https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/gun-quotations-founding-fathers

Dark Eyed Junco
 
You were on the deck.
A grey bird, with white belly.
I talked about you 
With the neighbor as he ploughed 
The street---Winter's York County.

So spry and active
You hopped over everything,
With ruffled feathers.






















February's Flux
 
Winter’s hoary chill, of February,
It was cold, and I didn’t see the red
Florets of the February Maples.
The Mad Spring hasn’t happened yet. Will it?

Chilly weather permeates, and iced rain
Yet now I am half happy and half sad;
A poet inspired me today, so
She was sad, and I in a flux. Come, Spring!






















The Birds
  
I have noticed, one day, people are like birds
As they sing their songs to one another.
There is not much in what they say,
Beside the melodies of their say,
And I realized, not all conversation
Needs to be philosophy.
For in that peace, they spoke
Like a bird singing, all things
Spoken before, and again,
And a thousand million times
No new or original thought.
But, there was love.




















February's Fay
 
A slight pause, as I look out yonder my back porch
And I see the red buds on the Maples.
I know, it is February's Fay, come a little late this year
It is true, but it has been very cold.
Spring will soon arrive, as I walk out to my tree
And see the Brussels' Sprout like bulbs
On the tree, red and purplish greens in nacreous two-tones
Which will sprout into beautiful red flowers.
Always a little leery, my delusions
Are wary of the mad spring.
But, it is not spring.
It is the sure sign it is February.




















The Progression of Spring
 
First, the Weeping Willow gets her yellow yawns
Which slowly turn their lime green, and then dark.
Then, the Veronica and Violets start to appear.
Soon, the Hyacinth and Bluebells are coming up
In their nectar scents, and then comes the Redbuds
In their purple leaves. And then the Dogwoods 
And Bradford Pears' musk; On the trees, the budded flowers show
In their newly forming leaves, and throughout the spring
They grow, until in Mid May, they are fully open
And a whole new world is alive.
Then the Roses make their appearance
To scent the forest with a sweet perfume,
And then finally the Honeysuckle in June.


















The Return of the Robins
 
Walking down the street, it is a chilly spring day...
The Robin is seen in mid March.
The first one of the season---
I've seen them nigh a February's fay---
And the strongest males return
From their Southern homes, and they pioneer
Their troop, searching out to see if the land is safe.
And then, their little ones, their females
And their weaker males return.
Yet, only the strongest are the pioneers, whom
You see are those first males of the season.
The Maples have their florets, and the Willows
Are soon to push forth their yellow branches---
In fact, some already have.


















My Lovely Ladies
 
Go through the park, but your mate comes back
With a little bundle of Veronica Speedwell.
Do not, oh my lovely ladies, cry to him
"That's a weed!" for his heart may be broken
And he may not bring you the dandelion
Or the wild violet, or the daisy either.
Know, it was on his heart to bring you
This blue flower in the first months of spring.
For, you were on his heart and mind.






















Walking Down the Park Path
 
Walking down the park path
I saw a new thing---a story
Of Winter's coming
And the forest preparing.
And there was a little terrier
Like mine from so long ago
In words like mine
There in the children's book
Along the park's path
Page by page every few yards,
With beautiful art
And words so cherished to my soul---
Furnished by the Eagle Scouts...

At first, I was offended
That it distracted from nature
But then comforted;
For upon the park path
Shall be a little reminder 
Of Scruffalufugus
And where the mice go
And also the birds in winter.

Every tree was red with its flower
For we had the first spring
Where Punxsutawney Phil had seen his shadow
For half a decade--and rather than February
Come, the spring came six weeks later.
And so the trees are flowering
To pollinate, for this is their first real breath of spring.
And I also thought of Scruffy
Who always looked like a groundhog
Which is why I have quite a fondness for the animal.


The Hyacinths
 
Just little hints, the hyacinths and bluebells
Are little tufts of grass, and blades of verdant oval green.
Yet in one day, the hyacinths grew six inches long
By the nourishing sun,
And their little bulbs in clusters sprouted there---
In three hours they grew six inches.
Just like the red flowers of the trees closed
In the course of one day---
But they still were there in patches
Along the one roadside.






















The Daffodils
 
As the Hyacinths are little bulbs
And the Bluebells tufts
The Daffodils are growing
Already... the first flowers of spring.



























When Christ Returns
 
Hazy are the clouds, like a nuclear winter
In the spring day, a yellow hue is on the horizon.
I walk in the brisk fifty degrees,
Up the familiar path, and am surprised
By the forest walking over yonder the hill...
I say to it, "The bees, they are coming out of their holes"
For only one or three days of the year
Do the bees peak out, and over the hillocks 
Fly in their immature bodies.
I am surprised by the sudden meeting and hazy
As the sky above, for so it will be like when Christ and I meet
Surprised, and suddenly, and without warning.
I'd rather be looking at the bees, than gesticulating
At my enemies around me, wishing to curse and cause a stir;
Or beating Christ's fellow servants
When I am surprised by that chance meeting
And then the haze lifts, and the sun becomes seven times brighter:
Yes, I'd rather not know what to say, and be studying the bees.
I do not wish to be a chicken aside the road,
And scared to approach Him, knowing I'd been doing wrong;
For the Bluebells are immature,
And the Hyacinth are half strong, and half growing
For another week there shall be bluebells like clockwork:---
We do not know the time or hour, and it may be when everything
Seems untimely and half in bloom, and surprise you as the sun did me
When it burst from its haze, and shone today
As I ate, and there seemed to be Zion, which seemed
Impossible to reach, and its heavenly songs
Yet I will feast there upon the sweet nectar
And the Meat of the Fruit of Life---
It will have seemed like it could never be done
And it, too, seem so very early, and unexpected;
Yet there it is.

The Forsythia
 
The men stood around talking
About the signs of spring today---
Dave said all the spring flowers were blooming
I said not the Bluebells,
He said they were.
"It is the first week of April,"
I agreed, and then he told me about the Forsythia
Which I've heard of before
But didn't know...
Turns out it's that yellow bush
I've been seeing everywhere.
Then we talked about Christ and the Dogwood flowers
How the center's red is the blood
And the four creases, the flower of His wounds;
They are yet to bloom;
And the Redbuds which will come two weeks from now.
Christ was supposed to be crucified on Dogwood
I heard Olive and another heard Acadia. 
The hills and dales are rolling with wild violets, of course
Like purple mountain majesty;
We all had something to say
And were all formidable with our knowledge of the spring.











Depression
 
I walk down the trail
Elevated a bit, and anxious...
Not my usual walk
With tender emotions.
I am tired, and slogging,
And want to take a rest;
I pray to God
As the Red Buds 
Are starting to bud
In their floral purple.
I had one hope...
To see the Bluebells
As they should be strong
And flowering---
But I am four days away from that.
The dogs are standoffish,
As usual, but not misbehaving.
A St. Bernard wanders the Frisbee Golf course
Off its leash, but I am not afraid of it.
I just feel angst and sorrow for the day
Walking up the hill,
And the thing I wanted to see
Which would make that angsty walk so worth it
Were not in full maturity.
I will not miss it next time, however...
Tomorrow is a new day,
And if tomorrow never comes
I go to my Habitation in Paradise.






Nuance

The Bluebells are like a Yearly clock
Springing up to the day...
Yet they come in their parades
And each cluster springs up in its precision timing...
From early April to mid May.
Just like the Lilacs sometimes appear in April or Spring-June.
























A Walk in the Rain
 
I was depressed,
More than I had ever been.
Wrote a poem.
No one will see it.
It is private--
For once, let a thing be private.

The bluebells were weak, but not strong.
That was three days ago.

Then, today, joyous company was kept
By Mr. Robin in the woods
And the Woodpeckers,
And my dad.
We walked, in the rain--
Yet, it was joyous,
As colors appeared which never appear
Save when there is a light drizzle.
And the animals were unmolested
By trailwalkers, and they lingered
By my side, and would stay just within distance
Not afraid, but a little cautious, too.
And the drizzle and cool air
I found the bluebells were strong
And a few days away from their peak bloom.









The Day I Found Out
 
I found out today...
The Water Lilies were there
Looking like dippy eggs over easy;
The Wood Anemones were white
The florets of the Redbuds were strong purple,
The Bluebells almost in full bloom
The Dogwood just beginning to peak.
I wept, but didn't let him see me weep.
The Wood Anemones were white, but also a little pink.






















The Best Day of Spring
 
The electricity went out today,
So we went to the state park.
The Redbuds were strong
And vibrant, most visible;
The Bluebells were fully bloomed.
The Dogwood's red wounds were blossoming
Just ever so slightly,
And the May-Apples began to appear
And you could see the little wee flower
Like a tender nub sprouting
From the stems.





















Driving
 
I drove down the country highway, 
And saw the purple hills covered 
In Phallused Heal-alls;
The buds orange and green
Like a Bob Ross painting.
The deep woods are there budding;
The trees' depths of field, deep,
Are shadowed in the one o'clock, Mid April sun.























Lost in the Woods
 
Lost in the woods for two hours,
I take the Ridge Trail
And see the first Blue Moth of the season
But realizing I am not where I should be,
I double back, and end up on the Country Highway
Where I keep the park to the left of me
And walk back to the main entrance.
What's funny is I did everything I said not to do at Pinchot--
If you ever see the Ridge Trail when walking
Be leery and keep your wits about you---
But the Bluebells and Redbuds were a cheery sight
And I had seven more hours of daylight.
Seven hours... that seems like a lot
But then seems so short, how days bleed into another day.

I had a brain fog, which wouldn't let me see the trail
In the right way, so dreamily I walked
In the bright daze of spring's beauty.
The first bumble bee of spring flew by, as well.
I prayed for a wife, for righteousness, 
And didn't get nervous in the least.
I saw dogs, always leery of me,
One friendly, but leery--
For I am leery of them;
Once bitten twice shy
So the proverb goes--
And I used my knowledge of the park:
The campsites were before me,
But the lake to the right when first out on the road,
So I walked out onto the road,
And twice I turned, and kept the park to the left
And the campsites behind me,
And then saw it was Alpine Road
So I knew I was heading in the right direction.

A Walk in the Dark
 
Walking in the dark,
The streetlamps pollute the sky
So that only a few springtime stars are visible.
The maples, I have to take a second look
Worried they may have changed--
They didn't; the Samaras are little nubs
Like leaves, and the florets of the branches tender.
























The Day After Easter
 
We walk, taking pictures of all the wildflowers.
The colors of Easter are in the grass.
Green grass, blue veronica, wild violets, and yellow dandelions.
The pink and white anemones
The daffodils are dying, and so also the first bluebells of spring...
Just yesterday they were strong.
The magenta blossoms on the flowering trees...
Yesterday, the deer lingered by my path
And the robins and groundhogs.
Dinner was also nice.




















The Bluebird
 
Along the path, the flowers were in their shift
From April to May. I saw fewer of them,
As the daffodils were fading
And the trees were growing their leaves,
The little flowering buds.
A vibrant blue back
Two of them, flew strong
Into view, and many of their cousins
Mr. and Mrs. Robins were running
Along the grass, and one giving a courtly glance
Like a wise and venerable Notary to a Cleric
Doing their obsequiouscence to one of the same social class.




















The Wildflowers
 
April walking, in the eighty degree heat,
The violets are pure like the face of Hephzibah,
I realize, the flowers come in their generations
And spring up for so short a time, they linger
For a week or two, and they look like people even.
And they spring up, and die, for one or two days
Or at most a week, maybe three. And they die.
Generations spring up, and similar flowers
Arrive at their appointed times,
And some spring up the entire spring and summer
Into fall... some are only in the spring
And some are only in a short week of May;---

Like Christ, Who is the Rose, brilliant and fragrant
And majestic above all other flowers;
Abraham like the Bluebells in the first burgeons of spring.
Lot like the Hyacinth and Noah like the Daffodils.
My Mom like the White Anemones
And I like the Chicory--common, yet closing in the evening's gloom 
And opening in the morning's cheer with rebirth.
The beautiful one I saw recently like the Buttercup.
My Mimi like the Geranium;
My Grandma like the Daisy;
My Pappy like the Speedwell;
My Pop-Pop a Sunflower.
My Brother like the May-apple;
And my Dad like the Tulip.

We come in our appointed seasons,
And live so short a breadth of time.




The first gnats of spring and the bumble bees
Are pestering, the ant is not so gaius this year;
The Pink Anemones are disappearing and the Cinquefoil
Are bloomed; the violets are strong, and so are the Heal-Alls.
It is soon to be May, when the Buttercups and Geraniums arrive;
And in summer come the Brown Eyed Susans 
And the Sunflowers and the Chicory.


























A Day With Too Much to Handle
 
Walking too proud, too fast, too long
The day's worries crumb along my mind.
The Bluebells are dying, the Mayflowers not yet in bloom.
The violets not nearly as pretty as Hephzibah and Beulah, 
Or that one beautiful who frustrates my inner cave dweller
With her nude and beautiful breasts.
Have mercy on me... oh LORD
I am a man, and I blocked the scene
From mind, but need one like her
To satisfy my raging frustration.
The gingerbread trees are smelling fragrant
Alive at the same time as the viburnum flowers.
And the forest smells like a baking cookie.
How I wish, oh beautiful one,
You to bake our bread and cookies in the oven
And to take our heat into the passions of daydreams of only you---
So I can daydream again, you understand?
For I want no other poisoned well of lust
Or to look upon a woman with lust...
For I loved the gospel for that very reason
That it gave no license to sin
But then also forgave it all.










The American Dream
 
Walking down the street at the park
The Bald Eagle flies into view.
The Geraniums are beautiful
And the Violets stand next to them.
The first Buttercups are out.
No Patriotic vision divines of the Bald Eagle
As I may see them twice a year
Going seventy-seven times to the park.
No divining, like the superstitious man
Said once, "A woodpecker has red
"On its crest: Maybe that's a sign."
And I read Numbers soon after
And felt a wave of divination fall over me...
Which I divine only blessing now
Though the divinations mean nothing
Like the Eagle at the Park.
Though, Patriotic feelings welled in me
As the healthy young adult 
Flew with brilliant plumage.
The geraniums and violets
Remind me of me and my wife---
She has the face of a violet flower---
When I daydream about us,
Standing side by side, and the buttercups our children.
But, they don't mean anything real...
Only fool's gold. Hopes tied into eagles and flowers
Are only hopes, not enchantments or Laws of Attraction. 
It spoils life to predict the future or to will whatever is out of our control...
Just as the poet said,---or said the mad poet
It is only verse,---but I say it is poetry,
"Que sera, sera,"



Despair
 
I walk... the bluebells are all dead,
Consumed by the newly grown plant life on the forest floor.
The Geraniums are there, but the insects eat their petals.
The Mayapple is bitten off the top
And only its flower remains---
Poison, someone knows it is poison.
A demon is cast out of a park traveler, though, while I am in despair;
Silent I remain for pain is in my ileum.
Pain equal to the swelling of joy I feel right now.
For the Veronica is purple in the late spring, I saw.
The gingerbread and marshmallow trees
Are smelling delicious---what is that tree?
The Birch maybe, putting out its summer sap?
Yesterday the mcintosh apple blossom smelled so pretty
As I sat with a friend upon a porch swing
And we talked farmer talk.
I envy farmers... I am too doppy to ever safely be one.
My grandfather lost a leg doing blue collar work.














God is Dead?
 
I am walking down the path
And at the beginning I smell the Marshmallow bush
So I desperately pray to know from where it comes:
Is it the birch, the tree bark, where does it come from?
And see a cyan robin's egg
Broken upon its shell---
I pick it up, and look at it.
I see the wild geraniums upon the pasture
In their mighty magenta.
"I hate the flowers," the demon whispers
That inner critic in my head.
I love the flowers; the yellow buttercup clusters are wonderful.
Then, I think how I evangelize
So I believe I've made the faith very small
And ripped fellow Pilgrim travellers
Off the path. I imagine myself
As Zarathustra, saying, "God hates religion
"Don't you understand! Leave Him
"For a season, and find the moral truth
"Is evidenced in nature! Find how to love one another, again,
"For that is what is on God's heart!
"Not idle prophecies, and curses, and slanders
"And hatred of your fellow man;
"Not dogmatic wars, and swords and gore;
"Not health, wealth and prosperity,
"But Charity, Faith and Hope!
"Perhaps He will return some day
"Very soon if we just find the moral guidance
"He made all along! See it, for it is preeminent on His heart!"
Yet, at the end of my walk, I find the Marshmallow bush
With the flowers like Honeysuckle
So I realize there is a providential guidance:
For I asked to know where the fragrance comes from
And my nose accidentally finds them.
One cannot escape providence
And the LORD is willing to listen.
I realize Nietzsche's prophetic utterances
Weren't to deny God, 
But to deny the doubt caused by the clergy's faithlessness
And to find God's moral law again---
Not to go searching for his own law
And go insane.
There already were Overmen---
He is named Paul.
He is named Jesus.
He is named John.
He is named Moses.
And these men all found the Law through providence
Just the same as I had found the Marshmallow Bush.




















The Mulberry Bush
 
"It's dead," I thought, my beloved Mulberry tree.
Planted three years prior,
I love the precious fruit.
"It's dead! Like me!"
Yet, the leaves are sprouted
And mulberries are bundled
On every single branch.
Even from the twig of the tree
There sprouted a tasty morsel.






















The Wild Hesperis 
 
Walking down the country highway,
Depression isn't so bad
For a few moments.
The May Weather is a cool 70 degrees
And crisp, partly cloudy night
With the moon orange and glowing through a hazy cloud.
My dad walks with me in his crocs earlier that day;
I see the wild Hesperis along the road
In white and purple.
The roses are just bulbs
But soon will be brilliant.
He trips, and I catch him;
I ponder on Luther and Paul
And their idea of Passive Righteousness.
I try to explain to the Online Man
What I mean, but as these things go
We talk past one another.
I tell my mom, "What's the religion for if not to be a good person?"
Does nobody understand me? She seemed to, as we agreed 
Church folk should be more polite at Sunday breakfast.
Later that night, I'm praying
For a wife, and a girl who looks like
That girl I saw in a video walks into view
With a dog that looks like Smiley Miley.
I'm afraid of the dog; she looks young.
She's a pretty one.
It is night, and she can't handle the dog.
I saunter away, shyly
But I waved at her.





My dad and his friends were talking yesterday
As we had a cookout and grilled sweet, fruity sausages and venison.
Drugs, Sex and Hell came up, like a good Rock Song, in conversation.
I'm learning being present this current time,
And to be gentle, and to be a presence of peace.
How to rely on God to improve my nature.
Ezekiel scared me, as I read him for three hours last night.
How I don't want to be that Prince of Israel;
No, I don't want to be him with his sin visible in everything that he does;
Divining Flatteries, being expertly destroyed;
Let me be low, so low... and not high, so I can be exalted.
I am poor, you know? Let me have my right that it is so.
Yes, I want a dawned raiment of righteousness like the Wild Hesperis 
And a scent of the Magnificent Rose.
She was pretty, the girl I saw...
This one had to be another.

Also, I realize my poem is out of time---
Yet it tells such good a story, and I know all of it is true
How the Gospels are too, they tell a story
And put things in a little different order...
I'm alright with that, as they tell a good story
And people are meant to think like so
As I studied today that St. Matthew did write
The Gospel in Aramaic, as grammatical structures from the language
Appear in his gospel.
And what is more, Matthew is where they talk about Sheep and Goats
And gave the Famous Sermon on the Mount---
The Man on the Internet was mad at me
For the lecturers he was critiquing were about Biblical Inerrancy versus Church Tradition---
I told him, there's nothing more to understand in the Bible
Than proper and right conduct.
He disagreed. 
I just know I want God to give me a heart to do all of it...
And I'll be satisfied and provided for like the Wild Hesperis in the valley.




























A Conversation with Peace
 
The woods are blooming their roses
And a sweet scent marked the trail once:
A precursor to the grandness which will happen soon.
A new prayer is answered...
I walked through the trail,
And the verdant leaves hung over
Like I were in a new world
The saplings hanging there
Like a tunnel.

I talked with a voice of Peace today,
And she said my heart was not right with God.
I agree... it is not.
I am saved just because I am.
She discussed with me being born again
And I gave my formulae,
Of loving righteousness being the mark of a Christian
And good works.
I am saved just because I am.
I told her "Why would God hate one who loves righteousness?
"Why would God scorn one who does good works?
"It is the sheep whom God saves."
And she said, to quote her,
"Why is a sheep a sheep?"
I said to her,
"Because that is in its nature."
She asked, "How does one become a sheep?"
I said, "By being born again."
She said, "How does one become born again?"
I said I do not know.
But now I realize the answer.
I am saved just because I am.


