Rock Of Jerusalem, Of The World

* Jesus pray for me
* Nehemiah pray for me

+-----"Rock Of Jerusalem; Nehemiah's Thoughts When Addressing Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arab While Rebuilding The Wall"

Why do you scoff at a wall rebuilt, 

a hitherto naked and defenseless nation
exhausted from weeping,
all their prophesies like broken rocks
strewn over dirt and dispersed for pagans
to use to reinterpret glories of King David,
his legacy defaced in our children’s’
memories forever, now clothed with gallant
and gainly garments of protection, a
bejeweled and stout city once reprehensible
now circumscribed with the dignity
and pride of impenetrable bulwarks of
densely packed mud pasted stone
fitted with menacing watchtowers to observe
you? Its because you fear the Angel of God.
You tremble at the soft chanting beneath
new moons over the years by a faithful
remnant preserved in Babylon, sedition
of the shamed that wont stop smoldering.
Paranoid the rumors
have been true all along:
That Israel is destined to rise again,
and to rule the known world.

-----Nehemiah 2:11-20
 I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days I set out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the Valley Gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work. Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work. But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. “What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?” I answered them by saying, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”

Tears For The Dung Gate

* Jesus pray for me
* Nehemiah pray for me

+-----Tears For The Dung Gate; Nehemiah's Thoughts When Examining Jerusalem At Night

Crying at the Jackal well, I buried
my head in my hands steadied
by my crouched knees and conversed
with the moon.
We spoke on Jerusalem’s
horror lore here passed down in Persian
vagabond dialect by street urchins
stoked from rumors of
Hebrews debased. Of the sudden and
unexpected blare of the siege on
that red night, the last Babylonian
blood moon on record, shrewd
exhibition of the sleight of
Nebuchadnezzar's hand (that they just
put down), they brag: The strategic
cunning of battering rams, clustered,
at the eastern gate while tossed torches
from horseback alighted the Temple
courtyard in the north. They too, snicker
at tales of pitter patter of feet,
our men of valor in retreat ignoring
wanton wails of our women
repossessed by diseased dogs salivating.
In impenetrable armor they brandished
sickle swords and maces, they say. Oh
Zion, stately city once beautiful now
razed, the promise of God to Abraham
scattered stone, I have not forgotten you!
So now I bid the moon give me leave:
dismiss this night and make way
for the Sun! For the King has sent me to
rebuild walls, restore ashen gates.
In the pitch black of cruelest oppression,
light of God’s favor again dawns on
his people.

-----Nehemiah 2:11-20

 I went to Jerusalem, and after staying there three days  I set out during the night with a few others. I had not told anyone what my God had put in my heart to do for Jerusalem. There were no mounts with me except the one I was riding on. By night I went out through the Valley Gate toward the Jackal Well and the Dung Gate, examining the walls of Jerusalem, which had been broken down, and its gates, which had been destroyed by fire. Then I moved on toward the Fountain Gate and the King’s Pool, but there was not enough room for my mount to get through; so I went up the valley by night, examining the wall. Finally, I turned back and reentered through the Valley Gate. The officials did not know where I had gone or what I was doing, because as yet I had said nothing to the Jews or the priests or nobles or officials or any others who would be doing the work. Then I said to them, “You see the trouble we are in: Jerusalem lies in ruins, and its gates have been burned with fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem, and we will no longer be in disgrace.” I also told them about the gracious hand of my God on me and what the king had said to me. They replied, “Let us start rebuilding.” So they began this good work. But when Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite official and Geshem the Arab heard about it, they mocked and ridiculed us. “What is this you are doing?” they asked. “Are you rebelling against the king?” I answered them by saying, “The God of heaven will give us success. We his servants will start rebuilding, but as for you, you have no share in Jerusalem or any claim or historic right to it.”

