Category: Poetry/Prose

Love Me Again

Before any of you were, you were with me.
Deeply embedded in the folds of my skirt,
hidden from light’s illumination, cloaked
in my warm darkness, protecting you.

Having to release you into that other realm,
kills me each and every time; my heart breaks.
We were one and now we’re rent asunder,
and a piece of me always leaves with you.

I know you intimately, even when you go
into that other existence, and I long for you
to come back to me; arms aching to feel you
once again held, enfolded in my embrace.

I wish you knew how much I miss you.
I watch you as you move through one stage
into another; form and shape changing, grow-
ing, learning. I watch and smile. I’m proud.

I keep my distance, though; this is not my place, my
realm, or my existence. Sometimes I forget myself and
get too close to you, and you see and feel my shadow’s
presence. Look of horror! I weep, receiving your hate.

Nothing changes how much I love you; rejection and
and denial cannot actually refuse me my existence.
You still carry with you a piece of me just as I still carry
that piece of you with me. You cannot forget me. Ever.

I’m threaded through everything; bringing forth the
echo to the sound, the shade to the light, the shadow
to the brightness, the undertone to the overtone; the
background to the foreground. Yet, I’m the villain.

“The Enemy” some call me. Oh! the books and papers
that have been written about me over the surge of all
time. A few get close, some too far afield, none really
know me; verbal streams feeding into the great void.

I’m painted as the one who devours, as if I’ve no love;
I’m decked with the cloth of tyrants, as if I’m boundless.
I’m cast as the pernicious rogue choosing my hapless
victims, as if my heart does not break with your pain.

My embrace at the end of your journey is not cold
but warm. I bring peace as I enfold you, my beloved,
back into me. Reverse birth, back into my womb.
And here you remember me; I’m threat no more.

I’m not the termination of Life; I’m the source and the return.
I’m in Life as much as Life is in me; we are friends, not enemies.
We’re twins, God’s Love coursing through all creation this side and that.
Her crown gleams in the sun light; mine glimmers under the moon.

Fear not the transition, my dear beloved ones.
Love leaves you not in one moment to the next.
From her hand you are passed into my arms;
I fold you into me, and you love me again.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Here’s One

Here’s one…
…definitely two;
most likely three…
and now there’s four.
Ah…wait a minute…five.
In a moment: six.
Oh! And then there’s seven.
Over there…eight.
Ooops, nine.
Losing track, is that ten?

Outside too many to count;
inside too few to forget.
The strongest will survive,
devour the least of these.
Smells and bells,
rings and dings,
pageantry and celebrity,
pomp and circumstance.
The powerful strut,
the humble crawl.
Too many inside unseen,
too few outside to seek.

Resist the urge,
Stand the ground,
Stay the course:
People are the goal,
not a means to an end,
not dollars in plates,
not bodies in chairs,
not moths to flames
fanning narcissistic ego…
Risk doors closing,
Say something of substance,
Declare: beloved!

Not the hunt,
but the gather.
Not the place,
but the space.
Not for the seen,
but the unseen.
Not for the rich,
but the poor.
Not for the powerful,
but for the vulnerable.
Not for the greatest,
bur for the least.
Not for those who know
but for those who know not.
Not for hate,
but for love.
Not for death,
but for life.

Here are ten…
definitely nine;
most likely eight…
and now there’s seven.
Ah…wait a minute…six.
In a moment: five.
Oh! And there’s only four.
Over there…three?
Ooops, two.
Losing track, is that one?

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Who You Ask

The gospel isn’t political; it’s a missive
carrying divine words transmissive —
addressing the sinful state of humanity
deserving refusal of heaven’s eternity.

“If I could recollect before my hood days
I sit and reminisce, thinkin’ of bliss and the good days
I stop and stare at the younger
My heart goes to ’em, they tested with stress that they under”*

We don’t want to be like the activists now, do we?
We would fall to the ego’s restless insatiable vanity.
We must protect Christ from assimilation between
politics and action; forsooth, people would misween.