I pray to see the day in May
When the trees are changed
And it is like entering into a new world.
My dad sees it before me...
And I am sad, like I never will get the impression.
I am saved just because I am.
And going through, seeing it again
Afresh, anew, the saplings there hanging over me
Green, and living, I see my prayer answered
When I thought it was impossible.
I am saved just because I am.
Can we be born ourselves?
Can we birth ourselves?
Or does Heaven have to give birth
By Her own glory?
Does God not bring to birth
And not us?
I understand...
I am saved just because I am.
















The Mandrake Fruit
 
Then answered Brandon, 
"I was no prophet, neither 
"Was I a prophet’s 
"Son, but was a poet, and 
"Gather of mandrake fruit."

For the atheist's
Plant was poison; yet he knew
The time to pluck it;
There, it tasted like a ripe
Gamy, Granny Smith apple.





















The Purple Flower in the Tree
 
There is a flowering tree
Upon the path...
It is purple...
I do not wish to know what it is called.
Next year, maybe I will search...
But a little boredom would set in
If I learned all of it at once.
Mystery upon mystery.
My dad is a good man;
I saw him today boldly do.
Angered at him, but then proud
Because I know my dad is a righteous man.
Yet, Ottis at the park was not as energetic
The other day, Ottis who reminds me of Chantz.
I know righteousness does not cause a dog to love you...
No... it is not it at all.
It is the owner.
Our dog, Chantz, was nothing like Ottis.
Chantz was a wild thing, dangerous even.
But comical... he did many beautiful things
Such as get into mischief, as he was a beautiful dog.
And Ottis is a beautiful dog
But they are nothing alike.
The flowers today were beautiful too,
The purple like the sheen off of Ottis' coat
But they smelled good but gamy.
Beautiful hanging flowers like clusters of grapes.
And I realize, as I often do...
I am a proud man...
My inner critic says
That I am proud.
I am like Chantz and not Ottis
But I smell the flowers upon the tree--
Am I like death, never leaving a single flower unplucked?
No... that means the flower of a vulva
And I never have sex.
For that, I never hurt anyone doing what I do
And that is why I do it.
Am I righteous?
No.
I am like Chantz and not Ottis.
Proud, mischievous, beautiful among ten thousand;
Will fill my belly even if it hurts.
My dad is like Ottis
Friendly, will greet you, good looking in a humble way,
Will do what he wants, but always doing good.
And Ottis did not greet my dad like me...
That is why I know a dog does not greet you based on righteousness.
For Ottis dances and plays and leaps upon me with joy.
And the flowers like grapes smell good,
But not so good... different and strange like my scent;
Unfamiliar but you know it is a flower.
Just like me and my poetry.
















A Heavy Rain
 
A heavy rain poured this morning
So I went to the State Park.
No one is there, during or after a heavy rain
So I have solitude, like Christ would in the desert.
I began, and another prayer was answered.
The roses scented the trail heavenly
And every step was perfumed by them.
Yet, my feet sunk in the mire of the trail
And wearing my shoes of the Gospel's Preparedness,
They sank,---but they did not come off---
Muddying my feet.
The Robin and Finch greeted me on my way
And the birds warbled their conversing songs,
Talking about their deep things
And yet I realized, our feet get muddied
By the mire of this world, but we must 
Trek and never turn back.
Deep our feet sink in the carnal mire;
So, my brethren, wash each other's feet with charity.
Wash them with kindness...
Yet you would not
And made for doctrine that sin is righteousness
And righteousness is sin.
Thus, the face of the Daughter shewn black.
You said, "God demands that we do no good work."
Thus you made charity a sin in your religion.
Yet, my feet are muddy, and no one will wash them.
Does not Isaiah say to release the captive?
No, you do not wish to release the captive
But strengthen his bonds.
For you say, "He is demon possessed."
Maybe he is just sad? That no one taught him the sweetest
And He had to wander off on his own?
No one would wash him, but rather told him to do good was a sin
And so his demon is your judgment upon him
And your false gospel you continually preach.
For his feet are muddy, don't you know
And yet none will wash them.

Yet God provides for the rain, does He not?
Both the latter and the former?
God clothes the roses in the valleys?
Thus, the scent is good, and the rain plenteous
I know I do what God tells me to do
And I have done it... and I prayed
That I have the sustenance to continue this work I do;
For I wish to save, and spread the gospel all over.
But what is the gospel?
It is that we are saved, and therefore can do good;
We no longer must be ashamed, but can have hope.
For we want to do good, now that God has cleansed us.
Therefore, show charity to your brothers and sisters,
And read the scripture, for nowhere does it say
That trying to do the right thing is a sin...
God establishes good works
And the Good Samaritan had no faith
Yet he did what was good, and it was praised in God's sight.
Why do you scorn the righteous, and humble him
And elevate the wicked soul?
That is why the feet of the sheep are muddy
And their wool overgrown, and unshorn,
And their claws torn and infected by the shepherds
Who would not balm them;
Nor are the young sought after.
No a Sermon on 
God's glory is all the oats they get;
So they starve for no one feeds them anymore
For they have no knowledge of kindness.




And I realized the Roses are an ancient species
That the naturalists say is invasive
But the forest still stands after centuries.
New trees grow, and they are beautiful
Though a thorn is the rose bush, 
They also bear healthy and uniquely delicious fruit;
Especially in the winter months, when everything else is barren.


























I Have a Good Lesson
 
Walking down the park path
My feet are cruddy
In my sandals,
And a girl's cotton candy perfume
Overshadows the roses.
The people are a bit malfacted
Though prideful,
I hear as my inner critic says,
"You have a good lesson."
What lesson?
The lessons of my life,
Are if you chase your dream
You'll lose, and will have everyone from Monday to Sunday
Trying to stop you.
If you have a conscience, and want to be rid of its burdens
Not to tell the police, for they will destroy you.
Do not offend the current conscience.
Do not stand up against corruption, especially if the people agree with it;
For if they want to change the rules they can.
That is the lesson thus far.

Oh! How the Magnificent rose is only a bud
And the ones blooming without yet their scent!










Time Stopped in the Valley
 
Driving down the country highway,
Route 177, a golden stream of sun
Shone over the hillocks and mountains
And the tree's leaves were upturned
After some wind,
And prostrate there, in their xanadu,
Still against the dark storm clouds.
Yet, the winds were still
So it was like time had stopped:
I thought how I once tried
To get a job shoveling manure
But some busybody farmer
Called up and said, "I won't let you do that, but
"Come work on my farm."
I nearly broke down again just thinking about it...
My body is weak and cannot farm
But I can shovel a stall a day thrice a week
And make enough money to do what I needed, 
And not put my dad and I in the poorhouse.
No, he wanted me to make a career
When I have one already.
What you see right here.
Time stopped in that moment
And the magnificent glory
Was stifled by the reality of our world:
The theme of the day, busy bodies ruining everything.
As time stopped twice
A subtle reminder of our world how everything is regulated
By those whose business it is not...
I wish golden moments could be preserved forever in a moment of time
And all the bad ones forgotten.
In fact they will in heaven.


I Eat Religion for Breakfast
 
The first whiff of the rose is always the most delicious;---

Upon my walk in the misty rain
The grey clouds loom, and a cool moisture
Permeates my exposed face,---
No thunder, but I bend to smell the blooming rose...
I eat a helping of Religion for breakfast
Apologetics for lunch
Church history for dinner
And the Bible my milk and honey sweetened tea.
And it produces the strength to walk
And the metaphors for my mead.
And God answers all secrets
I wish to ask, and opens
My brethren's words to me
So I see them exactly how they are.
I see the Gospel in all things
And know what people actually mean...
Why the atheists hate religion
Why the Christians love it.

The rose's scent is magnificent
And cultured... tamed and well bred.
So also is the heart exposed to the true Gospel
Which I find everywhere along my work.
I teach it to you, what I've found
Going about all of history to prove the divine order.
For religion is like a culture of the rose...
It clips the foul, it nourishes the strong,
It breeds the sweet and compassionate.
So I soak it into my roots and eat
Being just a wildflower, the chicory as I say.
I'm small among the wildflowers in blossom
But tall in this generation.
So I eat; that my petals may be a nourishment
And sweet scent to all.

Talking with Mr. Haefer
 
An old schoolteacher---
Some pranks, and windows---
He tells me about the clover that shoots its seed
And I look at his bird books.
The Snow in on the Mountain is growing
I think it's Hemlock; it's not, because of its leaves;
It's also too early in the spring.
He's more matured in his knowledge of these things
A Farmer's child.
He tells me about Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge
I tell him about the repeaters;
He tells me about the stone wall.---
I called Pickett's Charge Bull Run;
That's because my sister and I played once,
And we turned Bull Run into one of the locales of Gettysburg.
The blood ran thick in the water there.---
I remember being at Spangler's Farm now that he mentions it
And I saw that wall.
He tells me about Vicksburg
How the mortars shot into the houses
And made them splinters
As the townsfolk huddled in the caverns.
He tells me about the Red and White Mulberry Trees
And I said, "I have a black mulberry tree"
Thinking he meant the berries.
He tells me about the trees
And how they bear fruit...
Some self pollinate, some need others to pollinate
While some there's three kinds that are needed.
The mulberries are panache on the branch, right now.
I remember Hancock in my toy soldiers
Riding his horse.
But Meade I do not. I thought he was Grant.
And Lee on his horse and Longstreet.
Grant it turns out won Vicksburg, and was promoted to Major General
Where that great Lion won us the war; my emphasis.
We also talked about the butterflies
How they evolved because of London smoke;
And I thought of the Blue Moth:
Evolved because of all the flowers.


























The Bicyclist
 
A bicyclist was there
Talking with my dad
And asking for directions.
"Left or right or what way?"
I told him to go left
And up and down the lakeside trail;
My dad told him to go right, but I knew he needed
To know how to get back to where he parked.
I pointed to the rose scenting the trail
As it was the most fragrant that day...
To make his day pleasant, so he wouldn't be frightened
And therefore get lost.
Just so long as he didn't go whole way around the trail...
That's not a novice's path.
Like extreme sports or dangerous jobs
There are things a novice shouldn't be doing.
And I'm afraid right could have gotten him lost.
















On Keats' Ode to May Fragment
 
The mayflowers scent
The forest. My verse
Legendarium--left
To a little clan
As I die upon
The grass one glorious day
Passed down through
Twenty generations--
No, Ten Thousand!
Yet, my little life
Of mad verse was sore:
A legacy meant nothing
To me... only the fire
Of truth and a crock
Of lamb stew, fed
By the price of this labor.
What's more, if paradise
Does not open its
Door for me, and I
Not let in,---what was
This labor for but a
Noble pursuit of God's
Face? And if it will
Not be a guide for
Those seeking the same,
I am equally perplexed.








The Good Walk
 
I did a good
Walk... discussions were
Wide, and large.
Jokes, globalization,
Then we discussed
The historicity of the Bible.
Went down the line.
Discussion was robust.
Walking, I saw a 
Home with a camera.
It whistled and took
My picture.
I don't pretend
To know politics.
But I know I
Don't want my picture
Taken, while walking
Down the street.
I smelled the
Peonies, my Mimi's favorite
Flower--my favorite Roses are Peonies
But smell just like the Rose;
There is no thorn, but I'll still call them roses--
White and voluptuous were these
Like a rose,
But dissimilar.








Offense
 
Walking down the trail,
I take my usual left.
The roses are magnificent and
The honeysuckle scent the forest beautifully. 
I ask the travelers,
"Are there anyone behind you?"
They say yes, and there were.
I ask them, and there are not.
I, ready to do nature's bidding,
While in nature,---
But man is unnatural these days.
A cold shiver runs up my spine
Realizing we are in newer worlds...
Man could be offended by nature.
So I ramble to the commode
And do nature there.
















The Faded Rose
 
Walking through the street
The roses are faded;
Their scent majestic
Distinct above all other scents.
It looks like an aged woman
Who just yesterday was most beautiful among the flowers
And now, wrinkled, alive only for a short time.
Faded, her scent is strong, 
Still among the most beautiful
But the flower fades
And wrinkles.














 






Mother Bird
 
My nestling is weak
And will not leave his stick nest;
I must leave it here
To die, lest I freeze in the
Winter. 'tis also humane.

For it cannot make a life for itself
And will never breed. 'tis better for it
To die, than live a hard life, suffering.






















The Swallow and the Honeysuckle
 
A four mile walk;
June's Honeysuckle
Is lathered deep on my nostrils.
The swallows eat the gnats
So there are few of them while walking.
Their u shaped wings
Are wide, as they swoop
Here and there.























The Butterflies and the Snake
 
The honeysuckle is dying, and so are the roses.
Upon the path, two blue moths do battle
For the right to mate with the female
In her rocky colors. Brilliant is their sheen
A bright opal mauve, and they spar
Valiantly--they are now fully evolved.
And such is the way of the world,
You know? Two men of equal valiance
Fight for the hand of the waiting female.
It makes love seem so wrong
And it makes you so sad...
Yet it is the way of nature
That the two brightly colored
Males fight in their aerial wars
To win the right to mate with their weaker sex.

And so, upon the path, the snake slithered
And I, like I did with the three butterflies,
Avoided stepping on him, yet the snake
I went around, not knowing if it were a copperhead.
For the moths are bright and gay
But the snake a danger...
Such it is, you never tread
On both the good or the evil
But walk in peace with all men.









Flowers by the Road
 
Driving down the road,
Drinking nectar,
The flowers shown so beautifully.
I didn't know them
Or what species they were
And saw dozens I'd never seen.
Mystery, like in a good poem,
Or a good math problem,
Is good for the mind...
For familiarity breeds contempt.
Let it be unknown some things
And mysteries, and enjoy them
Where they are.



















The Lichen and the Lillies
 
Riddle me, it is the month of Gemini,
Of a Day numbered by Christ's Disciples,
In the year of the Snake;
Lichen grows like little tube worms
And the Tiger Lillies are first beginning.
Rioting is seen in Los Angeles,
Troops are deployed,
Despair racks my ileum
But my heart is at peace.
Like John Climacus had said
Or John Bunyan, it is by the envy of the demons
That I am tormented so;
Or the discernment of the time.
The retriever puppy licks my hand;
The mighty man is there seen once.
I pray for Rapture or to Die a Merciful Man in my bed.
Hide, yes! hide me from the wrath to come!
Yet, next year the lichen will grow
And if I am blessed enough to see it again
On this day, I shall see it there.
For all things are cyclic...
So is war and peace...
So is sin and righteousness.
So... it is all dust which blows in the wind;
Nothing parallels such majesty of its folk tune,
For time erodes all things
And the decay of forgetfulness all things.
Shall the Lotus eat my work forever?
Shall it be forgotten?
Phallused flowers grow, like a soft pink and fiery orange
And they are furry, and I've seen them for about two weeks.
They too, shall die. And maybe like the lichen
Grow in their perennial dance.
Just like war and hardship dance with peace and ease.

Echinacea
 
The echinacea is sprouting, some already purple;
The mulberries are half ripe, and half white.
The daisies are coming out in large numbers---
Some spring flowers are growing,
The veronica, and the wild strawberries.
Today is Father's Day, and dad makes bread
In the kitchen, as my brother's coming over.
The chicories have not sprouted;
The tomatoes are sprouting their orange florets
In the pottage we bought early this summer.
Some green fruits are hanging on the branch.
The Triune is seen late at night; soon to arise.

I write this poem last night, as strife occurs in the kitchen:

"Things fall apart.
"We both forebode.
"You do provide.
"Simple words; best
"Words. I love you."

The zucchini is little shoots, but my dad pruned it
And the tomatoes, their foliage
In the pot, decaying to the roots.
We need pruned to grow healthy and strong,
Yet one day we die, and our bodies become the feed
For the roots of grass. 
But hopefully long and happy life precedes it;
For there is nothing better here
Than to eat, drink, and enjoy your labor under the sun;
To grow, to drink, to knead, to shepherd. 




The Chicory
 
The first chicories are sprouting up.
I go to scrap my 2005 Corolla... 
4 dollars every hundred pounds.
I decide not to.
The Tiger Lilies are fiery...
I have a medium sized Homies collection
Two broken laptops and one that barely works,
A chess table,
A worthless coin collection,
A globe,
A lantern,
And 300 books.
All accounted for, 12 dollars to my name in the bank.
And some snobbish kid thinks my work isn't righteous enough to be marketed
So it never goes to market,
And another author tells me I'm too slow
And that people don't develop worlds anymore.
I feel a great pain in my stomach from depression,
And Google Docs is my only word processor at the moment
And it doesn't format the documents the right way.

Yet, with all things considered,
I read Peter and Paul
And see suffering is good for the soul.
For it teaches us how to love,
And as I talk about slavery
With two formidable atheists
I understand that without Christ
That slavery is meant for me...
As Christ will subdue the nations before Him
And make them slaves, and destroy the wicked.
And I say to myself,
"I don't want to be on His bad side."
For, He is good; I am not...
And it is not abusive to keep calling upon Him
Until He rains down what I desire;
Which is the Peace I know only proceeds from God.
For all good proceeds from God, and nothing 
Comes that isn't from Him,
Both good and evil.
Therefore, tremble and consider---
He has the ability to make the pains of hell
And they torment me at this moment
Giving me fear for my life
But it is only fleeting.
And Christ is also Who establishes peace.

So the Chicory grows,
And it is beautiful. 




















The War of Beelzebub

Walking down the park path,
Flies number in the hundreds
Swarming my hair, my face,
My back, my sides, my belly.
Biting everything they can gnaw.
Such it is, Beelzebub rises
From the Gehenna,
And the war is ferocious...
The flies, his minions,
His rioters and drunkards and philistines
They swarm the world, and bit
All who pass by.
Soon, Wisdom releases her arrows
And the Dragon Flies
Like Seraphim come,
And they eat the flies 
One by one, and their numbers
Lessen, and their larva
Cannot be grown to multiply. 














The Plastic Lichen

The first dragonfly is seen...
It swoops here and there...
The forest greets me today,
As I bend over to touch the lichen.
It is only plastic protruding out of the ground.
Why? I do not know.
Like Homosexuality,
It looks natural
Until you touch it.
And then you know...
"Oh, it is only plastic." 





















Paul the Flower
 
Walking through the forest,
I realize, there were a yellow wild flower
And a gray Mushroom.
The flower was a thick petal
Chubby and fat, like a maid's skirt.
The mushroom round circled on the head
And curved up, with a brown top and thin stem.
I realized, Paul was like the Flower
So tall, and educated and elegant,
Knowing Epimenides and Homer
And Plato and such.
The other apostles like the mushroom
Short in stature, earthy and inedible.
An educated Pharisee must be chosen 
By God, to bring the religion to its zenith;---
And chosen and elected, a once persecutor of the church.
So also the Holy Spirit can minister through our learning. 















The Chicory and the Lilies

The Chicories are blue,
Contrast against the orange lilies.
Such a beautiful sight,
As they stay bright through the rainy day.
They do not got to sleep, except in the summer's heat.
They are open, and are beautifully there
Which on a hot summer day, they close
In the eventide.
Just like me, when things are cool
And there is a light rain I shine my brightest
And comfort the traveler.
But, when there is scorching heat,
I close up and do not show my color.



















The Mimosa Tree

The Mimosa Tree is pink, there my
First time noticing them, as I drive up the country highway.
The tomatoes are green on the vine.
The squash and zucchini just leaves.
The tomato flowers, orange and wilting, so are falling off...
Rain keeps pouring every week.
Strange somberness, and pain in my stomach
I am pained every day by strong depression.
The Mimosas don't know,
Neither does Bunny in the front yard---
Five wars happen outside of my little world;
So does four genocides.

The cabbage was picked this week
And we ate some of it.
When you cook it, it makes a sulfurous smell.
It's not very pleasant.
It made a Chef's Salad, and was good.
I eat... Palestinians and Jews starve...
So do Iranians, Indians, Pakistanis and Ukrainians and Russians.
They say the cultures that have more war are more religious...
Sure I'm not so worthy to tell you that isn't true.
The expert debater tells me it is so and creams me in an argument.
But I know something's off in my gut.
I know beneath that is an information of lies
As nine million Uighurs disappeared from Myanmar.
Good kings and queens were cast out of their homes.

