COULD I?

Not a cloud in the sky.
Who’d not wonder why?
But Noah built a boat.

No sign of a plight,
No water in sight,
But Noah built a boat.

And through the task ‘cross many years,
Perchance through mockery and tears
Noah built a boat.

Would I?

Who doesn’t like to think they’d be like him,
Not giving in to the devil’s taunting whim?

Could I?

Stay the course through toil and travail?
Stay the course sans worry of fail?
Not in and of myself;
Not with God put on a shelf.

Dear Heavenly Father, I need Your hand upon my head, for of myself, I’m limited in what I’d do for you, but in the Holy Ghost I’d find your power. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

                --Monty Wheeler

THE GUILT

With naked soul, she came in utter shame

for guilt has ways to win;

sans Jesus there's no chance to run

the guilt from deep within

There's those who'd say God's not the way

for God does not exist

and there is naught of Life's big book,

no names are on a list.

Strip down thy soul and give thy whole

to feel thy spirit soar;

ye'd know He's there; He's everywhere;

there's urge to want Him more.

Then back to guilt, that damning thing

that will destroy God's child;

it yields to naught but Jesus' blood

so we'd be reconciled.

Stripped of pride. she stepped inside

a world outside herself

and closed her old life like a book;

it's forever on a shelf.

TREE OF FAITH

He told the woman, 

“Your faith has made you whole.”

Dear Heavenly Father, 

let that same faith fill my soul.

The Bible’s about faith in God above,

who He is;

                    who He is to me,

It's all about faith or lack thereof;

from beginning end,
                                  and I pray,

Dear Heavenly Father, help this seed

of faith grown into a giant oak tree. 

©2019 by Monty Wheeler

SALVATION'S SONG

Let us come—and boldly so—

To the Throne by grace.

Jesus lit the path we’d walk

To that eternal place.

The Son of God, the Son of Man,

The one whom we would shun—

Cried out in His disgrace, “Forgive!

“They know not what they’ve done!”

Salvation’s start from that pure heart

Still calls to everyone.

And just as then, in these sad days,

Many elect to shun…

A rich man’s idol shines of Gold;

A poor man’s troll is wood,

But Jesus is the same for all

Who’d claim His name and blood.

It started on a wooden cross,

Then in that upper room,

The Pentecostal fires would rage;

The Holy Spirit’s come!

Long before, it had been writ,

Told in prophesy,

God would pour His spirit out

Upon all flesh—that’s me.

I ran as if a small, scared child

From some abuser’s hand,

A lifetime spent in running from

What I’d not understand.

I taunted, mocked and called them names,

Fools and hypocrites.

I laughed, but felt that laughter sink

Into the hellish pits.

Yet God would lead by lock of hair

Or tugging at my ear

Like a spoiled child might go

To the corner’s chair.

I couldn’t know He led me so;

I guarded my heart there.

But Pentecostal fires will burn

In Full Gospel’s atmosphere.

Somewhere in some proverbial sea,

I floundered helplessly.

The devil pulled but Jesus lifted;

O, sink or be set free!

“God!” I cried, “please take my pride!

“Before I sink into the tide!”

Something gave in my blubbering wave;

He washed me from inside.

Few would know how changed winds blow,

For dark are secrets held

When doors from the past fly open at last

To salvation, as He willed.

And thus begins Revival’s winds,

First inside of me.

Perhaps the Good Lord has some task

To set that tempest free.

If I’d still breathe upon the day

God showed to Joel back then,

"Dear Lord, I’ll pray that as You say,

I’ll dream with those old men.”

©2019 by Monty Wheeler

House Divided

No more “One nation under God.”
And like sticks will break one by one

We fall as a nation divided,

For separated, tis easier done.

We shall fall like some right-field fly ball

Into some barbarians’ abyss.

Yet some will cry, “You lie! You lie!

“You can never speak of this!”

And yet…the future’s already told;

Our future’s history’s there

In the Bible’s Revelations,

And this nation’s there nowhere.

What hope have we but to prolong our fate,

And for a time stand bold and strong?

What hope have we when—bitter—we fight

O’er the simplest right versus wrong?

As a sea would part, we’re divided of heart,

And a devil’s chasm opens wide.

A cloven hoof? Or a staff and rod?

And each condemns the other side.

United we stand. Divided we fall,

And partisans divide us all.

Quicker they bring this nation’s end;

Quicker we come to Judgement’s call.

©2019 by Monty Wheeler

A FOOL AND HIS WILL

How easily a fool doth see

Like blind men walk along

How deep and dark the fool’s abyss

When all he thinks is wrong!

I—happy—walked along a path,

Mislead by many signs.

