emerging out from underneath
scattered forms disengaged
through feathery epiphanies and
many-eyed seraphim
inhabiting restlessly the cricket-croaking
of a moon-eyed summer night.
wind singing through pine needles;
angelic chorus intermezzo.

the boundless deep
we spend our days
in the face of
finds us all in one way or
another

it found me
eating
sleeping
drinking in death

tossing
turning
open-eyed sleeping

ungrateful as the howling
of empty days break-necking by

it found me, the boundless deep did
it glared into me until I could
no longer stay together

and then
it let me go.

side-wind the silver horseless-carriage up against the soft shoulder of life’s byway and leave my pre-set artificially preserved condition protected by steel and rubber.

make my way down terrain shaped by rain, wind and time – breathe air unfiltered, think thoughts unanticipated.

through trees come the sound of dry water gushing from unseen deposits, tickling leaves and pine-needles which may anticipate their day of separation.

when the epic of disorientation lays claim to green adornment, and the sharp winds of turning seasons undermine eternal dreaming.

this great unveiled story flows also through my veins; the animated dirt clod that I am – ashpile of star-stuff, cosmic clay-pigeon, shot down by competing forces converging presently in

this patchwork existence, seemingly haphazard, whispered into being by the One in whose orbit I am blissfully ensnared, crystallizes in unattainable clarity, yet there is a tinge of sadness in the knowledge that the moment won’t stretch beyond linearity.

there is an essential aloneness inherent in every life, no matter how crowded it is. no matter how many faces we see daily, can we be sure we are seen, heard, understood by any?

there is a frightening abyss I am always on the cusp of, unturned corners that go on unlived in my mind, remade blunders in a relentless zoetrope of reversal, unsaid anythings reverberating viciously, everywhere I go I carry with me an entire alternate universe populated by a better, smarter, braver me.

there in some “then” that used to be now as I breathe the unfiltered air, I lay down my parallel life and ask for the wisdom to appreciate the one I have; the deep wounds are a part of who I am and their healing will bring a mysterious joy that would never have been experienced otherwise.

so, now as I recollect fragmented instances with light and language, may the weaver of worlds and lover of all forgotten ones shine through this disjointed verbiage…

and if in any way I reflect the glare, I’ll be grateful.

Each of us was CREATED for a reason. Each of us has a special place within the heart of God. Each of us are profoundly KNOWN and deeply LOVED by the One who created planets and stars, galaxies and quasars, quarks and atoms.

The One who knows the hidden depths of the ocean, and who sees the hidden glories in the heavens that none of our telescopes can observe, who sees the unseen causes of the particles our most powerful microscopes can barely make out – this is the ONE in whom YOUR LIFE is hidden with Christ.

The One who whispers into the deepest recesses of your soul is calling you into the fullest life imaginable.

The echo of every dream and desire that has resounded in your heart, the deepest yearnings you can’t put into words; the tears that have come at unexpected times – the disquieting sense that there MUST be more to life than just paying the bills and getting food, shelter and clothing.
There must be more to life than buying more stuff you don’t need, there must be more to life than merely projecting an image of success.
There must be more to life than investing all of your hope in staying one step ahead of the eventual shut-down of your body. This is a battle that 100 percent of us eventually lose anyway.
There must be more to life than CONSTANTLY revisiting past glories, failures and regrets or the fear of the unknown future.
There must be a FULLNESS available NOW.

We all have this feeling we can’t put into words.
As if there’s MORE out there but we don’t know exactly what it is or how to get to it. There’s some BULLSEYE out there that we can’t seem to hit.
Missing the BULLSEYE is the literal meaning of the word SIN.
And so we try to bring it about in our own power.
We try to measure our worth by what we can afford; by what other people seem to think of us. There is a desire to be truly KNOWN and UNDERSTOOD and above all – truly LOVED.
But Christ comes into our PRESENT, reconciling PAST and FUTURE.

Our shadowy pasts, our dirty secrets, our buried shame – these are all brought into the light. He reaches deep into our murky souls and brings every failure, regret and disappointment to the surface.

