pour the waves (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Oct 12 2009

Some days,
the music just has to be loud
loud enough
to drive out all temptation to believe in lies
to drive out the numb that doesn’t try

The music just has to be moving enough
to keep me moving
has to remind me of
everything that matters
everything that moves
there is never
nothing
I can do

I can do
something with this
even if it’s
just feel it
even if it’s
just be here

be here
and don’t leave
don’t obliterate myself
on rocky shores
don’t release my grasp
don’t follow their lead
this is what there is to believe-
this is all there is
and this is all that matters

some days
the music just has to be loud
loud enough
to remind me

I just have to be needy enough
to pull it in
anxious
angry
enough
to demand more

pour the waves
pour the waves
pour the waves

my skin is bare
my throat is dry
my stomach waits
my heart aches

pour the waves
pour the waves
pour the waves

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Field Work- documentation is so important (by Rebecca Chasteen) Saturday, Oct 3 2009

There is a psychology to everything.

You’ve got to know
I gather my field observations
and slide them under my microscope…

you’re still driving me crazy
your hands are still warm
warm
on my skin

they are still
the only hands I ever really want

we don’t even have to talk
I can hear your thoughts
we could go forever
we could sit in silence
it’s really all the same

That’s what I already told you

That’s just the truth of us

there’s not a stitch
wrong with what we sew

we hold our borders well
until-
for just a while there
I thought we were mindless
we were
shaking everything down
we were
going to lose all our senses-
drive away,
never come back

I get it
I’m right there with you

I’m placing your hand in mine-
it fell into me this time;

you
aren’t ice
you don’t just shimmer past

what would you have done
if your name rolled off my tongue?

That has me drinking
That has me holding on

my god,
you are
exactly…

you need more time, so do I

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Hard to mend (by Rebecca Chasteen) Tuesday, Sep 15 2009

I told her to be careful of the dreams she weaves,
and all the things she makes herself believe

He said nothing when she said she felt
Nothing like this before with someone else
He let her spin and weave the fantasy
That made him more than he would ever be
Too many girls take love from a kiss
In which no trace of love exists

You should have seen the way she looked at him
But dreams come true less than they end

She wrote him letters
And she called his phone
He never answered and she felt alone
It really didn’t take that long to see
The guy she loved wasn’t reality
Too many girls lay down with men
To wake and find how quick dreams end

He let her cry, he let her curse his name
She let him know nothing would feel the same
Too many hearts aren’t broken by men themselves
But by girls who dreamed them into something else

I told her dreams unraveled can be used again
But it turns out that dreams are hard to mend.

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Pilgrim Heart (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, Aug 20 2009

I’ve got a pilgrim heart
it gravitates
to caverns
and mountains.

Move
spirit
move.

I seek You
in every place
I ever go,
In every face.

Faith and love and light and rest
coincide with
darkness and
dirty hands.

Deliver,
design,
guide,

my heart’s travels.

Keep me close
and in the perils,
substantiate
every thing.

I dive in
to lakes
and graves
seeking every permutation
of beauty,
every version
of love and faith.

You are every where,
I am set on
finding You there.

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I’m a Giant Kicker (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, Aug 20 2009

I jump into fires
and lion’s dens.
I run up to giants,
sling my stones
and kick their shins.

My armor is well used,
molded in battle.
Every time I come out
a slightly different warrior,
but a warrior all the same.

Sometimes
I’m in the belly of the whale
but I still end up right where
I am
right when
right in
the design.

I have this independent spirit, this pilgrim heart.
I won’t do just because someone told me to.
I will seek – I won’t be told my truths.

I’m this fighter for faith
I’m not satisfied standing by.
I’m not willing to stop.
I breathe only because I believe.

I have these words, these lover’s hands
I speak the mercy I know, what I’ve been shown.
I touch wounds easy,
I know I’m no healer-
but love can be.

I am this spirited, lover -fighter -pilgrim- child.
I am shaped, designed, and carefully wired
just as I am
by this Master Artist’s hands.

There is nothing new under the sun
I’m not the first that stood to fight,
sought the truth,
refused to run.

I’m not the first that begged for yes or no-
that walked for years unsure of where or how to go.
I’m not the first to doubt, or the first to serve,
the first that didn’t listen or crafted pretty words.

I am in the company of sinners and saints, all the same;
all magnificently capable and incredibly lame.

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Poems of Notebooks past, poem 6 (by Rebecca Chasteen) Sunday, Jul 12 2009

I wrote this when I was 14, in 8th grade. The title is Messages from Heaven.

You send me hope in bars and notes, and make me understand

this too shall pass.

You send me inspiration in words of black and white.

You send wisdom in the sunshine, and comfort down at night

along with angels.

You let me know you love me in every day I live,

You help me spread this love with every smile I give.

I don’t know what tomorrow brings,

but whatever I must do, I can.

Dear Father don’t let me forget,

my life is in your hands.

This poem makes me cry because it seems like more than 10 years ago, I wrote myself the words I would need right now. I acknowledge in a lot of things I write, I just write, as a literal vessel for the words that come from places I don’t know, in ways I didn’t plan. I acknowledge the supernatural, the divine in this. I acknowledge the subconcious, I acknowledge everything around me, before me, even in front of me as part of the words, part of the inspiration. No one is ever alone. And like land, no one really owns words, we just claim them and live with them. In doing so we may change them, and they us, but they belong to something bigger. And I’m thankful they do.

