I’ve got a number of poems that I’ve written about the crucifixion… I thought them fitting on this Holy Week.
Nail
This first poem has inspired a song that I wrote. Watch the video – or purchase the original recording.
His blood coated me,
but not in redemption…
As I held the weight
of Him on
my own
scarred steel shank,
I knew I could not have held Him…
I could not have held Him there
against his will…
Many have counterpoised,
and many have died,
to pay for their own,
but that day I held
more weight on His unstruggling shoulders
than any other weight
these nails have held.
Backbone
I see my frailty…
and the
backbone
I pretend to have;
second-hand porcelain.
and the
backbone
I wish was mine;
ten-by-ten,
hand-hewed, oaken.
Nonetheless
Turn your back
and go your way
But I’ll still
love you.
You could cut me
into a thousand
pieces
and not steal my love.
You could lift me up
spikes through my hands,
and smear the blood in my eyes,
Strip me
of this
fleshly robe,
and mock my
Deity.
I see you frolic
and laugh
as my blood
and tears
stain
my skin (Red stains deep).
I beg to see you
in Paradise.
I plead for your forgiveness
and love you nonetheless.
————————————
My Hands / His Hands
My Hands
I have
Bloodless, mottled hands,
with slender fingers,
and pink
chewed away nails,
tough fingertips,
callused by phosphored bronze
and silvered steel
And gentle palms
that a sliver
would wreck.
A solitary childhood scar,
definitely from a
jackknife rests on
the first knobby knuckle of
my index finger,
and short,
dark hair
trails
down to my
curved
little pinky.
His Hands
He has
strong, meaty
palms, rough
and scarred,
and sinew-wrapped
fingers, muscle to the bone;
Dirt pushed back beneath
His unmanicured nails, broken
by hammers and ironwood.
Scars deep through His wrist,
Through back and front,
Blessed are
His scars.
————————————
Resurrection
We went to a friends house for dinner… and He took over..
He served the bread and he served the wine.. said something about it being his flesh briken and his blood shed.
As always.. talking in riddles.. I didn’t understand it…
I didn’t really know.
I couldn’t comprehend
What he was trying to show..
So we went to the garden, and he went off to pray.. I was keeping watch, and dozed off.. he ticked off, and I could tell he was hurt that I couldn’t stay awake for ten minutes while he prayed.
And then it came, and I’ll never forget. The night that rocked me to the core.
It was black. And their torches burned the air.. they took him at the point of their sword, as though he would have fought them off..
At the trial, they set him up, and they beat him so bad,, I couldn’t recognize his face anymore…
I was so scared theyd come for me.
I kept hiding in the shadows..
I kept hiding in the shadows..
When they whipped him the next morning, I wanted to tell them to stop
I wanted to scream and stand in his place,
but I was too petrified to move.
I was too terrified to prove
that I was a friend of his
they led him to the place, where they executed thieves and murders…
I know he wasn’t that popular, but he didn’t deserve this..
As they stripped him naked, and mocked him, and the blood from his beating scabbed his back, they braided a crown of three in ch thorns, and dug it in his scalp…
I wanted to cry.. but afraid my tears would give me away.. I stood in silence, as the led him down the way…
The spikes were iron and gnarled, and they tore through his wrists and his feet, the blood splattered on their faces, and the laughed like rabid beasts…
He cried, he screamed, but he didn’t fight back.
I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to fight back..
But scared to join in his fate, I just stood silent in the back…
They hung him up. And I watched as his life slow faded away.
A prayer for their forgiveness.. he struggled so hard to say…
MY GOD MY GOD, WHY have you forsaken me?
He whole earth screamed as the sky went dark, and I ran off into the blackned daylight…
When they pulled his body off of the cross, eack drop of blood had drained.
Limp and dead, beaten beyond recognition, they laid him in a grave.
Meanwhile I thought back to every word he had said… and I realized that he was a lamb…
He was a sacrifice..
A sacrificial suicide.
Willingly he died.
When the whips tore thru his back it was for me
When the nails pierced through his hands it was for me
When the blood spilled from his veins it was for me
When the Father turned his back it was for me………
If he died for me, I couldn’t bare the shame.
I was smother in grief, lambaasted in blame.
On Saturday , I just laid there..
hiding out… scared to death.
Shaking in fear, and hating my own breath..
I deserved to die, so why did he?
They woke me up Sunday.
Said that his body was gone…
I raced to the graveyard to see it,
Met up with pete and john
They were white as ghosts, but the grins on their face spread wide..
They said “He’s Risen… JESUS IS ALIVE”
and as i turned around i saw him..
i could recognize his scars..
and he told me that he loved me
and he took me in his arms..
and he whispered something to me
that i never will forget
he said “i forgive you”
and it was spinning in my head
do i run or take it in… do i kill myself or die of shame
and that’s when i realized why
all of this happened the way it did.
he died to take my place
but he rose so i’d be free…..
he rose so i’d be free