Jar Of Alabaster, Jar Of Redemption

* Jesus pray for me
* Luke pray for me
* Mary Magdalene pray for me
* dedicated to Jennifer Knapp, Remedy

+-----Jar Of Alabaster, Jar Of Redemption; The Thoughts Of Mary Magdalene At Jesus' Feet

They say God helps
those who help themselves.
But what if your self sacrilege
desecrates all of you,
all self awareness,
self dignity and self respect you
had, at one point, to give…
womanhood scorned.
What if one morning, head
on the bare chest of another’s
husband, you had this
epiphanic sense of moral revulsion.
And you started hearing crescendos
of hushed disembodied feminine riffs, in
melodies of a wedding song, intensifying
to earsplitting pitch of demons
wailing for love of frenzy:
“YOU WHORE YOU WHORE
YOU WHORE” and “GO TO GEHENNA”
your rightful abode, home of all hookers
who fornicate and sever 60 plus marital
bonds. Isnt a shot at heaven worth
all your life’s savings in an alabaster
perfume jar, smeared mascara,
ruination of the prepped hair you once
used to lure male victims. A teary eye
for a seductive eye, a mourner’s tooth
for a toothy flirtatious smile?
Wouldn’t you fling yourself helplessly,
shamelessly on the floor and kiss
the feet of Someone who could give you
your life back, to be human again,
a little girl reborn with no trace of scars?

-----Luke 7:36-50
When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner.” Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.” “Tell me, teacher,” he said. “Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” “You have judged correctly,” Jesus said. Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?” Jesus said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

---Remedy Lyrics

in my blood the sun of a Kansas sky
turn the Flint Hills gold
and burn them dry
o, the roads i had to take
to make good my escape

Tornado Alley, don't i know
you well i shoulda known better
than to build my house in hell
o, the bones i had to break
to make my home in such a place

i think i need a doctor
with a shot to cure me
whisky or a bullet,please
a shot to be my remedy

you've be around my
neck so burdensome
you say i've changed
you rue what i've become
o, the bones i had to break
to fit into your perfect space

i think i need a doctor
with a shot to cure me
whiskey or a bullet, please
a shot to be my remedy

vanity: you've been hard to track
i waste my youth on you and i want
it back
o, the bones i've yet to break
i'm growing old
i need a home
i need a cure to stop this pain

i think i need a doctor
with a shot to cure me
whiskey or a bullet please
a shot to be my remedy

Taylor Please Curse My Figs #TaylorDateTony

* Jesus pray for me
* Dedicated to #TaylorDateTony

+-----Taylor Please Curse My Figs 

Taylor I cant recount how
many nitwit girls have
broken me, sweet smooth
fruit of a ficus tree
turned bitter in my stomach
after the first chew, mischievous
mulberry maidens
of malice. Indeed my singleness
is like a fig on a branch always
ripened, a lonely heart always
dangling from branches for
mean female farmers
to fling in forlorn baskets, my life
this copious harvest of dating
rejections.  But babes, your beauty
has the power of God’s damnation,
your blue eyes are dazzling diamonds
of the divine life, your blonde hair is gold
thread on an angel’s spindle.
I esteem you as Charm Savior,
a tall Galilean beauty of a miraculous
birth destined to emancipate
Romance from the oppressively
harsh Roman marital environment
in which I find myself entrenched,
plight of the Jewish in the diaspora.
OH TAYLOR IF ONLY YOU WOULD
curse the fig, dry the fruit, kill the tree!
(date me, kiss me, drink coffee
with me).  My former loveless life
would wither, dry, fade into
ether of a forgotten dream, my anguish
like chips of dried bark walked over. Just
promise me you’ll remember me
when you leave Bethany, when you
leave home to go to the Grammys.

-----Mark 11:12-25
The next day as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to find out if it had any fruit. When he reached it, he found nothing but leaves, because it was not the season for figs. Then he said to the tree, “May no one ever eat fruit from you again.” And his disciples heard him say it. On reaching Jerusalem, Jesus entered the temple courts and began driving out those who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves, and would not allow anyone to carry merchandise through the temple courts. And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard this and began looking for a way to kill him, for they feared him, because the whole crowd was amazed at his teaching. When evening came, Jesus and his disciples went out of the city.
In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots. Peter remembered and said to Jesus, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree you cursed has withered!”
“Have faith in God,” Jesus answered. “Truly I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”

