What Is Your Question?

Sometimes to find a new truth,
We must ask a new question.

Blessed Is The Human

Blessed is the human
Who does not edit
The one true story
To fit the narrative of his time.

This human is rare
And blessed
Who edits the narrative of his time
To fit the one true story.

Your Kingdom

Your kingdom is within me
A walled city.

I am the watchman pacing his beat
Upon the walls under your stars
Looking out over the silver shadow countryside
All night long.

I am the priest offering incense
Among the lighted candle prayers,
I sing in the choir and write the songs;

I am the old man on the street,
The reader sitting in the park,
The child listening to stories
By the fire.

I am the worshiper tattered and soaked
Who comes in for prayer from the rain;

I am the shoemaker and the barber,
The baker and the carpenter
The plumber, welder,
Banker and farmer.

I am the keeper,
I build on foundations you have laid.

I am the listener as I walk the streets
Or sweep them, or rake the fallen leaves,

Sometimes I see you, or hear your voice
among the people.

I am the father and the mother,
I make safe families and homes
Radiant with peace and joy for happy children;

I expect you, my king to return after a long journey.

I want my city to shine with the light
You left for us burning in it,
streetlights and windows
like the moon and stars.

Ending The Bloody Jihading

It begins like a dawn
With a terrible growing light
At the wrong time of night,
In the wrong place,
Fingers stretching
to enclose eternal space,
A breaking wave of fear
Of falling,
Surfs the world upon,
Moorings shift,
Chains and anchors,
Feel them stretch;
World is sinking,
The light is wrong,
This can't be the sun,
Hopes dying
Hopes rising,
An ancient manuscript,
yellowed parchment
cracked and broken,
Shadows casting of a cross
Beside an empty tomb,
In the spotlight of a terrible dawn,
Like the new age ending
Another age begun.

The Blinded Bride

He was away on business:
Building her a house
For them both.

He wrote whole books to her,
Man to wife,
She didn't like the endings,
She rewrote them.

He wrote love letters to her:
Male to female,
At first she was enthralled,
Then
She refused to understand.

He sent messengers:
She was offended,
She ignored or jailed them.

He is coming soon in person,
What will He do?

She talks of coming out of a closet,
Surprising him
With her same sex lover.


By Charles Van Gorkom
www.rainforestsoul.blogspot.com

By Singing

Piano on tiptoe
Combs the unruly forest
Measure by measure
Releasing the grasses,
Shuffling leaves.

Reaching
A noisy stream
It cups and cradles
Murmurs and chimes
Soothing
Among mossy rocks

Now still the water flows,
But clean and clear,
A rainforest sonata
Drop by Drop
Pure water joy
By singing
By piano song.

Healing Meditation

Is it the mountain that sanctifies the saint
Or the saint that sanctifies the mountain?

I stopped writing,
Sickness came.

Let the river flow again.
Let my body be sanctified
By the Spirit of saintliness,
My Lord return
To His temple again.

Mr. Detestable Prays

Give municipal flesh
All the Christian blood it craves
Fill its government goblets and gutters,
Make them drunk at the uncontested slaughter,
Christian lambs taken with ceremonial knives,
By simpering tolerance,  self-righteous love.

They hunger,
These counselors,
give them raw secular fantasies
To suck red marrow from,
These blind
to their own bigotry,
Let them dream their own glory,
Drooling blood
Upon the Golgotha of their silent slain.

Then open their eyes
When you come again
For an account of their lives;
If they repent,
And their anguish
Is as the anguish of your Son,
Forgive them.
Forgive them.

Jerusalem Is Mine

Jerusalem, I would gather you
As chicks under my wings,
But they would scatter you
To divide and destroy,
They would divide Jerusalem
Like they divided my vestments
Among them
As I hung dying over them
Where they nailed me bleeding
In agony
And I hung there by tatters
Of torn flesh praying for them
In excruciating pain

But I only do this once

 You presume upon divine grace,
Or despise my salvation,
 my accepting patient love,
Scoff at my promise that those
Who divide Jerusalem shall be cursed
And feel the hammer of my
Protecting love.
There is no peace and safety
For those who trouble Israel.
Though she be wayward,
She is mine.

The Myth And The Mythless

O Jesus, they think
You were invented like a myth,
Then they enumerated all time
from your birth.

Still today people die
for believing in you.

The wise man,
They say in their wisdom,
Came from nowhere,
From nothing in an explosion,
Then back to nowhere again.
He has a meaningless life
Worth nothing, they say.

But I say
If the fool be wise,
And the wise a fool,
who is to know enough
to notice?
Yet they notice.

Jesus said the fool
builds his house
on shifting sand.

He said the wise man
Loves God with all his heart
And his neighbour
as himself.

He builds his house upon a rock.

He hides in catacombs
from those who would
erase him from the earth.

He hides his secrets in books,
but worldly wise has forgotten
How to read,
Nor how to make or light
a tallow candle
to search out secrets by.

They have no light-bearing fire,
Only a phosphorus mold
They nurture on a diet of death.

Cold wind disperses misty myths,
Blind leaders fall into ditches,
But Jesus mythless remains,
Standing at home in a lighted doorway
Inviting all who would enter
Before he closes it forever.

And So

And so the anti-Christ arises,
Uber deceiver with faithless promises,
Offers easy salvation,
Plots our merciless ruin,                          
But the remnant holds
As they have long learned,
Drowned or burned,
With a death grip to the timeless Word
   In every crises.

On Reading From Ecclesiastes

A man with little,
who is content with his lot,
is very rich.

Let him enjoy the fruit
of his labour in peace.

A man with much land and gold,
who is yet discontent,
is very poor.

His life is a struggle
He has no peace,
He feels like a slave.

The riches of contentment
are there within everyone's grasp,
savour the fruit of your labour
with quiet joy.

From Mystery To Mystery

May the Father look deep into our eyes
And see His Son.

May the Father look deep into our lives
And find the footsteps
Of His Son.

May the Father look deep into our loves
and feel the crucifixion
In our bleeding hearts
Of His Son.

May the Father listen deep
Within our praises,
Taking pleasure in the echo,
The cannon, the oratorio,
Of the one and only
Empty tomb.

To A Friend And Brother

Load your brush and lay down an underlay of tears,
Load that brush again and sweep down the years
A transparent layer of green life mingled
With golden faith,
Crimson love,
With broad stokes highlight details
In plys of words and vibrant colours,
Let them suggest the way
Your life should go,
Work from general to specific,
from darkness to light,
From ignorance to know,
Verse to verse,
Let itself your poem write,
Bolder as you grow older,
From faith to faith by word and colour.