Table of Contents
Internet Access
To you members of the Internet, this poetic essay is purely a figment of a vivid imagination. I do not claim any more access to God than anyone. however, I do believe, but there is no evidence, that in prayer, God will talk to me, but only through the window of my mind, if..... I will talk to him.
You will observe that this is a chapter in my family life, but by using poetic license, (for example, the first page is simply an automobile going down a freeway) I have transferred it (the car and the freeway ) to the Civil War in Bosnia. In order to avoid any discussion of factual accuracy, I have placed the setting as being in a time, 20,000 years ago.
Oh Lord...won't you stay this night,
And we will speak of things long gone
And daffodils and lilac song.
And winging birds return,
Not dead ... not even gone.
And speak of days to come .....
Of days of sunlit air
And earth her gentle bosoms bare
So that new thirsty life
May nurture there.
When was it a child was born
This child that was your son.
This particular chapter was copyrighted August 9, 1996. However, I would like to share it with anyone on the Internet that I might connect with those who have a chapter in their life, and who would put it in an improbable setting that would not refer to a particular religion and which the poems refer only to my (or your) life which then is obscured by Poetic license.
I hope it is clearly understood that these essays are not meant to furnish answers, but to ask questions. I refuse to answer any inquiry as to the meanings herein presented. I would like you to add to this (questionable) book with your getting the credit for your writings, and the responsibility of the chapters you would add.
<Signed>
Joseph Eldon Toomey
58 So. 200 West.
Burley, Idaho 83318
15 April 1997
CIVIL WAR
Prayer
This Holy craft ... to guide my Lord
This way to find his help ,and lo.
Come and see.. and teach me, Lord
Come with me.. for us together go.
The craft was learning as it did dip.
Trial spins these ships were dear.
Serving under going apprenticeship
Yet...to fly over which we live in fear.
A fabulous world that God held dear.
Out of the fog the cliffs suddenly grated.
Great strength the whirling air currents-
The mouths of the valleys guarded and stated.
The crests crowned with lightening.
That fabulous world of hope
From the dust of time given now to own.
A strength that seems a oneness to be.
A strength that's far above my own.
This power can come to me
A new desire..to see that sphere of hope.
Hope expressed a desire I cannot shirk.
To see the Lord was given me.
The oneness with God to share a marvelous work.
A fabulous world that God held......
Like a dream that I can see.
Laughter brightened this weary frame.
Strangely noble at this dismal moment.
Could he discern the angel still the same..
And would he vanquish then...
The Serpent power...the dragon?
Hope
A fragile gift this precious day.
To share what man could be.
Friends and family he would share.
This day that I could see.
Were the wings that I might have.'
The wings of an angel in days to be...
in days to be .... the desire of my heart.
To listen to me.
And though in heaven stays my father.
He will come to see.?
My prayers he hears and answers?
And he will come to me?.
Dirty weather filled the skies.
The beginning and the end to some.
Fatigue bowed down the family ties.
A trial of recent children ... and of man to come..
The sea of clouds below eternity lies.
Spread beneath me an immense white pitfall.
The living tumult below it resigned.
The unknowable and the known between.
The agency of man assigned.
Is there really a father in heaven.'
Are you really there? And can I see?
A children prayer that you will answer.
Can I really be me?
If it.. desire... is a spirit'
Is hope a spirit too?
Is a spirit there?
Before it wasn't here?
Pride and shyness held my heart.
We think of those before through it? ... before.
Can I do what they could do?
Yourself you say to you.
The flaming swords ... the guards.
I was to remember the serpent in the garden.
it lay in wait for me, a shard.
It would transform me into a Sulfurous flame.
And so ... with a heart full of shyness and pride.
We think of those...What did they do?
And say to yourself as if inside
What did they do..What can I do?
Watching ever lighthouse keepers.
Keepers beneath the stars.
Murder
A word is said ...a knife cutting thee.
Life ... a part of which is taken.
Reclaimed..it can never be.
Again that I can never see.
This thing but a terrible rook?
To destroy a child ....to smite a man.
A part of life that then is taken.
A part that you ....ever took..
never is reclaimed.
Is it not so the spirit slain
Is ours alone whenever we maim
Or hurt and make afraid.
Our closest friend.
Is this not all that's done
This power before the one
The power then that Lucifer has done.
This not the Holy one.
A JOURNEY IN TIME
The darkest cover of the night
The darkness I can see.
And I can know that hate and fear
Do now prevail and be..
God... will you give to me a gentle touch?
That's far above my own...a oneness,
From out of Holiness
A faith ... your own.
God, can I reach out... and touch?
A fragment of faith....
In place of my own?
My faith is now... all tattered and torn.
Can 1 overcome that hate and fear.
That now I know it.
Is given me that hope held dear.
Is shared to me that spirit.
Under the light, little by little
A fairyland the world becomes.
I had chartered a fairyland.
Like so many buoys and beacons.
As tenderness escorted a fervor,
A sleeping camp, I standing guard.
A sentinel I seemed to be.
Just fallen in love ... had 1 to see.
Knowing nothing about and yet abide..
Those passers by....those bands.
Yet it was to me they would confide.
About to entrust their hopes in my hands.
The cares of their heart... that would set aside.
I asked of thee, so long ago.
Shall I see that faith ... that spirit.
Yet in this flesh
The face of God ... to see.
What can I be? I am not God.
Your countenance upon my face?
The golden glow of passion.
And can it be upon your race?
Mv feet are not your feet.
Your footsteps they can't fill or be.
These can I then but follow.
Can these my feet be given thee?
Together we can walk.
Just you ... and me?
Your nearness I can feel
Can I be near to thee?
Not my words..... God's words
But...can I be an offering dear.
That I may be ... a prayer.
And I can feel.... you near.
And see the child...
