The sleep floating through my mind, wafting over thoughts
Is the intoxicating odor of my Beloved, a last
Attempt to call His Beloved into His arms to be still and
Take rest from the load of care she wears about her
Neck, the yoke she cannot bear to part with.
The insufficient self knows it wrecks deprivation, but
Cursed to feed a mandrake-living earth with blood,
It toils endlessly, till falling back in a pile of dust,
It reaches its end and completion in a soul sleep.
Stumbling to the close of antoehr day, the endless
Crucifixion, drawing down to another grave as
Pitch black as the night-consuming starlight;
The dark veil of shame or rest descends, always
Entertaining within it, the Beloved’s hands to draw
Away His Bride to Himself, when she cannot resist—
She is no longer herself when Lost in His arms;
More fully so in the deep rest of dreams, only
Treated to know the first taste of the gift of blessed awarelessness
A quick glance of the numbing soul sleep which
Seems a solace to the life without cease, the peace
To the waking who toil in bitter outcast of heaven… light
Shod in futile works of her hands, being pricked and prodded
And giving over each treasure she had, becoming desolate as
A beggar, spiritless tramp, numb and broken as street-corner whore just to
Live a breath longer, eat a bite of bread, bask in the sun…
But what living death, to continually hate what must be done
And yet continue it instead, ignoring weeping, crumbling soul…
Cries of body inside the self-wrought case of
Coffin-like pride which masks all pain
And allows more exploitation of the Bride—yet from the
Bridegroom’s touch, these shameful things cannot be hidden..
He weeps to embrace faithless Bride in His arms, the joy
Of lost lover, tears mingling as the pain
Is felt strong, flowing from the heart she has broken
Again, her own heart—begging now to please
Be relieved of this sin, hiding, not breathing, He uncovers
Her shame, with His kiss and His touch…
She shrinks back from the love without lust, burning in grief
Even to hear His voice call her name, it resurrects trembling
Knowing of love, conflicting with guilt from actions before.
This night all is forgiven, the love breaks old chains,
She is set free into His embrace again, and in sleep,
He holds her fast to His breast.

Restless when still empty, though filling, the pits eaten by all our disorders
Into our lives rotting, infecting the soles our journey treds itself out on,
The tireless time, churning one more moment after the ever next…
Always the same continuing to be different, we
Have no means of distinguishing except for the flickle
Plunk of each feeling we abstract from our thick, complex, composite web of feeling…
From the whole we drop into the crystal glass of introspection to analyse
How the shallow waters are churning out of the bottomless depths we
Believe to be inside us, hidden from most touch
By the fact of living in-world, not feeling all the surrounding spirits, the witnessing
Cloud enlivening these fleshy bits of dust; we dig in nails
And scrape forth blood, the ruddy, pain-seeping material essence of being alive..
Texture of our breath, blood which inflates all.
We hope or imagine to experience, tanicle of invisible…
We fall into faith, then it is all we blissfully know until
Skimmed by our skepticism, we are reduced in our substance
And catch a breath of airy, gnostic lightness-in-being, souls fly like angels
Bourne up in wings towards the being-in-death, state we run from or
Thill in horror to embrace, waltzes like our sister, dancing in grace
Spinning to the pace of black hole dance, drawing all in; are we hopeless?

But I, I encounter my death all day long, in and out
Of the very body in which I’m formed in and given to—
My work of the perpetually living, to continue the struggling
To find the love for the disfigured and the disabled…
The home of six daughters I care for each evening,
Opening my heart to bleed in their behavior ust a
Bit beyond my comfort or pity of embracing
Empathy standing-with in the  pain, providing
Barriers and guards I could not erect for myself to
Insulate their peace—a peace which I too covet
And can’t find in my own contrivance and self…
My longings are slakeless, and wrap together
In horrific desire of adventure unto death.
Death greets me on the streets when I step beyond
My cloister of streets into open city, where buildings masking,
Compounded on buildings are interwoven by a constant human traffic;
Heartless or heartbroken, each face a mask, a veil to hide
The heart worn under each gaze, guile in each eye, longing deeper…
Giving away or holding closer when pressed up to death
On this fact of existence called city: street-living or housed.
The dozen beggars, for each walker like me, overwhelms
The heart’s supply of pity , empty sentiment of cash-giving, and threatens
To unleash all that which can do no more than emptily ache, wide-eyed glances
And speechless, hides the natural smile, the torch of love’s brightness,
In grief; a truer lover would move to death and act in joy.

It seems to easy to train in systematic desensitization
This soul to face death all day long, and to reject
Each hint of self-slaughter, of weakness or need
Which could stir a memory or regurgitate old guilt
And threaten the gaudy, falce placidity I’ve created
With the howling prophecy of truth; you’ve already begun the
Massacre, finish the killing or repent beyond, to resurrection.
My stiff stride reveals the dead man in me,
Still with an unnatural death, allowing my hasty
Existence to haunt the mind and torture the heart
Wracking beyond past old guilt to accept normality as loss;
To settle for less, to keep my heart from opening
And blossoming into a flower of grace…
Some dark ring I invited to fall around a glitterig aura,
Not my own, but the love You shone in me.

