Hello, everyone! I have recently published my first chapbook of Christian poems titled “A Voice in the Wilderness – A Chapbook of Poems about God”. This has been developed and polished over the past six months or so. I am happy with the final product and hope you find encouragement in the poems but also a validation that the spiritual life is not all sunshine and rainbows. We all struggle. We all have periods of questions and/or doubt. But it is the yearning that keeps us coming back for more and allows us to experience joy.
You can purchase either on Amazon or on my own bookstore (it is cheaper and has free shipping on my store) and is available on the Kindle and in paperback.
Summertime
Clementine nectar drips down the chin.
Summertime angels swim through the air again.
The crack of a bat under the lights.
Kaleidoscope fire explodes in the night.
Root beer floats, cotton candy dreams.
Capture the flag on neighborhood teams.
July heat brings sprinklers and hoses to cool;
lounging on rafts, diving in pools.
Wading in creek beds catching crawdads.
Camping trips beneath the stars, just you and Dad.
Carnival laughter, Ferris wheel turns.
Days on the lake, nights nursing sunburns.
Tan bodies gleaming in the moonlight,
entangled in adolescences' sacrificial rite.
All good things must come to a close.
First, comes summer jobs; then, parental woes.
Justin Farley
Words are a Holy Fire
Words surged from the pen
staining, soaking everything like spilled paint.
Wood pulp thirsty in a state
of mad-eyed hunger.
Paper ravenous for a glorious taste,
elated to gobble up and digest
the things that time can't erase.
Don't you know?
Words are a Holy Fire,
spread from the Word himself.
Infused with the power of desire
to transform, to turn over the world upon itself.
To burn away the dead timber,
embers eager to make way for the new.
On its charred remains,
plant shoots come bursting through.
Oh, yes listen; I tell it true!
Words are a Holy Fire
with more power than the doers who do.
For they are not forgotten by the fragility of memory
but cling to time like glue.
Justin Farley
My first chapbook of collected poems is available now! I hope you find encouragement in the poems but also a validation that the spiritual life is not all sunshine and rainbows. We all struggle. We all have periods of questions and/or doubt. But it is the yearning that keeps us coming back for more and allows us to experience joy. You can purchase either on Amazon or on my own bookstore (it is cheaper and has free shipping on my store) and is available on the Kindle and in paperback. Amazon: KindlePaperback Inkspiration Books (my bookstore): Paperback Thank you for your support!
Light Wielder
Crystals hang from the heavenly chandelier
on the city upon the hill.
Catching light and doing for the eyes
what wind chimes do for the ears.
A rustling.
An awakening
of an ancient force
that remembers,
that yearns
with an unquenchable thirst
for transcendence
for totality
for unity
for eternity.
Crystals catch the sun's light,
act like mirrors with the power
of those at the Pharos lighthouse,
and reflect it to the ends of the earth.
Never giving birth to work
by its own power,
only transmitting a greater light
whose flame has burned
indefatigable to the chagrin of the night.
Again.
A rustling.
An awakening
of an ancient force
that remembers,
that yearns
with an unquenchable thirst
for transcendence
for totality
for unity
for eternity.
I count
hundreds
thousands
millions
of crystals dangling like diamonds,
gleaming beneath the sun.
Dazzling like the thread
of the spider's web she's spun
catching the nightmares of the world
like colossal dream catchers,
waking up those who've fallen asleep,
and giving sight to a world walking in darkness.
Justin Farley
The ChairPoem about Losing a Spouse
The sun woke, stretched, streamed
upon an early, April mourning.
Birds arrived at the feeder chirping.
I watched, sipping my steaming coffee.
For a minuscule moment distracted
until I noticed the chair
out of the corner of my eye
still indented with your body's footprint.
And I thought of you.
Justin Farley
The Town Mouse and Country Mouse
I was in love with the country,
and she, in love with the city.
We were in love with each other
but were split by the hand of destiny.
She preferred nights on the town
and I, counting country stars.
We woke up side-by-side each morning,
yet the distance between our lives was far.
For what did I know about hailing taxis?
Or her, about forest pines?
Though we surely knew each other's hearts,
our paths were never aligned.
I was alone with the country
and she, alone with the city.
In love but living separate lives
inevitably led to tragedy.
Justin Farley
See the sky like a sea
rolling with crescent waves
crash into the dawn of day.
