Gentle Father

Gentle Father, hold Your child. The stones of life have bruised the heart and left a tear-streaked, trembling face, inconsolable to any other— Your child cries for You. Bend down and brush the tears away, and take Your own into your arms. Lay the wearied on Your shoulder, to comfort with Your daddy-whispers […]

Take the Lamp

It seems a cold, dark shaft where love would bid me go— deep beneath the hills. The memories, sand-like, blow— a heart-blinding draft. I’ve walked the caves before— walked them with a thief until the stars were gone; I know the haunting grief— and I cannot anymore. But I forget that love, with […]

Modern Love

She asked the world for love— he gave her pleasure. She asked the world to stay— he left a dagger. –

The Price of Love

I’ll take a thousand thorns if I can hold that rose. —

Prayer for a Pure Heart

Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. -Matthew 5:8 Lord, build around my heart a wall of grace to sift the daily facts as they come in that nothing but the truth would find a place and nothing but Your love would dwell within. Refuse despair an entrance to […]

Night After Night

I know you love me but… I feel the shake dreams, waking in the night. I jerk like dropping off a cliff, I cry but have no tears, and endlessly, monotony brings back the things I dread again. Night after night. – I know you love me but… you let the mocking follow me around: […]

A Night of Rowing

Tonight we cross the waters black as coal. We row beneath the stars we blotted out. The only sound—the sloshing of the waves, relentless echoes of the knife-like pain. We row alone like exiles in the dark. And now you speak who know my troubles best. You feel with me the wounds that plague my […]

I Find My Friend

Disclaimer: This poem has nothing to do with my life. I cannot emphasize this enough. Also, it means nothing. Literally. This is what happens when you listen to too much sappy pop music, and think “I could do THAT.” Performances of the song are welcome. But the name of the band MUST be “Parakeet Moon”. I […]

Sonnet VIII

I did not know that perfect love was mine, wrapped up in swaddling clothes before my birth and opened there upon the cross—the sign that grants my meager soul its worth. More thrilling than an ice-cold breeze on hot and humid days, the moment when I knew that I had been the object of His […]

Perfect Gift

I should have known You long ago— my heart was born with chambers void of blood, the walls just small and hidden to the eyes, but to the soul more endless than the stars. I should have felt Your absence in my tears— the ache of endings could have been a mold to pour my […]