He does this not so that He can draw attention to the darkness, but so that these HIDDEN, sad and scared places can be HEALED by His nail-scarred touch.

The MAN OF SORROWS, who tasted every grief and felt every human groan of despair while on the cross, can heal our deepest hurts with wounded hands.

He doesn’t heal these things by making them hurt less; they hurt MORE as they are brought into the light. But He sees them all – He knows them all, and HE DOES NOT LEAVE. He experiences them with us. He takes them into HIMSELF. He enters each of our deaths FOR US. He removes the sting of death that has mortally wounded each of us.

He descends with us to this dark night of the soul. He knows every wound you bare. The wounds that have made you leery of revealing your true self to anyone.
The wounds that keep YOU hidden.
The deep wounds of rejection that have burned themselves on your identity.

But in your past, He also finds OTHER THINGS.
He sees your first laugh, your first step, the first time you danced to music.
Those raw, beautiful moments of PURE LIFE that you have also lived.
The first time you felt the joy of loving and being loved.
The first time you made a real friend and knew you weren’t completely alone.
He shares your ENTIRE life with you, and He calls to you NOW from your past and says:

FORGIVEN! REDEEMED!
FOUND! UNDERSTOOD!
DEEPLY LOVED!

Your past does not need to be revisited with regret and despair.
He IS NOW redeeming it, untangling it, TRANSFIGURING it. He will make it beautiful.
He makes ALL THINGS beautiful in time.

And He also goes before you, into your future.
He sees the very things you fear happening, happening.
He sees the dark story that the Evil One whispers into your heart.

A dark story full of bitter, crushing disappointments; in which your brightest hope is to blend in, to not make waves or stand out too much.
To try to scratch out a decent living and have a nice, normal, predictable, manageable life.

The serpent gives you this apple.
Be like God. Have it all under control. Get everything nailed down, laid out in advance, ironed and neatly folded. No surprises.
This is the best you can hope for, says the Serpent.

Right before a nail-scarred foot crushes it’s boney head.

Christ, who redeems your past, also calls to you from your future
LAUGHING
saying, “If you only knew the surprises I have for you!”

The plans that will be frustrated, the easy way out that will cave in on itself, the daydreams of a perfect life that exists somewhere else in an imaginary future.

When we find these things crushed in our lives it is because they are serpent-lies.
Whoever LOSES their life for MY sake will FIND IT, He says.

And so, today, if you listen for His voice,
He is calling from your future, saying,
If you only knew
THE ADVENTURE I am leading you into
the unexpected places you will find yourself
the people you will meet
the unlikely friends you will make
the fears you will overcome
the dangers you will see past
the abyss you will out-stare
the darkness you will squeeze sparks of light from

IF YOU ONLY KNEW, He says
that everything sad and scary will eventually be proven untrue
that every longing and desire I have planted in your heart will bloom eternally
that every life you touch with My love will cause ripples that will effect places you will never go and people you will never meet

IF YOU ONLY KNEW the plans that I have for you
the glories you were created to taste
the heights you were created to scale
the adventure you were created to LIVE
you would never waste another single moment being afraid.

There is a reason I say FEAR NOT so much
Because I see things as they ARE.

TODAY
where you are
look to the past that I have redeemed
and to the future I am artfully crafting for you
to find as you go
there are deep treasures to be found in your redeemed past
and in your promised future
deep treasures that are available TODAY

when you set your sights on the things above
and look past the messiness of everyday life
and see that your life is HIDDEN WITH CHRIST IN GOD
ASK, SEEK, KNOCK for what’s GIVEN, FOUND and ALREADY OPEN to you, child.

