Chalmette

Frowning heaps swallow dusty remaining

Houses detached from cement grippings once held

Lethal ash born from watery pools

Dripping

Dry by southern sun

Hidden, magnified and

Drowning

Temporary seas occupy

Southern deserts. Damp

Dark piles reveal their heavy hips

Sagging skin

Daughter’s eyes covered by Mother’s sodden reach

Belief shelved, forgotten

Faith                misplaced among debris

Dirty waves, black, thieving

Steal all possessions

Ruined

Drenched and ruined

Material strewn, broken

Taken at tides command

Emotions sifted with ashy breeze

Floods leak from eyes once dry

Forever heavy water stands on their shoulders

Spirit buried under broken glass

Soaking boards disallow window cries for reflection

Splintered gazes flee from wet wounds bleeding

Ashy feet follow

Swimming

Sifting

Running

Fleeing to safety

Rummaging for respite or watching the tragedy to continue

Soggy, they wait.

Execute Her Branches

Green paper sagging guiltily

Frowning roots drink fault

Buds stunted, staggered

Soil cries thirsty

Watery goodness purged

Twiggy wilting protrudes

From barks core once healthy

Now nauseous at stem’s hub

Dried paper crawls

Out of useless branch ends

Like beggars rummaging in filth

Embarrassed and unsatisfied

Vine rows wither in shame

Necks crooked, backs shriveled

Gripping to bare threads attached

By lacy deceit

Execution drips from pruners shears

Like mournful streams from his eyes

Jeremiah 5:10

Disconnected, Rekindled

How can you know what is right? Surely born into our conscience resides a meter of right and wrong. We understand stealing to be unfair and murder unjust. We think according to a good and perfect standard. This truth exists as irrefutable, undeniable. Yet we continue in our offenses, acting according to the feeling that suits us best. Although we began with a standard, compromised it becomes whit the continual practice of harlotry. Your mind, confused, believes sin no longer stains and your actions have not defiled God’s standard. You believe your sin is right.

 But if confusion enters as wrong actions become habit, where are we to turn? Does God roll us over to our evil desires for us to fall on our faces in sinful perplexity? Are we strapped and stranded after sitting down in the seat of unrighteousness, riding farther from all present understanding?

Hope proves reasonable. The straps of confusion weaken under Gods unbuckling strength. He can wipe the foggy haze that glazes your discretion, replacing your desires with His. As your vulnerability emerges under His influence, right becomes the person you once knew. You meet again with the standard that you’ve repressed for so long, and sweet is the fellowship of old friends.

Resolution Cynicism

“The beginning of a new year”; usually this saying is followed by a list of high reaching, far fetched goals we expect to accomplish. What with a New Year makes us suddenly feel our characterizing procrastination will end? What with fresh digits tagged on the back of a measly 20 creates a sense of heightened motivation in one habitually motiveless? Why do we continue to shove self improvement in the garage corner next to dusty boxes and the x-refrigerator we have been meaning to sell? 

Surely, our desire of bettering ourselves we purposefully keep locked away. It seemingly emerges at convenient times, like the start of a new year, when the confidence of the general population of America backs our high reaching goals. We brainstorm and list, dig up old dreams and dust off neglected boxes that contain forgotten memoirs.  We remember. We willfully forget. We choose. With a rejuvenated glance we observe our reflection in the mirror that we continually avoid in our habit of procrastination. 

The New Year brings out the confidence once shoved in the drawer after picking through the towering pile of bills, drowning in unremitting requirements of responsibility. We choose with the New Year to swim to the top and inhale the fresh scent of novelty, allowing midyear conflicts to disappear in the water below. We are able to observe ourselves in the cool clear January light that proves excessively revealing. We scrutinize the habits that we have become since last New Year’s revelation, and choose to change. With our choice comes our list of New Year’s resolution. 

Although many a year has come and gone in this respect, and become a habit in itself, we continue to believe with fresh vigor each time that we will pursue and fulfill our choices. Our only excuse is whether or not we try.