A child God's given
Is it possible that Man's rejected?
One will never find?
And will pass him by?
Is it possible that those
Who are looking for a Saint
Will never wonder why?
In reaching the impossible
We sigh..
And draw away.
From the sky
From one who is nigh?
Ten Thousand Miles
I dreamed I'd go .
Ten thousand miles
With Ranko .... no.
For Ranko had stopped dreaming.
Ten thousand miles With Mladic ... so?
For Mladic will stop dreaming
When the plaudits of the throng
Have come his way
For us to go.
But he will ride this road with me
Until the end that soon will be.
When fame and fortune
Smiles on he.
Ten thousand miles
I dreamed I'D go this day
And Radovan did came to me.
Can I come A little way?
And there my dream will be
In my cloak I muffled up.
Like a shepherd walking among them.
Of my solicitude though
they were unaware.
Of those stars what would they know?
That one by one were going out.
In the confidence of the Heavens I was alone.
In a Universe that was not theirs.
My footfall rang and there he stood.
Earth a display of all that was good.
The proud intoxication...the sound.
Tasting there the friendship
The aura still wrapped around?
Can a person be lonely in Heaven?
Is there sorrow in heaven too?
Can we long for another'
Can we cry in the stars.'
Can we long for another in vain?
If a loved one is missing in heaven
If a child has forgotten the way.
Can we reach out for him.
Can we cry in the night.'
If faith is not and hope has strayed.
What is left when dreams ...
Have faded in the mist beyond.
Can we never repent, and never find.
Or be at one with someone whose kind.
Rearing.... by great black waterspouts.
Temple pillars seeming in immobility?
Were there? ... Were there supporting?
swollen at their tops.
The tempest a squat and lowering arch.
Slabs of light there fell
Their radiance....a spell.
As the fullness of the moon at day..
The sea of frozen tiles disgorge.
Through these uninhabited pillars.
From channel of light too soon.
Sliding slantwise. That giant ruin.
Circled round the dune.
Radovan made his way
Here rumbled the upsurges of the sea.
In which there must me.
Corridors of moonlight
Toward the exit of the sanctuary.
So overwhelming was this pageantry
Only when he had developed .
Through the black hole.
Did Radovan do the act.
He had not been afraid.
And awakened to the fact.
Into quicksand sinks the life of man.
Their dreary diurnal tasks
Were taken up again.
I in the midst of these men.
The morning yet at daybreak.
Oh God, will you take this cup from me.'
Karadzic had wiped out with a single smile.
Omens of all the evil.
In my memory they all came overdue.
And looked at us with embarrassing sympathy
In murmurs and whispers
Talking to another son.
Their talk painted the walls
Of the dismal prison.
The face of destiny in a vision..
Suddenly. With hell I saw Karadzic face to face.
Into the eyes of Hell?
I saw Radovan stare.
As Heaven smiled I saw hell blink.
Is this an angel, sent from him on high?..not so
Is this the spirit which I must seek
And can I find...
Almost an Angel?
God stood beneath and I alone.
My weight of sorrow on his face.
And yet the force of hell...
Was then erased.
When one is standing underneath
Is this the heaven I would seek.'
For there he stood...
...Reached an uplifting hand.
And though beneath, I was above.
And this the heaven I was to find?
For I was lifted up to heaven.
I needed him ... he needed me.
And I was sent by heaven
Not useless hell.
Was there one who helped you to escape?
Some one grasping,
While there was still time
Restoring your peace by taking out the chinks.
Through which the light might pierce?
Against the winds a modest rampart raised.
Against the tides and stars.
As a man..forgetting your own fate.
An errant planet whereupon you dwell
No answers to which their are no questions.
Now the clay of which your shaped.
Has dried and hardened.
And now you must awake ... the sleeping poet.
That possibly inhabited you in the beginning.
A Gift of Remembrance
My father in heaven ... I pray
Can I make a difference ... this day.
For just this day
Can I bring out the best?
Can I make this a day to remember?
Yet what have I done ... that I should ask'
This greatest blessing that I might have.
I had a dream last night
Of such a gift... a gift of remembrance.
A gift ... a gift... like this.
And yet in my dream this gift was lost
This great treasure.
And now... I must now ... again remember.
This great treasure of asking.
That was such glory ... to my soul.
This gift that was given to me.
That I could see..
And thus behold ... that heaven.
A world the craft (of prayer) has opened for me.
Confront a world in which I shall see
The black dragons and the crowned crests
Crests of a coma of blue lightnings.
I delivered when night has fallen.
Among the stars I shall read my course
Black vapors filled the skies.
The sea confounded when fog and sand
Indistinguishable they became
Confounded in a brew
These skyway swamps treacherous
When gleaming flashes wheel.
At a single stroke
Purge himself of phantoms.
Radovan
A fearsome heath, as in a lonely cottage.
The border it seems to us have crossed.
To return infinitely difficult.
It would be tossed.
Ticks on the clock as deriding?
The tails of a tornado rising.
Straight ahead of him.
Being built and rising as of then?
Swallowed them up as night came down..
The clouds of doubt then slipping up.
A fantastic kingdom then.
Then it seems.
Are we to live throughout our days
In cursing God and nature.
And must we always just give in?
And never live my life that I can give.
Oh I've been told that meekness is
And cursed be I who will not turn my cheek.
And I must ... ever walk in prison
And die for these my sins.
To live and to give life
Are these not the things
That God has taught while here below?
Not curse and shame.
There is a time when fight we must.
And drive the strangers from the temple.
The saints did something more
Than look away from evil.
The gleam of moonlight suddenly seen.
A crevasse of fog at the bottom.
Clouds filled the sky overhead.
Between cloud and fog
The course was set
Did we miss the sunset?
My Lord and I?
Did it hide behind a hill?...
