I’m not really a poet, but all my life I’ve written poems occasionally when the mood strikes. Here are three recent efforts.
1.
When the dark-suited salesman
comes to your door offering
fun, fame, fortune
power, prestige, privilege
sanity, security, sex
his trademarked love
and all his glittering wares—
Just say, No thanks
the Lord is my Lover
I have all I want
2.
I do not ask to be
a doorkeeper in Your house.
Just make me the sill
on which You tread.
Let me be the dust
beneath Your feet;
the grass that withers
at Your breath.
Make me a sparrow
who falls as You watch,
or one bead of sweat
on Your brow.
If, to touch Thee,
I must be
a nail in Calvary’s tree—
Lord, have mercy on me.
3.
Of Christ’s twelve apostles
all but one died violently
and ten were martyred.
Peter, crucified up-
side down in Rome.
James, son of Zebedee,
beheaded by Herod.
James, son of Alphaeus, stoned
and clubbed in Jerusalem.
Andrew, crucified on
an olive tree in Greece.
Matthew, stabbed in the back
with a halberd in Hieres.
Philip, scourged and
crucified in Hierapolis.
Simon the Zealot, sawed
to pieces in Persia.
Nathanael, skinned alive
and beheaded in Armenia.
Thaddeus, felled by axe in Syria.
Thomas, speared to death in India.
These ten, having met the risen Lord,
gave their lives gladly for love of Christ.
John, only apostle to grow old,
died in Ephesus aged 101.
Judas alone did not
give his life but took it.
• • • • •
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