“And nowadays things change
Everyone’s ashamed of the youth ’cause the truth look strange
And for me it’s reversed
We left ’em a world that’s cursed, and it hurts”

The gospel saves souls from hell;
we must stay the course and tell
this message of surreal security
from flames eager for impurity.

“’Cause any day they’ll push the button,
and all good men Like Malcolm X or Bobby Hutton died for nothin’
Don’t it make you get teary? The world looks dreary
When you wipe your eyes, see it clearly”

Proclamation of the gospel of God: love for all;
but only those who hear—in heart—God’s call:
those who ascend to this dominant culture’s law
keep the message, don’t stray, lock tight the jaw.

“There’s no need for you to fear me,
if you take your time and hear me maybe you can learn to cheer me
It ain’t about black or white, ’cause we human
I hope we see the light before it’s ruined”

Expectation to be comforted by that ancient declaration
of God’s cosmic divine love, sweet gospel proclamation;
don’t alter the protocol, give me dear, mellifluous Jesus
salvation by words harmonious and never ever versus.

“Tell me, do you see that old lady? Ain’t it sad?
Livin’ out of bag but she’s glad for the little things she has.
And over there, there’s a lady, crack got her crazy;
guess who’s givin’ birth to a baby?”

Leaning heavy on the liberating baptismal covenant—
the spiritual waters washing me into the Remnant —
exhorted to combat evil (demythologized into oblivion),
charged to spread the Gospel (only in word, not action).

“I don’t trip or let it fade me
From out of the fryin’ pan we jump into another form of slavery
Even now I get discouraged
Wonder if they take it all back, will I still keep the courage?”

Don’t risk the active pace, preach only the “Gospel”,
never straying from that saccharine comfort (fiscal).
God forbid disrupting that flow of donated wealth
and lose privileges in the gentrified commonwealth.

“I refuse to be a role model
I set goals, take control, drink out my own bottles
I make mistakes but learn from everyone
And when it’s said and done, I bet this Brother be a better one.”

Atop this kingdom of table and pew, hewn stone and wood,
Ruling by myth and cloth, condemning those who withstood.
With clenched fists and jaw, eyes shut so tight: adoro deum;
disturb the self-righteous seat: beware narcissistic tantrum.

“If I upset you don’t stress, never forget
That God isn’t finished with me yet
I feel his hand on my brain
When I write rhymes I go blind and let the Lord do his thang.”

Confer with the others—self-appointed judges—and we agree:
the gospel remains purely spiritual; dialectically, materially free.
Lest—shudders—the people wake and reform to revolutionary,
we must remythologize those divine words of Love incendiary.

“But am I less holy
‘cause I chose to puff a blunt and drink a beer with my homies?
Before we find world peace,
we gotta find peace and end the war on the streets;
my ghetto gospel.”

*This and all other right hand side citations are from Tupac Shakur’s “Ghetto Gopsel”

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

I Walk in Translucence

I walk in translucence
live within substance
thick and transparent;
material iridescence.

Things feel neither this
and definitely not that.
Chaos feels normal now,
so too: one step at a time.

Definitions feel too heavy
and desperately craved.
Reaching back fails, yet
Straining forward is loss.

My vocation is pointless
rendered to dust by those
who care more for their own
spirituality than the story.

I’m embarrassed to don
cloak and collar; a cloth
representation of violence,
an archaic cairn of lost ways.

No one looks for a priest
anymore; a bygone call
ushered eras ago, long since
silenced by human stubbornness.

The Church is dying…
I need to touch the host
The people are perishing…
Where are my robes.

Ethical praxis amounts to
nothing more than matching
colors of reds, purples, greens
and the occasional pink.

Forming opinions on things
that bring not life but perpetuate
death and night among the people,
stealing life; irony: we think we live.

Reigning top-down in fluid fear
making our own bodies the apex
of the entire structure and story.
Grandiose expressions of pomp.

Bloated ego mixed with adorned
body, ready for worship blurring
distinction of my body and Christ’s.
My body wasn’t broken; his was.

Jesus died held on wood by nails,
stuck to an instrument of death
designed by the state to kill those
threatening their claim to power.