When we were loking away?
Oh Lord...did you miss it?
Did you miss the rich blessings too?
Is it not true that a prayer that's never been sent.
Cannot be answered.
Is it not true that those without desire
Have never prayed.
Is prayer a recitation of God's virtues?
I think not.
Do we need another
And not bind it with prayer?
Can we find atonement
If no one is there.
Is there a blessing missed?
If so ... what was it?
What can we say when love is gone?
When hope and faith have walked away.
When charity did die.
Can life go on?
When charity is dead?
Guide me ... Lord ... this Holy day.
Help me find the way.
Teach me, Lord,, and come and see.
Together come with me.
What can be said of tears unshed.
And pride has lifted her pretty head.
In scorn.
Can life go on?
Can it be explained that I have slept?
A sleep of dreams unspoken.
Can I lift my head to heaven ... and love.
Can life go on?
It seems to me you have awakened
The numbed senses been regained.
And all vou did was smile.
Can life go on?
Does God love a sinner more than the righteous?
It seems the prodigal is more regarded.
The lost sheep more than the ninety and nine.
Guide me, Lord, this holy day.
Help me find the way.
Teach me, Lord,; and come and see.
Together, come with me.
Ahead low on the horizon and suddenly
Unveiled a brilliant point.
Through me a wave of joy went.
A beacon..could it not but be?
For a space the light did twinkle
And then went out.
Only for awhile was that star seen.
The horizon creeping up and setting.
Clouds between the layers of fog.
The gloom then taken up by other stars.
Hope a dogged sort of dream.
To turn.. for each... a lingering light.
And change our star..each time.
Danger even in the midst.
As aberration seems to sight?
Reproach reached where it had no right?
Nothing in the world has man possessed.
Shared invisible riches but their memories.
And smile..and look at one another.
And kept apart as life may scatter us
Somewhere we know are our comrade-
It comes to us now..bit by bit
The laughter of a friend
We shall never hear again.
Against us this One garden that is locked.
That companion can never be replaced.
Truth...is it then nothing?
Can we plant an acorn in the morning
And expect to sit in the shade?
Now it comes to us bit by bit.
The seed we plant as life grows on.
Riches we have then become.
Years that comes the blight
Then time does its work.
Sparse and thin ..then become..
Quite different is that something I can offer.
it is the quality of the carpenter with his block of wood-
He handles it, he takes its measure.
Far from treating it frivolously
He summons all his professional virtue to do its honor
Your adversities never cheapened
As you felt the need.
Confronting them is all your deed.
You take its measure. accepted it.
For a man to be.
To be responsible?... is it precisely.
At the sight is it to feel shame?
Misery, unmerited of what it seems.
Ones comrade in victory to take pride.
When setting the stone it is to feel
The building of the world
That one is contributing it to be.
Yet I have slept a dreamless sleep
For have I found the Thorn?
When Gods tender love was shown.
Who was it mocked and raised a storm?
The mountain of God not wanted.
Is it 1, was it 1, will it be me
And yet your smile was all that's needed.
To kindle there the fire,
And sweep away the ashes...... and now.
Are we to live throughout our days
Guide me, Lord, this holy day.
Help me find the way.
Teach me, Lord, and come and see
Together. come with me.
Below him the flying pilot sees.
Flows a series of ancient Lava.
A waste of thickness each erupted.
Congealed now on the plain.
No Vesuvius rises up to reign
Merely flat upon the plain
A succession of gaping mouths.
Boomed there once a thousand volcanoes.
Their fire that spat forth.
Now mute and abandoned
I fly forth
Black glaciers now strewn forth.
Volcanoes then as yet older
The passing of time were veiled.
Out of a crevice a tree did rise.
Like a plant out of a cracked pot.
The plain civilized with short grasses.
Off scampers a hare.
in the air a bird wheels.
A new planet has taken possession of life.
At last has spread the loam of earth.
The bleak terrain now has shed.
Over the curves lie a silky turf.
The crust sutured up each fissure.
A tender flax the suture.
Gentle are the slopes, smooth the earth.
One forgets the travail that gave them birth.
I see the hand upon the wall
That having writ moves on.
I see the word of God inscribed...
Thereon.
Oh, do not cry ... and do not weep
Oh, do not say in sleep
How great I am to turn the cheek
And go the extra mile.
For it's not true, it Is not fact.
The mountain is not moved.
When I confess in indignation
That others have in imperfection.
Is not the spirit here bereft.
Is this the cheek I've spoken
To turn and love and here embrace
I'm glad you've come to this here place.
I'm glad you've spoken.
Oh tell me not of cheeks and miles.
When God would have bespoken.
The kindness and the sunshine come
When we have now bespoken.
is love but a smile that lets me in?
A smile that says just everything.
A smile that tells me here I'm welcome
Here to join the hosts of angels?
Here in our home
Where God's tender love is shown.
Join in the spirit
That glows within.
Oh, I'm so glad you've come.
Then is love a small thing"
Being just a smile.
Oh, I'll not ask for more In those around us.
Though perfection not attained
To see a smile
In the face of a friend
Is to see the face of God.
Oh I'm so glad he came.
Awakened me now.. my bewilderment.
Home the earth is now become.
Is yet in truth a wandering star.
Work suspended as of now.
And now their reigned a peace at rest.
I saw, my eyes were opened then.
The pool of nocturnal sky but nothing.
Outstretched arms stretching forth
Face to face with that hatchery of stars.
The sky those depths aware.
Those depths which having no roof between.
They were screened by no branch.
No root to cling to.
Flung forth and plunging downward.
But I did not fall.
Up there, God was lifting me.
The void of night immense
Yet transported me through.
Against his presence I leaned with Joy.
This solidity ... this security.
This admirable breastwork.
My body feeling his presence and support.
This curving bridge of my ship.
