Tag Archives: #PoPubPad

Sunday Evening Comin’ Down

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The prompt for Day 18’s Poem a Day Challenge hosted by The Poetry Pub, is “harmattan” which the dusty NE wind that blows through West Africa in the winter. The dryness and dustiness can provide a metaphor to a heart condition that I experience when I am especially tired after a day of ministry.

Also, ever since I saw Larry Gatlin talk about Kris Kristofferson’s song “Sunday Morning Comin’ Down” I’ve been fascinated with the lyrics and the story. The last two stanzas are heavily burrowed (copied?) from his song. For a pastor, it isn’t Sunday mornings coming down after a Saturday night that is difficult, it is the coming down on Sunday evening after a full Sunday.

Things are sometimes difficult. I am grateful for the Good Shepherd who says, “Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Sunday Morning Comin' Down

When the busy work of blowin’
Through the duties of the day
And tired like weight growin’
From the words I’ve had to say,

Leaves me draggin’ in the hallways
Closing up the sabbath rest
The weary fear like always
Rushes wild in the chest.

I walk the empty church’s hall
The hollow sound of steps
Is all the fresh wind of that call;
Doubt’s all that I’ve got left

I check the doors, I press and lean
Into the, What’s my part?	
A crash bar check of brittle dreams
And the dryness of the heart.

Sometimes the only wonder is
The wonder of the Why?
That leaves you empty handed as
You look up at the sky.

It’s the doubting that’s the burden
The wear that leaves you down
The weight of all the hurting
Of Sunday evening comin down

The drive home is now in darkness
Through my town’s busy roads
Where the contrast's in the starkness
Of the lightness and the loads.

In a Sunday evening driveway
Wishing Lord that I was done
Cause there’s something in a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone.

Ain’t nothing short of cryin’
Half so lonesome as the sound
Of a pastor’s mind a ‘Why?-in’
Sunday evenin’ coming’ down.

© Randall Edwards 2023
#PoPubPAD #NovPad #NovPad2023 @the.poetry.pub
After Kris Kristofferson, “Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down” lyrics © Combine Music Corp.

Second Joy

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The Day 17 Prompt for The Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge  is a Form Friday prompt. The poetic form is “terza rima” — a form invented by Dante Alighieri which he employs in his Divine Comedy. This poem I’ve actually been working on for four years since attending a summer class at Regent College. The class and the eight late July days in Vancouver were some of the most refreshing days I’ve experienced. Indebted doesn’t capture my gratitude for the instructor and his example. I didn’t know any living poet-priest/pastors out there. His example gave me permission, and it has made all the difference. So, here’s to Second Joy, which happens to be the subject’s Yoruba first name.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Second Joy

In the spring of life I set out at dawn
On a journey seeking that thing to fill
My belly’s ache, some bread to feed on.

And I came to a man who served as a shill
For the swindlers of success who sold to me
All I could want just by taking a pill.

So I dosed my ache to the full degree
With all the world could hope to offer
But hunger still nagged and thirst pained in me.

And hunger grew, grew greater than before
Imaginings sought thrill, wandered in wild
Gorging, yet longing, thirsting wanting more.

By noon I squandered my life, defiled,
Lost and alone having left the straight way 
Where I waffled twixt two unreconciled.

When afternoon came to my life’s day
A Poet sounded me with meter and rhyme,
And was “mio maestro y autore!”

His words cleared the glass, spurred me up the climb
Beyond the heavy, damp, and cloudy air,
Beyond the film of the familiar’s grime.

Past pride’s rock, unto evening’s copse of care
The gladsome hill we climb up to hope’s height.
Where He speaks, “Peace!” to my fears.

With second joy, this poet set me right,
Colm’s servant, Ayodeji Malcolm Guite.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Nostalgia or Whatever

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The Poetry Pub’s day 12 prompt for the November Poem a Day Challenge is “nostalgia.” I can’t even see that word anymore without thinking of C.S. Lewis’ sermon, “The Weight of Glory, in which he writes,

In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both. — C.S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory”

My poem just riffs (rips?) off his words. You can listen to me read the poem via the player below.

