Tuesday, January 28, 2025

fear of/ god is Change

I’m willing to find god in plenty of places

Or at least to cherish the words of plenty

Or maybe to allow the fear of god to be instilled in me

And certainly to instill it in others


For example I instill upon anyone

The fear of leaving the dryer lint in the catch

Major fire hazard you should remove religiously

So as to save us from burning hell


I also return to citrus in the metered

Pattern that one might dip back to the Bible

If it had been a cornerstone that faded into the shadow

Moonwalked round the corner quietly

I taste a dry juiceless verse and cast aside

Until the brightness surprises me the phrases land 

I confit a salmon with mandarins and rise up 

Out of my chair lifted by a light and an angel

Chest first head back neck bared 


I never read the Bible but I did take a religious studies course

I struggled through Interior Castle, falling asleep skimming

Stammering in class but on some level I got it

If you spend time world building take your interior whittle it into

A figurine then use your best storytelling to give the figurine 

A life and an arc you can give someone else comfort and confirmation


Then there’s pop songs are they not the cutest flip it reverse it hymns

A psalm a dirge letting us know that dance sex and love

Are to be praised and sometimes the break up is unfathomably holy

A waking life sudden separation from a union we considered godly

What is for me will be mine if the love is real but it ends

Then let the grief-rage be my never-ending worship and I’ll dance myself clean


Speaking of world building

It was just Saturday, July 20, 2024 and by god

God is Change and Ms. Octavia was

Of course

Correct about the president and the fires and the fear

But I haven’t finished reading Parable of the Sower because 

The truth is scaring me before bed and I keep

Sprinting around decrepit parking garages in my dreams

Screaming for some kind of god to meet me at the gates

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