Tag Archives: poetry

Withering

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Commentary

“Where does it hurt? asks the doctor. “In this area,” says the patient, putting a hand on his neck. The doctor starts probing, trying to narrow down the exact location and source of the pain.

This poem is me saying the equivalent of “My neck hurts.” It could be my knee, or my foot, or my shoulder. But the pain is even more general than any of those vague locations. It’s a dull emotional pain that mutters a self-important, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”*

The poem hardly qualifies as a poem, but it prompted responses from wise friends. They read between the lines and reminded me that old age and its pain are not meaningless, and certainly not abandonment.

One incisive friend wrote

As our natural vigor declines, the “slog” provides opportunities to reveal God’s presence with a strength that cannot be easily written off as merely the fruit of happy circumstances. “My power is made perfect in weakness.”

My friend was the doctor saying “Maybe your neck hurts because you’ve been straining to keep an eye on this mirror. Put the mirror down and look up!”

I wrote back, “This may be too out-of-context to make sense, but you remind me of some lines toward the end of one of my favorite poems:

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup,
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The Master’s lips a-glow!

from “Rabbi Ben Ezra” by Robert Browning

In other words, the emotional component of this painful slog comes in part from forgetting that God takes pleasure in us… not in our pain, but in our loving, grateful, and Spirit-enabled response.

As I grow up, maybe I’ll come to really understand that.

Here’s another poem that expressed the same frustration I experience with aging:

_________

*I don’t mean any kind of blasphemy by what I wrote here. What I intended is actually self-deprecation. I’ll have to give this more thought….

SR-71 Blackbird

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(background image by WikiImages on Pixabay)

Commentary

Robert Frost wrote that, “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.” I think he meant that literally. The connection between a strong emotional state and the urge and inspiration to write poetry is palpable. But it isn’t just negative emotions that set us poets off! Euphoria will also do it. Oh yeah… speaking of Frost: for inspiring, euphoria’s also great and will suffice.

Enough generalities! The other night, I was sipping some whiskey. One ounce in and working on a second, I suddenly recognized this euphoric urge to write poetry. It’s a feeling that “Suddenly the world looks different; suddenly I see with new eyes. I must capture these realizations, I must net these butterflies!”

Trust me: very little of my poetry is whiskey-induced. In fact, most of it starts in the early-morning fog soon after rising. Perhaps my brain would like to go back to bed where it’s free to spin dreams.

Anyway, there it was… that feeling of euphoria, and the confidence that I could see new connections, find new analogies, devise new metaphors…. But I sensed danger: this is how writers turn into alcoholics. So I jotted down two lines and gave my thought a possible title:

SR-71 Blackbird
I really can’t afford this muse
Who leaves my troubles all behind

TOWARDS HEAVEN BIDS ME GO
How can I write that line about something as dangerous as whiskey? Well, I’m convinced that God gives us many glimpses of Heaven, including intoxicants. I do long for a time when I can see things anew, with eyes unclouded by the cataracts of trouble and worry. As I said once before to myself in the mirror,

_________

Lower Standards

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Commentary

CHILDISH AND CHILDLIKE

I think I’ll start a new theme in this poetry blog: Protestation. The truth is, my muse has thin skin, and she always starts spitting out ideas when something offends her. She needs to grow up.

Don’t get me wrong—my muse isn’t all bad. She also takes childlike delight in things that are rarely ever recognized or celebrated… but should be.

By the way, I don’t believe that song lyrics are inherently inferior to other poetry. But I bet some poets do.

(background image by HubertPhotographer on Pixabay)

_________

The Poet as Locksmith

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Commentary

I try to always write poetry quickly, sign my name, and NOT go back to edit. My official, virtuous-sounding excuse is that I believe that to be the way I’ll become more fluent as a poet. If I’m always questioning my muse, she’ll become shy and hesitant. Right? It doesn’t hurt that this approach perfectly fits with my laziness! See another poem where I do some other self-justifying: “Socks Like Poetry.”

Today’s poem is one that I edited TWICE after publishing it on social media. In some respects, it’s better… otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. But it has one downside: it runs the risk of suggesting that I think of myself as more enlightened than some who read my poetry. That’s generally not the case. When I write poetry, I’m usually grasping at things I barely understand! We’re all benighted, to one degree or another. We all need each other’s help to see the light, and experience God’s delight.

