HOLY!HOLY!HOLY!

because of the route we have navigated we have managed to construct a world in which Christian values such as faith, hope and charity manifest themselves metamorphosed as schizophrenia, depression, and narcissism

I was born on a day when god had was sick
the sun bent like it was a hot spoon under the weight of our hours
xxx
have I not reason to lament what man has made man
xxx
we don’t rescue our souls so often
as we should
we don’t re-use our souls so often as we should
xxx
our souls made new each morning
xxx
holy st. mary lou
you are waking
holy st. mary lou
sedated motor city
holy st. mary lou
steel companies pumped with steroids and sterilizers
holy st. mary lou
be---born
holy st. mary lou
double line contracting
holy st. mary lou
yr metal heart is beating
holy st. mary lou
yr brick ecology is bulging
holy st. mary lou
bare yr barbed wire beak
holy st. mary lou
spread yr brick red wings
holy st. mary lou
crush us like berries
beneath iron butterflies.

to be holy is to be unholy
god made no profanity.
who
speak of body
but are belligerent of naked
who
speak of society
but shun it
who
speak of bodies
but kill them at an unnaturally fast pace.
does the knowledge of life kill you?
perhaps
but without the knowledge of the sacrificial body yr boulevards and stopsigns stand on
we are nothing.
holy st. mary lou
there is red soil beneath yr black gravel veins.
holy st. mary lou
oil clots the arteries of circulating dirt
holy st. mary lou
the water grows tired
holy st. mary lou
the water’s tendons are cut
holy st. mary lou
the water can no longer run
holy st. mary lou
the water is bought and sold
holy st. mary lou
your cathedral windows are
flashing signs bigger than 20 men
holy st. mary lou
you will never see yr name in lights
holy st. mary lou
yr best paint gets smothered
holy st. mary lou
ACE STEEL CO
is yr welded art
is yr welded soul

the more I think of you o god o nothing the less to thought you yield

I was walking along train tracks behind my apartment
it was dark
I could not see or hear the moon
cars passed on the highway like strings of a massive rhythmic instrument.
I saw god.
I passed her as I walked
she was leaning inside a blue ’95 two door pontiac grand-am grabbing a menthol smoke.
she came out of the grand-am and closed the door.
she was beautiful
I gave her a kiss.

last I seen I wuz sliding fingers across the milky ledges of her legs,
jesus wuz as confused as we were.
I thought about Christians getting eaten by lions
while we counted petty gripes against life
I thought about jesus rising as
she clung naked to my body
I clung to hers
and the silence.

last I seen she wuz wallowing tacitly in the rooms white spots,
whatever lite came through the window
snagged her breast tip
her eyes and breathe
sought light like a hungry woman
and her face rattled, she purr-hummed like a motorcycle
into the night
as I swam in the soft grid
her eyes were splayed across
she asked what I was thinking I said i don’t know
which was partially true
as the lights started looking like confessionals so we both recited shantih
and did not know why.

and loved
and swallowed
we did not sleep
she was gone before the
sun woke and the walls
spoke her name.

gentle thing
lazier than a dog with a limp
or a road in heat
I almost thought we lost it
at the table
to the shit gamble of industry.

she asked what I was thinking I said i don’t know
which was partially true
as the lights started looking like confessionals so we both recited prayers and did not know why.

DA
I heard these words on the hood of my car
tapped out by the rain in three different ways.
GIVE: the love: spread it like jelly
as if it was not yrs to gives.
LIFE: is yours and not yours: it hangs by a thread from the moon to you.
have sympathy in yr control:
the you will slide away.
you will slide away
you will never see yr name in lights.

we are god’s gobs:
salty spit
in the crowded dancing basement,
a drop in the beer bucket.

I was a god,
I was a twitch in the hand
I was a metaphor
I was just leaving
in a past life
I was
grateful.
to you
who made a poet
who sings of joy
within joy itself.