God, In Youth and Age

 

Mistakes were made. Things were done.

There in the void, scattering lava-spitting planets from Hell to next Thursday,

kid must have been stone lonesome.

If He drowned his toys in the bathtub for forty days, hey, it was The Exciting Game Without Any Rules. 

Bitter little bastard, and so would you have been.

Time goes by, tick tock.

Awkward with girls, He just popped one pregnant.

Fast forward, single father with a son.

Awake at night, His fuck-ups from years ago torture Him still,

all the aggression and acting out.

Stone tablets just made it weird for everybody,

but He had to learn on the fly, no teachers, no friends.

What a smoking pile-up.

So there's His only son, chopping chairs and hope chests out of trees in the shed by himself.

"I'm gonna give you twelve friends, let you see the world, set everybody straight, do and have everything I never had!" Big smile, open arms, well? Well???

Jay turns back to planing the edge of a door. 

The flying chips remind Him of His old lava-spitting planets, most of them rocky and dead in the end, and He goes off.

Presto, Jay's in the desert with the devil, for the good of all concerned. 

Oh, He talks to the neighbors about sacrifice and salvation,

But every time He sees the hand-crafted coffee table out in the garage, 

dusty,

forgotten next to the Jarts and the lawn mower,

He dips His old white-haired head,

leans down with His spotty hands on His knees 

and whispers, "I am that I am," to nobody.

_________

for Sunday Muse #164. 

Sebastian, You're Gonna Break My Heart

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
with your sandals on the stone steps looking so good
and saying the Lord's word,
but baby, there's no shortage of fools and no shortage of wood 
to make a stake to tie my Sebastian still.

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
cos the plague comes off the ships you meet so you can
tell 'em the Lord's word,
but baby, no one knows better than me you're just a man
who can be touched and can be killed. 

Sparrows, sparrows,
if His eye is on you, make Him look this way.
Arrows, arrows,
If He loved Sebastian like me
He wouldn't make him pay so hard, He'd stop the archery.

Sebastian, you're gonna break my heart
when they leave you there all bloody in the sun
still saying the Lord's word.
Baby, let's go back to France before this day is done
but you won't listen and you never will.

Sparrows, sparrows,
if His eye is on you, make Him look this way.
Arrows, arrows,
if He loved Sebastian like me
He wouldn't make him pay so hard, He'd stop the archery. 
_________

For Day 10. 

Sebastian was used as target practice for Roman archers as punishment for spreading the Word. He somehow survived and was rescued and nursed back to health, only to be clubbed to death later. Sebastian  is the patron saint of soldiers, athletes, and those who desire a saintly death.  

Randy Tulsa's Old Rugged Cross Mega-Church

There's a door charge to get in to Right Reverend Randy Tulsa's Old Rugged Cross Mega-Church. One tenth of everything on you, as well as one tenth of everything out in the car, back at your house (both the main and the summer "cottage"), and whatever you've got squirreled away in the Caymans. God sees it all, brothers and sisters. 

Come on. Come in. If there's a cover charge, you know there's a band! Check out Miranda and the Trinity! She's got the pipes, brothers and sisters.

You make me so happyyyy
such love makes my heart soarrrrr...
Jesus is my boyfriend
I could never ask for more!

How about Miranda, let's give her a hand! What a testimony! All right now, let's talk about prosperity a minute. God doesn't want His children scrabbling around without a nickel to their name. Would YOU let YOUR kids go hungry, have to sleep outside, or drive a three year old compact? NO! God wants you to be prosperous. Here's Tiffany to talk about how tithing leads to riches!

(Tiffany does her thing. Miranda sings Ripped Jesus Is My Strength. Then Randy Tulsa takes the stage to wild applause.)

Yes, friends, God loves you, is proud of you, wants the best for you! And no matter what you've done, God forgives! Take this man over here! (Randy Tulsa whirls around and points at a pew off to the left, in front. Randy's finger is like Judgement itself.) The man he's pointing at is smeared with gore and is wearing a hockey mask. Randy thunders: Have you lived a life steeped in wickedness and sin, brother? The man looks around from behind his mask, seems uncertain, then nods nervously. Randy roars: Have you scorned the ten commandments? Have you forgotten The Lord in your life????

