Monday, February 25, 2013

Strife be my Peace


I gave you these things for the good of your
Soul; to nourish your heart, and to make you whole.
I sought you, even in the dark of your
Pain; yet you sought not my face when I called
Your name. And so I turned my face,
I went my own way without you behind
Me, because you paid no attention; blind
Have you become in your wallowing death,
Unable to breathe, you have a labored
Breath that speaks to you of your burdens so
Procured for you by your sin. Hear you its
Taunting voice? Feel you its callous hands? Fits
Of rage and anger in choice manifest
Themselves, and do of you demand actions
Twofold, another choice so to speak, test
You and break you down! Sure weakness
Is a dreaded state that causes you much
Pain and suffering, for sure; but to touch
Upon such matters with more pain and such
Suffering that you cannot escape, this
Does not elevate you O foolish ape!
Rather you deepen the gauge upon your
Soul by a scythe, reap what you have sown more
Often in the flesh. Thus your spirit faints,
Your mind voices often its many complaints,
And death draws closer to you day by day.
Turn back and plead that you may be saved! Saints
Have procured such mercy from me as this
Which you now desire and need for such bliss
As you seek to obtain in these worldly
Things of power, money, and diamond rings!
What are these things to you who know life?
Why do you invite perpetuate strife?

              Strife be my Peace, (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Surmounted

I strain my ears as you speak the babel,
A necessity born of the rabble.
I grunt and I groan, inside my frame shakes,
Hearing muddied arguments, my heart aches.
False reality leave me now for good!
That I could escape you, I surely would...
But having gone up the mountain to flee
What falsely is seen, I am truly freed;
Yet know also what is necessary
(To return to the rabble, and so plea
The cause of truth, with gentle clarity.)
And so now you know, for knowledge the fee
Is service to others eternally
That they may, as we do, thus truly see.

                        Surmounted (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Exit the Merry Go Round

In life we see but one struggle;
Man's search for truth, in full.
Yet only through strife comes he to conclude
That within himself he doth still elude
The dreaded answer which he seeks to find;
The truth is already within the mind.
And so we see in many men,
Whether eight, or nine, or twenty times ten
Years of age (in youth's or strong veterans)
The inner struggle which inside us spans.
A wide variety of characters and choices;
For the struggle takes on many such voices.
But if man seeks to overcome this drama
He must take a hint from the Dali Lama,
From the Pope, from a simple hermit;
But first he must himself be open and permit
The hint that has hinted within his soul,
That single voice that is the whole
Of what mankind seeks upon the shoal
Of eternity, the landmass of this earth;
It beckons from across the water's girth
To walk towards life and give up death.
So in the drama we are of life bereft
Because we find the answer and still forsake it,
Upon our golden answer we foolishly sit.
Ill content and ill at ease with what is offered
We listen to the drama that is proffered
By our senses and confirmed by our reason too.
We struggle to answer the voice that is true,
We stop short of happiness divine
And day after day in a drama we pine.
One day we are young, the next we are old.
One night we pout and another make bold.
Yet we never acquire what it is we seek,
We are too broken, to tame and weak;
Unable to give our all for what's worth.
The answer we seek is a new rebirth.
An exit from this drama we play,
And into a communion with each other. Pray
What is the name of this voice that we hear
That wills to be heard through the chatter of fear?
It is true character from which all the rest
Find their fullness, in it they are best.
So struggle on if you will, but as for me
I shall give in to the epitome
Of character that is made free.
Thus the conclusion of this drama is known
To be in Jesus Christ, which I hope to have shown
By these words that have come before;
Now you must exit life's struggle through the open door.

                    Exit the Merry Go Round, (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Thursday, February 21, 2013

The Apple and the Snake

Knowledge is power? That's what they say.
When did power become, so to say
Someone smarter than another, say
More than is needed? Knowledge will say
The way you will be greeted by say
The masses uneducated; by say
The people who you care about; by say
The politicians who smoke you out. Say
You know everything so to speak, say
That you have come to a peak; but say
You've gotten there, what then? Will you say
What you know? What have you gotten? Say
You know all things, but do you have love? Say,
I bet knowledge comes from up above; say,
From God, who's perfection is love. Say,
Do you have love? Or know what it is? Say
That knowledge is power, what next? Say
That power makes you less perplexed? Say,
Isn't there more to knowing what is? Say...
Believing and doing what's rightly known?
Knowledge is power, as I hope to have shown.

