Sonnettics

Divinity assumes you’re not divine
As if there’s something else you must become
Come show me yours and I will show you mine
The essence that exists where God is from

But wait, we know that God is everywhere
Divinity, like God, is out there too
And yet within as well, ok, that’s fair
Within, without, we’re God, both me and you

Breathe in and know that God has filled your chest
With life that touches everything you feel
Perception is divinity at best
Exhale and feel it shatter every seal

Divinity’s already what you are
A lump of flesh and yet a shining star.

Although the brass is broken from its frame,
the reed remembers breath it could not keep.
It hums in silence, whispering the same
long truth that moves the cosmos in its sleep.

For nothing sings alone; the world must pass
through metal, flesh, or memory to sound.
One breath becomes a choir in reed or grass,
one pulse becomes the heartbeat of the ground.

I grok the reed: its stillness mirrors mine;
its trembling waits within my open hand.
We are two notes the universe designed
from star-forged dust and wind across the land.

Thus-Thou art God—the music, not the claim—
the breath that moves us, nameless yet the same.

A SONNETTICS CYCLE
Fourteen Sonnets in Sequence

I. Magdala

The Tower / Origin

Magdala raised her silhouette in sand,
A harbor stone where fishing nets were cast;
From this strong place she rose to understand
How towers root the future in the past.
She carried in her stance a quiet height,
A fortitude the storms could never drown;
Her steps were steady, drawn toward deeper light,
Her mind a lantern moving through the town.
Before the teachings and the breaking bread,
Before the garden dawn or empty cave,
She walked as one whose lifted heart was led
By something more than what the world could save.
Her name became the tower she would be—
A rise of spirit set beside the sea.

II. The Seven Troubles

Healing and Release

She carried seven troubles in her chest,
Each one a shadow knotted to her breath;
They named them demons, but no heart can rest
When grief and terror press it close to death.
He saw the weight she bore without disguise,
The quiet tremor tucked beneath her name;
He spoke, and something cleared behind her eyes—
A lifting wind, a small, extinguished flame.
No spectacle, no thunder split the air;
Just one restoring silence, deeply cast,
That let her draw a fuller breath and dare
To step beyond the wounds that held her fast.
Her troubles loosened, falling one by one,
And in their absence rose a waking sun.

III. Patron of the Ministry

Her Financial Support

She walked beside the Twelve with steady grace,
Not as a shadow trailing in their stride,
But as a tower moving into place—
A strength they leaned on more than they implied.
From Magdala her earned and honest store
Sustained the hungry circle as it grew;
She opened wide her means, and even more,
She opened wide her heart to what was true.
Her gifts were quiet—bread and coin and care—
Yet through her hands the teacher’s path held firm;
Without her, many steps would fade to air,
Their weary hopes too fragile to affirm.
Thus ministry was borne on what she gave:
A woman funding light the world would crave.

IV. Faithful Follower

Discipleship on the Road

She chose the road that wound through dust and heat,
Where teachings rose like dawn along the way;
She matched her steps to his, her heartbeat’s beat
Aligned with every truth he came to say.
Not pulled by law nor pushed by public claim,
But drawn by something quiet, fierce, and clear—
A recognition deeper than a name,
A trust that grew with every passing year.
She learned the dust’s communion with the feet,
The cadence of the journey’s living call;
For faith is not a resting place, but beat
By beat, the choosing of the path withal.
Thus following, she made her witness known:
A disciple walking where the truth had flown.

V. The Holy Kiss

Ritual Transmission and Recognition

He greeted all with peace upon the cheek,
A blessing shaped in breath and offered light;
But when he turned to her, the act grew deep,
A ciphered grace that opened hidden sight.
For in that kiss, no romance sought its claim—
It was the teacher’s seal, the soul’s release;
A giving of his knowledge through her name,
A quiet joining shaped by ancient peace.
The others saw and questioned what it meant,
Yet she received it with untroubled mind;
For in that touch, a wordless sacrament
Passed on the wisdom few are meant to find.
Thus kissed, she bore a deeper flame within—
A truth bestowed before the world grew dim.

VI. Voice of the Hidden Teachings

Insight Beyond the Spoken Word

She listened not for sound but for the thread
That ran beneath his sayings, fine and long;
She caught the meanings others left unread,
The undertones that turned belief to song.
Where silence shaped a chamber for the wise,
She entered with a calm, discerning mind;
Her questions rose like lanterns in the skies,
Revealing pathways others could not find.
He trusted her to ask the truer things—
The shadows cast by spirit, flesh, and fire;
And in her voice, the hidden teaching rings,
A depth no envy ever could retire.
Thus wisdom found in her a dwelling place,
A listening soul attuned to inward grace.

