Sunday, April 17, 2011

Good Friday Poem (Rough Draft)


My God, My God,
How did it come to this?
Blood in the garden
Fists clenched
palms of dirt
My closest friends
Tired, asleep,
incapable of even one night of solidarity
This cannot be the only way

Why are so far from saving me?
So far from the words of my groaning?

This all started out as such a great idea
Where are you now?
This doesn’t look like redemption
This looks like a boxing fight gone bad
A marriage torn to shreds
kisses turned to cold, distant stares

A broken shovel in the field
A naked body in a ditch

You cannot possibly believe that this is the way people will know?
You cannot be so naïve

For the first time, I feel utterly powerless,
Gazing over the edge of a cliff, my imminent and inevitable descent
An eternal garbage dump awaiting me
I feel it now,
It’s black gates swallowing, licking

I am a worm and not a man
Scorned by men and despised by people
All who see me mock me
Raging bulls surround me
I am poured out like water
Bones out of joint
My heart has turned to wax,
Melted away beneath me
Tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth
Like dried leaves
They divide my garments among them
Gambling for the shirt on my back

Where is your salvation?
I thought you were making all things new?
Reconciling all things to yourself?

Where are you right now?
Tsunamis, earthquakes, revolutions, human trafficking
How is this even close to what you promised?

I have never felt
so
alone
My God, My God
Why have you left us?
Where is your victory?
All I can taste is defeat, shattered dreams, my broken body hurling itself towards death,
My legs are
so
tired


my lungs
can’t
keep
up.

You can read an article I wrote for Burnside writers here

http://burnsidewriters.com/?p=14502