Hockey Mask Man begins to tremble, dropping the knife as his shoulders shake. Randy Tulsa strides with purpose down the steps to the man and lays hands on him. Randy, taken with a sudden ecstasy, sings out: Are you ready to repent, brother? Are you READY to be FORGIVEN by His almighty LOVE? The crowd is into it, swaying and shouting "Amen!" Randy Tulsa waves the nearest of the congregation into a group hug with the gore-soaked man. Randy beams and exclaims: You are forgiven, son! It's like all that sin never happened at all! You've been through the wash cycle of Heavenly Love! As an aide gets the man's address, cell number and estimated weekly pledge, Randy re-takes the stage.

But what is THIS???? Again he points like an angry Old Testament prophet, but this time toward the back of the mega-church as cameras swing around to capture it all. Heads turn and necks swivel, but no one can tell what Randy is pointing at. He resumes: Outside, the unsaved! Homosexuals engaging in behavior the bible tells us is an abomination to God! Devious foreigners slipping into our country to destroy it! Lazy welfare cheats living off of our backs, rioting in the streets! Will YOU pray with me now, brothers and sisters? Let's bow our heads while our wonderful Youth Bible Camp teens come around with the offering plates. 

Miranda sings:

Jesus has the kindest eyes
like a lifeguard watching over me
So powerful, but gentle, too
And Omg, Kimberly, he's set me freeeee

As everybody files out, Randy Tulsa stands beaming at them benevolently, thinking: Pay up, you dopes, I owe my fucking dentist a bundle! 
________

for Brendan's "doors" prompt.

and now, because I can, The Doors.

 

Contemplating the Divine

The locust trees have turned yellow,
and the sunset comes early in the evening.

Living across the street from Saint T's,
and feeling my own seasons shift,
I take to contemplating the Divine.

All that I am and am not
swirls in my imagination like leaves down the sidewalk.

How I love these poems,
and all the days and years distilled within them;

If you should see me looking half-lidded and sleepy in the wicker chair,
it is just this poet contemplating the Divine--

all the miraculous things
that I am
and am not.
_________

Soul And The Postal System

In Her wisdom,
the Goddess wraps each Soul in flesh,
like a folded letter,

and then each letter into its envelope
to come aware by degrees and be delivered--
and loved--
if not by her bearer,
then certainly by the Deity.

This is why philatelists
are the true priests.
"Six pounds, nine ounces."
Care and Time are the postage which sends each mailing out
and into the World.

Touch my body,
My Love, my darling--
my skin, my face, my breasts are the characters
of the language which is both Common
and Mine alone.

Corrupt and change my usage, as I will yours,
until we say more together
than we ever did before.

As if in a mailbag,
here we are, for the moment,
enfolded.

Carriers are the new Angels,
and though the paper of us will be read--
will fade--
will go illegible and lose meaning,
thrown away--

In the same way that each thing and creature
dissolves, even while flowing forward,
we will return,
wirelessly,
two souls wrapped around each other,
couched in our own particular and hybrid tongue,

delivered back the Goddess, who says,
"Ah! You're back,
My brave and wandering Beauties."
_______

The Circuit Rider

The land was dry that summer,

Dotted with papery stalks like widows alone in the big house fields

Under a merciless sky that sent no visitors.



I was the first to see him, you know.

We were thief and crucifier,

One standing, the other leaning from his horse.

He smiled.

"Good afternoon, Miss," he said, and serpents wound around me as if I were a caduceus driven into the sick earth,

And he the surgeon.



"Sir," I replied and dipped in what might have been a lazy curtsy

Or my usual faint disrespect.

He wore black,

With that Roman spot of white at his throat, as if doves might fly out when he spoke,

And in his hand a bible.

I stared at its closed pages thinking how like a sleeping lion it seemed,

And I,

So unholy,

Would stand no chance once he opened it--

So I wept,

There on the dusty flat,

My tears the only moisture given it in weeks.



I have never touched My Love;

Not as the hawk or the barn owl touch--

Not the way I want to.

Her eyes are the same dark blue as the coat our Daddies stripped off that Yankee officer

Just before they let him sway,

Strung like an empty seed pod over the dirt five feet beneath his boot soles.



The church does with lay preachers most Sundays,

But for when the circuit rider comes.

This was a new one, and we all went silent when he raised his hand with the scripture above his head.

I wanted to hold My Love's fingers in mine, beneath our skirts on the hard pew,

So that I would not drown when he began to speak,

But my cowardice doomed me.

He cleared his throat.

Once.

Again, louder.

Then the thunder came, from a clear night sky,

The lightning turning the walls blue, then red as the tinderbox prairie caught.



Last summer the cattle came down with a pox.

