How long I’ve waited

And nothing has come.

A thousand prayers answered

But they are always the wrong ones.

 

What I ask for pleasure

I do not get.

What I ask for pain,

It comes and haunts me

For a week or two.

 

God sits silent

And laughs at me

His enemy.

Or so I believe

Though God is not my enemy.

I am not His enemy.

 

Rather, every harsh word I utter

Is proven true,

Every sentence and every punishment

I give myself is given weight.

I bear the burden of my sin.

How I wish the LORD would unyoke it from my neck

And loosen the noose of the words I’d uttered.

 

Not like witchcraft,

But rather, like some form of spell

Swirling around my head

That I myself had uttered.

Spies bring it the fruition…

They invade my life.

They listen…

Or is it family members?

Who is it, that listens to me

And brings my most troubled fears to pass?

Not God… for if it were Him

I would have peace.

Rather, the troubling truth

Is that it is not God

But rather my enemies

Are propounding and unraveling this life

Of mine…

Piece by piece.

Love by love.

 

They are replacing everything I love

With wormwood.

So forth,

As when the morsel gives forth

Its fragrance in the kiln,

Or love scatters its scent abroad,

You know the fruit

Has been perfected by discipline.

A butler opens the door

After having arranged the furniture just right.

The cooks are in the kitchen

Picking at their pots

Grinding spices.

The Viscount and Lady

Are speaking in the Drawing room

As the servants all listen carefully

To see if the turf was rolled out just right

The little tree swings placed just right—

I’m sorry, the carpets cleaned and couches plumped.

 

Everything must be just precise

For the engagement to be cheerful.

One mishap,

A little too much savory in a dish

Or a little too much thyme in a soup

Could ruin the evening

And therefore ruin the courtship patterns

Of these dignified beasts.

 

Understand, this is not communist literature.

It is, rather, a fact that every butler,

Cook and personal servant might enjoy.

In daily life

Cultures kiss on the cheek.

Cultures shake hands.

Cultures hug.

 

Though, there is one form of address

That is perfectly acceptable in all cultures.

A hand shake, and firm grasp on the shoulder.

Nothing is quite so loving as this gesture

Found throughout human civilization;

Westerners can interact with completely isolated tribes

With this gesture, and it is still understood.

Most likely because the shoulder and hand

Are the least vulnerable parts of the body.

A hand can fight

And a shoulder is like an armor plate.

 

A man who knows too much fighting might disagree

But I would recommend him to find any place

On the human body that is less vulnerable

Than the shoulder or hand.

It is why our war hand extends in hand shakes

And our hands touch shoulders.

Of course, in violent cultures

Anything you extend to your neighbor is vulnerable

To attack.

Perhaps we should consider this

A warning, how shoulders are vulnerable

Only in a culture where we all feel vulnerable.

 

So, perhaps a culture that doesn’t even allow

Shoulders to be touched

Or a culture where shoulders cannot be touched

Is a culture that one can suspect ill or wrongdoing.

 

Gestures such as cupping a hand over another’s

Shaking hands, or shoulder touching

Are good, because it builds trust in a community.

Those who say, “Don’t touch me,”

Do not trust you.

Rather, they hate you

Because they themselves feel vulnerable to attack.

 

With that said, shoulder grasping and hand shakes

Are perfectly reasonable touching spots

In civilized society.

There is nothing more without sex than a shoulder

Being touched by a hand.

Nothing less offensive, for the gesture

Cannot be construed intimate

As, like I said, the shoulder is our least vulnerable place.

 

And frankly, America is a place where

It is inappropriate to touch shoulders.

It might be why I do not like it.

Poetry is in high demand;—

A whole wall is filled.

Mine, mine, for my own foolishness

Are not there.

 

A family telling me I am wasting my time…

Everyone telling me I have no future.

Already giving up on me as lost

Because I took a calculated risk…

I dared to have what everyone else could.

I begin to believe them

And on the eve of every success

I threw down my reigns

And halted the course.

 

I cannot make it too easy.

Am I Jude or a Prince of Tyre?

Metaphorically speaking

I could be neither nor both.

I could be living out a vision—

About to get the success

I dare not even covet…

 

No, I rather dread success.

But, to eat from this labor…

Sorrows nary found—

A few humble devotees

To my religion of Christ

Who do not believe in my Fairy Tales…

Rather I would want them to have the peace

I have when listening to The Silmarillion.

 

Rather, the trauma from the trenches

Forced his mind into strange places.

Broke him… sweat and blood

Bayonets and fractured bones

Bullets. Heads splitting

Arms severed, entrails gorged by lead.

All there in those miserable trenches

Of World War One—

The war we’d rather forget—

Where Tolkien wrote his first stories.

 

For me it was much the same.

Though I hadn’t fought in any war.

No… rather, it was a car accident.

Bloody it was. It set me on this course.

The violence tasted

Needed to come out.

 

It was asked by my friend J.D.

“I don’t know what God would say about

“This Silmarillion.”

There it is, in words beginning like John’s Gospel.

 

My mind jumped to a thousand metaphors…

Melkor, I have a hunch, was as much Tolkien as

Any of his other inventions.

The dark secrets of such violent fantasies

Is that violence needed to be purged.

There, a man as intelligent as him

Had to use his mind for something

Or else it would break.

Creativity is a gift from God

And MUST, in the life of every genius,

Be exerted to its fullest for Christ.

 

Regardless, I would hope that my reader pleasantly

Sees in my words

The same kinds of things I see in The Silmarillion.

Not that Tolkien or myself were inventing new religions

But rather, must have made something for our minds

In that gorgeous texture—

To occupy, and therefore, make sense out of this violent world.

A world where friends could be taken at a minute’s glance…

 

Everything else that could be said would disturb my current peace.

 

 

What if there were an alien species

Who had religion?

The religion was fine,

It taught them how to get along right.

Say, there was also a primitive race

That was about like the Neanderthal

That never went extinct.

Say it would eat these creatures.

 

The aliens had an advanced moral law

Accompanied by beliefs

That kept them from doing what was morally wrong.

Then, say, one got too caught up in studying pheromones.

It discovered the ripe pleasure of the pheromones

The seemingly endless pleasures.

And, it decided that the religion they created

Suppressed the pheromones.

So, it systematically started wiping out the religion.

Because, to it, the religion was a thought that impeded

Their race.

Therefore, they began to systematically wipe out the religion

Along with their dumber, yet stronger, adversaries

From their little floating disk.

 

Down the line, they began to regulate thought

They began to regulate discussion.

It became a crime to speak

Because it could possibly convince someone,—

Unintentional, but unwanted by the alien society.

The mere fact of persuading

Was a crime, the mere attempt at persuasion was considered force.

Therefore, all talk was regulated.

For, ideas were like a cancer

So therefore, only the carnal mind

Could be legal.

Only the sanctioned and uniform ideas,

Formed by their social engineers,

Could survive.

 

It was a curious little thought.

Such a creature wouldn’t have come from anywhere

But hell.