VII. Contested Authority

The Peter Conflict

She spoke, and silence shifted in the room;
Her insight stirred where others held their ground.
But some, unnerved, foretold a harsher doom
If wisdom wore a woman’s form unbound.
Peter, uncertain how her voice could rise
Beside his own with equal weight and fire,
Demanded proof that heaven would advise
Such teaching drawn from one they called “desire.”
Yet she stood firm, untroubled by their doubt—
For truth requires no shield of rank or fame;
It speaks, and lesser tempers burn themselves out,
Dimmed by the steadiness from which it came.
Thus she became the answer to their fear:
A woman bearing wisdom’s helm without a peer.

VIII. Witness at the Cross

Steadfast in the Shadow of Death

When fear drove many hearts away from sight,
She stayed, a quiet ember in the storm;
She held her place beside the failing light,
A tower keeping vigil in its form.
The hammer struck, the sky dissolved to black,
The world unmade itself upon the wood;
Yet none could turn her steadfast spirit back—
She saw the sorrow, and she understood.
For love is not escape from suffering,
But standing where the breaking must occur;
She braced herself beneath the darkening,
A faithful soul no terror could deter.
She watched the final breath he came to give,
And with that watching chose again to live.

IX. Tender of the Tomb

The Dawn Spicer

Before the sun could rise and color stone,
She carried spices through the waking gloom;
No thought of fear, no hesitation known—
Only her need to honor him in tomb.
The world was cold, the garden still as glass,
Each step a vow she made with quiet pain;
Yet through the hush she felt her courage pass
Like breath restored to something lost again.
She sought no miracle, no lifted gate,
No promise that the dead would rise at dawn;
She only came because her love was great,
A final blessing for a life withdrawn.
Thus dawn first saw her tending what she kept—
A grief that walked, a faith that never slept.

X. The Weeping Seeker

Tears that Blur and Reveal

She wept beside the stone that sealed her fear,
Her tears a river cutting through the clay;
She called his name, but silence drew too near,
A shadow where her hope had slipped away.
Yet in those tears, a clearer sight was born—
For through their blur, the veil began to lift;
Her sorrow, though unmeasured and forlorn,
Prepared her heart to recognize the gift.
Sometimes the waters rising from the soul
Are not undoing, but a doorway made;
They wash the dust from what grief would control,
Revealing light beneath the paling shade.
Her tears became the lens through which she saw—
A seeker shaped by love, not by the law.

XI. The Garden Encounter

Recognition: “Mary.”

She turned, and thought he was the gardener there,
A keeper tending blossoms with the dawn;
But when he spoke her name, the very air
Became the place where all her doubt was gone.
No sermon ever matched that single word—
No argument, no sign, no breath of scroll;
In saying “Mary,” something deeper stirred,
A truth that reached the marrow of her soul.
Recognition does not come by sight,
But by the tone that knows us from within;
One whispered name can bring the dead to light,
Can raise the heart from where its fears have been.
Thus resurrection found its first acclaim
In nothing more than hearing her own name.

XII. Noli Me Tangere

The Un-clinging

She reached for him, her grief reversing course,
Her hands recalling what her heart had lost;
But he, in love, withheld the earthly force
That clinging claims, where spirit pays the cost.
“Do not hold on,” he said, for love must grow
Beyond the grasp of what the flesh can bind;
The path ahead was one she had to know
In trust, not touch—through clarity of mind.
The living cannot linger with the dead,
Nor can the risen dwell in holding fast;
Love asks us not to freeze what has been said,
But follow where the promised truth is cast.
She let him go, and in that letting saw
A faith that rose beyond her earthly law.

XIII. Apostle to the Apostles

Her Commission

She ran with breath unbroken by her tears,
A message rising faster than her stride;
The world had shifted from its ancient gears,
And she alone first held what death denied.
“Alive!”—her voice became the dawn’s first cry,
A proclamation none could hold in place;
She bore the tidings time could not defy,
A herald marked by resurrection’s grace.
Though some dismissed the witness she became,
Her truth outshone their disbelief and pride;
For nothing could eclipse the living flame
Of news delivered by the one who’d cried.
Thus history bends to her resounding word:
She spoke, and all creation’s pulse was stirred.