I lied to me and all who’d hear,

“This path’s of God’s designs.”

I so believed—or wanted to—

That in God’s will I merrily skipped

But worlds collide where “real” and “lie”

Leave sweet fancies ripped.

There is no fancy greater than

Believing God has led,

Then to find the deceiver’s mind

Was always in my head.

“Liar!” I cried of self,

And yes, I lent an ear.

I’d walk the roads named Will of God

But they lay “over there.”

I whispered lies in my own ear,

Believed the fantasy

For all the while I lied with that,

“I know God talks to me.”

“Now what to do?” I asked of God

In poem of fervent prayer.

That soft, still voice ne’er spoke to me;

God’s will lay “over there.”

Would motive be where I went wrong?

Did I try bartering

With praise to Him?  Forgive me, Father,

I’ve sinned against my King.

Perchance, as Eliphaz has said,

“He’s caught the crafty wise.”

I met my dark in night of day

And groped with night’s blind eyes.

Thus he cries, “Behold!” to Job

And, “Happy is the man

“Whom God corrects in chastised bruise

“Then heals.”  He always can. 

I walked a lie and wondered why

God’s will lay “over there.”

I walked in praise expecting trades

And made my sinner’s lair.

I woke to sun; the world still spun;

The Good Book lay near by.

If God would slap the sinner’s hand,

He’d kiss the tear-stained eye.

O, to seek His will and way,

I must have humble brow

Not thinking what He’ll do for me;

It’s faith.  I know that now.

©2019 by Monty Wheeler

THERE COMES A DAY

I lay mine kiss upon thy brow,

Once smooth but wrinkled now,

And as thy soul takes Heaven’s flight,

I hear your solemn vow.

We’ll meet again in Heaven.

Thy body’s naught but an empty cup

That you no longer fill;
Lids to thy empty eyes raise up
But not by a once-strong will.

They gather round us, all of them,

All your friends and kin.
I brush gray hair from your blind eyes
And cry all o’er again.

No I’m sorry or If you need…

Consoles the wounded heart;
I need you more than ever now.
Oh, why did  you depart?

Until we meet again in Heaven…

                        --Monty Wheeler

THE MIDNIGHT HOUR

The preacher spoke of the midnight hour,

The zenith of old Satan’s power,

When things unseen are always mean

And nothing good can thrive.

Satan cloaks the eye and soul

To lead the blind with mal control

Then cackles at the hideous cries

Until the dawn brings light.

But darkness hath another veil,

Exact in each minute detail

To the midnight hour’s fears;

I’ve walked that daylight dark.

In broad daylight, inside the mind,

A dread unease, yet undefined,

Gives in to Satan’s unholy grip

On the struggling soul.

The devil hates to lose control,

Not because he respects man’s role;

He cares naught about the man;

He wars with our God on High.

The preacher spoke of the midnight hour,

That sleepless time to cringe and cower,

When demons taunt the mind,

And they will follow past the dawn.

But the Good Lord says, “I will give you rest.”

And He has answered each request,

When I have—earnest—sought in prayer

Release from the midnight's spawn.

                                    --Monty Wheeler

THE TIMES TO COME

The dying and the dead

Lay littered o’er the Tribulation’s red

Of poisoned rivers flowing blood of persecution.

Three sixes feed the hungered poor;

“Want” spreads far and wide.

O’er the public intercom,

They mock the cries of the child who died

For its mother’s indiscretion.

But naught is placed on a baby’s life

For countless fall to the surgical knife,

And no one cares, and no one hears…

But God.

 Under the rule of the Unholy Three,

The Great Deceiver, the beast

And the one who paved the way,

Death shall fall to all who oppose,

And those once crying, “Cease oppression!”

Press down the thumb of taut control;

One after another dead martyred roll

Into the pit.

They'd’d promised “Stronger together”

For a world but weak’s the tether

That binds the rule of the Unholy One.

Countless others have already gone!

They’d disappeared, those staunch believers;

The sky had glowed with great white light.

Father, son, sister, brother,

Daughter from her loving mother,

All separated one from the other.

And left to wander in the Rapture’s ash,

They will ponder and they’ll wish;

All those who had doubted and those who’d postponed

Suddenly wish their sins atoned.

 Yet even in the years of terror and trials,

God, the Father, still rules all.

And He has promised…

Then rising from the ashes,

New believers stand against

The evil institution.

With the Gunslinger’s cry,

“Kill if you will but command of me nothing!”

They bow to none, not man nor beast,

And not to the devil, himself.

For it’s been writ…

God will bolster with His hand,

Those who dare to stand

Against the dark Commander in chief

Who comes in the night as killer and thief.