The Apple and the Snake, (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Reaching Out

Grief bourne of pain upon the back of man's faint mind
Cannot long hold up, as man surely finds.
Pain born of grief holds the man's mind in check
Impedes his progress, and doth the mind peck!
So torn between what is and what could be
Adds to the weight of a man's misery,
And lends truth value to the parable;
Don't turn your head when your hand's at the plow.
But if such things should cease to be resolved,
Then grief continues, a pain that revolves
Around and around, causing darkness fast;
Such as the moon. But darkness cannot last...
And light returns again regardless of
The mind that ignores that beautious love.
So bear thy part, and when the darkness comes
Listen to your heart, the beating of drums
That echo inside your memories clear,
Listen for the sound that will abolish
Fear and trepidity. Ignore what's false,
Let unchanging light of eternity
Echo inside of your mind, and so be free
To reach out, back towards God, eternaly.
                     Reaching Out...(c) Luke bennette, February 2013

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Wresting Dreams

Are you awake that you should shake
So violently upon your bed?
But foolish thoughts such as these
Are meant to be the food thats fed
To a man that's delusional,
A man that's only partly full,
A man unwilling to be sure;
Thoughts cannot the answer procure.
For though I think you are asleep,
And dream on in eternity.
Where else are dreams to take us to?
Than the realm untouched by what we
See with our eyes, hear with our ears;
For it reveals to us our fears,
Hopes, desires, our faith in the love
That still fires our hearts (doth renew).
Then say to me, awake my friend!
Do not remain there, do not end
Your days before your time has come.
Return to me, and before you
Wake knowingly search and take from
Your dream what you sought while awake;
For else dreams are but dusty shelves,
And are as wanting as the stake
That's got only martyrs ashen
Remnants about fires cold remains.
Yet the one whose sought out in dreams
What he's searched for in life and claims
Understanding of what is seen
Beyond the senses of his waking state
Challenges what was his own fate.
For though violently he should act
When wresting with worries of life,
His dreams afford him this small fact,
Knowledge of how to end his daily strife.

Wresting Dreams (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Friday, February 8, 2013

Revelation

I see a picture of myself and you,
Our friends, our company, all true
Men and women who are bound to us;
They are our confidence, our trust.
I turn the corridor, no longer in my sight
Are those that I do love, my delight
Is now plunged into the icey abyss;
Having lost my friends, have I lost my bliss?
But then you come back, and so do they,
Have I been lost? If I have then may
I be lost again in time and space?
How shall I navigate, run this race,
Without you constantly at my side?
Who shall boost my ego and pride?
Then I realize you cannot be for me,
What it is that I need, can set me free.

                    Revelation, (c) Luke Bennette, February 2013

Thursday, February 7, 2013

What it takes

Whatever did you see in her,
This vixen of chameleon eyes?
One second she's sure, and true,
The next she will your heart despise.
But of yourself, what do you possess?
Are you your friends possession?
Or can you not humbly confess,
By means of a candid confession
That you are in fact your own,
And are warring with yourself;
Discomfort with friends has shown
The value man holds for temporal wealth.
For we cannot posses our friends,
Cannot make them as we are,
Cannot know what he or she intends,
And yet we still believe it to be bizarre
That we struggle under the weight of expectation,
And even offer bitter refutation
And blames of condemnation
While we express our own consternation,
All from the false belief that we are not ourselves
Unless some other within our heart delves.
But fate and fortune are but one thing,
A ring of changes while our eyes do see
A blessed light, our ears do so ring
With the sound of the eternal sea;
So soft and soothing can God be.
And when he is allowed into our hearts,
We posses ourselves through him,
All disparity from us departs,
And all our friends seem in us to brim
With the light of God diminished
By their burdensome sins, for which he bled.
Can this vixen offer to us stability
For which we seek in others, can it free
Us from what's hampering our sight?
No, only by God, by his power and his might
Can we become what we are meant to be.
Loving, kind, obedient, and truly free.
                    What it takes, (c) Luke Bennette