the monk faces say much
without saying anything
the foreignness of words
in these long halls of silence
each man a child
without past or future
lost in the encounter
of an everlasting prayer

snow clings to trees that
will soon drip with joy
dribbling down musky bark
reeking of renewal
and by my laptop window
I ingest this prayer on playback
omniscient in my observance
transcending framed transcendence

the sound of scraping
echoes in rooms of stone
walls soaked with chant
and the essence of life
absorbing entreaties
with a godlike finality
each old man child-face
accepts without question

the strangeness of this spectacle;
their simplicity of singular focus
me, in my distracted estrangement
finding a place in the communal song
even in my out-of-tune exile;
this grainy introspection reverberates wildly

the earthy tones of flourishing symbols
life un-distilled like flowing water;
a man in his cowl makes music by adding
only punctuation with a robe-swishing traipse
lightly he jaunts over heaven-cursed ground
reclaiming Eden by sheer depth of being
while the fragmented soul that sees from afar
longs to be him and in so doing is found.

such is the glory of God

reaching back beyond
whatever beginning
we can conceive of
reaching forward
past all predictions
giving us deep roots
and aching limbs

such is the glory of God

an intoxicating convergence
of innovative and primordial
ever finding renewal in tradition
and a glint of home in the unfamiliar
this adventure we are swept up into
involves the bitter-sweetness
of our unreachable yesterdays
and unfathomable tomorrows

such is the weight and lightness
of your glory, O God!

not my apartment; a friend’s who works graveyards
and so here is the silence of a stranger
in another man’s life

trying it on for size if only to better appreciate his own
or maybe catch a wild glimpse of it
sneaking up from behind.

just outside, the sound of footsteps on the stairway
just outside, the eternal song of temporal crickets
just outside, is the day tomorrow will turn out to be
it coyly smirks – making no promises.

the life I find myself wandering through
has it’s share of blessings and curses
imagined deaths and surprising births
stifled laughter and icy unresponsiveness

the life I find myself drifting through
with no shore in sight in any direction
has it’s predictable unwrinkled hymnody
and also a somewhat spontaneous liturgy

in contemplating this entangled existence
I unclench just enough to remember it’s shape
in continual flux, I approach like a game hunter
thesaurus in hand, I only jumble it more.

yet one pure moment is all I ask
this weekend, may I forget myself long enough
to remember the spark that started it all
and see your sweet face at the bottom of my
everything.

we must become somehow foreign
to our most native soil
and see somehow deeper
than eyesight allows
the undocumented
abrupt milieu
intricate syntax
is unable to hold

yet even so
when husked of
its scenery,
whatever’s left over
can’t help but be
scarce

yet even so,
the scarcity of
somehow
opens within it
unlimited options

so again as you enter
remember tomorrow
which never arrives
until yesterday’s
done with
and again as you enter
whatever life you’ve been dealt,
recall the only real exit:
through a life lived out well.

now enfleshed in selfsame splendor
yet altered in its eon-soaked angst
held in a history remoter than mine
yet ever adjoining with an arcane aptitude
having been contemporaneous
without any barefacedness
the candor of its coming
was like the plinking of a harp string
deftly enjoined to my
very quintessence

so comes the aching grandeur
of once-traversed ground
in the pine-scented downdraft of
a once-salient context
when tomorrow was so near
but today undreamt of
I revisit the fascination
but keenly feel the vacancy
of its incitement.

and I on the crimson rock shore
offering to scaly brethren a dangled morsel
running the sun through a prism
of watery skin ever in motion with
the constant glug of displacement
ringing in my weatherworn ears

alive so surely
that were I to
forget myself
in the moment
no great loss
would occur.
no real displacement
on the shoreline
of my soul
just a dug up recollection
of a fractured self
I once clung to.

Especially then.

Follow
Swish around in your
Mind’s hidden chambers
The tangy taste of
Eternal-life words you
Don’t understand
But can’t stop
Yourself when

Especially then

You follow.
There is something about
His weather-worn ways
And the things He
Doesn’t say but implies.
When every major
Philosophical shift
In the history of man
Is on the cusp of occurrence,
And the infant epoch
Writes you a blank check,
You are still only keeping up
When

Especially then
You follow.

