Juvenile Detention Center

I never knew his name
I just knew that his father
beat him and his mother
every single day for 16 years
till the boy took a double barrel
shotgun to his father’s face
and blew him clear across the room
he never spoke a word to anyone
how could he, there was nothing to say
he did what he had to do
protected his mother
who came to visit every Saturday
in tears, even then
he didn’t say a single thing
I never felt another man’s pain
as immense and near as his
each night in the bunk across from me
he slept with both eyes open
and I wished he might one day
forgive himself for loving in the only way
he knew how
I still break a little inside every time
I think of his corner of the cell
all that immense silence
endless / unbearable
the way it was
for those of us
who had nothing to say.

Holy / Spirit / World

On the backroad / in the late hours of undone / when there is nothing and no one that could save you / Holy / having walked long in daze / the stars resting in a bowl of compass / pull faith in through a straw / where the light dims / where the work is never done / the place you come from / Holy / the river that runs right through the road / God’s drunken laughter / another chapter in the book of you / turning / rough tuning / Holy / don’t stop there / take the next turn / past fields of burning tires / reckon with the wound / that drops like rain / on the floodplain / some joy remains / untouched / you will arrive / unrecognizable / in time / though much has been taken / that much more remains / watered up from the ground / it is only found in lostness / a listening / to have bargained with one’s life / and won / life / back / from the long dark night / in all things / Holy / hardly matters / if it shines or shatters / collect yourself / in wonder of the world you have known and the world you are learning / don’t stop there…

If I’m not back by noon, you can have my room

And the drawers stuffed with seawater
The carpet of poems
Rolled out like a splotch of woolen sky
The atlas, the coffee stained map
Point a, point b, smallest bible known to man with a few singles tucked inside
The love of which is the root of which
I can’t remember which

I meant to teach you that card trick
But you know how the days go
Mostly it’s out of our control
The important stuff
The little stuff
Whatever stuff is left after all that detouring through damage

Get away from the world if you can
Deep into woods, by a lake
Surrounded by all that field
All that sky
Try not to take it unpersonally
We who have eyes, let us see it
Having known it, hold it
And hold on

Learn to love the world regardless of what it does to you
It’s gonna muck you up
And it’s going to amaze you
When you least expect anything other than what you’ve been getting
All your life

It’s easy to hate your way through the world
But the travel makes you small
Don’t go down that road
There’s a golden path in your pain-place
See where it takes you
Out by the hydra headed highway
Just you and the moon
Not all darkness is bad
Make it useful

Sometimes you don’t have to go too far
Sometimes you do

But whatever you do
Do it for reasons that feel true to who you are
Share your true self
With whoever needs it
And don’t forget to hit that darkness running.