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Return Return

by David Bowden Poetry

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    Download includes the full album:

    1. In Prologue
    2. Excommunication
    3. I Do
    4. Jeremiah 7
    5. Return Return
    6. Oh God! (Psalms 61 & 13)
    7. To Cease
    8. The Libel
    9. Unity
    10. I Remember
    11. In Epilogue

    God's forgotten love story, told in four parts. This constantly moving and evolving album paints a beautiful, haunting, and challenging picture of God's relentless love and Man's unstoppable apostasy. Incorporating music into his poetry for the first time, David Bowden explores the many faces of the church as a harlot bride, a lost traveler, a disembodied entity, and a inevitably victorious body. This album spans multiple genres from acoustic folk to straight rock to digital ambiance. The poems cover joy, victory, remorse, lament, and hope. David's letter the the church at large is convicting, yet inspiring. As hard as it may be to hear, let's hope we all listen.
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1.
Creation was words before it was earth and sky Spoken construction created by tongue flung hammers, jammed into rows of enamel nails, rammed by blows through two panels of two by fours Forerunning the forests Preceding the trees Foregoing the gulfs Predating our predecessors The earth was in quake and speech was its epicenter Strung together words Sung from heavens perch An unknown language speaking a universe into birth The vocabulary of formation Nature’s first verse Seed planted vowels Buried in chanted nouns Enchanted consonants Implanted continents Third person subjects with Confirmed predicates “It is good” The affirmed sentence With terms he sent his semblance Spoke his essence into presence The entrance of presents the exit of severance Creation accepted the precepts of his utterance In the utter annunciation of his fertile discussions The discovery of humanity, the need for penance “It is very good” A life sentence Words created creation with the intent of good Creation berated the words by doing not what they should The creator paraded creation out of the word rooted woods Now all creation is gated, and the word is misunderstood Exiting conversation’s commune First, extracted from communication Then, excluded from communion Excommunication Those ancient words that animated sand to man An initial conversation with uncreated tomorrow The first solo song, unwritten monologue They grow louder in our mother’s womb The dirt of our conception The garden of our groom A concept rises in concert Concentrating its sound through centuries of trees, generations of streams, decades of seas Eden screams Her labor pains, her exaction Her beckoning, her contractions Her water breaks, her reaction Her sea section, her extraction Her christening, her transaction Her betrothal, her attraction Infants of the garden You hardened orphans of the tree You were born of an artist Spoken poetry Hear the singing soil, every gene is his Skin made through sentences, our genesis Now in our womb we must toil, from our origin we exited The fabled hidden grove Children of the Exodus
2.
I Do 07:00
My undying bride, I’ve memorized The night of our covenant, the day of our betrothal You walked down the aisle Full of faith, null of blame You even fell to your face, as you approached the alter Faltering not, but altering your approach Not above reproach, but not wanting to encroach too quickly upon the beauty of our matrimony The ceremony felt so natural The presiding night sky officiated the proceedings The assembly dressed finely as the shore, and shone as distant suns I wrote my vows on the numberless stars and countless sands Placing on hands a token of flesh, our rings of a certain size - our offering The twilight minister opened his mouth “Do you solemnly swear to carry this covenant To be one – a people and a father A breath and a life A keeper and a follower A husband a wife Through toils, strife and unseen infidelities To lands of fornication Distant nations of adultery Do you solemnly swear To follow each other there?” We declare, “I do” (Chorus) Oh bride of the garden I made a promise To be your God And make you my goddess You ask in your shame Will he love me the same, though I’ve been untrue Will he give me his name I will and I do You turned to me Our consummation consumed a nation’s army in its depth Our honeymoon stepped through death to life on dry ground Our pledge plodded into the Promised Land We prodded prodigal man’s riches into our clutches Our love was a prodigy, none could understand, but began Prompting trials through the judges Our journey became a chronic chronicle of packing and unpacking luggage When you endured pain’s touches and the way was obscured my strength allured you, but When your wealth was assured and your boarders secured you were lured away from me, into idolatry Lusting after kings Undressing for gold Bearing your chest Opening your legs For a foreign guest I witnessed it all You sprawled out for other gods