in a sense
the quavering
namelessness
we enter with

in a sense
is our last vestige
of whatever unremembered reflex
has been unexerted to the point of
extinction

this
in a sense
is the very hades
we smuggle in
with us

this
in a sense
is our bottled abyss
crudely imported
from prehistory

this is
in a sense
the aching weight
we carry with us
whether we are
pointing and clicking
and pixelating validation

or
listening warily
to the canned metallic echo
of a voice the reciever conjures
from some artificial reality
like a siren it sings us into
by conveying the solution
to any difficulty you
can or will have
as a numbered commodity
and to replay the extent
of your options press 9
while slowly dying inside yourself

this automated voice
running interference and
keeping us from each other is
in a sense
a preview of damnation
whereas information is relayed
and you never get to
ask a question

give me instead
wordless winds
breathing lungless air
into the empty spaces
of dismembered systems

give me instead
the indestructable Life
rather than
a hollow misery
acting as
the missing component
of an arbitrary equation

give me instead
the Living God
rather than
this empty maze
of automated responses

I come now to the water’s edge
and I go down twisted in theory
and mangled by isms

then the last
thing that should
happen is the
one that does:

I emerge
free in Christ
somehow

Hidden, amid rock crag, crater remains,
Flat, dry, parched red sands, winding
Highways forsaken, birds of prey linger.
Saguaro vigils unbroken, route 66 memorabilia,
The incessant hum of the cicada collective,
The remote monasteries, their chanting children.
Sidewalks sadistic to barefoot soles, dry leaf
Crackling where naked trees silently sway,
In the aftermath of monsoon eruption.

Easternmost central, this gem is exposed;
Like the aerie of some mythical bird,
In the fog of the mountain, where form is obscured
And the unseen more potently there is observed.
Winds in the howling night sing of they;
Long-dead and forgotten, haunting us still
Staining these ponderosa-tinged hills,
Dark with their ghosts, rife with their kill.
Blood on the rock, death sustains life;
The balance of flesh and it’s immortal dreams.
We are woven into this great tapestry’s seams,
And sadly bring discord with our grafted strings.
The claw of the Phoenix extended this far
Once in a clouded past scraping these valleys.
Displacing rock, sifting the soil; the fertile song
Came with the nectar brought by a breeze.
From the womb of the desert, a glossy snake
Slithers; the trail of it’s belly now hardened with tar.
Follow the serpent-made road from the nesting
Place of the firebird; land of parched lips.
Listen intently, the sound of the flute
Joined by the drum; the pulse of the earth.

Ages accumulate, traces remain
The starry reminder above us, pristine
Preserved by the darkness, seen but by few.
They starve in the city for grandeur and awe;
Manufactured, conditioned, mired in clamor.
Drowning the constellations with architectural
Travesties, muting the spheres unceremoniously.
While here in the pure air sanctum untouched,
Night secrets unfold; pinpricking dark matter.
Our fleeting sense of civilized taste, grasping
For some point of reference, finds none.
A breathless surveying of the enigma
Expanding the mind and cleansing the soul,
In mystery finding oneself feeling open.

Speckled across these hills, lakes and rivers,
Dappled throughout these forests we are
The populous of Paradise; eyes that behold it.
Stalkers of lake sons with shimmering scales;
Seers of wood-urchins, antlered and spry.
Thunderhead summers graying our heavens,
White-morning winters; autumn threadbare.
The masquerade of eternity in seasonal phrasing;
Clothing the sacred with aspen and pine,
Soaking life-essence from deep underneath,
And finding it somehow surprisingly mine.

a holy wish
enclothed in pious jargon
no less naked
for all it’s
liturgy

a philosophical entanglement
prys open the abyss
where unsolidified wonderments
have spawned hatchling
inanities

an awkward implication
pointedly directed
pristine on rotted parchment
now crinkly onion paper
flourishing leatherbound

an arid soil-bed
pockmarked by withered stems
peering into deep space yet
by virtue only of positioning;
wind and rain kick in
eventually

a whispered prayer
in an unknown tongue;
not quite Azusa
but not quite
complete gibberish
either.

