Lament of the Messiah

Lament of the Witness I

My youthful indescretions haunt me.

In the eyes of my children

and in their own mistakes.

 

How can I communicate what I have learned?

unless I somehow can communicate this;

In my aching bones, I am reminded

Of Youthful stupidities.

I thought I was indestructible.

And My elder stupidities hurt even more.

I have lied

I have run away from what I feared.

And now I pay.

And now I pray.

And now I ask:

 

Said I:

Why do you call me, to meet you?

At this same place I tarry

Pointing out a path

You and I might have taken sooner?

Then you send me a human messenger

Quoting old and dusty tomes

Written by mere men.

 

More

The Messiah Abides yet Still awaits II

 

Said the Voice in My soul:

Kings have come and Gone

The Messiah has yet to be.

 

Said I:

You want me to believe your Messiah Can save me?

When I see no salvation in your own heart?

You speak to me of Jesus

Yet you rend his words apart!

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Said the Man:

The Prophesy of Daniel is True!

We live in a time of Steel and Clay!

A time, when something made by no man,

will roll this all away.

And from the dust of the old world

A new World will be revealed this day!

 

Said The Voice in my Soul:

Indeed, the Prophesy of Daniel is True!

But not in the way you think

You live in the fingers and toes

Of An Idol we raised on the plain.

An idol soon to be blown away.

 

Said the Messenger:

“Salvation will only come,

If you accept Christ in your soul”

 

Said I:

I see Jesus in my heart.

What you preach is not him.

Yes, Salvation comes and goes!

Have I done wrong? yes!

I repent.

I go and sin no more.

Said he:

Unless you give yourself

The voice inside heard this:

To me...

The Voice in My Soul shouted:

Hypocrit!

Do you repent?

Do you humble yourself before your lord?

He is the lord of all.

And you need to judge not

Lest you be judged!

Said the Voice in my Soul:

I see in your heart,

You assert things you don't know.

Said the man:

“You must give yourself to Jesus”

Said I:

What have I done wrong,

Has come from ignorance and delusion

Uncontrolled desires, not some evil intent.

I am but a man.

I listen to all I can.

The man relented a little:

That I can understand.

But you must be born again.

If you want salvation

Said I;

I have been born again many times.

What matters is what I do.

I know a good start when I see one.

I am walking my path.

Yes:

“Go and Sin no More!

God's invisible hand is Karma!

The Golden Man III

Said the man:

You must worship as we dictate.

Our Truths are true, true or not.

I am sacred divine.

I speak for Jesus,

all the time.

 

Said I and the Voice in my Head:

I shall not worship that Golden head

His image is not salvation

But an idol

Salvation is not made of Gold!

Nor of silver, nor carved of stone!

He offered me silver if I would follow him!

That idol has silver shoulders.

But it is still an image made by men.

If I am to follow the way.

It will never be by following charlatans with feet of clay!

Said the Man:

“You Speak Blasphemy. You will go to hell!”

Said I to the man:

I do not worship you!

For you too are man.

The Divine voice inside said:

And he has feet of clay.

The sacred books show the way.

These men would paint themselves as giants.

But they all have feet of clay.

 

The Vision That Day IV

 

Now I had a vision

I had a vision,

Of a monstrous creation

And the man fell into the muddy ground.

And was lost within the earth

But then his followers pulled him from the ground.

Blew air in him,

reanimated him

and set him up on a podium before them.

 

And his followers worshiped the hole he'd fallen in.

They poured molten iron in the hole.

Then they poured Silver,

Then they poured Bronze.

But they needn't pour any clay.

It poured the feet.

 

And they raised this thing up out of the ground.

And animated it to seem a God.

And it strutted the land.

Seeming indestructible

But the Golden man was hollow.

He bellowed. He shouted. He threatened and gesticulated.

He grew til he seemed the size of the whole planet.

But lo and behold, the planet is a ball.

And when he tried to strike it.

He collapsed and fell to dust.

Such is the fate of idols.

They are mortal, inanimate.

fail they must.

And so the hollow man passed from the world

 

Afterwards [note I'm missing the first page]

While Wandering the streets in the east of London

I contemplated offers of great things.

