Tag: free verse

Poetry

A Supplication

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Oh God, give us courage,
but don’t make us use it,
give us peace in a lullaby land.

Give us truth with no lie
that we have to stand up to,
no deception we don’t understand.

Make our enemies flee
before we even meet
and our friends always think
that we’re cool,

and though we break it freely,
make our families
always keep the golden rule.

Yes, we accept that
at times we’ll be tested,
and we know we’re supposed to rejoice,

but that will be easier
if You only expect us
to circle some multiple choice.

Make our dreams come true,
make our ministry grow,
make us feel like the heroes we are;

give us so many blessings
we’re no longer tempted
to envy the Instagram stars.

We’re only asking
with pure intentions
and worship-centered hearts—

we do want to follow,
but we’re so out of shape,
and You’re moving too fast and too far.

Poetry

Velveteen Lady

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

At least I’m honest about it

you say, like it’s a small thing,
a participation prize
that we all know hides
a pitiable case of insufficiency.
You wear honesty
like spit-up staining
the sleeve of your t-shirt,
a little embarrassed
but aware that it’s there.

Sometimes I forget you’re serious,
sincere in missing the obvious—
so let me say it like this:

the truth is all there is,
the universe, the only gold,
the missing link, my trembling soul,
sacred starting place of hope,

but most of the empty hearts I know
will kill and die
to deny its light
because they’re too insecure
to be seen inside.
Yes: the lies end up lethal,
every time,

and if you don’t believe me,
try on friendship with a mannequin
to see if it fits—
tell her your secrets,
cry once or twice,
wrap your arms around her waistline tight
and speak your dreams,
your fears like you think she feels
anything along with you.
Hold her like a lifeboat
as your heart goes under,
gasp your last breath,

and then tell me again
that telling the truth
is a minor accomplishment.

All that we have and all that we are
is the truth,
bloody and human
and lovely and raw,
and it’s all that I want from anyone.

I’m not impressed by the perfect mom,
not holding out for any diva dream,
just hoping to find
any set of eyes
that will actually
look back at me.
I want someone real.
I hold far more respect
for the grueling tests
of courage and humility
than any white-toothed perfection
or college degree,

because I want relationships
more than mere rankings,
which makes safe people
the resource most precious.

I know that you know this,
but you also don’t.
Not enough yet.
If you can’t see
that the greatest gift you could ever offer
is your own bold heart, open and free,

all I can suggest
is that it’s time you learn
to be even more honest,
to finally acknowledge
the treasure you are
|since that, too, is the truth,
in spite of all spit-up,
regardless of flaws.

I have seen nothing in you
worth being ashamed of,
just a woman who climbs mountains
in her sleep
and then wakes unaware
of her heaven-close height.

Poetry

Glass Half Masked

Sarah Gooch1 Comment

We grasp what scraps of summer we find
and wrap them around our fingers like rings.
Even the beach holds its breath.
Even the seaweed dreams.

Poetry

No Cheek Left to Turn

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Lord knows how to love
His enemies,
but I don’t.

Times like these,
it seems every friend
is a weapon,

every peace-intentioned word
warped into an act
of war.

Love is still what I
want, just not what
I stand for.

I would lock my knees
and hold my ground
if I found

a rock to count on,
but instead my
options are

to dare the
ocean to a
floating

contest—see
who ends up
sinking first—

or play hopscotch
across a schoolyard
minefield,

learn to fall up from
the earth
and fly.

Every time I try
to mend us up again,
we only rip.

But I would sit with you
still if it were
that simple.

Hand on your shoulder
blade, breath on
your neck,

we would grieve
this blood
together.

We would believe
that love makes
sense.

Poetry

Unflattering Self-Portrait of the Artist

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Lately, I can’t clean the anger
from the air quickly enough,
and it gets caught in my hair
like thick spider webs
stacked over each other
in sticky white layers.

They say to log out
for most of the day,
and I do,
but it isn’t enough—

because the anger has leaked
out past the screen protector
and settled here, offline,
beside me,

physical enough to pinch my ribs
when I try to focus
on anything different,
too abstract
to throw in the trash.

Lately, I think that
I am anger,
maybe.
Not the dream answer I whimsied up
in kindergarten
when teachers asked for
my future plans.