Other lovers, other frauds Running from bed to bed Land to land Man to man God to god Snare to snare You ask me, “Do you dare follow me there” I declare, “I do” (Chorus) You returned to me We turned to building our dream home, roamed from Bethel Head stones turned to corners and pillows to a temple Our abode was restful Yet we began to wrestle, I guess that’s why I call you Israel For our love is a struggle You smuggled other lovers into our humble home Dressing them up in my clothes – I’m pacified It was all too real, but you both faked it – You’re gratified Selling yourself to the highest bidder – Classifieds I longed for intimacy, but you were already satisfied You ratified your dressed-up harlots Calling them Praise and Worship Religious equipment Dogmatic enlistment Naming them worthy of my name’s employment You ran after creeds and security Doctrines and rigidity Rigidly quoting your prayers You ask me, “Do you dare follow me there” I declare, “I do” (Chorus) You returned to me I poured out my blessings equally across your blessed curves and deformed torso I took you home, leveling hills and valleys so none were more so Morsels, I gave you as morals: just right. Never too little or more than enough But my portions were never enough You forced out equality For four course blessings Enforced poverty, building fraudulently endorsed armories Outsourced charity, for horse drawn chariots You traded the poor Trained for war Strained for glory Abstained from my adoring Pouring yourself into riches Adorning yourself with splendor Abhorring my selfless wishes Ignoring your rewarding as my heir You ask, “Do you dare follow me there?” I declare, ”I do” (Chorus)
3.
Jeremiah 7 06:29
Jeremiah 7 Hear the word of the Lord all you citizens of the sitting lineage. Listen all you Christians of the fitting-in traditions. For the Lord has spoken. Open your ears my heathens! Pay Attention to the condition of your religion that has taken position over your mission as my children Your buildings are rebuilding a nation of accepted sedation sedimentary demonstrations of comfortable admiration a civilization of neglected realizations neglecting to realize that all your worship’s comprising is the disgusting disguising of your commitment’s demising I brought you out of sin with the blood on my son’s skin Again and again you sought him to restore ya But your likeness is like that of Sodom and Gomorrah I have had my fill of your songs I long for your hearts I find no thrill in belonging to the screen art backlighting your hymns My ears rise to the brim with promises But I want your body’s sacrifices My eyes are blind with churches all the same, no revolutionary versions Your Sundays are a burden You hide behind the curtain of worship and feel certain that your prayers, songs, and sermons will be heard that maybe I preferred to be given your words instead of your person but your blurred worship is persistent Oh my Christians! When did Christ become a figurehead instead of a commission When did my son become flatbread instead of a mission When did his blood become imbedded in dead prayers instead of spreading you into submission When did his cross become something printed on thread instead of imprinted on your vision Your missing the point if attending, seating, listening, and repeating is the joint efforts of your effortless anointing I don’t want to disappoint all those who thought getting baptized and being churched would comprise the proper work to prove your worth but I have searched the earth and when you’re not hiding in your Sunday shirt or your Wednesday skirt you look the same as every unconverted person who flirts with the comforts of selfishness and inverted shame It does not matter if you claim my name because the fact of the matter is that you all look the same The pagans the Christians The tainted the sinless The saved and the sinners The saints and imprisoned You are in prison my children Your comfort is your bars Your traditions your cells Your boredom is your punishment and your minds are your jails Don’t you remember? I freed you with nails broke the bars, opened the cells But you just sit in your chains spend your days in an open grave I raised you from death but you live the same way Oh my unfaithful bride! I have loved you before time began to wind Behind your creation are lifetimes of preparation I created you to be mine From the Egyptians I saved you I kept you in mind From your hypocrisy I braved your commitment’s decline I traded the life of the divine for the strife of a slave I stayed by your side when you punctured mine Sent me to the grave I forgave you and your kind Generation after generation generating the same replays And today you deny me still Your lips lie with what they say your tongue deceives with great skill You fill pews to prove what your life fails to Do something more than sit still You kill me again when you refuse to begin living as I did when I spent my life with you There will be no redemption for you if you don’t do as I implore you But don’t doubt that I adore you Our reunion is overdue I long to restore