There is a low sheet of fog in the field across the way
And I am reminded of that afternoon.
We all remember it, but we don’t speak of it.
I dug up the grass with my bare feet
Running full-fledged somewhere, nowhere.
The holes served as a reminder during the weeks to come.
I collapsed and beat the ground until my fists
Were bruised and I had frightened the birds away.
I screamed out a sob but made no sound,
And I prayed for the day to end
And for you to survive it.
I begged and pleaded under my breath
In a language I didn’t understand.
I stared at the blank sky until I sensed darkness,
And went back inside
To my bed and my photographs and a phone call.
That was the day that I ceased believing in God.

I never stopped believing
I just stopped believing in you
You can stop grieving
My soul is fully connected

To the laws of logic and art
I say I feel more and more
My essence and matter shall never part
The logic of abstract words

And then

Upon a crisp cold morning
I am alone
I am mourning
I curse this logic

For it is my master
And I its slave

if the universe God played in
like a Child
the stars like Fireflies
he'd catch them
put them on a Shelf
Feed them
leave them undisturbed
while he fell Asleep

She wears a sterling silver lie on her finger,

A Christmas gift, unintentionally leading her into Fraud,
months after the wrapping paper had been torn away.

Never gifted with piano fingers, hers pulsated with words waiting to pour through her pen

Having passed faith tests with flying colors,  she looked at the rounded Christ less crucifix, Jesus replaced with fashionable jewels,

She believed it was a medal for coming out alive and in faith

Little did she know that the test was a mere three months away

Not unfamiliar with temptation,

She knew her weakness,

Knowing herself only to be human,

Seeing the ins and outs of her fragility,

Still pushing onward into hope,

Bordering on the suburban developed atheism, but always landing on the grassy faith.

But as one who was too old to be young forever, there was one whose failure

Would drag her out to the desert littered in nihilism.

She feared how at home she felt there,

Seeing her reflections not in any oasis, but in the land that once held such promise

But had been drained of breath and water

The dry ground being undistinguishable from her feet,

too tired to keep going, too broken to stay,

Ignoring that lone piece of metal, glaring from her fingers,

Being covered in the dried and drained land,

Hiding away the lie that was stuck to her,

Fingers swollen with the untapped sap,

Too thickened with sorrow to be drained easily,

Growing into her skin, scarring over,

Ingrown faith, digging itself under her skin,

Unavoidable metal in a desert so bleak,

A Medal that brought prior pride

Now a blood clot in vain of surviving.

With everything I do
I will have the doubt in my mind
That the things I am doing
Are just to fill time

My empty accomplishments
My empty wall of fame
My empty heart beating
My empty full name

I lie awake tired
I lie here distressed
I lie here, my mind racing
My whole life a mess

I'm counting the hours
I'm counting the days
Until I can give up
This timeless charade

Dear god I'm not happy
Dear god I'm a fraud
Dear god are you listening?
Dear god, I've wrote you all along

When will this be over?
When will I feel full?
When will my life become everything everyone said it would?
When will I feel sure?

Dear god if you're listening
Dear god hear my plea
Dear god I'm begging you
Why won't you answer me?

The sensistive topic of religion
Occasionally causes some division
Amongst those who don't agree
Which is plain for all to see.

So let us broach that well known religion
That loves to claim logic when causing division.
The faith that I speak of is, of course, atheism,
(My view that it's a faith can cause much derision)

Now from a purely agnostic point of view,
It seems such beliefs must rely on faith too,
How else could you justify all that you knew,
Is infallible, and therefore must be true?

I know many people will want to attest
That religion doesn't apply to the atheist,
Which is why it's surely the silliest
To declare itself better than all the rest.

It's Sunday again for you cloistered patricians
aloof from the madness, the magic and myth;
who trust in your wisdom, investments, physicians
unready to answer forthwith:

"Why bother with worship—in church or the zoo—
why weaken the links with a dull set of tools ?"
you ask yourself over your high-end Tarrazu,
bemused at the fables of fools.

You've bartered salvation for New York Times articles,
sipping on bitterness (shade-grown organic).
You settle for molecules, atoms and particles
unfairly-traded, satanic—

while you celebrate emptiness, general futility
musing on nothingness, sure of specifics
ensconced in your kitchen of pampered gentility
flirting with atheist physics.