Somewhere in the years of the blood,

Jesus comes for those who stood

And rewards them with redemption.

Though years of needless suffering.

“O, Lamb of God, I come. I come.”

--Monty Wheeler

GRAMMAR TO WIN A WAR

Let’s solve the problem of race wars

With a grammar rule.

Now come with me for a moment;

We’re going back to school.

A noun can only be a thing,

A person, or a place;

An adjective that walks with it

Will give the noun its face.

The adjective rules o’er it mate

And identity,

So I put limits on myself

By describing me.

If I say “white” to modify

The Christian as the noun,

I limit and define my God

By some earthly crown.

But I—by the blood He shed for us—

Am my Father’s own.

Thus I put the Christian first

And followed by skin tone.

Let Christian be the adjective

Defining any race,

We would see a new world peace

Sans bigotry’s disgrace.

And think, ye friends of many colors,

We all are equal souls,

And all lives matter in a time

When God holds all controls.

We’ll be the nouns of every color

With a Christian adjective

That well defines and shapes us all

In Grace that’s His to give.

                        --Monty Wheeler

*This piece comes as inspiration from a pastor in Texas and his sermon I happened to hear on the radio while driving. I missed his name and I out-distanced the signal before the end of the sermon but I love his message in its pure simplicity.  I can only hope I got it right.*

THE GREAT OUT-POURING

Like waters, nations rise to fall.

As nations answer Satan’s call,

Naught might live in a dried up flow

Of a nation lost

Where politicians, like the buzzard,

Feed on the decay of a nation’s heart,

Telling man that they have a plan

To save

Then set themselves apart.

And foolish man—

Too arrogant to see his fate—

Perchance has waited far too late.

But then perhaps…

One hope still lies—the only one—

In the Holy Ghost revival.

Hope for our eternity’s

In those who find revival.

With hands raised up to God on High,

Those who believe send up the cry,

“Let us know revival!”

In the great out-pouring of the Holy Ghost,

Those who oppose will not stand

Against the Mighty One’s command,

And we shall find revival.

It comes.

Begins, perhaps, with a single voice

And sweeps like a wave or ocean’s tide

O’er a sunbaked shore

Through one church, a town, then nation-wide

And thus begins revival.

Those who heed deceivers’ lies

Cannot ebb a river’s flow,

Cannot stop the winds that blow,

Cannot stem the ocean’s tide

As revival lights the darkest waters.

Dried up rivers rage and oceans swell;

“Hosanna!” rises from the well

Of those who see the tattered veil,

And Jesus says, “I come.”

Lord, I pray, in this dark day,

To be washed in Your Light of revival.

Amen.

                        --Monty Wheeler

TEMPTATION'S EYE

Greater men than I

 Have found dark favor

In temptation’s eye,

And Satan laughs at the fall and folly,

When time and again

Man falls to sin.

Hear that cackle?

Insidious glee.

I’ve heard that laugh in restless slumber,

Where darkness closes in

And seven spirits more add to the number

Feasting on my sin.

And I’ve cried, “Help!  I’ve fallen,

“And I can’t get up!”

But make no mockery

For the fall from grace

Into Satan’s embrace

Is a terrible place to be.

And pride keeps the jailer’s key.

Does not matter where man lives,

In wealth or pauper’s penury,

The fall from grace might well be eternity.

There is no, “Onions, cheese,

“Hold the mayo, please,”

 When time to swallow pride,

And believe, ye, me

It won’t go down smooth as summer’s tea.

But somewhere amidst the tears,

Amidst the fears,

Amidst the seemingly senseless rambles

Of words I never knew,

The Holy Spirit opens the door,

Sweeps out the pride like sweeping the floor

And grace fills its place once more.

Thank you, Jesus.

                        --Monty Wheeler

A HUMBLE POET'S PEN

I’d, humble, walk the narrow path

With Jesus, Savior, Lord,

And by His gift, I’ll praise Him with

The pen as my bronze sword.

I cannot sing or carry tunes;

No music can I play,

But God has blessed me with a gift,

A talent, so “they” say.

(And onward, Christian Soldier, write

As going off to war,

For God’s salvation set thee free

To walk His Golden Shore!)

I’d wield a lowly poet’s pen,

Not out of duty’s call,

But out of Love for Jesus Christ;

He is great, and I am small.

So if my pen—His gift—is in

Accordance with His plan,

I want to share my God with His

Salvation for all men.

            --Monty Wheeler

A PRAYER LIES THERE

There waits a prayer everywhere;
there waits a talk with God,
and ask me why I'd pass it by
with just a cursory nod.

