Have I said
too much? The rush
to judgment withheld;
the Gavel never fell; and I…
I, one eye on hell and
one on heaven, and even then
schizophrenic: where to look? what
to see? Only me
and my shadow (that’s
You). A shoe that drops
is a shoe somebody threw
into whatever stew is boiling
today…but
to say it never happened…
Take
my plate away
How to erase
the taste
in the back of your mouth,
the clinging shreds of doubt
mucking about, pouting,
shouting unintelligible rhymes into
your mind?
How to reveal
the stains
inside your chest (or is it best
to leave them hidden?)
to all the rest of everyone, and
when you’re done, how do you
seal them up again?
How to conceal
the bruises
of misuse and self-abuse,
physical, spiritual, the virtual
recluse, chained up in flesh,
mesh of lace, stranger’s face
hard as chiseled stone?
How to undo
the knots
that tie you to a past
that speaks with voices you don’t know,
can’t recognize, not realizing
they’re your own hollow tones
spoken alone?
When the heart beats, the heart bleeds–
It has no other choice.
In the midst of unmet need it cries
To find a silent voice.
Darkest night, that of the soul
Hollowed out in pain:
Knowing only emptiness,
The deepest, blackest stain.
A pleading going all unheard,
A single, oft-repeated word,
A crippled, hunted, flightless bird inside.
Something has died.
Hurt me, please…
I need it. I feel it
In my bones, the groans,
The tremors of longing
For belonging.
Entangled,
Wrangled from my rock of
Lonely ages; saved from
Pages upon pages of drama
Poorly written. I am smitten;
I am lost; I am careless of
The cost. Name your price,
And I will pay it; write the part
And I will play it. Use me, muse me,
Only choose me. Chew me up and
Spit me out; knock me down and
All about.
Hurt me, please…
Pluck my beating heart and
Cast it on the ground
Before me, then ignore me
As I fall.
When death becomes a commonplace,
An all too familiar face leering at us from our
Television screens, news reports, magazines; when
Evil wails our national anthem with sinister grin and
Wild abandon–
What hope remains? Do we turn to God, some far-off
Being, supposed to care, all-knowing, all-seeing, who
Must have known and might have acted? Should this not have attracted
His attention? Was he not aware? Does he care? Is
He there?
We share our doubts, to be counted out and set
Aside, left to cry as the world has always cried: into its
Sleeve. Leave the
Answers to the holy ones: evil belongs; the end has come. So watch and pray. And
At the end of the day
Nothing changes…
I beg you: look me in the eye and
Understand. We live and die together, whether or not
We know it. My life is yours, yours is mine, and in that bond we define
The divine, not external, internal. We face the infernal as one tissue, one body,
However shoddy it may feel. This is Real–
The ordeal, the struggle to become. We are dead; we are living; the space
Between forgiving and forgetting is the moment we inhabit. So grab it and
Refuse to let it go. In the insistence, in the instant of
Recognition
Lies redemption, resolution,
Absolution.
Healing from the reeling sorrow, from the pain,
Ingrained–
But
We
Remain.
Toad's Great Adventure 