Ok haha how long has it been? Two or three years now, I say with a grin I’m just playing pretend With this stream of consciousness Thinking nothing out first There’s no con-se-quen-ces Because I set the distance in an instant How naïve I was to think That hard work and persistence Was enough to make you take A second to listen to what I’ve written on a page I should just take a break And accept that I’ll be sittin’ With a kitten in my lap Disappointed in old age The shame the

This is how forty looks A cup of coffee on my desk A notepad and a pen Plus I got all these books And all these stories in my head All this smoke in the air If it’s a cope I don’t care This is how forty looks At this point I’m despair So spare me your insults And your criticisms too I’ve become more closed-minded As I’m aligning with the Truth The lies of youth have faded I have become way more jaded Constantly turning pages In this book looking for proof To justify m

What can these words do? Are they harmful or do they help? Ask Dante following Virgil Through the 9th circle out of Hell Take care that Shakespeare Made King Lear fear for his daughters They appeared on Ilium’s shores Greek ships spread across the waters There to storm the walls of Troy You going out tonight? Well, don’t forget the Trojans I think we’ve lost the plot My voice is hoarse from yelling (a lot) Over the music: a hellish omen from God: The drums of war are beating

King Herod was scared. In fact he was terrified. "The magi are here." "Wait! Where are the magi?" "They’re waiting outside" "Let me guess, staring at the sky?" "I think they’re from the east" "Yeah, they’re priests of Zoroaster; These men are very wise." "I think its about the Christ, The one the prophets foretold." "And you believe that nonsense?" "The people do, my lord, that’s all." "Get those men and let them in. I need to know what they know. Theres only one king o

Genesis: creation Exodus: evacuation Leviticus: the rules Numbers: the population Of a nation wandering To a destined destination And then Deuteronomy: Moses’ final explanation They finally made it To the Promised Land of Canaan Joshua warned Of the coming devastation If they didn’t lay Down their arms And bow down to Yahweh’s nation God would bring down Jericho’s walls in seven days then The time of Judges follows after A cycle of tears and laughter They would turn from

In the beginning God created The heaven and the earth We flip ahead to John’s Gospel In the beginning was the Word What is meant by God said "Let there be light" Is that He used his Word to create His Word who is the Christ He’s the light within men With God in the beginning The Savior of the world The remedy of sinning The sacrificial lamb The last one to be made The Testament is New now The Old one’s in the grave He rose from the dead He’s the word that God said "In the beg

Bringing Christianity into the Mainstream The Judeo-Christian worldview is the foundation upon which western civilization has been built....

“Wealth, my son, should never be your goal in life…True wealth is of the heart, not of the purse” (19). We have all heard the old adage: don’t judge a book by its cover. No book better exemplifies this message than Og Mandino’s perenniel classic The Greatest Salesman in the World. The fact that this work can be found in the self-help section of your local bookstore, leads one to believe that this is simply a book about useful financial insights (i.e. how to become the greates

“Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.” ~ Sigmund Freud — — — — — — — — — — — — — — PROLOGUE — “The Bookend” — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Peering over her stylish frames, the doctor’s penetrating green eyes looked past the crying patient in front of her, who was currently going on ad nauseum about the same trauma she had already spoken of a thousand times before. [“And then the next thing I knew my father was gone… my mother was broken.”] Her patient’s words had

“Though man loved his fellow [man], yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.” ~ Herman Melville, Moby Dick I can’t remember if the weather was bad that day or if my memory of the event is just foggy. What I can recall is a long street. On one side, a brick wall runs as far as the eye can see. The brick is a dark, almost ominous brown. If ever a construction material could represent the atmosphere, it is this, here. A shadow

Prologue A writer’s life is a lonely one — so much time is spent in solitude — apart from the outside world. Hours are consumed by days, and just as quickly days are gobbled up by months. Holidays and full moons sit like food crumbs on time’s cold, hungry lips. All these lonely hours of writing lead the people in your life (the few who are willing to put up with your constant absence) to reach out to you from time to time. “So how’s your writing going?” Each of my parents wil

“Okay, Professor! We’re coming down!” I heard a student shout from the second-floor window, just above me, as I was entering the Hamilton building for my three o’clock class. I then turned to look in the direction the bespectacled student was shouting. I saw a man in his early to mid-forties with long sandy blond hair and a messier, slightly darker beard that was starting to gray at its bristly ends. This guy’s a professor? I thought to myself. It sure was strange to see a c

The Gospel of Mark shows us that secrecy and fear are inextricably linked. After all, it was under the cloak of darkness, that the...

