Gospel (exerpts)

I
Leger De Main
I have watched the white lines, spread across
The grey morning. I watched them trapeze and
Mock gravity, urging us to clap and cheer.
I have been the white line,
Looking down at the vacant city,
Free from the stringencies of self-explanation.
I have been the celestial machine
That directs its semi-prophetic gazes
Down at the city, seemingly moved by
Sleight of hand.

I remember watching them throw
Their new amulets skyward, when they embraced
A new pagan religion – chocked full of numbers
And letters: Hieroglyphs for the Modern Holy Kingdom.
They allow us to map the death of the fisherman and
To synthesize his rebirth with stunning realism.
Now our waxed-wings can fly closer to the sun,
And we know our new god is not as
Vengeful as the last.

When He says the sun will rise,
As it has always risen before, we take
Him on his word. He puts us face to face
With the doom we’ve felt approaching
But dismisses our other primitive fears.
He stands with one hand conducting
Our voices together, and with the other He
Keeps our pervading self interests a bible’s width
From too much chaos.


III
Fever Dream
I’ve surrounded myself with alarms.
Dials and buzzers – computers and other
Loud distractions to redistribute my attention
Away from the debris on a coffee table,
Things I can use to keep myself
Fixed on something.

Last night I fever dreamt a whole life,
And the visions are falling into place:
The highway finds me,
And suddenly I’m passing welcome signs
That say hello as I say goodbye.
Unconsciously I crawl through the traffic,
Knowing in some dark recess that every street light
Stands in for a tragedy and a triumph - and every
Fenced in house is a cautionary tale of some sort.

Increasing speed, thinking in time and distances,
I watch the streetlights flicker and look ahead to the lake.
I follow the yellow lines till they bend and I crash into
The pre dawn light, my headlights skimming the grass before the ridge…
What would grow where my blood fell? What living thing
Would my sacrifice nourish? And in what roll would I be reborn into?
The windshield splinters into a thousand pieces.
They are blue and green and red.
I braced myself for the pressure and the endless light
And found it was less painful than I imagined.

Then it was Sunday, and I sat at a lonely pew,
Trying to close my mouth to keep from inhaling
All the bile and spit dripping from the pulpit, but it wouldn’t work.
I heard the words and I chanted the chorus,
I learnt the songs and loaded the guns anyway.
On the edge of past and present,
I was waiting for the wind to blow me in either direction.

Join in the Parade! They were moving in circles,
Chanting and jumping, free like beasts – suffering only
The trappings of flesh: This giant tribe, this massive
Cult. We love rituals and services and words written in blood.
Chanting: The Fire At Night – The Fire At Night!


We listen for a loud voice, and look to a strong hand
For a way to release all our biblical violence.
Then, when it’s all said and done,
We reject the guilt, blend into the whole, and secretly we keep chanting:
And our sermons become pagan chants that become abattoir noises
That become nothing.

V
Old Engravings
That little weeping maid Ophelia had noticed a nervous optimism
During the Depression;
Everyone was so happy to help… there was such high esteem for the Paying
Customer.

Those journeymen’s smiles were carved in wood, tanned and leather-
They looked to the abyss for fortune, drawing a number from a top hat.
She weeps for them too.

She felt the air get sticky when she watched the sickly, depraved funeral
Progression make its way to the family crypt. She wept for the lonely corpse,
Trapped in the hardened earth.

She feared for us little insects, scraping at the mouth of the hole,
Trying to get back from these cracks we’ve fallen into.
All she could do was drop coins in our eyes and pray.

I see little boys playing banker – their mothers and fathers have
Continued enthusiasm for the status quo, because self reflection is
Un-American.

Which of our labours is this I wonder? Surely now we regret
Starving this beast – now we look back at the fervor of our greed
And the efficiency of our lust with tired lament.

I turned on the TV to watch the eulogies and let their blue static
Wash over me – this is our trial by fire. This is our last supper-
You cannibal zealots – you herd agents.

The dead heat at night gave way to quiet stasis and, barely lucid,
She walked along the main drag. Her was hair wet, and her arms full - uttering a stringent
Prayer; goodnight and goodnight and goodnight etc.

In the first stages of sleep, while the streetlights sifted through the bars, I dreamt
She was in a capsized vessel, sinking down to the end of the earth. They saw the rogue-wave coming, and watched helplessly, paralyzed with beauty and terror.
All of them reclaimed by the old tiger god.