"Midnight Buffet"
Mostly stuff of which I've never heard
From kethi kebabs to Thai bean curd
Eagerly awaiting 12:00AM
Hoping to find that treasured, frosted gem
Elbowing and kicking to get the best spot in line
Letting everyone know that the food is all mine!
As 1:30 arrives, it comes to an end
And I retire to my cabin, 'til I can do it again
--Marcus
copyright 2000
A NATIVE FLORIDIAN CHRISTMAS
Plants of green, skies of blue, &
Days warm enough to bathe in the sun.
That’s a Floridian Christmas!
Carolers in T-shirts & shorts,
The only snow or icicles to be seen
Are the lights dripping from the rooftops.
That’s a Floridian Christmas!
The mall is packed with holiday shoppers
Who still look for a place to park in the shade
Because the sun is so hot in the middle of December.
That’s a Floridian Christmas!
Since it’s so nice outside, you party around the pool,
See the Christmas boat parade from the boardwalk,
Decide to watch the sunset on the beach,
Because it’s a Floridian Christmas!
Good tidings of Peace, Hope, Love & Great Joy
To All People
No matter what
That’s a Native Floridian Christmas!
--Kimberley Warth 12/1998©
Living Water
Standing knee deep in living water
I want to be in over my head
But Lord knows I only need to be
Standing knee deep in living water!
At times hope & joy reign supreme
At times grief & fear stand extreme
“Whoa is me” I can not say
For others it is that same way.
At times I do the good I want to do
At times I do what I don’t want to do
“Jesus deliver me” I loudly say
He is the one who opens the way.
Still standing knee deep in living water
I want to be in over my head
But Lord knows the only way is to be
Standing knee deep in living water!
This time I have a song in my heart
This time I have a light in my eyes
And I’ll tell you right now
My sweet Jesus is the reason why!
I’m still standing knee deep in living water!!!
--Kimberley Warth 1999 ©
Now and Then
If the Future is a vision,
If the Past is but a dream,
Then the Present’s a division
So that one will never seem
Too much like the other,
For then how would we know
If we had met each other
Sometime before tomorrow?
But if the Past and What Will Be
Could somehow rendezvous,
I think they’d find a way for me
To talk sometimes with you.
And in the course of a timeless day
Of things gone, we’d pretend
To hope to understand the way
Of no beginning and no end.
But the Future has its lovers
And leaves History alone,
For between the two NOW hovers…
An eternal chaperone.
--Basilides ©2000
Bed of Roses
There she slept upon a bed of silky surrounded by thewild red rose.
Her hair of sunshine gold draped around her head like a giant halo.
Her eyes a color I know not since her pale lids hide them in her sleep.
Her thick honeyed lashes lay gently against her cheeks.
If not for the faint sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose
She would have seemed a goddess in stone
For her skin from where I stood looked like the finest of marble.
Marble in which talented hands would have created Aphrodite.
Her arms demurely folded and fingers locked together on her stomach.
Yet entwined with her fingers lay a rose,
As red as any a rose could be.
Slowly rising and falling with her breathing
Her lips were as red as the rose she held in her sleepy grasp.
Relaxed and slighted parted, as if awaiting a kiss.
A kiss from whom, I know not but there she waits for him.
Whoever he might be.
But what cursed fate left this beauty in this state?
Look closer and you shall see that the cause of herfate was jealousy.
A jealous wife of a husband with a wandering eye perhaps?
But why? Why must she sleep forever in her bed of roses?
Or maybe forever isn’t as long as we think.
Especially when in the end true love sets us free. --Kendra Hayes copyright 2000
The Preacher
His breath was thick with rum,
his hair too greasy, his hands too dry.
I handed him the hot plate with its bready smells and he
offered me embarrassed thanks, looking for
a place to sit.
I found him one, then sat across from him
and took his unwashed hand, praying over his food
because his sort usually doesn't.
Hel looked up at me, searching for words,
teary-eyed (tears come easily for some of them)
and finally croaked,
"I used to be a preacher. But...my wife--"
His head snapped down and he
fell to eating with a vengeance.
I had a vision.
He was younger, clean shaven and wearing a
brown Sears suit, standing behind
an oaken pulpit.
I watched him take the collection, embarassed and
tongue-tied, the little congregation holding
their breath, feeling for him.
It was over.
His wife, pretty and young, dark-haired with wide brown eyes,
began to play the piano softly, and he prayed.
Oh, what a prayer! So fiery and sincere! The heavens
shook, Hell's denizens closed
the shutters,
and the people shouted, "Amen!" and "Halleluia!"
"The text," he gravely said when the cosmos quieted down,
"is from Luke chapter fifteen."
The Prodigal Son.
I came to, like waking up, my vision over.
I looked at him, wondering, his wife -- what?
Left him? Died?
I said, "Friend, now's your chance;
tell me where you went wrong, and I'll
help you find the way back
to your Father's house."
He knew exactly what I meant. too exactly.
He'd given enough altar calls in his day.
He glanced at me sharply as if he knew what I'd seen,
thinking so loudly the whole room
could hear it: not again!
He sprang up and ran out, stumbling over his own
unsteady feet,
fleeing like Orestes from the furies.
I observed him retreat, his neck ruby-red,
off to be left alone,
off to play more hide-and-seek with God.
--Basilides copyright 1992