Aurora's tide making the darkness flee.
See the puffy islands of white
float like buoys in
a no-wake zone
emerge behind the curtains of night.
See the winged fish swimming
through waters with ease
chasing one another in schools,
excitement for life brimming.
See the metal monsters -
winged, roaring leviathans who
lurk in the sky's deep
who roams, constantly wanders.
See the hungry shark with razor teeth
chomp on desires of the heart.
Set on selfish destruction
swimming in the depths beneath.
Justin Farley
An Outstretched Hand
Grace waits patiently for everyone
like Charon beside the River Styx.
But Grace requires no coinage
for sin's payment has been nixed.
The sound of a boulder's rumble,
louder to the soul than deafening thunder,
is the receipt for the cost of transgression, paid in full.
It leaves even angels still in wonder
at the depth of love that bears such a brutal toll.
Grace holds her breath with an outstretched hand,
the pinnacle choice of life for every man.
Grace's hand is still open to you.
Will you take it?
Justin Farley
She is the Sun
She is the sun rising in the east
rousing me from the heaviness of sleep.
Kissing my eyelids open wide with her light.
Restoring my sight when I've grown blind to beauty,
inspiration once again surging through me;
a vigor vital to my sanity.
It is her dawn that drives
the shadows into the recesses of my room.
Strips the gloom from my skin like soap.
The suds lathered in layers that provide
a thick hide of protection
from the grime of the world outside.
She is the sun that drives me like a bird to sing
sweet songs of melody tweeting in the morning
perched happily on the wire of love
content and at peace like a cooing dove
basking in the rays that fall down from heaven.
Keep me not in the realm of night,
but pour out your bright light
through the dinge and dirt of my window,
so I can see out into the meadow
where butterflies dance fluttering
in a weightless prance through the summer air.
Because you are the sun rising in the east,
and summer ceases without your amber glow.
You are the deliverer of my winter,
the melter of my tundra's ice and snow.
So rise! Rise and awake me, Dawn
from this shadow-land of sleep!
Flood the riverbanks of my heart,
and alight the forest of night dark and deep.
Justin Farley
Get a digital copy of my chapbook for a limited time for just 99 Cents!
Amazon: KindlePaperback Inkspiration Books (my bookstore): Paperback Thank you for your support!
Who is this man who hangs like fruit from a tree baking beneath the sun shrunken, shriveled like a prune, writhing in misery?
Who is this man whose flesh is being used like lumber – cold, iron nails piercing hands and feet, under the weight of the world, under the weight of a pounding hammer?
Who is this man who forgives while being crushed by their sin, who turns the other cheek while being jeered and spat at time and time again?
Who is this man who cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me”, who breathes his last breath and swings motionless from a tree?
Who is this man whose death shakes the earth at her core, who brings the roars of thunder, and tore the veil of the Temple, open for all forevermore?
And who is this man who Death couldn’t hold, older than the dawn of time, grander than the universe itself, who creates anew, who constantly unfolds?
He is Jesus of Nazareth. He is the Christ. He is the Word made flesh. He is the Light that conquers the darkness. He is the inspirational force of creation. He is the sound blaring in the silence. He is Deus Homo.
Justin Farley
Hello, everyone! I have recently published my first chapbook of Christian poems titled “A Voice in the Wilderness – A Chapbook of Poems about God”. This has been developed and polished over the past six months or so. I am happy with the final product and hope you find encouragement in the poems but also a validation that the spiritual life is not all sunshine and rainbows. We all struggle. We all have periods of questions and/or doubt. But it is the yearning that keeps us coming back for more and allows us to experience joy. You can purchase either on Amazon or on my own bookstore (it is cheaper and has free shipping on my store) and is available on the Kindle and in paperback. Amazon: KindlePaperback Inkspiration Books (my bookstore): Paperback Thank you for your support!
Mr. Crow
Mr. Crow, what do you know
that I don't, jabbering, squawking in the morning air?
Are you making sure your friends are aware
of an owl sleeping somewhere near?
Or possibly a dirty trick -
you cunning, conniving king of magic -
to lure the others away
so you can get to your secret, shiny prize
sitting on the roadside?
Eyes of charcoal,
feathers darker than the Devil's soul,
Mr. Crow you captivate me
like no other winged wonder.
Justin Farley
