Having the fire of some strong passion blazing in my head

the weight of some red anger hanging over me

my heart rocks back and forth

like a metronome mocking time

pacing the rage bathing in the heat.

My flesh rashed pink with an itch

that, bothersome, under-my-skin's embrace

bore through my veins as unnerving depression

Tis the potion of the forsaken

the elixir of the long-abandoned child in flight

the cocktail of the well-spoke Jesus out of sight.

Rapids of rejection long forgot

soak the soul as if drowning by baptism

a weighted spirit  desiring to be selected

yet sinking under sea like a rock without legs.

In this night-walk of feelings a thought enters in:

it's the dark-wood crossing where Dante meets Virgil

journeying to Beatrice on the Sun-side of Hell

to the Light-side of sadness crawling in his soul. 

*...R.H. Blyth once noted: "We are being sentimental when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it."....Oscar Wilde hits closer to the mark: "a sentimentalist is one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it."

-Gregory Wolfe

*When we are too tender about something we can easily become too violent in seeking to defend or preserve it.

-Gregory Wolfe

*...Christ's message was not to pretend the world isn't fallen but to take up our crosses and follow him through the suffering and sacrifice.

-Gregory Wolfe

*If There Be Pain...

If there be pain

    all u need to do

is call on me 2 be with u

And before u hang up the phone

u will no longer be alone

Together we can never fall

because our love will conquer all

If there be pain

    reach out 4 a helping hand

and I shall hold u wherever I am

Every breath I breathe will be into u

4 without u here my joy is through

my life was lived through falling rain

so call on me if there be pain

-Tupac Shakur