Ghosts In The Olive Trees

* Jesus pray for me
* Noah pray for me

+----- "Ghosts In The Olive Trees; The Thoughts Of The Dove Sent Out By Noah" 

To see, for the first time in
a long time, the apical branch of
an olive tree is like seeing
a resurrected dove, it is
the disjointed thin line between
consciousness and dream,
abstracted memory and
true reality of a present moment.
I remember the apocalyptic
storm day, the hours my earth stood
still, the vehement waves,
the bullish, intractable, inconsolable
winds. I have nightmares of
the din of my dead kin in their final
moments, the muffled gagging
of beaks trying to gargle, feathers
scattered on the crests
and foam
of indignant seas. This leaf, then, is a sign
of the times, a totem of resilience
for all those whose life and story
were swept away, antediluvian
golden age when none knew
the relationship between
debauchery and elemental wrath.
Its as if my cousin, aunt and nephews
are crying out, “Tell Noah
that to learn from others’ mistakes
is the most fitting way to bury
one’s dead."
(In the new Earth)

-----Genesis 8:1-12
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Now the springs of the deep and the floodgates of the heavens had been closed, and the rain had stopped falling from the sky. The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible. After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him

Dos Equis With The Devil On the Mount #IHadABeerWithSatan

* Jesus pray for me
* Matthew pray for me
#IhadabeerwithSatan (Part 7)

[The setting: The summit of the highest mountain, overlooking the vast expanse of all the world’s kingdoms. Wild beasts lurch between shrubs and snarl at Tony as Satan dialogues with Tony. Tony and Satan share a 6 pack of Dos Equis beer.]

+----Dos Equis With The Devil (On The Mount)

[Satan swills his beer]
Tony stand beside me and
peer down, we can see all things
atop this mountain. Behold,
in homes, flames of animosity’s
spirit raging within human hearts
that rival their hearths,
men and women who pine away
for the Death God to perish,
for a religion of authentic living to rise
from seething soot and ashes
of their desire deferred for too long.
You see, my friend, no one
willingly erects an ascetic altar.
Nebuchadnezzar dictating a hedonistic
consciousness from the grave,
the swords the spears, the torches.
(A rational mind always wars against temples
of frivolity.) And see, these are the coveted
Kingdoms that rise behind these disaffected
peoples’ dissimulation before an oppressive
God/morality fabricated by fools; The secret
subversive
empires of the purest pleasures- masturbation
not meditation, drunken revelry not sobriety,
prostitution and strip clubs not abstinence,
drugs of euphoric experience as "civic duty".
And all of this can be yours…the glitz,
the pageantry, if you bow before me indulgent.
Beers in hand, we’ll drink ourselves to stupor
as we watch Yahweh’s world burn.


-----------------Matthew 4:1-11
Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God. Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
    and they will lift you up in their hands,
    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Flights Of Fancy; A Dove's Thoughts On Jesus' Baptism In The Jordan

* Jesus pray for me
* John pray for me
* Holy Spirit, fill me. Amen.

+-----Flights Of Fancy; A Dove's Thoughts On Jesus' Baptism In The Jordan

For me, even the thought
of a righteous man baptized
is a chinook that tousles feathers,
a wind
of inspiration rushing from the north
that empowers wings. For virtue
guides flight paths. It veers the
flock away from perils of falcon and hawk
to bask in safe spaces of the divine,
open clear skies above, to scoff
at terrain boundaries that inhibit the
feet, claw, paw and fin wanderers of
land only or sea only, beckoning
us to sing
in secret code chirp of the curved beak,
songs as biographies we'll bequeath
to our squabs still in eggs,
on the sheer magic of the created earth.
Yes, to meet such a One
would be an honor worthy of heaven's
descent,
of abandoning our Eden in the clouds,
the perpetual wedding feast of
Sun and Moon in the exquisite coterie
of comet and star. I swear I would
rest on his shoulders forever.
I would gaze at myself in waters
of the Jordan just to make sure
I wasn’t dreaming.
Just to make sure the felicity
of the moment
was real.

-----John 1:32
John testified saying, "I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.