Jesus died held on wood by nails,
identifying with every oppressed body,
the same who watched on and listened
as those with more hubris mocked him.

All who found themselves trapped as he
watched as this man, God of very God,
refused to play the way those in power
wanted him to play; he chose another game.

Not strength, but weakness.
Not power, but compassion.
Not authority, but solidarity.
Not death, but life.

He died not in fine robes, but stripped naked.
He died not on rare stone, but simple wood.
He died not with fanfare, but ridiculed.
He died not for himself, but for the people.

Is this not the story of the church?
Is this not the fabric that is the
material of my call and my life as
a priest in this church, in this story?

Yet things feel neither this
and definitely not that.
Chaos feels normal now,
so too: one step at a time.

I walk in translucence
live within substance
thick and transparent;
material iridescence.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 3

A Good Man…

“Jesus was a good teacher and man,”
a statement most people like to say.
But, the statement causes me pause:
“Would you have said this in that day?”

We make this claim, so certain of ourselves
that this one man in history was quite good;
but the people in that crowd didn’t think so,
as they clamored for the nails and wood.

Maybe I’m too negative, refusing moral
evolution; but are we actually improved
in making sound judgments than those
who lived in eras and times far removed?

If we were them and they were us, everything
would occur as it already did. We’d demand
his life be given and then release Barabas;
that choice they’d examine and reprimand.

We don’t like rabble-rousers any more now
than we did then. One need only to mention
“Malcolm X” of “Martin Luther King Jr” to recall
how we treat those who light fires of revolution.

“Jesus was a good teacher and man,”
they say as if it’s a universal statement.
In many ways, it is very much true; he was.
Jesus was good, in the way “good” is meant.

But hindsight is 20/20, we say this now.
Though…we wouldn’t have said it then.
One thing I keep coming back to on this point
is that all should be silence from way back when.

Nothing should have survived the trials of time,
Jesus should have gone the way of the wind…
into the distant whirling dust devil that is the
constant erosion of time’s battling headwind.

The only reason we have the audacity to say this,
“Jesus was good,” is due to the very early Church
feeling it necessary that if anything held through time
twas a whacky claim: the Son of God wasn’t left in a lurch.

Through the words of Paul, that extreme and energetic guy,
and the reply of those other four writers some years belated,
we have with us a story of divine activity rejecting
death, which is a story to people weekly narrated.

Jesus wrote nothing down, neither did any of his disciples.
For all intents and purposes, this man should never be known
for how good he was or wasn’t; Jesus should have slipped
into all that was and never will be again, the great “unknown”.

But we do because small groups of people dared to retell
something crazy, a thing which caused them to live in a way
different than the rest, a story so crazy their own lives were
not worth keeping if they couldn’t tell what they had to say.

“Jesus was a good teacher and man,” so good God raised him
from death into life so that we could also partake in this, his, life.
We owe this hope to scared people, desperately clinging to crazy
words of a crazier story, ignoring other words threatening antilife.

Had these small sects of people, scattered in the middle east,
never thought this worth their time, not worth this great danger,
we’d be now without such a story of metaphysical engagement
starting in the midst of hay and straw, a mere babe in a manger.

“Jesus was a good teacher and man,”
I say now with an eye to this humble past.
Thank you kind people for passing on this
crazy story surviving time in words that last.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