aspen-child breaking earth-crust
somewhere aloft in winter-kissed soil
in this eternal moment greening
with overabundance fresh from life’s source
still holding in it’s possession an ancient unspoken name
forgotten by those of us ripened sufficiently
yet potent enough that, if regained even fleetingly,
the mysterious agony throbbing within
will make itself known in the form of a question
whispers of such have been heard by some
and lost in translation, the name has been altered
enough tattered remnants of initial self-disclosure
have been quilted together to ensure crude retention
as anything uttered by the tongues of mortality
losing it’s layering being reduced to a concept
the non-contradiction it adheres to among us
it sheds like beggarly rags when transcending
so I, in my pushing the pedal to commence gyrations
am likewise driven by the wind-sighed dust of the mythical
and having understood on a more primal level
coarsely-depicted figures on time-eaten stone
formulated fragments of a once-entire reality
now re-pieced industriously by excavators of novelty
emblazoned gradually on the face of my preening ego
when into the reflective surface the peering eye that sees
apprehends only what a fractured eternity makes apparent
through the lonely stinging poignancy I savor like aged wine
apocryphal happenings eddying like shades of what is
inspiring altered transpirings in the rear-view’s gaze
but what I hope to find up in the high country
beyond McNary, stomping ground of rez-dogs,
seller of sundries and purveyer of trans-dimensional
Indian tacos, where backyards are easily seen into
and a reedy stagnant lagoon sees me off accordingly
as civilization I leave behind tearlessly
and by road, trees and sky only
am I tolerated.

and so I cast out this tangled net of verbiage,
to snag a few muses and catch the words they speckle
in a slapdash clatter of rashly-dispersed stimuli,
the reoccurrence of deliberate phenomena
being the expected outcome, every now and again
an unspecified specimen is inadvertently harvested
by waking-mind groping with fumbling fingers
the hidden topography of clandestine whispers
clay-cracking sphere over watery mirror;
A-1 Lake, plump with last winter’s snow
luminous with sweltering brilliance
crystalline, the top-skin serenity
mimicking the elevated bureaucracy
of stars, novas and stained-glass space-gas
with a deep blue grace sorely lacking
in the pokerfaced density of soil.

mother road, I enter your asphalt embrace
via Holbrook’s faceless dreamless dirge
of dried-up motels shriveling screaming
voicelessly sun-peeled, glaringly empty
where concrete wigwams and dinosaur fun parks
coexist haggardly in the petrifying noon heat
discordant strains echoing down potholed avenue
recanting all vulgarity at the faraway sight of sacred mesas
so plays the silent chorus of reception, dismissal, remittance
here where Navajo county’s swirling vortex resides
upon first sight of this withering municipality
as the highway breaks through holy red rock
my allotment of pulsating essence surges
momentarily unhinging me
gradually becoming
beatific

then
emerging spontaneously
comes the predictable realignment
and the boundaries of form are again apparent
I awake in wonder, gawking at brick-skinned corpses
fractured glass-sheets molested by the elements
dust-colored cocoons keeping in their custody
bruised imaginings and famished apparitions
held by ambiguity to this unyielding land
saturating the streets in sadness
driving the desperate to the train tracks
singing siren-songs of suicidal sacrifice
saying “join us in the rocks” here
in the consecrated plateaus
where the intangibles hide

the rotundity of the on-ramp
brings me full circle and loosens
Holbrook’s white-knuckled grip;
my ventricles widen and the nectar flows
reviving the literary gland,
nothing but open road before me
the burning coals I’ve walked
barefoot, behind,
released from captivity,
unfettered in this desert of many jewels
enlightened by the sun glimmering
off sand specks and broken shards
a scripture unto itself, dictated directly
revealing artisan hands beyond the guessed-at

a rapid aquiline swerve to the right
to pay my respects to an unlikely slab
of pristinely preserved marble-wood
resting on it’s side as if newly fallen
providentially in the abrupt proximity
of a route 66 memorabilia peddler
brim overrunning with cheaply constructed
feathery dream-catchers, tomahawks, baskets of burden
dashboard fortune-bringing trinkets of the dangling variety;
my rearview stem already over-swagged by analogous novelties,
I disembark solely for the glimpse of ancient lumber
laying there scalloped with a permanent Jurassic hangover
perhaps a male stegosaur once lifted a stumpy leg to it
thinking I can see where, squinting just right,
I retreat to my air-conditioned membrane
to continue the crawling sojourn

