Pole Dancing to Gospel Hymns

Dive

Life doesn’t rhyme.

it’s bullets...and wind chimes.

it’s lynchings… and birthday parties.

it’s the rope that ties the noose

and the rope that hangs the backyard swing.

 

It’s wanting tonight to speak the most honest poem

I’ve ever spoken in my life

not knowing if that poem should bring you closer

to living or dying.

 

Last night I prayed myself to sleep,

woke this morning to find God’s obituary

scrolled in tears on my sheets

then walked outside to hear my neighbor

erasing ten thousand years of hard labor

with a single note of his violin

and the sound of the traffic rang like a hymn

as the holiest leaf of autumn

fell from a plastic tree limb,beautiful

and ugly.

Like right now I’m needing nothing more than for you to hug me

and if you do I’m gonna scream like a caged bird.

Life doesn’t rhyme

Sometimes love is a vulgar word.

 

I’ve heard saints preaching truths

that would have burned me at the stake.

I’ve heard poets telling lies that made me believe in heaven.

 

Sometimes I imagine Hitler at seven years old

a paint brush in his hand at school

thinking, “What color should I paint my soul?”

 

Sometimes I remember myself

with track marks on my tongue

from shooting up convictions

that would have hung innocent men from trees.

 

Have you ever seen a mother falling to her knees

the day her son dies in a war she voted for?

Can you imagine how many gay teen-aged lives were saved

the day Matthew Shepard died?

Could there have been anything louder

than the noise inside his father’s head

when he begged the jury, “Please don’t take the lives

of the men who turned my son’s skull to powder.”

And I know nothing would make my family prouder

than if I gave up everything I believe in

but nothing keeps me believing

like the sound of my mother breathing.

Life doesn’t rhyme

It’s tasting your rapist’s breath

on the neck of a woman who loves you more

than anyone has loved you before

then feeling holy as Mary

beneath the hands of a one-night stand

who’s calling somebody else’s name.

 

It’s you never feeling more greedy

than when you’re handing out dollars to the needy.

It’s my not eating meat for the last seven years

then seeing the kindest eyes i’ve ever seen in my life

on the face of a man with a branding iron in his hand

and a beat down baby calf wailing at his feet.

 

It’s choking on your beliefs.

It’s your worst sin saving your fucking life.

It’s the devil’s knife carving holes into your soul

so angels will have a place to make their way inside.

 

Life doesn’t rhyme

Life is poetry, not math.

all the world’s a stage

but the stage is a meditation mat.

You tilt your head back.

You breathe.

When your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks

and you pray for rain.

And you teach your sons and daughters

there are sharks in the water

but the only way to survive

is to breathe deep

and dive.