Tag Archives: spoken word

Strange

You’re here.
            That’s your first mistake.

You’re not at church.
You’re not at work.

                Not watching the latest marvel movie
                at a bar, a game, the gym
                anywhere else.

                For whatever reason

                                     you are here.

                                     Let me tell you what that
                              means.

You could be in church,

       stale robes screaming!
              about how unworthy YOU are
                                                                  perfection
                                        the only currency
                            of any value other than
                                                          your wallet.

You could be at work,
        for five cents on the dollar;
            some worth there at least…

                  not much though.
      So you’re here.
                                You’re here. Okay,
but you could be at the movies!

Some ubermensch sees the world ending,
      finds himself, his friends and stops it.

All the action! The machismo!
                The heroics!

The good guys… always… winning…

                         Yet
                                you’re here, where they often…
                    just fucking don’t.

I get it,
        but you could be out on the town,

submerged in whatever works
    to blur the world as it is.
          A backwards magic eye painting,
            that makes more sense
                              distorted,
                    digestible even.

Is it too early? Too late?
          Whatever-
                            You’re here.

Not at a game, a jersey on,
        screaming at the top of your lungs
                about how worthy your boys are-
              (not theirs, never theirs)
      You could be there,

But that’s,
                that’s a lot;
        so you’re here.

You’re not at the gym,
          living the nightmare to reach the dream
                of immortality.
      Some absolute unit telling you you’re doing great,
                    you’re almost there,
                        just one more,
                        just one more,
                        just one more,
                        just one more.
You’re here.

                     By choice.

     Vulnerable but celebrated,
              knowing the good guys, ladies
                            and everyone
                                    in between
                                            or beyond;

                      they lose, and lose and lose –
        but they get back up, they show up.
                    Not paid to be here,
                              still
                                                    finding value.

               Staring the world down,
                  seeing it for what it is,
                                  unflinching,
                and finding worth in every corner,
                            every shadowed table
                      every wilted head.

You’re here
and that’s enough.

Being here is a mistake
          a mutation
      an evolution.

But be here.
      Be strange.
          Be loved.

Silence

“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
A call heard throughout history,
Always desperate to solve this unspoken mystery,
As if we’ve glimpsed the last page,
And yet were met with a different end.
Did we read the wrong book?
Or were those pages torn out because we dared to look?
We reach the end, our end, the end and as always,
It ends in a shout,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

I hear it through the threads of time,
Wrapped, quilted, packaged in plastic,
However you’ll take it,
If you can take it.
But you won’t,
Unless you were the one to make it.
Those women tied to stakes,
Burned battered and stoned,
Still tried to atone, refusing truth for punishment,
Punished even for that sentiment,
Then died, screaming,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The sound echoes ever on,
Called up through the ages like water in an oasis,
An alien thing that lives in absurd places,
A geographical red flag that you refuse to drink.
Oh, but you’ll brag about the dehydration,
Carry your cross loud on dubs and hydraulics,
With a pair of truck nuts
And your moms name spelled out in guns.
While 10,000 children each day die from your exaggeration,
Drinking deep while they thirst for water,
Through parched lips they sputter:
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me.”

Do you hear it too,
The unholy fugue?
The dirge that’s been stuck in your playlist,
But you always skip;
To listen to some other tune dropping from dead lips.
It’s always there, I promise you,
Like the sound of gas seeping in through a shower head,
In a room full of the dead,
Or soon to be dead anyway,
Removing their clothes, and whispering quietly
As not to shake the others,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

The sound is probably so loud at this point,
And you’ve ignored it so long,
That to recognize it would be like a fish cataloging the water,
Quantifying, tagging, and reselling to those who would bother,
Looking for the finer things,
When the finer things are just the things possessed by another.
But the children hear it clearly,
It’s still fresh to them for a while,
It takes years of parents and owners telling them shut their ears,
Telling them what they really hear,
But when those same kids are locked in cages, dungeons, or in the arms of the vile,
They hear it clearly, and no one is there to plug their ears,
So they whimper through tears,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”

If you hear it now,
You’re in good company,
Even the man Jesus died on the cross,
Or so they say,
With the sound resounding loud in his ears,
as he looked up to the heavens and asked,
“My god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
To no response.