As for the overall concept…. The revelatory power of poetry is something I am increasingly experiencing in other poets (George Herbert comes to mind!), and hereby pray for regarding my own poetry.

(background image by Marc Pascual on Pixabay)

_________

Whatever, Vincent

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Commentary

When I posted this on social media, more than one of my really bright Facebook friends responded with a laughter emoji. One of them even wrote, “You have a sense of humor.”

Honestly… I wasn’t feeling very humorous. My sarcasm was dark humor at best, and I was mainly feeling the darkness. It’s the darkness of a fear I’ll never find my audience in this lifetime.

Artists, including musicians, painters, and poets, are candles burning in the night. We try to shed light on beauty and truth, but feel snuffed out instead by those who are content with darkness.

I HAVE THIS COMING TO ME
I confess habitual laziness of my own when it comes to art I don’t understand. For instance, I’m woefully ignorant of meaning in great paintings. But when someone explains a Caravaggio, or a Rembrandt, or a Bruegel, I listen in humble appreciation. Then I realize how much of beauty and truth I’ve been missing.

(background image is cropped from a photograph by Perlinator on Pixabay of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”)

Everything But Beauty

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Commentary

I was trying to articulate what drives me to write poetry. Since I have also climbed mountains, I am accustomed to answering for strange obsessions.

Poetry is not my creation of beauty, but my experience of beauty.

The background image is from a 2017 climb of Mount Belford.

Boy Mother Muse

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Commentary

When I first posted this on social media, I could barely contain my excitement:

I can hardly wait to write this up and post it on my blog. I haven’t fully figured out my own poem(!), but it has something to do with gratitude for having been cradled in metaphor. It rocks me still, many years after Mother’s passing.

Like the title, the poem is admittedly confusing. I appear to be talking about three entities: a boy, my mother, and my muse. Let me try to sort it out….

“MUSE“
When I set out to write this poem, I was simply thinking about how to explain those dry times when there’s no inspiration for poetry. Basically, my “muse” (my inspiration) is recharging, often by reading and resting. I think my reader can see that in the poem. And of course it is actually I who am recharging, not some external, mythical influence.

“MOTHER“
For some reason (Freud would have theories), my thinking shifted from an impersonal inspiration—my “muse”—to the most personal inspiration of all: my mother.

Once my focus shifted from an imaginary, impersonal “muse” to my mother, the first stanza came to me full-formed and finished, with one exception…. Once I had found a suitable background photograph, I substituted “ran” for what I had there originally: “wandered.” By the way, I do actually, literally remember my mother starting a story with these curious words.

“BOY“
That brings me to the most confusing part…. My mother was never a little boy. But in an effort to connect with me in my boyhood, she told me about her early life AS THOUGH she too had once been a little boy. That may have been easy and natural for her, since she was an only child, a self-proclaimed tomboy, and she lived out in the country. In any case, my kind, creative mother employed a giant metaphor to communicate her solidarity with me. As I wrote above, I am grateful for having been cradled in metaphor. Elements of poetry–metaphor, creativity, beauty–surrounded me in my youth.

“DANCING THE NEWS”
The fourth line of the second stanza changed repeatedly. Instead of “the news,” I tried various adverbs to describe how my muse acts when she’s not off recharging. I had her “dancing playfully,” “…energetically,” and “…gracefully.” None of those satisfied me. Finally, I decided that I should bypass all those adverbs and point instead to the reason behind her dancing: “good news.” (By the way, this is a line I’m borrowing from one of my own favorite poems: “Dancing The News.”) Although much of my poetry is complaint, or lament, I think it is all written in the context of hope for eventual resolution and restoration. Ultimately, I am inspired to write poetry by the “Good News” of the Gospel. My mother–more than anyone else–enabled me to see that good news.

(background image by Kev on Pixabay)

Nothingness

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Commentary

I often think of Stephen Crane’s poem that goes like this:

A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”

A Man Said to the Universe by Stephen Crane

I have read this about Stephen Crane:

influenced by the Darwinism of the times, Crane viewed individuals as victims of purposeless forces and believed that they encountered only hostility in their relationships with other individuals, with society, with nature, and with God.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/stephen-crane

You can see that sense of hostility in Crane’s poem about a man addressing the universe. Perhaps you see it in my poem as well.

