LIQUID JESUIT

By Andrew Gettler


i ll tell you when to listen

don t want you
                       coming to my poem
                       finishing my poem

journey has always been
                          not to
                          but through 
everyone   i have no patience
you are either out or in
back table or
                    uncomfortably up front

i ll tell you when to listen

i am tired of
                   rounding out your corners
                   showing you the edge

go ahead:
dance above that safer slope
when falling s  not the only choice
balance is a clown show

i need 
those angles back, their
roughness, to be
awkward again & uncertain
                           not

to be so sure
i know 
what you want me
to convince you of

i ll tell you when to listen

listen:   here s  how it is

of all the people in this room
i m the only one who knows

who he is

i  have no waring factions
                       anymore
which is not to say
treaties haven t
cost me plenty

i am Irish: should i revere Yeats?
i am Czech: should i memorize a map of Praha?

Listen:
christ was into a stone thing but
crucifiction is an idiot s  game
stammering into history
anemic as a poem

Carruth can be Jesus on a wagon-tongue;
why not i as well, astride a barstool,
arrogant with suffering?

come to this poem
finish this poem

words Myshkinized me:
thinking Saviour,
i cried,
                     come!
to my horror,
some did;
                      worse,
some listened;

you d  think
nine hundred years of guilt
clinging to the tactile sense
would put me off...

i touched;
                        worse,
touched others;
                       worst of all,
wrote that touching into
                      touching back;

still want to
come to this poem?
finish this poem?
listen:

looking up
i am suprised there is still a down and
further still to fall and faster than i
thought and no strength and...

                         Damn!

all My Dead
have made it home
before me

listen: 

                          come...

  
                           finish...



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