

against him, like

oil to an otter.

His life sits on belief

in the quick whiff

of her existence:

the vigorous tiff.

Slavery

The tireless tick sits, 

digs in my two canals.

Must pretzel the needle

to please my high shoulders.

Slower than I admit

it: minutes master me.

I ache to taste Your pace.

To know peace. Outside this

field of a circled frame. 

2 Corinthians 5:1

My work fell well. My screws loosened

with fire; flames licked my roof dry.

Quiet blazes cradled my windows,

wooden walls punched in: splintered pew.

My burnt frames hissed in bliss. 

Lifted frame in a sun pillar elevator—

His work built perfect; mine joyfully lost.

Hope unfolded: a thick, divine security

now in “a house not made with hands,

eternal in the heavens” where I reside.