waiting for god knows what: a poem by Leo Hartshorn

Where is god when you need him?
Lost in traffic and won’t ask for directions?
Too self-absorbed in all those praises
arising from around the world to notice me
killing time in the alleys of my patience,
sitting nervously with angst in my pants?
Maybe he’s so caught up in finally putting an end
to war, famine, hunger, disease, death, and destruction
that he doesn’t have time for my petty petitions.
Or could it be that the god of nuclear physics
has forgotten me amid all the facts and faces to remember?
Possibly I have slipped his mind or it’s the onset of divine Alzheimer's
or a just a case of old age; god is getting pretty old, you know.
Probably walks with a cane, needs a hearing aid, has back problems,
forgets where he left his compassion last night.

It’s not like I haven’t had to deal with god’s senility before.
Waiting on god, tapping my foot, drumming my fingers,
humming a tune, glancing at my watch, yawning,
marking another day off on the crooked calendar.
But this delay is getting old, as old as god,
lost on the back roads of my heart, caught up in his perenniel
“big agenda” items that never seem to get checked off the list,
scratching his hoary head trying to remember something……..
Oh, yeah, me, over here, in the silence, forever waiting,
on this bleak landscape beneath a barren tree
like Estragon waiting for god knows what

Burning God: an old poem by Leo Hartshorn

flood my soul, O burning God
with light eternal shining brilliant
brighten my spirit against the darkness
that covers the world like thick tar

open the windows of the eternal
and blow a fresh wind across my face
that I might breathe in deep
the sweet air of freedom

as I live in the autumn of my days
cause my eyes to see the spring of life
fresh, alive, vibrant with color
dancing in the breeze of the Spirit

feed me with the bread of wisdom
and I will break off a piece and share
with others the food of my God
Baker and Maker of light

A Love Once Past: Poem from the early 70's

Love was once a still blue moment
Pasted to my mind like a catalog of iridescent colors
But time stole the colors from my eyes
and has turned them into gnarled tumbleweeds
blowing in the desert wind


The hurt was etched into my body like a sailor's tattoo
A mistaken love has left its scar upon my tissues
Its sting lasted the morning and grew from within
to eat at my consciousness, for what seems an eternity

Pregnant with thoughts of self-condemnation
I searched for the truth, but the tongue of life
found only the bitter taste of a love gone by,
still echoing its melody in the caverns of my soul

But at last the echo is fading and leaving a hollow inside
The question begins to haunt me
Should I try to fill the deep hole of a love once past
or go on living, molded to a dream?