I’ll admit: I’m expressing a sense of isolation or alienation–perhaps even hostility–that I feel all too often these days. It’s akin to what Stephen Crane expressed. My sweet Christian friends will be quick to remind me of our shared faith in a loving, embracing God. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t express my occasional dark thoughts in poetry. Otherwise, how many Psalms would we have in the Old Testament?

(background image by John Paul Edge on Pixabay)

The Poet’s Version

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Commentary

This poem is my sour grapes version of the philosophical thought experiment “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

Why sour grapes? Somewhere in this big world, there’s an audience for my poetry. But aside from a handful of kind family and friends, I haven’t found that audience. Moreover, my potential audience keeps getting smaller and smaller as my thinking about this world gets more and more idiosyncratic.

(background image by Andrea Music on Pixabay)

#recognition #isolation

To Be Published

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To Be Published

I could become inscrutable,
I suppose…
Disclose despair
By ripping off 
The clothes of grammar
I have warmly worn
Since I could dress myself.

A fugitive in Philistines’
Protection,
I could let the spittle
Punctuate my unkempt beard,
’Til readers feel
They’re not alone
As long they may have feared.

But what’s the point
In publishing
Some other poets’ lives?
Better just to be
My properly appointed,
Boring self,
A prude in others’ eyes.

— Brad Hepp, 12/29/2023

Commentary

I force myself to read poems that I don’t understand. It seems I’d need a decoding key to cipher why poets sometimes mangle grammar, and why they choose really odd line breaks.

I read these poems and don’t understand them at all, despite having been an English major, and despite having done almost seven years of graduate work after college. The poems make me feel stupid, and inadequate.

Maybe I should stop worrying about it, and concentrate on what God means for ME to do!

UPDATE
What I’m grumbling about here is my sense that poetry seems to be honored in some circles only insofar as it obfuscates or even DENIES meaning. If you read the following short article about “Postmodernism Poetry,” you’ll recognize what bothers me. You may also be comforted—as I am—that it’s not that *WE* aren’t smart enough to understand those bizarre so-called poems, but that the POETS have abandoned reason. They really don’t think there’s anything TO be understood.

https://libguides.ferrum.edu/nationalpoetry…/postmodernism

Poetry Extremes

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Commentary

Let me get this out of the way…. I’m probably just not smart enough to understand a great deal of poetry. So this little poem of complaint may say more about me than about those poets I don’t “get.”

On the other hand, I really wonder sometimes if poets want to be understood. I DO want to be understood. That’s why I read my poems out loud, and write these commentaries. Does this mean everything I write is intelligible? Not yet, but that’s where I’m headed.

(background illustration based on a photo by Rene Rauschenberger on Pixabay)

Collaboration

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Commentary

I was inspired to write this by a Facebook friend’s comment on my rambling, “thinking-out-loud” post about Acts 13:46, Romans, and how saving faith must surely be a faith that is thankful for eternal life. I’m telling you, the post was as rambling as that last sentence. But the Facebook friend bent her mind to my rambling and said, “Brad, I see what you’re doing here….” She went on to offer some tight restatements.

I sometimes think that God has given me exceptional eyes for beauty, and wants me to develop exceptional means to describe that beauty. Poetry and photography have been my go-to in fulfilling God’s purpose for me. But I recognize that my thinking is muddy. I don’t remember things. My vision of beauty is blurry. I need friends who can help me develop my descriptions of the beauty I see.

As I wrote this poem, I thought of two local friends, in addition to the Facebook friend. I texted them about how thankful I am for their collaboration. And I wrote the following to accompany the poem on Facebook:

I’m not sure there’s anything more beautiful than one person bending his or her mind to think WITH another person. The product may be all wrong, but the process is all right!

Warbling

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Commentary

IN PROCESS IN PUBLIC
Occasionally, I run into someone clearly wiser and more spiritually mature than me who says something like “I read all that you write.”

When I hear that, fear momentarily grips my heart.

Such people smile, and don’t judge. But if I can see my own foolishness in the recent past, such people can see it in my present condition. Being seen can be scary.

This poem is an attempt to deal with the embarrassment of being in process in public.

___________________

#embarrassment #humiliation #publicwriter #tmi #justification #babybird #inprocess

(background image by Steve Bidmead on Pixabay)

Marco

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Commentary

I feel self-centered in the tears I shed at hearing of my friend’s death. I’m sad for his wife and children. But mainly, I’m sad for myself. Marco Ciavolino was one of my greatest, most faithful encouragers for over three decades. He knew how to point out my strengths, and downplay my weaknesses.