XIV. Restoration of Her Name

Undoing the False Legacy

Long centuries obscured her rightful part,
Confusing penance with the life she led;
They cast her as a fallen, fractured heart
Instead of one who walked where wisdom spread.
But truth endures beneath the weight of years,
And slowly rose to claim its proper frame;
Her witness, clear through sorrow, grace, and tears,
Returned to shine unshadowed by false shame.
Now once again her story stands upright—
A tower rising where the tides retreat;
Her name restored from rumor into light,
Her steps remembered for their steady beat.
Thus Mary walks again in honored flame,
A saint of love—restored to her true name.

Antifa is a movement, proud and strong
Opposed to opposition to what’s true
It means we need to sing a noble song
So join me and that’s just what we will do

Nobility is when we use our strength
Like poets use their words to show us how
Our efforts need to go to any length
To live compassion like a sacred vow

Humanity means humans all belong
Nobility means you’re a human too
Respect is the beginning of this song
Let’s sing it loudly; sing it til we’re through

Oh wait, we’re never through; it never ends
Antifa rises up when fear descends!

I used to have a country, now it’s gone
Some asshole with a wrecking ball made sure
That nothing that was sacred would live on
They tore it down; the whole thing was a blur
I one time swore an oath that I’d defend
The country that I thought would always stand
But oaths are sometimes words that find an end
And words might not be what the asshole planned
And so they tore downs symbols of our strength
And built a pretty ballroom (wow! what balls)
I bet they’ll go to any fucking length
By tearing down they’re building bigger walls
Just wait; they’ll make your country disappear
The words and balls they swing are made of fear.

Premiere at The Tank in NYC

https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/gone-in-60-seconds-nyc-one-minute-theatre-festival

The Joke’s on Me
A one-minute existential play
Characters:
Ophelia – Reflective, dryly amused by her fate.
Yorick – The ever-wise fool, both guide and provocateur.
Setting:
 A liminal afterlife—vast, empty, yet oddly intimate. A single bench. Ophelia sits, wringing the water from her gown. Yorick leans against nothing in particular, grinning.

OPHELIA: Tell me, Yorick—was I mad, or was the world?

YORICK: (thoughtful) That depends. Do you prefer to be tragic or merely ridiculous?

OPHELIA: Ridiculous, I think. There’s freedom in it. Madness is such a heavy thing to carry.

YORICK: Oh, then you were utterly absurd. The prince loved you, until he didn’t. Your father shielded you, until he used you. And you, poor maid, floated prettily away—like punctuation at the end of a sentence.

OPHELIA: A comma or a period?

YORICK: An ellipsis, I think. A drowning ellipsis… trailing off mid-thought.

OPHELIA: Fitting. I always did feel unfinished. (beat) But tell me, was I real? Or just a plot device?

YORICK: Oh, real enough to drown, but not real enough to swim.

OPHELIA: (smirks) And that is the joke, isn’t it? I was shaped by everyone’s will but my own.

YORICK: (bows) The grandest absurdity of all: you were never given a choice, yet somehow, your tragedy was called inevitable.

OPHELIA: (laughs softly) And what do we call that? Fate?

YORICK: No, my dear. Theater.

Lights fade. End.

There once was some poop on the ground
It sat without making a sound
It look very fine
So I put up a sign
“Don't step on me! Please walk around.”

I saw the face of Marguerite Porete,
The mystic who beheld Divinity.
It might have been a dream, or better yet,
A vision only Seeing Eyes might see.

I wondered if she chose to thus appear
To show herself, to let herself be known.
I wondered if Divinity was near,
Or if her soul had vanished on its own.

Her gaze, a mirror burning yet serene,
Reveals a love that law cannot restrain.
A fire that stirs both absence and what's seen,
A silence singing through both loss and gain.

And in that face I glimpse the soul’s free flight,
A deathless life that shines beyond all night.

I wonder what the world will think of next
I wonder if it gives a shit at all
The world is just a word of simple text
Simplicity, the god before the fall
So now I watch and wait and wonder too
The world is more complex than what it was
The world was once simplicity I knew
So does it give a shit? Perhaps it does
Perception is the mirror we perceive
Reflecting what we think we ought to see
The blindness of humanity may grieve
To find what’s next reveals what’s meant to be
A simple couplet ends the world’s great verse
A simple wondrous rhyme. It could be worse.

The rockets tear at night above Ukraine
While Gaza burns and children choke on dust
Taiwan is warned by shadows in the rain
And treaties rot, corroded into rust.

Here in America the guns don’t sleep
They prowl through schools, through markets, through the night
Our blood is cheap, the graves are dug too deep
The headlines blur, yet never end the fight

The planet scorched, the oceans forced to rise
Refugees march where borders slam them shut
We call it peace, but peace itself now dies
A word that’s strangled, ravaged in the gut

Don’t ask what front: the front is everywhere
This war is now. It thickens in the air.