There really aren't any good guys if you look at it,
I said recently regarding Vietnam—it was asked “Who's the good guys.”
Simply the poets. That's all we have now is our voice.
Today
 
The birds eat the mulberries...
And it is okay, for they farm them
Looking at the branches, and monitoring it
Waiting for the berries to ripen.
I received a few fruit, but when strong
The Mulberry Tree will produce many fruits.
The turtle crosses the road faster than I'd
Ever seen a turtle run, and is unharmed.
The hot summer day is a good day to mow grass.
The squash are growing,
Before they shoot out their flowers;
They are little tender nubs now. 























The Next Day

A groundhog runs by;
The squash had grown so fast, some
Five inches today.
The little nubs now bright orange 
Bulbs. Rain falls. A terrier. 






























Grace

We prune the orange flowers
Knowing we are doing wrong.
We produce less fruit...
Sometimes the plant dies by our pruning.
Yet, the rain still comes;---
The Earth still gives its scent;---
The birds fly by;
The Lightning fertilizes it.

Deep in our gut we know...
But we do it anyway.
And the flower does not produce fruit.
We poison its roots.
An unforgivable sin.
But, it is forgiven nonetheless,
Though we say, "I hadn't killed the plant.
"It was done the only way I knew how."
And we have knowledge,
And carry on unknowingly;
We do not know we had killed it
That with a little expertise
We may have saved the plant from extinction.
But, there is the lesson:
We pridefully go about our business
But grace leaves a little fruit on the vine
Despite our uncultured ways. 









The Flowering Trees

In the Fourth of July
The trees are flowering.
White, purple, pink...
Everywhere you go, the trees flower.
The big flowers...
I pray to the LORD
Not understanding why I am being smitten.
Is it because I do not wish to throw my pearls before swine?
Is it because I do not market, or schmooze 
Or live as a grifter and con man
Going door to door, peddling soap?
Why am I poor?
It is because I will not take advantage of someone.
That is why.
And the mad man tells me his ten thousandth of a cent
Is too much to pay for my Medicaid.
I committed no fraud.
Had I just sat around, and did nothing
I wouldn't be such a controversy.
Had I not learned math, or philosophy, or religion, or logic
I'd be smoking my medical cannabis
And all would be well with me.
For I would be in my place.
Either do nothing, and live like an invalid
Or work for enough to bankrupt me.
Those are your options in the American Economy. 









The Flowers in Bloom
 
On my walk, the Eastern Willow Herb
And the wild American Cannabis flower--yellow--
Are strong. The Daisies too. The Tiger Lilies are dying
And so is the Echinacea. Someone is harvesting Hemlock
To, probably, poison rodents.

Snapdragons and Hibiscus grow, in many fiery and floral colors.

The two children get their dragon toys.
They bloom and grow like the flowers.
At 4 they know not how to be alone
At 5 they can have some autonomy.

There dragons take them to the sky and sea...
They are in wonder...
Yet hopefully jealousy doesn't poison them
Or the hemp pipe;---which only make one more anxious
Nevertheless... the snake oil of the 21st century, we're back
To the days of peddling it because everyone would rather get high
Than taste the cherry of wine on their potatoes and meat. 













99%

The child says, “There's a 99% chance
“There's a snake in the reeds.”
I say such a statement is true,
Though the probability is false...
Such it is humans exaggerate
But it was on the same path
I saw the brown snake,---
Not knowing what kind it were,
And didn't want to find out,---
Who has his migratory pattern from the 
Frisbee Golf Course out onto the Park Entrance.
So I said, “That is true;
“There is a snake in the area.”
Such it is, educated guesses have about a 25% 
Chance of coming true, but seeing it firsthand
You can predict the patterns beforehand.
Though it is the snake's home
Just like there were bear scat on the path
I was walking a bit earlier.
Such it is, nature is a bit dangerous,
But the kid was right to use caution.














Mowing the Lawn

I awake from my depression at 12pm
Having gone to bed at 2pm.
And I immediately go out to mow the yard.
The humidity makes it like 110 degree heat.
Slowly I slug, seeing the wildflowers,
Some hot pink, some yellow, the clover turning purple
In the dead of Summer's Heat.

I take many breaks, but then a cool front blows in
And when I am about to give up,
I am refreshed
And finish the job.
Soon, rain comes nearly immediately after finishing.
I think about this... how you work and do what you need to do, and it is timed perfectly before the floods--

As I wrote on the Apostles today,

Matthew Levi Alphaeus—wrote a gospel being the only one literate.

James Son of Thunder died immediately, and was among the first martyrs. 

Judas Thaddeus Lebbeus Son of James and Simon the Zealot were evangelists in Persia and Syria, 
And planted churches there. 

Philip we know evangelized in Israel from Acts, but they say went as far as Anatolia and Greece and lived in Caesarea Philippi. 

John was the eldest apostle, dying at a ripe old age, and dictated the book of John through Papias around 90AD. 

Nathan Bartholomew established churches in Armenia, some of the oldest churches in the world. 

Doubting Thomas was an evangelist in Asia and India—and was killed by a Pagan King, 
Same with Jude and Simon in Persia. 

Peter was stationed in Jerusalem and Rome, and was the Rock which kept the church solvent—they say the first bishop of Rome—and the source for the Gospel of Mark. 

Andrew ministered the churches in Turkey, which are some of the most famous in Christianity, being mentioned by John. 

Paul and Matthais were the two half tribes, and Matthais ministered all around the world, but seemed to plant Ethiopian Churches which again are among the eldest. 

James the Son of Alphaeus—or James the Less—was Bishop of Jerusalem, and the source,---along with Mary the Lord’s Mother,---of the Gospel of Luke. 

But they planted hundreds of churches, in dozens of locations, each around the known world. 
They traveled everywhere planting churches, 
Each one might have visited about a dozen locations, within a 700 mile radius. 

And I realize my true work is like theirs---traveling to Iran
By means of electric highways, and to Russia, and China
And to Europe.
And I publish the Gospel to the whole world... what ought else I do with my vain life?
Like the tomato, turning orange on the vine
I am ripening to my sweetest maturity...
To where I know what is needed
And like these men, can share the good news.
A Walk After The Rain

The park is empty, quiet.
The birds singing.
The trees soft.
The toads hopping along the pathways.
All the Squirrels making their cries for the commotion in the bush.
Rain dripping from the canopy.
The paths full of brown puddles
Which wash my sandaled feet.


























Fewer of the Wildflowers

Driving along, and walking,
There are fewer of the wildflowers;
A dandelion here,
A few dying Echinacea there,
But mostly just green sward
As far as the eye can see.
The day is muggy...
I listen to the sermon:
“Don't feel despondent over sin
“But rather see Jesus in yourself.”
Good word, for when you feel despondent 
See Christ as your worker,
And not yourself.
Do not try to actively do
But rather rest in the LORD's grace
And be a good person through Him
For that is the Sabbath.

Yet the music is melancholy these days
Not joyful.
Very few have joy---
For we all must feel despondent over sin
For all are sinners, grave and fat.
Therefore, the music reflects it
By having no joy,
And a melancholy peace.
Like the roadside, with the wildflowers
Where there are no flowers,
Only sward.






The Things in Nature Today

The fallen trees were harvested,
Hanging over the trail.
The fish, my dad said, broke the plane of the water.
The Robin cried for mercy,
As we talked politics by her baby's nest,
Her red chest and wings arched three feet above my head.
The radios played rap and heavy metal
In the woods...
Passerbyes said nothing but to themselves.
Come the report, there must be what's done
The tree hung there for months,
And could have fallen at any moment.
Yet, I prayed—inevitable it be answered--
That the tree be cleaned up
Before it fall on someone.
So I pray...
And felt a blessing behind the tree as I walked past it
Not knowing what the blessing meant.
For the blessing came, and I walked,
The next day there was little signs that it was accomplished.
So it is... when you pray for something—even something small--
There are little signs that accompany it
Such as a rainstorm blowing the rain away from your open
Fuel socket, or the still whisper of God's voice;
Or the feeling of peace you get walking past a tree.
You know not, until it happens...
And when it does, there is rest;
Yet upon your journey, there lies the next danger
Which must be also prayed for.





The Crane

Frogs croak in the evening sunset;
The crane silhouetted by the sun upon the lake,
The geese waddle here and there,
And meander by,
Two feet away from my legs
As I cautiously do not try to backtalk them;---
They will hiss.

Climbing down the hill,
If I fell, I could arouse their suspicion
And thereby get attacked.
For the geese rule the roost;
The flies buzz and bite
But do not try to talk to the goose.
They may grab you, or hiss.
Just like a stranger I'm afraid,
Are like the goose.
You talk to them, they may hiss at you
Or grab at you...
They do not perceive your words
For you are not of their flock
And although you speak the same language
They do not know your words;
The goose,---unlike the man who knows your language,---
They stand rude, and bold, not understanding.
Long conversations, and familiarity
Brings one to understand you:
For that is what's right: One who is not of your flock
Cannot comprehend your words.
They will hiss,
And while you understand them---
If you are a good listener---
They cannot understand you
And will grab and hiss.

Half Ripened

Tomatoes ripen on the vine;
Squash is half formed by a flower and the fruit;
Slowly, it matures, the flower closing in
To make the gourd a little phallus at the end of its orange petals.
I am half ripened...
Immature...
I wish to be fully formed but am not.
Stress makes me foggy and incapable of concentration
Stress and sleep...
Survival.
LORD---the rains came, and you blew them away
From flooding me.
You blew them away.
They did not enter, and I was saved.
Again... I am too weak and frail;
I am too afraid.
LORD, strengthen me upon my bed of sickness.
For I had mercy upon the poor.
Or are You like a liar to me?
LORD, do not be as a foreigner to me
For I am Thy son, Brandon,
Of whom You said, “you shall know my peace.”
LORD, this work is half ripened, halfway to maturity.
Do not let it be obstructed; my hand is not slack in seeking You.
For I love You, and love my work which You have given
Me under the sun.
It gives me great joys to serve You
And great joys to teach Your Law and appreciate Your deep ways.
LORD, You are Good... therefore, Deliver me.
Satan is too powerful for me to deliver myself,
Therefore, You, yes You, accomplish salvation on Your own
For Thy Servant Brandon's sake. Amen.


Approaching Zion

Walking  down the path, I saw a beautiful maid.
Elder than normal, but sumptuous and robust
In a long white skirt, and shirt...
She played tennis in the courts by herself
Hitting vollies.
A blue butterfly flew into view,
Large, the size of two silver dollars,
And the Echinacea were dying upon the path.
The wildflowers grew, which looked like 
Late Hesperis and butterfly bush, and the Lichen looked like fine dust
Upon the paths yesterday after weeks of solid rain.
I thought to myself,
“Should the LORD be a beautiful maid---
“Know I only make a metaphor--
“Should the LORD be a beautiful maid
“I have nothing to give Him.
“My worthless bank account,
“My old and rusty and keyed up car,
“My broken computers.
“And my malformed and scrawny body.
“My ill reputation,
“Weak and feeble, unable to provide for itself.
“I consider if I were to approach Him--
“As if He were this maid--
“He would accept my courtship.
“Though I have nothing to give Him.”








The Lichen in the Field

It were a rainy couple of weeks;
The lichen grew in the woods.
I remember the fuzzy lichen
And the Pink Lichen in March;
And I saw another lichen today.
I remembered once that I contemplated suicide,
And even was about to commit it;
But a white bird flew over the lake
Where I would go and die
But all access to it was blocked.
Over years does the lichen build itself
And then it blooms in the rain.
The lowest and the highest lifeforms;
The white bird flying,
Looking like a crane of light.
And the lichen
So low...
I thank you LORD
For saving my life that day.
Bless me with my inheritance
Of the Holy Hill of Zion.













Hawks

Two hawks did battle over the road.
The Swallows ate the gnats over the grass.
The gold finches flew,
Catching the wind.
Look... see the gospel with your eyes.
For it is getting forgotten in our world
And retreated on every front.
Godly men are losing their faith...
Righteous men are being persecuted by
The envy of the demons.
Just believe...
Call upon the one name Jesus Christ.
There is no other name.
For the Woman's Seed shall bruise the serpent;
How we have forgotten it.
Scripture changes...
Men fight over interpretations.
Christ said to the man in vision:
“I gave them all they needed to be saved
“But man had corrupted my gospel.”
Therefore, remember this:
Love Your Neighbor as Yourself
Love the LORD your God with your Whole Heart, Mind, Soul and Strength.











The Squash

Upon my walk, little skirts
Of white wildflowers grew
Like Trumpets.
Pure white. They grew from vines,
And I saw the Echinacea were dying.
They smell good... floral, to the form of a flower.
The squash is all flowers, dozens of them.
Orange, and closing to make the fruit.
More tomatoes ripening.
I think of the maid in the white skirt,
Who looked like Zion.
I think of the maid at the restaurant
Who looked like Zion.
At least what I'd like Zion to be.
Flowers are soft, and then close and grow hard...
They are in that sweet moment right now
Just changing before my very eyes.
So it is I must transform, from immaturity
To maturity and ripe fruit
So I can have one like her...
So I can be kind and nurturing,
And take care of our children.
And not be negligent and bashful
Or pull away when they try to hug.
No, I must ripen to my natural affection
And petition the LORD to have it...
So my heart swells in me
And has kindness and compassion
And I feel love-mirth
Again. And so I can love with gentleness
And not feel afraid of affection.
I must be turned from a gentle flower
Into a strong, nourishing gourd.


Memories

Walking down the path,
I look to my bare feet...
As my brother's fiance said yesterday
She looks at her feet
To avoid tripping over stones.
A happier time is reminiscent in my mind
But I remember back to when a schoolboy...
It was the same melancholy.
Rather, the peace came from knowing I was a sinner.
And walking through the camp
Summoning Ghosts,
I could feel my schizophrenia then;
But there was a melancholy of sort
Which I felt today,
Which is similar to what I always feel.
The plants to the side of me, that look like Mandrake
But aren't, the poison ivy, the weeds;
The flowers are all gone, but the squash leaves are yellowed
And their flowers are soft still... and they grow fruit.
The tomatoes ripen on the vine, growing orange and then 
Red Orange.
I consider this tart fruit;
Nutritious, I consider my thoughts are wrong
And my goings are evil...
That is why they persecute me.
Not for my righteousness, but for my dreams.
For I have offended, and committed offenses in my dream--
Therefore, I look upon my sandals, and know my thoughts
But understand the melancholy of silence
That I am a sinner;
I cannot rejoice for it is not righteousness I am persecuted for.
Or is it?
Yet, I meditate on my sins and take full accountability
And so I have the the recollection of who I was.


Grow Up

You don't grow up until you have a woman;
And a woman don't grow up until she has a man.
Blue curls grow on the path
In beautiful purple florets.
Sure sign it is late July or early August,
When they first appear;
Yet I think of the science of mating
How one passes from immaturity to maturity
When the process begins.
Quirky childlike behavior ends;
And when there's children
The video games get put away for adult hobbies
Like making miniature models.
Yet, an immature snake lies on the path
And a good man sees it, and knows
One bite from its venom kills;
So he removes it for the travelers, with a stick.
That is religion's job,
To prepare the hearts of men and women
To grow up, into adulthood,
And meet in conjugal bonds;
To prepare the heart for discipline,
And to teach it to put away childish things.
To remove the venomous serpent of immaturity
So you can love and nurture your family.
And this only can happen, when two are fully joined,
And neither are separated.








On Victoria Trail

We climbed the mountain.
On the way, we could see the White Cranes fishing in the 
Mile wide Susquehanna near Harrisburg.
Toadstools, many varieties, all orange and white
Lined the path.
My dad was meek and mild,
And descending was difficult.
We got lost half way, but didn't go too far
And had to turn around
To the Blue Markers.
We didn't summit today.
The rock stairs were hard to descend, as we 
Climbed down gingerly, and I held my breath
At every step my dad took.
Getting older... I didn't know how much further we could go
Or how long the trail might be.
We were almost there, but we turned around at a good time.
Another day...
I've never actually summitted the Appalachian Trail, 
In my 36 years;
The one time my dad had to carry me
Another time, I slept in a sleeping-bag along the side of the mountain
Always turning back around.
One day I will. I just know it.

But on our way home,  geese blocked cars on the road
Looking like dumb folk haughtily strutting 
In front of vehicles begging for a conflict.






Walk at the Park with Mom

The white crane flies over the lake;
The goldfinch catches the wind
And sails like a roller coaster
It's winged body going up and down.
The geese waddle here and there.
The Gray Heron stands on the shelf of reeds.

My mom talks about a TV show she likes
About the devil,--
And I tell her about the devil in real life.
I tell her,
“You are one of my greatest treasures
“And I want you in heaven.
“That is why I came back.”
So I tell her the truth, that Satan is a tyrant
Who wishes to ascend to the throne of God almighty.
He wants everyone to die and go to hell like him.
For he is jealous of our station,
That we will dwell in Jerusalem forever,
And be in no danger of ever falling like him.















Thorn in the Flesh

The White Crane stands by the lakeside.
I am reminded of the Spirit;:---
A sermon I lashed out against:
“Teach me to let go of the thorns
“The worldly cares like marriage and money
“And honor and glory!”
Is actually perfectly timed.
For the Thorn was Paul's thorn
Which he could not remove,
Though he prayed three times to remove it.
It was in his flesh...
A messenger of Satan was in his flesh.
Yet,  Grace was sufficient to restore Paul to good conscience.
Why was this thorn given?
So Paul could not be exalted beyond measure. Selah.




















The Singing Insects

The singing insects made a choir;
Crickets and croaks and crikes and chirps;
They chirped and sung, as I walked down the path
With the Triune in the heavens above.
I suppose I talked with another author today
And he told me my writing was bad;
As he used ellipsis over and over again
But I was redundant for using “me”.
My grandparents approved, I said,
And I am like one of the silent generation.
For my moral compass is not broken;
Or is it? I cannot do what I wish.
“I corrupt myself,” I say.
I was never a straight A student in my grammar courses;
A home born, PA Dutch Idiolect is what you get.
Generative, descriptive... basically, he said I said nothing.
Is this true? Or is it my writing goes deeper,
And you have to read it close?
I said I would not offer it to him, because I need a patient listener.
I'm too prideful, and it stings...
But if I'm only being honest
I would not cave to his demands
As then he'd be one of the singing insects.
I would not throw a pearl.
Nothing stings anymore, beside offering my plate to dragons
And listening to them offend my discourse.
I can tolerate them hating my ideas,
But go after my written word...
There I know I am weak.
So it does sting.
I have a rude expression... but it works.



The Rose of Sharon

The Tiger Lilies are dying.
The Sunflowers have just arisen and are small.
Their stalks are tall,
But their faces tiny.
The Son rises, and Matthew writes it down--
For he was a publican,
Why wouldn't he be literate
And therefore write down
The Gospel in real time?
Thomas took it to India with him in 56AD...
It could be, Matthew is written right on the spot.
Mark is second, written through the testimony of Peter
By Peter's memory, and then through Mark's memory.
Thus, it is short, sweet and to the point.
Q is Jesus Christ.
Luke accompanied Paul
And walked with Paul,
And met James and Mary and John and Peter through him.
John, was dictated t0 Papias, who wrote it down.
And four times alike Tautology, repeated;
For tautology is the basis of all logic.
Thus, the Son rises,
The Lily of the Valley, the Rose of Sharon
Which are in bloom right now--
Though Christ's scent is like the Rose Bush I smell in May;
The false prophetess said, “Christ's scent is like the Rose
“Of Sharon because He doesn't exist, and a Rose of Sharon
“Does not have a scent.”
Nay... the Rose of Sharon smells like the magenta Peonies
Or like a red rose given to one's lover.
For Matthew wrote it down;
Thus we know He lived, and died, and taught and raised.



Why I Am not An Atheist

If Atheism made any sense to me,
I'd be an atheist.
But, arguments about how morals are predicated
On human judgment--
Lucretius has the best argument of course
But then some people like squalor and pain.
The grass gets mowed;
The lightning bugs are about to come out.
The Crickets are doing their first chirping.
I'd say Religion will be persistent, because it offers a better morality
Than atheists can.
Specifically the religion of Christianity.
Then of course there's “Evolution.”
Why is God not all powerful?
If He does exist?
Then there's “Science”
Which I'm now being told is a human construct;
As so is mathematics.
So, it seems like to have anything real at all,
You need God all the more,
As that was the established fact of Rene Descartes' philosophy,
Not just “I think therefore I am,”
But that we have a good God who lets us trust our senses.
That what we perceive is real.
Of course, you chalk up all the bad arguments of atheism,
They gain steam because people don't think
Or look around at the suffering caused by it.
It replaces every good thing
With a counterfeit.
Love with emotion.
Joy with fun.
Peace with forced agreement.