[*SPOILER ALERT: If you haven't read The Old Man and the Sea, and do not wish to have the ending revealed, please do not continue.] The Old Man and the Sea is a deceptively simple story about an old fisherman named Santiago, who has had a long string of bad luck. That is, until he catches the largest fish he has ever seen. It is the battle of his life - both physically and mentally. I say that this story is deceptively simple, not only because of its terse language, which see

Were his teeth missing or were they just stained? If it was the latter, they were the darkest brown imaginable. It was also difficult to tell where his beard ended, and where the mat of his salt and pepper chest hair began. It was like the laws of physics ceased to exist in that bristled old mane; the hair was, at once, so dry it looked like you could snap the ends right off, while at the same time it always seemed sticky and damp. No one knew who he was or when exactly he ar

I am up, but I am not yet awake. The sun has yet to rise; the night still lurks in the shadows. If it weren’t for the bird chirping outside, there would be no sign at all that the day was dawning. Even the clock is more confusing than informative right now. It has one of those once-a-day times on it. In that, I usually only see a time like “4:37” once a day. What does it all mean? I forget myself as I stare blankly at the numbers on the clock from my spot on the edge of my be

[*Article also appears on www.thegodofabraham.com] Part I: A Literary Enigma Leading biblical scholar Mark Goodacre describes the...

Embarrassing Family Members In the Gospel of Matthew we read: While [Jesus] was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his...

Time is an interesting concept. How we understand time, shapes our existence in more ways than we often care to acknowledge. If I were to...

If I asked you: who invented the airplane? You would likely say the Wright Brothers. If I asked you: who invented the telephone? You...

After man sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, God punished man. God said to Adam, “Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you...

And he began to tell the people this parable: "A man planted a vineyard, and let it out to tenants, and went into another country for a...

"Then he said to them, 'These are my words which I have spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the...

What is a mystic? And what does mysticism have to do with the Song of Songs? According to Bernard McGinn, the preeminent scholar of...

At the cliff's edge A feather is found Dipped in some ink On the brink of profound A sound that I think Comes to me from a cloud To make me fly like a bird And shed skin on the ground Flapping and flailing Rapping and wailing A cat who is failing At tailing a rat Falling and screaming A bald eagle meeting Squawking and scheming Their secret attack At the water's edge The tracks are erased Time is reset Nature's backspace To help one forget What has come before Songs of love a

The secrets Guinevere kept from Arthur Were known throughout the land of Camelot. You can hear the peasants whispering the Names Gawain, Bedivere, and Lancelot, Under their breath, gos’ping at the market; Squeezing oranges in a way that’s not Respectable to the queen, whose honor Is destroyed through innuendo about Sexual acts behind the back of her Lord, the great king Arthur, this nation’s heart (The son of Uther, this nation’s father). But it’s a round table now without In

You’re monitoring me But I’m obscuring the screen A scream of primal fury A fine line that I keep Between this high guy And the high-minded elite You may find my rhymes Weak, trite, and incom_____ We may make income think Of change -- delete “plete” From the beat and let the “income” Hang off of the end of the line Without the rhyme needed to keep This poetry in line with time as I speak It’s like I do this for free And my method is fixed I don’t speak carelessly I have preci

To be trapped in a cage with the rage of an animal That hasn’t eaten a thing in days his pain is understandable I demand you let me out – free – and feed me with attention Or I swear you’ll hear a prayer about my destroyed potential My stomach growls I need to eat give me but a morsel Of your collective force of will to read my stories won’t you Of course I cordially invite you all into my special portal Down the rabbit hole where small portions of the proceeds go to The vort

“It was a miracle of rare device A sunny pleasure dome with caves of ice!” -- S.T. Coleridge, “Kubla Khan” And the song without a melody Falls away in the distance Sing, O Muse, of the anger of Achilles Icarus is falling on his face Embarrassed While Hamlet contemplates his madness What is this life? I need "a stately pleasure dome decree" A contract that says my palace will be made As soon as possible But I just nod off and fall Deep into a dream Where my memory fails to rec

It's a song by Tennyson About the end of Camelot King Arthur's got a laurel crown On his brow like Caesar’s got And Lancelot is his Mark Cleopatra is the Guinevere The capstone on the pyramid Is missing and we see it clear We fear the devil and his works Poseidon versus Odysseus Ithaca's so far away And on the way Sirens are heard The lengths we go to The extremes we take To make our lives run Parallel with fate Mephistopheles keeps laughing At Rome and Athens As Manhattan ta

I need silence in order to hear So I am sort of reclusive Inspiration is what I hold dear But my dear it’s elusive Crucified as I sit in my chair I just stare at illusions Shadows and specters and prayers Ride through the air like they’re music I need stillness in order to think But don’t confuse me for stoic The squeaky wheel gets the grease If I hurt then the world will know it I won’t shout it from a mountain Or swim it through the ocean This isn’t the voice of God I’m not

Burning the night oil As I toil away Reading the pages of Ovid’s Metamorphoses Getting lost in the story Exploring each page Waiting for the change To something less fortunate Diana was in her glory Actaeon saw her bathe So she makes him a stag That his dogs tore to bits Narcissus caught a glimpse Of what his admirers crave So he stares into the lake And reflects love for him The laurel leaves grow From the hands of Daphne As she’s chased by Apollo Like a sculptor depicts Pyg

A still life bottle of wine Sits still beside my laptop On top of my desk by the light When will I realize That my whining won't stop I have got to live my life in rhyme I have had my fill of unfulfilled times I decided to disregard that hard lot And stop crying like how a Bacchant cries And instead find my thrills in Apollo's art Parnassian dreams where Calliope's my bride An artsy mind state thanks to the wine and pot Just please don't mind the whiny part When I was figurin