A Lifetime Spent Forging Ahead

A lifetime spent forging ahead,

Ever closer to the raging river.

Tumultuous and wrought with fear

I approach the fjord fraught with peril.

I squint to spy a shore

The bank far too distant to see.

What awaits–Oh that is the question

Asked before, asked again eternally.

Its in the book of Testament Old and New,

Torah, Pistis Sophia, Koran among the few.

Through the ages told to look, to believe

And yes! Ye shall find what ye need,

But it is not so clear, nor has it ever been,

I can’t know what awaits on that far off shore.

Trusting there is more than what I’ve seen,

Like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s night

I must trust, I must believe through faith I will live,

For without what is left, but a story with a tragic end.

This cannot, must not be, never created nor destroyed,

I have been forever and will be forever more.

Mortal science has proven the mystics of yore,

There must be life,yes–I must live when I cross the river

As spirit abandons the bodies mortal core.

With each step I take, another step closer,

Sooner than later I will know, I will see what awaits;

Try as we may we cannot escape our human fate.

A fate long sealed by Adam’s rib named Eve

What else can we do, but trust and believe

That all is not lost, that living is not futile,

Lest we spend our days in tears as we grieve.

I refuse!  I will not grieve nor give in to hopelessness,

This by the grace of God I confess

To waste not one breathing moment in sadness

Instead to walk in the ways of gladness

‘Til my time on earth is through.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

My Spirits Journey (Tanka)

My spirits journey

Visited ad nauseum

Questions no answers

Unresolved for a lifetime

A mystery ‘til the end

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

Fraught With Danger (Sonnet)

Fraught with danger this daily walk,

As hand-in-hand we battle the foe.

Through foolish acts and foolish talk,

Into the darkness hence we go.

Faith–What faith we question still,

As answers yield no answers forth.

On hands and knees we climb the hill;

The devil tempts our mortal worth.

O’ the struggle, eternal test,

We try yet fail more oft’ than not.

Attempt as we may to do our best

It ends in sin and soul filled rot.

Yet for all our faults and feelings of loss

We’re assured of life through death on the cross.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

I Lay Prone

I lay prone before God,

Am I worthy of the gift he offers?

I have done nothing to deserve his graces,

His mercy, his saving, especially from myself.

I do not change, I am sinful as I was born to be,

As we were born to be by our father and mother.

Adam and Eve cursed me to a lifetime of sin,

Simply by their failure to obey,

Failure to obey their hunger and thirst for understanding.

This is where it all began,

The anger, the hatred, the intolerance,

This is where the eternal struggle began,

Of good and evil, Heaven and Hell, I bow before it,

Afraid of what I am and what I will become if I fail to comply.

I wander from one phase of mortal understanding to another

Though in the end, I find that I understand nothing.

I am but a grain of sand embodied in ignorance,

Destined to wander this earth searching for answers

Answers that have laid dormant within me,

But I was too frail to see.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Out of Fear

Worshiped out of fear,

Afraid of divine retribution.

One which allowed murderers,

One which allowed adulterers,

With an apology,

To be King.

You toyed with creation,

Becoming angry as a child

Throwing tantrums

When deprived of your will.

Does death and destruction,

To all but the chosen

Sound reasonable and sane?

With Lucifer as a playmate perhaps.

“Here take my servant,

Do what you will with him,

But do not touch.”

Inflicted with relentless torment,

Sores, anxiety, persecution,

Fear of death,

The game is permitted to continue,

All with your blessing,

To see if he can be broken.

Is this how mercy is shown,

Torturing those that love you?

Finding sport in war and death

Both are waged eternally,

Some with your blessing

Some without,

Either way, surely with a smile.

Sending those in your image to their end

As pawns for your amusement,

This seems to be your sadistic way.

As a final act of brutality,

You offered your son up to despots,

Torturing and degrading him until death,

All to uphold your way of life

And save the monsters which you created.

Would a kind and merciful parent do this to his child,

Instilling them with fear,

Instead of promoting goodness and love?

This question must be answered!

Faith alone does not absolve you of responsibility

For the adulterated state of our being.

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Soul Searching

Soul searching…deep and bloody,

A soul pure in its ignorance, stunted in cynicism

Bleeds to dull the pain.

This pain is not physical–it is spiritual;

Like thirst, it is teased by the eternal mirage.

Crawling through the sand, it sifts through my fingers

As sand through an hourglass is bound to do,

Parched, I search on, confused.

History held the answer…their answer for their time,

Passed on, an amalgam of what the past held true.

Each thought they were right, that they knew,

Yet they knew no more than their predecessors,

Just as I know no more than mine.

So I hunt, swallowing pieces of the puzzle;

Never sure of the truth,

Always one piece short.

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

 

Question Of God

I question God;

Not the existence of,

But the singularity of his being.

Might We not be God I ask,

Creators of this world, this reality;

All of us, the collective,

Our spirits, our hearts, our souls

Forming order out of this presumed chaos,

Though perhaps it is not chaos at all,

Rather a mysterious perfection.

It diminishes not our desire for God

Nor should it be thrown into oblivions pit.

Instead it should be sought after with fervor.

Where though, lies the question.

Religion begs us to look towards the heavens,

Drawing truth from books transcribing God through man,

Placing faith in idols and symbols,

Traveling down another’s path,

Still answers are as void as those of the godless.

Perhaps our quest has been misguided,

Perhaps we have been intimate with God all along

But did not recognize him when spoken too.

Blinded by our perceptions of the outside reality,

Ignorant to our inside spirituality for fear of damnation,

We look for what we already may already have…

I ask, couldn’t we be God?

.

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Cloudless Brilliant Sky

Cloudless brilliant sky

A perfect flawless diamond

Another world

Open to infinity

Leading skyward toward heaven

Something desired

Regardless of religion

Though some deny it

If we look deeply within

We realize that it is true

~
~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

The Lord’s Hand – A Tanka

The Lord’s hand protects

Non-believers will perish

Like brush in a fire

Please tell me how you would know

What lives in the heart of God

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~

Pondering God

Pondering of God;

This longing to find what lay beyond our living existence,

Attempts to rationalize the irrational,

Anchored with questions for which we have no answers,

This we’ve seen throughout our sordid history,

Wars fought, lives lost in the name of an invisible god,

A battle that did not end in antiquity.

Even today, preachers and false prophets command their thirsty flocks,

“Have faith, we will guide you to the promised land!”,

I am firm that they know nothing beyond that which they want to believe,

How could they, how could any man?

They are no more and no less human than I?

Irrefutable is this fact.

I harbor no ill will towards the faithful,

Their search is no different than mine except in path,

A path that may rejoin in what comes after.

For now, I take comfort that my spirit..

Always Does…Always did…And always will…Exist.

~

~~ Dominic R. DiFrancesco ~~