It feels like you’ve been hiding forever

While i stand in the sameplace pretending to slowly count down

Backwards from my childhood

When you were more than tangible and everywhere to be found

i gave up looking in the church buildings long ago

As so many of them seemed to somehow feel a lot more like church

Once the people had left

Laughing and chattering away

As they skipped over the deep snoring sounds

Of an infectious poverty on their way to their comfortable chariots

i looked for you in the thoughts and prayers

That were politely queued and sent off with the click of a button

In the calls to send money that were shouted at the cameras

Until, like a tidal wave of tsunami

They came pouring out of my television screen

Pooling in a pungent mess on my carpet

Leaving a damp mouldy stench

That sits forever on the edge of my tongue

i spent some years diving into worship songs

Confident that’s where i would find You at home

Yet the double thumbs up ‘life is great’ wordplay

Tore at my sole every time one of my feet

Sank to the bottom of these oceans

Turns out all was not well

igrewtired

“Come out! Come out! Wherever you are”

i raised my anthem as i wandered

through art galleries and used record stores

which gave me the warmest scent of your trail so far

But still no response.

You seem to take the hiding part pretty seriously.

i attempted to sing a song

Hoping i could hang the reasons for my devotion on a shining star

Tried listening for you

In the centre of the earthquake, wind and fire

That’s the way of the world i felt

Got to get you into my life

But unsurprisingly you were absent

In the resounding clanging nature

Of nature at its loudest and most violent

It was when the gentle whisper had passed through

That the light could be seen fading from my eyes

For even there

In that anticipated and expected moment..

Nothing.

Were you really playing so hard to get?

Dejected and confused i decided to slowly make my way back home

Thinking that this game had run its course

But even as i passed others on the way

i couldn’t find it in myself to

Let on what i had failed to find

So i dug deep

And gave them a feeble open-ended encouragement

About the David God

Who is close to the broken-hearted

And saves those whose spirits lie in pieces upon the floor

i found myself standing at a fire in the middle of the courtyard

Where three friends of mine who had heard about my game

Had set out from their homes and met together by agreement

To come and sympathise with me and comfort me

And i sat down among them

While they did their best to try convince me

That the fault was all my own.

The fourth one – wait, weren’t there three?

Said nothing.

But just sat there,

Writing in the dust with his finger.

= = = = = = = = = =

[For a rewording of the traditional Lord’s Prayer click here]

[For a poem called ‘The Very Worst of Me’ click here]