You don’t get to tell me That I am not who I am You will never know me If you are using you As a frame of reference You haven’t been through what I’ve been through Held what I am holding Grace in physical form Giving better than what I was given Because I believe in a myth that I need to be true Forgive them for they know not what they do I want to be like you Remembering even in the face of violence This is my body I choose how it feels Regardless of others’ projections Regardless of their rejection With or without protection This is my body I will be who I will to be Because no one knows this body but me And those with whom I choose to share it Becoming One This is our body These are our bodies Broken for each other By one another Healed by the Lover Now we are One Body No longer broken Life created by Words spoken My body is your body Your body is my body Every Body and No Body Can be Any Body When we break But don’t shatter Resurrect by Mind over matter Choose the Former over the latter Being made in the image of the One Body Who births all bodies Time and time again
This poem will be featured at the event below. Click on the link below to learn more about the other poets. And if you are local to Boulder County, CO and want to join us, you can RSVP by going to this link.
A million opportunities For me to be A million different people Who were never me Negative one Plus infinity Makes me less than the man I’m supposed to be Made like the Creator Supposedly But show up in my power They’re opposed to me The essence of the One Is meant to flow in me And flow inside of you Hopefully But we’re taught not to try To live in a lie See ourselves as less The higher us we deny On earth as in Heaven I see it so clearly While the Logos Way Is disappearing We’re called to show love But we’re steady fearing Wanting to escape We hope the end is nearing But we’re back in the beginning There’s no loss and no winning Reality is virtual So we’re virtually sinning Missing every mark Too fast and no aiming Preaching to the choir Is so spiritually draining But here is my thesis We’re stuck in mimesis Copying the bound So we don’t know what free is It’s not supposed to be this Leaders who just hinder Taking advantage Because your souls are so tender Don’t knock, but still enter Hypocritical mind splinters So consistently cold It’s like perpetual winter Frozen in place Condemning with no Grace Filled with emptiness Like a room with no space So come face to face Breathe the Breath of the Living Surrender everything To be eternally giving Take part in the Whole Out of the many become One A million choices become choiceless Now the ego trip’s done
I pour my self into You Trusting You will never spill me Never fearing emptiness Because I know You’re here to fill me The terror known by many folks Who can’t contemplate Your Promise Is dissolved the moment I witness You So I give it all to keep me honest I don’t want to pretend to Trust in You Only when for me it is convenient Then as soon as I don’t get what I want Realize that I don’t mean it To me Trusting You is its own reward In fact it’s my only Treasure Because anything that does not have You there Will never stay together From the beginning and to the end From the first and to the last Without You nothing that seems to matter Ever truly has Nations continue to come and go Things that were enter non-existence While people pretend to get it all Through selfish one sided resistance A horrible error in calculation No one can hold their breath forever Whether you last exhaled or last inhaled The project of breathing is both together And that’s what this world’s forgetting Perhaps some of us never knew it Oneness isn’t the strongest wins It’s polarities congruent
Whenever I write a poem, it is the fruit of weeks if not months or even years of spiritual labor. I don’t write to influence. I write to express. What emerges contains every part of the process that you would witness in the natural process of growing an actual fruit tree. And I never give way to the temptation to pick the fruit early. When it’s ripe, it falls on its own.
As the video explains, this poem was born out of two months of struggling to write about trust and a bout with a short term unwellness that rendered me extremely contemplative. What the video doesn’t say was that for most of the three days that my body was fevered and in pain, I was repeating “Thank you God. I love you.” as if it was my breath. I did this in part because of a practice I developed a long time ago based on James 1:2-8 where adherents are advised to count all of our trials as joy. And the other part is that I imagine that most people’s conversations with God are about asking for things they want to come in and things we don’t want to go away. So, I just decided that I would not ask God for anything and just be thankful. Besides there were a number of times when I was a pastor that I would suggest to people that they say “thank you” as a part of their process. So, I had to take my own advice.
Now, before you get into this video, let me me warn you that it may come off as a little irreverent. It isn’t meant to be. But, it is meant to make folks think. It is meant to challenge you and to basically call out where I think our lack of trust is leading us. I put this out here in trust. I guess that is where I will leave it.
Imagine a secret so powerful To speak it would kill you But if it’s kept to yourself You will never know the real you A boundless expression That breaks right through your barrier Exposing darkness to Light There’s just nothing scarier Total dissolution Collapsing infinity We’ve never known the half Of all we were meant to be Have you heard of Revelation? Do you know what it’s revealing? There’s no actual substance To what we think we’re concealing Entering Higher Dimensions You accept what you’ve known The rulers are the captives Thus our choice to dethrone At the right and the left hand Is reflected half of the Center Too far in either direction And no one can enter So we open the door After shutting the others Which causes a tension For those under the covers They ask for more sleep So they think we’re alarming By inviting awakening To those they’re actively harming But we do what we do Because we can do nothing less Than surrender to the Reality We can’t help but confess
I wrote this piece in honor of my friend Bishop Carlton Pearson who is holding a lot right now physically. If you are a praying person, I ask that you pray for his physical healing. If you are a person who finds joy in other people’s suffering because you feel that it somehow justifies your existence, please ignore us.
