Confession
Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
John 12:23–25Wicked Seed
My sins curb my praise. My lies have choked my throat. My virtues are all vain. My deeds are a show. The lust of my heart has cast me apart and made me alone. I'm drowning my fields with whatever fills. Fleeing always in haste, I'm turning my gaze to not meet the real. I am dust without breath, fear without faith. I still gather my grit to only flicker a bit like a fire without flame. I have lost my name, my hope and my home. But the word just came –– there is a death without death that bears life, again. Though stranded but a seed. Though bruised but still a reed. My breaking will be my rest. On this word of the Best a kernel I wait to fall and be blest.
trial text here
I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good” . . . “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives . . . I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure . . . Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
Ecclesiastes 2:1–11Blemishes
I see blemishes everywhere although my friend's teethy giggles are second to no insistence for hanging on . . . the same friend couldn't hold back those smug sentences dipped in blemishes smooth, electric touch of fingertips are loving and assuring everything they trace on my skin nails dig for my being I long for lips but my mouth touches a dry patch of winter mouth with cracks and blemishes I got blemishes in every joy –– the arrest of awareness and a blemish of pride. in each deed my hand extends what looks like grace the other slips down goes within trades pleasure for blemishes then, devastation of covers and sheets, years and years of hops, scratches, spins. paws that are really a tautology for all that breathes but today the old dog tiredly and quietly stares at the high couch I am struck again with blemishes.
. . . but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do . . . For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do — this I keep on doing . . . For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Romans 7:14–25Sensualists
what is this sticky canvas you are smearing my life on . . . sticky bed this morning sticky palms and phones. sticky binges pick my meninges, glue flows in its folds. my deep side is glued to deep strife, sticky thoughts keep my sleep. one careless fall and neither truth nor awareness can unstick the sticky antics of flesh –– barring my will, my flesh sticks to all. I see in the corner unseen, scattered in the dust the sticky mousetrap . . . and a mouse, no one knows how long it tried, like a disjoint union of chunks it lies limbs torn apart, but still sticking to the crust.