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Poems of Notebooks past, poem 4 (by Rebecca Chasteen) Wednesday, Jul 1 2009

I wrote this when I was 14, in 8th grade. The title is Dreams.

My only sanctuary,
behind my eyes.
Am I going too far to believe
dreams can come true?

The only sacred thing in my world
are these fantasies
of what could be.

Stripped free of insecurity
expecting reality to be…
w\What’s reality?
In other’s eyes
it’s not the same.

But society’s reality
is far from everything I see.
And I’ll never be happy here

I’d rather drown in saline tears
than live in this sad excuse
of a society.

I will be free.

Alone
is better than captive.
And an imagined world
is fine with me.

Eventually everyone will see
the truth.
Or
I will depart.

I will find a place
to be
a dream.

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Haiku (by Rebecca Chasteen) Monday, Jun 1 2009

Sitting here with you

Is letting a wound bleed out

All the poision.

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Honestly Trying, Waiting, Counting on Careful Belief (by Rebecca Chasteen) Thursday, May 28 2009

For today’s prompt, I want you to write a sestina.

You pick 6 words, rotate them as the end words in 6 stanzas and then include 2 per of the words per line in your final stanza.

Honestly Trying, Waiting, Counting on Careful Belief

I can’t believe
how honestly
you try
waiting,
careful-
because anything, everything counts.

You’re sure that if you care
enough you’ll never have to try
to stop believing
in the precious counted
beauty you honestly
expect to come back to you, if you just wait.

I know you’re trying
your very best to carefully
conserve everything you have waited
so long for, believing
in the last layer of love, that everything counts-

even the littlest things count,
the long ago stolen glimpses, carefully
hidden, trying
to reshape honest
to allow for belief.
It was an accident, the waiting.

The waiting
was forgetting to try
to believe
there’s nothing that counts,
there’s no caring.
But that’s not honest.

So it turned belief
into a game of waiting.
And words were tried
so carefully
that they were never honest.
So what counts?

You wanted to believe it was waiting,
that what counted was trying,
But honestly, there was never the option of careful.

I’d never heard of a sestina before, so this was new! It was kind of tricky, but definitely fun. I used my six words as the title because it worked out that way, that wasn’t a requirement. I actually really like this. It kind of reminded me of the stained glass journal activity.

http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/2009/04/28/AprilPADChallengeDay28.aspx

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Debtor (by Rebecca Chasteen) Sunday, May 24 2009

(1/31 to 5/25 2001)

O My God,
You overwhelm me.
This is more that I’ll ever deserve.
What a heavenly gift!
I could never earn such joy.

You are consistently
the sunlight that
warms and fills me
after savage storms destroy me
and leave me
ransacked,
cold
and incomplete.

I’ve allowed so many
clouds
to devour
your complete essence;
I began to believe in darkness
as reality.
Then there is no happiness,
there is no free-
only chains of pain and yesterdays,
bad dreams and restlessness that won’t go away.

But the darkness lies.
And it’s hidden the truth from these bloodshot eyes.

I’ve come to understand this:
You are my only peace,
true motivation,
chance at beauty,
and inspiration.

And even as I flounder and fall,
vainly cry out and call,
run everywhere but home,
and wonder why I’m so alone,
You never move from me.

Even as I move from myself,
even after I’ve ignored You,
You never refuse to help.

I’m constantly
rediscovering
Your Divinity.
And I’ll gladly be
forever
a debtor.
For I’m full to the top,
And my cup runneth over.

“You prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Psalm 23:5

This is probably my favorite of the older poems from this time period. It was the completion of a section of a journey; it was the mountain I’d been climbing for so long with so many tears and words and months.

The beginning stanza always makes me uncomfortable, it’s so unabashedly praise-full. It’s no small feat to be in that place. I’m not really a “Praise Jesus!” with her hands in the hair kind of girl. That’s just not my style. But there are times that I am a face toward the sky, palms facing up or resting on my heart, silent tears down my face kind of “O My God” and that’s what this is.

This is resting at the top of that mountain, love and peace and purpose shaking my soul. This is the understanding of “us”, God and me. The love, the relationship. God is still the “sunlight that warms and fills me after savage storms destroy me”. God is still my freedom. God is still my beauty, motivation, inspiration. God is still my perfect parent- covering me, understanding me, guiding, waiting, pulling, forgiving. I say nothing of love here specifically, but this is love: grace, warmth, presence, patience, light; arms that never close. That is my God, as God has always been, and always will be.

It is this love, the acceptance of this love that changes people. Nothing will change you like accepting this kind of love. From there, anything is truly possible. Full to the top with this kind of thing makes a person brave with belief. Makes a person willing to take part in daily miracles because they can now see how many opportunities there are.

And the misconception here, the reason I think so many times we aren’t accepting this love, is because we feel we can’t earn it. But the reason we can’t earn it is not because we don’t deserve it, it’s because it’s not up for the earning. It is there, always, from the beginning. It is there for the taking, as soon as we allow ourselves to take it. The idea that we are not worthy is not of love. It’s not of God. Nothing about God supports that line of thinking. Don’t believe that. Don’t believe anyone, any thing that makes you think you need to be anything other than what you are to have love. Those are lies. And we all know the master of lies. Don’t buy his crap. He’ll sell you anything that will keep you down. Satan is a loser. His darkness is an already defeated lie. Don’t waste time on it. Just take love. Open, free, encompassing, love. Take it. Break and break and break until there’s room for it. And keep breaking if you have to. I know I do.

Everything else will come. Just take love.

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