There are no lies.
Only truths no one meant to tell,
And truths someone did.
In discerning is wisdom born.

For truth lies in all things,
Where false scales speak truth,
And a bribe gives honesty.
If the heart can listen well.

We can find the stories,
They didn’t mean to tell
Amidst their meaningless words,
Which themselves hold no truth.

Still, there are no lies.
To this the simple nod,
For to their accepting ears,
All words appear as gospel.

Still, there are no lies.
To this the fool and scoffer laugh,
For in their mouths,
Truth is mist burnt by the sun.

Still, there are no lies.
To this the wise will nod,
For they see truth where it lies,
Sitting in the bramble, waiting to be found.

A time gone by,
until my heart goes too.
A body rooted here and now,
Yet called to infinitude.

I cannot be but to be,
And cannot be any other self but me.
A self I was given but chose.
A past I was handed yet lived.

My person I built while I slept,
Knowing not what my left hand did.
Instructed silently by the loud voice of history,
While deaf to the sound of construction.

I’m unchangeably attached to that then.
Forever fettered to this now.
Tied to these moments of past and present.
However ever called to the Always.

An Always that always was.
There shaping all of our thens,
Connected to every single present,
While calling all of our tomorrows.

Pulled to be the new man who I am. Not. But will be
While tied to those thens of history.
Called not to be, but to be with.
So I will wait with you patient, while I move with you now.

Does it rip,
Or does it tear?

Does it snap,
Or does it smash?

Does it stab?
Or does it pierce?

Fall or crush or crumble?

Kill or slay or slash?

Darkness destroy crush break rip
Distort stain mark twist
Death.

No other word

Death

The devil triumphs
In stealing life and replacing with death.

We were given a gift of beauty,
But been clouded by corruption so pure
That it tricks with a beauty of falseness,
And an allure built of death.

What should piece together life,
Uniting perfectly in order to divide supremely,
Its every touch now brings death
With its every step corrupted.

CONTINUED

Where the bride is now theft
And the groom disregard.
The flowers do not grow
And the gazelles do not leap.

But winter reigns
And scoughing rings.
As Mothers weep, for their daughters are lost,
And Fathers rage, for their sons are held captive

A brokenness unbreakable
For the death is so pure.

The twist on beauty so perfect
That death wears the face of life
And life appears as chaff.

Unadulterated adultery

So that only perfect life
Can cast out perfect death
And only perfect love
Can abolish a slavery to broken beauty.

I see life stolen.
But yet I wait.
As I untouched,
pursue my fate.
Barbary.

The end of lives
seems not to die,
seized by hands
that are enshrined.
Barbary.

I cannot wait
for life is precious.
I see it stolen,
yet here I sit.
Barbary.

Yet here I sit
Barbary!
Yet here I sit
Barbary!

LORD forgive me,
for my voice speaks not
against this buttress that holds me.
For to speak is to lose
and to stand is to fall.

So here I sit
Barbary!
So here I sit
Barbary!

CONTINUED

LORD forgive me
for a heart that does not break for death,
for hands that do not strain for justice,
and so keeping the power
and holding it tight.

Then I look, I look and see.
Are these the hands,
that are enshrined?
I see their guilt that is in mine
I try to flee, but they’re part of me

These hands
These hands
And look at me
And more and more I see

Not just my hands
but everywhere, I bear the sign
and wear the guilt.
And it feels so good.

Barbary, LORD, barbary!
Help me to fight
my selfish security
that keeps my hands enshrined.

These sentences scare,
because to help is to lose.
But your justice must reign,
and those you love need judgment.

For these hands bear guiltless guilt,
hidden for all to see,
purity impure.
White.

Description goes heThe sun seems hotter now
Magnified by shame of fallen pride
That said victory was simple
And division not so deep

But dust speaks lessons
As I walk a long road home
Alone amidst the soldiers
Who share the chaotic sobriety of defeat

I brought sandwiches to war
As if death would stop for tea
And hate would yield to lunch
I brought sandwiches to war

“In order to form a more perfect.”
Finding little fault in where we are,
For the writers sat atop
With me as their atop sitting heir.

For my shoulders have not borne
The imperfections of “perfect,”
Which lay between the lines
Of who are “the people.”

As many labored to give
The “general welfare” I have,
But enjoyed little themselves
As “more perfect” sat smugly satisfied.

But my voice is in those words.
For in their seats,
I could have sat.
So my eyes should watch my tongue.

And perhaps my silence not my speech
Can move us past “more perfect.”
So the ever present voices who call “imperfect”
Might be heard not mine.

Every inch has life.
Nowhere without the drive
Of breath to breathe.
And it was good.

Without legs they run,
Without wings they fly,
And without them we die.
And it was good

They speak languages unknown
To be concertedly coordinated,
Challenging what it means to be one.
And it was good

From them we learn the simple facts of life,
Make the food we eat,
And use it to give us life.
And it was good.

Yet one who once was friend is now enemy,
Bringing a total war
Of scorched earth and salted land.
And we ask, is it still good?

But it comes as no surprise,
That blessings whisper curses.
So never shall I say of life searching breath,
That it is not first good.

I can’t be here, because I’m there.
Perhaps not all of me there.
After all, here I do sit,
But I can’t be here there.

For there is there and here here.
Didn’t we learn that matter does matter?
And no matter the size, the shape, or the scatter
that matter’s just one place, one time.

So that’s settled.
I’m here, not there.
For I can’t be here there.
As such, I am here here.

Aren’t I so clever,
How I pull logic levers.
But damn man.
Just makes it harder being wrong.

I am there.
And I am here.
So how do I live. . .the-ere,
To take a cue from light and be two things so well?

To send myself there,
Without being empty here.
To give indefinitely of my finite,
To be both here and there.