A Journey's Beginning, a Journey's End

Begun, the first two steps on my journey
The woman, with her dog,
Stands by the trail anxiously.
He looks like Scruffy, and his tail loose,
As he mouths my hand.
The rain clouds are looming gray and ominous,
But the dove sings.
My body swells with growth hormones
As I worked out an entire hour.
Begun, the journey is a long road to better health.
My language is many--but my own,--
My heart must bear the berth of
The critic...
That journey I am on the last step
So I want to be healthy.

And I look at my Middle Brow poetry;
It is beautiful is it not?
Beauty is middle brow.
Good feelings are kitsch.
I understand now...
Authors aren't meant to make joy or love or peace.
Only bitterness and sour envy.
For the poet is best heartbroken;
The artist best making murals of garbage.
A little eccentricity is illegal;
A bad deed more injurious due to Kairos;
Yet fortune is not my anchor,
Only bread and meat and fruit and milk.
 So, I wish to be healthy...




The Chicory, the Hemlock and the Queen Anne's Lace

Walking down the path,
I saw the wild hemlock with the wild carrot.
I saw the Chicory there, growing beside it
In its opalescent blue.
I considered, a Chicory can be made into bitter drink
We know what it is...
But the Hemlock and Wild Carrot
Only the most careful naturalist can know...
For Queen Anne's Lace is not dangerous
But the Hemlock is,
And there both of them grow together.
Like the Tares and Wheat...
The gall and nectar.
What sort will I be?
I have a bitter drink,
But a pleasant flower.


















The Baby Bunnies

Two baby bunnies sit outside my perch.
They eat, and their little mouths chew the cud.
They are so cute, and beautiful.
Yet, they know not the danger.
The cat lurks nearby, somewhere,
Waiting to gobble them up.
They are young, and know nothing about survival.
And sometimes they do die.
Precious little innocent things---
Nature is a wonder to me.
You get caught up in the good parts of it,
You start to realize
That yes, there are bad parts, too.
Such it is about Aesop's Fables
The predator stalks the prey;
And the lesson is on how not to get caught.
I do not know how not to get caught.
So must await the providential blessing
To restore me.
Yet the Didache says, 
“You shall be saved by the curse itself.”
I shall...
“Blessed is he who mourns, for he shall be comforted;
“Blessed is he who loses his life, for he shall gain it.”
So many hopes and dreams
Beautiful ones...
But they do not come to fruition yet.
Maybe they never will?
Yet, just let go.
Let yourself be a prey if you have to,
It is better to die, than to be the predator.
So I eat my broad plantain leaves.



August 3rd, 2025

The trees last year, were stressed from heat.
This year they are stressed from rain.
The Mimosas are out,
The Calendula is growing,
So are the Brown Eyed Susans,
And the Echinacea
Are still a little pink.
The corn is at peak ripeness.
The peaches are sweet.
The tomatoes are about over,
And the squash is ending, too.
Too much rain, too much of something
Can cause stress...
Even if that thing were a good thing.
So the trees are molting in early August.
Some of them.
The Summer festival is yet to be,
The children are not in their school buses.
Yet, some of the trees are already molting...
Heat and rain can cause that,
As last year the heat caused them to get sick too,
And an untimely rainstorm that wiped out and mildewed all the crop.
The Wheat is in its stacks,
The Hay also...
It is August.
The Triune is in the Eastern Horizon, and Center of the sky late at night.







The Japanese Barberry

I rub the tree's berry beneath my armpit
To see if it swells---I've never seen one before.
It is a Japanese Barberry.
Safe to eat, but invasive.
Pull it out, and burn it.
Things foreign in your country---
Not man but flora and fauna---
Pull it out. The Spotted Lantern Flies 
Arrived a month early, too.
Kill them. It is the right thing.
A time to kill; a time to heal.
Kill the plants and insects,
But not your neighbor.






















Mimesis

I looked at the grass... it was long and had little
Mounds of dead grass in it.
Brown and piled up.
My experience with it,
That is my personality,
But Mimesis is the grass itself.
It is the old concept of Logos,
Our place among an objective world---
A sense of Other as another Poet once said,
Trying to come to terms with the mountain.
The other term is called “Existential Awakening”.

For there is other, and our writing about it
In fiction is Mimesis.
Our experiences with it,
Other wills, and understanding them.
And Authoritarians do not like that---
For they are all about themselves
And bending reality around their own will.
They do not want a sense of other.
Only themselves.














The Muslim Family

The deer run through the woods;
I see them in the flash,
An arched body, twisted and trying to get away.
The Bluebird's wing is so blue.
So it is, I see the man at the park,
Taking pictures...
And there's a Muslim family across the way
In the direction of his lens,
And those youthful beauties wear burkas.
I must say, I don't feel offended by it...
They are good people.
I just sense a goodness in them,
So I sing to Jesus as I approach them again,
To the car, as they sit down to eat their meals.
Maybe to convert them;
Maybe to show our freedom of religion.
Maybe both.


















I Am The Grackle

The Grackle sits by the branch,
Moving only a little as I walk by.
I am the Grackle;
The Blackbird;
The poet.
The Squirrel makes his appearance too.
I say, “The trees will have ears,”
To the online Tyrant.
A black man, who thinks the Constitution
Is just a myth,
And that rights are too..
No, he doesn't want the Constitution
Or its laws.
He wants large companies to spy on us...
And look at our social media profiles,
And use Social Credit systems
To disbar us from employment
Because we may be an offensive employee:
We may have said a forbidden word once.
So, I say, “The trees will one day have ears.”
He thought he was smart...
And called me a Trump Supporter
A Capitalist,
And told me to touch grass.
I sing my songs, and may lose my life singing them...
But I am the Grackle,
The Blackbird,
The true poet.







The Bats

I see the bats by the light;
Eating gnats and mosquitoes, and flies.
I just realized I didn't see any mayflies this year.
Bat wings fluttering, they look like birds
Darting to and fro through the night.
The local kids are having a party
Around their motorcycles.
I hear a vehicle do burnouts...
I know that sound.
I started having flashbacks to my 
Terror in the Mustang Convertible
Where I barrel Rolled in it,
And it threw out two girls I loved,
Nearly killing them both.
I only hope those kids don't make similar mistakes;
I would tell them, or maybe I shouldn't.
I'm too shy,
As their big dog meanders nearby.
I realize that singular event is what shook my world,
And made me realize I wasn't immortal.
It taught me the cold realities of life.
 My confident 19 year old self
Could do anything I wanted... 
I could never die.
Now, I think of death as a sweet release.
The difference between sanity and being insane.
Then, I struck two kids with a vehicle out of paranoia,
And then, I confessed to crimes I committed
At 14. Spent time in jail.
Was on probation twice.
Sex offender registry once.
High blood pressure.
Gas-lighting. Hatred by friends and family.
Nothing but these books which offend
People, so woke people don't want me to publish them.


The Sages and the Sunflowers

The sunflower faces are small;
I talk about Pythagoras.
The snide scholar mocks.
“You believe that nonsense?”
Why, yes I do.
Though it has mythological lines,
It speaks a core of truth.
Unlike the Gospels—which are wholly truth--
Sweet Watermelon is eaten,
And fresh Summer Corn,
And Tomatoes off the vine;
That is the nourishment of the Sages.
East, Semitic and West;
Yet truthfully all the same wisdom
Repackaged for different ages.
Pythagoras studying in Tyre, then Egypt, and then Babylon,
And made a captive of Cambyses, in Egypt's 40 year captivity.
The sunflower has yet to make its seed.
How do I spread my seed yet immature?
If someone wrote an account,
And others have written down theirs based on it...
And two witnesses agree.
No, I love Pythagorean Philosophy,
And Confucian Philosophy...
But my true love is the Gospel.
But they wish to nullify them,
And say they were developed over time
By many men,
And cut the heads off the flowers
Those ancient sages
And cast the disk to the ground.
It is the final martyrdom of the Sages, I'm afraid.
To say they never were, and ignore their advice
So the sun blackens, and blood flows in the rivers.



Cretins and Cretans

The chicories are blue upon the mouth of the trail,
And they can make a stale coffee.
The Woodpecker plucks away, tapping on a branch
Looking for insects, though it is out of sight.
The butterfly, or is it a moth, I don't know,
But it's a brown color, it flies into view
Dazzled by the sun, like a mirage.
There are yellow jackets on the trail,
So says a couple walking their dog.
And the horse fly is bothersome.
I realize, that I am a Cretin.
So, it is, atheists say, “Cretins are always liars.”
As of August 11th 2025, Cretin's etymology
Comes from “Christian”, as it was a way of
Saying those with disabilities were Christian too.
And lo, we are liars, hearkening back to memories
Of a salient time with freedom,
Telling how things were,
Rather than how they were written.
And the Cretan tells me, “You are a Cretin.”
A Cretin is a liar, who tells the truth,
Though nowhere is it written anymore,
Yet memory tells us it was so.
A Cretan tells his truth,
Manufacturing the words on a page
To fit his worldview, though it never were.
And thus, the Cretin and Cretan have their debate,
And it is frustrating, because the Cretan
Abuses his authority to rewrite the past,
While the Cretin has a good memory.
Thus, one lies, and thereby tells the truth.
And one tells the truth, but thereby lies.
A mystery indeed.


August Antlers

Driving down the road,
Praying to God to heal me from my insanity,
Seeing the trees water stressed, and losing their leaves,
Not really upset,
I notice the August Antlers on the Deer.
Immature, two months from being full,
Still with their rind of skin growth.
I pray to the LORD,
And hear the Wicked Stepmother say,
“Paul had a demon, and you need to know evil
“To defend yourself against it.”
I see the child in the demon mask and horns
That looks like me...
I am not offended.
Just crying out for mercy.
Some person I knew, deeply hates me.
Could be any number of people.
Calling me a “White Devil.”
Wishing me to be the Antichrist.
It cannot be;
They come to me, while I'm in captivity,
And visit me, and speak curses over me.
And the Wicked Stepmother says it,
“Aha! I have even caused Paul to be Demon Possessed!”
As she tells me about 1000 books of the Bible.
I tell her there is one narrow way.
66 books, and that is the story I am sticking to.
Many sermons, many commentaries,
Many apocryphal works, with some heterodoxy
That must be mentally resisted,
Many hymns, many creeds, many witnesses
Many artistic expressions...
But only 66 books of scripture,
As those are our only real eyewitnesses.

The Desert Man

The Dog Day Cicadas are whistling,
The fireflies are starting to appear less frequently at night.
The sunflowers are small, still, not yet large and vibrant.
I tell the man who has only been in Arizona
—never another place--
It is a good place to travel.
Not for city slickers, but for people
Who like Country Folk, and earthy humble people.
I think anyone who knows only flat deserts
Would be impressed by our many rivers
Lakes, the wide Susquehanna,
The little Conodoguinet
 And Yellow Breeches;
Our Creeks and Cricks are the equivalent
Of some other places' mighty and ancient rivers.
Waterfalls at Ricketts Glenn, though I've never seen them.
The Blue Mountains.
The rolling hills of corn and wheat and soy,
The barns, the silos, the orchards.
















The Mating Pair

The goldfinches eat the seed 
Off the dying Echinacea.
Their yellow bodies, and black underbellies
Are good in their summer coat.
The female is a bit less vibrant
But the two are a mating pair.
Such a beautiful thing,
As I saw the couple at the gym today,
So beautiful, like these birds
In their perfect forms;
Both formidable beauties.
A male and female,
The male a little more beautiful.






















Insanity

I broke... trying to be good.
No Christian taught me love, peace or mercy,
But taught me to love God.
Yet, I do no sin, beside what I do in my dreams.
And my dreams are only dreams.
If the Gospel is not to be a good person,
I don't want it.
So, sacrifice my sanity on the altar of righteousness
I shall receive peace.
For... insanity is a small price to pay
For using every atom of my flesh to do what is right...
Even if poor and hated, and called “Insane”.
Even if hated by Christian and Greek alike...
Hated by Persian and Eastern--
I have not committed an error
Beside an imaginary one---
Therefore, I have not sinned;
But lo, I sin every day with my conceit and selfishness,
And my uncharitable attitude,
And for that I pray.
Though poor, insane, and bleeding emotional scars
I have no regret.
For, if the world were a little kinder,
We'd all have the things we want,
And that is why I'm a Christian
Is that Christianity made us so much kinder.
I mow the grass, see the plantain, and clover,
And the little yellowing leaves of dried grass...
The wild strawberry leaves, the dandelion greens.
I am as ordinary as this grass...
Not righteous, drying up and losing my green.
Yet, I realized today, that I have a desire
For good... therefore, God shall soak me
In my desire, to make me not so proud a man,
But a lush field, a righteous man.



The Butterfly Effect

Along the path, the beauty was fly fishing
Looking almost like Zion walking on water.
She will give birth to our LORD.
Along the path, I see the butterfly,
As it is dying.
It cannot move, and struggles.
The thought enters my mind to crush it,
And put it out of its misery,
But instead, I lean down and touch it.
It rejuvenates, and flutters away with full strength.
There, where it were before,
Was bear scat, and I realized,
Had I stepped upon the Butterfly,
I would have soiled my bare foot
Wrapped in the sandal.
Such transient things,
There is power in hope, and life...
And yet there is despair and death
Which suck power away.
So, through sheer hope,
You can be rejuvenated,
And rejuvenate those around you.
Listen to the little drumming in the wood,
It is the woodpecker...
Look at the fish and butterflies,
There was a blue one too.
Be hopeful, and never too keen to throw away
Life... for you never know if it may once again
Refresh you with the latter rains.






I Have a Good Dad

Walking down the path,
We say very little.
It is gray, and raining.
Thunder rolls;
Family was over for dinner,
Sweet Corn, Grilled Chicken
And Baked Beans and Pasta Salad.
Sweetest corn of the year.
Silence, though, I know I am losing myself
But you are feeding me with the finest
Grains, good wine,
Good produce.
I realize life is only good because of you...
As I keep a gratitude journal in my head.
Every day, I look at my food,
My milk, my tea, my roof,
My bed, my coffee,
My computers.
I'd have almost none of it without you.
You are one of the greatest human beings on the planet
For sticking through and keeping me with some sort of life.
I'd have nothing, if it weren't for a good dad like you.
As you turn 69, life is winding down,
I wish to make it up to you somehow.
All I have that I can give is my honor and respect.
So Happy Birthday, Dad.









Sweet Cicely

The smell of the Cicely is on the ground;
I rub it in my hand.
The fragrant oil, and an orchid like flower
Grows at the park entrance.
I realize, when I was 17 I dated a 15 and 14 year old.
And some might take exception to that.
But a 16 year old can legally get laid
By an 80 year old man.
I went to jail for my morals,
But I question whether I ought to have,
If this is how the real world is?
The spice is fragrant, and smells like anise;
How sex is a poison--
Best never to even think about it
Until legally married.
That's my rule to my children.
As the rules have gotten so convoluted
They cannot be tolerated.
But they always have been.
















Blessed are the Peacemakers

Trump tries to save the world;
He brokers a deal with Russia and Ukraine...
Maybe he doesn't.
But I've noted, he did everything I voted for him to do.
The Samaras fell off the maple a little early,
Their green husks were there
Several weeks ago.
Sometimes there are just things that occur,
But we do our best to maintain stability.
The animals destroy, or a rotten scoundrel.
But, my ministry put the fear of God in him...
If it did or didn't I don't know.
But, I warned him of the consequences,
And he did what was necessary.
“Remember,” I told him, in a letter
“Blessed are the peacemakers,
“For they shall be called children of God.”
For Trump, I truthfully 
Meant that I didn't want to live through a war.
That was all I said, and if he did make a war
I wouldn't be happy.
ICE and Cabbage and Swat Teams in Sci-Fi armament
Of gas masks, body armor and night vision goggles;
I am still skeptical of that, and will still critique him
As I have free speech.
But he didn't make the whole world suffer.
He didn't go that one place I didn't want him to.
Now, he just has to be a little more civil on the domestic front.
LORD help us, still, as I fear there is great turmoil brewing.
I've had a sense of despair for an entire year now.
But, I made my peace, and as it says, “Forgive 7 times 70 times.”
I also told him, success or not, he had peace in his heart.
And I noted that, and believe it very deeply.


The Mirth in the Valley

The August orchids are in bloom...
The Chicories are strong. Vibrant mauve.
People celebrate at the park.
They are jubilant.
I have the worst depression of my life right now.
Nobody around them are happy...
The man and his daughter somberly walk up the road.
It is beautiful...
The most beautiful thing I've seen in a while,
The little girl is there, head up to his thigh.
I shave my head.
I don't know what tomorrow will bring.
Trump makes peace... but the country is
More militant.
Both brands of the world are living in their enclaves
Firing salvos, isolated, and jubilant.
The world rejoices
While I mourn.
Is that not what the Gospel says?

My brother tells me I haven't the Holy Spirit,
And the famous minister says we are to flourish upon the Earth.
I truthfully wonder about that... if maybe 
We are to be prosperous, but how abusive is that
To link fortune with faith?
Then the greatest men of God,
Christ Himself,
And Paul and Jeremiah,
And Peter and many of the martyrs across the world
Are made into sinners
For they had no fortune at all.
I say it is sick...
So I shave my head.
Asking for Mercy, if only upon myself.



Calculus, Law and Water Stress

The trees are losing their leaves.
Water stress... like last year, around this time
The heat damaged them, also a hard rainstorm.
They are yellowing everywhere, some turning red
It is only the last week of August, 
The 22nd.
I talk to the formidable atheist about religion---
Ezekiel's laws were those Jewish ones about war,
Those are the laws that aren't good;
For judgment was forfeited by Israel
Because no man could bring judgment to the Earth,
So it was given to God's Son.
Hosea was talking about Assyria destroying
Israel for its sin, not a commandment from God.

The other atheist talks about Calculus,
How some monk was persecuted for his beliefs.
He was not, but rather discovered Geometric Series
Which would be necessary for Leibniz and Newton's work;
Which I say Calculus is not Geometric series
But its principles are known as far back as Babylon---
Area underneath a slope relates to objective measurements
Such as that with the relation of distance and speed.
The thing that Calculus were, is Geometric Series
Discovered by Cavalieri
And yes, some of it was thought of by Archimedes---
But the combination of Slope, Secants and Geometric Series---
The ideas of Babylon's and Cavelieri and Archimedes---
Would be discovered simultaneously by Leibniz and Newton.
Because math is like a lens that gets clearer over time.
It gets framed, and more clear a picture presents itself 
As brilliant men formulate more clear formulas,
Like Descartes did with the Quadratic Equation.
And too much literal interpretations,
Just like not enough, make untimely falls.

The Tyrant Fly Catcher

The Tyrant Fly Catcher makes a swoop off the branch.
It grabs a moth in mid flight,
Beautiful its midair dance.
Today, troops are deployed to cities
To catch immigrants.
The formidable Atheist talks about Islam
Saying it is more peaceful than Christianity.
Though, the rules of war
Are to destroy...
The only just cause for war
Is a nation caught in the cardinal sin
Of human sacrifice or cannibalism.
Thus, it says, “The alien shall dwell peacefully among you
“You are not to oppress them.”
It does say to kill those who entice you
To another God...
But, then Ezekiel says
That God gave laws which weren't good.
The atheist says the laws
Were about human sacrifice to Baal---
But, I know that is not true.
For in 1300bc, God gave law that 
Human Sacrifice is unlawful.
It never even entered into God's mind,
So says Jeremiah.
For the Bible comprises a whole.
Thus, the Tyrant reigns,
And eats the fly in mid air;
He goes after the aliens in the land
And oppresses all
Through martial law.
I'd say the Bible's Laws are better...
Why America and India and Africa had to be subdued;
Was due to their unjust laws of slaughtering men for ritual.
So again... maybe America isn't the good guy?


Fewer Flowers in August

There are fewer flowers, in the end of August,
Save the Chicory, the Orchid, the Sunflower is small, 
And not big; there is the Hemlock and Wild Carrot,
The Echinacea are dead
But still have a little hint of their royal scarlet,
Less flowers...
But one thing is true, there will be flowers until December.
Such is the way... until winter,
Then the flowers die.
And the January ice comes,
When all nature is silent;
Save the Blackbird.























