Tag Archives: Poem

Doors

1 Nov

they say just walk right through when it’s open

but sometimes the noise is too loud to find your footing

I still dream of that perfect place where the windows are always open

and the outside and inside are one so there are no dark corners

walls are safe and secure and they keep us yearning

even when we want to tear them down

we just keep building them

It’s not a matter of good or evil, it’s what you do within them

they say that the each of us in a house
and what the rooms look like inside represent a soul
but some of us are tents
wandering from country to country
refugees of our own making
never finding home

they say just keep waiting for a door to open
but some of us are builders, bolting locks
others are fighters, kicking them down
in order to let the sunlight in

 

 

doors

 

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Triggers

12 May

here’s what triggers me:

a soft feeling beneath a cynical view

that today matters

that there is worth in unexpected moments

that greener grass is here, now

I want to take a breath and mean it

like when time stopped and every inhale and exhale

meant bringing a child into the world

a labor of pure love

I want to work like that until my heart is filled again

to fix my eyes on letters

and forget all the numbers

filling my head

peace is not a catchphrase

contentment is not a buzzword

I want them to be the structure which holds

this body together

which binds my skin and keeps all my insides, in

that which infinitely embraces my soul

and keeps me well

that whispers inside my spirit

You don’t have to live like this 

on dark days

I am not sure where to go from here

only that every step matters

like every cell and atom

like rest and color

like music and warmth

like today

this is what triggers me:

a cascade of bright memories

a dull black and white fear

an anticipation of hope

swirling in the sky as one

H6GBR9GWPH.jpg

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The Slow Days are the Hardest

13 Sep

Sometimes it’s the slow days that are the hardest
When we go go go we aren’t forced to face ourselves
All the raging inside becomes mute in the busy

When we’re moving forward
We can look out the window at the landscape
Even if it’s stark
The motion of the road
Stirs our imaginations
A circus act appears
And anything can happen

There’s infinite possibility in the chaos

Photo Credit: Chris Campbell via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Chris Campbell via Compfight cc

But when we’re standing still
The future seems so small
Our insides so enormous
Like the stretch of our emotions is pulling us apart
And we don’t know how to move anymore

So we cast the blame
Dreaming of glory days of motion
Even if they were full of terror
We only remember going somewhere

Sometimes the still days are the meanest
When everything collides inside
And we can no longer hide from ourselves

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As the World Explodes with Love

21 May

 

I keep anticipating that moment

outside time

when my body releases yours

after it has held you so tight

and you become your own

 

but how can I anticipate

a bright star coming into existence

across a galaxy

 

how do I anticipate

seeing you

an oh-so-familiar stranger

part me

part the love of my life

part stardust

and fully you

 

and I’ll finally wake up

knowing fully well

that despite these fantastic

and extraordinary experiences

 

(backwards roads

upward waterfalls

circular emotion

upside-down love

infinite beauty)

 

they are faintly drawn lines

memories of someone else’s existence

when I think of participating

in giving life to you

 

and I’ll show you the light shining through the trees

and you’ll show me the endless skies you traveled from

we’ll be each other’s guides

across seas

beyond lands and galaxies

 

and I’ll teach you how to put words to these feelings

and you’ll remind me what it’s like to see the face of God

 

you’ll grow

and I’ll try my best to slow down time

and suddenly the universe will seem so small and wonderful

as the world explodes with love

 

 

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That Bittersweet Wine

15 May

we are all on the verge of collapsing into ourselves
living on a narrow shelf
overlooking a chasm of despair
air so thin breath is labored

we fight to cling to the ledge
feeling momentary panic
mixed with a guilty relief
when others tumble in
just glad  it wasn’t us

being born means being on the brink of tragedy

groaning and grasping
hoping for one more moment of happy
to see us through the next thirty-seven negative experiences

“I think I was born with the glass half empty. I can’t pay attention to pain in the world or I question God,” she admitted.

“What’s so bad about that?” I said.

interview The Almighty
fill your glass a little
with that bittersweet wine

bask  in the pain and find some glowing light in it
some lingering sweetness on your tongue
and let the joy bubble up

the edge is slippery and frightening
but  you can’t beat the view

we are all hanging by a thread over death
yet death is just the beginning

and each thread we cling to
weaves into a tapestry of the Universe

a brilliant  picture

with every hue of the rainbow

only seen from the other side

 

type

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Meager Wednesday Words

30 May

 

today I know I have something to say

but I don’t know how to say it

(seems to be the story of my life)

raging words

and silence

 

but no more

I stand under the shower

and hot water pounds on my mind

and slowly beckons

 

the rhythm and meter and

then

the words

 

unexpectedly

never forced

utter grace

 

“It’s easier,”

I think,

“To live with your

hands

mind

and heart

open.”