This motion was I so convinced.
With astonishment that I should have heard
The groaning of vessels Read .
Could I feel... contented?
This density harmonious, sustained..
Unaltered through eternity.
There that was there sustained?
That which I continued to feel.
The marvel of marvels.
That was present.
A human consciousness.
Which as in a mirror
The light could be reflected.
Through my fingers the time was running.
A braided column guided?
The rocks overheard the roaring.
A tremendous waterfall I was led to see.
Taste this ... he had said to me.
Water ... It was sweet water.
Himself..here God was manifesting.
Are you to turn your back.'
The moment for which you are waiting.
When God would grow weary of your madness?.
Silence is better than to be.
Miracles which are certainly there.
Indeed too much to think about then ?
Cause for which you are just?
And angry tones reject my soul?
And one would cease to understand..
Anything at all.
Yet, when I looked ... God wasn't there.
Where I said he would be.
He wasn't there when rage
And blame would cloud the skies.
He wasn't there when vain ambition came to me.
He wasn't there when I demanded
That he be.
And then a teacher came to me.
And opened up the windows of my mind.
Is there a spirit called ... to turn this strife?
I once met a teacher on my journey of life.
The spirit is there to teach.
But by fantasy...not face to face.
There the answers not always the thought?
The thought...to anticipate the questions.
Hope is to teach thereby.
Then proven ... not by faith unblemished?
Am I the one there but to teach?
With the Angels that I may see..
The face of God in me?
Is fantasy just only hope.?
To me only my concern?
It seems that way
And those concerned only by faith do not see.
The depth of words piled high.
Yesterday as seen only in the ashes.
And yet the ashes of yesterday
Is seen as great monuments to treasure,
That I may see..
The face of God in thee.
Must I come to God this way?
Who asked me then to pray?
Is this the way ...
That faith is born?
Must I ask God to come this day?
For I am seeking him to be.
To make him chase the shadows away.
My father that I've asked to stay.
A spirit of peace descended
As I knelt in prayer.
In my quiet valley.
And I saw the face of God that day.
Must I look for God this way?
In the presence of truth
Once again I found myself
To record it, had I failed?
Despair the very bottom of my Touch?
Had left renounced and there the spirit.
The peace that I had known.
This sense of deliverance
Man knows to themselves.
A paradox is everything about
He who strives and conquers... grows soft
The magnanimous man grown grows mean.
And nods for whom everything is made easy.
The creative artist overcoming the opposition.
Can it breed men..that every doctrine swears?
What sort of men can they predict?
But none can do?
Those already wounded enlarge the wounds.
Instead of consoling and healing?
Instead of feasting upon the pleasing words of God
Have daggers placed to pierce their souls.
And wound their delicate minds.
And persecute your brothers ... because
You suppose that you are better than they.
And now my son, I have spoken concerning pride.
And those of you which have afflicted Your neighbor.
And persecuted him because of the pride in your hearts.
Proud of the things God has given you.
What you say you of that?
And because of the apparent strictness
Of the word of God which cometh down against you.
Many hearts have died ...
Pierced with deep wounds.
All my sins and iniquities
I did remember.
With the pains of hell
Was I tormented.
I had rebelled against my God.
His holy law I had not kept.
Destruction had led them away
Or rather had I murdered that many.
And wherefore had I murdered?
To destroy a part of self..their reputation.
Their self-image now had passed away.
So great was my iniquity ... the very thought
Did rack my soul with inexpressible horror
The very thought
Of coming in the presence of my God.
Racked with the pains of a damned soul.
Sareajv a city where I did come.
Babylon there in the great domain.
One another men had killed.
Here was most astonishing scenes.
The sight of conflagration was not there.
Mans distress , ruin and signs
Of these there was an absence.
Sareajv was no different
Than any great city.
I leaned out and stared.
No scars on that church gleaming in the sun.
That it had been burned I knew.
Its irreparable wounds indistinguishable.
Its gilding carried off and gone.
Gone was the pale smoke
Of the sky its alter screams
Had melted in the blue.
Its sacerdotal treasures,
Its prayer books altered ... and in flames.
Not a line of the church was altered.
On the surface of life
The human drama does not show itself.
Not played out in the visible world.
The prayers but in the hearts of men,
No firing line was seen.
invisible in a civil war.
Yet I skirted it on my very first night.
Outside the Cafe, sitting at a table.
Surrounded by lighthearted men and women
Each sipping a drink.
Where I sat at a table,
There sat a man at the next table.
Armed men stopped and stared at the man.
Suddenly pointed their spear
Without a word, pointed him out.
He stood ... his leaden arms above his head.
Streaming with sweat.
Men and women lighthearted surrounded him
His papers ran over the eyes of the militiamen.
Then ordered him to come along.
His half-empty glass left behind.
Of his life, this his last glass.
And down the road they traveled.
Like a man going down for the last time.
In a sea of spears his hands stuck up.
Drowning ... never to reappear.
The mans glass stood alone, untouched
A mute witness to the madness.
Confidant in chance ... in life
In a wave of men watching the disappearance
The invisible firing line he had crossed.
Can doubt tear the clouds in two?
Thus I was racked in torment.
So many sins harrowed up the memory.
Also to have heard my father prophesy
Behold I had remembered
One savior, one Son of God to come.
To atone for the sins of the world.
Now as my mind caught hold upon this thought
My heart cried out.
Oh, Spirit of promise, thou Son of God
I who am in the gall of bitterness
Have mercy for I am encircled.
By the everlasting chains of death.
A GIFT OF JOY
Its aptly said in days that passed
The gift the greatest God can give.
Then let us seek this joy ... this happiness.
And then be sure
This gift is given ... and is pure.
It's source from heaven.
Can it be said ... to know and keep
Can happiness be found ... in misdirection?
