Take 6 words and form them into a short poem or prose piece.

Try with these 6:

:: purity ::
:: emperor ::
:: dragon ::
:: effort ::
:: bliss ::
:: border ::


Each of us is called to transform ourselves
from peasant to Emperor--
from mistress to Empress--
from pawns to Kings and Queens
of our own morphogenetic castles and empires
which border each other’s grand peripheries
sometimes in a vicinity that’s too close for comfort.

This heroic journey demands
better than our “best effort,”
requires an unadulterated innocence and purity,
that would rival the life of
any fair and canonized saint--

and if that sounds impossible
then one may find it even harder to accept
that beyond purification there is still
a dragon that is waiting silently in the wings
to be acknowledged,
engaged,
and finally slayed.

Life’s greatest irony is that the dragon
is none other than ourselves--
that we are the final step
the final frontier
the final opponent to be annihilated
before we become so freed
and so empty
that we are worthy
of infinite Bliss.





:: breathe ::
:: air ::
:: leap ::
:: alive ::
:: privilege ::
:: flow ::




There is this air
That I breathe
When I am asleep
There is this water
That I swim through
In my dreams
To reach the earth
That exists
When my mind is
Trenched in trance
And my subconscious
Asks me
If I’d like to dance
There is this fire
That I kindle
With my Lyre
And a lullaby
To quell the
Child in my heart
Who sometimes
Softly cries
There is this leap
that I take
When my feet
Have gone numb
Out on a limb
With a gap
Above the
Base of the trunk
There is this terror
That I feel
When I put my faith
In miracles
--A scream inside--
Says I’m alive
When I risk
Fatal falls
And I think
It is a privilege
To know that
Kind of Fear
Because without it
I’d never know
Whether I’m far
Or I’m near
To the path
That mystifies
That crucifies
That obliterates
The things we
Like about ourselves
Right with
All the things
We hate
I open my arms
And I stretch my surrender
I flow back through
The water
I keep forgetting
To remember
I breathe
The air
That is there
While I am asleep
Feel the electricity
In my fingers
Counting the
Shepherd's sheep
i dance with
Revived feet
Inside a fire
In the sky
I rise
And kiss
The earth
I see
Through my
New set
Of eyes

How Many You Can Blind

Rise, you Lazarus queen
Rise, you crowned obscenity
Rise, you once lukewarm spirit
Rise, and make noise so She’ll hear it

Compose a song, you ill-versed musician
Compose a song, you’ve renewed your position
Compose a song, you have your audience
Compose a song, and do make your amends

Dance, you who were dead and now revived
Dance, you must know you are alive
Dance, you have rhythms to extend
Dance, and weave beginnings into ends

Love another, you restless outsider
Love another, you will make your load lighter
Love another, you are a prisoner to what you keep
Love another, and a net appears just when you leap

Trust, you skeptic and doubting Thomas
Trust, you know the hour is upon us
Trust, you who’ve been restored to life
Trust, and mind the fate of Lot’s salty wife

Run through the streets, you with limbs that work again
Run through the streets, you have a message you must send
Run through the streets, you who have dreamed a Brave New World
Run through the streets, and test your wings once they’ve unfurled

Listen, you renounced Jezebel
Listen, you who must now live your life well
Listen, you must unlearn to learn
Listen, and flee the chambers of death’s urn

Rise, you humbled holograph
Rise, you dictate your own epitaph
Rise, you are a bearer of new light
Rise, and see how many you can blind


J. Henderson, 2010