My lips are blackening with the wretching taste,
 The revolting feel of my dreams handed over to You;
To stop and compare at the end of each day… too late
To catch up and seize the vagrant desires I hoped
To capture and surrender beyond chance of regrasp.
You know I fear most…myself, for in each weary rest
I fall back into forgetfulness… just to wallow
In the muck of broken trusts.
The grieving families I come to, clothed in Your cross,
Offering to try and bear up their griefs and their losses…
Leaving me with holes in my hands, unable to held,
Depressing anxieties like thorns, in my brow…
My heart thoroughly  pierced, the heart fell out with water and blood.
My feet ware holes through bones too… the walking and travel,
Far less, my pocketbook burns to a crisp,
Looking for an opportunity to give, but without
Any graces of my own to pour from my heart… only Yours.

Shallow, so shallow, six feet under unto death…
Yet more a loss, to lose love… cutting away a part of the heart.
I give my heart away so feely… Jesus Lord,  that I
Lose my loves every day. I ache and I pray:
Another cry to You, emptying through and through…
For if not You, I fill me with mangy horror
Of worry and regret; make me anew each
Morning as the psalmic prayers promise.
Here’s all the howling horror of death I carry, now,
I’m giving it to You, kiss me in peace.

Mary, if you’re listening… and Jesus, please tune in as well..
I’m getting into fights over you, for what
Racing up the cusp on the hill, with every last breath… I swear…
Ill never flee from You again, but in the rush at its peak, into the
Valley faster I plunge, into the darkness of hell, into a bitter fight
Where I hide my face from the sun, where I run into the night..
Hoping to purge away my sins from the light of Your face, Your love
And bring an end to this body of death, this prayer of the dead
Who remain living, like festering cavities inward turning.
Running so hard, I can’t stop running so hard… can never have the
Conversations that need to occur never really happen, yet the conversation is constant;
I have no control, I sleep and I wake at the will of a body that is connected to me,
Giving expression to my soul… this body of death, the one I am always using;
To imitate the saints will bring about a racing grave of hell for suicide—
I’ve lost all, no control when I sleep and when I wake, my body like a worn down machine
Ceases without a continuous flow; into me ceased, out of me… all dried up.
All my insides spent in hollowing themselves out, burnt fully to a crisp…
I become a hollow shell, a voiceless whisper, a dying drone—
Running again through nigh streets alone; Here I find my language, prayers carried away
And drowned under the winds- a cover of deep darkness into which I bathe all my sins
As I create purgatory and renounce your bright joy again.
I’ve turned to Your Mother in a last attempt to impore some change or redemption
When I can’t seek the Sun- but radiant with Your glory, her Holy Son—
I am struck breathless by her, blowing wafting clouds, over the moon, dropping my pace…
Calling down tired rain to wash away a baptismal grace I walked for, so long.
The teetering, dizzy and unsteady steps of my route beytray the long hours of concentration
I gave to training myself to do all but fall—no cupid, no seduction, now…
No movement at all—I can’t give into You.
I just don’t know how, to release this tightened grip on the ever-nearing now…
The momentary precision, the flood of conversation which, overwhelming, drives me out
Day by day—no surprises or mystery that I can’t control for—all is calculated and planned.
No falling for me, though the best thing might be to surrender to You… as I think it through..
I realize I am wondering the opposite way of my own heart’s longing, the desire to
Abandon, to be caught in the sweet surrender and relinquish in helpless bliss the life
I cannot maintain anyways. It is the desperation of broken body tearing up heart
Which leads my cry as plunging into the depths of whirling spiritual adrenaline, I forget
The truth of my over-exhaustion, because spiritual bodies I have imagined after,
Have no kidneys to indicate over use and abuse of God’s holy temple, the death by desire.
Submission, surrender, ridiculous… I’m struggling, fidgeting, fighting beneath the weight
Of You whom I ache for, whom I invited into me… You tear my heart out, with the endless
Embrace in which I am held, You bit into my heart, You devoured me, and emptied all
The blood coursing in my veins so it could be You who filled me. Now that I left You,
What’s to hold back, I am empty now, its all gone, I was vulnerble once, and then lost
When I abandoned the first Lover I knew to lend my heart, my soul to another…
I was a channel for grace, a cup to be poured out and run over, never empty, but
You never completed the surgery; I guess I was scared after all, that first time I dared desire
And want to give myself only to You; I felt creeping in the human ache of undesirable otherness
Doing what I hate and perpetuating the misery that pulls us apart, how I love You.
All the others whom I’ve given, who have taken without invitation… that intimacy we once had, nothing matters again—lithium tears fall like raining bullets, ringing into hell’s ears
Like cascading marbles, drained out of me, into the depths of love’s endless sea for Leviathan to eat, though I have tempted him to eat me, the son of the devil, God’s mightiest beast…
Deep calling to deep over the roaring waterfalls of my draining heart.
And girl talking, self tormenting like a cognitively sick, invalid in self-restraining garb…
Detrimental, the talk that rots and eats and tears us to bits… the open jaws, the hollow voice,
The demon heart, the feeling-less choice… the vapor wafting out, nothing inside but rasping
Gasping and coughing words, caught to be lost, hid to be heard… and in the beyond-empty
Void in the case of this body, this shell… the dead soul rattling its skeletal keys…
Am I that Bride, unwedded, You want me?