When knowledge and -power are tightly led?
Oh no ... not so...the thought makes reason stare,
In disbelief
And I am lost in worlds chaotic.
Is vector seems alone ... that all I need.
Again I must say no.
For I must seek an angel
The source that will control.
The way to go.
Who has the ...power to say no.
But no is not enough
Which but damns my dreams.
And "yes" is more than it can seem.
For "yes" gives power
Then let it go.
And then its safe when shared and given.
Rochelle
To give this gift
And share with others
What happens then can grow?
With "yes" not "no".
The angel here below.
The creator of her home.
Is seen by God to make it so.
Not in fear ...
To hurt and make afraid.
She can say "no" ..and this be so.
But better yet, the rules not made
She acts with God and therefore knows.
To free the spirit ...
Thus it grows.
Her home a haven and a heaven.
Of hosts of angels who descended To her care.
And not of weeping ...
But to share.
Happiness grows..
This joy is full
And its direction
Not power... not glory ...
not even knowledge
Can it appose.
My father in heaven....I pray
Can I make a difference ... this day?
For just this day ...
Can I bring out the best.
Can I make this day ...
A gift to remember.?
This great treasure of knowing?
That such was glory..to my soul.
That I could see...
And thus behold...that heaven?
1 have seen the face
Of that indifferent world
The face of righteousness.
I have seen the right
That critics and imposters own
And I have blinked...cannot atone.
The holy writ...to be thou perfect
Is not my own.
To now behold an imperfect world
Where its safe to sin.
And stumbling is made right
How glorious ... how great the feeling.
When those around me fail to see
The imperfections I -have shown.
An imperfect world that I have seen.
Its like heaven up-- here.
If somebody asks for something
They just give it ... they don't send away.
I don't get a black eye
If I should ask a prized possession.
They give this ...peace...
The peaceful Joy they call their own.
If I am scared of heights
Yet even if I am the last.
They've helped me over the bridge.
Around the raging blackberry bushes.
This heaven is there.
Instead of me having to ask
They ask me.
And tell me what there is to do.
There are no rules ... only two.
You don't hurt another..
And you don't hurt you.
My guide led me there.
Enthronged were there the troops.
Tender farewells would build for platforms.
Signal towers, walking in a desert.
No sound but of human voices.
Not a note of song..not a shout.
To be killed.. and they were going.
Not in uniform
At their work..they heaved and sweated.
Mud stiffened their clothes,- but not their back.
In a whisper spoke the detachment.
Saragossa the place there to attack.
Whisper? Why did he whisper?
A hospital is much more open.
But of course...that was it.
Not a way.. a civil war never is a way.
A disease it has become.
Haphazardly men gathered together.
Chaos filed into the city.
Infection against which blindly struggled.
A new plague is like a plague
It attacks from within.
The enemy camp was just the same.
The country was not rid of this struggle
Whoever belongs to a party feels
Feels surrounded by secretly infected men.
To choose between Serbians
And its enemy Muslim... Saragossa.
There was not much to choose.
The same swarm composed them both.
The same side were the men who collected.
In Civil War the enemy is inward.
One as good as fights against himself
If my strength is given,
if I am the light.'
How can I be .... I cannot see the shadow.
Your fault is yours alone ... not mine.
Is this not God's fault ...
Then can each say?
In line with him on high
Thus do we judge?
To intercede with God's light.
Am I in such a position
Why place myself and thus to judge
I criticize and shame
And castigate another when I cast my shadow.
How can I see this golden moment"
This thing divine.
Is this fight the pure love of God?
I cannot see ... I see the shadow.
I'm not afraid ... to give support
When my strength and calling is made sure.
To give support and lift another.
If God's wrath is all I see.
His light is hidden
I am in the way
How can I be?
Explain what else can then I be.
The particular horror of this war.
A sort of quarantine of death
To go from house to house to smite anarchists?
Into their tumbrels loading the plague stricken?
The barricade on the other side does smite.
That horrible boast Shivaji is able to utter.
The political parties on both sides.
Man's conscience spewed upon the stirring.
A disease as upon the workings.
Respected be the urn of flesh?
Why should it? The body that clothes the spirit.
Grace and boldness makes its move.
Self sacrifice that is apt to ...know love.
Thinks it Is given a decent burial?
No one now so much as thinks,
That note of laughter never again to hear exactly.
Of voice ... never another intonation.
An individual miracle has that quality.
Bound where there is no post.
A man is stood ... and stood alone.
His entrails to the stones of the courtyard.
Killed you have been.
Captured you may be.
Our ideas..not your ideas the reason.
To know your way about is difficult.
Rebel villages and loyal villages mixed in neutral sauce. Between dawn and dark they shifted.
Each side waiting ... shifting their allegiance.
To waken out of an inspired dream.
Waiting for Saragossa to waken.
More than the soldier it besieged.
It was more the thought.
The thought was the great hope and the great enemy.
Which now possessed the villages.
Marcia
School ... to Marcia seemed like
Exchanging one prison for another.
Yet she would walk in the rain
Hold her head up high.
Oh..don't be afraid of the dark.
Other children treated her..
Like the oddity she was.
Looking at the end of the cloud
Eccentric silent gawking at the azure sky.
She was ignorant of the most basic games.
And stared at everybody with her big green eves.
In your heart, walk on ... walk on.
The larks sweet silver song
Can she demand ... insist?
That God will come?
That God will smite them with his might?
And she dreamed an impossible dream.
As a dreamer of dreams
To dream that she would be ... a mother.
When you walk in the rain
When you've asked in your prayers.
As you're walking there?
Lord ... can I ask that you walk with me?
Her mother would blame her teacher
And never blame herself
Expecting her to be brilliant
Like her sisters
Yet she would take the hand of this creation
in an azure sky
And walk hand and hand with God
Yet words of glory never came.
