Poems by John Roedel

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

See this post in the Facebook Group

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

See this post in the Facebook Group

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

See this post in the Facebook Group

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”

See this post in the Facebook Group

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

See this post in the Facebook Group

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

See this post in the Facebook Group