Poetic Life - 4/30/2012

These are the lyrics to a new Scales of Motion song we've been playing at shows recently:

I am a lot of talk,
a run-on sentence, a bore.
I have a lot of ideas, no more.

Pages of lovely words line my floor.
Is this all that I have to show?  Lord, I want more.

I'm theoretical.
My life's a thesis at best.
Where's the beauty in that?

I was made for more than words.
A phrase is no phrase without verbs.
Give me a poetic life.

Limp as the flattest prose,
I have no depths to be plumbed.
I want a life worth examining.

Pages of lovely words line my floor.
Is this all that I have to show?  Lord, I want more.
What will be said of me when I'm gone?
Am I content to live my life only in song?

No, I want my life to be poetry,
poured out like a well of ink
on the pages of history
or at least in lives of those I meet.

I want grace in every part of me,
not just in the words I sing.
I want passion and melody
to be the essence of me.

I was made for more than words.
A phrase is no phrase without verbs.
Give me a poetic life.

Tanka Trials

Why does a writer
write a little bit each day?
It's like working out.
Each sit-up may seem minor,
but persistence makes you strong.
- 9/27/10

DVD seems quaint.
"Clean surface with liquid soap."
I think of childhood,
blowing on Nintendo games,
banging on buzzing machines.
- 9/27/10

This life is too short
to call anyone you know
"just an acquaintance."
You're missing out on so much
by not knowing them better.
- 6/18/12

Tepid - March 26, 2012

My blood runs tepid,
Cooled by such easy access
To first-world air conditioning.

My blood runs tepid,
Warm enough to inspire talk
If not movement.

My blood runs tepid,
Tepid like a long idle cup of tea
And just as unappetizing.

Light a fire under me,
For I do not want
To be spit out.

Real Food - April 30, 2012

I take the wonders of hope and grace for granted.
I was raised on this diet,
Fed it as a child,
And I experienced it as I grew.
Not until I speak with one
Who doesn't understand it
Do its wonders unfold for me again.
How can one know what grace tastes like
Having never tasted it?
How can one recognize hope
Having never seen it?
Communion is more than bread and wine.
Take and eat,
Then share with those who have none.

A Selection of Haikus, 2008-2011

Fall anew each day.
The ice thaws but then returns.
Indian winter.
-10/22/08

The sun is falling.
The edges of gray clouds glow.
The sky grows weary.
-9/26/10

The pen is clicking
a nervous drum beat, a song
of waiting, restless.
-9/26/10

I know it's winter
when the sun goes home from work
the same time I do.
-11/27/10

Kids and dogs believe
the world revolves around them.
I suspect it's true.
-7/17/11

Texting my fiancee.
Tempted to write everything
in haiku form.
-9/26/10

Five syllables here,
seven syllables right here,
and five more to close.
-10/22/08

Night - November 10, 2009

Sometimes the night alone’s the perfect sound,
For ears that are worn down by noisy lives,
Upset by sudden blasts of evening storms,
Uneasy from the ringing that abides.

The music of the stillness in the air,
The soothing song of nothing all around,
The comforting melody of the dark.
Sometimes the night alone’s the perfect sound.

Sometimes a darkened highway can be home,
When all that lies ahead remains obscured,
The only cares are kept nearby in headlights,
The road in rearview mirrors has been blurred.

Two headlights on a highway heading somewhere,
Spotlighting speeding white lines as they roam,
Dim moonlight glowing through lethargic clouds.
Sometimes a darkened highway can be home.

Sometimes the stillness is our only answer.
Sometimes the darkened highway’s all we see.
And if we had a God who was no mystery,
Indeed, what kind of God, then, would He be?

The music of the stillness in the air,
Nothing more than a whisper to be found,
The comforting melody of the Holy.
Sometimes His night alone’s the perfect sound.