hand over mouth

I have no hope, but I will speak, Job said.

I will break my teeth on this world,

and spit the bloody chips out in your face,

you who made this, you who made us

for all these good gifts you gave us. 

I have this faith: 

to come to you, to hold out my fist full

of hot rage, to say

this is no justice,

to open my fist up in your face

if you will not be just, we have no justice

if you will not be tender, we have no tenderness

if you will not hear us, we have no hope

the world will not bear the weight of us,

of all this wickedness

done upon us, and by us: it's

too many graves to count

these days, these days, these days.

Do you count them, God,

these graves? 

question

How is this world good? How right?

the best of all possibilities 

of being,

the only way to gather up the threads

of all these lives?

Shall all be well?

Lord, through what dark and bloodstriped door 

are we borne, wailing

into a life of grace?

Must it always be this: the crushing, and the grief?

Are we, altogether, so stained

that only death makes way for better life?

Is this faith? To ask, at last, that we be eaten up

by our own appetites, by our own wounds

to make a place for better life?

Is our painful death a gift for what comes next?

You Who demanded the children too

be consecrated 

to You in death

even the children, Lord, 

and the beasts,

You Whose Name is mercy--

You do not let us forget it, 

they are written into scripture,

how Your demands glittered,

unrelenting,

biting and breakable as teeth.

I would not see my people crushed,

our children lost--

Is there no healing? 

Is this our last best hope:

A god who sees, who holds each tear, and who ordains

no less pain

I make my claim

against your righteousness: 

I rest

my case.

in jerusalem

Beneath cracked skin i feel the slow itch
the creep and prickle
in bones grown thin and brittle--
unseen, marrowdeep, dividing
a new, glad blood

it is humming to itself
increasing
it will be singing

This dampened buzz, this
bonedeep itch,
is this flourishing?

Does empty earth, drummed up and soaked by rain,
crawl so minutely
into a new, glad green?

Is this the itch of unfamiliar joy?
I have seen marvels.

What new astonishments appear
when bones (my bones) unfold
and rise like grass--

arderet et non conbureretur

My skin's intact -- the fire
burns in my bones
licks out the marrowshells
curls tongues of
Holy
Holy
Holy
poured out through channels
thick and fierce
My blood is changed for fire
the vessels scream with it
too small to hold such holy
(unbearable, unraveler) desire --
I: consumed, consumed, and still consumed
O I will burn
this revelation
I will change my tongue
and speak in fire

Breathe

I don't know how to breathe today. Somehow

my lungs forget their instinct/memory.

Each inspiration is an act of will. Reluctant will: i don’t

know, today, how to breathe in without a press of pain.

I don’t know how to breathe. The laundry looms

in bedroom corners, stinking, faintly sour.

The bathroom sink is rimed in toothpaste, the countertop carpeted

in strands of my long hair, the shower greasy with the unscrubbed buildup of our skin.

Outside my unwashed windows might as well bristle a hedge of thorns,

so thick and silent is the coverlet of dust on every face.

I wrap myself in this detritus, I cocoon myself in stale bedsheets,

inkstainless, I let words flit into my brain, then toss them out

so many papermoths freed. 

I cocoon myself

in the stale bedsheets; I teach myself to breathe. Again,

I teach myself to breathe. Next moment,

I teach myself to breathe.

boneflute

Holy holy holy, Lord--
My bones cry out, my hollow bones

Over my bones You are
a bitter wind
you make them ache with angry
sorrow, let me alone
let me mourn my own unholy

let me mourn with hollow
bones, let me cry i,
i am unholy

Upon my sorrowbones You are
a crushing torment
Sound and resound: that heavy
Holy Holy
storm, you splinter
my bones

cry out angry, cry out lonely
hollow, now all longing
You break my bones with longing,
now Lord

make me a bowl, fill me
with

holy
holy
holy