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I don’t write poetry all that frequently, and I’ll be honest it’s a medium that I struggle to read and understand / appreciate, let alone write competently in. Yet it seems like God has a tendency of speaking through that medium during the darkening nights – of which the last four have felt like some of the longest.

Anyways, out of that long dark night and the lifelong struggle with ADHD came this poem. I was thinking of posting it to the r/ADHD sub-reddit, maybe reach out to whatever handful of Christians there are in that online community, but I thought first I should share it with this handy-dandy confirmed Christian club of dedicated poets.

I’m not a particularly good poet, if the above disclaimer didn’t make that quite clear, and I have an unreasonable (and grammatically inconsistent) fondness for archaic and convoluted syntax, so apologies for all that in advance…

 

With Eyes Clearer Still

 

Night of last and this hence short morning,

As many bookends spent before,

By ghosts long past and present haunting

I’ve lain a-dwelling upon my sins afore.

 

I’ve cried times again how many more,

Soul-sobbed through weak and stam’ring lips

“Thou mad’st me so withered what for?”

“This stale bread to chew and sour cup to sip?”

 

Thou knowst me well, Lord weller than I,

From sandy clay Thou baked this crackled mind,

These trembling hands and cloudy eyes,

This impatient will to prudence ever blind.

 

Thou drafted with care this clamorous brain,

Scored it with a dozen cracked tin trumpets,

Eyes which ever wander to their bane,

To dwell and feast with Babylon’s strumpets.

 

Ne’er’ever humoring the bellicose thought

“There is no God” – a fool I think myself not.

Amongst thy faithful I hath counted myself,

Even as thy Word remains dusty on my shelf.

 

Yet though my tongue confess Thou Lord of mine,

My wretched heart against me testifies as well,

Of a sordid past of sins – not thine, but mine,

Which carry me laughing straight to Hell.

 

I have answered with fevered-faith lament,

“These sins were mine, but now are His,”

“To blame I am, but to pay is His, Amen-”

Yet bitter as gall is Wormwood’s kiss:

 

“If thou art His, why are you with me still?”

“Like a vessel of wrath, marked for destruction,”

“Still you lay in my bed, though it’s kill or be killed,”

“Oh soldier of the Lord, sinner without compunction -”

“He made you frail, crippled and blind,”

“And shameless to boot as the crowds at Golgotha.”

“Answer me this, child of God, servant of Christ -”

“Whatever did He make you for, if not for judgment?”

 

Wormwood’s spit burns upon my cheek,

His words cutting steel to my bones,

Just like the tears I’ve wept till I’m weak,

My breath almost departed, one last groan:

 

That though my life thou mayst blight,

My conscience brand’t and body killed,

This scarred soul by end of the long night,

Might see His glory with eyes clearer still.

 

For though the rich laugh and in their flesh boast,

The poor his thorn may scorn and in his spirit rejoice,

In a song not his own, proclaimed by a heavenly host,

“His grace is sufficient, so sing with one voice:

 

“Blessed are the poor in Spirit, drowned in leaven,”

“And the weak of heart tempted by hollow dreams,”

“For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven!

“His death atones, His rising redeems!”

“Poor and foolish we may be, not knights but knaves-”

“But though our courage fails and our voices quaver,”

“There is a shepherd who does not waver,”

“Whose sword is His Tongue and whose heart is brave,”

“And He shall strike the wolf and crush the serpent,”

“To save every child who cries, “Lord, help me repent!””

 

Begone thou foul thoughts, begone thou Wormwood!

I am not yours anymore, no more your plaything!

Cut me with your words till tears come as a flood,

Poison my thoughts as by a scorpion’s sting –

But He shall never let go nor let me slip from His hand;

And who am I to ignore my Father’s command?