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Scarlet McCall Aug 2016
“I am a jealous God,” said the Hebrews’ deity.
Ain’t got patience for a jealous God, for I’m a spirit free.
I have many idols, on this terrestrial sphere.
And if I didn’t worship them, I’d surely not be here.
For they are Icons, real, of what I have struggled to attain,
my ideals and aspirations, or of persistence through the pain.
I worship them with love, despite their fallibility.
They guide me and inspire me,
with their strength and creativity.
For example-- modern martyrs, who’ve sacrificed for others;
I'm sure that Jesus would think of them as sisters and as brothers.
And rock and roll; it’s my religion; I know the Promised Land
cannot be much like heaven, without my favorite band.
What I seek but never find is Plato’s ideal vision--
the unseen perfect version of our seen world. My submission
is to something that we know by feeling, and I think it must be said
that the traveling to find it cannot start by being dead.
Surely Poetry and Art are to be followed, as a creed;
they can be read and seen, and then, perhaps, believed.
Music is transcendent, call it the Flesh made Word--
not reserved for us in heaven, but here, on earth, is heard.
Nature is a Goddess; her work is the creation;
we strive to understand it, through rational “divination,”
using math and science, objective experimentation.
I have so many idols; I can’t limit adoration
to just one jealous God and his righteous indignation.
The Bible is a document that’s full of truth, I know;
but it was written a long, long time ago.
I’m keeping all my idols, for they soothe me and inspire me.
I’ll continue in my “lifestyle” of spiritual polyamory.
You may say I’m going to “Hell” for my sinful apostasy,
but I’m not afraid of the future grave,
for I’ll have lived with ecstasy.
Thought I'd re-post one of my faves here.
L Seagull May 2016
You can’t, if you can’t feel it, if it never
Rises from the soul, and sways
The heart of every single hearer,
With deepest power, in simple ways.
You’ll sit forever, gluing things together,
Cooking up a stew from other’s scraps,
Blowing on a miserable fire,
Made from your heap of dying ash.
Let apes and children praise your art,
If their admiration’s to your taste,
But you’ll never speak from heart to heart,
Unless it rises up from your heart’s space.
unwritten May 2016
step one:
do not look at their mouth,
for you will expect to see rivers flowing from it,
poetry slipping through the space between their lips
in the same way that the wind slips through the space underneath a door,
but instead you will only see spit and saliva
and a tongue too big for its home.

step two:
do not look at their hands,
for you will expect them to craft cities from marble right before your very eyes,
but instead it will be just the thumbs,
the twiddling of thumbs,
the aimlessness, the senselessness,
the lack of experience with building empires.

step three:
do not look at their eyes,
for they say that the eyes are the windows to the soul,
and when you see that the curtains have been drawn,
you will feel so very alone.

step four:
i did not love you.
you have to repeat it.
i did not love you.
i did not love you.
i did not love you;
i loved what i thought you would be.
i thought you would be eden,
but you were only the apple.

step five:
i suppose i am to blame here
for digging holes too big to fill,
for crafting shoes too big to fit in.
and for that i am sorry.
i am sorry that i expected more from you
than i even expect from myself.

step six:
human.
human.
let the word roll off and around your tongue,
let it cover every inch of the inside of your mouth.
say it. over and over again.
say it. like it is foreign and you need to know what it means.
say it.
and when you have said it enough times and it feels
dull, old,
disappointing,
you will know that we are nothing more than flesh and bone,
and that as much as we wish there were gods among us,
flesh always rots in the end.
this is the beast of truth that we cannot outrun.
hands cannot craft cities from marble
if only given clay.

step seven:**
do not let this frighten you.
clay, after all,
was meant for molding.

(a.m.)
written may 11th & 12th. i've found recently that there are a lot of people i used to idolize and look up to who i now see were really just ordinary people all along. it's disappointing, but there is also some reassurance in coming back to reality.
ConnectHook Sep 2015
तत् त्वम् असि

for sitar, mridangam, vina, musical spoons,
washboard, Jew’s harp and banjo


(the names Swami and Guru-ji can be replaced by
any other mystic names the reader wishes to substitute
)

Swami and Guru-ji went to the river
to wash their souls in the ***** water
filled brass pots while they were at it, singing:

“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”

Guru and Swami-ji flexed contortions
twisted minds and limbs in knots
sold each other secret mantras
to erase akashic records when the body rots

Swami and Guru-ji taught disciples
how to fast and hum and chant;
bound their ***** with priestly garments, saying

“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”

Guru and Swami-ji swallowed prana
purged their guts, then farted light
launched their chakras into oneness
in the ida and pingala of their third-eye sight

Swami and Guru-ji built a temple
around a monstrous calf of gold
bowed before the six-armed idols chanting

“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”

Guru and Swami-ji studied parchments
by the dim light of a feeble ray
railed and wailed at the sinful  heathen
in the filthy Kali-yuga of the dying day

Swami and Guru-ji made ablutions
offered incense and holy foods
ate their share and smoked the profit, humming

“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”

Guru and Swami’s blissed devotions
entwined their members with the temple belles;
stuck their yonis up their lingams
in the twenty-seventh circle of the seven hells.

Swami and Guru-ji offered puja
wrote it all off as a karmic debt –
forced a shudra to bear the burden, screaming

“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”

Guru and Swami-ji meditated:
pure omniscience in eternal now –
drank fresh ***** from a heifer’s  bladder
for they knew that it was soma from a holy cow.

Swami and the Guru merged with Brahman –
then went home to the wife and kids.
Told the servants to polish statues, saying

“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”


THE MORAL:
(slower solemn rhythm, no banjo or Jew’s harp)

Aaron’s calf is ground to powder,
cast upon the Ganges’ tide.
Every tribe shall taste its poison.

“This is God –worship Him, worship Him –
this is God – let us worship Him now…”
attain instant enlightenment:
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