Unworthy … So They Say

Painful pronouncements dripping with sarcasm in personal condemnation

That my ears hear as fear someone may accept me with no payment plan

Despite years of reckless living while yearning for sublime love divine

In free gift given that they never imagine could be given to the likes of me

So they say not even Jesus will smile at me today in any affectionate way

Nor will the Prince of Peace grant peace to some ugly pauper so improper

And ask if such an undignified creature could expect proper acceptance 

In proper society with an eye to fly high above worldly din of confusion

Within the safe seclusion of the beating heart of the living life of heaven

And can such judgment be born as my heart is torn to bloody fragments

As the whole weight of guilt weighs me down just outside the gates of hell?

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Angels in the Netherworld: A Haibun

We sit round a low-burning fire at night, deep in the quagmires of Acheron, and I slowly look at my beautiful companions, all of them nonpareil numina. They watch me kindly, reassuringly, with eyes supernal. They smile now, ever so slightly, and tell me without speaking that our existence is not without meaning, and that our best efforts are not without hope.

Beds made of bulrush
And all the kingfishers call
As ospreys fly low
Around the cypress and ash
As sun paints horizon far

I lay weary head in the lap of one of my guardians dear, and feel one strong and gentle hand caress my face, while the other covers my beating heart. And I close my eyes. In the belly of hell, I am safe. I sleep in peace.

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Lift You Up And Let You Stand

Too many years, too many sad songs to hear in the heart striking fear,

And life becomes one long, ugly scar seen from heaven away so far,

And you say that it’s time to sound the chimes for the end to now begin

As you’ve given your all in this hellish brawl, and you’re left to crawl,

No longer standing tall, but wasting away in the light of high noon day

That feels like death dark night in which you long to take swift flight,

Fleeing this damned, doomed world where you were hurled at birth,

Never finding your worth on earth, always looking yet never finding

Any way to undo the binding of Hades upon your soul full of despair

With no hope of repair, yet you look up into the sky in a silent reply

To the promise of Promethean fire you might acquire in your heart

To burn much higher than the fires of Tartarus guarded by Cerberus,

And by this still hope to find an escape from the fate of humankind,

And so what now is in store in the outcome of this horrendous war?

Shall you be but another victim according to the dictum of Olympus?

Or shall you rise above gods as a victor with bright shining nimbus?

Even this is your choice to make, lest your very life you do forsake…