Horizon

Read On

By Mark Bishop

I've got a list of favorite places

favorite foods and favorite artists

Where you went last weekend, no idea where your heart is

I can pick out your face in a hundred photos

see your age and who we both know

from these pages black and white I have the facts about your life

I can even know what hurt you

hear all about that thing you went through

how he did this, she said that and every word could be true...

But if I just learn where you've been I miss out on who you are
These periods of time aren't just dots at the end of a line
These sentences pronounced over actions and words
These paragraphs, these chapters sad endings and ever afters
are what capture the glory behind what's authored 

If I can talk about your life but haven't lived it for a minute

careful not to touch the sticky ink upon these pages or stepping out and being in it

What good are lists and likes and looks

because people are novels not textbooks

When the Stars Seem Silent

By Mark Bishop

On a starless autumn eve in a graveyard at rest beneath the shroud of darkness sat a maiden, fair, and sorry for life's toll

She mourned for life cast too soon into yonder field and stoney bosom

Time, anxious to leave this piteous haunt hastened onward until the moon shown bright above the leafless trees and cast it's glow on every quivering tear

They fell from beauty and smote themselves upon the sod

'round the corner of the sepulcher at which the maiden wept

a ghoul waited in silence enchanted by this twilight dirge, this fount of crystals

For a long hour he stood and stirred not as the maiden cried

And all that was dead amongst his crooked limbs and gnarled flesh yearned for life

He shambled forward startling his midnight guest

She gasped and cowered backward

Her form, pale as it was awash in the warm lunar tide became frozen and ivory

The ghoul stopped. And spoke softly.

"Tell, what sorrow spurns sleep and bids even the night to suffer broken hearts?

Perhaps two may bare more patiently the afflictions of life."

These words seemed spoken by the darkness itself, for surely the tattered lips before her were long since bled of such kindness

And yet his gaze from gentle jaundiced eyes extended to her the same offer

Seeing that, like her, he was well acquainted with death and suffered still under its heavy hand

She replied to the darkness and added to its depth

"Here lies the body of my father, his soul not yet accounted for

Perhaps the stars can tell but tonight they hide

how can hope be such a small light? such a distant thing not radiant but flickering... and almost gone"

Her words struck the ghoul where his heart should have been for he had been a father

and he had left a son

and he would come, and cry, and break his soul against the walls of stone and lose his voice among the rocks

"My dear, there is pain so great not even the stars dare answer,

Even the watchman of the ages cannot hold back the night.

But hope,

hope is like the moon,

It shall rise and show most brightly on the eve of your despair.

It harkens you to daylight and reminds you of the sun."

Dead Weight

By Mark Bishop

Dozens of prophets and laws and psalms

Wrapped in 400 years of dust and tears keeps me low to the ground as I walk around

Wondering who is left for me to trust?

Oh God have you deserted us?

You spoke of redemption! You said we had hope!

But the days linger

Our oppression grows stronger

And I think I would rather be dead

Wait

A star with radiant tail wreathed high above this barren land.

It is so far, oh that it would but come

That such a brilliance would not so far off stand

A chorus

A melody more beautiful than all the songs of men

I dare not gaze upon this host

I fall on my face and then

"I bring you good news of great joy!"

He spoke about a baby boy

A little life in a world of death

A hope which for centuries had gripped our hearts keeping darkness at bay

But seemed until now swallowed up like dying star on a silent night.

Could this be the Messiah?

Our King, our help, our deliverer!?

With such a host and proclamation of joy the world has never know

Yes this must be the one to come and sit upon king David’s throne.

But oh right now he's just a babe

I hope I live to see him save

Once for all this broken race

Until then

Even the dead

Wait

Jesus Paid it All

Moments Forever

 by Mark Bishop

Rhymes without rhythm
Melodies without music
Entreat the ear but themselves betray that there is something more
So this beauty

These moments haunted by longing
Like a dream too soon discovered to be nothing more than fiction
The joy is real yet flees too swiftly

Would it but stay
Would it but rest with my soul
And cease forever this weary chase

To capture to have to hold
To die to wilt to lose

A cage is no place for freedom and grace
Nor would I fetter beauty

Though it pains me to know their lack
And in their absence long I wander
Still they visit when they choose
My tired heart grows ever fonder

The Happiest Day