There waits a prayer; it's lying there
like a fresh picked rose.
And would I pause my busy day?
to bring it to my nose?

There waits a prayer and all God's care
like a heads-up penny,
and how much richer I shall be
with prayers that count to many.

                        --Monty Wheeler

UPON THE SHORE

Of lovers’ fights she thinks at night

And ponders on her own sad plight;

She walks the way shunned lovers will

When given naught to love but still

From loving him, her heart shan’t sway,

But lonely lives both night and day.

In love or lust the swoon’s the same,

The flutter’d heart, the whispered name,

But one shall die when passion’s fire

Would rage to ash, leave naught but ire

In lovers’ fights and wants to stray,

Then lonely lives both night and day.

She walks along the shore and sand,

Wondering why he cheated and

What’s a jilted lover do?

An angry sea of storm-tossed blue

Invites her but she stops to pray

For lonely living night and day.

                        --Monty Wheeler

*a varied refrain in the Stave Stanza where sestets built of couplets use the last line for refrain.

LET MERCY RAIN

Now I lay me down to weep;

I pray, perchance, for rest in sleep,

Where demons lurk beyond the dreams,

And stark reality's thin, it seems,

Where fears seem sure to win the fight.

How glad I am for cloak of night

Where no one sees the salted tears

Born of way too many years,

But then I think of Calvary,

The place of skulls where tears flowed free,

As Jesus died. Yet he would rise

And come to stand before their eyes.

While nightmares of my toil and tares

Play in midnight’s wide-eyed stares

Sleep would linger as a tease,

But granting no repose or ease.

Until I pray. “My God,” I say,
“Let Your mercy rain today

“And peace come unto me. Amen”

In faith, I close my eyes again.

                        --Monty Wheeler

INNOCENCE (KISSES LIKE THE WIND)

KISSES LIKE THE WIND

Unlike the wind, a fleeing ghost,
That first kiss hangs upon its host
A tingle that should ere remain
In sometimes pleasure, sometimes pain.

Lay soft thy lips on virgin cheek
That burns of blush the innocents seek.
And lo, upon emotions’ crest,
Lips draw away and to the best,
For in that virgin kiss hides well
The secrets of some lovers’ spell
That would be known, but not to thee
Of lovers’ immaturity.

And yet forever and a day
Unlike the wind's temporal sway,
The memories of first kisses stay,
But like the wind, we’re blown away.

                             --Monty Wheeler

TO THE EDITORS

To every “ed” who’s stretched in mind

Who’s had to fly outside the box,

Who’s bit a tongue in speaking kind

Of words unorthodox

‘Tis torture in that stretch;

Machines ne'er did so much.

Those dread devices with the cranks

Can only stretch by touch

‘Tis mind o'er matter, thoughts to scatter

On raging desert wind.

O, ye, Eds, come chase our storms

Until our stories end!

We'd write to spite and write to please

And write to make ye think,

And giggle, we, as we’d sit ye

Nigh insantity's brink.

‘Tis bitter sweet that stretch ye'd meet

On verbose prose we’d write,

And on we’d type into the night

to lend ye eds a fright.

But dearest Eds, to all of you,

We’d fret not of your stretch;

The tenebrous mind can take the pain

That eds so often catch.

                --Monty Wheeler

MINE HUMBLE PEN

I’d, humble, walk the narrow path
With Jesus, Savior, Lord,
And by His gift, I’ll praise Him with
The pen as my bronze sword.

I cannot sing or carry tunes;
No music can I play,
But God has blessed me with a gift,
A talent, so “they” say.

(And onward, Christian Soldier, write
As going off to war,
For God’s salvation set thee free
To walk His Golden Shore!)

I’d wield a humble poet’s pen,
Not out of duty’s call,
But out of Love and Faith in God;
He’s great, and I am small.

But I believe in altar’s prayer,
And promises He makes;
Perchance He’s chosen me to share
In spite of my mistakes.

Thus, if my pen and talent’s in
Accordance with His will,
I’ve want to share my God with all
In honing gift and skill.

            --Monty Wheeler

REAL COLD DAY

She walked a winter's day and--well?

‘Twas a real cold day in Hell,

For all around were shattered dreams

Like shards of ice from frozen streams

Where once flowed life’s eternal spring—

Forever dies, a fragile thing.

"Jesus loves me,” and she’d know"

That He walks where ere she'd go

And lo!  upon horizon's brow,

That wrinkled line twixt then and now,

Hope from God that now dim light

Will one day shine so full and bright,

But she knows, not, how it’ll be

One tiny candle lights a sea;

All she needs is faith to stand

On bedrock of The Father's land.

                       --Monty Wheeler