You finally gave your heart away The recipient returned to sender Now you don’t want to ever hurt again So you’re incapable of surrender You barely survived the heartbreak You say you can’t do it again But if you don’t keep putting your heart at risk Love will never win I know it’s a dilemma I’ve known that pain myself If the first person thought I was not enough How can I ever trust someone else? There’s some validity to that logic No one wants to suffer But putting ourselves out there despite the risk Is how we find each other Besides holding back doesn’t hurt the one Who caused you so much pain In the end you only hurt yourself By not giving your heart to gain You see every time you survive a heartbreak Then get back in the saddle You’re secretly becoming more like God Whose Love will never lose a battle Didn’t you know that while God’s watching us God’s heart is always breaking But Love always comes in and fills the gaps In the midst of our forsaking Imagine if most of your children Lie and say they love you But take the gifts you have to them And put those very things above you You try to teach them to use them wisely They push you away and will not listen Only thinking of themselves as usual They take what’s One and cause division So you send them Love’s instructors But they won’t listen to them either Instead they ignore or murder them Then label them deceiver Or worse they pretend to worship them In order to make them something special And when they fail to live like them They blame it on the Devil Any excuse that they can think of To do what they want to do Their only goal is simply to feel they’re right To justify ignoring you Meanwhile your heart is breaking You feel like you’ll die inside But you surrender because you know the Truth And instantly you’re more alive It’s the Mystery of the Heartbreak By giving your Love you will get more For Love is the gift that you received That by faith is always restored
I am not your enemy Even though you were taught that decision I see the Universe as it can only be Absent of division Whether I choose to agree or not Everything is connected But in the illusion of the divided mind Anything can be dissected We split atoms and we split up families Draw invisible lines called borders But can’t admit we invented it In a war against natural order Somehow we believe the lies we tell More than the truth that’s in our faces Competing for what is infinite Just for the thrill of “winning races” But there is no competition Once you take away the lies And wake up to the disturbing fact That we’re all collectively hypnotized
In an ocean of sound I lose myself In the cacophony of my Silence My mind is lost among the many more And it feels like I’ll never find it I’ve been me so long that I was convinced That my reality can’t be threatened But all this noise has choked my joys Making the Voice inside seem deafened I forgot what it was I was thinking When your words invaded my space Now whatever it was has slipped my mind And I have completely lost my place I know many people are fine with this They accept the status quo “Don’t question the narrative written for you Because that’s the way it goes” But for as long as I can remember I’ve just been the way that I’m created Seeing only the good in all I can So that my soul is elevated Of course at times I do get tempted These illusions can be convincing People weaving temporal spells With the words that they are mincing I start wondering if I’m too stubborn Maybe I should play the role Let the conformers off the hook And do what I am told Then suddenly it hits me I have no right to disappear Being me is all I can be It’s the very reason why I’m here
I noticed something the other day That I can’t get out of my head If you move the “c” up to the front Reactive spells creative instead I wondered if it was intentional Did the makers of the language know Was it a clue for those who seek the Way To maintain a Life in Flow? They say, “Be creative, not reactive Or at least reactively creative This is the Way of wondering ones For whom the Way of Flow is Native Embrace the Mystery Be present with The Presence Instead of being pushed and pulled Make movements from your Essence” Or perhaps it’s just a coincidence Onto which I’m projecting meaning Maybe reaction is creation too Even when it isn’t seeming I’ll possibly never know for certain But still I have the choice To choose Reaction or Creation In how I use my voice
Photo by Kiana Bosman on Unsplash Instagram @kiana.bosman
You can call me a Galaxy For I’m composed of worlds With as many thoughts as stars in the sky Meanwhile consciousness comets hurl Every moment is filled with wonder There’s no such thing as norm My changing mind is supernova I concentrate and planets form From my dreams I project species More strange than what’s imagined Unconsciously combining elements From the stuff which All is fashioned But at some point I got distracted I lost track of my creations I gave them a mind just like my own And they divided into Nations Instead of seeing with eyes of awe As I imagined them to be They sought to control their neighbor’s lives Before turning their sights on me They wanted my approval They wanted my command But when I refused to play their game They then let go of my hand It was as if I never existed As they projected onto me Illusions of a divided state The very opposite of what is free I wondered how this happened Them thinking thoughts I cannot think Casting shadows where there is only light Descending where love could never sink But instead of anger I felt compassion Because I knew I was their cause So in an effort to guide them back to love I gifted them with Laws But because they came from freedom Laws felt like a type of prison They failed at loving and living law And got trapped in indecision Incapable of escaping The prison that they made I decided to be a prisoner too For surrender’s key unlocks the cage So when they saw I was escaping From what was never meant to be The Galaxy folded in upon itself And all that ever was is me