Afraid

An interesting cloud formation, and Barb with Roscoe P. Coltrane.

Things have gotten a lot worse of late. Thought I was dying this afternoon. Don't think I did.

Scared, and don't want to leave.

I'm in good company.

He knew just where He had to go,

He knew about His Father's plan,

but this was His first rodeo,

and our Lord Jesus was a man

who felt the sunlight on His skin,

smelled raindrops in the early morn,

and how might even He begin

to see the fabric rent and torn?

His faith was good as it could be,

but even He did have to leap:

'I commend My soul to Thee!',

and in these last words He did keep

covenant with we souls that pray

for a path that leads beyond today.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is MUSIC. So let's make some.

I really thought I died today,

but there was grace between the fears

as from somewhere so far away

I heard the Music of the Spheres,

and beheld the shining orbs

as I sailed above the sun,

rising ever-lighter towards

the blessed union with the One.

And then I fell back through the sky

to gasp upon the kitchen floor,

glad to live, wondering why

the Lord of Hosts had slammed the door

to leave me at the edge of night

with yet another tale to write.

A touch less than three minutes, maybe because the experience is so vitally fresh.

Music from Manafest, with Every Time You Run.

Sylvia's faith is direct. Ice cream comes from God.

The Choice

Yes, I will admit it's true,

that life's become a killing frost,

but I'll count up what I still can do,

and not add up what I have lost.

So much lies beyond my reach,

and sometimes I feel like crying.

Bur I must practice what I preach,

and although I would be lying

to say I don't miss that which was,

this new life is mine to choose,

and I'll look ahead because

when in regret one sings the blues,

those bitter tears are shed in vain,

corroding blessings that remain.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is ASPIRE.

All to which I had aspired

in an old and gone existence

has been mothballed and retired,

but not the Path of Least Resistance,

for there's more that lies ahead,

there is much that I must learn

in the former knowing's stead,

and only this way will I earn

the right to face the older man

in the crooked looking-glass.

Maybe he once had a plan,

but the years fall as I pass

what he had once held as truth,

hostage now to newfound youth.

Weird, but three minutes thirty.

Music from Steve Winwood, with While You See A Chance.

Sylvia thinks that as long as you can eat ice cream, all is right with the world.

Always Chasing Rainbows

 

I really like rainbows. When I see one here, I'll always call Barb out to look.

I even used a double rainbow on the cover of my novel Emerald Isle.

Rainbows are better than cancer.

I treasure my own rainbow;

it was given me by God,

and up and down it angels go

with feet quite neatly shod

in moccasins and bowling shoes

and gaily striped Adidas,

some packing heat (now this is news),

mainly old Henry repeaters.

They skate across the prism,

none staying in their lane,

and sing that He is risen,

and praise His holy name

giving thanks that we are now reborn,

as the rainbow ends the storm.

Why gun-toting angels? When I wrote this the only word I could think of that rhymed, more or less, with Adidas was repeaters. Since then I realized that I could have used, say, Doritos, but I'm really too lazy to change it.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is SUNSHINE. Goes well with rainbows.

The clouds ride on the eastern hills,

the valley sees the rain.

It is good, and as God wills,

but the storm does not remain,

and as the sun moves down the sky,

in sunshine is reborn

the message that came from on high

when Noah's world was torn.

Came the trauma and the Flood,

came the endless rolling seas...

then came the quickening of blood

and grace dropped Noah to His knees

when the promise shone its light

that all one day would be put right.

Four minutes and a bit.

Music from The Rolling Stones, with the oddly sweet She's A Rainbow.

McDonald's used to have rainbow syrup for ice cream. Sigh.

Missing Link

Another day,

another fall,

a new concussion protocol.

Things are getting hairy.

Someone give Darwin a call,

he surely won't know what to think!

We've gone and done and solved it all;

we have found the Missing Link!

He's been living quietly

among us lo these many years,

a member of society,

eating pizza, drinking beers,

bowling ev'ry Thursday night,

and off to church each Sunday morn,

tying wild hair very tight

(he can't bear to see it shorn).

He's been right here all this time,

and now he writes this very rhyme.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is HIDDEN. Can't hide from it.

I do not want to hide away

from that which is killing me;

I ask that I be kept in play,

and that I face quite willingly

that which may be yet in store,

those dread days that lie ahead,

and that I can still take some more

that some-one-where can live instead

a life that's free of pain and fear,

a life with future that is bright

with hope and all of those held dear,

while it is I to face the night

that by God's love and boundless grace

allows me to take their place.

Three minutes. I think about this sometimes, that maybe all the pain and humiliation of cancer got dropped on me instead of someone else.