Once long ago, I can’t exactly say when
I remember living in a far away land
Where blue flowers bloomed in spring,
Where birds sang songs
That I can just remember
But can’t seem to sing.

You probably think me a fool.
The more I speak, the more I feel
That I’m confessing,
Feel that I am somehow undressing,
Or living that dream where one’s surprised
That they’re at school and somehow arrived
Undressed.

I blush to admit it, but
There’s something secret
In the heart of me
That wants to be known,
Wants Someone to know
And see.

(Shake it off, I say).
But this ache will not go away,
These arrows pierce and pain
My heart with a Glory Unknowable
Someone I want to meet, yet
Someone I fear...so, No.
The want is Inconsolable.
If I open to drink, I could die
While to be in reach and denied
Would be death just the same.

"It’s nothing but 'a mood," I say.
Still, I would rather have the ache
Than not.
I would rather hold the sweetness
Of those moments when the vision of
The ember-leafed tree
Holds me,
Or watching children I love
Play with one another,
Full of wonder,
Ignorant of the world
And me
And those things I see.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Solstice

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Day 9’s prompt for Poetry Pub’s November Poem a Day Challenge is “solstice.”

This sonnet is a tribute to all the Poetry Pub Poets who have been such an encouragement and blessing over many years. They have show me kindness and hospitality that has been life giving. And I am a grateful to the Lord for them. Write on, poets. Your words enchant and are being used in the work of Him Who Makes All Things New.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below.

I trust you poets whom I have heard
To dis-spell darkness with your words
I’ll follow your lead to the darkest day
I’ll hear and believe all you’ve to say.
About the ills of the wicked and bad—
The grief of trauma and loss, the sad
which you beat into golden, lined-welds
Which binds together all the broken we’ve held.

And I hope to be the first to cheer
When gathered on blankets neath trees to hear
All the poems you’ve prayed, how their mending
Worked to bring high-summer — this never-ending
Solstice where in The Park, the Spirit’s breeze
Blows healing that falls as light on the leaves.

© Randall Edwards 2023

Wobble

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Today’s Day 8 Poetry Pub Poem a Day Challenge prompt is “Equinox.” In this poem I talk about my experience with a speed wobble while descending on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

These men steadied me early on ministry. Their companionship and camaraderie continues to bear fruit in my life, especially in gratitude.

You may listen to me read the poem via the player below. 

There is nothing like the equinox
Of bombing the Parkway, tucked tight, and locked—
Tucked in, rolling straight and true
In the line, on the beat, in the groove,
Those five miles downhill from Aho to Bamboo 
Going 48 (mph) in the straightaway 
Wind rushing past on
A glorious day!

By the time I reached the Bamboo ridge
Over Goshen Creek at George Hays bridge,
The equinox of rolling true
Was shot,
And I was in deep dew.

Somewhere before that sweeping turn
The thrilling rush of descent had burned
Off and turned into a little shimmy, 
The front wheel weaved, went
Side to side swimmy.

The swimmy got worse, my bike got got, 
All sigodlin fast, all weavey, flop bot
I didn’t know what in, but 
I knew I was caught.

And there alone, I learned a big learn
50 feet over, on that bridge in a turn,
How equinox can suddenly turn
A sporty, rolling shimmy 
Into a colly-wobbled, deadly gimmie,
Full on wacky, wheel-weavin,
Tank slappin, heavin, 
Speed wobble.

Do you know the sensation you get
When you think you’re in control and yet
You realize the ride your riding
Is really riding you?
You hold on tight for your dear life, 
You try and try with all your might
To fix what’s wobbled wrong?

Though you try, though you think you can,
You can’t stabilize with just two hands
To steady your world’s gyration.
Dampen the wobbled vibration
That threatens to
Shake you to pieces.

No pair of docs can bring
The balanced, rolling equinox.
A third is what you need:
To touch the top tube
With your knee,
Or the touch of another’s hand
To dampen confusion, steady you
With grace and love
And true.

© Randall Edwards 2023