the todd b. waldo collection

It’s very late Friday night
and I’m alone with my thoughts and reflections
of yesterday and the sin that so easily beset me

You met me in my failure
caught me in my fall
tourniquet around my bleeding heart
right there through it all

Love was in your words
Love was in your touch
Love was all you gave me
when death was what I deserved

I rejected you protected
I resisted you insisted that i was more than my mistakes
that I was more than my failure
with calling and purpose and gifting and living this way was less than
what you desire

You offered freedom and life
and hope and trust
so much more that youthful lust
or pride or greed
you said you would supply my every need

So you took my hand and lead me to the hill
where one day later you would stand to do the father’s will
you explained your plan, all that you would endure
and the abundant life that it would forever secure

Tonight they lead you down that road after tearing you apart
split in your face disgraced your name trying to break your heart
blood soaked each step toward Calvary with more agony still ahead
you endured brutality knowing soon that you would be dead

I have never seen anything so gruesome or severe
I turned away after the first nail but still I could hear
the pounding and breaking of your flesh and your bone
wondering how this is what the multitude did condone

Then the cross was lifted and you were spread across it wide
gravity working as designed forced you to slide
crowned a king with mockery forced your blood to flow
down your face to mix with tears, forgive them they don’t know

Seemed like forever the cruelty but at last there was an end
so It was finished you suffered all the punishment for my sin
and here I wait for Sunday’s rise when victory will be revealed
and the promise that you gave to us to be finally fulfilled

Please excuse the interruption
But your beauty and your sexy essence
has inspired this poet to create and state
what should be obvious to a blind eye

You are unmatched
uniquely
completely
distinctly amazing
in every way
a hand crafted divine mix
of grace and glamour
with intelligence
a fine design
mind and heart
intertwined
in harmony with passion and purpose
in a relationship with those heels
that make my right eye cry
because it can hardly take it all in

You got me inclined
so
if you don’t mind
I’ll just rotate around you
and remind you of all I see
until this season ends

you don’t really miss it
until it’s gone
and chances to regain are spoiled by pride
and insecurity
so you don’t even try

possibility slips through your fingers
and you wipe away the last tear
wishing you could have given just a little more
but your storage is empty
and it’s anguishing trying
to learn to trust and love again
when all you really want
is the impossible

May it never be so
that my affection for justice has died
Or my desire for truth has been replaced
with the lust for the evil and the lies
that choke the righteousness our of lives

May I never loose the drive
to resist the selfish temptations
that have toppled great nations and
the greed that has consumed every generation
But embrace the humility and patience required
to love another soul

And may my words always flow
from a broken heart determined to empathize
with the pain and struggle all of us in this life have to endure
Never rising too high above
and forgetting how I arrived

Twenty Years

It’s been twenty years now but I still remember the smell of death
I still recall the bright hall that led to his room
the fall of my heart as the news of his passing flooded my soul

It’s been twenty years now but only a few since the hurt stopped
bleeding and my bruises reduced
I can still feel my pillow wet from lonely tears
as I wondered if his return would ever be realized

It’s been twenty years now but nothing can replace what I lost
looking for him
Nothing has returned from what we lost searching for his leftovers
in the wastelands of Newark’s streets

It’s been twenty years now but silence is the best way to talk about this
with his widow
and nothing can begin to help me understand why staying in hell
was better than leaving

It’s been twenty years of growth in my heart to love and to be loved
It’s been twenty years of striving to secure my identity not in what people
said but in how I reflect my purpose
It’s been twenty times harder to be silent and
Twenty times louder than what other ears are used to

It’s been my hope that twenty years later I would fulfill my promise
to never live like him and never love like him
and never leave like him
and never hit like him and
never Never NEVER NEVER be anything close to him
But after twenty years I still love him

Childhood pain creeps into adult creases in your lives
that you never took the time to seal
Life’s lessons are learned the hard way and most effectively so
but doesn’t it suck to have to hurt while your age is still singular?

It’s been twenty years and this is the first poem written about him
It’s been twenty years now
and my future twenty years never looked so bright. Why?
Because his story has been my teacher and my destiny is disconnected
So there is no curse on my generation
I’m a creation of two tragedies fashioned in scolding suffering
A glorified remnant that will only reproduce freedom and love
and give life to every word that paints pictures of my youthful death

It’s been twenty years and there is no regret