Simply Jesus

your blood blooms still 

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

When there’s not enough hyssop

to cleanse me of all these flaws—

I think I must live with them,

make slow improvements

with the

tick tick tick

of time’s cruel elements.

I know too well this unruly thing

inside me is me,

but there, too,

is the me that hungers for her first love

somewhere buried beneath

bruising, hardening, scarring

it throbs,

however disjointedly.

I am not a girl of

ritual, rules or religion.

I only know that at fifteen

I just wanted

to hold Your hand.

And now,

beyond church

and the things they add to it all,

and bitter politics

and the things they take away from it all,

and morality,

and all these rules I break—

I stand here today

wondering

when did I ever get the idea

You were not enough?

In dark,

in cloud,

in lightless days,

Your blood blooms still.

And I remember

I never needed

anything else anyway.

© 2013 Jennifer Wagner

1 Corinthians 2:2-5.  And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony^[a] of God. ² For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. ³ I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. ⁴ And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human^[b] wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, ⁵ that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

The Truce

sitting in the dust

accusers round her, thick—

with pride and spittle

dribbling their bearded chins

fingers pointing, fists shaking, rocks in hand—

the ground trembling with cries for justice

‘such women’ they yell, violent distaste rolling

off their tongues

one by one, they felt the mirrored shame in His words

until only one accuser remained

as she waited for the airless moment to pass

and a stone to pierce her

the two of them breathed slowly together, seconds ticking, until

she put it down, rose up, and began to pardon herself

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

*His words

For dVerse, Armistice/Truce/Making Peace with Poetics

Troll Bridge

facing the winter

of a hearse driven life

you soldier on

with skeletons in the closet

clacking along

the last frost covered leaf

curled and brown, laced with silver,

blows away in the wind

the wind,

there to bite you

sting you,

 remind you

of regrets and demons without, within—cackling

in the still-deadness

where your still-living questions

ask if you have left

them behind

they pick lustily

at your flesh, with tempting,

at your mind, with amoebic doubts—

troll-like, in a present-day quagmire

on one side of the bridge; whereupon crossing

you hear a voice

which says to Call This

The Bridge Where You Rename Yourself

                                                    And Forgiven, And Worth

                       Overcomer                                                                        Being

Names like                                                                                                                  Loved

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Inspiration: Isaiah 62, Revelation 2, and a dream that woke me up

For the prompt at Poetry Jam and for  Poets United Poetry Pantry

*Note: this piece doesn't read right on most hand-held devices.  For accuracy read on a larger screen.

Never Lose the Ability to Get Lost

blonde and brown

heads bobbling

with energy

they, like arrows,

pierce the earth

with exuberance

never losing

their silly, boyish grins

as i watch them

jumping, bouncing

wrestling each other

on the trampoline

where they forget

brotherly offenses

i hope they never lose this

ability to get lost

in the moment

with laughter

and forgiveness

like dollops of rain

drenching the

thirsty onlookers

and me the memory of it

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

my boys and how they work things out, my favorite people to watch…meant to link up to Brian Miller’s people watching poetics prompt, 6 Billion Others at dVerse, but got busy and was too late…so I’ll be linking it to openlinknight

Abuse of Power, Power of Abuse

Leave me to solve riddles,

in the dark ruminations

puzzling with pieces

slipping through my fingers.

They have long legs and,

until now, ran faster than I could;

but I have sprouted legs of my own, and

the caramel is dripping

from your polluted apple

revealing a leprous underbelly

and the twists of your myths.

Since released

I write my farewell to arms,

though I know it will not pierce your heart.

I have learned the impossible

remain impossible, impervious,

and must rule

without question,

without consequence.

I write to pierce my own

and release your venom

to drip, to flow,

to collect in puddles at my feet.

While ash and toxicity

paint bleak the petrified forest

where once hearts of

children tried to play,

before you caught them, taught them,

deftly smothered them in your decay.

I have escaped, but intermittently I

perchance upon your minions,

try as I may, when near,

I cannot blind the stench from my nostrils

from the blood

on their hands.

My blood

mind you, cries out for justice,

and like Abel’s,

is heard.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

Linked to dVerse Poets OpenLinkNight

The Telling

she carpeted her windswept fears with conversational banality

every time he chanced upon her truths

when those raw elements exuded from her blood to her tissues

she could hold them back no longer

she had no more strength to restrain

those flooding fibers,

the secret self, less understood but more familiar even

than the blouse of self-belittlements she had grown accustomed to

with tremulous hand she peeled back the covers of her deathbed

confession

when the things she could never say

began to drip, horrifyingly, from her lips

she knew she’d been dying to tell him

it was death not to

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner 
Linked in the 1st Anniversary Edition of dVerse Poets Pub OpenLinkNight