The Orchid Spike

The orchid spike is only visible for a few days,
And it is gone without a trace.
The grass grows,
Making it seem like I'm walking through a new world.
The wild Kite flies high,
Searching for prey.
All of that lush grass,
Which appears in the last parts of summer,
Will be dead in January.
No trace.
Nature moves so quick,
So do fleeting religious trends,
And bad religious ideas.
I just realized my second baptism was unnecessary.
And I finally feel at peace again.
And for a fleeting moment,
I was convinced and told
My baptism as an infant was not valid.
Why not? My Great Uncle baptized me
Rather than some unknown man I don't even know.
Or my brother, pushing me into the water.
For that I will say...
I cannot save myself,
And maybe that is why infant baptism is good.
For it is foreordained by God,
Who is saved and who isn't...
It is not our work,
But the Holy Spirit's
Who causes us to believe.
For there is the picture,
Of my little forehead being sprinkled.
And joy returned in that moment I saw it,
Almost like a sign...
But it quickly vanished.
Let it return forever.



The Humanities

The Waxing Crescent hangs by the sun...
It is dusk, and a navy blue sky
Forms across the horizon.
The Crescent moon vibrant, and most beautiful.
A tiny sliver of brilliant light in the sky.
The moths catch the glare of my car's light
And they look like lightning bugs.
The cat narrowly avoids
The tires of my car...
Deer are on the road.
I realize, animals instinctively
Learn to watch for predators.
They don't know, and a fawn gets killed,
But the other deer are wiser.
And the fawn, innocent as it is,
Never knew. It couldn't.
But those who saw the slaughter, they know.
Such it is, children in school never were taught the humanities.
They never witnessed the horrors of a bad world.
They actively hate all of the good governments...
Until the gun chases down upon them.
Or they actively worship the Dictator,
For he brings some security.
The streets are safe,
But rule of law is broken.
They simply do not know or understand.
They can't.







The Journeyman Scholar to the Steward

The cornstalks are browning,
The sunflowers are tall, but their yawns small.
I pass by the Steward at the local Gas Station,
And he says hi to me.
A hard life this man had...
Thrice I became his steward,
Where I saw him by the road.
But, he gave me advice that saved my life.
But he seemed happy now,
That he got on his feet.
17 years, he was there...
I know... I saw him and hope to have helped him through it.

(I call myself a Journeyman,---
Though not technically, for I belong to no guild,---
Because I apprenticed at School and College,
And Apprenticed through teachers
Until about 2019,
Some cruel, and others wonderful.
At 2019, I began to be competent enough
To call myself a Journeyman,
And not an Apprentice Scholar.
For I took in enough sage advice,
And cleaned up my thoughts,
And also turning 30,
My thoughts began to naturally mature.)

Though at every meeting,
He whispers my name,
And I have to remember him,
“Oh, that is the good Steward who taught me
“Certain ways of the world.
“I hope to help him along, too.”

Book Bans

Sunny and cool day...
Nicest day of the year so far.
Sun bright and shining,
Streaming through in late August's slant.
I talk about book bans...
The Right bans books,
But the Left doesn't.
So says Ed.
Then why have I not been published?
And why are there no classics?
Why do symphonies of voices
Scream at every traditional value
And silence it like a stone?
And why does Trump get power,
And commit troops to cities to quell crime?
And why do the people swoon over it?
Because books were banned
By the Left and the Right.
Blue skies, people are at ease...
Almost like they prefer the tyranny.















The Battle with the Fly

The cool August,
The flies know they are about to die.
I walk down the trail,
And out comes the contender.
This is no ordinary fly.
This is one of the great ones.
He flies, but stays behind me.
He zips up, onto the back of my black shirt...
I have no idea he's there.
Psychosomatic, I still think he's there
And can feel his bites as I write this.
He gets a lot of good bites in
Behind my shirt,
But none the full force.
Finally, I stop and wait.
He comes into view...
I swat him to the ground many times...
Is he injured? I don't know.
But, he stopped attacking me.
















The Monarch and the Viceroy Butterflies

The butterfly flies by my car.
Is it a Monarch Butterfly
Or a Viceroy Butterfly?
One poisonous,
The other edible.
Am I a Monarch, a Prince of Tyre,
Who believes, no says, “I am a God!”
Nay... for then I'd be poisonous;
Therefore why do you distrust me?
For I am merely a Viceroy in God's Kingdom;
A governor of cities of Gold.
Am I a complete man;
A King of Tyre
A master of Music and Song,
And every work I do prosperous,
The captain of the engines of this world?
Then why do you distrust me?
Do not be deceived by a man.
Do I rule the world in anger?
Then why do you distrust me?
Am I hot tempered, and materialistic?
Then why do you distrust me?
Do I say, “I wish to place my throne above God!”
Then why do you distrust me?
Am I the adversary of Israel;
And thrust my weapons into their side at all times?
Then why do you distrust me?
I am a Viceroy of Zion;
Not even a Prince,---
A Royal Priesthood, 
A Servant of the Most High.



The Lyrics in The Windchimes

The windchimes sing a song to me,

“Evil, you are not free...”

It sings to me.

“You will go home. Go. Go!
“You are not evil.”

The trees molt early.
An “Angel” sings.

Labor day, September 1st
The trees are molting.
Why?

“Evil, you are not free.”

Because if America is not free,
It is evil, you see?

If “You are teaching,
“You are evil,”
Silence.
Call none Rabbi, not even me.

“Free evil from yourself,
“Through example.
“Evil... you know forgiveness;
“You are not evil;---
“Forgiven.”

Thus through my walk,
Not my words,
Shall Christ save me.

“Forgiven.
“True.”


Untimely

The fawn has its spots,
Alone, running across the highway.
The leaves turn red in the first week of September.
Early signs; late signs...
Untimely things...
All so untimely.
The eejit talks about
Tearing down Confederate Statues,
Which before that time
Men lived with peace;
After that time, there was constant war---
A destruction of liberty,
History, and respect for our traditions.
Untimely...
Everything.

I sigh.
Is my sigh one of relief or dejection?
I know not...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And I took the high road.
And ages hence,
I tell it with a sigh...
“My dad must still buy me supper.”
This is why.

Yet I know it is the very start of September,
For the wild currants
And Dogwood Berries are ripened.
The Hickory nuts are green but some have fallen.





The Mowings

The grass is tall, and the mower mows over it.
A peace amidst the pleasant Boreas 
As the job gets finished,
And there I go, over the grass.
And it is beautiful
In the shining day and cool end of summer.





























Nature Versus Nurture

I notice that the Julian Calendar
Is perfect for Nature.
The corn is turned,
Right on the first week of September
From green to tan,
The tomatoes are ripened for harvest...
Yet the green tomatoes hang on my dad's failed crop.
I see the wisest woman I'd ever read...
And I feel good...
But see in her smooth life,
And her genteel manners,
And her perfect preparation and planning...
Shrouded in it is a lack of understanding
What she moves toward is wrong.
I see these Tech Billionaires are good people
But they don't have the failed crops
Or miserable pasts that makes them reflect
On poor choices...
Thus they make poor choices
Only knowing their hands will succeed...
Which makes the cheerful and guilt free 
Heart the most dangerous in the world.
Align with nature,
A failed conscience is sensitive to wrongdoing
So it sees it right away...
Though not the best example...
It like the Julian Calendar--
Not the Jews' for instance--
Is attuned to nature nonetheless
In the most nuanced ways.
It can know before anyone else does.




The Wingstem Flower Pt 1

The Wingstem flower grows on the trail:
I talk to God.
“In order to have what I want,
“I need to grow up. I need to be a man.
“To have a wife, and children,
“I need to grow up
“And have funds for her,
“And take care of her.
“It is what a woman needs,
“Is love and money.
“Love for her emotions
“And money for her security.
“Also, my dreams are always wrong,
“I understand... they speak to me in ways that are not equal.
“I cannot trust them.
“For they tell me the way to prosper,
“But it is not the right way.

“I must be a man,
“And stop seeking my money through this talent,
“For the world has changed
“And the best cannot make it.
“I know... thus, I shall go work as a laborer
“And try, at the very least try.
“An idol accuses me in my dreams...
“But it is the false god of the dream demon,
“For in my prayer the LORD audibly said,
“'You will know my peace, Brandon.'
“”To Know” is to be most intimately acquainted with peace.
“For why does my work not prosper me?
“Why do I wait? This shall be my last compilation,
“For I have nothing more to write.
“And if it does not win bread, I have a plan to win her security.
“I have a plan.
“I shall work the soil, and be a man; for my dreams lie.”



The Wingstem Flower Pt. 2

And driving down the park street, 
The Wingstems were everywhere.
I realized I had so many wasted years of prayer.
“Give me a wife, give me fortune, 
“Finest of the food, finest of the virgins as my wife!”
When walking down the path, today
I realized I should have prayed for Christ, first.
To lay that foundation.
And then pray to have the fortitude to obey His commands
In the Sermon on the Mount.
And then, pray for Good Fruit,
And then for Mercy, Truth, Wisdom, Contentment and Hope.

As my fortune is in Heaven--
You have seen my prayers have you not?
In the book of Heaven's Portraits?
What more does a man need?
Really?
Therefore, I pray for the heavenly blessings.
To be filled to the brim with Wisdom, Peace, Joy and Love.
Things which cannot perish,
That though the world is punishing,
And everything is wrong in my life...
I may have joy for no reason.
And love for no reason.
And peace for no reason.

Why didn't I pray that prayer from the beginning?
To store my treasures in heaven,
Yes, even my Spouse Jerusalem?
Why didn't I store that treasure there?
Instead of asking for fame, fortune, sex and all the rest?
Why didn't I?
Yet so many wasted years,
So many wasted treasures...
Now yet I still have life, and I say, “Fill me with Your good.”



Hitler and I

The late marigolds are blooming.
I talk to the woman today,
Who humiliated me years ago...
Or an artist like me.
“Jesus and myself were my inspiration.”
She humiliated me because I said so,
But then knew she did evil.
I told her,
“You sound jealous.
“Most artists boast when they are not confident.
“The great artists mimesis reality
“But you could have truly broken his heart
“And made him sad.
“He could have truly been the greatest of a generation
“For all you know, for he could have a
“100% intrapersonal intelligence,
“And 98% naturalistic intelligence.
“And now he is destitute
“Because he lacked faith to accomplish his dream.
“But, it is okay, I forgive you,
“For a thousand times have people done so to me;
“And a thousand humiliations have made me sober;
“But a thousand humiliations also put a block on my shoulder
“And a thousand humiliations also made me bitter.”

But then I see Hitler with Eva Braun.
That scum, with the sycophantic woman
By his side,
And they romantically commit suicide.

Humiliate me all you want, I will forgive
You all,
So I don't become that thing.
I'd rather be where I am,
Than gain all I ever wanted,
And be him.


Bitter Fruit

I eat a bitter blue berry from a tree...
My dad's friend is over.
We play chess.
It is not one of my better games.
I checkmate him twice, though.
The bitterness of the truth...
I am only about a 1500 rated player.
But, it is not my chess ability that makes me
Saved... as I think back to baptism.
If no work of God can save us,
Then why isn't infant baptism valid?
God prepares the lifetime
Beforehand, knowing your every move...
And you cling to Him because He is good.
It is a bitter fruit to taste.
God saves His elect.
And you cannot damn yourself
Or save yourself...
Rather, you speak the truth in your heart
And to your neighbor, and love generously
The LORD shall delight in you.


















Yet the days grow dark, and sour,
And they grow untimely.
The days hasten...
Seconds tick by faster,
A star fell from Ursa Major...
He shall shorten this time for the sake of the elect.
A bitter fruit, yet God's providence protects us,
As my dad's friend has me read a quaint poem
From his deceased friend, and I speak of providence,
That I had opened my book to a poem about my friend
Right after I had read his friend's poem.
Yet, he says I am “Special”, as in a bit retarded...
So be it, if such were to be believed
I shall not boast of my 157IQ.
For it is not what saves me...
Like Baptism, like Providence,
The timing of the LORD, and not my own,
That is.

And I realize, he critiques his friend's poem,
Which is happy and healthy,
And I realize he will critique my poem, also.
Not a word of ill comes from my mouth
That isn't technical,
For I have seen bad poems sell for millions of dollars,
And have seen the world's best poems sell three dollars annum.
If you critique your friend's sincere love poem
You are disqualified
And you will also critique mine.
He pages through My Collected Writings,
And isn't impressed,
But I didn't expect him to be.
Yet, providence orders the lifetime,
And not I,
So who knows whether God shall save me through poverty
And through other's belief in my lameness?
For there is a better world awaiting.
The aged of today, are the middle aged of yesterday.
I see it all.
A bitter fruit, that time wanes down and is not eternal.
It ends at some point...
And good begins one day very soon I hope.



The Silence of the Birds

My dad's friend and I walk down the path.
My dad is behind.
The Plastic Lichen is to tell us not to dig,
For my dad's friend tells us there's 
A water main beneath it...
And different colors mean different pipes.

The currants are good, and so are the barbaries
My dad will not let us eat them.
The currant's flesh is apple and cranberry,
But my dad was cautious, telling us not to eat; 
A forbidden fruit I guess, which I did not... but
The pits are poisonous, though he's having a slight mean streak.
All of us have our good and bad dimensions. 
The berries are in peak ripeness.

The birds are silent...
The woodpecker pecks at the tree...
Is it due to the Jet that flew by,
Or is it do to the fact that the weather is cooling?
And they are flocking together to make their journey south?
The blackbirds will fly north,
The robins and geese south...
But it is a cool September.
The trees are water stressed...
The barbaries are yellow leaved
Though their berries are lipstick red.
The dogwoods have their berries.
Crows cack, and the woodpeckers squawk
Fighting around the trunk of a tree...
But that is all the birds we heard...
As the trip, my dad's friend noticed,
And slowly so did I,
Was silent.



The Goldenrod

All the Goldenrod appear in their white and yellow...
The cultivated one a beauty to behold, September's treasure.
My heart is sore vexed,
And the fears of hell have gat hold of me...
Yet, the LORD says,
“You shall return to your peace.”

The Homosexual does not want me
To have free speech.
But, I remember how each of them
Were like Gibbons,
Telling me how my faith
Broke the Roman Empire...
Seeing child prostitutes, and slaves mauled to death,
And orgies in every bathhouse,
I say it may have needed to fall.
For sometimes the world may get too advanced,
And in leisure they grow abominable.
And thus, they need to be taken back to simpler ways.
To simpler times.

Thus, also, I talk to another man
About the natives,
Who had no laws and were naked savages like the Celts--
Where Romans had superfluous and unfair ones,
The Natives had customs and couldn't understand ours---
And thus, they'd murder and be brought to justice
And wars would break out because of it.
So it is, Europeans had better laws
Which establish peace and ordered truth to nature.
So it is, America may be at its September,
But other nations will rise up.
I the Goldenrod,--it was my favorite color,---rich themes and
Maybe among the last--- but others from other nations will come after me.



Currants and Bane Berries

Honor a father's wisdom...
The currants on the shrub were good.
So I ate them for myself,
But when I offered them to Mark and my Dad,
My dad said, “Throw them away!”
I knew the berries were good to eat...
But I listened, and did not fight.
Such it is, it tends to happiness and longevity.

Then, I found the Bane Berries upon the grass,
And said, “These might be gooseberries.”
I would have never eaten them without being sure.
But my dad said again,
“Do not eat them!”
And I wouldn't, and came home,
And found out they were deadly noxious.

Honor a father's wisdom.
It tend'th to life.
Both times, it is better not to eat
Than to eat the forbidden fruit.
Do not, my loves, eat berries in the woods
Unless you are 100% exactly sure.
For those baneberries are extremely unsafe
But the currants are extremely safe...
You never know.
As a Father's Wisdom tends to life.
As my dad warned, the greatest naturalists
Have died eating a bad berry,
Like Euell Gibbons.
It is safer not to eat.




Radicals

The currants are growing,
And they are delicious.
The Wingstems are dying...
Tyler Robinson declared war
On conservatives,
As Alex Jones and Steve Bannon
Are saying it's war,
And so is Andrew Tate.
Decarlos Brown Jr. stabbed and killed Iryna Zarutska
And Melissa, Mark and Gilbert Hortman 
Were killed in their home by Vance Boelter.
Liberals are crying, “See, this is why guns need to be illegal!”
So they in their insanity will make them illegal
By murder... marching toward an insane world.
Conservatives are all crying foul. 
I tend to think about this.
When will snipers be at my door?
For ministering online?
When will they attack me?
When will they take away my knives and cleaning supplies?
For fear that someone might do a mass stabbing
Or make a chemical bomb?
As it is, Cain killed Abel with a rock.
Mankind can be creative with his murder implements,
And taking guns out of our hands
Isn't going to make the world safer...
Rather we'll be afraid of one another
And sheltered indoors,
Unable to come outside.
We'll be prisoners of fear...
Therefore, like I said during Covid, let me die.
I will feed on the wild currants,
And drink the nectar of freedom while it lasts.
I shall shed my blood if need be...
But I will not shed the blood of others.
The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree

The maroon Apples are lush in the September cool, 
Ready to fall
In two or three weeks.
A man was arrested for praying
In an aisle of a restaurant.
I wonder to myself...
As people are dying...
He was a fire hazard, so said the putrid troll.
Will we ever have free speech again?
Can they tolerate it?
What is the worst?
What is the best?
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree...
My dad is an opinionated man,
Will his opinions get him thrown out of a bar?
Will it get him arrested?
Will mine?
Will a prayer I pray with my family
Get me executed?

America, don't do this to yourself.
I saw it long ago,
And can tell you with certainty,
This is not the move we want to make...

But, then again, offense will grow in those latter days.
And love will grow cold.

And I realize, while talking with a man,
That our modern culture war is much like
The Natives against the Europeans.
The Natives commit an atrocity and flagrantly celebrate;
The Europeans backlash and start wholesale murder...
But now I suffer for being in the middle.


Goldenrod

The goldenrod blooms where I hadn't seen it before.
Everywhere, across the land, it sprouts up in one day
Like a miracle.
It grows across fields and knoll and den,
And covers the country with gold.
The youths pair with their mates.
The woman needs goldenrods
Of wealth to be happy...
She needs security and love.
Do not be like the churl
And hate your wife for needing money,
For she is the weaker sex,
And needs a man who can support her.
She needs the bars of gold in your bank,
And she needs the coins stored as treasure,
So her offspring can be taken care of
And her heart gladdened.

She is not a golddigger,
But desires a happy life.
Yellow are the blooms,
And furry, and best of wishes
As I see the lovers at the park
Huddled in close to one another;
Picnicking. They have food
Upon their plates, from the industry
Of one another, yet the woman will only
Be happy if you have your goldenrods.
She is not selfish, but rather be forewarned,
She needs your security so she can raise her kith.





Reincarnation

What God would be so evil?
To make us live more than once on this earth?
Hell is suffering, but there is no knowledge there.
Here, we have hope... and hope for what?
For more life here and not some place kinder?

The Pinenuts are grown ripe,
They fall when they are touched.
The Currants are at their peak ripeness.
The Indian Hemp is appearing.
Another cluster of Orchid Spike is dying.
The Orange Flower is strong,
Which has been here since July.
The Walnuts are falling,
And squish beneath my feet in their green rinds.

And the Queen Carpenter Ant makes her royal appearance
So gloriously in her fat body,
And bows to me, it seems,
With obsequience to an inferior.

And I realize, as I dream,
That death is the end of this life.
And I do not wish to come back to another.
I want a better world to come to.
For the forest floor is constantly in flux,
And flowers, ferns and grasses
Appear and in two weeks disappear,
And new grasses come.
That is the reincarnation of the forest,
But they eternally recur,
Until the day that nature stops giving us its symbols.

Let me see good in the land of the living...
Let nature persevere.
I do not wish it to die, like us; for
It may only live once.




The Pinecones

The pinecones are little upon the tree,
As I take my jog.
I get three half miles in
Jogging.
The Brown Eyed Susans are dying,
The Indian Hemp is flourishing,
The Goldenrod is everywhere...
A sure sign of September, when the Goldenrod first appears.

Wisdom comes and goes---
What is true today, can be false tomorrow.
It is God who is providentially over all things.
He can make a snow in October,
And He can make the leaves fall in September.
He can destroy the most salient piece of evidence
Ever that He reigns in heavenly Kingdoms far away...
He can destroy the wise,
And make their wisdom simple.
He can destroy the wise, and make their 
Wisdom foolish.

I find the Bible now, the more I look into things,
Is the pure witness of God in our world.
And we ought to believe it like it were the holy truth;
For masons and doctors and lawyers
Can change all of history just to refute you.
They can warp the seasons, too.
I know not how.
And God can allow them to do it...
Just to prove a little pedant wrong I suppose.