Rebirth

The backside of loneliness is longing; or
maybe the backside of longing is loneliness.
Either way both forces seem to draw forward
and backward, surging sideways: left and right
grabbing and dragging its victim into its shadow
and there pummeling it with once held dreams
and desires, leaving shapes and husks of human
form once was. Hissed and slithered words of
comfort uttered from longing and loneliness add
insult to the injuries, conjuring up consuming
spirits from the belly of fear: you are nothing.
Whispered words from the consuming darkness
of the shadow encompassing your entire being
as you lay on your own cold ground among the
shards and shrapnel of those dreams and desires.
And you give in. You succumb. You agree. Yes.
I am nothing. Nothing else comes up; no other
words present, no other thought arises, no other
comes to your rescue. No one can see you in
this tormenting and tortuous moment. Loneliness’s
weight grows heavier as longing steals more and
more of your form and shape, pulling strands of
inner life out like pulling and stretching playdough
until there’s not enough firmness and resistance
to snap back. Elastic broken; shape broken. And
again to sooth the pain of this madness you agree:
I am nothing. And again: I am nothing. And again:
I am nothing. Love is gone now. Confidence has
fled. I am nothing. Light has been eclipsed by the
shadows and oppressive darkness. And then:
out loud: I am nothing. The words are bullets.
The strength of confession is that the thing con-
fessed becomes real and external, a life of its
own over which and at which you can look and
examine, peering at this side and that side.
In the concession I am nothing, you become
something. And like conception of your being
happening all over again, you are reborn. I am
something. To speak these words, to affirm, I
am something. Dark and shadow dissipate and
begin to slip off. I am something. Hands touch
now reanimated and emboldened substance.
I am something. And for this moment, as you sit
regathering and regathered, you watch as you
witness the backside of longing trail away and
you wave goodbye to loneliness and longing…

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

One Moment

Experience tells of lessons learned and lived—
choices made, words spoken, actions done—
all done once and unable to be undone once.
Choices hem off certain options in the moment—
though new opportunities come again activating
choice’s functioning sword of swift severance.
Words leave no trace over lips as they leave
but they hit like sticks and stones where ever
they land; leaving welts and bruises, even scars.
Actions flow from bodies as if summoned by a
divine wizard; like embodied incantations they
altar space—for better or worse—in a single blow.
And it’s all once: one choice, one word, one action;
that’s all it takes to forever change anything in a
specific way that can and will never be undone.
One
Moment
One
Choice
One
Word
One
Action
Changes
Everything
So maybe we should slow down when we are
faced with seemingly innocuous choices,
tempted to say that seemingly little thing,
provoked into that seemingly small gesture;
take that second, take that pause, slow down
and breathe—think twice, see well, listen more.
These choices, words, and actions do not fall
idly to the ground and flip-flap about like fish
pulled from waters and left to wither in the sun.
They are always given to others to carry away;
we pass on our choices, words, and actions as
if we are mail-carriers delivering both wanted
and unwanted packages to suspecting and un-
suspecting individuals traversing our journeys.
One
Moment
One
Choice
One
Word
One
Action
Changes
Everything

Posted on by laurenlarkin 2

What if Thy Will is Done

Every time I pray Thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven
I stop and pause and think…Really? Do I mean this?
Do I really want God’s will done on Earth?
The stories and mythologies
forming the backbone of the tradition
speak of radical events of upheaval and chaos
when God makes divine footfalls on terra firma,
when God beckons humans to reconsider,
to look elsewhere, to hear anew.
The vibration from Divine steps and voice renders
pre-existing structures rubble and dust–
removing ground from under feet once sure;
plummeting confident human beings into doubt
flirting with despair, terror breading fear and panic.
Divine presence returns full grown adults
to infancy: fleshy, helpless heaps needy, and desperate.
But my pause is rather ironic as I consider
the damage of divine entrance:
Haven’t we done just fine with that on our own?

We kill black and brown people in streets and on borders
We declare war on nations and people groups, supposed enemies
We steal land and then demand payment from people we stole it from
We strip dignity from human beings determining
who they can and cannot be, whom they can and cannot love
We render humans without homes as blights on our quaint Main Streets
We perpetuate the starvation of the Hungry while feeding dumpsters
We make water undrinkable for the Thirsty but at least we have our enterprises
We make life a thing to be earned, baited with the carrot of healthcare
We throw people in cages while retirement accounts and mutual funds soar
We sell lies of security to people through the idolatry of Militarization
We put all of our hope in science and then turn our backs on it
when it threatens to restrain our liberty and freedom for others
We grow isolated and alienated, packed in below the earth,
safe in our bunkers from the enemies outside;
but the irony is… aren’t we our own enemies, the very thing we fear most?