you Create something more for you Relate to your core and not just your core values For you are more valuable to me than doctrines, statements, or creeds Your faith in me means more than verses or beliefs attendance or deeds whether you fail or succeed I will speed to your every need Just please Stop all the pretending Stop using me for salvation and and on it start depending Stop lending me an hour a week and hourlessly when your weak start spending time on your knees Take my power into the streets Heal and nourish the least Bless every enemy and know that as long as you are loving them and loving me There is nothing else I could ever seek Hear the word of the Lord all you citizens of the sitting lineage. Listen all you Christians of the fitting-in traditions. For the Lord has spoken. Open your ears. For this message hasn’t been spoken for years. And if you miss it when it’s this clear And let it just disappear What will be your hope when you’ve learned God’s word was sincere?
4.
Boom Clap Clap Return Return this inconsistent rhythm delivers the dissonance I wrestle with through the pounding feet and clapping palms of an out of step race that’s the skin covered, bone laden, muscle jointing soul bearing race we call human and we march to a beat that doesn’t sound right just left-right-left-right-wrong-write-song-bout-left-and-gone-right-to-fight-what’s-left-from-right-that-on-and-on-sight return return we slithered east from Eden’s bride defy-ing our natural habitat of leaf and vine for human sacrifices and crying blood – bloodied sacrifices unhuman, always divine we are the cities of Cain, building vertically our offerings of canned vegetables, much like the upward scale of cannibalistic unmentionables who’s flesh feeds corruption’s mouth return return to the first booming clap of clapping plans boom clap clap cries the scraps of lands we are the green movement who farms amnesia gardens, forsaking the beds on which the heavens used to plough now we clash with creation like these stomps with my sounds, because we all live like we won’t be kept by the grounds like we aren’t slaves to our hands boom clap clap cries the scraps of lands weeping widows of soil and sun, heaving limbs on un-cursed figs, uncured predicament, predicative predictions of what would have been “In the beginning” if the created would have listened to the booming clap of clapping demands boom clap clap cries the scraps of lands boom clap clap cries the scraps of lands boom clap clap cries the scraps of lands boom clap clap return return to beginning’s design, cries the inevitably forgettable regrettably inevitable grave, never benign - rewind boom clap clap return return to the tree, to forbid yourself of bitten fruit – fast, and feast on the afterbirth of your aborted self-inseminated root – reboot boom clap clap return return to the dust, eat and be filled as the serpent, crawl in the wombs and tombs you circumvent – rework it boom clap clap re re return – we we we were out of step with natures metronome, who clicks 1 2 3 4 5 6 then rests on the 7th Boom clap clap Return return…
5.
61 & 13: Oh God! 61: My body crumbles before you My crying and bumbling pours out like waves bowing as shores do. I lap up oceans of gasoline seas of kerosene Transforming words into sparks thus igniting a beacon of faith in the dark May I be aromatic as you listen to my enigmatic transmission my tongue burns as incense, rolling in my mouth’s insisting wet blanket making unmentionable motions I’m blowing smoke. 13: You hold me like water in open hands rushing endlessly down the channeled beds in your palms, watering the garden of your amnesia. Your hand has undergone anesthesia. You prolong the pain, refusing to seize me as a skeptic Refusing to provide antiseptic to my wounds I sing the right tunes Countless sins I refuse Abstaining from boos, drugs, and tattoos Yet you leave no clues of your existence This is my last prayer of insistence that you break through the mystics or my persistent prayers and distant stares will no longer employ this body’s assistance Sometimes I forget that I’m just blowing. 13 & 61: Smoke. 61: out the chimney in the house of your trinket may my exhalations be fragrant Naked you see me no amount of promising could instill in you a favoring Instead you need only my vow to be betrothed to you now bowing in my infancy cowering at your infinite affinity for a recanting truth for I can’t see where lying while lying at your feet gotten me to Flagrant oaths be forgotten a Vagrant’s home like a promise It won’t keep 61 & 13: Long 13: enough I’ve waited craning my neck crinkling my eyes But your disguise of darkness the 4-wall lies of your existence the fiction religion of your insistence this long distance adoption from an unseen father this emptiness I auction off to the highest bidding caller no longer will I bear the weight of your silence I can’t stand to wait for you to revel yourself to retracted eyelids I can’t keep on chanting a song about a God to whom I belong If you can’t give up a breath, sigh, or yawn for me to hold on to Much like a life that