Walk on, walk on, with prayer in your heart.
Alone, you never then will walk.
You'll never walk alone.
Abide with me tis eventide.
Her thoughts drifting, away to a void.
Her mind in a cloud.
And she is all alone.
The shadows of the evening fall
The need is growing long.
And yet he never came.
Drifting away into a void.
How could she ever wish To be... To be a mother.
And I would share my dream.
Some enchanted evening I may see.
A stranger I would know ... somehow.
Even then I'd know
I'd see him then again somehow.
This morning was so beautiful .
A day of sunlit air.
And new thirsty life would nurture there.
And earth her gentle bosoms bare.
I have dreamed ...
And my dreams are lovely.
I have dreamed that I'm loving you.
Is love that's demanded ... diminished?
When the evening shadows deal?
When shadows of the evening
Across the sky do steal.
Up a steep mountain road..they walked together.
A bouquet of flowers the mountain had become.
The oaks still a bright yellow.
Brilliant in red..they came across a maple.
And it might as well be spring.
Dancing around the quaking aspen.
Twisting and turning, like each leaf.
Like a brilliant flash of light.
Like a diamond in the bright moonlight.
Sneaking there a brook is on its way.
The mosses and the rocks are passing by
Evening held her breathless hush.
Springtime promised kiss stood near by.
Evening held her breathless blush.
Never having felt the others touch
And then they walked together
Their hands to clasp each others.
And shared the others presence.
The stars were lit by angels glow.
Swaying now the willow tree.
The melting snow piled high in drifts.
In the light of moon of bluish hue.
You are the promised kiss of springtime.
You are the breathless hush of evening.
You are the angels glow that lights the stars.
The dearest things I know ...
Are what you are.
A Path Was There
A lane for lovers led them near.
Why? I'd led him there not knowing?
Inside, the desire to be...held deep.
Someday I'll know..that moment divine.
Childhoods wish of single ends.
A mother, a father they want to be.
When all the things you are ... are mine.
Remembering the tears that stung her eves.
About him..getting him to feel.
The task there not an easy one.
To be loved by you ...
Not knowing what it means.
He would know ... yet..wouldn't he?
Someone who would give to her ... darlings.
That other women would envy
The thought of it gripped her.
With a sense of urgency
Can I make him love me?
When I need a hug
Can I be patient ... if not prudent.
Can I tell him what I need?
Lord, please make him love me.
The lavender circle of sky we shared.
Shared the clean sharp smell of trees.
Things that happen once?
Once in a blue moon
Are we sharing.... Heaven?
Gods gentle touch is all I need.
Like God's great sphere.
Heaven the love that God created.
Its chance to come to us.
Heaven on earth....
Can I see the path that I must follow?
In fear and trembling..
Perhaps in sorrow.
If I can teach a child to come.
To find the path that God will trod.
Rising high had come the moon.
Getting smaller as it rose.
A pumpkin riding its chariot over the trees.
Hills darkened the valleys.
And the tumbling river.
In my dream God's touch was healing.
The tide of fungus a way to tide.
The dryness of the bones and teeth.
Lovely were the dreams I dreamed..
A way to let me grow.
Seeking then the love that's offered.
Nurtured there the love.
Can I love my God that way.
Only in love is love created.
I would love being loved by you.
Is God giving me a chance to be
A sword of righteousness was given.
Ask and it will be given thee to own
But where" ... whatever it be.
The creator of a heavenly home.
I cannot know but ask.
And I ask what?
Is not a prayer what I've given thee
Something you've never had before..
She whispered then a prayer.
If God a mission he has given.
If the cross is there that Joseph's given.
Can I see the pathway through the nights
That's bright and clear by God's great light".'
A prayer was whispered by each as one.
A touch this gentleness I need.
To us this day, a child is born.
And God has given me a mission.
'
And are we given at this moment a mission?
A mission of lovely creation.
I need God's gentle touch.
A (Knight) in shining armor.
Is this an answer to my prayer?
And God has sent me here
And I child? ... a child of God.
Oh let this be a humble act.
An act of humbleness from me.
I am to ask in prayer.
The thought that hadn't crossed his mind.
Curiosity,, or lack of it unfettered
Silently it nodded.
To strike an agreement ...
He couldn't see.
Those eyes he hadn't seen
For long moments they studied each other.
To do this shyly ... uncomprehending
The weariness that he had heard.
This burden that she'd seen.
Withdrawal expected as was he.
For was this good enough?
As she led this day
My father in heaven be near to us.
Oh my father, thou that knowest
AU the fears that I must hide.
Will you take this cup from me.
In this my own Gethsemane.'
She decided that he'd do
The things a man would have to do.
To see what you'd be getting ...
And that's for me to decide.
Blessings of priesthood come only by prayer.
Blessings need a path to follow
To create a family
To guide it there.
He forced himself to sit and wait.
Fully not believing ... not yet.
Anything he touched he felt
Would be snatched away.
They looked into their mirrored eyes.
A spirit generous sensing
A heart that there was warmed.
Giving there so much love.
Soft and warm was there they touched.
At times so dreamy
Others were to be so dictatorial.
My mother was there becoming.
A yearning once again was he assaulted.
He Trussed the sense of things.
Babies? ... what did he know about them?
Nothing except they scared him to death.
She wanted to tell him.
What it meant to her.
Something she sat working on
Soft, fuzzy and pink.
A smile threatened the mothers face.
The midnight had brought changes.
The very changes they both liked.
Smitten were they simultaneously.
Can we have our will be done?
Create now in humbleness a home?
Discard the lessons I've not learned.
The haughty ones are not then followed?
God sees a mother ... in my home.
Thanksgiving in a joyful moment.
Is there a greater calling?
To make a family a heavenly thing.'