Back in seminary, Marco was recognized by students and professors as “Mr. Creativity.” I naturally attached myself to him, and spent many a long night working with him on his creative projects. While I was the beneficiary, he would never fail to recall our collaboration as though my self-interest were some kind of faithfulness.

Over the years, I could count on him calling me within minutes of my emailing or texting him with a question. From what I hear, that’s how he was with everyone (see Marco’s obituary).

So yeah…. I’m sad at my loss.

God, make me more like him.

ALSO THIS…
Today, I was thinking of a crazy invention. There’s nobody who celebrated my crazy inventions quite like Marco. I WANT Eternity. I must have Eternity. Only in Eternity does Marco laugh approvingly. Only in Eternity does Jesus celebrate His little brother.

AND THIS: SURPRISED BY PIZZA (One of my many good Marco memories)
Being stupid and forgetful has its charms. For instance, there was that Saturday afternoon many years ago….

I was working in my home office when the doorbell rang. I opened the front door, and there was the Domino’s guy, already removing a large pizza from his insulated delivery bag.

“Brad Hepp?”
“That’s me.”
“Here’s your pizza.”
“I didn’t order pizza.”
“Well, somebody ordered it for Brad Hepp and they already paid.”
“Okay. Thanks!”

I set the pizza on the kitchen counter, wondering how this could have happened. Did I dare take a bite? What if someone was trying to poison me?

That’s when I remembered a phone call I’d had just 30 minutes before with my buddy Marco, who lives up in Maryland. Like me, he is a webmaster. He was calling to share the great news that he had just sold a domain name for $10,000.

“Wow!” I told Marco. “Congratulations!” Then I mindlessly added, “Pizza for everyone!”

Oh yeah! Duh.

Sometimes you get what you ask for.

Unbedazzled

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Commentary

TODAY’S ASSIGNMENT
Find a specific way in which to praise another person’s work, character, interaction, or other form of artistry.

#criticism #praise #recognition #beauty #jaded #bedazzled #artistry #poetography

(background image by Claire Margaret on Pixabay)

FURTHER COMMENTS
In my wording for “Today’s Assignment,” I was intentionally inclusive in choosing the word “person’s.” You probably understand this thing I’m starting to understand… that the person GOD displays his glory directly AND indirectly through our fellow men and women (also persons). All beauty is God’s beauty. When a friend chooses the loveliest way to express her thoughts, when a politician is respectful of his political opponents, when an artist uses color or juxtaposition to draw our attention to delightful design, these are all examples of God’s beauty manifested in and through people. We should respond to the degree and in the way God enables us.

Also, I’m on the perennial soapbox of lamenting that people criticize in excruciating detail, but praise in vagueness—if at all.

Prosaic Parrot

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“How do you like to be addressed,” I asked. “I’ve read enough to know three dozen ways.”

“Dance!” he said, “Or sing… with moves and melody no other child has ever brought, or even thought to bring.”

“Don’t you care for words?”

“They’re fine,” he said, “but only if you join those words in such a way as shows they’re what you really mean.”

“Lord…” I said.

“Lord!” he cut me short. “Why do you call me ‘Lord’? If that is what I really am to you, there are at least three dozen other things that mean as much to you and more.”

“Am I—could you say—what brings you pleasure?
Am I what you crave?
Am I, on your ev’ry map, the ‘X’ that marks out treasure?”

“Am I not
To you
What you
Have always been
To me?”

“Or do I merit only prose,
While you’re my poetry?”

— Brad Hepp, 5/19/2023

COMMENT
Wow. That turned a whole lot darker than I intended. I have been thinking about the huge spectrum of creativity available to us in worshiping God, and how little we bother to—or sometimes think we’re allowed to—employ. But the darkness of this poem may be deserved, as it turns out. Is mouthing “Hallelujah!” really a suitable stand-in for praise, or is it a bouquet of wilted flowers?

Full disclosure…. I wrote this poem after reviewing an older poem where I personified Beauty. I wondered then—as I often do—if people with a sense of propriety narrower than my own will judge me for using metaphors they don’t find in the Bible. Is Jesus rightly called “Beauty” incarnate? Am I free to create my own names for the Creator? I’ll probably insist on sanctified creativity to the day I die. In fact, I suspect it’s my special responsibility as a poet. For God the Poet’s sake, I should double down!

