Nov 2013
at the end of your ten day meditation retreat
you got in your car drove thirty peaceful feet and ran over a bird .
splayed its holy guts on the pavement like god
finger-painting
*******
across that deep breath
you were holding the way your mother held her first born .
you , thank goodness , were torn from the bible the day before they burned it for the verse about dancing to tambourines .
once you saw the blood of christ on a knife carving redwood trees into church pews .
now every sunday morning you hear glaciers melting and you cry easy
as a one night stand never ever is
when you see the feathers in your rear-view mirror scattering like prayers
searching for a safe place to land .
hold me to my word when i tell you i will leave today ,
catch a bus ticket west just to stand in the center of your highway
blocking traffic ‘til every feather’s answered .
i’ve see too many prayers caught in the grills of 18 wheelers and folks like us
have shoulder blades that rust in the rain ,
but they’re still g sharp whenever our spinal chords are tuned to the key of redemption .
so go ahead world pick us
to make things better .
we’ve been building a bridge through the center of this song since Mother Theresa replaced the walls of her church with the weeping cries of calcutta’s orphaned ghettos .
you wanna know what the right wing never got ?
we never questioned the existence of god .
what we questioned is his bulldozer turning palestine into a gas chamber .
what we questioned is the manger in macy’s
and the sweatshops our children call the north pole .
what we question are the sixty swollen lashes on the back of a girl found guilty
of the crime of allowing herself to be brutally ***** .
what we question is the idea of a heaven having gates .
silly .
have you never stood on the end of pier watching the moon live up to her name ?
have you never looked in the eyes of a thief and seen his children’s hungry bellies ?
some days my heart beats so fast
my ribcage sounds like a ******* railroad track
and my breath is a train i just can’t catch .
so when my friends go filling their lungs with yes .
when they’re peeling off their armor and falling like snowflakes on your holy tongue .
god collects the feathers .
we are thick skin covering nothing , but wish bones .
break in .
you’ll find notebooks full of jaw lines we wrote to religion’s clenched fist .
yeah , we bruise easy .
but the sound of our bouncing back is a grand canyon full of choir claps .
and our five pointed stars have always been open to the answer
whatever it is .
i know david argued with the chisle .
i know he said make me softer
when those tourists come looking for a hero
i want the rain to puddle in my pores .
build me holy like that .
build me a kite flown out a bedroom window at midnight
the day freedom set its curfew to 9:11 .
my heaven is a snow globe .
the blizzard will always be worth the touch of your hand ,
shaking me awake like a boy taking deep breaths
all the way down to the dents in his shins
like he’s building a telephone from a string and two tin cans .
he knows god’s number by heart .
he knows it isn’t listed in any book .
look me in the bull’s eye ,
in the laws I broke and the promises i didn’t
in the batteries I found when the lights went out
and the prayers i found when the brakes did too .
i got this moment and no idea when it will end .
but every second of this life is scripture
and to know that
trust me, we don’t need to be born
again .
you got in your car drove thirty peaceful feet and ran over a bird .
splayed its holy guts on the pavement like god
finger-painting
*******
across that deep breath
you were holding the way your mother held her first born .
you , thank goodness , were torn from the bible the day before they burned it for the verse about dancing to tambourines .
once you saw the blood of christ on a knife carving redwood trees into church pews .
now every sunday morning you hear glaciers melting and you cry easy
as a one night stand never ever is
when you see the feathers in your rear-view mirror scattering like prayers
searching for a safe place to land .
hold me to my word when i tell you i will leave today ,
catch a bus ticket west just to stand in the center of your highway
blocking traffic ‘til every feather’s answered .
i’ve see too many prayers caught in the grills of 18 wheelers and folks like us
have shoulder blades that rust in the rain ,
but they’re still g sharp whenever our spinal chords are tuned to the key of redemption .
so go ahead world pick us
to make things better .
we’ve been building a bridge through the center of this song since Mother Theresa replaced the walls of her church with the weeping cries of calcutta’s orphaned ghettos .
you wanna know what the right wing never got ?
we never questioned the existence of god .
what we questioned is his bulldozer turning palestine into a gas chamber .
what we questioned is the manger in macy’s
and the sweatshops our children call the north pole .
what we question are the sixty swollen lashes on the back of a girl found guilty
of the crime of allowing herself to be brutally ***** .
what we question is the idea of a heaven having gates .
silly .
have you never stood on the end of pier watching the moon live up to her name ?
have you never looked in the eyes of a thief and seen his children’s hungry bellies ?
some days my heart beats so fast
my ribcage sounds like a ******* railroad track
and my breath is a train i just can’t catch .
so when my friends go filling their lungs with yes .
when they’re peeling off their armor and falling like snowflakes on your holy tongue .
god collects the feathers .
we are thick skin covering nothing , but wish bones .
break in .
you’ll find notebooks full of jaw lines we wrote to religion’s clenched fist .
yeah , we bruise easy .
but the sound of our bouncing back is a grand canyon full of choir claps .
and our five pointed stars have always been open to the answer
whatever it is .
i know david argued with the chisle .
i know he said make me softer
when those tourists come looking for a hero
i want the rain to puddle in my pores .
build me holy like that .
build me a kite flown out a bedroom window at midnight
the day freedom set its curfew to 9:11 .
my heaven is a snow globe .
the blizzard will always be worth the touch of your hand ,
shaking me awake like a boy taking deep breaths
all the way down to the dents in his shins
like he’s building a telephone from a string and two tin cans .
he knows god’s number by heart .
he knows it isn’t listed in any book .
look me in the bull’s eye ,
in the laws I broke and the promises i didn’t
in the batteries I found when the lights went out
and the prayers i found when the brakes did too .
i got this moment and no idea when it will end .
but every second of this life is scripture
and to know that
trust me, we don’t need to be born
again .