has done no wrong such innocence won’t keep 13 &61: Long 61: is the empty wall between your lips and earth’s puckered kiss but no distance will provide sufficient resistance to the ballistic sound of my crying enlistment into the ranks of your ears Years may pass without one hint of your existence but relentless to adore you, relentlessly I’ll endure your silence twilight messages I’ll massage out of the passages of my mouth spouted out incantations, blessed by my tongue’s demands pressed into hands, whispered into breaths and blown to the wind 13: When will my head and heart brain and bowels intelligence and emotion stop wresting with the fact that the words whispered within the rounds of hopeful prayers and disappointed stares at an invisible in-visitable friend are simply blown to the wind 13 & 61: Day after day sorrow borrows hope from tomorrow and the rays of today’s interest swelter the shade 13: and I have no shelter 61 (at the same time): but you are my shelter For your sake I forsake all foreign foretastes of dangers forebaders For in you and your name lies a fortune of fortitude I’m fortified in forgiveness Forged in your form The foreman of forever 61 & 13: I’m burning 13: my eyes at the wick last ditch seers wax tipped tears melting cylinders of hope: self-devouring betrothed to the smoke of my incinerated dowry 61: Hourly I crawl to you I weep on our bed of vows wetting the feathered pillows of your wings covered by steel sheets on a metal mattress My master, mistress, and fortress I rest on 61 &13: you. 13: hide in darkness. Enlighten my eyes Give light to disguise Make light of the lies of your silence Look on me! And 13 &61: Answer. 61: my one request arrest my life in your love resist the death in me today to live another one that for the rest of my days I may quest to sing the praise of 61 & 13: your name. 13: is poison on my lips though it slays me I will continue to sip the farther you hide the deeper I drink the darker my eyes the longer I sink into the death of our life together 13 & 61: For your love is never failing and this affair keeps me 13: ever wailing. 13 & 61: Amen.
6.
To Cease 05:24
7.
The Libel 03:24
"The saints are wholly bible”, thus saith holy Libel “Your idle gods are born of ink and translation’s inclination.” “Your idol of deity is forged of your idea of ideology.” “An ideal theology you’ll reap from nurture’s seed.” “But the real doxology sings from nature’s tree.” the Libel taught, “She is caught in a paradox. The guide and the guise, the law and the lies, the rules are a ruse to ruin the truth.” holy Libel bemuses good news amuses unconventional views abuses the traditional muse confuses intentional bruises the Libel I will speak, for she needs to be heard her rigged curves of language are dangerously blurred we’ve curdled milk to cubed cheeses and honey into single servings the word is surviving but not through those whom its serving the Libel’s sermon is continuing, “ the words written in testaments were never meant to serve as a test for men, but as a testimony of a man who gave his holy life for them, yet only since its been written in these hallowed words by hollow hands, about the hollowed hands of the only hallow man, have countless men been driven to an un-intentioned end: separating limbs generating fibs entertaining entertaining whims desecrating hymns by calling them his if what was written was written by him than what we have in writing we have no part in. But what we have in writing we must take part in. Instead of just leaving it in writing. holy Libel is speaking, “your service, its reeking of public speaking, public drinking, public reading. I dare to say the only reason for your service is public seeking.” the Libel is reaching, “ I’ve read your Bible, I know your god, I’ve walked your aisles, I’ve been a fraud. But then I found deep in the law, a message no word could flaw.” “I will be your God and you will be my people. A real God uncontained by steeples. A real God unrestrained by the legal. A real God not renamed by his people. A real God not relocated under a steeple. A real God. A real God. A real God. A real God.”
8.
Unity 11:41
One mountainous olive night I heard a hope song pour out like sweat drops of blood upon a martyr’s thorny brow; who knew the last wish of a dying son would be to make one where are found two and to undo the endless multiplication of multiple denominations creating crippled factorizations from fractions of a people like a pinkie faction who claims control of the whole person’s actions One rung the bell for all to be one called unity where you and me find harmony in between the endless schemes of differing things we see as disjointing because we all just need the same blood stained tree As I stood listening to my saviors forgotten prayer all the religious buildings started to stare and the steeples raised their voices, and the church bells rang their noises, and the marquees raved their choices they all sang to me the same song just in different keys, and the dissonating made me dizzy Soon the flickering lights gave way to dissipating