Black Jagged Rock

Black Jagged Rock

Doors open in the morning filtering light on hardwood
Catching the moments that linger before the awakening.
Each shaft a remarking of something unrehearsed,
An actor playing a simple role in a complicated life.

I cannot capture these moments that begin my days,
Shadows playing assassin, dagger my feigned slumber
Shifting, clawing my conquered illusions of the present
Unyielding in their defeated acquiescent redemption.

Light splashes across the walls, frameless without form,
Boundaries increasingly immune to transient ideas.
Brushstrokes, texture, captured in abstract forms
I do not know as my own, but sparingly recognize.

Windows unlinened, unshrouded by resurrection.
The ferrying of the Night across the opaque Styx
Helios climbing unheeded in the eastern sky,
A chariot of fire charring my nascent dreams.

I, wait like Lazarus decaying in my tomb,
Ashes on ashes, Dust into Dust for eyes
The cold sleep of tired passings seeking warmth
Awaiting the heat, the light on His breath.

I am a black jagged rock; Do not ask me to shed love
To give my blackened blood; to pour out my salvation
In hopes of revelations that will free You
My bonds do not await the morning; they are illusory.

Let me rest on cold slate to capture the heat of who I was
The fire of the day; Anthracite to fuel the furnace
The crucible of the dawn setting me free
My shackles cut by kilned obsidian’s rising


Awaken me from my nightly discordance
Dance with me, hold me like the fallen
Paper thin people who wait for the coming
Etchings without depth; black on white.