The Man

The Man

There is this man. He is the world to me.
And I mean that as literally as it can possibly be.
Nothing could be exchanged for this man.
His speech falls on to the soft cement of my mind.
Each word and syllable, with emotion intertwined,
is imprinted, permanently.
O if only I could imitate all his mannerisms and motions,
and walk the way he walks--
with such confidence, with such authority.
He always knows what he is doing and why he does it.
His purposes: sublime beyond all sublimity
and nobleness of nature beyond all nobility.
Yet, I must add, he is not some idol,
ideal in my mind.
He is real and personal.
In him a friend I find.
For each intimate second I have with him,
his lowly, meek and gentle heart
pierces me, to the inner part.
And there, where motive and desire meet,
he captivates my being;
I fall, trembling at his feet.
Who by his meekness causes men
to fall and worship at his feet?
This is the man;
He is the world to me,
To him I surrender every faculty.

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This poem was not originally intended to be a poem. And as you could probably tell, the beginning portion could be written in prose form. But as I sat down one night to write a description of a perfect man and what my response would be to him, something else flowed out. There was a rhythm and profound emotion to the description, and I realized that all I tried to write was essentially me trying to describe Christ. And indeed, imagining a truly perfect man is impossible without knowing Christ, so the latter portion of the poem is written with a mind more focused on Jesus and what I know of him from the gospels.

I know this poem isn't comprehensive. It focuses on a little portion of all that the Son of God is, but I encourage you to imagine what it would be like to walk during his time here on earth. Meditate on specific words he has spoken to people like you and me. Words like, "Go in peace; your faith has saved you." (Luke 7) or "These words I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Do you believe these words? Do you respond to these words when you pray? I pray that you do, and that you be blessed by doing so.

Thanks for taking the time to read my post. More poems and thoughts are coming soon!

Searching for the Form

I haven't posted for a while now. This is mostly due to laziness and just plain fear of posting "cliche" things, which isn't really a fear of being cliche, but a pride that is only satisfied with nothing less than pure novelty and perfection. That may seem like an exaggeration, but considering the fact that I am a descendent of Adam, it only makes sense that I am inclined to "cover up" what I see is flawed in me. However, there's another reason.

Because this blog has been mostly a place where I've posted poems, I thought that I should only post again once I have a poem worthy of being posted. And now that I'm in English 131 (Intro to Poetry), I have realized how little effort and care I've put into my poems. This class has showed me that my form and structure fluctuates like crazy, or is just nonexistent. And my open form (free verse) poems? I thought they didn't have to abide by any rules at all! But the reality is, everything abides by rules; there's really no such thing as "free" verse. For in the very attempt to escape a traditional form, a writer creates a new form... I won't get into that now, but suffice it to say that all good poetry comes from fine craft and meticulous thought. With that in view, you must understand that I have had a very critical eye on all of my poems, there's always something to change which is both bad and good. Bad, because I will take longer in the writing process. Good, because I will be posting more polished and refined poems, that will hopefully not have distracting offbeat rhythms or wretched grammatical flaws.

So now, on to my new(ish) poem that I wrote reflecting on some of the things mentioned above. It's not perfect, but it's a kind of preliminary to some others I have in store for the future. They, at this time, are in the fiery furnaces of revision and critique. The refining is tough work, and hopefully, by God's gift-nourishing grace, I will learn to be a master refiner.

*     *     *     *     *

Searching for the Form

I seek to be free, yet still I compromise;
thinking to see, my words are lost in skies
and so comes the wait to learn to be contained--
forms and structures molding what's untamed;
thus I learn to choose from chaos, molten ooze
the precious metals whose worth's refined in form--
authentic in fruit, though by centuries worn.