Graffiti Hymns

The Starborne Path A Soul Sermon Series (...your intro text here...)

"My Papa Is the Sun, My Momma's the Moon" My papa is the Sun - He teaches me to rise. To speak low with weight. To hold the sky in my chest and name my light without apology. My momma is the Moon - She sings me to sleep in silver. Shows me how to bend without breaking, to feel the tides before they turn, to glow even when I'm not whole. Between them, I was born - half flame, half reflection, a rhythm child measuring time in eclipses and truth in warmth.

I run through the fire, I dance in the flames, If I sabotage? Be damn reassured—I claim it by name—MINE. I’m coach and the player, I call the design, No more critic in my mind—yeah, it’s cheerleader time. I’m bold, I’m electric, I’m the pulse bleeding red, Then I turn it back blue, as rhymes flow and spread. Rivers like lifelines, currents that guide, My words are the storm, the flame, and the tide. I claim it by name—MINE. I’m the coach and the player, the alpha and omega, The servant and the master, the rule-writer and breaker. The first timer and the sager, The liar, soothsayer, the chick and the yolk, Heyoka mask off—now tell me a joke. The Hyde and the Jekyll, the smile and the frown, The president of Isis, loser baby, class clown. The fish in the ocean, the shark and the tooth, I say it like it is—no apologies for truth. Light codes direct to the saber, The sword in the airer. Flip the beat, backtrack, manuscript retract, White it out, scratch, then release—no doubt, intact. This story, my name, I claim it—make it mine. Bout damn time. Right on time. Fuck yeah, fellows, let’s claim it, let’s thrive— The fire, the flow, the pulse—we alive.

She is new. She is unseen. She is breaking open into her own light, free.

"Smoke Memory" I wrapped myself in the dark. Let it cloak me, a shroud of smoke— not metaphor, but memory. Spring came, and the house shifted again. Wood swelled, the back door stuck. I would’ve been trapped. My brother—home by chance— led me out. I never told him he saved me. Fifteen years later, smoke came again. No fire. No source. No visible damage. Just the acid of it— the way it corrodes from the inside. What happens to rotten food when it catches fire? What burns when there’s nothing left to light? I opened my pores. Let it in. Let it hollow. Was that surrender? Or was that the only way out? or a chapter I wrapped myself in the dark. Not the kind that terrifies, but the kind that understands you. It draped over me like a velvet shroud, soft as smoke, dense as forgetting. I didn’t fight it. I let it enter through the skin—open, inviting. I wanted it to see everything. Smoke corrodes, you know. Not just lungs and walls. It turns to acid, settles into the wiring. I remember that from the fire. Freshman year. The house caught, but not quickly. It smoldered, slow and cruel. Grandpa had just died with no warning. Grandma went blind two weeks later like her body couldn't bear to see without him. And the house—our house—followed suit. Spring had begun to arrive, and the Texas heat made the frame swell. That back door, swollen with damp breath, refused to open. I would’ve been locked in. Sealed like a letter never sent. But my brother was home, visiting from Lubbock. Some strange grace. He didn’t say anything heroic—just moved through smoke like it was water, pulled me to the front, and shoved us out the door. I never told him he saved me. It felt like too big a thing to hand someone casually. Like a crown of thorns disguised as a thank you. Fifteen years later the smoke came again. But this time, no flames. No sirens. Just a slow, invisible leak inside me. It smelled like nothing. It looked like nothing. But it turned my insides to ash. Not the clean kind. The rotting kind. Sour, wet, bitter. Like when spoiled food catches fire and doesn’t burn clean—just belches black. What happens to something that’s already rotten when it burns? You can’t preserve it. Can’t compost it. You just throw it into the fire and pray it’s quick. And that’s what I did. I let it burn. No one saved me this time. No front door. No brother. Just the hush of sealed rooms and the silence of acid smoke whispering: go quietly.

"Soul Nature" The soul is made of Absolute Love. Not a metaphor. Not a concept. A substance. A truth. Love is not something the soul does. It’s what the soul is. If we act in the name of Love, for Love, by way of Love, we will return to what we came from. We will find Love. We will find the nature of it. Not just the feeling. The home.

"Word Smoke" A love song in a sonnet in a tree Falling Down Down Baby cradle down down baby your street in the range river street sweeper baby I slip so you let me go Shimmy shimmy coconut—what. Listen to me proud. Light it up I take a puff pass it to you I’m Out. "Pass It" Pass it to me Now-- Light it up Light it up Pass it to me Put it out I'm out of here I'm out of there I'm Out.

A soul scripture screams, trembling but not moving; still. She is dreaming now. A soul scripture screams, trembling but makes not a sound, frozen in stillness. She is not gone; she is deep. She is dreaming underneath. A soul scripture screaming and trembling but not making a sound, not moving. She is dreaming. She is a scream with no exit a quake in a locked room a moon pulled inside out a door that forgot its hinges She is not moving dreaming.

"The Fierce Door" There is a holy defiance in choosing who gets access to your soul. This poem is not just literature. It’s a spiritual stance. The Soul selects. She doesn’t drift. She doesn’t wait for consensus. She knows. She names. She narrows. And then—she shuts the door. This is the part religion and culture often skip: that closing the door is sacred. That saying no is a form of prayer. That attention is a limited, holy resource. To shut the door is to sanctify what’s within. She doesn’t open it again, not even for emperors. Not even for beauty. Or status. Or noise. She watches power pause at her threshold. She remains unmoved. This is soul alignment. This is choosing the One that matters—the soulmate, the path, the self, the truth. This is the moment the many become one. And when the valves close— When the flow ceases— It’s not death. It’s the beginning of everything real. Let her be like stone. Let her choose. Let that choice be enough. Amen, and again, Amen.

"Dark Moon at the Midheaven" She was a dark moon rising at the midheaven,
reaching the highest point she could.
Was she trying to escape motherhood?
Run from me? Or was it a better vantage—
to watch over me,
just after she gave me life
and eighteen days later, left me. Or was it him—
my pa,
my father sun.
Papa, he likes to be called, by me. He peeks out
from the adobe and the trees
to find me
in some shaded place—
on the dirt,
in the grass,
on hot granite rocks
or cracked parking lots with ants. He finds me.
He reminds me.
I’m his.
He’s my papa. Was she running from me or from him
when she eclipsed him—
traveling up, up, up
to the height of the ecliptic?
That imaginary line in the sky
I see now in a circle
on a screen
made by a computer
trying to tell me the story. The study that was never taught,
never told.
Always unanswered. Somewhere,
someone once knew.
Before they stopped breathing,
or thinking.
Now it’s mist.
Memory.
Not mine.
No key
to unlock a door
sewn shut before the home was ever built. An unended story about me
written by two writers
hiding from each other.
From me.
From themselves. But I—
I am the future self
they didn’t imagine.
The one who remembers.
The one they made
out of love
even if they forgot how to love each other. Because that’s me.
And I am love. New moons are darkest
before the sliver.
But the day after—
a crescent moon eyelash
peeks and winks.
She’s curious.
She’s desirous.
She’s not afraid of her own light. Not afraid to shine
even in the high place
where the dark moon once rose. She is new.
She is free. No… the moon isn’t my mother.
Or is she?
Or is she me?