“I want to be deep hurt
darkened with bitterness,”
I didn’t say.
“I want to be others’ moral judge.
I want to be obsessively
never okay.”

Poetry

The Familiar Dark

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Nevermind the sunlight
with its whispers of another try.
Blacken out dawn’s maddening grin,
and in your everlasting dark
scribble over every dream
that dares to pry its way inside.
Simply plug your ears and scream
over hope’s sadistic singing

till you are left alone
under the comfortable
covers of despair,
cocooned in stillness
and commiseration,
not threatened by the awful glow
of any hard-earned glory
that you haven’t known.

Poetry

American Stress Disorder

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

Busyness expands like oxygen:
no matter how many tasks
you actually have,

it spreads wide to fill
the space it’s in.

Poetry

Not One Falls

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

for the sweet Kichwa girl whom God has not forgotten

Oh our Father who art in heaven,
the soles of whose feet
are dirty with earth,

when an indigenous kid
is kidnapped and killed
and stretched out unburied far from home,
unmourned because of the native blood
that for fifteen rainy seasons danced her veins
in languages too satin, too delicate
for this money-punch crowd to comprehend,

she isn’t just another sparrow to You,
some native statistic out in the bush
who will never make the local news.

No, You stitched this girl together
from the crest where sunlight sparks on river,
from the birdsong that mixes with monkey chatter
and the stories that drift over open fires.

Now You sit vigil at her side,
cup her hair in Your hands and make lament.
You sing it the way her papa should have
and press Your scars, somehow still fresh,
against the wounds
that the world left open.
One day You will rise up
and avenge her death,
string her name like an arrow
in the bow of Your justice,
grown taut with patience—

but this evening You simply sit at her side
and cover her corpse
with the shadow of Your wings.
You will rise up, yes,
but there is an order of things,

and first You must show us
how to let ourselves feel it,
let ourselves weep,
how to love the least of these so much
we climb on their crosses with them
and bleed.

Poetry

Dare to Share

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

One day your good news
stopped having anything to do
with Jesus
and became a revolutionary organic cream,
a real Messiah of a product line

that you simply had to sell,
had to tell everyone you knew about,
again and again
even when they’re not asking,
shamelessly witnessing.

You will fill your conversations
with this nutrient-packed pill,
saturate your social circles
with oils called “necessary.”
You will blast it on the internet
and leave little pamphlets
like cheesy tracts
behind you in a trail
that leads straight to your bank account.

This is good news,
indeed.

Sometimes, when faith comes up
with an atheist,
you dodge your way out of the topic—
you don’t want to come across
as a pushy believer,
don’t want to risk relationships here.
You get back to your product.

Hey, something’s got to change your life,
revitalize your doldrum days
and the dry tips of your hair.
It might as well be
goat-milk coconut serum.
You might as well put your hope
and your courage there.

Poetry

Escape Artist in Training

Sarah GoochLeave a comment

You have to lock the strongest hearts
behind bars sometimes.
Though it isn’t fair—
though it may not be right—

The darkness needs to keep them there,
not because it’s mean,
but because it’s scared
of the buried power and the love-tipped prayers,
the glaring light that might leak wide
on the bleak-eyed shadows
if it let them loose.

But the goodness, too, and the champions
and the angel armies all agree
that it’s best not to break in
and set them free,
not because they’re uncaring,
but because they know
that strong hearts need iron
to help them grow.

They can take the metal,
though it bruises their souls—
they can make it out,
though not alone.
Their fingers, too thin,
will toughen to pry
the ceiling open into sky.

Strong hearts sometimes cry—
but they still come out stronger,
and when pain multiplies,
they just hold out longer.

Sometimes justice turns its head
as they lock an innocent heart away
because mercy remembers
the powerless prisoners,
the weak and the wobbly,
sick and unsteady
who’ve forgotten to fight
every guard that’s in sight,
who need a strong heart’s hand to hold,
need to hear a strong song
blast notes of hope
through the underground empty
and the frozen below.

Great men need prison
and all its compassion,
for strong hearts recall,
and they always come back
to rescue the next heart trapped
in that same old cage,
saying, “I know the way out.
And I will keep you safe.”

Heroes aren’t born;
they grow from the ground.
They’re buried in holes,
and they break their way out.