sights. I laid down, flat and fetal, on the old wooden road. And I dreamed… I saw sick congregants congregating for remedies found feigning family values refraining from mansions now meeting in meager houses, the church took up its spouses on street corners adorning the mourning with a unified message of hope, found fellowshiping in the cozy cushions of hearts where there is never a need for a bigger building or budget because love can house the universe I saw these forsaken fortitudes of mistaken platitudes transformed into real houses of praise – now used for homeless shelters, adoption centers, rehabilitation clinics, food pantries, and art galleries filled with interracial paintings of full circle peace signs I saw denominational marquees reprieved and their metal was beat into ploughs and trowels for the new compost garden out back I saw bullion laid communion trays shipped off to Cash for Gold to get appraised and the money raised went to buy bread and wine for the lame and blind – they called that night their first Lord’s Supper I saw a body that convinced unbelieving eyes, but not by cleverly-clad argumental sentiments or intellectually-gad doctrinal prods seeking tenements, but by their meagerly-glad confessional intimate love for one another I saw millions raised for buildings used for dying civilians instead of new youth pavilions I saw apostles admitting apostasy to their 1-800 hot lines and 4 digit prisons, as they started spitting the spirit’s salve into mud mixing the medicine of Messianic blind better cream – free of charge and free of commitment I saw prophets prodding the pockets of suburbanite nonsense spending, redistributing lending to oppressed widows with widowed orphans collecting widower tears in clear cherry jam jars taking them one by one to the pearly gates of partiality parliament slowly building a monument for begotten change like a new Vietnam Memorial of forgotten names I saw evangelists being Jesus instead of selling salvation and telling everyone how to be the church instead of which church to go to I saw pastors shepherding the wounded sheep instead of bickering over budgets I saw teachers enlightening minds at Starbucks and standing up in movie theatres to speak to crying souls I saw congregations worshiping God instead of worshiping with or without instruments I saw church attendance signs replaced with mirrors, so we could all be reminded of what the church really is I saw stained glass windows shattered to make room for more doors I saw communion tables standing outside expensive restaurants, reminding everyone of the price paid for our ultimate forgotten feast And I saw the face of Jesus contently contained upon each and every set of eyes who accepted me just as I am, and upon every tongue that urged me to become holy like my God. I saw unity in the body of Christ And then I woke up I felt the warm skin tenderness of Christ’s body, though tired and worn, broken and torn, aborted yet perpetually born. I was swept up in a dream that I know could be our present reality because I’ve seen what the body was given to achieve. And with you by my side reaching into his, together we may die to the lies of what “church” is. Now we have the opportunity to be broken on the olden tree, like the given son did when he said it was done. And I know what we have to do in order to reach a communal feast. We must break our bodies to pieces to bring the pieces of his body to peace.
9.
I Remember 08:41
I remember I remember who we were before this moment I remember the shadow of ourselves now overshadowed by the shelves on which we placed our former selves I remember how each of us here placed our past in tears upon tiers of them never to be touched again I remember how we approached God hands empty plans empty demands empty like we’re supposed to be emptying ourselves on those shelves of our lives preceding this moment where, once and for all, we put to death our superficial worshipping And this Is it’s eulogy Remember with me I remember when God was idle American made an American idol Idly laid on hymn song titles Tidal waves of tidy Sunday Bridal Singers Made their way to Display Charades. We were all Masquerading Costume swingers We Wore lips like purists but we were all One day tourists of the poorest Savior Sailing War Ships of ignored trips Equipped with bulletined scripts For this Event called Worship I remember what church used to be Sit, sing, sit, sip, sit, silent, sermon then Exit from a word prearranged to a world unchanged our despair unnamed our problems deemed deranged and we were estranged in the exchange of our time and expectations for prewritten lines and explanations about guys, whys, and places that never addressed our ache for a real God I remember when worship was a period of time outlined by bulletins bullied out by the “Not this again” mentalities I remember when worship was protected by walls and directions I remember the decorations the song books the screens the long looks at my jeans the routines the bowing the closing the opening the spouting off of words and notes that never broke