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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