So, what if praying fervently, Thy will be done on Earth as in Heaven,
Means comfort and solidarity rather than chaos and loneliness?
What if it means solid ground rather than groundlessness?
What if it means right side up rather than upside down?
What if it means breathing deep rather than holding breath?
What if it means mutuality into community rather than competition unto isolation?
What if it means rest in loving warmth rather than productivity in chilling indifference?
What if it means surety of divine presence in love with the neighbor
rather than the surety of loveless doctrines and dogmas, those cold relics?
What if it means collapsing into the divine embrace of a loving Elder Ancestor
rather than being left standing alone held by no one but the boney arms of Grim.
What if it means life rather than death?

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0

words like blood

words flow through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries in opposing directions through various delicate tubes weaving and wending throughout my body so everything I write comes from me not merely my mind or my heart but both and my body too and that flow and fluidity is a stream of my own being leaving me and entering the world but that old and over used analogy that this written thing is a begotten baby whose cord must now be cut so that the baby may live in the world falls flat because it is a lie nothing written has ever felt like it is not still connected to me in some form whether bad or good and should I point out that such an analogy is they way men view birth and child rearing because I am mom and there is no way that simply cutting the cord of the human I just birthed means that it is now detached from and not a part of me on its own and of its own through nourishing and encouraging and training and walking along side I grow more attached to the very child that I once held in my body and then strapped to my breast by cloth tied about my body and who now walks beside me and towers above me larger than I and so I cannot help but think that as maternally defensive as I am over my babies turned young adults due to profound and deep attachment that the same thing would occur with the other product that my body produces through herself because this thing that I have written bears in likeness to me and carries with it my genetic material even if merely collections of letters and shapes forming places to pause in various forms it is an animated thing not a cold product like a can or a shovel or a thing to be kicked about purchased sold used as a means to an end it is a line from me to the one who reads it an intimate momentary bond that holds for however many minutes it takes to walk together from the beginning to the end and I think the sooner we come to terms with the interconnectedness of art from the artist to the one who is engaged and encountered by the art the sooner we will be made aware that we are not stoic producers in a world demanding product and material but co-creators divinely inspired swirled up and spun about in the divine delight of begetting and creating living breathing things in the world that tie us to us in a beautiful silvery spiritual and mystical thread spun by the divine light of heaven dropped by spinning spools releasing their brilliant and delicate and thin string and material into eager hands of listening and watching creatures ready to participate in this thing called humanity and willing to step thread in hand curious enough to pick up the stray end of another and allow heart beats and blood flows and intimate connectivity to bond risking exposure and rejection and still feeling deep awareness of self and union because these words have flown through me like the very blood that flows and moves through my veins and arteries…

***

inspired by Dorothee Sölle’s discussion of “Co-Creator” in To work and to Love: A Theology of Creation

Posted on by laurenlarkin 1

useful in uselessness

Upon what do I stand?
Is it the shifting sand
of perpetual demand
from time’s command?

This substance is so elusive;
material utterly seducive,
luring things unconducive
that trap me in the illusive.

I can fight if I want—
offer flagrant taunt—
against Chaos’s flaunt-
ing—meager chalant.

But fighting seems dumb—
like voiceless and numb—
like the smallest crumb
against a large bass drum.

I would like to retreat,
run fast, use my feet,
cross this 4-lane street,
to old comfort—remeet.

Things of the past
never seem to last
despite holding fast
in ideological cast.

That which is gone
cannot be redrawn
like the rising dawn:
lifts and then: upgone.

But yet it seems too nice
to repeat things twice;
“Come Back!” (old entice).
But it’s only melted ice.

What was is not a cover,
isn’t my steadying lover;
just a flimsier dustcover
hiding nothing to recover.

I must try to slow and grow steady—
cease being desperately heady,
stop flailing and grasping: sit ready—
dogma has become useless, too thready.

Let my body flow
let limbs grow
into the hollow
of chasmic swallow.

Letting go to be once more born—
like proceeding through flesh torn—
but emerging through darkness worn
summoned to by love’s divine horn.

Finding life in lifelessness
Finding the light in darkness
Finding beloved in wretchedness
Finding ground in groundlessness.

Surrendering useful in uselessness.

Posted on by laurenlarkin 0