Probably theologically really wrong, but if there's any truth in it, it's worth it, and I'd do it all again.

I'm not a good man. I just don't like seeing people hurt, and standing in the gap, that's not noble. It's my job.

Besides, some-one-where is a cool word.

The only appropriate music is the Blast From The Past rarity.

 Sylvia doesn't make mind living with an ape-man, as long as he understands ice cream.

 

Better Days Ahead?

The last week has really wiped me out, and just for fun I dropped a great honking piece of steel on my foot... that foot which also had a stress fracture.

Oh, and there was the falling-out-of-bed-and-concussing-myself thing. Had double vision for a while, which was actually nice...two images of Barbara!

Anyway, on to the rhyming stuff.

"Your best days are ahead of you!"

So shouts Christian TV,

but there's no way this can be true;

leastwise, not for me.

But wait a sec, just hold on there.

Perhaps there's more here than I know,

and it might be quite unfair

if down the mockers' path I go,

for I may be a better man

now than before the cancer came;

less absorbed by my life-plan,

and less beholden to the shame

that I first felt as body frayed,

needing others' grace and aid.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is QUICK. Be done as fast as I can.

I was always quick to judge,

and hurled contempt upon the weak,

but God has given me a nudge,

and at His bidding I must seek

that part of me I hid within,

the part that, failing, could not stand

in the gap, and would not win

without a kind and helping hand,

and thus it was humiliation,

but needed, badly, all the same

to face the harsh illumination

of the truth by cancer's flame,

and though it cuts me to the bone,

I admit I can't do this alone.

The truth hurts. Good that it took less than three minutes to write.

Music, of course, from the Beatles, with Help.

 Sylvia, not being possessed of opposable thumbs, gladly accepts aid in holding her ice cream.

Le Meltdown

Do you see the alligator head?

This is hard to write, embarrassing, and perhaps necessary, because it's a narrative of failure.

There seems to be another metastasis, in my right humerus (already have one in the left, and in the right f inemur). It's extremely painful, limits movement, and limits life even more than it's constrained now. It feels just like a broken bone, only a bit worse.

Added to the other growths, the chest, leg, and abdominal pain, shortness of breath, and frequent vomiting, it seems a bit hard.

And I let it get to me. Got snappish with Barb and hurt her feelings, and was unkind to the dogs.

Round and round, ruined an evening, and when I was done I was in exactly the same place, which I had made through my actions more bleak.

It'll heal. But I don't trust myself, and that may be the most positive outcome, because vigilance is the necessary protector of joy, faith, and good manners.

There is something I have found,

and it left me scarred and sore,

that anger leads you round and round

and leaves you were you were before.

Yes, it might well be a right,

a way to cope with devastation,

but it doesn't lead to light,

and can birth an alienation

from the ones we truly need,

the ones we dare not drive away.

To rant and rage is merely greed,

desire for a former day

far away from fear and pain

that can never come again.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is OWE.

My culture says I owe this life

the passing of a simple test,

and that would be to treat my wife

as a greatly honoured guest

whose presence is a privilege,

whose smile is a bright noble gift;

to be casual is sacrilege,

and so each day I'm bound to lift

my efforts to a higher plane,

my courtesy to raise

ever to a better name,

and never to neglect the praise

for all kindnesses shown, for such

is she to whom I owe so much.

Four minutes and a bit.

Music from Daniel Powter, with Bad Day.

Sylvia doesn't like bad days. They make ice cream taste funny.

Spotlight Of Grace

 

I was out with Belle the Wolf this morning, and saw a patch of mesa spot-lit by the rising sun. Kinda cool.

I stand upon a darkened stage;

the audience have all gone home.

I didn't know that this script-page

said I would be here alone

with the ghosts of broken dreams

and memory of past delights

floating 'midst the shadowed beams,

but Someone still is on the lights

and I hear closing of a switch;

from on high, light-beam comes down

and in its brightness there's grace which

heartens this bruised tired clown,

whose days have come so misbegotten,

with the knowing that he's not forgotten.

The Five Minute Friday prompt this week is CHAPTER. Sounds kinda booky.

Chapters come and chapters pass,

some are taut and some are slack,

and some are a pain in the donkey,

but what the heck, you can't go back,

so count the rosebuds while you may,

watch the lizards dash around,

cherish every given day

even if beaten to the ground,

for what you were makes what you are,

a thing of beauty built by God,

and do not think that any scar

makes you ruined, broken, flawed,

'cause great God hath designed you

for repairs with His Own Krazy Glue.

Well, that went somewhere other than planned, but, hey, just under four minutes. Yeah

Music from Mercy Me, with Greater.

Sylvia hopes there's ice cream at the end of that sunray.