One Night in the Old Church
#1 of Erotic Poetry
I've dabbled in poetry for a number of years, but always lacked the courage to publish any of it. When I learned this month was the 20th anniversary of National Poetry Month, I took it as a sign that it was finally time for me to share something with folks outside the small circle of friends who (occasionally) get to see this kind of work from me. As always, critiques are welcome.
At these three dozen steps from the womb,
I stand beside the edge of understanding
the significance of these
tattered, rough-edged recollections
colored pale as sun-bleached Polaroid snapshots
displaying the neighborhood church
as it sat in its final stretch
of rambunctious Sunday exhibitions.
Snow white gowns and sea blue suits look
black as midnight against the dawn
as they file beneath the Babelian stone steeple
towering high as a skyscraper
exiled miles outside the urban sprawl.
And sky-high echoing cries of
"Halleluiah!"
Elated throb of ejaculation;
sins shamelessly exposed as
wanton calls explode thin hallways,
brick walls bulging, swollen with noise:
praise songs, choirs, bells and the
groan of the organ moaning deep in its throats.
I remember, still, the light
that rose above rows of empty homes
and the industrial mausoleum.
A massive museum of stalled cables hung
impotent and cold, quiet as the old church
filled with plates collecting dust and
jagged books of earth.
Dandelions, fleabane, crabgrass, purslane...
We find ourselves at home among the uninvited.
Where doors once said FORECLOSURE,
locks cling like spiders to weathered oak that splits
with one swift
kick!
to reveal roads laid before scorched forests
where pews lie scattered like shipwrecks and
lusting tendrils strangle thin spires
beneath the laden gaze of dark saints stained
by nightfall and fish nets of mold.
Air tastes of rust-eaten daggers,
heavy as granite slabs stacked high as lightning,
real as bare-breasted bodies smoldering
hotter than a sudden matchstick ignition.
Clouds of culican smoke curl up from
a stick of incense lit between my lips,
blurring the view of souls squirming like
writhing serpents of temptation,
tongues and tails tightly entwined,
backs arched in wide gateways
resembling wide eyes alive with desire
beholding sights obscene.
What teachers called in nervous whispers
S - E - X.
Unruly ritual,
arcane and mystical,
more ancient than holy scrolls and
sharper than the whole of guilt.
Ravenous as beasts with teeth gaping,
pouring forth a torrent of braided choruses.
Sing!
Praise the mighty phallus,
raising as the day's sun blazing marvelous and grand.
Hard as a steel hammer strike
spraying white-hot sparks of life.
Sing!
Praise the sacred yoni,
pearl O of the moon swirling in her perfect oval orbit.
Blooming center of paradise;
jewel-crowned portal to eternity.
Amidst the eclectic ecstasy
of mingling, frantic vessels --
sculpted muscle, bone and flesh
pooling, caressed by perspiration --
the electric anthem of nerves buzzing akin to
angry beehives bulging about sweet nectar
centers. Moist lips, blood thick, we
align like planets shining bright as
fires rising above apocalypse,
charring discarded shards of thought
to expose the hopeless beauty of youth
doused in shapeless dreams
soaked deep beyond skin deep,
surging to frantic, racing currents,
erupting in waves that bend against island
shorelines engorged to galaxian proportions.
Insatiate fever and laws of nature refuse to
break as we wake to brand new life --
furious, primal, godlike.
Worship ends as the murder-cry
of highway tire shrieks and
sirens screaming loud as demons
arrive to defile our sanctuary.
Chasing the space between secret exits over
toppled tables stitched together like rivers'
banks copiously overflowing,
we burst through the entrance to night,
lightless under trees left free to reach
for the stars.
We are flesh, fur, hair, hide, scales and skin,
wildly stampeding,
bounding over boundless rows of stones
etched with lives lived quietly in piousness,
the ruin of markers silently reminding us
we are alive.