To take a child and make a king?
To take nothing for granted.
What was her doing in my world.
Around him then she peeked.
Surrounded her... understanding, sympathy.
And he can see... a mother in Gods home.
In harmony are creators ... like he.
Or where would we be?
Are they then not needed?
Not needed by God?
Would they then there dare ... ? Just leave it to chances?
Their happiness was never wondered.
So much of their life had too been spent.
In a loveless, touch less world.
A sympathetic bond was then so simple.
The thought pleased them.
The hope that this might be
Throughout eternity?
A mother in Gods home ... he sees
He sees a creator, like he ... in faith.
If faith is found only through prayer.
To act in humbleness seeking there?
A child is given.
You came, and I'm so glad
The baby demanded ... and so abruptly.
Daddy ... I want a kiss.
Arms clasped without restraint ... around him.
The small mouth ..pressed Joseph's briefly.
Feeling awkward and out of place
He'd never guessed a kiss
Could make him feel wanted ... loved.
How it got to your insides.
And warmed you from there on out.
A closeness stole over them.
Binding then with faith.
God sees a mother in his home
Love created a creation in love... peace.
Peace grows when it is nurtured.
In prayer it must be sought. Again.
The fullness in her heart was searching.
They stood together just for a moment.
A little or a lot of this we'd get to like
The children with noticed the way.
She was always kind voiced.
Always making the boys feel important.
Entranced the family called Joseph's
She was some mother.
If she could see the path that I must follow.
In fear and trembling ... perhaps in sorrow.
If she can teach a child to come
The power then will follow.
To find things for himself
Yourself for you to find.
Things that she would show him.
To miss things that surely.
Is this the pure love of God?
Is this the spirit that I see?
Take mommies hand and I will show.
A place where something tiny nested in the grass.
A tree with a deep bend
Where it branches met.
A sturdy little oak...growing.
So straight and healthy.
They sat gazing up- then at the stars.
He felt a catch in his heart.
Care to give a pretty lady a ride?
Can't stop ... goin too fast.
What's about I jump in ... while you whiz by?
Git in... Lady ... ouch
Ouch... You ran over my toe ... young feller.
Marcia put her nose in the air.
Don't reckon ... I care to ... now you've run over my toe.
Joseph had never played such games before.
Leave to thy God to order and provide.
IN every change he faithful will remain.
Be still my soul, they best thy heavenly friend.
Through thorny ways leads a joyful end.
AS she studied Joseph ... her smile remained.
That she had she done.
She'd made him smile.
A reverence.. unexpressed.
I could get along with this man.
Now I know I can get him to smile.
It would take getting used to.
Loving and living ... a single minded woman.
The smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.
Inside him
Laughter built until it erupted.
The sound of his own laughter ...
Foreign to his ears.
They stood in the sun laughing together
A sudden change had transpired.
From the safety of its shadow.
While possibilities drifted through their minds.
The eventide is now fast falling.
Flee then faith and comfort
Deepens then the darkness.
Fell and scattered other helpers.
Help of the helpless 0 abide with me.
When I in awesome wonder.. 0 Lord my God
Made me consider thy hand in all the worlds.
I see the rolling thunder
I see the stars.
The universe displayed .
My soul then sings.
How great thou art
To thee my God, my Savior.
Then sings my soul,
My Savior God to thee.
Is there a greater calling?..
To make a family a heavenly thing?
To take a child and make a king.
This the role of an angel ... a queen.
For one for whom she cared did speak.
Who was to lift her up..
A mediocre status was torn and cast aside.
Really and truly there you can see.
Is not of this mediocre world.
Miracles
The things of status here ... money and power.
The proper way of speaking and doing.
Few see beyond the outward appearance.
And recognize the worth of a human soul.
Miracles occur ... then when they do
The downtrodden, the discouraged, the helpless.
A peasant and a Lady are then different.
It is not how she behaves.
But ... how she is treated.
Others treat her like a peasant ...
And always will.
To Joseph she can but be a Lady.
You always treat me as a lady,.. and always will.
When we treat people merely as they -are.
They are there always to remain.
When we treat them as
As if they were as they should be
They then become what they should be.
Joseph lifted, he loved, he forgave, he redeemed.
And thus he became as Jesus
The Son of God
A Savior on the mountain Yian.
The unperturbed faces of these peasants
Does not explain.
No special taste for horror.
No one that feels.
That clump of trees that will come back.
They marched in unison and force
Their kind of justice
They had administered
Quite indifferent to the fate of the girl.
Who now lay in the wood.
Her mouth filled with blood.
Here I touch the inescapable contradiction
I shall never be able to resolve.
Be still my soul
The Lord is on thy side.
With patience bear thy cross of grief and pain.
Leave to God to order and provide.
Father in heaven..
Were you really there?
Did you really answer
A child's first prayer?
Is there a spirit
A spirit of forgiveness?
A spirit that reaches out
That wasn't there before.
Is there a Spirit..
A spirit of forgetting?
Is there a spirit
A spirit of charity?
Is there a spirit of contentment?
A spirit that reaches out
That wasn't there before.
And wasn't hope and faith to come?
Faith ???...to come
An overwhelming meekness
Of great desire ... do they remain?
One never knows
How far a word of kindness goes.
One never sees
How far a smile of friendship flees.
Down through the years
The deed forgotten re-appears.
One kindly word
The souls of many here have stirred.
Man goes his way
And tells with every passing day.
Until life's end
And once unto me he played the friend.
The trench crept out into the trees.
The parapet lay flat and stared.
The night covered all the black waters.
The trees all white.
Quetta with its chimney pots,
Its towers, its portholes
Now looks like a ship at sea
Emigrants loaded the city.
Is ferrying them from one -shore.
To the other of life.
Through the centuries it slowly navigates
Holds hits fill to garret ....
