Nazareth

 

Before you shut your eyes tonight,

power off your phone.

We won’t be taking much with us

tomorrow on the road.

 

I know there’ll be a Nazareth

somewhere on our bid.

Though not the one on Google Maps

—the one that’s kinda hid.

 

We’ll lie ourselves beneath a sky

that’s never bought or sold.

I wanna hear some stories now

like those that Jesus told.

 

They needn’t be too much at all.

Whatever comes will come.

I feel I have some up my sleeve.

There’s nothing to be done.

 

No barefaced morals in the tales,

at least not for the shrew.

No trailers, no subscriptions and

no internet reviews.

 

No socials trends, no twitter feeds,

no politics debates.

Let’s weave some stories like the ones

that Jesus could create.

 

Don’t tell me what the science is

or where it’s finalised.

I only wanna know just what

it means to be alive.

 

Let’s mind our phones are powered off

and time is left on hold.  

I wanna hear some stories now

like those that Jesus told. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between

 

Now and then,

you just get lucky.

 

Beside that ocean,

under the sun,

I swung in a hammock

—my little protest to rains and bugs to come.

My little win.

 

I thought of you; of us

—that little win we had

 

when,

between the insects,

between the lions eating baby deer alive,

between the human wars,

between sore backs and sleepless nights

and jobs and bills and cancers and death

and petrol prices,

between the loneliness of how it was before we met

and how it’s now,

between all that:

moments in time

we searched each other’s eyes

and found the thing.

Our hammock.

Our protest to rains and stings to come.

 

Our feather in the wind

doomed to be undone

 

yet

 

still afloat

 

somewhere

in the mercy of history

and memory. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scenic Route

 

It seems so long ago

it was family

and kingdom

and God

to which we gave our lives.

 

Now we live for heart.

 

It sounds so nice: ‘the heart’.

 

But many things can sound

so nice.

 

In any case,

the heart of which we speak

can’t

be seen. Much like God.

 

And yet the heart is what I walk with.

I haven’t God,

I’ve only heart

—my only sword and shield

on a road our generation took

of buried god

and awkward heart.  

 

So what to do but hope

it’s just the scenic route

to a better grasp

of both.