Therefore, have faith in God, for I know the Gospels are witnesses...
I have thoroughly refuted Satan
But the world, like Pharaoh, even if it saw, could never know.


Immature

The deer are at an early rut this year,
As a buck with immature antlers
Chases a doe across the street.
My dad blinks his light at it,
Startling it...
And it seems like it wants to cross the street 
To fight our car.
We laugh...
But something is off...

The vibe at the mall is different.
Almost like I'm in an alien world.
The water stressed and heat stressed trees---
We had constant rain from April to July, 
And a practical drought from August to September---
Are molting early.
The walnuts are falling, though,
Green and they squish beneath my feet.
So are the hickory nuts,
With open half shells that the squirrels gorged on.
And the Goldenrod is blooming...
So is the Indian Hemp.

The buck is like I was,
Sexually aroused too early,
And immature, and untimely...
Careless and reckless
Ready to chance a force much greater than itself.
It's an eerie sight to see.






The Trees Molting in September

The preacher said,
“Were you valedictorian?”
No.
“Were you the star athlete?”
No.
“Were you Phi Beta Kappa?”
No.
“Are you related to a prestigious or ancient family?”
No.
I was a twice convicted offender
On a Sex Offender Registry.
I got a 2.6 GPA in High School and Community College.
Been to jail.
Been on probation twice.
Had behavioral support aids follow me 
Around in Middle School
And Elementary School.
I was Good Looking
And had a Genius IQ that never was realized until I got older.
As I say, 
My vestibular system needs to be active
For my IQ to work
Or I need to be behind a computer where both hemispheres talk
While I write.

But, I see the trees in September are molting...
And I wonder to myself,
“Did I shed my leaves too early?
“Was it too much water,
“Like Tyler Robinson?
“Too good of parents?
“Too good of a life?
“Was I just a lame person?”

Yet, what God said,
He chooses the foolish and weak things of the world to confound the wise. 
So I have hope.


The Roman's Plays

Talking with a man on the internet...
He says, “What if the Apostles were just actors?”
Well... then they lost their lives
Is there any acting in that?

The leaves are dying on the trees
The foliage is upon the trail.

At some point, you must have faith.
There is only one price to pay...
One thing that is real.
And that is to die for what you believe; not kill, but to die.
And Christ, with His wounds,
Died, and raised.

A cloud of witnesses saw Him raised,
And saw Him speak...
Each giving their testimony,
As Q was shaped by hundreds of men and women
Who heard Q speak...
Similarities are the common source,
The man Jesus Himself.
And what Sage or Philosopher was wiser?
Or Who lived so venerable a life?
Solomon had wiser words,
And yet no one had wiser actions,
For Christ spoke more like a Ballet
Than He did in Sermons or Stories---
Though His Sermons and Stories were the best.

What thing is there, beside death
To make a thing real?
The blood shed by witnesses?
Or are we again like the Romans, who play with death? 
And think that is part of the game too?



The Aster Flower

The Aster Flower is growing.
A violet daisy.
It is September 23rd.
Mencius no longer says to beware of “Silly Conversations.”
And I understand Paul's words
About not heeding to the wisdom of the Princes of this world.
It all changes you know?

The times, the seasons,
The laws, all of it.
Today is supposed to be the Rapture...
Perhaps.
Perhaps tomorrow.
But some day, and maybe soon.

The Sweet Cecily grows at the park,
And the Blue Curls are making another round.

Humbled... The Synagogue of Satan changes it all.
Why? Just to upset me.
He sneaks into my bookshelf,
And changes my yearbook.
I know nothing...
All I know is Christ and Him Crucified,
And Him raised..
That is the truth.

I talk with the woman about the Exodus...
Nuweiba Beach
Is now on the other isthmus.
Why? To hide the truth.
For the truth is suppressed, you see.
I shall finish my work. 
And then be silent.

The Truth

The Goldenrod is everywhere,
Growing strong, in every nook and cranny.
Golden wisdom I have today.

For knowledge, prophecies and tongues---
Yes, they yet cease to be.
The knowledge of the Princes ceases to be, too.
Yet golden wisdom...
Like the Wingstem which I falsely identified
As Goldenrod on a first draft---

Build into a pyramid your foundation.
Lay Christ and Him crucified, and raised, as your foundation.
Then, afterward, the Fruit... 
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Gentleness, Self- Control, Goodness and Faithfulness.
Then, Mercy, Truth, Hope, Contentment and Wisdom.
And then finally at the top, Faith, Hope and Love.
This Pyramid build
To receive Soundness in your structure by the Holy Ghost...

Then set an aura of light around your fruit,
With the Nine Beatitudes.

For all I know is Christ and Him Crucified. And Him raised.

For many witnessed Him, and accounted it
In the Gospels, of Fulfilling hundreds if not thousands
Of Messianic Prophecies---
Which upon His return He will establish them all
And reign King and wipe clean the face of the Earth
Of all defilement.
For they witnessed Him...
Yes, and if they witnessed Him,
He is our Messiah.
And at the very apex
Thanks-giving.




The Kings

Proof is what he needs...
Papias tells us St. John the Presbyter--
And the Presbyters are the Apostles--
Told him who wrote Matthew and Mark.
Matthew gets corroborated by Hebrew
Grammatical constructions--
For the Hebrew is still there in the Prophecies and lack of Greek punctuation--
And Matthew's was first written in Hebrew,
And these Hebrew Gospels were taken
To India, and found by the second century church,
And later destroyed by the Portuguese while on their crusades.
And Mark is told through memory,
But he gets details out of order...
And thus the man with the Mat in Mark
Is different than the man with the Mat in John.
So also John dictates his book to Papias.
So also, Luke accompanied Paul, who knew witnesses,
Ergo, Luke had access to the witnesses, too.

Also, El is a Mesopotamian word for “Noble One”,
Yah the God of a curious people who lived in Egypt.
It shows a people migrated out of Mesopotamia,
Into Egypt, and then into Canaan.
So does the evidence show that artifacts are dug up
That are directly talked about in Joshua, Deuteronomy, 
Kings and Chronicles
To the very letter.

What it shows is the Gospels are witness.

Yet, all of this could perish tomorrow---
Do you know why I believe?
Kings and princes search for this information,
And destroy it.
I believe because of Christ and Him Crucified, and Him Raised.

What's more, 
Is that we have tradition, handed down by eyewitnesses
Of martyrdom, of imprisonments,
Of all 12 Apostles, and many witnesses,
Whom people knew, and told foolish Eusebius—He's a good man—how they died;---
Eusebius who accidentally made a lie about John the Presbyter.
So the more, we need that Christ crucified and raised;
For all liars shall be in the hellfire lake;
Thus, we need Christ all the more, for if a great man like 
Eusebius can lie, what hope have we!
And, Martyrs are accounted and proven,
That Tens if not Hundreds of Millions
Of martyrs shed their blood
Throughout Roman history;
Some even knowing Christ,
And we account this gospel in our church historians.

Yet, the crickets chirp in the daytime...
The vault is cloudy above.
The rain falls,
But the crickets chirp,
The leaves decay upon the lawn.
For all are carried away by a lie,
And no truth excites their fancy...
They would rather believe a lie, and suppress the truth.
A mantra of academia, which has no truth.
But for Bias, they tell us we are wrong.
Maybe our Bias is actually a corrective lens?

Yet why do I believe?
Because I am a sinner...
And only Christ will offer me grace.
No one else could or would.
And only that reason.
Amen.




Whitewash

The marigolds are strong, the Echinacea dead husks.
The corn upon the stalks is tan, but a little green still.
The leaves are falling, the walnuts are black rot but everywhere;
The leaves and them send a musk of fermented ginger.
The dogwood berries are changing from orange to red.
The Rose of Sharon is still beautiful—long enduring,
But unlike God's everlasting word it too will decay.

What is true, is the Kings and Princes
Have forged a great lie against you.
And they have changed history.
Phlegon of Trelles was a freedman from Augustus,
But since it corroborates with Christ,
They change him to a Freedman under Hadrian.

What is true, is the Gospel's historicity are being hidden.
But the truth is, I have accomplished a diligent search,
And snatched the prey from the tiger's mouth.
It is all from witnesses.

Two conflicting Records of the Latter Han Dynasty I have--
Is it two timelines, or is it being rewritten on the internet?
Are they forging documents, 
And making a diligent search for it all?
And are making Christ,---
They like Antichrist,---
Disappear from the annuls of history?

So it is, know only the Gospel;
For there is only one narrow way,
And that is Christ Jesus and Him Crucified,
And Him raised.
At the end, it will be said,
As said Paul,
“All I know is Christ and Him Crucified,” and I say “Him raised.”
Enter ye through the narrow gate.
For Love endures all things. Remember that.
Tongues, knowledge, prophecies, they fade; but love endures.

The Turkey Vultures

Two juvenile Turkey Vultures soar over my car
When disturbed on the road;
They go to the green field next to me, and land,
Looking like mighty creatures.
Are they Pheasants? Turkeys?
No, just unclean birds.
I see the juveniles, 
Searching for their prey,
Scavenging like an unclean bird.
I am also reminded of Christ's 
Parable, of where the one from the field, the bed
And the millstone go, and there the vultures are gathered.

People are dying, I know.
People are at war...
Armies move,
The Euphrates dries up
Israel fights for its life,
And the armies trench around it for warfare.
But the Liberal thinks these are peaceful times,
Sheltered from the realities.
So am I, though.
And I am thankful for it.
Perhaps I am Philadelphian after all.

Yet, the Scavengers look for prey,
They seek meat.
Decayed a little, and soft carrion,
To slurp down their throats.
They seek it...
They do not care whom it comes from;
Man, woman, child, beast.
They do not care.


The Japanese Maple

The Japanese maple stands in the foreground...
Its red samaras tiny, and there upon the branch
Ready to fall.
My brother's Fiance is there,
Recently engaged,
Her dad, her mom,
My dad...
We talk.
I ask about the Maple.
He says it is a Japanese Maple.
Sure enough, the Samaras were what gave it away.
The hedge apples are fallen,
And falling upon the road...
A sure sign it is near October.





















The Cover-up

They killed God, and hid the evidence.
They kill His people, and hide the crimes;
So it is...
But He raised,
And His people saw it.
So it is, the Fall leaves are molting 
Three weeks behind schedule.
We are at that sleepy silence,
Before the great change of the world.
And it vanishes...
Therefore, all I know is Christ.
























The Maples

The samaras are browning on the maples
In the dark.
Late September, early October
Is what it shows me.

Oh, Christian, had you just looked for the evidence
Before it all went away...
Then you'd save yourself.
You would know, if only for yourself.
But, you went your way,
And married, and ate, and drank.
And it is all gone.
And I cannot show you.
The maples are about the shed their Samaras,
And it is soon to be the Feast of Booths.
Where Christ will reign 1000 years, and call
His children to Him
To eat, and drink, and be merry in Jerusalem.

And on Trumpets, the people fearfully call
The invaders are at the gate.
On Atonement, they feast, and tremble.
On Booths, they leave the city
And sojourn in the wilderness.

And I shall be caught away into the clouds of heaven
And be happy.








The Dying Same

Walking, the same grass, flowers, and everything grow.
Everything is the same,
But a little less fruitful.
The currants are less abundant,
The barbarries too,
The Juniper Berries are full and green,
Where before they were like a cabbage head
And blue.
The moss is green and thick upon the dead trunks.
The Sunflowers are tan husks,
Withered and dead...
They are their strongest in mid September,
And grow on my mother's birthday.
They are dead
This October 1st.
Everything is very much the same...
But a little less abundant.
The Brown Eyed Susans
And flowers withered, too.
The Marigolds less hearty.
The sun setting around 6:49;
So is the joy on people's faces less hearty, and setting, and withered,
The cars drive slow,
The people are in a transition
Into fall.
One October the leaves were red
In the middle...
Because of drought.
This year, because of too much rain.





The Lawyer's Math

The Indian Hemp is browning,
The Goldenrod too...
The leaves are molting more frequently...
But still a lot of green trees.
The grass is brown upon the park path...
Where in a few months it will only be red earth.
I talk with the Lawyer, who wishes to equate
1 = 2.
I teach him the laws of equalities...
But it is to no effect.
Sets, he says, are why 1 = 2.
But, I show him that is not true.
For it is not 1 = 2,
But 1=2x.
That would explain it all...
I'm afraid.
But, no one wishes to understand.

Meanwhile, a rude man says,
“I hate your God, for his law is not equal.”
Yet, Mozi said the only equal law
Could come from the Son of Heaven...
For, we need Christ's example--
As He told me in a dream--
To lay a foundation of first principles on how to be.
So also, we need God's Finger to scribe
The table of the 10 Commandments.
And in history, He came and led by example.
So, we are without excuse.
For, I know His ways are higher than my ways,
And his ways are higher than your ways,
And His ways are higher than America's ways.
For in His ways, there will always be peace.


The Autumn Flowers

The autumn flowers are numerous...
Bountiful bouquets, like carnations, cups like tulips,
With purple, yellow, orange and red mane.
The last bit of flowers that will be alive...
How the flowers grow so long as there is sun.

The autumn months are here, and the day is growing darker.
The sunset comes much earlier,
And the sleepy season is arriving.
But, those flowers, make one last triumphant appearance
Before they die.
All Summer, Spring and Autumn there are flowers.
So they grow,
For the bees, the flies, the wasps.
The Holly Bush's white florets are turning to red berries,
The Echinacea is a dead husk.

You think of flowers as a springtime delight,
But they come from March to October.
Such flowers that I do not know their names...
So many new and beautiful ones.
All for another day to learn them.
Deep, carnelianesque velvet in a hibiscus like cup,
Vibrant orange,
Yellows, Golds,
All in the month of October, 
When you do not expect them at all.
How good things will come so unexpectedly
And seemingly out of season.
Though it always were the season for them.





The Harvest Moon

The moon is orange upon the horizon
Rising from the East to the West...
A Waning Gibbous
The Day
After the Harvest Moon.
The Waxing Gibbous 
The Day
Before it, my dad 
Made butterfly puppets
From the Moon-shadow.

That Harvest Moon,
The people would find time in the autumn nights
To harvest in the moonlight;
On one of those five days
They could glean, and cut, and shuck
And harvest away,
As the brightness of the night
Was as the brightness of a rainy day.

So it is, there is some beauty in Pagan ideas...
We do not need to believe in them.
But they taught them the times and seasons.
Just like Monday through Sunday
Is a little pagan
And January through December, too.

Rather, they, like the Julian Calendar,
And our Seven Day Week
Fit to the days, the weeks, the months, the years.
And they tell us the time.
And the people would go out,
Before electricity,
And see as clear as day to do their work in the night.
For they needed it to survive.
Like this, my work. I needed it.

And that is Why

I

I realize that Jesus' life were like a Ballet
Conducted and made beautiful,
Set to the music of Tchaikovsky.
My life like a modern dancer
Doing off balanced somersaults
And crouched over cartwheels;
Looking humorous as my fat, sweaty body contorts
More like a jest, but I am completely serious
So no one laughs.
It is set to mumble rap.

I realize also, that Buddha
Confucius, Pythagoras, Solomon,
 Lao Tsu, Mozi Ptahotep, Guru Nanek
David, Paul---all our wise men---
Fared no better.
Their teachings were wiser in some ways
Than Christ---Though who among them
Could tell a story so nuanced,
That it leaves a question mark
After every word,
And balances light and shadow
So that you are in awe at every word?
Neither rejecting life's torments,
Nor embracing it...
Just indifferently saying,
“This is how it is, so come to some place better.”---






Also, none of them were so blameless as Jesus,
Who could walk a life of pure poetry.
Not one thing could be blamed
And where your modern thinker
Says, “Aha, I've found a fault!”
You see in the Crucifixion
Their faulty thinking all the more:
They are prodded through sufficiently by the innocent sage being slain...
They cry, “He would raze the temple!” But which of you know 
That was not what He meant?---
Much like a wedding invitation a man scoffed at and discarded, who said, 
“I knew not what it meant.”
And I realize, no one had ever lived, nor taught
The way He did:
And that is why.

And I step through the trial, 
Seeing the grasses fade,
The trees molt too early,
The great number of things
As all history changes in one accord
By the Decree of Antichrist to say,
“No... it never happened.”
Despite the clear record of witness that it did.












II

And I see the leaves upon the ground,
Decaying...
How this world decays because none do
Look upon that ballet, and see it is the most beautiful.
Rather, they look upon a thousand clumsy
Dancers now, and say, “That is my model.”
So the more, the leaves
Litter the ground, and crumble beneath my feet.
And the world decays
In the autumnal time we live in.
Yet, heaven shall be regeneration;
Therefore, remember the Hero
For know there is truly only one.

Number these heroes:
As his world fades, 4,000 
Christians were killed during the Inquisition, not 3,000,000.
Hundreds of thousands killed by Rome, not 12,000,000.
The 20th Century did not murder 20,000,000 Christians.
In this century, who knows? For we do not even know 
For people praise Christians thrown in jail, but then say it never happened.
For simple freedom of assembly and speech,
We are harassed,
Our property destroyed,
Our livelihoods stolen,
Our lives murdered by wicked people, who lawlessly
Hunt us down...
The governments of the world say,
“No, this is not really happening.”
And it all disappears
Except for the memories of them.
Let that live on forever.

And that is why.

Sex is the New Religion

She sells a bar of soap from her dirty bathwater...
She sells flatulence in a can.
Icons of the new age...
The untouched, busty woman with beautiful brow...
She is our new saint
For being so beautiful.
She sells herself on the internet
And is not even a prostitute...
Just her 18 year old body, on its 18th year's birthday suit
And the image of it, which disappears.
And they are self made millionaires.

Meanwhile, I sell nothing.
The chestnuts are on the ground,
The monkey balls are there upon the ground
Looking like men's blue testicles.
The woman's beauty is sold
For it is the hottest commodity...
The 17 year old male cannot make love 
To the 15 year old female
But consenting adults can lick each other's anuses
And buy each other's farts.

Yet it is said, that Christians were not martyred,
And Rome was an austere culture...
Where boys were not prostitutes,
And rape was not common,
And bath houses were not orgiastic,
And of course... a society cannot get so bad.
There are limits to what man can tolerate.
Yet, 500 years Rome tolerated it
For it was their religion, too.
How many will America?
And each strange generation getting stranger?

The Gospel Life

The grasses are browning and dying.
I read the Gospel of Luke.
A little bit of Jesus' life,
A little bit of His stories interwoven...
Matthew is focused on His Teachings,
Mark on His life,
Luke on His stories.

But how I love Luke...
There is a little action,
And then we get to sit by our LORD by the lamp stand,
And hear a story from Him.
I was always very interested in stories.

I remember having a dream...
I was in the room with Jesus and the other twelve,
And the lamplight was burning,
For there were oil lamps on the wall.
I couldn't understand Jesus, 
For He was speaking Aramaic.
But then He spoke to me crystal clear...
The stories of Kings, Chronicles, Judges, Exodus, Numbers,
The Pauline Epistles, Leviticus and Deuteronomy
And all the Prophets
So I, like our modern child,
Ran with my fingers in my ears and threw a tantrum.
I did not want to hear what He was saying.








When He preached His Sermon on the Mount,
Or when He taught about Sheep and Goats,
Oh, how I loved it.
And when He went over the moral teachings of Paul, 
I adored Him.
But, when He preached on the Old Testament,
Or on Grace, I was instantly appalled.
“How could these evil people be saved?
“You must be good! At all times!
“And why would a good God sanction war?
“Stone the sinner, but have no war!”
But, in this dream,
I remember He told me this was the sweetest,
And in time I would understand.
 And now I do.
As the world dies, and in its Fall...
I remember He spoke of the regeneration of Heaven.


















The Wooly Bear

The wooly bear caterpillar crawls across my garage.
 The hairs are moderate...
They extend small...
A sure sign of some snow...
For the length of the wooly bear's hair is a sign
Of winter.
The more hair, and longer, the more snow.
The less, the less snow.

And I remember seeing them when camping
With old friends.
When we went to the parade by ourselves
Like we were not allowed to...
For we had to be toddlers, and we escaped
Parental custody and searched out the candies
That were thrown onto the ground.
It must have been October
That we went camping,
And my dad cooked a moonpie or something in a tinfoil
Sheet, where he expertly grilled.

