They Must

I'm back! For the two or three of you who actually read this, I apologize for the long absence. I have been working on some poetry, but none I'm ready to put up on the blog at this point. I don't know that this is ready either, but here it is anyway.

They must have a Savior.

We are all

children of darkness,
born weeping, snarling,
snapping at our Master’s hand.

Our souls they wail,
scratch the night,
dirt and hell’s fires glimmering
beneath our finger tips.

We are all lost.

We are all captive in our lusts,
cowed by our gods (not
least the golden self),

and let our own blood
from our veins to earth
to appease them—

and yet our libations
are never enough
for mercy.

We must have a Savior.
We must have Christ.
We must have His blood—

His blood
for ours
His blood on the altar.

While, savage, we slew Him
and thought ourselves clever, to
destroy goodness,
that our evil might live—

He, the ageless
Prince of the Light
slew us instead.

They must have a Savior.

The altar was God’s, of course,
not ours (or Satan’s).
That’s the secret He didn’t tell us
when He handed us the knife
and bared His breast.

The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness cannot overcome it.

And so, into
the Light, among the legions
with His name upon our breasts—
where, chosen and called
in liberation we kiss His hands—

and put our fingers through the holes
wherein we see
our names inscribed—
we stepped.

His blood
for ours,
His blood on the altar.

but….

They must have a Savior.

Others labor still
grovel by their idols,
scratch the dirt, slit their wrists,
watch the crimson sin
and pain run to the
barren earth.

They can not see His beauty,
can not hear the music
of His voice that whispers grace,
and beckons

still always beckons

to open their eyes,
and bind their wounds,
and gently sew up their hearts
scratched to tatters by
their own sharp fingernails.

They must have a Savior.

They must.