Yes, that title was mainly to catch your eye and get you reading, though it isn’t completely off topic.  I’ve been criticized recently for this blog becoming too theological and not really very personal as it used to be, so the past few posts have been my attempt at getting back to that.  Don’t worry, there’s more theology to come, I’m just taking a breather.  Anyway, as many people know, I’ve spent the past six months or so writing an album entitled “So Tearful Apologies.”  Recently I “finished” it (as any musician knows, are you ever really “finished” with your music?).  Technically, it’s not completely done, but it’s done enough for me to feel free to work on my next project, which I wanted to write this post about.

So, I’ve been on a concept album kick.  That’s where you write an album with a unified theme or story as opposed to the typical random assortment of songs.  My next project is about sex.  The working title for it is “Of Clefts and Gardens.”  Using Song of Solomon as one of my inspirations, I was wondering if a Christian in 21st century Evangelical America could write and sing art that is explicitly sexual, but both God-glorfying and beautiful.  As I’ve jokingly said, my goal is to write stuff that is completely God-glorifying but that no Christian bookstore would carry.

With this project, I want to try something different.  I’m writing it as a book of poetry and also recording performances of that poetry and writing music to go along with it in a CD.  Some will be songs, some will just have background music for the poems, but I really want to try and publish this.  I have a lot of poetry already.  I might as well start trying to get it out there.  A little bit about the book/album:

I really do want to explore sexuality in all it’s different facets in this project.  It will be broken up into four sections, each dealing with a certain part of sexuality:
(1) Purpose: exploring the symbolism and design of sexuality
(2) Passion: looking into that drive that makes us sexual
(3) Perversion: exploring the sexual brokenness in this fallen world
(4) Purity: a celebration of sex in its purest and most God-glorifying forms.

As a treat to those who made it through this whole post and apparently care, I’ve included the audio to the first track/poem from the album/book.  It’s called “Do I?” and it sets the tone for the project, asking if I, as a Christian, have as much a right to talk about these things as secular minds do (as a contrast, the last track/poem will be called “I Do” and it will be a celebration of marriage).  Feel free to leave comments, criticisms, ideas for poems/songs, or witty insults.  Here’s the poem/track.  Just click on the title for the audio:

“Do I?” from “Of Clefts and Gardens”

Just because I’m joined to One above
does this mean I am in want of desire for
one below,
one beneath,
one under?

Do I not dream the same as you?
A joyful consummation at the end of the day
of rising and falling
rising and falling?

Of breaths and sighs
of whimpers and cries
and half taken breaths whispered in my ear
under the weight of knowing

knowing
that which was good before we Fell,
before we fell away from Him-
fell away from one another.

Let me fall back into Him, into you:
fall for you as I rise into Thy love
and thine
and mine.

Restored –
a picture thereof as my soul is known
and I know this union once more.

So can I want?  Can I dream?
Can I read the words of wisdom old
and long for your fingers to drip with myrrh
as I reach into your garden latch

and seek the rose I long to taste?

May I?

Jesus?

I sit here at this laptop, a vision bouncing ‘round my head
to write a prose to you that shows your grace, beauty, and strength.
But I’m tired and I keep typoingt ypos, over and iver again.
And you know what?  I’m not going to correct that above,
because that really was an accident.

I know, I know.  “Nothing’s new” I heard the wise one once said.
No thought, no word, no deed has the sun not shone itself upon.
Looking down, looking down upon my filthy rags, mocking and burning,
mocking and burning.  I just need to get this out!

Oh, Christ! Will thou not enable me to write these words?

He won’t.

Some may say I’m attempting some not so subtle display of irony,
trying to be original, profound, or cute; noting the use of prose to Him
as my medium for my diatribe on not being able to write a prose to Him,
but it’s not.

These words are nothing, they are filth, not fit for the King I serve.
No edits, no plans, no thoughts or “brainstorming” went into this.
Just the feeble cries of a broken man, wallowing, drowning, fighting,
losing.  It seems.

The weight of people not yet known – their souls upon my shoulders.
The sin I bear upon my back, the doubt that grows within.
I’m lost.  I’m depraved.  My futile thinking, my hardened heart,
my ignoble desires, my Glorious King! the One I have! the One I need!

Oh Christ!  Oh Sovereign Lord!  Be the God to me You are!
Oh that my tongue were loosed with the tongues of angels
to say all your Grace could say!

Let my soul take flight! Rise me into Thy Love!
Faster.  Faster!  Make me only Thine!  I need it!
I must! I lust, covet, and gluttonously gorge myself upon
the Grace I so desperately need desperately. . .

desperately.

And even with that, I end this now, not having said
what I wanted to say – what I needed to say.
Your Grace did not come, or at least in the measure I hoped.
This burden thus stays, this wineskin won’t burst,
this angst will continue to grow.

But I know, in the quietest parts of my soul, those deep whispers
and silent voices, echoing within:
my Beloved is mine and i am His, and His Grace is at His whim,
for if it were up to me, I would not need Him,

and it’s in my need I have Him most.

I
She stands alone,
lost in a process she only knows;
the reflection staring back in silent contemplation
of a piece going God knows where.

The streets lie lifeless in her eyes;
those eyes
never hidden,
speaking more than lips ever could –
or will.

Imitation sincerest form:
The arm-enveloped laugh wins again.

It wins the hearts of those around her,
a victory bitter in her mouth as unintentioned
as the persual of a lover
far less worthy than she.

II
A treasure to behold,
lost in the circles that bind her.
Unaware of the weary travelers,
knocking at her door.

What reason? What allure?
Presumption guiding every step,
obsession ceasing pleasant passion
as strangers ask for more

and more.

Find the part, feel the skin.
The skin of scalp under fingers raw
from scratching doors leading to air?
Maybe this time?

To freedom.

Freedom from pain, freedom from drama;
just twist the lone lock of so many colors once more
between the fingers and

sleep well this night and rest your head,
let not the demons haunt thy muse
as musings cascade down rivers gold
in dreams,
of a love:
due praise, and
worth honor.

A love Love’s loathing has kept you from knowing
this, these nineteen years gone past.
“A hope deferred makes the heart sick;”
indeed it ever has, but
“a hope that is seen is not hope at all,
for who hopes for what she sees?”

“A desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”

I hope beside you this still dark night
that you find
that which you’ve been made to have
but have had not ever still.

That you settle not for swine
as you are the pearl that is cast.
The pearl unknowing and unawares, of that which
thrusts one’s own out of the sea and into the arms

of He.

your Love.

[NOTE: Part II of the previous post will come very shortly.]

[I wrote this a while ago, so no one get any ideas as to “certain interpretations”]

Is a hidden love a love at all?
For the sake or right, to fake not wrong,
are feelings feeling present pain
not aright, though actions wane?

For the sake of the past
shall the future lie in want-
lie in wait, for the past to become thus?
Become that?

That which aching hearts cry
and lie and die to, for the sake of a
grace yet to be revealed
though seen everyday:

in a glance, a look, a lasting lingering
lasting just too long. Or does it?

A grace found within a face whose frame
changes daily,
whose heart grows only deeper still as

his deep, and His deep, cry out for hers.