#singanewsong #prosaic #poetic #trueworship #ephesians2v10 #youarehispoetry

(background image by Hans on Pixabay)

To Silence and Beyond

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Commentary

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”

1 John 3:2 ESV

I apologize for this poem’s opacity. It expresses a growing recognition of the gap between my story-reading and God’s story-speaking. As I told a new friend yesterday, my questions increasingly outpace my conclusions. Hopefully, God is pleased with this.

(background photo: 6:59 am, Monday, September 19, 2016; ascending La Plata Peak)

#1john3v2 #weshallseehimasheis #babbling #tonguetied #poetography #laplatapeak

one poet to Another

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Commentary

It’s frustrating to not be understood or appreciated. We probably all experience that at times. Imagine what it’s like to be God, to tell the best story, paint the best picture, or write the best poem ever—all for an audience who don’t get it. Yet.

#unappreciated #john1v10 #godspoetry #ephesians2v10 #vangogh

Prayer to be Well-Aimed

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Commentary

I initially wrote this about the gift of poetic expression. But as soon as I had called that “joy,” I realized that what I was writing applies to all of us who have been gifted in some way by God. Each person can work out how his or her gift can be an expression of God’s loving intent.

Who to Love; What to Hate

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Commentary

In some ways, this is the prayer of my life. Once, long ago, I told a teacher and friend, “There’s little I feel compelled to say.” With age, that is changing. Considering how much I have learned about the need for reformation in my life, it’s a good thing I was taciturn in my youth!

By the way, this is coming to be one of my favorite poems–in case anyone ever wonders….

(background image by WikiImages from Pixabay)

#taciturn #loquacious #folly #wisdom #youth #oldage

Great Poet of Re-Creation

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Commentary

There’s an odd little passage in John’s account of Jesus walking on the water the night after he had fed the five thousand:

But he said to them, “It is I; don’t be afraid.” Then they were willing to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

John 6:20‭-‬21 NIV

They were willing!? That’s the translation in the NASB and NIV. I immediately ask myself, “Why would they not be willing?” The Greek verb is θελο (thelo), and some translations render that in this passage as “wanted” (NET), or “were glad” (ESV). Those translations may be correct. But I have to wonder if John could be subtly suggesting something that was at issue in the disciples’ response to their teacher: their willingness to accept the unfolding of events on his terms.

THIS IS A STRETCH, I know, but follow me for how I get to my devotional response in the poem….

After feeding the five thousand, Jesus had “wandered” off to avoid a power-hungry crowd. The disciples took off rowing across the lake without Jesus. I think that’s odd. Were they ticked off at him? Now, they were struggling on choppy waters. Is it possible that they were having second thoughts about their teacher? Is it possible that they were just barely “willing” to take him on board given their doubts about his plans?

Maybe I notice that possibility because I myself question Jesus’ plans in my life.

Thus the poem.

Another Thought
John is deep. But I doubt he’s introducing any depth that wasn’t there already in Jesus. That’s part of what prompted this poem. Jesus wasn’t merely responding to circumstances in the disciples’ lives. He was orchestrating events, using his full “vocabulary” of metaphors to drive home truth. It was no accident that the sea was thrashing on that night.

(background adapted from an image by Roberto Barresi on Pixabay)

Beauty in the Sandbox

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Commentary

I’ve got to laugh at this poem. It’s the kind of thing I write when I’ve been lying in bed, as dreams fade and conscious thought awakens. When I wrote it, I thought it was really good. Two cups of coffee later, I’m not so sure!

I struggle to express my growing impression of beauty. Some of my poems seem to be hitting up against it. I can almost reach out and touch it. But then I find it’s bigger than everything, and so it eludes my grasp.

Two Additional Notes
A couple of my friends who have studied the theological topic of beauty at the doctoral level have given me pointers on the topic. Their help gives me hope. But who knows, it may be above my mental pay grade. That’s a fear I expressed recently in the poem “Insufficiency.”

In my current rapid listen-through of the Bible, I got to 1 Kings 8 today. Here’s a passage that may relate to what I said about the enormity of beauty:

But will God indeed dwell on the earth? Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain you; how much less this house that I have built!