But all I could think of

were the ghosts of the people who came before.

 

Offer me gold and silver

I'd rather have live flowers instead.

Push up growth from below the ground.

Let me breath fresh airs and watch happy children

Running in their playgrounds

Let my hands feel the earth

As I plant bulbs in the ground.

Let me kneed it, let me heal it.

Make the soil airy and happy,

So green things grow.

 

In the park, violins will play.

Singers singing songs!

Dancers dancing!

Watchers, and tourists,

Workers on break

Double decker buses go by.

Enjoying a day below a deep blue sky.

Let each being enjoy his full employ

being all that each can be.

 

Let armies of demons

Transforms to armies of children

Let the Children be builders

as they were meant to be

not march across the land

Destroying all

I have a vision of a place

where all have their place

And can sit beneath their own vine.

 

Earned by Grandmothers,

Who worked fingers to the bone.

Grandmothers, who spun and cried

warp and weft, tears and blood.

The children play over their bones.

 

Let new fabric be spun!

Fabric that will comfort the old

And warm those who were cold.

Let the fabric be cool when it is hot.

And warm where it is not

Let us spin warm dreams and architect them.

Not webs, traps and nightmares.

Winter or Summer, Spring can be in our hearts!

The untended Garden

I saw the untended Garden.

I said to the Guard:

Guard! Let me tend this garden!

The Guard said,

You are not the owner!

I said:

It is not his either, but ask him!

I will work it, not for pay,

But for the beauty of its produce

At the end of its day.

The Guard said he'd talk to the owner

Meanwhile I was reminded:

God, you Tasked us to work this garden!

It is our job to labor, our backs in pain.

Our brows dripping with sweat.

This is what we are good at.

And it is painful, but good for us yet.

A promise is a promise.

Guards are just human beings.

I worked my Garden.

I work it still.

Gardens grow under a warm sun.

The myriad of stars in the sky

How I pray they have gardens of their own!

 

The Garden of the ineffable One

How the people claim you, ineffable one,

as if their words were their authority.

You once told Abraham,

To sacrifice his own son.

You can change your mind.

They make idols to image you:

Jesus as blond and blue eyed

They almost want to give him a machine gun.

Yet we know the gospels depict no such thing.

Fans make idols of everyone they love.

Whether a fallible human, or from heaven above.

To me, the real you, is revealed in gardens.

And we have a hand in creation.

Guard!

Let me mold clay out of my own fashion.

Let me spin wild images,

While remembering they are imagination.

Let me gather the fuel

Fire the Oven

And make pretty and useful things at the end of the day.

I promise I won't worship them.

Though I can't promise I won't love them.

 

Let me coin living money.

Let it sprout from trees,

Grown and nurtured.

Produced and transformed from clay.

For wealth is a wonderful thing

And our garden is a garden of clay

Spinning around a warm sun.

Profit the joy we create.

Let idols fall!

And we see our garden for what it is.

 

Christopher H. Holte

This poem was actually written before "The Messiah Walks Among us." I wrote it in London at the Thistle. I think the first part was written in 2010. I think the afterward was written at an earlier time because it is about spring. But it could have been remembered in 2010. Because of the craziness of that time. (We were stuck in London with a massive snowstorm, my wife was coming down with symptoms that soon would be diagnosed as Acute Myeloma Leukemia (AML). So the paper got stuffed in a box and I don't think I transcribed it at the time. Later, things got crazier, and I found it while cleaning today. It struck me as somewhat prophetic. So I added an illustration I created subsequent to writing it. If it turns out it is a duplicate I apologize. Even if it is this would be a newer version as I'm editing it as a transcribe it from paper. It is actually several related poems as much of what I write is, when the inspiration hits me on a bus or at a place.

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-messiah-walks-among-us.html

Related poems:

http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2013/09/14/no-burning-bush/

The Burning Bush -- Christmas Truce

The Burning Bush [the-burning-bush.html]

"Oh Jesus"

The Cage [burning-bush-cage.html]

From older blog at "Fraught with Peril":

http://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2006/06/28/burning-bushes-and-warring-ones/