Soapbox

(This poem, written at 2:00 this morning, is still under construction…)

 

Sometimes in the depth of night
I stumble through the briar thickets of my dreams
and emerge, disoriented and disconnected,
pulling shreds of tangled images from my hair,
uncertain through which door I have emerged,
where exactly I was, what I was doing there.
My fingers seek an answer across the rumpled bed clothes
and  just the curve of your back, strength of your hip
is enough to remind me where I am, and why.

 

Other nights the waters run cold and deep
and I suffer the rip-tide of my subconscious,
battered and tossed through different dimensions,
twisting, so far under I think I will never surface
only to find myself spat from the angry waves
onto the unshifting rock of your embrace.
My fingertips still grasp your shirt for fear of being pulled back under by the receding wave,
my mouth gasping for precious oxygen of reconnection.
Arms around me, you wipe the water from my trembling skin,
breathe into my starving lungs, “Shhh… I’m here, it’s OK…”

and then…   it is.

With thanks to the Jon, Ed, Harold and Dave whose snarking helped me write this yesterday. In some states, that's called "aiding and abetting"

 

I head it said on the TeeVee box
that it is perfectly understandable
that Bible folks think President Obama 
is NOT Christian,
because he has never officially renounced Lucifer.
I am so glad this was brought to my attention
because I was unaware that anything a person has not publicly renounced,
it's fair to consider them in favor of.
 

So in the interests of clearing up any mis-conceptions out there,
I would like to go on record as renouncing Lucifer.
I also renounce Lex Luthor.
And to cover all my bases, I also renounce Satan… and  Santa,
(because if you re-arrange the letters, they're really the same guy.)

 

While I'm at it I'll also just say "No" to Voldemort, Sauron and Saruman,
syphilis, demons, black magic and mean people- because they suck.

I hearby forever abjure all hurricanes and earthquakes, Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps,
and anyone who preaches love with a brimstone smile,
holocaust deniers, truthers, birthers, death-panels, zombies, terrorists, and tourists in black socks and sandals.

 

I repudiate Sara Palin, sarin gas, FOX News, reality TV,
Lindsay Lohan and her plea bargains
and gossip, innuendo and tweets being passed off as news.

 

Let it be known that I disavow homelessness, heartlessness and donkey porn,
mosque-haters, mosquitoes, people who bitch but don't vote, people who talk but don't think, cat-stranglers, prison-breaks, air pollution, water pollution and water boarding.

I forever eschew homophobia, xenophobia, and arachnophobia
because without spiders, we'd all be covered in flies,
I am against misspelled signs, closed minds, closeted racists and any religion that calls itself science.

I forswear oppression, depression, false promises and false prophets, comb-overs,
breast implants on 16 year old girls, testicle implants for neutered dogs
eugenics, misogyny and deep-fried Oreos on a stick.

 

I denounce all land mines, land slides and land wars in Asia,
the false celebrity of sensationalism, corporate welfare when children are going hungry
and people who put clothes on their dog when it isn't Hallowe'en.

I am taking a stand against crusades, witch burnings,
book burnings, sunburn and spray tans,
alien abduction and asthma medications
that increase the chances of asthma-related death.

 

Be it known that I am totally against cancer, AIDS and identity theft,
child abuse, flat tires, rain delays and the infield fly rule,
people who think they own the definition of "love"
people who think they own the definition of God
and people who cut me off on the highway.

I renounce global warming, "your" instead of "you're"
those darn little ants that get in my kitchen sometimes
and dead baby unicorns.

 

This list should in no way be considered complete
but I would be remiss if I did not add that I officially and for all time
renounce people who pull s**t out of their ass
and call it the truth.

 

As for the president, while he has not yet mentioned Lucifer,
he has renounced Dick Cheney,
so really, he's got this one covered.

I went to worship today in the temple that God built.
I took my seat beneath the vaulted ceiling of branches
where the oak and beech stand undisturbed by the heresy
of the solitary pine in their midst.
I heard the hymns of the chickadee and wren.
In the meadow beyond, butterflies,
like priests in striped and dappled vestments
moved gracefully among the multitudes
offering sacrament to demure Queen Anne's lace
and the aster in her harlotry of purple.
I inhaled the incense of  absolution and rebirth,
accepted the blessing of wind on my face.

I find no grace in the confused and angry mutterings of prophets
in their cathedrals of glass and fear
who worship a god so small that he would require me to fight for him.
The language of the God who stretched the hills beneath the lapis sky
is not spoken by any mouth nor written in any book.
My Creator speaks in the droning of the bees and the hiss of summer rain,
His word is written in the drift of a solitary leaf to the still surface of a pond,
and the tracing of hawks wings against the clouds.
He does not love the thorn less than the rose.

My faith rests with the One who speaks in the roar of flood,
not the shouts of the self-righteous.
His terrible beauty is not  punishment  but  simply, motion-
a  lesson not in the wages of sin, but in the grace of giving way.
God teaches me strength with the up-thrust of  mountains,
persistence through the tiny flower that struggles toward the light
under the dark canopy of trees.
I understand sacrifice through the testimony of the fallen giant
whose body feeds the tiny seedlings of the forest.
I understand eternal love by the whisper of a mother’s breath  over newborn head.
Upon the altar where earth meets sky, there is no sin or damnation
only release and renewal.

No cathedral constructed of marble and gold
can equal the divinity of the sun-swept meadow that once lay beneath it.
The great and triumphant message of God is the small stubborn grass
that pushes through the cracks in my sidewalk
and whispers this unstoppable truth-
that the works of God will ever find a way to overcome
the conceit of man.

as when he plans to frame God for the murder.
If the Devil is truly at work in the land
then he wears the hard hat and work boots
of just another dedicated believer building God's kingdom,
meeting out divine justice on the wicked.

God does not fly planes into buildings,
any more than he plants bombs in Belfast.
God is not responsible for the torture and murder of the Spanish Inquisition
or the Christians in Africa today who stone little children as witches.
Allah had nothing to do with what happened on September 11th
except as he might have been in the whispered prayers of the Muslims