To kick things off I decided to share some old poems I wrote many moons ago. Send your poems to poetry.deertracks@gmail.com and I may just read them during a future episode. 

These are the titles of the poems I read:

From the Outside In
The World was on Fire while I Slept
Flesh of my Flesh
Kind of Blue

Sharing some more poems from my store as well as one from my good friend Fr. Bryan Wandel. I also share an excerpt from a book I'm currently reading by Dean Young titled The Art of Recklessness: Poetry as Assertive Force and Contradiction.

Poems recited:
Hangman's Rope
How did I end up Alone?
Mi Amor
When the Morning Comes
Break Me Open
A Blessing for My Godson: On Your Baptism by Fr. Bryan Wandel

Submit your poems to poetry.deertracks@gmail.com to hear them during a future episode.

My church recently purchased a camera to up our live streaming game and I thought it would be good to give it a test run to make sure video and audio were in sync and coming through clearly. Hope you enjoy this added bonus to content I've been uploading. Subscribe to my channel to stay up to date with the latest podcast episodes and check out St. Bart's Anglican Church's page for all the wonderful content they have been uploading recently. Stay safe. God bless.

Check out my YouTube channel to watch the video!

The poetic voice can be heard
In the echoes of ages past
In the rise and fall of musical cadence
In the first crack of the bud blooming
In the silent circuit of the sun
Which has its beginning and end in magenta hues

This voice is in whispering trees
It thunders from the sacred mountains
It stirs the tumult and dances in the desert
Great men learned to harness its energy
Even greater men knew enough to set it free
And it speaks to us all in rhythm and in time

The bird with its song
The prophet with his pen
Speak in words and sounds
And in the silent spaces between them
First to be heard so as to be known
To be understood only after the heart has drunk its fill

Be inspired to seek the good, the true, and the beautiful. It's all around. Thank you for listening and if you would like to share your poems (or even songs (listen to know more)) with me, please send them to poetry.deertracks@gmail.com

Poems spoken (or sung) in this episode:

Backs to the Sun
Party in Babylon
The Tide
The Bells of Lynn, Heard at Nahant by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Click here to read that poem

A sonnet, a pistol, and a Savior:
Three weapons to rewrite history's course.
The darkest of days, the sure and swift force:
One pen, one cross, and one in the chamber.
Heard in every native tongue and word-lore;
Announced in guttural groans of remorse.
Read aloud from its cover to its dorse
With each turn to drip with bitter flavor.
Better angels of our nature take flight,
And shine ethereal beauty above.
Cast out the shadows of nescient delight;
Carefully render your souls fit to move.
Men, in their songs, may recall the refrain.
Time once stood still and can do so again.
~James Robert Kibby~

Poems for this episode are:

- Holy Sonnets: If poisonous minerals, and if that tree by John Donne
- Just Another Friday by James Robert Kibby
- O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
- "Everything Is Okay" by Evan Anstey (Song)

If you would like to have one of your poems heard during a future episode, you can email them to poetry.deertracks@gmail.com

All things carved in wood and stone
Are words engraved to stand alone
Until the earth and heav'n are worn
And truer words in hearts are born

And flesh cleaves once again to bone
The human soul no more a drone
No more in sin to be forlorn
But welcomed as the veil is torn

And separated now to hone
The life within that did atone
That at the end there to adorn
The truer sons in love reborn
~James Kibby~

Thank you to Jon Hotaling of Different Woods for sharing with me (via my friend Evan) the beautiful wood carving that his friend Paul did (see the image for this episode). Nicely done!

Thank you to my friend Jen Buczynski for sharing her haiku that she wrote as part of the haiku challenge I have going on right now. 

To submit your poem to be heard on a future episode, please send it to: poetry.deertracks@gmail.com

Poems read (or song) during this episode:

"John Barleycorn" by Robert Burns
"Most Sweet It Is" by William Wordsworth
"A Rose" by James Kibby
"You Are The Ocean" song by Evan Anstey

Thank you to Evan for sharing his song and thank you for listening!

Submit your poem or song to poetry.deertracks@gmail.com to hear it on a future episode.

Poems read during this episode:

-The Invocation by James Kibby
-The Convert by G. K. Chesterton
-Past and Future by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
-Night by Olivia Haas

Thank you to George Lucas and John Williams for giving us a wonderful gift that will continue to inspire generation after generation.

May the 4th be with you!