1 Kings 8:27 (Solomon’s dedication of the temple)

(background image is a composite of crystal by “DaModernDaVinci” and sand by Uwe Jelting, both on Pixabay)

#mansreachshouldexceedhisgrasp #robertbrowning #andreadelsarto

Midnight Plumbing

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Commentary

Word to the wise: Don’t take Claritin-D shortly before going to bed, especially when you really need to sleep. Your sinuses will be clear, but you’ll just lie there with racing thoughts. The “D” in Claritin-D apparently stands for doggerel.

On the night I wrote this poem, I messed up, and took the wrong medication. As a result, I was wide awake, and I started doing something I often do when I first wake up in the morning: in my head I was taking words and arranging them in various orders, looking for an arrangement that pleased me. In the end, the only way I could get this out of my head was to get out of bed and write down the results. It’s not a great poem, but at least I DID get to sleep after writing it.

The Poet

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Commentary

Don’t be fooled by the playful image. The key word in this poem is “pretend.” There are many times when I realize that I’m not fully conscious of meaning in my own poems. That seemed like a sorry excuse for sloppy writing when I was younger. Now, I increasingly recognize that I don’t grasp so much as I am grasped.

(background image by Lothar Dieterich on Pixabay)

If Only Poems Were Cameras

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Commentary

I understand that guitarists are sometimes told to “Shut up and play guitar!” This happens when they dare to express something that strings alone can’t convey. There’s a beauty so dazzling or darkness so diminishing that they must use words to SAY.

I recently posted a so-so snapshot* that was liked and shared more than just about anything else I have ever posted. The contrast between this and more heartfelt efforts was puzzling but predictable…. Every time I write a poem that I especially like, I can be sure there will be hardly any response. It’s as though I’m being told to “shut up and play.” But I won’t.

(background photo by Dionne Hartnett on Pixabay)

*Here’s the photo. It is not one of my better shots. Maybe what I wrote (below), or the hashtags caught people’s attention, resulting in it being shared 9 times.

What I wrote:
This vista has lost a little of its charm since the trail was recently “upgraded,” but it’s still a highlight of every walk around White Rock Lake. If you’re walking around counter-clockwise, you haven’t seen the lake since you left Sunset Bay (a mile back). You have gained elevation after the Stone Tables. Then you round this curve, and start to see the lake ahead and below. For me, it’s like a first glimpse of the Rockies on a roadtrip from Texas to Colorado. You’re getting to the best part!

#whiterocklake #therockies #lookingforheaven

Dancing With Words

Commentary

Backdrop
This morning, I was thinking through the questions I want to ask a fellow poet when I meet with him tomorrow. He’s a better poet than I am, but I see similarities in our approach. So, I want to explore the similarities. One of the things I want to explore is what drives us to write poetry. I suspect it has something to do with a God-given hunger for beauty.

Seeking and Speaking Beauty
When I idiotically scroll through Instagram Reels or TikTok, there is one small consolation: I find myself increasingly able to appreciate beauty as expressed by a variety of people in various ways. It probably helps that I had already determined to grow in this ability. On many a long walk around the lake, the question has always been, “What is the beauty I have missed thus far?” The same is true of my “walks” through Scripture. God writes beautifully everywhere.

To a Rock Tumbler

Commentary

This poem is me trying to convince myself of something I believe, but have had trouble seeing recently. My attention has been drawn — hopefully by God, and hopefully just for a season — away from delightful things in this world to things that are broken, and terribly in need of restoration. I wrote about that in my recent poem, “Beauty’s Time Tabled.” Frankly, I have a slew of poems coming out about the sadness I currently feel, including one I’ll post on this blog soon: “The House of Sadness.”

So Full of Rocks
Read “rocks” in this poem as the dull, lifeless, colorless sort that make up most of the world. When I think of those rocks, I know that they are actually fascinating, but only in ways that a geologist would recognize.

Won’t Go Far
I sometimes despair that all my thinking and writing is practically useless. When I do point to something beautiful, the response is generally a chasm of silence, an echoing yawn.

But… I Insist
Although I’m currently discouraged and disillusioned, I do still see bright, shiny things here and there, enough to keep hope alive. For instance, this morning, reading Matthew 12, and comparing it to Galatians 2, I saw something that reminded me of God’s better ways. God shows us that we get to obey Him as a celebration and imitation of His gracious, generous, merciful purposes. So I wrote this little poem:

Getting Hungry
I’ve had my taste whetted
For righteousness.
And by that
I mainly mean love.