Those simple plebeians:  you'd love to enlighten them
help them, like you, to become a free-thinker
but you remain tasteful, for boldness might frighten them
reeling in fairy tales: hook, line and sinker.

Yet somebody, somewhere has uttered your sentence
(though you abhor judgement, let's read it again).
Sheba and Nineveh, versed in repentance
await you—not whether but when.

The darkness is brewing unholy filtration;
the wine of the harlot approaches the rim;
your guilt is augmenting in slow percolation;
you shrug it all off on a whim.

The souls of Assyria rise from your paper
they watch in amazement, prepare your abyss.
Your coffee now brims a more sulfurous vapor;
oh sinner—there's something amiss:

The crypts of Marib and the tombs of the Axumites
shudder and groan while you're reading the Times...
(immune to the words that some Christarded  poet writes
mixing psychosis with rhymes.)

Royal Sheba will chastise your erudite unbelief,
smug self-importance and cynical squawk.
Then she'll sigh with immense Ethiopian grief
and her Highness Queen Bilqis will talk.

It is Sunday in Babylon.  What if your sunlight ends...
why are there mobs in the streets of the nation?
Shall you have breakfast—or calculate dividends...
what would you pay for salvation?

I like my poetry
Like I like my coffee
Unlike most,
I prefer it strong
And heavy

I don’t mind it rushed,
What I really want it to empower
Is the sweet bitterness
That’ll keep me up for hours

How’re you to live
Without a little contemplation
A bitter drink
To match how you think
About the world and its desperation

Its desire to acquire
A meaning higher than is truthful
Since the only rectifier
For all of the gunfire
Is that we remain faithful…

“Faithful”

Faithful to shadows
That we hope to be
More than more than just a domino
From long ago
Toppling into tomorrow

But even so
Truly, we know
We cannot hope to be
More than the smallest
Ripple in the sea

There’s nothing more than what we see
Despite what we wish would be
There for us now and when we
Leave this place

In all of space
We’re merely dust
Upon dust
No conceited reason
Behind every season

No, that’s just the world’s childish desperation
To see more behind each rotation
Of God’s “divine” creation

Since, truly, there can be no rectifier
For all of the gunfire
And despite how I think I may desire
This blessed ignorance of faithfulness
What I value more is truthfulness

And what it’s telling me
(Thanks somewhat, perhaps, to the coffee)
Is that our best intentions
Will not result in intervention
But in blind destruction
Thanks to humanity’s corruption.

…A bitter drink
To match how I think
About the world and its desperation.

There once was a man
Who lived a "good" life
He worked through all trials
Temptation and strife

He lived very humbly
Never wished to be rich
Was good to his neighbours
Nothing bad passed his lips

He said, " God look at me!
I am worthy of praise!
I am without sin
But not by your grace...

For I am an atheist
And I don't need Christ
Humans provide
All their own good advice."

Then there was another
Who, quote, "lived for God"
But he looked upon sinners
as though they were odd...

He said, " God, I thank thee
That I'm not like them
For I walk uprightly
No, I do not sin...

And when I get to heaven
The praise shall be loud!
I'll walk right in
And I'll be so proud!"

Then there was a woman
Who'd give her last dime
That she could use drugs
And drink her sweet wine

But she cried, " Lord!
Please have mercy on me!
For I am so wretched!
So unworthy of thee!

I'm not all that clean
And I shout at folks
I drink and do drugs
And God help me, I smoke!

But, Lord, I am trying!
I want so much to change!
Please come into my heart
And my life rearrange..."

Then came the time
When all of them died
And the woman in heaven
Saw the men with such pride

In eternal torment
They cried out, "Lord!
We kept all your precepts
And sin we abhorred!

Why is that woman
Up there with you?
She so unfaithful
And she so untrue!

But Jesus said sadly,
"Yes, you were "good".
You had that advantage
Yet misunderstood.

I did not want works.
That's not what I bid.
You gave not your hearts,
But this woman DID.

I was always there knocking
But death cut like a knife
I gave you your chance...

YOU HAD YOUR WHOLE LIFE.


SoulSurvivor
(c) 6/14/2009