Where Divinity Begins
We wait till we're rendered
inoperable. There's a hedge
almost impossible to crawl through, a thicket
of years, the same turf
quick-sanding
beneath our clumsy feet. Only as a bumbling hero
in an effete Biblical tale
does one draw the sword and bring down Jericho.
Only on some driven and gifted
god
can we model ourselves, lift
our evening goblets into the
sundown's
wondrous accomplishments
and drink in the myth of the
happy ending.
Failure translates to again
and how else does one become
different than, more
than before? What risk
there is
is always there, dropping like fate,
the lack of choice, a smoky lens,
a choice
through which we've recognized
all along,
our enemies in the mirror, their voices, old roses,
pressed between the pages of our
ears,
all a roar like an ocean-
I say Move
through the depths of your overgrown country
like the god you'll never be
but some weak resemblance of–
Though inside you
ravens will howl,
lacerating air with their
serrated wings– Who knows,
without the the infernal gnashing
of teeth
where divinity begins?
How to Pray
Softly at first. Like a peony
drugged in her own concoction of dizzy light,
emitting a steady aroma into the drone
of the late summer bees,
Then with the languor of autumn
leaves, that yawn into yellow, bowing your head
like a dying aster, each erect blue star,
a vibrating tine
finding the OHM of the cosmos
tuned to the blue rain, your voice–
rich as the splashy evening dress
on its stolen hotel hanger,
each lamé eyelid, a haloed shower of gold
and the night in the window,
those velvet folds, ululating chaos.
Then as the skin on the knees winces louder,
you're grappling visibly
with the minted coining of words,
sounding your nouns with their open vowels
propelled by feverish verbs–
And finally, on your feet, at an earthshaking
pitch,
shouting the clouds into laurels, webbing
the haunted heavens, priding yourself on the sheer
lusciousness of your raw supplications
for shelter, sustenance, love
no pain-making god in his good mind could resist.