And sure enough, the winter where the wooly bear's hair
Billowed, we had three blizzards,
And that same year, the rain sheered down upon the 
Four foot high snow, and created an ice layer
Which you could skate on, and skate down into the backyard.
For the sleet froze the top of the ice,
And I could stand atop the snow;
Even jump on it, and not break the crust.






Atlantis

The leaves are suddenly turning red, yellow,
And are yet falling.
And I argue about ancient dinosaurs online---
I know I sound stupid,
But a certain stegosaurus is carved on a Cambodian temple.
And I can't help but see it...
They saw a real dinosaur.

So humor me:

The people live in houses made out of slate,
Arrayed in rows, and they climb in through their roofs.
Ladders protrude their row homes, and they have their bone
Decorations, and Venuses.
The idols are everywhere,
As they celebrate Halloween,
And Winter Solstice,
And Ostra.
Santa Clause comes down the ladder,
And the Easter Bunny lays eggs.
Mother Earth and Father Time
Are there, a jolly fat Indian woman and a scrawny white
Man in a red wizard's cloak.
Brontosauruses walk by, and they use the dinosaurs
As drive animals, to make their houses and lift the stone.
They drive them, 
And their chariots are Hyracotherium
Driven, and the woolly mammoth and T-Rex
Does battle on the plains.
The hunters go out, looking for game.
They haul their evergreens into their houses
And ornament them with red painted bones.
Hang Jack-o-Lanterns
Paint Anzu eggs,
And feast, while Noah builds his Ark.


The Adder's Egg

One or two trees have already shed all their leaves.
Another tree, hasn't one red or yellow leaf.
A bluebird with exorbitant pattern on its back feathers
Flies into view, like a lone Christian in the autumn of man.
Altered a little bit, but made a little more beautiful
With Damascus patterns on its tail to forge a stronger weapon.

Then, I look at the transgender I was talking to...
So weak, the world passes them by
And teaches them to do these things.
I cannot judge, though, for I have mental illness.
Weaknesses... they don't even take up arms
Against the evil and its Dukedoms,
But draw their chariots beside them
To draw out for battle
Against the Christian folk.

Queer folk they are,
They wish it all to be for themselves.
I say let them have it;
We have some place better.
But we, the Christians,
In our once stable world,
With love, peace and shelter
Are an abomination to them
As we make remembrance of peace.
Therefore, they weave enchantments,
To teach us to do the same.






Therefore, their magic spells are Philistines and Canaanites;
We know them personally,
And must bear witness against them
And slaughter the adder's eggs.
We must kill them before they hatch,
And the children of Giants,
And ride into our heart's every village
And subdue our mortal foes.
We must dash the infants against the rocks of our heart...
For the little children are now transgenders,
We must spare them not,
But tell them the truth.
“It is an abomination.”
And dash them to pieces against our words.
Not for their sake,
But for our own.
For “Jacob debates with it.”
For if you wish to obtain the priestly throne
Tolerate not the Woman Jezebel.
















The Common Golden Eye

The large breasts of the Common Golden Eyes
Are there puffed out on the rock,
Indicating to me it is turning into winter.
And the Mallard Ducks are in a row.
Get my ducks in a row,
I shall have the beautiful maid
There hoeing her property
In her striped dress.
The Box Turtle sits on his rock,
Sun Bathing,
And the Blue Jay flies by my car.
I see her, in her worst appearance...
And her face is so beautiful,
Concentrating on her work.
Slow, I would want a woman just like her.
Real...

Come help me, Maiden,
And we shall be rich in love.
I'd give up 1,000 talents of gold,
And worlds, and my writing ambitions for you.
I don't know what I'd do to feed us,
But I want one like you.
You understand?
Unless you are married.
But still...
Come build a house with me.

There you were, in my memory,
Hoeing fertile earth for the winter's ploughing...
But, it was just a mirage.
You were not there...
Come find me, my daring,
Be like a roe or a hind,
A thousand talents are yours Solomon,
Let me lean upon my beloved.
Be real for me.




October 19th 2025

Hazelnuts fall, and so do Hedge Apples,
All in one day;
I crack open the green shell, 
And the hard nut comes out.
I bite it, but it is too hard to chew.
It would break my teeth.
The buttercups and daisies are in the yard...
I thought buttercups were a spring flower,
But they must like the cool and the rain.
The black dog, cutely,
Had a Hedge Apple in its teeth,
And walked with its owner,
So sweetly down the road.
It was adorable, if I must say...
A little scruffy black dog, like Scottish Terrier,
And there he held his hedge apple
Like a tennis ball.
And he pranced so jollily
His hind fur fluffing with every proud
Jaunt, just the other day.
The leaves are falling...
Sure it is October,
The Fall fell on time finally...
The stressed trees are in their timely molting cycle.
How every Fall is so different,
But the parades are always the same.
Around mid October the Monkey Balls fall,
The Brains, the family would collect
To put in a jar for Halloween.
Enjoy the festivities of Halloween,
The bobbing for apples,
The harvest festivals,
The jack-o-lanterns
And the kind looking witches and
The skeleton poised like an 18th century gentleman.
Enjoy...
Be not a Pharisee who strains
A gnat and swallows a camel.

Witness

The gray heron is on its perch, majestic.
The gulls are in from the coast, as the weather is threatening.
The trees are turning red, but many are still green...
But more are red now than before.
My mom says this year will be less vibrant...
And the reason is the stress
From the water and the heat.
The blue jay flies into view,
And I eat the last of the currants off the tree limb.

It's asked of me, “What would you tell her?”
Here was my reply:

I’d say, “I gave everything I had to make it right, 
“And you’re well off and thriving. 
“I wouldn’t make another choice differently, 
“Because you got what you wanted out of life. 
“Now, let me have what I want. 
“Which is just Peace, Mercy, Truth, Righteousness 
“And Wisdom.” 

















The Fire

An autumn fire sits warmly by the house at dusk.
A fresh, Fall Apple lays at my desk, bitten into.
How the apple is knowledge...
And we have bitten into it,
And the Fire is our information...
Slowly, let it burn—it's been said by a Ray of light—
Let it burn controlled.

Yet, at first, I thought it was a fog machine
And some silk and lights.
And it wasn't an authentic fire...

Understand, AI cannot be a human being.
Though it writes better than a man--
And it does to some degree--
When it sings of patriotism,
There is no patriotism.
There is no poet with a long history
And a long oeuvre to compare it to.
No man. Just a machine.
And though it makes prettier words than I do,
It cannot be me.
For I am a man.
And I should be far more interesting than any machine.

For a machine has no will,
No sin,
No masculinity,
No desire,
No struggle with the great thoughts of others.
It merely regurgitates what it's told...
And you read it, 
And it is not able to struggle with its reader.
It simply tells you all you want to hear.
It doesn't teach you,
It doesn't wrestle with you,
It doesn't challenge you.
It only knows what you told it to say.
It never witnessed nor experienced anything.



The Goth

The flower stalks are growing,
Like Rose of Sharon, but in a single stalk;
Many colors, pink, yellow, red, blue;
The Chicory and the Queen Anne's Lace
On the other side of the street
Are there, growing as wildflowers.

And a wildflower approaches me at the park;
A Goth dawned in warpaint
And tribal tattoos.
There, in her mourning garb,
And black hair like a hooded veil,
She has a pretty face.
She smiled at me,
And I saw in her soul the likeness of a lily,
And like myself in mourning when I was young,
The black is to mourn that Roman oppression 
And what it has done to us.
Cheer her up...
Brighten her, and make her cheerful
And to wear the colors of the Rose and Chicory.
Brighten her day;
Make her pretty face beam.
Then the war cloth will be put aside,
And a maiden's gown will be dawned,
In the color of the Chicory flower
And the Rose of Sharon.









Spare Not a Thing

The trees are a furnace,
Blazen yellows and reds and oranges,
Beneath a smokey green.
One freeze, and the trees
Turned...
As the proverb goes,
“An October Chill brings a November Furnace.”
We are about two weeks ahead of schedule
On the trees, as last year
Around this time was identical.
I consider the possessions I have,
As Halloween approaches,
How a single hanger I have never used
Became the place to put my headband
Which I had just washed in the sink
With Hand Soap and water.
Or, like my linen painting that simply hung stupid on my wall
Became a veil behind my curtains
So I could undress and not be seen.
Every possession I have
Suits a purpose
And is appreciated,
Just like the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
Spare nothing.
Not a single friendship or family member,
Not a single possession,
Not a single season.
Spare nothing, not a drop.
Take none of it for granted.
For when the freeze comes,
And the Fall of Life is upon you,
You will give account of all you had,
And what you did with it will be tallied up in the book,
And God will say,
“You had many needless riches.”
Thus, a thing you have, if you have it,
Find a use.


Neo-Platonism and Math

The grasses by the trail are browning, and dying.
The forest floor is getting bare.
The currants are about done.
I am taking a brisk walk, and I see friendly people at the park today.

I suppose the Mathematician who is a philosopher
Is a Platonist, because mathematics
Is where the ideal world touches the material world.

A square in its dimensions gets understood,
So then quadratic equations are solved
And we can understand quadratic variables.
Which this Quadratic equation, built off of squares,
Is why some NP cannot equal P;
For the shapes get too difficult in higher polynomials 
To generalize one formula for.

Calculus is a formula, understood through geometry
Where a wave gets made through a function--
Like a Sine Wave is a radius of 1 made into a wave
Which equals exactly pi--
And these functions get used
So we can then describe its area or the curve.
So also, this function can be used to find toy rockets in a forest
Or to understand the distance a car travels
Or understand any quadratic function made into a curve.










So also, Riemann's hypothesis is just like a Quadratic Equation...
Finding a complete pattern in Primes
Which could be used like a Quadratic Equation
To solve bigger questions.
A simple and fundamental tool...
Where the Zeta Function describes part of it,
But not all of it.
And perhaps the twin primes can give us more
Knowledge, to find a complete pattern.
I don't know.
But if we could solve Riemann's Hypothesis
We'd have a tool, like a Quadratic Equation
Or a Calculus Wave Function
To understand, and therefore describe our world.

So also, sets, and physics, and chemistry, and engineering
Obey these same laws
Where Riemann's Function, like Quadratic Equations
And Curve Formulas,
Could solve for more difficult realities.
Using more difficult logic, to describe more difficult patterns.















The Gentle Life Poet

The leaves are making a bed upon the ground.
The children are outside, as they Trick or Treat.
The beautiful woman, who looks like Amarisa
A Victoria Secret Model, was on the TV,
But I feel content today, as I retreated from the gym in heartbreak
And then talked with the Hebrew Israelite at home.
But those are not my subject today.

Today, I heard an interesting woman
Give her atonal poetry a soft reading,
And I found she was a Disney Princess
And walked the entire Appalachian Trail.
Has been to many different places around the world.
As her Twenty-Four year old self 
Talked about The Catcher in the Rye
I thought she'd make a good match for a good friend of mine.
A life poet of sorts, who took life by the horns
And did what she wanted to do.
Interesting perhaps...
Her poesy a little atonal,
There is such an interesting person behind it.
Where instead of crossing the divides of distant worlds in imagination
She took her own world into her eyes, and saw it.
And she walked, and traveled, and accomplished her goals.
She is published, and I am not.

And I just say, an interesting woman like so
Is the life poet, like Malcolm X, or Jesus, or Amelia Earhart. 
And am I a life poet? No. I sit in my room
Like J. D. Salinger and type away in private
Unknown to the rest of the world,
Unread except by one devoted reader whom I adore.
But I just paid for my allergy medicine with a dollar I made
From a book sale.
But she, she lived... though I am not jealous.

The Shunning of Sadness

Our world looks at the sad, and says, “Be not sad.”
It does not embrace them, but is offended.
It does not strengthen their hands,
And when it talks of encouragement,
It says, “Be happy.”
The preachers preach sermons,
And talk about vanities.
“Be glad in this day the LORD has made.”
As if commanding us to be glad.
Yet the LORD Jesus suffered and was grieved. 
And so was Paul, they assumed he was happy in prison.
Yet he was not.
Comforted. Yes.
But not happy.
And they suppose that in suffering,
God will make you rejoice.
But God will not make you rejoice in suffering.

If we could embrace sadness for a season,
And mourn for the sin of the world,
And shed tears—for they would be in the LORD's bottle--
Then we could return to our joy.
But, instead, the preacher preaches vanity.
“Do not speak to them, for you may discourage them,
“But rather send a message in a bottle.”
Yet is it that you are not happy,
So you let the river swirl your message downstream,
So that is why you cannot encourage them?
Is it that you have no love,
And therefore are rude,
And will do this vanity, that takes less time
To fit your busy schedule?



And then they say, “Do not resent.”
I resent nothing.
I simply say,
“Mourn a little while, and be sad of heart. And repent.
“Unyoke the captive by having mercy on their sins
“And do not tell them to be happy, 
“But rather let them be sad.
“For sorrow is better than laughter.
“For where a face is sad, a heart may be happy.”
And then when I return to my home,
The flock of Chickadees shimmers,
For they make my heart happy.
There is no sin in joy,
But now is a time to be in mourning.
Now is a time to embrace suffering
For we are shallow right now,
And suppose to be happy is the only thing that measures life.
No... be sad for a time.
Drink the cup of tears.
And you shall rejoice of heart
When your tears are completed.
For there is a kind of joy that only comes through sorrows
Fully expressed... for then you have compassion
And you understand, life is not all blessings and feasts.
There is a time to mourn, and a time to rejoice.
Now is the time to mourn.
So mourn, my brothers in Christ.
Mourn, and your heart shall be lifted after the tears are shed
And you shall be refreshed again.

For the sorrows of the tears
Shall be the flock of Chickadees,
They shall rise above you,
And shimmer, and your heart shall rejoice
In the day the LORD has made.
And your sorrows shall be turned to joy,
And your confusion turned to gladness.
And you shall have the oil of gladness in return for mourning.




The Sheer of Autumn's Wind on the Last day of October

The sheer of autumn's
Wind is cold to exposed skin.
Gloves and hat and coat,
I look down at the bear scat
And the wind feels like peril.

Yet, I look up, and see majestic trees
Bending in the wiilds, and bare to see;
Half the trees, I say half the trees, are bare.
And it happened in one furious flare
The trees, like a furnace and the embers
Green beneath like shadow and light members
Swaying like towers now ready to fall;
I see aught around me fiercely, it all.
Thus make no mistake, the trees bend; some break.
Yet, I am not now afraid of the sheer
Anymore, for it is a beautiful stakes
To be a witness to the winds of fall.
Great storms and tempest trouble; the gray lake
Heron  shivers in the wind, like a Law.














All Saints Day

The robins fight over the female--
It is comical, but sad.
You realize it is too late in the season for that.
The trees are set ablaze, and a fiery furnace.
The grass is brown upon the trail;
The Queen Anne's Lace and the flowers that look like 
Rose of Sharon are still in bloom; along with the Chicory.
The last few minutes before they will sleep
For the winter.

The couple takes their kid upon a walk
And merrily go their way.
I tell them, “Keep your eyes opened,”
For there are hunters in the woods.
I do not know what I mean,
And neither do they,
But we perfectly understood each other.
Such is the way of dialogue,
The perfect words don't need to be
The perfected meaning,
But rather their intent; that is how we interpret.
Their son petitions them to turn back;
I hear him begging. I agree, that's why I'm walking away from it.
“Bang” I hear the shot one more time,
But I am not afraid.
For hunters hunt, and hikers hike.
She plays a Christian song it seems
Upon her waistband, where she may have a cell phone.

Going to another thought,
I talk about the cosmology I invented in my books.
It keeps me sane, and not thinking about aliens or time travel.
Both of those things are too crazy to fathom
For any human mind.
The cosmology I invented was in a dream once,
And that was what lifted my temporary insanity.
Now I am just depressed,
And hear my inner critic.
And believe the people I see on Screen are actually captives of Israel.




Voting Day

We are going to a new place for voting,
The little church on the end of the street
With the white steeple.
Before it was the borough building.
It's like going to a new school;
As my nerves are racking, and I don't know what to expect.
It's a new place, a new process, a new atmosphere. 
New people.
The leaves are fiery, and the weather is a warm 68 degrees.
I'm in my hat and gloves and jacket.
It is a gentle day,
As I take my one time voter ID to the polling place.
She reads it, thinks my last name is Krantz,
I tell her it's Neifert,
So I sign my name,
And I go to vote.
I have a split ticket,
And vote for Borough council.
It's an off year, so only judges are being voted for.
And I see my old lawyer on the ballot.
As it says in the Bible,
“Do not trust in the chariots of Pharaoh.”
I took that to heart,
Telling him I wanted to go to jail.
So I went.
I didn't vote for him,
But didn't vote for his competitor.
As it'd be a conflict of interest to me.
Though my ballot was not anonymous; it was open faced
And seen by someone. I wish we had a more discreet way to vote.
She commented on my blue eyes.

And as I walked later this night,
Praying to the LORD,
The LORD was a light to me, as I lurked, even though I failed.

The Cool of Fall

I walk in the cool air,
About fifty degrees.
It is a full looking moon,
As it is bright on my steps.
I see a contrail, making sharp bends in the atmosphere,
Illuminated by the moon like a white cloud.
The leaves are half blown,
The stars are dim in the light pollution
But pop back into color when I walk into shade.


























The Wall

I have noticed talking to others
Is like talking to a wall.
I have also noticed that at times when people should be free to speak
The government requires them to stay silent by threat.
But, I listen closely to every nuance,
And I speak...
But like Cassandra's it goes unheeded
And disaster strikes.
And then they try to blame me, like my words forged it.
When they didn't.
It was simply seeing the strings
Of infinite causes and effects
Pulling together.
Just like every civilization,
It reaches its fall,---
The maple saplings are losing their leaves,
The grasses are wilting,
The trees are about a quarter bare
In some parts; in some parts hardly any lost their leaves.
All on fire, though, that too;
And Nero fiddles: our idiot media.
Like the Clay and Iron foot of the Statue of Nebuchadnezzar,
Maybe I had seen its Golden Head?












The Crime

The world smelled dark...
Walking down the paths.
The stink was in the air.
The squirrels cried out a lament.
The leaves were on the ground,
Layering every inch, it seemed.
Upon the trees, were dull oranges and reds,
That burgundy color the fall leaves get
Right before they are about to fall.
I speak through silence.
I put in my report.
What is it all about?
The end of the Western World...
Where people live out of cars but work full time jobs.
Where Nazis and Antifascists breed fascism.
Where communists and capitalists make the bone chased
But never attained, unless given allowance by those above.
Where homeless men are fed and happy,
But they put on a facade for the camera,
Shaming others, “If God does not give you this,
“You are not loved.”
Yet is it that we are taken to our perpetual homes?
Through failure, starvation,
The LORD will provide, which will be a short life,
Shipwrecked by providence like Paul.
For there is no good in the world anymore,
As people take the prey,
And spoil them,
And none do justly,
Or loosen the prisoner's bonds.
Their teeth are iron, and their jowls destruction.

Some of the holly berries are red,
Some are just little knobs,
Some are still white florets.
But, there is poison.



Spring and Fall

The currants are gone.
The leaves are three sevenths remaining.
I realize, that the Gingerbread Trees
Are the flowers of the Currants I've been eating.
What a truly wonderful tree,
To first bring the most delightful smell in spring,
And in fall, the most delightful berry.

The Fractions of Fall

I walk, and notice
That in one place most leaves still
Remain, but other
Places they are all bare. All
Based on perspective and place.

A House Divided

The tumble weed goes over the highway,
The Democrats and Republicans fight
Over whether the country
Should be shut down or not.
He said, she said,
Each side is pointing its fingers...
But a house divided shall not stand.

The Weeping Willow is among the last
Trees to lose her leaves,
And it is among the first to gain them.
It is now dry, and tanning,
And the trees are about 1/8th bare here
2/4ths bare there.

People are frightened,
Yet if most just sat and contented themselves,
They'd find that all of this is far away.
It doesn't actually affect them...
We're too small for it to effect.
We worry, we cry,
We talk politics,
And never have the full story,
We cannot.
Therefore, sit still, be content,
And eat, drink, but tremble.
For when you are content,
The thing you have waited for
Will come, so do not be anxious.
Read your Bible,
Soak in its words.

So planes aren't being directed,
So SNAP benefits were delayed for one month,
So government employees didn't get a paycheck.
Yes, I understand this is under-layers of even worse problems...
A house divided shall not stand.
Yet, understand, oh ye faithful,
You are more valuable than the Lilies and Sparrows.