Men, women -and children fell
Resigned, or quaking with fear.
Living only for the moment...to come.
A vessel loaded with humanity is being torpedoed.
Motives or justification I do not care.
A curse that same afternoon
I had witnessed a bombardment.
In order to uproot a human life.
One single life?.
Rubbish that was brushed from their clothes.
They ran ... as others scattered.
And cleared away the debris
Chased by the light smoke.
Joseph escaped without a scratch ... a miracle?
Found at his feet his Marcia.
Whose golden arm a moment before had been his.
Changed into a bloodied sponge.
Changed into a limp packet of flesh and rags.
The feeble spark of humanity was gone.
The mans throat was brewing there
Brewing that shriek which I know not deferred.
It was not those lips he had loved.
He loved but their form.
Not them, but their smile.
Not those eyes, but their glance.
Its gentle swell had been that breast.
Storing the source of his anguish love.
Pursuing what had been unattainable.
It was this to learn.
Free to -discover at last.
What he had yearned to embrace
Was not the flesh, but a Downey spirit.
The spirit a spark
The impalpable angel that inhabits the flesh.
And then I cry every now and then.
You keep staying on my mind every night.
And I'll survive without my friends-
Time is all it takes.
Time, but I don't think'
This broken heart will heal.
How it can I don't see how.
All apart that its been broken.
Miracles of things that will.
To think that time where I don't know
This broken heart is going to -heal.
No I don't see how it can
To stem the pain that never could
The pieces put together again.
In that far-off sphere.
which would win..one side or the other.?
The spirit that now fell off of Quetta
Quetta would resist.
Engaged in mortal combat.
A thousand forces struggling
Struggling against themselves.
They were their own enemy.
No man can draw a free breath
Who does not share with others.
Ideal, interested and in common.
Love does not exist in gazing at another.
Together, but in looking outward.
In the same direction.
Comradeship is never there.
Except through union of effort.
Cooperative effort is seen
Self-sacrifice the sight
At the sight, man comes alive.
Mankind purpose is to understand ... mankind.
To him the reality of man is essential.
The grasp exceeds by far the reach.
One another's truth set against another's truth.
Demonstrating trueness in all beliefs.
The right is demonstrated by all men.
Anything can be demonstrated by logic.
Truth is that which clarifies.
Not that which confuses.
Do not set me apart discussing ideologies.
Truth is the language of love.
Are all of them logically demonstrable
As if they must all contradict each other.
Do discuss faith as argument
Despairing of the salvation of mankind.
God has given man his agency to be free.
Upon this law is based all the prophets.
All men manifest identical yearnings.
What all men want is to be.. set free.
Even were God to rescind
He would cease to be God.
Lucifer said even at the beginning.
I will save all mankind
That they might return to God ... me.
And surely I shall do it.
Yet give to me that Glory which is thine.
The response.. so gentle, compassionate.
Was this to be?
Not to have the greatest gift God gave to man?
He gave to man his agency ...
Not to be taken back by decree.
That which is good can an agency.
An agency and thus choosing
Have Joy ... Joy Eternal
The gentle passionate response.
To choose evil is an agency
Damnation is a choice.
And what is damnation?
Is it not to have nothing, Nihil, Nought?
A stone he then can be.
Neither to act or to be acted upon.
There being no opposition to overcome.
And thus no wrong.
Attentive faces and frank eyes.
These honorable peasants.
These people had no treachery.
These good kind people looked into the eyes.
There seemed nothing to fear.
Faces blank and smooth set jaws.
Blank as if vaguely bored.
They ....were terrorists.
A...blankness that was rather terrible
Their minds had established a difference.
One was dancing his dance of death
Before the unavailing indifference of these "judges"
What difference had their established in their minds?
Mankind? ... I cannot understand.
Again there fell that silence.
Peacefully smoking; on the chimneys.
The grass ran over the ripple of the wind.
The visibility of nothing had never changed.
Unchanged were we ourselves.
Nevertheless in that clump of trees
Someone had died.
The weapons loaded the militiamen.
What was going on we asked.
Killing a girl one said.
A squad of militiamen.'
Simply excruciating in its reasonableness.
Two faces display human events.
One face of indifference.
One face of drama.
According to the events, everything changes.
Concerned are the species, or the individual.
As an event.
The pick-as sinks into the ground.
A meaning wants that stroke.
Stroked there by a convict...
The prospectors not the same.
The prospectors stroke has meaning.
The convicts stroke has none.
Not a mere physical horror is a prison.
No purpose then a prison makes.
The pickax makes the prison?..not purpose?.
Under the stars a shepherd watches his sheep
Even the simple shepherd watching.
Would he discover under the stars.
Discover Playing there his part?
He is a sentinel ... more than a servant.
Responsible sentinel among each man,
And thus the whole empire his responsibility.
What a mysterious ascension.
From a little bubbling Lava God
gave a living spirit.
And we have issued forth...
Miraculously fertilized.
God raised us to the writing of song and poetry.
Nebulae weighed in writing.
The miraculous seen in a poem can then become.
Pure joy from music can then be taken.
Comrade can break his bread with us
We are one ... a man and wife can say.
And who can say not
Now open up the window of the mind.
A child is taught.
The greatness is then awakened.
And then man is.
The greatness of the miracle.
This is a life of beautiful promise.
The smooth brow I bend over.
Those lips in sleeping smile.
To myself I then can say.
The face ... Gods face is this?
The child of God that is.
The promised kiss of springtime?
You are the angels glow
That lights the stars.
This is the holy Spirit of promise.
Not different from this a prince to me to come.
What could not this child become.?
Only the spirit
If it breathes upon the clay.
Can create man.
Poetry written by Joseph Eldon Toomey. Published in HTML by Harold A. Toomey.