I long to see
God’s gracious rule
In my heart and in my world,
Not just in Heaven above….

(background image by Stefan Schweihofer on Pixabay)

Search of the Silly Private

Commentary (needs work)

This poem is a defense of how I often wake up in the morning. My brain starts the day by trying to dress thoughts in presentable words. The thoughts may be silly. They may be as bizarre or disordered as the dreams from which I woke. But I clothe those thoughts with orderly words: poems, if you like.

“Surging Ugliness” is like a sergeant who barks out orders, the duties of the day. He isn’t interested in the silly private’s search for beauty and meaning. I mistakenly thought that “sergeant” was etymologically related to “surging” (my French isn’t that good). Nevertheless, “surging” does suggest the nature of a real conflict, a real battle between ugliness and beauty. We’re easily fooled by which of these combatants is winning. Beauty seems often to be overwhelmed by surging ugliness. It takes careful reconnaissance to find the truth. Sometimes it takes the silliness that I call poetry.

We Are Not Pools

Commentary (Thoughts Running Amok)

Ever since I began writing poetry on a regular basis, I have also pondered what this activity indicates about me: what are the weaknesses a poet needs to acknowledge, and what are the strengths he can celebrate?

A Sample Weakness
[EDIT: I originally wrote and published this late at night, but woke up before dawn with the realization that I had to UNpublish the post and come back with some edits. I had revealed more than I ought to reveal, which is the very tendency I lament in a paragraph below. Someday, the world will suit a poet like me. But not today]

Today, I had a conversation with the senior pastor of a local church. Before I headed over to his church, Susan cautioned me: “Don’t reveal more than you should.” She knows me well. I said, “Pray that I’ll control my mouth, and that I’ll be a blessing to him.”

So, I met the senior pastor at the back door of his church. We walked in, and I immediately began pelting him with questions about his church: how they interact with the neighborhood, how well that is working, etc. After looking at his sanctuary, and talking about how it has served during the pandemic, we went to a more private setting downstairs. I began….

“These last few years, I have been developing as a poet. While some think that poets conceal, their actual drive is to reveal. That’s my natural inclination. But today, I need to control that. I’ll be talking about [something private], and there are things I should not say. Forgive me.” The pastor was understanding, and we talked for another 40 minutes. I believe that by God’s grace I did not tell him more about [the private matter] than I should. Reflecting on what I shared, the pastor gave me hope that I 1) am not alone and 2) serve a God who is changing lives.

The Poet as a Lithe Cat Who Loves Counselors
The little story above is about how I deal with the downside of being a poet: I have to be extra careful about not revealing what’s in my heart. But I usually am not so guarded. Think about it…. A poet is always digging into his own heart to surface emotions and thoughts that would rather stay hidden. He drags them up and exposes them to the light of day where they can be dealt with, sometimes by the poet himself, but more often by the reader, by wiser souls, by counselors. That’s why the poet is a friend of counselors. Like a domestic cat, he brings his daily offering of lizards and rats, and lays them at their door. “Here’s a rat that was running through my heart. What’s its name, and how do we deal with it?”

“Wine That Fills Our Cup”
In the poem I refer to “wine that fills our cup.” Believe me, I like wine, and wine’s not a dead rat. Forget about rats and death. A poet — at least this poet — celebrates life in his expression of emotion. It is not despair that drives me, but hope. Even when speaking of negative, deadly emotions, there is an essential optimism: “This emotion is not my master. I discovered it, am revealing it, and by God’s grace I will see its cure. He will make me whole.”

Even the Wine of Lament
I have been seeking lately to replace anger and bitterness with sadness and sorrow. In essence, to learn lament. Here’s what’s great about lament (at least as I understand it): it is sorrow felt and expressed in the presence of One who can change things, who will change things. When I move to lament, I move closer to hope. Wine is that which dulls, but also cheers.

Poet’s Daydream

Here’s What I Wrote About This

DON’T HATE ME FOR THIS
Almost every day, I take an afternoon nap while listening to music. I try hard then to let my imagination wander free. Often, I think of other artists, and the grasp they have of beauty. I, too, have known beauty. Someday, all of us who know the Author of beauty will have unbridled joy in His creation. Nap time is a good time to savor that hope. In Him, we rest.

