Monthly Archives: August 2015

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Poem For The Sunday Lectionary (Pentecost +13, Yr B)

THE “CAN’T-FOLLOW-JESUS-ANY-MORE” BLUES
(John 6: 56-69)

Seems the bread of heaven’s just too hard to chew.
Said, this bread of heaven’s just too hard to chew.
I’m chokin’ on flesh that’s given for me and you.

Says his words are spirit, but they feel more like a knife.
Says his words are spirit, but they feel more like a knife.
Yet he tells me his words hold the power of eternal life.

Don’t know ‘bout a Lord who’d lay down his life for love.
Said, what kind of a Lord lays down his life for love?
This world, my friend, is a place of push and shove.

Want a Christ who’s got a better way to succeed.
Need a Christ who’s got a better way to succeed.
Want someone who’s tough, who lets the other guy bleed.

Funny how hungry I feel down to my shoes.
Said, funny how hungry I feel down to my shoes.
Can’t seem to shake these empty-feeling blues.

Wish the bread of heaven wasn’t so hard to chew.
Is the bread of heaven really so hard to chew?
Maybe need that flesh that’s given for me and you.

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A Poem For My Father – III

PICTURES
(Robert M.C. King: April 9, 1926 – August 7, 2015)

A friend told me once how, waking to her house on fire,
she and her husband grabbed the photo albums first.
She said, “You can replace everything but memories.”

At your visitation, Dad, we had the photo displays
and the Powerpoint slideshow, a few of the pictures taken
in your younger years: you in your Boy Scout uniform,

delivering a speech at the Boys’ Parliament, a few
of you as a young husband and father, ever smiling,
your blonde hair wavy and full. But most of the photos

were post-polio, the hair all but vanished but not your smile;
there you were at weddings, graduations, reunions,
posing with dogs and grandkids, wearing the paper hats,

enjoying every party. Good memories. But what I would
have given, Dad, had I the power of omniscience,
the power to have foreseen this day and event,

to have hidden a camera inside my pocket on just one
of those Sundays you preached in our little village church,
the light from the pink and yellow windows falling

on your blue choir robe as you went from pulpit to choir
and back again, your limp not slowing you down,
your voice lifting clear and strong, the notes

for your sermon scratched on scraps in pencil;
the moment, if not the words, etching into my mind
where no fire of distance, no flame of time,

can ever diminish such memory’s pleasure.

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Poem For the Sunday Lectionary (Pentecost +11, Yr B)

RECIPE FOR THE BREAD OF LIFE
(John 6: 35, 41-51)

Start with the Word made flesh –
full of grace and truth.

Add living water
drawn from the spring
that gushes to eternal life.

Mix with the Spirit
that blows where it will.

Flavour with fruit
of the true and living vine.
(Note: will contain love.
Will produce joy that is full.)

And most importantly of all:

Give Jesus’ flesh for the life of the world.
(Requires a cross.
Leaves an empty tomb.
Serves: God’s beloved world.)