 

dust clouds had gathered for days

I felt listless

searching for meaning

 

it takes strength to walk through the mundane

as if it did not exist

as if it doesn’t have a hold on me

as days go by and nothing seems new

 

(but all things are)

 

and so I choose to live inside this pattern of words and cadence

I live

and know

I don’t need a mountain view

a foreign landscape

a near-death experience

to do what I do

 

“It takes bravery,”

I think,

“to live with your eyes

this open.”

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When I am On Display

9 Feb

I really am my own worst enemy

I think I need to fight myself

when the war for my heart

has already been won

 

but I bleed mistrust

my wounds ooze insecurity

so I bandage them up myself

 

still acting like I don’t know my role

like I am ad-libbing this character

but the curtain is not there

there isn’t even a stage anymore

 

so I don’t know what to do with myself

alone in a room with my emotions arguing

my head reciting the lines

 

and all the while

Truth is in the room, cleaning up that ripped curtain,

tearing down that stage, saying,

 

“Show’s over. Give up the act.”

 

(but I am comfortable and afraid)

 

so I move to the museum

putting a replica of myself on a shelf

summing up briefly on a sign

who I am

 

(It’s easier than standing for something)

 

and all the while

Grace is in the room, a wild look in her eyes, saying,

 

“In case of emergency, break glass.”

 

and I know I can’t breathe while I am on display

I know this room is for old things, dead things

I know that stages are for pretending

 

and just then I realize

Choice is standing there, reminding me,

 

“You don’t have to live like this.”

 

he points to the exit sign, lit up, blood-red

 

and I smash through the glass,

a self-imprisoned convict

 

and I run towards the door as fast as I can

knowing life waits on the other side

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From Starvation to Drunken Joy

13 Nov

It’s hard to swallow sometimes
the sweet liquid that You are enough
it burns my pride as it cures it

but when I get pills stuck in my throat
(self-made medicine
from a factory in my heart
in that smoggy part that doesn’t fully believe)

I can see no other alternative
and I wouldn’t want to

truth is too delicious

because there is no cure
other than Your bread and wine

and that is my sustenance
and my drunken joy

I’ve tried  to get meat
bloody and rare
left overs from an altar somewhere

but it’s a carcass filled with maggots
I  couldn’t see that because I was
so busy counting up
what I thought I owed you

so bent on a payment plan that
I sold my last bit of grain to the poor
only for it to be lost in transport

it was only then
in my feverish aches
in my grand delusions
in my starving hallucinations
that I could somehow provide
what I needed to survive

I finally collapsed and saw
my bloated belly
and emaciated face

(and I knew I was one of them too)

I knew that the grocery stores were empty
I knew that the garden was dead
I knew that the store houses were rotting

only then was I able to be fed

carried to a feast, a banquet, a buffet
endless and guiltless and always mine

because there is no cure
other than then Your bread and wine

and that is my sustenance
and my drunken joy

“The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace-of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel-after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection your bootstraps-suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started…Grace has to be drunk straight: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale; neither goodness, nor badness, nor flowers that bloom in the spring of super spirituality could be allowed to enter into the case.”

-Robert Capon, Between Noon and Three (as quoted in Brennan Manning’s, The Ragamuffin Gospel)

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Where Glory Comes From

7 Oct

deep in the forest where eyes don’t see
moss grows out of logs
life out of death

entire civilizations of insects
go about their day
leaves live full lives
floating downward
onto glass lakes

and I’ll never stop trying
to give them voices,

the white foam of water
singing recklessly

an ancient song of
where glory comes from
and I’ll never stop attempting
to sing it back
in full translation

so we all can hear
and know how birds stay at peace
what flowers are trying to say
and where the turtles sleep in the sun

 

 

words and images copyright 2011 Brooke Gale Luby

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1 am and I need to be reminded who I am

24 Jun

I am the girl who never let gravity get in the way

but I am still afraid to fly

I am not bound by the illusion of time and space

yet I find myself grounded in my own mind

I am the girl who dances with gypsys

who walks barefoot alone, empty pockets and complete satisfaction

only to find myself paralyzed with what a non-existent audience thinks

only to want more and more people and things to drown out the screams in my head

I am the girl who goes to the places I see in my dreams

I see miracles in a leaf

I see what others claim don’t exist

I am tuned into the frequency of another realm

I can’t help but see hope in dark places

but sometimes I allow the darkness to overtake me and the world to feel dead and ordinary

Yet, I am the girl that understands that to let go is to live

to love is to have a broken heart

to capture beauty is the best reason to exist

I am the girl that feels enormous mountains and crashing waves

who carries races and nations in my words and in my tears

I need to move and cry and fall apart and feel alive

because I am

this girl has crossed broken bridges and mended broken hearts

and seen things that have left me breathless and hopeless

and wanting to scream and punch walls and rebuild them

I take things too seriously and laugh at mistakes and danger

if  all this isn’t an adventure, then what is the point?

this girl has overcome silence and spoken

played the peacemaker and advocate

heard music in the white noise and saw secrets in the shadows

I can’t help but wonder

I can’t help but try to express

I am the girl that can’t help but see meaning

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