by Brennen Gregory Paul Daniels
I
Who is this king of glory
painted powerful, white, and proud?
Must I shed this shaded skin to slip into his story?
Must I stop bathing in the ground
this coffee complexion was so evidently pulled from?
I still feel the Tigers flowing deep in these bones,
still hear the Euphrates gentle hum.
This body is too used to being ripped from homes
it never asked to be placed in.
Too worried about
its own existence being a sin
to doubt
the comfort of being hugged,
and robed in His own blood.
II
Robed in His own blood.
Clothed in garments ripped,
gambled, and shrugged
off shoulders by whips.
Wrapped in swaddling cloths,
laid in wood nailed together as a manger.
Nailed onto a wooden cross, looking more like a lost
son returning home. A stranger
leaving the strange land He immigrated
to, not to take refuge
or to be assimilated.
Just to be used
and to wear, for me
a face mangled and gory.
III
A face mangled and gory
and beautiful all the same.
Why then, when his eyes take inventory
of mine do I feel like flame
grasping to the end of a wick
that hasn’t been lit in years?
I confess, I feel quite foreign among the sick
and the poor, and the queer.
I wonder how He felt so at home,
He who stoops down into the mud.
IV
He who stoops down into the mud
into the soiled river of time
into the tide of shed blood
and finite life
He who makes war with peace
who does violence to hate
who gives thieves release
and murderers clean slates
He who (really worst of all) takes
the whore that I am and gives
his body again and again to slake
this unquenchable thirst I cannot outlive
Is this the king we know?
Is this the king we want?
V
Is this the king we want?
I wonder, as I look at white
american jesus gazing nonchalant
into the distant sky.
Has he grown bored of our bodies
broken in the streets?
Of the the wars we must daily wage
just to maintain a shred of the humanity
that was whipped off our backs.
Has the privilege of heaven
so cleansed him of every crack
forced by foreign thorns, leaving him without expression
I do not see my Jesus in his health and wealth.
He who promises not safety, but death.
VI
You who promise not safety, but death
tell me this. How should I measure my days?
by the freedom to press any word upon the page of my breath
by the raise, the pension, the 401k
You who promise not understanding, but suffering
tell me this. How should I capture certainty?
through stock markets and free trade
through bottom lines and stable economies
You who promise the loss of some things
to gain everything, tell me this. Why do I
so easily settle for things not colored in eternity,
like the soft caress love gives before its goodbye.
You, whose love is both comforting and confronting,
You, whose call is less lullaby, more hunting.
VII
You, whose call is less lullaby, more a hunt
please, keep hunting me.
i confess the current
of my heart is to crown comfort king.
Seeing eyes are blind
the way circles never end
and the stars shine
even when the night blends
back into the morning.
You know, i can’t really love you
with this heart so bent on whoring
why then do you choose
to take my death?
Just to have and to hold all creation till its final breath?
VIII
To have and to hold all creation till its final breath.
In sickness and in health,
till death
sews what's been ripped apart
back together,
folds all the finite
edges into forever,
into original design
but better.
Doesn’t erase scars
but rearranges its letters
to spell beautiful.
Is this the king we want?
Is this the king we seek?
IX
Is this the king we seek?
I think as I watch my president on the news.
3,277 people in America died this week
and all he spews
is nonsense
twisted and bound in
fear and phonics
that makes it sound like we will win.
And I wonder what it would look
like if for once we lose
I wonder if maybe, finally, we’d be mistook
for You.
but we have forgotten our names
while sniffing around gold and fame
X
While sniffing around for gold and fame
conquistadors renamed massacre
into missionary. The gospel proclaimed
as war chant, a racial battler
bloodied with black bodies
who never asked to be colored black.
The God embodied in the narrative
as a Jew, murdered in the attack.
and forced into serving
the god of prosperity
and deserving
and safety.
That premeditated technique
retracting from the reek of weakness.
XI
I retract from the reek of weakness
as if its a disease
I’m not accustomed to. As if briefness
isn’t guaranteed.
As if anything is. Except
dying. Yesterday
I wept
for Day
who has perished
a thousand times
past and present
in view of my very eyes
and yet every morning I wake up the same
searching in places where He never came.
XII
Are we searching in places where he never came?
I wonder as I sit in my stale college cafeteria
surrounded by people whose names
I don’t know. I grab a second bowl of cereal
Try to keep the fear at bay
the constant concern
that maybe I’ll wake up one day
and learn
that You were never here
that You were always on the streets
I don’t go near.
This I do believe
You are not the king we King we want.
No, but you are the King we need.
XIII
You are the King we need.
So like us
in our suffering,
yet so different.
Always re-creating
ugly. Always
overcoming
what we cannot escape.
But not by going over
only, always going through
like needle and sower
you are stitching brand new
out of old injury.
You who’s loss is victory.
XIV
You whose loss is victory
teach us how to lose.
How to taste defeat humbly.
Soak our skin in all the hues
of brokenness
that we may be made whole
by all the openness
of the holes
pierced into our bodies.
Only then will we look
like you, shoddy
and maybe misunderstood.
Leave space to ask of my story.
Who is this King of glory?
XV
Who is this King of glory?
Robed in His own blood
face mangled and gory.
He who stoops down into the mud.
Is this the King we want?
He who promises not safety, but death
Whose call is less lullaby, more a hunt
to have and to hold all creation till its final breath
Is this the King we seek?
While sniffing around gold and fame
retracting from the reek of weakness
Are we searching in places where he never came?
Yes, You are King we need
You whose loss is victory.
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