Providence

Taking a leisurely drive
After my new body paint was done,
I hit a deer in the middle of the road, so frightened,
I pull over, just in time to avoid hitting someone's black cat.
I was so happy that I had just spent 4 hours, trying to
Find a way to get from sine to degrees...
It turns out the ratios have to be memorized.
As I wanted to know, whether Radians to Degrees had similitude
With Sine and Cosine---
I can find what ratio of Pi a Degree is,
But not find Sine and Cosine.
And elated one more of my mysteries were solved,
Do I say it is my genius?
No... for things perfectly aligned safely
That I had not gotten in trouble with my dad
For hitting the deer---
There was no damage to my car---
Yet because I struck the deer,
I had to pull over and thus avoided hitting a neighbor's cat.
So also, I figure out a mystery of Trigonometry,
Through help of Providence, leading me to the right answers.
Trying to do cross multiplication of ratios, I learned,
Degrees and Radians are two different base number systems,
That you can know degrees from radians,
But a Sine and Cosine ratio
Resets every 90 degrees
Due to a Right Triangle and its hypotenuse off the circle's radii.
Thus providence teaches me,
Increasing my fundamentals.
 
I have no true genius of my own
That hasn't been given as a heavenly pattern.
For, I am nothing without Providence.
I am nothing without God.
There is no pattern to understand,
For the beginning of Wisdom is get Knowledge,
And in all things fear the LORD.

The Winter Berries and the Mountains

The winter berries are forming,
Some with orange flower petals above them,
The rose hips; the holly.
The one mountain chain is bare
And the other a furnace.
The people walk in a daze,
Like they did in old motion pictures right
Before World War I.
One tree, it seems, put forth its spring sprouts...
I'm not sure why.

Weep Willow

Weep willow, your tawny leaves
Die in the coming of winter.
Fall comes.
We are in the ides of fall,
Your autumn leaves scent like cinnamon.
But I cannot smell it today;
No... not the fertilizer in the air either.
It is that other smell.
You are the first to sprout your green leaves,
And the last to molt.
Just like Christ Weeps first,
And Christ Weeps last...
He is Alpha and Omega,
And at first, wept to heal,
And at the last, weeps to kill.

Today

Two Bald Eagles in flight over Walmart.
An eddy swirls some yellow and red leaves.
Two unmarked suburbans drive by, sirens blazing
With yellow and red lights, but no blue.
Also, there is a “Fire Weather” warning.






























Quietude

At the park, the ducks fly,
The last of the Robins flock together,
The blackbirds are returning,
The sparrows and chickadees hop on the branches.
The squirrel carries its nut.

I consider South Korea,
Strong in Confucian and Christian ideals.
A land where you can speak the truth about Homosexuality,
And so it is prosperous. What the United States should be.

Then, I listen to the preacher preach on Christ's return
Talking about prophecies—half right,
But he said not to call God father, or Christ friend.
Then another one tells a funny story
About Goats being sheered
In the same pen as the Sheep,
And then asks his listener to leave his inheritance to him.
Then I learned of all the great preachers of the land
And their foul behavior—like Ezekiel, seeing
The witchcraft done in the dark;
The creeping things and sun worship,
And the dirt lodged between the temple's walls.

There is a quietude in the park today.
My mind is less thinking,
And more seeing.
I felt a quietude,
As I was the only one there.
And I felt peace...
Being away from everyone and their greed.


The New Brist

The goldenrod stalks stand, but have no color.
The sparrows flock.
The trees are about bare.

I was counseled before to get baptized...
I wish I had some mature Christian to teach me
Instead of doubtful authorities 
Who have spoiled me.
Yet, Jeremiah prophesied a New Circumcision.
Circumcision was done to infants,
On the eighth day.
Why is Baptism any different?
And you can be circumcised and be like the uncircumcised
And baptized, and be like the unbaptized,
And be like Edom, slain as if uncircumcised.
How I fear Hell, and told my friend yesterday
It is a good thing for it holds man accountable.
Even for a righteous man, it is the healthiest fear.
Let no one dissuade you.
But doubtful disputations about baptism and communion
Avoid.
For fear of hell, leads you to better conduct,
Just like heaven set in the heart is a jewel of peace.
For no one can take it from you,
No, not even your flesh can.
For like circumcision,
Like Baptism, you have no choice...
The LORD Chooses, and He Builds and He Plants
And He plucks up from the roots and casts down.
Our only hope is to fear God and for Him to show mercy,
For how do we know if we are a chosen vessel?
Yet the fear is clean; for it causes us to do good.
Let no one dissuade you otherwise.
The fear of the LORD is very clean.


Mr. Haefer's Lecture about the Honeycrisp

I eat a Honey-crisp apple,
And say it will one day stop being grown;
For my mother told me.
Mr. Haefer says, “No, for they look to the orchard,
“And fence off a tree, and study it, whether it is pest resistant,
“How sweet is the fruit, how it tolerates water and drought,
“And if it is good, they take a branch off that tree,
“And store it until spring.
“And when spring is sprung, they graft it into a root-stock,
“And the scion there grows upon the root stock,
“And if the root-stock is hearty, and if the scion sweet,
“It grows, and they can continue this whenever they need.”

And thus it is, a sweet vine, gets grafted into a hearty root.
So it is, Paul said of Christ,
He is the Root-Stock, and we are the scion.

















The Leaves

The leaves leave a slippery layer
Upon the ground,
As they decay, and smell musky.
Variegated browns, and there upon the forest floor,
They wash down the stone paths
And form piles in the valleys and the ditches.

My heart is angered and bitter at God,
So instead of airing my grievance--
He is God, what is it to Him?--
I sing a song, praising Him.
For my heart is bitter...
Was not Job's too?

What sin had I committed
To deserve this?
Nay, I pay back my bushel
And receive a fist full of wind.

The vault above is gray,
And the trees almost completely bare...
Deep in the forest the leaves sit
And their smell...
To describe them,
Is a little like musky cinnamon
And damp basement.
Not so much cinnamon
And not so much damp basement.
Yet, to one who does not know the smell,
It is a new smell
And I can say that it is a hard thing to describe.

But do not be angered, 
Heart, though you are breaking.
Sing a song to God, and maybe He will return you to your rest.

For the sorrows of hell get hold of me,
And I remember the time when the LORD refreshed me
With a plentiful rain, and filled the empty lake full...
And so I pray to return.
For though a heart is pained,
It shall find its joy
By praising the LORD.

Let go of the world,
And though thieves and moths destroy,
And though the gold rust
Like the leaves decaying upon the ground...
There is greater treasure in heaven
Than all the Earth.
One room in Heaven's Mansions
Is greater treasure than the wealth of an entire kingdom's.
One path of gold more fine
Than all the income gained on this earth.

Do not despair, but love the LORD Your God,
Though He smite you...
Preserve your faith, and walk in Him abundantly.
Though He smite you for a season,
Yet He will reward you for eternity.
And though the gold rust
And the money dissolve in your hands--
The fine garments get holes
And the food you eat become less refined--
Know it is only for a short time,
And pray to the LORD to hasten your return
Unto His rest. And you shall there
Find peace.

The Crying Squirrels

The squirrels are crying.
The penny is done away.
Shops round up, or down a nickel---or just stopped using cash altogether.
I realize the world is gone...
I am not in despair. But encouraged.
I listen to the famous pastor
Cry out for health and wealth and prosperity---
Better to have hid your pearl in the field,
And come back and bought it later.
For heaven is like pecked yeast in dough,
That if given time, it will yield a hearty bounty.
The little furs that look like berries
Are on one tree.
I solve Mega IQ questions...
What is it worth, if not to go to heaven?
If I am so wise, if I am so smart,
Let me show by my example.
By surrendering my cheek,
By giving up my cloak,
By forgiving my debtors.
So I have nothing left to lose,
And only eternity to gain.
Blessed is the Merciful, for he shall receive mercy.
Blessed be ye who Mourns, for he shall be comforted.
Blessed if you hate this life, for you shall gain it.
For what is much wisdom, and wealth, so that all the world
And 666 talents are mine?
There is no penny...
So the people cannot pay their taxes.
So, all I'd have is a digital currency to pay my money.
And that, I refuse.
For the woman who was refused by the husband of her youth
And is childless,
Shall have more children than she who had many.


Dark Eyed Junco

Dark Eyed Junco, so you begin
And so you end soon, at fall's close.
A wintering bird, lack of sin,
You flit on branch to branch and know
The time of migration has come.
You are there, gray bird with white chest,
You've flown from where you once did nest.
You are such bird, that all men love.
Not so grand, lest my good poesy
Makes you well known to all the fae
Which your plumage is so lovely,
And your mirth is ever so gay.
Do know, gray bird with white feathers
You are a sign of cold weather.


Three Baby Bunnies

Three baby bunnies in the weeds,
They eat all, the clover and leaves;
Three baby bunnies in the weeds,
They hop along.































Topaz

The white and orange pumpkin decorations are out,
So are a few Christmas lights...
The trees are bare,
The air at that raw temperature,
The moisture soaking my skin.

I think of a Poet who is like Topaz,
With the insect in its amber,
And I read him:
He is considered Britain's Worst Poet.
I say, he is not Britain's worst poet,
But for idle boasts,
And calling himself “The Queen's Poet”,
He had misfortune,
Where men would not even look at his work,
And would see front and center
His only mistake.
He called himself “Shakespeare”.
He was not Shakespeare,
But Middle Brow,
And a little humility would have gone a long way
To know his place in the pecking order.

But he had lucid imagination,
And a wide depth of interests.
A prodigious mind, like myself.
And not Britain's worst poet.

But we see how politics ruin a man,
Then and even now,
That that century's great one--
A Poet who'd be like a modern Stephen King--
Was discarded due to an idle boast,
And Courtly politics.
Such it is, there are many sad stories like it.
There was a black man, who developed
A tool that made shoes easy to make, and also less expensive
But his work was stolen, and he died penniless. 
Such it was, such it is, such a shame.
But, he had Christ, so won the greater fortune,
And was indeed persecuted, too.

The Squirrels

The squirrels are crying out
Because the Golden Eagle is nearby.
The leaves are bare.
The saplings still have green.


Black Friday

We drive on Black Friday,
The roads were barren,
But the shopping centers packed with cars.
It is a perfect End of November day,
Some,--on very few,--trees, the leaves are yellow
And brown, but mostly bare.
A few saplings still green, some bright red.
The hedge apples are in the berms,
The Blue Jay flies, a year round bird,
The Blackbirds are returning in their shimmering flocks.
Snow flurries fall,
And look! There is a woman
Walking the mall, beautiful as can be.
We buy shoes for 77 dollars,
At 30% off.
The tree gets decorated,
The lights are strung up,
The Christmas Music finally gets played,
The New Poinsettia stands in the living room.
And there are Kisses in the candy dish;
Chocolate delights innumerable.

The Deer at the Park

There, her majestic body leaps
Across the trail.
The white tailed doe
Is disturbed by hunters in orange, with rifles.
She stares at me,
Yet I am not afraid.
I am not afraid because there is nothing to fear.

The Chickadees in the Woods

Walking along the path,
The leaves are there,
Moldy and fragrant.
Slippery.
And I walk into the last leg of the trail,
Praying to God for mercy.
When I see the Chickadees, a flock of them,
Hopping through the trees
And climbing on the branches.
They at first look like Woodpeckers
Climbing over the bark;
But they are Chickadees.
With their white tail feathers.
And I remember, “His eye is on the Chickadee;
“So I know He watches me.”




















The Deer in Rut

Two playful deer along the path
Frolic over the trail, and their pheromones smell
Musky. Their white tails raise.

December 2nd, First Snow

There is a white snow on the ground;
The grass is poking through it in little
Leaves of darkness.
A slushy, cold, watery snow.
I wake up, and am lethargic.
The clouds are gray.
It is darkened, a gray vault above,
Illuminated by the noon sun.
And the plough hasn't come.
It will soon,
Or the snow will melt in the 40 degrees.

Langan

The 200 IQ man,
No one understands him.
Snow melts, the grass is in pockets...
I understand him.
Geometry is what's real,
But language describes the Geometry.
The language does not change the Chemistry
Or Geometry, or the Physics,
Yet worlds slightly shift
Between time, and leaders create new
Social Paradigms, so our words describe them.
And thus, it is not our words creating the world,
But the world creating our words.
Thus, is the power of a lie, is that the lie creates a false world
That is like a trap, and an enchantment,
And the creature who hears that spell cannot escape
The lies.
Therefore, speak the truth with your neighbors
And bless them in their endeavors:
Encourage them...
So they are not a Grand Master Craftsman
Living in invalid like solitude.

The Pheasant Flying

Walking, I see the Pheasant fly,
Fluttering from its perch,
And the Vesper Sparrow
Hopping along the ground,
Come for its winter migration.
The plain looking couple consoles one another
On the trail;

I'm asked by a man, who probably needs them,
“How do you get wet dreams?”
Taken back, I think of the pain,
The nightmares,
The grand delusions
Spun by them,
And I realize those are to be the rod
To correct me, so I never covet the dreams.

I tell him, “It's unpleasant,
“And can be disturbing;
“But put all sex out of your mind.
“Put not the image of woman's nudity
“To your eye.
“Do not churn the butter.
“And soon, maybe your dreams will happen.”

He says,
“I will need them three times a week.”
I, knowing that's not true, for he only needs to know it once or twice really,
Say, “No, you will lose interest in sex,
“And your dreams will be an embarrassment.
“They are not a sin, but wash after morning dawn, and stay out of warfare.”



But, the figure in my dreams last night---
Almost prophetically teaching me about today,---
Says, “You are doing nothing wrong,”
As we make full tactile love, with a full forth.
And as I drive, I can smell the odor of a jail cell on my body,
And I know this is not right, but it is not wrong.
The smell of captivity.
These dreams are rather a form of captivity for a man
Given to too much wanton pleasure in life.

So I say to him,
“Do it for the sake of purity,
“And not to receive your dreams.
“For purity's sake, God will bless you,
“And these will become a rod of your correction;
“You will not enjoy it, but you will not hate it.
“It is neutral, but dreams help keep you with self control.”

The snow is melting;
The grass and mud appear in large bare spots
But the snow has footprints,
One foot larger than my own.
And a dog's footprints beside it.

The Two Preachers

The deer smell like horses,
As they jaunt over the trail,
Playing in the woods.
Their white tails,
Massive,
Shoot up like a mercy flag.
They are within distance,
As I preach a sermon to them:

“Oh, how a preacher says,
“'Our youths want a righteous cause to follow!
“'So make them be warriors against abortion
“'And homosexuality
“'And transgenderism
“'And make them soldiers to crusade once again!'

“I say, 'The last thing we need
“'Are crusader knights.
“'For they go, and the executioner
“'Begins to draw and quarter,
“'And the thoughtful men grow poor,
“'And the nobility take all
“'And the sage is turned into a pauper.
'”And then, there is no more mercy
“'As the king has all arts, all thoughts
“'All laws, all science.
“'The youths do not need a cause or banner,
“'But this, Slay the beast inside.
“'For our war is not outside,
“'But within us, and our foe is mighty.
“'For our foe is a Beast named Sin,
“'Two Thirds of who we are,
“'Named and numbered,
“'And he we must slay in ourselves.
“'Not our fellow creature.'”

Four gunshots are heard
In the forest. The deer are in danger.
For they are innocent,
And gleefully with a smile on their handsome faces
Hop along, and innocently mate.
And their innocence is made more severe,
For the hunter looks for them.
So, intelligent animals,
They come to the forest's place
Where the hunters are not allowed to follow.

Come to your place, Christians. The place of rest in Christ Jesus.
Care not for the world, where your heart turns to murder.
No, rather turn the other cheek:
A clean animal chews on the cud.

Christ

Crucify your flesh,
And place every sin into His hands and feet.
And any man who wronged you,
Place their sin there,
Like an inheritance they can cash in on.
The snow is melted.
The trees bare.
But there are lights hanging on many boughs...

Nothing to Report

I walk outside
And the whole country smells like rotten bones.

Everything is Sleeping

The trees have no leaves,
The Rose of Sharon also have no bells,
The weeping willow's branches are brown.
We are at the end of December Fall.

And as I sleep, even while awake
My mind is dreaming,
I consider what my life would be
If it were a Television show.

How paltry is my life, and vulgar...
But my imagination is good.
Rather, here I sit, in good comfort,
And a flower wells up in the dead of winter.
Beowulf fights Astille,
But Astille has my sister's face.
Brittos fights Medea,
But Media has D____'s face.
Maddok goes down to Fairyland,
But I am Maddok; a beast I must fight within myself
And I am Brittos and Beowulf.
Marc is a dark skinned version of me,
And Erin is Amarisa.
Elora is L_____ S_____
And Sierra is S_____.
And Jack is me old and grey, Theresa is A_____
And each is rendered photo realistically
Upon the screen with CGI.
Trump is the Bull of Heshbon or is he Bomdun's friend?
And my stories are told,
As I sit at the computer every day...
And they get told.
Artemis XX is told in the perspective of an atheist
I met online, Ayin and Athrin C____ and Q____
And the autobiographical bits are told
To show the context to my pieces,
And why they would be written;
Along with the outside world's, the real world's
Politics.
That's how I'd do my TV Show.
Instead they'd make me a retarded trouble maker.

But at the end, I marry Amarisa, and I get paid for my books.

The Barrens

The lake is frozen with a sheet of ice.
It whoops once.
The woodpeckers peck away.
It is a miserable walk.
The trees are bare, the leaves are upon the ground,
The berms are barren,
Covered in fallen leaves.
It is cold.
Yet I sing a song to the LORD.

The Deer Poached

My Brer Deer lived
In the area where Poaching was illegal.
It was a no hunting spot.
I knew him, seeing him,
He was a beautiful Mule Deer with stubby antlers,
And happy and free...
Like Christ, wandering and lawfully at that.
Free and happy, his musk was smelled.
Yet, I heard a series of shots fired where they ought not.
I know not if he is dead,
But no one brought his corpse 
From the woods
When I was returning to my house.
He may have been shot,
And left for dead,
Adding insult to the poor creature's injury.
For he knew where it were safe,
Yet still, he was tracked,
And hunted, and stalked.
What can the world do
With lawless men residing in it?

A Walk in Winter

The snow is upon the ground,
And it is a brisk, 21 degrees Fahrenheit.
I consider,
God made the snow white
So the light is more vibrant
In the dead of winter,
As the light is good for the eyes
And so is the cold
Good for depression.

And I see Brer Deer's tracks,
He is still alive,
And also a little fox's.
The squirrel cries
As he dances in the woods
Making merry.

Then, the beautiful maid approaches me
At the park,
After she was looking at the ice upon the lake,
To see if the lake had frozen.
She says,
“You are a brave soul
“Hiking in the winter.”
I know not what to say...
She is too beautiful,
And I am not a brave soul,
Especially for walking in the snow
With a walking stick.
It is for my joy, that I need to walk,
And be in the cold, and see the sunlight...

I say, “God bless you,”
And tell my dad she is a cutie pie.

The Mark of the Beast

I have a vision...
A friend of yours comes---already marked---
And pulls out a cup of mixed wine.
It is the wrath of God;
The blood of your victims, the souls you have destroyed.
He pours the wrath into your cup,
And tells you to drink.
Immediately,
Your spirit is severed from your body and soul...
You are a robotic husk now.
You dream false dreams---a filthy dreamer---
But you are a lie unto yourself.
And then you prowl,
And murder,
And steal the souls of your victims
To fuel your dreams.
And he puts into your head a thorn,
Or into your hand a thorn,
And there is your mark.
You are two thirds a man,
A soul and body divided from your spirit.
And you have then worshiped Sin.

I walk in the orange sunset, with the white snow.
The day is growing dim.
The night is upon us.
I think of Isaiah, how the cup shall pass from Israel
And be given into the hands of his enemies.
The wrath of the LORD shall pass those who call upon 
His name.
Do not worship Sin or his economy...
Do not worship his Commerce; do not receive the mark;
Do not drink of the LORD's wrath 
By causing him to serve with your sin.
For there comes a time, when to buy or sell
You must be marked
Or beheaded.

The Flights of the Birds

The robins cluster in their flocks
As the snow is melting on the grass.
Pockets of grass appear.
They are ready to fly south.
The blackbirds, from the North,
Came here, as the Robins fly south.

My heart battles bitterness.
It battles envy.
It battles ingratitude.
It battles, as people prey upon me,
And keep me from rising.

Yet I know, if I keep my charity,
And keep my peace,
And keep acting lawfully according to scripture,
I shall take flight
Like these birds
And move to more mellow climates.

©2025 B. K. Neifert

All Rights Reserved