happening upon Winslow as if startling it suddenly;
the double-take it gives me further propagates unpreparedness
familiar with this settlement’s diesel-rendezvous venues
and not much else, I stagger into the Flying J’s
harvesting a bounty of Styrofoam-chaliced truckstop coffee
tempered with plastic-wrapped lembas-like roadtrippy vittles,
topping off my thirsty cistern with overpriced petroleum
and heading on out of these dust devil breeding grounds
with no spousal passenger ogling the odometer
unthinkingly, I transcend all limitations including those of speed
thankfully, I come nowhere within the clutches of status-quo implementers
seeing as out here where the scent of pine commences progressively,
only the wind infers normalcy sufficiently anyway
and with only the unmoved mover policing the wind,
I find myself granted passage, which I employ to deflect
all undue attention of the flashing red and blue variety.

this unscuffed terrain my coasting contraption
slices through lightly; accumulating bug innards.
sometimes the rain hangs prayerfully over
this holy parched ground in upward adoration
crackling dryly in anticipation,
fanatically friendly to moistening vigor
the sky superfluously sings into substance
a flailing whipping blanket of precipitation
curling up overhead with watery intention.

other days the fiery retina’s glare beats down hard
clarifying every dangling pine needle piercingly
as the topography turns leisurely to high-country vegetation,
so does the air convey a crinkled chill spiced with reminiscence
converging back upon it’s ripened self sideways, time is unzipped
and everything I wish I was once or hope to be someday
culminates in a whirling apex of unbridled likelihood
the realm of assumed identities based on assigned numbers
receding now into the tar pits of the unremembered
resting snugly within the confines of my cranial sphere
evaporating into non-being without my even noticing,
now the emptiness previously occupied
by outer-shell manifestations
rushes to judgment in favor
of the looming San Francisco peaks
balding regally on the horizon,
capped with last winter’s generosity
as the stoic pines now arriving in clusters
seem to be hiding smirks beneath their bark

the mother road has lured me here again
where the college-town air itself is caffeinated
and inter-dimensional passageways compressed
into hardback rectangular casks graze as herds
waiting to be picked off one by one
by predatory credit-card wielding
practitioners of linguistic geekery
hiding here in the mega-temple of sacred script
open to all who throb with an inexpressible curiosity
and ache with a wonderment indefinable
to come let the eye feast and the soul scarf down
ethereal breast milk from beyond the known fringes
that existence overlaps into and is reinterpreted by
replanted upon rebirth in the shuffling pages
I flip through sipping dark sultry java

and while I’m inside, the heavenly spheres go ever on
leapfrogging, spindle-weaving, toggling moons.
seas are boiled by wayward meteors
gasses harden birthing planets
somewhere in this astral clamor,
our gyrating earth completes it’s spin
and shadows grow long while ray-ensnared dustmotes
ascend the radiant pillar like saints to the white rose

led homeward,
my shimmying chariot
making more noise than need be
and displaying the gall of a trail mule
being pulled in an undesirable direction,
stereo blaring a glittery nocturne
I am undone by this mother road
and will miss her wanderlust voice
when in silence I flop face first
into my pillow, still seeing
her bendy swerves and
traversed skin replaying
itself over and over
under my
eyelids.

your unassuming way of tapping into more than you know
with a child’s sense of trust in the One directing winds
and on a breezy night all of this is made incarnate as it
pours itself through you taking you with it as it goes

and I look for you and find you off elsewhere
when the only place I want to be is here with you

and the sonnets I could write merely describing the
nape of your neck and the gentle slope of it’s ascent
and the mathematical equations I could flesh out
while expounding upon the mysterious crazy glow
your smile brings me; not to mention your spontaneously
musical laughter – with me or at me – either is fine
as I catch a glimpse of the freedom you eat, sleep and breathe in

almost an angelic aura wards off my hideously gnarled persona
because the series of masks I’ve seen the world through for so long
are dissolving away leaving my formless face exposed to the elements

and with you I find
I can’t hide behind
anything