through the wall standing tall between us and a god who’s reality we could never recall I remember it all I remember when worship was contained by fear restrained by years of traditional rearing rules never spoken but somehow never broken we were token children of an understood system fearsome that we might become too radical to prevent our selfish intent I remember what worship was before this moment I remember how we were all under the persuasion of evasion evading any invasions of commitment, discomfort, or costly abrasions we followed the equation me + church – cussing, sex, and alcohol = salvation I remember a time when I would shout “He is alive!” and not one mouth would scream at the pronouncement it seamed no one was out, but were streaming back to their hiding places where worship’s complacent and singing’s accepted and no one is reckless enough to stand on a corner or in the corner store to sit with the homeless or out their homes front door and sing louder than a motor’s roar “How Great is our God” I remember when all of us were frauds I remember when the only form of worship we knew was what we did following motions on motionless pews I remember when praise had nothing to do with the other six days I remember when we forgot the Sabbath was for resting and the rest of the week was for working I remember when the only service we worked was the service in church When worship that was pure Did not feed the poor or Saw itself as the cure or Cared for its enemy’s needs more than yours or Found the sick, dying, and lost and with them endure I remember when worship was a chore When we all felt secure just attending but that was before we realized there is so much more than pretending But right now in this moment as the saints are gathered round and our God is present and His son takes president and His spirit’s our resident we are within the descent of the triune peasants in the tribunal land and as we all stand together repentant grasping hands in our communal commitment to clasping our plans to the eternal command of what he meant for worship and this is it our opus our openness our hope is our hopelessness in everything we used to hold as his scope for what worship is Worship is love I remember when he said Love is the opposite of getting but sacrificing everything dying, while living I remember when Jesus embodied it his body embarked from heavenly contentment becoming this tent of existence God was a servant The heavens observant to humanity’s torment Creator tormented creation tormentor And that’s the intent of this event called worship Worship is a cross Worship is a loss of everything that is not embossed with the seal of God So in this moment and every moment hereafter Our praise of God will shake roofs and the rafters Our praise will be aloof from the world and filled with laughter Our praise will ruthlessly peruse a world filled with disaster Our praise will unashamedly bear the proof of our master For here in this moment and every moment hereafter Our praise will not be contained by walls and churches alter calls and holy perches busy malls and facebook searches school halls and worldly diversions Our praise will bleed into all our excursions it will break free of stained glass and bible class it will surpass golden and brass communion passing trays to the next passive guest it will clash with standards and traditions for our praise will live worship as a mission Now in this moment and every moment that proceeds our praise will flood the streets with song shed blood for the needy and suffer along give love to the enemy regardless of their wrongs place above ourselves the least of these and with the weak be strong For we will be the worshippers the father seeks, and he will have to search no longer For Father we are your worshipers Your unworthy dancers we are your priasers your passionate romancers And now we stand before you and say Worship is not what we sing but how we obey And now we stand before you and say Worship is not what we sing but how we obey And now we stand before you and say Worship is not what we sing but how we obey And now we stand before you and say Worship is not what we sing but how we obey

credits

released April 11, 2011

All poems written and performed by David Bowden
"Oh God" feat. Taylor Walling
Drew Chancey - piano, guitar, synth, midi
Keith Ellingson - guitar, vocals
Matt Chancey - drums
Brett Vanderzee - guitar, vocals

Recorded and Engineered by David Bowden and Drew Chancey
Produced by David Bowden and Drew Chancey
Album Art by - Kyle Turman

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David Bowden Poetry Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

David Bowden started writing his first poems at 19 after an encounter with God on a road trip to Chicago. Since then he has been using spoken word poetry to exalt the Bridegroom and beautify the bride. David currently pastors a house church under and within Bridgeway Church in Oklahoma City, where he lives with his beautiful wife Meagan and cat Dexter. ... more

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