Saturday

After Gods, The Floods

In the hour that I first knew
Jesus built new and improved voids
to measure his levels of devotion,
I called him and we got high
in ways our bodies couldn’t atone.
A portent pressed so close
to the backs of our eyes
all we could see spilled out,
trickled down to our toes buried
in saw-grass swaying like prayer-fans
stapled to popsicle sticks.

I made him black coffee before noon,
Jamaican Blue Mountain, 8.95 a pound
at the strip mall on South Avenue.
His upper lip tried not to crimp,
his hands tried not to shake and I smiled

because my days are cherry days,
mostly. He called me apathetic,
said I drank through a war and slept
through a revolution once.
I know it must be true, I know there was one
because when I wake up after drinking
it feels the same as when I don’t.
He said that he wakes up every morning
and throbs and sometimes, so do I;
but I know they are not the same aches,
so when he said that I set my face
and pretended to look empathetic

when all I really want is winter-
the time back spent in an unfinished attic
with Rachel, our lips ringed with her mother's
kosher salt and drinking margaritas;
our grace unlaced, a white flag shaped
like a pillowcase defining our surrender,
our silhouettes blushed behind the pulled shade.

13 comments:

Em Meyer said...

Very nice "hammer and tong" work. I do appreciate your unapologetic honesty. Thanks for stopping by to see me.

Ed Maskevich said...

Very nice indeed. Your thoughts and views are of great interest to me.

desert rat said...

Wow, there's such a flood/avalanche/abundance of words here, I'm going to have to come back later to absorb more of it. Very cool poem. And quite the assortment of freaky cool pictures on the side there, too. Thanks for stopping by ME2.

rel said...

With Hammer And Tong...The LetterShaper,
Your words flow out from a place deep within, comfortably.
thanks for stopping by and commenting.
rel

paris parfait said...

Thanks for your comments about my haiku. Yes, your poetry here is "grittier," as you said, but fascinating. I appreciate the directness of your poem.

Anonymous said...

I have much to read on your site, but what I've seen so far has already gripped my very being.

Thank you for coming by my blog and your kind words.

iamnasra said...

What made come here so late...Loved your blog but its beeing in the heart of your feeling is what had touched me most

CoralPoetry said...

Hello, Lettershaper,

Thank you for calling at my blog. You have a wonderful name but, wow, your profile is making me dizzy. I can understand why you changed your name, but not the profile pic. I liked the old one, as plain as it was! I shall return to your blog to re-read your wonderful poems. I have been reading your poetry for quite a while and have noticed many changes just recently implemented. I don’t think the alterations will have the effect of pulling a discerning audience, if that is your aim. Your poetry spoke for itself. Now it is suffocated by extraneous frippery. I am having the same problems and will rectify this by splitting my blog three ways into three separate categories – poetry, art and music.

Many thanks,
Coral

Anonymous said...

Thanks for dropping by and commenting, very nice to feel not alone out here in the webbed world! And double thanks, for it enabled my discovery of your words which I'm enjoying... and I've put a link on my blogroll. Too cool...

Here's me:

http://phoenixwolfray.com

Hobbes said...

If only we could evade the nightmare of history by not awaking to it.
Interesting poem.
Thanks for stopping by the Ex-Pansi Files.

Fabrizio said...

Your poetry deserves always a visit. I like the unusual point of view you create. It's just too common to read about flowers, sun, love, while you make people think.

And this is so good.

Ciao

List with Laszlo said...

Nice work, thought provoking, definately not run of the mill. I would have made Jesus a different coffee though :)

diana christine said...

i love reading your words and then coming back later to feel my way through them again...