Revision
of I believe piece, prompted by stef
I.the church
It’s
in this ribcage of space
Walls
of venue held together
Girders,
beams, and breath of lives inside
this
is where something ephemeral lives,
deeper
than dance grooves or microphone feedback
.
I
put my faith here,
in
wherever the here is to be split open,
like
delicately opening and closing folding chairs
as
if they were bird’s mouths for feeding.
Ribs
crack as words rattle cages
and
the march of minutes, one after the other,
makes
the spoken precious--
a
spark waiting, to kindle, to flame, to ash,
not
to be a conflagration with the same configuration
It’s
l-i-v-e like life and begins only so it won’t be taken back
I
won’t apologize to the world
about
how I think this is better than any television,
because
no matter how many times I’ve heard the same
Hallmark
card verses reaching to be something more~
I
still hear the attempt of so many nerves quaking
in
the small distance between seat and spotlight.
The
world to me is this void inside guts to fill
with
the march of letters like the march of hours,
preparing
to be strung together, spoken
snuffed
out into the corners
of
an ear
into
a brain,
into
an echo the next day.
I
believe in the vulnerability of sharing silences
because
these are the songs we wish we’d sung in the right key,
in
the right time,
the
answers we wish fervently
to
meet unformed questions.
I
have a fine romance with human frailty
waivering
throats choking around a scar
laughs
riccocheting from sudden witticism
the
everyday sexy in the dignity
of
an ass crack
peering
over the edge of a pair of pants.
There
is great satisfaction in being a matchmaker of mouths to ears
the
wish of one voice curling into a hard to
reach corner
how
we’re not alone in our lonely.
There
is divinity in themes, colors and words which mirror
each
other from different mouths
without
a rehearsal.
My
faith seems simple,
the
point to share our positions in the hourglass
as
we fall
while
we have them
dwindling
together
making
toasts with brimming whiskey
none
of us escape
our
time before it’s too late
we
all leave unraveling
with
half finished monuments.
II.
the congregation
I
know it gets better than this because I’ve seen those slivers
where
it actually is better than this
~where
distances between people
become
elastic
pulling
back to close from separated.
I
know I push too hard or not hard enough
in
the gospel sing of words or the quiet hush of turning pages,
I
witness the danger of self righteousness,
not
wearing much prettier on the us against the –isms
than
it does on the the them creationists~
because
binaries and extremes, resemble one another in the right light
I
am interested in slants of light
through
multi-colored and clear, rough cut glass.
I
swing with beads, thick books of bent pages
and
underlined paragraphs
I
believe in the retelling,
in the trying to make heads and tails,
and
all other parts of a body
into something almost whole.
I
believe in all of us trying desperately for the freedom
To
be whole, not exiling any harder edge
When
attendance is low for one of my many favoriteoffavorite poets
and
the wind and the cold
keep
people away
or
there are too many half-burnt cigarettes
smoldering
in the newly quitting eye
---it’s
in this moment
I’m
most humbled by how intensity
trumps
density
every
time.
III.
the talismans~ a list
I
believe in…….dirty boots and the already worn-in of thrift and antique
bondo
and duct tape
worn
wood and splitting concrete
fenceposts
dying to new tree roots
I
attest to how coincidence is not
a
coincidence
Like
faith in ghosts and angels,
How they dead are
not dead--send you messages when they are gone
On
sliding poems from bags, birds at midnight, and jumping dolphins from periphery
to center
The
work I have is an offering
is
in leaving a place in better shape than I found it
like
picking up trash from a trail
There’s
beauty in bleeding
cuticles, bitten fingernails, callouses
and
hands shifting gears
we
can’t see
to
ease our way
Faith
has
a sense of irony when gut instincts are disproved
Faith leaves a
quizzical afterwards
Faith has a
sense of humor, loves variables, exceptions, the people or things
Who
do not fit in with everyone else’s sermon
My
faith and my beliefs
Are
mosaics and stained Chagall windows
Cathedrals
of cypress and sequoia
Exist
out of doors
Without
pearly gates
Have
teeth in the struggle to survive
And
the sense of old snake eyes from duegerretype photographs
My
faith and beliefs are seasoned
By
the salt of the earth
I
believe there is clarity
in the calm
before
a good storm
the
arrived invitation to be engaged.
I
find truth in the spin of sunlight on dim, road trip eyes
playing
connect the dots with constellations of people
I
believe when someone in
this web passes on,
thoughts
about what they’ve created
raise
their spirit as a star on the edges of hundreds of fingers
I
believe the real saints
are the ones who die at the hands of bigots
I
belive in saying
I love you often and meaning it
everyone
is someone’s favorite for at least a little while
I
think impermanence
makes the good taste sweeter
I
trust in the kindness
of strangers and the strange
that
karma is not a one-to-one
your
hand to another’s ratio
I
know all
religions seek to define the same thing
and
their good elements are striving for the
same
goal
~it’s their followers who
misinterpret and distort
I
don’t really believe in hell but I think
some cold souls don’t rise
and
there might be a special one for the destroyers of childhoods
I
believe the truth emerges
through the litmus paper
of
patience
of
time
rises
to the surface eventually
is
a fluttering moth toward light.
I
hug to
embrace the wholeness of moment
with
wholeness of person