Socks Like Poetry

All day, I asked myself if I should refine a poem I tossed off earlier that morning. This struggle reminds me of when I was a teenage perfectionist, and the head cook told me to stop mixing the pancake batter already.

Well, it turns out that I did NOT refine the poem in question, partly because the poem was one of my most popular ever: “Let The Dishes Soak.” I ran it by another poet, and we both saw its weaknesses, but part of its strength was surely the immediacy — words that someone might speak on the spur of a loving moment.

How to Pray for Poets

(photo by Susan Hepp, edited with Snapseed)

Commentary

I think the essence of poetry (at least my poetry) is compression with the goal of transformation.

In all my thinking, I try to get at the nub of things, to analyze and then articulate what I find as simply, honestly, and artfully as I can.

Diamonds and Lemonade
When the thinking is introspective, my hope is that what I find will be something I am willing and able to submit to God for transformation. He’s in that process; I want to cooperate with Him… to the very end. Think of a sinful man being transformed to be like Jesus where this poem refers to the lump of coal. An old myth says that diamonds come from highly compressed coal.

Stepping back one thought…. One of the my character qualities seriously in need of transformation is kindness. Think of that where I refer to “sugar cane” in this poem. I regularly pray that God will sweeten my other attributes with kindness.

NOTE: I had Susan take this picture of me as I sat in the conservatory of the Blue Fern Inn where we were staying in Tahlequah when we were up there to bury Susan’s Mom.

Poet’s Confession

Commentary

I recently began listening to the Audible recording of Augustine’s “Confessions.” Last night, before falling to sleep, I was watching a lecture by James K.A. Smith on “Augustine Our Contemporary.” Just as I got too sleepy to watch anymore, he was talking about authenticity, and how that resonates with modern thinkers.

So, when I woke up this morning, my mind went immediately into writing this poetic response. The subject occupies a large part of my thinking. What is real in my everyday behavior, and what is fakery? By God’s grace, I believe there HAS been progress in becoming sincere, authentic, genuine. But the cost of that transformation is a clearer view of what remains untransformed.

Side Note on Pain and Pleasure in Writing Poetry

Writing poetry is a strange activity for me. My recall of language is spotty. In fact, it would be rare for me to be able to quote even one of my own poems. I look back on them and wonder, “How did that come out of my feeble mind? I can’t put the words together now; how did I do it then?” Words are often just beyond reach. Simple words. It’s a little painful. Just now, I needed to look up the video I reference above, and for a few seconds, I could not think of the word “YouTube.” If this had not been a weakness of mine since youth, I’d be worried.

So, you may be able to understand why writing poetry is a special pleasure for me. It is a small triumph, a pleasure to balance the pain of a language deficit. It is very much like the pleasure I experience in reading Scripture for a worship service, or even in recording my poems. There was a period in my life (Junior High through High School) when I had a speech impediment that interfered with smooth reading and speech. To be able to pull off a reading or recitation now without major hickups is a small triumph. It’s pleasure to balance pain.

Alone With My Thoughts

I guess every poet comes up with this one eventually.

This “poem” is not silly. In fact, I have never been more serious or intentional in anything I have written. It is not that I have no thoughts. Nor is it that I don’t want to share my thoughts with others. It is that there is no such thing as thoughts I have while “alone.” It may drive me to insanity, but I am determined to become consistent in my belief in an all-knowing and very present God. One of the worst hidden hypocrisies in my life has been holding the belief that I have “the ear” of the most powerful being (God) but not voicing my thoughts about others to Him. How many times I have scrolled through Facebook and thought this or that about my friends and acquaintances without “voicing” those thoughts to the One who can do something about my concerns? Do I see someone who is filling his or her life with hatred? Why would I not voice my concern about that to all-powerful God, the one best able to teach them love? Do I see someone hurting and reaching out to friends for comfort? Why would I not voice my sympathy to the great Comforter? Hypocrisy is usually associated with action. My hypocrisy has consisted of inaction.

Liars and Poets

Commentary

I have been noticing recently that writing poetry is a way to access emotions and thoughts that have been suppressed in some way. So when I say that poets twist words to reveal the truth, I’m referring partly to the truth about what “lurks” in their hearts. Sometimes that truth is good, sometimes not so good! But at least the poet is getting closer to honesty.

At its best, poetry expresses beautiful truths in a way that helps both the poet and reader understand them better. That’s my goal.