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My God
And if God does exist, then let
Her be mine, because mine
knows the answers, and chooses
to stay silent.
I sit with Her, listening to
records spin, watching seasons change
from white to kind of blue, from
going to never here to begin with.
We heed the sound of colors and names,
voices on vinyl that change
in key. My head drops onto soft piles of cloud,
the lap of a deity, and I am at peace.
Let Her be mine because mine
knows all the words to all the trees and
every drop of falling sky. Our speech gives
way to brass and bass, melodic ruminations.
A coffee table full of cups and cards, we worship on
pullout pews. Questions and answers, we do not say,
but on knees, I offer sacrifice. I can
do nothing but pray.
The record ends, needle scratching over and over, and
our lips are kissed with smoke and salt.
I am tired, I say. And I know my god will
sing to me.
Shape as Walls
When men take shape as walls,
It does not happen in an instant.
It is not the sort of thing that smacks you in the face,
A freshly cleaned screen door on a summer day.
It is something that takes time.
All time, perhaps. But it will not be long
Before a man decides that he can be more than a man.
He will build himself up, a monolith
Of drywall and ambition.
He will pick a shape, and he will stick with it.
There’s something about a box that lets him know
That he has more than one dimension.
And, if he must choose, it is always better to be the cage than it is the animal.
When men take shape as walls,
They forget that walls
Take shape as rooms.
And rooms take shape as houses.
And houses take shape as homes.
The Bastard of Baguio
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law my services are bound.
–King Lear, Act 1 Scene 2
To what end does my birth define me, bind
me to bark like moss, north facing.
A boy and his city, one in the same,
the unasked corruption of names.
‘A bastard,’ that’s what they all say, ‘lives on
that corner.’ He sits atop his
metropolis of mountain and watches
dark sky, a near obsidian
gathering of clouds, like soldiers prepared
for war. He leans against soft moss,
hoping high trees will be enough to shield
him from the tempest. This wind will
show him where he comes from, give him love, build
his new home in green and in blue.
She will be my mother, now, he thinks. They
will all be made bastards of her womb.