At first, only one or two died, and that's how it was when the first fat drops fell on the church roof.

 I couldn't catch my breath.

The preacher began with his text and his message.

I recalled the cattle, how more and more of them suffered and failed. Daddy had to use the horse team to drag all the carcasses far enough away to burn them.

I remember the big dark poisonous cloud across Heaven.

I looked over and saw My Love's eyes on fire--

The preacher's voice got louder and the storm raged.

Everybody shouted, spoke in tongues, rolled on the floor.

In a night become flood and fire, I turned to stone,

Heart first.



In the days after,

What didn't burn, grew;

Some did both and smolder yet.

The circuit rider set his gotten treasure on his horse

And I watched two sets of eyes look back at me as they rode away,

One blank, one deep blue.



Maybe I will follow the circuit,

Become a whiskey whore

Or go stupid with laudanum, passing out on the horsehair sofa all afternoon.

Maybe I will find him and cut his throat like cleaning a dove,

But it wouldn't undo the storm,

Would it?



Sometimes I wonder

If that Yankee officer got any closer to Heaven,

By rope,

By hatred.

I wonder if his spirit could teach a snakebit southern girl

Whether life goes on

After the heart beat stops?

________

for One Shoot Sunday

top photograph by Sean McCormick

bottom photograph by Metin Demiralay

Orleans

Note: the Cherry Road deli first appeared in my poem Creatures Of The Sea.

On Cherry Road, near Catalpa,

Is a little deli.

Joan of Arc leads her horse inside and down the narrow space between the counter and tables;

He is white and magnificent.

His hooves are loud on the tiled floor, his eyes large and brown, and he snuffles and tosses his head once

As if to say,

Yes,

I am beautiful in my blue blanket with the gold fleurs-de-lis,

A fine steed for knight or saint.



Joan of Arc herself is tired and wounded, but her gentleness with her mount never fails,

And it hurts her to tie him up out back

Near the dumpsters.

When she comes back in, the Pretty Girls having lunch there say,

Look at her,

That haircut.

Those clothes.

She smells.

Omg.



Joan of Arc cannot read the menu.

She pauses uncertainly, and the Pretty Girls giggle, just loud enough to make sure she hears.

Rod McKuen, the famous poet, owns the deli and he smiles as if he were a love poem himself;

When she hesitates, he suggests the roast beef on French loaf.

Certain breads

(he says)

Rejuvenate the soul.

Certain cheeses

(he continues)

Revive flagging spirits.

He points to each one as if touching the well-loved skin of a long-time partner,

Describing each

In gentle words that would make the hardest churchman weep.



The Pretty Girls are scandalized.

Open-mouthed, they look back and forth to each other.

He's talking to her.

Horse chick.

With the weird hair.

Omg.



Joan of Arc sheds holy tears.

Her wounded shoulder bleeds.

The drops fall to the glass of the deli case and form shapes--

St. Michael.

St. Margaret.

St. Catherine.

Rod McKuen fixes her a sandwich with the same reverence he would use in composing verse,

Then slides it on a plate across to her

Along with a cherry Coke

As if it were the Host.

He adds an apple

"For your friend."



The Pretty Girls all get up and leave,

Their matching shoes and handbags from London making them look just like

A defeated army

In astonished retreat.

_______

Fireblossom, Chosen By God, Unleashes Super Powers

Twin, Twin. Have you fallen on your head or something? This morning I awoke to find that my beloved Twin, Riot Kitty, had gotten on her blog and spouted something about Wonder Woman needing to cover up. Has she completely taken leave of her senses? Or is this simply part of the heterosexual agenda? You know, Twin, I've been prepared to overlook that about you, even though it's not what God wants, and yes, I do speak for God. She said to me, "Shay, sugar, deal with these earthlings for me, won't you? I've got mah jong!"

If Wonder Woman starts wearing some awful green pantsuit from K Mart, where does it all end?

Zatanna in a snuggie?

Batwoman (who is now a lesbian, by the way, pleasing God) in a bhurka?

Red Sonja (Ily???) in sensible shoes?

I don't think that I can bear it, and so I am taking it upon myself to save Zatanna, at least. (picture courtesy of the amazing Mrs. Mars, though I think it looks suspiciously like Mama Zen. Maybe not.) 

Won't someone save Wonder Woman?

And Batwoman, too?

Remember, some fashion mistakes can never be undone or outlived. Twin, please remember, a generation of little girls needs role models. It's Zatanna or Greta Van Susteren. Need I say more?

______________