Beautiful words of wisdom by an accidental poet
*Please note that the following are not the official poem titles (in fact, John has only titled the first of these poems). When I asked him about this, he said: "I like to think of them as watercolors that have some droplets of paint still moving around as they slowly (very slowly) dry. Maybe once they all dry I’ll start naming them."
1. Season of Change
(Official title: Welcome to the Age of the Beautiful Weirdos)
the lady across from
me in a waiting room asked me
if I was ready for things
to "get back to normal"
I smiled and shook my head
"I wasn't very good at normal," I told her.
"I'd like the give weird a bit of a try."
She blinked.
I blinked back.
things had gotten awkward
~ I always make things awkward ~
She blinked again.
I responded with another blink.
We were now communicating
through eyelash morse code.
So I blinked the following message to her:
I'm not waiting for things
to go back to normal
things are already
way too ordinary for me
to wish for it to have
any more of a hold over me
to be honest,
I'm waiting for things
to become more abnormal
normal had its time as the DJ
normal played the same songs over and over
typical's reign as the queen has gone on for so long
that her crown has begun to grow into her skin
I know you can sense it, too
this cocoon we are living in
is starting to quiver and our
skin is starting to turn into
polka-dotted butterfly wings
we are all unraveling
in the most beautiful ways
can't you feel it in your veins?
your plain blood is bleeding
itself into the sharpest pattern
of flowing plaid
you have shifted like a corvette
on an empty coastline highway at sunset
you can feel the hum deep
inside the transmission of your soul
your engine is growling with the
power of one billion angelic horses
you are now able to go from the natural
to the supernatural in under 3 seconds
you are racing toward your raw purpose
you are speeding toward your wild dream
you are no longer a bore - you are a blur
I know you can feel it, too
you are as sick as I am about pretending that
all we want is for things to be normal
normal had its age
let's give the unusual an epoch or two
this is the season
of change and
your eyes are turning
Into a sponge
soaking up
every beautiful
oddity you see
and every now and
then when your
eyes have absorbed
just enough peculiar
artwork of the divine
they begin to pour
with tears of joy
I know you can feel it
nothing is going back
to the way things used to be
because our existence is a living
piece of clay being constantly molded
under the loving hands of a cosmic potter
normal doesn't live
here anymore
it's been replaced
with the abjectly strange
and isn't that how it should be?
every day we should wake up ready
to journey into the wonderfully irregular
this is the age for you
to finally embrace
the eccentric and exotic
which is perfect
because that is exactly what you are
eccentric & exotic
there is nothing like you
among the uncountable stars
you are the rarest precious gemstone
you know it
you can feel it
right under your scars
right behind your eyes
right inside of your heart
is a river of light
that has never existed before
you were created
you are profoundly and beautifully
abnormal
and that is why this age
is perfect for you
normal is on the outs
atypical is in
and you, my wild love,
are the loveliest
deviation from the norm
that has ever drawn a breath
and this is your time
and you are about to change the world
and I can't wait to watch
2. Souls Without Pockets
what you give
to the world
is who you are
we are not here
to hoard the light
we are here to reflect it
our souls don't
have pockets
everything we fought to gather
will one day slip through our
unclenched translucent hands
nobody will remember
how safe we were with
our gifts and heart
they will remember how
recklessly we gave of ourselves
we aren't here to
turn our lives into
a bank vault
we are here to be
a gateless park
oh, my love,
I wasted so many
years before I learned
that
we are not what we take
from this world
we are defined by what we
give back to it
3. Monogamous
our past isn't our present
~neither is our future
let's stop living in our own museums
and quit mistaking fortune cookies
for gospels
~let's be monogamous to this moment
our yesterdays
are quicksand
and
our tomorrows
are daydreams
remember, my love,
the most important
breath you will take
~is always this one
4. Step off the Path
I was riding comfortably
on the road to God
when suddenly
and without warning
the wheels fell off of the
ornate carriage I was riding in
~ and I became stuck
I was stranded on a dusty road
surrounded by the untamed
wilderness on either side of me
“I have to get moving again,” I thought
so, I spent way too much time
desperately trying to fix what was
irrecoverably broken
eventually, it became clear
that I would never get
my life to look the way it
used to
I was tempted to turn
the wreckage of my life
into a roadside museum
and to make a home
out of the ruins
but then suddenly
and without warning
a blue butterfly came out
of the badlands next to me
~ and landed right on my nose
her wings had the most
abstract watercolor pattern
I had ever see before
~ but after spending an hour
watching her stretch and close her wings
I was able to see that the pattern
actually spelled three words that
I spoke out loud
“come find Me”
then suddenly
and without warning
the butterfly
lept off of my nose and
back into the sprawling wild
I immediately set fire to the
wreckage of my broken down carriage
and I chased the butterfly straight into
the chaos of the wilderness
I’ve been out here
for years now
and I’ve learned
that no matter how lost I
have gotten
I have never felt more
found by the Great Love
I have learned
that there is no
set road for me to
journey to the home of God
for me, God’s home isn’t a fabulous
destination at the end of a detailed map
or tight travel schedule
God’s home is the uncharted
dangerous expanse of wonder
and howling wolves
where the two of us
climb trees to scout
the next day’s walk
I was never going
to find Love by
watching the wheels
spin on a groomed path
I was only going
to find God by
stepping off the path
and into the crackerjack
splendor of the mystery
that has been calling
to me for years
it’s an undiscovered
land where tree trunks
are shaped like question marks
and rivers lead me from one
curiosity to the next
it’s a relentless and unending
adventure
where Spirit arranges a couple hundred
bright blue butterflies in the sky
to spell the same thing each morning:
“Come find me”
5. Lilac
how can you
look at a
single Lilac
and not fall further in
love with the Divine?
if a single flower
can possess such wonder
just imagine how
beautiful God must be
6. Final Poem
~ if this is my final poem
let it be this ~
on my last day
here on Earth
let me be like I
was on my very
first day
let me be
ready for my
great voyage
between worlds
let me ready
to ride the cosmic
river of the vast unknown
on my last day
here on Earth
let me be like I
was on my very first
let me be
ready to see what
all the fuss is on
the other side of
the womb that I’ve been
hearing so much about
let me be
ready to be bathed in
a light that I could have
never have imagined
let me be
ready to be held in
the arms by my lovely
creator and to feel safer
than I ever have before
on my last day
here on Earth
let me be like I
was on my very first
let me be
ready to see the smiling faces
of all those who have been
eagerly waiting to meet me
let me be
ready to be swaddled up
in the warmest cotton
blanket of fresh starts
on my last day
here on Earth
let me be like
I was on my very first
covered in the
miracle of creation
no wonder newborn
babies cry
no wonder 45-year old
men cry
it’s all such an adventure
it’s all such a journey
it’s all such a circle
it’s all such a flowing river
it’s all such an endless passage
it’s all such a mystery
and it goes on and on and on
and on and on
it all goes on
and we go on and on and on
and on and on
we all go on
oh, divine light
oh, sacred spirit
oh, God
please let me
go on and on and on
and on and on
oh, I can’t wait to see
what comes next